This week, Peter Bodo and Steve Tignor will offer their thoughts on some themes for the 2013 season, which begins next week. One outstanding feature of the ATP tour in 2012 can be considered a mixed blessing: There were no great surprises when it came to the Grand Slam finals,

Tsvetana Pironkova comes from Plovdiv in Bulgaria, a nation that has not a single grass court (although it sure has no shortage of consonants). It doesn't have a single tennis academy. Pironkova's father is a canoeing champion-slash-tennis coach, which is a little like being a shoemaker-slash-dentist. Pironkova, ranked No. 82,

A historic achievement was in the offing last week, when Ons Jabeur met Anett Kontaveit in the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 tournament in Indian Wells. With a win, Jabeur would become the first Arab of either gender to earn a ranking tennis’ elite Top 10. With Kontaveit serving at

90285227 by By Pete Bodo* *[[Sorry, folks, I goofed on the auto-post; this was meant to go up much earlier today. I''ll have a Crisis Center by 11:30 am, so if you choose to comment here, keep it on topic pls.]] If William Armstrong Custer could speak to you from

PARIS (AP) 8:55 p.m. The crowd was angry when Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray walked off center court midway through the fourth set of their French Open semifinal. The decision was taken to suspend play, with Djokovic leading 2-1 in sets and the score tied at 3-3 in the fourth

LONDON (AP) The Latest from Wimbledon (all times local): 9 p.m. Sloane Stephens won a Wimbledon match for the first time in two years. The 37th-ranked American knocked off a seeded player, too, easily eliminating No. 27 Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2 in a first-round match moved

Court Report: Who's going to London for the ATP Finals?

Twenty-five-year-old American Mackenzie “Mackie” McDonald has reached the fourth round of a major for the second time in his career. Thus far in Australia he’s beaten Marco Cecchinato, 22nd-seeded Borna Coric and, most recently, 91st-ranked Lloyd Harris. What makes this run particularly impressive is that McDonald has had to overcome

Tennis these days is all about hairline margins, precise technique, a degree of consistency in which each point is gold not to be frittered away. It’s about economy of motion and in thrall to the general embrace throughout sports of data and statistics. Shirts may be collarless these days, but

PARIS (AP) The Latest on the French Open (all times local): 9:35 p.m. Sam Stosur knows what it's like to be a Grand Slam champion. She also knows what it's like to be an afterthought. Entering Wednesday, she was four years removed from her most recent quarterfinal appearance at any

NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open tennis tournament (all times local): 12 a.m. Sam Querrey will always remember his big victories over Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. He has not had time to process what he'll miss most about being a professional tennis player.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open tennis tournament (all times local): 11:15 p.m. Billie Jean King says there's a double standard in tennis when it comes to rules applied to women compared to men. Serena Williams was penalized a game for calling the chair umpire a

LONDON—As she approached this Wimbledon in a determined frame of mind, Serena Williams realized that she could not really know what to expect from herself. She had played with increasing efficiency and vigor across the first three rounds at Roland Garros, only to sustain an injury and be forced to

Watching Rafael Nadal step out onto the clay-court capital of the world on Sunday and topple Dominic Thiem for an astonishing 12th crown at Roland Garros, we were reminded once more that this singularly resilient individual is the most unassailable competitor in the history of tennis. Consider his personal trajectory

There they were again at Roland Garros, claiming three of the four semifinal slots, making their presence known once more to the delight of their loyal followers, turning the French Open into another showcase for their longstanding excellence. The Big 3—Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer—were all front and

WIMBLEDON, England—Walking away from Centre Court after watching both men’s semifinals on Friday, I had a radical thought: Tennis might not have to roll up its courts and close up shop when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal retire, after all. Here we had the first set of Wimbledon semifinals without

The days are flying by here, in a steady torrent of words tapped out my small keyboard. Every night the press room empties little by little until all that’s left are the American and Canadian reporters. Their deadlines are much later in the U.S. because of the time difference. You

“If I have to lose to someone, he is the man, no?” Rafael Nadal asked in a gracious and not-totally-devastated concession speech yesterday in Hamburg. He was right in two senses. As the world’s best player, Federer was indeed the man to end Nadal’s (borderline insane) 81-match clay-court win streak.

NEW YORK—It started to feel more like the U.S. Open I know and sometimes love today. The first sign came at approximately 2:00 P.M. this afternoon. At that moment I shifted, hopefully, into what appeared to be the shortest and quickest line for Southern BBQ sandwiches in the food court.

NEW YORK—A friend of mine doesn’t own a television. Instead, his apartment is filled with reading material—fiction, poetry, art books, historical tomes, highbrow magazines. And unlike many of us with crammed book shelves, he seems to have actually read most of it. There’s only one thing, he says, that he