All athletes eventually experience injury and tennis players are no exception. Go to any major tournament and stroll around the training room for a while and you may be surprised by the battlefield of walking wounded. You’ll see ankles being heavily taped, deep healing massages, supervised stretching of particular muscles,

The tennis season is…almost over (looking forward to the Davis Cup final). But it’s done enough to hand out year-end grades for the top eight players (plus a man named Janko). Head of the ClassNovak Djokovic stands alone. He faltered—and struggled with his health—after the U.S. Open, but there’s

WIMBLEDON, England (AP)—Defending champion Serena Williams overcame Maria Sharapova 7-6 (9), 6-4 on Monday to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals and avenge her loss to the Russian in the 2004 final. In another marquee women’s matchup, Kim Clijsters rallied to beat Justine Henin 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 in an all-Belgian duel between

Once upon a time in high school, Alexandra Stevenson wanted what Julia Roberts had. As she tells it, "When I was 18 years old and giving up the French Open main draw for my prom and graduation, I was playing in Miami. I needed a prom dress. Julia Roberts had

Watching Dominic Thiem win the Barcelona Open over this past weekend, what struck me above all else was his match-playing maturity and his unmistakable comfort out on the red clay. The earnest Austrian pulled off a rare feat in the semifinals, toppling Rafael Nadal without losing his serve across two

Zheng Jie and Elena Dementieva have their work cut out for them on Thursday, when they try to prevent Venus and Serena Williams from meeting in a Grand Slam final for the seventh time. Yesterday, we saw how easily Serena dismissed Polish sensation Agnieska Radwanska, while Venus made short work

It’s funny but a friend just told me on the phone that my buddy and amateur ethicist Matt Cronin tried to take a bite out of my ankle over at his Tennisreporters (Matt: I linked to you. See? Did it kill me?) website. Matt’s my friend and he’s a good

*PhpJvdGkpPM by Pete Bodo Many of you may recall my No Djoke post of March, 2007, which represents my first close look at Novak Djokovic, and ended with the question, is he The Perfect Player?. It was, of course, a rhetorical question intended to create discussion (which it did). But

“The amazing moment in Australia was filled with joy, happiness and extraordinary sense of accomplishment. The task of finally making a decision to hang up my racquet felt a lot more difficult than winning seven matches in a row in the Australian heat. It took me several agonizing months to

The next time Maria Sharapova loses to Serena Williams, she just may drop all that “She’s a great player, she was just too good today” hooey and snarl, “I’ll follow that b to the ends of the earth. . .” That’s the first thing that occurred to me when I

Peter Bodo continues his year-end awards—12 in all, for 2012—with the Feuds of the Year. You can see rest of his selections as well as the upcoming awards at the end of this article.

• Dby Pete Bodo* Just yesterday, I was chatting with John McEnroe Sr., who spawned the icon that shares his name, about the search for a new ATP CEO. John felt very strongly that the new CEO ought to be a trained lawyer, and he suspected that the silence out

NEW YORK—On a day when Bethanie Mattek-Sands ought to have been hitting tennis balls in Europe on a red-clay court under bright sun, she came hobbling through a cold, driving rain and the giant sliding glass doors of the New York Hospital for Special Surgery. Accompanied by her husband Justin,

OK, everybody, what do you say we all pause from our preoccupations with Andy’s stinko backhand, Good Girl Kim’s champagne giveaway, Rusty and Bec’s battle with the Aussie tabs, the Aussie tennis establishment, Australian Open tournament direc . . . well, with everyone, it sometimes seems-let’s drop it all and

There are no shortage of men’s storylines for the upcoming Wimbledon tournament. Between the fierce pressure Andy Murray will be under to mount an acceptable defense of his title and the prospects of Rafael Nadal after two years of bitter disappointment (to mention just two themes), it’s pretty easy to

• Picby Pete Bodo* While most everyone is pre-occupied with tennis' latest version of the better mousetrap, the Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal rivalry, I'm also thinking about the historic milestones that the Spanish clay-court expert is approaching. He's presently tied with Bjorn Borg, each man having won six singles

NEW YORK—Howdy, tennis fans. It’s time once again to break out the cape, tall conical hat (the one with the astrological signs and iridescent stars embroidered on it), and my trusty crystal ball. We’ll chant a few incantations and gaze deeply into the milky, mesmerizing orb to make some fearless

201201260435165344745-p2@stats_comby Pete Bodo Researchers at the Center for Disease Investigation (CDI) in Atlanta, Ga., believe they've identified a new and potentially lethal condition that appears to affect tennis fans, particularly knowledgeable ones who know that there's no "t" in Wimbledon. The disease has been tentatively named Vamos Syndrome, because it

I feel badly for the promoters of the Thailand Open, who once again got whacked with a flurry of withdrawals by top players: Andy Roddick yesterday joined Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic on the sidelines, after reportedly injuring his left foot in practice on Tuesday; he pulled out on Wednesday

NEW YORK—Watching Lleyton Hewitt fight his way right through to the bitter end of his four-set defeat to David Ferrer this afternoon, I couldn’t help but think of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the one who has all four of his limbs hacked off by