Roland Garros 2019: Serena and others stutter, Rafa and Novak cruise whilst Petra and Caro out on Day 2

The first true full day in Paris saw things go mainly by the book, most of the contenders breezed through, some had to fight and a few just weren’t at the races. All this amidst some classic marathon encounters involving the home favourites. Contender round up Rafa and Novak were on autopilot in their openers […]

Roland Garros 2019: Roger returns, Muguruza, Mahut and Dimitrov survive but Kerber and Venus out on Day 1

With the first round stretched across three days we had neither defending champion feature today, instead it was the return of Federer to Paris which headlined. Roger had the perfect opening test in his straight sets victory over Lorenzo Sonego, the Swiss looking comfortable on the clay in what is likely to be his last […]

NEWS: Rafa reigns in Rome as Konta comes close

Resurgences abound in Rome this week as a rain-battered tournament dealt another dramatic chapter to a stellar clay court 2019 season. First we had Kyrgios‘ continued baffling behaviour that I’m afraid to say is looking increasingly likely to derail his promise and his career for good. That, on the same day as both Djokovic and […]

Tribute Tuesdays: New regular feature starting next week

A rushed post on Monday – itself already a much delayed update to this blog – gave a fleeting round-up of the clay season so far. (It’s been a bit of an epic one). One of the many stories that arose from a mad week in Madrid was the sad farewell from David Ferrer. This […]

NEWS: Madrid encompasses a brilliant clay season so far

ATT has had a bit of a hiatus, blame the controversial goings on in Westeros and the small matter of a certain JRPG remake trailer for that! The other reason is that frankly, the clay season can be a bit of a foregone conclusion sometimes with Rafa ruling the men’s game particularly. This year though, […]

NEWS: Miami Nice, sunshine double concludes with Barty and Federer victories

So it’s farewell from another stellar sunshine double and with it, the end of the first hardcourt season of 2019. Ashleigh Barty and Roger Federer joined Bianca Andreev and Dominic Thiem as the victors from the first two premier events this year. But there were so many talking points again this week. Serena physical condition […]

NEWS: ‘Fifth slam’ Indian Wells delivers again

It was one of those weekends, a sporting bonanza across multiple competitions involving your favourites. The kind that you look forward to all week. Now just because things really didn’t go my way doesn’t mean I should get any sympathy, when you support such successes as the England rugby team, Manchester United, Scuderia Ferrari and […]