The End of the Federer/Nadal Rivalry?

Thanks to my crappy cable provider, who shall remain nameless but rhymes with POW, who dropped the Tennis Channel, I rarely get to see live tennis on TV. But, fortunately I got to watch the semi-final matches of the World Tour Finals on ESPN last weekend.

The match between Federer and Nadal was the perfect microcosm of Rodger's 2013 season. He was so close to pulling off the upset, so many times, but he could not close the deal. He could not hold serve when he needed to and he could not hit a winner with conviction when he needed to and he could not break serve when he had to. It was very discouraging to watch. I thought his chances of winning were only one-in-ten before the match started, but with Nadal never having good luck with the indoor surface in London....who knows. After watching the match however,  I firmly believe that this was probably the last significant match that they will ever play together. I don't believe that they will ever play another significant final and they will definitely not play another Grand Slam final together. In fact, I don't think that Federer can ever beat Nadal again.

But, then Nadal lost to the Joker in straight sets and I thought, maybe there is hope. Under the right conditions, not clay, not outdoors, and not in Europe, Federer could still beat Nadal one more time.

Let's hope that the grand old lion can pull it off one more time in 2014.

By the way, I correctly picked the Joker to win the ATP Finals!

End of the Year 2013

Well, let's clean up a little old business first. Both my predictions for the Men's and Women's US Open finals won. (Nadal and Serina) And even my dark horse picks for each draw, were the runners up. (Djokovic and Azarenka)

As the men's finals start next week, I believe that it be a Nadal/Djokovic final. I think that Federer will be fortunate to win even one match in his round robin section. I am pulling for Djokovic

In other news, it looks like Michael Russell will remain in the Top 100 for at least one more year. He won the Challenger in Charlottesville this week. There is one more event in Knoxville next week. Although he won that event last year, he may only need to win a round or two to post his fourth Top 100 finish in a row.