Blogs

Ion Tiriac has heard whistles and boos before, so it probably didn’t bother him too much when that was the way he was greeted by the crowd at the Madrid Open during the women’s trophy presentation ceremony on Sunday.

Milos Raonic is going to beat Roger Federer when they meet in a second-round match at the Madrid Open on Wednesday.

Raonic advanced to his second meeting in two months with the great Swiss by handily overcoming David Nalbandan 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday. He played pretty well but it was really his magnificent serving that told the story – 16 aces, 100 per cent of first serve points won and not a single break point against him in the one hour and 14-minute match.

Will it be all about the blue clay-courts in Madrid this week, or will we actually put some value on the results of the respective winners as we inch closer to the French Open?

Three men played really good tennis in Barcelona last week – two of them were Spaniards and one was a Canadian.

The Canadian has to be pretty obvious to most people by now, so let’s start with the two guys from Spain.

Rafael Nadal established all kinds of records by winning his seventh title at the Barcelona Open, which doubles as the Spanish national championship, giving it extra meaning for the host country’s players.

Rafael Nadal made a strong statement on Sunday by defeating Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-1 to win the final of the Monte Carlo Masters for an eighth consecutive time.

That victory ended Djokovic’s seven-match winning streak over him and wrapped up a tournament that was not one of the best in the 106-year history of the event, partly because of unusually windy conditions and partly because of the untimely death of Djokovic’s paternal grandfather.

Red clay is the most beautiful surface in tennis with one exception – there’s really nothing comparable to a grass court in mint condition before the wear and tear of play takes its toll.

The great thing about clay courts is that with one sweeping and one watering they can be restored to a pristine state.

The United States upset France in the Davis Cup quarter-finals on the weekend, defeating the home side playing at the Monte Carlo Country Club, site of next week’s Masters 1000 event.

All along there was really only one strategy for American success – John Isner winning his two singles matches and the redoubtable Bryan brothers combining for a victory in Saturday’s doubles.

Beginning this week and carrying through to the start of June, the world’s best dirtballers will be given a chance to display their sliding and defensive skills as they battle through two months of red clay tennis.

Court Suzanne Lenglen at Roland Garros is the best stadium in terms of capacity (10,000 seats) and proximity to the action at any of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

I vividly recall sitting there for the first-round match between Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet at the 2010 French Open. Gasquet had two days earlier won the ATP event in Nice and pretty well ran out of gas in a 4-6, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 loss to Murray.