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US Open Men’s Preview 2014 Charles Friesen Novak Djokovic is playing terribly.  Rafal Nadal is injured… so is Juan Martin Del Potro.  Andy Roddick is retired.  That leaves Roger Federer and Andy Murray as the only former USO winners in the last 12 years left standing.  Last week, Federer beat Murray in Cincinnati, site of Murray’s first triumph over the Fed, to level their series at 11 wins each.  So is Federer the US Open favourite?  The bookies are still giving the nod to Djokovic by a sizable margin.  Are they right to? Tallying slam matches won this year, the leaders are a familiar foursome: Slam match wins 2014 Djokovic 17 Nadal 16 Federer 14 Murray 13 Berdych, Raonic, Wawrinka 11 Anderson, Dimitrov, Ferrer, Tsonga 9 Even Wawrinka, winner in Australia, is relegated to no better than 5 th .  ...

US Open Women’s Preview 2014 Charles Friesen I and just about every other predictor out there have made Serena the favourite at the last 10 or so slams.  She’s bombed the last 3.  Are we all going to fall for it again? Chaos reigns on the women’s tour.  Who is this year’s best player?  Is Serena Williams going to pull it together and assert order from the top?  Despite a tour-leading 5 titles this season, she’s been dreadful in the slams… winning only 6 matches.  Slam match wins 2014 Bouchard 16 Halep 15 Sharapova 13 ARadwanska, Cibulkova, Kerber, Safarova 10 Li, Kvitova, Makarova 9 Others… SWilliams 6 It used to be that despite how bad the rest of her season was, Serena was a performer.  She could always be counted on at slam time to pull off a miracle and come from some unfa...

Wimbledon Men 2014 – 20 Jun 2014 It’s going to be fascinating to see how this Wimbledon unfolds because there is no clear favourite.  The Big 4 are the favourite-s, for sure.  But I seem easily able to convince myself that any one of them will triumph – and thus none of them really has the edge.  And there’s also the possibility that an outsider will cop the title… maybe Tomas Berdych, Grigor Dimitrov, Ernests Gulbis, Jerzy Janowicz, Richard Gasquet or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  There’s maybe a 20% chance it will be an outsider and then another 20% attached to each of the Big 4.  But that’s not very satisfying and so I hope, by the end of this piece, to have made a pick for winner. Rafael Nadal Nadal made five consecutive Wimbledon finals (he didn’t play 2009) and is a two-time champion.  He’s just won the French and his health – back, knees – seems at about its best so far this year.  His confidence should be high after a ninth French title....