Laurie's Tennis articles

Serena Williams wins Miami So, another weekend and another win for Serena Williams.   Serena won her eighth title last Saturday in Miami with a 6:2 6:0 victory over Carla Suarez Navarro, who was playing in her first Masters final.   We were all expecting a routine win but even I would not have predicted such a quick and easy victory. It appears to be getting relatively easier for Serena to win tennis tournaments the older she gets; usually it is the other way as it supposed to be more difficult the older a player becomes.   In fact, barring Venus Williams, every one of Serena’s rivals from her generation are retired and doing different things.   That includes Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo and Jennifer Capriati.   Remarkable indeed and let’s not forget Serena has won twelve major titles since 2008.      While this is all great news for Serena and her supporters, 2015 is so far ...

  Recently ex tennis player Tim Henman gave his views on what has been the never-ending Roger Federer Pete Sampras debate.   Now this has been done to death since 2004 in the media and on tennis forums long before Federer broke Sampras’ records and long since Federer broke Sampras’ records .   What surprised me was that Henman, a guy who played both was so willing to give an opinion on an otherwise worn argument.   Henman was in Kolkata India as an ambassador for the HSBC road to Wimbledon tournament.   And he was asked the question:   Having played against both   Pete Sampras   and   Roger Federer , who would you pick as the better player?   This was Henman’s answer: Yeah, I played Pete when he was world No. 1. He was an incredible player, that's why he won 14 Grand Slams.   When he served well, he was at the top of his game. But Roger has a better all-round game and plays at a high level all the time. He has a great firs...

So, the Australian Open finishes for another year and two familiar faces have won the event.   Twelve months on that is quite a different scenario to 2014. This time last year Li Na defeated Dominica Cibulkova in a fun three set final, and a big upset occurred when Stan Wawrinka defeated Rafael Nadal to claim the mens trophy.   I recall Pete Sampras who travelled to Australia to hand over the trophy looking on in some bemusement during the presentation ceremony, having fully expected Rafael Nadal to equal his tally of fourteen major championships. But Warwinka had other ideas, coming out swinging in the first set and hitting second serves at 110mph in the corners, taking risks to win. Bottom line was it was a great start to the year to have two new Australian open winners and it really set up the mens year nicely culminating with another first time winner at the US Open in Marin Cilic. 2015 has not started as excitingly as 2014 (unless you are a fan of Seren...

We’ve come to the end of the first week in 2015 and already the tennis season is in full swing and the first tournaments decided!   It is the perfect opportunity to preview the upcoming season on the WTA tour and predict the players who will be the contenders for the majors and premier tournaments. Serena Williams Serena Williams didn’t have as good a season as she did in 2012 and 2013 when she was winning virtually every tournament she entered from May 2012 onwards.   Serena was still the undisputed world number 1 and won eight tournaments but suffered unusual losses throughout the course of the season at the Australian Open against Ana Ivanovic, the 2nd round of the French Open to Garbine Muguruza and Wimbledon to Alize Cornet in the 3rd round.   However, Serena won her 18th major at the US Open easily defeating Caroline Wozniacki and received a special presentation by Chris Evert and |Martina Navratilova.   Serena also won Miami for the seventh...