Outstanding abstract tennis artist Andres Bella has three pieces of his unique works on exhibit at the Midtown Tennis Club in midtown Manhattan New York City.

Tennis art in New York City!

Status: Tennis historian, journalist, author, reporter, editor, member of USTA Eastern Hall of Fame.

First Tennis Memory: “Watching the Davis Cup final in 1964 in my father’s apartment, Fred Stolle and Dennis Ralston playing their five set match. I got the bug a little for tennis then. Then the real turning point came in June 1965 when my father had moved to London. One day he said, ‘We’re going to Wimbledon.’

"The Osuna match drew me in completely"

Wow. This match was beyond comprehension. I’ve never seen such an epic display of such talent, stamina and ferocity over the course of six hours. Leonard and Hearns, Ali and Frazier could not have kept it up for as long as somehow Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal did.

Super Novak does it again!

2-2 in the fifth, this is going to be epic, fasten your seatbelts, the new Lendlized Murray is fighting to the finish, both gladiators are fresh and ready to take this thing down to the wire…

Djokovic won the first set Murray took the next two and then faltered in the fourth 1-6.

No tags

You always hear the complaints about Maria and Vika’s extreme grunting and shrieking, but why doesn’t anyone ever complain when the mens players grunt and groan? There are some notorious sound effects coming from the ATP Tour though we won’t name any names.

Shadow tennis on the beach?

Fed jumps up 3-0. Serve and volley and a dropper on successive points.

Rafa regains a foothold with some batterings of Fed’s backhand to get on the board 1-3.

But Roger holds again 4-1, battering Rafa’s backhand corner and then hitting forehand winners into the open court.

Nadal-Federer showdown

Bernard Tomic has established himself at this Australian Open as the standout young prospect in tennis, separating himself from Dimitrov and Harrison (Raonic is a couple of years older than BT).

His five set wins over Fernando Verdasco and Alexander Dolgopolov were nothing short of sensational. Tomic uses a unique style which is bolstered by intelligence, variety, defense, offense, whatever it takes. Darren Cahill says Tomic has his own way of playing the game and also an independent view of how it should be played.

Is this Tomic's Australian Open?

I was asked to pen an article about the “Is Marcelo Rios the best player to never win a major” topic. Here is the attempt to prove the very debatable point… It’s at British journalist Mark Hodkinson’s brand new site www.thetennisspace.com, which I highly recomment… http://www.thetennisspace.com/opinion/the-greatest-without-a-slam-its-not-andy-murray/

The author of a new book on Marcelo Rios argues that the Chilean, not Andy Murray, is the greatest player without a grand slam title.

Marat Safin, a former US Open and Australian Open champion, tells me how the Chilean had the talent to win “ten grand slams”. Thomas Johansson, a former winner of the Australian Open, says of Rios, “he could make you feel like it was the first time you were standing on a tennis court, so I hated to play him. You could get killed by him easily, one and one or something like that, and you could have played a good match.”

Best talent to never win a slam? It's Rios

Martin Baldridge: “Interesting book. Your method of delivery though is very entertaining – snippet after snippet of information from very knowledgeable tennis players and commentators. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the Chilean – and I have done so!”

Andres Barbosa: “I wanted to commend you on a great read of Marcelo Rios. I ripped off the cover and stapled it to our tennis wall at the facility (Tropical Park Tennis Center) since I live in South Florida and the Chilean crowd is quite large. Hopefully that will promote some more sales.”

Rios book getting positive reviews

Nalbandian is now repping Topper attire, apparently Yonex has dropped the Argentine veteran. Yonex has two new endorsers in Bernard Tomic (racquet) and Stan Wawrinka (attire and racquet).

Is Philipp Petzchner the first player in ATP history to wear his white socks pulled up to his knees? Could be. If you missed it, the German is wearing blue shorts, blue shirt and high white socks.

Get well Mats!