By Amanda H. LeMay

Tennis-prose.com: Who is with you this week?

Ernests Gulbis: My dad, two of our friends from Latvia, Hernan, Michal.

Tennis-prose.com: We are all glad that you’re back with Hernan (Gumy).

"I'm playing my top tennis · as I used to play"

By Amanda H. LeMay

Friday I got the chance to attend my first draw ceremony at the Regions Morgan Keegan championships in Memphis. As Bernard Tomic came in to assist the tournament director with the draw you could really feel the anticipation in the air. Tomic became the 8th seed after Gael Monfils and Marin Cilic had to withdraw due to injuries. He drew for himself Ivan Dodig, the big hitter from Croatia.

Raonic vs. Gulbis should be a blast

Did you know that Kevin Kim is still out there, grinding out tennis matches all over the world? At 33, the veteran American who turned pro in 1997, is still an ATP presence.

Just look at this schedule. Kim started 2011 in New Caledonia then to Melbourne – Honolulu – Quimper, France – Meknes, Morocco – Salinas, Ecuador – Kyoto, Japan – Rimouski, Canada – Pereira, Colombia – Leon, Mexico – Busan, S. Korea – Alessandria, Italy – Milan, Italy – Guadalajara, MX – Winnetka, IL

Is Kevin Kim the ultimate road warrior?

Read this little article in the New York Times about Nadal getting a surprise doping test yesterday.

Nadal Gets Surprise Drug Test
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 11, 2012 at 8:59 AM ET

MADRID (AP) — Rafael Nadal says he underwent a surprise drug test toward the end of a week in which the Spaniard was the butt of jokes by a French TV program about his country’s alleged ties to doping.

Nadal is Tested

By Jayita Belcourt

What an amazing tournament we were blessed to watch this year at the Australian Open!

So many sensational matches, so many feisty players and so many great stories along the way. Whilst only one man and women could be crowed the 2012 champion, the event was still a colourful array of highs and lows, of lessons and learning’s, of trials and tribulations, and triumphs and defeat.

No tags

Hello Tennis-Prose.com fans, I am in the mountains of Costa Rica now leading a Bikram Yoga Retreat. It is sunny–as always–here and after leading a 630 AM class, I’m about to go hiking in a coffee plantation. The coffee here, I’m told, is great. I don’t drink coffee, but we have been eating a very healthy diet of fresh fruit, pineapple, mango, papaya, etc, a lot of fish and tofu and great salads.

Pura Vida

As I sat through most of the five hours and 53 minutes it took for Novak Djokovic to finally dispatch of Rafael Nadal in the Aussie Open finals, advancing through dead moments between points with my nifty DVR remote (at one point in the match, a graphic showed that Djoko was taking 30 seconds between points while Nadal was pinching, dribbling, shifting for 33 seconds), I asked myself, “Is this entertaining tennis?”

Battle of Attrition Lacks Quick-strike Tennis

Ivan Lendl told Andy Murray that in the big moments of a match, he wasn’t going to tell him what shot to hit. Andy’s the one on the court, he’s the one that has the juices flowing, and just like Tony Roche once ago told his charge, Lendl, to go with his feeling, Lendl has told Andy to go with the feeling. Murray apparently went with the wrong feeling in his semi-match with Djokovic.

Murray Doesn't Know the Feeling of Winning In A Big Match

It’s the 27th meeting between Roger and Rafa (Rafa holds the 17-9 advantage–which really is 17-5 if you didn’t count indoor encounters–7-2 in slams and won the last four contests in slams; Roger hasn’t beaten Nadal in a slam since Wimby 2007) and if anyone thinks La Fed has a chance of winning tonight, they’re loco.

It's the Greatest Rivalry In the History of the Game

Jackson Browne had a song in the 70′s called “The Pretenders” and it opened with the stanza:

I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen

The Pretenders Are Gone and The Business End Begins