TennisGrandStand

With the Italian Championships on-going in Rome, let’s take a look back at the greatest Italian player in history and the man whose name graces the Centre Court at Il Foro Italico - Nicola Pietrangeli.

Last week Tennis Week reported that beginning in 2009 ESPN will broadcast coverage of the US Open. The Tennis Channel will share coverage of the late summer Grand Slam event with the mega-giant sports cable station.

Last week on the challenger circuit, a former top 5 player and the only college graduate mother on tour recorded impressive results, while two players on the men’s side broke into the top 100 for the first time this week with their tournament wins.

Bob Greene, the esteemed former Associated Press tennis writer, wraps up the week that was in international tennis with his “Monday’s With Bob Greene” column – a revival of his popular weekly feature at the AP. This week Bob summarizes a week of Barcelona and Prague.

South Africa tennis has been on the downward spiral since the early 1990’s with Wayne Ferreira being our last great tennis player. Yes Wesley Moodie has won a Wimbledon doubles title but do people really know him?

Jeff Coetzee is slowly becoming one of the biggest sporting icon’s in the history of South Africa. The black right-handed professional tennis player from the town of Okiep in the northern cape of South Africa began playing tennis when he was nine years old.

Apparently, there is no love lost between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. The world’s No. 1 has criticized the young Serbian star on a couple of occasions, and now Federer has admonished Djokovic’s family as well.

Here’s an early look at A Champions Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis – the new book written by Pete Sampras (with Peter Bodo) due out on June 10.

Bob Greene, the esteemed former Associated Press tennis writer, wraps up the week that was in international tennis with his “Monday’s With Bob Greene” column – a revival of his popular weekly feature at the AP. This week Bob summarizes a week of Monte Carlo Masters and Fed Cup!

It’s the year 2002, and for some reason I am having a lot of difficulty playing a tournament. It’s not the level of the tournament, injury, nor is it where the tournament is that is giving me trouble.