Last week in Montreal saw two big upsets before the 3rd round was reached. Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray had both won the Masters event in Canada two times previously: Nadal in 2005 and 2008, and Murray was the two time defending champion. Nadal let slip a 6-1 3-1 lead to lose 6-1 6-7 6-7, while Murray was humiliated 6-1 6-3. Both of their conquerors, Ivan Dodig and Kevin Anderson respectively, lost in the next round. Where do these upsets rate with the other big shocks of the season? The...

There have been great ranking divides between the very top players and the rest of the field in recent years on the ATP tour. In 2004 Roger Federer dominated in a way that hadn't been seen in years. The following year Rafael Nadal joined Federer in completely dominating the tour on all surfaces (Nadal primarily on clay and Federer in the other events). This one-two punch continued through 2006 and 2007. A new force, Novak Djokovic, was showing great promise in 2007 and by the time he...

There was considerable interest when I posted the youngest new top 100 players (since 1995) last week (see list here) so this week I'm going to look at the youngest and oldest new top 10 players (complete list next page).   The most recent addition to the top 10 is Jurgen Melzer. When the Austrian cracked the top 10 on the 31st of January this year aged 29 and 8 months, he became the oldest first time top 10 player between 1984 and the present. The next oldest player to crack the top...

The year 2009 marked the worst the under 21 age category has ever performed on tour. Not since ATP rankings began in 1973 had there failed to be a teenager in the year end top 100, that was, until, 2009. That year's end of December rankings featured not a single teenager, furthermore, not a single 20 year old. The youngest player in the top 100 last year was Marin Cilic at 21 and 3 months old. Compare this to previous years where there have been at the very least 5 players under 21 in the year...