Mathieu Montcourt Found Dead

Many people probably already heard the sad news yesterday that Mathieu Montcourt, 24, died. Preliminary tests show that he died from cardiac arrest. Obviously it is extremely surprising and scary that such a fit athlete can die so suddenly, and it is extremely sad.

Montcourt had been receiving negative press recently for his suspension for betting on tennis matches. Montcourt never bet more than $3 at a time and always bet on different matches other than his own, obviously it was nothing more than a small bet between friends, but for tennis this is a sad thing especially after the sudden death of Frederico Luzzi last year. Luzzi died from a rapid form of lukemia last year just weeks after playing events. Montcourt played an event just in the end of June in Rijeka, Croatia.

GDF Suez Grand Prix Day 1 Results

Women's Singles First Round
Maria Elena Camerin def. Lourdes Dominguez Lino 4-6, 6-0, 6-1
Edina Gallovits def. Tsvetana Pironkova 7-5, 6-2
Alona Bondarenko [6] def. Karolina Sprem 4-6, 7-5, 6-1

Karolina Sprem is one of my favorite players, remember the days where she would stun play like the number 1 player in the world. Like when she beat Venus at Wimbledon, she could beat anybody when she was on, and lose to anybody when she was off. Unfortunately her results haven't been like that recently and I'm hoping she will get it back. Nothing else interesting from Budapest today.

Collector Swedish Open Day 1 Results

Women's Singles First Round
Sorana Cirstea [5] def. Johanna Larson [W] 4-6, 6-2, 7-5
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [6] def. Jill Craybas 3-6, 6-3, 6-3
Carla Suarez Navarro [7] def. Lenka Wienerova 6-0, 7-5
Iveta Benesova [8] def. Urszula Radwanska 3-6, 6-2, 6-2
Alla Kudryavtseva def. Karin Knapp 6-1, 6-1
Gisela Dulko def. Marta Domachowska 6-4, 6-0


This tournament is much more interesting than I first thought. All of today's winners have the talent to be ranked in the top 20. In a tournament that has such strong competitors, and a bunch of these players have been having excellent seasons, it will certainly be a major confidence boost and stepping stone to being more successful in bigger events.

It will also be interesting to see if Karin Knapp can get her career back on track, she has a big game but her physical fitness is weak.

What Happens After Wimbledon?

Believe it or not there is professional tennis after Wimbledon. While you won't catch any of the top players like Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and the Williams sisters in action there are small events for about three weeks after Wimbledon before the summer hard court season really gets into swing.

It is still an exciting time because often new players make their marks during this period. Last year it was Juan Martin del Potro who started his incredible run, now he is ranked five in the world.

Of course this coming weekend will be the Davis Cup quarterfinal, so expect to see some of the top players in action on the July 10th weekend.

There will be only one ATP tournament this week, and that is the Newport Grass Court tournament, where Fabrice Santoro is the two time defending champion.

2009 CAMPBELL'S HALL OF FAME TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS Preview
The top seed this week is Mardy Fish who is ranked 24th in the world. Fabrice Santoro is the second seeded player, don't expect this tournament to hold true to form, however, because it never does. There will likely be surprise semifinalist like there are every year. Keep an eye on Americans Sam Querrey and Taylor Dent. Querrey played a great match in Wimbledon last week when he lost to Marin Cilic in five sets, and Taylor Dent is making a comeback to the tour after injury and grass is his best surface. It will be most interesting, however, to see if Fabrice Santoro can win his last Newport Tournament and pull off the threepeat.

On the women's tour the next two weeks will be dominated by clay court tournaments. I'm looking forward to the return of Kim Clijsters this summer.

There are two tournaments this week Bastad and Budapest:


COLLECTOR SWEDISH OPEN PREVIEW
This tournament is headlined by Caroline Wozniacki. Wozniacki will be the heavy favorite for the title, but I will be interested in the play of Sorana Cirstea, Carla Suarez Navarro, Dominika Cibulkova. Cirstea and Cibulkova have been in good form recently and I want to see if they can keep up the form. I also believe Carla Suarez Navarro has the talent to become a great clay courter, a Roland Garros champion. Suarez Navarro can gain confidence in smaller tournaments where she can win a bunch of matches.

GDF SUEZ GRAND PRIX PREVIEW
The top seed and defending champ is Alize Cornet, but she has been rather poor recently. This tournament is wide open. Roberta Vinci, Lucie Safarova, Ioana Raluca Olaru and Karolina Sprem are players who can win this tournament while not being seeded. I think Alona Bondarenko and Agnes Szavay should be considered the favorites for the title.

Stay tuned for this week's news and results.

Federer Wins 15th Grand Slam, Makes History After Beating Roddick in Classic

What a great picture, you can see the emotions of everybody. Federer joy, Roddick despair, Sampras semi-happy and semi-sad.

Roger Federer has now won more Grand Slam titles than any other man in history. Federer beat Andy Roddick in a classic final where Roddick only had his serve broken one time in the match, and that was in the final game. Federer won 5-7, 7-6,7-6, 3-6, 16-14 today in a thrilling display of serving by both players. When Andy Roddick's final shot sailed out Federer screamed with joy a couple of times as he has broken the most coveted record in men's tennis.

Federer won his sixth Wimbledon title in front of some of the all time tennis greats including Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Manuel Santana and Ilie Nastase.

It's hard not to feel bad for Roddick, who held back his emotions in his final speech and gave a nice speech. Federer tried to show Roddick he's felt what he has, by saying he lost in the finals last year, sorry Roger but nobody feels bad for the 15 time Grand Slam champ. Federer is a nice champion, but he can sometimes be a little arrogant.

Federer continues to etch his name into the record books, breaking today the biggest record of all. Federer also today broke the record for most Grand Slam finals, he has now been to 20 Grand Slam finals. Roger Federer also returns to the World Number 1 ranking, if Federer is ranked number 1 for 50 more weeks he will hold the record for most weeks at number 1. A record currently held by Pete Sampras with 286.

Andrey Kuznetsov Beats Jordan Cox for Boy's Title

In a battle of unseeded players, Russian Andrey Kuznetsov is the Wimbledon boy's singles champion defeating American Jordan Cox in the finals 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Kuznetsov has been ranked as high as number 10 in the ITF world junior rankings, but is currently ranked 35.

At 18 years old Kuznetsov is also sitting at his career high singles ranking of 556 in the world. He will be forced to make the transition from the juniors to the pros very soon because his 19th birthday is early next year.

The biggest surprise of the boy's tournament was the finalist Jordan Cox, a 17 year old from Duluth Georgia. Cox is one of the top players in USTA rankings but has had limited success in the ITF world junior circuit. He is currently ranked 80th in the junior rankings and had to qualify just play in the Wimbledon singles. In the semifinals Cox beat another American Devin Britton 16-14 in the third set.

Cox is currently ranked 1172 in the world, and at just 17 years old it is unclear whether he will continue on to the pros or onto a college tennis career. I'm sure many of the top universities have found a major recruit.

Federer vs. Roddick: Wimbledon Men's Final Prediction/Preview

Federer Leads Head to Head 18-2
Bookie Odds: Federer 1/8, Roddick 8/1

Roddick has beaten Roger Federer twice in his career out of 20 meetings. The first time he beat him was in 2003 at the Montreal Masters. The second time was last year in Miami when Roger Federer was recovering from Mononucleosis. Other than that Federer has completely owned Roddick, and with good reason Federer can handle Roddick's serve.

In order to win this match Roddick will either need to return better than he ever has in his life, or serve incredibly and manage to win tiebreakers. His other chance is Federer will get nervous as he tries to seal his legacy as the greatest player of all time with 15 Grand Slam titles. I sincerely doubt that will happen, Federer has appeared far from nervous this entire championships.

I just don't see anyway Roddick can win this match. He can make it competitive but he can't win, and I don't think Roddick even expects to win. Andy Roddick cried tears of joy after winning his semifinal, showing that he didn't even expect to win that match. Roddick has already achieved what he wants to achieve, now it is Federer's turn to achieve his destiny.
Federer in 4 sets.