TENNIS TUESDAY: Osaka Splits From Sascha, Fed Cup Semis Set, Serena Back to WTA Top10

NAOMI OSAKA ANNOUNCES SPLIT FROM COACH SASCHA BAJIN
Wow! World #1 Naomi Osaka has announced she has ended her coaching relationship with Sascha Bajin, who was with her as she raced up the rankings from #72 a year ago to winning the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open and become the #1 ranked player in the world.  Bajin was a longtime member of Serena Williams's support staff and was named WTA Coach of the Year in 2018. This is the fourth example of a Grand Slam winner dropping a coach within a short time afterwards: Angelique Kerber split with Wim Fisette after winning 2018 Wimbledon, Simona Halep split with Darren Cahill after winning the 2018 French Open and Sloane Stephens split with Kamau Murray after winning the 2017 US Open.

FED CUP SEMIFINALS SET UP: ROMANIA V. FRANCE, AUSTRALIA V.  BELARUS
In a surprising result, Romania beat defending champs Czech Republic and Australia beat the  United States (playing without any major champions), Belarus beat Germany (without Kerber) and France beat Belgium. The Fed Cup semifinals will be played in April. Ash Barty won all 3 ties for Australia. Halep had a key win over Pliskova in the #CZEROU matchup.

SERENA WILLIAMS WILL RETURN TO TOP 10 NEXT WEEK
Amazingly, even though she has only played in 7(!) tournaments in the last year, reaching 2 major finals (2018 Wimbledon and 2018 US Open), Serena Williams will be rejoining the WTA Top 10.

TSONGA ENDS TITLE DROUGHT AT OPEN SUD DE FRANCE
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won his 17th career title (his first title in more than a year). He defeated Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the final of the Open Sud de France 6-4 6-2.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Rafa Breaks More Records; Fed Cup Final Set; Babies Everywhere

NADAL WINS RECORD 11TH MONTE CARLO MASTERS ; 31ST MASTERS OVERALL
The King of Clay, Rafael Nadal won his 11th Monte Carlo Masters title (in 14 years) by defeating Kei Nishikori 6-3 6-2. Nadal won the title without dropping  a set and basially terrorized the rest of the men's field with his 6-0 6-2 drubbing of the "Prince of Clay" Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals.
Nadal was able to retain his hold on the World #1 ranking by defending his title as World #2 Roger Federer is again sipping the clay court season to improve his chances at winning another Wimbledon title. Nadal nw has 31 ATP Masters shields, 1 ahead of the 30 Novak jokovic has and well ahead of Federer's 27, with two more clay court Masters tournaments to be played this year: Madrid and Rome.

FED CUP FINAL SET: UNITED STATES WILL FACE CZECHIA
The Fed Cup semifinals were last weekend and the United States defeated France 3-2 behind solid wins by Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys while the Czech Republic dominated Germany 4-1 with Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova each eating Angie Kerber and Julia Goerges. The Czech Republic has been in the Fed Cup final.

BABIES, BABIES, BABIES! SPRING IS HERE AND EVERYBODY'S PREGNANT
John Isner announced that his wife Madison McKinley is expecting their first child. Also, Sania Mirza announced on instagram that she was pregnant, and noted tennis umpire Eve Asderaki answered Dasha Kasatkina's question "boy or girl?" while umpiring a Fed Cup match this weekend with "boy."

TENNIS TUESDAY: Djokovic-Becker Split; Pliskova, Kvitova Swap Coaches; Murray Gets Greatest-Ever Kudos

DJOKOVIC AND BECKER "MUTUALLY" END COACHING PARTNERSHIP
It is the off season for tennis and that usually means the eventual announcement of lots of coaching changes. The biggest one so far occurred last week when 12-time major champion Novak Djokovic announced he would no longer be working with 10-time major champion Boris Becker, almost exactly 3 years after he had announced the two great champions would begin working together. When they started, Djokovic was a 6-time major champion, so the coaching pairing has been incredibly successful (6 major titles and 14 Masters series titles).

MURRAY NAMED GREATEST BRITISH SPORTSPERSON OF ALL TIME
In a poll of Telegraph Sport, current World #1 and 2-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray has come out on top as Great Britain's greatest sports hero.

KAROLINA PLISKOVA AND PETRA KVITOVA SWAP COACHES
Speaking of end-of-season coaching changes, a curious one happened in the Czech Republic. Both Petra Kvitova (World #11) and Karolina Pliskova (World #6) announced coaching changes. Effectively, they swapped coaches: Jiri Vanek who coached Pliskova for a very long time, will now coach Kvitova in 2017, and Kvitova's longterm coach (who coached her to Wimbledon titles in 2011 and 2014) David Kotyza will coach Pliskova in 2017. This is probably good news for both players, and Czech tennis.

SERENA WILLIAMS AND ROGER FEDERER SKIP IPTL AFTER MONEY WOES SURFACE
In the off season the last two years a series of team exhibition matches have been organized throughout Asia featuring huge stars like Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Angie Kerber, Martina Hingis, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal etc. It is called the IPTL, the International Premier Tennis League, and is the brainchild of former doubles icon Mahesh Bhupathi.
However this year the star power has been significantly diminished when Federer and Serena pulled out, citing "uncertainties" surrounding the finances of the event.

2016 Fed Cup: Czech Wins 3rd Year In A Row; 5 of last 6

For the third year in a row the Czech Republic won the Federation Cup, the annual country-based tennis competition on the women's tour. Just like last year, the title came down to the fifth tie, the doubles match, and again Barbora Strycova was the Most Valuable Player, in providing the third point for her team and country.

This year, Czech faced France, and although Caroline Garcia was able to upset 2-time major champion Petra Kvitova and 2016 US Open finalist Karolina Pliskova she was unable to win the doubles tie with her partner Kiki Mladenovic when Pliskova teamed with Strycova.

Czech Republic has now won the Fed Cup title every year except 2013 since 2011.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Kerber Soars To #2; Venus Returns To Indian Wells; Federer Has Knee Surgery

KERBER SOARS TO #2 FOLLOWING 2016 AUSSIE OPEN TITLE
After winning her first major title by surprisingly defeating Serena Williams in 3 tight sets in the 2016 Australian Open women's final on Saturday January 27th, the #7 seed jumped to World #2 in the rankings. The German player became the first woman from her country since Steffi Graf to win a major title, and the first to reach so high in the rankings. Her win also denied Serna her chance to match Graf's career major title haul of 22.

VENUS WILLIAMS ANNOUNCES RETURN TO INDIAN WELLS!
One year after her sister Serena returned to the second largest tennis tournament in America, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA, Venus Williams has announced that she will also be ending her unofficial boycott of the tournament. The two had last played the tournament in 2003 when they were scheduled to play each other in a semifinal and Venus withdrew a mere 30-minutes before the scheduled start time and the crowd got ugly (and racist). Anyway, Serena went on to win the tournament but the two vowed to never play their again. Since the William Sisters are from Southern California it has always been troubling for many that they have been a no-show at the tournament that is closest to their hometown. Anyway, that is over, because both Williams Sisters will be in the draw for the 2016 edition of the tournament. I expect I will be attending!

FEDERER INJURES KNEE HANGING OUT WITH HIS KIDS, WILL MISS 2 TOURNEYS
Roger Federer has undergone knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus he suffered the day after his devastating loss to Novak Djokovic in the 2016 Australian Open men's semifinals. He will miss the indoor hard court tournament in Rotterdam and the Dubai Duty Free Open (where he beat Djokovic to win his 84th major ATP title) but he will play Indian Wells.

CZECH FED CUP HERO IS KAROLINA PLISKOVA!? SEMIFINALS SET
The Fed Cup quarterfinals were played this weekend and Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic kept the defending champs hopes alive with a gutsy doubles win with Barbara Strycova after also winning both of her singles matches against Romanians Simona Halep and Monica Niculescu. The semifinals are now set, with Czech Republic playing Switzerland and France playing the Netherlands. Switzerland took out Germany in a tough 3-2 match where Belinda Bencic was responsible for all 3 points, including defeating Kerber in straight sets. France took out Italy 4-1 and the Netherlands surprisingly dismissed Russia 3-1.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Czechs Triumph, Federer Ends Djokovic's Streak!

CZECH REPUBLIC WINS FOURTH FED CUP IN FIVE YEARS DESPITE SHARAPOVA'S 2-0 PRESENCE
The Czech Republic was able to win a dramatic 3-2 tie versus Russia with the help of Karolina Pliskova this weekend despite the presence of Maria Sharapova playing for Russia and her defeats of Pliskova and Petra Kvitova. This was the fourth win in five years (2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015) for the Czech Republic.

FEDERER GETS REVENGE AGAINST DJOKOVIC IN LONDON, ENDING WORLD #1'S 23-MATCH WINNING STREAK
Roger Federer ended Novak Djokovic's 23-match winning streak in fine style at the ATP Tour Finals by winning in straight sets, 7-5 6-2. Federer's win gives the him the 22-21 edge in their head-to-head and assures that he will be playing in the semifinal round on Saturday. Almost certainly, the two will be facing again in the championship match, unless the two players who advance from the other group (likely to be Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray) disrupt this narrative. Interestingly, Federer was also the last person to beat Djokovic before the win streak began (in the 2015 Cincinati Masters final in August).

TENNIS TUESDAY: Czechs Win Fed Cup; Serena-Woz Friendship, Federer Still In Hunt For 2014 #1 Rank

Czech Win Fed Cup (Again)
The Czech Republic dominated Germany to win the 2014 Fed Cup title; it is the country's 3rd win in four years (2014, 2012 and 2011). Anchored by 2-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, the 2014 Wimbledon champion scored wins over Angelique Kerber and Andrea Petkovic. Combined with Lucie Safarova's win over Kerber, this gave the Czech team a unassailable lead over Germany.

Serena-Wozniacki Friendship Puzzles Observers

Despite playing against each other in two recent high profile matches (2014 US Open final and the Year-End Championships semifinals) World #1 Serena Williams and former World #1 Caroline Wozniacki continue to be best friends and unafraid of showing the world they can be friendly off the court and fierce competitors off it.

Federer Likely To Reach Year End Championships Semifinals, Year End #1 (Theoretically) Possible

Roger Federer has won his first two matches at the ATP World Tour Finals in London by defeating Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori in straight sets. However since Nishikori and Murray have both won and lost one match each, it is theoretically possible that if Federer loses against Murray and Nishikori beats Raonic that they could qualify. But all Federer has to do is win a set against Murray and he will definitely qualify. Since Nishikori beat Murray it would be more likely that Nishikori could qualify before Murray along with Federer. If Raonic beats Nishikori then Federer and Murray will automatically qualify regardless of the result of their match. Federr could end the year #1 if he wins the Year--End Championships by remaining undefeated *and* wins multiple live rubbers in the Davis Cup final the following week.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Davis Cup Semifinals Set: Switzerland v Italy, France v Czech Republic

The big news in the tennis world this weekend was the result of the Davis Cup quarterfinal ties which for the most part proceeded as I predicted when it was announced: Switzerland beat Kazakhstan 3-2 (a close result even though the Swiss team had two Top 5 players and the Kazakh team has no one in the Top 50), Italy (surprisingly) beat Great Britain 3-2, defending champion Czech Republic beat Japan 5-0 and France beat Germany 3-2.

Switzerland will face Italy and France will face the Czech Republic. I predict a Switzerland versus France showdown if Richard Gasquet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils remain healthy.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Davis Cup Quarters Set Without Usual Suspects

This weekend the first round of Davis Cup occurred and there was a historic meeting between the United Kingdom and the United States featuring Andy Murray.

The usual suspects of Serbia, Spain and Argentina did not feature their top players (World #1 Rafael Nadal,World #2 Novak Djokovic and World #4 Juan Martin del Potro were no-shows this round.) 2-time defending champion Czech Republic defeated the Netherlands and will face Japan who is into the final 8 on the strength of one player: Kei Nishikori and the fact that Canada did not feature Milos Raonic.

In the Davis Cup quarterfinals the weekend of April 4th, Japan will face the Czechs, Switzerland will face Kazakhstan, France will face Germany and Great Britain will face Italy. Switzerland is the only country featuring two grand slam champions, even though both France and Spain have two top 10 players. Roger Federer has already committed to playing Davis Cup this year and if they win that round they would face the winner of the Great Britain-Italy match-up in the semifinals. Switzerland has never won the Davis Cup, although they made the final round way back in 1992.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Czech Republic Wins Davis Cup For 2nd Year in a Row

For the second year in a row, the Czech Republic won the annual Davis Cup competition, with Radek Stepanek claiming a win in the live 5th rubber. Last year, the Czech team beat the Spanish team when Stepanek defeated Nicolas Almagro. This year the Czech team beat the Serbian team when Stepanek defeated World #117 Dusan Lajovic. Novak Djokovic won both his singles matches, extending his current winning streak to 24 consecutive matches, but playing without Janko Tipsarevic or Victor Troicki those were the only ties the Serbian team was able to win, possibly because Djokovic did not play in the doubles rubber, where Tomas Berdych and Stepanek were able to beat the team consisting of doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozolac. Even Zimonjic is questioning that decision, although press reports claim it was a team-based decision.

Kvitova Beats Kerber To Win WTA Tokyo Title

Petra Kvitova had a very good week in Tokyo, Japan, winning the Pan Pacific Open by defeating Angelique Kerber 6-2 0-6 6-3 in the final, the first WTA title decided between two left-handed players in over 20 years. Kvitova outlasted Venus Williams in the semifinals, winning 6-3 3-6 7-6(2) while Kerber beat Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets. It was Venus' best showing at a tournament all year, and she hit a serve at 129.9 mph (209.0 kph) that will not be documented by the WTA as a record due to a technicality.

Kvitova, 23, who is reportedly dating 34-year-old fellow Czech Radek Stepanek, will rise to World #7, making her atleast the third WTA champion the ATP champion has dated in his career. Stepanek married former WTA star Nicole Vaidisova in 2010 but they announced they were getting divorced in June 2013.

Czechs Beat Swiss In Longest Doubles Match Ever!

Amazing! After a 7 hour, 1 minute match the Czech team of Tomas Berdych and Lukas Rosol (yes, that guy who beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon last year) defeated the Swiss team of Stanislas Wawrinka and Marco Chiudinelli 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 24-22 on Saturday February 2nd in the second longest professional tennis match of all time, a mere four hours less than the infamous Isner-Mahut marathon that ended 70-68 in the fifth set at Wimbledon in 2010. It is also the longest doubles match of all time, and the longest match ever in Davis Cup competition as well.

The marathon doubles match turned out to the deciding point in the tie between the 2012 Davis Cup champions and the Swiss, with the Czechs prevailing 3-2.

The final set took an incredible 215 minutes, and the Czech blew 12 match points before Chiudinelli double faulted on break point down 22-23, 30-40 to give the game, set and match to the Czechs.

In other amazing Davis Cup news, Canada eliminated Spain (who had played in the Davis Cup final 3 of the last 5 years) when Milos Raonic defeat Marcos Granollers. None of the Spanish players in the Top 20 (David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco, Nicolas Almagro or Feliciano Lopez) participated in the tie. Canada has exactly one player in the Top 100, while Spain has had as many as 9.

Czech Republic Wins 2012 Fed Cup and Davis Cup

The Czech Republic has completed an historic sweep of the annual international team tennis competitions known as the David Cup and Fed Cup (for men and women, respectively) by winning both titles in 2012.

On Sunday, 32-year-old Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic beat higher-ranked Nicolas Almagro of Spain 6-4 7-6(0) 3-6 6-3 in the fifth and final rubber to clinch the tie 3-2 for the Czech team over Spain, which had won the Davis Cup three of the last five years (2009, 2009, 2011) with its top player Rafael Nadal on the team. This year the Spanish team was anchored by World #5 David Ferrer and Almagro. The Czech team featured Stepanek, World #7 Tomas Berdych and Nadal-killer Lukas Rosol.

Amazingly, just about two weeks ago, in the women's competition the Czech team anchored by lefties Petra Kvitova and Lucie Safarova was able to defend their 2011 Fed Cup title by defeating Serbia 3-1 when Safarova defeated former World #1 Jelena Jankovic 6-1 6-1.

The Czech Republic also won the 2012 Hopman Cup, which is a much lower profile mixed doubles tournament which happens a few weeks before the Australian Open at the very beginning of the tennis season. This year's Hopman Cup-winning team consisted of Kvitova and Berdych.