Well hello, everyone. So much has happened in the past couple weeks – the Freaky team was traveling while Serena won the WTA Championships and the men played their last Masters in Paris but we managed to stay fairly current while en route – and now we’ve all arrived at the start of the ATP tour’s final week in London at the World Tour Finals.
But let’s cruise back over to Bercy for a moment, the slick Parisian dance club of tennis tournaments. It’s not just the strobe lights and DJs but the hint of desperation in the air, as a few toned and tanned men strained to keep the party going just a little longer. Federer, Wawrinka and Gasquet played their way into the even more swank and exclusive O2 Arena this week. Federer even scored an additional dose of confidence with a top 10 win over Juan Martin del Potro in the Bercy quarterfinals. I caught Roger’s three set loss to Djokovic in the semis, and felt like he proved he had refreshed his game, if not quite his full mental intensity. To paraphrase an ecard thingy I read on Facebook today: Roger can still play like a rock star but it’s getting harder for him to recover like one.*