We’re a few months into the new season this year, we’ve seen some exciting changes, and players like Tsonga, Blake and Berdych have left their previous racquet sponsors behind in favor of greener pastures in hoping to make a move that would take their game to the next level.

 

We’ve seen the rise of Roger Federer back to his old form picking up the first Grand Slam title in Australia over Andy Murray after a shocking loss at the US Open at the end of the season last year.

What’s excited you the most so far this season, a shocking match that you wouldn’t have expected? Some of your favorite players not doing so well? Let me know what’s on your mind..login to leave your thoughts!

I'm definitely excited after reading the news, Rafael Nadal is back after a long hiatus.

He hasn't played a match since retiring from the Australian Open quarterfinal over a month ago against Andy Murray.

On his Facebook page Nadal said, "Practice going well and I'll be back in Indian Wells for sure, last week was great, with great practice and a lot of work well done."

Nadal also said, "Marc Lopez came to practice with me. I am feeling better and better and playing well so looking forward to Indian Wells."

Good to hear Rafa will be back on the courts, he's still a favorite to reclaim his crown at Roland Garros which is around the corner!

Fans,

I'm proud to announce that we've launched our Player Database for public viewing! We've been working very hard here at Tennis Now to get this off the ground for our followers. And here's where it gets even better, after our initial update of each player's page, the rest of the content will solely be added by you, the fans! So it will be like Wikipedia, but for Tennis Fanatics! I can't wait!


-Neemo

I was reading through the Daily Tennis Newsletter I get in my e-mail everyweek and came across this tidbit of news I thought I'd share.

Nicole Vadisova at the young age of 20 has announced her retirement from the WTA tour. She's scheduled to marry ATP tour player Radek Stepanek this upcoming July. She reached the Semi-finals of the '06 French Open and '07 Australian Open before losing her passion to play. After refusing to hear pleas from her camp to turn things around she went 11-17 in 2009.

Sources told Daily Tennis she couldn't contend with losing and began to lose her passion for the sport.

What do you guys think about this? I think if she had began to take a fresh mindset and find the will to win she could have easily worked her way back into the top 20, she has so much potential and it's sad to see she's giving up at such an early age, hopefully she retires and attends college somewhere to pursue another trade.

She's ending her career ranked #176.

So today officials announced that the case regarding Andre Agassi's drug revelations was closed for good. Why you ask? Simple, the statute of limitations expired five years ago (2005) since Agassi had admitted to using Crystal Meth in 1997, and the limit on the statute of limitations in the case was eight years.


Ricci Bitti, President of the International Tennis Federation had this to say, “The ATP is the only entity that could have shed light on what happened, but it’s too late,” Bitti said. “WADA asked information from the ATP without much success. As a member of WADA’s executive committee, I’m obviously very disappointed that Agassi—such a great and emblematic player—decided to make these revelations.

“I’m sure he had his reasons, which were not easy to understand. … There were a lot of strange reasons involved. From a sports point of view, it’s very unfortunate. I think what he did hurt our sport.”

Another issue Bitti is waiting on are the outcome of the appeals of Belgian players Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse who were both handed one-year bans for violating WADA's whereabouts rule. Both players had the suspensions lifted in December after appealing to a Beglian court, and both have pending appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

I have to agree with Bitti on this one, I'm still unsure of Agassi's reasons for admitting the use of Crystal Meth in his book over a decade later, and it did hurt the sport of tennis as a whole, maybe it was for monetary reasons? What do you think?

Lleyton Hewitt has accepted a wild card to return from a January hip operation and defend his US Men’s Clay Court Championship title at River Oaks Country Club April 5-11.

Hewitt, a former #1 player, injured his hip during Hopman cup play in January. After a fourth round loss to Roger Federer at the Australian Open he had surgery to repair a torn labrum, Hewitt had a similar operation in April 2008.

“I’m really looking forward to returning to defend my title in Houston,” Hewitt said. “The River Oaks Club is a great place to play and the people there really supportive. I couldn’t think of a better place to come back on to the Tour after an injury.”

Hewitt won the title here last year and if he successfully defends it this year, he will join Andy Roddick as the only other player to defend the clay court title as Roddick did in 2001 and 2002.

Lleyton is one of my favorite players on tour as I've been following him since he began his rise to number one when I was just a teenager in high school. And now he's coming to Houston! Wish I could be home to see it =(

Hope Lleyton defends the title.