Bloggers Bar Special Edition: Time Machine Predictions

We can't be the only ones who at the end of a major take deep breaths and can barely be arsed to think about tennis for a few days, can we?  A bit of travel, plus some important non-tennis stuff taking root elsewhere in life and voila, we've been silent for four days past the end of Wimbledon.  Let's start our penance here: First, since we've already feted ladies' champion Serena Williams, a hearty congrats to 2012 and seven time men's champion Roger Federer.  To say Serena and Roger emerging as the champions was unexpected, would be insulting; but we would say if you picked BOTH to win at SW19 this year, you're either in the minority or a time machine.

When we did our last Bloggers Bar post (random aside: what do you think of the name: Blacklabel Roundtable in the future?), we asked our fellow writers whether Serena Williams or Roger Federer was more likely to win another major.  On one hand, egg meet faces.  On the other, whichever player we selected, we were right!  Given the fact that both wound up winning their next time out, I thought it would be fun to see why we thought one of two was  more likely to claim another major.  Without further ado, here are our pre-Wimbledon takes on who: Serena Williams or Roger Federer was in our eyes, best positioned to win another major.  Here are the answers, from the four at the bar:

• @AlvaroRama Alvaro Rama of EuroSport2 & Quality Sport (AR)
• @TennisNewsViews Lisa Marie Burrows of TennisNewsViews.com & World Tennis Magazine (LMB)
• @TheFanChild Chris Oddo of TennisNow.com & The Fan Child (CO)
• @VBlacklabel Vito Ellison of BlacklabelTennis.com (VE)

Wimbledon Middle Sunday Bloggers' Bar

It's the middle Sunday at Wimbledon.  Which means the punters can get back to that favorite British pastime, downing pints at the local pub.  For those of us not necessarily at the All England Club, following the tournament on TV and Twitter has almost the same feeling.  Our barroom conversations may take place over fiber optic cable, but it doesn't make them any less compelling.  Welcome back to the Bloggers Bar, this is a becoming a regular feature on Blacklabel Tennis where we pose questions to some of our favorite writers in a virtual roundtable.  Our esteemed bloggers and writers today are:

• @AlvaroRama Alvaro Rama of EuroSport2 & Quality Sport
• @TennisNewsViews Lisa Marie Burrows of TennisNewsViews.com & World Tennis Magazine
• @TheFanChild Chris Oddo of TennisNow.com & The Fan Child
• @VBlacklabel Vito Ellison of BlacklabelTennis.com

In this installment, we discuss some of tennis' burning questions:

• Who had the most disappointing first half of 2012?
• Who has been the biggest positive surprise of 2012 thus far?
• Which man is most likely to end the Big Three's dominance?
• Will Maria Sharapova bea dominant World No. 1?

Find out which question half of our panel didn't even hazard a guess at...

Bloggers Bar Volume II: 2012 Tennis Predictions

A few rounds deep, we're back at the Bloggers' Bar.  This is the second in a series of posts where some of my favorite tennis writers/bloggers and I will talk through some of the important tennis topics of the day.

At the (virtual) bar today are:

• Erik G - Adjusting The Net
• V Blacklabel - Blacklabel Tennis
• Chris Oddo - The Fan Child
• Dan Martin - Tennis Abides

In Volume I we focused primarily on the top players and our outlooks for them going into 2012.  In this installment, we're looking at the tour and making our biggest, boldest predictions for 2012.

Once again, this isn't a private conversation, feel free to get involved in the comments, we would love to hear what you have to say; unless, we wouldn't, in which case, we'll politely ignore you.

Bloggers' Bar Volume I: 2012 Tennis Predictions

Even though the pro tours flit from Melbourne to London and virtually every spot in between over the course of a year; the tennis world remains a relatively small community.  When I started (officially) working on Blacklabel Tennis last summer, I also started reading a lot more tennis writing and interacting with some of the talented people behind it.  We might be spread out across the world, but when Sharapova's yips rear their unpretty head deep in the third set or Nadal hits a shot that seems a repudiation of the laws of physics, these are people with whom I'm virtually sharing that WTF moment.  While we tweet and e-mail, we never get the opportunity to really spend much time shooting the shit about tennis.

Thus, the Bloggers' Bar.

This is the first in a series of posts where some of my favorite tennis writers/bloggers and I will share our thoughts, ideas and delusions on what we deem to be the important tennis topics of the day.