serena crutches

In the latest example of the absurdity of tennis rankings, Serena Williams, who hasn't played a tournament since winning Wimbledon last July, moved back into the top 10 of the WTA rankings this week.

Serena jumped two spots from No. 12 to No. 10 in the rankings released Monday even though she's been sidelined for the past eight months with various injuries. She lept past Marion Bartoli, Shahar Peer and her sister, Venus, to get back into the top 10. (Maria Sharapova passed them all to move from No. 13 to No. 9.)

The 14-time Grand Slam champion was ranked No. 1 when she suffered a foot injury before an exhibition match in Belgium last summer.

How did Serena manage to move up in the rankings without playing? The WTA rankings are generally based off the previous 365 days. When a tournament is played, its points count toward the rankings and replace those earned in the same event the previous year. For example, Bartoli got 450 rankings points for her semifinal appearance in Key Biscayne

djokovic wins seo 11

Two things were established Sunday afternoon in Miami.

First, the greatest rivalry in tennis no longer involves Roger Federer.

More important, the greatest tennis player on earth is no longer Rafael Nadal.

The world No. 1 was dethroned by Novak Djokovic in a thrilling, three-set final at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. The 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory was the 26th straight for Djokovic and his second championship victory over Nadal in as many weeks.

Whether it's "the mother of all hot streaks," as Jon Wertheim described, or a true changing of the guard will be determined in the coming months. For now, there's no doubt that Djokovic is playing the best tennis in the world. He's 24-0 to start the year, one win away from tying Ivan Lendl for the longest such streak since 1984.

Djokovic and Nadal played a captivating, but uneven, first two sets. To say things picked up in the third would be a woeful understatement.

The pair traded long rallies and scintillating winners in a brilliant

sharapova sitting seo11

Patrick Mouratoglou is a world-renowned tennis coach who has worked with Marcos Baghdatis and Aravane Rezai. His French tennis academy is considered one of the top in the world. He is a frequent contributor to Busted Racquet.

Though Maria Sharapova's quest to win the Sony Ericsson Open ended in Saturday's final to Victoria Azarenka, I was struck at how much progress the Russian star has come in the past year and how far she still has to go.

Sharapova was electrifying on her way to the final, showing glimpses of greatness in between bouts of weakness. She's still young, but after going through a lot of injuries, including a right shoulder surgery, I still don't know if tennis is her top priority.

It may sound strange to talk about weakness in a player reaching a final in a top event like Miami, but I insist that Maria Sharapova is far from having found her A game. She built her strength around several main weapons: a big serve, being efficient in the first shot after it and putting a lot of intensity in returning. (That kept her opponent under constant pressure in return games.) The problem is that serve though, especially the second ones. She needs to be reminded constantly by her coach to be more aggressive with it.

The second serve is amazingly unreliable and results in many double-faults and a curious number of breaks. It leads to her playing a less aggressive game with less power and explosivity in her moves. Now she's making as many enforced errors as before but far fewer winners.

Most important, she became a beatable player once you know the strategy to set up against her. She remains dangerous when you give her angles. She likes to be moved around the court because she can use it to fire some great shots down the lines. In a womens' tennis game where numerous girls are playing from right to left in reasonable speed, the Russian can take advantage. But if an opponent does the opposite and plays deep balls in the middle of the court, Sharapova doesn't know how to strike back. She forces mistakes, which leads to counterpunching by an opponent.

Maybe I'm harsh. She is still winning matches, of course. How? First, as I've said, her efficiency is tied to the fact that most of the other players' games suit her. Then, she remains one of the best for returning serves, so she's putting a lot of pressure on her opponents that way. Finally, she's a huge competitor, a player who gets tough when the key points come, a player who never chokes when it's time to end a match and someone who is going to take her chance no matter what, from the first point to the last. She's still fighting like her life is at stake. Because of that, she's back in the top 10.

murray april foolsAndy Murray accomplished one of the rarest feats on the Internet on Friday: He made people believe his April Fools' Day joke.

The British No. 1 split with Alex Corretja earlier this week and rumors had been flying that he was going to bring in a new coach. Rumor said it would be Ivan Lendl or Tim Henman or Tony Roche or Jimmy Connors or a close friend. If you were once associated with tennis and currently had no coaching gig, chances are your name has been mentioned in the Murray search.

So when the 23-year-old revealed early Friday that he'd be announcing his new coach at 2 p.m. Miami time, the tennis world waited with bated breath. Well, some did. Others, like myself, who've spent the whole day avoiding made-up news stories about Andre Agassi returning to tennis and Christopher Nolan leaving "The Dark Knight Rises" were more skeptical (but not completely dismissive).

That's the problem with April Fool's Day on the Internet. If there's a story that's within the realm of possibility,

federer nadal 2005 french posing

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will take to the court Friday night for the 23rd time in their illustrious career. Busted Racquet took a look through the archives and picked out some of the best photographs of the tennis greats together.

(Above: At a French Open photo shoot in 2005.)

With Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, exhibition match, 2010:

federer nadal agassi sampras smiles

fed nadal headshots

Though they've played 22 times in their career, seven times in the final of a Grand Slam, there's the sense that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal keep missing each other in tournaments. At the past two U.S. Opens, for instance, the two men were on a collision course for the finals, but tripped up both times. In 2009, Nadal couldn't get past Juan Martin Del Potro and last year Federer failed to close out Novak Djokovic.

Non-majors aren't exempt either. This year, Nadal faltered in a semifinal in Doha with Federer waiting and then Fed did the same two weeks ago at Indian Wells. The matchup everybody wanted to see wasn't meant to be.

It certainly felt that way Thursday night in Key Biscayne. Federer was already in the semifinal, courtesy an early retirement from the pesky Gilles Simon. All Nadal needed to do was get past Tomas Berdych (no easy task) and Miami would have its dream semifinal. For the first 45 minutes, that looked all but assured.

Nadal cruised to a first-set victory but

petko danceMaria Sharapova beat Andrea Petkovic Thursday in the semifinals of Key Biscayne and couldn't resist taking a few shots at the German's famed, post-match Petko Dance afterwards.

Q.  [Petkovic] thought you would be tired in the third after the long match you had the previous night.  Didn't seem to be that way.

MARIA SHARAPOVA:  Because I didn't do the dance after.  I wasn't tired.

Boom, roasted. Sharapova didn't stop there, though (emphasis mine):

Q.  She said that one of the things that makes you such a good champion is that you sense right away a weakness in the other player and basically you jump on that.  She said that she felt that you sensed she was hesitating, whatever.  Can you talk about that?

MARIA SHARAPOVA:  Well, to be honest, I felt like I was just making a lot errors in the first set and I wasn't moving my feet at all.  And especially with the wind I wasn't moving towards the ball and letting the ball come to me and not really being aggressive.  That's what's won me so

David Ferrer was preparing to serve in his Sony Ericsson Open quarterfinal match against American Mardy Fish when the sound of a bawling child filled the stadium court. The sixth-ranked Spaniard briefly paused, but decided to play through the noise.

Ferrer lost the point. Then he lost his composure. Looking in the general direction of the crying baby, Ferrer lobbed a ball into the crowd in frustration. He went on to lose the next point and four straight games, capping a complete second-set meltdown.

Watch the clip below. (The video doesn't show the baby crying during the point, just Ferrer's reaction.):

Given how bad Ferrer's groundstrokes were in the second set, it's no surprise that the ball didn't come close to hitting the baby. (Rimshot!)

Ferrer's actions were reckless and immature. It was a bully move borne out of frustration. He hit a ball in anger toward the crowd, which is never acceptable, particularly when it's at a defenseless child. He's lucky he didn't get a warning or a