I normally wouldn’t say too much about this kind of topic, but since it is rather interesting, I figure I will write a little bit about it. Andre Agassi is coming out with a memoir detailing his life during the height of his career. He was one of the media favorites at the time he was doing his best, but they didn’t know much of what was going on behind the scenes. He was doing meth for some of that time, was reviewed by a tennis association board, who believed him when he said that he wasn’t into any of that kind of thing. In some ways, it’s brave for him to come out with this now. At the same time, we keep having celebrities who come out and admit that they made a mistake quite a bit too late for them to actually fix what went wrong. Anyway, unless there are more shoes to drop, this will be my only entry about this issue.

Djokovic and Andy Murray are two of the main up-and-coming players in tennis. And they are quickly becoming rivals of a sort. We’ve seen them face of multiple times this last year in the later stages of tournaments and have gotten a good idea of how they play against each other. That’s one of the ways that you can see that a rivalry is developing. They are starting to be able to anticipate many of each other’s moves and this makes for some very exciting matches. They will no doubt be playing against each other in the next few years, probably in the final rounds a in the next little while. Djokovic acknowledged as much in some interviews recently, where he told about what they are going to be seeing from each other in the next few years and how talented he says Murray is.

Martina Hingis will not be returning. While we enjoyed watching the fruits of her hard work and seeing how she could take apart any other player on the tour. But she was banned for two years following testing positive for an illegal substance. There were some questions as to whether she actually tested positive or if there were some other controversies going on. Either way, Hingis has decided that she likes her life now, with it’s comfortable house and the horses. If, in fact, she believes that she didn’t deserve the treatment she got from the Tennis association, then she’s probably not excited to return and give them the benefit of her popularity. So she will stay at her nice horse house and women tennis players can breathe a sigh of relief.

When you look for Novak Djokovic, you might find him anywhere. Maybe he’ll be complaining to the media or doing an impression of his fellow players. Another time, he’ll be discussing deep issues or complicated tactics. It’s a bit of a strange fellow. His play is similarly odd; he can sometimes be playing like a Sampras, Nadal or Federer. Sometimes, he’s just not really present in the stadium, it would seem. There are a lot of interesting things going on with him at any given time. But his main goal is to start taking some more Grand Slams over the next year or so. He hasn’t been able to live up to his potential on that, but soon it looks like he will be able to make it.

Andre Agassi knows what it’s like to see the end of an era in tennis. He remembers what it was like when both he and Pete Sampras went downhill at about the same time. He has now come out to tell us that he thinks the Nadal-Federer era is drawing to a close. Federer is a bit older and he’s also had some back troubles. It starts, says Agassi, when players start to lose in big tournaments against younger players. Nadal, meanwhile, has been struggling with knee problems, and that appears to be chronic. Will he be able to continue, sure. But he might not be nearly as good as he has been for the last little while. Agassi taps Andy Murray as the probably next superstar, with a couple of upstart young guys coming in as well. It seems like Agassi would know what the signs are of the changing of the guard.

The World Tennis Association has come under more criticism from stars including Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick due to its bad schedule. The schedule makes it easily possible for a person to begin playing on Jan 1 and finish the season on December 5, without a real break in the middle anywhere either. This is different from other sports, they say, because they don’t have a proper offseason to train, rest and heal up any injuries they’ve developed. According to Roddick, this is why there are so many top players skipping the China Open right now in Beijing. Some of them are too exhausted, others have minor injuries that could be healed by a normal 2-3 month offseason time. Instead, the schedule might just end up dragging their players through the season, slowing them down over time.

Bet you didn’t know that the China Open was a real thing. Or if you did, you hadn’t heard much about it. For whatever reason, if you in the US, you tend to miss a lot of tennis action that takes place overseas, unless it’s a Grand Slam tournament. Obviously, they can’t put all those kinds of things on NBC, because that would be a lot of time, and there is an immense amount of tennis being played throughout the year. But they could at least report it somewhere. The important news at the China open is that Rafael Nadal beat out American player James Blake, who was a tough opponent. Nadal was, obviously, expected to win, but this is going to be even bigger because Blake made him work for it. Nadal will probably be on his way to winning the entire thing, since he’ll soon be playing Croatian Ivan Ljubicic. This will be an interesting final though, because the Croatian tossed out Andy Roddick earlier in the tournament.

Nikolay Davydenko won the Malaysia Open against Spanish player Fernando Verdasco this weekend. We haven’t heard much out of Davydenko in several months because it’s been a long time since he actually won anything big. He said that he was lucky to have won the tournament this time around, getting some lucky points and working hard to get himself to the top of the leaderboard. But his work was tough and he’s going to get himself back into the Grand Slam if he can swing it. It was looking good for him earlier this season, but then some other players stepped up and Nadal and Federer came back from their injuries. This has been a good year and hopefully he’ll be able to get back towards the top of the rankings sooner.

Everyone knows that I write frequently about Dinara Safina to discuss how she’s doing at the moment. She has been number one for much of a year now, but she’s not getting the Grand Slam titles that she was expected to. She’s talented and smart, but she’s been working on her game this year. She’s won several smaller tournaments, but she hasn’t been at the top of the leaderboard for grand slam titles this year. She choked in some ways and couldn’t prove herself a winner yet. Will she lose her number 1 ranking at this point, or will she drop down again? There are lots of possibilities and heading into the quiet part of the season, we’ll have plenty of time to think it over.