Fedberg gets ready for Mendl

StephMyles

MELBOURNE – It’s been going on for over a week now, but the sight of Stefan Edberg hitting with Roger Federer still gives goosebumps every time.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. Or a serve-and-volley thing. Or maybe even a Swedish thing. But Lendl, Becker, Chang, Ivanisevic, none of them have nearly the same effect, as cool as it is.

The two headed to closed-up Hisense Arena, with the Rafael Nadal – Grigor Dimitrov match going long on Rod Laver Arena, to warmup for the big quarterfinal encounter against Andy Murray.

Do you love it? Here are some pics. You won’t find these anywhere else on the tennis planet.

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Young Grigor Dimitrov (pics)

StephMyles

For readers who haven’t yet seen any of these, we took some pics of a very young Grigor Dimitrov with a very young Vasek Pospisil at the 2007 U.S. Open, where they reached the doubles final together.

Pospisil had just turned 17; Dimitrov had turned 16 in May. But he was the hotter prospect; to go with the ITF rules about doubles teams being essentially matchy-matchy, he had to lend Pospisil some of his adidas shirts.

Here are some pics of that final. All together how: Awwwwwwwww.

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Genie’s rising ranking (and bank account)

StephMyles

MELBOURNE – Not only is Genie Bouchard making a major splash at this year’s Australian Open, she’s also vaulting up the rankings.

That’s what you can do in a Grand Slam, with all the ranking points at stake – if you can do what she’s done.

Think about it: a year ago at this time Bouchard was ranked No. 145, played the qualifying here, and lost in two tiebreaks in the second round of qualies to former junior rival Daria Gavrilova, who is a month younger than she is.

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