Saturday Topspin: Tiebreak Monster

“Tennis:” I’m glad that yesterday’s match between Ivo Karlovic and John Isner wasn’t televised.  It made me angry just checking the score occasionally.  The best part about a quarterfinal between these two one-dimensional players?  One of them had to lose.

Ok, that’s a little harsh.  Based on the stats the ATP dribbles out to us, Isner served more cleanly, allowing only one break point.  Karlovic allowed 11–amazingly, the players traded breaks of serve in the second set–and didn’t serve as consistently as Isner did.

In a match like this, however, the numbers don’t matter for much.  It all came down to a third-set tiebreak, and there, Karlovic was a tiny bit better.  Final score: 7-6(2) 6-7(2) 7-6(9).  Good riddance.

It wasn’t all bad for Isner–he came back with Sam Querrey to win a doubles semifinal against Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer.  Isner and Querrey will face the Bryan brothers in the final.

Backing it up: On a day when Karlovic, Isner, Ryan Sweeting, and Mardy Fish all played, it’s surprising to say that the dominant serving performance of the quarterfinals belonged to … Kei Nishikori.  He won a higher percentage of service points than any one else in the round, and he won an astounding 22 of 23 points when his first offering went in.

Nishikori simply dismantled Fish in the only straight-set victory of the day.  Even if he loses today, he’ll jump to a new career high ranking of #53; if he wins the semifinal match, he’ll crack the top 50 for the first time.

Matchups: Nishikori will play Pablo Cuevas, the only other seeded player left in the draw.  Cuevas dropped his first set yesterday to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez but came charging back despite missing more than half of his first serves.  The oddsmakers have Cuevas as the very slight favorite there; my rankings give Nishikori a substantial edge.

The other semi pits Karlovic against Sweeting.  If nothing else, the pairing guarantees a rarity of some kind in Sunday’s final.  Either a qualifier (Ivo) or a wild card (Sweeting) will play for the championship.  Here, sportsbooks are much more confident, suggesting that Karlovic has about a 65% chance of winning.    My system is a little more favorable to the American, but still puts Ivo’s chances around 60%.

Elsewhere: Despite some early upsets, three of the four semifinalists in Casablanca are seeds; top seed Albert Montanes is starting his match against Pablo Andujar as I write.  It may be time to follow Andujar more closely–he beat Fernando Verdasco in Miami for his first major hard-court accomplishment, and he’ll ascend to a career high around #65 even if he loses today.

The other spot in the finals will be determined between Potito Starace and Victor Hanescu–it’s a particularly important match for the Romanian as he defends his finalist points from last year.

Yesterday I wrote about the cheap points available at the Recife challenger.  Tiago Fernandes won the quarterfinal between wild cards, and today he’ll face his first opponent of the tournament inside the top #500.  Julio Silva, the man he’ll play today, is no world-beater, but the odds strongly suggest that he’s a Fernandes-beater.  (There are some betting lines on the match, and surprisingly, Silva is given only a 70% chance of winning.)

Still, Fernandes will get 29 ranking points for his efforts, more than is given to the winner of most futures events.  And it’s arguable that he has even played a futures-level draw.

Monte Carlo: Qualifying in Monaco is underway, and the draw is out.  Novak Djokovic withdrew, but that still leaves eight of the top ten ranked players in the world–only Djokovic and Robin Soderling aren’t playing.

I’ll cover that in more depth tomorrow.  For now, it’s worth mentioning that Roger Federer’s possible second-round opponent is Philipp Kohlschreiber, a man who might be playing well enough these days to make for an early upset.

In the meantime, I’m shaping up my clay-court rankings.  Once the qualifers are placed, I’ll post my tournament odds.  In other words, you can look forward to a Monte Carlo simulation of the Monte Carlo Masters.

See you tomorrow!

One thought on “Saturday Topspin: Tiebreak Monster”

  1. I picked Andujar as my dark horse so am relieved to see him doing well!

    Agreed about Philipp Kohlschreiber. A Masters series win should happen for him at some point, it’s just hard to predict when and where..

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