Category: Daily recaps

Wednesday Topspin: The Underdog Three-Seed

Back on the board: It’s a strange situation when you don’t really expect a top-five player to win his opening match.  Yet Andy Murray had plenty of doubters before he finally won his first match since the Australian Open.  As it turned out, he made easy work of Radek Stepanek, advancing to the round of 16 in straight sets.

Murray’s seeded, straight-set win was indicative of the entire round.  Only two seeds lost in the 16 second-round matches, and only a couple other matches could be considered upsets.  What’s more, only three matches in the round went to a third set.

The one major upset went to a man having nearly as rough a season as Murray: Fernando Verdasco.  He lost in straight sets to Tommy Robredo, landing only 53% of his first serves.  I suppose that isn’t quite as painful as losing to Pablo Andujar on a hard court, but it does nasty work to his ranking.  Verdasco reached the final last year, so he’ll fall at least four spots to #12.

A lesser surprise, but still notable, was Milos Raonic’s win over Ernests Gulbis.  Both players suffered some mental hiccups–Raonic couldn’t close out the match with 40-0 on his own racquet–but as usual, Gulbis’s mind lost the match for him.  A bad call in the middle of the first set kept him chattering at the umpire for the next several changeovers, and that was more than enough to give Raonic the first set.  The Latvian didn’t return to form until midway through the second, and Raonic was too strong to let it slip away.

The round of 16: You have to feel bad for Richard Gasquet–he showed fantastic form in beating Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and he’s rewarded by a match with Rafael Nadal.  At Monte Carlo, that’s just an elaborate form of ritual sacrifice.  At least the sportsbooks think more highly of him than they did of Jarkko Nieminen–Gasquet gets a 3.5% chance of beating Rafa, while at one point, oddsmakers were giving Nieminen less than 1%.

Thanks to the surface, the best bet for an upset tomorrow is the match between Tommy Robredo and Viktor Troicki.  Troicki is the seed, but of course Robredo is at home on clay.  My system gives the Spainard a 54% chance of winning, while oddsmakers set it at closer to 62%.  It’s a better deal for Troicki than a matchup against Verdasco, but it will still be impressive for him to get through.

The winner of Robredo-Troicki faces the winner of Raonic-David Ferrer.  Ferrer was the man who finally stopped Raonic in Australia, and on clay, he should have an easier time of it.  His 6-2 6-0 drubbing of Feliciano Lopez today certainly suggests that he’s in form.  Then again, the Canadian has exceeded expectations in both round so far, and he has the benefit of zero expectations.

There’s plenty more to look forward to.  Both my system and the sportsbooks forecast a tight contest between Nicholas Almagro and Jurgen Melzer; Almagro fought through a three-setter with two tiebreaks to beat Maximo Gonzalez today.  In the other half of the draw, Murray will face a tough match against Gilles Simon, who has cruised through his first two rounds.  And Roger Federer will try to fend off Marin Cilic.

Challengers: Just a couple of quick updates today. Cedrik-Marcel Stebe continues to impress, taking out Evgeny Donskoy for a quarterfinal berth in Rome.  He’ll face yet another youngster, the tall lefty Thomas Schoorel, who has beaten two qualifiers to get this far.

In Tallahassee, James Blake needed three sets to get past Frank Dancevic.  He’ll play Amer Delic later today for a spot in the quarters.  The first man into the quarters was Donald Young, who can look forward to a probably matchup with top seed Rainer Schuettler.

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday Topspin: Federer Cruising

Kohl down: A couple of days ago, I suggested that Roger Federer might have his hands full with a second-round matchup against Philipp Kohlschreiber.  While Kohlschreiber looked great in Indian Wells, knocking out Robin Soderling and nearly upsetting Juan Martin del Potro, he didn’t do much to justify my optimism this week.  He just barely made it past Andrey Golubev, and earlier today, lost to Federer, winning only three games and 36% of total points.

Federer has gotten a head start on the pack, becoming the first man into the round of 16, and one of only two of the top eight seeds in action today.  (The other is Tomas Berdych, who will take on Olivier Rochus later.)  Federer’s section of the draw is distinctly unchallenging; his likely next opponent is Marin Cilic, and after that, he’s seeded to play Jurgen Melzer (or, very possibly Nicholas Almagro).  If he reaches the semifinal, we could be treated to an interesting contrast of clay-court styles, as his probable opponent is either David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco.

Sets up: There haven’t been a lot of upsets so far in the first round, but a slew of matches have gotten interesting.  Among yesterday’s 13 first-rounders, 7 went to a deciding set.  Already today, three more have done so, including the clash between Feliciano Lopez and Janko Tipsarevic, which Lopez won in a third-set tiebreak.  Ivan Ljubicic has just taken the first set from Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga, which means we’ll either see an upset or yet another three-setter.

A fascinating match still on tap for today is a second-rounder between Ernests Gulbis and Milos Raonic.  As I mentioned yesterday, Gulbis had an excellent clay season last year, even if his dreadful recent results tend to camouflage them.  Raonic, of course, has virtually no history on the surface, yet it didn’t stop him from advancing past Michael Llodra.  Oddsmakers give Gulbis a 67% chance of winning, which is almost exactly what my system says, as well.

Five challengers: Thanks to the small Monte Carlo draw, plenty of top-100 players are contesting challengers this week.  There are five of them, meaning that the talent is spread fairly thin.  As I noted over the weekend, the top tourney is in Rome, where a handful of youngsters are in the field.  That event has already seen a major upset, as Serbian qualifier Boris Pashanski knocked out #2 seed Bjorn Phau.  Top seed Andreas Haider-Maurer also has his hands full with an opening matchup against Uladzimir Ignatik.

In Athens, the field is not as strong, but two good players anchor the draw.  Benjamin Becker is the top seed, while Dmitri Tursunov is #2.  In Brazil, the tournament in Blumenau keeps the South American clay circuit going.  Tiago Fernandes, the surprise finalist last week, is in the draw, as are the winners from two weeks ago in Barletta and Barranquilla, Aljaz Bedene and Facundo Bagnis.  There’s also plenty of experience there, as the field includes Martin Vassallo Arguello, Jose Acasuso, and Nicholas Massu.

Plenty of notable Americans are playing at the Tallahassee event, including wild card James Blake and fourth-seed Ryan Sweeting.  Also of interest is a first-round match between wild cards Denis Kudla and Michael Shabaz, as well as the presence of Wayne Odesnik, who qualified.  Finally, Dustin Brown highlights the field in Johannesburg, the weakest of the five events at this level.  Clearly, there will be plenty of tennis to follow this week.

See you tomorrow!

Monday Topspin: First-timers

New titlists: We have two first-time champions on the ATP tour: Pablo Andujar and Ryan Sweeting.  Andujar got better as the week went on in Casablanca, going three sets in the first round against Florent Serra, to a tiebreak against Jeremy Chardy in the second, and finally disposing of Potito Starace 6-1 6-2 in yesterday’s final.  He is definitely a man to watch over the next two months; he’ll next play in Barcelona.

Sweeting was the upset winner over Kei Nishikori in Houston, surprising just about everybody by playing so well on clay.  It was a very close match: the American won 51% of total points, and a lower percentage of service points than his opponent did.  Nishikori may be the more heralded prospect, but Sweeting is working his way up the scale.

New rankings: Champions Andujar and Sweeting are two of the biggest gainers in this week’s rankings, as both ascend to new career highs.  Andujar rises to #52, Sweeting to #67.  Also notable is Nishikori’s jump to #48, also a personal best for him.

The biggest losers are last year’s titlists in Casabalanca and Houston: Stanislas Wawrinka and Juan Ignacio Chela, neither of whom played this week.  Wawrinka drops two spots to #15, while Chela crashes 14 places to #42.

Challenger winners last week were Julian Reister, who breaks into the top 100 for the first time, Tatsuma Ito, who defeated the weak field in Recife, and Paolo Lorenzi, winner in Pereira.  Also of note is Tiago Fernandes, a wild card who reached the final in Recife before he withdrew.  His three-set battle with Julio Silva in the semifinals helped him jump 129 ranking points to #380.

Monte Carlo: If you missed them yesterday, be sure to check out the results of my Monte Carlo simulation.  My clay rankings are in many ways more interesting than the hard court rankings, since they differ so much more from the standard ATP list.

A couple interesting examples of the difference have already been on display.  Yesterday, oddsmakers heavily favored Alexandr Dolgopolov over Ernests Gulbis, only to see the higher-ranked Dolgo lose in straight sets.  By contrast, my system recognizes his three straight quarterfinal appearances in last year’s clay season, including a win over Roger Federer.  Accordingly, it saw the Gulbis win coming, giving the Latvian a 67% chance of advancing.

Here’s another one: Olivier Rochus just snuck by Chela in three sets.  Sportsbooks gave Chela a roughly 65% chance of winning, while my predictions set him at a more modest 54%.  Rochus has had plenty of success on clay, especially at the challenger level, while my system sees Chela as somewhat overrated on the surface.

Of course, we could cherry-pick all day, and we’d be sure to find plenty of examples where my system went wrong.  All I want to highlight is that predicting clay court results is tricky, and it’s easy to give too much weight to recent results (Dolgopolov) or clay reputation (Chela).

In addition to the two matches I’ve already mentioned, today has already seen a notable upset: Florian Mayer over Mikhail Youzhny.  It’s another strong step forward for Mayer, and a couple more wins on clay will get him in position for a seed at Roland Garros.  It’s an equally strong sign for Youzhny, who has seen his results yo-yo over the last few years.  His only strong showing so far in 2011 was a victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga back in February.

See you tomorrow!

Sunday Topspin: Missing the Cut

Milos on clay: The Monte Carlo draw isn’t entirely set, with a few qualifying matches left to play, but the first round is already underway.  Hometown hero Ivan Ljubicic kicked things off with a 6-1 6-2 trouncing of Jeremy Chardy, and Milos Raonic has just won his first ATP-level match on clay against Michael Llodra.

And a weird, weird match it was.  Unfortunately the ATP website doesn’t appear to have posted stats for the match; we’ll have to stick with “weird” based only on the final score of 6-3 0-6 6-0.  Raonic displayed some inconsistency at Indian Wells, and it’s easy to imagine Llodra posting a result like this.

Still, it’s a good start for the Canadian.  With no points to defend, even a modest level of success in the clay season will keep him heading up the rankings.  Next, he’ll face either Alexandr Dolgopolov or Ernests Gulbis.

ATP finals: Today, Potito Starace plays Pablo Andujar for the championship in Casablanca.  After that match, Starace is slated to head to Monte Carlo for an opening round match against a qualifier.  What makes this noteworthy is that, among the four finalists this week, Starace is the only one who even made the cut for the main draw in Monte Carlo.  Andujar intended to play qualifying before his success this week prevented it.

Starace just barely got past Victor Hanescu to reach the final, needing a third-set tiebreak to do so.  Andujar’s semi, against top seed Albert Montanes, was just as topsy-turvy, despite the more pedestrian score of 6-4 6-4.  The match included 29 break points, including 16 chances for Montanes.  Alas, Montanes only seized three chances while Andujar took advantage of 5 of 13, and that was the difference.

Oddsmakers give Starace the edge here, with about a 57% chance of winning.  Based solely on rankings and results, the Italian is better than that.  But Andujar’s recent results suggest he could be primed for the upset.

In Houston, the final will be decided between Kei Nishikori and Ryan Sweeting.  Both won yesterday in straight sets, Sweeting out-serving Ivo Karlovic to accomplish the feat.  Nishikori got past Pablo Cuevas despite missing more than half of his first serves.  Cuevas was more successful with his first offerings, but he won only half of his service points, a rate that isn’t going to win you any matches, no matter what the surface.

Normally, the appearance of a wild card in the final of an ATP-level event would be attention-grabbing.  Given the results of U.S. tournaments so far this year, it’s getting to be a habit.  Raonic reached the final in Memphis on a wild card, and Juan Martin del Potro, also on a WC, came one match short of the same mark.

As great a story as it would be if Sweeting won his first ATP title, the odds are against it.  Sportsbooks suggest that Nishikori has a 69% chance of winning today, and my clay rankings say 73%.  Nishikori has had the superior tournament, as well, knocking out the top seed Mardy Fish as well as two guys, Cuevas and Igor Andreev, who can be formidable on clay.

When in Rome: One more note for today.  The main draw for next week’s Rome challenger is set, and it’s one of the strongest challenger-level fields of the year, including many of the young players who have excelled so far this season.

Cedrik-Marcel Stebe came through qualifying (the last time he’ll have to do so at this level, I hope), and will face what, sadly, is a cupcake draw: yet another wild card appearance for Thomas Muster.  Stebe’s nemesis from the Asian swing, Uladzimir Ignatik, got the opposite treatment, as he’ll begin his tournament against top seed Andreas Haider-Maurer.  Also in the draw are youngsters-to-watch Evgeny Donskoy, Thomas Schoorel, and Martin Klizan.

As soon as the qualifiers are placed in the Monte Carlo draw, I’ll post some tournament odds.  That’ will probably be later today, so be sure to check back in.

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!

Friday Topspin: Cheap Points

Easy going: I mentioned earlier in the week that the Recife challenger has a particularly weak field, with a cut over 400 and a top seed ranked #147.  As you might expect, most of the seeds are progressing easily–four of the top five are in the quarters.

It’s a mess at the top of the draw, though.  No one has benefited more than Brazilian wild card Tiago Fernandes.  Fernandes, ranked #509, drew German qualifier Lars Uebel.  Uebel is unranked, though he did beat two ranked players to get through qualifying.  But Uebel withdrew, leaving Fernandes to face lucky loser Tiago Lopes, ranked #534.

In the second round, Fernandes faced fellow local wild card Bruno Sant’Anna, another man without a ranking point to his name.  Now, in the quarters, he’ll face Guilherme Clezar, yet another Brailizian WC, ranked #724 in the world.  Clezar faced Marco Chiudinelli in the first round, winning a set before the Swiss retired.  Whichever of the wild cards wins today will receive the same number of points as the semifinalists in Monza, where just about everyone in the draw is superior to anyone left in Recife.

Colombia: Also in South America, the Pereira challenger is generating some interesting results.  I mentioned yesterday the success of local wild card Eduardo Struvay.  Another major upset in the second round came when young Argentine Facundo Bagnis knocked out Colombian top seed Alejandro Falla.  Bagnis won a challenger event last week and will ascend to at least #178 with this week’s result.

Today, Bagnis faces 5th-seeded Italian Paolo Lorenzi.  The oddsmakers have noticed the Argentine’s hot streak and give him about a 60% chance of advancing to the semis.

ATP: Finishing off the second round in Houston yesterday, all four matches went to the seeded player.  Pablo Cuevas didn’t mess around in getting past James Blake–he won 84% of service points, allowing the American only two break chances.

Cuevas’s opponent today is Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, winner of the latest ugly match in Houston.  GGL landed only 38% of his first serves, yet somehow allowed Somdev Devvarman only two break chances.  Devvarman converted both, but it wasn’t enough, as Garcia-Lopez broke five times, eventually winning 6-4 6-1.

The other winners yesterday were Kei Nishikori and Mardy Fish, both of whom advanced in straight sets, and will face each other today.  Given some of the serving performances in Houston, you have to wonder if there’s a strobe light just off center court.  In losing to Fish, Albert Ramos made only 44% of first serves; at least Nishikori and his opponent, Igor Andreev, were both comfortably above 60%.

That’s all I’ve got for today.  Monte Carlo (more important: televised matches from Monte Carlo) can’t arrive soon enough!

Thursday Topspin: 13 Feet, 5 Inches

Tall dudes: In a week where the best players are resting, at least the tallest players are in action.  In the round of 16 in Houston yesterday, both Ivo Karlovic and John Isner advanced, over Igor Kunitsyn and Horacio Zeballos, respectively.  You may be surprised, as I was, that neither match required a tiebreak.

Tomorrow, Karlovic and Isner will play each other, for 13 feet, 5 inches of service-domination ridiculousness.  Yesterday, Karlovic won a modest (for him) 71% of points on serve, though he lost only five times when his first offering went in.  Isner was more decisive, winning more than 80% of points on serve.  I really thought Zeballos would do better.

The two big men have played each other twice before, and their record is tied.  Isner won in Memphis last year, and Ivo was victorious back in 2008 in New Haven.  Both matches, of course, included a tiebreak.

Shorter dudes: The other two singles matches in Houston were upsets.  Ryan Sweeting once again beat his friend Sam Querrey, and Teymuraz Gabashvili defeated Grigor Dimitrov.  The latter match must have been a mess–17 double faults, and barely half of total points were won by the server.  Sure, it’s clay, but that’s just sloppy tennis.

Sloppy isn’t even the word for what happened to Querrey.  He had twenty-four break points, and converted only six of them.  I don’t know whether to give credit to Sweeting or criticize Querrey, but clearly somebody was reacting to the pressure.  To put that in perspective, Sweeting won almost exactly half of his service points when it wasn’t a break chance, but 75% when Querrey held a break point.

Sweeting and Gabashvili both have a big opportunity tomorrow, as they’ll face each other.  It would be Sweeting’s first ATP-level semifinal.

Casablanca: I continue to be unenthralled with this field, so I’ll focus on a young underdog, 20-year-old Andrey Kuznetsov.  Tomorrow he’ll face Victor Hanescu, the only seeded player to win a match yesterday.  His good week so far–three wins in qualifying and two so far in the main draw–will gain him at least 21 places in next week’s rankings, and a win over Hanescu would get him 16 more, putting him on the brink of cracking the top 200.

My other favorite 20-year-old Russian: The strongest Challenger field this week is in Monza; stacked with second-tier clay court specialists, the level of play probably isn’t much behind that of either of this week’s ATP events.

Both of the top two seeds in Monza have been eliminated, leaving two title contenders in their place at the top and bottom of the draw.  The man who took out top seed Jan Hajek is local boy Alessio di Mauro, a 33-year-old who reached the final in Casablanca’s challenger event a couple of months ago.  At the bottom of the draw is Evgeny Donskoy, the man who beat di Mauro in that final.

Another one to watch: The Colombians continue to fare well in their home event at Pereira.  Into the quarterfinals already are two locals, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Eduardo Struvay, while top seed Alejandro Falla plays his 2nd-round match today.

462nd-ranked Struvay, yet another 20-year-old, entered the event on a wild card.  He hasn’t advanced cheaply, beating two veterans: Martin Vassallo Arguello in the first round and Eric Prodon in the second.  Vassallo Arguello posted solid results after qualifying  last week, and Prodon is a clay specialist near his career high ranking.

Today: Mardy Fish will finally get underway in Houston, taking on the Spaniard Albert Ramos.  But first, James Blake will play Pablo Cuevas.  If Blake can beat Carlos Berlocq, he has a good shot against Cuevas, right?  Oddsmakers don’t think so, setting Blake’s chances at about 28%.

See you tomorrow!

Wednesday Topspin: Looking Up

Backtrack: If you haven’t read it yet, you should check out the piece I wrote yesterday afternoon about net-rushing, and the way we’ll someday be able to analyze the strategy.  There’s some great stuff in the comments, as well.

Feeling small: It was a rough day in Houston yesterday for Benjamin Becker.  The #5 seed lost his singles match to Ivo Karlovic, winning only eight return points.  Becker is the only seed to fall in the first round, and Ivo was the only qualifier to reach the round of 16.

It didn’t get any easier for Becker in the doubles.  Teaming with Igor Kunitsyn, he lost to John Isner and Sam Querrey in straight sets.  At least in that match he got a few break points.

More from Houston: Of the nine first-round singles matches yesterday, only one went to three sets.  That was the tilt between Carlos Berlocq and James Blake.  Berlocq won a first-set tiebreak before Blake came charging back, eventually winning 6-7 6-3 6-4.  The numbers from that match are positively bizarre.  Blake made only 47% of first serves, and faced twenty break points.  Berlocq only converted two of them.

Ryan Harrison had just as bad a day as Becker did.  He lost in straights to Horacio Zeballos, then dropped his doubles match against … Zeballos.  It will be interesting to see if Harrison is able to make any kind of statement on clay this year, as he won’t have the benefit of the wild cards he has received stateside.

Today’s schedule consists of the bottom half of the draw–four singles matches including Isner’s and Querrey’s.  Querrey will face a rematch of his Delray Beach loss against Ryan Sweeting, while Isner confronts Zeballos.  Karlovic should coast into the quarterfinals thanks to a matchup with Kunitsyn.

Getting interesting: I mentioned yesterday that the field is Casablanca isn’t very compelling.  A trio of upsets already today have lowered the quality, but perhaps they have made the event more interesting.

In three singles matches so far today, the 2nd, 4th, and 6th seeds have all lost.  #2 seed Marcos Baghdatis fell in three sets to 20-year-old Russian qualifier Andrey Kuznetsov, and #4 seed Andrey Golubev lost to Pere Riba after bagelling Riba in the first set.

8th seed Victor Hanescu plays Michael Berrer in a little while, and given the way things have gone so far today, he should be very concerned.

We’ll check back in with the challengers tomorrow–see you then!

Monday Topspin: Thriller

Djokovic undefeated: Novak Djokovic has yet to lose a match this season, and now holds two consecutive masters crowns.  In the process, he opened up some distance between himself and Roger Federer in the ATP rankings, and planted the seed in some people’s minds that he might be deserving of the #1 spot.  By just about any standard, he’s already the best player in the world on hard courts.

It wasn’t easy.  As in Indian Wells two weeks ago, Rafael Nadal came out in fine form, taking the first set after racing to a 5-1, double-break lead.  Djokovic narrowed the gap but was unable to make up the difference.  The Serbian won a hard-fought second set, then the two players settled in to trade service holds up to a tiebreak.  Djokovic got a couple of mini-breaks, including one on a Nadal double fault, and won the match 4-6 6-3 7-6(4).

What amazes me is how anybody beats either of these guys, particularly Nadal.  I know from the stats that he made his share of unforced errors (including several double faults), but I can’t remember very many of them.  What sticks in the mind is Rafa running down everything, turning defensive positions into offensive shots, over and over again.  Both players were near the top of their game yesterday, and Djokovic was able to rack up a just a few more winners.

The one baffling thing is Nadal’s reluctance to come to net.  (I know, I’m starting to sound like a TV announcer–I promise it’s just a coincidence that I’m making this sort of comment two days in a row.)  He was often standing right on the baseline, even hitting groundstrokes from a step inside the baseline.  Yet he almost never came forward unless forced.  Even with an imperfect net game, even against the passing-shot machine that is Djokovic, I think he would’ve been more successful taking advantage of some of those offensive positions.

Now, we have two streaks to watch going into the clay-court season.  Both players will be at the Monte Carlo Masters, where Djokovic will try to build on his 26-match winning streak.  Nadal has a 24-match winning streak on clay, including every match he played last year plus two Davis Cup rubbers in 2009.  One of them will have to fall by this time two weeks from now, and I suspect it will be Djokovic’s turn to play runner-up.

Rankings: The major storyline this week is the arrival of a new American #1.  Mardy Fish jumped four spots to #11 with his semifinal showing in Miami, while Andy Roddick fell to #14 by failing to defend his title.  That’s Roddick’s lowest ranking since Wimbledon, 2002, and it’s Fish’s career high.

Robin Soderling also failed to defend his 2010 points, and handed the #4 spot back to Andy Murray.

Other gainers this week are Gilles Simon (up 4 to #23), Kevin Anderson (up 7 to #33), Janko Tipsarevic (up 6 to #38), Juan Martin del Potro (up 6 to #45), and Olivier Rochus (up 13 to #73).

Four players hit important milestones with Challenger-level wins.  Andreas Haider-Maurer broke into the top 100 for the first time with a win at Caltanissetta and a semifinal showing at Barletta.  Facundo Bagnis and Maxime Teixeira won tournaments in Barranquilla and St. Brieuc, respectively, each reaching the top 200 for the first time in their young careers.  The most remarkable result belongs to Aljaz Bedene, a Slovenian who won in Barletta on a wild card.  Bedene ascends 206 ranking spots to #282, only 16 off his career high.

Houston qualifying: By the end of the day, the last four players will be entered into the draw at the U.S. Clay Court Championships.  The final four qualifying matches each have one American, with Alex Bogomolov, Donald Young, Tim Smyczek, and Rajeev Ram still in the running.  It won’t be easy for these guys to make the main draw, however, as Young must defeat Ivo Karlovic, and Ram needs to beat Paul Capdeville.

With less tennis to watch this week, I’m hoping to break out some clay-court rankings by next Monday, as well as a couple of other mini-studies I’m working on.  Stay tuned!

Sunday Topspin: Another Showdown

Top two: At 1:00 PM today, Novak Djokovic will attempt to remain undefeated for the season, and Rafael Nadal will try to claim his first title of 2011.  Neither will prove to be an easy task.

The top two players in the world last met two weeks ago, in the final at Indian Wells, where Djokovic won after dropping the first set.  Today may be more favorable to Nadal, given the humid conditions in Miami and the confidence gained by a thorough drubbing of Roger Federer.

For all that, I have a hard time picking Nadal for the win.  Djokovic has been so dominant this week as to be boring.  A few bagels make news until they are so routine that you stop noticing.  The Serbian hasn’t been pushed beyond 6-4 in any set, and has dropped only 18 games in five matches.  Nadal has been impressive, as well, but the set he lost to Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals remind us that he’s human.

The oddsmakers give Nadal a slender advantage, suggesting he has a 53% chance of winning.  I think Djokovic will triumph again–a short-lived victory, since their next meeting is likely to come on clay, where the percentages associated with Nadal will be much higher than 53%.

Challengers: In Barletta, the final will be contested today between Filippo Volandri and a surprise contender, Slovenian wild card Aljaz Bedene.  Bedene is currently ranked outside top 400, and has a career high in the 200s.  He is only 21, and appears to be coming back from an injury that kept him out of action for the entire second half of 2010.  It’s been a solid run to get him to the final, including victories over Albert Ramos and Alessio di Mauro, neither one an easy opponent on clay.

The final at St. Brieuc involves another up-and-comer, 22-year-old Frenchman Maxime Teixeira, who will face the younger, more heralded Benoit Paire.  Paire is hoping to inch a couple of spots closer to the top 100, while his opponent has more conservative goals.  A win for Paire would move him to #115, while Teixeira, who started last week at #267 and also reached the final in Marrakech, could climb as high as #189.

Finally, the Barranquilla challenger will be between two Argentines, Facundo Bagnis and Diego Junquiera.  Bagnis is yet another prospect, a 21-year-old who will break into the top 200 with his performance this week.  Bagnis shut down the persistent Flavio Cipolla in the semifinals, while Junquiera needed three sets (and two tiebreaks) to win his match with second-seeded Horacio Zeballos.

Clay already: Once the yellow fuzz is settled in Miami, our attention will turn to the clay-court season, with 250-level events in Casablanca and Houston.  The level of play will probably be higher in Casablanca, as more clay-courters will be there, but Houston is likely to host more intriguing matchups, for the very same reason.

The draws are already out; here are a few of the first-rounders in Texas:

  • James Blake vs Carlos Berlocq.  As we saw last week, Berlocq isn’t even an easy win on hard courts, and he’s had a ton of success lately in clay-court challengers.
  • Ryan Harrison vs Zeballos.  As I’ve said before, I’m not sure why Zeballos plays so much on clay; his game seems more versatile than that.  In any event, he wins a lot of matches against better clay-courters than Harrison.
  • Grigor Dimitrov vs Rainer Schuettler.  This probably isn’t a good draw for Dimitrov.  I suspect the Bulgarian could beat a lot of guys at this tournament, but Schuettler may be too consistent for him.

In a second-round qualifying match today, veterans Ivo Karlovic and Jose Acasuso will face off.  Also in action: top qualifying seed Alex Bogomolov will play Nicholas Massu.  Paul Capdeville is also in qualies, meaning that there could be a few dangerous guys coming out of qualifying, as well.

Bookmark it: A few days ago in the comments, Olivier called my attention to this site, which updates ATP rankings live.  Very impressive.  I’m already a frequent visitor.

See you tomorrow!