Category: Doubles

Tuesday Topspin: Underachievers

Surprise: The top half of the draw continued to prove unpredictable–it seems the only thing we can rely on is that if Rafael Nadal faces someone outside the top 100, he’ll get the job done.  Amazingly, Rafa will face his third straight qualifier, Somdev Devvarman, in the round of 16 tomorrow.

The shock of the day belongs to Phillip Kohlschreiber, who defeated Robin Soderling is straight sets.  While Kohlschreiber is a solid player capable of great tennis, that match seemed almost as much of a lock as Nadal’s contest against Ryan Sweeting.  The German executed the upset with a stellar return game: Soderling won on 60% of his service points, and a mere 67% of first service points.  For a player with a big game like the Swede’s, the latter number should be around 80%.

The Soderling upset means that the top half of the draw is down to only one seed (Nadal) in the top sixteen.  Three of the eight spots belong to unseeded players: Devvarman, Ivo Karlovic, and Juan Martin Del Potro.

22: For one set, anyway, the most enjoyable match of the day was between Del Potro and Alexandr Dolgopolov.  The Ukrainian was on his game for much of the first set, and the two players were trading both impressive winners and remarkably defensive shots.  Delpo ended up taking a first-set tiebreak and then running away with the second set.  Neither player made more than about half of their first serves–not a good sign for the Argentine going forward, but something that made for some enjoyable points.

Underachieving: Another upset: Sam Querrey beat Fernando Verdasco in straight sets.  Based on recent returns, you might think both of these guys would figure out a way to lose the match.  Coming into the tournament, Verdasco hadn’t won a match since the semifinal in San Jose, and his victory over Richard Berankis in the second round was thanks to a retirement.

Querrey has been even less impressive.  Before beating Verdasco yesterday, he hadn’t defeated a player ranked about #50 since last year’s U.S. Open.  In the round of 16, the American draws Tommy Robredo, which makes a great opportunity for him after the early upset of Andy Murray.

Doubles champions: The men’s doubles continues to fascinate.  I always wonder just how good the top singles players would be if they regularly entered doubles events.  Based on the evidence at hand this week, the answer is: Pretty good.  Both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic won their doubles matches yesterday; Djokovic and Viktor Troicki took down the 7th-seeded duo of Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach.

On the card today, Nadal and Marc Lopez will play specialists Paul Hanley and Lukas Dlouhy, while the Bryan Brothers draw another wacky team, this one of Dolgopolov and Xavier Malisse.

Today’s big match(es): In contrast to the top half, the bottom half of the draw has seen virtually no upsets, leaving us with a lot of semi-predictable contests, like Tomas Berdych vs. Thomaz Bellucci and Djokovic vs. Ernests Gulbis.

One match with some potential is on Court 2: Richard Gasquet against Jurgen Melzer.  The Frenchman has been playing solid tennis of late, albeit not at a level that seems likely to take down a top-10 player.

The match that I’ll be scheduling my day around is the result of the only two seeded losses in the bottom half.  Fourth match, Court 2: Milos Raonic vs. Ryan Harrison.  Raonic, obviously, has been playing outstanding tennis all year.  Harrison hasn’t been at the same level, but he’s beaten both Jeremy Chardy and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez to get here.  This is a matchup we’ll probably be watching for the better part of the next decade, and in another year or two, it won’t be happening in the round of 32 any more.

Best of all, the winner draws Federer.

See you tomorrow!

Saturday Topspin: American Underdogs

Good day for teens: It wasn’t easy, but both Bernard Tomic and Ryan Harrison find themselves in the second round at Indian Wells.  Tomic had a  hard-fought match against surprise qualifier and doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna, splitting two tiebreaks before the Aussie came out ahead in the third.  The two players won 75% of points on serve, an astonishingly high number for both sides to sustain.

Harrison’s match looks similar–two tiebreaks then a third set with a wider margin, but the profile is far different.  He and Jeremy Chardy broke each other seven times in a total of 22 break chances.  Harrison advances to face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, while Tomic draws Viktor Troicki.

Doubles upsets: When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal win matches, you usually don’t think of them as upsets, but when they are playing doubles against the likes of Mirnyi/Nestor and Fyrstenberg/Matkowski?  Not only did Federer and Nadal win their matches, but Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray did, as well.

Come to think of it, this doubles draw is astonishingly good, and not just in the sense that it’s star-studded.  Tournament organizers like their top seeds to play doubles to draw the crowds, and often those players make quick exits, as when Djokovic partnered with his brother in Dubai.  But Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka are Olympic champions, Nadal and Marc Lopez are the defending champions, and Murray and his brother won a title recently.

Most of the marquee doubles matches were on yesterday’s schedule, but today, Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi play their, opener, and the Bryan Brothers face the very unlikely team of Feliciano Lopez and Milos Raonic.  Is that more or less likely than Harrison and Thomaz Bellucci?  If only there were more televised doubles.

Home court advantage: Not only did Harrison win yesterday, but James Blake was also victorious.  Blake broke Chris Guccione three times, somehow winning 39% of return points.  That sounds a bit like the Blake of old, and we’ll probably get to enjoy it for exactly one more match this week, as he’ll play Andy Roddick in a promoter’s dream match tomorrow.

If my count is right, that’s six wins in seven tries for Americans so far–only Alex Bogomolov failed to advance.  Even more impressive, virtually every one of those Americans was the underdog, at least on paper.  Of the six winners, four were qualifiers and two were wild cards.

Of course, there are four more Americans in the draw; they got to the second round by virtue of their seeding.  Of those four, Sam Querrey is the only one in action today, playing Janko Tipsarevic; as a sign of how far Querrey’s stock has fallen, sportsbooks are giving Tipsarevic a 59% chance of winning the match.

Yes, he won: No shocker here, Raonic defeated Marsel Ilhan in straight sets.  It was his first 1000-level win.  He recorded 10 aces in the process, perhaps on his way to setting more records.  Sunday he faces Mardy Fish.

Elsewhere: Qualifer Cedrik-Marcel Stebe defeated top seed Go Soeda in Kyoto to reach the final there.  It’s only Stebe’s third tournament this year and his first challenger, but he’s undefeated thus far.  He’ll play countryman Dominik Meffert today for the title.

At the Sarajevo challenger, the scores are more interesting than the players.  All four quarterfinal matches were decided in straight sets, and six of those eight sets were won in tiebreaks.  Dmitri Tursunov lost to Bosnian wild card Mirza Basic; the second set tiebreak went to 13-11.

Today’s matches: Now that the seeds are in action, there are some higher-profile contests.  My pick is the first match on Stadium 2, pitting Fernando Verdasco against Richard Berankis.  Verdasco hasn’t won a match since his back-to-back losses against Raonic.  You have to imagine the Spainard will come through (sportsbooks give him a 75% chance), but you never really know where Verdasco’s head is.

Enjoy the tennis!

Monday Topspin: Kazakhstan is not weak

(Yes, I know the Seinfeld reference is about the Ukraine.  It seemed appropriate nonetheless.)

Sure, Radek Stepanek didn’t play, and Tomas Berdych may not have been 100 percent.  But really, did anybody see Kazakhstan advancing to the World Group quarterfinals?  Wow.

The hero for the Kazakhs was Andrey Golubev who, astonishingly, defeated Berdych in yesterday’s fourth rubber to even the tie.  That set the stage for the underrated Mikhail Kukushkin to clinch the victory by winning his match against Jan Hajek, exhausted from his five-set effort on Friday.  Next, the Kazakhs will play in Argentina, which may just be winnable for them, depending on who is healthy enough to represent the Argentine side.

The other drama-filled tie yesterday was in Zagreb, between Croatia and Germany.  After Marin Cilic handily won the fourth rubber, both captains went with substitutes, so the tie was decided by Ivo Karlovic and Philipp Petzschner.  It’s too bad Ivan Dodig was too worn out to play again; I’m liking this guy more every week, and I suspect he could’ve beaten either Petzchner or Florian Mayer.  As it was, Karlovic wasn’t strong enough, and the Germans advance to a tough quarterfinal matchup with France.

Elsewhere: In Cherbourg, Grigor Dimitrov took the final in straight sets against Nicholas Mahut.  It must have felt good: In Dimitrov’s last final, he played Mahut and lost in three.  In Dallas, Alex Bogomolov Jr. beat Ranier Schuettler for his second challenger-level championship since November.

Rankings update: Since it was a Davis Cup weekend, there’s very little movement at the top of the rankings.  Juan Monaco, Golubev, Jeremy Chardy, and Somdev Devvarman all gained a few spots thanks to their wins in live rubbers, while Joachim Johansson lept more than 200 places to 537th.

With his victory in Cherbourg, Dimitrov ascends to 71st, a new career high for the Bulgarian.  Bogomolov gains 24 spots to #128, and Andres Molteni, champion in Salinas, breaks into the top 200 for the first time, landing at #185.

Indian Wells: Another day, another withdrawal: It seems like I just mentioned Tommy Haas‘s comeback, to find out that he isn’t playing this week after all.

Looking at the entry lists, what’s fun about the upcoming tournament is that nearly everyone is playing doubles.  In addition to the usual pairs, Rafael Nadal is teaming with Marc Lopez, Novak Djokovic with Viktor Troicki, Robin Soderling with Jarkko Nieminen, Andy Murray with brother Jamie, and Tomas Berdych with Janko Tipsarevic.  I’m sure we’ll see a few of these teams withdraw, but for now, all that’s missing is Federer/Wawrinka.

Check back later today–I’ve got an interesting new feature I’ll be adding to the site.

Sunday Topspin: Day o’ Doubles

Davis Cup Saturday: The only time the world ever watches doubles.

There was plenty of good tennis to be seen yesterday, as a handful of World Group ties depended heavily on the outcome of the doubles rubber.  Nowhere was that more the case than in Serbia, where Ilija Bozoljac and Nenad Zimonjic overcame Somdev Devvarman and Rohan Bopanna in a gripping fourth-set tiebreak.  It’s too bad that neither Leander Paes nor Mahesh Bhupathi could play; a team of either one and Bopanna could have won the match and put India in position for a major upset.

The upset of the day has to go to Jurgen Melzer and Oliver Marach, who saved the day for Austria by defeating Julien Benneteau and Michael Llodra.  The French team was heavily favored, and Melzer was able to make up for his loss on Friday.  The other result that surprised me was the easy defeat of Romania by Argentina.  Sure, it was on clay and the Argentines were at home, but Victor Hanescu and Horia Tecau are almost surely the better doubles team.

So, a quick recap: Sweden, Argentina, and Spain have clinched their quarterfinal berths.  Serbia needs to win just one of two lopsided singles matches.  The U.S. needs only Andy Roddick to come through with another win.  The Czechs are in a similar position with Tomas Berdych.  The French should rest easy knowing that the final rubber (if necessary) will pit Jeremy Chardy against Stefan Koubek.

That leaves Croatia and Germany.  As I write this, Marin Cilic has just sealed a straight-set victory to lock up the tie at 2, meaning that it all comes down to Florian Mayer and Ivan Dodig.  Originally I predicted a German win; at this point, I might give the edge to Dodig and the Croatians.

First-time winners: A couple of players have made names for themselves outside of Davis Cup this week.  Andres Molteni of Argentina was contesting his first challenger-level final in Salinas yesterday, against 100th-ranked Horacio Zeballos.  Molteni won several futures events last year but hasn’t gained much traction at the next level.  In fact, the final was only Molteni’s third time facing a top-100 opponent.

Molteni came through, victorious in two tight sets.  The Argentine is currently #236 in the world; the tournament win should rocket him up about 50 spots, ensuring he can play all the clay court challengers he wants for several months.

Also in the winner’s circle is young Australian Benjamin Mitchell, recording his first title.  His came at Australia F2 over countryman Michael Look.  The win will get him inside the top 500 for the first time, an impressive feat for an 18-year-old.

Indian Wells: After we’ve put Davis Cup behind us, it’ll be all Indian Wells all the time for a couple of weeks.  For now, all we can do is talk about who will be playing there.  David Nalbandian is not–despite notching the win, he struggled through his Davis Cup match in pain, and will be skipping both Indian Wells and Miami.  Tommy Haas, however, will be playing, his first professional appearance in more than a year.

See you tomorrow!

Saturday Topspin: Roger, Novak, and Evgeny

The rematch: Once again, it’s Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in a big match.  Last time they played, of course, was in Melbourne, when Djokovic scored a big win in straight sets.  The previous three matches, however, went Federer’s way.

I’ve watched pieces of all of Roger’s matches this week, and it’s amazing how much he pushes opponents around the court.  The commentators talked continuously about how far back Richard Gasquet was playing.  Djokovic (along with Juan Martin Del Potro) is one of the few guys with the guts and the skill to hold his ground near the baseline.

Neither player has had a particularly challenging road to the final.  Federer hasn’t played a seeded opponent, and the second set against Gasquet yesterday was the first time this week he was pushed to 5-5.  (In fact, Gasquet served for the second set at 5-4.)  Djokovic faced tough matches against Feliciano Lopez and Tomas Berdych, but the latter match was ultimately decided by injury.

Today, I’m betting on Federer.

Czech out: Another day, another Davis Cup withdrawal.  The Czech team is in trouble, as Radek Stepanek is out with the flu.  Berdych’s status must be in doubt, as well, after retiring from yesterday’s match in Dubai.

The 3rd-ranked nation suddenly looks very weak; if Berdych can’t play, their top singles player is 102nd-ranked Jan Hajek.

More young Russians: Yesterday I mentioned the strong future of Russian men’s tennis, with two players under 21 inside the top 250.  Just missing that cut was another up-and-comer, Evgeny Donskoy.  Currently ranked #259, he won’t turn 21 until May.

And he’s about to get a boost in the rankings.  He had to play qualifying at the Casablanca challenger, and has now won seven matches there.  He’s set to face Alessio Di Mauro in the final.  If he loses, he’ll be up around #225; if he wins, he’ll just miss the top 200.

Oddly enough, while Donskoy was one of the youngest players in the Casablanca draw, Di Mauro was the oldest, at age 33.

Di Mauro is also a clay specialist; he only played 1 of his 46 matches last year on a hard court.  Donskoy had more success on clay last year, as well.  I’m working on surface-specific rankings, and for 2010, I have Di Mauro as #133 on clay and Donskoy as #139.

Acupulco: Can David Ferrer stop Nicholas Almagro?  Ferrer dropped the first set to Alexander Dolgopolov last night, but came charging back, ultimately winning 5-7 6-1 6-1.  Almagro played a tight contest with Thomaz Bellucci, triumphing in straight sets for his 13th straight victory.  He’ll try to make it three straight titles tonight.

Delray Beach: For all of the withdrawals and upsets in Florida this week, everything went according to plan in yesterday’s quarterfinals.  Today, Kei Nishikori will face Janko Tipsarevic, while Mardy Fish will play Del Potro.  The latter match should another interesting test for the Argentine, as Fish plays a style of game that he hasn’t seen for a while.

Giant-killers: The doubles team of Feliciano Lopez and Jeremy Chardy beat yet another top seed yesterday, eking by Michael Llodra and Nenad Zemonjic 10-8 in a super-tiebreak.  To get to the finals, they had to win three matches, two against the 2nd and 3rd seeds, the third against Bopanna/Qureshi.

They’ve just taken the first set from the similarly-unheralded team of Mikhail Youhzny and Sergiy Stakhovsky.

See you tomorrow!

Friday Topspin: Resurgence, Opportunity, and Russia

The big man is back: Juan Martin Del Potro reached the semifinals in his last two tournaments, but it took a 6-1 6-1 drubbing of Teymuraz Gabashvili to convince me that he is back in form.  I didn’t expect the Russian to win, or even to take Del Potro to a third set, but if the Argentine is winning 69% of points against a credible opponent, that tells me a return to the top ten is just a matter of time.

It was a surprisingly quick day in Delray Beach, as none of the four second-round matches went to a third set–and no set even went as far as 5-5!  Mardy Fish is easily through to a quarterfinal matchup with Colombian lefty Alejandro Falla.

While the finalist from the bottom half looks like it will be either Del Potro or Fish, the top half of the draw offers an opportunity to a handful of remaining players.  Ivan Dodig will have to get past Janko Tipsarevic to stay alive; in the other quarter, Ryan Sweeting takes on Kei Nishikori.  It’s a big chance for guys whose original draw put them in the same half as Andy Roddick, Sam Querrey, and James Blake.

Youhzny out of Davis Cup: Mikhail Youhzny has announced that he’s no longer playing Davis Cup.  After what feels like a generation of Russia near the top of the Davis Cup rankings, the guard is changing.  Nikolay Davydenko is still a dangerous player, but now a less consistent one.  The next Russians in the rankings are Gabashvili, Igor Andreev, and Igor Kunitsyn.  Not exactly the fearsome team Russia could put on the court five years ago.

Looking forward a few years, there is something to look forward to in Russian tennis.  Two of the most promising youngsters in the game, Andrey Kuznetsov and Alexander Lobkov, are potential team members in another year or two.  Ranked 230 and 249, respectively, neither has reached his 21st birthday; Kuznetsov just turned 20 on Tuesday.  That makes them two of the top 15 under-21s in the game.

In the meantime, Russia could suffer the ignominy of losing to a squad like the Ukraine’s (Alexander Dolgopolov and Sergiy Stakhovsky) or Kazakhstan’s (Andrey Golubev and Mikhail Kukushkin).

What Youhzny’s recovering from: It would be understandable if Youhzny made his announcement after reached the semifinal in Dubai, but no, he lost to Gilles Simon in the first round.  With Stakhovsky, he has had more success in doubles, reaching the final earlier today over Dick Norman and Marcel Granollers.

The other semifinal is taking place later today, between the team of Michael Llodra and Nenad Zimonjic and the team of Jeremy Chardy and Feliciano Lopez.  Chardy/Lopez doesn’t sound like a world-beating doubles team, but they’ve already taken out Mariusz Fyrstenburg/Marcin Matkowski and Rohan Bopanna/Aisam Qureshi.  An impressive week, even if they don’t go any further.

Other results: Semifinalists were determined in both Dubai and Acupulco yesterday.  Each one features a set of usual suspects plus one outsider.  In Dubai, Richard Gasquet beat Simon to set up a match today with Roger Federer.  In Acupulco, Thomaz Bellucci snuck through another match to set up a semifinal with the master of the Golden Swing, Nicholas Almagro.

I watched a good chunk of the Stanislas Wawrinka/Dolgopolov match last night.  Dolgopolov wasn’t in absolute top form, but playing the way he is at age 22, you have to wonder if we’re looking at a future French Open winner.  He can play from the baseline like a South American, but he isn’t afraid to move around the court.  The commentators were getting down on him for some bad volley errors, but what I saw was a player who was creating opportunities for himself at the net.  He’s got time to iron out the wrinkles in that part of his game.

Today: If your goal is to watch beautiful tennis strokes, the match of the day is between Federer and Gasquet.  They’re playing for a spot in the finals against Novak Djokovic.

If you want the potential for a long, hard-fought match that could go either way, the obvious choice is in Acupulco, between Dolgopolov and David Ferrer.  The two have played twice, both on hard courts last summer.  Ferrer won in straight sets at the US Open, but Dolgo took him to three in Cincinnati.  On a different surface, and as well as the Russian has played of late, I think we can throw those results away.

See you tomorrow!