{"id":120,"date":"2011-03-12T14:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=120"},"modified":"2011-03-12T14:00:15","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:00:15","slug":"saturday-topspin-american-underdogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/12\/saturday-topspin-american-underdogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Topspin: American Underdogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good day for teens:<\/em> It wasn’t easy, but both Bernard Tomic<\/strong> and Ryan Harrison<\/strong> find themselves in the second round at Indian Wells. \u00a0Tomic had a \u00a0hard-fought match against surprise qualifier and doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna<\/strong>, splitting two tiebreaks before the Aussie came out ahead in the third. \u00a0The two players won 75% of points on serve, an astonishingly high number for both sides to sustain.<\/p>\n

Harrison’s match looks similar–two tiebreaks then a third set with a wider margin, but the profile is far different. \u00a0He and Jeremy Chardy<\/strong> broke each other seven times in a total of 22 break chances. \u00a0Harrison advances to face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez<\/strong>, while Tomic draws Viktor Troicki<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Doubles upsets: <\/em>When Roger Federer<\/strong> and Rafael Nadal<\/strong> win matches, you usually don’t think of them as upsets, but when they are playing doubles against the likes of Mirnyi\/Nestor<\/strong> and Fyrstenberg\/Matkowski<\/strong>? \u00a0Not only did Federer and Nadal win their matches, but Novak Djokovic<\/strong> and Andy Murray<\/strong> did, as well.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, this doubles draw is astonishingly good, and not just in the sense that it’s star-studded. \u00a0Tournament 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. \u00a0But Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka<\/strong> are Olympic champions, Nadal and Marc Lopez<\/strong> are the defending champions, and Murray and his brother won a title recently.<\/p>\n

Most of the marquee doubles matches were on yesterday’s schedule, but today, Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi<\/strong> play their, opener, and the Bryan Brothers<\/strong> face the very unlikely team of Feliciano Lopez<\/strong> and Milos Raonic<\/strong>. \u00a0Is that more or less likely than Harrison and Thomaz Bellucci<\/strong>? \u00a0If only there were more televised doubles.<\/p>\n

Home court advantage: <\/em>Not only did Harrison win yesterday, but James Blake<\/strong> was also victorious. \u00a0Blake broke Chris Guccione<\/strong> three times, somehow winning 39% of return points. \u00a0That 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<\/strong> in a promoter’s dream match tomorrow.<\/p>\n

If my count is right, that’s six wins in seven tries for Americans so far–only Alex Bogomolov<\/strong> failed to advance. \u00a0Even more impressive, virtually every one of those Americans was the underdog, at least on paper. \u00a0Of the six winners, four were qualifiers and two were wild cards.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are four more Americans in the draw; they got to the second round by virtue of their seeding. \u00a0Of those four, Sam Querrey<\/strong> is the only one in action today, playing Janko Tipsarevic<\/strong>; as a sign of how far Querrey’s stock has fallen, sportsbooks are giving Tipsarevic a 59% chance of winning the match.<\/p>\n

Yes, he won: <\/em>No shocker here, Raonic defeated Marsel Ilhan<\/strong> in straight sets. \u00a0It was his first 1000-level win. \u00a0He recorded 10 aces in the process, perhaps on his way to setting more records. \u00a0Sunday he faces Mardy Fish<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere: <\/em>Qualifer Cedrik-Marcel Stebe<\/strong> defeated top seed Go Soeda<\/strong> in Kyoto to reach the final there. \u00a0It’s only Stebe’s third tournament this year and his first challenger, but he’s undefeated thus far. \u00a0He’ll play countryman Dominik Meffert<\/strong> today for the title.<\/p>\n

At the Sarajevo challenger, the scores are more interesting than the players. \u00a0All four quarterfinal matches were decided in straight sets, and six<\/em> of those eight sets were won in tiebreaks. \u00a0Dmitri Tursunov<\/strong> lost to Bosnian wild card Mirza Basic<\/strong>; the second set tiebreak went to 13-11.<\/p>\n

Today’s matches: <\/em>Now that the seeds are in action, there are some higher-profile contests. \u00a0My pick is the first match on Stadium 2, pitting Fernando Verdasco<\/strong> against Richard Berankis<\/strong>. \u00a0Verdasco hasn’t won a match since his back-to-back losses against Raonic. \u00a0You have to imagine the Spainard will come through (sportsbooks give him a 75% chance), but you never really know where Verdasco’s head is.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the tennis!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good day for teens: It wasn’t easy, but both Bernard Tomic and Ryan Harrison find themselves in the second round at Indian Wells. \u00a0Tomic had a \u00a0hard-fought match against surprise qualifier and doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna, splitting two tiebreaks before the Aussie came out ahead in the third. \u00a0The two players won 75% of points … Continue reading Saturday Topspin: American Underdogs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,24,31,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-tennis","category-daily-recaps","category-doubles","category-indian-wells"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}