{"id":130,"date":"2011-03-15T13:34:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T13:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2011-03-15T13:34:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T13:34:28","slug":"tuesday-topspin-underachievers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/15\/tuesday-topspin-underachievers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Topspin: Underachievers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprise<\/em>: The top half of the draw continued to prove unpredictable–it seems the only thing we can rely on is that if Rafael Nadal<\/strong> faces someone outside the top 100, he’ll get the job done. \u00a0Amazingly, Rafa will face his third straight qualifier, Somdev Devvarman<\/strong>, in the round of 16 tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The shock of the day belongs to Phillip Kohlschreiber<\/strong>, who defeated Robin Soderling<\/strong> is straight sets. \u00a0While 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<\/strong>. \u00a0The German executed the upset with a stellar return game: Soderling won on 60% of his service points, and a mere 67% of first<\/em> service points. \u00a0For a player with a big game like the Swede’s, the latter number should be around 80%.<\/p>\n

The Soderling upset means that the top half of the draw is down to only one seed (Nadal) in the top sixteen<\/em>. \u00a0Three of the eight spots belong to unseeded players: Devvarman, Ivo Karlovic<\/strong>, and Juan Martin Del Potro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

22<\/em>: For one set, anyway, the most enjoyable match of the day was between Del Potro and Alexandr Dolgopolov<\/strong>. \u00a0The Ukrainian was on his game for much of the first set, and the two players were trading both impressive winners and remarkably defensive shots. \u00a0Delpo ended up taking a first-set tiebreak and then running away with the second set. \u00a0Neither 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.<\/p>\n

Underachieving: <\/em>Another upset: Sam Querrey<\/strong> beat Fernando Verdasco<\/strong> in straight sets. \u00a0Based on recent returns, you might think both of these guys would figure out a way to lose the match. \u00a0Coming into the tournament, Verdasco hadn’t won a match since the semifinal in San Jose, and his victory over Richard Berankis<\/strong> in the second round was thanks to a retirement.<\/p>\n

Querrey has been even less impressive. \u00a0Before beating Verdasco yesterday, he hadn’t defeated a player ranked about #50 since last year’s U.S. Open. \u00a0In the round of 16, the American draws Tommy Robredo<\/strong>, which makes a great opportunity for him after the early upset of Andy Murray<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Doubles champions: <\/em>The men’s doubles continues to fascinate. \u00a0I always wonder just how good the top singles players would be if they regularly entered doubles events. \u00a0Based on the evidence at hand this week, the answer is: Pretty good. \u00a0Both Roger Federer<\/strong> and Novak Djokovic<\/strong> won their doubles matches yesterday; Djokovic and Viktor Troicki<\/strong> took down the 7th-seeded duo of Lukasz<\/strong> Kubot and Oliver Marach<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

Today’s big match(es): <\/em>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<\/strong> vs. Thomaz Bellucci<\/strong> and Djokovic vs. Ernests Gulbis<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One match with some potential is on Court 2: Richard Gasquet<\/strong> against Jurgen Melzer<\/strong>. \u00a0The Frenchman has been playing solid tennis of late, albeit not at a level that seems likely to take down a top-10 player.<\/p>\n

The match that I’ll be scheduling my day around is the result of the only two seeded losses in the bottom half. \u00a0Fourth match, Court 2: Milos Raonic<\/strong> vs. Ryan Harrison<\/strong>. \u00a0Raonic, obviously, has been playing outstanding tennis all year. \u00a0Harrison hasn’t been at the same level, but he’s beaten both Jeremy Chardy<\/strong> and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez<\/strong> to get here. \u00a0This 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.<\/p>\n

Best of all, the winner draws Federer.<\/p>\n

See you tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. \u00a0Amazingly, Rafa will face his third straight qualifier, Somdev Devvarman, in the round of 16 tomorrow. The shock of the … Continue reading Tuesday Topspin: Underachievers<\/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":[24,31,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/130","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=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}