{"id":137,"date":"2011-03-17T13:23:40","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T13:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=137"},"modified":"2011-03-17T13:23:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T13:23:40","slug":"thursday-topspin-delpo-rolling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/thursday-topspin-delpo-rolling\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Topspin: Delpo Rolling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Straight sets: <\/em>For the second day in a row, eight men’s matches resulted in only one third set. \u00a0Thankfully, yesterday’s contests were generally much tighter than Tuesday’s. \u00a0Nobody felt that more keenly than Juan Martin del Potro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Delpo, playing Philipp Kohlschreiber<\/strong>, was out of sorts for much of the first set, apparently dealing with a stomach issue. \u00a0 He stayed on the defense, trading protracted holds with the German into a tiebreak. \u00a0A brilliant down-the-line backhand flick on the first point of the tiebreak seemed to be all he needed–his energy came back, and he only lost a single point in the breaker.<\/p>\n

Kohlschreiber took his time recovering, dropping to 1-4 before breaking back and evening the score. \u00a0The German made it to another tiebreak, which in its way, had a chance of deciding the match. \u00a0Kohl was obviously in better shape for a third set after more than two hours of play. \u00a0He ran out to a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak, and proceeded to lose five match points before falling 9-7. \u00a0Ouch.<\/p>\n

Today, del Potro draws Tommy Robredo<\/strong>, who had a surprisingly easy time with Sam Querrey<\/strong>, beating him 6-1, 6-3. \u00a0Here’s a shocker from the sportsbooks: Delpo is more heavily favored over Robredo than Rafael Nadal<\/strong> over Ivo Karlovic<\/strong>. \u00a0The difference is slight, as both are given a roughly 85% chance of winning.<\/p>\n

The other half<\/em>: Four quarterfinalists get the day off today. \u00a0Richard Gasquet<\/strong> pulled an upset, downing Andy Roddick<\/strong> in straight sets, and he’ll meet Novak Djokovic<\/strong>. \u00a0The tour should be terrified right now: Djokovic beat Viktor Troicki<\/strong> 6-0, 6-1. \u00a0A drubbing of Ernests Gulbis<\/strong>–that you can understand. \u00a0But while the Serbs are close friends, there’s no explanation for such a lopsided victory over Troicki except for the obvious one: Novak is playing unbelievable tennis right now.<\/p>\n

The final quarter will be all Swiss, between Roger Federer<\/strong> and Stanislas Wawrinka<\/strong>. \u00a0(First, they play their quarterfinal doubles match, for a chance to face–of all people–Nadal and Marc Lopez<\/strong>.) \u00a0Wawrinka snuck through against Tomas Berdych<\/strong> in the one three-setter of the day, while Federer was pushed to a first-set breaker by Ryan Harrison<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Clearly, a Djokovic-Federer semi is very much in the cards, and for the first time in my life, I might have to pick the Serb.<\/p>\n

Also in doubles: <\/em>The pairing of Alexandr Dolgopolov<\/strong> and Xavier Malisse<\/strong> recorded another win yesterday, this time over the Murray brothers. \u00a0Today, they face Bopanna\/Qureshi<\/strong>. \u00a0Dolgo and Malisse have won all three of their matches in a champion’s tiebreak: 10-8, 10-7, and 10-8.<\/p>\n

Up and coming: <\/em>Watch out for the 20-year-old Cedrik-Marcel Stebe<\/strong>. \u00a0Quick recap: He started the year winning two consecutive futures events in Turkey, then qualified for the Kyoto challenger last week. \u00a0In Kyoto, he reached the final before losing to Dominik Meffert<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That effort got him into the main draw of the Guangzhou challenger, where he recorded a big win over Lucas Lacko<\/strong> in the second round and then a revenge victory over Meffert in the quarters. \u00a0Today, Stebe plays Uladzamir Ignatik<\/strong> for a spot in a second consecutive final. \u00a0Since the Kyoto results haven’t gone on the computer yet and Stebe has few points to defend, look for him to make a massive leap in the rankings next week.<\/p>\n

Pim Pim’s brief return: <\/em>After Joachim Johansson<\/strong>‘s impressive performance in Davis Cup, it was exciting to see him in the draw at Switzerland F1. \u00a0He beat Mate Pavic<\/strong> in the first round, but has withdrawn, presumably with injury. \u00a0Too bad.<\/p>\n

Another comeback: <\/em>Here’s another name you might know: Crazy Dani, Daniel Koellerer<\/strong>. \u00a0The Austrian has also struggled with injury, and he’s the third seed this week at Turkey F9. \u00a0He’s through to the second round, and perhaps more remarkably, he’s through to the semifinals in doubles with his countryman Michael Linzer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

Straight sets: For the second day in a row, eight men’s matches resulted in only one third set. \u00a0Thankfully, yesterday’s contests were generally much tighter than Tuesday’s. \u00a0Nobody felt that more keenly than Juan Martin del Potro. Delpo, playing Philipp Kohlschreiber, was out of sorts for much of the first set, apparently dealing with a … Continue reading Thursday Topspin: Delpo Rolling<\/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":[16,24,42,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challengers","category-daily-recaps","category-futures","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\/137","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=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}