{"id":166,"date":"2011-03-23T13:24:12","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2011-03-23T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:24:12","slug":"wednesday-topspin-young-sneaks-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/23\/wednesday-topspin-young-sneaks-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Topspin: Young Sneaks In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami draw is set<\/em>: All 96 players, including 12 qualifiers, are placed. \u00a0Matches begin with the first round of the bottom half of the draw in a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

One of the few surprises out of qualifying was another strong effort from Donald Young<\/strong>. \u00a0Unseeded, he advanced into the main draw by beating Frank Dancevic<\/strong>, 6-1 1-6 7-5. \u00a0Young faces Denis Istomin<\/strong> today, setting up a possible second-rounder with Novak Djokovic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Young is one of five Americans who made it through qualifying. Robert Kendrick<\/strong>, Michael Russell<\/strong>, and Ryan Sweeting<\/strong> were all seeded in the top 12, and they won the matches they were supposed to win. \u00a0Alex Bogomolov<\/strong> scored a minor upset with his three-setter over Simone Bolleli<\/strong>. \u00a0The only U.S. player to lose yesterday was Tim Smyczek<\/strong>, who put up another strong effort in forcing Olivier Rochus<\/strong> to a third set.<\/p>\n

Rochus, you may recall, had a big tournament in Miami last year, beating Richard Gasquet<\/strong> in the first round and then shocking Djokovic in the second. \u00a0He’s coming off a challenger victory last week, and is in a relatively weak section of the draw. \u00a0He’ll open the tournament tomorrow against Blaz Kavcic<\/strong>; if he wins, he’ll face Marcos Baghdatis<\/strong>, and the winner of that contest is seeded for a third-rounder with Mikhail Youzhny<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The big picture: <\/em>As was the case in Indian Wells last week, all the action was in one half of the draw. \u00a0This week, the bottom half is by far the more fluid of the two. \u00a0The top half seeds Rafael Nadal<\/strong> and Roger Federer<\/strong> for a semifinal matchup, and with the possible exceptions of Ivo Karlovic <\/strong>and\u00a0Tomas Berdych <\/strong>in Nadal’s quarter\u00a0and Andy Roddick<\/strong> in Roger’s,\u00a0there isn’t much in their way.<\/p>\n

The bottom half, despite featuring Djokovic, is much less likely to go as planned. \u00a0Juan Martin del Potro<\/strong> opens the tournament today against Ricardo Mello<\/strong>; if he wins, he faces Philipp Kohlschreiber<\/strong> (again!). \u00a0The winner of that match gets a third-rounder with Robin Soderling<\/strong>. \u00a0To say the least, this is not the draw Soderling would’ve hoped for.<\/p>\n

Also in Soderling’s quarter are Gasquet,\u00a0David Ferrer<\/strong>, and\u00a0Milos Raonic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Djokovic doesn’t have quite as hard going, at least until a possible quarterfinal with Andy Murray<\/strong>. \u00a0Other possibilities there are John Isner<\/strong> and Fernando Verdasco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a few hours, I’ll run predictions on the draw and post my forecast for the tournament.<\/p>\n

A dozen Americans<\/em>: There are a total of 12 U.S. players in the draw: the five qualifiers, the familiar four seeds, plus three wild cards in Ryan Harrison<\/strong>, James Blake<\/strong>, and Jack Sock<\/strong>. \u00a0Blake faces Russell today, while Harrison opens against Rainer Schuettler<\/strong> for a chance to face Gilles Simon<\/strong>. \u00a0Given the draw, I have a hard time seeing Ryan match his success from last week–both players are smart counterpunchers who will be able to outlast the youngster.<\/p>\n

Sock, the youngest player in the draw, is the one who has been granted a big opportunity. \u00a0He faces Carlos Berlocq<\/strong>, a clay court specialist whose challenger-level success has gotten him inside the top 75. \u00a0Here’s an amazing bit of trivia: Berlocq hasn’t won an ATP main draw match on hard courts in five years<\/em>. \u00a0The kicker: That last win was a 6-0 6-0 drubbing of a 16-year-old American wild card … in Miami. \u00a0That time, it was Donald Young. \u00a0Blake avenged Young’s loss by double-bagelling Berlocq in the following round.<\/p>\n

New wild card<\/em>: Turns out Raonic didn’t need his wild card after all; a last-minute withdrawal got him in to the tournament the old-fashioned way. \u00a0He’s the 31st seed, set to face Ferrer in the third round. \u00a0Karlovic was granted the newly-available ticket in, and he’ll face Florian Mayer<\/strong> tomorrow for a shot at Albert Montanes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the tennis, and remember to check back later today for my complete draw forecast!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami draw is set: All 96 players, including 12 qualifiers, are placed. \u00a0Matches begin with the first round of the bottom half of the draw in a couple of hours. One of the few surprises out of qualifying was another strong effort from Donald Young. \u00a0Unseeded, he advanced into the main draw by beating Frank … Continue reading Wednesday Topspin: Young Sneaks In<\/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":[6,24,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-tennis","category-daily-recaps","category-miami"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","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=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}