{"id":30,"date":"2011-02-24T13:34:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T13:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2011-02-24T13:34:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T13:34:49","slug":"thursday-topspin-challenges-and-21-year-olds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/24\/thursday-topspin-challenges-and-21-year-olds\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Topspin: Challenges and 21-year-olds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unusual challenge<\/em>: In his match yesterday against Marcel Granollers<\/strong>, Roger Federer<\/strong> used a challenge on his own first serve–nothing unusual there. \u00a0But in this case, the original call had been “in!” \u00a0Fed thought it was out and stopped playing the point accordingly.<\/p>\n

He challenged, and he was right. \u00a0On his second delivery, he ended up losing the point anyway.<\/p>\n

More Americans out: <\/em>I mentioned yesterday that the way things have turned out, it hasn’t been a promoter’s dream in Delray Beach. \u00a0Andy Roddick<\/strong> withdrew, John Isner<\/strong> lost in the first round, and yesterday, both Sam Querrey<\/strong> and James Blake<\/strong> were defeated. \u00a0Blake, at least, fell to the popular Kei Nishikori<\/strong>, arguably the best young player not named Milos.<\/p>\n

In fact, I was playing with rankings last night, and came up with something interesting. \u00a0Of players who have not yet reached their 22nd birthday, this is the top 10 in the world:<\/p>\n

37   Milos Raonic        CAN  12\/27\/90  \n66   Kei Nishikori       JPN  12\/29\/89  \n74   Richard Berankis    LTU   6\/21\/90  \n81   Grigor Dimitrov     BUL   5\/16\/91  \n120  Benoit Paire        FRA    5\/8\/89  \n138  Donald Young        USA   7\/23\/89  \n143  Federico del Bonis  ARG   10\/5\/90  \n148  Jerzy Janowicz      POL  11\/13\/90  \n150  Ryan Harrison       USA    5\/7\/92  \n160  Thomas Schoorel     NED    4\/8\/89<\/pre>\n
That’s pretty much a “who’s who” of up-and-coming young stars. \u00a0What it highlights for me is just how young some of these guys still are. \u00a0Sure, we all know that Raonic and Dimitrov are the wave of the future, but we’ve been following Nishikori for years. \u00a0He’s still this young, and if he can stay injury-free, he has a lot of time to climb to the top.<\/p>\n
It’s even more surprising to see Donald Young<\/strong> here. \u00a0He’s been around forever<\/em>, but he doesn’t turn 22 until July. \u00a0Put that in perspective: Had he gone to college and stayed for four years, he’d be in his junior or senior year right now, probably leading Georgia to the national title.<\/p>\n
Seedless: <\/em>The top-ranked players are having a tough time in Wolfsburg this week. \u00a0In the first round alone, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds feel. \u00a05th-seeded Steve Darcis<\/strong> lost in the second round, leaving HT.com favorite Jesse Huta Galung<\/strong> as the presumptive favorite.<\/p>\n
Yesterday: <\/em>The biggest upset of the day was Ryan Sweeting<\/strong>‘s victory over Querrey. \u00a0In a minor coup, Sergey Stakhovsky<\/strong> defeated Ernests Gulbis<\/strong> in Dubai; for his efforts, he gets to face Federer in a few hours. \u00a0In Acupulco, Stanislas Wawrinka<\/strong> had to work hard, but he eventually got past Fabio Fognini<\/strong> 7-5 in the third.<\/p>\n
Today: <\/em>We’re mostly in quarterfinals now, so things are starting to get interesting. \u00a0After the Fed-Stakhovsky match, Richard Gasquet<\/strong> and Gilles Simon<\/strong> duke it out for a spot in the semis. \u00a0I’ll be watching.<\/p>\n
In Mexico, Wawrinka next has to face Alexander Dolgopolov<\/strong>, the most compelling matchup of the day in that tournament. \u00a0And in Delray, they are finishing up the second round. \u00a0Mardy Fish<\/strong> has what should be an easy match against Ricardo Mello<\/strong>, while Juan Martin Del Potro<\/strong> will be challenged by Teymuraz Gabashvili<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
See you tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unusual challenge: In his match yesterday against Marcel Granollers, Roger Federer used a challenge on his own first serve–nothing unusual there. \u00a0But in this case, the original call had been “in!” \u00a0Fed thought it was out and stopped playing the point accordingly. He challenged, and he was right. \u00a0On his second delivery, he ended up … Continue reading Thursday Topspin: Challenges and 21-year-olds<\/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":[16,24,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challengers","category-daily-recaps","category-rankings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","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=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}