{"id":34,"date":"2011-02-25T14:25:40","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T14:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=34"},"modified":"2011-02-25T14:25:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T14:25:40","slug":"friday-topspin-resurgence-opportunity-and-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/25\/friday-topspin-resurgence-opportunity-and-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Topspin: Resurgence, Opportunity, and Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big man is back: <\/em>Juan Martin Del Potro<\/strong> reached the semifinals in his last two tournaments, but it took a 6-1 6-1 drubbing of Teymuraz Gabashvili<\/strong> to convince me that he is back in form. \u00a0I didn’t expect the Russian to win, or even to take Del Potro to a third set, but if the Argentine is winning 69% of points against a credible opponent, that tells me a return to the top ten is just a matter of time.<\/p>\n

It was a surprisingly quick day in Delray Beach, as none of the four second-round matches went to a third set–and no set even went as far as 5-5! \u00a0Mardy Fish<\/strong> is easily through to a quarterfinal matchup with Colombian lefty Alejandro Falla<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While the finalist from the bottom half looks like it will be either Del Potro or Fish, the top half of the draw offers an opportunity to a handful of remaining players. \u00a0Ivan Dodig<\/strong> will have to get past Janko Tipsarevic<\/strong> to stay alive; in the other quarter, Ryan Sweeting<\/strong> takes on Kei Nishikori<\/strong>. \u00a0It’s a big chance for guys whose original draw put them in the same half as\u00a0Andy Roddick<\/strong>, Sam Querrey<\/strong>, and James Blake<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Youhzny out of Davis Cup: <\/em>Mikhail Youhzny<\/strong> has announced<\/a> that he’s no longer playing Davis Cup. \u00a0After what feels like a generation of Russia near the top of the Davis Cup rankings, the guard is changing. \u00a0Nikolay Davydenko<\/strong> is still a dangerous player, but now a less consistent one. \u00a0The next Russians in the rankings are Gabashvili, Igor Andreev<\/strong>, and Igor Kunitsyn<\/strong>. \u00a0Not exactly the fearsome team Russia could put on the court five years ago.<\/p>\n

Looking forward a few years, there is something to look forward to in Russian tennis. \u00a0Two of the most promising youngsters in the game, Andrey Kuznetsov<\/strong> and Alexander Lobkov<\/strong>, are potential team members in another year or two. \u00a0Ranked 230 and 249, respectively, neither has reached his 21st birthday; Kuznetsov just turned 20 on Tuesday. \u00a0That makes them two of the top 15 under-21s in the game.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Russia could suffer the ignominy of losing to a squad like the Ukraine’s (Alexander Dolgopolov<\/strong> and Sergiy Stakhovsky<\/strong>) or Kazakhstan’s (Andrey Golubev<\/strong> and Mikhail Kukushkin<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

What Youhzny’s recovering from: <\/em>It would be understandable if Youhzny made his announcement after reached the semifinal in Dubai, but no, he lost to Gilles Simon<\/strong> in the first round. \u00a0With Stakhovsky, he has had more success in doubles, reaching the final earlier today over Dick Norman<\/strong> and Marcel Granollers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The other semifinal is taking place later today, between the team of Michael Llodra<\/strong> and Nenad Zimonjic<\/strong> and the team of Jeremy Chardy<\/strong> and Feliciano Lopez<\/strong>. \u00a0Chardy\/Lopez doesn’t sound like a world-beating doubles team, but they’ve already taken out Mariusz Fyrstenburg\/Marcin Matkowski<\/strong> and Rohan Bopanna\/Aisam Qureshi<\/strong>. \u00a0An impressive week, even if they don’t go any further.<\/p>\n

Other results: <\/em>Semifinalists were determined in both Dubai and Acupulco yesterday. \u00a0Each one features a set of usual suspects plus one outsider. \u00a0In Dubai, Richard Gasquet<\/strong> beat Simon to set up a match today with Roger Federer<\/strong>. \u00a0In Acupulco, Thomaz Bellucci<\/strong> snuck through another match to set up a semifinal with the master of the Golden Swing,\u00a0Nicholas Almagro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I watched a good chunk of the Stanislas Wawrinka<\/strong>\/Dolgopolov match last night. \u00a0Dolgopolov wasn’t in absolute top form, but playing the way he is at age 22, you have to wonder if we’re looking at a future French Open winner. \u00a0He can play from the baseline like a South American, but he isn’t afraid to move around the court. \u00a0The commentators were getting down on him for some bad volley errors, but what I saw was a player who was creating opportunities for himself at the net. \u00a0He’s got time to iron out the wrinkles in that part of his game.<\/p>\n

Today: <\/em>If your goal is to watch beautiful tennis strokes, the match of the day is between Federer and Gasquet. \u00a0They’re playing for a spot in the finals against Novak Djokovic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If you want the potential for a long, hard-fought match that could go either way, the obvious choice is in Acupulco, between Dolgopolov and David Ferrer<\/strong>. \u00a0The two have played twice, both on hard courts last summer. \u00a0Ferrer won in straight sets at the US Open, but Dolgo took him to three in Cincinnati. \u00a0On a different surface, and as well as the Russian has played of late, I think we can throw those results away.<\/p>\n

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

The big man is back: Juan Martin Del Potro reached the semifinals in his last two tournaments, but it took a 6-1 6-1 drubbing of Teymuraz Gabashvili to convince me that he is back in form. \u00a0I didn’t expect the Russian to win, or even to take Del Potro to a third set, but if … Continue reading Friday Topspin: Resurgence, Opportunity, and Russia<\/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":[24,27,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-recaps","category-davis-cup","category-doubles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","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=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}