This is what we in the tennis blogging world call a “slow news day.” Davis Cup is over, and the Indian Wells main draw hasn’t been released. Oh well, we’ll make do.<\/p>\n
Star maps: <\/em>Indian Wells has done a great job ensuring that the game’s young stars are in the main draw, granting wild cards to Milos Raonic<\/strong>, Kei Nishikori<\/strong>, Ryan Harrison<\/strong>, and Richard Berankis<\/strong>. \u00a0Any tournament that gives more than half of its wild cards to foreign players gets a thumbs up from me.<\/p>\n Missing from the draw, however, is Grigor Dimitrov<\/strong>. \u00a0The Bulgarian followed the European challenger circuit to Sarajevo, where he will again be the top seed. \u00a0Also following the circuit is Nicholas Mahut<\/strong>, Dimitrov’s opponent in last week’s final. \u00a0The more interesting potential opponent for the Bulgarian, though, is in his half of the draw: fourth-seeded Russian Dmitri Tursunov<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Others to watch: <\/em>Like I said, slow news day, so let’s glance through the futures draws. \u00a0Bizarrely, Marc Gicquel<\/strong> is playing France F4 in Lille. \u00a0His stock has fallen in the last couple of years, but one would hope that (a) he’s getting a nice appearance fee, and (b) he wins easily.<\/p>\n In McAllen, Texas, at USA F7, here’s an unlikely pair of wild cards: 16-year-old Thai-Son Kwiatkowski<\/strong> and drug cheat Wayne Odesnik<\/strong>. \u00a0Odesnik has been on entry lists the last couple of weeks but hasn’t played; I wonder if he decided he wouldn’t play qualifying and has waited for his next wild card. \u00a0It’s an interesting draw beyond those two, as well. \u00a0Joining the Texas futures swing are two American 19-year-olds, Jordan Cox<\/strong> and Andrea Collarini<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That Russian Davis Cup team: <\/em>Without Nikolay Davydenko<\/strong> and Mikhail Youhzny<\/strong>, Russia’s Davis Cup team last weekend was the weakest it has put forth in a long time. \u00a0While Russia lost to Sweden, Kazakhstan triumphed over the Czechs and moved into the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n Of course, Kazahstan (among many other countries in Europe and Asia) used to be part of the USSR. \u00a0The Soviets were generally not much of a factor, spending only five years in the World Group. \u00a0But my oh my, what a team they would have right now.<\/p>\n Of course, the Russian contingent isn’t that bad. \u00a0You have the Kazakhs. \u00a0There are two Ukrainians in the top 40. \u00a0Belarus sports one of the best doubles players in the world in Max Mirnyi<\/strong>. \u00a0Even Latvia and Lithuania each have a player in the top 100.<\/p>\n Which got me wondering: What would Russian tennis look like if it still spanned the entire USSR? \u00a0Here are the singles rankings:<\/p>\n Pretty impressive, huh? \u00a0With a potential doubles team of Mirnyi\/Stakhovsky, you could come with a Davis Cup team on par with anyone except for a healthy Spain or France.<\/p>\n Alas, the Russians will have to settle for watching their former compatriots.<\/p>\n See you tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is what we in the tennis blogging world call a “slow news day.” Davis Cup is over, and the Indian Wells main draw hasn’t been released. Oh well, we’ll make do. Star maps: Indian Wells has done a great job ensuring that the game’s young stars are in the main draw, granting wild cards … Continue reading Tuesday Topspin: Back in the USSR<\/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":[16,24,27,42,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challengers","category-daily-recaps","category-davis-cup","category-futures","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\/83","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=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}13 Mikhail Youzhny RUS \n23 Alexander Dolgopolov UKR \n34 Ernests Gulbis LAT \n38 Sergey Stakhovsky UKR \n39 Andrei Goloubev KAZ \n42 Nikolay Davydenko RUS \n55 Denis Istomin UZB \n62 Mikhail Kukushkin KAZ \n74 Richard Berankis LTU \n77 Teimuraz Gabashvili RUS \n96 Igor Andreev RUS \n99 Ilia Marchenko UKR \n103 Igor Kunitsyn RUS \n104 Dmitry Tursunov RUS \n125 Yuri Schukin KAZ \n144 Alexandre Koudriavtsev RUS \n153 Konstantin Kravchuk RUS \n197 Jurgen Zopp EST \n200 Vladimir Ignatik BLR<\/pre>\n