In the quartefinals, I figured that there were three matches which could potentially have upsets. In the end, only one of them did, but it was an impressive upset. While Verdasco breezed past Gulbis and Ferrer had as little trouble with Bellucci as Soderling had with Schwank, Tsonga found himself in a real dogfight with Dutch youngster Thiemo De Bakker.
De Bakker has now had his first career top-ten victory against Tsonga, which is an impressive followup after beating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the last round. Tsonga was among the least accomplished clay court players that he could have faced at this stage, though. His next opponent will be last year's French Open finalist, Robin Soderling, who has yet to really break a sweat over the course of this tournament. It will be a tough ask for De Bakker to keep his tournament rolling at this stage, but he has a chance. You have to favor the Swede, but we could be looking at one of the future's big clay court players.
The other semifinal is much more of a toss-up, between two veteran Spaniards, who are no strangers to the red clay. Verdasco and Ferrer have met on tour eight times thus far, with Verdasco leading the head to head 5-3, and 5-2 on clay courts. He's also won the last two meetings, so the numbers seem to favor "Hot Sauce." The only stat seemingly in Ferrer's favor is that he beat Verdasco here in Barcelona in 2005. It could go either way, though, as Ferrer's career record on clay is more impressive than Verdasco's.
No matter what, this will be an exciting final on Sunday.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Barcelona Quarterfinals
We're down to the last eight in Barcelona, and the field looks almost the way you'd expect at this stage. With Nadal out of the draw, it's actually interesting to see who might make it through to the finish. There have been a handful of upsets, and the remaining match-ups are mostly good.
The only one that I think will probably be uneven is the only match-up featuring a real pretender. Second seed Robin Soderling faces Eduardo Schwank, who had a good win over Fabio Fognini in the first round, but then beat a hobbled Hewitt and lucky loser Ivan Navarro. Expect the Swede to do well in that match. Schwank is only a few weeks removed from being fined for failing to give his best effort against Juan Ignacio Chela in Houston, which doesn't help his chances here.
The other three matches could all be competitive. While everyone was expecting a rematch from last week between Tsonga and Ferrero, young Danish spoiler Thiemo De Bakker upset the player with the most wins on clay this year, winning the first and third sets of his match against Ferrero in tiebreaks. Big win for De Bakker. Against Tsonga, he'll also have a tough time, but this is his favorite surface, and he may be ready to make his move.
The other two matches both feature young guns against seasoned veterans, as well. Ernests Gulbis has had an easy road to the quarterfinals, as both of the seeds in his section were upset before Gulbis in turn beat their vanquishers. He now faces Fernando Verdasco. Gulbis is still trying to build off the momentum he should have gained by winning his first title in Del Ray Beach and to recapture the magic during his breakout run at the French Open two years ago. A deep run here could do the trick.
The last match-up is between two players who have already demonstrated their bona fides on the crushed brick. David Ferrer and Tomaz Bellucci are playing for what would have been Nadal's semifinal spot, so they know what a chance they've been given. Ferrer won their only meeting, earlier this year, and I favor him again, but Bellucci has a shot.
Everyone left in the draw knows that they dodged a freight train with Nadal's withdrawal, so expect everyone to be eager to take advantage of this unexpected chance to win a title. And everyone left has been hot. Of the eight players left in the draw, only Tsonga, Schwank, and De Bakker have not already won a title this year. So this is a tough field to get through.
The only one that I think will probably be uneven is the only match-up featuring a real pretender. Second seed Robin Soderling faces Eduardo Schwank, who had a good win over Fabio Fognini in the first round, but then beat a hobbled Hewitt and lucky loser Ivan Navarro. Expect the Swede to do well in that match. Schwank is only a few weeks removed from being fined for failing to give his best effort against Juan Ignacio Chela in Houston, which doesn't help his chances here.
The other three matches could all be competitive. While everyone was expecting a rematch from last week between Tsonga and Ferrero, young Danish spoiler Thiemo De Bakker upset the player with the most wins on clay this year, winning the first and third sets of his match against Ferrero in tiebreaks. Big win for De Bakker. Against Tsonga, he'll also have a tough time, but this is his favorite surface, and he may be ready to make his move.
The other two matches both feature young guns against seasoned veterans, as well. Ernests Gulbis has had an easy road to the quarterfinals, as both of the seeds in his section were upset before Gulbis in turn beat their vanquishers. He now faces Fernando Verdasco. Gulbis is still trying to build off the momentum he should have gained by winning his first title in Del Ray Beach and to recapture the magic during his breakout run at the French Open two years ago. A deep run here could do the trick.
The last match-up is between two players who have already demonstrated their bona fides on the crushed brick. David Ferrer and Tomaz Bellucci are playing for what would have been Nadal's semifinal spot, so they know what a chance they've been given. Ferrer won their only meeting, earlier this year, and I favor him again, but Bellucci has a shot.
Everyone left in the draw knows that they dodged a freight train with Nadal's withdrawal, so expect everyone to be eager to take advantage of this unexpected chance to win a title. And everyone left has been hot. Of the eight players left in the draw, only Tsonga, Schwank, and De Bakker have not already won a title this year. So this is a tough field to get through.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Barcelona Round of 16
So the Barcelona tournament has lost a bit of its star power. Nadal withdrew before the tournament started, in a decision which I think is probably for the best. He demolished the field in Monte Carlo, but the clay court season is long, and he doesn't want to run out of steam during the French Open, like he did last time. He wasn't the only withdrawal, as Tomas Berdych also pulled out before the tourney began. Robredo also retired with injury once his match started, knocking three of the tournament's 16 seeds.
Several of the others who had a possibility to go deep in the tournament have already lost. Juan Monaco lost to Gimeno-Traver, Lleyton Hewitt to Eduardo Schwank, Fernando Gonzalez to qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas, and Albert Montanes to Jeremy Chardy, who then lost to Ernests Gulbis.
Since the tournament's order has been upset, the matches on the docket for tomorrow are a motley assortment of crackerjack matchups between the seeds that remain and surprising contests from players that aren't very familiar. Tomorrow's best matchup is between Nicolas Almagro and JW Tsonga, which should feature plenty of really big hitting. Soderling also faces Feliciano Lopez, which should feature a few aces.
With Nadal's withdrawal, this tournament completely opens up, and this is a really important tournament for every player hoping to put together a good clay-court season. Next week's tournament in Rome almost certainly belongs to one of the world's top three players, as does the tournament in Madrid a couple weeks after that. There are only a handful of other clay court tournaments, and they're all 250-level.
So look for Ferrer, Ferrero, and Verdasco to continue the Spanish dominance on this surface, while Tsonga wants to prep for his French Open run. Robin Soderling wants to try to equal his clay court effort from last year, and there are a handful of young guns hoping to take the tournament: Tomaz Bellucci, Ernests Gulbis, and Thiemo De Bakker. These last few rounds suddenly got very interesting, without Nadal around to burn through the rest of the field.
Several of the others who had a possibility to go deep in the tournament have already lost. Juan Monaco lost to Gimeno-Traver, Lleyton Hewitt to Eduardo Schwank, Fernando Gonzalez to qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas, and Albert Montanes to Jeremy Chardy, who then lost to Ernests Gulbis.
Since the tournament's order has been upset, the matches on the docket for tomorrow are a motley assortment of crackerjack matchups between the seeds that remain and surprising contests from players that aren't very familiar. Tomorrow's best matchup is between Nicolas Almagro and JW Tsonga, which should feature plenty of really big hitting. Soderling also faces Feliciano Lopez, which should feature a few aces.
With Nadal's withdrawal, this tournament completely opens up, and this is a really important tournament for every player hoping to put together a good clay-court season. Next week's tournament in Rome almost certainly belongs to one of the world's top three players, as does the tournament in Madrid a couple weeks after that. There are only a handful of other clay court tournaments, and they're all 250-level.
So look for Ferrer, Ferrero, and Verdasco to continue the Spanish dominance on this surface, while Tsonga wants to prep for his French Open run. Robin Soderling wants to try to equal his clay court effort from last year, and there are a handful of young guns hoping to take the tournament: Tomaz Bellucci, Ernests Gulbis, and Thiemo De Bakker. These last few rounds suddenly got very interesting, without Nadal around to burn through the rest of the field.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Monte Carlo Wrap-up, Barcelona Preview
Well, it looks like rumors of Rafael Nadal's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the fact that he hadn't won a title since his monumental loss at the French Open last year, despite his months out of the game with knee problems, despite his surprising losses in recent months after blowing leads, Nadal came back and showed everyone why he's the king of clay. Verdasco was dismissed just as easily as Thiemo De Bakker or Michael Berrer, and that's saying something. Despite not facing his two biggest clay court opponents, Djokovic or Federer, Nadal made such light work of the resistance he did face (Verdasco, Ferrer, and Ferrero are all solid clay court players, anyway) that I don't think anyone could have stopped him this week. Bjorn Borg could have traveled through time to 2010 from 1980, and he still would have barely been able to win a set.
This was a really bad day for finals, as a matter of fact. In addition to Nadal's trouncing of Verdasco 6-0, 6-1, Francesca Schiavone beat Roberta Vinci in the Barcelona women's final 6-1, 6-1, and Sam Stosur beat Vera Zvonareva 6-0, 6-3. In three matches, the losing players combined to win a grand total of 6 games. That's a single set, that they managed to win, all playing together. At least Verdasco had the excuse of playing an in-form Nadal on his best surface.
Looking ahead to Barcelona, Nadal is in action once again, trying to defend a second consecutive title for the sixth consecutive time. That would be... even more unprecedented than his win today was, I suppose. Let's take a look at the draw. Since this is 500-level tournament rather than a Masters 1000, the field is a bit depleted, but most of the clay-court specialists are still around.
Nadal is the top seed and 5-time defending champion here this week. Who knows if the conditions will suit him as well as they did in Monte Carlo, but he's going to have seriously drop his level of play to be challenged. Which is not to say that there aren't strong players in his quarter. In the third round, I expect he'll face the winner of the most intriguing first-round matchup, between Finn Jarkko Nieminen and Brazilian Tomaz Bellucci. I would like to see Bellucci-Nadal on clay, because I expect we'll see that matchup another dozen times in the next five or six years. Eventually, Bellucci may get the better of the master, but at this point, he's just not developed enough as a player and Nadal is far too strong for him. Nadal's quarterfinal opponent will probably be David Ferrer again, and I expect that the result will be much the same as it was in Monte Carlo. He may also face Tommy Robredo there, but Tommy has even less of a shot.
Nadal's semifinal opponent will probably be either fourth seed Fernando Verdasco or fifth seed Fernando Gonzalez. Both have good results on clay, and are slated to meet in the quarters. There are a handful of spoilers in that section to watch out for, though. David Nalbandian is there, as is Ernests Gulbis. Igor Andreev plays Richard Gasquet in another enticing opening round matchup, and the lone American in the draw is Michael Russel, who apparently missed the memo that every US player is just going to consider the clay season a lost cause. I hope he wins a match.
The other half of the draw features a projected quarterfinal match-up between JW Tsonga and Juan Carlos Ferrero, which one of the best matches at Monte Carlo, so that would be an exciting rematch. Both will have to get through tricky match-ups in the round of 16 to have a replay of last week's three-setter, though. Ferrero faces Juan Monaco and Tsonga is up against Nicolas Almagro. Really, any of those four has a legitimate shot of making the semifinals.
Their opponent could be just about anyone, as the two top seeds who are weakest on clay ended up in this quarter. Berdych is slated to face Soderling for a spot in the semis, but despite the Swede's amazing run to last year's French Open final, he's really not a specialist on the red clay. Look for a dark horse, maybe Horacio Zeballos or Lleyton Hewitt, to make a run to the semis from this quarter.
The question of the week is really going to be whether Nadal is going to have any more trouble demolishing his opposition than he did last week. It seems like he simply can't continue to play the kind of imperious tennis he managed last week, but he's done it here five times before. Why not a sixth time for the second week in a row?
This was a really bad day for finals, as a matter of fact. In addition to Nadal's trouncing of Verdasco 6-0, 6-1, Francesca Schiavone beat Roberta Vinci in the Barcelona women's final 6-1, 6-1, and Sam Stosur beat Vera Zvonareva 6-0, 6-3. In three matches, the losing players combined to win a grand total of 6 games. That's a single set, that they managed to win, all playing together. At least Verdasco had the excuse of playing an in-form Nadal on his best surface.
Looking ahead to Barcelona, Nadal is in action once again, trying to defend a second consecutive title for the sixth consecutive time. That would be... even more unprecedented than his win today was, I suppose. Let's take a look at the draw. Since this is 500-level tournament rather than a Masters 1000, the field is a bit depleted, but most of the clay-court specialists are still around.
Nadal is the top seed and 5-time defending champion here this week. Who knows if the conditions will suit him as well as they did in Monte Carlo, but he's going to have seriously drop his level of play to be challenged. Which is not to say that there aren't strong players in his quarter. In the third round, I expect he'll face the winner of the most intriguing first-round matchup, between Finn Jarkko Nieminen and Brazilian Tomaz Bellucci. I would like to see Bellucci-Nadal on clay, because I expect we'll see that matchup another dozen times in the next five or six years. Eventually, Bellucci may get the better of the master, but at this point, he's just not developed enough as a player and Nadal is far too strong for him. Nadal's quarterfinal opponent will probably be David Ferrer again, and I expect that the result will be much the same as it was in Monte Carlo. He may also face Tommy Robredo there, but Tommy has even less of a shot.
Nadal's semifinal opponent will probably be either fourth seed Fernando Verdasco or fifth seed Fernando Gonzalez. Both have good results on clay, and are slated to meet in the quarters. There are a handful of spoilers in that section to watch out for, though. David Nalbandian is there, as is Ernests Gulbis. Igor Andreev plays Richard Gasquet in another enticing opening round matchup, and the lone American in the draw is Michael Russel, who apparently missed the memo that every US player is just going to consider the clay season a lost cause. I hope he wins a match.
The other half of the draw features a projected quarterfinal match-up between JW Tsonga and Juan Carlos Ferrero, which one of the best matches at Monte Carlo, so that would be an exciting rematch. Both will have to get through tricky match-ups in the round of 16 to have a replay of last week's three-setter, though. Ferrero faces Juan Monaco and Tsonga is up against Nicolas Almagro. Really, any of those four has a legitimate shot of making the semifinals.
Their opponent could be just about anyone, as the two top seeds who are weakest on clay ended up in this quarter. Berdych is slated to face Soderling for a spot in the semis, but despite the Swede's amazing run to last year's French Open final, he's really not a specialist on the red clay. Look for a dark horse, maybe Horacio Zeballos or Lleyton Hewitt, to make a run to the semis from this quarter.
The question of the week is really going to be whether Nadal is going to have any more trouble demolishing his opposition than he did last week. It seems like he simply can't continue to play the kind of imperious tennis he managed last week, but he's done it here five times before. Why not a sixth time for the second week in a row?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Monte Carlo Final
Well, one half of the dream final made it to the party. Rafael Nadal dismissed David Ferrer without too much trouble. Surprisingly, Novak Djokovic was dismissed with similar ease by Fernando Verdasco. This is not the result that Novak was looking for, but I think that there may have been a mitigating factor in his defeat. This may sound outlandish, but stick with me for a moment. The ash which has been strewn into the atmosphere by the volcano in Iceland has gotten into the air over Europe, carried by wind currents. Airports have been affected, and presumably, the air quality on the continent has degraded as well.
Djokovic's breathing problems have been observed on many occasions, and it could be that this little difference in the air, coupled with Djokovic's own professed allergies over the past few days, may have affected his level of play in his semifinal appearance.
It's a shame, in a way, because even though Djokovic hadn't been playing well enough to really trouble Nadal, I give Verdasco almost no chance against his Spanish superior. Their overall head to head is 0-9 in favorite of the man from Mallorca. They've had a few really tight matches, including their memorable semifinal from the Australian Open in 2009, but that was on Verdasco's best surface, not Nadal's.
I just don't see how Verdasco is going to be able to trouble Nadal, here. The only thing working in his favor is how long Nadal has gone since winning a tournament, and how he's going for ATP history tomorrow by being the first player ever to win a tournament for six years running. But Verdasco has never been in a Master's Series final, before. So it's breaking new ground for him, as well. I expect Nadal to take the title, restore order to the tour, and make some history in the process.
Djokovic's breathing problems have been observed on many occasions, and it could be that this little difference in the air, coupled with Djokovic's own professed allergies over the past few days, may have affected his level of play in his semifinal appearance.
It's a shame, in a way, because even though Djokovic hadn't been playing well enough to really trouble Nadal, I give Verdasco almost no chance against his Spanish superior. Their overall head to head is 0-9 in favorite of the man from Mallorca. They've had a few really tight matches, including their memorable semifinal from the Australian Open in 2009, but that was on Verdasco's best surface, not Nadal's.
I just don't see how Verdasco is going to be able to trouble Nadal, here. The only thing working in his favor is how long Nadal has gone since winning a tournament, and how he's going for ATP history tomorrow by being the first player ever to win a tournament for six years running. But Verdasco has never been in a Master's Series final, before. So it's breaking new ground for him, as well. I expect Nadal to take the title, restore order to the tour, and make some history in the process.
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