We're through the first two rounds in this week of dueling Asian ATP 500 tournaments, and things are just starting to heat up. Of the eight matches taking place today, six of them are ones that you wouldn't be surprised to see in a Grand Slam quarterfinal, rather than a relatively low-tier tournament such as these.
In Tokyo, the field was slightly weaker from the beginning, and that's reflected in the line-up we have in store for today. Rafael Nadal, who handled the young Canadian player Milos Raonic fairly easily yesterday - will face a much different opponent today. Dmitry Tursunov is a former top-20 player who nearly vanished from the game. He's been 1-5 on the year before this week, when he notched two very nice wins over Richard Gasquet and his own doubles partner Ernests Gulbis. He's a great personality, so I'm excited to see him playing well again, but his run ends here against Nadal. Still, his ranking should jump quite a bit next week, considering he's at 432 just now.
The second quarterfinal features Viktor Troicki, who won a tough match against Jurgen Melzer in the last round, against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, last week's titlist in Bangkok. He's playing spectacular tennis and could get a worn out Troicki, so I think we're heading for a rematch between Nadal and his countryman in the semifinals. That would be exciting to see.
Two more veterans will face each other in the third quarterfinal - and they're also both in the process of coming back from injury layoffs. Jarkko Nieminen, a steady, completely un-flashy baseliner from Finland will face off against mercurial, net-rushing, recently-married Radek Stepanek. It will be an interesting contrast in styles, and Nieminen has been playing quite well, coming off a final last week. This one could go either way.
The last and best quarterfinal in Tokyo is between Andy Roddick and Gael Monfils. This is an interesting match because both players tend to play more defensive than they really should - and Monfils definitely based his service motion off Andy Roddick's (just watch it - the only difference is Gael doesn't step up to the line with his back foot). Monfils leads in their head-to-head, so this could go either way. I'm looking forward to it.
In Beijing, on the other hand, all four of these matches are just spectacular. Every one could easily have been a final any other week of the year. Top seed Novak Djokovic plays Gilles Simon, who gutted out a tough win against Michael Berrer in the last round. Djoker, on the other hand, got a walkover from Mardy Fish. It's likely that he'll be the fresher player and come out on top - but it could also be that he could have used more time on court, since beating a Chinese wildcard in the first round doesn't really constitute much useful experience.
In the next match, Nikolay Davydenko faces big John Isner. This is definitely a contrast in styles. Normally, I'd say that Davydenko's return would be too much for Isner's serving prowess, but Davydenko has not been in his best form since he came back from injury, and has just been hemorrhaging ranking points this Fall. This could be a win for Isner, but it won't be easy. Both guys played opponents with similar styles in the last round - Isner beat Kohlschreiber while Davydenko bested Cilic. They should each be primed for a good match.
The bottom half has David Ferrer playing Robin Soderling, which is a really great match on paper - but unfortunately for Ferrer, he's gotten owned by Soderling in the past. Robin leads the head-to-head 7-2, and both those wins were on clay. It could be a good match - they play each other tough, most of the time - but the conditions favor Soderling, so I like his odds.
The final match is between Ivan Ljubicic and Andy Murray. Ivan won a Masters event earlier in the year and has not made much noise since. On the other hand, Murray hasn't been playing up to his standards recently - he won a summer hardcourt Masters title, but like his opponent today, has otherwise been less successful than he would prefer. Their last match was a really good one, so I'm hoping this one will be fun as well.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Week 39 Review and Week 40 Preview
The last week of tennis actually turned out to be pretty exciting - I'm sorry I wasn't around to cover it more while it was actually going on. I'll do a quick recap, though.
In Thailand, it looked like things were going to be pretty boring. All of the top contenders dropped, one by one. Verdasco looked sluggish in his loss to Benjamin Becker, as did Gulbis to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Del Potro and Melzer were beaten by players who had great days, Olivier Rochus and Jarkko Nieminen, in particular. Nieminen had also beaten Viktor Troicki, which is a pretty good pair of scalps for the top Finn. With all of these guys gone, it looked like Rafael Nadal would cruise to the title. He was the only seed to make the semifinals, after all.
But then something unusual happened. In his match against fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Nadal managed to do something I've never seen anyone do, much less him. He lost 24 of 26 break point chances in the match. Garcia-Lopez won the second set in the tiebreak and managed one break in the third set to take the match. It was a pretty stunning performance from Garcia-Lopez, who followed it up with a win over Jarkko Nieminen in the final. He had a great week as well, but Guillermo was riding high after that incredibly gutsy performance against Nadal. This was a great week for these two vets, who between the two of them beat five of the eight seeds in the draw. Both of them jump into the top 50 in the rankings this week, as well.
In Malaysia, there were quite a few stories to pay attention to over the course of the week. Davydenko's slide continues while another Russian is finally back on the rise when Nikolay lost in his first match to Igor Andreev. Andreev also beat one of the other interesting stories of the tournament, as young Canadian player beat Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round before he went out. Keep an eye out for Raonic. Andreev eventually lost to a third Russian, Mikhail Youzhny - and I predict that he's going to be the top Russian player in the game, in not too long. The best match on that side of the draw was Youzhny over Baghdatis, which went for two close sets before the Russian closed out the Cypriot with relative ease in the third.
On the other side of the draw, the best match-up was between David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych, which also went three sets, and the eventual winner (Ferrer) had to come back from a set down to do it. But while Youzhny was able to build on his win, the Spaniard seemed to be tired from his tough victory over this year's Wimbledon finalist, and he fell to Andrey Golubev. Now Golubev had just notched an impressive win over top seed Robin Soderling. The Kazakh player actually won nine sets in a row before Youzhny came back in the final and beat him in a third-set tiebreak. Despite not quite being able to close the deal, this was a great week for Golubev. I love his game, and I think we'll see him in the top ten at some point soon. And credit to Youzhny as well. Great performances from both guys.
Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the mandatory Masters event in Shanghai, so the tournament draws are getting more and more stacked in preparation. The two 500 events taking place this week in Beijing and Tokyo have 18 of the world's top 20 players in action. The only two missing are both Swiss: Federer and Wawrinka. In Japan, Nadal is the top seed, but the rest of the draw is not as strong. In China, we have seven of the world's top ten players, which is just unbelievable. I'll look at the Tokyo draw, first.
In addition to Nadal's presence, the other noteworthy thing about this tournament is that it marks JW Tsonga's return to action and will be his first tournament played since Wimbledon. He has a tough opening round against last week's finalist in Thailand, Jarkko Nieminen, but that's far from the best opening match-up you'll see thsi week. Eighth-seeded Michael Llodra gets Marco Chiudinelli (ironically, the top Swiss player in action this week), Viktor Troicki plays home-town hope Kei Nishikori, Ernests Gulbis gets former top-tenner Dmitry Tursunov, Richard Gasquet plays Thiemo de Bakker, and Juan Martin Del Potro gets Feliciano Lopez! That match is actually in progress now, and I am upset that I can't find any streaming coverage of it.
Looking ahead a bit, Nadal could get Milos Raonic in the second round, which could be interesting. If Nishikori wins his first round, he could play Jurgen Melzer next, which is a stern challenge for the Japanese 20-year old. It would be great to see Michael Llodra play Radek Stepanek in the second round, as these guys are two fun, veteran players who love to serve and volley. That would be like old-school tennis! Also keep an eye out for a potential match-up between Roddick and Monfils. There are a lot of players who can make noise in this draw, so it's tough to know just how it will shake out. Roddick needs a good run, to try to get his year back on track and finish strong. He said he's 100% healthy again, which is what he'll need to be against this level of competition.
But that group of first-round match-ups is nothing compared to the smorgasbord you'll find in Beijing. Here's the first-round matches I find particularly exciting: Fish-Tipsarev, Querrey-Simon, Cilic-Bellucci, Kohlschreiber-Verdasco, Istomin-Ferrer, Soderling-Robredo, Ljubicic-Youzhny, and Dolgopolov-Baghdatis. I mean, are you kidding? That's an all-star line-up of top players for a 32-player draw. And by the second round, the possibilities are just too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say I'll be watching this tournament with a great deal of excitement.
We'll see what the week brings! It's getting pretty late in the year, and only three of the top eight players have sealed their passage into the year-end tournament. The race is getting tight, now.
In Thailand, it looked like things were going to be pretty boring. All of the top contenders dropped, one by one. Verdasco looked sluggish in his loss to Benjamin Becker, as did Gulbis to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Del Potro and Melzer were beaten by players who had great days, Olivier Rochus and Jarkko Nieminen, in particular. Nieminen had also beaten Viktor Troicki, which is a pretty good pair of scalps for the top Finn. With all of these guys gone, it looked like Rafael Nadal would cruise to the title. He was the only seed to make the semifinals, after all.
But then something unusual happened. In his match against fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Nadal managed to do something I've never seen anyone do, much less him. He lost 24 of 26 break point chances in the match. Garcia-Lopez won the second set in the tiebreak and managed one break in the third set to take the match. It was a pretty stunning performance from Garcia-Lopez, who followed it up with a win over Jarkko Nieminen in the final. He had a great week as well, but Guillermo was riding high after that incredibly gutsy performance against Nadal. This was a great week for these two vets, who between the two of them beat five of the eight seeds in the draw. Both of them jump into the top 50 in the rankings this week, as well.
In Malaysia, there were quite a few stories to pay attention to over the course of the week. Davydenko's slide continues while another Russian is finally back on the rise when Nikolay lost in his first match to Igor Andreev. Andreev also beat one of the other interesting stories of the tournament, as young Canadian player beat Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round before he went out. Keep an eye out for Raonic. Andreev eventually lost to a third Russian, Mikhail Youzhny - and I predict that he's going to be the top Russian player in the game, in not too long. The best match on that side of the draw was Youzhny over Baghdatis, which went for two close sets before the Russian closed out the Cypriot with relative ease in the third.
On the other side of the draw, the best match-up was between David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych, which also went three sets, and the eventual winner (Ferrer) had to come back from a set down to do it. But while Youzhny was able to build on his win, the Spaniard seemed to be tired from his tough victory over this year's Wimbledon finalist, and he fell to Andrey Golubev. Now Golubev had just notched an impressive win over top seed Robin Soderling. The Kazakh player actually won nine sets in a row before Youzhny came back in the final and beat him in a third-set tiebreak. Despite not quite being able to close the deal, this was a great week for Golubev. I love his game, and I think we'll see him in the top ten at some point soon. And credit to Youzhny as well. Great performances from both guys.
Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the mandatory Masters event in Shanghai, so the tournament draws are getting more and more stacked in preparation. The two 500 events taking place this week in Beijing and Tokyo have 18 of the world's top 20 players in action. The only two missing are both Swiss: Federer and Wawrinka. In Japan, Nadal is the top seed, but the rest of the draw is not as strong. In China, we have seven of the world's top ten players, which is just unbelievable. I'll look at the Tokyo draw, first.
In addition to Nadal's presence, the other noteworthy thing about this tournament is that it marks JW Tsonga's return to action and will be his first tournament played since Wimbledon. He has a tough opening round against last week's finalist in Thailand, Jarkko Nieminen, but that's far from the best opening match-up you'll see thsi week. Eighth-seeded Michael Llodra gets Marco Chiudinelli (ironically, the top Swiss player in action this week), Viktor Troicki plays home-town hope Kei Nishikori, Ernests Gulbis gets former top-tenner Dmitry Tursunov, Richard Gasquet plays Thiemo de Bakker, and Juan Martin Del Potro gets Feliciano Lopez! That match is actually in progress now, and I am upset that I can't find any streaming coverage of it.
Looking ahead a bit, Nadal could get Milos Raonic in the second round, which could be interesting. If Nishikori wins his first round, he could play Jurgen Melzer next, which is a stern challenge for the Japanese 20-year old. It would be great to see Michael Llodra play Radek Stepanek in the second round, as these guys are two fun, veteran players who love to serve and volley. That would be like old-school tennis! Also keep an eye out for a potential match-up between Roddick and Monfils. There are a lot of players who can make noise in this draw, so it's tough to know just how it will shake out. Roddick needs a good run, to try to get his year back on track and finish strong. He said he's 100% healthy again, which is what he'll need to be against this level of competition.
But that group of first-round match-ups is nothing compared to the smorgasbord you'll find in Beijing. Here's the first-round matches I find particularly exciting: Fish-Tipsarev, Querrey-Simon, Cilic-Bellucci, Kohlschreiber-Verdasco, Istomin-Ferrer, Soderling-Robredo, Ljubicic-Youzhny, and Dolgopolov-Baghdatis. I mean, are you kidding? That's an all-star line-up of top players for a 32-player draw. And by the second round, the possibilities are just too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say I'll be watching this tournament with a great deal of excitement.
We'll see what the week brings! It's getting pretty late in the year, and only three of the top eight players have sealed their passage into the year-end tournament. The race is getting tight, now.
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