Week 30 Wrap-up and Week 31 Preview

Well, three out of the four finals today actually turned out to be a bit of a let-down. Three straight set victories, in which the losing player was basically never in the match. I'll get to the thriller last.

Unfortunately, Richard Gasquet seemed to have some sort of an injury - I was watching a video feed with no commentator, so I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was clear that Gasquet was not serving as well as he had been up to this point in the tournament. The Frenchman had been serving at about 55% and winning 70% of his first serve points up to now. In the final, though, those numbers were almost reversed - Gasquet served at 80% first serves and only won 56% of those points. Honestly, that's a sign of an injury - you don't suddenly start serving that weakly out of strategy. It's a shame, because there were some very good points, but Gasquet just couldn't keep up the level of play he needed.

In Umag, Ferrero was just too strong for his Italian opponent. Starace never had a break point against the former world number one. Ferrero only had one in each set, but that was all he needed. It was a good match, but not an exciting one.

The more star-studded of the women's final was something of a surprise - Victoria Azarenka won her first title since April last year, beating Sharapova thoroughly. The match would have been tighter, but I think Sharapova suffered from her late three-setter last night against Radwanska, and her three-setter the night before against Dementieva. She was tired, she hadn't played during the day, and she was facing an invigorated opponent. There were some stunning points, particularly in the first set, but not a lot of great serving - there were five breaks in the first set. Their games are similar, but the intangibles were with the Belarussian today. On another day, Sharapova could have easily taken the match.

The most exciting final today was definitely in Los Angeles - Sam Querrey lost the first set in a dispiriting fashion, double-faulting on break and set point after having held a one-break lead earlier in the set. He could have easily gone away, playing a higher-ranked, more experienced player who he had never even managed a single set against in four previous meetings. But Sam had already escaped defeat in his previous two matches, so he was playing with house money. Querrey upped his level of play significantly, smacking unbelievable winners that even Murray couldn't run down consistently. He didn't get frustrated by everything that the Scot was getting back, and he played well within himself.

That almost wasn't enough. Murray had another break and set point in the second set, but Querrey saved that, then ran away with the tiebreak. He really outplayed the world number four at that stage of the match, and he took the momentum and ran away with it. He kept his cool and went up a break in the third, served supremely well, and closed out the match. This is huge win for Querrey, who does not have a great record against the players at the top tier of the game. It may not have been on the biggest stage, but this was an excellent win. On the other hand, this is a bad sign for Andy Murray, who has still not won a title this year. He's losing almost 1400 points this month from his strong performances at last year's Summer hard court Masters events. He's not playing at that form this year, and he could drop out of the top four for the first time in a long while. I don't know if he's still hungover from that Aussie Open loss in the final or what, but we haven't seen classic Andy Murray since that tournament in 2010.

Looking ahead, after a week of so many tournaments taking place, it will be nice to be able to focus on one bigger event: the Legg Mason tennis championships in Washington, D.C. This will be an interesting event, because more of the top players are starting to come out of the post-Wimbledon woodwork, and the second European clay court season is finally over, so those players are crossing the Atlantic and joining the pre-U.S. Open party.

The top seed in Washington is Tomas Berdych, who hasn't played since the Wimbledon final. Considering his lack of match play, can't really be considered the favorite here, especially not with such a strong field. While two-time defending champ Juan Martin Del Potro can't defend his title, Andy Roddick is here, who won in 2007, when he beat John Isner. This was Isner's break-out tournament, and see how far he's come since then.

Sam Querrey is also here, and if he's not jaded after playing four three-set matches in as many days last week, can have a strong week. Mardy Fish is also back, after taking last week off, still riding a ten match winning streak. And while James Blake may have been unable to get over the hump against Feliciano Lopez last week, he still played as well as he has since January. That's a lot of strong Americans in the field.

And in addition to the home-town boys, Verdasco and Cilic are also in action, as are Baghdatis and Gulbis. Former champions Lleyton Hewitt and Arnaud Clement are also here. Radek Stepanek is getting back into action, after a long injury layoff, and the surprise winner in Hamburg, Andrey Golubev, is the 16th seed. Two wildcards also went to David Nalbandian and Richard Gasquet. And one of my favorite up-and-coming players, Kei Nishikori, made it through qualifying. Plenty of space for fireworks this week.

The best opening-round matches are between last week's almost semifinalist Janko Tipsarevic and Arnaud Clement, a former champion here. And they're playing for the privilege of getting Sam Querrey in the second round! Also look for James Blake against U.S. qualifier Ryan Sweeting, who has a good career ahead of him. Dmitry Tursonov, who has been having a really rough year, plays Roddick's conqueror at the French Open, Teymuraz Gabashvili. David Nalbandian plays Rajeev Ram, and Yen-Hsun Lu (Roddick's conqueror at Wimbledon) plays Alejandro Falla. Those are some pretty good first-rounds.

I have a busy week ahead of me, with some travel, so I won't be able to focus on the tennis as much as I would like, which is a shame. But I'll try to catch and write about what I can.

Week 28 Wrap-up and Week 29 Preview

The finals that we wrapped up today were a study in contrasts - in Bastad, hometown (and on-paper) favorite Robin Soderling lost a tightly-contested match to Spaniard Nicolas Almagro, a big win for Almagro, who hadn't won a title since February of 2009. Almagro is a guy who can hit anyone off the court, if his shots are landing. Soderling used to be the kind of player that Almagro is now - incredibly powerful, but not very consistent. Almagro has the game to be where Soderling is now, if he can just figure out how to be as consistent as Robin has become, week-in and week-out. He managed to best him today though, and that's what mattered.

The other final of the day was more anti-climactic, as Gael Monfils was forced to retire with an injured ankle against Albert Montanes. That's a shame, because that would have been a great match-up. Gael has trouble at the last stage of tournaments - he is now 2-8 in finals. Credit Montanes for putting together a great week, but that has to be disappointing for Monfils.

Looking ahead to next week, there are two interesting events. The first, the continuation of the second clay-court season, takes place in Hamburg: the International German Open is an ATP 500 even on clay. This section of the season is still odd to me, but this tournament features some great players. Davydenko is still in Europe, hoping to get his post-injury year back on track as the top seed. Basically, all of the clay court stalwarts are back for this tournament - with the exception of Soderling, who was just playing Bastad because he's Swedish. Of course, this event used to be the Hamburg Masters before it was downgraded and moved so Shanghai could be put into that tier. The tournament organizers just lost an appeal to dispute that downgrade, so it'll be interesting to see how the tournament goes. It should still be a fun event, though.

First-round matches to watch are Chiudinelli-Chardy, Nieminen-Christophe Rochus, and actually about a half dozen other appetizing match-ups between solid clay court players. There aren't any of the really big guns playing this tournament this year, but there's a lot of good players, so it would be a fun tournament to see.

That said, it's tough for me to get too pumped about the second swing of the clay-court season in Europe, because I'm gearing up for the American summer hard courts, which are getting underway this week in Atlanta. This is the first year of this tournament in Atlanta, as they got the tournament from Indianapolis, when it closed due to bad financial pressure last year. Fortunately for Atlanta, the field (which was already pretty strong in American players) got a huge boost when Andy Roddick took a wildcard. That, plus hometown boy John Isner's recent publicity at Wimbledon, should give the tournament a pretty good first year.

Most of the game's top US players are here, with the exception of Sam Querrey. Taylor Dent and James Blake open against each other, which may be a good match, but it's a shame they have to meet at such an early stage. Donald Young opens against Dudi Sela, and Michael Russell gets Benjamin Becker. Roddick should be the favorite in this tournament, but he only stands to gain 100 ranking points, and that's if he wins the whole thing. He already has a win and a final at other 250 tournaments this year, so I imagine his appearance has more to do with building some form, helping out the new tournament, and probably a hefty appearance fee as well. I'm looking forward to seeing him in action on U.S. Soil again, as his European campaign was pretty lackluster, after a stellar run in the earlier part of the year.

Madrid Semifinals

We're up to the Madrid semifinals. It looks like order is pretty close to being restored. Both Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are both in the semifinals of a tournament for the first time this year since Doha. We almost had another one of the top four in there as well, but Andy Murray fell to David Ferrer. In Spain's clay-court Masters event, there are three Spaniards and Roger Federer in the semifinals. So really, this is perhaps the least crazy Masters event we've had yet this year.

Honestly, it will be a surprise if we don't have a rematch of the Federer-Nadal final from last year on Sunday. Almagro came out of a weak quarter and hasn't had to face anyone close to the level of Nadal up to this point. And Federer seems to be trying very hard to find his form, and the Federer Express is 9-0 against Ferrer. He may have suffered a few first-time losses lately, but it's tough to see Ferrer coming through. He was pretty gritty against Gulbis, and had just enough of the right stuff to come away with the win. Ferrer was more solid against Murray, but the Scot wasn't hitting his shots. Ferrer will have to expect some tougher balls to handle tomorrow.

Nadal and Almagro each blew through their matches, so there isn't too much to say about them. That matchup looks a lot like the other semi, actually. Nadal is 5-0 against Almagro, and it's tough to see him losing that one. So we'll get our first Rafa-Fed face-off since exactly one year ago, on the eve of the French Open. It seems appropriate somehow, doesn't it?

Madrid Quartefinals

Tomorrow we have the quarterfinals in the final clay-court Masters event of the year. It's a fairly strong lineup, but a few of the faces that one might have expected to find there are out, either due to injury or fatigue. But three of the four quarterfinal matches feature six players who have to be considered favorites to make the second week at Roland Garros.

Of those quarterfinal matches, the one that may be the most interesting is Roger Federer against Ernests Gulbis. While the rematch between Federer and Wawrinka today was a bit of a dud, that was in large part because Wawrinka failed to show up, and Federer managed to just stay solid. I don't think he can expect the same kind of performance from Gulbis tomorrow. The court in Madrid is harder and less clay-ish than the rest of the Masters events on the surface, which would normally help Federer. But it helps Gulbis, too. I expect Federer to be in a "refuse to lose" mode tomorrow, since one loss to the young Latvian was more than enough, I'm sure. But he will have to play well - better than he has in a while - to keep Ernests from hitting him off the court, assuming he can keep his head on straight.

The other particularly interesting quarterfinal is between Andy Murray and David Ferrer. Murray has actually performed the best out of any of the quarterfinalists thus far, dropping only nine games in his first two matches. On the other hand, Ferrer is one of only two of the remaining eight players who has dropped a set. So the Spaniard has not been at his best, while Murray seems to have been playing well. But the Scot also hasn't faced the toughest opposition, while Ferrer ran into an inspired Baghdatis in teh second round. This one is a toss-up. Ferrer is likely to be more tired, while one thing that Murray definitely hasn't done lately is play too many matches. I'm anxious to see how this one goes.

The other two matches are less exciting in terms of the outcome. Rafael Nadal plays Gael Monfils, who is playing just his sixth match since March. It seems extremely unlikely that the recently injured Frenchman could upset Nadal, but no matter what the outcome, there should be some stellar shotmaking. The other quarterfinal is two players playing for the honor of losing to Nadal in the semis. Jurgen Melzer and Nicolas Almagro took advantage of a fatigue-ravaged section to reach the quarters. It's really a toss-up about who could win, but on one hand, it's not going to matter once Sunday rolls around.

On the women's side, I'm glad to see that Venus Williams and Sam Stosur, which could be an awesome match, is on center court, despite not having any Spanish players in action. The Europeans seem to care less about the women on clay than the men, at this time of year, but it's good that the tournament organizers saw that this is a match that shouldn't be missed. I pick the winner of that match to make the final, though at that point, it's going to be a tough fight against either Petrova or Jankovic. This should be an exciting weekend. I wish I didn't have a wedding to attend, because I'd stay up all night and watch tennis!

Miami Quarterfinals

It looked like most of the day would go by without any particularly stunning upsets. Almagro had beaten Bellucci and Verdasco had beaten Cilic, but those matches were always going to be tight. They weren't stunning upsets. Marion Bartoli had beaten Yanina Wickmeyer, but again, they are very close in the rankings and it was tight.

And then, Tomas Berdych produced the upset of the week. He was 1-8 going into this match against Roger Federer, and hadn't won since the Olympics in 2004. Everyone remembers the Czech's epic choke job against the Swiss in the 2009 Australian Open, when he he was up 2 sets to love, and had a point to break and go up 5-4 in the third, so he could serve for the match. He duffed a shot into the net, and from that point on, Federer's comeback never seemed to be in doubt.

Tonight, Berdych started slow, with Federer breaking him in the first game, but the big man stormed back to take the set 6-4 on the strength of two breaks. He was two points from the match in the second set, but ended up losing it in an error-filled tiebreak. The third set also went to a tiebreak, and Federer had match point on his own serve, which Berdych gamely saved with a few of his trademark massive forehands. Then Federer sailed a shot long and it was all over.

Huge, huge win for Berdych. His half of the draw is decimated, as he's eliminated the last real contender for the title. One of the four players left on his side is making it to the final - in addition to Berdych, there is Verdasco, Youzhny, and Soderling. Berdych is the only one who has made it past this stage at a Masters event (except for the Swede, who made the semis in Indian Wells last week) but for all the other players left, this is going to be uncharted territory. It's going to a hard-fought place in the finals, as all four of the remaining players know that they could have a shot at a Masters shield.

The bottom half of the draw is relatively tough, with three top-ten players remaining instead of only one. The only three-set match from the bottom half of the draw today was between Tomaz Bellucci and Nicolas Almagro. Almagro does seem to enjoy being the villain, as he relished in his role against the heavily pro-Brazilian crowd. He'll be even more of an antagonist against Roddick tomorrow, but if he can hit as well as he can, he might trouble the American.

Particularly if Roddick gets out of the gates going as slowly as he did against Becker today. I think that Andy was just late getting to the court, because he dropped serve in his first service game of the match, and saved three break point chances to keep himself from being down 1-5. After saving that, he decided to start playing, so he quickly broke back and ended up winning the set in a tiebreak. That set was nearly a lost cause, so credit Roddick for not giving up and thinking about winning in three. His opponent came off the blocks playing like Boris Becker, not Benjamin, but he couldn't keep up that pace.

The other two matches were slightly less interesting, as Tsonga just bludgeoned Juan Carlos Ferrero off the court and Nadal once again outplayed his good friend and fellow Spaniard David Ferrer on the big points. Lots of grinding, long rallies, few winners, and Nadal on top. About as one would expect. When they face each other, Nadal can expect Tsonga to come to net more often, and to go for his shots a lot more. It could be an entertaining match. After dismantling Nadal in the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2008, Tsonga has gone 0-3 against the Spaniard, but as Berdych demonstrated, those streaks aren't destiny.

Nadal is now the last of the big four remaining, just like last week. I know he'll want to take advantage of it, but he's going to want to start getting ready for the Clay court tournament in Monty Carlo, which is only a week and a half away at this point. That's his bread and butter, and he has a lot of points to defend in the clay court season. There's a lot on Nadal's mind, at this point.

On the women's side, both Belgians are in action tomorrow. Both matches should be interesting becaues of their contrast. Hard-hitting, baseliner Kim Clijsters takes on former doubles specialist and expert volleyer Sam Stosur, while all-court veteran Justine Henin takes on the 20-year old Dane Caroline Wozniacki. I like the Belgians in both matches, but they've shown that they're capable of lapses in focus over the course of the year.

I can say with some certainty that there won't be any Federer-level upsets from this point on; there aren't any players left whose departure would be that much of a surprise!

Indian Wells Tuesday - Stunning Upset!

As the action draws to a close today, we finish what was a day of not all that thrilling tennis, up until the last match. First, a look at the other action around the grounds. Most of the seeded players cruised today. Roddick, Soderling, Murray, and Robredo all made it through without dropping a set. Only Soderling even went to a tiebreak. Tsonga lost a set on route to victory, but it was only a momentary lapse, and Montanes did not really have his teeth in the second and third sets.

The second-last match of the night, between James Blake and Nicolas Almagro, was a tight one, but was marred by some admittedly questionable calls at key moments, and subsequently more frustration than is necessary from Blake. He was playing well, but Almagro was serving bombs and smacking winners off both sides. Usually, Almagro can't keep that up for an entire match, but he was on tonight. It's no shame that James lost, and hopefully he'll be encouraged by the strength of his player this week.

The following match had all of the intensity and none of the controversy, as well as a much more marquee match-up. Twenty-seventh seed Marcos Baghdatis was facing Roger Federer in a rematch of the pair's Australian Open final from 2007. They had faced each other five other times, and Baghdatis was 2-15 in sets against the mighty Fed. When Federer won the first set 7-5 tonight, it looked like it would be more of the same. But Baghdatis fought back. Even though he was down by several match points, he brought the match to a third-set tiebreak and won with a single minibreak, 7-4. It's really a famous victory for the Cypriot, who is playing like he was when he made the top ten. There's no reason he can't find his way back there, if he can keep up this level of play.

As Cara Black and Liezel Huber also lost today, that means that the only top seeds left in the tournament are Nestor and Zimonjic in the men's doubles. This really is an odd tournament, in terms of favorites dropping like flies. Today, the women's side was relatively quiet, with the only upset between Maria Martinez-Sanchez and Yanina Wickmayer, which isn't a huge upset by any means. And Suarez-Navarro and Kleybanova are still on-court, so who knows what will happen there. So far, there have been six breaks in seven games, so Suarez-Navarro is up a hold.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the two halves of the tournament come together. Baghdatis is really at a disadvantage, having had to play so late and then come back tomorrow. Fortunately, he'll be last on Court 2 to play Tommy Robredo, but just based on health, it's going to be a tough ask for the Cypriot to follow up that win.

Also on court 2, Guillermo-Garcia Lopez plays Juan Monaco, which is not quite the match-up that you'd expect this deep into a hardcourt Masters series event. Good for both of these guys for making it this far, though. Unfortunately, they don't have much interest here in the states, so they're up first. Look for that match to be poorly-attended. Next up, Ivan Ljubicic faces Novak Djokovic, and if Djokovic decides to leave the court for a set again this match, expect the veteran Ljubicic to take advantage, unlike Kohlschreiber in the last round. There might be another upset here, depending on whether or not Djokovic shows up. Finally on court 2, Viktor Troicki will play his second game of the tournament against Tomaz Berdych. I'll admit that I don't give Troicki much of a shot here, particularly with how well Berdych played against Verdasco.

On center court, there are some real crackerjack matches. John Isner is playing Rafael Nadal, and though Nadal's knees have not seemed to be troubling him thus far this tournament, the big-hitting giant will give them their sternest test yet. After that, Tsonga and Soderling are playing in the earliest meeting of top ten players in this tournament. Both are playing great, but Soderling has a 2-0 advantage. Tsonga sometimes doesn't handle playing against big servers that well, which is strange since he's one of the best servers on tour. Soderling may have the advantage, but this should be close.

In the night session, both Andys are in action, but not against each other. Andy Roddick faces Austrian Jurgen "Tuna" Melzer, who got a walkover from Simon Gruel. Roddick's last opponent had gotten a retirement as well, and it didn't seem to do him much good. But Melzer is a tougher opponent, even though Roddick is 9-0 against him. As Bagdhatis showed today, a dominating head-to-head does not mean a dominating victory. The last match of the day features Andy Murray against Nicolas Almagro. Now Almagro is exactly the type of heavy-hitter who can trouble Murray, and if the Spaniard plays (and particularly serves) as well as he did against Blake, then Murray could be in trouble. But Murray can have a way of blunting those players' power, and getting them off their game enough to start missing. Look for him to do that tomorrow.

One final little NB - Isner and Querrey are playing Karlovic and Vemic in doubles tomorrow. The two biggest players on the tour on opposite sides of the net again.

Really, the latter stages of the tournament begins tomorrow in earnest. I'm anxious to see if the trend of upsets continues.