Newport and Davis Cup Wrap-up, Week 28 Preview

At the Campbell's Hall of Fame tennis championships, Mardy Fish won a tightly contested match against Olivier Rochus to take the title. This was a very impressive and steady performance from Fish, who has a pretty abysmal record in finals. Fortunately for him, Olivier Rochus's is not much better. The American recovered from being frustrated at some line calls at the end of the first set to win the second two cleanly enough - he got one break in each of the second two sets. In the final game of the match, Fish saved two break points - the first ones that Rochus had since the very first set.

It's a big win for Fish, who lost the Queens final about a month ago, and will hopefully bode well for the rest of his year, and the next few years of his career. It's unfortunate to think about, but as Fish is now 29 years old and has had a lot of injury problems, so he probably can count the number of good tennis years he has left on one hand. If he can keep up this form, though, I can see him making it back to the top 30, top 20, with pretty high confidence.

As for the Davis Cup, the action today was pretty exciting. Nikolay Davydenko overcome a slow start against Argentine Eduardo Schwank to beat him in four sets and redeem himself after losing his first singles match and playing his part in losing the doubles point as well. However, there was nothing he could do to help Mikhail Youzhny against David Nalbandian, who played like a man possessed this weekend. When is Nalby going to get back in action on the main tour, because he demolished both Davydenko and Youzhny, each in three sets, by blasting winners from every part of the court. I want this guy back in the top 20, where he belongs!

In Croatia, Marin Cilic put up a spirited effort against Novak Djokovic, and the crowd nearly rushed on court to break Djokovic's legs if they could have. The Croatians were warned numerous times to keep quiet, lest their man be docked a point. It was the last thing that Cilic needed, because he had enough trouble just handling Djokovic's stunning ground-stroke depth. There was nothing Cilic could do - this was the best I've seen Djokovic play in a long time. He was actually playing like the number two player in the world. We'll see if he can keep up that form during the U.S. hardcourt season.

Looking ahead to this next week, we have a strange, carryover week of clay court tournaments, before the U.S. hard court season starts in earnest. The tournaments in Bastad and Stuttgart are on the red clay. This Indian Summer of the clay court season has some interesting match-ups on offer. I'll do a quick overview of each.

In Stuttgart, Davydenko, Melzer, and Monfils are all in action. Also, an odd wildcard went to Dustin Brown, who was playing on grass this week in Newport. It'll be interesting to see how his net-rushing, big-serving game works on clay. The stronger field is probably in action at Bastad, where all the top Spanish players (minus Rafael Nadal) are going to try to forget about their recent Davis Cup loss. While hometown boy Soderling is the top seed, he'll need to navigate a field with Ferrer, Almagro, Verdasco, and Robredo. It'll be fun to see the last bit of clay-court tennis until next year.