Newport Finals and Davis Cup Update

The Campbell's Hall of Fame tennis championship has gone pretty much as expected, since the middle of the week. Mardy Fish and Olivier Rochus are set to play each other in the final, as they were the only seeds left by the third round. They're 1-1 against each other, and their last match, in 2007 in Lyon, was just about as close possible. Three tiebreak sets, with the third set tiebreak going to 17-15. Rochus won that, but Fish won their earlier meeting, though that was all the way back in 2002. This match could really go either way, as neither player has a great record in finals. Fish is 3-11 while Rochus is 2-5. I lean towards Fish in this one, but neither result would surprise me.

As for the Davis cup, there have already been some surprising results. In an absolute shock, France beat Spain 3-0 in the first three matches of their Davis Cup tie. While I thought it was possible that France could pull the upset, I never would have imagined that it might go down like this. Monfils played brilliantly against Ferrer, showing a lot of toughness to come back from being so close to winning the match in the fourth set, only to ultimately have to go five. Normally, I would have figured that to be the type of match that Ferrer would win, but I give Le Monf a lot of credit for the guts he showed in toughing out what must have been an exhausting victory.

But the real surprise performance came from Michael Llodra, who upset Fernando Verdasco in the second singles match on Friday. Llodra served absolutely brilliantly, winning 72% of points on serve and only facing two break chances. On return, he manufactured an amazing 16 break chances. He may have only converted on 25% of them, but it was enough. That's a huge win for the 30-year old Frenchman, and he followed that up by playing a part of the doubles team that clinched the victory for the French, as he and Benneteau defeated Lopez and Verdasco. I'm really surprised that Spain, the two-time defending champion, fell at this stage. They had been without Rafael Nadal before, but their tennis talent is deep enough that it hadn't mattered much up to this point. I expect they'll continue to be a huge favorite in the coming years of the Davis Cup, but they're out until 2011. What a shock.

For the privilege of playing France, rather than Spain, Argentina is currently leading against Russia. The first match of the singles was a real thriller, as Nalbandian and Davydenko both just walloping the ball from every part of the court. It may not have been beautiful tennis, since they both missed the mark more often than they hit it, but it was exciting. I think Davydenko is still not fully recovered from his injury lay-off, as he lost that match in straight sets and then was also a part of the Russian's dropping the doubles point today. I'm surprised, I have to admit, that Argentina was able to win without Nalbandian playing, but that was a pretty convincing victory. I expect that they'll probably sub out Gabashvili for Davydenko in the reverse singles, and he may be able to win against Leonardo Mayer. That means the tie will come down to Nalbandian against Youzhny, which would be quite an interesting decider. We'll see if it comes down to that. It's possible that Nalbandian might win the Davis Cup this year, almost entirely by himself.

Croatia-Serbia has been interesting to watch thus far, and I've been pretty much spot-on with my predictions. Novak Djokovic and Nenand Zimonjic (along with doubles partner Tipsarevic) won easily, giving Serba a 2-1 advantage. Cilic is going to need to pull off a monumental upset against Djokovic to give Ljubicic a chance to pull of the upset. I don't think Djokovic is going to lose - he may not have played spectacular tennis in the last few months, but he did play amazing in the first round of the Davis Cup, and maybe his performance here could turn his year back around. Even though Djokovic is back up to number two, he hasn't even made a final since Dubai, and he hasn't beaten a player ranked inside the top 20 in that time, either. But Cilic has been underperforming since making the Aussie Open semis, too. This is a big match for both guys.

On the other hand, there's not much to say about the Czech Republic and Chile. Even without Berdych or Stepanek, the Czechs ran roughshod over their Chilean opponents. It was a beatdown, with Chile winning just one set in the doubles, and never getting closer then 6-3 in either singles match. In fact, both singles players won a combined total of eight games in six sets. Chile is in trouble without Gonzalez, is the message to take from this. We'll see if he's fit again by the time Davis Cup kicks up again in 2011, because otherwise, Chile might find themselves relegated out of the world group, pretty soon.