Week 43 Quarterfinals

While we're in a relatively minor (in terms of importance to the whole year) week for the ATP, but the end-of-year WTA championships in Doha are a very big deal. Up until today, the year-end number one ranking was still up for grabs, with either Caroline Wozniacki or Vera Zvonareva capable of snagging the spot. The first two days of action were relatively uneventful, with six straight set victories. But today, the level of play just skyrocketed, and all three matches featured some of the best play that we've seen all year on the WTA tour. Elena Dementieva upset Sam Stosur in a third set tiebreak, after Elena had been whipped by Wozniacki by the score of 6-1, 6-1. Good showing by Dementieva, even though she was mathematically eliminated from moving past the round robin stage, once Wozniacki came back from dropping the first set to Francesca Schiavone in order to win the second and third by wide margins, even though it still seemed tight. The last match was between Kim Clijsters and Azarenka, and while it was tightly-contested for the first two sets, in the end the heat was too much for the Belarussian, and Azarenka faded in the third. All the same, everyone involved played spectacular tennis today, truly worthy of the importance of the event. I'm encouraged for the next few days of action.

While the stakes weren't quite so high elsewhere, the action was still quite exciting. There were two amazing comebacks at the Open Sud de France, where Nalbandian served for the match twice against Gilles Simon, but still ended up losing. It was less good news for the French when Richard Gasquet dropped a similar sort of lead against Jarkko Nieminen, only to lose in the end. In reward, Simon gets to play JW Tsonga and Nieminen gets Ivan Ljubicic. Really, all of the quarters in France are pretty strong. The other two feature John Isner and Gael Monfils, as well as top seed Davydenko against Albert Montanes. All of those matches could go pretty much either way.

Vienna has the most seeds left standing, which also leads to some interesting matches. Top seed Jurgen Melzer gets Kohlschreiber, Almagro gets Chela (that really seems like a clay-court quarterfinal), Baghdatis gets German Michael Berrer, and Marin Cilic gets the young Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer. I lean towards all four top seeds coming through here, though Haider-Maurer has an outside chance of an upset against Cilic, who has not been in great form. And Kohlschreiber can play well enough to beat almost anybody on the right day. But I know the Austrian crowd wants to see both Melzer and Haider-Maurer through. There's not a lot to be excited about in terms of Austrian tennis, these days.

While there are only three seeds left in St. Petersburg, the remaining field is probably the weakest. Top seed Mikhail Youzhny was tested by the young Russian player Donskoy, but he came through in the end. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Donskoy again, though. He gets Victor Hanescu in the quarters, which should be a fairly straightforward win since they're not on clay. The best quarterfinal is probably between two players on opposite ends of their careers - Dmitry Tursunov is on the comeback trail from ankle surgery, while Dolgopolov is just trying to establish himself as a contender for these sorts of tournaments. In the other quarters, Tipsarevic faces Kukushkin and Becker faces Marchenko. I like Becker and Tipsy in those matches.