4th Round at Wimbledon 2009

The best day in Tennis: the rounds of 32 at the All-England Club. All of the remaining 64 men and women will be in action after a day off on the middle Sunday. Since the first week didn't present us with too many big upsets, we start off the business end of the tournament with some excellent matches.

On the men's side, there are three sure bets, brought to us by the tourney's top three seeds:
Federer vs Soderling (1.08:13)
Murray vs Wawrinka (1.08:12.5)
Djokovic vs. Sela (1.08:12.5)

To start us out on Center Court, a rematch of the French Open final, where Soderling didn't put up much of a fight, seemingly content to play his small part on Federer's march to immortality. Afterward, though, he paraphrased the late, great Vitas Gerulaitis by saying, "Nobody beats me eleven times in a row!" He was just joking ("yolking" as he said), and Federer will beat him eleven times in a row.

And to finish on Center, the next step in the two-week long coronation of Britain's greatest hope. His record against Stan "the Man" Wawrinka is nearly even, but two of the three losses took place in 2005 and 2006, and the other was on clay, Murray's weakest and Wawrinka's strongest surface. This match has the biggest potential for upset out of these three, though. As much as he hasn't acted like it thus far, the pressure on Murray has got to be difficult, and a stern test from the 19th seed could put him to the test.

Djokovic, who is flying under the radar, continues to do so at the start of the second week, as the anonymity of his opponent has sent him all the way off to Court 3. His opponent is the biggest surprise in 4th round, diminutive Israeli Dudi Sela, who is only playing his second Wimbledon and hadn't won a match at his previous attempt. Granted, he made it through two of the weaker seeds in the draw, clay-court specialist Tommy Robredo and last year's shock semifinalist, veteran Rainer Schuettler. The Djoke will appreciate the opportunity to continue moving along quietly - he didn't deal too well with being one of the favorites last year, dropping in the second round to Marat Safin.

Surprisingly, three of the remaining five matches are likely to be upsets, according to the odds-makers. In almost half of the men's matches on Monday, the lower-ranked player is the better bet:

Hewitt [ranked 56] vs Stepanek [ranked 23] (1.31:4.2)
Ferrero [ranked 70] vs Simon [Ranked 7] (1.9:2.06)
Karlovic [ranked 36] vs Verdasco [ranked 8] (1.69:2.4)

Hewitt's recovery from hip surgery is building steam. After being stymied by unlucky draws in the first two grand slams of the year, hitting former finalist Fernando Gonzalez in the 1st round at his home slam and then-undefeated at RG Rafael Nadal in the second round at the French, his draw has been kinder this time around, due in no small part to Nadal's withdrawal. He beat an overawed and underperforming Juan Martin del Potro in the second round, but Stepanek won't be similarly struck with hero worship. "The other Radek" (say it aloud) plays a very frustrating game that is perfectly suited to the grass courts, and he used it to great effect to beat David Ferrer, whose game bears no small resemblance to Hewitt's. Both players are veterans, and this match will really come down to a question of Hewitt's fitness, both physical and mental, after not having been to the quarters at a Grand Slam since 2006. On the other hand, Stepanek has never been there...

Despite some commentator's bafflement over Ferrero's victory over Fernando Gonzalez (I'm looking at you, Brad Gilbert), he is one of the very few Grand Slam winners left in the field (count them, there are four) and this is his fourth trip to the second week at SW19. Simon, on the other hand, has only been to second week once in his career, and it was earlier this year at the Australian. All signs point to the sun swiftly setting on the irascible Frenchman's accidental run to the top 10 which began just after Wimbledon last year, but he could do himself a great deal of good by winning another couple of matches here, and he won't get a better chance the 28-year old Ferrero, currently ranked 63 places below him.

And one of the biggest surprised of the tournament is not that "Dr." Ivo Karlovic is back in the 4th round, but that he hasn't been past the first in his past four attempts! He's lost some heartbreakers to unworthy opponents on what should be his favorite surface - 10-12 in the fifth to Daniele Bracciali in 2005, 9-11 in the fifth to a rising Stan "the Man" (see above) in 2006, 4-6 in the fifth to Fabrice "the magician" Santoro in 2007, and 5-7 in the fourth to Simon "Who?" Stadler last year. There was no reason for him not to have won a match at Wimbledon in so long. As you may recall, he beat defending champion Lleyton Hewitt in the first round at his Wimbledon debut in 2003! So he's very excited about his run this year, and I'm glad to see him do it, even if it was a shame to see him take out Tsonga in the process. If he has a good serving day, then Verdasco is toast. If not, then he doesn't have much hope against Hot Sauce.

Finally, the last two matches have the potential to be the most exciting:

Haas vs Andreev (1.38:3.55)
Roddick vs Berdych (1.67:2.46)

Haas and Andreev played in two of the best matches of the tournament thus far, each held over from Friday to Saturday for failing light. Haas bested youngster Marin Cilic (saving two match points in the process) 9-7 in the fifth. Andreev beat Seppi in a fourth set tiebreak. Andreev hasn't been past the fourth round at a GS since the French Open in 2007. Haas hasn't done it since the USO that same year. Both of these players can be total headcases, but in this case, I'd think that Andreev's five years on the veteran German would make all the difference in the world, but with Wimbledon's day of rest on the middle Sunday, that may be enough to give Tommy the edge. The odds-makers seem to think so.

The last match also has the potential to be very exciting. Berdych and Roddick have an even record thus far, and Tomas has the potential to blow anyone off the court, if he can keep his head together (see Federer at the Australian Open this year, down two sets and break point). This will be the best test to see if Roddick can reach the semis or final this year, because if waits for Berdych to let up, he's probably going to lose. He's going to have to fight back in order to win, and that's a plan that Roddick has had trouble executing in trouble spots, these past few years. This could be an excellent barometer for Roddick's chances in the rest of the week. Obviously, if he loses, they'll drop precipitously.

First big upset of the year!

Ah, it's only day two of 2009, and we've already hit a great match result. Remember when I said that there was an outside chance of Gulbis beating Djokovic in his season opener? Well, it looks like Djoko had some rust to shake off, and he didn't last long enough for the hard-hitting Latvian to start missing the lines. The match ended 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and a half. Expect more from me on Djokovic during the coming week. There's no question that it was a tough first round match, but it was one that Djoko should have won. Since he was the season-ending champion, it's a shame to start the season with a loss.

There were some other excellent results, but nothing quite as surprising. The other big upset was in Chennai, where Stan Wawrinka lost in straights 138th-ranked qualifier Flavio Cipolla. I don't know whether Stanislas is on a bad streak, or if his run into the top ten last year was the aberration. In Doha, Mikhail Youzhny also upset sixth-seeded Igor Andreev in three and qualifier Alexander Peya upset seventh-seeded Dmitri Tursunov.

But some of the sure bets turned out to be very, very sure. Even Rafael Nadal was surprised at how quickly he dispatched Fabrice "The Magician" Santoro (6-0, 6-1 48 minutes), and Federer beat Potito Starace almost as easily (6-2, 6-2 also in 48 minutes). Tsonga, Gasquet, Soderling, Murray, Kohlschreiber, Davydenko, Moya, and Tipsarevic were all seeds that made it through in straights.

From where I'm sitting, the best match of the day was "Super" Mario Ancic against American qualifier Amer Delic. 7-6 (2), 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6) in 2 hours, 51 minutes. No break points, each player had only three double-faults and more than twenty aces. Final point total - Mario Ancic up 128-123. Wish I could have seen it.

As for tomorrow, things are really starting to get interesting. Nishikori-Berdych, Stepanek-Llodra, Verdasco-Ancic, Nieminen-Tsonga, Gulbis-Mathieu, and Serra-Melzer. And that's just in Brisbane! It definitely had the deepest talent pool of any of this week's tournaments. Really, any of these players could come away with the title, but Tsonga is far and away the favorite. With Djokovic out, the top half is pretty open. I'd love to see Nishikori or Gulbis go all the way, but a more experienced player like Verdasco or Berdych (the only seeds left in that helf) are probably a safer bet.

In Chennai, the best match is Sela-Tipsarevic. I like Tipsy, but I wish he could always play at the level that had him draw Federer to five sets at the AO last year. For the other players in serious contention in India that are in action today (Cilic and Davydenko) it's just a matter of not slipping up. Tomorrow, we'll see Moya back in action, as well as the battle of the Ivos (Karlovic and Minar) that I predicted.

In Doha, it's still one more round before we get to any of the fun matches. Hopefully, none of the seeds are going to trip up - if all goes according to plan, then there are going to be fireworks when the quarters roll around. The closest thing to a close match is Roddick against Arnaud Clement. They've got a 2-2 record, but Clement hasn't won since 2002, and both of those wins were on clay. Youzhny and Hanescu are at 1-1, so that may be interesting. Youzhny also has a tendency to let up after a big win. Beyond that, I don't see much else to keep an eye on.