Week 39 Review and Week 40 Preview

The last week of tennis actually turned out to be pretty exciting - I'm sorry I wasn't around to cover it more while it was actually going on. I'll do a quick recap, though.

In Thailand, it looked like things were going to be pretty boring. All of the top contenders dropped, one by one. Verdasco looked sluggish in his loss to Benjamin Becker, as did Gulbis to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Del Potro and Melzer were beaten by players who had great days, Olivier Rochus and Jarkko Nieminen, in particular. Nieminen had also beaten Viktor Troicki, which is a pretty good pair of scalps for the top Finn. With all of these guys gone, it looked like Rafael Nadal would cruise to the title. He was the only seed to make the semifinals, after all.

But then something unusual happened. In his match against fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Nadal managed to do something I've never seen anyone do, much less him. He lost 24 of 26 break point chances in the match. Garcia-Lopez won the second set in the tiebreak and managed one break in the third set to take the match. It was a pretty stunning performance from Garcia-Lopez, who followed it up with a win over Jarkko Nieminen in the final. He had a great week as well, but Guillermo was riding high after that incredibly gutsy performance against Nadal. This was a great week for these two vets, who between the two of them beat five of the eight seeds in the draw. Both of them jump into the top 50 in the rankings this week, as well.

In Malaysia, there were quite a few stories to pay attention to over the course of the week. Davydenko's slide continues while another Russian is finally back on the rise when Nikolay lost in his first match to Igor Andreev. Andreev also beat one of the other interesting stories of the tournament, as young Canadian player beat Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round before he went out. Keep an eye out for Raonic. Andreev eventually lost to a third Russian, Mikhail Youzhny - and I predict that he's going to be the top Russian player in the game, in not too long. The best match on that side of the draw was Youzhny over Baghdatis, which went for two close sets before the Russian closed out the Cypriot with relative ease in the third.

On the other side of the draw, the best match-up was between David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych, which also went three sets, and the eventual winner (Ferrer) had to come back from a set down to do it. But while Youzhny was able to build on his win, the Spaniard seemed to be tired from his tough victory over this year's Wimbledon finalist, and he fell to Andrey Golubev. Now Golubev had just notched an impressive win over top seed Robin Soderling. The Kazakh player actually won nine sets in a row before Youzhny came back in the final and beat him in a third-set tiebreak. Despite not quite being able to close the deal, this was a great week for Golubev. I love his game, and I think we'll see him in the top ten at some point soon. And credit to Youzhny as well. Great performances from both guys.

Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the mandatory Masters event in Shanghai, so the tournament draws are getting more and more stacked in preparation. The two 500 events taking place this week in Beijing and Tokyo have 18 of the world's top 20 players in action. The only two missing are both Swiss: Federer and Wawrinka. In Japan, Nadal is the top seed, but the rest of the draw is not as strong. In China, we have seven of the world's top ten players, which is just unbelievable. I'll look at the Tokyo draw, first.

In addition to Nadal's presence, the other noteworthy thing about this tournament is that it marks JW Tsonga's return to action and will be his first tournament played since Wimbledon. He has a tough opening round against last week's finalist in Thailand, Jarkko Nieminen, but that's far from the best opening match-up you'll see thsi week. Eighth-seeded Michael Llodra gets Marco Chiudinelli (ironically, the top Swiss player in action this week), Viktor Troicki plays home-town hope Kei Nishikori, Ernests Gulbis gets former top-tenner Dmitry Tursunov, Richard Gasquet plays Thiemo de Bakker, and Juan Martin Del Potro gets Feliciano Lopez! That match is actually in progress now, and I am upset that I can't find any streaming coverage of it.

Looking ahead a bit, Nadal could get Milos Raonic in the second round, which could be interesting. If Nishikori wins his first round, he could play Jurgen Melzer next, which is a stern challenge for the Japanese 20-year old. It would be great to see Michael Llodra play Radek Stepanek in the second round, as these guys are two fun, veteran players who love to serve and volley. That would be like old-school tennis! Also keep an eye out for a potential match-up between Roddick and Monfils. There are a lot of players who can make noise in this draw, so it's tough to know just how it will shake out. Roddick needs a good run, to try to get his year back on track and finish strong. He said he's 100% healthy again, which is what he'll need to be against this level of competition.

But that group of first-round match-ups is nothing compared to the smorgasbord you'll find in Beijing. Here's the first-round matches I find particularly exciting: Fish-Tipsarev, Querrey-Simon, Cilic-Bellucci, Kohlschreiber-Verdasco, Istomin-Ferrer, Soderling-Robredo, Ljubicic-Youzhny, and Dolgopolov-Baghdatis. I mean, are you kidding? That's an all-star line-up of top players for a 32-player draw. And by the second round, the possibilities are just too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say I'll be watching this tournament with a great deal of excitement.

We'll see what the week brings! It's getting pretty late in the year, and only three of the top eight players have sealed their passage into the year-end tournament. The race is getting tight, now.

Week 24 Finals

The finals for the last tournament before Wimbledon have been set, and to be honest, they're not really that exciting. The players who wanted to get ready for Wimbledon seem to have already left - the four players remaining in Eastbourne and the Netherlands are not what you would call favorites at next week's grand slam, though they are interesting matches, in their own way.

In s'Hertogenbosch, Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Xavier Malisse for a spot in the final, where he'll face Serbian Janko Tipsarevic, after he got a hard-fought win over Benjamin Becker in the semis. Stakhovsky has won two titles already in his career, and despite that Tipsarevic is the more accomplished player generally, he has yet to win his maiden title. It would be a huge win for Janko, and I have to admit I hope he gets it. He's one of my favorite players to watch, when he's on his game, and it's surprising to me that he hasn't been able to put an entire good week together to win a tournament. Stakhovsky won their only meeting at the tour-level, but Tipsarevic beat the Ukrainian, more recently, in the final of a challenger event. It should be an interesting match.

In Eastbourne, Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who has a 14-11 match record on grass heading into this tournament, faces former champion Michael Llodra. It's been qutie a run for Garcia-Lopez, who is definitely a clay-court player, while Llodra has done well on grass in the past. I have to think that this is Llodra's match to win or lose. His style of play is much better situated to the conditions on court.

On the women's side, the two likely winners in the finals are facing relatively mid-level competition. Victoria Azarenka, who has not had a great year, notched up some pretty good wins - Radwanska, Clijsters, and Bartoli - on her way to the final, where she faces the Ekaterina Makarova, who is like Tipsarevic in that she is aiming for her first title. I expect Azarenka to take the title, though, as she is definitely the more accomplished player, recent form notwithstanding.

The other final may prove to be similarly one-sided. Justine Henin has not even dropped a set or been taken to a tiebreak by any of her opponents thus far, and even though Petkovic is her sternest challenge yet, it would be a surprise to me if Justine could lose this match. The bigger worry is getting to London and getting adjusted to Wimbledon in time for her opening round match, at this point. We'll see how that goes.