Week 30 Wrap-up and Week 31 Preview

Well, three out of the four finals today actually turned out to be a bit of a let-down. Three straight set victories, in which the losing player was basically never in the match. I'll get to the thriller last.

Unfortunately, Richard Gasquet seemed to have some sort of an injury - I was watching a video feed with no commentator, so I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was clear that Gasquet was not serving as well as he had been up to this point in the tournament. The Frenchman had been serving at about 55% and winning 70% of his first serve points up to now. In the final, though, those numbers were almost reversed - Gasquet served at 80% first serves and only won 56% of those points. Honestly, that's a sign of an injury - you don't suddenly start serving that weakly out of strategy. It's a shame, because there were some very good points, but Gasquet just couldn't keep up the level of play he needed.

In Umag, Ferrero was just too strong for his Italian opponent. Starace never had a break point against the former world number one. Ferrero only had one in each set, but that was all he needed. It was a good match, but not an exciting one.

The more star-studded of the women's final was something of a surprise - Victoria Azarenka won her first title since April last year, beating Sharapova thoroughly. The match would have been tighter, but I think Sharapova suffered from her late three-setter last night against Radwanska, and her three-setter the night before against Dementieva. She was tired, she hadn't played during the day, and she was facing an invigorated opponent. There were some stunning points, particularly in the first set, but not a lot of great serving - there were five breaks in the first set. Their games are similar, but the intangibles were with the Belarussian today. On another day, Sharapova could have easily taken the match.

The most exciting final today was definitely in Los Angeles - Sam Querrey lost the first set in a dispiriting fashion, double-faulting on break and set point after having held a one-break lead earlier in the set. He could have easily gone away, playing a higher-ranked, more experienced player who he had never even managed a single set against in four previous meetings. But Sam had already escaped defeat in his previous two matches, so he was playing with house money. Querrey upped his level of play significantly, smacking unbelievable winners that even Murray couldn't run down consistently. He didn't get frustrated by everything that the Scot was getting back, and he played well within himself.

That almost wasn't enough. Murray had another break and set point in the second set, but Querrey saved that, then ran away with the tiebreak. He really outplayed the world number four at that stage of the match, and he took the momentum and ran away with it. He kept his cool and went up a break in the third, served supremely well, and closed out the match. This is huge win for Querrey, who does not have a great record against the players at the top tier of the game. It may not have been on the biggest stage, but this was an excellent win. On the other hand, this is a bad sign for Andy Murray, who has still not won a title this year. He's losing almost 1400 points this month from his strong performances at last year's Summer hard court Masters events. He's not playing at that form this year, and he could drop out of the top four for the first time in a long while. I don't know if he's still hungover from that Aussie Open loss in the final or what, but we haven't seen classic Andy Murray since that tournament in 2010.

Looking ahead, after a week of so many tournaments taking place, it will be nice to be able to focus on one bigger event: the Legg Mason tennis championships in Washington, D.C. This will be an interesting event, because more of the top players are starting to come out of the post-Wimbledon woodwork, and the second European clay court season is finally over, so those players are crossing the Atlantic and joining the pre-U.S. Open party.

The top seed in Washington is Tomas Berdych, who hasn't played since the Wimbledon final. Considering his lack of match play, can't really be considered the favorite here, especially not with such a strong field. While two-time defending champ Juan Martin Del Potro can't defend his title, Andy Roddick is here, who won in 2007, when he beat John Isner. This was Isner's break-out tournament, and see how far he's come since then.

Sam Querrey is also here, and if he's not jaded after playing four three-set matches in as many days last week, can have a strong week. Mardy Fish is also back, after taking last week off, still riding a ten match winning streak. And while James Blake may have been unable to get over the hump against Feliciano Lopez last week, he still played as well as he has since January. That's a lot of strong Americans in the field.

And in addition to the home-town boys, Verdasco and Cilic are also in action, as are Baghdatis and Gulbis. Former champions Lleyton Hewitt and Arnaud Clement are also here. Radek Stepanek is getting back into action, after a long injury layoff, and the surprise winner in Hamburg, Andrey Golubev, is the 16th seed. Two wildcards also went to David Nalbandian and Richard Gasquet. And one of my favorite up-and-coming players, Kei Nishikori, made it through qualifying. Plenty of space for fireworks this week.

The best opening-round matches are between last week's almost semifinalist Janko Tipsarevic and Arnaud Clement, a former champion here. And they're playing for the privilege of getting Sam Querrey in the second round! Also look for James Blake against U.S. qualifier Ryan Sweeting, who has a good career ahead of him. Dmitry Tursonov, who has been having a really rough year, plays Roddick's conqueror at the French Open, Teymuraz Gabashvili. David Nalbandian plays Rajeev Ram, and Yen-Hsun Lu (Roddick's conqueror at Wimbledon) plays Alejandro Falla. Those are some pretty good first-rounds.

I have a busy week ahead of me, with some travel, so I won't be able to focus on the tennis as much as I would like, which is a shame. But I'll try to catch and write about what I can.

Week 30 Finals

There was a lot of interesting action today. The semifinals definitely lived up to their billing, in almost all of the tournaments taking place today. At least one match at each event went three sets, and only the women's tournament in Stanford didn't feature a tiebreak. It's always nice when things fall in such a way that these later stages of a tournament are as exciting as they really ought to be.

In Umag, two Italians had a chance at making it to the final, but only one of them was up to the task. Juan Ignacio Chela apparently was unable to follow up the win over Nikolay Davydenko, and he fell to Potito Starace. Andreas Seppi couldn't muster his compatriots form, and he was essentially blitzed by an on-fire Juan Carlos Ferrero in the other semi. I expect that Ferrero will be too strong for Starace tomorrow. This is probably the least exciting final going on tomorrow, in my estimation, but as it is a meeting between two very talented and accomplished clay-courters. Unfortunately, Ferrero has a 5-1 record against the Italian, and is the prohibitive favorite to win the match.

The other clay-court final taking place tomorrow is between Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Almagro, and this may just be the match on offer. They've played once already this year, where Almagro won 9-7 in a third set tiebreak. That's a tough standard to live up to, but the match has the potential to be a barn-burner. Gasquet has more talent than his Spanish opponent, but he hasn't been playing as well this past year - Almagro is nearing his career high ranking, while Gasquet, is well outside the realm of being seeded for the U.S. Open. Since he peaked in the top ten, that's quite a drop. Gasquet has the touch, but Almagro has the power. This will really depend on who is on tomorrow - if Gasquet can make the tough shots that he likes to go for, then he has to be the favorite. If Almagro can hit through the ball the way he likes to and still find the court, it will be tough for Gasquet to do anything. If they're both on, then it will be a lot of fun. Here's hoping for a good match, in this one.

Strangely enough, Los Angeles is the only place where the top seed made it to the final. Even though a Murray-Querrey match-up looks like a walk in the park for the Brit, it may not be. Both players have seen significant lapses in their levels of play during their last few matches, with Querrey on the brink of elimination in both his semi and quarterfinal matches. He even saved a match point today against Tipsarevic. Querrey has yet to beat his opponent in tomorrow's final, losing all four of their previous matches. But their match at this year's Wimbledon was closer than the scoreline indicates. It's also interesting to note their difference in form this year - since reaching the Aussie Open final, Murray hadn't even made another final until this week, while Sam Querrey has won three titles this year on three different surfaces. If Sam manages to win this match, it will be a big indication that he's ready to rise to the next step and really challenge the game's top players. Really, everyone expects Murray to win this match - last year in the final, Sam barely squeaked by against Carsten Ball. His opposition this year is significantly tougher. Murray will hopefully be encouraged if he can finally get over the hump and win his first title of the year - if he doesn't win, then it could be an indication of some trouble ahead, for his position in the top five.

It's also worth noting that the women's semifinals today were both excellent, with Victoria Azarenka demolishing Sam Stosur (and on her 21st birthday, no less!) while Maria Sharapova followed up a big win over Elena Dementieva in the quarters to beat third-seeded Aggie Radwanska, despite a sluggish start. By the end of it, Sharapova was brutally slugging the ball from all over the court, and there wasn't much for Radwanska to do. Both matches were very high quality affairs, and tomorrow's final could be a thriller. Sharapova leads their head to head 2-1, but Azarenka put on the stronger performance in her semifinal.

Basically, if you're a tennis fan, there's a lot to be excited about tomorrow. And this is with the majority of the game's top players out of action for a while, yet! Imagine how things will be going once we get into the more intense parts of the U.S. Open warm-ups.

Week 30 Semifinals

Some big surprises in the quartefinals, today. Two out of three top seeds went down rather tamely, and there were a handful of other upsets as well.

I'll start in Umag, where they had to play eight matches today, after yesterday's rain. Ljubicic managed to beat Ivan Dodig in three sets, but then he didn't have anything left in his tank for Potito Staracce. He almost eked out the second set tiebreak - I believe that he had three set points before he lost the last five in a row to drop the tiebreak 8-6. Jurgen Melzer also seemed to run out of steam, after he beat Jan Hajek while dropping just a single game, he only managed to win five in his second match against Andreas Seppi. All in all, a good day for Italians!

Nikolay Davydenko's loss was a bit tougher for me to understand. He had a day of rest, and his first match against Stephane Robert was easy. But he was never in the match against Juan Ignacio Chela. Chela is a great player, no doubt, and for some reason he has Davydenko's number. The Argentine is now 6-1 against the world number six. Ferrero was the only favorite player who made it through cleanly, and I see him getting through to the final.

Gstaad only had one real upset, but it was a doozy - top seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny lost to 31-year old Kazakh qualifier Yuri Schukin, who has an 11-20 ATP record in the 11 years he's been a pro. Surely this is his biggest scalp, and quite a shock that Youzhny dropped that match. His road only gets tougher, facing Richard Gasquet in the next round, and then - in all likelihood - Nicolas Almagro in the final. I'd really expect Almagro and Gasquet to meet at that stage, which would be quite an exciting match-up.

In Los Angeles, the only technical upset was Janko Tipsarevic over Marcos Baghdatis, but that was always going to be a close match. Rainier Schuettler nearly managed to beat Sam Querrey, and by all rights should have, but the defending champ just barely managed to eke out a victory - the match ended with four consecutive breaks of serve, and two of those were Querrey breaking the German as he served for the match. It was a high-quality match from the counterpunching veteran, who is one of the oldest players in the top hundred. It's got to be brutal to lose a close match like that, at this stage of his career. But kudos to Sam for finding a way to get through.

Andy Murray had a tight first set against Alejandro Falla, but then cruised through the second after winning the tiebreak. The match between James Blake and Feliciano Lopez was a lot tighter, and James barely ended up losing the match, but it was very, very tight. I hope he'll be encouraged by his performance, which was his strongest showing since he came back from his injury. He would have felt a lot better if he won that match, but Lopez is a tough customer with a big lefty serve. No shame for a somewhat rusty Blake to come off (just barely) second best in that one.

I expect Murray and Querrey to get through to the finals, but if Tipsarevic finishes what Schuettler couldn't, it should be interesting. "Tipsy" beat Murray earlier this year in Dubai, but he has never won a title. He also just got married, which may have given him the grounding he needed to make a breakthrough. We'll see!

Week 30 Quarterfinals

We're through to the quarterfinals, with another three ATP 250 tournaments moving right along. Well, we're almost through to the quarterfinals - in Umag, the rain kept all action off the courts today, so they've got a few matches to get through before the quarterfinals. But that just means more action tomorrow, so we can catch up!

In Gstaad, three out of four seeds remain in the top half of the draw, and only one of four in the bottom half. It's interesting - top seed Mikhail Youzhny should breeze through 31-year old Kazakh qualifier Yuri Schukin, while the match-up between Gasquet and Montanes is one of the most interesting matches on offer tomorrow. I see Gasquet getting through that one, and a Youzhny-Gasquet semi would be an excellent clash. In the bottom half, there are three huge-hitting players (Almagro, Chardy, and Andreev) plus Gimeno-Traver. I would bet on Almagro and Andreev getting through those matches to the semis. It's worth noting that Andreev's match in the round of 16 against Marco Chiudinelli was one of the best matches of the tournament, with two tiebreak sets necessary for the Russian to get through.

In Los Angeles, the most interesting story so far was the absolute implosion of Ernests Gulbis. He was dominating Alejandro Falla, up a set and with multiple break point chances in the second, before he just imploded, lost a point due to racket abuse, and then lost the set. He was up an early break in the third before beginning to self-destruct again. Falla actually served for the match, only to get broken. But in the tiebreak, Gulbis fell apart again - eventually losing the match 10-8. He is definitely beginning to remind me of Safin, in his temperament and skill. This was his first tournament back after a layoff, so one might expect a bit of rust. Gulbis was not too down on himself in his post-match interview, and I expect he'll be back for the rest of the U.S. Open series.

Beyond that, it's also good to see James Blake and Andy Murray in action - and they're one round away from a semifinal meeting which could be a lot of fun to watch. Before that, Murray will have to beat Falla (which I expect should be no problem) and Blake will have to get through Feliciano Lopez. That's the toughest match he's had since coming back from injury, but it's winnable, the way he's playing so far. In the bottom half of the draw, two underachieving but very talented and fun players are meeting in the first quarter - Janko Tipsarevic and Marcos Baghdatis, which is something of a pick-em, since neither one has been playing particularly well lately, and Sam Querrey meets Rainer Schuettler. They've already played twice this year, with Schuettler winning at the Aussie Open, while Querrey won in Queens, where he went on to win the tournament. Querrey didn't start great against Kevin Anderson in his last match, but he finished off in supremely good form, winning the third set to love. I like him against the German vet.

It's tough to know what's going to happen in Umag, since half of the players in action tomorrow will have to play two matches in one day to get to the semis. Normally, I'd favor Melzer and Ljubicic, but the Croat may not be be able to recover as quickly as he would like, and Melzer has played so much tennis lately, he must be jaded. Also, the Umag draw did an interesting thing where they played two matches each from the top and bottom of the draw on the two days of the second round, which puts the other pair at a disadvantage when there's a rain delay like this. Whoever wins between Davydenko-Chela and Ferrero-Dolgopolov (I like the first player in each case) will be much fresher for the semis. Don't be shocked to see a Davydenko Ferrero final come Sunday.

Week 29 Finals and Week 30 Preview

Really interesting finals this week. Melzer made his first final of the season (in singles) and as the last seeded player, up against a second-time finalist Andrey Golubev whose ranking was south of 80th in the world. Melzer was the big favorite, but Golubev followed up an astounding week by blowing the French open semifinalist off the court. This week has been a revelation for the Kazakh player - it's amazing to me that he's had such an unremarkable career up to this point. He's on my list of players to watch - if he can play like this, he'll be in the top 20 in no time.

In Atlanta, Mardy Fish continues his stunning run. He's now won two tournaments in a row for the first time in his career - that's a ten match winning streak for Mardy. John Isner played a tough match, but he just ran out of gas. Conditions did not favor the tall American, who had played all of his matches in the heat of the day, and he couldn't quite close the deal, though he did get Fish to a third-set tiebreak. A really strong performance by both players. Fish is headed back to the top of the game, as well. It'll be fascinating to see how he does in this year's U.S. Open series.

Looking ahead to this week's tournaments, there are two more clay-court events in Europe, and one more hard-court even in America. These are almost the last clay-court tournaments this season, with one lone exception in September. So all of the clay-court specialists are trying to get some action in - in Gstaad, we've got Richard Gasquet back in action, as well as Youzhny, Almagro, Bellucci, and Montanes. Unseeded players to watch are Andreev, Nieminen, and last week's titlist Andrey Golubev.

In Umag, Davydenko is the top seed, but he's still trying to get back on track after his injury lay-off. Ferrero and Melzer are here as well, but all in all, the Croatian tournament has a weaker field than in Switzerland. Olivier Rochus opens against Philipp Petzschner, which is one of the more interesting match-ups, but I think this tournament may not heat up until the third round or so.

The third and final tournament taking place this week was going to feature Novak Djokovic, but he pulled out - somewhat mysteriously. Fortunately for the tournament, Andy Murray took a wildcard, so that should be interesting. Murray hasn't won a title yet this year, and that's saying something. He hasn't even made a final since the Australian Open. Ernests Gulbis is back from his layoff this week as well, and he could be Murray's third round opponent, if he gets past Teimuraz Gabashvili in the second round. The second quarter of the draw has Mardy Fish, who has been playing great, but he has to run out of gas eventually. He may have to get past Feliciano Lopez, or perhaps James Blake, if he can finally put a few matches together. Sam Querrey and Marcos Baghdatis are also in action in the bottom half of the draw. The winner of the U.S. Open series gets extra bonus money at the U.S. Open, so these tournaments can be important.