Surprisingly Good Quarterfinal Day!

Considering the strength of the draws in Auckland and Sydney this week, I'm really surprised at how good the quarterfinals are today.

All of the seeds are through in Auckland, except for Juan Monaco and Albert Montanes, who lost to Viktor Troicki and John Isner, respectively. I already know the outcome of one match, and American Sam Querrey upset Nicolas Almagro. Good for the big-serving American! We've also got Kohlschreiber (defending champion) against number two seed David Ferrer. Troicki is up against Juan Martin del Potro, who should move through comfortably, and Isner is up against Robin Soderling. Lots of aces are on the way in that way, but Soderling is much more solid in the rest of the game, so I'd expect him to move through.

In Sydney, you've got some big upsets - Gasquet over Gilles Simon, Hewitt over Fish and then Tipsarevic, and Mario Ancic over Tommy Robredo. Jarkko Nieminen also beat Chris Guccione, who ousted Tomas Berdych earlier. Three spectacular semis: Djokovic-Ancic, Tsonga-Nieminen, and Nalbandian-Hewitt. Gasquet has the easiest time with surprising quarterfinalist Jeremy Chardy. I'll take Djoko, Tsonga, Nalby, and Gasquet into the semis. And that's a pretty enticing pair of matches, too!

In Kooyong, Ljubicic is having some trouble - his best days are definitely behind him, as he even lost to slumping Marcos Baghdatis. Federer is currently in the process of thumping Fernando Verdasco, and later in the day we'll see Moya v. Cilic (two players at opposite positions in the arc of their careers) and, presumably, Wawrinka v. Gonzalez, even though it isn't on the schedule. It's quite a motley crew of players out there, this year. Not a lot we can glean about the AO from the play at Kooyong.

I'm getting a DVR for my cable tomorrow so that I can watch as much of the Australian Open as is humanly possible. I'm rather excited.

A note on the state of tennis broadcasting

I don't have a lot to say about play from today. The problem with the tennis season while it's taking place in Australia at the beginning of the year is that play is already taking place when I get home from work and want to write about it. Do I write about the day before? Or the play that's already started? It's just tough for me to quite work out, so I can't do the end-of-day summaries that I like.

As for the updates for today, Del Potro beat Gulbis and Querrey beat Gilles Muller in three. Tipsarevic beat Fish yesterday, who is now 0-2 on the season, and is currently up a break on Lleyton Hewitt, who struggled in his first round Julien Benneteau. Gasquet beat Tursunov, and Stepanek retired against qualifier Jeremy Chardy. It kind of interrupts your momentum if you win a tournament and then retire during you next match. Australian number 2 Chris Guccione upset perennial underachiever Tomas Berdych, as well. Djokovic managed an easy win against Paul-Henri Mathieu, which is good for him.

As for Kooyong, I know that the first two rounds are completed, but I have no idea who won them. I'll bet Federer beat Moya, but I don't know who would win between the badly-streaking pair of Baghdatis versus Wawrinka. I'll take both Fernandos to win later in the day, Verdasco over Cilic and Gonzalez over Ljubicic.

I'm cheating a bit on that prediction, though, because I'm watching live, streaming Kooyong action on www.channelsurfing.net, and I can see that Cilic is a bit flat while Verdasco is playing very well, so far. It may be shocking, but this is the first actual tennis I've been able to watch this year.

Unfortunately, I live in a building where my internet and cable providing options are extremely limited. Limited to one, in fact. And the one that I have does not offer the tennis channel, no matter how much I could offer to pay them. In addition, they don't make me eligible to enjoy the live streaming of espn360.com. That means that I don't have a lot of options to watch tennis, even though as you can see I'm a raving fanatic.

Fortunately, there are often chances to watch streaming tournaments of varying quality and dubious legality, and I take advantage of them whenever I can. Last year, I purchased live streaming for Wimbledon and the Masters Series events, and I would have done it for every Grand Slam (and almost every tournament) if I could have. This year, the ATP is expanding the scope of tournaments that their official video website will broadcast, and I couldn't be more happy. If ESPN doesn't want to show tennis, and if my cable provider doesn't want to show the Tennis Channel, I'm happy to get my fix however I can. I would pay $200 a year to watch streaming video from a tournament every week. Maybe more.

Kooyong Classic!

Surprisingly, both Andys are taking the week before the Australian Open off. This may not be too odd for Murray, but Roddick has played the Kooyong Classic exhibition for as long as can remember. He's the three-time defending champion there, and he's not playing it, this year. It's not as strong a field as it has been in the past, and Federer is leading the group. If he doesn't win every match he plays at this tournament, then his odds at the AO drop drastically.

He's up against Baghdatis, Marin Cilic, Ivan Ljubijic, the two Fernandos, Verdasco and Gonzalez, Carlos Moya, and Stan Wawrinka. Nobody in that group has beat him in the past year, if I'm not mistaken. Gonzo beat him at the end-of-year Masters in 2007, but that's it. Fed should decimate this field, if he's even a shadow of his former self.

In other news, the opening rounds at Auckland and Sydney have some interesting things going on. Sadly, Frank Dancevic (a player I root for whenever I get the chance) lost in the first round to Igor Andreev. The Canadian number one really deserves a break-out performance, one of these days. Nishikori retired with an injury agaisnt Juan Carlos Ferrero, and I hope he recovers in a week.

While Dancevic didn't do so well, both John Isner and Gilles Muller won their opening round matches in Auckland, with Isner beating seventh seed Albert Montanes. Ernests Gulbis also won his first-round match, which means he'll be playing Juan Martin del Potro, soon. Gulbis may have beaten a rusty Djokovic last week, but I'm not sure that lightning is going to strike twice.

Murray first victor of 2009!

Murray emerges from the battle of the Andys the clear winner, not being bothered by his back even a little bit. I think Murray might just be the favorite, going into the Australian Open, which is unusual, since he lost in the first round last year and there are about a half-dozen grand slam champs in the field that have a reasonable shot.

Schuettler pulled out of the tournament in Chennai, sending local wildcard Devvarman to the final in less than thrilling fashion, but it's still exciting for his run to continue! He's now up against Cilic in the final, and I think that Marin has to come out on top on this one. In Brisbane, Verdasco is a set up on Stepanek even as I type. I expect Fernando to win it. It should be a nice start to the season for both of them.

Fernando is also in the doubles final, against Marc Gicquel and Tsonga. That should be an interesting match. In Chennai, Wawrinka and Jean-Claude Scherrer (who?) are up against American duo Eric Butorac and Rajeev Ram. I'm impressed to see Tsonga and Wawrinka stick to their doubles play even after they lost in singles. It paid off for Nadal - can it pay for them, too?

Looking ahead to next week, Djokovic asked for a wildcard into the tournament in Sydney, so he could get some more match play. A good idea, since it's probably not too terribly wise to start off the first Grand Slam of the year having played one match and lost it. He'll start against either P.H. Mathieu or Andreas Seppi. If he makes it to the semis, he could find Tsonga - they've got a fun rivalry going, so that would be fun.

The bottom half of the draw is relatively loaded, with Gasquet, Simon, Stepanek, Nalbandian, Fish, Hewitt, and defending champ Tursunov. It's tough to pick a likely semi from that group. But looking at some exciting first-round matches, you've got Gasquet-Tursunov and Fish against Tipsarevic. Nieminen against Feliciano Lopez could be fun, too.

In the Sydney quallies, there's only one round left to play, but one of my favorites is still up for a spot. Canadian Frank Dancevic just has to beat Alberto Martin. Go Frank! Kevin Anderson lost a tough three-setter to Denis Gremelmeyer, and Xavier Malisse has some good wins, too.

The other tournament taking place next week is in Auckland, and it features Juan Martin Del Potro as the number one seed. It isn't the most dynamic field, but there are some very interesting players that I hope to see do well. Kei Nishikori opens up against former number one Juan Carlos Ferrero. That's a tough first-round for the Japanese teen. Sam Querrey opens against a New Zealand wildcard ranked 463. Sam had better win that. Robby Ginepri also opens against a local wildcard ranked outside 400. Lucky draws for the Americans.

The other first-round matches I'm interested in are Viktor Troicki against Igor Kunitsyn and Ernests Gulbis against Marcel Granollers. If Gulbis can win that, he'll be rewarded with a match against Del Potro. Can he knock out the number one seed in two consecutive weeks?

As for the Auckland quallies, Gilles Muller, Bobby Reynolds, and John Isner are all one win from the main draw. I'd like to see them all in it. After Muller's fantastic run at the U.S. Open last year (I watched two of his wins in person), I want him to get a ranking where he can get some direct entrances into these tournaments.

Some players are resting up for the AO, which starts in a mere week's time. Others are getting some match play in. It's funny that the first major tournament of the year comes so quickly, once the season gets started. That's why, I think, the Australian Open has a tendency to produce more surprise winners than the other three grand slams. We'll see what happens this year.

Murray the next number one?

Murray beat Federer in three sets, but it wasn't as tight as it sounds. It was tight in the first set, which Fed won in a tie-break, then he started spraying errors off his forehand and the Scot won the second and third sets 6-2, 6-2. Much more surprisingly, Andy Roddick was able to beat Gael Monfils. Apparently, Roddick's steady high-level of play was enough to get him past an intermittently spectacular Frenchman.

However, Roddick will need to be more than steady to beat Murray in the final. He'll have to play out of his mind, serving at least 70% and having a lot of success at the net. I really think Roddick's best chance is if Murray's back trouble, which seemed to be a problem for him in the Federer match, keeps him from playing at the top of his game.

Props to Nadal for continuing in the doubles, and eventually winning the Doha title. He could have pulled out and headed to Melbourne for some extra AO training. And beating Nestor & Zimonjic? That's a serious pair of doubles players, right there. Maybe Nadal could add a doubles Grand Slam to his title list?

The Brisbane final is also set - Stepanek against Verdasco? Weird. I don't know who to pick in this one, since I would have bet against both of them in the semis. They're both very talented players who can just go away for no good reason, so it will go to whoever holds it together.

In Chennai, the hometown hero Devvarman continues his improbable run, managing to hold Karlovic to only 10 aces and beating him in two sets. He's up against Schuettler, who is also impressing. I'd love to see the wildcard continue on. The other semifinal is Cilic-Granollers, and this should really go to Cilic. It would be interesting if Schuettler could win, since he hasn't even been to an ATP final since 2004.

Kudos to Elena Dementieva, who won the first women's title of the season. Maybe she'll get back to her first slam final since 2004 this year. It was a real shame to see Mauresmo retire against Bartoli trailing 4-0 in the first set. That does not bode well for the Frenchwoman's chances at a career Renaissance this year. Azarenka-Bartoli should be an intriguing final.

A bevy of upsets

The 2009 tennis season is well underway, and the narratives are already getting interesting. The biggest story of the day is Rafael Nadal losing to Gael Monfils, who won in straights, despite having never won a set off the ATP number one in their previous three meetings. I wondered if that meant Nadal wasn't in the best physical shape still, especially after he went out for his doubles match and lost the first set 6-1. But then he and his partner Marc Lopez (no relation to Feliciano, it seems) won the second set in a tie-break and then won the super tie-break 11-9. Tomorrow, Monfils plays Roddick, and Monfils has to be the favorite, coming off such a convincing victory.

The other Doha semifinal is the one I've been waiting for all week: Murray-Federer round seven! I wish it were being broadcast, because it promises to be a stellar match. Since Murray won their last two meetings, he probably has the edge, but since their last few matches have been incredibly tight affairs, it's not much of an edge. Federer wants this win really bad, I'm sure. It's more important to him than it is to Murray, just like the other semifinal is probably more important to Roddick than Monfils. Unfortunately, I'm picking both of them to lose.

In Chennai, there was a lot of catch-up play today. The most exciting story is that Karlovic (beating the other Ivo with no trouble) dodged a bullet when his likely next round opponent, Carlos Moya, lost to a wildcard Somdev Devvarman, currently ranked 202. I attribute this more to Moya's body not being able to hold up to his style of play, but it's always fun to see a local kid making the run of his life. Unfortunately, he's about to run into a brick wall - a wall that will pummel him with 138-mph serves over and over again.

Other than that, things are going about as one would expect in Chennai. Tomorrow, Tipsarevic is going to play Marin Cilic, which is definitely the most exciting match-up they have to offer. I predict that either the winner of that match or Ivo Karlovic is going to win the whole tournament.

In Brisbane, the two quarterfinals we had today went much as expected. Mathieu had too much experience for Nishikori, and Verdasco recovered from losing the first set to blow Serra off the court. By the way, have you seen his forehand? When it's firing on all cylinders, it's one of the best on tour. For tomorrow, we've got that enticing Tsonga-Gasquet match to look forward to, as well as a less-thrilling quarterfinal between Robin Soderling and Radek "the worm" Stepanek. I'll take Soderling in that match-up, but you never know with Stepanek. He's quite an enigma.

Also in Brisbane, Amelie Mauresmo really showed me by beating Ana Ivanovic in two pretty easy sets. It may be more that Amelie recovered from her tough three-setter the day before more quickly than her younger, Serbian opponent, but sometimes that's all it takes. Ana may need to work on her fitness. Mauresmo may be able to make something out of this year - that was her first win over a top 10 player since 2006, and that's a fine way to start out 2009. She plays Marion Bartoli next, who had no trouble with Tathiana Garbin, so we'll see how Mauresmo deals with a well-rested opponent.

The biggest match tomorrow - the biggest match of the whole week - is Murray v. Federer. I expect we'll see them play again this year, at more significant tournaments. Murray wants Federer to know that the next time they meet in a slam final, Federer can expect more resistance. And Federer wants everyone to know that he doesn't have mono this year. It should be great.

The AO's first casualty

Even though rain in Chennai prevented any matches from being played to completion, the top seed still managed to find his way out of the tournament: Davydenko pulled out with an injury to his heel, which also takes him out of the Australian Open. It's inevitable that somebody is going to be unable to play at each of these big tournaments, but Davydenko is such a decent, steady, fit guy that I'm surprised it's him. Here's hoping for a swift recovery.

While it rained in India, there was some very interesting play in Australia and Qatar. In Brisbane, Gulbis couldn't follow up on his victory over Djokovic, and lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu. Does that mean that Djoko's loss had more to do with Novak being rusty or with Gulbis not being mature enough to perform up to the same level after securing the biggest win of his career? Probably a bit of both.

Kei Nishikori continues to impress, beating fifth seed Tomas Berdych. Ancic fell to Verdasco, who was always the favorite, but I bet Ancic's marathon of a match yesterday didn't help his chances. Speaking of marathons, Tsonga had to win the second and third sets in tiebreaks after getting bageled in the first by Nieminen to avenge a loss that the Finn dealt the Frenchman almost exactly a year ago.

Tsonga will be rewarded with a day's rest and then a match against his countryman Richard Gasquet, who will have had two days off after a much-easier match against Taylor Dent. The pair are 2-2, and while Tsonga has been playing better tennis of late, I bet that Gasquet would like to remind French fans that he's still around. That one could be good.

But as for tomorrow in Brisbane, the headline match has to be Ana Ivanovic against Amelie Mauresmo, who both had tough three-set victories today. Mauresmo will have to return to her 2006 form to win this one. The Frenchwoman has been on the verge of retiring for quite a while, but it would be great to see her have a late-career resurgence.

The other highlight is to see if Kei Nishikori can continue to roll, as he comes up against the guy who beat the guy who beat Djokovic, P.H. Mathieu. I'd love to see the Japanese teen continue to win, but I figure that at some point, he's going to run into somebody with enough experience to stop him, and Mathieu may be just the veteran to do that. Also, keep an eye on doubles team Chris Guccione and Carsten Ball, who are (I believe) the only local players left in this Aussie tournament. Don't expect them to last long against top-seeded Mirnyi and Ram.

In Doha, things continue much as one might expect, but interesting clashes are coming up fast. Today, all the seeds won and Youzhny had his expected slump after beating Andreev yesterday, falling to Victor Hanescu. None of the matches in Qatar were terribly thrilling, although Kohlschreiber had to lose a second set tie-break before beating Kristof Vliegen in three. Here's hoping he keeps it close enough with Roger Federer to lose a tie-break.

Tomorrow, Roddick and Murray should both come through easily against Hanescu and Stakhovsky, respectively. Roddick in particular needs to get as much momentum as he can before the season's first major in two weeks. The real exciting match tomorrow is Nadal against Gael Monfils. The Frenchman has never beat the Spaniard, but Monfils is getting better and better, so this is probably the best shot he's had yet. Really, that ought to be headlining match tomorrow, but they had to put it at mid-day, so Rafa could have a little time to recover before he went back to play doubles against Santoro (who he's already beaten once) and Youzhny. Unless Monfils really tires him out, he should win that one, too.

In addition to Nadal, Tsonga is also still in both the singles and doubles draws, as are Verdasco, Tipsarevic, and Schuettler, thought some of them haven't even played a doubles match, yet. I'm pressed with these guys that can play singles and doubles and do well at both. The game is much more physical than it was in the 80's, when guys like McEnroe would win both the singles and doubles grand slam titles at the same tournament, multiple times.

We also have Ivo against Ivo to look forward to, but unfortunately, Aleksandra Wozniack lost before she could play Caroline Wozniacki. To have Ivo-Ivo and Wozniack-Wozniacki on the same day would have been just too good.