Dubai: Top seeds, Federer and Murray, advance

Dubai, an ATP 500 event, has become the single toughest tournament played this year since the Australian Open.  This year, in the top ten, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray are among the top seeds in this event.  This marks Djokovic’s return back to tour, as well as Andy Murray.  Federer, interestingly enough, decided to play Rotterdam, an event he hadn’t been at in 7 years.  He won that tournament over Juan Martin del Potro.  del Potro, meanwhile, has kept quite busy playing Rotterdam, then Marseille last week, beating Michael Llodra in the finals.

On Monday, Djokovic both won and lost.  The number one player, Novak Djokovic, did just fine with a straight set win over Stebe.  Marko Djokovic, Novak’s younger brother and recipient of a wildcard, most likely due to his brother getting his wish granted by tournament organizers, but whose ranking is deep in the triple digits, lost in straight sets to Andrey Golubev, preventing the unlikely Djokovic vs. Djokovic final.

To show how challenging the tournament has been, Roger Federer opened up his match against Michael Llodra, who was in the finals of Marseille last week.  Fed won 6-0, 7-6.

Murray had a tougher time.  Dealing with some sickness, Murray needed three sets to beat Berrer, the man that seemed destined to beat Murray when Murray twisted an ankle at the French Open.  Instead, Berrer became Mr. Nice Guy, and kept the ball deep, while Murray hit all out, and beat Berrer just as handily after the injury as before, despite being hobbled, and went on to have his best French Open yet, reaching the semifinals for the first time.

Murray beat Berrer, 63, 46, 64 after being broken numerous times in the second set, and being up in the second set as well.  He faces Swiss number 3, Marco Chiudinelli.

Somebody must have rubbed Fish the wrong way in the US.  While players like Isner are playing Memphis and Delray Beach,  Mardy Fish has chosen to play in Europe in Marseille and now in Dubai.  That, or the guarantee money was a bit too lucrative.

The top seeds in the top half are Djokovic, Tipsarevic, Murray, and Berdych while Federer, Tsonga, del Potro, and Fish are on the bottom half.

Memphis: Melzer claims title over Raonic

2010 was a good year for Jurgen Melzer.  A contemporary of Roger Federer, Melzer had stuck in the top 40 for many years, but when it came to Slams, Melzer just didn’t do well.  Melzer played his first Slam in 2000, but until 2010, Melzer had never even made it to the fourth round of any Slam, perhaps the worst performance of any top 40 player.

2010 saw Melzer reach the semis of the French Open and come as close as anyone to taking a set off Nadal in his run to the French Open.  2010 saw Melzer rose to top ten in that year, inspired by his semifinal run.

Melzer’s ranking had dropped to 38, and he entered the tournament unseeded.  He needed three tiebreaks to win the first three rounds, and upset top seed John Isner, number 3 seed, Radek Stepanek, in the semis, and last year’s finalist, Milos Raonic, in the finals.  Melzer was able to break in the first set, but the second set went to a tiebreak which Melzer won.  Raonic seemed a bit desperate, slapping two forehands out, rather than let the point play out.

Melzer credited his team with getting his game back to top notch play and that he could celebrate with a tournament win.

Marseille

When there was speculation about who might make it to the top four, the name, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came up. primarily due to two wins over Roger Federer.  Forget the fact that Tsonga struggled to beat the remaining top 3 (Djokovic, Murray, and Nadal), and forget that there were some top players that were still on the comeback trail, most notably, Juan Martin del Potro.

del Potro had to fight off Frenchman to win the tournament, first Tsonga in the semifinals, which he did in three sets, and then Michael Llodra, who he beat in straight sets in the finals.  Llodra has been in the finals before.  In 2010, he won the title.  In 2009, he was runner up to Tsonga.

Buenos Aires

If it weren’t for Rafael Nadal, perhaps David Ferrer would be the king of clay.  Though he’s never come particularly close to winning Roland Garros, he does his best to beat players ranked below him.  Ferrer has worked his way to the top top by rarely losing to anyone below him.  And it happened again when he played Nicolas Almagro whom he beat in three sets.

San Jose/Sao Paolo: Raonic and Almagro defend titles

One reason Nicolas Almagro has been in the top ten is the number of titles he’s won.  The ATP clay circuit can be broken into three parts.  There is the South/Central American swing that is played starting a week or so after the conclusion of the Australian Open and runs until Indian Wells.  Then, there is the European clay court swing with three Masters 1000 tournaments, then three more weeks of play interspersed, and finally, the French Open.  The third clay season is mostly an extension of the second, and is interrupted by Wimbledon and the clay season, and runs for a few weeks until the heart of the hard court season.

Almagro won two of his three titles in this first clay swing last year.  He won Sao Paolo (or Costa de Sauipe, last year) and Buenos Aires and was runner up in Acapulco.  He won Nice, also on clay, and was runner up in Hamburg, also on clay.

Almagro doesn’t perform well in Slams, nor on hard courts, which is strange, given how hard he hits.  It may be due to a poor return of serve.  Who knows?

In any case, Almagro faced Filippo Volandri, an Italian who upset local favorite, Thomaz Bellucci, in the semifinals.  Almagro needed three sets to break through: 63, 46, 64.

Milos Raonic had a breakthrough last year as well.  He made it to the fourth round of the Australian Open and took a set off of David Ferrer.  He followed that up with a win in San Jose over Fernando Verdasco, in a close match.  Raonic would play Verdasco again the following week in the opening round at Memphis, and reach the finals, only to lose to Andy Roddick.

This time, Raonic came in as the third seed.  The San Jose event is not exactly a stellar event.  Isner and Fish opted not to play.  For a player like Raonic, coming back to a tournament that they had good luck at in the past is a good idea.  Many players play up when they are defending champs.  Andy Murray won two consecutive titles at San Jose early in his career, but skipped it once his rank moved up.  Raonic may do the same.

Raonic faced Denis Istomin in the finals, but who he beat en route might be more important.  In the quarterfinals, he beat tall Kevin Anderson who is just a shade shorter than Isner.  In the semifinals, he beat American rival, Ryan Harrison.

Istomin was ranked as high as 39, but his rank has slipped to 61.  He’s had a reasonably solid year, losing in the quarterfinals at Brisbane, and reaching the semis at Sydney (qualifying to get there).  Meanwhile, Raonic was looking for a second title.  His only loss of the year was at the third round of the Australian Open where he lost to never-say-die, Lleyton Hewitt.  Before that, he won the title at Chennai.

With his 76, 62 win over Istomic, Raonic has won two titles this year which should be as many titles as anyone has earned, so far.

Rotterdam: Federer wins 71st title over Juan Martin del Potro 6-1, 6-4

Roger Federer hasn’t played Rotterdam in years.  It’s not entirely clear why he chose to play this year so soon after the Davis Cup tie, but perhaps getting some ATP points is something he has planned.  He has won the title, way back in 2005 and that was the last time Federer played the tournament.  This is also the first year that Juan Martin del Potro has played the tournament.

Federer wanted to start this match more efficiently than he had against Davydenko.  This isn’t to say Davydenko played badly, but Federer’s shots were a bit off in the semifinals, and so he had to play around 3 hours to beat the Russian.

Not so in the finals where Federer looked very sharp.  Federer was striking his backhand well, hitting his inside-in forehand with precision.  It was a touch shaky in the first game where Federer’s sharp hitting was mixed with some errant forays to the net.  Federer had to fend off break points, but did so.  Fed then went on a huge streak taking 5 games in a row, breaking del Potro twice.  del Potro didn’t win his first game until he was down 5-0, and then Federer served out the match.

The second set was closer with Federer’s sharp play cooling down as he took more conservative shots and sometimes just played patient (for Fed).  del Potro had to fight out of numerous games, but was broken in the middle of the second set.  Federer continued to hold despite a chance by del Potro to break back.  del Potro then found himself down 15-40 double match point, but served his way out of that game.  Fed got up 40-15 serving out the match, lost the next point, then got to the net and put away the point to win the match.

Federer is expected to play in Dubai in two weeks.  Indeed, only two players in the top ten do not plan to play Dubai.  That would be Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer.

Next week, play continues in Memphis where Americans are likely to play (e.g., Ryan Harrison).

Rotterdam (SF): Federer takes down Davydenko in three sets, to play Delpo in finals

Some players show remarkable dedication to their racquets, especially old school players.  Pete Sampras stuck with the same racquet, the Wilson Pro Staff 85, his entire career.  Stefan Edberg played with this racquet as well.  Boris Becker played with a single racquet his entire career.  When the racquet was to be discontinued, he acquired all the racquets and the company itself.  While these seem like extreme devotion, many would argue that pros must be comfortable with their racquets (although beginners often think pros should be able to play with any racquet, not realizing that pros expect more out of their racquet than beginners do).

Some players aren’t nearly as picky.  Andre Agassi started off with a Prince, then switched to a Donnay (winning a Wimbledon with that racquet), then switched to Head and played with a Head the rest of his career.  Some players struggled, but adjusted.  Novak Djokovic used a Wilson, but switched to a Head.  He had problems with the racquet for about 6 months, potentially losing at a Slam while he made the adjustment.

All of this may have to do with confidence, and being familiar with the change.

Back in late 2009, Nikolay Davydenko, who had been a solid top ten player, hit a peak in his career.  He beat Nadal and Djokovic during the Asian swing, then won the year-end championship beating Federer and del Potro en route to the title.  He continued his good play, and really had Federer on the ropes at the Australian Open in 2010, before collapsing.  Davydenko, whose bald top and bland personality, was not exactly swimming in endorsements.  Even players ranked lower than him, say, Gael Monfils, did better because his personality shined more.

After this stretch of good play, Davydenko signed a deal with Dunlop which dressed him head-to-toe.  He was to switch racquets from his Prince, which he claimed helped him play his best tennis, to a Dunlop.  However, Davydenko got injured in 2010.  He had to drop out of Indian Wells when he realized his left wrist was broken.  Davydenko returned around Wimbledon that year, but played poorly throughout the rest of 2010 and all of 2011.  He wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t win a tournament, but he did play badly enough to drop out of the top ten.

Throughout this year and a half, he kept fiddling with his racquet, hoping to find the right combination of weight that would make him feel happy.  Apparently, he (or Dunlop) gave up on this experiment.

By the time Davydenko played Rotterdam, he has a different clothing contract (with Asics) and has gone back to playing Prince (does he even have a contract with them?).  Clearly, the change has been positive for his game as he reached the semis of Rotterdam and finally played a reasonably good match against Federer.  He’s not quite to the way he played in 2009, but there’s more confidence in his hitting, and it goes to show that, for some players, tinkering with success for more money is detrimental for a career.  Davydenko may never get the glamorous contracts that his fellow players have, but he can at least play good tennis.

Getting back to tennis.  Davydenko is one of those players that Federer used to own.  Despite being the heir apparent (and hair apparent) to Andre Agassi, Davydenko struggled badly against Federer, probably due to the lack of a big serve.  Davydenko’s strengths are playing tight to the baseline and using the angles to his advantage.  Honestly, Fed likes to play a similar style, but has a bit more variety.  In 2009, Davydenko improved both his serve and his confidence, and finally beat Federer a few times, before his game spiraled out of control.

In this match, Davydenko started off well, taking the first set, but Federer came back to take the second set.  Fed had many chances to break early in the third set, but Davydenko kept fighting back.  Davydenko also had chances to break Federer, but couldn’t manage to do it either.  Eventually, Davydenko had his serve broken at love and Federer was able to serve out the match.

Earlier in the day, Juan Martin del Potro easily won his match over Tomas Berdych.  This will be the first interesting match in 2012 since the Australian Open.  Federer was on a losing streak at Davis Cup despite playing very solid tennis up to the end of 2011.  del Potro felt his game was about ready to go, but couldn’t make it deep in Melbourne.  This match probably means a bit more to Federer than del Potro.  Clearly, del Potro wants to win, but Federer wants to prove to himself that his game isn’t in decline, and a win would really help his confidence, more than a loss would hurt Delpo’s confidence.

US clinches doubles and sweeps Switzerland in upset Davis Cup win

If you really had to press Roger Federer and ask him whether it was more important, for his legacy, to win Slams or Davis Cup, you know what the answer would be.  If Nadal has had master over Federer, he’s also had a sidekick named David Ferrer, ranked 5th in the world, who makes Davis Cup a breeze.  Even a player as formidable as Juan Martin del Potro can’t mail in a victory over the indefatigable Davis Ferrer.  No doubt that Stan Wawrinka is a very good player, but is he in the same league as Ferrer.  Hardly.

Because of this, the US had one advantage.  Federer doesn’t need Davis Cup to distract him from the most challenging part of the season.  The Olympics complicate this year like no other.  Due to the Olympics, Davis Cup has had to adjust its schedule.  Normally, Davis Cup is played shortly after Wimbledon.  Instead, Davis Cup is wedged between Miami and Monte Carlo.  Monte Carlo is an optional Masters 1000, but it makes life tough, and one reasons Nadal refused to play Davis Cup in 2012 is the scheduling conflicts forcing him to play Davis Cup and then Monte Carlo.

And to that extent, Federer lost to Isner and didn’t play great doubles with Wawrinka to the US.  Maybe the US would have won anyway.  Captain Jim Courier, with a 2-0 lead, opted for Mardy Fish to help clinch doubles over Ryan Harrison, the green up-and-comer, who was originally scheduled to play in doubles.

Although the Swiss took the first set, they played inconsistent doubles, probably far less than Federer would have played had Davis Cup meant more than it does to him.  US swept the doubles over Switzerland 46, 63, 63, 63

Up next is the winner of France vs. Canada.  France has never had a tie where their most talented duo has played together.  Tsonga-Monfils would be a great punch, but with a need to play doubles, France opted for Beeneteau-Llodra, a formidable duo who can also play singles in a pinch.  Except if they knew that Monfils would drop out, they might have picked Simon or Gasquet on the team (Davis Cup forces only a 4-man team, which makes doubles intriguing) who rank higher than either Llodra or Benneteau.  With Monfils bowing out due to injury, Canada has an outside shot to upset the French team.

The Canadians split with Raonic beating Benneteau and Pospisil, the hero that brought them victory over Israel and qualified them for the World Group, losing to the much higher-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  Doubles is a toss-up.  The French should be favored because they often have a very solid doubles team.  Even if Llodra normally pairs up with Zimonjic, he’s played enough doubles with Benneteau to be very comfortable with him.  Meanwhile, Canada mixes Nestor-Pospisil.  Nestor is a world-class doubles player but Canada lacks a second doubles player at that level.

So odds still favor the French to be the US next opponent.  The only oddity is the French still prefer to play on faster courts.  They may “love” clay, but their entire team is better on hard courts than on clay despite, say, Monfils semifinal run at Roland Garros a few years ago.  Only Richard Gasquet prefers clay, and even he plays well on hard courts.

So the US will likely play France unless Canada can pull a bigger upset than the US did.  Arguably, the French are far stronger than either the US or certainly the Swiss team while Canada has a weaker than any of these three other teams.

So congrats to Fish and Isner and Mike Bryan for taking the first round.  In an Olympic year where no American is likely to contend for a Slam in singles, the Davis Cup seems well within grasp.

Davis Cup: US takes surprising 2-0 lead over Federer-led Switzerland on first day of play

Roger Federer doesn’t play much Davis Cup.  It’s hard enough for him to stay healthy for Slams, so he frequently skips Davis Cup even though he has a reasonably solid number 2 in Stan Wawrinka behind him.  Andy Murray, for example, skips a lot of Davis Cup too, but he has no one ranked in the top 100 behind him.

So when the US was slated to meet Switzerland, and Roger Federer was planning to play, and it was scheduled on clay, few expected the US would be competitive.  Clay was picked because it’s Wawrinka’s best surface and Federer can pretty much play all surfaces even if clay is his weakest surface.  He’s reached numerous French Open finals.

Andy Roddick begged out of playing Davis Cup due to an injury sustained during the Australian Open, but this may have been a blessing in disguise.  Andy Roddick has lost to Federer so often that he has a mental block getting past him.  Isner had also never beaten Federer, but with a serve that’s now bigger than Andy Roddick’s serve, Isner could hope for staying even and take his chances in tiebreaks.

The first match up was Mardy Fish against Stan Wawrinka.  Frankly, neither player had played so well leading up to this tie.  Fish lost a poorly played match in Melbourne to Alejandro Falla, unable to keep the ball in play.  Wawrinka made it to the third round losing to Nicolas Almagro.  On a hard court, Fish would be more than competitive against Wawrinka, but Fish plays reasonably well on clay.  He can get to net.  He has a big serve.  He’s steady enough off the baseline.

Even so, Fish took the first set handily while Wawrinka struggled with errors.  Wawrinka came back to take sets 2 and 3 with a score 6-4.  In the fourth set, Fish came back strong with a 6-1 set, then needed a 9-7 final set to win.

OK, so the US pulled out a win over Wawrinka, but it was close, and within the realm of possibility.

However, most felt Isner didn’t really have a chance against Federer.  Isner’s main claim to fame on clay was pushing Rafa to 5 sets at Roland Garros.  That Isner lost was no surprise.  Nadal has lost about a dozen times on clay.  Isner is not known as a clay court player.  That Isner pushed him to 5 sets, the only time Nadal has ever played 5 sets on clay was the huge surprise.

So Isner knew, to stay even, he had to serve big, hope Federer was a bit off his game, and hope to win in tiebreaks.  And, to some extent, this happened.  Fed took the first set, 6-4.  Isner got a break and won the second set, 6-3.  The two played the third set to a tiebreak, one that Isner pulled out, but then Fed fell apart and had his serve broken twice to lose for the first time to Isner, 6-2 in the fourth set.

This means, in theory, a win in doubles would be enough.  Currently, Mike Bryan and Ryan Harrison are scheduled for doubles.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they plugged in Mardy Fish for doubles and hope to close this out in 3 matches.  That’s a dangerous ploy because if they fail to win doubles over Federer-Wawrinka, they’ll need Fish to take his chances against Federer.  It would probably come down to Isner trying to knock out Wawrinka, so resting Isner is perhaps more important. (Bob Bryan bowed out because his wife gave birth to a child just at the end of the Australian Open).

So the US has a reasonable shot at taking the Davis Cup tie, but it hinges on doubles.  This is far more than Captain Courier expected when the tie started.

Montpellier/Zagreb/Vina del Mar: The tour goes on…Berdych wins over Monfils in France

It’s easy, at the conclusion of a grueling Australian Open, to believe all of tennis is being played by the top four.  The entirety of the top four took a week off.  For some, like Rafa, it’s rest and training.  Rafa promised not to play until Indian Wells and has chosen not to play Davis Cup.  Roger Federer is training on clay for a meeting with the US team in about 6 days time.  Djokovic is probably recovering.

But everyone else continues to play the tour.  The tour splits in three different locations.  Two are in Europe.  Montpellier is in France and may have the strongest field of all tournaments played this week.  Zagreb is in Croatia.  Vina del Mar is in Chile.  There is a clay circuit that moves around South America that will include Brazil and Mexico in upcoming weeks.

Let’s start with Montpellier which is officially known as the Open Sud de France.  When Nadal lost to Djokovic in Melbourne, he could at least hold his head up high that he kept the match close.  Another person who could feel the same is Tomas Berdych.  He must have felt close enough to beat Nadal.  Last year, he wanted to stay in the top ten and win 50 matches.  Berdych is probably looking to win more tournaments.  He won Shanghai last year, but that was his first tournament win in more than two years.

As the top seed in Montpellier, Berdych wanted to get another title.  His run went through, not surprisingly, a lot of French players: Florent Serra, Nicolas Mahut, then German Philipp Kohlschreiber, and then third seed, Gael Monfils in the finals.

Monfils is ranked 13, one spot behind Gilles Simon (with Monfils runner up spot, he may move ahead of Simon), many feel he is top ten material, and he has been there in the past.

Monfils pushed Berdych to three sets, but the tall, rangy Czech eventually won in three sets: 64, 46, 63.

In Zagreb, the field was considerably weaker with Ivan Ljubicic, hometown boy, as top seed.  Russian veteran, Mikhail Youzhny, beat Lukas Lacko 62 63.  Lacko beat defending champ, Marcos Baghdatis, in the semis.

In Vin del Mar, held in Chile, Argentinians dominated.  Chile’s best players are now getting old and there’s no one new to replace them.  Argentines were 3 of the 4 semifinalists including Juan Monaco, Carlos Berlocq, and Juan Ignacio Chela (Nalbandian and del Potro did not play).  Jeremy Chardy of France was the only non Argentine (and opted to play on clay in Chile instead of playing in France).  Monaco will meet Berlocq in the finals which will be played later today.