Ah, puns.

When the ATP Tour decided that pros needed more rest in the off season, they removed the week between Paris (Indoors) and London (World Tour Finals).  Surely, organizers had to realize that such a move would create a bit of havoc with the schedule–and it has.

Djokovic lost in his opening round.  Murray won one, then lost one.  Federer didn’t even bother showing up, citing minor injuries in Basel.

Two players that had some incentive to win, Tsonga and Tipsarevic, benefited from knocking out players that might have an outside shot at qualifying for London, but once their spots were secured, they lost.  But even players that were on the outside looking in struggled.  Gasquet, Almagro, Monaco, Raonic, Isner, and Cilic all had outside shots of qualifying for London if they won the tournament, but all lost relative early.

One man has had a lot to do with these losses, and he’s having the best run of his life.

That would be Jerzy Janowicz.  Looking something like Marat Safin, Janowicz has taken his big quirky game and perhaps a lack of motivation from London qualifiers and produced a string of upsets.  Realize that this Polish player was playing futures at the start of the year. 

Futures!

As a reminder, the ATP has several rungs of play.  On the main tour where your results count to official ATP wins and losses, there are the ATP 250, ATP 500, Masters 1000, the Slams, and the year-end championship (plus a few oddball events like the Olympics and Davis Cup).  Beneath the ATP 250 are the Challengers.  Players ranked about 40 and below routinely play the Challengers.  Although wins and losses are not counted to your official ATP wins and losses, you earn money and you earn ATP points, so it does affect your rankings.  Players as highly ranked as Michael Llodra would occasionally play Challengers.  Players in the top 20 almost never play since they qualify for the big tournaments.

Underneath the Challengers, which still have good players playing, are the Futures, and even these are stratified some.  Futures are held all over the world with often very few people watching, except with the chance to perhaps see an up-and-comer.  Janowicz played in Great Britain at the start of the year where local British players often play, their rank so low that they Murray often skips Davis Cup ties without a semi-reliable number 2.

Perhaps Janowicz’s most notable feature is his height.  He’s another in a long line of very tall players making an impact on the tour.  These days, if you want to make it quickly up the tour, be tall.  And have a big serve.  That’s primarily why players like Querrey, Isner, Anderson, Cilic, and so forth have done so well.  Yes, they have other parts of their games that allow them to win, but without a serve, they’d be too vulnerable off the ground, and have to work as hard as Ferrer or Simon.

Janowicz apparently loves the drop shot.  He’s not great at it, but he’s not bad at it.  When your rank is 70 or so, there are still holes in your game, such as consistency, but for a guy his size, he moves pretty well, and gets to a fair number of balls.

Many players in Janowicz’s situation, that is, having a great tournament, often point to a great deal of hard work to get to where they are, but Janowicz seemed unsure why he’s playing so well.  He felt he had done nothing that would lend to such success.  He did have a breakthrough of sorts reaching the third round at Wimbledon after qualifying.

Let’s recap Janowicz’s run through Paris, which has been impressive.  He beat Kohlschreiber in the opening round who had played very tough tennis right around the clay season (it’s always tough for players ranked 30-40 to have sustained good play throughout the entire year which makes you appreciate how someone like Ferrer, who rarely plays badly, keeps winning and winning).  He beat Cilic, who had an outside shot at London and had been playing decent tennis, in the next round.

He knocked out Andy Murray in the third round.  Though many felt Murray tanked to prep for London, Janowicz felt like he had won Wimbledon, so jubilant he was with the win.  Normally, such upsets results in being brought down to Earth in the next round.  When Federer upset Sampras at Wimbledon so many years ago, he played Tim Henman and lost to him in the next round.  Janowicz came out and lost the first set to Tipsarevic, who had already qualified, but then took the second set easily and was up in the third set when Tipsarevic retired.

That puts him in the semis of a Masters 1000 event which is honestly, despite the circumstances, quite impressive.

Let’s recap the other quarterfinal wins.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the remaining quarterfinals was David Ferrer against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  While it seemed top players like Murray and Djokovic tanked their matches to prep for London, there are those that say Ferrer simply doesn’t know any better.  He fights and fights regardless of the tournament.  It’s simply his mental outlook.  That, and the fact that Ferrer, despite his lofty ranking, has never won a Masters 1000 title.  Even though Ferrer has been a lock to appear at London for some time, he’s not a lock to win London.  There are too many good players that can give him trouble there, but with the draw completely opened up, Ferrer has a great shot at winning Paris.

Ferrer had a rather convincing win over Tsonga, 62 75.

Despite Tsonga’s loss, the French are still doing quite well in the second most famous French tournament in Paris.  Indeed, the French should spite the world by converting Roland Garros into an indoors tournament where their players might have a shot of winning it all.

Michael Llodra, who has generally played well at Paris, beat the suddenly resurgent Sam Querrey, 76 63.  Querrey has to feel pretty good about his results, especially another victory over Milos Raonic.  He might push himself back into the top 20 by next year some time.  Llodra will play Ferrer in one of the semis.

Gilles Simon has been playing much better tennis, as of late.  He had played great tennis in 2008 and upset Federer a few times.  However, injuries in 2009 and 2010 saw his rank drop, and only recently has Simon started getting better results.  Against Berdych, Simon played a bit more aggressive than he usually does, relying on hard-hit inside out shots followed by forays to the net to nullify the Czech who, frankly, made quite a few errors, and was not able to dominate off the ground like he normally does.  Even so, Berdych had already qualified for Paris, so a Friday exit would give him some time to prep for London (though not much).

Gilles Simon will take his low-paced game and try to befuddle the Polish giant who is still having something of a dream ride of a tournament, and will be trying to push yet another upset.  Apparently, he’s been eating and sleeping very little and his confidence is at an all-time high.