Back in the Spotlight

This weekend's champions had been flying a bit under the radar this year. With so many young stars emerging and a couple tried-and-true veterans showing their still more than relevant, their names have stayed largely out of the headlines. But with wins this week, it seems they're all ready to grab back some of the attention, and maybe change the course of the rest of their years.

Former Junior #1 Elina Svitolina is the second highest ranked teenager in the WTA, but her successes have largely been overshadowed by the likes of Wimbledon finalist Genie Bouchard -- the woman to whom she lost the 2012 Girls' title, incidentally -- world #3 Simona Halep, and even Madison Keys, the nineteen-year-old champion at Eastbourne. But the Ukrainian has had some big wins on Tour this year, taking out Svetlana Kuznetsova in her Melbourne opener and forcing Aga Radwanska into three sets in the Miami fourth round. Last week she returned to defend her only super-125K level title in Baku as the second seed. And with many of the favorites falling early, she did face much of a challenge during her run -- she dropped one set to 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone in the semis and and met just one seed, a resurgent Bojana Jovanovski in the final. After a quick first set, Svitolina needed a tiebreak to close out the match, but never dropped her own serve and in under ninety minutes was again raising the trophy. If she can keep the momentum up at the higher-profile events down the road, she might just be able to launch herself into the next level.

John Isner has been flirting with the elite for years, but since breaking into the top ten over two years ago, he's only reached the fourth round of a Major one time -- surprisingly at Roland Garros this year. He has kept winning titles, two a year in fact since 2011 and opened this season with a trophy in Auckland, but none above the 250 level, and his biggest win in 2014 was a four-set, three-tiebreak battle against then-#14 Tommy Robredo in Paris. But he's been a little more consistent than normal this year, reaching the quarters in Nice and Newport and the semis in Indian Wells, and he's much more comfortable on the American hardcourts, too. Twice a finalist in Atlanta he finally broke the seal here last year. This week the top seed at the BB&T Open held tough versus wildcard Robby Ginepri in his opener and got the upper hand on recently rising Jack Sock in the semis. And Israel's Dudi Sela, who'd already taken out two seeds during his campaign down south, couldn't keep up in Sunday's final. Isner fired off a not-unusual fifteen aces and, more surprisingly, converted both break points he got to recapture the title. And while history doesn't necessarily suggest the win will lead to a successful U.S. Open Series, his persistence this season may just indicate that's about to change.

Pablo Andujar's been a little farther removed from the winner's circle. The twenty-eight year old Spaniard won his only two previous titles in Casablanca, but the last one came back in 2012. Since then he'd fallen briefly out of the top hundred and despite a solid run to the Madrid semis last year and very nearly beating Rafael Nadal this past February in Rio, he hadn't made it back to another championship match. He changed that last week in Gstaad, though -- after getting a pass from Gilles Simon in his opener, he took out both Marcel Granollers and Fernando Verdasco, setting up a clash with former top-ten veteran Juan Monaco in the final. And it was quite a close battle too -- the Argentine, who'd pulled off a couple upsets himself on the way to Sunday's match, had break point early and then lost a solid lead on his own serve to give up the first set. Monaco fought hard in the second too, building a 4-1 lead to start, but ultimately Andujar proved the stronger -- he rattled off four straight games to clinch the win and claim his third career trophy. And while he still needs to find a way to translate that success onto another surface, he might just have found the confidence he needs to make the switch.

Pablo Cuevas might have given himself even more confidence with the performances he's put up this month. Though he lingered around the low double digits in the latter part of the last decade, the Uruguayan was ranked well outside the top hundred at just the start of the month. And though he'd been on Tour for a full decade and captured nine titles on the Challengers' circuit, he'd never reached an ATP-level final before July. Even after beating Fernando Verdasco on his way to his first big boy's trophy in Bastad, he had to qualify for last week's action in Umag. But he kept his win streak going in unexpected style -- he ran over sixth seeded Andreas Seppi in his second round and then trounced world #15 Fabio Fognini in the semis. Against defending champion Tommy Robredo in the final he again didn't drop a set, taking less than an hour and a half to stop the second seed in his tracks and extend his run to a maybe lucky thirteen match wins. Like Andujar, he'll need to transition his came to a new surface in the coming weeks, but with his surprising successes lifting him to #40 in the world -- his highest ranking to date -- there's no reason to believe he won't keep rising higher.

All of this weekend's champions put themselves back on the map with their title runs, for the first time in months for some and in years for others. With the summer hardcourt season now in full swing, and many of the players who've been in the spotlight getting back on court, we'll see whether momentum will stay on their side or if they'll fall back to the sidelines. And now that they've shown what they can do, they'd better be ready for a lot more attention.

Celebrating the Other Guys

It's about time players who spend their days and weeks slogging away on the Challenger Tour get their due.

With all the attention paid to the professional Tour -- the Slams, especially -- it's easy to miss the successes on the second tier circuit. But this year, for the first time, the ATP is celebrating just those athletes with the inaugural Challenger Tour Finals which kicks off Wednesday in Sao Paulo.

Portugal's Rui Machado leads the field in Brazil. Though he literally won just a handful of matches in ATP events -- his best result was a quarterfinal appearance in Costa do Sauipe -- he did earn himself four Challenger titles and climbed as high as #59 in the world in October. In the same round robin group is former top-thirty player Dudi Sela, struggling to regain the traction he found two years back, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, on the verge of cracking into double-digit rankings after starting the year at #404, and Matthias Bachinger, a quarterfinalist in Bangkok and a titleist in Athens.

A second group of matches -- the "Grupo Verde" -- is headlined by wildcard Thomaz Bellucci. He's dropped a bit in the rankings since peaking at #21 in 2010, but with two ATP titles to his name, he's clearly the most experienced of the bunch. Slovakia's Martin Klizan only played six matches all year on the main Tour, but claimed his second Challenger title in Genova in September. Germany's Andreas Beck, once ranked #33 in the world, and American veteran Bobby Reynolds, winless in the ATP but a winner of two Challengers, round out the section.

Brazil's Bellucci may be the on-paper favorite to take the title, but if this year has taught us anything, it's that pretty much anything can happen. With the encouragement of their own year-end title, whoever wins the championship could ride the momentum and make even bigger strides on the main Tour -- and an even more successful 2012.

A Return to Normalcy?

It's no surprise that the clay court season was dominated by two story lines: the reemergence of Rafael Nadal as the #1 man in tennis and the return of the four-time French Open champ Justine Henin.

Now that we've moved on, we enter a period where a few almost-forgotten names are trying to remind us exactly why they're forces in tennis -- some will be successful, some less so.

Andy Roddick was, unfortunately, part of the latter group. One half of probably the best match contested last year, he has his best win percentage on grass -- an impressive 82% versus 77% on hard courts. He's also won four titles on the surface -- not bad when you consider how short this part of the season is -- and made the semis or better at Queen's Club every year since 2002. But the story this year was a bit different -- in about an hour and forty-five minutes, the world #7 was ousted in the third round today by Israel's Dudi Sela, a man who's only now broken even on the lawn. Here's hoping Roddick gets it together before traveling to Wimbledon.

Britain's Andy Murray is hoping to avoid the same fate. After a mediocre clay court season in which he only advanced to the quarterfinals of a tournament once, he returns to London to defend his crown. England's best hope at a Major only has the one title on the surface, but with thirty-four wins and just nine losses he does promise to deliver eventually. He does still have to get past Mardy Fish, though -- after splitting their first two sets on Thursday, the two retired on serve at three-all in the decider when the lights went down. Murray is clearly the favorite to pull out the win, but the American did stun him in Miami back in March, so the outcome is far from certain. Murray's going to want to rally big, though, or else people may stop talking about him for a while.

So far Maria Sharapova has been doing her part to show us just how ready she is to win another Slam. After a disappointingly close third-round loss in Paris, she's looked unstoppable in a rain-soaked Birmingham. This week she's powered through Bethanie Mattek-Sands and destroyed Alla Kudryavtseva in about an hour each. With a quarterfinal date against qualifier Sesil Karatantcheva, it looks good that she'll make the semis and maybe go further, all of which bodes well as she returns to the site of her first Major win.

It's not quite certain yet whether these players will return to their winning ways, but over the next few weeks we'll start to see whether they can cause some damage now that they're on a turf with which they're more comfortable. If they can I can't wait to see the fireworks -- if not, well, it might just be time to step aside for some new talent.

Year in Review: The Gentlemen

We all know the stories of the top men in tennis this year -- of course Roger Federer regained his year-end number #1 ranking on the heels of earning the career Grand Slam and setting the record for Major titles. And we know of Rafael Nadal's struggles during the latter part of the year.

Somewhat surprisingly, there were a few big movers even among the most elite players -- Juan Martin Del Potro leapt into the top five while both Robin Soderling and Fernando Verdasco made their top-ten debuts. And as they rose, other must fall of course -- unfortunately that group included my dear James Blake, who ended the year at #44.

But those moves are nothing compared to some other players who made a big name for themselves this year, both through success and through failure. I'm going to start with the good news.

• Biggest Comebacks
• Biggest Debuts
• Biggest Droppers
• Biggest Fizzlers
• The Closest Calls
• My Predictions

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Biggest Comebacks

Forget Kim Clijsters and Justin Henin. The world of men's tennis in 2009 was also one of comebacks.

Lleyton Hewitt fell out of the top 100 for a brief time in February -- the first time he'd hit double digits since the turn of the decade. Recovering from a hip injury, the Australian lost in the first round of his hometown Grand Slam, but proved to be a formidable threat to seeded players in tournaments after that. He won his first title in over two years by beating Wayne Odesnik in Houston and narrowly missed the semis at Wimbledon after a nearly four-hour match with Andy Roddick. While he had some trouble cracking the most elite players, he did notch a tough win over James Blake, back when he was ranked #13, and a straight-set victory over DelPo at the All England club. For his efforts, he rose forty-five spots to end the year at #22.

Tommy Haas has had some tough luck recently, but you'd never know it from his performance on the court. First he was allegedly poisoned during Germany's Davis Cup match against Russia a few years back, and then a few weeks ago he was diagnosed with swine flu. Even still the gorgeous German had a stand-out year, winning his first championship since 2007 in Halle by beating Novak Djokovic in the final and taking the first two sets from Roger Federer in the Roland Garros fourth round. He made the semis at Wimbledon, his best-ever performance there and climbed back into the top twenty after starting the year at #82.

Even more impressive was the performance of Juan Carlos Ferrero. The former #1 and one-time French Open champ had languished in the mid tiers of the sport for years and hadn't claimed a trophy since Monte Carlo in 2003. His five-plus year drought ended in Casablanca back in April, but he didn't stop there. He scored key wins over Hewitt, Gilles Simon and Gael Monfils that helped propel him back to #20. A couple of opening round losses to end the year dropped him back a few spots, but Ferrero's thirty-plus spot jump puts the almost-thirty year old Spaniard back amongst the contenders for the big titles.

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Biggest Debuts

There was another class of upward movers this year -- those who seemingly came out of nowhere to grab headlines, or at least ranking points, in 2009. Some had made their first appearance years ago while others had ploughed their course at smaller events. Either way, they all saw their rankings jump out of the triple digits and into solid contender territory.

I've already opined on John Isner's phenomenal year, but it's worth repeating one more time. The 6'9" American jumped 110 spots to end 2009 with his highest career ranking thanks, in part to a solid summer and a third-round defeat of Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open. He earned his first seed in a professional tournament in Bangkok and, not so quietly, became the third best player in this country. Isner's got a lot of things going for him, including a rocket serve, and he's been working on his ground game as well, which could make him a force Down Under. Here's hoping he helps usher in the next generation of greats.

Rajeev Ram is also doing his part for American men's tennis. Along with his second Challenger title, the Indiana native won both the singles and doubles trophies in Newport. After a career of playing players mostly ranked in the triple-digits, Rajeev broke through this year, beating Sam Querrey and Mardy Fish among others. His successes allowed him to jump one more position than even Isner as he finished the year #79.

If you thought these guys made big strides in 2009, it's nothing compared to what Horacio Zeballos did. The twenty-four year old Argentine has been pro since 2003 but didn't play on the main Tour until this year. He didn't even qualify for a tournament until Rhode Island, but he won four Challenger events and even his opening round at Flushing Meadows. Then in St. Petersburg he made his very first final by winning only his second through fifth Tour matches and sky-rocketing from #199 last year to #45 today. Sure he hasn't beaten a great player yet, but for someone no one's ever heard of yet, he's not doing too bad.

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Biggest Droppers

Of course for every rank gained, one must be lost.

I have to say I'm a bit surprised that Russia's Dmitry Tursunov didn't have a better year. Once ranked #20 he had a slow start to the year, getting upset in more than a few first rounds. Last year's finalist in Indianapolis, Tursunov fought to the title in Eastborne, the sixth of his career. He made the quarters in Indy, but despite a good seeding and a few bye rounds, he proceeded to lose four matches in a row, ending 2009 after a four set loss to Marc Gicquel at the U.S. Open. His recent results caused him to fall farther than anyone else in the top hundred -- from #22 to #89.

Mario Ancic's move was only slightly less dramatic. The former top-ten player is now ranked #95, fifty-nine spots below where he started the year -- though it's not really his fault. Early in the year he didn't lose to anyone he should have beaten, but a recurrence of the mono that sidelined him for part of 2008 took him out of the season in May. The six-foot-five Croat said he'll make his return to the Tour in January, tuning up for the big leagues by playing a few challenger events.

Then there's David Nalbandian who kicked off 2009 by winning his tenth trophy in Sydney and making the semis in Buenos Aires. But hip surgery took him out of commission after Estoril and knocked him down to #64 -- he'd ended 2008 at #11. Nalbandian will be back though, the twenty-seven year old Argentine plans to compete in the next Grand Slam, where he was once a semifinalist. Hopefully he'll be back in good enough shape to get himself back to the top.

By the way, I've limited my commentary here to players still ranked in the double digits, but I'd be remiss if I left out Kei Nishikori. Last year's biggest positive mover and a quarterfinalist in Brisbane, he got off to a slow start in 2009. After that he only won a single match (over Gilles Muller in San Jose). Forced to pull out of the last three Majors with an elbow injury, the Japanese star is now ranked #420. Here's hoping for a quick recovery and return in the new decade.

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Biggest Fizzlers

Perhaps more frustrating than falling steadily is when you get so close, but just can't make it. A couple players this year gathered up a ton of momentum, started to look like they could cause some damage, and then sputtered, spewed and ended up not really making much of a mark at all.

David Ferrer is still up there, ranked #17, a mere five positions below where he ended 2008. I'd complained much of last year that the Spaniard had held on to an unnecessarily high rank despite some mediocre performances. He began this year as if out to prove me wrong -- he did well in the early months, making the semis in Johannesburg and the title matches in Dubai and Barcelona. But once the summer came Ferer struggled to put together back-to-back wins. Outside his miraculous win in Barcelona during the Davis Cup finals, he couldn't beat the top players and often lost to those ranked far lower than him. Going into 2010 needs to get his act together if he wants to stay in the top twenty.

It's a little unfair to put 6'10" Croat Ivo Karlovic in this group, since he was part of so many classic matches this year, but for a man who served 890 aces this year -- more than a hundred more than any other player -- he sure lost a lot of matches. That's not to say he didn't put up a fight -- he famously fired off a record fifty-five bombs in his first round in Paris only to lose to Hewitt, and he spent nearly six hours on court with Radek Stepanek in the Davis Cup semis. He's played an inordinate number of five-set matches this year -- and only won one of them. Though he got himself close to the top twenty, he's only had a single match victory since Cincinnati, where he lost in the second round. Now ranked thirty-seventh in the world, Karlovic has to show he's got more than a big serve, as he's already proven that's not enough to win.

Israel's Dudi Sela had the chance to be a real force on the men's Tour this year. After finishing the runner-up in Beijing in 2008, he put in a solid performance as a qualifier in Melbourne, causing two upsets before losing in the third round. He followed that up with a semifinal in Memphis and two big Davis Cup wins against Sweden. He climbed from #112 to start the year all the way to #29 in July. But seven opening round losses in a row, including one to Shao-Xuan Zeng ranked #393 in the world, dropped him back down fourteen spots. Kind of makes you wonder if he can really compete with the big boys.

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The Closest Calls

Well, maybe not the closest, but of course there were a ton of players I've missed here. On the positive side Fernando Gonzalez and Taylor Dent both put their names back in the ring while Marco Chiudinelli and Leonardo Mayer made their own names known. On the down side Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri both suffered some precipitous drops while Ernests Gulbis and Dennis Istomin came so close to notching big wins, only to falter again. Though they didn't make my lists this year, I will give them all a year of probation -- hopefully in twelve months they'll be able to either back up their performances or turn them around.

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My Predictions

So back in April I made a forecast about what the top five would look like at the end of 2009. Of course I was wrong, but everyone in my top four certainly had their chance to make a run for #1 this year. That being said, here's my call for year-end 2010 -- feel free to heckle:

1. Roger Federer
2. Novak Djokovic
3. Juan Martin Del Potro
4. Rafael Nadal
5. Andy Murray
6. Robin Soderling
7. Nikolay Davydenko
8. Marin Cilic
9. Andy Roddick
10. Gael Monfils

Be sure to check back next year to see how I do, and tell me who you think will be on top in the new decade!

See you then!

Davis Cup Surprises

First off, I want to apologize for the scarcity of posts this week. I promise to be more diligent! But some tennis stars are going to have to be diligent this weekend.

Today the quarterfinals of the Davis Cup began with some surprising results. Defending champs Spain claimed homecourt advantage in Marbella, but are still tied with Germany at one rubber apiece. And the U.S. had to struggle through two five-set matches and now needs to win all three of their remaining matches against Croatia.

Top-ten player Fernando Verdasco had a bit of a hiccup in his match against German Andreas Beck, dropping two close sets but taking his three fairly easy. But Tommy Robredo, who's already won two titles on clay this year, was wholly unimpressive against Philipp Kohlschreiber. The twenty-five year old scored thirty-three winners to Robredo's nineteen and kept his serve percentage high. In three relatively quick sets Philipp notched his first win in five tries over his opponent and held his country even with the heavy favorites.

Slightly more disturbing is the performance of the U.S. Not too long ago all the talk surrounded James Blake and his inability to win a five-set match -- when he finally got the monkey off his back at the 2007 U.S. Open, I thought he was on his way to undisturbed greatness. Unfortunately today the headlines were reversed and James allowed someone else to jump over that hurdle. He had an impressive two-set lead over big-serving Ivo Karlovic in their rubber but eventually gave the Wimbledon quarterfinalist his own first victory in a match that went the distance. Ivo stayed tough in the fourth set tiebreak and converted late in the fifth to give the Croats an early lead.

In the second rubber Mardy Fish took on Marin Cilic, a rematch of last year's Pilot Pen championship, which Fish lost. Mardy had been called in as a replacement for Andy Roddick who had pulled out of the competition due to a hip injury sustained in his epic Wimbledon final last week -- he wasn't meant to play here this weekend, but he was obviously going to put up a fight. He took a two-set to one lead and broke back at 3-5 in the fifth, putting the pressure on Cilic just as he was trying to close out. But extra innings were too much for him, and Mardy eventually fell 6-8 in an hour-plus final set.

As disappointing as those matches were, the biggest shock had to have come in the Russia-Israel match-up. Russia has won two Davis Cup titles this decade and is led by strong players like Marat Safin and Igor Andreev. Israel, on the other hand, boasts a realatively unknown Dudi Sela as its best player, followed by world #210 Harel Levy. But the Israelis were not deterred, taking both singles rubbers in four sets and setting themselves up with a comfortable lead going into the weekend.

Incidentally in the final tie being battled this weekend, 2008 runner-up Argentina is tied at one match apiece with the Czech Republic as Juan Martin Del Potro and Thomas Berdych each took their respective rubbers. The winner will get to meet either the U.S. or, more likely it seems, Croatia in the semis. But it sure would be fun to watch a comeback -- and I am definitely excited to see if they can do it!

By the way, I'll be at the Hall of Fame championships -- which Fish pulled out of to play in Europe -- in Newport this weekend. I'm sorry I won't get to watch him in action, but am totally psyched to catch the games on the grounds of the one-time host of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Championships!

If you're in the area give me a shout!

Turning Back the Clocks

Some of us lost an hour of sleep last night as we marked the end of Daylight Savings -- or is it the beginning? I can never remember -- but some tennis players probably wish they could turn the clocks back a little farther, like to 2008. The first round of Davis Cup matches are in the books, and while many of the games went as expected, some individual performances were a bit surprising.

Two countries advanced by sweeping their opponents -- Argentina soared past the Netherlands, which had a team comprised of no name I recognized, and Croatia, somewhat more impressively, won all five matches against Chile, which was missing its top player, Fernando Gonzalez. Russia dropped only its doubles match in its victory over Romania, while the U.S. battled past a Roger Federer-less Swiss team, also winning 4-1. But there were some much tighter scores in other areas of the world.



France arguably had one of the best line-ups for its Davis Cup team with eighth-ranked Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who's already won two titles this year, headlining. They faced Radek Stepanek and his fellow Czechs in the first round. The teams split their first two singles matches, but with the once-promising Simon losing both of his matches, France took the early flight home.



World #3 Novak Djokovic had a similarly frustrating appearance, losing both of his singles matches in straight sets. He was no match against Rafael Nadal, but also couldn't convert against David Ferrer, who avenged his loss in the Dubai finals just a week ago. Nole's fellow Serbs, who had a very successful showing at last year's ATP Masters Cup, also struggled, only winning their doubles match.



But the closest face-off of the competition came when Israel took on Sweden. Every one of the singles matches went five sets -- and then some. Former top-ten player Thomas Johansson took fourteen games in his final set before beating Harel Levy and a still-emerging Dudi Sela had to go 11-9 to even the score. The fifth and deciding rubber pitted Levy against Andreas Vinciguerra with another 8-6 set going, this time, to the Israeli. After a rough couple of weeks for the country's players, they were finally able to come away with a win -- and earned a trip to the quarterfinals.



So as we spring into the next leg of the tennis season, we'll see if recent success stories will be able to maintain their momentum -- and if those others can turn things back around.

Making His Comeback

Andy Roddick started out the year with a bang.

In February he won the SAP Open in San Jose, fitting as the company has sponsored Roddick for years. Then he beat both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic on his way to the title in Dubai.

But after that things slowed down a bit.

He lost his spot as the top-ranked player in the U.S. to my favorite James Blake, he suffered an upset in the second round at Wimbledon to the tattooed Janko Tipsarevic, and skipped out on the Olympics only to be humbled at the hands of Juan Martin Del Potro in the finals at the Coutrywide Classic in Los Angeles.



But this week Andy was set to argue that he should not be forgotten as one of the major forces in men's tennis. He went back to Beijing, one month after the Olympics ended, to take his shot at the China Open. And after four matches he found himself holding the championship trophy over his head.

China may not be the pantheon of tennis, but the tournament has attracted some top-notch players over the years. Last year's champ, Fernando Gonzalez, took the silver medal at the Olympics and the year before Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis won the title when he was ranked a career-high #8.

Roddick didn't have the toughest of draws to get to the finals in Beijing -- his best-known opponent was Juan Carlos Ferrero who has dropped percipitously in the rankings in 2008, from #15 in January to #48 now. For the title Andy took on #92, Dudi Sela of Israel, who actually had a much more impressive road -- he consecutively beat the top seed David Ferrer, Tommy Robredo and Rainer Schuettler for the right to play for the title.

To be fair, Andy never fell out of the top ten, so to designate this a "comeback" may not be entirely appropriate. But my hope is that the win gives him some of the confidence he needs to fight through what's left of the season. With the title Roddick's ATP Race ranking rises to #6, ahead of Ferrer and putting him in contention to vie for the year-end championships in Shanghai. We all know that a little bit of momentum can be all you need to pull out another victory!

Incidentally in another part of Asia, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated top-seeded Djokovic at the finals in Bangkok for the first title of his career. Tsonga, who sat out for three months this year recovering from knee surgery, avenged his January loss to Nole in the Australian Open finals and certainly improved his own chances to compete for the Tennis Master Cup as well.



Congratulations to all!

And to all of you, serve well and play hard!