From Out of the Ashes

It's been an interesting year for Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. After losing five matches in a row to start the year, the twenty-seven year old Spaniard seemed to be coming into his own during the spring, running over Marin Cilic in Indian Wells, dropping only five games to Lleyton Hewitt in Rome and fighting to the finals in Eastbourne.

But in the last few months, he's been less than impressive. Though he was my pick to make the semifinals at Roland Garros, the barely seeded Garcia-Lopez lost in the second round to Thiemo De Bakker and, other than Eastbourne, only won three matches since. He hadn't beaten a top twenty player since March and fell from a career-high ranking out of the top fifty.

Then he came to Bangkok. In his Thailand debut he faced a tough road from the start. He opened with a straight-set win over eighth seeded Michael Berrer -- his only two-setter the entire tournament. He had to fight much harder against Florent Serra and Ernests Gulbis, but put up his biggest win when he saved twenty-four of twenty-six break points against world #1 Rafael Nadal in the semis -- it was the only time he'd even won a set from his countryman.

In the finals against Finn Jarkko Nieminen, Guillermo had the early lead, but allowed his opponent back in the game after holding the 3-1 advantage in the third set. He stayed strong after squandering a few match points in the tenth game and ultimately closed out the championships almost two hours after the match ended.



It was Garcia-Lopez's second career title -- he'd beaten Julien Benneteau in the Kitzbühel final last year, and certainly a solid victory as he travels to Tokyo this week. Still unseeded at the Japan Open, he faces a potential second round against '09 U.S. Open champ Juan Martin Del Potro or just-as-intimidating sixth seed Feliciano Lopez. It will certainly be a tough task to repeat his run from Bangkok, but his wins this week should give him an additional boost of confidence when he touches down.

And like the phoenix before him, he might just be able to fly from the ashes of his disappointing summer into a much more successful fall.

A Blast From the Past

After almost a month of high-intensity matches in Indian Wells and Miami, dominated by current all-stars and rising talent, this week some smaller tournaments were able to bring some not-so-new names to back into the spotlight.

Early exits by top seeds in Houston could have allowed players like Jurgen Meltzer and Jeremy Chardy get into their own groove. Instead, it was even lesser-known players like Bjorn Phau and Wayne Odesnik who made it to the semifinals. The #100-ranked American triumphed over the German Phau in straight set to make his first ever ATP final.



There he'll face the winner of a match that pits twenty-one year old Evgeny Korolev against former #1 Lleyton Hewitt, who's trying to recapture his one-time success in Houston. So far, he seems to be on a roll and hasn't dropped a set on his way to the semis. A win later today would earn him his first final round match since Las Vegas in 2007.



A little further east in Marbella, Spain, where Serena Williams lost her #1 ranking and her #1 round in the same day, a struggling Jelena Jankovic was able to get back on track. She lost her first match at her last two tournaments and has been upset by players like Kaia Kanepi, Marion Bartoli and Amelie Mauresmo, all of whom she should be able to beat. With Serena gone, though, she might have been able to pull together the confidence she needed to make her first final this year.

There she'll face Carla Suárez Navarro, who famously defeated Venus Williams in the second round of this year's Australian Open. Since Melbourne she hasn't been able to put together back-to-back wins and has lost to players ranked #71, #134 and #136 in the world. But this week she gained entry to the first WTA final of her career with a win over Sorana Cirstea. A title in Spain could give either woman the momentum she needs to start the clay-court season off strongly.

But some of the biggest comebacks were in Casablanca, where 22nd-ranked Igor Andreev claimed the top seed. He was ousted this morning by former world #1 Juan Carlos Ferrero who, six years later, is now in the triple-digits. Ferrero pulled off upsets of Christophe Rochus, Victor Hanescu and Andreev all in straight sets. As a prize, he gets to meet France's Florent Serra, a man who hasn't won a title since Adelaide in 2006, but also hasn't dropped a set this week in Morocco.



So as one-time stars try to make another play for tennis's elite, current #1's might be getting a little nervous. The last few weeks have done nothing if not shown just how tenuous the grip on the top spot is.