Davis Cup Championship Preview: Clash of Two Titans

It'll be a battle of powerhouses vying for Davis Cup glory this weekend, as two teams we've become accustomed to seeing in the final try once more to stake their claim on the trophy. One's done it a couple times in recent years, while the other has a real shot at making its first trip to the top of the podium.

Home-team Spain, twice a champion in the last three years, makes its way to this weekend's final after a thrashing of last year's runner-up France in the September semis. Led by world #2 Rafael Nadal and Barclays Championship semifinalist David Ferrer, they've got higher-profile names on their side, but their star power may extend deeper than than.

Feliciano Lopez has clawed his way back to a career-high ranking at #20, thanks to some solid play since the spring. He made his first championship match in over a year in Belgrade and stunned Andy Roddick to make the quarters at Wimbledon. He beat Mardy Fish in a long first rubber back in July and notched a win over Juan Martin Del Potro in the 2008 final. He'll probably get relegated to the doubles rubber, but might be able to score some key wins in the reverse singles matches.

And former top-ten player Fernando Verdasco has been a bit out of the spotlight recently, but still ranks in the top twenty-five. He's won both singles rubbers he's played at Davis Cup this year and has scored victories over higher-ranked players like Marin Cilic, Jurgen Melzer and Nicolas Almagro this year. He's had a less successful year in the doubles circuit, but with the crowd on his side and playing for country, he could still do some damage.

The Spaniards will have to face a pretty stacked Argentine team though. The three-time second place finishers secured their spot in the final after top-ranked Juan Martin Del Potro benefited from a retirement by Novak Djokovic back in September -- that gave the South Americans an insurmountable 3-1 lead over defending champs Serbia. DelPo, spitting distance from returning to the top ten, leads the team in the finals, coming off a semifinal run in Valencia and a runner-up placing in Vienna. He has an impressing 9-2 record in Davis Cup play, and though he has lost two matches to Rafael Nadal this year, he had a nice streak going before that, and soundly defeated David Ferrer in their last two meetings.

Veteran David Nalbandian could also feature highly in this weekend's rubbers. He's fallen a bit in the rankings, but won both his singles matches this year, including one over then-#16 Viktor Troicki. Never one that should be taken lightly, he has fairly solid records against the likely singles representatives. And with top-thirty players like Juan Monaco and Juan Ignacio Chela both in the mix, there's a lot of talent in the pool for captain Tito Vazquez to choose from.

Spain has won all of the teams' previous ties, and soundly defeated the Argentinians in the 2008 final. But some new blood could help ignite a fire in the underdogs. If Del Potro, still really developing his game, is in top form, it might be a closer fight than we think. And with the pride of their nations resting on their shoulders, the motivation to win has never been greater.

The Wildcard Quarters

For a long time we've been saying that this year's French Open is truly up for grabs. With Novak Djokovic dominating every court this year, even the undisputed King of Clay Rafael Nadal isn't necessarily a favorite. And as seed after seed was upset in the women's draw, the eight ladies remaining all have a real chance to take home the title.

Some are obviously more experienced than others -- at the start of day, three on each side had won Majors before -- but in both draws there has emerged one section where neither contender has claimed a Grand Slam, and this could very well be their opportunity.

Li Na stunned the world when she powered through her draw in Melbourne to reach the Australian Open championship match. She even ran away with a set-and-break lead over Kim Clijsters before the veteran took charge of the match.

Li was flying under the radar again in Paris -- she won only one match in three months after Australia -- but seemed to get her footing back in Madrid and Rome, both of which yielded semifinal runs. And after losing the first set to Petra Kvitova on Monday and getting down a break in the third set, she showed just how resilient she can be, battling to her fifth Major quarterfinal in two years.

Next up she'll face fourth seeded Victoria Azarenka, one of my original favorites to win the title. She's disappointed me in the past, though, and susceptibility to injury and frequent retirements made me a little nervous she'd do so again.

But so far she's been solid, losing serve just a handful of times and winning more than seventy percent of her first serves. She has a surprisingly bad record against Li, only defeating her once last year in Montreal and getting fairly trampled in the fourth round at Melbourne. But if she can keep her head on Wednesday I expect she might reach her first Major semifinal.

On the men's side a couple unseeded players fought their way to the quarters, but veteran Juan Ignacio Chela really took advantage of his draw. The former world #15 had a rough start to the 2011 clay court season, but turned his luck around in Dusseldorf, winning all four of his matches for Argentina at the World Team Championships.

He hasn't had the biggest on-paper challenge in Paris, facing only one seed in his first four rounds. But he survived a nearly four-hour slugfest against fellow south American Alejandro Falla on Wednesday, and has the added benefit of having today off -- something his next opponent won't get.

Andy Murray was questionable when he came into the fourth round, having rolled his ankle pretty badly against Michael Berrer a few days earlier. And when he dug himself into a 0-5 hole against Viktor Troicki late in Monday's play, it looked like his Roland Garros campaign was soon to end. Troicki served out the first set on his third attempt and managed to hang onto a lead in the second, but it was quickly apparent that Murray had worked out his kinks.

He took just over an hour to even the set score before play was called for darkness, bringing all the momentum with him into today's continuation. He got down a break early, but came back again, stopping the Serb as he tried to serve it out and finally closing out another four-hour match -- the fourth time he's successfully rebounded from two sets down. You have to like Murray's chances against Chela in the next round, and whatever the result after that, he's more than shown he shouldn't be discounted on this surface.

Of course there is plenty of potential for other first-time Major winners to continue through the draws. Robin Soderling has a chance to again take out Rafael Nadal in their quarterfinal match. And both Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, currently in a third set with defending champion Francesca Schiavone, and Andrea Petkovic, who beat her next opponent Maria Sharapova in Melbourne, are legitimate contenders.

But for these four players in particular, their chances to bring home the big prize have never looked better.

Remember Me?

With all the hoopla surrounding the successful summer of Rafael Nadal and the comeback of Juan Martin Del Potro this week, it's easy to have missed two champions who put their names back on the radar on Sunday.

Thirty-one year old Juan Ignacio Chela has never been one skirt controversy. Once ranked as high as #15 in the world, he was suspended for three months in 2003 for using steroids in Cincinnati and once almost spat at Lleyton Hewitt during an Australian Open match. But since he was sidelined with a herniated disc two years ago, he hasn't made much of a dent on the Tour. This year he finally broke a three-year title drought in Houston, and handily beat Nikolay Davydenko in Umag back in July.

This week in Bucharest, the fourth seeded Argentine was nearly flawless. He lost only a game in his opener against Simon Greul and capitalized on his opponent's long quarterfinal match when he took out top seed Albert Montanes in the semis. Playing in only his second final since 2007 today against qualifier Pablo Andujar, he should have been the easy favorite, but after the two traded breaks to begin the match it looked like it could be a close one. Ultimately, though, the veteran was able to raise his play in the second set and took less than ninety minutes to capture his sixth career title.

It hasn't been quite as long since Gilles Simon has been out of the tennis elite -- the twenty-five year old spent much of last year in the top ten, but hadn't reached a Tour semifinal since Lyon last October. A persistent knee injury kept him from playing in Australia this year and the entire European clay court season, including the French Open. He had a disappointing summer as well, losing in the first round in both Toronto and Cincinnati, but started to show signs of his former greatness by helping France to a 5-0 drubbing of Argentina in the Davis Cup semis.

Having fallen out of the top forty for the first time since 2007, Simon came to Metz as the eighth seed. He had a solid first round, but struggled against qualifier Igor Sijsling and veteran Xavier Malisse in the quarters. But when he met Mischa Zverev in his first final since Bangkok last year, he was back in form. The five-foot-eleven Frenchman fired off nine aces and won more than eighty percent of his first serve. Saving the only break point he faced, Gilles took just over an hour to record the win, his first over the German who'd beaten him two times before, and lift the seventh title of his career.

It might be a little late in the year, but there's still plenty of action left in tennis, and it's nice to see these guys reasserting themselves on the court. And with a couple more trophies on each of their mantlepieces, both Chela and Simon have reminded us of just how big a force they can -- and probably will -- be again.

Back in the Swing

No one can say Caroline Wozniacki is having a bad year -- anyone who finds herself ranked #2 in her sport has certainly seen some deal of success. But as a legitimate favorite in most of her matches these days, dealing with loss can be that much harder.

She dropped two straight rounds to Na Li to start the year and was the huge favorite in her loss to Jelena Jankovic in Indian Wells. To make matters worse, she suffered her second loss to a Belgian comeback story when Justine Henin came back from a set down to dismiss her in the Miami quarters.

But this week Caroline was back in Florida looking to defend the title she won in Ponte Vedra Beach last year. The #1 seed, she advanced through her early rounds without much to-do, keeping her record against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova unblemished and rebounding to keep Elena Vesnina from avenging her semifinal loss to the Dane last year. In doing so, she earned her twelfth Tour final -- not bad for a nineteen-year-old.

This afternoon she met Olga Govortsova, two years her senior. The Belarusian had slain a few big guns -- second seed Alona Bondarenko in the first round and third Dominika Cibulkova in the semis -- to make her third Tour championship match. She'd obviously proven she couldn't be ignored. Wozniacki got off to a good start, breaking her opponent twice in the opening set, but then found herself down a couple games in the second. Govortsova was in position to serve for the set and even up the match, but that was just when Caroline's championship spirit shone brightest. Olga was serving to force a tiebreak, but couldn't get the better of her opponent. In straight sets, Wozniacki had won her seventh trophy, and her second straight at the MPS Group Championships.



Meanwhile in Houston, another player who'd been on a bit more of a slump was trying to re-right his own career. Juan Ignacio Chela had been on a three year title drought and was coming back from a herniated disc injury that sidelined him for much of 2008. Before this week, he hadn't put together back-to-back main bracket wins all year. But in Texas he took out three seeds in a row, including defending champ Lleyton Hewitt, before meeting Sam Querrey in the finals.

For his part, Querrey had done well to prove that Americans can win -- at least a little -- on clay. He got through veteran Nicolas Massu and scored a personal victory be defeating Wayne Odesnik in the semis. He even took the first set from Chela on Sunday.

In a surprisingly close match, though, the Argentine withstood eleven aces and kept his own serving percentage high. He scored a late break in the second set to draw even and immediately retaliated when Querrey broke his serve in the first game of the last set. After two and a half hours, Chela had won his fifth career championship, and his first since 2007.



It's always good to begin a new season with a win, and for both Wozniacki and Chela it's got to be nice to put an end to their recent string of losses, whether at the end or at the beginning of a tournament. And as we get closer and closer to the French Open, it'll be great to see what these guys can do!