Momentum Lost

With a day or so of play in the books at the U.S. Open, we haven't seen a ton of big upsets yet, but that doesn't mean the action in New York has been completely devoid of surprises. Favorites like Simona Halep were pushed to three sets on Day One, upstarts like Nick Kyrgios notched huge wins over long-standing veterans, and former champions like Venus Williams were forced to brave the wilderness, swatting at bees as well as balls. But not everyone made it through early round play -- and a couple who'd been strong all summer suffered a bit of a set back just as they seemed to have been peaking.

Magdalena Rybarikova has had some of her best results on the American hardcourts, trouncing higher-ranked opponents in DC to win the title two years running, and stunning Simona Halep just last week on her way to the New Haven final. But while she was able to push former world #1 Caroline Wozniacki to a third set, she ultimately retired down a break in the decider. The on-paper underdog may not have been projected to go very far, but she certainly had the ability to shake up the draw a bit. Instead it's the 2009 runner-up who'll face qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich for a spot in the third round. And while Caro has certainly upped her game after a disappointing spring season, she must be relieved to have survived the challenge. And hopefully she'll be able to absorb the momentum that the Slovakian lost.

Garbiñe Muguruza has been a little more consistent this year -- since picking up her maiden trophy in Hobart, she reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, pulled off the upset of the tournament on her way to the Roland Garros quarters and made the Sweet Sixteen in both Stanford and New Haven. Her five top-twenty wins on the season have helped her rise to a career-high #26 ranking and earned her a second straight seeding at a Major. She opened against thirty-two year old Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, ranked outside the top hundred, a veteran who made the Wimbledon semis way back in 1999 and was able to capitalize on that experience Monday. In about an hour and a half Lucic had recorded the win, setting up a second round with fellow vet Shahar Peer, a woman she beat in their only previous match just last year. Actually the favorite this time, the Croat could parlay her first upset into her deepest run in New York yet.

Unfortunately for 2004 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, hopes of recapturing past glory were stopped short. The two-time Major winner ended a four-year title drought in DC earlier this month, and pulled off wins over higher-ranked Genie Bouchard and Ekaterina Makarova this summer. She was one of my dark horse picks to at least the second week at this event, but she had the bad luck to run into a hungry Marina Erakovic earlier today. Sveta jumped to an early lead, but was pushed quickly to a third set by the world #82 -- the New Zealander climbed back from a break down in the decider too, ultimately forcing and winning a tiebreak. It was Erakovic's first win at the U.S. Open and sets up a meeting with another Russian, Elena Vesnina in the next round. And with a 2-2 record against last year's Eastbourne champion, she's got more than a good shot at scoring a few more.

It wasn't just the ladies who came under pressure in early rounds. I was sure Vasek Pospisil had broken his weak streak when made the finals in DC, winning battles against the likes of Tomas Berdych and Richard Gasquet. He couldn't defend points he'd earned last year in Montreal, but took Roger Federer to three sets in Cincinnati and seemed ready to make a break back into the top rankings. But Italy's Simone Bolelli had other plans. After a heart-breaking five-set loss in the Wimbledon third round, the world #85 was not about to go down without a fight -- he lost the first set and squandered the lead he built when he won the next two. But ultimately Bolelli finished swinging -- he converted the only break opportunity in the fifth, winning his only match at Flushing Meadows since 2007. He'll now take on sixteenth seed Tommy Robredo, a more difficult test to be sure, but a man he's beaten in their last two meetings. If he's recovered in time, there's no reason he can't keep that run going.

Yen-Hsun "Rendy" Lu, on the other hand, wasn't able to maintain his own momentum. After taking out Tomas Berdych in Cincinnati and making a solid run to the semis in Winston-Salem last week, the man from Taipei climbed to #34 in the world, his highest ranking in almost four years. It wasn't enough for a seed at the U.S. Open, but he nevertheless presented a threat to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, ranked just ahead of him, who'd gone on a five-match losing streak in July and August. But in the pair's first meeting since 2009, the Spaniard had the upper hand from the start -- he broke Lu six times during the match, won more than eighty percent of his first serves, and out-aced his opponent 10-3. In what should have been a much closer battle, GGL secured the win in three easy sets, sending Rendy home in the first round of a Major for the twenty-second time and setting up a second round with another summer stand-out, Sam Querrey. He should be the favorite here, too, but Querrey's won every one of their last three meetings, most recently just last week in North Carolina, and he's not going to let the twenty-eighth seed rest too long on his laurels.

Lukas Rosol was certainly not allowed much of a chance to rest on his. The twenty-nine year old, best known for his then-shocking defeat of Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2012, was having a pretty good season this year too. He notched three top-thirty wins on his way to the Stuttgart final, and beat Tommy Robredo a week later in Hamburg. Last week at the Winston-Salem Open, helped largely by the retirement of Ryan Harrison and a withdrawal by John Isner, he worked his way to the championship match, claiming his second career title with a three-set victory over big-serving Jerzy Janowicz in the final. He lasted three sets today, too, but this time was on the wrong end of them -- against teenage qualifier Borna Coric, last year's Boys' champion in New York, he watched twenty aces sail past him, was broken five times and was sent packing after less than two hours on court. The #204-ranked Coric will now face thirty-four year old Victor Estrella Burgos -- literally twice his age -- who won his first match at a Major earlier today. The Croat will surely be the underdog, but the way the kids are playing these days, I wouldn't put anything past him.

Of course, it wasn't all bad news for the summer's strongest players -- former champion Sam Stosur, fresh off a win over Genie Bouchard on her way to the New Haven semis, easily passed what could have been a difficult test from Lauren Davis, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga may have been on the losing end of one of the best shots of the Open so far, but ultimately got the win over Juan Monaco without breaking much of a sweat. Still, early exits for some of the most successful stars of the season might just open the doors for both their vanquishers and those looking for a turn around.

And whoever grabs the opportunity first could ride a new wave of momentum farther than they ever expected.

Finding Their Motivation

This year has been a coming out party of sorts for some ladies on the WTA Tour, while others have struggled to gain the footing they once had. A couple have been more successful than the rest, and with a few women who've most recently shown their greatest potential facing off against those who've yet to really break through at this weekend's finals, we could set the course for the next several months, or change things entirely. And everyone's got a reason to win.

Elena Vesnina has spent the last several years cultivating her game on the doubles circuit, making the final at a Major in each of the last three years, including mixed in Melbourne a few months back, and has captured a few other big titles along the way. But she's struggled in singles, reaching the championship round at a handful of events, but never walking away with a crown. She'll have her sixth chance tomorrow in Budapest, where the Russian has already dispatched three seeds during the week. She hasn't dropped a set yet, and earlier today took out fifth seeded Marina Erakovic, losing serve just once in the barely ninety-minute match. It's her best performance all year -- she won more matches in Romania than she has all season -- and if she has a little more gas left in the tank, it could get her climbing the ranks the rest of the year.

It'll be a rough road for her, though, as one of the hottest players on Tour still stands in her way. Sara Errani only broke the top thirty about a month ago, but with two titles under her belt already in 2012, she's currently ninth in the race to the year-end WTA Championships. She's notched wins over Dominika Cibulkova, Julia Goerges and frequent doubles partner Roberta Vinci and, other than a slight hiccup in her second round in Budapest, she's lost fewer than ten games in her other three matches, wholly dominating rising star Anna Tatishvili in her semifinal today. She's never played Vesnina, so there's no precedent for the final. But if the feisty Italian holds her ground, she might just add another trophy to her case.

Over in Portugal, Carla Suarez Navarro finally looks like she's back on the track that brought her a win over Venus Williams and helped her to the final in Marbella two years straight. She hasn't been much of a presence on Tour the last few years, with injuries cutting her seasons short, but she proved she's still comfortable on clay with a run to the final four in Barcelona. She was handed a little bit of luck in Estoril, with Polona Hercog retiring from their second round and opponents taking care of two other seeds in her half of the draw. But a solid win over Karin Knapp in Friday's semi, where she broke the Italian five times, proved she might be up for the next challenge.

It could be a good one against Kaia Kanepi in Saturday's final. The Estonian has had her ups and downs, making the quarters at Roland Garros in 2008 and at Wimbledon two years later, but a series of injuries pushed her ranking down every time she built it up. She was on the way to great things, claiming the title in Brisbane this past January, but shoulder problems stalled her momentum almost immediately, and she'd only won three matches since. She struggled slightly against Petra Cetkovska in her quarterfinal, but followed up with a straight-set win over top Estoril seed Roberta Vinci today. She split her previous two meetings with CSN, with each winning when she was at the top of her game, but neither confrontation was on clay. It would be easy to give Kanepi the edge, but this could be a bigger fight than anyone expects.

With this week's finalists looking to keep, recapture, or spark a streak of momentum, there's a lot on the line in the ladies' title matches. If those looking for first-time wins are able to pull off the upsets, it could give them some much-needed momentum, but if the favorites succeed as planned, who knows what other wins they could pull off down the road. Whatever it takes to get them there, though, you can be sure they'll put up a fight. And the resulting performances should be well worth it.

Now or Never

The first balls of this year's BNP Paribas Open have been struck, with the ladies kicking off their main draw today while the men wrap up their qualifying matches. And while the seeded players all get byes for their first rounds, there's nevertheless a lot of pressure on everyone to perform from the start.

With just a handful of matches in the books, we've already seen a couple of disappointing results. Iveta Benesova, who's beaten Sabine Lisicki and Sam Stosur already this year, won her first set but dropped the next two to comeback kid Sorana Cirstea, and Memphis runner-up Marina Erakovic, looking for her first win in Indian Wells, was defeated in a two-and-a-half hour battle with Galina Voskoboeva. Meanwhile Sara Errani, fresh off singles and doubles crowns in Acapulco, surrendered a break lead to Vania King and lost in straights. But others hope to avoid similar fates.

Defending champion Caroline Wozniacki has amassed a mediocre 7-4 record so far this year, and will fall out of the top five if she doesn't make at least the semis here. She comes to the desert as the #4 seed, but has more than a few potential spoilers in her part of the bracket. Her first opponent will either be Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who put up a fight at the Hopman Cup, or Ekaterina Makarova, who stunned Serena Williams in Melbourne. And if she survives those early tests, Caro may face a rematch of last year's final with Marion Bartoli just to make the final four. She'll need to raise her game if she's going to survive deep into this draw.

Jelena Jankovic, winner her two years ago, doesn't have quite so many points to defend this time around but may have as much on the line. She's been pretty busy this year, already playing six events in addition to Fed Cup, and marked some big wins -- Stosur in Dubai -- and some not-so-big losses -- Petra Martic in Kuala Lumpur. To her credit, she's hung around most draws, but she hasn't won a title since she lifted the trophy here. Ranked out of the top ten this year, JJ will first face American wildcard Julie Hampton, but is slated to meet Aggie Radwanska, who beat her in Dubai, in the fourth round and current #1 Victoria Azarenka in the quarters. It's going to be a tough fight if the Serb plans on using this to launch her comeback campaign.

There are a couple men with just as much on the line over the next ten days too. Fernando Verdasco had struggled over the past two years or so, declining to defend points in San Jose and failing to make any headway against the sport's top players -- he'd only beaten one top ten player since the spring of 2010. But his run to the Acapulco final last week might have come at the perfect time -- now back at #19 in the world, he comes to Indian Wells with more confidence than he's had in a while. He'll meet either Ryan Sweeting or Challenger champion Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in his opener, but will likely face a much tougher challenge in Juan Martin Del Potro a round later. If he can score a win there we'll really know he's back.

Andy Roddick, runner-up here in 2010 -- and doubles champ the year before -- is also out to claw his way back to the top. Now ranked #31, his lowest position in an astounding eleven years, he's logged a 4-4 record in 2012. Injury forced him out of the Australian Open, and he hasn't been able to hold onto leads in matches since then. He did score an impressive win against Roger Federer in an exhibition match at MSG on Monday night, so things aren't completely bleak. He'll be challenged from the start, though, facing either big-serving Ivo Karlovic or dangerous Pole Lukas Kubot in the second round, and should meet back-in-form Tomas Berdych after that. It'll be a long road for Roddick, but a couple big wins here would be a good start.

There's a lot riding on the results in Indian Wells this week -- sure some players may not have a lot of ranking points at stake here while may have plenty of time left in their careers to make up for any disappointing results. But if they're going to silence the naysayers and prove they're still real contenders in the sport, they'll all have to put up a fight in the California desert. And there's never been a better time for them to show us what they've got.

The Opportunists

It's that time of the year when players begin making their move to the clay courts. And, as usual with some of these smaller events before the season really gets underway, some lesser known players will have their chance to make their marks.

At the Brazil Open, relocated this year to Sao Paulo after eleven years in Costa do Sauipe, there's no shortage of big names in the draw -- Nicolas Almagro and Juan Carlos Ferrero, fixtures during the Golden Swing year after year, both look to return to the winner's podium this year. But they'll be joined by a few others a little more under the radar.

Albert Ramos is just barely seeded here, but at #64 in the world he's at his best-ever ranking. Mostly a Challenger player, he scored his biggest career win last year against Marin Cilic in the first round of the Shanghai Masters. Before arriving in Sao Paulo he'd only won one match this year, upsetting Dmitry Tursunov in Doha, but this is the surface where he's most comfortable -- in the handful of years he's been pro, he's racked up a fifty percent win record on the dirt. He's no Rafa, clearly, but this could be his chance to put himself on the map. He scored a decisive win over Santiago Giraldo in his first round yesterday and will next face Igor Andreev, a man he beat in their only previous meeting last year. It wouldn't surprise me if he made an even bigger push this time around.

I might be expecting even bigger things from Argentina's Carlos Berlocq, a man possibly best known for nearly getting triple-bageled by Novak Djokovic last year at the U.S. Open. Still he's improving his game steadily, adding five Challenger trophies to his case last year -- all on clay -- and making his first Tour final last week at Viña del Mar. Now #42 in the world, he dropped just four games to Eric Prodon in their first round in Brazil. Next up is Potito Starace, himself a force on the surface. Berlocq has lost to the Italian the only two times they've played, but if he can get a hold of his opponent early, he should be able to live up to his fifth seed at least a little while longer.

The ladies in Bogota have an even bigger chance to shine this week. With no one in the top fifty entered in Colombia -- and seeds #2, #3, #4 and #7 already out -- there's plenty of opportunity for upsets and maybe no real favorites left in the draw.

Eighteen-year-old Timea Babos has already won nine ITF titles and took the Juniors' doubles crown at three Majors back in 2010. She is still a newbie on the main Tour, but after defeating third seed Romina Oprandi on Wednesday, she might have a little more confidence that she can hit with the big girls. Her next match against Yaroslava Shvedova, herself a Slam doubles champion and former top-thirty singles player, will be much harder, of course. But if she can pull of the win, I'd look for even bigger things from her this year.

But also keep an eye on unheralded top seed Marina Erakovic. The surprise finalist last year in Quebec City, she's only won one Tour match since then. Still, with wins over Tamira Paszek, Daniela Hantuchova and even Victoria Azarenka in the past twelve months, she can't be completely discounted. Now ranked #56 in the world, she faces beat Stefanie Voegele in her Bogota opener, but clearly the path will be rockier further down the road. If the Croat can get at least a few wins under her belt this week and back up her seeding a little bit she might get the bump she needs to make a big push later in the year.

Whether any of these guys actually does take advantage of the chances they've been given in South America is yet to be seen. But if they live up to their potential, any one could break through this week. And now's as good a time as any to announce to the world they've arrived.

New on the Scene

The ladies in the winners' circles this weekend are far from household names. But with the four who contested the trophies all going after their maiden crowns, it might not be long before they find themselves more in the spotlight. Twenty-year-old Ksenia Pervak came to Uzbekistan with on of her more successful summers. She'd made the fourth round at Wimbledon with wins over Shahar Peer and Andrea Petkovic and run to the finals at Baku. A shade off her highest-ever ranking, the fifty-second ranked player was still the top seed in Tashkent and worked her way through the draw without dropping a set. There she met little-known Czech Eva Birnerova, a pro for almost ten years who's spent most of her career making a mark on the ITF tour. She had a tougher road to the championship match, having three set victories two rounds in a row and advancing when Alla Kudryavtseva retired up a set in their semi. Easily the less experienced player in Saturday's match, Birnerova didn't put up much of a fight, allowing Pervak to win about two-thirds of her return points, breaking serve seven times. It was only the Russian's second final of her career, but with the way she's been playing this year, I wouldn't be surprised to see her around much more in the coming months. In Quebec City the stakes might have been a little higher, as the top four seeds all held rankings at least better than fifty. But world #23 Daniela Hantuchova was stopped in the third round by New Zealand's Marina Erakovic on the way to her first ever Tour final -- she hadn't made a semi since 2008. On the bottom half of the draw, Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, fourteen times a doubles champion, benefitted from the early departure of Lucie Safarova as she made her first final since Prague last year. Though Erakovic got off to a good start, the tables turned quickly and the Czech #7 -- ranked globally at #75 -- only dropped one game in the last thirteen. Playing some of her most aggressive tennis now, at twenty-five years of age, she should see her profile in the sport much enhanced. All these ladies have the potential to do some damage among the ranks of the top stars, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them take the confidence they gained this weekend into future matches. It could take a while for them to make the biggest impact, but they've certainly shown how capable they are of doing it now.