Homecourt Advantage

In most sports you often give the edge to the team playing on their own territory. It's not a guaranteed success, of course, but even the 2-14 Carolina Panthers scored both their wins in Charlotte.

The same is not always true in tennis -- the last Brit to win Wimbledon, after all, was Fred Perry back in 1936 -- but at some smaller tournaments, like those that took place over the last week, we saw a couple of hometown heroes get a chance to shine, and some made a real breakthrough.

Santiago Giraldo isn't from Chile, but his Colombia is not far away. And playing in a town that bears his name, I imagine the crowds were on his side at the Movistar Open. South Americans dominated the draw in Santiago with three Argentines and a Brazilian making the quarters along with Giraldo. But the twenty-three year old from Bogota pulled off upsets over Juan Ignacio Chela and Potito Starace to make his first ever championship match.

There he met Spain's Tommy Robredo, a man who'd racked up nine titles in his career but lost their only previous meeting at the Australian Open just last month. Robredo's been in something of a slump recently, so it wasn't out of the question to see the technical upset, but after he got off to a set lead in the match I began to lose hope. Giraldo came back to even the score and even got a break lead in the decider, but when he failed to serve it out Robredo didn't look back. He converted his second match point in the tiebreak, denying the ultimate championship to the Colombian, but at least giving him hope for his next attempt.

The South Africa Open in Johannesburg saw more than a few of its own stars pull off upsets. Wildcard Rik de Voest made the quarters while Izak Van Der Merwe won his first Tour level matches on his way to the semis. But it was fourth-seeded Kevin Anderson who ultimately made the biggest impression. I've often wondered why the strong server hasn't made more of a dent in the pros -- currently ranked at #59, he's hovered in the low double-digits for about a year. He gave Sam Querrey a run for the money in Los Angeles last summer and took revenge on him two weeks later in Toronto. Yet he hadn't really broken through main draws.

That is, until this week. The six-foot-eight former star at the University of Illinois rattled off fifty-three aces on his way to his second career final where he met Somdev Devvarman. After losing the first set to his college rival, Anderson rebounded to win the next two in about an hour more. The title was the first won by a South African since Wesley Moodie took Tokyo in 2005 and should push Kevin to a career-high ranking. Having now improved to a 8-3 record on the year, it could be his turn to crack into the top tiers of the sport.

A little further north in Croatia, many of the locals were stopped right out of the gate. Still the top two seeds reflected how strong the country has been in recent months -- two-time defending champ Marin Cilic and world #16 Ivan Ljubicic lead the pack, but were both defeated in the quarters. Instead compatriot Ivan Dodig, who broke into the top hundred at the end of last year, came out firing. The only man to take a set from Australian Open champ Novak Djokovic in Melbourne beat one seed after another in the city where he lives.

For his efforts, Dodig earned the right to meet world #61 Michael Berrer in his first Tour final. They'd never played each other before, but with five more years in the pros and a couple big wins of his own under his belt, the German was probably still the favorite. But Ivan was unstoppable from the start. At just six-feet tall, he was the shorter of the two, but fired off sixteen aces and won more than eighty percent of his first serves. He denied Berrer seven break chances and eventually won the match in straight sets, taking just over ninety minutes to capture his maiden trophy.



Of course the hometown edge benefits some more than others, but with these guys making a real statement on their own turf, there's really no telling what they'll be able to do in other stadiums.

And now that they have that added bit of confidence, I'm betting we'll see a lot more of all of them.

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.

Another One Bites the Dust

There seems to be a cloud hanging over the Barclays Dubai Tennis Tournament this week.

First there was Roger Federer who pulled out with a lung infection. Then U.S. Open champ Juan Martin Del Potro and Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick withdrew due to nagging injuries that have plagued them the last few months.

For those top players remaining, the road was still not so easy. Gilles Simon has failed to live up to a stellar 2008 season and pulled out of the Australian Open with knee problems -- he was first out the door with a straight set loss to Marcos Baghdatis. Nikolay Davydenko, who began this year with a red-hot string of victories bowed out earlier this morning, retiring after losing his first set to world #56 Michael Berrer. And Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who'd been questionable coming into the tournament, was out-played start to finish by Croat Ivan Ljubicic.

But by far the biggest upset of the tournament came when third seed Andy Murray met Janko Tipsarevic in the second round earlier today. The Scot had won three of their five previous meetings and, ranked fourth in the world, was by far the favorite. Even though the Serb got the first break of the match, the more experienced, but younger, Murray evened the score quickly to force a first-set tiebreak. He lost that one, but regrouped to take the second set and, I tweeted he'd likely harness that momentum to bagel his opponent in the decider.

To my -- and everyone else's, it seems -- surprise, Tipsarevic took the first lead of the third, and foiled Andy on six early attempts to break back. But the two-time Major finalist proved he had mettle and saved match points when Janko was serving in the ninth game of the set. Undeterred, the underdog rallied on Murray's service game and made good on his next match opportunity.



So that leaves Novak Djokovic as the clear leader in the field -- though if the results from the past few days are any indication, he shouldn't breathe too easily. In the next round he'll face Ljubicic and uber-underrated Marin Cilic looms large as a potential finalist.

Certainly the draw has proved to be wide open, and with such a big title on the line, there's no telling who'll be next to get swept up in the sands in Dubai!