Even More Upsetting

There seems to be a strange new trend in tennis these days, where players, even the most favored ones, prove they're fallible time and again. We saw it happen throughout the fortnight at Wimbledon, and the phenomenon resumed posthaste once the trophies were presented.

Here's the thing, though: it's not enough to simply poke a hole or two in the draw -- you've got to follow through after that. That was less the case at the All England Club, with the vanquishers of both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both losing one round later. Things weren't much better on the ladies' side -- while Sabine Lisicki rode her upset of Serena Williams all the way to the final, Michelle Larcher de Brito couldn't do much more after defeating Maria Sharapova in the second round.

That same trend has also manifested itself in the current tournaments. Daniel Brands, having scored a huge upset over Federer in his Gstaad opener, subsequently lost to Victor Hanescu a day later, while Albert Montanes ousted top Umag seed Richard Gasquet and then lost a long battle Friday to Gael Monfils. And Ons Jabeur, who ousted defending Baku champion Bojana Jovanovski on Wednesday, suffered an ankle injury during her match today, allowing qualifier Magda Linette -- ranked #226 in the world -- into her first ever Tour semi. But hope is not lost for everyone, and a couple players still have a shot at proving their early successes this week were no fluke.

Nineteen year old Elina Svitolina won her first Tour title last year in Pune, beating Andrea Petkovic in the process, and in 2013 she's made the semis in both Cali and Bad Gastein. This week she took to the hard courts of Baku as the seventh seed and earlier today took out Birmingham finalist Donna Vekic in a quick two sets. In the semis she'll face Alexandra Cadantu, the only other seed left in the draw -- the Ukraine native lost the pair's only previous meeting, but that was some two years ago when she was ranked outside the top four hundred. A win on Saturday -- and, dare we speculate, maybe on Sunday too -- would not only underscore her performance so far, but might just push her into the higher tiers of the sport.

Meanwhile in Gstaad, Robin Haase is trying to make a similar move up the rankings. The Dutchman, who returns to Kitzbuhel next week to defend the title he's won the past two years, has yet to manage a sustained stay in the top forty. But after dominating third-seeded Janko Tipsarevic in Switzerland, the twenty-six year old survived a two-and-a-half hour battle against Marcel Granollers to make the semis. With world #29 Feliciano Lopez the highest seed remaining, the field is wide open for Haase to add a new trophy to his case and maybe give him the oomph he needs to really establish himself in the sport.

Of course upsets have been known to bring tears to the eye, but while both these players have caused their opponents woe this week, they'll want to make sure their own cheeks stay dry throughout the summer. It'll be a hard task, to be sure, but after the performances they've already put up there's no reason think it's impossible.

And with the way things are going this summer, there may be no better time to get stuff done.

No Signs of Fatigue

Sure, it's nice to be such a great tennis player that you can hang around 'til the end of a tournament, playing in the late rounds week after week. Of course you do run the risk of exhaustion, especially when you enter an event right before a Grand Slam.

But so far the men and women who played this past finals weekend have followed up on their success -- and those that still have their first rounds to play hope their luck also doesn't run out.

Both Brussels champion Caroline Wozniacki and runner-up Shaui Peng began their Paris campaigns today in style. Though taped up from a thigh injury -- one that caused her to take a medical time-out during Saturday's final -- the #1 seed had no trouble dispatching uber-veteran Kimiko Date Krumm. She made just nine errors and kept her opponent to under thirty percent on her return games. After just an hour, Wozniacki had advanced to the second round, proving she has plenty of steam left in her.

Peng was similarly impressive against Austria's Tamira Paszek -- though she needed just a few more minutes to get the win, she was never in trouble, saving all four break chances against her and winning nearly eighty percent of her first serves.

Strasbourg finalist Marion Bartoli struggled a bit more than the other ladies. After retiring from her championship match while trailing by a set and a game, the Frenchwoman found herself in trouble in Paris against the little-known Anna Tatishvili. The Georgian broke the eleventh seed in all of her service games during the first set, running off to a lead in just over half an hour. But ultimately experience prevailed -- Bartoli was able to get her game together and brought the momentum to her side of the court, winning the match 6-1 in the third set.

The woman who claimed the title in Strasbourg, Andrea Petkovic, will begin her Roland Garros campaign tomorrow against up-and-coming Serb Bojana Jovanovski. The two have never met before, but both had nice starts to the year, and ostensibly are better suited to hard courts. But Petko will do her best to back up her highest career ranking and, I expect, should come out on top.

Over in Nice, unseeded Victor Hanescu made a surprising run to the finals, kicking off that campaign with a one-sided defeat of Frenchman Benoit Paire. Ironically, he faced him again in his French Open first round earlier today and was in for a bigger fight this time around. After dropping the second set and rebounding with a breadstick in the third, Hanescu was forced to a tiebreak in the final set, eventually prospering in more than two-and-a-half hours. I'm not sure the result will completely mirror that of last week's event, but at least he's off to a good start.

Nicolas Almagro, who won the Nice title, will open tomorrow against Poland's Lukasz Kubot, a man against whom he's 3-0. I don't suspect he'll have much trouble this time around, either, but hopefully he'll use the match to make a statement on just how much he's contending for this championship.

All four of the men who played singles in the Dusseldorf final will play their openers on Tuesday. Florian Mayer and Philipp Kohlschreiber, who led the Germans to victory, will face Igor Kunitsyn and Sam Querrey respectively. Mayer, who's never lost to his opponent, should improve his streak, but Kohlschreiber, one-and-one against the American, will have to strike early. Querrey is hanging onto a seed in Paris by the slimmest of margins, and he's more than beatable, so look for the veteran German to force an upset.

The Argentines failed to defend their World Team Cup title over the weekend, so they'll be out for revenge. Juan Ignacio Chela meets young American Tim Smyczek, a man who's lost his only Tour-level clay court match, and should not have too much trouble. But Juan Monaco, ranked #43 in the world, faces a faltering Fernando Verdasco. The Argentine has a convincing 6-2 record against his opponent, so he should bring plenty of confidence into the match and could very well send the seed packing early.

It's a hectic and demanding life these athletes lead, but so far they're proving they have the strength and endurance to keep their campaigns going for at least a little while longer. Of course, not everyone can keep it up forever, but the ones that do will sure make for some exciting matches in the coming weeks.

Looking Out for #1

Neither the defending champion in Casablanca nor Marbella was back on the clay courts this week, and that's allowed some surprising -- or at least interesting -- results in the first few tournaments of the new surface season. And some of those that have made this week's finals already are chasing after that ever-elusive first title of the year.

For the ladies Victoria Azarenka drew the top seed in Spain, though you have to think Kim Clijsters, fresh off her win in Miami, would be the sentimental favorite. But the new #10 struggled early and lost to a qualifier in the second round, while Vika suffered a leg injury and withdrew while leading her quarterfinal match 4-0 in the first set.

And so Flavia Pennetta was able to take her second seed to the final round -- a series of straight set wins got her to the championship match in her Andalucia debut. There she'll meet Carla Suarez Navarro, a finalist here last year. Suarez has some of her best results on clay, having also made the semis in Barcelona and the quarters at Roland Garros in 2008. This could be a great chance to win her first ever title.



But I have a feeling the experience of Pennetta will prevail this time -- it's been a couple of months since she put together back-to-back wins in Palermo and LA. Though she's far from having tumbled out of the top ten, she's a feisty one and I don't think she's too happy with having fallen even a few spots to #16. While Carla should be able to put up a fight, I think it's still a bit too early for her and Flavia should be able to score the trophy.

Over in Morocco the seedings played out a little more according to plan -- top seeded Stanislas Wawrinka hasn't had a lot of play this year, and after making the finals in Chennai hasn't really amounted to much. He struggled in his opening round match against qualifier Martin Klizan, allowing the twenty-year-old to bagel him in the second set, and even dropped the middle set to Potito Starace before closing out the semis. He's looking for his first title since 2006 at Umag, where he won after Novak Djokovic retired before the first set tiebreak.

His opponent tomorrow will be Victor Hanescu, trophy-less since Gstaad in 2008. The Romanian #3 seed has had some scares in Casablanca, dropping sets to Jarkko Nieminen and Richard Gasquet, but after a slew of second-round losses this year, it's nice to see him pull off more than one win in a row.



Both of these guys wants a win to set their years off on a better foot. Wawrinka has to want a championship that he actually won, not one he simply defaulted into. And Hanescu certainly wants to get his ranking back on the upswing. He's actually won the pair's two previous meetings, both on clay, so he has to like his chances in tomorrow's final. And having seen his opponent take a few missteps this week, he must have figured a way to get under Stan's skin.

As the clay court season gets into full swing, whoever takes home trophies this week will certainly establish themselves as big threats as we near the French Open. And we all know how that first title of the year can lead to so much more.

On the Other Hand...

A few days ago I commented on some of the players that have been having a hard time of things in Paris -- taking five sets what they no doubt wish they could do in three. Maria Sharapova, for instance, hasn't won any of her three matches in straight sense.

But there are some players that seem to be having an easy time on the red clay -- some doing much better than most critics gave them credit for.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal, of course, has been rolling. Though he allowed his first set of the tournament to get as close as 7-5, he hasn't dropped one set and took out former #1 and two-time titlist Lleyton Hewitt in three easy sets. Countryman and potential quarterfinal opponent Fernando Verdasco has also not dropped a set, though he did play two tiebreaks against Nicolas Almagro earlier today.

Even more impressive is women's top seed Dinara Safina, who coasted to her fourth straight fourth round at the French with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. In her first week of play she's only lost four games total. Her opponent (and conqueror) in last year's final, Ana Ivanovic, who was largely dismissed as a threat this year, has also had a clear road after her opening set tiebreak -- she won her next two matches by dropping only five games herself.

Then of course there's Agnes Szavay who today pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament so far. The thirty-first ranked Hungarian began the year with a handful of first round losses, but had more recently notched wins over Ivanovic in Miami and Victoria Azarenka in Madrid. Though she needed nearly two hours to advance past Italian Corinna Dentoni in the first round at Roland Garros, her next match against Elena Vesnina took half that time. And then today she simply devastated third seed Venus Williams, bageling her in the first set and earning her first fourth round in Paris.

Victor Hanescu delivered the other big blow at the French Open so far this fortnight. After a first round match against Steve Darcis which went to three straight tiebreaks followed by three 7-5 sets versus veteran Mikhail Youzhny, he must have wanted a break and might have been disappointed to face seventh seed Gilles Simon today. But Simon has been struggling recently, losing all three of his matches last week in Dusseldorf and making early exits at the four clay court tournaments he's played this year. In his shortest match in Paris, Victor had a relatively easy time getting past Gilles, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

Of course with the comparatively easier rounds behind them, all these players are going to have to work that much harded to keep up their successes -- whether they've gotten here by stunning upsets or by continued dominance. But suddenly there's a new crop of players to keep your eyes on.

And you know I'll be watching!