Into the Spotlight: Davis Cup 1st Round Preview

It's always nice to feel the team spirit that comes along with Davis Cup contests -- buoyed by their compatriots in a way you don't often see at a traditional tournament, some players find a way to pull out inconceivable wins against heavy favorites. And this year, perhaps more than others, the likelihood of some star-making performances is high as can be.

The two-time defending Czech champions are bringing their usual cadre of talent, with Australian Open semifinalist Tomas Berdych leading the pack. But also look out for Jiri Vesely, last year's ATP Star of Tomorrow -- the twenty-year old put together a two-set lead over big-serving Kevin Anderson in his Melbourne opener, his first appearance down under, and made the semis at last week's Heilbronn challenger. He'll likely only play doubles this weekend against the Dutchmen, but if his teammates put together a strong enough lead, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get a bigger platform for success.

More likely to get top billing despite his low profile is Serbia's Dusan Lajovic, but he'll have a tough test. The 2010 champs were runners-up last year, but they're now missing captain Novak Djokovic and open against a team led by newly-minted Grand Slam titleist Stanislas Wawrinka. Lajovic hasn't had a lot of experience in Davis Cup -- he lost his two singles rubbers in last year's final -- but he did open 2014 by qualifying for his first Major main draw. He even won a match, taking out wildcard Lucas Pouille in his opener. Of course stakes will be high this weekend, but with Wawrinka the only man on the Swiss team ranked in the top hundred(-fifty!) there is more than a good chance this underdog comes out on top at some point.

Australian teenager Nick Kyrgios is hoping to do the same. Behind veteran Lleyton Hewitt he'll take on an intimidating French team comprised of two top-ten players and no one ranked lower than #40 in the world. At #162, he hasn't quite broken into that tier yet -- after all, he only played two Tour-level matches before this season started -- but he did put up a big fight in the Australian Open second round this month, winning the first two sets in tiebreaks over twenty-seventh seed Benoit Paire during the scorching early heatwave. He won't have home court advantage this time, though, so he'll have to raise his game even higher. But if his momentum continues, we might see his star start to shine just a little bit brighter.

But perhaps the man with the greatest opportunity to break through this weekend is Melbourne Cinderella Roberto Bautista Agut. The Spaniard stunned an admittedly injured Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round and went on to beat an exhausted Paire -- a man he'd also taken out on his way to the Auckland semis -- to make his first Major fourth round. From a country with a plethora of talent to choose from -- and a full hand of Davis Cup trophies this century -- this will be Bautista's first tie, and it'll be a rough one against a strong German team. But a hair outside the top fifty now, he'll likely face no one more intimidating than what he endured in Australia and could cement his status as the next big force in an already forceful country.

There are plenty other players who might make a name for themselves this weekend too. Vasek Pospisil, suddenly in the top thirty, can prove he's not the only Canadian worthy of attention when he takes on a Japanese team led by world #18 Kei Nishikori. And David Goffin will look to show us he's no one-hit wonder when he leads a sparse Belgian team against a not-much-better set of Kazakhs. And while each of these guys' performances will only be a part of the whole of their Davis Cup results, any one of them could launch themselves into a new realm with some big successes here.

And what they do at that level could mean big things for the future of tennis.

Nerves of Steel

The tenor of this post changed multiple times as I watched this year's men's final at the Australian Open -- a stunning start, a rough injury, some huge momentum shifts. It was never clear until the very end what the outcome would be.

But ultimately the results spoke for themselves, as Stanislas Wawrinka, putting together a breakthrough performance throughout the fortnight, was consistently the physically and mentally superior player on Sunday. And his reward, appropriately, was his first career Grand Slam title.

The Swiss wasn't intimidated on this big stage, his first trip to the championship match at a Major. Pitted against 2009 champion and world #1 Rafael Nadal, he was unstoppable in the first set. He secured a break in just the fourth game and won every one of his first serve points. It was the first set he'd ever taken off Rafa in twelve previous meetings. He broke again early in the second, before things started to change. Nadal tweaked his back on a return, called for a trainer, and seemed to be down for the count. Wawrinka rolled through the second set, but with Rafa's injury, I began to think there would be a huge asterisk beside Stan's name -- after all, no one wants to win a match, much less their maiden Slam, against someone who's not playing their best.

But Nadal is nothing if not a fighter -- down two sets to none and still in pain, the thirteen-time Major winner finally found his game. He broke Wawrinka to start the fourth and confounded his opponent with off-pace serves teamed with a couple blistering winners. In the quickest set of the match, the Spaniard who was all but out of contention just a few minutes earlier, forced a fourth set and looked about to turn things around. When he got behind mid-way through the next set, he immediately broke back at love keeping the trophy out just out of reach again.

Ultimately, though, Wawrinka was able to stay tough. He broke again and served out the match, winning just the sixth, but by far the biggest crown of his career. He becomes the first man in over twenty years to beat both the #1 and #2 seed at a Major -- and the first ever to take down both Nadal and three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic in one fortnight. The victory caps a year which brought him some of his biggest successes and will vault him to #3 in the world on Monday, his highest ever ranking, for the first time ahead of countryman Roger Federer.

But more importantly, the way he's playing, it might just be the tip of the iceberg for Wawrinka. One of few people to crack the stranglehold Rafa, Roger and Nole have had on the Majors the last decade, at this one tournament he's squarely ended a long list of losses to the top guys. With confidence -- and now experience -- on his side, there's no telling what Stan can accomplish from here.

And the rest of the field will have to sit up and take notice.

Thirty Is the New Twenty

It's become clear over the last several years that age is only a number in the sport of tennis -- at thirty-two years of age Serena Williams is the oldest top-ranked women's player in history, and Roger Federer, born just a few weeks earlier, is consistently a threat at all the Majors, even reaching the semis this fortnight in Melbourne. Superior fitness, a more responsible schedule, and better training have allowed these players not only to keep up in a sport once ruled by youngsters, but to actually dominate it.

But Serena and Roger broke out on the scene long ago -- Williams winning the U.S. Open at just seventeen and Federer claiming a Wimbledon crown at twenty-two. Even their biggest rivals got their starts early -- Junior champion Victoria Azarenka was twenty-two when she won her first Australian Open and Rafael Nadal was only nineteen when he rocked the red clay of Roland Garros.

What you see far less often is a player only start to reach her stride after years -- and years -- on Tour, and that's just what Na Li has been able to do.

Pro since 1999, she'd only won a pair of titles in her first ten years on the circuit, spending most of her early twenties ranked in the mid-double digits. It wasn't until 2008, after her break from the Chinese government, when she really began to find her game. She beat Svetlana Kuznetsova and Venus Williams in the Beijing Olympics, stunned Serena in Stuttgart that fall and ended the year just outside the top twenty. She still flew largely under the radar but at least she was hanging around late in tournaments, really putting up a fight against the top players. In 2010 she made her way to the Australian Open semis as a sixteenth seed and a year later went one better, taking the first set off Kim Clijsters in the championship match. That same season, at twenty-nine, she stopped Francesca Schiavone from defending her Roland Garros crown and claimed her maiden Major crown in Paris, becoming the first ever Asian Grand Slam champion.

It would have been easy for her to bow out of the game after that. Though Li's remained in the top ten since then, she struggled with injury over the years, skipping early spring tournaments last year and even considering retirement over the summer. But she found her form again over the summer, reaching the quarters at Wimbledon and the Final Four in New York. She won her first four matches at the WTA Championships, too, taking a set off Serena in the Istanbul final and ending the year at #3 in the world.

So far in 2014, Li has been unstoppable. After saving match point against Lucie Safarova in the third round, she's rolled over her opponents, dropping just two games to always-tricky Ekterina Makarova a match later and taking the first five games against Cinderella semifinalist Genie Bouchard on Thursday. In the title match against Melbourne breakthrough Dominika Cibulkova, she was pushed early -- she gave back an early lead with a couple double faults and failed to serve out the first set. But she eked out the tiebreak she went on to dominate the first-time finalist from all angles in the second -- she fired off twelve winners to the Slovak's four and didn't allow her one point on second serve. After just over ninety minutes, the world #4 had closed out he match, winning her second Grand Slam trophy.

The victory makes Li only the sixth active player with more than only Major under her belt, but more importantly seems to have vaulted her to a new level in her career. The late bloomer has won seven of her nine titles since the age of twenty-eight -- compare that to champions like Martina Hingis, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters who'd already retired at least once by that age. And she doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

Whether there's another Slam in her future remains to be seen, of course, but at nearly thirty-two Li has cemented herself as a real threat to every player in the field -- a distinction few would have given her just four years ago. She certainly has the potential to keep adding to her trophy count, too -- and the longer she lasts, the better it will ultimately be for the game.

Something Old, Something New

This is not your grandmother's Grand Slam.

From the start this Australian Open has been one of turn-arounds and shockers, upsets and breakthroughs, and players you'd never expect to last into Week Two of a Major were not only sneaking through the draws, but destroying their competition. And here we are on the verge of championship weekend with a real possibility of seeing a duo of first-time winners in Melbourne.

Dominika Cibulkova has long been one of the craftiest players on Tour, consistently giving top players a tough time, even when she didn't eventually beat them. But while her contemporaries were piling up trophies and climbing the rankings, she only won her first title a little over two years ago and struggled to stay in the top twenty. Last year she had twelve first round losses and only won four matches at the big events.

But she's certainly turned things around this fortnight. Armed with a longer racquet -- remember how that catapulted Sara Errani in 2012? -- and seemingly a new focus, she's decimated opponents so far, losing just a set to Maria Sharapova in their fourth round, but ceding three or fewer games in four other matches. In the semis on Thursday she rolled over Aga Radwanska, a woman she also beat in the Stanford final last year, by taking advantage of weak second serves and winning points on twelve of fourteen net approaches. The win gives her entry to the first Grand Slam championship match of her career, and the way the petite Slovak has been playing, it's hard to see her getting intimidated on the big stage.

But two-time runner-up Na Li will do her best to do just that. With three Major finals under her belt -- and, importantly, one trophy -- she'll certainly be the more experienced player on Saturday. And she's been on point Down Under as well -- undefeated so far this season, she's lost just a handful of games since saving match point in the third round and won five games in a row to start her semi against super-Cinderella Genie Bouchard on Thursday. She's also beaten Cibulkova in all four of their previous meetings. Still something tells me this match won't be cut and dried -- if Domi comes out swinging as she had all week, we could be in for an exciting contest.

On the men's side it will be Stanislas Wawrinka making his debut in a Major title match. The long-time Swiss #2, like Domi, only has a handful of crowns to his name, but he spent 2013 really defining his game. He took out Andy Murray in Monte Carlo, beat two top-ten players on his way to his first Masters final, and put up two of the best matches of the year against then-#1 Novak Djokovic in Melbourne and again in New York.

Most recently stopped in the U.S. Open semis, Wawrinka had only gotten as far as the quarters here once before, but after finally ending a long losing streak to the three-time defending champion on Tuesday, he followed up with a decisive win over one-time Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych in the final four. It was his second long match in a row -- the final three sets took three tiebreaks and nearly three hours -- but he got a retirement in his first round and a walkover in his third, so he might be relatively well-rested by the time he plays on Sunday.

He'll face off, though, against a much more experienced champion -- though this time the task for him is slightly more daunting than the one for Cibulkova. In the only semi left to be decided, world #1 Rafael Nadal will face off against four-time Aussie titleist Roger Federer for the last spot in the final. The two have combined for an astounding thirty Grand Slam trophies and have played in a total of forty-two Major championships -- nine against each other. Rafa has dominated their head-to-head too, winning more than two matches for each one he's lost, and has taking nine of twelve meetings over the last four years. He's also coming off a 36-4 hardcourt record in 2013 and a title in Doha to start this year. But Roger has been at the top of his game Down Under, barely dropping a set to Andy Murray in the quarters and firing off forty-five aces to Nadal's twenty-nine. He might be nearing the end of his career, but this could be the best fight we've seen between these champions in quite some time. And that might work to Wawrinka's advantage -- Stan has only notched one win against this pair -- against Fed almost four years ago -- and will be more than happy for the two to leave each other battered by the end of their match.

While odds certainly lie with the players who've been here before -- and those who've walked away with titles -- the couple Grand Slam virgins still alive are sure to put up a fight for these trophies. They've both shown they have what it takes to battle the big guys and could each deliver one more shocker at this already incredible event. Whether either is ultimately crowned champion this weekend remains to be seen, of course, but they may never have a better opportunity to strike.

And after everything that's gone down in Melbourne the last two weeks, you know whoever walks away the winners will have earned it.

Infographic: 2014 Australian Open Men's Semifinalists

Rafael Nadal

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Roger Federer

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Tomas Berdych

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Stanislas Wawrinka

Infographic: 2014 Australian Open Women's Semifinalists

Na Li

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Agnieszka Radwanska

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Dominika Cibulkova

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Eugenie Bouchard

Keep on Truckin'

Things have gotten a little crazy on the ladies' side of the draw, with Serena's exit on Sunday quickly followed by Maria Sharapova's squander of a set lead over a dominating Dominika Cibulkova to bow out of her fourth round. But with one major exception, the men have lived up to expectations -- seven of the top eight seeds have advanced to the quarterfinals, setting up what should be some real exciting matches to kick off Week Two of the Australian Open.

World #1 Rafael Nadal is the only favorite blessed with an untested challenger in his next match. Twenty-two year old Grigor Dimitrov has advanced to his first Slam quarter, though with Cinderella Roberto Bautista Agut taking out the biggest giant in his path, he hasn't faced anyone in the top ten this week. The Bulgarian played well in his first week, but has been tested -- he's dropped sets in three of four previous matches and barely eked out more winners than errors against two of his opponents. Nadal, on the other hand, has had an easier on-paper road to the Elite Eight, but he was pushed by Kei Nishikori in Monday's fourth round -- battling a wily challenger, blistered hands and an unruly shoelace, he spent more than three hours on court and was broken four times. He's certainly got experience on his side, though, and if he pounces early there's no reason he shouldn't make it back to the semis in Melbourne.

The battles might be a little more heated in other sections of the draw. Tomas Berdych is looking to improve upon a streak of three straight quarterfinal appearances Down Under and the way he's played so far he might just do it. The tall Czech has been unstoppable on serve, winning a stunning eighty-seven percent of his first serves and more than six in ten of his second attempts. He handily dismissed the only seed he's faced so far, needing less than two hours to overcome an exhausted Kevin Anderson on Saturday. He'll likely face a tougher time against David Ferrer next though -- the third seed leads the pair's head-to-head by a relatively slim 7-4 margin. The Spaniard has proven strong, coming back after losing sets to Florian Mayer and world #71 Adrian Mannarino, and is looking to get to the semis here for a third time. But despite the history, something tells me Berdych might have the edge this time -- he's been so much more dominant in each of his matches, it's hard to see him take his game down at all, even against a veteran champion like Ferrer.

Speaking of veterans, four-time Australian Open champion Roger Federer is hoping to prove he's still a contender at the Majors -- it's been a year since he made the Final Four at a Slam, and at #6 in the world he's become quite a dark horse at this one. After a couple easy early rounds, though, he was relentless against tenth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a man who's gotten the better of him at a couple big events recently -- he only allowed a single break opportunity and ceded just one in five points on serve. It's the closest he's looked like his old self in quite some time -- he only won one title in the last eighteen months, and has started losing even to players ranked well out of the top ten. For his rebuilding efforts, though, Roger will take on Andy Murray, a runner-up here three times. The Scot has been challenged along the way, dropping a set to Lucky Loser Stephane Robert on Monday, but he's maintained a winning 11-9 record against the seventeen-time Major winner. Still, it's never too late to turn things around and Roger might just have the motivation to make another stab at the trophy.

But a couple other guys still have a lot to say about that. Three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic in on a twenty-five match win streak in Melbourne and a twenty-nine match run since the U.S. Open final. He also hasn't dropped a set yet, but he hasn't really faced any challenge either. He's only been broken twice in his first four matches and has won nearly eighty percent of all his serves. But now he's slated for a rematch against Stanislas Wawrinka, who so nearly beat him in the fourth round here last year, and fell just short again in New York. It's been almost eight years since the Swiss has beaten the second seed, but he puts up a bigger fight every time, and after beating Tommy Robredo -- a man who'd won six of their seven career meetings -- he might have the belief he can turn things around again.

With the world's best athletes still fighting it out for the men's title at the Australian Open, it sure looks like we should expect a big week of play Down Under. I wouldn't expect any of these guys to let up even a little bit over the next few days, and while that doesn't necessarily rule out any more upsets, it might mean we're going to see some of the best the sport has to offer.

And with so much on the line, that's exactly the way it should be.