Back on Top

Well, at least close to the top.

This week in Madrid Venus Williams secured her position as the #2 player in women's tennis when she beat Francesca Schiavone in the third round of the Mutua Madrileña Open, a spot she last held more than seven years ago. And like a true champion, she did not rest on her laurels, but instead proceeded to power through tough opponents like Charleston winner Sam Stosur and Shahar Peer, who'd beaten Svetlana Kuznetsova in her opening match.

Now I know I haven't always been the biggest Williams supporter, but even I have to admit I've been wondering what took her so long to come back. You might remember she began the year with a quarterfinal appearance in Melbourne and followed that up with an amazing fifteen match, two-title win streak that ended in the Miami finals. She may not play quite as many tournaments as the other pros, but those she does enter, she really shows up for -- Venus hasn't lost before the round of eight since last October.

Tomorrow, Williams plays in her seventieth career final -- she's already won forty-three of them, and she has to like her chances against world #24 Aravane Rezai. But the Frenchwoman should not be overlooked -- the two have actually split their previous meetings, both on clay and both several years ago. Rezai also made good after upsetting Justine Henin in the first round of Madrid and put together a solid victory over Jelena Jankovic to make the semis. The champion in Bali last year knows how to put together more than a few wins in a row.

Still Venus the more experienced, considerably more consistent player, should be able to make it through. And if she does, we might start talking about her as a threat at another Major which just happens to be around the corner.

Incidentally, Rafael Nadal's win over Nicolas Almagro this morning helped him reclaim the #2 ranking on the men's side too. He hasn't been gone quite as long as Venus was, but when he plays in the final tomorrow, he'll have another goal in mind -- a title in Rome, amazingly a clay-court tourney he has never won, would give him a record eighteen Masters 1000 titles, surpassing Andre Agassi who won his seventeenth at Cincinnati in 2004.

And if he makes it, wouldn't that make for an interesting French Open?

Looking to Gain Traction

Things are getting a little tense on the pro tennis tour these days -- with only two weeks left before the next Grand Slam, players who aren't used to losing much are doing just that.

Roger Federer has lost four straight times to players who, on average, would only barely get a seeding at a Major. Andy Murray, who spent a couple weeks last year at #2 in the world, has only won one match since March -- he hasn't made it past the quarters since Melbourne. And Robin Soderling, the surprise finalist at Roland Garros last year, hasn't put up quite the fight I expected in the last couple months.

All these guys, and a few more, came to Madrid this week to try and recapture the momentum that so suddenly shifted back to the King of Clay, Rafael Nadal. Some have so far been successful, others not so much.

Roger, by virtue of three Slam titles in the last four events, is so far ahead of everyone else you might not realize how much each match he plays has at stake. Anything less than a trophy at any tournament he plays for the next seven will result in thousands of points coming off his ranking. And since he won the Madrid championship last year -- only his second clay-court victory over Rafa -- the first of many big tests comes this week in Madrid.

So far he's done well -- a straight set victory over Benjamin Becker got him to the third round for the seventh time. Next he'll face countryman Stanislas Wawrinka, a man who actually did beat him last year in Monte Carlo, but if Federer does get the win he could give himself some momentum going into Paris.

Murray meanwhile has kind of gone off into oblivion since losing the Melbourne. He lost to Janko Tipsarevic in Dubai and Mardy Fish in Miami and hasn't successfully defended any of the three titles he'd won by this time last year. A championhere in 2008, he certainly is capable of winning a big title, though he hasn't been able to follow through on his most recent attempts.

In his opening round Wednesday, we finally began to see signs of the talent that had made so many think Murray would be the next big winner -- he got through veteran clay court champion Juan Ignacio Chela in straight sets and about seventy-five minutes. From here, he should have a pretty easy ride to at least the quarters where a potential match-up between David Ferrer, who beat him in Rome, or Marin Cilic, who ousted him from the U.S. Open last year, will challenge just how much he really is a threat at the French.

Soderling, who'd used that tournament to establish himself in the sport's elite in 2009, got off to a rough start this year, but a title in Rotterdam and a final appearance in Barcelona put him back on the map for the clay-court season. Today, though, he was less than spectacular as a somewhat spotty Nicolas Almagro pulled off a straight set upset of the world #7. He only has one more week to reset his ship on the right course.

Next week in Nice Robin will be seeded second behind previously red-hot Nikolay Davydenko, a man who had won four trophies in less than four months before a wrist injury took him out of action for the last several tournaments. He, along with Juan Martin Del Potro, out with his own wrist injury, and Andy Roddick, who withdrew from Rome for personal reasons and from Madrid due to nausea, should be back in action soon after longer-than-ideal absences. I, for one, certainly look forward to their return -- but they'll all need to rebound, and rebound fast, if they're going to have a shot at advancing at Roland Garros.

After all, with Nadal, Roger and Murray back in the swing, there's sure to be a lot of fireworks in Paris.

Something in the Water

I'm not sure what's going on in Madrid. Maybe it's a bit of nerves -- with eighteen of the top twenty women's players in the draw, the stakes are clearly high. Maybe it's that some players are a bit rusty -- we haven't seen a lot of Serena, Dinara or Maria this year. Maybe it's just the stress of the pending Grand Slam.

Who knows, but before an entire round has even been played we've already seen some shocking results.

The first came on Saturday when last year's French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova suffered her third early exit in as many weeks, this time in a tough three-set loss to Shahar Peer. Then on Sunday, the odds-on favorite to reclaim her Roland Garros crown, Justin Henin, gave up a bagel in the third set to Aravan Rezai. And Lucie Safarova, finally finding her footing after a volatile few months, dismissed Maria Sharapova in about ninety minutes.

Of course there are plenty of other tough players left in the bracket -- Serena Williams made the semis in Rome last week before Jelena Jankovic sent her packing. And defending champ Dinara Safina won't take the court until Monday -- but after her loss last week, also to Peer, she's not exactly playing at the top of her game.

And the last few weeks have certainly added a few new -- or sort of new -- names into the mix. Charleston runner-up Vera Zvonareva dealt Melanie Oudin her third loss since Miami in their first round, and could make a play to get back into the top ten within a few months. And after her inspiring run to the Rome semis, Ana Ivanovic has reminded us why she won a Major not even two years ago. Then there's Estoril finalist Arantxa Parra Santonja, who faces wildcard veteran Virginia Ruano Pascual in her first round Monday -- she has a pretty decent section in the draw and could get through a few rounds herself.

For the top seeds to have a chance they're going to have to bring it -- last year's runner-up Caroline Wozniacki has won a match or two since that devastating fall at the Family Circle Cup, but she's going to need to be healthy and hard-hitting to make it back to the championship round. And sixth-seeded Elena Dementieva, who's probably one of the best all-surface players on the Tour, could face Serena for a spot in the semis, but should be mollified by the fact that she's won six of their nine meetings since 2007.

But they'll all have to be careful to avoid the fate of those that have already gone home. With so much on the line, we really don't want to see anyone deserving get upset.

Time to Shine

The beauty of a boutique tournament like Estoril is that a few unknown players really have a chance to advance well into a bracket without the concern of a major force stopping them early. The problem with a boutique tournament like Estoril is that every now and then one of those major forces finds his way into the draw and threatens to mess up everything for everyone else.

And that's almost what happened this year, when top-ranked and top-seeded Roger Federer entered the fray. After a series of early upsets since winning the Australian Open title in January -- he hadn't made a quarterfinal since -- it must have looked promising when no other player in the top twenty made the first round. Roger began the tournament as he should have, beating Bjorn Phau in straight sets and being challenged slightly by Arnaud Clement in the third round, needing a first set tiebreak before eventually succeeding.

He must also, surely, have felt comfortable against Albert Montanes in his semifinal match. The two had met three times before, with Roger only ceding one set at Roland Garros in 2008 -- he proceeded to win the next two sets, one and zero. The twenty-nine year old Spaniard is actually strong on clay, as he's won all three of his titles on the surface, including Estoril last year, but he had lost in the opening round of the last two tournaments he's played. It should have been an easy match for King Fed.

But Montanes was determined to support the major selling point of these tournaments -- he would not be intimidated by the multiple record-holding Federer. After rain delayed their match for more than two hours, the Montanes got the early break and never looked back. After less than ninety minutes, the world #34 had handed the long-time #1 his fourth big upset of the season.

In the finals he met Frederico Gil, another man who benefited from a boutique draw. After taking out sixth-seed (and forty-eighth ranked) Florian Mayer in the first round he had an easy road to the finals, challenged again only by fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the semis. Gil, the #2 player from Portugal -- both are ranked in the triple digits -- had never played in a final before. Estoril certainly was turning out to be a great opportunity for him as well.

Montanes started the championship match swinging, undaunted by the man he'd beaten last year in Casablanca. He was serving for the trophy in the second set when Gil finally got a break back to even things up. The two traded serves again to force a tiebreak which Frederico ultimately won, pushing the game to a deciding third.

Gil began the third set by taking two service games away from his opponent, but Montanes won three games in a row to get back on serve. Finally after more than two and a half hours of play, he broke Gil again to capture his fourth career title, eventually cementing himself as a real force on the dirt -- maybe not quite as strong as Rafael Nadal, but surely someone not to be ignored.

Incidentally, a similar pattern played out on the women's side in Estoril. Twenty-year-old Anastasija Sevastova opened her run by upsetting top-seeded Agnes Szavay in the first round while her final opponent Arantxa Parra Santonja waited a bit longer before dismissed #2 Sorana Cirstea in the semis. The two, both ranked in the low double-digits had never played in a final before, so clearly they were taking advantage of the opportunity in Portugal.

There was plenty of sloppy serving on both sides of the net on Saturday -- the Latvian got just over half of her first attempts in, and Arantxa won forty percent of her second attempts. But Sevastova was able to break her opponent six times and held on for the win in about seventy minutes of play.



So now, just two weeks away from the start of the French Open, we have a slew of new players to keep in mind. While it's probably premature to call any of them favorites to win the Major, they certainly could cause more than a little turmoil in the draws. After all, if they could pull off upsets like these in Paris, it doesn't look like anyone is safe.

Where'd That Come From?

If you'd written off Ana Ivanovic from the top tiers of women's tennis recently, you probably weren't alone.

The former world #1, '08 Roland Garros champ, hadn't put together back-to-back wins since Brisbane in January. The last time she beat a top-twenty player was at Wimbledon, she's been title-less since Linz two years ago and watched her ranking drop into the high double-digits after a disappointing showing in Indian Wells. Ana has done some things to get back in form, hiring Steffi Graf's former coach among them, but it hasn't seemed to do much good.

At least not until this week.

For months we watched Ana put up a fight -- she actually had several leads over Kim Clijsters at the Billie Jean King exhibition match in March and kept things close against Aggie Radwanska at two straight tournaments -- but never quite pull off the win. So when she got past Elena Vesnina in the first round in Rome on Monday, I thought it was a fluke. A straight set win over ninth seed Victoria Azarenka yesterday, I considered encouraging.

But I never gave her a chance against Elena Dementieva in the third round. The Russian had won all four of their previous matches -- at least one on every surface -- and ceded only two sets. Sure, Elena has one of the weaker serves on the Tour but, if possible, Ana's is usually worse. But all the new coaching seems to have successfully, and suddenly, paid off. Ivanovic has dished out eleven aces already this week, outnumbering her double faults almost two-to-one.

Today she won seventy percent of her first serve attempts and held Dementieva to only a third of the points in the first set. She rolled through the first half with a 6-1 win. The ladies traded breaks in the next set and ultimately forced a tiebreak, which Ana won, 7-5. After less than a hundred minutes, she's made only her second quarterfinal in the past twelve months.

Of course, by virtue of a low rank and no seeding, the road ahead will be tough. Ivanovic faces a feisty Nadia Petrova in the next round, a woman she hasn't beaten since 2007, and a third straight match with Radwanska looms in the semis should she make it. Then again, in a tournament which has already seen so many casualties -- Sam Stosur withdrew, while Caroline Wozniacki, Dinara Safina and Svetlana Kuznetsova all lost early -- there's plenty of room for surprises.

And it may just be Ana's strategy to catch the whole tennis world by surprise.

Master Class

It wasn't long ago that detractors were saying Rafael Nadal's fifteen minutes at the top of the tennis world were up. He had lost ignominiously in the fourth round of the Grand Slam that had come to be his second home. A knee injury kept him from defending his 2008 Wimbledon title. Before Monte Carlo he hadn't won a championship since Rome last year> And even though he'd made at least the quarters of every tournament he played since Paris, he was clearly suffering a major downturn.

To them, I say, "Ha!" (accompanied by a gesture that's not befitting of a lady).

Nadal began to silence some naysayers when he did recapture the trophy in Monaco, becoming the only player in the Open era to win the Rolex championship in six consecutive years. But it wasn't until this week, when at twenty-three he surpassed Roger Federer by winning his record-tying seventeenth Masters 1000 title, that Rafa really showed he was back.

All week he was in top form, dismantling tough players in Philipp Kohlschreiber, Victor Hanescu and Stanislas Wawrinka in back-to-back matches. He struggled a bit against Ernests Gulbis in the semis, dropping his only set of this clay court season, but handily earned the right to meet countryman David Ferrer in the title match on Sunday. The pair endured two rain delays, but ultimately it was the more experienced Nadal, playing in his twenty-third Masters final, who was victorious. He was strong on serve, getting eighty percent of his first shots in and denying David the only break opportunity he had.



It was an impressive victory, and one that draws him even with Andre Agassi who captured his seventeenth Masters trophy in 2004 at the age of thirty-four. And I know I jinxed myself by saying this before, but if Rafa stays healthy there's room for him to win many more before his time is up. Of course Roger Federer, who won his sixteenth in Cincinnati last year, is clearly hot on his tail.

But more importantly, Rafa's latest championship proves he's still in the game and, hopefully, will jumpstart the rivalry between two of the greatest in the sport. It's been a while since he and Fed have met, and these days it looks like -- if Roger can make it far enough -- it will be a fun fight to watch!

Best. Week. Ever.

Two young ladies went home from tournaments in Europe today without the trophies they were ultimately after, but that certainly doesn't mean they were unsuccessful.

Russia's Anna Lapushchenkova is not the most familiar name on the circuit. The current world #140 once broke into double digits in 2008, but didn't play any more that year and finished at #106. Though she has earned trophies at a number of ITF events, Anna had never advanced past the second round of the main draw in a Tour-level event. That all changed this week in Stuttgart though -- after battling through three qualifying rounds, she stunned Victoria Azarenka in her second match and didn't allow herself to get flustered in the quarters when Lucie Safarova came back in the second to even the score with a 6-1 set.

In the semis she met red-hot player Sam Stosur, who was running on a ten-match win streak. The twenty-three year old actually got up a break in the first and had the opportunity to serve out the set, but Sam rallied to earn the early lead. Lapushchenkova even started out ahead in the second, but continued to struggle on serve. She got less than half of her first attempts in and dealt out twice as many doubles as Stosur had aces. After about eighty minutes, Anna's Cinderella run in Germany came to and end, and she was sent home.

It's by no means an inglorious end to the week though -- the youngster had never won back-to-back matches at an event like this, and a semifinal appearance is nothing to scoff at.

Neither was Simona Halep's showing in Fes. The 2008 French Open juniors champion is clearly comfortable on clay, but the eighteen-year-old is better known for certain other assets. She's only been pro for a short time, but shocked us all when she made the quarters in Marbella -- her first tournament on the main Tour.

This week in Fes, Halep also had to fight through qualifying rounds, but she really started taking names when she hit the main draw. Simona opened with an upset of eighth seed Lucie Hradecka and then defeated world #47 Patty Schnyder in straight sets. On Saturday she played the first final of her nascent career, impressively in only her third big-girl event.

I had high hopes for the Romanian, as she'd already defeated opponent Iveta Benesova this year, but it seems the pressure might have gotten to her a bit. While she did dole out the only two aces of the match, she had trouble winning points on her serve and ultimately fell to the Czech, 6-4, 6-2. But you have to give her credit for putting on a show all week.

It certainly seems that these ladies are beginning to show the skills that will make them threats to the top players. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them -- and Halep, especially -- become a real force at the Majors in the coming years. And while I'm sure there are many more victories awaiting them, I hope they can both be happy with the performances they put on in the last few days.

They've certainly been their best results so far -- until next time!