Update after USO aka. Federer Open

Not too many months away now from the Masters Cup in Shanghai. I tried to figure out who will make it a few weeks ago, and after USO I think it’s even harder to predict the remaining 5 players who are fighting for the last points.
Current situation:
1. Roger Federer 1171 (Q)
2. Rafael Nadal 1012 (Q)
3. Novak Djokovic 802 (Q)
4. Nikolay Davydenko 485
5. Andy Roddick 466
6. David Ferrer 382
7. James Blake 321
8. Tommy Haas 316

There are actually a lot of players fighting for spots 4-8. I think Davydenko will make it. He haas too many shots at getting the required points by playing almost all the remaining tournaments. Andy Roddick usually makes a good run indoor, or at least good enough to make the cut. These two also have a 100+ gap so it would be a major upset for them not qualifying.
The big question is; can Ferrer keep playing this way through october? the SF of the USO helped him a lot, but he needs to keep getting points to make sure he stays around 400+ by the end. There are other bigger threats though. Blake played really well this time last year, won the Stockholm title and made the final of Shanghai. I would put my money on him again to make it in top 8.
Tommy Haas? Well, he’s sort of back in business, but I don’t see him going far in any of the remaining tournamnets. He seems to be playing really well in the slams this year, after a good start with the title in Memphis.
Carlos Moya is 1 point! behind Haas on 9th. He shouldn’t make it, but my going to QF of USO, he got himself 50 unexpected points for the race. He’s not the favorite, it needs to be said.
Ljubicic, Gonzalez, Robredo, Berdych…. and the list goes on. Mathematically any of these guys have a shot at going to top 8, but none of the 4 seems to be on a roll. I though I’d give Youzhny the last top 8 spot, but he made a short run at the USO and needs to really play well the next couple of months to stand a chance. Actually, I think even Lleyton on 19th can still make it (correct me if I’m wrong). He has 256. Let’s say the cut is around 400+. He can win a masters title (or two) and he’s good to go.

Here’s the list I think we’ll see at the start of November:
1. Federer
2. Nadal
3. Djokovic
4. Roddick
5. Davydenko
6. Blake
7. Ferrer
8. Ljubicic
(Fighting Ljubicic is Berdych and Youzhny, MAYBE even Moya)

Roger wins Federer Open

4 finals, 4 victories, 4 different opponents… And they all had to suffer a Federer match-up which these days means loss. The one thing everybody keeps commenting on is Federer’s record hunt. Will he, won’t he pass Sampras with 14 slams? Yes he will. His route to #14 is not a tough one. I think that it will be a surprise not to see Federer celebrating either Wimbledon or US Open as his 14th. Maybe it could be as early as French? Conclusion is that he is closing up on the greatest ever (if not passed) and continuing to break all the records set.

Roger vs. Novak

US Open 2007: Who’s is it?
I’m not gonna write an essay about this one. I think Djokovic has a fair chance to repeat the Montreal win. I think he looked surprisingly good against Ferrer, even in the hot conditions he doesn’t seem to enjoy to much. I think he has the game to annoy Federer in making too many errors and it should be a close match rally-wise in any case. However, I think that Federer will take this one in three as well. This beacuse he seems to be able to play better on the most important points in the latter part of the tournament. I was not once worried that he would lose a set against Davydenko. Even almost down 4-1 in the first he seemed to have it under control to a certain level.
Davydenko could have made 2 extremely beautiful winners in Federer’s serve just to be evened out with to easy aces from Roger. That’s what it’s all about. Djokovic must to a certain level be just a tad more tired than his rival so that it shouldn’t last for more than the 3 sets.
Federer d. Djokovic to claim his 4th USO title in a row.

Henin=Federer?

Mui impressive! Justine Henin just finished another day at the office with brutal figures against a no-brainer like Kuznetsova. I think their last meeting was on clay in Berlin, where Kuznetsova won in three. There was no doubt who was soon-to-be grand slam winner in the opening set last night. Henin is very dominant at the moment, which we can deduct from this tournament. She got a tough draw for a 1st seed, having to take down both Williams sisters before reaching a final. She did it ALMOST efortlessly, for example compared to Federer who got closer matches and a set down here and there. I think if Henin goes on like this for a few years, she could reach the status of one of the top female players in history. Competition to be the greatest is too hard with players like Navratilova and Graf. But looking at how she plays on her very best, it seems like she has a continued bright future, only at age 25.

Djokovic is continuing to write serbian history with another great performance against Ferrer to take him to the first Serbian grand slam final. In addition, the Djoker is only 20, which means that we have to go back all the way to 1990 to find a younger player in the final. Yeah, yeah.. it’s Sampras. If he goes on like this, who knows where he’ll be in 10 years. Does he have to potential to get a double digit of majors? Could he become the next Federer when he retires?
No claims can really argue against that. The way he plays, and with this awesome consistency (2 GS SF + 1 GS F!!) is nothing but a good indication of how his chances are as of right now.
Just compare him to Federer… where was he at this age? To be exact Federer spent 2001 going from #30 to #13. Not bad, but only 3R of Aussie Open, QF of French, QF of Wimbledon, 4R of US open. To be fair, it’s not that big of a difference, and I think that today’s top 10 is weaker compared to the one we had at the end of 2001. Of course…my opinion.

Last 4, including the Djoker

If there’s one player who should get the player of the tournament award (if that exists), it must be David Ferrer. Chela has done some destruction on this way to the QF, but was not close to any kind of destruction against Ferrer. I was so sure, it would be at least 4 close sets, but Ferrer has probably gained enough Hard Court confidence so that he can wrap up just a little faster. Djokovic awaits in the SF.

Djokovic.. wow that’s a different nut. He looked close to retiring earlier in the tournament as a result of too much court time in inhuman long and hard battles. Yesterday, a little different. He did not recharge his batteries, it looked like he threw the old ones out and bouth some extra high energy ones that works perfectly. I though Moya was sort of favorite based on Djokovic’s fatigue issues. Disregarding that, this match should have been closer anyway. Moya has played better than this and probably got Djokovic old batteries and over a decade extra age to be sent of in straight sets. Frustrating I assume!
Well the Serbian Djoker seemed to be high on energy after the match as well when he started to entertain the audience with some impersonations. It says that he did Nadal and Sharapova. And from the looks of it I think Sharapova is the most accurate. Here’s a clip of some impersonations.

Djokovic has some competition, Roddick is also a fan of impersonation

Fun’s over… for Roddick

Federer beat Roddick for the 10th consecutive time. Federer holds a lot of sweet records, but this one is kind of incredible too. Especially when looking at what happened in the match. You just have to feel sorry for Andy, who for the first time since.. well who knows, 2004? gets to play around with Federer at the baseline and actually win some points of his groundstrokes. Once again he lost a lot of points on very impressive passing shots from the Swiss.

But the thing that is most impressive is how clean and close to perfection Federer is EVERY time he meets Roddick. It seems as if Roddick brings the best of Federer when they meet. Few unforced errors and making Roddick work overtime for simple points here and there. And when you look and see Roddick on the move to make a great point, taking Federer from side to side, volleying with plenty of spin(s) Federer is able to make that one great response in the rally that stuns all viewers and shows the world why he is the greatest tennis player ever. I have to start agreeing with that beacuse I cannot seems to find another player who could dominate play that easily with any player.

Anyway, it was a close match and the tiebreaks could have gone either way, but they didn’t and it wasn’t completely with lack of logic. Federer came up with that little extra when he needed to, like inhuman returns and answers to every question on the map. For Roddick though, this was probably one of his best matches even losing in those close 2,5 sets. I think he should not continue his demotivation trend, maybe he can turn matchpoints into match at the Masters Cup this year, who knows?

Davydenko is almost getting my vote for #4 spot on the ranking. I would rank Roddick in front, but after completely taking Haas down in a no-brainer is nothing but great. No way will he beat Federer, but defend a SF? I just didn’t see him going this far. Very good job from him. It’s quite interesting to see how he makes his most likely best ranking year with absolutely no titles and last year he made this great run with several titles.

The bottom half is one interesting nut. Chela, Ferrer a USO QF??!? Yes and both players deserve it more than other players. They’ve worked hard even with the “clay courters” label they prevailed time after time in matches where they were underdogs. I think Ferrer is the closer of the two in terms of having the play to get to a Slam SF. He’ll win in 3 or 4. It’s always a battle when two hard hitting “clay courters” meet.

Moya vs. Djokovic. Djokovic just lost to Moya prior to USO. Just mentioning it, because Djokovic is a favorite with lots of fighting willingness as Nadal was sent home by Ferrer. He sees a opportunity to get to his first Slam final and make 2007 a really impressive breakthrough year for him. He’s struggled with pain and fatigue after quite a few long matches. It has been a clear pattern. Same thing happened at Wimbledon, but especially at French with several 5 setters. He’s tired and I was almost seeing him retiring against Monaco. I don’t even dare to predict. Moya wins if Djokovic retires! But I think it’s a 50-50 here.

Now the fun starts

There were some who thought that Henin/Serena match should’ve been a final. I think Henin made it pretty clear that there’s a reason why she is the best. 7-6, 6-1 tells me she is perhaps becoming the Federer of WTA in the sense that she may not win EVERY tournament, but when she plays her best tennis, she is quite unbeatable.

Mr. Nadal went DOWN. I don’t know how he takes this loss, but David Ferrer must be filled with confidence right now. Nadal had once again problems with pain here and there but I don’t really feel too sorry for the guy. It’s a fair game, Ferrer won it and the fact that he has a style that wears down his body more than his opponent is just too bad. I think Nadal has to change something and make his game more natural and study some of the elements of Federer’s movement. The way this thing goes, I don’t think Nadal will make another 10 years like this. His body is going to ache more and more and will make it harder for him to improve on faster courts. That’s my uneducated opinion anyway.

Now the fun starts… last year’s final tonight. Or around 2am my time. Will Roddick finally beat Federer?! I’m not so sure. Don’t mean to say that Roddick is not good enough, but I think even Lopez had a better shot to take down Federer. Why? Because after 14 meetings, they know each other well. I think Roddick must, not only play like we saw him against Johansson, but also bring some element of surprise. Roddick has probably tried it all, but I think that he has the game to beat Federer if he can get him out of his element. Key word in my mind is: Returning’s Federer’s serve just slightly better and with more creativity. Especially 2nd serves which Roddick generally has no problems returning in terms of spin and force. He needs to move inside the baseline and attack. I’m no tennis wiz, but surprising him at the net just doesn’t work, and Federer is best at prediction and anticipation so the net play is not a very good idea. I’m gonna root for the American just because I want other people to win titles. AND because somebody should be able to not allow Federer to be in EVERY single Grand Slam final!
Good luck Roddick!

Same old Federer

There’s a lot of talk around the draw on the women’s singles and the fact that all the high profile players left are in the top half. I don’t know what the problem is. There was a draw, one in which the top 32 players are seeded. 32!! What more can you do? You have, what 16 qualifiers? Sharapova didn’t make the cut, Hingis is out, Vaidisova is out, Petrova is out… and the list goes on. The fact that Williams x 2 are in one QF each is their low ranking compared to what potential lies in them. So the only problem is that people don’t think it’s “fair” to see two potential finals as QF, and two somewhat 3rd round quality QFs in the bottom half. Well, it was a fair draw where the Americans surely would have prefered to see each Williams sister in separate halfs.

Back to the guys. Again, surprised to see Lopez’s level out there in the first and a half sets. He managed to serve well, giving Roger a hard time most of the time. However, like with Isner, it seems as if Roger’s opponents are only good for a set or so. Lopez was close on taking the 2nd set (if 2 games is close) but then Roger showed who was the man at the most important rallies. To me it seems as if Roger wants to spice things up. Didn’t really seems hopeless in the first set, which he lost 6-3, but still allowed Lopez to break and play around with him to some extent. It seemed as if he wasn’t worried at all. But all props to Lopez! He is sort of a Nadal jr., only older, with a great serve, which Nadal still lacks. Like in most other matches, this was #1 against #60-something and #1 prevailed quite easily if you look at the match as a whole.

Found out that Berdych didn’t retired from injury, but from breathing issues. Sounds scary, but he did frown so it looked like he was hurting or something. Don’t know if it’s a good thing for Roddick, beacause a fair a square win over Berdych would boost his confidence a great deal going in against Federer. Anyway, I still predict Roddick as a great threat, and I really hope for his sake that a repeat of AO doesn’t happen in New York in front of 25000 Americans.

I predicted Davydenko getting some rough treatment from Lee. I couldn’t be more wrong!
He seems to be in control and maybe he actually has a great shot against Haas who probably couldn’t ask for more than a QF. If Davydenko strolls through this one, maybe he actually is a great underachiever Grand Slam wise.

As for the matches today:
Gulbis v. Moya
I think this match will rely on how well Gulbis handles his first 4th round in a couple of tries. If he plays with the same amount of confidence as he has done all week, I can’t see a reason why he shouldn’t win this. Might be close, but I think it’s going in Moya’s favor in many ways, even if it goes to a 5th set. Prediction: Moya

Monaco v. Djokvovic
Isn’t Monaco one of them clay court champs? Well, Chela, Nadal, Ferrer and Moya has joined him into the Last 16 so, I think NO. Match is always open when an underdog meets an overdog. Djokovic seems to be in control so far this tournament so he’ll take it. Monaco has not been given impossible tasks. Thought Hewitt would take him out, but never got to play him. Prediction: Djokovic in 3 close sets

Wawrinka v. Chela
Don’t think a lot of “experts” predicted this match-up for the Last 16. Chela’s impressive win against Ljubicic must be on of his best. Ljubicic is always kind of favorite on fast courts, but Chela has always played even with good hard court players before so this is just taking it a little further than the previous slams. Wawrinka is a big talent still, I think and might give Swiss tennis what it needs to be established as a good tennis nation. I see this going to 5 great sets and I would even predict this as the QF to watch. It’s their GREAT chance to hit QF in a slam, and they know that THIS is the time to do it. Wawrinka’s game is best suited for USO and that’s the only reason why I think he will take it. Prediction: Wawrinka

Ferrer v. Nadal
Ahh… Don’t know if I’m gonna watch this. Nadal will win it because I think the fighter Ferrer won’t show his fighting spirit if Nadal gets an early break and start dominating. A good run on HC after Wimbledon, his best USO performance… I think this is it for him. He’s probably tired, if not physically, mentally after the Nalbandian battle. Prediction: Nadal in 3

Closing on QFs

Roddick is in QF after Berdych retired with injury in the 2nd set at 7-6, 2-0. Berdych did not move well, especially during the final stages of the first set, and once again Andy is a little lucky with the outcome and the time spent on court. Don’t think he would have thought going into a QF against Federer, that he would have less time on court than Federer. Maybe it can help him against Federer, who knows?

Player of day 7 must have been Gulbis! This kid wrecked Robredo 6-1, 6-3, 6-2. Didn’t see it, but something tells me this wasn’t a coincidence or just a poor peformance from Robredo.
Can’t wait to see how he handles Carlos Moya. Also a clay court kinda player and Moya is even older than Robredo. I think I would put my money on Gulbis for antoher win, and lose to the Djoker in the QF.

Right now Blake is up 1-0 in set against Haas. Think he’s gonna win it. Even if it is 5 long sets.

The match I wait for is Lee vs. Davydenko is 2-0 h2h, but I think Lee has played really well so far and Davydenko just isn’t champion material. Either Lee takes it in 3, or Davydenko takes it in 4 or 5.

Does Feliciano Lopez stand a chance against Federer? No way. Feliciano has been playing well, but hasn’t really been tested yet. Andreev was a though one and a good one, but Andreev has never shown brilliance on fast hard courts. Federer in straight sets.

Sharapova OUT!

This time it’s about the women. Defending champion Sharapova lost against relatively (for me at least) unknown Radwanska from Poland. Can’t say that Sharapova didn’t try, but to see supposedly world # 2 hit so many unforced errors in key rallies is just not normal. She didn’t play all that bad but, when Radwanska chose to give her a piece of her mind, Sharapova looked like she’d swapped places with her to be the 30th seed. Anyway, shouldn’t excpect too much from the young 20! year old Russian who still has a lot of slams to take home in the future.

Federer d. Isner 6-7, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2
Wow! I couldn’t believe what I saw when Isner took the 1st set tie-break. He seemed to have everything Karlovic lacks, the ability to score the MOST important points on own serve. I really liked how he came inside the baseline more often and making Federer run after hard hit shots, again on very important points. I thought; the next set goes to Federer like 6-1 or something, that’s how he works. And so it was, broken too easily and once again in 3rd and a couple more in 4th and done. Hadn’t it been for the 1st set, this looked like a rutine win for Roger, but Isner (world # 400 something a few weeks ago) took a set from him at USO! I can really see Isner improving the next year, ready to make a run at Wimbledon. QF a possibility? Can’t wait

Roddick d. Johansson 6-3, 6-2, 6-0
Thought this was the close match of the day. It was not. For American fans perhaps. I watched Roddick and thought, this is the 2003 Roddick. Remembered the match against Nadal in Indian Wells where, not only did he serve poorly, but his groundstrokes fell short of the service line. Again, against Nadal! That’s suicide. Yesterday, his forehand was finally back. Pushing Johansson back behind the baseline with strong shots that where deep and consistent, both inside-out and cross court fireballs. The pace was just too much for the 32 year old Swede. Impressive display, and I think that if he could get this play against (first Berdych) and the Federer, who knows maybe he actually has a shot at the Federer Open.
Like I’ve written before, “nobody beats Roddick 10 times in a row” (although Federer will most likely do it)