One Step At A Time

There is no three title run for Nicolas Almagro. Such a thing was not writ in his destiny. Instead, David 'Lord Farquaad' Ferrer took the title. And he is looking gooooooooood. Australia was no fluke. David Ferrer is a force to be reckoned with and no mistake.

He is one of those dudes that, given the right draw, could go very, very deep at Roland Garros. Or even given the wrong draw. No one expected him to end up in the semis in Australia, and yet semis he made. So keep an eye on this one. No telling where he'll pop up.

He will be seeded. This we know. And he will be seeded high. So while it probably wouldn't be a top player's MOST FAVOURITE THING EVER to have Ferru land in their quarter, he's hardly a dangerous floater.

One of the other winners over the weekend, on the other hand, is. Welcome home, Juan Martin del Potro.

I don't want to go proclaiming that JMDP is 'back' in some definable sense of the word or anything like that. For one, that's not really a quantifiable concept; and two, it's a long way back up to where he was, because he was forced to fall from so very high. But winning titles is the way to get back up there - step by step, rung by rung, hand over hand on the ladder.

Sure, it was a Mickey Mouse tournament - there's not much else going on this week. But Mardy Fish and Janko Tipsarevic are quality opponents and JMDP basically ate them for breakfast. These are all good signs, positive signs. While Juan's results over the Australian summer might not have been spectacular on paper, I think they did give him some useful matchplay. Want to get your eye in? Try playing three hours against Feliciano Lopez. It's been a grinding, wearing summer for JMDP, but it is paying off.

Delray Beach is JMDP's first title since he lifted the trophy at the US Open in 2009. I don't see him lifting another Slam trophy this year - or maybe not even next year - but these signs are all good. In a lesser field, his return might be quicker. Unfortunately, we have an extraordinary level of depth in men's tennis at the moment, crowned with some truly extraordinary players at the top. If JMDP is going to get back up there, climb the mountain again, it's going to take a while. No single title win is suddenly going to propel him back among the echelons of the top ten.

But there's only one way to climb a mountain, and that's step by step. And winning Delray Beach is quite a large step - one might almost call it a leap.

If A Tree Falls And No One's There...

I have found myself spectacularly uninvolved in the world of tennis this week. I know it should have been the first week that I really cared post-Australian Open, what with the return of my main man Roger, but no. I found this week terribly, terribly dull.

This is not to say that I am not a bit cross with the selfsame Roger Federer for his performance in the Dubai final. Djokovic is playing so well at the moment that even if he had played better I don't know if he would have been able to win, but missing overheads? Dude, seriously? Ferd the turd was out in this match in full force.

So let's not talk about him. Or I will shout. LIKE THIS. Instead, let's talk about Nicolas Almagro, who keeps, like, winning stuff. Like, lots of stuff.

He is in his third straight final, going for his third straight title. I know these are Mickey Mouse clay tournaments, but that is still pretty impressive. Almagro is a fearsome claycourter at the best of times (he is, after all, the Prince of Clay) but this is a good run for him. This is a run I don't think Rafa would be ashamed to have to his name, if Rafa were the kind of dude that played these tournaments.

And now Almagro is going up against another Spanish dude in the in-form David Ferrer. And you've got to think... if you've just played about 2394729387 matches on the trot, David Ferrer is the last dude you want to face. (Ask Rafa.) Because here is the thing - three finals in a row is a great result, but is it the best idea for your body?

As far as I recall, Almagro is not the most injury prone dude. He's no Tsonga, that's for sure. But clay is a demanding surface and even when you're winning pretty comfortably, as he has generally been doing, it's got to take a toll on your body. Again, let's look at Rafa, the clay machine. I think we can all agree that Rafa's fitness is superhuman, that he is lightyears ahead of the field on clay, and that there is quite a high possibility that he is a cyborg. And yet he didn't win those three Masters 1000s on clay until he stopped playing Barcelona.

If Almagro gets good draws - ie. doesn't come up against that selfsame Rafa, or Federer, or Djokovic - he is perfectly capable of going very deep in the important clay tournaments to come. On clay, he is top ten in the world, no doubt. But if he guns it too hard now, when no one's around, then he's going to burn out. And no one will remember these tournament wins here... because, as always, Roland Garros will eclipse everything.

(On Roland Garros - there is a slight possibility I might actually attend for a day or two this year! How cool is that?!)

Venus Rising

Welcome to post #701 on Tennis From The Backseat, for all Jodi's meandering tennis ramblings. Enjoy the ride.

Today we're talking Venus. Why? Because Venus is winning freaking everything at the moment, that's why. In fact, I would go so far to say that if you had to pick the most in form player on the women's tour at that very moment, it would be Venus. And that isn't something I say lightly, because I have really not been especially impressed with Venus over the last couple of years.

But one cannot deny the facts. Two tournament wins in two weeks - Venus can rightly be crownded eternal queen of Acapulco, in my book - as well as a win over some quality, quality opponents at the Billie Jean Cup. I mean, sure, it's an exo event, and if you had Venus vs Kimmie on a bigger stage, maybe the match would have gone a different way, but wins over Clijsters and Kuznetsova are, well, wins over Clijsters and Kuznetsova, and not something to be taken lightly.

The question is, however - how far is this run of awesomeness going to go?

We all know V isn't going to play Indian Wells, so the next time we see her in action will be in Miami. It is obviously very good for her to have a rest after these intense few weeks, but I will be interested to see how she performs in Miami. Is this just a mini hot streak - like the one she regularly goes on at Wimbledon? (It's not unfair to say that Acapulco is Venus's second Wimbledon, the amount of titles she's won there). Or is this form going to be carried across past Miami into the clay season?

In short, are we going to see a V who could do damage at Roland Garros?

I would like to think that we could, if only to shake things up a bit. Venus has never traditionally done that well on the red clay of Paris (except, as previously noted, that one time in 2002) and it would be interesting to see the dynamic if she suddenly did make a run at it. That, combined with the return of Henin... even in the WTA, we live in interesting times!

Can You Hear The Drums, Fernandos?

I don't know if you ever see the division of dirtballers from other tennis players any place more than right now, in the gap between the Australian Open and Indian Wells. The next Slam may be the French, but the real focus is very much still on the hard courts right now in the lead up to the massive Indian Wells/Miami double header...

...unless you're playing on the South and Central American swing, where it's all dirtball, all the way.

This little claycourt season isn't anywhere near as superfluous as the one after Wimbledon, which serves absolutely no purpose. But still, I'm not sure why there's so much clay play when Roland Garros is this far off. Actually, to be more specific, I'm not sure why there's so much clay play when there's a grand total of four weeks of grass play in the year. Why does clay get six months odd and why does grass get so little?

Anyway. What I was trying to say is that a lot of the guys playing on clay this week - dudes like Fernando Verdasco and Fernando Gonzalez and all those others (I'm just going to call them the Fernandos) who really should be training for Indian Wells and Miami are playing in Acapulco, and they really shouldn't be.

I mean, it's February. It's a little early to be training for Roland Garros, and I can see no other reason for these guys to be playing on clay. For the real dedicated dirtballers, who really don't have any other way, I guess I get it, but players like the Fernandos have decent chances in the hard court double header and should be playing like it. I'm not sure I understand the rationale behind their decisions to play this tournament.

The Prince of Clay

Yeah, so we have winners in Acapulco -Venus (surprise surprise) taking out Flavia Pennetta and then Nicolas Almagro beginning his annual surge with a good win over Gael Monfils. Actually, let's talk about Almagro for a sec, though I hadn't intended to. He is so impressive at this time of the year. As soon as the tour hits the clay, he becomes a contender. That said, put him on hard court and grass and he becomes basically a non-entity. However, when he hits the red stuff...

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I think we can safely say he is the Prince of Clay. Rafa is the king, and ain't no one gonna challenge that one - remember the Roland Garros quarters last year, when Rafa beat him one, one and one? However, I think that beatdown was due to the fact that Rafa took him extra seriously. So it's good to see that Almagro hasn't gone away during the non-clay part of the season and is back, ready to take on the world on the red stuff again.

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Now, onto what I really want to talk about. Bernard Tomic won his first ever Challenger title in East Bentleigh. It's only his third ever Challenger tournament, so I have to say that that is very very good - very very good indeed! He's ranked 536 - this win will catapult him into the #400s. It's still too soon to admit him into my Stars of the Future fold, but hot damn, that boy is going to be good!

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That said, Marinko Matosevic pushed him all the way. It was 5-7 6-4 6-3, so that's clearly one that could have gone either way. I still can't say I know much about it, but he's doing well round this satellite circuit, so the boy clearly has some mojo going on.

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Today's Result

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Abierto Mexicano Telcel (Acapulco)

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Men's Draw

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Nicolas Almagro def. Gael Monfils, 6-4 6-4

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Women's Draw

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Venus Williams def. Flavia Pennetta, 6-1 6-2