Better Than Great Britain

Let's do a tennis feelgood story. Specifically, let's talk about the Australian Davis Cup team. I'm not normally extraordinarily nationalistic when it comes to tennis, but watching the progress of both our national teams this year has made me happy.

Sure, we may only be second tier, but the Australian Davis Cup team has not lost a rubber this year. Sure, we've been facing Chinese Taipei and Japan respectively, who are not exactly known to be tennis powerhouses, but not one single rubber. That seems to me to be pretty impressive. We have had the added advantage of playing at home, but nonetheless. Not one. That's awesome.

And it's not as if we've been a one man show, either. We've had Lleyton Hewitt do some heroics, we've had some from Carsten Ball, Peter Luczak, Bernard Tomic... for the first time in a long time, the Davis Cup team is beginning to attain something that almost looks like depth. And with players like Greg Jones and Nick Lindahl waiting in the wings and players like Jason Kubler and Luke Saville on the rise... the future is looking bright.

Not that I expect the Aussies to win Davis Cup anytime soon or anything. We have a ways to go before we're even in contention - if we get an unfriendly draw, then we'll have zero hopes of being the grown up group next year. But we're edging our way towards something a bit good - and certainly we're doing very respectably.

We're not going the way of Great Britain, that's for sure. Well done, boys, on a fabulous tie over the weekend. And if the world group playoff is in Australia, you can bet I will be there with bells on.

Nick and Casey Win Their Way In

We have our winners! After some epic matches at Melbourne Park, Casey Dellacqua and Nick Lindahl are through to the main draw at the Australian Open.

Casey Dellacqua was no surprise, really - but after she went down so hard in the first set to Olivia Rogowska, I thought she was in serious trouble. This is the second time in two days she's gone down and gone down bad in the first set - 2-6 against Peers, 1-6 against Rogowska - and it's something she might want to keep on an eye on. Nonetheless, she is through, and well-deserving - she hasn't lost a match all week and she's looking great. Jelena Dokic won this playoff last year and we all know how that turned out. Here's hoping Casey can do similarly well.

I was a bit disappointed in Bernard Tomic's performance - I really thought he had the cojones to beat Nick Lindahl - but I was equally impressed by Lindahl. This match went five sets, which is no mean feat in and of itself, and when you consider that Lindahl was two sets to one down at one point, that's pretty awesome. There was probably more on the line here for Lindahl than Tomic - Tomic will, I think, get carded in anyway, while I don't think Lindahl is enough of a name to have earned it, even though he was seeded above Tomic in this tournament.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this will be Lindahl's first time in a Slam main draw...? I've never seen him there before, but I might have blinked and missed him. It'll be interesting to see how he performs on the big stage. He's obviously got a little somethin' somethin' going on upstairs, considering his match against the terribly talented Tomic today. So I don't think he's the type to break down under the pressure. I'll be in Melbourne for the first round of the Australian Open (and second and third!!!!) so I'm going to make a point to see some of his match, whosoe'er it may be against. I may have to reevaluate my opinion of him.

Now... there are a whole bunch of discretionary wildcards. Who will get them, I wonder...

Praising Peers

So I sooooooooo was not fair to Sally Peers. I thought she was going to get pulverised by Casey Dellacqua, but at the beginning of the match it was Peers doing the pulverising. When I checked in with the score, Peers was leading 5-0 in the first set. Against Dellacqua, that is something - even for top players.

Peers ended up winning the first set but fading badly in the second two - nevertheless, even with the fade, I am very impressed. I've never had extraordinarily amounts of cred for her before, but I've changed my mind on her now. I'll be keeping an eye on her, that's for sure.

Dellacqua is through, however, and she'll face Rogowska in the final. Rogowska is resurgent for sure after her slow start, but I still don't think she's going to come through Dellacqua. Good on Casey - it's been a hard road back for her, and I'm glad. And if Olivia wins too, good on her. We're going to have a strong wildcard contender in the ladies no matter who wins.

In the blokes, we're having Lindahl and Tomic facing off. (Side note - what happened to Colin Ebelthite, who won here last year? He wasn't even in the draw, as far as I saw). It's no secret that I'm pulling for Tomic here - I think he'll get carded in anyway, but it'd be good for him to really fight for it, really earn it, as it were. The matchplay will make him all tough and stuff and the feeling that he earned it will be really good, I think.

I'll be interested to see what Lindahl brings to the court. Every time I've seen him he's been spectacularly unimpressive, but he must be doing something right...

More of the December Daze

So I was wrong about Monika Wejnert pulling an upset - Olivia Rogowska defeated her in two close, but straight, sets. That said, Wejnert is going to be one to look out for, and I really hope that she gets wildcarded into a few events here and there throughout the Australian summer. By winning the 18s title she got a wildcard in here, so she's been prepared to play a lot of tennis lately. I'll be looking out for her.

I was right, however, about Jess Moore being able to pull an upset - even though she was the third seed and Alicia Molik was fourth, I don't think anyone seriously expected Molik to lose. I think Molik is a pretty safe bet to get carded into the Aussie Open anyway, so I doubt she's too worried, but this is a really good win for Jess Moore. I saw her play briefly at the Australian Open in 2008, where she made it to the second round by defeating Julie Ditty (I think), and she's seriously crafty. I'll be interested to see how she goes from here. She'll be playing Rogowska in her semi and that'll be a good match to watch.

You'd have to think that whoever wins will face Dellacqua - I can't see Sally Peers coming through her (though she had a very tidy win against Marija Mirkovic, while Dellacqua had a scare against Shannon Golds). It'll be interesting.

Over to the boys, and Tomic is through to the semis after a tidy win over Greg Jones, the third seed. I guess Jones couldn't keep up the winning streak he had going, which for him is a shame, but for my predictions, not so much. Tomic will face Kaden Hensel in his semi after Hensel beat Matt Reid. You'd be pretty foolish to pick against Tomic there, I think.

My dark horse, James Duckworth, went out against Nick Lindahl, but considering the scoreline was 6-0 2-0 retired, I think it's pretty safe to say that that wasn't exactly indicative of the overall level of his game. He's going to be pretty good in time - I'll be watching out for him. Lindahl will face John Millman in the semis, after Millman put out Tomic-beater Matt Ebden. I've never seen Millman play so I can't really make any comment, but I've never been especially impressed by Lindahl - why is the second seed here? Is he really ranked that high?

The Hidden Circuit

One of the lead stories on the Tennis Australia website today is that Monique Adamczak and Nick Lindahl (both young Australian players, for those of you who don't know the names) have won events on the '2008-09 Pro Circuit.' Now, I'm mystified. What on earth is this so-called Pro Circuit?

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Adamczak and Lindahl are not very highly ranked players - Adamczak is somewhere in the late #100s and Lindahl in the #200s, so presumably this Pro Circuit is not especially prestigious. The tournament that they won the men's and women's singles in was in Rockhampton, so it's hardly a travel-around-the-world international affair. Oh, wait - I've found a page on Tennis Australia about it. It says:

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'The tennis Pro Circuit is a series of international entry level events onto the professional tour. These events provide an opportunity for players to earn their first world ranking points, which is a players' livelihood as a professional player. The tennis Pro Circuit is a vital step for all tennis players as they embark on professional careers. Positioned as a bridge between junior events and the elite WTA and ATP tournaments the circuit, it is the breeding ground for future champions.'

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That makes sense, I suppose - but surely Monique Adamczak is a bit past that stage? She's played in Slams - surely she should be playing ITF events... her ranking is high enough to get into most of those, yeah? She's professional, not jumping the gap between the two - though looking at her profile, she hasn't been playing much tennis, either at WTA or ITF level. She's made it to some semi-finals, but that's about it. She was born in 1983 and turned pro in 1998, by the looks of it... she's had some career success on the ITF circuit with four title but not that much recently - and now she's back playing on the Pro Circuit. She was the top seed in Rockhampton.

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That's really a bit demoralising, but well done Monique Adamczak, nonetheless.

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Nick Lindahl is a bit of a different story... I remember him playing in juniors a couple of years back, and he was no Tomic, but he was pretty good. I haven't really seen him since - the ATP has no record of him turning pro, though presumably he did, because he played quarter finals in a Challenger event... do you have to be a professional to play Challengers? Maybe you don't. He was the second seed in the event at Rockhampton.

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It's funny, isn't it, to actually see the evidence of the work that players do to get to the top? You sort of assume they have to work their way up, but I've never really thought about how they did that. It'd be the rare junior that jumped straight onto the ATP or WTA circuit - I suppose, in recent memory, Alize Cornet has done it, and maybe Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, but let's have a look at recent junior Slam winners for boys, and see where they are now. In 2007, Donald Young won the US Open for boys, and in 2006 Thiemo de Bakker won junior Wimbledon, but we have to go back to 2005 before we start getting any really familiar names - the champions that year were Young, Marin Cilic, Jeremy Chardy and Ryan Sweeting. That was 2005, and now we're in 2008, and if we take Cilic as our example case, it has taken him about three years to be a regular on the ATP circuit. He didn't even qualify for the US Open last year.

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So where was Marin in these few years? Playing Challengers and Futures, no doubt, but maybe he was hanging about on the Pro Circuit too. So maybe I should pay more attention to this hitherto unheard-of circuit... perhaps I can claim I saw the next Roger Federer play before he was famous!

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Today's Results

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TOE Life Ceramics Guangzhou International Women's Open (Guangzhou)

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Olga Govortsova def. Yan Zi, 6-3 6-2

Mariya Koryttseva def. Akgul Amanmuradova, 6-4 6-4

Karin Knapp def. Zhang Shuai, 7-6 (8-6) 1-6 6-1

Alla Kudryavtseva def. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-4 4-6 6-3

Ioana Raluca Olaru def. Aniko Kapros, 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-1

Lu Jingjing def. Ekaterina Dzehalevich, 7-6 (7-4) 6-2