Indian Summer

I suppose I should talk about Davis Cup today. But in another installment of my mindblowing Cherbourg coverage, can I get a F%^& YEAH NICOLAS MAHUT? He is in the final there, where he will meet top seed Grigor Dimitrov. Nico won this tournament last year, so for points purposes, I would really like him to win it again, but I am very happy that he's a finalist full stop. My man Nico is on fire, and don't you forget it.

Right. Davis Cup.

The most interesting tie - to my mind, anyway - is this one between Serbia and India. From the outset, you might think that this is the most boring of all the ties - I know I certainly did. But even though the Serbs are pretty much on top now, the Indian dudes have BROUGHT IT like whoa. And without Bhupathi and Paes, which is a massive handicap.

Let's recap. Day One singles, first rubber. Viktor 'vile' Troicki lines up against Rohan Bopanna, whom he is expected to beat easily. Troicki is not exactly the captain of the consistency bandwagon, but this looks like an easy one for him. Right?

WRONG.

Bopanna takes him to five. It all seems smooth sailing for the first two sets, but the worm, oh, how it turns! This match so, SO easily could have gone Bopanna's way. And we all know how I feel about Troicki, so I wish it did.

Oh well. It's only natural for a team to get the yips a little, n'est-ce pas? And Serbia came away with the point anyway, so surely we are headed right down 5-0 blowout lane from here. Right?

WRONG.

Janko Tipsarevic walks out on court against Somdev Devvarman. And walks off three sets later a defeated man.

Would that be 1-all? Why YES, it would be. And it so, so easily could have been 2-0 India. A few points Bopanna's way, and...

The Serbs pulled out the doubles on Saturday, but it was a tight, tight thing - 12-10 in the fourth set tiebreaker. And you really, really have to wonder what would have happened if Bhupathi and Paes had been there...

This is basically an object lesson in don't underestimate the underdog. I think the Serbians have been that underdog for so long that adjusting to being the top dudes might have messed with them again. And much as they love the home crowd, probably playing in Serbia - after what happened the last time they played in Serbia - was intense, intense pressure. Last time it was glory, and now the populace expects no less.

But let's be realistic. This one wasn't all on the Serbian racquet. The Indian dudes have played OUT OF THEIR FREAKING MINDS awesome. Bopanna and Devvarman have a lot to be proud of here. And you know what? It's not over yet. And I, for one, will be cheering for Team India all the way.

The other really intriguing tie going on is Croatia vs Germany, where Marin Cilic pulled out an absolute heartbreaker against Florian Mayer only to have Germany take the next two points. But Croatia, with their singles team of Cilic and Dodig, are more than capable of getting two points on the morrow by taking out Kohlschreiber and Mayer respectively... we shall see, we shall see. Oh, and Karlovic beat that fast serve record of Andy Roddick's. Well done, Dr Ivo.

Disappointment of the Davis Cup week is obviously Russia. What an awful performance. Kudos to him for pulling out the win, but no one should really be losing to Joachim Johansson right now. (Out of interest, why didn't Sweden field Nick Lindahl? I thought that was, like, the whole reason he defected.)

Oh, and before I go - MASSIVE shoutout to Jelena Dokic, who is in the final of Kuala Lumpur, where she will take on Lucie Safarova. This is a crazy-excellent result and I hope she is SUPER proud!

On The Same Side Of The Net

So, um, there's still tennis going on. And stuff. In this not-that-exciting time of the year.

But at the end of the day, I don't have that much to say except 'yay, Dinara Safina won a match', so we're going to flash back to the US Open a week ago. And we're going to do something I don't often do on this blog - talk doubles.

Yes, I am aware that everyone and their dog have covered this story, but really, is there a better news story around than Bopanna and Qureshi?

We can talk about the Bryans till the cows come home - and probably we should, because what they have achieved is awesome. But the whole Bopanna/Qureshi thing is one of the biggest feelgood stories in tennis this year. An Indian and a Pakistani playing together... wow.

I studied a lot of Indian politics and history at uni, and one of the things I remember noting is the role of sport as a healer. Politically, India and Pakistan are at loggerheads, and this can translate to the sporting world as well - particularly cricket, where the rivalry is fierce. But then something will happen, like one nation touring the other, playing friendly matches. It makes everyone feel all nice. And things are good for a little while. It makes sport not only awesome and fun, but politically worthwhile, a goodwill gesture.

Bopanna and Qureshi have taken that one step further. They're not playing each other, participating in feelgood friendly partisanship. No, they're playing together. They're united. They're one. And they are taking on the world. The only way their story could be better is if they won, but at the end of the day, even that doesn't matter. Their trip to the final won them huge visibility, but the fact that they played together at all is magnificently wonderful.

I really hope these two guys stay together for a long time. There is no way to underestimate the amount of good they can do by standing up together on the same side of a net. No way at all.

Reconciliation, Double Time

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi hated each others' guts. But now they're suddenly playing doubles together in Indy. What's with that?

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Maybe India made them reconcile so they can play doubles at the Olympics. But that's naive - you can't just MAKE people reconcile... unless they haven't, and they're just doing this because they've been made to. I would love to know what's gone on behind the scenes there. Are there secret police in the mens' locker room, forcing them to shake hands and talk tennis strategy? Not that I'm suggesting India has secret police. Not that I'm suggesting they don't have them, either.

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Thing is, India has another really good doubles player in Rohan Bopanna. I've never seen him play men's doubles, but I saw him play mixed with Sania Mirza at the Hopman Cup this year, and they were pretty extraordinary. I don't know whether that was just with Sania or whether he's just a good doubles player, but I'm going with the latter. So if the Indian Sporting Federation (or whatever they're called) wants a doubles team for the Olympics, they could partner either Paes or Bhupathi with Bopanna - whichever they preferred. But I suppose that Bopanna probably has a better singles career at the moment than either Bhupathi or Paes, so I guess it wouldn't be fair to cut out either one...

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In which case, the Bhupathi/Paes reconciliation might actually be genuine. Maybe they're both trying to ensure that they get to play in the Olympics - which is a pretty decent motivation. (Cough Roddick cough Gasquet cough.) But surely, if they hated each other as much as I was under the impression that they did, they would be trying to backstab each other and stuff to ensure they got the one spot on offer. Who knows?

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You've got to feel sorry for Rohan Bopanna. No matter what's going on, it's got to be hard for him.

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You never really think of India as a powerhouse of tennis, but they have a few good players coming through now. In the women's game, you obviously have Sania Mirza, but Sunitha Rao is coming up, and she's not half bad. In the men, there are Bhupathi, Paes and Bopanna, and now Prakash Amritraj, who made the Newport final. So on the whole, they're not doing too bad.

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Although, when you consider that approximately one seventh of the earth's population comes from India, you would expect a much higher proportion of good players. I don't think there's any racial disposition that lends itself especially to tennis. So why are there so few Indian tennis players - and Chinese players? I mean, there are a few, but not as many as you would expect.

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The answer, I suppose, is to do with poverty and the lack of opportunity for people in these countries. And it makes you wonder - how much talent is there in the world that goes unrealised, how much potential untapped? Maybe somewhere in the slums of Varanasi or the suburbs of Shanghai, there is someone with talent that could rival Federer - but we will never know, because they have not had the opportunities. Imagine if Roger Federer had somehow never been introduced to the game of tennis. All that talent, all that potential gone to waste. What a tragedy that would have been - except no one would ever, ever know. Not even Roger.

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Kind of makes you question your own life, hey. What box are we not thinking outside of? Maybe you or I or anyone has an amazing talent that we just don't know about. Maybe I could have been, oh, I don't know, the world's best bridge player or aerial skiier, but I'll never know, because I've never tried either. The lesson is, I suppose, to try everything, because you never know what you might be good at.

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Wow. That was deep.

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Today's Results

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Austrian Open (Kitzbuhel)

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Potito Starace def. Daniel Koellerer, 6-4 6-3

Eduardo Schwank def. Daniel Brands, 6-1 6-4

Victor Hanescu def. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 6-2 6-1

Brian Dabul def. Ivo Minar, 6-4 6-3

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Dutch Open Tennis (Amersfoort)

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Marc Gicquel def. Thiemo de Bakker, 7-6 (8-6) 6-3

Steve Darcis def. Alberto Martin, 6-1 7-6 (7-5)

Teimuraz Gabashvili def. Martin Vassallo Arguello, 6-4 6-0

Christophe Rochus def. Philipp Petzschner, 6-3 6-4

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Studena Croatia Open (Umag)

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Fernando Verdasco def. Mathieu Montcourt, 7-6 (7-5) 6-1

Carlos Moya def. Viktor Troicki, 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 7-5

Fabio Fognini def. Filippo Volandri, 6-4 6-4

Mischa Zverev def. Marcos Daniel, 6-4 6-2

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Indianapolis Tennis Championships (Indianapolis)

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Sam Querrey def. Go Soeda, 6-4 6-4

James Blake def. Dudi Sela, 7-6 (7-2) 6-2

Vince Spadea def. Donald Young, 6-2 6-4

Gilles Simon def. Benjamin Becker, 7-5 3-6 6-0

Dmitry Tursunov def. Wayne Odesnik, walkover

Tommy Haas def. John Isner, 6-3 6-4

Paul Capdeville def. Joseph Sirianni, 6-3 6-4

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Bank of the West Classic (Stanford)

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Anna Chakvetadze def. Shahar Peer, 6-3 6-4

Ai Sugiyama def. Daniela Hantuchova, 6-3 6-1

Dominika Cibulkova def. Kateryna Bondarenko, 6-2 6-3

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Gastein Ladies (Bad Gastein)

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Agnes Szavay def. Viktoriya Kutuzova, 6-4 6-2

Rossana de los Ríos def. Alizé Cornet, 2-6 6-2 3-2 retired

Caroline Wozniacki def. Hsieh Su-Wei, 6-1 6-1

Timea Bacsinszky def. Liana Ungur, 6-3 3-6 6-3

Karolina Sprem def. Vera Dushevina, 6-3 6-4

Mariya Koryttseva def. Tzipora Obziler, 6-2 6-1

Yvonne Meusburger def. Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro, 7-5 6-2

Lucie Hradecka def. Zhang Shuai, 6-3 6-0

Tereza Hladikova def. Nuria Llagostera Vives, 3-6 7-6 (8-6) 7-5

Anna-Lena Groenefeld def. Julia Vakulenko, 6-1 6-1

Patricia Mayr def. Martina Müller, 6-3 6-3

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And today in Stars of the Past, Stars of the Future: Eduardo Schwank.

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Eduardo Schwank won three Challengers on clay in a row coming into Roland Garros, where he defeated Carlos Moya and was the last Argentinean left standing. However, he is perhaps best known for accidentally starting a fire in a hotel in Paris, which saw other players (including the Ratiawana twins and Rik de Voest) fleeing for their lives, and sent Schwank's winnings from the Rome Challenger up in smoke. It was his own fault, one might argue, but one can't help feeling a bit sorry for him. For a player on the satellite circuit, those winnings can be lifeblood.

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But Schwank appears to have left the satellite circuits behind him. His third round finish at the French Open gave him automatic entry into Wimbledon, and although he lost in the first round, it looks like Eduardo Schwank is here to stay. He is seeded this week at the ATP tournament in Kitzbuhel - a far cry from the Challengers. He is back on clay, his favourite surface. He was the Challenger circuit's Rafael Nadal this season, and it will be interesting to see how he will perform on clay next year, when he won't be playing those satellites, one assumes. No, Schwank is playing with the big boys now - and one gets the feeling that he likes it.

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The real test for Schwank will be the upcoming US hard court season. He is virtually untested on hard courts in the main ATP draw, and his performance here could determine whether or not he falls back to playing those Challengers, or whether he continues his rise towards the upper echelons of tennis. Perhaps it will be a test of Eduardo's character rather than his game - getting to the ATP level is one thing. Staying there is quite another.

Eye Of The Tiger

While most of me is sad that Marat Safin is out of the tournament in Bastad, a part of me is glad. Because seriously, clay? Like, what is this? I do not get it. I just do not get it at all. Focus your talents (which are considerable) on the hardcourt season, Marat. Then, perhaps, we will see the rewards reaped. Wouldn't it be awesome to see Marat in the semis or even the final of Toronto/Montreal (still haven't figured out where it is this year!) or Cincinatti? Or the US Open. That's my dream US Open final - Federer/Safin.

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Speaking of Federer - because how can we not? - he has qualified for the Masters Cup, along with Nadal and Djokovic. This was never going to not happen, but I'm glad we (in Team Federer, because I am obviously such an integral part) have got this one in the bag so early on. It still mystifies me that people think Federer is so vulnerable when he's qualified for the TMC in July. I mean, frickin' July? That's pretty sweet.

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The battle for the TMC last year was so interesting. I mean, we always had these three locked in, and Davydenko was never really in doubt, but the battle for the final places was fascinating last year. There was a point where about twenty players were battling for three spots. It wa crazy good. I mean, you'd never pick Ivo Karlovic as a TMC contender, but he was one of those twenty. It was endlessly fascinating.

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I think the ones that made it - last year, it was Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Davydenko, Ferrer, Roddick, Gonzalez and Gasquet - were all deserving, but the fact that you had players like Karlovic still in contention really shows the depth of men's tennis. There are so, so many good players in the top fifty, top hundred. And those final three spots - the ones that went to Roddick, Gonzalez and Gasquet - could have gone in so many ways. Look at the players that are not on this list. Nalbandian. Blake. Youzhny. Berdych. Baghdatis. So many excellent players. Hell, Blake was a finalist the year before and he didn't make it in 2007. How deep is men's tennis? Seriously?

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I love the end of the year championships. The TMC is one of my favourite tournaments in the year, and I wish it had more air time, most prestige. Because after the Slams, it is pretty much the most important tournament of the year, but it is so unusual! It is the only tournament which is round robin - and I like it like that. Remember when there was that weird round robin experiment last year, like in Adelaide? That was weird. But it's great at the TMC.

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I think the reason I like the TMC so much is that it's such an eye of the tiger sort of tournament. It's about consistency. It's about being last man standing, but it's an endurance test as well. You have to consistently beat these players that are the best of the best of the best of the best. And you could play anyone. Roger and Rafa have met the past two years in the semi finals, but never in a final. It's a microcosm, whole unto itself. It's... okay, I don't think I'm making sense any more. I like the TMC. Let's leave it at that.

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A few shout outs before I go. First, Stan Wawrinka. Top seed at Gstaad this week, and although he had a tough match against his countryman Stephane Bohli, he looks set to head all the way to the title. I'm down with that. Me and those Swiss guys... we get on. Cilic has also had a good victory in this tournament, taking out Paul-Henri Mathieu, the second seed. I haven't been very impressed with Paulo of late, but this Cilic kid is really on the up and up. He'll be up there with Ernests Gulbis one day, mark my words. Maybe not in the top five, but my spidersense tells me top ten. So do me proud, Marin.

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And finally, to Rohan Bopanna, the Indian qualifier who took out top seed Mardy Fish in Newport. To you, in true Australian style, I say this: go you good thing!

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Today's Results

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Mercedes Cup (Stuttgart)

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Richard Gasquet def. Lukas Rosol, 6- 7 (7-9) 6-2 6-2

Michael Berrer def. Nicolas Almagro, 7-5 retired

Agustin Calleri def. Pablo Cuevas, 5-7 7-5 6-1

Albert Montanes def. Oscar Hernandez, 7-6 (7-4) 6-4

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Allianz Suisse Open (Gstaad)

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Stanislas Wawrinka def. Stephane Bohli, 7-6 (8-6) 5-7 7-6 (7-3)

Marin Cilic def. Paul-Henri Mathieu, 6-3 6-4

Igor Andreev def. Florent Serra, 7-5 6-4

Guillermo Canas def. Kristof Vliegen, walkover

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Catella Swedish Open (Bastad)

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Fernando Verdasco def. Ervin Eleskovic, 6-0 4-2 retired

Tomas Berdych def. Thomas Johansson, 7-6 (7-2) 6-2

Bjorn Rehnquist def. Michael Ryderstedt, 6-3 7-5

Potito Starace def. Marat Safin, 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 6-4

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Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships (Newport)

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Igor Kunitsyn def. Mikhail Ledovskikh, 6-1 6-1

Frank Dancevic def. Brendan Evans, 5-7 6-4 7-6 (7-3)

Prakash Amritraj def. Jesse Levine, 7-5 6-3

Rohan Bopanna def. Mardy Fish, 7-6 (8-6) 7-5

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Gaz de France Grand Prix (Budapest)

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Andreja Klepac def. Agnes Szavay, 6-2 6-3

Alizé Cornet def. Magdalena Rybarikova, 6-2 6-2

Anna-Lena Groenefeld def. Lucie Safarova, 6-1 6-4

Karolina Sprem def. Tzipora Obziler, 6-2 6-1