Medals. And Stuff. Whatever.

Last post on Commonwealth Games tennis, I swear. I still loathe it with a fiery passion, but I should probably talk a little about how it turned out.

It was pretty much the Anastasia Rodionova show, which is not unsurprising, because she was pretty much the highest ranked player there. She won singles gold over Sania Mirza - in what was a surprisingly good match, though it wasn't particularly high quality - and then doubles gold with Sally Peers. She also got silver in the mixed doubles with Paul Hanley - they lost to a pair of Scottish players I have never heard of.

It's a pretty sad story for Commonwealth tennis when Australia is winning pretty much all the medals, which is essentially what happened. There were a few for India - I was, I confess, glad to see that Somdev Devvarman won gold for his nation (it at least made their ridiculous inclusion of tennis worthwhile) - and Sania Mirza, of course, won silver, but Australia won a ridiculous amount of medals in this event. Rodionova, as mentioned, won gold in the women's singles, and Sally Peers won bronze. Greg Jones and Matt Ebden (still a big Ebden fan, in case anyone was wondering - love his game) won silver and bronze. Then there was gold in the women's doubles, as well gold in the men's doubles. Oh, and also silver in the women's doubles.

Let's face it - Australia is not currently one of the world's tennis powerhouses. We have some good up and coming players, but we can't even get into the world group for Davis Cup. And yet we managed to win all this stuff. It's ludicrous.

Congratulations to all medallists. I mean that sincerely. I wouldn't want my ranting about the inclusion of the sport in the games to reflect badly on your achievements, of which you should be very proud. But seriously, Commonwealth Games? How about we stick to what we're good at next time?

Bloodless Coup

Well, we all know where my heart lies - it's firmly going yay yay YAY at such an awesome showing by Roger Federer over Brian Dabul.

I know Dabul is a nobody. I know Federer's break point conversion rate was crap. But seriously, the signs were nothing but good. And that tweener... swoon.

Okay. Pulling self together now.

It was a mixed day for the Australians - good for the women, with only Ferguson falling, though Stosur looked shaky, but poor for the dudes. Carsten Ball might be through, but that was a big fat fail from Lleyton Hewitt. If you're not going to pull the actual comeback, dude, lose in three. Have mercy. You can't come all the way back and stumble at the last hurdle. It's just not cool.

But back to the good news story. Most rocking player of the day as far as the ladies go has to go to Sally Peers - what an awesome victory! After coming through qualies! I don't know a lot about Peers, but I am 100% impressed - here is hoping she can keep up this standard!

There were no major upsets today, but we have to talk about Robin Soderling. I have never heard of this Andreas Haider-Maurer fellow - what is the go there? I saw none of the match, but it seems to me like he almost did what he did in Australia: play an awesome two sets and then lose in five. Thankfully for him he got it together in the fifth, but that is dangerous for the Yoker. (Though considering the quarter of the draw he is in, if he wants to sit this one out, well...)

Gael Monfils also needed five, but Hewitt was the only male seed to fall today, and we lost no seeds in the ladies - this must be the least bloody opening day in quite some time (especially considering Hewitt was the #32 seed!) I don't expect it to stay that way in the rest of the first round, but the normalcy (especially for the ladies) is almost refreshing.

A word, though, for Dinara Safina. She just could not make anything happen against Hantuchova today. Take the rest of the year off, Dinara. Come back next year. Just chill for a bit. Stop trying so hard.

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...

Future Future Stars

We move our coverage this week to the Optus Under18 Championships in Melbourne, the age group from whence come a great many of our rising stars. Because they are rising. Oh yes they are. Australian tennis will be great again, mark my words.

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Unfortunately, because they are rising stars, I don't know much about a lot of them. Except Bernard Tomic... but he is the king of the rising stars. What I am hoping for out of the under18 championships this week is to discover a future (or more than one) Star of the Future, if that makes sense.

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So who did we have in action today...? Dane Propoggia had a great win. He reached the quarters of junior Wimbledon this year - he could be my next Ernests. Mark Verryth is a promising looking young gun. But I think my favourite might be Brendan McKenzie - if I can legitimately say that without ever having seen him play. All the match reports I've read are making me think he could be very dangerous indeed when he grows up...

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And in the girls, can you go past Isabella Holland? She totally owned her match today - 6-0 6-1. We haven't had a really good female player since Molik and Dokic. I would love to see young Bella Holland get up there - her and Jess Moore and Sally Peers are doing the nation proud with junior Fed cup and stuff! Unfortunately Monica Wejnert, who we talked about a while ago, went down today, but we cannot have quite everything...

Matters of National Importance

We talked a bit about Davis Cup the other day - so let's talk about Fed Cup. Isn't it incredible that a country can have its top three players be unavailable and STILL be the favourites to win? I'm talking Russia against Spain. Sharapova's out injured, Safina and Dementieva are absolutely exhausted, and still the Russians have got a great team. Svetlana Kuznetsova is their big gun, and they're also playing Vera Zvonareva, Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova. And there's even more depth if they wanted it: Nadia Petrova, Anna Chakvetadze, Alisa Kleybanova, Alla Kudryavtseva, and even the rookie Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has a couple of junior Slams under her belt. Isn't that incredible, how one country can have so many options?

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I wonder what would happen if our top three women dropped out for Fed Cup. At the moment, that's Casey Dellacqua, Sam Stosur and Alicia Molik - now she's retired, that'd bump up the next player, which would be Jessica Moore. So even if Jess Moore played, that means our Fed Cup team would consist of her, Jelena Dokic, Monique Adamczak and Sophie Ferguson. Next player down is Christina Wheeler. I'd play the young guns instead - Isabella Holland and Sally Peers and co. Somehow, I think we would get our collective arse kicked, but at least we'd be doing something different.

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Pretty much like in Davis Cup, actually.

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There was a nice article on the Tennis Australia website the other day about Sam Groth, who is one of those rookies playing on the Davis Cup team I'd never heard of. Apparently he had his first ever ATP win in July in Nottingham over Jamie Baker. Slightly more impressive, I thought, was the fact that he beat Janko Tipsarevic in qualifying. So he is capable of playing above his rank, it seems... not that it looks like it'll help much. I'd guess the only chance he'll get to play singles is in a dead rubber. John Fitzgerald would be a fool not to play Guccione and Luczak in the first rubbers. I'm guessing Chile will play Gonzalez and Massu... Luczak is a good claycourter and he did beat Stan Wawrinka that time in Davis Cup and Guccione has that monster serve, so there's some small possibility we might win a rubber or two... but I wouldn't bet on much.

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Look at me. I pretend to be all unconcerned about nationality in tennis, and here I am agonising over Davis Cup and Fed Cup. Oh well. I suppose they are a bit special.

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Today's Results

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BCR Open Romania (Bucharest)

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Richard Gasquet def. Teimuraz Gabashvili, 6-7 (6-8) 6-1 6-1

Gilles Simon def. Florent Serra, 6-2 6-3

Carlos Moya def. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 5-7 6-3 6-4

Jose Acasuso def. Ivan Navarro, 6-4 6-4

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Commonwealth Bank Tennis Classic (Bali)

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Daniela Hantuchova def. Chan Yung-Jan, 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-2

Patty Schnyder def. Marta Domachowska, 6-2 6-2

Tamira Paszek def. Flavia Pennetta, 4-6 6-0 6-2

Nadia Petrova def. Francesca Schiavone, 6-4 6-3