Not the Second Coming

It is just not Fernando Verdasco's year.

This said, does anyone else feel like FeVer is a little bit, well... overrated? He had one outstanding tournament at the Aussie Open last year. He played Rafa tighter than he will ever play him again. I feel very comfortable making this claim. But since then - a few minor tournaments aside - FeVer just ain't all that.

He's not a bad player - not even close. He's not even mediocre. He's just not the Second Coming of Rafa that everyone seems to think he is. He's had some good results - some Slam quarters and whatnot. But I don't think FeVer's ever going to make a Slam final. I don't think he's even going to make semis again. I think he's doomed to more of the same - more small tournament victories and upset-but-not-upsetting early round losses to up and comers like Thiemo de Bakker.

The Second Coming of Rafa would take a couple of early losses, sure. All the greats do, every now and again. But FeVer takes so many of these early losses and he doesn't back them up with the wins. I don't know how close FeVer is to making the end of year championships but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he doesn't. I don't know what he's done to earn it.

And you know what? the expectation placed on his shoulders after AO '09 can't have been good for him. There must be one thing worse than being a Roger or a Rafa and having the weight of the world on your shoulders, pushing expectations uphill like Sisyphus. Imagine being Verdasco - imagine being called the Second Coming of Rafa when really, you're not. Not even close. That must be very, very painful.

A List of Unrelated Facts

Let's see if I can string together a blog post that doesn't rhyme for the first time in what? four days? Maybe this week will be more interesting. I have to believe it.

Let's do a list of things I think are noteworthy or interesting instead of a poem. And I'll try very hard to make sure it doesn't rhyme. I will, however, be extremely cryptic and not explain what I mean.

1) I used to really like Viktor Troicki. Now I think he is a bit disappointing.

2) Jack Sock is kicking Ryler de Heart's arse when it comes to the best name in American tennis.

3) I really need to watch some of this Thiemo de Bakker dude. Everyone seems to think he's awesome. I've missed it totally. I hate missing bandwagons. It makes me sad.

4) I am on the Yuki Bhambri bandwagon. Mostly because he has a cool name.

5) Being a Svetlana Kuznetsova fan is like repeatedly banging your head into a wall. Sometimes you're so dazed you forget the wall's there, but mostly you're in agony.

6) I'm really glad I'm not a Vika fan. That seems like it would be worse.

7) It would be awesome if Bepa became #1 in the world, even if it was just for a week.

8) Is Kevin Anderson awesome or something now? He seems to be everywhere.

9) Andrey Golubev is definitely awesome.

10) What are your random inane comments?

The Court Where Stuff Happens

Court 2 used to be the Wimbledon court with all the notoriety - the graveyard of champions where big names fell with such incredible regularity. But Court 2 doesn't have it any more. The most notorious court on the Wimbledon grounds now has to be Court 18.

I'm not sure if playing there is a blessing or a curse, but if you're playing on Court 18, chances are your match will be memorable. Maybe it will go for eleven hours and span three days. Or maybe it will be the forum for one of the foulest cases of bad sportsmanship I have ever witnessed.

I know there were people in the crowd who were doing something (not sure what) to upset Victor Hanescu. But come on, he's supposed to be a professional tennis player. Tune it out, dude. Get into your zone. There is no excuse for the way Hanescu behaved.

His opponent, Daniel Brands, had this to say:

"In the final set I recognised that he had some problems with his leg and he was getting angry, and angry with the crowd. The main reason was because [he was getting jeered] from some people in the crowd. I didn't hear [him swear]. I think he was deliberately foot faulting and serving some double faults on purpose.

"At the end he came and shook my hand at the net. I asked him what happened. He said he was injured and had to retire. I didn't see him after leaving the court. That was the first time that we played against each other. It doesn't happen really very often that the player gets angry. It's not polite to act lke he did but that's his decision that he made."

Brands is very diplomatic about the whole thing - primarily because I think he is as confused about the whole situation as everyone else is. I don't think anyone really knows what went on with Hanescu and the crowd, but I don't really think it matters. There is no excuse for the kind of stunt Hanescu pulled. There is no excuse for unsportsmanlike conduct and there is no excuse for tanking. It is extremely disrespectful, not just to the crowd who were on his case, but to his opponent.

I am sure Daniel Brands would have loved to have won this match under better circumstances. I am sure he'll take the win anyway, but I don't anyone would really want to win this way. I hope Hanescu gets smacked with a big, big fine. This behaviour is unacceptable.

Oh, and also on Court 18, Jarmila Groth won her match against Angelique Kerber. This might not seem so remarkable, but when you consider that Jarka has now made the round of sixteen at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon despite being ranked around #80, then it starts getting pretty remarkable! (What's even more remarkable is that the Australian media don't seem to have noticed yet...)

And John Isner's tournament is over. I don't think anyone expected him to beat de Bakker, and in a way, I'm glad he lost. It would be wrong if he progressed deep in the tournament and Mahut was left stranded holding nothing but a first round loser's check and a souvenir bowl. That match existed outside Wimbledon (and, some might argue, all sense of time and reality). It'll go down as one of the great ones. Victory was Pyrrhic for Isner, and really, that's the way it should be. That match wasn't about winning and losing - that one really was, to use the old adage, about playing the game.

Best Name In Tennis

Thiemo de Bakker. One of the greatest names in tennis... just as a name, not as a player. Seriously, this is a great name.

Rafa beat him in Monte Carlo last week and everyone was like, 'meh, TdB. Come back to me when you beat someone awesome'. Which Rafa did. But I would like to contest that TdB is not un-awesome himself.

I mean, he beat Jo-Dub Tsonga. And Jo on clay... or Jo anywhere... that's really a bit of something.

I really don't know anything about de Bakker except that he has an awesome name. Which is really the whole reason I've devoted this very short blog post to him. But he's going to be someone to keep an eye on. I don't think he's going to pull a JMDP and win four tournaments in a row or anything... but he's consistently pulling results. He could be on the up.

And also, come on. Who has a better name? Thiemo de Bakker. That is a GREAT name.

The Bakery Reopens

The Rafa Nadal bakery is well and truly open for business. Two bagels, two breadsticks... wow. That's something else.

Rafa hasn't won a tournament since Rome last year and so he is, in some respects, at his most vulnerable going into this clay season. If he cannot win on clay, especially here at Monte Carlo, where he's won six times in a row before, then something is going on.

...but as of this moment, something is not going on. Or rather it is, but it is the good something. If Rafa wanted to send a message, he could hardly have done it better. Smell that fresh bakery aroma - it's going to be around for a while.

I mean, sure, Thiemo de Bakker and Michael Berrer aren't exactly Federer and Djokovic. But when you consider the pressure - the incredibly immense pressure - that is on Nadal at the moment, the way he has opened this season is exemplary. There's no fear from Rafa - Shmafa is nowhere to be seen on the red stuff. There's none of that caution that we saw after that loss he took to Soderling at Roland Garros. There's none of that.

It's a little difficult to make a sweeping statement based on two matches. But when in those two matches Rafa only gave up two games... consider this statement swept. Rafa is, as ever, the man to beat at Monte Carlo - and he's the one they'll all have to overcome if anyone else is going to taste glory on clay.

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