Hanging Tough

You know who has totally snuck under my radar this week? Sam Stosur.

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This is a little unusual, because I usually follow Slammin' Sammy pretty closely, given as she's one of the few good things Australian tennis has going for it at the moment. But in the all the lead up to Montreal next week, with the return of Rafa and Roger and the first pictures of Myla and Charlene and the announcement of their new playmate Baby Wawrinka, I've been a bit distracted when it comes to stuff happening on court this week.

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But no matter. I'm here for you now, Sam - Sam who is into the final of LA! How 'bout that?! And LA was a tough, tough field. Like, really tough. Sure there were no Williams sisters, but there was just about everyone else. And looking back at Sam's scores, she has had a pretty decent run. She's gone to three, but she hasn't had any total down-to-the-wire nailbiters. She's hanging tough and getting it done.

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And ain't that something.

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I seriously believe Stosur can be top ten after the US hardcourt season is over. She has so much in her game to like - her serve and her exquisite volleys probably top the list. She's only really recently come into her own on the singles court after being a doubles specialist and then having Lyme disease, but I like, like, LIKE what I see! And I think the major change is that she's learned to hang in there a whole lot better than she did - even over the last six months or so. I don't think the Stosur would choke away match points like she did against Serena in Sydney.

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No, Sammy is Slammin' and she's here to stay. I would dearly love for her to win LA, which is a biggish tournament - I think it'd be some great validation for all that she's achieved!

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Today's Results

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Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington)

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Juan Martin Del Potro def. Fernando Gonzalez, 7-6 (7-2) 6-3

Andy Roddick def. John Isner, 6-7 (3-7) 6-2 7-5

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LA Women's Tennis Classic (Los Angeles)

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Samantha Stosur def. Sorana Cirstea, 6-3 6-2

Flavia Pennetta def. Maria Sharapova, 6-2 4-6 6-3

Family Photo

Tidbit of news - Roger Federer has just released the first photo of his new family, Roger and Mirka plus babies. It's beautiful. And at the same time, he's confirmed his participation in the Rogers Cup in Montreal.

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I don't know whether Mirka and the girls are going to go with him, which will be a very different experience for him. It's very rare to see a Roger match without faithful Mirka in the box supporting him, and on top of that, I don't think he'd be too keen on leaving his beautiful baby daughters Myla and Charlene behind. So maybe they will go with him - which will be a different experience, trying to focus on tennis with two such lovely (and presumably loud) distractions. So either way, it will be an interesting experience for Roger at the Rogers Cup.

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But what is most intriguing about Montreal is that it's sort of the first tournament back after the summer holidays and everything has changed in the interim. It's the debut of the new world order - Federer at #1, Nadal at #2, with a pair of suspect knees and Myla and Charlene along for the ride. Both the great champions of our sport have undergone signifcant changes since we last saw them. Rafa has been dealing with incredible injury as well as some pretty nasty personal stuff. Roger has become a daddy. The world has changed.

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The family photo of the ATP is now significantly different from the last time it was snapped. And it's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out on the court. Will Roger be inspired by his daughters to ascend to another, even more sublime, level of tennis and float through the US Open series on a wave of joy and brilliance? Will Rafa be so determined to prove himself after injury that he steamrolls every obstacle in his path with that mental toughness we've come to know and love so well? Or will both boys be a bit distracted and will someone else triumph?

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I can't say. And neither can anyone. And the truth is, no one will know anything until we see those guys play. The proof is in the pudding, and we can theorise as much as we choose, but until we see them play, we don't know a goddamn thing.

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Except that Myla and Charlene Federer are adorable.

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Today's Results

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Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington)

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Juan Martin Del Potro def. Robin Soderling, walkover

Fernando Gonzalez def. Tommy Haas, 7-5 6-4

Andy Roddick def. Ivo Karlovic, 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5)

John Isner def. Tomas Berdych, 6-3 6-7 (10-12) 6-2

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LA Women's Tennis Championships (Los Angeles)

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Sorana Cirstea def. Agnieszka Radwanska, 7-6 (7-4) 1-6 7-5

Samantha Stosur def. Jie Zheng, 4-6 6-3 6-4

A Pair of Papas

News just in, hot off the press, extra extra read all about it, etc etc. I don't know how reliable my sources are, but this just in - apparently Stan Wawrinka and his ladyfriend Ilham Vuilloud are having a baby.

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Now, I must confess that this news freaked me out just a little bit - but that's only because Stan was born in the same year I am and the likelihood of me having kids anytime soon is less than zero and it made me feel old. But then I got passed that and was all delightfully happy for them. Stan will be a wonderfully cute dad! I don't know much about his Mirka Ilham, but I'm sure she's lovely as well.
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So, what's it to be? Are Myla and Charlene Federer in for a bit of competition from little Miss Wawrinka when Wimbledon rolls round in twenty years time? Or is Roger Federer going to have to sit Stan Jr. down and tell him to watch his step round his precious baby girls? Could we see another Federer/Wawrinka doubles gold medal?

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...actually, probably not on that last one, because one assumes Myla and Charlene would play with each other and mixed isn't an Olympic sport. But maybe it will be in twenty years' time! Maybe we could see a marvellous mixed combination!

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I don't know what's in the water over there in Switzerland, but they're producing some pretty marvellous parents over there... and some babies with some pretty remarkable tennis genes. The destinies of Clan Federer and Clan Wawrinka may well be intertwined forevermore, as cemented by that wonderful gold medal last year. I'm looking forward to seeing you, baby Wawrinka - and I bet Roger's glad his precious girls will have someone to play with! What a marvellous pair of papas they shall be!

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Today's Results

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Legg Mason Tennis Championships (Washington)

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Juan Carlos Ferrero def. Tommy Robredo, 6-3 6-2

Philipp Petzschner def. Mardy Fish, 1-6 6-4 6-1

Ivo Karlovic def. Rainer Schuettler, 6-4 7-5

Andy Roddick def. Benjamin Becker, 6-3 6-2

Sam Querrey def. Igor Kunitsyn, 6-3 6-4

Wayne Odesnik def. Igor Andreev, 2-6 7-5 6-4

Fernando Gonzalez def. Alejandro Falla, 7-5 7-5

Marc Gicquel def. Viktor Troicki, 3-0 retired

Lleyton Hewitt def. Dudi Sela, 6-3 2-6 6-2

John Isner def. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 7-6 (7-4)

Robin Soderling def. Mikhail Youzhny, 6-3 6-1

Sebastien de Chaunac def. Dmitry Tursunov, 3-6 7-6 (7-3) 7-5
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LA Women's Tennis Championships (Los Angeles)

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Jie Zheng def. Elena Vesnina, 6-4 4-6 6-0

Samantha Stosur def. Maria Kirilenko, 6-2 6-4
Anna Chakvetadze def. Alisa Kleybanova, 6-3 3-6 6-1

Agnieszka Radwanska def. Ai Sugiyama, 6-2 6-1

Urszula Radwanska def. Dominika Cibulkova, 6-4 6-7 (6-8) 6-4

Nadia Petrova def. Shahar Peer, 6-4 2-6 6-3

Flavia Pennetta def. Coco Vandeweghe, 6-2 6-4

Yanina Wickmayer def. Jill Craybas, 7-6 (7-2) 6-1

Dinara Safina def. Daniela Hantuchova, 6-2 6-4

Alona Bondarenko def. Lucie Safarova, 5-7 6-4 7-5

Na Li def. Aleksandra Wozniak, 4-6 6-4 6-2

Sabine Lisicki def. Ekaterina Makarova, 6-1 6-4

Maria Sharapova def. Victoria Azarenka, 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 6-2

Sound in Mind... and Hopefully Body

It's official - Rafa Nadal will be returning to the court at Montreal in his first match since his rather ignominious (though understandable) loss to Robin Soderling at Roland Garros. And talk about pressure - um, yeah, Rafa, you're the defending champion. Deal with that.

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So here's the question - which way is Rafa going to go?

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The way I see it, it's going to be purely physical. Either the Nadal knees are better, or they're not. Either they're fixed, or they're f*cked. The only thing that stands between Rafa and a new blaze of glory is the same thing that stands between his brain and the ground - his body.

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Well, and Roger Federer, but that's the same for everyone.

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What I'm getting at, though, is that I don't think there's a chance in hell that Rafa is going to be let down by his mind. We have seen too often and too well just how tough Rafa is in the head to ever underestimate him on that score. Mentally, Rafa is a machine - anyone who can play through the excruciating amounts of pain he was is a little superhuman. In that sense, I think we're going to see the same ol' Rafa. He's not going to be affected by losing the #1 ranking or by the streak that the great one RF is one. Rafa does his own thing and in his own mind, he is tough.

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So it all comes down to the body. Rafa Nadal has the mind of a gladiator - will his body rise to the task?

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Today's Results

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Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington)

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Benjamin Becker def. Robby Ginepri, 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (1-7) 7-6 (7-4)

Rainer Schuettler def. Leonardo Mayer, 6-1 3-6 7-6 (7-5)

Sebastien de Chaunac def. Denis Istomin, 6-3 7-6 (9-7)

Juan Carlos Ferrero def. Nicolas Lapentti, 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-0

Somdev Devvarman def. Marin Cilic, 7-5 6-4

Tommy Haas def. Frank Dancevic, 6-1 4-6 6-4

Juan Martin del Potro def. Yen-hsun Lu, 4-6 6-3 6-2

Somdev Devvarman def. Marin Cilic, 7-5 6-4

Tomas Berdych def. Ernests Gulbis, 6-2 7-6 (8-6)

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LA Women's Tennis Championships (Los Angeles)

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Daniela Hantuchova def. Melanie Oudin, 6-7 (3-7) 6-2 6-2

Jie Zheng def. Olga Savchuk, 7-5 1-6 6-2

Samantha Stosur def. Monica Niculescu, 6-1 6-2

Maria Kirilenko def. Chanelle Scheepers, 4-6 6-3 6-1

Sorana Cirstea def. Michelle Larcher de Brito, 6-4 7-5

Ekaterina Makarova def. Melinda Czink, 3-6 6-4 6-1

Sabine Lisicki def. Kimiko Date Krumm, 7-6 (7-5) 2-6 7-5

Urszula Radwanska def. Julie Coin, 6-1 6-2

Aleksandra Wozniak def. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 7-5 7-5

Na Li def. Ayumi Morita, 6-0 2-0 retired

Vera Zvonareva def. Peng Shuai, 3-6 6-3 7-6 (8-6)

Ana Ivanovic def. Vania King, 6-4 4-6 6-1

King Kolya of AlternaTour

And now to our final weekend winner, though the weekend is long gone - the King of AlternaTour where they play on clay out of season, Nikolay Davydenko.

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Kolya typically wins a lot around this time of the year - mainly because no one really sane plays on AlternaTour so he can tear up the court. But for some reason I'm finding him especially ominous this year. Maybe it's the time off he took with injury. Maybe it's just some sort of renewed sense of motivation. But there seems to be a bit of a sharper edge to Kolya right now.

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I don't think he can really be considered as a candidate for this year's Juan because hello, Kolya has well and truly arrived. He's been as high as #3 if memory serves and I don't think he's going to get that high again, not with the Hispano-Suisse domination machine still steamrolling around and Muzza on the page... though Djokovic seems to be hanging on by his fingernails. But I just have a feeling about Kolya...

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It depends on the side of the draw he ends up in. He has a record against the great one RF that could best be described as 'crap'. However, against Rafa, he's notched a win or two up. And he really is a very, very good player - not a champion, but very consistent and very talented, capable of unseating just about anyone...

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How does Nikolay Davydenko, US Open finalist, sound to everyone else?

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I'm not calling it - yet. But I'm sure not putting it outside the realms of possibility...

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Today's Results

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Mason Legg Tennis Classic (Washington)

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Mikhail Youzhny def. Robert Kendrick, 7-5 3-6 6-1

Philipp Petzschner def. Teimuraz Gabashvili, 4-6 6-3 6-4

Somdev Devvarman def. Yuichi Sugita, 6-0 7-6 (8-6)

Yen-hsun Lu def. Michael Russell, 4-6 6-1 7-5

Frank Dancevic def. Santiago Giraldo, 6-4 6-3

Alejandro Falla def. Jesse Witten, 6-1 6-4

Lleyton Hewitt def. Donald Young, 7-5 6-2

Marc Gicquel def. Jerzy Janowicz, 7-5 2-6 6-4

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LA Women's Tennis Championships (Los Angeles)

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Elena Vesnina def. Agnes Szavay, 6-1 6-0

Anna Chakvetadze def. Virginie Razzano, 7-6 (7-5) 6-3

Alona Bondarenko def. Meghann Shaughnessy, 3-6 6-3 6-3

Shahar Peer def. Anastasia Rodionova, 7-5 4-1 retired

Flavia Pennetta def. Varvara Lepchenko, 6-2 5-7 6-0

Jill Craybas def. Francesca Schiavone, 7-6 (9-7) 6-2

Yanina Wickmayer def. Nicola Vaidisova, 6-1 6-1

Shuai Peng def. Michaella Krajicek, 6-3 6-7 (4-7) 6-3

Ball Bounced

I don't think anyone's surprised that Ball got bounced by Querrey - it had to happen sooner or later. The possibility of Carsten Ball being in an ATP final is possible in this universe, but him actually winning would catapult us into a new one where fish rode bicycles and stuff.

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That said, kudos to Carsten for taking up those miniscule odds to make the final and for playing Querrey tight. I've liked a lot of what I've seen off the Querrey racquet lately - as I'll discuss in a moment - and Ball, little Carsten Ball of whom no one has really heard, took him to three sets. Sure, the third set was a bit of a blow out, but Carsten hung tough there for quite some time. I don't think he's ever going to be a worldbeater, but onya Carsten.

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On to Querrey. Now, I used to think he was spectacularly overrated - a sort of middle ground between Karlovic and Guccione. I'm still no Samurai, but you have to have kudos for what he's brought of late... and for finally winning a final, even if it was against Carsten Ball. He says he thinks he can win the US Open... I think that might be optimistic, mate. But there's no reason he can't pull a Juan and make quarters or so before going out to a Murray or a Djokovic or, hell, a del Potro. Actually, depending on where he is in the draw, I'm calling it now. Quarters for Sam Querrey... unless he's in the Federer quarter. Or possibly the Nadal quarter, depending on the state of Rafa's knees.

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And Marion Bartoli, eh? What was she doing winning Stanford when there were the Williams sisters there? And Demetieva and other folks that are, like, all good and stuff? I do not understand...

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...more on our final weekend winner, Nikolay Davydenko, tomorrow... unless you count the winner of Istanbul, but I know nothing about her, so no counting will be done.

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Today's Results

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LA Tennis Open (Los Angeles)

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Sam Querrey def. Carsten Ball, 6-4 3-6 6-1

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Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington)

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Wayne Odesnik def. Paul Capdeville, 4-6 6-2 6-4

Ernests Gulbis def. Kevin Kim, 7-5 3-6 6-3

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LA Women's Tennis Championships (Los Angeles)

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Lucie Safarova def. Kaia Kanepi, 6-3 7-6 (7-4)

Alisa Kleybanova def. Alla Kudryavtseva, 6-1 6-3

Ai Sugiyama def. Carly Gullickson, 6-3 6-1

Vania King def. Sybille Bammer, 6-3 6-2

Bellucci Blazes

I don't know how this happened without my noticing, but would you look at that: another one of my Stars has gone and won a title! Told you they'd be good (if only Ernests Gulbis would listen...)

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This particular Star is Thomaz Bellucci, who first caught my attention when he played Rafa Nadal pretty tight in the first round of Roland Garros last year. He's a claycourter by nature, but he's done all right on other surfaces as well. I think the reason I've been basically ignoring him this week is that he's playing on AlternaTour, where you can basically play on clay for eleven straight months, but a title is a title, even if it is in Gstaad on the red stuff.

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He's obviously been playing some good stuff all week and he overcame a pretty good current player, Andreas Beck, in the final to lift his maiden trophy. Am oddly proud, even though I obviously have nothing to do with career - he's proving me right in my picks for future Stars. He's maybe not in my first tier of Stars with Cilic and (glup) Gulbis, who I really believe will be top ten, but Bellucci is going to be round for a long time, making things tough on clay (and occasionally other surfaces) for a while yet.

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What I would like to see him do now is stop playing on AlternaTour and start playing more on other surfaces to become more well-rounded. He certainly doesn't suck on other surfaces, but I am morally opposed to AlternaTour. Tennis should follow the Slams, in my humble and ill-educated opinion. For a tennis player's career as a whole, I don't think it's really good to be playing on the one surface for so long.

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But enough dire career warning. Well done, Thomaz Bellucci, Star of the Future, on your maiden title!

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Today's Results

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Allianz Suisse Open Gstaad (Gstaad)

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Thomaz Bellucci def. Andreas Beck, 6-4 7-6 (7-2)

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ATP Studena Croatia Open (Umag)

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Nikolay Davydenko def. Juan Carlos Ferrero, 6-3 6-0

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Bank of the West Classic (Stanford)

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Marion Bartoli def. Samantha Stosur, 6-3 1-6 6-1

Marion Bartoli def. Venus Williams, 6-2 5-7 6-4

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Istanbul Cup (Istanbul)

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Vera Dushevina def. Lucie Hradecka, 6-0 6-1