ATP - How easy would it be to write the following sentence - Rafael Nadal will dominate Men’s tennis for the next six weeks, capturing at least three of the following five tournaments - Monte Carlo, Munich, Rome, Hamburg and the French Open. However, while I may be an idiot for saying this, I simply do not see Nadal playing to that same level this year. I know the first part of the year is played on hard court, obviously not Nadal’s stronger surface, but the bottom line is he lost a few matches that were very surprising. It’s not only that he has lost some surprising matches (eg - to Andres Seppi in Rotterdam, but how he lost a few others - such as getting obliterated by Youzhny in Chennai 6-0, 6-1 or by Davydenko in straight sets at the Sony Ericsson Open. In a nutshell, I don’t think Nadal is playing well enough to dominate on clay in the same fashion he has the past few years.
If my theory above is true, then what a great clay court season we have in store for ourselves. Davydenko is playing the best tennis of his career, Djokovic is now thought by many experts to be the main competitor for Federer’s # 1 ranking, and Federer himself just won the first clay court event of the season in Estoril. Granted, the only top tier player he took on was Davydenko in the final, who retired after losing the first set in a break, but still with Jose Higueras and a win under his belt, look out for Federer to be in the later rounds of most of the clay court events he plays. Remember, for a player of that caliber, it doesn’t take much to jolt his confidence (which we saw the mono do the first part of the season), but the other side of the coin is that it doesn’t take much to gain that confidence right back. Also, never count out the Spanish contingent, led by David Ferrer, who made it to his first Grand Slam semifinal at the US Open last year, and the ageless wonder Caros Moya, who has climbed back into the top 15 in the world (although was upset by Sam Querrey in the first round at Monte Carlo). And, look out for young guns still looking to make a breakthrough in major events such as Gasquet, Berdych & Andy Murray.
WTA - There is a issue with Women’s tennis now, and one can look at it in one of two ways. The issue is that the top eight or so are really, really good, and more or less dominating everyone else. Glass half full means that tournaments are extra exciting because it’s almost guaranteed that the top players will make it through their respective parts of the draw. Glass half empty means the WTA Tour is essentially turning into the NBA, meaning there is not point in watching until the last few minutes (or rounds). When the top eight women (in order - Henin, Ivanovic, Sharapova, Kuznetsova, Jankovic, S. Williams, Chakvatadze, V. Williams) take on anyone outside, say, the top 20 in the world it’s nearly impossible to see them losing, no matter what the surface is. So there is the WTA clay court preview, it really is a crapshoot between those eight to see who is going to come out on top of each big tournament. My wish for these next six weeks on the WTA Tour is that a couple of relative unknowns appear in the latter stages of some of the upcoming events. It might not be great in the short term with regards to crowds and TV viewers, but some more depth for Women’s tennis will definitely help in the long term.
I’ll post some links for you tomorrow, and have a Fed Cup preview on Thursday. Until then, my only advice is don’t get sucked into a team you know will break your heart in the end.
