Sony Ericsson Open Recap
Well, in regards to my last post, Andy Roddick did indeed “step up.” Even though he lost to the first Russian ever to win the Sony Ericsson Open (this includes all 76 different names the tournament has been called), Nikolay Davydenko, Roddick has to come away from this tournament with a huge sense of accomplishment. Beating Federer, while might not sound as grand as it did six months ago, is a huge weight off Roddick’s shoulders, after having lost 11 times in a row. Now, when he sees Federer in the same part of the draw, there will no longer be the same feeling of dread he once had.
Now, onto the biggest surprise of the tournament, Men’s winner Davydenko (who must have had lots of money on himself to win). All kidding aside, the man played absolutely outstanding in the latter part of the tournament. I actually picked him to lose in the second round to young Latvian Ernestis Gulbis, and after barely surviving that match (winning 8-6 in the 3rd set breaker), Davydenko seemed to get stronger as the tournament progressed. I went to his quarterfinal match against Tipsaravic, who I thought would give Davydenko trouble, and I was quickly proved wrong as he disposed of him 6-2, 6-1. Then he lost a total of 14 games in his last two matches, against Roddick (who may have found it hard to rebound after a mentally and physically exhausting match against Federer the night before), and Rafael Nadal. Davydenko deserves the limelight for a bit, and this time its for something he accomplished on the court.
On the Women’s side, Serena Williams seemingly came out of nowhere, as she tends to do, to take the Women’s title. She took down Jelena Jankovic in the finals, 6-3 in the third. Not to take any credit away from Williams, but Jankovic played downright awful - committing 43 unforced errors with only 16 winners. The better match was the Williams-Kuznetsova semifinal, another 6-3 in the third victory for Serena, but the match quality was on a different stratosphere than the final. However, even winning the tournament probably wasn’t the highlight for her- utterly dismantling world number 1 Justine Henin (who took Serena down in almost every major tournament the second half of last year) 6-2, 6-0 was probably Serena’s favorite moment of the tournament. Well, on second thought, the near $600,000 check she collected for winning probably topped all.
Back in a couple of days with a Davis Cup preview and links-o-plenty.