The State of the Game – Part III Djokovic, Berdych, Murray and Tipsarevic

Written by: Tennischiro on 1st March 2012

The State of the Game - Part III Djokovic, Berdych, Murray and Tipsarevic |

The top half of the draw in Dubai went completely according to seed today and is likely to do so right up to the final, unless Berdych somehow gets to Murray. The big Czech has lost just 7 games in 2 matches and holds a 3-1 career record against Andy, but he won’t be able to save 11 out of 12 break points against the Scotsman as he did today against Lukas Lacko. On the other hand, Murray looked sharper today against Chiudinelli winning 74% of his service points and not allowing a single break point. One of them will earn the privilege of facing Djokovic unless both Novak and Janko revert to their yearend form where Djokovic was injured and Tipsarevic was playing the best tennis of his career. In today’s matches, Tipsarevic couldn’t quite make half of his first serves (49%) and was still able to win 22 of 34 points where he made his second serve. Unfortunately, he double-faulted 5 times as well. He won’t get away with that against his fellow Serb. Novak was making 69% of his first serves today and winning 36 of those 45 points. Djokovic is rounding into form very well, thank you. He has no intention of mailing it in just to get to Indian Wells a couple of days early. He’s defending his title here; he’s greedy; and in the infamous words of Gordon Gecko, …

And in the rest of the world,

In Delray Beach, Isner will face an interesting test in Bernard Tomic in the quarters on Friday. Roddick has a chance to face the winner of that match on Saturday, but he has to get through Denis Istomin tomorrow night and then either the X-Man, Xavier Malisse or another giant, 6′ 8″ South African, Kevin Anderson who has gradually been moving up the rankings for over 22 months since he first broke into the top 100. He does have 180 points to defend in Miami, but except for a couple of 45s in Madrid and Roland Garros, he has nothing to defend until July. So there are a lot of questions about to be answered in the top half. In the bottom half, we could easily see Ernst Gulbis make one of his bursts from nowhere (unseeded). He’ll have to get through qualifier Matosevic on Friday and then winner of Sela/Niemenen or Kohlschreiber/Dodig. All in all, it seems to me it is a great opportunity for Isner, … but there are a lot of background questions that will get cleared up before we get to Indian Wells.

And over in Acapulco, Ferrer and Almagro are making their way towards another clay court final. There are no seeds left for Ferrer in the top half. He will face Andujar to play the winner of Berlocq/Geraldo. Ferrer rarely loses to anyone a few slots behind him in the ranking, especially on clay, so…
In the bottom half, it is a little more up in the air. I was looking to see what Nishikori could do on the clay and he showed promise, but ran out of gas against Chardy (6-0 in third). Chardy will face Wawrinka who has seen his ranking drop out of the top 30 for the first time since March of 2008, 4 years ago! But Stan had a good showing last week losing to Almagro 7-5 in the third in the semis of Buenos Aires. Almagro will have to deal with Fernando Verdasco in the other quarterfinal and there’s no telling who will show up to play that match. Fernando hasn’t won more than 2 matches in a row since last July. Granted, it’s not an easy thing to do, but for a player many of us pegged as a potential challenger at the uppermost levels of the game just 2 years ago, it’s a little disappointing. My guess: Ferrer in the final over an energized Wawrinka who took advantage of an exhausted survivor of the Almagro/Verdasco knock-down-drag-out quarterfinals; but Ferrer nonetheless!

The real drama starts in a few hours in Dubai, but there are a lot of interesting backstories and previews of what we will see in another week at Indian Wells.

And as for the USC/UCLA match I went to see, it was a brutally cold afternoon in Westwood today and it was even colder for the hometeam (full details at http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-tennis/recaps/030112aaa.html). USC ran off all three doubles matches to get started with the doubles point and then bagged 5th, 2nd and 1st singles in straight sets to secure the team victory as Steve Johnson extended his singles match win streak to 48 while the team extended its win streak to 34. Daniel Nguyen and Roberto Quiroz came back from a set down to win their #3 and #6 singles matches in tie-breakers. The lone UCLA victory of the day was a comeback by Adrien Puget at 4th singles against Emilio Gomez, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(9-7).

10sChiro

to see the second part of this “State of the Game”, go to

https://archive.10sballs.com/2012/02/29/the-state-of-the-game-part-ii-fish-federer-tsonga-del-potro-and-youhzny/

to see the first part of this “State of the Game”, go to

https://archive.10sballs.com/2012/02/28/the-state-of-the-game-in-the-second-season-of-2012-djokovic-nadal-federer-murray-and-who-else/

to see other articles by 10sChiro, go to

https://archive.10sballs.com/author/don/

Topics: Berdych, djokovic, Murray, Tipsarevic