Men Tennis Update – Hamburg and Gstaad

Written by: Staff on 22nd July 2012

Men Tennis Update - Hamburg and Gstaad

epa03314240 Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia reacts to Thomasz Bellucci of Brazil during the final match at the Suisse open tennis tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland, 22 July 2012. EPA/PETER SCHNEIDER |

Hamburg

Singles – Semifinal: (3) J Monaco def. (1) N Almagro 3-6 6-3 6-4

And so the door closes…. Nicolas Almagro not only loses the #10 ranking to John Isner, he will lose the #11 ranking to Juan Monaco if Monaco can win Hamburg.

Singles – Semifinal: (WC) T Haas def. (4) M Cilic 7-6(9-7) 6-0

The first set of this took an hour and twenty minutes, and it obviously used up Marin Cilic — who, after all, was playing his eighth match in the last two weeks. Despite that winning streak, he remains stuck at #15. Tommy Haas is up to #35; a title would make him Top Thirty.

Doubles – Semifinal: Marrero/Verdasco def. (4) Erlich/A Ram 6-7(0-7) 6-4 14-12 (Match TB)

Clay evidently was more significant to the outcome of this match than were the rankings. If only just barely.

Doubles – Semifinal: Dutra Silva/Munoz-de la Nava def. Chardy/Simon 6-0 6-2

Gilles Simon crashed in singles, came back in the doubles, then crashed again. This almost sounds like quartan fever, or one of those other diseases that proceeds in three or four day cycles….

Gstaad

Singles – Semifinal: (1) J Tipsarevic def. P Mathieu 7-6(12-10) 6-3

Janko Tipsarevic managed to finish in straight sets, but they were long enough sets that the match took more than two hours. Will he have anything left for the final? He has to win that to earn any points at all — and he will be #8 no matter what.

Singles – Semifinal: T Bellucci def. G Dimitrov 7-6(7-3) 7-6(7-5)

Thomaz Bellucci seems to be intent on making up for his entire lost first half in the span of two weeks. This is nine straight wins for him, although five of them were in Challengers. Still, it appears he will be returning to the Top Fifty.

It seems like everyone is Top Fifty all of a sudden, doesn’t it?

Atlanta

Singles – Semifinal: (4) A Roddick def. (1) J Isner 6-4 6-7(5-7) 6-4

There was rain early in this match, but it didn’t seem to slow things down much — John Isner had 26 aces. (Andy Roddick, who will play doubles with Isner at the Olympics, cracked about how he would be happy to have that serve on his side of the net two weeks from now.) But on the rare occasions Roddick got the return in, he did more with it than Isner could. His reward is a return to the Top 25. He’ll be around #22 if he wins the title — and he is clearly the favorite to do so.

Singles – Semifinal: G Muller def. (8) G Soeda 6-4 6-3

At least, this time, Go Soeda lasted long enough to hit the Top Fifty. Probably. There are lots of people, including Gilles Muller, making their own pushes. Muller isn’t there yet — he was defending semifinalist points, after all — but a title would put him in.

We do find ourselves wondering how fast this court is. Three of the four semifinalists — Muller, Isner, and Roddick — are super serves. In this match, Muller had 17 aces in ten service games; more than a quarter of his points came on aces. Can he keep that up in the final? He has lost his two previous finals — and his last one came all the way back in 2005.

Doubles – Semifinal: Ebden/Harrison def. (1) Fleming/Hutchins 6-4 6-4

Ryan Harrison’s singles ranking just took a hit, but his doubles ranking will be improving.

Doubles – Semifinal: Malisse/Russell def. Klaasen/Young 6-4 4-6 10-5 (Match TB)

****** TODAY’S FEATURE ******

Men’s Look Forward: Kitzbuhel, Los Angeles

This really is it. The end of the road. After Kitzbuhel, there is no more clay.

Which makes it a bit odd to see Philipp Kohlschreier and Florian Mayer hanging around here the week before the Olympics. Both are comfortable on grass, yet they chose to spend this week as the #1 and #2 seeds at a clay event. Some preparation that is! To be sure, the Germans refused to let Mayer play the Olympics, but Kohlschreiber is in the field.

The rest of the field looks a little more clay-like. Robin Haase is the #3 seed, with Albert Ramos #4. (Interesting that Jurgen Melzer isn’t here — clearly he has the Olympics on his mind.) Those four have byes. The #5 seed is Martin Klizan, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez is #6, Ernests Gulbis has the #7 seed, and Blaz Kavcic is #8. That means the cutoff for seeding was around #80. So there really aren’t a lot of obvious threats among the unseeded players.

Los Angeles also looks weak. The cutoff for seeds is around #80, as in Austria — but Los Angeles can’t muster a single Top Forty player. The only Top Fifty player is #1 seed Benoit Paire (who can’t possibly have dreamed he would be the top player when he signed up). Two-time champion Sam Querrey has been doing well enough lately to earn the #2 seed — he has a real shot to return to the Top Fifty this week. Leonardo Mayer is #3; Nicolas Mahut has the #4 seed and the last bye. Xavier Malisse is #5, Marinko Matosevic #6, Bjorn Phau #7 (yes, we checked twice!), and Brian Baker’s hot results earned him a wildcard and the #8 seed. About the only unseeded players who seem at all likely to do damage are James Blake, who could face Matosevic in round two, and Jack Sock, who did well in Atlanta and could face Mayer in the second round.

The Rankings

Yet again we are playing calendar shift games — but, for once, we’re having more points come off than go on. The events last year at this time were Gstaad, Umag, and Los Angeles. Marcel Granollers won Gstaad, over Fernando Verdasco, with Mikhail Youzhny and Nicolas Almagro the semifinalists. Alexandr Dolgopolov won Umag, with Marin Cilic the finalist and Juan Carlos Ferrero and Fabio Fognini semifinalists. Ernests Gulbis was the Los Angeles winner (odd to see him in Kitzbuhel after that!), with Mardy Fish the finalist and Ryan Harrison and Alex Bogomolov Jr. semifinalists.

That appears to mean no movement anywhere near the top of the rankings. The Top Ten should be entirely unchanged. With Fish and Cilic and Granollers losing points, there will be a little movement in the Top Twenty, but not much; Granollers will be falling out, but it’s not yet clear who will take his place.

Topics: 10sballs.com, almagro, Gstaad tennis news, Haas, Hamburg tennis news, Jank Tipsarevic, Monaco, Sports, Tennis, Verdasco

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