Latest Men’s and Women’s Tennis Update

Written by: Staff on 17th November 2013

Latest Men's and Women's Tennis Update

epa03954314 Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic returns the ball to Dusan Lajovic of Serbia during their Davis Cup final match in Belgrade, Serbia, 17 November 2013. EPA/ANDREJ CUKIC |

****** EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ******

* Djokovic beats Berdych, but Czechs retain Davis Cup

****** TODAY’S MEN’S NEWS ******

Davis Cup

It’s like Friday all over again: We wish we had something to tell you — but we don’t. Not really. Everything went as expected. Sunday’s action opened with Novak Djokovic facing Tomas Berdych, needing to win to keep the tie between Serbia and the Czechs alive. But, of course, he’s Novak Djokovic. He was never broken, and beat Berdych 6-4 7-6 6-2. It took more than two and a half hours, but Djokovic plays very slowly — and he has a month and a half to rest after this.

Even though that leveled the tie at 2-2, it hardly affected the odds, because everyone expected things to come down to the fifth match, between Radek Stepanek (who had been brilliant in doubles the day before) and Dusan Lajovic, still looking for his first live Davis Cup win. Djokovic himself, after the match, said “This will mean nothing at all to me unless we win the trophy.” (Not quite true, since it’s worth a lot of points, but it seems clear that that’s genuinely how he feels.)

Lajovic, who reportedly had never played a best-of-five match prior to Friday, started surprisingly strong, breaking Stepanek in the opening game — but he gave the break back at once. And that was about the only sign of life he showed. Rather than talk about it more, we’ll just say that Stepanek won 6-3 6-1 6-1, and the Czechs had defended the Davis Cup.

There really isn’t much to say except to quote some of the statistics. It was the second time in a row that Stepanek played the fifth and deciding match in the Davis Cup final — and the second time he has won it. Just by playing, he became the oldest player to contest a fifth and deciding match in the final (breaking his own record from last year); by winning, he of course becomes the oldest player to clinch in a fifth match. He is also the only player to win back-to-back live fifth rubbers in the final, and only the third in history to twice win the Cup in a live fifth rubber — and the first in the Open Era.

Most of the comments on the result were pretty standard, but Stepanek was intrigued by what he did: “That’s a beautiful stat, what can I say? I’m indescribably happy. This is the highest [accomplishment]. To win Davis Cup is so far my biggest achievement. I got in Top Ten singles, Top Ten doubles, I won two [doubles] Grand Slams, played Masters in singles and doubles, winning two Davis Cups is just on top of it.”

You have to pity poor Lajovic, who is only 23. He hasn’t really shown much potential — he hadn’t won an ATP match all year — but will he ever recover from this? If nothing else, he was, briefly, the #2 item trending on our Twitter feed.

****** TODAY’S FEATURE ******

KEYWORDS: No Feature Today

******** THIS WEEK IN TENNIS ********

THIS WEEK ON THE ATP WORLD TOUR:

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NEXT WEEK ON THE ATP WORLD TOUR:

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RANKINGS

**DRAWS

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Davis Cup – Final

Friday: Tied 1-1

N Djokovic def. R Stepanek 7-5 6-1 6-4

T Berdych def. D Lajovic 6-3 6-4 6-3

Saturday: Czech Republic leads 2-1

Berdych/Stepanek def. Bozoljac/Zimonjic 6-2 6-4 7-6(7-4)

Sunday: Czech Republic wins 3-2

N Djokovic def. T Berdych 6-4 7-6(7-5) 6-2

R Stepanek def. D Lajovic 6-3 6-1 6-1

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****** EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ******

* No Tour-level matches played

****** TODAY’S WOMEN’S NEWS ******

No WTA Matches Played

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Premiering Now

We don’t know who will win an award as the women’s most improved player this year, but our choice would surely be Simona Halep — #47 to start the year, and now Top Fifteen and likely to go higher.

But a lot of Halep’s points come from International events. She’ll presumably be playing more Premier events in the coming year. Admittedly she won two Premier titles. But it’s interesting to split the Premier events from the Internationals — after all, the Top Ten are allowed only two International events per year. (Unless they’re Angelique Kerber and somebody at Linz is on your side, anyway.)

So, instead of taking total WTA wins, we thought we’d take a look at just Premier wins.

It turns out that 151 players had at least one Premier win this year. But only 73 players managed at least five — headed, not surprisingly, by Serena Williams with 71. But second place did not belong to Victoria Azarenka. Instead, Agnieszka “I Play Everything” Radwanska managed to snag the #2 spot, two wins ahead of Petra Kvitova, with Azarenka a mere fourth. Maria Sharapova came in a disappointing seventh. The full list of players with at least five Premier wins:

1. S. Williams: 71

2. A. Radwanska: 46

3. Kvitova: 44

4. Azarenka: 43

5. Li: 39

6. Jankovic: 38

7. Sharapova: 37

8. Errani: 36

9. Vinci: 35

10. Wozniacki: 34

11. Kerber: 33

12. Stosur: 32

12. Stephens: 32

14. Ivanovic: 31

15. Kuznetsova: 27

15. Suarez Navarro: 27

17. Halep: 26

18. Kirilenko: 25

19. Cibulkova: 23

19. Cirstea: 23

21. Makarova: 21

22. Bartoli: 20

22. Hampton: 20

22. Lisicki: 20

25. Flipkens: 18

26. Cornet: 17

26. Keys: 17

26. Safarova: 17

26. Vesnina: 17

30. Hantuchova: 16

30. Kanepi: 16

30. U. Radwanska: 16

33. Lepchenko: 15

33. Robson: 15

33. Zakopalova: 15

36. Barthel: 14

36. Bouchard: 14

36. Pavlyuchenkova: 14

36. Rybarikova: 14

40. Peng: 12

40. V. Williams: 12

40. Zheng: 12

43. Goerges: 11

43. Mattek-Sands: 11

45. McHale: 10

45. Muguruza: 10

45. Pennetta: 10

45. Voegele: 10

49. Jovanovski: 9

49. Petkovic: 9

49. Petrova: 9

49. Schiavone: 9

49. Wickmayer: 9

54. Date-Krumm: 8

54. Mladenovic: 8

54. Morita: 8

54. Oprandi: 8

54. Puig: 8

54. Shvedova: 8

60. Bertens: 7

60. Govortsova: 7

60. Hsieh: 7

60. Tsurenko: 7

64. Erakovic: 6

64. Giorgi: 6

64. Knapp: 6

64. A. Riske: 6

68. Burdette: 5

68. Garcia: 5

68. Medina Garrigues: 5

68. Razzano: 5

68. Soler Espinosa: 5

68. Torro-Flor: 5

Observations: Note Roberta Vinci #10 in this statistic, replacing Angelique Kerber in the Top Ten. This is interesting and somewhat surprising; although Vinci plays a lot, she also earns a lot of her points in International events. She may have been lucky that she ended the year #11 rather than #10, since it means that she will still be allowed to play a full slate of International events in 2014.

Also note Samantha Stosur at #12. She is another who comes out high because she plays a lot.

Simona Halep, as we expected, falls a bit in this ranking, being only #17. She may have to adjust a bit next year.

Marion Bartoli’s ranking really depended strongly on Wimbledon; she earned more than a third of her Premier wins there.

Flavia Pennetta, amazingly, earned half her Premier wins at the U. S. Open. Because the Open is, of course, worth big points, that means her WTA ranking is far ahead of her Premier Wins ranking.

To our surprise, this list really doesn’t reveal any particular players to watch out for. There is no “stealth Premier winner” waiting in the wings based on this number.

KEYWORDS: Premier Wins Women

******** THIS WEEK IN TENNIS ********

THIS WEEK ON THE WTA:

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NEXT WEEK ON THE WTA:

Challengers Only

************ STATS AND FACTS ************

No WTA Events This Week

******** SCORES ********

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Topics: 10sballs.com, Atp, Azarenka, Czech Republic, Davis Cup, Dusan Lajovic, Jankovic, Kirilenko, Li Na, Novak Djokovic, Radek Stepanek, Radwanska, Serbia, Serena Williams, Sharapova, Stosur, Tennis, Tennis News, Tomas Berdych, Wazniacki, Wta