ATP 500/250: Rio, Marseille, Delray

Another trans-continental week of tennis, another fresh Monday start, another cards shuffle, and a new hand featuring an Ace - Nadal in Rio.

ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro, Outdoor Clay
The Rio Open presented by Claro hdtv is a new event in the ATP and the WTA calendars. It is the only combined ATP World Tour 500 and WTA International event in South America. The tournament, distributing a total prize money of US$ 1.5 million (US$ 1.25 million for the ATP) will be held on the eight clay courts of the Jockey Club Brasileiro, including a 6,200-seater Stadium. Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer will headline the 2014 event.
Players
a fairly weak field for a 500 event featuring Nadal, Ferrer, Fognini, Almagro, Robredo, Chardy

Draw
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/6932/mds.pdf

Order of Play
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/6932/op.pdf

ATP 250 Marseille, Indoor Hard
The Open 13 is one of five French tournaments on the ATP World Tour calendar, held on the Mediterranean coast in the city of Marseille. Former ATP player Jean-Francois Caujolle was a driving force in bringing a tour-level event to his hometown, and since the inaugural event in 1993, six Frenchmen have lifted the Marseille trophy – Guy Forget-1996; Fabrice Santoro-1999; Arnaud Clement-2006; Gilles Simon-2007; Jo-Wilfried Tsonga-2009, '13 and Michael Llodra-2011.
Players
Gasquet, Tsonga, Gulbis, Seppi, Vasselin, Benneteau, Mahut, Llodra, Brown, Davydenko, Sijsling

Draw
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/496/mds.pdf

Order of Play
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/496/op.pdf

ATP 250 Delray Beach
Delray Beach welcomed back top-ranked American John Isner, previous champions the Bryan Brothers, Tommy Haas, Xavier Malisse, Kevin Anderson and Kei Nishikori in 2013 and first-time "Beachers" Alexandr Dolgopolov and Feliciano Lopez. Delray Beach hosts the world's only combined ATP World Tour/ATP Champions Tour event. The 2013 Champions Tour event hosted returning champions Carlos Moya and Mark Philippoussis plus John McEnroe, Mats Wilander, Pat Cash and Aaron Krickstein. The tournament is notorious for their fan experience.
Players
Isner, Haas, Nishikori, Hewitt, Cilic (3rd week in a row having won last week in Zagreb, followed by today's final in Rotterdam!!!), Pospisil, Querrey, Mannarino, Karlovic, Goffin

Draw
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/499/mds.pdf

Order of Play
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/499/op.pdf



http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0aeBq5H3O2I

A few changes in top 10, Ferrer back to number 4, with a strong chance of moving back to number 3 if he does well in Rio this week (unless Chardy beats him in the first round), as Stan isn't playing either this or next week.
Murray slips to number 7 now and Berdych moves up to 6.
Interesting that Murray "the fast court king" is choosing to joing Nadal on clay in Acapulco next week, rather than hard court elite in Dubai....

1 Nadal, Rafael (ESP) 14,085 0 19
2 Djokovic, Novak (SRB) 10,580 0 18
3 Wawrinka, Stanislas (SUI) 5,620 0 26
4 Ferrer, David (ESP) 5,440 1 25
5 Del Potro, Juan Martin (ARG) 4,960 -1 22
6 Berdych, Tomas (CZE) 4,950 1 25
7 Murray, Andy (GBR) 4,795 -1 20
8 Federer, Roger (SUI) 4,305 0 20
9 Gasquet, Richard (FRA) 2,950 0 25
10 Tsonga, Jo-Wilfried (FRA) 2,885 0 21

Two good matches in Marseille this morning:
Davydenko-Sijsling (Davy a set up)
followed by
Strakhovski - Evans
Unfortunately, tennisTV only showing the evening session there.

In Rio, Wooffie & co get to have their fix tonight, as Nadal starts his tournament there against one of the many Spaniards lined up in his cushy draw....

Just watched a bit of Kerber - Ivanovic in Dubai, and interesting to hear Mercer make this comment:

"Kerber is the solid player, Ivanovic is the talented one.
Kerber won't lose a match, but Ivanovic has to go and win it."

I thought he summed the two main types of tennis players pretty well, esp. the "talented" bit.

Having seen a few points of Nadal in Rio just now, I can't believe he won 8 RG titles.

noleisthebest wrote:Having seen a few points of Nadal in Rio just now, I can't believe he won 8 RG titles.

Yeah, surprised this guy has won a clay court title at all.

Julia Santamaria wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Having seen a few points of Nadal in Rio just now, I can't believe he won 8 RG titles.

Yeah, surprised this guy has won a clay court title at all.

Glad you can see it, too.

Match(es) of the day:

Davydenko - Tsonga (they both look like they've lost hope, someone's got to win, though!)
Brown - Agut (should be really interesting)
Hajek - Berankis (good to see Berankis is still around)

And last, but not the least:
Karlovic - Anderson (just kidding.... )

Amazing to see Davy again after a while...still able to whip that FH and send Tsonga running even on Tsonga's serve!
And despite his ancient age, he is moving more lightly than ever.

The court seems to play fast, slo-mo looks the same speed as AO in real time

Match(es) of the day:

Berankis - Mahut
Gulbis - Agut

Berankis looks like a different player now

yeah..not sure why.....

I watched a few games of him and Mahut, and his 1st serve was almost non existent, so had to rally and rally and rally...not much of that early ball striking, looks like he has even changed his grip.

He still went for his shots when he could, but that was not his A game any more, more like every 5th point or so.

I know he is not very tall and his serve is suffering, still used to be much better.
Now I see why he ends up playing so many TBs and loses most of them...

I am officially giving up on him, such a shame!

Well I agree too erratic it seems. But I don't think he can be wright off.

I've been following him since that AO and he did OK in the first half of 2013 and then disappeared into the world of qualifying rounds which he kept losing in earlier and earlier, very often with one or two TBs.

I can understand his seving can't be imprived very much, but his returning should not be a problem and it seems it is.

Against Mahut today, he was almost always on the back foot, and it used to be the other way round...

Gulbis is so frustrating!
Just lost the set (on his own serve at 5:6) by doing exactly the same thing three times: sending the wild BHDT outL....

And then smashed his racquet...which would have been bearable had he not thrown one of his sweatbands at the crowd in a not nice way...

Mind you, Agut with his Dracula forehead and disgusting grunting that accompany the entire length of his shots would drive me mad, too.

It should be banned asap!

So 3rd set should be interesting provided Gulbis manages to cool his head down as he stormed off the court for a toilet break after the 2nd.

In the end, a win for Gulbis who played some excellent tennis.

They were showing an interesting stat in this match, how many shots players needed to win a point, under 5 and over 9.

Would be good to see each player have that, as well as how that stat varies from an opponent to opponent, and even surface.

Match(es) of the day:

Dolgoplov - Fognini
Gulbis - Mahut
Vasselin - Tsonga

We have a nice first SF pair in Marseille tomorrow: Gasquet - Gulbis.
Will be fascinating to see how Gasquet's BH responds to Gulbis's bombing serve (and FH)!

Vasselin just outplayed Tsonga in the 1st set TB, lovely feel for the game and ball, making Tsonga run left and right....such a silky player!

Dolgopolov demolished Fognini 6:1 6:1 and I didn't get to see any of it

In the end, I did see two games of Fognini-Dolgpolov as tney were showing it during the rain break, Despite the heavy loss and a loooooot of running, it was Fognini that provided some fine entertainment when he spent the entire changeover (being 1:6, 1:5 down) talking to the umpire  about the horrible humidity, heat, ball bounces, ball spinning, sweating etc, etc...all that with an enthusiasm in his  hand and arm gesticulation, any conductor would have been proud of!

Then I saw a few on and off games of Nadal Sousa.....

Tennis wise, poor Sousa tried to do a Stan and went for his shots like mad, but unfortunately left his talent at home, and then this.....
If  you think you that after Nole net catch in the FO SF last year you have seen the entire luck repertoire from Rafael Nadal, you, just like me are/were wrong!!!
Sousa is trying to save his face  being 1:6 and 0:4 down, is  serving, Nadal gets the advantage, and after a long game in which Nadal does his usual opponent spirit killing by winning a few points Sousa would have won against anybody else, after finally nailing a smash, this happens...
Check this clip out from  2min. 7 secs:



The clip doesn't show the slo-mo replay, but Sousa drops the racquet from his hand as he hits the smash, and the point/game goes to Nadal.....

Match(es) of the day:

Gasquet - Gulbis
        &
Ferrer - Dolgopolov

Btw, Ferrer looked inhumanely fit yesterday, I saw the end of his close, long 3 set match against the hard-hitting local boy Bellucci who in his final game could barely lift his arm to serve from humidity & exhaustion, while Ferrer hopped and skipped fresh as a daisy...



Last, but not the least...what a gorgeous sunny day!!!!!  

When Dolgopolov is playing well, he is simply electric!


GO DOLGO!!!!!!!

This has got to be the best tennis I've seen this year, Dolgo, what a guy......

DOLGOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!                     

He'll be beaten tomorrow, relax.

who against? who did he beat?

Ferrer.
Didn't even sweat in that tropical humid weather....it was mag-ni-fi-que!

Is anyone watching this sheer agony of a tie-break between Nadal and Anduhar, I started at 4:2 for Nadal and was convinced he was tanking the match, but they are still going...with real, proper moonballs thrown in!!!

So it wasn't a tank in the end...Nadal was even more pathetic than usual, and balder than ever!

So it's
Gulbis-Tsonga in Marseille
&
Dolgopolov - Nadal in Rio tomorrow.

I am expecting tons of gamesmanship from Nadal who will do anything to disrupt Dolgo's serving and shotmaking.

He can't even scrape past Andujaah, and the bookies think he's favourite for the French Open

Rafito would not even be favourite for ATP Chile, forget Paris.

Probably 8th highest favorite for the RG, or maybe - depending on Almagro's form - 9th?

I have to admit I got sucked in to the Olympics the last couple of weeks so have not seen much tennis at all.

And I do not think I was alone.  Remember watching a bit of Berdych Cilic in Rotterdam and the camera took a shot of one of the spectators streaming the Olympic speedskating on their phone.  Cannot blame them - the Dutch went 1-2-3-4 in that particular event.

Almagro hasn't really impressed me this year SB, so I'd say around 8th then.

Gulbis just beat Tsonga despite having a bad back apparently. I only saw a few points with a very bad stream. Just too quick for far standing Tsonga.

Glad for Gulbis. Maybe he just proved he can be a top 10 finally!

Highlights from Dolgopolov-Ferrer match, in which Ferrer looks better than he was, and most of Dolgo's best points are not shown.
I hope Dolgo brings all of that from last night against Nadal in the final which is about to start any minute.... GO DOLGO!!!!!  

Dolgo

I love how Sky Sports at every ad break has a short clip of Nadal fistpumping with the Sky Sports Tennis logo, even when Nadal is not playing.

This one looks done.

Nadal is sweating like mad from those metabolic pills. Taking ages between points....
Dolgo, from brilliant to horrid in less than 24 hours....he's got to get that 1st serve asap or this will be over very soon.

Amri, are you saying I should expect Dolgo to roar back to victory?  Not impossible, but I am sure the odds are against it.

How far behind is Nadal on returns , 10m?
Shocking....

Why is it shocking?

No, I agree that Rafa is big favourite here.

Nadal is pragmatic he will do what he can to win the highest percentage of points as possible.

People have to understand that, Rafa is in permanent decline and yet number 1, people should be learning from him if not anything.

Much better from Dolgo now.

This is the 5th time Dolgo is playing Rafa and commentators just said that he is yet to break Rafa's serve.  Pretty depressing.

summerblues wrote:Why is it shocking?

Because it shows the lack of ball-striking skill, the further away from the net you are, the less you are a tennis player and more an endurance athlete.

Next time you find yourself on a tennis court try and play from that far behind and see what happens...and how quickly you tire...and then you probably won't ask why it's shocking again...

...on the other hand, Rafa has broken him 14 times so far...