Citi Open Saturday Gallery: Isner and Del Potro to Meet in Final
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Super Saturday at the Citi Open saw John Isner and Juan Martin del Potro defeat their respective opponents, Dmitry Tursunov and Tommy Haas to reach the men’s singles final. Andrea Petkovic also defeated Alize Cornet and will meet Magdalena Rybarikova in the women’s final.
Gallery by Tennis Grandstand photographer Christopher Levy.
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Live Updates: Sharapova, Isner, Azarenka Lead Player Injuries on an Unprecedented Day 3 at Wimbledon
(June 26, 2013) Players, fans, media members, Wimbledon trainers, and even my goldfish are all scratching their heads on this unprecedented injury-filled Wednesday.
Within the first 90 minutes of play, five players had already been forced to withdraw due to injuries sustained on the slippery grass, and more continue throughout the day. As Darren Cahill states, the grass is typically more slippery in the first four days while the back court gets worn down, but the rainy days prior to the start of the tournament haven’t helped the already wet conditions.
Players such as Maria Sharapova are calling the courts “dangerous,” while the All England Club told ESPN this afternoon that the grounds are in “excellent condition.” Clearly, all the injuries, slips and retirements have infiltrated the players’ mindset and many would be wise to be cautious in their movement. Not surprisingly, the conditions have balanced the competition and no top player is safe as seen by Sharapova’s early exit.
Friend of Tennis Grandstand, @MariyaKTennis, tweeted the following: “According to @ITF_Tennis, this is believed to be the most singles retirements/walkovers on a single day at a Slam in the Open Era.” So, there we go.
Here is a run down of the player walkovers, as well as various other injuries sustained throughout day three of play.
Retirements
John Isner: In the opening game of his match against Adrian Mannarino, Isner was serving and came down hard, tweaking his left knee. After getting it taped up, Isner tried to continue but ended up retiring only points later.
Victoria Azarenka: Nobody’s day one tumble looked worse than Azarenka’s against Maria Joao Koehler, where she slipped and twisted her right knee. Despite an MRI showing no structural damage, Azarenka pulled out prior to her match, giving opponent Flavia Pennetta a walkover to the third round.
Radek Stepanek: A mere six games into his match against Jerzy Janowicz, Stepanek received a medical timeout and heavy strapping on his left thigh. He continued but was forced to retire down 6-2, 5-3.
Marin Cilic: The No. 10 men’s seed pulled out prior to his match against Kenny de Schepper due to a lingering left knee injury which was worsened during his win over Marcos Baghdatis in the opening round.
“I started to have difficulties with my knees during Queen’s. During last week I was feeling it already in practice. Then on Sunday I felt it really bad in my serve … Yesterday it felt it much, much worse. It was difficult for me to put weight on left leg which is where the pain is.”
Steve Darcis: Rafael’s Nadal conquestor also pulled out prior to stepping on court for his second round match. The Belgian said he had hurt his right shoulder when he fell during the first set against Nadal on Monday.
The 29-year-old posted on Twitter: “Had to withdrawn after a win like this!?THE most difficult thing i had to do!!!#triedeverythingtoplaybutdidntwork!!!!”
Yaroslava Shvedova: The Russian-born Kazak was added to the withdrawal list as she pulled out with an arm injury before her match against No. 8 seed Petra Kvitova.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: After losing the second set to Ernests Gulbis, Tsonga got his left knee taped despite there being no clear indication of when the injury happened. His movement seems to be severely hampered and he retired after losing the third set.
Injuries and Other Tumbles
Maria Sharapova: After taking a pretty bad tumble during her warm-up, Sharapova slipped an additional three times during her match, the last of which required an injury timeout to her left hip. Sharapova repeatedly told the chair umpire that the conditions on court were “dangerous” and these tumbles seemed to have affected her focus and play. Her opponent Michelle Larcher de Brito ended up pulling off the ultimate upset, and in straight sets no less, 6-3, 6-4.
Caroline Wozniacki: Despite having taped her right ankle, the 9th seed slipped on the grass twisting her left ankle. She was able to finish out the match but lost to Petra Cetkovska in just over an hour, 6-2, 6-2.
Footage of some of the tumbles that Wozniacki, Eugenie Bouchard, Julien Benneteau, Mikhail Youzhny and Ernests Gulbis took.
Julien Benneteau: The Frenchman took his own slip against Fernando Verdasco that required a trainer examining his right leg. The 31 seed eventually lost 7-6, 7-6, 6-4.
Snakes in the Grass: Previewing the Wimbledon 2013 Dark Horses
With the Wimbledon draw just a week ahead, the time has arrived to scan the ATP and WTA rankings in search of dark horses who could grab some unexpected attention. This survey features only players outside the top 20 at the start of the grass season, likely to meet an opponent of greater note in the first week. On any given day, these snakes in the grass could strike for an upset or two.
ATP:
John Isner: Forever famous for his Wimbledon epic against Nicolas Mahut, Isner never has fared as well there as top-ranked compatriot Sam Querrey. His lack of impact surprises, considering a playing style that should flourish on grass with a nearly impenetrable serve and a preference for short points. Isner has languished in a slump for most of 2013, but he nearly reached the second week at Roland Garros with another valiant run. The American would benefit from exchanging his pattern of endless epics for some more efficient first-week victories, conserving his energy early in the fortnight.
Grigor Dimitrov: Reaching the third round of a major for the first time at Roland Garros, the Bulgarian rising star tends to perform better at non-majors than majors. But Dimitrov took Tsonga to the brink of a final set at Wimbledon two years ago, and he has threatened every member of the Big Four this year except Roger Federer, whom he has not faced. His combination of an explosive first serve with dexterity around the net could shine on the grass. Less impressive is his movement and his ability to convincingly take care of business against overmatched opposition.
Julien Benneteau: He came closer than anyone last year to knocking off eventual champion Roger Federer at Wimbledon, snatching the first two sets before the match slipped away. Benneteau has struggled to win any matches at all in singles since March, not long after he upset Federer in Rotterdam. His doubles expertise could help on a court that rewards net-rushers, and he reached the second week in 2010. Formidable early draws have stunted his progress in most Wimbledon appearances, but Benneteau has lost to only one opponent outside the top eight there since 2005.
Lukas Rosol: His presence on this list should need little explanation. Had Rosol won no matches at all after defeating Rafael Nadal in the second round last year, he still would merit a mention. As it stands, he built upon that upset to rise from the edge of the top 100 to well inside the top 50. Rosol faces the pressure of defending something meaningful for the first time, and he will need to insulate himself from the inevitable media scrutiny. He often brings out his best tennis against the best while growing careless or unfocused against the journeymen of the Tour.
Ernests Gulbis: Slinging ferocious forehands and controversial comments indiscriminately, the Latvian shot-maker once again has become someone intriguing to watch. Gulbis upset Tomas Berdych in the first round of Wimbledon last year, and he twice has won sets from Nadal this year. More distant achievements include victories over Federer and Novak Djokovic, showing that no elite opponent can feel safe when Gulbis finds his groove. He may struggle to stay in that groove in the best-of-five format, perhaps a reason why his greatest headlines have come at Masters 1000 events. Still, grass usually rewards the Jekyll-and-Hyde mixture of overwhelming power and deft finesse that Gulbis can wield.
Feliciano Lopez: The Spaniard’s best tennis lies well behind him, and he accumulated a losing record this season through the end of Roland Garros. Lopez has reached three Wimbledon quarterfinals behind his lefty serve-volley style, though, the rarity of which can unsettle younger opponents. His notable victims there include Andy Roddick and Marat Safin, as well as Tim Henman in his last match on home soil. Keep an eye on Lopez if he draws a relatively passive baseliner or grinder such as David Ferrer, who long has struggled against him on fast surfaces.
Daniel Brands: Like Rosol, Brands typically plays to the level of the competition. He lost resoundingly to Jan Hajek one week before he thrust Nadal to the brink of a two-set deficit at Roland Garros. Wimbledon marks the scene of his greatest accomplishment, a second-week appearance in 2010, although he lost in the first round of qualifying each of the two subsequent years. Beware of getting into a fifth set against Brands, who shares Isner’s asymmetry between a massive serve and a woeful return. That stark contrast leaves him vulnerable against anyone and dangerous to everyone.
WTA:
Ekaterina Makarova: Only one woman has defeated both Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka in 2012-13: not Maria Sharapova, not Li Na, not Petra Kvitova, but Ekaterina Makarova. This fiery Russian also won Eastbourne on grass as a qualifier in 2010, her only title to date. Her lefty serve swings wide in the ad court effectively on this surface, a valuable asset on break points. Makarova’s doubles expertise has honed her net talents to a higher level than most of the women ranked near her, and she has proved that she can excel at majors by reaching two Australian Open quarterfinals.
Sabine Lisicki: Four or five years ago, Lisicki looked like a future Wimbledon champion. She honed the best serve in the women’s game outside the Williams sisters, even outdueling Venus to win a Charleston title. In three Wimbledon appearances from 2009-12, Lisicki reached the quarterfinals or better every time and even notched her first major semifinal there in 2011. An impressive list of marquee upsets in those appearances includes Maria Sharapova, Li Na, Caroline Wozniacki, and Marion Bartoli. Somewhat like Gulbis in her ability to combine first-strike power with the finesse of delicate drop shots, Lisicki has struggled to stay healthy long enough to develop momentum and consistency.
Tamira Paszek: A hideous 1-12 this season, Paszek has won barely any matches since last August but still held a seed at Roland Garros. She defends the majority of her total rankings points during the short grass season, when she won Eastbourne and reached a second straight Wimbledon quarterfinal last year. The good news is that Paszek rebounded from a similar sequence of futility at this time in 2012 to record those excellent results. The bad news is that the pressure will lie heavily on her with the penalty so great for a misstep at either event.
Venus Williams: Once a champion, always a champion, and never more so than at the greatest bastion of tennis tradition. Venus will appear in this type of article before every Wimbledon that she plays, no matter her current form. To be sure, that current form is far from impressive with losses this spring to Olga Puckhova, Laura Robson, and Urszula Radwanska. Venus wins many fewer matches than she once did on her poise and experience alone, and she probably cannot ration her energy efficiently enough to survive deep into the fortnight. But nobody wants to face that serve or that wingspan on grass, for one never knows when an aging champion will catch fire.
Laura Robson: Combined with a junior Wimbledon title, two compelling efforts against Maria Sharapova on home soil suggest that the top British women’s talent could rise to the occasion. Robson has proved twice in the last twelve months that she can shine at majors, upsetting Kim Clijsters to reach the second week of the US Open and outlasting Petra Kvitova in a nail-biting if ugly epic in Melbourne. Since the serve plays a heightened role on grass, she must limit the double faults that have grown too frequent this year. Robson never lacks for courage or belief, often aggressive to the point of reckless.
Zheng Jie: If she had finished off Serena Williams in the first week of Wimbledon last year, the trajectory of women’s tennis since then would have followed a completely different course. As it was, Zheng took Serena to 8-6 in the final set, displaying how well her compact swings and crisp footwork suit the low, variable bounces of the grass. This less intuitive model for surface success than heavy serves and first strikes carried her to the Wimbledon semifinals in 2008. Like Benneteau, Zheng has found herself saddled with some extremely challenging draws and has lost to few sub-elite opponents there.
Tsvetana Pironkova: Two years ago, it seemed that Pironkova existed solely to prevent Venus Williams from winning another Wimbledon title. The willowy Bulgarian defeated Venus in consecutive Wimbledons by identical scores, and she even came within a set of the final in 2010. Proving that success no anomaly, Pironkova extended Sharapova to a final set last year. A glance at her game reveals no clear reason why she enjoys grass so much. Pironkova owns a vulnerable serve and little baseline firepower, earning her living with court coverage and touch. Her Wimbledon feats show that counterpunchers can find ways to thrive on an offensively oriented surface.
Roland Garros Rematch: Can Julien Benneteau Upset Roger Federer Again?
This two-part series will explore the third round matchups of the top two seeds from Roland Garros, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Each will be facing an opponent who has defeated them in the past 12 months, and we will highlight how these underdogs pulled off their upsets and if they could possibly do it again.
The Setting: ATP 500 Rotterdam, Indoor Hardcourt
The Upset: Their quarterfinal match was their second meeting since Wimbledon last year. That match was the closest Federer came to losing that tournament, as Benneteau took the first two sets in impressive fashion. Benneteau had a chance when he took the fourth set to a tiebreak, but couldn’t earn a chance at a match point.
The Frenchman got his revenge at Rotterdam, though, when he took out Federer in straight sets. Federer is widely known as the best indoor player of all time, but he wasn’t on that day in February. Federer’s first serve couldn’t be found at times and he hit a lot of bad errors throughout the match.
That should in no way detract from what Benneteau did. His game gave Federer problems even when the Swiss was at his best. Benneteau hung in a lot of points and played with a controlled level of aggression. He didn’t hit Federer off the court like Berdych, Tsonga, or Del Potro do when they beat Fed. Benneteau just played a solid game, keeping Federer off-balance and taking chances when they arose. It was grinding, it was tough, and it was finding ways to win points after most players would have given up on them.
Federer’s low first-serve percentage (56%) was definitely a factor, but what went unnoticed is that Benneteau did an incredible job of neutralizing Federer’s first serve when it went in. Federer only won 67% of his first-serve points. Benneteau also took control of Federer’s second serve, as Federer only won 33% of the points in which he hit a second ball. The Frenchman broke Federer an incredible five times on an indoor hard court. That’s Djokovic-level returning, even if Federer’s game was a bit off.
Can he do it again: Federer was clearly not at his best when Benneteau beat him. Benneteau, for whatever reason, is one of the best in the world at neutralizing Federer’s most powerful weapon—his serve. Benneteau can stay close to Federer even when Federer is at his best, as evidenced in Wimbledon last year. If Benneteau is not at his best, however, he doesn’t have much of a chance.
Federer will come out looking for revenge. The pair have never met on clay, but the change of surface certainly helps Benneteau more than it helps Federer. Federer hasn’t lost before the quarterfinals of a Slam since 2004 and it would still be a shock of Benneteau could pull this off. Federer should certainly expect a long, and tough, day at the office though and the outcome isn’t as definite as it usually is in these early-round matches for him.
Roland Garros Rewind: Monfils Stuns, Nadal Survives, Sharapova and Radwanska Cruise
Welcome back to your daily review of the studs and duds at Roland Garros 2013.
ATP:
Match of the day: Five sets and four hours. Three tiebreaks and a 7-5 final set. A two-set lead squandered by the man who eventually won—after saving triple break point midway through the fifth. A home underdog firing 26 aces and 66 winners on his nation’s biggest stage to upset a top-eight seed who hit 72 winners of his own. Rarely is the match that looks like the best of the day in the first round actually the best of the day, but Gael Monfils and Tomas Berdych put on perhaps the best show of any men’s match that we will see all week. The section has opened a bit for Monfils if he can defuse the equally dangerous dark horse Ernests Gulbis in the second round. That match looks like the highlight of Thursday, although it has a hard act to follow.
Comeback of the day: Last week’s Dusseldorf champion Juan Monaco looked well on his way to a routine victory when he won the first two sets by single-break margins and reached a tiebreak in the third. Perhaps aided by his opponent’s fatigue, Daniel Gimeno-Traver thrust himself back into the match by snatching that tiebreak and stormed all the way back to an upset over the seventeenth seed.
Surprise of the day: It was not an upset in the end, but Daniel Brands surely turned more heads than anyone when he came within a tiebreak of leading Rafael Nadal by two sets to love. The master of Roland Garros had not lost the first set in a first-week match there since 2006, although he once survived a five-setter against John Isner. Brands channeled his inner Soderling in explosive serving and bullet forehands that thrust Nadal on his heels for far longer than anyone could have expected.
Gold star: Australian youngster Nick Kyrgios gave his nation something to cheer amid the latest Bernard Tomic controversy. Kyrgios defeated veteran Radek Stepanek in three tiebreaks, saving several set points in each of the last two. The 53 total tiebreak points played might survive as a tournament record.
Silver star: Allez les bleus. While Nadal battled with Brands on Philippe Chatrier, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga rolled through in straight sets on Suzanne Lenglen. Later in the day, second-ranked Frenchman Richard Gasquet did the same, and even Julien Benneteau won a match on clay for just the second time this year. Combined with the Monfils upset, these victories added up to an excellent day for the hosts.
Wooden spoon: When Andy Murray withdrew, Marcel Granollers moved up from unseeded to seeded position. That promotion served him no benefit as he lost his first match to countryman Feliciano Lopez in five sets and two days. By contrast, Tommy Robredo profited from the seed that he received with Juan Martin Del Potro’s withdrawal by advancing further into the section vacated by Berdych.
Americans in Paris: John Isner and Ryan Harrison, both of whom have struggled for most of the year, each notched comfortable straight-sets victories. Assigned Nice champion Albert Montanes, Steve Johnson battled gallantly into a fifth set as he had against Nicolas Almagro at the Australian Open. American men have no reason to feel shame so far at historically their worst major.
Question of the day: Who comes out of Berdych’s section of the draw to reach the quarterfinals?
Question of the day, II: Does Nadal’s first-round frailty reduce your confidence in him as a title threat?
WTA:
Match of the day: None could compete with Berdych-Monfils or with Urszula-Venus the day before. This award goes to a battle between two clay-courters who have produced outstanding recent results. Rome semifinalist Simona Halep won the first set from world No. 20 Carla Suarez Navarro, but the Spaniard rallied with the form that brought her to two clay finals this year. A pity that the draw forced them to meet in the first round, and a pity that the match was not scheduled on a televised court.
Comeback of the day: Channeling a little of her inner Monfils, Garbine Muguruza scorched 46 winners and dropped serve just twice in three sets to ambush fellow power-hitter Karolina Pliskova. The Venezuelan-born citizen of Spain recorded her first career win at Roland Garros barely a year after her first appearance in a WTA main draw.
Statements of the day: Although they fell a bit short of Serena’s suffocating brilliance, top-four seeds Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska started the tournament in emphatic style. Defending champion Sharapova conceded just three games to top-50 opponent Hsieh Su-wei, while Radwanska yielded just two games to former top-15 player Shahar Peer. The latter result came as a mild surprise because of the newly blonde Pole’s struggles on clay this year.
Gold star: Everyone thought that Laura Robson would knock off world No. 10 Caroline Wozniacki in the first round, and everyone thought very wrong. Wozniacki ended a five-match losing streak by dominating the British teenager from start to finish. Perhaps a movie night with Rory McIlroy the day before (they saw Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained) allowed her to forget her recent futility.
Silver star: The most unsurprising surprise of the day came when the 2009 Roland Garros champion dispatched compatriot Ekaterina Makarova. In Serena’s quarter, Kuznetsova could meet Wozniacki in a rematch of their Australian Open three-set thriller. Sveta bounced back impressively from one of the worst losses of her career in Rome.
Wooden spoon: Outstanding performances on grass last year meant that Tamira Paszek received a seed at Roland Garros despite winning only one match in 2013. When the slightly less moribund Melanie Oudin dispatched her with ease, Paszek will head to the grass season with the vast majority of points at stake. Early losses at Eastbourne and Wimbledon will push her ranking down an elevator shaft.
Americans in Paris: In addition to the aforementioned Oudin, several other women from the United States fared well on Day 2. Bethanie Mattek-Sands set up a second-round meeting with Li Na, while newer talents Varvara Lepchenko and Madison Keys cruised. Vania King also advanced in straight sets to complete a perfect record today for the USA.
Question of the day: Which American woman of those who won day will go furthest?
Question of the day, II: Should we feel more impressed by Wozniacki or more disappointed by Robson?