Thursday Topspin: 13 Feet, 5 Inches

Tall dudes: In a week where the best players are resting, at least the tallest players are in action.  In the round of 16 in Houston yesterday, both Ivo Karlovic and John Isner advanced, over Igor Kunitsyn and Horacio Zeballos, respectively.  You may be surprised, as I was, that neither match required a tiebreak.

Tomorrow, Karlovic and Isner will play each other, for 13 feet, 5 inches of service-domination ridiculousness.  Yesterday, Karlovic won a modest (for him) 71% of points on serve, though he lost only five times when his first offering went in.  Isner was more decisive, winning more than 80% of points on serve.  I really thought Zeballos would do better.

The two big men have played each other twice before, and their record is tied.  Isner won in Memphis last year, and Ivo was victorious back in 2008 in New Haven.  Both matches, of course, included a tiebreak.

Shorter dudes: The other two singles matches in Houston were upsets.  Ryan Sweeting once again beat his friend Sam Querrey, and Teymuraz Gabashvili defeated Grigor Dimitrov.  The latter match must have been a mess–17 double faults, and barely half of total points were won by the server.  Sure, it’s clay, but that’s just sloppy tennis.

Sloppy isn’t even the word for what happened to Querrey.  He had twenty-four break points, and converted only six of them.  I don’t know whether to give credit to Sweeting or criticize Querrey, but clearly somebody was reacting to the pressure.  To put that in perspective, Sweeting won almost exactly half of his service points when it wasn’t a break chance, but 75% when Querrey held a break point.

Sweeting and Gabashvili both have a big opportunity tomorrow, as they’ll face each other.  It would be Sweeting’s first ATP-level semifinal.

Casablanca: I continue to be unenthralled with this field, so I’ll focus on a young underdog, 20-year-old Andrey Kuznetsov.  Tomorrow he’ll face Victor Hanescu, the only seeded player to win a match yesterday.  His good week so far–three wins in qualifying and two so far in the main draw–will gain him at least 21 places in next week’s rankings, and a win over Hanescu would get him 16 more, putting him on the brink of cracking the top 200.

My other favorite 20-year-old Russian: The strongest Challenger field this week is in Monza; stacked with second-tier clay court specialists, the level of play probably isn’t much behind that of either of this week’s ATP events.

Both of the top two seeds in Monza have been eliminated, leaving two title contenders in their place at the top and bottom of the draw.  The man who took out top seed Jan Hajek is local boy Alessio di Mauro, a 33-year-old who reached the final in Casablanca’s challenger event a couple of months ago.  At the bottom of the draw is Evgeny Donskoy, the man who beat di Mauro in that final.

Another one to watch: The Colombians continue to fare well in their home event at Pereira.  Into the quarterfinals already are two locals, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Eduardo Struvay, while top seed Alejandro Falla plays his 2nd-round match today.

462nd-ranked Struvay, yet another 20-year-old, entered the event on a wild card.  He hasn’t advanced cheaply, beating two veterans: Martin Vassallo Arguello in the first round and Eric Prodon in the second.  Vassallo Arguello posted solid results after qualifying  last week, and Prodon is a clay specialist near his career high ranking.

Today: Mardy Fish will finally get underway in Houston, taking on the Spaniard Albert Ramos.  But first, James Blake will play Pablo Cuevas.  If Blake can beat Carlos Berlocq, he has a good shot against Cuevas, right?  Oddsmakers don’t think so, setting Blake’s chances at about 28%.

See you tomorrow!