Challengers – Page 4 – Heavy Topspin

Thursday Topspin: Twenty-Two and Counting

Another win: Novak Djokovic has now strung together 22 straight wins to start the season. He’ll probably make it 23 tomorrow against Mardy Fish.

As usual, he made it look easy last night. Kevin Anderson played reasonably well, particularly from the baseline, where he was often able to match Djokovic shot for shot … at least for a while. He was aggressive, frequently forcing Novak to make an excellent shot to pass him at the net, though of course his opponent was usually up to the challenge. Djokovic wasn’t perfect, but the outcome was never in doubt.

What caught me by surprise is how easy it seemed to be for Anderson to return many of Djokovic’s shots. I’d never thought of Djokovic as someone defined by his topspin, but on groundstrokes and second serves, Novak’s balls often bounced right up into Anderson’s hitting zone–that is, above the hitting zone for anyone shorter than Anderson. That makes me think that Djokovic might be vulnerable to a player like Tomas Berdych, who beat him at Wimbledon last year and challenged him in Dubai recently, or Juan Martin del Potro, who he hasn’t played for nearly two years.

In any event, Anderson’s stature wasn’t a problem last night, and barring the unlikely event of Berdych reaching the final, it won’t be an issue this week.

New #1: By beating David Ferrer yesterday, Fish cemented his position as the new top-ranked American. He’ll also reach a new personal high of #12 (I think), and with a decent clay result or two, he’ll have a shot at breaking into the top 10.

I’m assuming he’ll only get semifinalist points for Miami, because he needs to beat Djokovic to get any farther. Novak has won all five meetings, though Fish has taken a set on three occasions, including last year at Indian Wells.

Two more quarters: Today, Roger Federer plays Gilles Simon, while Rafael Nadal faces Berdych. Neither match is projected to be close, but that’s no reason not to watch.

Both my system and the oddsmakers now give Federer an 82-83% chance of winning. That’s surprising, since Simon has won two of three head-to-heads, and Federer’s one win was the five-setter in Australia. Of course, there’s little doubt Roger is the better player, and Simon has hardly been impressive this week. He barely got past Janko Tipsarevic, so he doesn’t seem to be close to his best form.

Sportsbooks favor Nadal to the tune of 87%, while my system gives Berdych a much better chance, cutting Rafa down to 71%. Of course, my system hasn’t been watching as Berdych did anything but dominate Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, Carlos Berlocq, and Florian Mayer.

Federer plays the afternoon match, scheduled for 3:00 EST, while Nadal opens the night session.

In the minors: Wayne Odesnik’s comeback will have to wait at least one more week. After qualifying for the challenger in Barranquilla, he lost in the first round to Juan Pablo Brzezicki. He did take the first set. At least he didn’t suffer the fate of Norweigan wild card Sander Brendmoe, who was double-bagelled by Martin Vasallo Arguello.

Speaking of wild cards, the folks at Barranquilla are awfully open-minded. The majority of wild cards go to native sons, but none of the tourney’s four wild cards went to a Colombian. However, there are four local boys in the draw, and three of them advanced to the second round.

At the challenger in St. Brieuc, France, two up-and-comers are among the first men into the quarterfinals. Both Jerzy Janowicz and Benoit Paire got through three-setters to win their second-round matches yesterday.

Finally, we have another run of upsets to report, this time at USA F8 in Oklahoma City. Six of the eight seeds, including the top three, fell in yesterday’s first round. Most notably, top seed Chris Guccione lost a three-setter to Vladimir Obradovic, a Serbian ranked outside of the top 600. The top-ranked player left in the draw is #300, the fourth-seeded American, Greg Ouellette.

See you tomorrow!

Wednesday Topspin: Cruise Control

Domination: The top four remaining seeds at Miami–Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and David Ferrer–had an easy time of it yesterday. None had to face a fellow member of the top 20; Nadal was the only one of the four who played a seed.

Amazingly, Djokovic dropped the most games. Playing his friend Viktor Troicki, Novak’s 6-0 6-1 victim at Indian Wells, he lost five games, coming through 6-3 6-2. Olivier Rochus took four games from Federer, while Nadal and Ferrer both got past their opponents with a score of 6-1 6-2.

Squeakers: Tomas Berdych, the next seed in line, also drew an unseeded opponent: Florian Mayer. But the Czech’s route to the quarters was not nearly so easy. He breezed through the first set, winning 6-3, before the rain halted play. Back on court, Berdych suddenly couldn’t land a first serve, making only 42% in the second set. Mayer capitalized, evening the tally, then neither player took command en route to a third-set tiebreak.

Mayer played some excellent tennis at times, and he had his chances–Berdych double faulted five times in the final set, yet never allowed even a break point. Berdych makes it look so easy, and the German just didn’t have the weaponry to hold him off.

Every bit as tight was yesterday’s first match, between Mardy Fish and Juan Martin del Potro. Neither player was at their best; it seemed that Delpo had a tough time getting in a rhythm against Fish’s less-than-elite groundstrokes. Ultimately, it took two very long sets, in which Fish triumphed, 7-5 7-6(5). That puts Fish one match away from becoming the top-ranked American. He’ll have to beat Ferrer to do so.

Quarters: We’re left with eight men to decide among. The first two quarterfinal contests are scheduled for today; the first is Fish-Ferrer, and the night match is between Djokovic and Kevin Anderson, who got past John Isner in straight sets yesterday. Tomorrow, Federer faces Gilles Simon, and Nadal plays Berdych.

Fish-Ferrer may be the only pairing in the quarters that makes for a close match. Oddsmakers certainly think so: They give Mardy a 36% chance of reaching the semis, while the other three matches are at least 85/15 splits.

Challengers: It’s already a bizarre week in Barletta, a clay-court challenger with the strongest field of the three events this week at that level. Of the top six seeds, only one–third seed Filippo Volandri–survived to the second round. Fabio Fognini and Pere Riba, the two top seeds, both lost three-setters.

An equally notable but less surprising loser is 43-year-old former #1 Thomas Muster, who fell to Martin Fischer today, 6-0 6-3.

Another strong field is contesting the challenger in Barranquilla, Colombia, another clay court event, where the top seeds are Teymuraz Gabashvili and Horacio Zeballos. The draw looks a lot like many of the other South American events of the last couple months, with one exception: Wayne Odesnik came through qualifying for a spot in the main draw.

This is Odesnik’s first challenger-level event since his drug suspension. The qualifying draw was reasonably competitive, as he had to beat three top-500 players, including Marcel Felder. His first-round opponent is Juan Pablo Brzezicki, the first top-200 guy he’s faced since Houston, almost exactly one year ago.

See you tomorrow!

Monday Topspin: Who’s Number Four?

World number four: I can’t remember the last time Robin Soderling looked so helpless on court. He never earned a break point against Juan Martin del Potro and managed to win a paltry five games. His position in the top five is safe for now, but you have to wonder how much longer it will be before Delpo climbs over him.

The part of del Potro’s game that doesn’t get enough credit is his defense. Even on a bad day, Soderling unleashed some monster forehands, and the Argentine sent them right back–often to within a couple feet of the baseline. More so than any of the other “big” players active right now, Delpo can play like a counterpuncher for a lengthy rally.

As long as del Potro keeps winning, we’ll see some interesting matchups. In the fourth round tomorrow, he’ll face Mardy Fish, who scored a solid straight-set win yesterday over Richard Gasquet. In the quarters, he’s seeded to face David Ferrer. And if he makes it to the semifinals, his likely opponent is Novak Djokovic. Even with Federer-Nadal possible in the other semi, Djokovic-Delpo could be the event of the tournament.

Novak’s quarter: Of course, Djokovic has to win a few matches to get there, too. The way he’s playing, that sounds like a mere formality. Even the draw is cooperating. Last night, he won yet another set at love, beating James Blake 6-2 6-0.

Tomorrow, he’ll face Viktor Troicki, who won only one game against him at Indian Wells. After that, he gets the winner of John Isner vs. Kevin Anderson, a strong contender for the most boring match of the event. He may not bagel either of those big servers, but if Delpo reaches the semifinals, it’s a sure thing that Djokovic will be waiting.

Wild card: The biggest surprise still left in the bottom half of the draw is Marcel Granollers, author of three straight upsets. In the first round, the Spainard defeated Benjamin Becker; not a huge coup as measured by ATP rankings, but a match in which sportsbooks gave him less than a 38% chance of winning. He followed that up with a big three-set win over Stanislas Wawrinka, and yesterday he defeated Michael Llodra in his third-straight three-setter.

What makes Granollers’s success even more surprising is that he had only won two matches in his previous seven tournaments. (Some of that is due to unlucky draws, including Djokovic in the first round of the Australian and Roger Federer in the second round in Dubai.) He hadn’t won three straight matches since the indoor event in Valencia, where he reached the final as a lucky loser, finally falling to Ferrer.

His opponent tomorrow? Ferrer.

Top half: Today, we’ll determine the remaining eight spots in the round of 16. From where I’m sitting, the match of day pits Jo-Wilfried Tsonga against Alexandr Dolgopolov. Tsonga is beatable right now, having just slipped past Teymuraz Gabashvili in the second round and losing to Xavier Malisse last week. Dolgo will be able to absorb most of Tsonga’s power and force the Frenchman to play more consistently than he has in months. It’s no surprise that sportsbooks give Dolgo a 59% chance of winning.

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s a wide-open draw section where Andy Roddick and Jurgen Melzer used to be. Today we’ll find out who seizes the opportunity. Janko Tipsarevic will play Philipp Petzschner, and Pablo Cuevas will try to follow up on his big upset over Roddick in his match against Gilles Simon.

Three of today’s matches seem extremely lopsided: Rafael Nadal vs Feliciano Lopez, Federer vs Juan Monaco, and Tomas Berdych vs Carlos Berlocq. I’ve underestimated Berlocq before, so on that last one, I guess you never know.

Barletta: The clay-court challenger in Barletta, Italy this week has a strong draw, much like Le Gosier two weeks ago. Several players headed straight to Italy after losing in the first round in Miami, so the top seeds include Fabio Fognini and Pere Riba. Most notable in the draw is someone who wasn’t in Miami: Thomas Muster, who is apparently still on the comeback trail.

Muster was granted a wild card, and he’ll face countryman Martin Fischer in the first round. The former world #1 is 43 years old and won a single match in eight tournament appearances last year.

See you tomorrow!

Saturday Topspin: All Figured Out

Backwards: Just when you think you have it all figured out, there’s a day of tennis like yesterday’s. The upsets I suggested didn’t happen, and the automatic wins turned into disasters for the seeds.

At least Novak Djokovic is keeping things predictable. He beat Denis Istomin 6-0 6-1. The big question is not whether he can bagel James Blake in the third round, but whether he can bagel Blake twice. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s four 6-0’s in seven matches, and three opponents who only managed a single game. And Istomin, Viktor Troicki, and Ernests Gulbis are hardly unqualified to play at this level.

Center court: Before Djokovic took care of business, it was bad news for the big names. Ivan Dodig was up a break on Robin Soderling in the third set before the Swede came charging back and escaped the upset. He’ll live to see another day, meaning he gets to play Juan Martin del Potro, himself a narrow victor over Philipp Kohlschreiber. At this point, Soderling can hardly be considered much of a contender for the title.

The shocker came a bit later, when Andy Murray fell to Alex Bogomolov. I’m not sure whether this is better or worse than a loss to Donald Young; both make you wonder how much longer Murray can stay in the top 10. Bogie is hardly a master returner, and Murray failed to win even 55% of first serve points. I can just imagine him standing six feet behind the baseline, sending unforced errors in every direction.

Two more surprises: I didn’t think Pablo Andujar could beat Bernard Tomic; almost all of Andujar’s success has come on clay. Once he beat Tomic, it was a no-brainer that he’d make easy picking for Fernando Verdasco. Verdasco won the first set on schedule, then lost a second-set tiebreak and fell in the third. It must have been very close, as there were only two breaks in the match, and Verdasco won more than half of the total points.

Then there’s Stanislas Wawrinka. Marcel Granollers somehow bagelled him in about 20 minutes to open the match. Stan made it interesting, winning a second-set tiebreak, but it Granollers eventually came out on top. The last time Wawrinka lost a set at love was in April; the last time he was bagelled on a hard court was to Jurgen Melzer in the 2008 Olympics.

Today: I’m going to say it again: It looks like a fairly predictable day of tennis. It can’t possibly turn out like yesterday, right?

Of the top few seeds, Rafael Nadal has the relatively tough draw, facing Kei Nishikori in the night session. I can’t imagine Roger Federer will suddenly forget how to beat Radek Stepanek, or that Andy Roddick will stumble against Pablo Cuevas.

According to sportsbook odds, the tightest match of the day is Juan Ignacio Chela against the slightly-favored Feliciano Lopez. The Vegas odds give Lopez about a 53% chance of winning; my system goes further and favors the Spainard to the tune of 63%.

The other “close” match is Florian Mayer vs. Albert Montanes. Montanes is the seed; Mayer is the better hard-court player. Sportsbooks say Mayer has a 60% chance of winning; I give him 65%.

Finally, Olivier Rochus will see if he can continue his current hot streaks, both in March and at Miami. In last year’s second round, he defeated Novak Djokovic. This year’s task is much easier: he faces Marcos Baghdatis, who hasn’t won a match since early Februrary in Rotterdam and lost his last set in Indian Wells to Somdev Devvarman at love. Sportsbooks give the Belgian about a 40% chance of pulling the upset.

Challengers: This time, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe couldn’t beat Go Soeda. Stebe still reached his third straight challenger semifinal, so his ranking will continue to climb. In tonight’s final, Soeda faces Matthias Bachinger, another German having a solid 2011. Bachinger is in his third challenger-level semifinal this year.

In Bath yesterday, Nicholas Mahut fell in the quarterfinals, while Dmitri Tursunov kept his comeback churning. The Russian will face Brit wild card Daniel Evans today.

See you tomorrow!

Friday Topspin: Youth is Returned

Goodbye, Americans: Jack Sock had his chance, and he let it slip away. The Miami draw gave him a great chance of racking up plenty of ranking points through a first-round matchup with Carlos Berlocq, a clay-court specialist. Neither player made more than 55% of first serves, and Sock won barely half of his first-serve points.

It gets worse. The American earned 13 break points, of which he only converted three. I don’t want to be too hard on Sock–he’s 18 and ranked outside of the top 500, so it’s not like he came in with high expectations. Yet, I’m sure he knows as well as the fans do that he was awfully close to a 1000-level win.

Measured by points, Sock outperformed his countryman Ryan Harrison, who fell 7-5 6-2 to Rainer Schuettler. As in Sock’s match, the culprit was the first serve percentage: Harrison barely made half. Schuettler is too consistent and too smart to lose when he gets all those second balls.

Youth, gone: It wasn’t a good day for other youngsters, either. Grigor Dimitrov lost in straights to Sergiy Stakhovsky, and Richard Berankis failed to convert a second-set tiebreak and lost to Feliciano Lopez in three.

The result I’m happy to see is Kei Nishikori over Jeremy Chardy. If nothing else, it tells us that Nishikori is able to successfully focus on tennis very shortly after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Kei’s performance is the flip side of Sock’s and Harrison’s: He made 78% of his first serves, a figure that may have made the difference in a fairly close match.

As a reward for his hard work, Nishikori gets to face Rafael Nadal tomorrow.

One more: Just when you think Ivo Karlovic is unstoppable, he reminds you that the serve is fallible and the rest of his game will never save him. Florian Mayer, who my hard court rankings place in the top 25, took down the Croat in straights, withstood 10 aces and took advantage of Karlovic’s weak return game. Mayer won an astounding 86% of his own service points.

Today: Half of the seeds are in action, each facing one of Wednesday’s winners. In a way, the second round of these 96-player events is less exiting than the first, because so many of the seconder-rounders seem to be lopsided. Still, here are a few matches worth following today:

Milos Raonic vs Somdev Devvarman: Before Indian Wells, Raonic was hot; after, Devvarman’s the one with the momentum. I suspect that Devvarman’s speed won’t play terribly well against the Canadian’s big game, meaning that the result will depend heavily on whether Raonic is able to bring the game that won him so many indoor matches.
Philipp Kohlschreiber vs Juan Martin del Potro: Last week, this was one of the highlights of the tournament, as Del Potro fought with stomach issues to defeat the German in two tiebreaks. Kohlschreiber should feel like he has a chance here.
Thomaz Bellucci vs James Blake: Bellucci has yet to post many good results on hard courts, and Blake is unlikely to be fazed by the lefty spin off the Brazilian’s racquet. It’s about a good a draw as Blake could have hoped for.
Mikhail Kukushkin vs Sam Querrey: If you’re looking for a possible upset, look no further. Kukushkin is about an anonymous a player as you can be inside the top 100, yet he snuck by Jarkko Nieminen to reach the second round. And as we’ve seen, Querrey has it in him to lose to almost anybody.
Igor Andreev vs John Isner: Another upset chance. Andreev has a solid return game and, when he’s on his game, he’s remarkably resourceful on the court. Not a very favorable first match for Isner.

As you can see, lots of good tennis today, especially if you’re willing to look past the lopsided matches on center court.

Stebe watch: Regular readers will have noticed that I’m obsessed with the progress of the young German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. Last week, he reached his second straight semifinal then lost 6-2 6-0 to Uladzimir Ignatik. This week, in Pingguo, he got to the quarters, where last night, he faced Ignatik once again.

Apparently the German learned something: He beat Ignatik in three sets, winning the first and losing the second in tiebreaks. In the semifinals, he’ll face top seed Go Soeda, who he defeated in the semifinals two weeks ago in Kyoto.

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday Topspin: Qualifying for Miami

Back at it: Only a day after the tournament wrapped up in Indian Wells, the qualifying tournament in Miami is underway. All 24 first-round matches took place yesterday, setting up the 12 qualifying battles for today.

A few Americans took advantage of the home soil to post good results. Tim Smyczek, who qualified last week and took Philipp Kohlschreiber to a third-set tiebreak, knocked off another higher-ranked player, beating Dudi Sela 6-1 6-4. Donald Young, himself coming off the biggest win of his career in Indian Wells, advanced past Arnaud Clement in three sets.

Less impressive were the youngsters wild-carded into qualifying. Jordan Cox won only two games against Marinko Matosevic, and Alexander Domijan lost 6-2 6-3 to Julian Reister.

The upset of the day might have been Daniel Munoz-de la Nava’s 6-2 6-2 victory over Horacio Zeballos. Munoz-de la Nava plays almost all of his matches on clay, and while Zeballos also spends plenty of time on clay, his game is more suited to faster surfaces. I saw Zeballos at U.S. Open qualifying a couple of years ago, when he first broke through into the top 100. It’s been disappointing that he hasn’t broken through since then–there’s no question he’s got the raw talent to do so.

Finally, Grigor Dimitrov got past Rik de Voest in a tight match, 6-4 7-6(2). Dimitrov was in Europe playing challengers until this week, so it will be interesting to see if he can be a factor on the bigger stage.

Meteoric Milos: Milos Raonic rose to #34 in the ATP rankings with his third-round showing in California. Assuming that Miami uses current rankings to determine seeds, it makes for some remarkable trivia. When the Miami field was first determined, the tournament used the rankings of Feb. 7, where Raonic was #84. That wasn’t good enough to make the cut–if he hadn’t been given a wild card, he would have been playing qualifying yesterday.

While the entry list is ranked far in advance, seedings are not. And after the withdrawals of David Nalbandian, Gael Monfils, and Tommy Robredo, that makes Raonic the 31st-highest ranked player in the main draw. That should give him a seed, despite not having the ranking to make the main draw just six weeks ago.

In the challengers: Cedrik-Marcel Stebe just keeps rolling. At the Pingguo challenger, Stebe advanced to the second round by defeating Alexander Kudryavtsev, 7-5 in the third set. Kudryavtsev was the 4th seed, ranked at a career high of #132. Next he’ll face Harri Heliovaara of Finland; after that, it’s a possible quarterfinal matchup with Uladzimir Ignatik, who beat Stebe in last week’s semifinals.

Not all young stars were so lucky: Evgeny Donskoy, the Russian who has had so much success of clay of late, fell in the first round in Marrakech yesterday to Martin Klizan. Klizan, a promising young player in his own right--he’s the 17th-ranked player under the age of 23–advanced to the second round easily, 6-2 6-2.

See you tomorrow!

Monday Topspin: Djokovic Keeps Winning

Another day at the office: Novak Djokovic is still undefeated in 2011. For the second time, he earned a championship the hard way, beating Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the same tournament. He wins the Indian Wells crown for the second time as well, and his victory moves him into the #2 spot in the ATP rankings.

Nadal may not be playing his best tennis, but the first set, at least, was absolutely gripping. Both players are so athletic and skilled on the defense that many rallies made them look like counterpunchers, except both guys were hitting the ball too hard for that. In the first set and the beginning of the second, Djokovic appeared to suffer the same lapse that lost him a set against Federer. But as in the semifinal, he came back in plenty of time.

It was Nadal whose racquet ultimately let him down. The biggest difference between the Rafa of last September and the Rafa of right now is his serve. In the sets he lost, the first serve percentage was dreadful: 25% in the second and 45% in the third. Even when it was going in, it was hardly a weapon. Nadal’s return game alone is good enough to beat most people, but not Djokovic, certainly not right now.

In Miami, Djokovic can pad his lead over Federer, but #2 remains in play. Last year, Djokovic lost in the 2nd round to Olivier Rochus, while Federer fell in the 4th to Tomas Berdych. To take back #2, Federer needs to win the tournament, and even then, he’ll need Novak to lose in the semis or earlier.

Federer at #3 makes every tournament draw a little more interesting: There’s the possibility of a Nadal-Federer semifinal. If not, Federer could line up to face Djokovic is the semi. The latter is a familiar sight, and it’s still an exciting one.

New rankings: With Indian Wells on the board along with two weeks worth of challengers, there is an enormous amount of movement. The biggest winner is Djokovic, moving one spot closer to #1. Both Juan Martin del Potro and Ivo Karlovic made big strides in their comebacks: Delpo jumped 39 spots to #51, and Karlovic is up 86 places to 153.

Four players reached a new career high thanks to their performances in California: Milos Raonic gained three more places to #34, Somdev Devvarman goes up to #73, Ryan Sweeting breaks into the top 100 at #91, and Ryan Harrison advances 22 spots to #130.

Several players made triple-digit jumps as well. Cedrik-Marcel Stebe moves into the top 250, landing at #234 after challenger semifinal appearances in two consecutive weeks. Amer Delic, a former top-60 player returning from injury, gains 141 places to #303 after his championship in Sarajevo. Rohan Bopanna, on the strength of qualifying for Indian Wells, jumps 119 spots to #510, and Wayne Odesnik, winner at USA F7 two weeks ago, lands at #538, an 135-place improvement.

Challenger results: Yesterday I reported on the final in Guangzhou, which leaves us four more challengers to touch on. In Le Gosier, Olivier Rochus triumphed over countryman Stephane Robert. It’s a bigger accomplishment than the usual victory at that level: Le Gosier is at one of the highest rungs of prize money ($100,000), and the draw was full of top-100 players who made early exits from Indian Wells.

In fact, while Rochus won the title and advanced back into the top 100, Robert could be said to have had the better week. En route to the final, he defeated Dustin Brown, Pablo Andujar, Marsel Ilhan, and top seed Jarkko Nieminen. As if that wasn’t enough, he teamed with Riccardo Ghedin to win the doubles–over Rochus and Arnaud Clement.

At an indoor tourney in Rimouski, Canada, the field wasn’t nearly as strong. The title match was plenty exciting, as Fritz Wolmarans defeated Bobby Reynolds in a third-set tiebreak.

The San Jose challenger, in Costa Rica, attracted plenty of South American talent, despite its hard courts. Returning to the winner’s circle was Ecuador’s Giovanni Lapentti, who won in straight sets over Igor Kunitsyn.

Finally, a clay court challenger took place in Rabat, where the Czech Ivo Minar won the title, getting past Peter Luczak in the final. The surprise performance of the week belongs to the unheralded Tunisian Malek Jaziri, who entered on a wild card. His second and third round opponents were a wild card and a qualifier, respectively, but to get there, he had to defeat fourth-seed Jaroslav Pospisil in his opening match.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the fields in the coming week. See you then!

Sunday Topspin: A Nadal-Djokovic Final

1 and 2: It’s only fitting that the new world #2 takes on the world #1 in the Indian Wells final today. Let’s see how they got there.

Rafael Nadal‘s semifinal went more or less as expected. It was close, about as tight as a 6-4, 6-4 match can be, but once Nadal went up a break in the first, the result was never really in doubt. Juan Martin del Potro is close to his pre-injury form, but he didn’t show quite the confidence necessary to boss Nadal around the court the way that he does at his best.

The semi may well have been Nadal’s best win since the tour finals last November. The highest-ranked player Nadal has beaten this year is Marin Cilic, and del Potro is at a higher level than that right now. Given the weak draw and the less-than-convincing wins over Somdev Devvarman and Ivo Karlovic, a straight-setter yesterday was the best possible outcome for Rafa.

The other semifinal, the battle for #2, was oddly inconsistent. Roger Federer‘s service game was below his usual standard which, combined with Novak Djokovic‘s rock-solid return game, meant that Federer was constantly stuck in ground battles that he isn’t terribly well suited to win. Djokovic’s steady, deep groundstrokes expose holes in Roger’s game that few other players can, forcing errors that make the Swiss look like he barely belongs on the same court.

Yet Federer won the second set, and he seemed on the brink of taking control of the third before his service game completely collapsed. It’s a big win for Djokovic–his third in a row over Federer–and it puts him back at his career-high ranking of #2.

The final matchup: Rafa is probably the better overall player; Novak might have the edge on hard courts, and he definitely is the hot player right now.

Yet the last two times these two guys faced each other on hard courts–the only two head-to-head encounters in the last 15 months–Nadal won, on big stages in London and New York. Djokovic leads the hard-court head-to-head 7-6, and the two players have split a pair of matches at Indian Wells.

The sportsbook line gives Djokovic the slight edge, suggesting he has a 54% chance of winning. My system concurs, favoring the Serb at 53.5%.

Doubles: I don’t really know what to say about a championship for Xavier Malisse and Alexandr Dolgopolov in the most loaded doubles draw in recent memory. They won every single match in a super-tiebreak of 10-7 or 10-8, and had to beat either a top-10 singles player or a top-10 doubles team in all five rounds.

Oddly enough, they aren’t slated to team up in Miami: Malisse is on the entry list with Jamie Murray. And Murray’s brother, his partner this past week, is apparently planning to join forces with Djokovic. We aren’t likely to see a doubles draw in Miami quite like this week’s, but it is nonetheless shaping up to make for another event full of surprises.

Challengers: A couple of times recently, I’ve mentioned the young German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, who qualified in Kyoto last week, reached the semifinals, then made it to the semis again this week at the challenger in Guangzhou. He lost to Uladzimir Ignatik, another promising young player, who went on to win the tournament. Ignatik, from Belarus, is only 20 years of age, and the win yesterday will inch him further inside the top 200.

Both Stebe and Ignatik will play the challenger in Pingguo next week. Ignatik is seeded eighth and will play a first-round matchup with a qualifier, while Stebe drew Guangzhou finalist Alexander Kudryavtsev, the fourth seed.

The Indian Wells final is on the card after the women’s final, not before 1 P.M. local. I’ll be watching!

Thursday Topspin: Delpo Rolling

Straight sets: For the second day in a row, eight men’s matches resulted in only one third set. Thankfully, yesterday’s contests were generally much tighter than Tuesday’s. Nobody felt that more keenly than Juan Martin del Potro.

Delpo, playing Philipp Kohlschreiber, was out of sorts for much of the first set, apparently dealing with a stomach issue. He stayed on the defense, trading protracted holds with the German into a tiebreak. A brilliant down-the-line backhand flick on the first point of the tiebreak seemed to be all he needed–his energy came back, and he only lost a single point in the breaker.

Kohlschreiber took his time recovering, dropping to 1-4 before breaking back and evening the score. The German made it to another tiebreak, which in its way, had a chance of deciding the match. Kohl was obviously in better shape for a third set after more than two hours of play. He ran out to a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak, and proceeded to lose five match points before falling 9-7. Ouch.

Today, del Potro draws Tommy Robredo, who had a surprisingly easy time with Sam Querrey, beating him 6-1, 6-3. Here’s a shocker from the sportsbooks: Delpo is more heavily favored over Robredo than Rafael Nadal over Ivo Karlovic. The difference is slight, as both are given a roughly 85% chance of winning.

The other half: Four quarterfinalists get the day off today. Richard Gasquet pulled an upset, downing Andy Roddick in straight sets, and he’ll meet Novak Djokovic. The tour should be terrified right now: Djokovic beat Viktor Troicki 6-0, 6-1. A drubbing of Ernests Gulbis–that you can understand. But while the Serbs are close friends, there’s no explanation for such a lopsided victory over Troicki except for the obvious one: Novak is playing unbelievable tennis right now.

The final quarter will be all Swiss, between Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka. (First, they play their quarterfinal doubles match, for a chance to face–of all people–Nadal and Marc Lopez.) Wawrinka snuck through against Tomas Berdych in the one three-setter of the day, while Federer was pushed to a first-set breaker by Ryan Harrison.

Clearly, a Djokovic-Federer semi is very much in the cards, and for the first time in my life, I might have to pick the Serb.

Also in doubles: The pairing of Alexandr Dolgopolov and Xavier Malisse recorded another win yesterday, this time over the Murray brothers. Today, they face Bopanna/Qureshi. Dolgo and Malisse have won all three of their matches in a champion’s tiebreak: 10-8, 10-7, and 10-8.

Up and coming: Watch out for the 20-year-old Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. Quick recap: He started the year winning two consecutive futures events in Turkey, then qualified for the Kyoto challenger last week. In Kyoto, he reached the final before losing to Dominik Meffert.

That effort got him into the main draw of the Guangzhou challenger, where he recorded a big win over Lucas Lacko in the second round and then a revenge victory over Meffert in the quarters. Today, Stebe plays Uladzamir Ignatik for a spot in a second consecutive final. Since the Kyoto results haven’t gone on the computer yet and Stebe has few points to defend, look for him to make a massive leap in the rankings next week.

Pim Pim’s brief return: After Joachim Johansson‘s impressive performance in Davis Cup, it was exciting to see him in the draw at Switzerland F1. He beat Mate Pavic in the first round, but has withdrawn, presumably with injury. Too bad.

Another comeback: Here’s another name you might know: Crazy Dani, Daniel Koellerer. The Austrian has also struggled with injury, and he’s the third seed this week at Turkey F9. He’s through to the second round, and perhaps more remarkably, he’s through to the semifinals in doubles with his countryman Michael Linzer.

See you tomorrow!

Monday Topspin: On Schedule

Predictable: If Saturday was a day of upsets, Sunday put things back to normal. In the top half of the draw, only 10 of 16 seeds survived to the third round. In the bottom half matches, played yesterday, 14 seeds got through.

And of the two upsets, one wasn’t really a surprise. Milos Raonic boomed another ten aces and converted both of his break point opportunities to beat Mardy Fish in straight sets. Raonic served himself out of trouble over and over again; Fish couldn’t do anything with eight break chances of his own.

In the other upset, you have to tip your cap to Ryan Harrison. After a tough match with Jeremy Chardy, he dealt a straight-set defeat to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, a Spainard who has had plenty of success on hard courts. As in the Raonic match, it was all about converting the break points–Harrison turned 5 of 7 to his favor, while GGL managed only 4 of 11. In the topsy-turvy match, there were five breaks of serve en route to Harrison’s 6-3 first set.

The two upsets set up quite the show for Tuesday: Raonic and Harrison, the two youngest guys left in the draw, go head to head. The winner of that match probably sees Roger Federer in the fourth round.

Speaking of: Federer won a squeaker over Igor Andreev, 7-5, 7-6(4). Andreev has always given the Swiss his share of problems, and yesterday was no different. I watched most of the match, and came away thinking Federer is playing just fine; the close score says more about a great performance from the Russian than any weakness on the part of the 2-seed.

Next up, Federer draws Juan Ignacio Chela, which you have to assume will be easier for Roger than yesterday’s was.

Andy Roddick also had a work a bit harder than expected in his match against James Blake. Blake is hardly in top form, but he showed flashes of brilliance, including one cross-court forehand winner clocked at 102 mph. Blake was all smiles at the end of the match, which makes me think he recognized his own solid performance.

For his part, Roddick gets another all-American battle on Tuesday, when he will take on John Isner.

Today: There are eight men’s singles matches, comprising the third round in the top half of the draw, including Rafael Nadal (against Ryan Sweeting) and Robin Soderling (taking on Phillip Kohlschreiber). For all that, the two highlights of the day are the matches with the lowest seeds.

Juan Martin del Potro attempts to continue his comeback against Alexandr Dolgopolov, a man who also has something to prove. It should be fascinating to watch Delpo try to boss Dolgopolov around the court, only to find that the Ukrainian has a whole lot of answers.

Competing for a likely shot at Nadal, Xavier Malisse and Somdev Devvarman make up my other highlight of the day. Devvarman may be playing as well as he ever has, and it’s always fun to watch someone as fast as he is. Malisse is a proven giant-killer, having taken out Jo-Wilfried Tsonga two days ago, but he doesn’t always perform as well against guys at his own level.

Elsewhere: There are no new rankings until Indian Wells is over, but there are a handful of tournament winners worth noting. German qualifier Cedrik-Marcel Stebe lost in the final of the Kyoto challenger to Dominik Meffert, which still represents a huge step forward for the 20-year-old. The Germans dominated that event, representing six of the eight places in the quarterfinals and both finalists.

The young Russian Evgeny Donskoy continues his winning ways on clay; a couple of weeks ago he took the challenger title in Casablanca; yesterday, he beat Simone Vagnozzi to triumph at Spain F7. It’s not quite as prestigious, nor are there as many ranking points to be had, but Vagnozzi is a credible opponent, and Donskoy continues to establish his reputation as a force to watch on slow surfaces.

Finally, at the challenger in Sarajevo, Amer Delic took the title after Karol Beck withdrew. Playing at home, Delic made a huge step in his return from injury; it was his first tournament win at any level since May of 2008. The Bosnian once broke into the top 60 and reached the third round of the Australian Open, so as long as he can stay healthy, we’ll probably be seeing him at higher levels soon.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at some of the fields in this weeks challenger- and futures-level events. In the meantime, enjoy the tennis!