Busy time for top ten contenders

Quarter final time in Prague as a group of middle range WTA players put some more miles of clay under their feet en route to what they hope will be a successful Roland Garros in May/June.

Top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, enjoying a career revival of sorts, has claimed one of the last eight spots, as have four of the other eight seeds. We said farewell in round one to remaining seeds Cibulkova, Ostapenko and Wickmayer.

Lucie Safarova has smiled for the first time in months having won her first match in 2016.  The thrill was so much for the second seed that she decided to double up and win two in a row.  Can she overcome Su-Wei Hsieh for a treble and a semi final berth ?  I think she can - this is her time of the year - although she lost first round in Prague in 2015, she proceeded to make quarters in Madrid, final at Roland Garros and round of sixteen at Wimbledon.

Rabat has been the scene for another WTA event, and it appears that Moroccans don't like the taste of seeds, as five have failed to reach their expected quarter final destinations.  Swiss top twenty player, and top seed here, Timea Bacsinszky, is the class in the tournament, and with the carnage of most of the other fancied women, the next highest ranked player left is another Timea, this one of the Babos variety and of Hungarian extraction.  Babos ranks 40 in the world and is drawn to meet Bacsinszky in one of the semis should both win their respective quarters.  Highly likely that the tournament winner will come from one of the Timeas.

The men have also been hitting tennis balls for money, while reddening their clothes with clay, in Estoril, Munich and Istanbul.

Estoril has participants in two quarter finals decided - third seed Benoit Paire from France and fifth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez from Spain will contest one of the two quarters from the top of the draw.

Second seed Nick Kyrgios (currently Australia's highest ranked player) will attempt to overpower Croatia's Borna Coric, the tournament's sixth seed in the bottom half.  

All eight seeds still standing - so far.  

In Munich the withdrawal of Monte Carlo runner-up Gael Monfils was a blow to tournament organisers but David Goffin and Dominic Thiem remain, ensuring enough class in the event.  It also opens up the bottom section of the draw to Kohlschreiber, Del Potro and the like.  So far only one quarter final has its components known - third seed (second highest after Monfils left) Thiem faces Croatian Ivan Dodig.

The probable semi final between Goffin and Thiem is what organisers are hoping for just as they want to see Del Potro advance as far as he can, being the crowd favourite he is.

Istanbul, where history was made last week with the first Turkish title winner on the WTA tour is currently hosting an ATP event with Bernard Tomic top seed for his second tournament in a row.  Hoping to redeem himself for his last lamentable effort, Tomic faces Diego Schwartzman from Argentina in the second round, following a first round bye.

Two quarter finals are already set, and the seeds are comfortably in their predicted places.  Fourth seeded Argentine Federico Delbonis meets number eight seed Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas, while number two seed Grigor Dimitrov does battle with sixth seed Jiri Vesely, the Czech Republic player who upset Djokovic in Monte Carlo.  He upset him so much that we haven't seen Novak since.

Angie defends at home / Rafa 2 in 2

Angie Kerber is a nice enough person off the tennis court but with racquet in hand and a net to manoeuvre, she had no time for continuing the Stuttgart fairytale of compatriot Laura Siegemund.

In the tournament final, the Aus Open champ took very seriously the form of the lower ranked surprise performer and the first set was a fairly even affair, with breaks of serve occurring every second game. Angie managed to return the Siegemund serve just that fraction more effectively, and took the set 6-4.

That was the first dropped set from Laura for the tournament, and with it she dropped her bundle.  Angie dominated set two, not losing a game, despite the first serve percentage of 75 from Siegemund.  It seemed a mental thing as well as great tennis from Kerber - Laura Siegemund had given all she had for the event and whilst her body may have still been going through the motions, it was difficult to keep a positive thought while Angie ruthlessly pounded tennis balls past her.

Angie Kerber brilliantly defended her Stuttgart title 6-4 6-0, but plenty of praise for the runner-up Laura Siegemund, whose best ever WTA result, including 3 top ten scalps,  was a revelation for German and women's tennis.

Rafa Nadal, by defeating Kei Nishikori in Barcelona's final, provided further evidence of his credentials for Roland Garros favouritism. However the first set in the final was full of chances for Nishikori.  In a very even match, seven of the eight break points Nadal faced were saved, whereas the two that the Spaniard created were both converted, effectively assigning the set 6-4 to Rafa.

A case of one that slipped away for Kei.  Set two was again competitive with stats similar in most key areas. Both first serve percentages were in the seventies, while both percentages of points won on serve were in the fifties.

Where the set was won once more though was with break point conversion.

This time it was Nadal with more of the opportunities - 10.  Nishikori did really well to close down seven of these, but it wasn't quite enough as he could only manage to break the Nadal serve twice, thus surrendering the second set to Rafa 7-5 and the title 6-4 7-5. Two in two weeks.

9 Barcelona trophies now for Nadal to match his 9 Monte Carlos and 9 French Opens.  He will be quite willing to break that symmetry with a tenth successful run at Roland Garros this year, no doubt.

Istanbul was a scene for some history with the first Turkish woman, Cagla Buyukakcay, to make a WTA final, and doing it in front of her home nation crowd making it extra special.

Clearly the final brought all sorts of new pressure as opponent and fifth seed Danka Kovinic took the first set 6-3, the first set dropped by Cagla all tournament.  Certainly close for much of the opening set, Cagla was quick to regroup and asserted herself and her tennis on the match, not allowing Danka many avenues to respond, and a 6-2 second set squared proceedings at a set all.

The decider was a thriller, with the standard fairly high throughout, and the result perfect for the home crowd.  Cagla withstood all that a tiring Danka could throw at her, and the solid Buyukakcay serve was maintained - 84% first serves in play and 65% points won on serve for the set compared with 55% for Kovinic.

Enough for 6-3 and an overall 3-6 6-2 6-3 historic title win for Cagla, the first ever on the WTA tour by a Turkish woman and a guaranteed entry into the world's top 100.

The Bucharest final between Fernando Verdasco and Lucas Pouille has been delayed a day due to Romanian rain.

Siegemund the story of Stuttgart

Predictably, Rafa Nadal and Kei Nishikori won their semi finals, both losing only five games for the match, and will pit their wits and skills against each other in the Barcelona final.

Bucharest semis saw the last of the seeds exit, Fernando Verdasco disposing of fellow Spaniard and fourth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and improving Frenchman Lucas Pouille signing extradition papers for Argentina's third seed Federico Delbonis.

In Istanbul, the Turkey fans are thrilled to have one of their own in the final after unseeded Cagla Buyukakcay ousted Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland in one semi.  Cagla will face fifth seed Montenegrin Danka Kovinic who outlasted the Ukraine's Kateryna Kozlova in the other semi.

All that is rather uninteresting compared with the news from Stuttgart where the final will be contested between two German girls for the first time in the tournament's history.

First played in 1978, but a hard court event until it became red clay in 2009, it is the only indoor clay tournament on the calendar.

It has been awarded the WTA's Premier Tournament of the Year six times, since and including 2007, so it is easy to see why the top players have signed up to play again in 2016.

The extra thrill of an all German final comes because of the lack of local success previously.  Apart from Angie Kerber being the defending champion, only Anke Huber twice in the early nineties has raised the Stuttgart trophy for Germany.  Navratilova has won six, Hingis four, Sharapova and Davenport each three, but now it seems is Germany's time to take control of its own.

Angie Kerber took one more step to a successful defence of her 2015 title with a hard fought three set victory over Petra Kvitova 6-4 4-6 6-2.  Although left empty at the last four, Petra should feel better about her tennis after this because she showed much more mental steel than at other points of the season, and if the trajectory of progression continues, Roland Garros could be her best yet, and we know how the Wimbledon grass is like Popeye's spinach for her.

The best is for last and that is Laura Siegemund, the unexpected other German finalist in Stuttgart.  The now ranked 71, but soon to be top 50 player, has been hitting the courts for years without much success at WTA singles events, but doing sufficiently ok at ITF events to be able to manage a tennis existence.  Ranking low to match a low profile.

Then 2015 and enough points to break into the too 100, and 2016 a second round victory over Jelena Jankovic at the Australian Open.  At 28, a career was taking a significant turn.  Laura was now entering WTA events with thoughts of not just contesting qualifying, but winning through to main draws.

That she did in Stuttgart, having to win three successive matches to qualify for a first round main draw match with 27th ranked Russian Anastsia Pavlyuchenkova. Although not in her best form Anastasia has been ranked as high as 13, and would have been expected to account for a qualifier.  Instead she was smashed 6-0 by Siegemund in the opening set and although improving as the match evolved could not catch up and lost in straight sets.

If that was a warning signal to second round opponent Simona Halep, then it wasn't heeded.  The fourth seed was another straight sets victim, as too sixth seed Roberta Vinci.

The win over Vinci earned a semi against top seed Aga Radwanska, and this surely was a mountain too high.  With the early break of serve and a point away from consolidating at 4-1, it seemed that the world number two was on track to finally show the gap from the elite to the rapidly improving mid range.

The scoreboard wasn't reflecting the court action though as the match was closer than the score indicated.  Laura employed some power tennis punctuated with several delicate drop shots to rattle Aga and break back, then hold and break again for 4-3.  Her backhand was producing winners on key points, and when Aga tried to cover that, the forehand would create its own damage.

The extra service break was enough and Laura Siegemund held comfortably for a 6-4 opening set win.  Her record of not dropping a set all tournament was intact.

Set two was a runaway train which Aga had no hope of retrieving.  86% of first serves from Siegemund found their mark, and she won 62% of points on serve for the set compared with just 42% for Radwanska.

The clean winners were consistently pouring off the hot German racquet and fairly early in the set it was clear to Aga that her day was done, despite all her best efforts.

34 winners to 17 unforced errors is a wonderful stat.  One break back for Aga was merely a token and totally against the tide.  The overall trend continued and the 6-4 6-2 victory must rate as the very best of Laura Siegemund's career.

Now who do the German spectators support in the final ?  The glamour girl and Aus Ooen champ, with all the fame and titles - Angie Kerber, or the underdog who has won all hearts with her upset wins over the 1, 4 and 6 seeds - Laura Siegemund.

Either way should be a great final for Stuttgart and a boost for already strong German tennis.

Two Germans in Stuttgart semis

In Barcelona Nadal and Nishikori eased into their expected semi final berths with straight sets victories over Fognini and Dolgopolov respectively.  Rafa let his second set drag to a tie break at which point his patience snapped and he allowed only a single further point to the 12th seeded Italian..

Nishikori was more devastating in his destruction of 11th seed Dolgopolov.  After the first set offered something of a contest, the Japanese second seed blew the Ukraine hopes away, winning 27 of the 40 points played in the short second set.

Nadal will play German Philip Kohlschreiber in his semi, while French player Benoit Paire is the next prey for Nishikori.  Both opponents are ranked in the top thirty so should provide decent workouts for the top two seeds.

Stuttgart has given Petra Kvitova the opportunity to maybe put her season on track.  She held her nerve to beat Niculescu and make the quarter final and now has overcome third seed Garbine Muguruza in another three setter, this time losing the middle set, but obliterating the Spaniard in the opening and closing stanzas 6-1 & 6-0.  

A tough semi final awaits against Angie Kerber who is on her home turf, but Petra is winning matches requiring a lot of grit at the moment, and she has previously gone missing when sufficient pressure was applied.  Hopefully, and I've said this a number of times before, the Kvitova potential can finally begin to be fully realised.

For the locals, not only Angie has them screaming for joy.  Laura Siegemund added the scalp of 6th seed Roberta Vinci to that of Simona Halep as she skipped into the semi finals to face top seed Aga Radwanska.  28 year old Laura finished 2002 ranked 1235 and only reached the top 100 last year.  It is a great story of endurance and improvement over many years for the German player, and this terrific week will not only provide her a decent cheque, but a significant rankings boost.

The Bucharest semi finalists are decided and unseeded Fernando Verdasco presents dangerous opposition for fourth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, given some of the form he has displayed this year, belying his ranking.

The other semi features third seed Federico Delbonis, whose 17-8 win loss record (with one title) in 2016 looks rather imposing, against French surprise packet Lucas Pouille.  Following his axing of second seed Karlovic, Pouille pulled the same manoeuvre on seventh seed Paolo Lorenzi. so should not be treated lightly by Delbonis.

Maria Sakkari's fine run at Istanbul was ended thanks to fifth seed Danka Kovinic, but not before she had won the first set 6-1, putting a scare right through the Montenegrin.

Kovinic (ranking 60) will play the Ukraine's Kateryna Kozlova (ranking 129) in one semi final.  The other will be contested between Turkey's own Cagla Buyukakcay (ranking 118) and Stefanie Voegele (ranking 116) from Switzerland.

There are lots of points on offer for finalists and semi finalists at this event and you can see from the low rankings, that making the semis, and for two of the girls the final, this will mean plenty in terms of jumping up the rankings list and eventually direct entry to tournaments. (Bypassing qualifying).

Europe feasting on tennis

4 tournaments are being played at the moment, two each on the ATP and WTA tours.  In Stuttgart, six of the top ten world ranked women put their names down to contest a big event for Germany, including its glamour girl Angie Kerber, the second seed.

Barcelona sees the return of Rafa Nadal to headline a 500 series tournament, and Kei Nishikori has joined him as second seed.  Unfortunately two other top ten players, Ferrer and  Gasquet , withdrew, reducing the depth in the draw.

Bucharest and Istanbul are hosting lesser events, with Bernard Tomic top seed in Romania and Anna Schmiedlova top seed in Turkey.

In her home country's tournament, 71 world ranked German Laura Siegemund thrashed fourth seed Simona Halep in the first major upset in 2R Stuttgart.  Andrea Petkovic was another German player, albeit nowhere near as anonymous, who was on the path to crush a top seed, indeed the number one seed Aga Radwanska.

After leading 6-1, Petkovic became another victim of the Radwanska comeback syndrome, the world number two prevailing 1-6 6-1 6-2.

Fifth seed Petra Kvitova trialled the Aga revival technique following the mauling she received in the first set from Monica Niculescu, and it worked for the Czech star, managing a tie break success and then a straight forward third set decider.

All the other seeds won through to the third round except for number eight Lucie Safarova, who hasn't won a match all year and continues to see her ranking drop.  Now it still is a respectable 15 but her Roland Garros points from last year are huge and will need to be defended in the not too distant future.  

In Barcelona, the two stars Nadal and Nishikori are both comfortably in the quarter finals and appear more than likely to meet in the final.  Just the one big surprise of the event thus far - 19 year old Russian qualifier, ranked 138, Karen Khackanov, knocked 5th seed Roberto Bautista Agut out of proceedings in a second round three set triumph.  Dolgopolov prevented any further advancement but it was a great tournament for the teenager.

Bucharest was a disaster for top seed Tomic who had a chance to consolidate his position in the top twenty and prove his credentials to those doubting his claims of top ten possibilities by end of 2016.  He was cleaned up by Robin Haase in the second round in straight sets after a first round bye.

Second seed Ivo Karlovic also left in the second round, courtesy of the French pest Lucas Pouille, leaving Federico Delbonis as the highest ranked player left in the draw.

Istanbul gave Greek qualifier Maria Sakkari the opportunity to defeat top seed Anna Schmiedlova which she accomplished brilliantly in straight sets.  The 20 year old is ranked 127 in the world, having only turned professional last year.  Her win loss record this year is 18-10, including qualifiers, and she now takes on Montenegro's Danka Kovinic, fifth seed, in the third round.

Apart from Kovinic, Japan's Nao Hibino at six is the only remaining seed in the Istanbul draw.

9 Monte Carlos for King of Clay

For two sets the Monte Carlo final between Rafa Nadal and Gael Monfils provided some of the best and most competitive tennis of the year to date.  It was never reduced to what can sometimes occur with clay court tennis - perpetual rallies nullifying the natural stroke play of the best - instead it brought out the very highest quality of each of the combatants.

Admittedly the serving stats weren't the greatest, but figures alone can't determine which matches are most memorable, and once the rallies were in flow, the power and direction change we know that Nadal can fire off his racquet, challenged Monfils constantly.  

Just as frequently the delightfully unique and stylish Monfils shot making replied in effective silence to the bullish grunting Nadal brilliance.

It was one extra break of serve that the Spaniard managed to eke out which decided the outcome of set one and Rafa was half way to a ninth title in this resort 7-5.

Set two was not without its service breaks either, but it had little to do with first serve percentages which were sensational, Nadal's at 85%.  Today returning serve was pretty much spot on.

It was even better tennis than that served up earlier and the Frenchman delivered a serious blow in the seventh game with a second break and a 4-3 lead.  However Nadal stepped things up with some heavy ground strokes, and two successive double faults donated the break back to Rafa and it was 4-4.

Nadal then contributed possibly the best service game of the match.  He won it to love with some awesome serve / ground stroke combos and withering angles leaving Monfils powerless and needing only to walk from one receiving point to the next until the score reached 4-5 and he was serving to stay alive in the match.

Another twist in the tail, and the tale of this match, with an almost as impressive serving exhibition from Gael to level at 5-5, and an inexplicably break of the Spanish serve after seeing three break points saved.  Nadal's shot long to fall behind 5-6 was a rare cracking under pressure and Monfils took full advantage, serving out the set 7-5 and levelling the match.

As already noted, this was some of the best 2016 tennis for two sets.  The third set was unfortunately Rafa claiming his clay court rights in emphatic fashion, assisted no doubt by a tiring Gael Monfils.  The 6-0 scoreline is flattering in many ways to Nadal, but he did finish full of running and I believe deserves favouritism, or at least equal with Djokovic, for Roland Garros.

Despite the painful termination of the match, Monfils can be happy with much of the Monte Carlo final because of the way he forced Nadal to produce his best tennis.

For the record, Nadal won his 9th Monte Carlo crown in his 100th career final.  King of Clay once more, not that he ever really lost the title.

Monfils to face Nadal in Monte Carlo finale

The Monte Carlo semi finals were intriguing.  The first of them saw Andy Murray start where he left off last year in Madrid, where he won a clay court Masters battle over Rafa Nadal.  The Scot was easily the better mover around the court and was causing all sorts of frustration for Nadal.  Unfortunately none of it transferred onto the scoreboard and Rafa was serving to level at 3-3.

Murray finally struck, creating three break points, helped somewhat by Nadal's arguments with the chair umpire.  The break was achieved and another when Rafa was serving to stay in the set, Murray looking just as good, if not better, than when he destroyed Raonic in the quarters.

Rafa was miffed, and took a couple of angry pills to accentuate his unhappiness.  He wasn't prepared to allow this show pony from Scotland to take another clay court crown from the master of this surface.  He broke straight away, only for it to be neutralised immediately.  However, this was a vastly different set with Nadal far more focused on the task at hand.  He was matching the shot making and court movement of Murray, and building enough pressure to eventually break the Scottish serve for a 4-3 lead and it was sufficient to take the set 6-4.  The match was now worthy of a third set.

The decider was virtually a mirror image of set one with Nadal now in complete control, choosing the perfect time for his winning drop shots and generally taking full advantage of Murray's less effective court coverage.

Nadal won 2-6 6-4 6-2 and his spot in the final made him immediate hot favourite irrespective of who should win the next semi final.

The scoreline of the Monfils / Tsonga semi was extraordinary, considering the head to head record of the two.  Tsonga had won five of the seven clashes, although the most recent encounter in Miami 2015 saw Monfils triumphant.  They had surprisingly never met in a match on a clay court.

Gael Monfils was on fire in the first set.  Both players were amazing with first serve percentages over 70%, but the stark difference was in points won when the first serve was successful.  Monfils won 77% of the time, while Tsonga could not handle the returning of the other Frenchman, winning only a third of the points when his first serve hit the mark.

This combination of serving and returning ensured plenty of opportunities to break and Monfils did, four times in fact, and he took Tsonga to the cleaners 6-1.  Incredible performance and although Tsonga regrouped for a second set revival, it was clear that Monfils had all the answers in this match, and he clinched the other final position with a brilliant 6-1 6-3 victory.

Hard to visualise Monfils doing enough to threaten Nadal in a Monte Carlo final which the Spaniard has won 8 out of the past 9 years, but Djokovic managed it last year, and we have been surprised by some results in 2016.  I don't think this will be one of those times.