Fed Cup semis evenly poised

A disappointing under reporting of the Fed Cup semi finals has occurred this week, and a lot of the blame can be assigned to the media which is obsessed with Rafa Nadal's attempt to win his 10th Monte Carlo title.

However the lack of the teams top players to put their hands up and represent their countries at the business end of the Cup is most disappointing.

Especially so the defending champions the Czech Republic.  Nowhere to be seen are the world number three Karolina Pliskova or the nation's second ranked player Barbora Strycova.

Instead, the responsibility for leading the team into another final is resting partly on 17 year old Marketa Vondrousova, who while admittedly is in form, having won a title last week in Switzerland, should not be given such a load as this to bear.

Coco Vandeweghe had the experience and power to win the first match of the tie, against Vondrousova, and that put the pressure on Katerina Siniakova to level proceedings on Day One.

Ranked 38, Siniakova is the top ranked Czech player in the tie, but at only 21 it is a big tag to wear.  She lived up to the task, defeating Shelby Rogers in impressive fashion.

No Venus Williams or Madison Keys for the US team which also may have diminished interest for reporters.

The other semi final is contested between Belarus and Switzerland.  Normally Belarus would have the excellent services of Vika Azarenka, but of course she is busy with her new born as will be Serena Williams in the not too distant future.

So credit must go to the back up players who have not only placed Belarus in the final four but have given them a 1-1 start after Day One of their tie.

Aliaksandra Sasnovich, ranked 96 (the highest of the Belarus team here) began proceedings with a memorable win over Viktorija Golubic in the first rubber, a match lasting almost three hours.

Timea Bacsinszky struck back as expected, but didn't have things all her own way against 18 year old Aryna Sabalenka.  Sabalenka hit 21 clean winners to 8 but her poor first serve percentage and 50 unforced errors gave Bacsinszky sufficient room to gain the extra break in each set.

Novak gone - Rafa set for No 10

The Monte Carlo quarter finals delivered three expected results but another big upset.

Rafa Nadal did what was needed to remove unseeded Argentine Diego Schwartzman from the tournament, but Diego managed to break Nadal's serve four times for the match and tested the nine times winner of this event more than anyone had predicted.

The Andy Murray conqueror, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, knocked another Grand Slam title winner out of contention, this time Marin Cilic.  

A dominant first set, rooted in a consistent serve - 84% first delivery and no break points faced - saw Cilic having to do something in the second set to stay alive.

Cilic took the second set in a tie break, his overall serving stats much better than they had been.

Sadly for Croatia, that's where the comeback stopped.  Ramos-Vinolas continued his consistent approach and simply watched Cilic fall over at critical times.

6-2 6-7 6-2 and Albert has a semi final appointment with France's Lucas Pouille.  

Pouille was heading for defeat at the hands of Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas who led 0-6 6-3 5-4 and serving for the match.

Cuevas stumbled badly and games were 5-5.  Another chance was wasted with a break point in the next Pouille service game.  The eleven seed saved it and led 6-5.

Cuevas again failed at the line, presenting victory to Pouille.

Nadal was meant to play Novak Djokovic in his semi final.  Djokovic was pencilled in for an expected sixth win out of six clashes with David Goffin.

However the Belgian was at the top of his game, racing to a first set win 6-2.  His down the line shots for winners, on both sides, were exquisite and throwing Novak completely off balance, something unusual to see.

Down another break 1-2 in set two, a straight sets exit was staring the second seed in his face.  To his credit, Djokovic lifted his game and rattled off four successive games and won the set 6-3.

Riding the momentum, Novak clinched the early break in the decider, and at 4-2 had chances to achieve a double break.  

Instead Goffin contributed a special run of brilliance to hold serve and break for 4-4.

From that point it was catch up for Djokovic and he battled to hold serve, saving many break points.  At 5-6 he saved a bagful of match points, wasted game points, but finally relented to the Goffin pressure.

Goffin achieved possibly his finest victory 6-2 3-6 7-5 and now faces his biggest challenge - Nadal - with a realistic belief that he can win that as well.

Murray departs Monte Carlo

The third round at Monte Carlo delivered the first major upsets and they included world number one Andy Murray and third seed Stan Wawrinka.

Murray, ever the front runner, lost that tag in this match.  He wasted two prime positions, firstly a one set lead over 15th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas, then a 4-0 advantage in the decider.

It was the first meeting between the two, and the Spaniard pushed Andy's year to date record to 13/4, not particularly pleasing for the Scot.

Ramos-Vinolas will play Marin Cilic in one of the quarter finals, after Cilic disposed of Tomas Berdych in straight sets.  Berdych took the Croatian to a second set tie break but failed to win a point once there.

The other surprise was the Wawrinka loss.  Maybe not too much of a shock considering he came to Monte Carlo with a 2017 record of 14 wins and 5 losses.  16th seeded Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas wasn't fazed by his challenge, and dismissed the Swiss in two sets.  Despite only posting 8 wins in 2017 prior to this tournament, amongst those victories Cuevas had captured the Brasil Open in March, defeating Murray's conqueror Ramos-Vinolas in the final.

Cuevas earned the right to play 11th seed Lucas Pouille in another of the quarter finals.  Pouille only needed three games before fellow French player Adrian Mannarino retired through injury.

Rafa Nadal was ruthless in thrashing Germany's Sasha Zverev at the cost of two games and unseeded Argentine Diego Schwartzman will be at the Spaniard's mercy in their quarter final.  Schwartzman easily accounted for another German, Jan-Lennard Struff.

The final quarter final is possibly the best on paper.  Novak Djokovic devised another escape to defeat Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, down break points at 4-4 in a deciding third set, then emerging from the hole to win three of the last four games.

David Goffin repeated his Australian Open defeat of Dominic Thiem, but it required a three set thriller to do so.

The first set tie break was pivotal, and even though Thiem struck back to level at a set apiece, Goffin steadied with a classy third set display, strong on serve, and returning just about everything.

Djokovic has won both his matches without displaying much of his bag of tricks, and he will no doubt draw on more of his brilliance in order to match a confident Goffin.

Djokovic leads 5-0 head to head.

Djokovic survives - Tsonga out

Novak Djokovic's start to his Monte Carlo campaign was anything but auspicious, requiring three sets and a comeback from break down in the decider against Frenchman Gilles Simon in the second round.

The number two seed will have to lift his game in order to advance much further, remembering that he lost in the second round last year.

Next up will likely be Pablo Carreno Busta.

Other successful seeds through to the third round were David Goffin (10) and Pablo Cuevas (16).

Not so lucky was 7th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who fell to fellow Frenchman and qualifier Adrian Mannarino.

After taking the opening set in a tight tie break, Tsonga went missing in the second, his serve virtually impotent against a confident Mannarino.

61 % of points on Tsonga's first serve and half of the points on his second serve flowed the way of Mannarino and so did three service breaks.

6-2 and momentum to the underdog, 

The trend continued in set three as Tsonga had no answer, the match score in Mannarino's favour 6-7 6-2 6-3.

First round matches were completed and amongst them Borna Coric suffered a let down after winning his first ATP title last week, toppled by Jeremy Chardy, ten years his senior.

In another win for the veterans, Tommy Haas, aged 39 and ranked 655 in the world, playing just his sixth ATP match for the year, took Benoit Paire to the cleaners in straight sets 6-2 6-3.

Tomorrow features Murray, Wawrinka, Nadal, Cilic, Thiem, Berdych and Dimitrov in their first outings as the tournament starts to heat up.

Monte Carlo Masters begins

The biggest clay court event so far in 2017 is underway - the Masters 1000 tournament in Monte Carlo.  Roger Federer has decided to give others an opportunity to win a piece of silverware by skipping this, and we are privileged to have Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic back to take the top two seedings.

They, together with the rest of the top eight seeds have been granted first round byes.

Novak already knows his second round opponent as Gilles Simon defeated Malek Jaziri  in one of three first round matches completed on Day One.

Elsewhere, the WTA tour continues in Zhengzhou, China, where 24 of the 32 women in the draw are either Chinese or Japanese.  Shuai Peng, ranked 40 in the world, is top seed.

In results from the last week, 17 year old Marketa Vondrousova won her first WTA title in her first final, defeating Anett Kontaveit in a close tussle 6-4 7-6 in Biel/Bienne.

Kontaveit moves 25 spots to 74 in the world and Vondrousova jumps from 233 to 117.

Steve Johnson won his nation's clay court championship in Houston, but was taken the distance by Thomaz Bellucci 6-4 4-6 7-6 (5).

Borna Coric won his first ATP title by outlasting Philipp Kohlschreiber in three sets in Marrakech.

Kohlschreiber led 7-5 3-0 before Coric made the first of his comebacks to take the second set in a tiebreak 7 points to 3.  In the decider, Kohlschreiber once more seemed set for victory leading 4-2, but couldn't deny the Croatian his special day.

Coric won 5-7 7-6 7-5, and with the win finds himself back in the top fifty.

Schiavone turns back the clock

It's all about the old and the new as the shock results continue on the WTA tour this week.

In Bogota, Francesca Schiavone reminded spectators of why she had spent much of her career at the elite level, taking out the top seed and three others on the way to capturing the  Claro Colsanitas Open.

The final was a close battle, with fourth seed Lara Arruabarrena rueing the break point chances which went begging throughout the match.  Schiavone broke four times, twice in each set, from only six opportunities.  Arruabarrena created 14 chances, but only converted twice, once in each set.

Both players were similarly capable in baseline and other exchanges, but it was the 36 year old Italian who won the important points, leading her to win a second South American tournament in the past two years and earn a jump in the rankings from 168 to just outside the top 100.  At this rate, automatic entry to Roland Garros is looking a distinct possibility.

Meanwhile in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, 17 year old Marketa Vondrousova is the latest young player to emerge from the Czech Republic and make waves.  She is into the Biel Bienne Ladies Open final after dispensing with older and far more credentialed Czech compatriots Kristyna Pliskova in the quarters and Barbora Strycova in the semis.

Prior to this tournament, Vondrousova had made four lower tier ITF finals in 2017, winning two.  Now, having won through qualifying to make her first WTA final, Marketa will jump almost 100 places in the rankings to a career high 139.

A title win will send that about twenty spots higher.

To defeat Strycova, a top twenty player, took a lot of mettle, especially trailing 2-5 in the opening set and facing a set point in the twelfth game.

The set point was saved with a big serve and the ensuing tie break was impressively taken 7-3 by the increasingly confident teenager.

Winning 11 of 12 points on her first serve helped Vondrousova dominate Strycova in the second set.  Hitting several of her 22 winners for the match,  Vondrousova returned the Strycova serve with ease and restricted the top seed to a mere 13 points for the set.

The 7-6 6-2 win sets up a final against Estonia's Anett Kontaveit.  It will be the first WTA final for both Vondrousova and Kontaveit.

In ATP events, Steve Johnson has come from a set down to defeat top seed Jack Sock to reach the US Men's Clay Court Championship final in Houston.  He will play Thomaz Bellucci, the Brazilian having finished the tournament for young American Ernesto Escobedo.

The Marrakech final will match up third seed Philipp Kohlschreiber against Borna Coric.

Clay court season beckons

The year has moved very quickly and we now head to the clay court season leading into the second major of the year at Roland Garros.  There are currently tournaments underway on both the ATP and WTA tours in Switzerland, Colombia, Morocco and The USA.

Not all the big guns have decided to play this week but the red clay of Houston has attracted the US Davis Cup quartet of Jack Sock, John Isner, Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson as the top four seeds.

Disappointed at losing the quarter final tie to Australia, all four bounced back to reach the quarter finals of the US Men's Clay Court Championship in Houston.

Joining them in the last eight are two Spaniards Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez, fellow American Ernesto Escobedo, and Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci.

Bogota, Colombia is hosting the Claro Colsanitas Open, and gives the opportunity for many of the players ranked 50 and lower to avoid qualifying and be guaranteed a place in the main draw.

One prominent name to take advantage is Italian Francesca Schiavone, 2010 Roland Garros champion but now ranked 168.  She has had a 6/9 win loss record this year but in Bogota has reached the semi final, in the process knocking over 6th seed Patricia Maria Tig in the first round and in a major upset, eliminating top seed Kiki Bertens in a straight sets quarter final coup.

Schiavone will play third seed Johanna Larsson in one semi final, while the other semi will feature two Spanish players Sara Sorribes Tormo and fourth seed Lara Arruabarrena.

Tommy Robredo provided a huge upset in Marrakech defeating the top seed Grigor Dimitrov in three sets.  Robredo at 34, once a top five player, but now ranked 385 and hardly on court at all this year, is a quarter finalist along with other unseeded players Struff, Vesely and Coric.  

Paire, Kohlschreiber, Lorenzi and Ramos-Vinolas are the seeds who are the next opponents for the unexpected four, respectively. 

The Biel Bienne Ladies Open in Switzerland is headlined by top twenty player Barbora Strycova.

Apart from Strycova and seventh seed Julia Goerges, who meet in a quarter final, all the seeds were dumped in the first round or in the case of Carla Suarez Navarro the second.

Anett Kontaveit, ranked 99 and from Estonia, is through to the semi finals

17 year old Czech qualifier Marketa Vondrousova is ranked 233 and is a set up in her quarter final against Kristyna Pliskova.