Wimbledon success a curse ?

Success at Wimbledon this year has not necessarily been a springboard for immediate further glory for those women that reached the semi finals and beyond on the hallowed grass.
 
Women's Champion Marion Bartoli defeated a qualifier in Toronto before bowing out in the round of 16, and then lost her only match in Cincinnati before announcing her retirement.

Runner up to Bartoli at Wimbledon was Sabine Lisicki and the German star's only entry in the records since was a first round exit, also in Cincinnati.

Agnieszka Radwanska, beaten semi finalist at Wimbledon, has come closest to victory after that performance with her finals loss at Stanford to Cibulkova, and she has made two quarters and a semi as well, but considering her seeding at the tournaments  that is probably under achieving.

The other losing Wimbledon semi finalist was Kirsten Flipkens, and her progress has seen a round of 16 exit in Toronto and a first round farewell from Cincinnati.  

Of the 4 male semi finalists at Wimbledon, only Del Potro has won a tournament since, with the others struggling to recapture the London form.

Greatest of our Generation

Greatest player of all time is too subjective but the best of their generation is something more palatable to discuss.
Since we began the new millennium there have been two stand out players, one who has almost all of the attention when handing out "greatest" accolades.  For me, Roger Federer for now remains the best male player of his time, although the longer he pursues his career, the likelihood increases that Rafa Nadal may prosecute just as compelling case.  I still believe Roger will edge the clay court king based simply on the percentage of GS titles won at Roland Garros by the Spaniard.  Federer's are a more even spread.

Until a few years ago Federer may even have been the best player, irrespective of gender of the past 20 years.  However, Serena Williams decided to give tennis another shot after a shocking injury run and a life threatening health scare.  I was fortunate enough to be at Eastbourne in 2011 to see the champion play her first tournament upon returning, and then again courtside at Wimbledon as she made it through to the fourth round.

Serena was back fit and enjoying her tennis but could she again reach those scary heights where the 13 time GS winner would intimidate all her opponents with the power and athleticism unmatched in the women's game?

A final at the US Open and 3 GS titles out of the last 4 contested, including her second at Roland Garros on Saturday night has answered that emphatically and given me just cause to argue strongly for Roger's mantle to be handed to Serena.  She is indeed the greatest player I have seen of her generation.  Given her interruptions through injury and fitness concerns, her record could even have been more imposing and that is just frightening.

16 Grand Slam singles victories from 51 attempts gives Serena a 31.37% success rate, compared with Roger Federer 17 from 56 at 30.35%.  Rafa Nadal is ahead of them both on percentages but having only played 34 GS tournaments we need to be guarded on that.

Serena Williams is achieving wonderful things as her career is approaching its end but how long that approach will actually be is anyone's guess.

I only hope that she continues to enjoy what she is doing on the court because as long as she does she will give us even more joy with her outstanding tennis prowess.

     

Week One down - Favourites cruising

Paris has been rather wet but not enough to dampen the hopes of the top players after the first week of clay court Grand Slam action.

Rafa Nadal, despite losing the first set he contested at this year's French Open, has done everything to suggest that an eighth title is only a Serbian away from fruition.  A quarter final against either Wawrinka or local favourite Gasquet will provide exactly the quality match practise required to be ready for the Djokovic assault on Friday.

Roger Federer is into another quarter final but that is nothing new - the five sets that he took to ease past Gilles Simon was more of a surprise.  Another French star Gael Monfils set the crowd alight with his first round win over highly fancied Tomas Berdych, but unfortunately the inconsistency remains and Tommy Robredo stopped the run in the third round.

We have two veteran Tommys flying their respective flags, Robredo through to the quarters, and Tommy Haas with a chance to join him there if successful over Youzhny in the fourth round.

Novak has saved his scariest form for this fortnight, dismissing dangerous first round opponent David Goffin in straight sets before dispensing uncaringly of the next two pretenders for the loss of just 11 games.  The third round victim was Grigor Dimitrov, who had the nerve to actually defeat the world number one in Madrid a few weeks back.  Now the Bulgarian will have to content himself watching his girlfriend defend her singles title.

Yes Maria Sharapova is looking good, and her tennis is rather appealing too, certainly at a level out of reach of her first 3 match ups.  Even Zheng Jie could not sustain a seemingly set winning position against the Russian, who seeded second has her sights on a second straight final.  Her toughest match could be a quarter final against a rejuvenated former number one Jelena Jankovic who is in terrific 2013 form, and is fresh off a tough three set win over previous finalist and last year's semi finalist Samantha Stosur.

Surprisingly we have lost 2011 winner Li Na, courtesy of a rampant Bethanie Mattek-Sands, the American's quarter final berth up for grabs with Maria Kirilenko.  Another pair of previous winners are due to play a quarter final, Svetlana Kuznetsova winding back the clock to her triumphant year of 2009, but in need no doubt of plenty of luck and all of her skill to push Serena Williams who is attempting to repeat her success of 2002.

Yet another past champion is alive into the second week - Francesca Schiavone, who has been desperately out of form for quite some time, is in a fourth round clash with Aus Open title holder Vika Azarenka.

Semi finalists predictions from me:

Mens Singles:

Djokovic/Nadal & Ferrer/Tsonga

Womens Singles:

Williams/Errani & Azarenka/Sharapova  

Draw Stupidity costs us possible Dream Final

The fascination of Grand Slam tournament organisers have with random shuffling of seeds in the draw, just to seemingly satisfy their own useless whims has cost the fans big time at Roland Garros this year.
With Rafa doing all he needed to grab one of the top 4 seedings thanks to a superlative week in Rome, topped off with a routine thrashing of Federer in the final, and the unfortunate withdrawal of Andy Murray from proceedings in Paris, we had the follwing:

1: Novak Djokovic
2: Roger Federer
3: Rafa Nadal
4: David Ferrer

Sensible developers of a tournament draw would place these seeds in a way that would result in Djokovic playing Federer in the final, should they win all their 6 preliminary matches.  Job done by the French Open crew with Novak and Roger at the top and bottom of the draw respectively.

Logic should also suggest that the top seed be set to play the lower seeded player in the semis should all 4 players win their 5 preliminary matches.  Then we would be fortunate enough to avoid the 2 best players in the world playing each other prior to the final, which is where they should meet.

But no - once again we are privy to the stupid situation where Roger Federer, the second seed, who is in fact the most poorly performed player of the top 4 seeds this year (the only one yet to win a title) has the privilege of not having to play the best player on clay, and 7 times winner of this Grand Slam title, in the semis.  That burden goes to the top ranked player in the world, and the only player from the top 4 yet to lose to Nadal this year.

Djokovic will have to meet and beat Nadal in the semis before he even has a chance to play another final and perhaps claim the last leg of a career Grand Slam.

It used to be a tournament organiser's dream to have a possible Federer Nadal final, but these days those potential match ups are virtual no contests.  It is the thrill that a marathon fight between the 2 finest in the game - Rafa and Nole, the 2 leading points scorers on tour this year by a street - provides that we will more likely receive 2 days earlier in Paris in 2013 than we should have. 

JJ Continues a Career Revival

While Tommy Haas has received the well deserved plaudits for resurrecting his tennis fortunes - back at 14 in the world with a victory over Novak Djokovic to his credit this year and recently turned 35 -credit must be generously afforded former WTA ranked number one Jelena Jankovic for her highly unexpected return to the consistent results she had been achieving around 5 years ago.

After early losses in Sydney and the Australian Open - to higher ranked players - Jelena reached a low point in Doha, losing a first round encounter to Niculescu, not even ranked in the top 50.

Many believed that the fine career of the Serbian star was just winding its way down to maybe a retirement within the next year or so, and the results reflected an inability to adjust to changes in the game.

However, as the backdrop against which to prove that notion totally off the mark, Jelena chose South America.  In Bogota, as top seed, she tore through the draw losing just 2 sets, admittedly against lowly ranked opposition, but with the determination of winning successive matches and lifting a trophy at the end.

A setback at Indian Wells with a first round exit at the hands of Kuznetsova was more than compensated with a great Miami tournament.  Here the Jankovic court coverage covered four players including Petrova, Cirstea and Vinci (avenging her loss to the Italian in Sydney) on the way to a semi final with WTA second ranked Sharapova.  The tournament ended for Jelena here but her fighting efforts at Charleston propelled her into her second final of 2013, and again it took a Grand Slam title holder to stop her winning run.  Serena Williams even surrendered the first set of that final.

As it stands, the Stuttgart tournament has seen Jelena draw top ten player Samantha Stosur in the first round, and her response?  A straight sets win no less.

After 3 losses in her first 6 matches of the year, Jelena Jankovic has now strung together 15 match wins from her last 18 starts.  Although her ranking is still only 18, she is 12th in the points race for the calendar year and a return to the top ten is increasingly a likelihood rather than a possibility.

This is exciting for womens tennis as Jankovic adds much needed colour to the game.

Djokovic and Azarenka set stunning pace

As we begin to start the serious part of Indian Wells, the undisputed world's best male tennis player and maybe the current best female player (if not, certainly part of a duo way above the rest) have yet to experience defeat in 2013.

Nothing new for the pair - Vika began her 2012 with victories in Sydney, the Australian Open, Doha and Indian Wells, while Novak in 2011 blitzed everyone, especially Nadal, on his way to Roland Garros without a mark on his record.  These two players have the art of consistency ingrained in their game, and have proved that they should be favourites once again to take home the Masters and Premier titles on offer at Indian Wells.

Just a few statistics on Djokovic in his relatively few outings this year:

This is only his third tournament of the year.  He won 12 matches to capture his fourth Australian Open and his third Dubai event, 5 of those against top ten players.  The player ranked number two in the world is the great Roger Federer.  He had played 3 tournaments in 2013 prior to Indian Wells, and played  13 matches, only three of those against top ten players, with only the one success (Tsonga in the Aus Open quarters).  That illustrates the gap that Djokovic has managed to eke out between himself and the rest.  Of course Nadal is seeded to play Federer in the quarter finals and either of those players is still equipped to bring Novak's run to an end, if Andy  Murray hasn't already done it in the semis.  However, these days any win by the others in the "fab four" against Novak is deemed an upset.

Vika Azarenka has had her problems against Serena Williams, but not against any other female player during her glittering run since the beginning of 2012.  Safe to say that the WTA rankings merely caught up with reality when Serena displaced Azarenka at the top of the list.  The WTA rankings never pretend to proclaim that the woman with the most points is the "best" player in the world.  How can that be the case when undoubtedly by all valued measures, Serena Williams when fit and playing has been that virtually throughout her stellar career?

The irony of Vika surrendering her lead in the ranking points table, is that she did it in the same week that she overcame the Williams curse and said to the world "I can now beat anyone, all things being equal."

Serena in my opinion still deserves her title of world's finest player, but as this year rolls on, the Azarenka claim may become more deserving, especially if she keeps winning relentlessly in the style of Djokovic.  Each battle between Serena and Vika is now as eagerly awaited as any "head to head" in female tennis since Henin and Williams, Clijsters and Williams or Williams and Williams.  

Barthel shakes off Aus Open blues

Germany's Mona Barthel began 2012 in style winning in Hobart and with other promising results appeared set to become one of her nation's top players.  However, things stalled somewhat for her, and she ended the year ranked 39 after reaching a career high of 31 in April.

Again this year Hobart proved kind, and while not repeating the victory, her effort to make the final was worthy of praise.  Melbourne Park saw a first round departure, losing in three to Pervak, and we may well have dismissed Mona from our list of players to watch for the time being.

However, the work ethic of all the German WTA players is a credit to them, and in Paris, Mona combined this with her undenied talent to sweep aside her opposition, including world number six Sara Errani in a most impressive final performance.

Now back in the top 30 at a new personal high of 28, the promise of early 2012 is ready to be realised in a big way for Mona Barthel in 2013.