By Scoop Malinowski
Saw three players wearing primarily all white – Shuai Zhang (Nike), Belinda Bencic (Yonex) and Matthew Ebden (Fila).
Pink seems to be the dominant color this year for Nike, with Kyrgios, Dimitrov, Sela, Nadal heavily pinking out.
Former no. 1s to re-unite. Peng Shuai and Su-wei Hsieh will play doubles together again this week. Together both reached no. 1 in 2014 after winning two major titles together in Paris and Wimbledon. Peng played the US Open last year with Hlackova, now partnered with current no. 1 Chan and Hsieh played with Niculescu at US Open.
44-year-old Leander Paes talked about retiring a year ago but he’s still persevering. Paes and Raja Purav played three Challengers at the end of 2017 (winning two) and will try again in Melbourne. They meet Basilashvili and Haider-Maurer in the first round.
Danny Nestor, also 44, is also still at it, now with the semi-retired Jonathan Ehrlich. Nestor, like Paes is ranked around 50 in the world, which is not a good ranking to get main draw entry into smaller events. Nestor opens up against Albot and Chung.
Francesca Schiavone has decided to cancel her retirement. Saying she’s inspired by the success of Federer and other over 30 players, the Italian will continue her career this year. She is currently ranked in the 90s after losing first round to fellow Roland Garros winner Ostapenko.
Ryan Harrison is playing doubles with Vasek Pospisil. Donald Young is playing with Tiafoe. Querrey and Johnson resume their partnership. Fognini is now with Granollers. Isner is not in the doubles.
A big win that went under the radar yesterday was junior star Marta Kostyuk beating WTA no. 27 Peng Shuai (32 years old) in straight sets. The Ukrainian teen is only 15 and ranked 522 in the world. Just a couple of years ago I saw her playing at Eddie Herr. Kostyuk plays with “both hands”, not right or lefty, according to the AO website. It was Kostyuk’s first ever WTA main tour draw match.
First time in history? Casper Ruud and Diego Schwartzman both won their 1R matches 11-9 in the fifth set and now both will play each other in the second round.
The oldest man in the draw, Ivo Karlovic (turns 39 next month), won his first rounder vs Laslo Djere in straight sets. Dr. Ivo’s ranking has dropped to 79 in the world and he has a third round in Melbourne 2017 points to defend. Ivo lost second round last year in Paris and first round at both US Open and Wimbledon.
Victor Estrella Burgos may be the greatest fighter in ATP history. He fought until the age of 33 to make his first Grand Slam appearance and to finally break the top 100. Against Nadal last night, Estrella was down 1-6 0-5 with Nadal serving. After six deuces, Estrella would not give up and he finally broke Nadal for 1-5 though he was broken the next game and lost the third set 1-6. At the end, Rafa and Estrella had a long embrace and you can clearly see how much Rafa respects Estrella’s career and his fighting spirit. He was hugging and patting Estrella as if he won. Estrella started his own line of clothes over the off-season and it’s called VE (Victor Estrella) Deportiva. It has a nice color and design which I would wear before the pink Nike attire.
34 year old Malek Jaziri won his five-setter vs Italian Caruso. The Tunisian veteran keeps on truckin’ in his impressive journeyman career which gets very little attention or accolades.
AO · Australian Open · pink
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
« Previous 1 2catherine · January 17, 2018 at 1:49 am
And Shapos must have been an epic – Hartt, did you stay awake to see it ?
catherine · January 17, 2018 at 5:25 am
Julia’s journey ended quickly today, out to Cornet, which is a surprise. Don’t know if J’s knee injury played a part.
Angie will take back the German No 1 ranking.
catherine · January 17, 2018 at 5:43 am
Sad for Julia – she never seemed to put up any fight at all. I suppose those days come. And go.
Hartt · January 17, 2018 at 6:02 am
Catherine, yes I did watch Shapo’s match. I thought that Tsonga was the favourite going in, with more experience and a higher ranking, but if Denis played his best he had a shot. Denis played very well and served for the match in the fifth set. As we know, that is one of the toughest things to do, and he did seem to get tight. Anyway, Jo got the break and then continued to play very well to win the match.
It was a very close contest, with both guys playing well overall, although Tsonga’s first serve was MIA through much of the match. Both hit some amazing winners and there were several entertaining points, where one would hit a seemingly impossible shot, then the other would reply with his own impossible shot.
So I am not too disappointed. The main thing is that Denis played well in an important match. It was the second 5 set match of his career – the other was in a DC tie last fall. He showed maturity as well. At one point he had a dispute with the umpire over whether a point should be replayed. Denis thought, and with reason, that Jo had no chance to get to the shot. But he did not get distracted and went on to win that game.
He said he has learned that he should take a break every 4-5 weeks, so I imagine he will come to Toronto to see his parents and his dogs before heading off to Croatia for the DC tie in early Feb. Things don’t get any easier!
catherine · January 17, 2018 at 6:18 am
Sounds Denis did very well, for his age and experience. I think he shows great maturity in deciding to take regular breaks. It’s very easy to overplay when you are talked up as the NBT.
Do you think Milos’ downturn may be permanent ?
Hartt · January 17, 2018 at 8:09 am
Yes, Denis seems very grounded. He wanted to play a lot of matches last fall, to experience the daily grind of the tour, and ended up getting sick. I think he learned from that experience to take regular breaks. and his coach, Martin Laurendeau, is very experienced and probably gives Denis good advice. Denis just has to follow it or learn the hard way. Last fall his team wanted him to withdraw from a match when he’d been sick in bed. But Denis did not want to disappoint the fans and insisted on playing. He managed to win a set and then had absolutely no energy whatsoever in the third, losing it 0-6. It was strange seeing the Energizer bunny like that. Next time I bet that he will listen to older and wiser voices. 🙂
Milos had yet another injury last fall, a knee injury in early Nov. that kept him out for 5-6 weeks, so he came to the new season with poor preparation. He said he is not injured now, but lacks fitness. You could certainly see that in his AO match. I hope he can get in good enough shape to play Davis Cup in a few weeks. He is in desperate need of match play.
I feel very discouraged about Milos’ chances, simply because he can’t stay healthy long enough to have good results.
Dan Markowitz · January 17, 2018 at 8:16 am
McDonald-Dimitrov match was another five set thriller. Mac is no more than 5-1- I’d say maybe 5-10, but he’s quick and very level headed and his backhand is very good. He had Wayne Ferreira in his box and he beat Grigor 6-0 in the fourth set, but his first double of the fifth set and then a forehand error into the net at MP spelled his doom. Mac really exposed Dimitrov’s backhand passing shot. Mac came in repeatedly against the Bulgarian and forced a lot of backhands into the net. Here’s another reason why playing college tennis for awhile may be important; you learn to volley by playing more doubles. Mac climbs to the top of my list as fun young Americans to follow. Too bad he isn’t 6-1.w
Chazz · January 17, 2018 at 8:40 am
I saw the 4th and 5th sets of Shapo-Tsonga. It was a shame that Shapo seemingly ran out of gas. He had Tsonga on the ropes but had a lot of unforced errors late in the 5th. I was really hoping for a Shapo-Kyrgios R3 matchup.
Wozniacki was down 5-1 in the 3rd and Fett folded and became too cautious.
Shocker of the day was McDonald almost beating Dimitrov. I hope to see him play soon. Second biggest shocker was Nishioka getting rolled by Seppi.
How about Harrison? He handled Cuevas with relative ease. His next match against Cilic should be a great one.
catherine · January 17, 2018 at 9:10 am
Fun match for the next round is Kerber v Vekic : new coach faces old coach.
No matter – Angie will not be derailed by Donna.
Scoop Malinowski · January 17, 2018 at 9:21 am
Leif; The big super athletes in tennis are out there but most haven’t succeeded like we expected. Jerzy Janowicz is an excellent mover with athleticism of a smaller player but he’s inconsistent. I still remember Gimelstob being awed by his natural talent during his run to the Wimbledon semis, Gimelstob said, “the sky is the limit” for Janowicz. Anderson has been a consistent top 50 range player, he’s been in the top 70 since 2010 and of course had his best year last year. Delpo is probably the best of the big men with Berdych a close second. Thanks for sharing your analysis Leif, very thought inspiring and interesting.
Scoop Malinowski · January 17, 2018 at 9:24 am
Andrew, Belgium made it to the final last year with an unreliable roster, and Australia nearly made the final with also an unreliable roster. America and Australia both have strong singles players – if they can summon their best tennis. If Belgium can get to within three sets of winning the Davis Cup so too can USA and Australia.
Scoop Malinowski · January 17, 2018 at 9:32 am
Dan, I’m gonna give a lot of the credit to having Ferreira as his coach. Ferreira was a great player and a very smart player. He had six wins vs Sampras in singles. Ferreira was a top 15 player for about a decade, just couldn’t go any higher, couldn’t beat Chang or Agassi but he had Pete’s number and even gave the detailed strategy of how to beat Pete in Facing Sampras. McDonald is the first player to get a top flight coach outside the USTA recycling system. Moyano, Boster, Goldfine, Stine, etc are good developmental coaches but they haven’t had success in getting our players to the top 50 and higher. Ferreira obviously is a very smart coaching pick by McDonald. Like Stepanek hiring Korda as his coach when he was a journeyman doubles player. Hopefully McDonald will stick with Ferreira and the other Americans will hire former ATP top players like Ferreira to be their coaches because as we know, the USTA recycling system of coaches is not working. Ferreira, Spadea, Blake, Roddick, Fish, Dent, Gaudio, Safin, Malisse, etc. if they are available, should be hired.
Scoop Malinowski · January 17, 2018 at 9:34 am
Ferreira is an expert at breaking down one handed backhands. He broke down Pete’s backhand six times. And he almost broke down Dimitrov’s last night through McDonald. If you want to know how Ferreira breaks down one handed backhands, order Facing Sampras now! 🙂 $9.99 on amazon and $4.99 on Kindle.
Duke Carnoustie · January 17, 2018 at 10:43 am
I watched Shapo and he was great. Jo even said that Shapo deserved to win. Terrific match.
Gotta watch the Mac Mac highlights. The message is clear as ESPN commentator Dick Vitale says, Stay in School. It is too late for Tiafoe and Fritz. Now can Mac get on the challenger circuit and win tournaments?
Crazy women’s results. Woz should be leaving Oz. Instead she stays. Svitolina had her problems too. Only kerber has sailed.
Another big story is the continued favorotism towards Fed. He gets a night session and avoids the heat instead. Novak-Monfils is during the day. Whatever Fed wants he gets.
catherine · January 17, 2018 at 11:09 am
Muguruza, Pliskova still afloat. Could weigh anchor and sail.
Halep v Bouchard ? Genie founders. Simona limps into harbour.
Kerber hull down.
Matty · January 18, 2018 at 4:06 am
Another thought or two about our young Americans. I was working out a few years ago at Saddlebrook with a Brit who’d played Wimbledon doubles. During a break he told me, “you Americans are over privileged and too middle class. You lose a Futures or Challenger match and don’t give it any thought. Meanwhile the European player says to himself, ‘that match is for my dinner tonight’.” Big difference and I’ve noticed that. As for Opelka, I was at a recent Challenger event where he was to play the #1 seed in the first round. As I spoke to that seed before the match he told me ” I’m gonna smoke this guy tonight and it’s his fault for letting his ranking fall so far”. And smoke him he did. As for Mac, I just don’t see it. Constantly trying to play that high powered hard court game that he played at UCLA. Professionally he doesn’t have the firepower to play those short points a la Sasha. Just sayin…
Leif, you’re wrong about Broady. He’s a friend, and he will make noise this year, particularly on the Challenger tour. And he’s backed now as well. Lucas Lacko, if you’ll bother to look at his last two results of 2017, you’ll see why he’s won some this year in Australia – perfect technique, fears no man, unfailing polite. A beautiful human…
I like to see the positives in each player. Life on the road for thirty five weeks a year is almost inhumane.