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Monday, April 25, 2011

Futures: Week 16

This was another interesting week in the Futures circuit. Here’s a quick recap:

*INDIA F4: 23-year old Vishnu Vardhan took his second consecutive title in his home country, defeating 31-year old veteran Korean Young-Jun Kim in a 3-set thriller, edging him 13-11 in the final set tie-breaker. Top seeds Danai Udomchoke (THA/formerly ranked 77 in the world) and Karan Rastogi were both eliminated in the semis, as the momentum of Vardhan and Kim was stronger than the ranking disparity. 29-year old Udomchoke is 25-8 on the year as he makes his way back to the big leagues from injury. 21-year old Indian Vijayant Malik advanced to the QF, earning 2 points before being dismantled by the heavily experienced Udomchoke. Former Junior No.9 Hsin-Han Lee (‘88/Taiwan) also advanced to the quarter-finals.

                                          CREDIT: Sandeep Saxena / thehindu.com

*CHINA F4: In another inspired showing by a veteran South Korean, Kyu-Tae Im took home the silverware after defeating the local favorite Zhe Li. After managing to close out a tight first set, Im cruised to a 76 (8) 61 victory. It was mostly a disappointing week for some of the better-known young guns in the tour. 90’-born British hopefuls Alexander Ward and Daniel Evans both went out in the first round, along with Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (’92) and Taiwanese Liang-Chi Huang  (’91). Other than Li’s final appearance, it was a bad week for Chinese prospects. 92’-born Chuhan Wang (former 24-ranked Junior) and Bowen Ouyang (former 16-ranked) were taken out in R2, along with 91-born Di Wu.

*FRANCE F7: Former Junior No.1 Jonathan Eysseric seems to be hitting his stride, as he managed to win a tough 3-setter to take the trophy at home. After a disappointing professional career compared to the lofty expectations that were thrust upon him, the diminutive Eysseric reached his career-high ranking earlier this month (257) and will surely improve that in the next few weeks. To win the title, he took out countryman Romain Jouan. This Future was filled with under-21 players, but most of them failed to advance. Guadaloupe-born Gianni Mina was eliminated in the first round again, along with Pierre-Herbert Hughes, Hugo Nys, Maxime Chazal and Michael Bois. The lone bright spot was ’93-born Tristan Lamasine earning his second ATP point after defeating unranked Yanais Laurent.

                                          CREDIT: news.bbc.co.uk

*ITALY F6: Veteran “Crazy Dani” Koellerer took the title of this 15k future without dropping a set, defeating Belgian Yannick Mertens in the final. This tournament had the presence of a slew of young guns, including current Junior No.1 Jiri Vesely (CZE, ’93) who advanced to R2 before losing to eventual semi-finalist Colombian Alejandro Gonzalez (’89). Bosnians Mirza Basic (’91, former Junior No.6) and Damir Dzumhur (’92, former Junior No.3) advanced to R2, with Basic making it one round further before losing to Mertens in the QF. Austrian Dominik Thiem (’93, current Junior No.3), using another JE, was eliminated in the first round.

*ARGENTINA F2: This tournament was literally a young-gun fest. With the only real veterans in the draw (Juan Pablo Amado, Diego Alvarez and Lionel Noviski) being eliminated by the QF, it opened up the draw for the brightest Argentinean (with a token Chilean) talent. ’92-born Facundo Arguello showed why he won’t be playing futures much longer, as he cruised to the title, only finding resistance in last-week’s champion Agustin Velotti, whom he discarded with a 16 63 63 victory. Arguello defeated Chilean Cristobal Saavedra (’90, former Junior No.20) in the SF, and Nicolas Pastor (’91) in the final. Pastor took care of Guido Pella (’90) in the other SF. ’93-born Dante Gennaro obtained his second ATP point this week after beating Juan Ignacio Amarante in R1. ’91-born Valentin Florez played his best tennis of the year, defeating Diego Alvarez and Maximiliano Estevez before losing to eventual-champion Arguello. 

                         CREDIT: Osvaldo Carballo y Víctor Alves / eldiariocba.com.ar

*BRAZIL F10: 23-year old Nicolas Santos had his best showing of the year as he defeated fellow Brazilian and No.1 seed Eladio Ribeiro-Neto en route to winning the title. Santos is another one in a long list of Brazilians who excelled in the Juniors but could not translate such success into the pros. This title comes after 3 consecutive R1 loses, so it might signal a turnaround in his career. ’92-born Bruno Semenzato advanced to the QF, before losing to Fabiano De Paula (’88).

*TURKEY F14: Rounding up the podium of young guns this week is Slovakian Jozef Kovalik (’92) who followed up a semi-final appearance last week with a final showing this time, only to be stopped just short of the title by Spaniard (and US college-trained) Arnau Brugues. Kovalik took down struggling No.1 seed Brydan Klein, along with young-guns Yannick Reuter (Belgium) and Michal Konecny en-route to the final.

                        CREDIT: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images North America

Challengers: Week 16

This week was a rather quiet one in the Challenger circuit, as only 2 tournaments were played and both in the same surface, red clay. As the slow-courts season gets underway in Europe, many players try their hand in ATP qualifying, therefore generating less of a need for challenger tournaments. However, Italy had its token tournament, and so the Brazil, across the Atlantic Ocean.

*Santos, Brazil ($35,000 +H): South America is the part of the world where the supply of talent grossly outweighs the demand of tournaments. And because of being a rather “poorer” region economically, most South Americans have to wait their turn, only to flock the few tournaments that occur here during the year. This explains why this tournament was veteran-heavy, with a few youngsters making the draw, yet struggling to keep up with the, perhaps less talented, but infinitely more experienced counterparts. One can point to Ricardo Mello, Marcos Daniel, Eric Prodon, Nicolas Massu, Juan Pablo Brzezicki and Diego Junqueira as guys who have hundreds of challenger matches under their belts. This proved to be the case, as their experienced prevailed, except for a strange twist at the end. ’91-born Jose Pereira managed a R1 win and so did ’92-born Spaniard Javier Marti. Also, Slovenian Aljaz Bedene continued his hot-run with a QF appearance, before losing to eventual finalist Junqueira. 30-year old Junqueira had another good showing, beating fellow Argie veteran Brzezicki to reach his second challenger final of the year (and on the heels of a SF outing last week in Blumenau). At the top of the draw, No.1 Seed Ricardo Mello had to fight off the more talented (yet more inconsistent) Argentinean Leonardo Mayer but couldn’t get through the surprise of the tournament, 22-year old Brazilian Joao Souza. Souza had been having a subpar year, but managed to defeat Junqueira in the final to take the title at home and rise to the 148th spot in the ranking. The big-serving Souza is looking to regain the form that took him to the doorstep of the top 100 in late October of last year and this was definitely a step in the right direction.

                                                   CREDIT: Trysports.com.br

*Napoli, Italy (€30,000 +H): Same country, different city, yet same result. Dutchman Thomas Schoorel is officially the hottest player in the challenger tour. This week he followed his Rome title by taking the silverware at Napoli, extending his streak to 10 matches. And he did it while kicking butts and taking names, especially those of the tourney’s top 2 seeds, Jeremy Chardy and Filippo Volandri, who he defeated in the final in straight sets. Schoorel now sits at a career high ranking of 117 in the world, about 40 points out the top 100. Among other interesting things that happened during the week was the gaping difference between the new Austrian guard (namely Andres Haider-Maurer) and the old guard (I’m talking about you, Thomas Muster!). Muster wasted yet another Italian challenger WC (losing to future Belarus star Uladimir Ignatik), while AHM made a run to the SFs, before losing to Volandri. On the other hand, Italian Wild Card Mateo Trevisan (’89, former Junior No.1) did make the most out of his opportunity, advancing to the QFs.

                                          CREDIT: atpnapoli.com

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Futures: Week 15

Here’s a quick summary of what happened in at the futures level last week:

*CHINA F3: Ti Chen from Taiwan took the title over South Korean (and ’91 born) Yong-Kyu Lim. Former juniors No.1 Marton Fucsovics (’92) from Hungary advanced to his second-ever semi-finals, both times in Chinese soil. However, another former top Junior, Taiwanese Liang-Chi Huang (’91/ex-No.3) continued to struggle at the pro-level. He was defeated in R2 by Chinese wonder-kid Di Wu (’91). Daniel Evans (’90), of Great Britain, also advanced to the semi-finals of this 15K tournament.

*FRANCE F6: 7/8 quarter finalists were Frenchmen with Charles-Antoine Brezac taking the title over red-hot Kenny De Schepper. Mathieu Rodrigues continued his great 2011 run with a semi-final appearance. Former juniors stars Gianni Mina (No.1 in 2010) and Alexandre Sidorenko (No.3 in 2006) continue to struggle in 2011 with the former having trouble making his mark in the pros, and the latter finding it hard to recover the form that took to a ranking of 145 almost 2 years ago.

*ITALY F5: German Jan-Leonard Struff (’90) continued his red-hot 2011 run with a final appearance at this future. He was defeated by Italian veteran Stefano Galvani but nonetheless improved his record to 18-4. This tournament had the presence of Crazy Dani Koellerer and fellow Austrian Dominik Thiem (current Junior No.3 and using one of the Junior Exemptions), but both were taken out by Galvani, the eventual winner.

*ARGENTINA F1: The best of the Argentinean young talent (with the exception of Facundo Arguello) was present in this tournament. Ever-improving Diego Schwartzman (’92) made a run to the final, only to lose to fellow Argentine Agustin Velotti (former Junior No.2 and 2010 Roland Garros winner). Velotti won his second-ever futures title. Guillermo Duran (’88) and Guido Andreozzi (’91) were the other semi-finalists.

*BRAZIL F9: Due to having 2 other futures in the region (Chile and Argentina), a challenger event in the same country (Blumenau) and being played on a hard surface, this tournament had a very low cut-off, with a few unranked players making the draw without even playing the qualys. A pair of Argentineans achieved their first points ever (Manuel Belda and Benjamin Tenti) and another Argie, Gaston Grimolizzi, aided his comeback bid by taking the title over No.1 seed Rodrigo Guidolim.

*CHILE F3: Frenchman Guillaume Rufin took the title for the second week in a row, this time without even dropping a set the whole tournament. It’s hard to understand why a guy so young and with so much talent is not looking for stronger competition. He beat local Guillermo Hormazabal in the final. This tournament featured Gonzalo Lama (’93, Chile) earning his first ATP point.

*INDIA F3: Former Junior No.1 Yuki Bhambri of India reached the final but lost to first-seeded and fellow Indian Vishnu Vardhan. The ’92-born former Junior Australian Open and Orange Bowl champion has found it very hard to advance his ranking into challenger territory and has been a disappointment so far in his career.

*SPAIN F12: The star of the week was Roberto Carballes-Baena (’93 and current Junior No.9), who at the tender age of 18 won his second futures title defeating Gabriel Trujillo-Soler in the final. He will be inside the top-550 when the new ranking arrives next week. British young guns Jack Carpenter (’92) and Oliver Golding (’93 and current Junior No.4) earned 1 point each this week, thanks R1 wins. So did ’94-born Frenchman Matthias Bourgue, who earned his second-ever ATP point by defeating Spaniard Juan Lizariturry in R1.

*THAILAND F3: South Korean veteran Young-Jun Kim took the title over German Jaan-Frederik Brunken (‘90). Brunken had defeated fellow class of 1990 Alexander Ward of Great Britain in the semi-finals.

*TURKEY F13: Moldavian Radu Albot defeated German Peter Gojowczyk to claim this future crown. Slovakian Jozef Kovalik (’92) made a surprise run to the semis before losing to the eventual winner. Meanwhile, Aussie Brydan Klein (former Junior AO champion), the No.1 seed this week was defeated in the semi-finals. He’s one of the many Australians who had great success in the juniors but have so far failed to do the same at the pro level.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Challengers: Week 15

Last week, the challenger tour took players around the globe to 3 continents and two different surfaces. As per usual, there was a healthy mix of winning done by both members of the “young gun” class and the “blast from the past” armada. Here’s a recap of the action:

*Athens, Greece (€85,000 +H): This was one more of the countless European hard-court tournaments of the season. The draw had the presence of only 2 non-Euros (American/Filipino Treat Huey and Mexican Santiago Gonzalez), and 4 local wild cards (all of whom were defeated in the first round). No real surprises happened until Benjamin Becker (No.1) was upset by Swiss Stephane Bohli in the QF. The semis were very much expected too, as Dmitri Tursunov and Matthias Bachinger continued their great form in 2011. Both reached the final and were set to go against one another, except that the rain wasn’t planning on letting that happen without a fight. After the Sunday session was postponed, and with the forecast for Monday not looking much better, Tursunov decided to withdraw, blaiming it on a knee injury (from his official announcement on Twitter). With the “win” and the title, Bachinger took home 12,500 euros and enough points to crack the top 100 for the first time in his career.                                 

*Johannesburg 2, South Africa ($100,000 +H): As opposed to the action in Greece, this South African challenger saw a great run by the local players. Most seeds advanced throughout the draw, with the only major upset being young-gun and former junior star Greg Jones (Australia) beating ace-machine and Luxemburg’s finest Gilles Muller in a straight sets victory. It was a better than usual week for Jones, but he couldn’t get past Rik de Voest in the semis. De Voest met fellow South African Izak Van der Merwe, with the latter taking the title with a hard-fought 67 75 63 win. The 27-year old showed great form at home again (semis at Johannesburg 1 CH) and reached a career high ranking of 134.

                                          CREDIT: SATA (South African Tennis Association)

*Tallahassee, USA($50,000): This one was also another stereotypical American challenger, in which more than half the players were from the US and Canada. And as it was the case with the Greek challenger, the players that came into the tournament showing the best form were the ones lifting the silverware at the end of the week. Rainer Schuettler was the third German No.1 seed eliminated early this week (Dustin Brown in SA and Becker in Athens), paving the way for an All-American semi-final that featured the eternal young-gun (Donald Young), a former local superstar (James Blake), a challenger tour specialist (Bobby Reynolds) and a young veteran on the comeback trail (Wayne Odesnik). Donald Young put on a display of tennis and poise in beating the more experienced Blake. It is worth noting that Young bounced back after losing the second set 61, and closed the match with authority, 63. Moreover, the Illinois-native finished out the week by beating Odesnik in the final and re-entering the top-100 at the 98th spot. It is too early to tell whether Young has finally found a way to harness his immense talent, but he has already beaten Andy Murray this season as has risen about 50 ranking spots in the last 6 weeks.

*Blumenau, Brazil ($35,000 +H): This week’s Brazilian challenger was definitely a tale of 2 halves. After R1 was completed, the top and bottom of the draw could have not been any more different. At the top, No.1 seed Ricardo Mello was ousted in the first round as the Argentinean legion took over, comprising ¾ of the QF and 100% of the semi-finalists. There, Jose Acasuso, a former Davis Cup player who was once ranked 20th in the world, defeated 4  compatriots (Andres Molteni, Martin Alund, Leonardo Mayer and Diego Junqueira) to reach his first CH final since Tunis, almost a year ago. The bottom part much messier and entertaining as youngsters Javier Marti (‘92/Spain), Marcelo Demoliner (‘89/Brazil), Facundo Bagnis (‘90/Argentina) and Aljaz Bedene (’89/Slovenia) advanced. Although Bagnis and Marti were favored to advance because of their current form, fatigue kicked in and both were defeated. Demoliner continued his dream run by beating Bedene and reaching his first CH final. However, he could not match Acasuso’s talent and experience, dropping the final with a 62 62 score. Acasuso rose to 178 thanks to his victory and has his sights set on re-claiming his spot in the top 100.

                                             CREDIT: Cristiano Andujar / Divulgacao

*Rome, Italy (€30,000 +H): This challenger featured some of the best young-prospects in Europe (Ignatik, Stebe, Carreno-Busta, Klizan, Donskoy, Schoorel, Fabbiano) and likely the oldest guy on the tour (our friend and once-upon-a-time-great Thomas Muster, receiver of yet another pointless Wild Card). Although most of the youngsters were wiped out early, two of them kept fighting and landed in the final. Former Junior No. 1 Martin Klizan beat Simon Greul, top-seeded Andreas Haider-Maurer and Rabat-winner Ivo Minar to set up a meeting with Thomas Schoorel from the Netherlands. The Dutch wiped out veterans (Pashanski, A.Beck) and young guns (Carreno-Busta, Stebe) alike to set up the class of ’89 clash. At the end it was the less-heralded prospect who prevailed, as Schoorel took the title with a 75 16 63 win. Both achieved career highs this week, with Schoorel at 126 and Klizan at 153.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The curious case of Federico Delbonis and the success of his opponents

Here's the English version of my previous post (sorry, still trying to figure out the blog's layout)

Sometimes when the desired results don’t come one start to look for explanations, specially when talent is present and the opponents are the same as before. Moreover, in a burgeoning career it’s rare to see that, suddenly, one starts to lose more often than usual. Surely there are a dozen factors that only the player, his coach and his entourage know about. It could be an injury, a change in style, a new serve, or simply a bad stretch cause by a decrease in confidence. Here I present you a different angle, and a theory that has been proving itself week after week. But first, let me give you a little background

I introduce you the story of Federico Delbonis of Argentina. Born in 1990, he reached his career ranking high in July of 2010 (117 in the world) after a meteoric rise in 2009 that saw him go, in a matter of months, from barely qualifying to Futures to give Stan Wawrinka all he could handle at the ATP in Gstaad, Switzerland. Delbonis then finished 2010 ranked 160 after a subpar showing in the South American challengers of the Copa Petrobras.

Delbonis then started 2011 with his sights set on breaking into the top 100, make it to the big leagues and play in the Grand Slams. The problem is that, as of mid-April, his current ranking is still 157 and he has to defend a significant amount of points from the same time last year. This is because Delbonis has lost this year to opponents he has already beaten in the past, or that he should beat if one takes his potential and their rankings into account. Here are some examples:

In his first tournament of the year, Delbonis reached the semi-finals of the Sao Paulo CH, where he lost to Ricardo Mello, the experienced Brazilian.  After beating Delbonis, Mello went on to win the title with a 62 61 win over 1990-born Rafael Camilo. Weeks later, also in Brazil, Delbonis lost to Facundo Bagnis in the second round of the Brazil’s ATP at Costa do Sauipe. Bagnis ended up advancing to the main draw before losing in the first round to Portugal’s Rui Machado. Besides, Bagnis today is going through the best stretch of his young career, setting career high rankings almost weekly.

At the beginning of March, Delbonis went to try his luck at the Salinas CH in Ecuador. There, after reaching the QFs, he lost to compatriot and 1988-born Andres Molteni, a veteran of the Futures circuit taking his first steps at the challenger level. After beating Delbonis with a hard-fought 64 in the third set, Molteni went on to win the tournament, his first at that level, beating former 41-ranked Argentine Horacio Zeballos. 

His schedule continued in Morocco, where Delbonis was forced to play his second round and quarter final matches during the same day because of a rain delay. In the second round he beat Slovak Ivo Klec in 3 sets, and later battled out another 3-setter against Czech Ivo Minar, before running out of gas and losing. Minar went on to win the challenger (played in Rabat), beating another challenger veteran in Aussie Peter Luczak.

The following week, also in Morocco (Marrakech), Delbonis surprisingly lost in the first round against Frenchman Augustin Gensse, 200 in the world at the time. Unsurprisingly, however (because of my theory), Gensse enjoyed a dream week in which he beat compatriot Desnieres de Veigy and the up and coming Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas before being eliminated in the semis by Portugal’s Rui Machado. By mid-April Gensse had achieved a new career high.

Last week, Delbonis flew to Monza, Italy to take part in a new challenger. After getting through R1, he lost in the second round to German Julian Reister, a match in which he had 3 match points in the second set tie-breaker. As you can probably imagine by now, Reister completed one of the best weeks of his life by beating fellow German Andres Beck in the semis and the local favorite Alessio Di Mauro in the final to, not only win the title but also to enter the top 100 in the world for the first time.

And here’s the cherry that goes on top: Delbonis participated at the end of last week in the qualy for the Masters 1000 at Monte Carlo, but was eliminated in the first round by Portuguese Frederico Gil. And guess what? Gil not only won his QR2 match to make it to the main draw; he also beat Sergiy Stakhovsky, Florian Mayer and GAEL MONFILS to advance to his first QF at such tournament level. And the dream continues: he plays Andy Murray tomorrow and then a possible date with a dude named Radael Nadal. Can he make it happen? (editor’s note = he lost to Murray 62 61. Oh well…)

Probably this is just a random correlation. But weirder things have happened before. I just want to say that it’s clearly possible that sometimes a player is unlucky enough to, somehow, bring the best in his opponents and lead them to have their best week of the year. The only sure thing is that if my theory keeps “proving itself” throughout the year, everyone is going to want to beat Delbonis because, unfortunately, he has become a sort of lucky charm…

Thursday, April 14, 2011

El curioso caso de Federico Delbonis y el éxito de sus rivales

A veces cuando los resultados no se dan uno empieza a buscar explicaciones, sobre todo cuando el talento sigue presente y los rivales son los mismos. Además, en una carrera ascendiente es raro ver que, de repente, uno empieza a perder mucho más seguido que lo que indicaría el sentido común. Seguramente hay decenas de factores que solamente el jugador, su entrenador y el entorno conocen. Puede ser una lesión, un cambio de estilo, un nuevo saque, o simplemente una mala racha debido a un bajón en la confianza. Yo aquí les presento una mirada diferente, y una teoría que se viene bancando sola, semana tras semana. Pero primero, un poco de historia...

Les presento la historia del argentino Federico Delbonis. Nacido en 1990, alcanz
ó su ranking más alto en Julio del 2010 (117 del mundo) luego de un meteórico 2009 que lo vio pasar, en escasos meses, de jugar qualys de futures a darle pelea a Stan Wawrinka en un ATP en su Suiza natal. Delbonis luego terminó el 2010 en el puesto 160 del mundo después de una actuación aceptable, pero sin grandes resultados, en la gira de la Copa Petrobras.

Entonces Delbonis arranc
ó el 2011 con la mira puesta en entrar a los 100, llegar al circo mayor y jugar los Grand Slams. El problema es que ahora, a mediados de Abril, su ranking sigue igual (157) y le toca defender muchos puntos de la misma época del 2010. Esto es porque Delbonis ha perdido este año contra rivales que ya había vencido, o que debería vencer si uno tiene en cuenta su potencial y la diferencia en ranking.

Mi teoría se basa en lo siguiente: pese a perder contra rivales de nivel parecido o inferior, la mayoría de los rivales que lograron vencer a Delbonis este año han terminado superando sus propias expectativas, y han ganado el respectivo torneo o han llegado lejos. Aquí van los ejemplos:

En su primer torneo del ano, Delbonis lleg
ó a la semi-final del challenger de San Pablo, donde perdió con Ricardo Mello, un experimentado brasileño. Luego de vencer a Delbonis en 3 duros sets, Mello le ganó al también local Rafael Camilo 62 61 en la final. Semanas después, también en Brasil, Delbonis perdió con Facundo Bagnis en la segunda ronda de la qualy del ATP de Costa do Sauipe. Bagnis terminó avanzando al Main Draw antes de perder en primera con el portugués Machado. Además hoy Bagnis pasa por el mejor momento de su carrera, mejorando su ranking más alto semana tras semana.

A principios de Marzo Delbonis fue a probar suerte al challenger de Salinas, Ecuador. Ahí, tras llegar a cuartos de final, perdió contra Andrés Molteni (1988), un rival más grande y haciendo sus primeras armas en challengers. Después de vencer a Delbonis 64 en el tercer set, Molteni termin
ó llevándose el torneo, el primero de su carrera a ese nivel, y venciendo a un ex 41 del mundo como el argentino Horacio Zeballos.

La gira continu
ó en Marruecos, donde Delbonis debió jugar sus partidos de segunda ronda y cuartos de final el mismo día. En primer turno batió en 3 sets a Ivo Klec, y en segundo turno llevó al checo Ivo Minar a otro tercer set antes de quedarse sin nafta. Minar también terminaría ganando el challenger (jugado en Rabat), venciendo al veterano australiano Peter Luczak.

La semana siguiente, también en Marruecos (Marrakech), Delbonis sorprendentemente perdió en primera ronda contra Augustin Gensse, francés 200 del mundo. Y como para no perder la costumbre, Gensse siguió con su semana de ensueño, y venció a su compatriota Desnieres de Veigy y al ascendente español Albert Ramos-Vinolas antes de caer en semi-finales con el portugués Rui Machado. Esta semana Gensse se encuentra con el mejor ranking de su carrera.

La semana pasada, Delbonis jug
ó en Monza, Italia un nuevo challenger. Luego de pasar la primera ronda, perdió en segunda contra Julian Reister, un partido en el que tuvo 3 match points en el segundo set. Como se imaginaran a esta altura de esta nota, Reister continuó una de las mejores semanas de su vida, ganándole a Andreas Beck en semi-finales y al local Alessio Di Mauro para llevarse el título y entrar por primera vez a los mejores 100 del mundo.

Y acá viene la frutilla del postre: Delbonis viajo a Monte Carlo esta semana a jugar la qualy del Masters 1000, pero qued
ó eliminado en primera ronda ante el portugués Frederico Gil. Y adivinen que? Gil no solo ganó su segunda ronda y entro al cuadro principal; también venció a Sergiy Stakhovsky, Florian Meyer y a GAEL MONFILS para avanzar a su primer cuartos de final a este nivel. Y el sueno continua: mañana se enfrenta a Andy Murray y después vendría Rafa Nadal. Podrá lograr el milagro?

Obviamente esto es una curiosidad. Pero también dicen que las brujas no existen, pero que las hay, las hay. Solo digo que a veces, es posible que semana tras semana, un jugador tenga la mala suerte de enfrentarse a jugadores que están pasando por su mejor semana del año. Lo seguro es que si alguien se entera de esta teoría, le van a querer ganar como sea a Delbonis, porque, lamentablemente,  se ha transformado en una suerte de amuleto de la buena suerte...

Monday, April 11, 2011

Challengers: Week 14

Challenger tennis action last week happened in Colombia, Brazil and Italy. All 3 tournaments had compelling stories, ranging from over-the-hill veterans on the comeback trail, to one of tennis’ future superstars making his first great run, to young veterans of the challenger tour making earning results that inched them closer to the “promised land”.

***The Brazilian tournament happened in Recife, and at first glance one can note that the cut-off was very low, meaning that players that usually can’t make the main draw had a chance at some serious points and ranking-improvement. This is very weird from a supply and demand point of view, especially with the shortage of challengers in South America and the incredible abundance of talent throughout the continent. The explanation can be found in the fact that the tournament was played on a hard surface, and that another challenger occurred a few miles north on neighboring Colombia. And since the Colombian challenger offered more price money, points and a friendlier surface (clay), most of the players within the ranking range decided to opt for the land of coffee (?).

With that said, the field in Recife was more than half filled by local players (17 to be exact), in what turned out to be almost an all-star display of the future of Brazilian tennis. Wild cards were awarded to Bruno Sant’Anna (’93), Tiago Fernandez (’93), Guilherme Clezar (’92) and Augusto Laranja (’92). Other young guns included Brazilians Fernando Romboli, Jose Pereira, Tiago Slonik and Daniel Silva, along with Tsung-Hua Yang, Gastao Elias, Facundo Arguello, Ilya Belyaev and half-Brazilian (and half-Swedish) Christian Lindell. The field also displayed a few wily veterans (Japan’s Ito, Ecuador’s Lapentti and Switzerland’s Chiudinelli, the top 3 seeds).

Experience prevailed as Ito, Lapentti and Julio Silva all made the semi-finals. However, the fourth one was a happy surprise for the locals, as 18 year old Tiago Fernandez advanced thanks to a favorable draw. He took down Tiago Lopez, Bruno Sant’Anna and Guilherme Clezar, before shocking Julio Silva and advancing to a final that he couldn’t play because of fatigue and back pain. He still was awarded 48 points which vaulted him to 380 in the world, obviously a career high and a very impressive placement considering his age. Meanwhile, Japan’s 22-year old Tatsuma Ito won his second challenger in Brazil in less than a year, and moves closer to the door step of the big guns, sitting at 135 in the world.

***Meanwhile, the Colombian city of Pereira hosted a challenger of their own, which featured most of the remaining top guns of the continent, and the token European clay-court veteran trying to make a run. The draw again was very interesting from a young-guns viewpoint. Argentineans Facundo Bagnis (fresh of a title in Barranquilla), Marco Trungelliti and Andres Molteni were present, along with Spain’s Javier Marti, locals Eduardo Struvay and Juan Sebastian Cabal and Brazil’s Joao Souza.

Once again experience trumped youth, and Paolo Lorenzi of Italy took the title beating Rogerio Dutra Da Silva of Brazil. However, Javier Marti of Spain made his first challenger semi-final and took Dutra Da Silva to 3 sets before losing 16 62 75. It’s also worth mentioning that Argentina’s Marco Trungelliti came all the way from the qualys to beat Leandro Mayer and Victor Estrella, before losing to Juan Sebastian Cabal.  This led 1990-born Trungelliti to his career high ranking of 357.

***Finally Monza hosted yet another Italian challenger, once again played on clay. Not many young players in this tournament to talk about, except maybe for Federico Delbonis (Argentina), Evgeny Donskoy (Russia) and the up and coming Kenny De Schepper of France. 3 Germans made the semi-finals (Andreas Beck, Julian Reister and Simon Greul) along with Italian veteran Alessio Di Mauro. Reister took the title, winning 63 on the third against the Italian, and jumping to a career high ranking of 100 in the world. The 25 year old was having a very sub-par year for a player of his ranking, but the win in Italian soil got him over the hill and into a club that includes dudes like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Congrutalations to him!

To wrap this up, there has to be a mention to Thomas Muster, who somehow keeps getting WCs into the Italian challengers, even though he can’t seem to win a set against his younger counterparts. It’s always fun to see a blast from the past like that, but if the results are not what you want, then I think it’s time to abort the mission and run back into retirement. Come on Muster, stop wasting people’s time and precious wild cards. Hey, here’s an idea for a change. Give your wild cards to Dominik Thiem, the future tennis star of your country. Just saying…