Well well well, here's another quick update on the mens tennis this week at Queens, as this week so far, its not only Andy Murray, the defending champion that has been upset this week so far, but most of the other top seeds have suffered as well.
So to start off with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who after Andy was knocked out, was the next favourite to win the title. However Tsonga was up against the talented Croat player, Ivan Dodig, how last year had beaten Rafa in Shanghai in his first round match. And this proved to be the case too for Tsonga, as Dodig played a very consistent match throughout, despite a couple of service breaks in the 2nd set, which saw Tsonga take the set, but in the 3rd, Tsonga suffered an injury to his finger, however he still managed to play on, and the match went to a deciding tiebreak, which Dodig won to seal the match and winning in 7-6, 3-6, 7-6. After this match there were fears that Tsonga wouldn't be able to play Wimbledon as there was a chance that his finger was broken, but after a scan it was revealed it was just a severe sprain. So at least Tonga, even though he's out he will still be ok for Wimbledon.
And another casualty at Queens was Janko Tipsarevic, who also fell to an unseeded player, Lu Yen-Hsun, in 3 sets, as the young Taiwanese player beat the No.3 seed in 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(5). In fact out of the top 16 seeds in the draw at Queens, there are now only two left, which are David Nalbandian and Marin Cilic, who is top remaining seed. Strangely enough the 2010 champion, Sam Querrey, is also still in the tournament, so there would be a nice even symmetry if he won the title this year!
But anyway that's it so far for Queens, now onto the ATP grass court event in Halle, the Gerry Webber Open, which Federer plays every year. This year due to the tax laws, Rafa chose to play at the event along with Federer, and having won his first match against the Slovak player, Lucas Lacko in 7-5, 6-1, he went on to face the defending champion, Philip Kolschreibber. Kolschreibber having never beaten Rafa before, was on this occassion in luck, as he played aggressively and took it to the two time Wimbledon champion, and upsetting him in straight sets 6-4, 6-3. This was quite an upset for Rafa, but at the same time, he has always not fared too great in the last few years after winning the French Open. Last year went out to Tsonga at Queens, and the year before he went out to Feliciano Lopez as well, and Rafa will no doubt be more interested in playing his best at Wimbledon. Federer however who played for the 3rd time against the very talented and big serving Canadian, Milos Raonic, was again put to the test, but due to his experience and skills, Roger once again saw off the plucky Canadian after a very close match in 6-7, 4-6, 7-6. As for the others players left in the draw at Halle, there is Tommy Haas, who defeated Tomas Berdych, and Mikhail Youzhny who defeated Radek Stepanek.
So it just shows you that in the smaller tournaments that upsets can be abound everywhere, but I'm sure the top seeds will do better at Wimbledon. And one such man that needs to do is better Andy Murray, but I've already harped on about that one. But next week Andy will continue his preparation for Wimbledon at the exhibition event, The Boodles Challenge, which is held at Stoke Park. The Boodles Challenge is held every year, and this year Andy will be joined by a number of top players, including the World No.1, Novak Djokovic, as well as Juan Martin Del Potro, Stan Wawrinka, John Isner, Gilles Simon and Nicholas Almagro. Andy is scheduled to play two matches, so here's hoping he can win at least one of them!
Anyway the Queens club final will be on tomorrow and it will feature two of the only surviving seeds left, Marin Cilic, the Croation player and David Nalbandian, the former World No.3. who both came through today against Sam Querrey and Grigor Dimitriov respectively. So it promises to be a very good final, and will be worth a watch for sure.
So in the meantime that's it for now. More to follow on the Queens club champion once the event is over. Next week the ladies grass court season continues as well, as the WTA Premier event held at Eastbourne, the AEGON International, will start, which will see more of the top seeds fight it out, including Agnieszka Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki, Petra Kvitova and the defending champion Marion Bartoli. So that promises to be good!
Byee!
No comments:
Post a Comment