Wk.25- Kings, Queens and Knaves

Hey, all. Galileo here.

The wanderer has returned from a holiday period for this BACKSPINNER. Yes, we do have them. And in this catch-update we'll go back. So far the winners have been Feliciano Lopez and Ash Barty. If the Aussie does not win most improved or some similar award it will be quite a shock.

Now, let's recap the early grass season in brief. French Open champion Rafael Nadal did not play an event, not even at Queens Club. He saved himself for a big push at Wimbledon, a tournament at which he has done dreadfully of late. Federer was upset by Haas in three, while Dimitrov lost to Jerzy Janowicz in his first round match. The Swiss star even blew a match point.

Lucas Pouille won his first grass court title. He saved a match point in his first match and then hit 29 aces in the final to take home the title. He edged Feli Lopez 4-6, 7-6[5], 6-4. The Spaniard beat three seeds during his run, including 3rd seeded Tomas Berdych.

In 1976, Ken Rosewall [42] and Illie Nastase [30] played the final of Hong Kong. The score in that final was 1-6, 6-4, 7-6, 6-0. That is the last time we had an older final than we did in Rosmalen, the Netherlands. In this one the combatants were 38 and 34. These two have met three times and it has always been on grass. Every set has ended in a tie-breaker. It did not change in the final, with the Luxembourgian winning 7-6[5], 7-6[4]. There were 76 service winners which accounted for 53 per cent of the points. So the crowd really got their money’s worth.
Other winners included Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot. They were top seeded at two events, one in Rosmalen and one in Halle, and won them both.

And now for Kings, Queens and Knaves...


*WEEK 25 CHAMPIONS*
HALLE, GERMANY (Grass)
S: Roger Federer def. Alexander Zverev 6-1/6-3
D: Kubot/Melo d. Zverev/Zverev
LONDON, ENGLAND (Grass)
S: Feliciano Lopez def. Marin Cilic 7-5/3-6/6-2
D: J.Murray/Soares d. Benneteau/Roger-Vasselin


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: FELICIANO LOPEZ, ESP
...Spaniard Feliciano Lopez is a player nobody can dislike. You may not be a fan of Rog because he is too mainstream and can come off as arrogant. Perhaps Murray's temper, Nadal's fastidiousness and Djokovic's rip my shirt off celebration bother you. Gael Monfils can be too flippant, Gilles Simon too dull. Why doesn't Ivo Karlovic mix it up more? You can't really dislike somebody as gentlemanly, as pleasant as 'Deliciano'. And his game style is perfect. It is quintessentially tennis. He plays spectator-friendly tennis. It is very hard to do this. It is harder yet to do so and to win consistently. But Lopez's great skill is in making his opponents look flashier just by being near him. He is the very definition of mercurial, but his tennis is endearing to the crowd and that is a quality to be respected. In this era of smaller crowd sizes, attendance problems and a lack of flashy shotmakers he stands out as a unique substance. Just like, in the words of Lorelai Gilmore, Velveeta is a substance unto its own. He opened the week against Stan Wawrinka, but on his favourite surface the upset is always on. On the same day that Andy Murray capitulated, he knocked out the second-seeded Swiss 7-6[4], 7-5. Qualifier Jeremy Chardy, who beat Jordan Thompson in qualies, was next, but he handled the Frenchman in a 6-1, 7-6[4] victory. Next was Tomas Berdych. He had beat Berdie in two hours and nine minutes in Stuttgart. In London it was even harder - the Spaniard had to save a match point but won 7-6 (5), 6-7 (1), 7-5. He was serving 4-5 when Berdych was a point away, but he still managed to improve to 8-6 all time against the Czech. He is 4-0 against him on grass. Two came at Queens and two at Stuttgart. In the semi-finals, he beat out a resurgent Grigor Dimitrov 7-5, 3-6, 6-2. In the final he faced off against Cilic. Having lost the last five against the Croat, including two at Queens, he knew he would have to defy the head-to-head. There were just four break points and 41 aces in the match. In 19 return games Cilic won just 27 points. Lopez won 19. It was, as expected, a server's match. Cilic won eight more points and was as close as you can get to winning without actually doing so. It means he still has never won Queens, despite three final appearances. It also means that Lopez has now won his third grass court title from five finals. He won Eastbourne from 2013-14. He will be seeded at Wimbledon and he may well be able to add to his three quarterfinals there. He got that far in 2005, 2008, 2011 and lost in the fourth round in 2014.
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RISER: ROGER FEDERER, SUI
...Federer is going to hit two very important milestones this year. In fact, it will almost certainly be three. With Nadal you need only check the milestones during the clay swing. With the Goat you constantly need to check the all-time lists. He breaks records every week. He is at such a level of greatness that his standings change weekly. He has 92 titles, two less than Ivan Lendl. Connors has 109. He has 140 finals, just below Lendl's 146. That is still an absurd amount. His 187 semi-final appearances are three off Lendl and 50 off Connors. He will overtake Lendl in two categories this year. He is second in matches played and won, behind only Connors in both. The first is by over 170. The next is 150. He has 70 outdoor titles and Nadal 71. He has won 157 grass court matches. Connors has won 170. Fedex has the best win percentage on grass, too. Here's a finals and titles stat box.

*MOST FINALS AT TOURNAMENT*

10	11	12
French Open R. Nadal 05-08, 10-14, 17	Halle R. Federer 03-06, 08,10,12-15, 17	Basel R. Federer 00-01, 06-15
Barcelona R. Nadal 05-09, 11-13, 16-17	Monte Carlo R. Nadal 05-13, 16-17
ATP Finals R. Federer 03-07, 10-12,14-15
Wimbledon R. Federer 03-09, 12, 14-15
Buenos Aires G. Vilas 72-76, 77 [x2], 79, 81-82

*MOST TITLES AT TOURNAMENT*

10	9	8
French Open R. Nadal 05-08, 10-14, 17	Halle R. Federer 03-06, 08, 13-15, 17	Buenos Aires G. Vilas 73-76, 77 [x2], 79, 82
Barcelona R. Nadal 05-09, 11-13, 16-17
Monte Carlo R. Nadal 05-12, 16-17

Here we see three things. First, just how much playing in your home country, in your home city, can make things easier. For most players. But also look at Nadal's best tournaments. See a similarity? All on European clay. Federer has won on three different surfaces and all around the world. He has won indoors, outdoors and on carpet [the third surface], too. This is why the argument that Nadal is the greatest doesn't hold sway. Fedex has won six titles at least six times. Rafa has only four. It is why Novak Djokovic is nowhere near them. He has not their longevity or their ability to win. Federer is 4-0 in finals this year. He won his 3rd Miami title, 5th Indian Wells trophy, 5th Australian Open win and now he has his 9th Halle victory. At this point the players he faces aren't even important. He dropped two sets in Miami, none in California, and none in Germany. He rolled past the Zverev brothers, defending champion Florian Mayer and Karen Khachanov for good measure. In the final he beat Sasha 6-1, 6-3. If he is not the Wimbledon favourite then my name is Marcus Smart.
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FRESH FACE: KAREN KHACHENOV, RUS
...A man of many surfaces is a man of more successes than the specialist. We have seen the Russian have successes on three different surfaces this year. We didn't see it from Andy Roddick at all, nor from Nikolay Davydenko. The list is endless. Khachanov is different from other junior champions. The raw potential is greater. He has transitioned smoothly from the kiddie leagues to the biggie leagues. At the start of 2016 he was ranked 152, sixth in Russia. He was 53rd in January of this year. Now he is 34th with all of Russia, all 17.1 million sq. km of it, at his feet. Great news for the Russians is that he is 21 and so is their number two guy Daniil Medvedev. Andrey Kuznetsov is 26 and their number three. Their 5th is 19-year old Andrey Rublev. Basically, over the next ten years Russia is going to be taking over everywhere. Despite having his best result ever at the first two slams, he lost in five first rounds in a row from Melbourne to Indian Wells. He really kicked off last year, when he won in Chengdu in October. He got married the next month. In Halle he had his best ever grass result. And that is worthy of applause. He beat Simon in three, benefited from a Nishikori retirement, and, in a nice twist, beat Rublev 7-6[8], 4-6, 6-3. Losing to Federer in straights in the semi is no big deal. The club of all the people who have lost to Roger in straight sets on grass is so large it even includes Todd, myself, Kim Clijsters and Barbara Boxer.
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VETERAN: RICHARD GASQUET, FRA
...At this point any semi-final is a result for the Frenchie. Broken down by injury and time, struggling to find form and way down in the rankings, Ritchie is likely hanging round to see if he can have one last run at some point. If he can keep a seed and the draw falls for him at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open he may well sneak through to the final four again. His 22 fourth rounds across four slams is at the level of several multiple slam winners. On his best surface again, he proved that he is still a force to be reckoned with. He edged Gael Monfils, who hates this surface, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. Then he knocked out Tomic 6-3, 6-3. He was too strong for Haase , winning 6-1, 4-6, 6-1. He even troubled Alex Zverev for a couple of sets, but eventually crumbled to a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 loss.
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SURPRISE: GILLES MULLER, LUX
...Is it really even a surprise anymore? On grass we should expect Luxembourg’s best to produce good results. Since his breakthrough in 2008 in New York he has since developed a very steady top 40 career. And on grass his skills are at their peak. He and Ivo Karlovic have both hit 446 aces, though Muller has played 12 more matches. Isner leads by 30, and is in first place predictably. He lost the tiebreaker of the week but still won 6-4, 6-7[17], 6-4 against Basilashvili in the first round. Up against 5th seed Jo-W Tsonga he played a brilliant match and was very aware that Tsonga was off-kilter. He hung out, played clever tennis and let the Frenchman fall by himself. Muller served a brilliant match with Tsonga never in any of his service games. It felt from the beginning that the upset may well be on.
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DOWN: STAN WAWRINKA, SUI
...It should be Murray. But Wawrinka just made the final of the French Open. He has momentum. He is one slam away from that which Andy Murray, Marin Cilic and Del Potro can only dream of. He should be winning a match or two before Wimbledon. He needs the practice, needs the warm-up. He lost to Lopez and was fairly lackluster about it. He has been to the quarters of Wimbledon just once. Regardless of the opponent he should be showing more. Of course, it could all be a ruse but it just feels like he should be trying harder to win the one missing from the set, no?
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UPSET: JORDAN THOMPSON, AUS
...It is fine for Andy Murray to lose on clay. It is fine for him to drop a set on here. It is a new low, in a long string of lows, to lose on your best surface, at your best tournament, at which you have won four times and are the defending champion, to a lucky loser. How can you lose to a guy who already lost? Muzza is the worst world number one the ATP has ever had. It is not even close. He has been utterly abysmal. He has mined the darkest depths of awful. He has lost to rubbish journeyman after rubbish journeyman. He has sucked on different continents, on three different surfaces, against many, many opponents. He is a total liability. Right now Dinara Safina doesn't feel so bad. Right now Svetlana Kuznetsova is saying thank goodness I'm not that inconsistent. Right now Marcelo Rios is saying, well, I was better than him. If Murray doesn't win Wimbledon he'll get chewed out again by BACKSPIN. As top seed, defending champion and world number one, he has no excuse not to win with utter ease.
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1. Queens F – Lopez d. Cilic 4-6, 7-6[2], 7-6[8]
...The two most frustrating players on the tour, though for different reasons, put on a show. Match points, aces, come from behind wins and a baying crowd. This was the match with it all. For the Spaniard to come back against a former champion was remarkable. It is a match that will give both confidence going into the slam that is their best. Yes, Cilic's best slam is in London. He has the worst luck there.
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2. Halle SF – Zverev d. Gasquet 4-6, 6-4, 6-3
...We love a clash of styles here at BACKSPIN. And this is one of the best. The wily vet with one of the best backhands on tour against the man with the best. Despite taking the second set he could not dispel the young German and eventually succumbed. But the backhand-to-backhand and length of the rallies were fantastic. The grass-court season should be longer. It really gives out the best storylines.
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So far it has been a mixed bag for Dasha during the grass court swing. In Birmingham, she made the quarterfinals of the ladies singles. She lost to Lucie Safarova 6-7[4], 6-3, 7-6[5]. She had three match points and led in the final breaker 5-3. She has to put that away. Always. The best players are expert at both putting away and not being put away. In the women's doubles, she and Katerina Siniakova lost 7-5, 6-1 to Barty/Dellacqua. That is no bad result; the Aussie team is a top five pair right now.

In Eastbourne, the Aussie lost 6-2, 2-6, 3-6 to Lara Arruabarrena, a Spanish qualifier who is at her best on clay. It is another poor loss for the Australian. She is 20th seed at SW19, however.

Let me leave you with this: the defending ladies champion at Queens is Chrissie Evert. The ladies doubles champions were Rosie Casals and Billie Jean King. They won it from 1971-1973. It has never been played any other year.

Thanks all and visit WTA BACKSPIN please.

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