Biggest Slam Upsets Of 2015: Part 2

ATP World Tour Season In Review: Slam Upsets

Continuing our Season In Review Series, ATPWorldTour.com revisits the biggest Grand Slam upsets of 2015. In today’s countdown we feature Nos. 2-1:

2. Benoit Paire d. Kei Nishikori 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-4/R128/US Open

The accolades, the praise kept coming. Long a highly touted prospect, Kei Nishikori’s grip-and-rip game had finally come together on the biggest of stages. The tireless baseliner and dogged competitor had broken through at the Slams, reaching the title tilt at the 2014 US Open, where he would come up just short against Croat Marin Cilic. Though the modest Japanese star would insist that his spot amongst the Top 5 in the Emirates ATP Rankings was “just a number,” it was clear he had earned it and was here to stay.

Roger Federer called the Japanese star “very solid, very consistent, very dangerous,” adding, “Doesn’t matter what the score is, doesn’t matter how long the match goes, you’re aware that Kei is not going to go away.”

Said Aussie Bernard Tomic, “If I played Kei 10 times, I could beat him once, twice right now.”

So expectations were understandably high when the 25-year-old returned to Flushing Meadows, site of some of the greatest moments of his career. The reigning runner-up had enjoyed a stellar summer hard-court swing, lifting the trophy in Washington (d. John Isner) before beating Rafael Nadal en route to the Montreal semi-finals (l. to Andy Murray).

Having dropped the first set, Nishikori seemed poised for victory as he turned the score line around and held two match points at 6-4 in the fourth-set tie-break. However, he pushed a forehand wide on his first opportunity on serve and was denied on his second on Benoit Paire’s serve. The Frenchman then clinched his first set point chance when Nishikori netted a backhand.

Paire, 26, secured an early break advantage in the fifth set and went on to close out the victory in three hours and 14 minutes. It was only the World No. 41’s third career Top-10 win and his first over a Top-5 opponent.

The last US Open runner-up to lose the following year in the first round was Andre Agassi, who was beaten by Aaron Krickstein in 1991 after falling to Pete Sampras in the 1990 final.

“When I saw the draw against Kei, I said, ‘Bad luck. You play Kei in the first round, he made final last year.’ [But] you have to find pleasure in this match. You have to feel good on the court, to have fun. You’re going to play on a big court, in a big stadium. My coach told me the most important thing is when you go out of the court, you win, you lose, you don’t care, just have fun.”

“It’s always very sad to lose in the first round,” said Nishikori. “I don’t think I played badly. Didn’t play great, but still, it’s never an easy first match. He’s a good player. I hope I can come back strong next year.”

1. Andreas Seppi d. Roger Federer 6-4, 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(5)/R32/Australian Open

In their 10 previous encounters, Andreas Seppi had claimed a total of just one set against Roger Federer. So there was little reason to expect anything out of the ordinary when they took the court for their third-round contest at the Australian Open on January 23.

So when the 48^th-ranked Seppi won a pair of tight tie-breaks to pull off a 6-4, 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(5) upset, ending Federer’s run off 11 straight years of semi-final or better showings in Melbourne, even the Italian was in shock.

“To beat Roger for the first time, especially in a Grand Slam, best-of-five, is a special moment for me,” said Seppi, who snapped a 23-match losing streak against Top-10 competition. “You don’t play every day on centre court, full stadium in a Grand Slam against Roger. I was pretty calm, I have to say, from the beginning. Also in the important moments.”

Perhaps the most important moment came in the fourth-set tie-break. Up 3-1 in the stanza, Federer double faulted. He would have another chance to serve it out at 5-4, but the Swiss made a costly backhand error. Seppi would take full advantage, completing the against-all-odds triumph in stunning fashion with a forehand pass down the line. The ATP World Tour veteran would call it one of the important shots of his life.

One of the most important shots, but surely the most important win. Seppi had defeated Rafael Nadal in 2008 when the Spaniard was the World No. 2, but his win over Federer in Melbourne had come on a Grand Slam stage.

“I felt for some reason yesterday and this morning it was not going to be very simple today,” said Federer. “Even in practice I still felt the same way. I was just hoping it was one of those feelings you sometimes have and it’s totally not true and you just come out and you play a routine match. I was aware of the test and was well prepared.”

Federer would register three wins over Seppi before the year was over (Indian Wells, Halle, Paris), making the Australian Open result even more puzzling.

Biggest Grand Slam Upsets Of 2015: Part 1

Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray were among the big names to be upset at Grand Slam level in 2015.

Continuing our Season In Review Series, ATPWorldTour.com revisits the biggest Grand Slam upsets of 2015. In today’s countdown we feature Nos. 5-3:

5. Nikoloz Basilashvili d. Feliciano Lopez 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4/R64/Wimbledon

On one side of the net stood a three-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist, a 33-year-old ATP World Tour veteran from Spain who a year earlier rose to a career-high No. 14 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. On the other stood a 23-year-old journeyman from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a 115^th-ranked qualifier who was appearing on the lawns of the All England Club for the very first time.

To say the result was unexpected would be putting it mildly.

Despite a 32-ace barrage from 15^th-seeded left-hander Feliciano Lopez, the all but unknown Nikoloz Basilashvili prevailed in five dramatic sets 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.

Basilashvili scored the only break of the opening set, and converted one of four opportunities in the third en route to the upset. Lopez would step it up in the fourth to force a decider, but Basilashvili broke serve twice in the stanza to seal the unlikely outcome. He became only the fourth Georgian man to reach the third round at Wimbledon, and the first since Irakli Labadze in 2006.

4. Dustin Brown d. Rafael Nadal 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4/R64/Wimbledon

Dustin Brown makes no secret of his love of grass-court tennis. But few prognosticators foresaw an upset on the afternoon of July 2 when the dreadlocked German recorded his first win over a seed at a Grand Slam.

Brown’s upset of two-time Wimbledon champ Rafael Nadal was only his third career victory over a Top-10 opponent. His aggressive serve-and-volley tactics paid off. He averaged 118 miles per hour on his serve, struck 13 aces and won 72 of his first-serve points. In charging the net on 85 occasions, he backed his natural game to nullify Nadal.

John McEnroe, himself a three-time champion at Wimbledon, called Brown’s unforeseen triumph one of the best performances he had ever seen by a lower‑ranked player (No. 102 in the Emirates ATP Rankings) on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.

“It’s a great feeling for him to say that, from the generation that was playing like that, playing serve and volley, coming to the net a lot,” said Brown, who improved to 2-0 vs. Nadal, having also defeated the Spaniard last summer on grass in Halle. “It was great to be able to do that today and do it for that long.”

“He’s one of the best players in the sport, and for me, being able to play against him twice on my favorite surface, is probably my luck,” added Brown. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to play him on clay or hard court because it would make playing my type of tennis even more difficult. I’m happy I got to play him on that court win or lose. All the kids that play tennis dream about being able to play on that Centre Court. Playing against him there is special.”

Nadal reached five straight Wimbledon finals between 2006 and 2011, winning a pair of titles in 2008 and 2010. But the Spaniard has since failed to reach the quarter-finals, ousted by players ranked between No. 100-150 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. He lost in the second round in 2012 (l. to No. 100 Lukas Rosol), the first round in 2013 (l. to No. 135 Steve Darcis) and the fourth round last year (l. to No. 144 Nick Kyrgios).

“At the end of the day, I lost,” lamented Nadal. “[But] don’t forget I played five finals here. I don’t know how many players have done that.”

3. Kevin Anderson d. Andy Murray 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(0)/R16/US Open

No one relishes seeing Kevin Anderson’s name opposite theirs on draw day. Like fellow power servers Ivo Karlovic and John Isner, the South African is the quintessential dangerous floater, someone who can make even the most accomplished returner uncomfortable on the court. Though he came into his Round of 16 matchup at the US Open 5-1 against Anderson, Andy Murray wasn’t taking his opponent lightly when he stepped onto the court on September 8.

Murray came into the tournament in good form, having recently won the ATP Masters 1000 title in Montreal. But Anderson was in top form, too. He had won the US Open Series title in Winston-Salem only days before.

Facing a possible straight-sets dismissal, Murray secured the first mini-break of the third set tie-break when Anderson pulled a forehand long for 2-1, before consolidating for 4-1 with an unreturnable serve out wide. He took the set with an ace on his first opportunity for 7-2.

But heading into a third tie-break of the match, it was Anderson who bolted out of the blocks, cracking a forehand service return winner crosscourt to surge to 3-0. He made it 5-0 with an ace down the T, and when Murray missed wide he had six match points. Anderson took the match on his first chance, ripping a forehand at Murray’s feet, and bringing the capacity Louis Armstrong Stadium crowd to theirs.

Seven times Anderson had fallen in the fourth round at the majors. Now he was through to his first Grand Slam quarter-final, having notched his first upset of a Top-10 player at a major with the four-hour, 18-minute victory over the World No. 3.

The 29-year-old called it “one of the best matches of my career,” adding, “To do it at this stage, at this round, to get through to the quarters the first time in a Grand Slam definitely means a lot to me.”

It was a match that haunted Murray, and one that he would revisit on video.

“I was very disappointed with that match. I wanted to learn as much as I could from it,” he said. “I spoke to my team a lot about that. I don’t watch loads of my own matches, but I watched quite a bit of that one. I was very disappointed with what I saw. So I wanted to learn from that. I did, I think, quite quickly.”

Coming Next: The 2 Biggest Grand Slam Upsets of 2015

More, More, More For Mirza And Hingis

Posted: Dec 11, 2015

Wimbledon champions. US Open champions. Nine titles. 55-7 record.

The doubles partnership between Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis is so seamlessly perfect it makes you wonder why it took so long for the two to find each other. Having partnered with deft Cara Black with success last year, Mirza was in search of another crafty net player to balance her baseline strengths. Hingis spent 2014 partnering with both Sabine Lisicki and Flavia Pennetta, both strong baseliners, but needed someone who was willing to focus on doubles.

“Sania has one of world’s best forehands,” Hingis said. “Whether singles or doubles, I think there are not many forehands like her who can hit the ball so hard like her and set me up.”

With Mirza’s forehand cannon patrolling the baseline and Hingis’ IQ at the net, the two won their first two tournaments at the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open without dropping a set. After winning their first three tournaments together, Hingis and Mirza went on to win their first major together at Wimbledon. It was Mirza’s first women’s doubles title at a Slam and the first for Hingis since 2002. They would finish the season on a 22-match win streak, sweeping titles from the US Open through the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. In all, Hingis and Mirza won nine titles and their partnership propelled Mirza to No.1 in the doubles rankings, the first Indian woman to hold the top spot.

When Hingis and Mirza announced they would play Indian Wells together, the biggest question was whether their personalities would mesh. Could the tramlines accommodate two ambitious players of such iconic status? The answer was 100% yes.

“I think it’s fair to say we’ve known each other for fairly long, but fair to say we weren’t probably friends,” Mirza said. “We were people who played against each other and we knew each other, respected each other. Out of that respect came friendship, and out of that friendship obviously came the results. There are so many things that went hand in hand. Of course today I can say that we’re probably very close off the court as well.

“But I think in a lot of the tough moments, that chemistry takes you through, that trust that we have in each other off the court as well. For me, the opportunity to play with her, and the same for her, for both of us, we just feel like we complement each other great on the court.

“When you complement each other off the court as well, I think that’s when you make a deadly combination. I truly believe that a lot of the time we trust each other and go through a lot of tough times.”

And there were tough times on the court. Playing against Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the Wimbledon final, Mirza and Hingis found themselves on the brink of defeat, down 5-2 in the third set. Somehow, in the midst of the nerves and the raucous crowd, they found their best tennis and reeled off five straight games to win, 5-7, 7-6(4) 7-5. To win Charleston they had to come through three consecutive match tie-breaks to make the final.

“The confidence grew with every victory, every tournament,” Hingis said. “It just like was bigger and bigger. Especially that Wimbledon title, because I like playing on grass and the way we played. After that, everything just started clicking together.”

“Obviously the first three months, first three tournaments, we were already like amazing. But I think it’s just… the understanding of each other grew even more. We were already winning from the beginning, but after that was even more and more.”

More, more, more is right. Doubles can yield surprising results and upsets week to week given its small margin for error, but Hingis and Mirza took just one bad loss all season, an opening round exit at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to Petra Martic and Stefanie Vogt. That also happened to be their first loss as a team. They dominated the field throughout the year and any challenges they faced came against the world’s best teams, whether it be Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova, Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik, or Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic.

Said Mirza: “We believe we’re the best team out there and the two best tennis players on the doubles court. I think half the battle is won there.”

Source link

Brian Baker Set To Return At Australian Open

Posted: Dec 11, 2015

Brian Baker Set To Return At Australian Open

American to play in Melbourne following nearly three-year injury layoff

Brian Baker says the low point came as he sat in yet another operating room before undergoing elbow surgery in 2008. It was to be his fifth surgery in a matter of three years. There was the left hip (twice), the right hip, a sports hernia and now elbow reconstruction. He’d been through the wringer.

The onetime tennis prodigy thought to himself: “I’m not going to keep having surgeries to prolong my career.”

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, a town known more as a country music hub than a tennis proving ground, Baker turned pro at 18 in 2003, a 6-foot-3 baseliner who could hit the cover off the ball. He had reached the junior boys final at Roland Garros that year, coming up just short against Stan Wawrinka 7–5, 4–6, 6–3. Over the next few years, he would grind it out on the Challenger circuit, slowly working his way into the Top 200 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. But that’s when his body began to betray him. So removed was he from his life as a touring pro during the prolonged rehab stints that he enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, where he began pursuing a business degree while serving as an assistant tennis coach.

He launched his first comeback in the summer of 2011. His breakthrough came the following spring on the red clay of Nice. Ranked a lowly No. 216, he shocked then 13th-ranked Gael Monfils en route to his first ATP World Tour final, falling to Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-2. At Roland Garros, he ousted Xavier Malisse in the opening round before pushing Gilles Simon to five sets in a 6-4, 6-1, 6-7(4), 1-6, 6-0 loss. As a qualifier at Wimbledon, he went all the way to the Round of 16, beating Jarkko Nieminen and Benoit Paire. He would climb to a career-high No. 52.

It was at Wimbledon that a reporter likened Baker’s existence to a “collection of preparing for surgeries, recovering from surgeries, preparing for tests.” It wasn’t what Baker wanted to hear, but there was some truth there. And as fate would have it, he would soon find himself sidelined yet again. He retired from his second-round match-up with Sam Querrey at the 2013 Australian Open with knee issues, playing just three more events that year, his last match a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 loss to Lleyton Hewitt at the US Open.

Now 30, he hasn’t played an ATP World Tour-level match since. But using his protected ranking, the American has gained main-draw entry into the 2016 Australian Open. We caught up with the Tennessean just hours after doctors gave him the OK for a comeback, something he’s grown all too familiar with.

ATP: Rumor is that we’re going to see you back on the court in 2016.

BB: I got back from the doctor yesterday in Vail, kind of a final checkup, and they liked what they saw. They said I was free to train the way I want to train, as long as I’m smart about it, and do what I can next year.

ATP: Was it still the knee?

BB: Yeah. The main limitation has been my right knee. When I injured myself in Australia in 2013, it was a lateral meniscus tear that they repaired. I had a good recovery, but right when I started coming back it started swelling. I didn’t think it was that serious, so I played three tournaments before I realised things weren’t very good. I had a couple of cleanup surgeries, but it didn’t really help too much. It got to the point where I could play hard for a day or two, but it just wouldn’t really react well to playing day in, day out. It turned into a cartilage defect. It wasn’t a huge one, but I ended up biting the bullet and having surgery out in Colorado at the Steadman Clinic in Vail. I had it New Year’s Eve last year, a procedure called DeNovo NT, where they basically take juvenile stem cells and glue them on to your defect. It’s kind of the same thing as microfracture. It’s just been a really long recovery.

ATP: You’ve unwittingly become a medical expert, tossing around complex medical terms.

BB: I’m pretty well versed in what I’ve had done, which is pretty significant at this point. I know a few things.

ATP: You’re no stranger to comebacks, but looking ahead at 2016, what are your realistic hopes, your expectations?

BB: I’m not going to put any pressure — I shouldn’t say that because I’m super competitive when I step on the court — but I’m going to try not to put too much pressure on myself because I just started hitting balls again in September and I’m still not playing very much, every other day. I know I’m not going to be at my best in the early part of the year, but as long as I’m feeling strong and healthy my game will come around. I’ve never been concerned with that. I’m hitting the ball fine right now. It’s just a different animal. I haven’t played Top-50, Top-30 guys in a couple of years. It’s just going to be getting back to match tough, making sure I’m able to be smart about my schedule, my training and everything else. As I’ve shown over the years, I‘m definitely prone to injury. It’s just a matter of being smart about it. Hopefully, I can learn from my mistakes and just get lucky. Some of it has just been unlucky circumstances.

ATP: Are you working with a coach at the moment?

BB: I don’t have a guy who has signed on to travel with me next year yet, but in Nashville, where I’ve been training, I have a few different people that I work with for yoga, rehab, weight training.

ATP: It’s been a dozen years since you turned pro. Does it feel like it’s been that long?

BB: I haven’t thought about it like that just because I’ve had so much time off. I guess that says I’m old. That was a long time ago. But I’m just looking forward to trying to start fresh again. I don’t know if it makes it that much easier that I’ve gone through this before. I guess it does in some aspects. On the other hand, I know how hard it is. It’s a balance. I definitely know what’s in front of me and how hard it’s going to be to get back to where I was right before I got hurt.

ATP: Are you comforted by the fact that the elite players aren’t peaking until their late 20s these days, and many are still going strong into their 30s?

BB: It definitely shows that you can play a little bit longer than before. A lot of that has to do with the way they train, they way they eat. The only negative to that is those guys have had so many years as a good base that I’ve missed. But it is refreshing to see that with the medical advancements you can play for a while out there.

ATP: You once said, “I don’t think anybody goes onto the court 100 per cent healthy every match. If they do, props to them.” Do you marvel when you look at a guy like Roger Federer, given how many matches he’s played over the past decade and a half, how he’s been able to play relatively injury-free?

BB: It’s crazy. I know Murray had the back surgery, Rafa had his knee, but for the most part the guys at the top of the game have been healthy throughout their careers. That’s probably just a testament to their work ethic and the teams around them. They’re doing everything they possibly can to get a leg up on the competition as far as taking care of their bodies, good schedules, good training. They’re probably built better than most of us and they’ve had a little bit of luck go their way, too. I’ve tried to do that the best that I can, but so many things happen to you. Every time you get back, it’s like you’re starting from scratch again.

ATP: You don’t seem like a guy who questions his work ethic.

BB: No. But right when you start feeling decent, you can’t go back to your normal training. If I do that, I’m going to hurt something else. That’s the hardest thing; you want to work hard and make up for lost time, but if you do that you’re going to set yourself back.

ATP: During your last comeback in 2012, you said you never gave up hope. What is it about tennis, the very elemental nature of it, that you love the most; that keeps you coming back for more? It would have been easy for you to fall back on your studies and walk away from the game.

BB: That’s a fair question. It’s just something that I’ve done my whole life, since I was three years old. My whole family is into tennis. It’s just something that I’ve enjoyed doing. It’s just one of those sports where you have a lot more control. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy some aspects of team sports, but there’s just something about the control. If you put in the work, the practice and go out and perform that day, you’re going to win the match. You don’t have to rely on anyone else. You’re the one who has the final say. I miss the traveling, playing the Grand Slams. Like you said, no one is making me come back. I could have stopped at any point. I did go ahead and get my college degree. I graduated in May. But I’ve always liked playing. I’ve always enjoyed the competition, putting it all on the line.

ATP: You finished your business degree at Belmont?

BB: Correct. I always wanted to get my degree. I just didn’t know when it would happen. I don’t know if you can say it in this way, but the one benefit of being hurt was that I was able to get it finished. Of course, I would have traded that for getting it at 35 after a good 12-year career. It’s been a rough road, but at least I was able to get something done.

ATP: Speaking of colleges, when you were coming up through the juniors, reaching the Roland Garros final, you had your pick — Stanford, Florida, Georgia, Duke and Virginia were all chasing you. At any point did you second-guess your decision to turn pro, or did you know that wasn’t your path?

BB: No, I never really questioned that. I might have questioned a few things along the way, but not that decision. Honestly, I think I was mature enough to handle the losing that goes on. Most guys who turn pro aren’t used to losing much. I think I was mature enough to handle that. If I had gone to college and gotten injured like I did on the tour, I don’t know if I would have tried to come back. I wouldn’t have known that I could have success out there. It makes it a little bit easier to come back and push yourself when you know that you’re good enough to compete and have success out there.

ATP: There have been plenty of American women in the pipeline for the last several years, but something was missing on the men’s side. Now there seems to be an American Renaissance of sorts — Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Reilly Opelka, William Blumberg. What are your thoughts on their potential?

BB: When I was helping the USTA this summer, Tommy was there, Reilly, Francis Tiafoe. I thought they were really good. I think a couple of those guys, at least, are going to have a really successful pro career. I don’t want to put any pressure on them now because they’re so young, but I definitely think that new group should have some success going forward.

ATP: Are you one to dole out advice for them?

BB: Take care of your body. [Laughs.]

ATP: Anything else?

BB: It’s really just being able to take the ups and the downs. When you come out there, most of the time you’re not going to have instant success as an 18-, 19-year-old like you might have been able to do 15, 20 years ago. The game has gotten so much more physical. I think those guys have a pretty good mindset. I’ve talked to them a little bit and they seem like they’re maybe not happy-go-lucky, but they’re able to take the ups and the downs pretty well. They don’t get too high or too low.

Source link