The wilderness weeks are over. Since the U.S. Open just one month ago, the tours have scattered themselves over the globe—in that time, the men have traveled to nine cities, the women 13—but aside from Davis and Fed Cup there hasn’t been anything you could say was essential viewing.
The only tennis I caught this weekend was the final set of Elena Dementieva’s rather surprising defeat of Serena Williams in Moscow. This was the first time the Russian had won a set from Williams in five tries, and she did it just in time to win her first hometown tournament. Dementieva was on fire when I saw her, drilling everything near the lines. It reminded me of the zone she got into when she blitzed Martina Hingis 2 and 0 last year in Tokyo. The surprise came from Dementieva’s serve. She was hitting big on the first ones and wasn’t breaking down on the seconds—she committed only eight double faults on the day and served out the match with little trouble. As Serena, who helped matters by spraying 59 unforced errors, said after the match (with characteristic backhandedness), “[Dementieva] should play that way more often.”
Essential viewing begins again Monday when the men—including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic—arrive in Madrid for the seventh Masters event of the season. Virtually everyone else is there as well; the only annoying pullouts came from Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt at the last minute. The players with the most on the line here will be Shanghai hopefuls David Ferrer, Fernando Gonzalez, Tommy Robredo, James Blake, Richard Gasquet, Tomas Berdych, and Tommy Haas. They’re fighting for the three remaining spots in the eight-man, season-ending Masters Cup. (The list above is roughly the order they stand in right now.)
There’s also interest at the summit. Nadal and Djokovic, rivals for No. 2 in the world, are positioned to play in the semifinals, while Federer says he is hoping to rekindle his rivalry with Rafa in the final. Funny how much Sire Jacket likes his old tormentor these days.
First Quarter
Federer has played just once since the Open, winning two singles matches against the Czech Republic in a losing effort for Switzerland’s Davis Cup team. He begins his title defense here against Robby Ginepri, who had a decent win over Jurgen Melzer today. We know Federer is not the fastest starter at these events—Guillermo Cañas caught him in his first match in Indian Wells in March—and Ginepri has played him well in the past by not overreacting and going for too much. I’m thinking two close sets.
Beyond that are possible grind-outs against Cañas in the third round and Ferrer in the fourth. The latter is playing well enough these days to make it competitive. Fed is 7-0 against him, but Ferrer took a set the last time they played, on clay in Hamburg in the spring.
Semifinalist: Roger Federer
Second Quarter
The top seeds here are Nikolay Davydenko and Gonzalez. Davydenko is 1-3 in Madrid lifetime; Gonzalez made the final last year. After a hot start to the season, he’s been up and down at best over the last four months. Now he’s got some points to defend if he’s going to ensure that he ends the year in Shanghai. Gonzalez is slated to play Haas, another Shanghai contender (and Madrid winner way back in 2001), in the third round. That is, if Haas can get past Juan Monaco, which is no sure thing. The Argentine was impressively hard-headed in coming back from a set down to beat Igor Andreev today.
Davydenko will get the winner of the giants, Ivo Karlovic and Marat Safin, in his first match, then perhaps Mikhail Youzhny or Stanislas Wawrinka, who reached the final in Vienna last week. Your guess is as good as mine as to who is going to emerge from all this, but I don’t think it’s going to be Gonzalez. Perhaps telling: Davydenko has never lost to Youzhny, and is 3-1 against Haas.
Semifinalist: Nikolay Davydenko
Third Quarter
There are some marquee possibilities in this section. Blake is coming off a semifinal performance in Stockholm; Djokovic just won Vienna; Gasquet played two finals in a row recently. Does that mean anything? Not really, now that I think about it—the Masters, like the Slams, are a different breed of event, where the results of the previous week don’t necessarily apply. Blake won Stockholm last year, then came out and lost his first match in Madrid. Everyone’s dangerous at a tournament like this, including a guy like Mario Ancic, who just came back to the tour after an injury and could face Blake in the second round.
If the seeds do hold, Blake would play Gasquet and Djokovic would face Moya. In the end, I don’t see Djokovic having much trouble reaching the semis. Except for a likely tank in Cincinnati, he’s been consistently solid in Masters events this year, winning two and reaching the final of another.
Semifinalist: Novak Djokovic
Fourth Quarter
This is home-country hero Nadal’s section to lose. The Spaniard, pictured above with his terracotta warrior look-alike (sometimes the ATP just tries a bit too hard with its promotions, wouldn't you say?), rode the local support to the title in Madrid in 2005, but he may be rusty. He hasn’t played at all since the Open, when he went out with a bum knee. There are also a couple potential obstacles here. Nadal's first opponent will be Marcos Baghdatis; he's 3-0 against him, but the Bag man won his first set this year in Dubai. Nadal then might have to get by Andy Murray, who gave him all sorts of trouble in Melbourne in January. Finally, Tomas Berdych could be waiting in the quarters. The Czech beat Nadal in an nasty match in the same round in 2006.
The other side at least one interesting second-rounder, between Robredo and teen giant Juan Martin Del Potro. The big guy has been looking for a major scalp. He’ll at least get a chance to hit his shots and control the action against the Spaniard.
Semifinalist: Rafael Nadal
I know, I’ve picked the four top seeds to reach the semis, a definite faux pas in the cutthroat world of snap predictions. Let me know what dark horses I missed, and I’ll be back in a couple days to talk about how it's all progressing.