I wouldn’t call it a slow start to the hard-court season, exactly, just an unexpected one. Highly unexpected: After Sunday’s finals in Indianapolis and Stanford, the leaders of the U.S. Open Series are two seemingly nice young people named Gilles Simon and Aleksandra Wozniak. Neither are from the U.S., neither are named Nadal or Ivanovic, neither is known to anyone outside the game’s hardest core followers, and neither is likely to remain in the lead for long. But both were impressive and worth watching for different reasons over the weekend. Simon became the first Frenchman to win in Indy, a capital of the American heartland, while Wozniak emerged from the qualifying to become the first Canadian woman to win a title anywhere since 1988.
Does every French player bring with them a little unique talent, knack, aptitude, gift—OK, I’ll put down the Thesaurus and go with the obvious: flair—or do I just think this because they happen to be French? Simon is a smooth-to-the-point-of-nonchalant counterpuncher. He pushes soft, tricky, low-trajectory shots with his flat forehand and two-handed backhand. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d guess from his deceptively gentle style that he was Italian. In Indy, Simon had just enough in the counterpunching department to flummox bigger hitters like Tommy Haas, Sam Querrey (in an entertaining, see-saw semi), and Dmitry Tursunov, the Great White Mope, who looked like he made a wrong turn at the beach yesterday and ended up on a tennis court. It was a nice run for the 23-year-old Simon, who showed again that there’s still room for a little tricky talent amid the ever-more-athletic power game.
Wozniak has no particular individuality or flair. She could be called a Sharapovette: the blond ponytail, the visor, the between-point string-gazing, the curve in her back and shoulders when she gets ready to return serve, the high take-back on her backhand, the regular swing volleys—it all reminds you of someone. But Wozniak is matter-of-fact rather than haughty. She takes the ball and serves it without much deliberation, and she’s no drama queen. Even as she recorded the biggest win of her career, she celebrated with the most polite of fist-pumps. Her opponent, Marion Bartoli, had injured her hip and had trouble walking, let alone running, through much of the second set (kudos to her for sticking it out and not making a big deal of her bad luck). Wozniak, refreshingly, took that into consideration. So Canada.
Which brings us to this week’s main event, the Toronto Masters, which begins today. Once again, the season starts all over, on a new surface, in a new Continent, with new goals and opportunities and dangers for each player. And once again, it’s time for our customary spin through the draw.
First Quarter
Roger Federer may have to earn his bounce-back. He could face the aforementioned Gilles Simon to start, and then one of two huge hitters, Fernando Gonzalez or Ernests Gulbis following that. Federer's quarterfinal might find him across from Andy Roddick, who beat him in the last North American Masters event, in Key Biscayne in March. All this should help Federer shake out any hard-court rust and have him on high alert earlier than usual. But would you pick him to lose to any of these guys?
First-round match to watch: the fussy Nicolas Mahut vs. the philosophical Janko Tipsarevic
Semifinalist: Federer
Second Quarter
Nikolay Davydenko, despite his first-round loss at Wimbledon and third-round defeat at Roland Garros, remains No. 4 in the world. Winning in Warsaw and Portschach counts on the computer, I suppose, even if the former is a clay event played the week before Wimbledon. The second-highest seed here is James Blake, followed by Radek Stepanek and Mikhail Youzhny. The summer hard courts have been good to Stepanek in the past, and he tends to shine in Masters events rather than the ultimate tests, the Slams. He made the semis here last year, and this relatively open section of the draw might let him do it again.
Semifinalist: Stepanek
