by Pete Bodo
Howdy, everyone. Novak Djokovic and that other fella—you know, the Spanish guy—caused me to miss my flight out of Fort Lauderdale after the Miami Masters final. I had to lay over until early Monday morning before heading home for New York. I'm up in game-rich Andes now, having just collected Buck (our dog) from the kennel, and it's snowing and blowing. Quite a change from Miami...
Anyway, let's get on with the business at hand, which is awarding our "thumbs up" and "thumbs downs" marks for the just completed tournament.
THUMBS UP: Novak Djokovic, and you don't really need to ask why, do you? The most amazing thing to me about his 24-0 record for 2011 is that it's founded on a virtue we weren't all that sure he possessed until the past six or so months—stamina.
Wasn't this the guy whose "breathing problems" often led critics to speculate that those words were code for "choking" (in the figurative sense)? Wasn't this the player who seemed to alternate between King Kong-esque chest pounding and, well, moping around as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal kept him at arm's length from the throne? Well, that seat atop the rankings is within reach now, because Djokovic appears to have taken a quantum leap, physically and psychologically. That Djokovic could appear less tired than Nadal at the end of that brutal three-set final is nothing short of amazing. We'll see if he can keep it up during the dusty march on red clay.
THUMBS UP: Victoria Azarenka is finally showing signs of maturity. She's now won Miami two of the past three years, which shows both what a winning tradition at a specific event can do for a player and also that Azarenka can't be written off as a contender at major events, tempting as it has been to pigeonhole her as an incorrigable hothead and rapidly developing WTA flake.
You have to love the unbridled aggression and free-swinging nature of her game—it's a great example for upcoming woman players. Azarenka won't be 21 for a few months yet, so she could still develop into a player of the first rank (meaning, multiple Grand Slam winner and always in the mix for the No. 1 ranking). Let's see if she keeps it up, or decides, like so many other talented players of either sex, that life is just too good as a "just another" Top 10-caliber player to justify working very hard.
THUMBS DOWN: Svetlana Kuznetsova was languishing just outside the Top 20 after the first major of the year, which seemed a tremendous waste. She then played well to get to the final in Dubai, although she managed to get just four games off Caroline Wozniacki, a player with whom she ought to match up well. Still, it looked like she was back in the hunt. But Sveta, seeded No. 11 in Miami, has won just one match since then (a first match/second round encounter with Simona Halep at Miami) and lost to Christina McHale at Indian Wells and Peng Shuai in Miami, winning all of four games in that last one. Maybe Kuznetsova is really trying her hardest and struggling with her game and confidence. Or maybe she's just not that into it...
THUMBS UP: Alexandra Dulgheru didn't win a single WTA tour-level match until she got hold of a British player, Elena Baltacha (that will always do it) in mid-February. Then she did nothing again until Miami, where she raced all the way the the quarters without losing a set (this run included a win over Peng Shuai) and almost knocked out Maria Sharapova, the No. 16 seed but eventual finalist. (Dulgheru lost in a third-set tiebreaker, 7-5.)
THUMBS UP: Mardy Fish took over from Andy Roddick as the top-ranked player from the USA (at No. 11) when he advanced to the semifinals in Miami, taking out David Ferrer (seeded sith), Juan Martin del Potro and and Richard Gasquet (seeded No. 17). Let nobody say he earned his newfound prestige the easy way.
THUMBS UP: Somdev Devvarman deserved a thumbs up after Indian Wells (as one comment poster noted), and he locked one up last week by taking out wonder boy Milos Raonic, who was seeded No. 31 but clearly ranked as the flavor of the month on the ATP tour.
THUMBS UP: Andrea Petkovic** won many hearts as she reached the semifinals for the first time in an event of this quality, and also promised to stop doing the now notorious "Petko Dance" after every win. That's a great idea, because as Sharapova let us know after halting the No. 21 seed's advance in the semis ("Maybe she was too tired from dancing..."), the Petko dance was starting to rub many of Petko's peers, if not the press or fans, the wrong way.
THUMBS DOWN: Roger Federer deserves all the respect in the world, but he gets a thumbs down this week (I can hardly believe it myself) because he just didn't appear to be giving it much of an effort in his semifinal with Rafael Nadal. Even great performers sometimes can't find the spirit, right? That's true, but look: Federer was awarded a couple of cream puffs in the two rounds before the semis (Oliver Rochus, who's usually happy to stand in for Stanislas Wawrinka as a prop for Federer, and Gilles Simon, if only because he retired with a crick in his neck after just three games in their quarterfinal). So Federer had reason to look fresh and eager and to feel optimistic against Nadal, no matter what the outcome. It's a sad day but there it is...from him to whom much is given, much is expected.
THUMBS UP: Kevin Anderson made the semis at Brisbane to start the year (loss to Andy Roddick), won a tournament for the first time in his career this year (the South African Open, in his hometown of Johannesburg) and bounced back from a 6-4 in-the-third heartbreaker in the first round of Indian Wells to make the quarters in Miami (with wins over Nikolay Davydenko, Pablo Andujar and John Isner), where he put a real scare into the eventual champ, Novak Djokovic.
THUMBS UP: Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, re-united after taking a long break from each other in 2006 (after having won three Grand Slam titles), won the men's doubles to take over the No. 1 doubles ranking. It's their second tournament win of the year after Chennai. Who says you can't go home again? They beat the tough, seasoned squad of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor in the final.
THUMBS DOWN: Sam Stosur was ranked No. 6 at the beginning of 2011, and her Australian countrymen were expecting great things of her. She hasn't delivered. She's lost to, among others, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina and Maria Sharapova, and if you respond that all three of those women were once No. 1, you get my drift. All three have struggled (none moreso than Safina) and are just the kind of players Stosur needs to beat in order to take her game to the next level—maybe even to keep it at the current level. She didn't come anywhere near living up to her No. 4 ranking and seeding at the two recent U.S. hard-court events.
THUMBS UP: Maria Sharapova is back in the Top 10 (at No. 9) after excellent performances in the two big U.S. hard-court tournaments of the spring. She was in the semis at Indian Wells (loss to Wozniacki) and the final of Miami (loss to Azarenka). Her fighting spirit alone was enough to earn her this thumbs-up; she survived four three-setters in the two events. The spring clay-court season will be tough; on the other hand, she'll get to hit a lot of balls and once she gets on the grass—who knows?