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The post-Wimbledon lull is a thing of the distant past. With the US Open 2015, the last Grand Slam of the year barely a week away, things have been heating up.
Soon after Wimbledon, there was news of Philip Kohlschreiber winning the Austrian Open at Kitzbuhel and Dominic Thiem winning the Swiss Open in Gstaad, Switzerland. Rafael Nadal kindled fans’ hopes by showcasing the fight he still has in him when he took down Italy’s Fabio Fognini to clinch the Hamburg Open.
However, the real excitement of the hard court season started with the Citi Open, followed by the Montreal Masters in Canada. While some players did all the talking with their game, there were others who stooped to shameful, abominable levels .
Here’s why the hard court season of 2015 has been the most exciting so far among several hard court seasons in recent years.
8.HOT – Ivo Karlovic crosses 10,000 aces!
At 36, Dr.Ivo is still busy filing new tennis patents on his favorite subject - aces. The latest one is for firing 10,000 aces.
With some ballistic serving at the Montreal Masters he ousted the home favorite Milos Raonic in straight sets in the opening round. Karlovic’s run at Cincinnati was far better as he reached the Third Round where he lost a hard fought 3 Set battle to Stan Wawrinka. All three sets went to a tie break. What was significant about Karlovic’s run at Cincy is that he inched closer to Goran Ivanisevic’s record for highest number of aces (10,183). Averaging at 23 aces per match this Zagreb native will definitely go past his fellow Croatian in about 5 to 8 matches.
8.NOT – Pova and Tova are down and out for now
Mononucleosis hampered the legendary Roger Federer in 2008. It ended the careers of players like Mario Ancic and Robin Soderling.
Petra Kvitova was troubled by a sore throat and fatigue since the run up to Wimbledon. After a lackluster showing at Wimbledon, which she has won twice, the illness continued to show up. After a slew of medical tests, it was confirmed that Kvitova had contracted the ‘kissing disease’. This has hindered her recent performances and her chances at the US Open look equally glum.
Maria Sharapova pulled out of the Rogers Cup and Cincinnati owing to a right leg injury. Though it was a wise decision keeping the US Open in perspective, she ended up losing her No. 2 Ranking to Simona Halep.
7.HOT – Sloane soars, finally!
Sloane Stephens has been in the eye of the storm for a long time now. After a forgettable season in 2014 her turn around began when she hired Nick Saviano as her Coach. Saviano, who helped sky rocket Eugenie Bouchard to dizzying levels of performance in 2014, took about four months to weave his magic for Stephens.
After a decent run at the French Open and the Wimbledon, Stephens was able to put all the elements of her game together to clinch her first ever WTA title and put to rest all criticism that had hounded her for a whole season. Now the next step for her is to find the consistency required to trouble the top seeds.
7.NOT - The Bouchardian drop continues!
Any coaching relationship in a Sport takes time to mature and show results. Bouchard is unable to fathom this and is hiring and firing coaches at the drop of a hat.
Rumor mills went overdrive when Bouchard did hint at dropping her coach, Sam Sumyk, after an early exit from Wimbledon. She put them to rest by parting ways with Sam Sumyk just before the Rogers Cup at Toronto. “I'm looking for someone who can help me improve all areas of my game,” she said. “I think it's very important to be able to address the technical side, the tactical side, the mental side and the physical side.”
Though she has now picked a short-term Coach Marko Dragic, injuries and poor form have continued to plague her, resulting in a free fall in the Rankings.
6.HOT – Kei Nishikori winning the Citi Open at Washington DC
Nishikori has been playing consistently to stay in the top 5 for the past year. However, he has been struggling with his fitness levels, forcing him to retire quite frequently from important tournaments – including Wimbledon earlier this year.
He did see a breakthrough at the Citi Open this year, when he won the title and avenged his 2014 US Open loss to Marin Cilic, beating him in a three set battle. Nishikori also made a deep run at the Montreal Masters but looked depleted in his eventual straight-set loss to World No 3 Andy Murray. After a brief respite, fitness still remains Nishikori’s biggest foe. He pulled out of the Cincinnati Masters due to fatigue, and in order to preserve himself for the US Open 2015.
6.NOT – Garbine Muguruza yet cash in on her Wimbledon momentum
Garbine Muguruza was widely regarded as the next big star following her dream run in Wimbledon 2015 and a gutsy performance in the final against World No. 1 Serena Williams.
However, she failed to cash in on that momentum. After an early exit at the Rogers Cup, she could not find her form in Cincinnati either, losing to Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova.
Muguruza, the epitome of calm and confidence at Wimbledon, broke that image at Toronto when she mangled her racquet beyond recognition on losing a point. The obliteration of the racquet was Serena-like. Atleast, she has something in common with the Champion!
5.HOT – The Chan sisters triumph at Cincinnati
In their biggest triumph till date, the Chan sisters beat a slew of seeded players on their road to glory at the Cincinnati Masters.
After upsetting the No.3 seeded pair of Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik in the second round, they overcame Sara Errani and Flavia Penneta in an epic super tie-breaker in the quarter final and followed it up with another huge upset by defeating top seeds Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza.
In the final, the pair defeated Casey DelAcqua and Yaroslava Shvedova to win their first title at a Premier Level 5 event. Their previous three WTA doubles titles came at Shenzhen in 2013, Eastbourne in 2013 and Pattaya City earlier this year. The Chan sisters now have the second highest number of WTA Doubles titles after the Williams sisters, who have 21 WTA Doubles titles as a pair.
5.NOT – Hingis-Mirza lose at Toronto and Cincinnati
The golden duo of women’s tennis has been having a rough patch in the hard court season. After experiencing a purple patch of winning a hat-trick at Miami, Indian Wells and Charleston, the pair went on to win the Wimbledon – the icing on the cake.
However, the Indo-Swiss pair suffered losses in back-to-back premier WTA Events at Toronto and Cincinnati. In the Rogers Cup at Toronto, they lost to Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik in straight sets, and at Cincinnati to the Chan sisters.
Although Hingis-Mirza won 10 points more than the Chan sisters, they ended up on the losing side.
4.HOT – Belinda Bencic’s dream run at Toronto
She has been on the ‘Rising Star’ radar for almost a year now. Belinda Bencic, the 18-year-old Swiss star, started creating ripples in Eastbourne this year when she defeated Agnieszka Radwanska in the final to clinch her first WTA title.
At the Rogers Cup in Toronto, she stepped up her game to beat four top 10 players - Caroline Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic, the great Serena Williams and Simona Halep in the final. Coached by Melanie Molitor and her own father, Ivan Bencic, Belinda’s style resembles that of Swiss Miss Martina Hingis.
Bencic carried her momentum into Cincinnati, where she defeated 11th-seed Angelique Kerber in the first round and Flavia Penetta in the second. Unfortunately, a sore arm forced Bencic to retire against Lucie Safarova.
But her incredible winning streak has made the tennis world sit up and take notice.
4.NOT – Rafael Nadal is plummeting at break-neck speed
Rafael Nadal has climbed a spot or two higher in the rankings post Wimbledon, thanks to his win at the Hamburg Open. Though it was a wise confidence-building measure on his part to play on clay and get some points under his belt, his transition to the fast hard courts has been almost deplorable. After losing to Kei Nishikori in the quarter-finals at Toronto, Nadal lost to compatriot Feliciano Lopez at Cinicinnati. If the 9-time French Open champion is failing to hold his own in a 3-set format, his chances in the upcoming US Open do not seem bright at all.
After Lopez defeated Nadal, he signed “marriage works” on the camera lens. Whether it was his revelation or words of wisdom for his fellow Spaniard on the other side of the net is debatable.
3.HOT – Murray stops Djokovic at Montreal Masters
History suggests that Andy Murray moves to the higher gear in the second half of the season. Both of his Grand Slams – the US Open 2012 and the Wimbledon 2013 – were won by defeating his arch-nemesis Novak Djokovic.
However, after the final of Wimbledon 2013, Murray lost 8 straight matches to the Serb, who has been superlative this season. While Djokovic has, over time, transformed himself into an indomitable champion, Murray floundered a bit before finding solace in the coaching hands of Amelie Mauresmo and Jonas Bjorkman.
The Scot came close to getting the better of Djokovic, but fell short in the finals of the Australian Open this year. Murray threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Serb in the semi-finals of Roland Garros, but Djokovic had an answer to everything.
In the Final of the Montreal Masters, Andy Murray had a different set of tricks up his sleeve. The average speed of his ground strokes was 5 mph faster and he rushed Djokovic by approaching the net on multiple occasions.
Though the Serb tried an audacious turnaround towards the end of the match, Murray kept his cool and served out the match in improved style, thereby ending an agonizing 8-match losing streak.
3.NOT – Nick Kyrgios lowers his ‘Stan’dards
Tennis Australia thought they had just one cog in their wheel – Bernard Tomic. Nick Kyrgios had them running for cover when he did the unthinkable against Stan Wawrinka at the Montreal Masters. With that one statement he made in the “heat” of the moment, a ‘moment’ he seems to live in perpetually, he tarnished the image of three tennis players – Stan Wawrinka, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Donna Vekic.
While the entire tennis fraternity expressed a gamut of emotions – from bewilderment to fury – the ATP gave him a rap on the knuckles by slapping a fine of $10,000 on the player.
What was even worse was the fact that Kyrgios’ mother and brother came to his defense, condoning his crude statement.
2.HOT – Serena Williams defends her title at Cincinnati
Serena Williams is not in red hot form. Yet, at probably 70% of her potential, she is still able to fend off completion and win titles.
After her semi-final loss at the Rogers Cup last week, Williams had to survive another scare at Cincinnati when she played Ana Ivanovic. Hampered by an elbow injury that has been troubling her post-Wimbledon, Williams needed to harness all her grit and skill to defeat Ivanovic in a tight 3-set battle. Though the injury has impacted her serve and curbed the number of aces with which she wins quick points, the other elements of her game came together in her semi-final and final at Cincinnati.
2.NOT – Halep fails to win in the finals of two premier events
Simona Halep lost two finals in consecutive weeks, one to heat and the other to Serena Williams.
On a surface where she has found most of her success, Halep fell short on two occasions to make a final leap to the title.
In the finals of the Rogers Cup, she retired due to heat exhaustion and in the finals at Cincinnati she was outplayed by World No. 1 Williams. The biggest positive for Halep going into the US Open is that she is now World No.2. This improved ranking translates into her being in the other half of the draw and not meeting Williams till the finals at the US Open.
1.HOT – Federer reaches seventh heaven at Cincinnati
Has there been any other player in the history of tennis who was as experimental as Roger Federer?
The Swiss Maestro, who turned 34 earlier this month, skipped the Montreal Masters to recuperate.
Though this decision cost him his World No. 2 ranking, he made sure to regain it with a masterful display of tennis in a tournament he has won 6 times.
With an audacious change of tactics backed by a surface that played out very fast, Federer had most of his matches by the scruff of the neck from start to end. This was the first event in which he beat both the World No.2 and No.1 to win the title, owing to the fact that he has himself been either No.1 or No.2 for most of his career.
Federer did not drop a set and his serve in the entire tournament. With this 7th title haul at Cincinnati, he now has 24 Masters titles and 87 titles overall. This win also helped him edge past Djokovic in their career head-to-head record, thereby making it a very commendable feat.
1.NOT - Djokovic fails to win Cincinnati on his fifth attempt
Novak Djokovic has set the bar so high that anything less than a win seems unacceptable.
He was on the brink of creating history by becoming the only player to complete the Career Golden Masters. Unfortunately he was denied the accomplishment by Federer. Djokovic, ever gracious in defeat, in the presentation ceremony said, “I guess I’ve got to wait for Roger to retire.”
Djokovic, beaten by Andy Murray last week at the Montreal Masters, displayed quite a sub-par performance by his own standards. He looked depleted both physically and mentally, resulting in a skewed winner-to-unforced errors ratio and an uncharacteristic number of double faults.
However, the Serbian is hopeful about his chances at the US Open as the conditions there suit his game better.
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