Upheavel on the Red Dirt

May 10, 2008 by Jeremy Howard

We are all aware, by now, that Nadal was upended by compatriot Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Second Round of the Italian Open. In the few days since, even more shocking events have occurred. First off, Americans James Blake & Andy Roddick somehow managed to last longer than Nadal did. As I am American myself, I highly applaud their efforts, but would not expect a repeat occurence in Paris later this month. Blake ended up losing in three sets this morning to Wawrinka, and Roddick takes on Tommy Robredo later this evening for the right to play Wawrinka in the semifinals. The other quarterinfal matchup still to be played is Djokovic vs. Nicholas Almagro of Spain. Expect Djoker to win, but Almagro, while somewhat unheralded will not be a pushover.

The other quarterfinal that has already been played was Radek Stepanek vs. Roger Federer. Stepanek has been playing some inspired tennis this week, but there is no way he would be able to take down a newly confident Roger Federer, right? Wrong. Stepanek beat the best player of all time 7-6, 7-6. Although he showed nerves by getting broken serving for the match in the second set, Stepanek was able to rebound and eventually take Federer down in the tiebreaker. This sets up Djokovic for a much clearer path to a Masters Event Clay Court title, something that will greatly boost his confidence heading into the French Open.

But, wait a minute. In all honest the events described above, while surprising, are still not in the same league as what has been going on at the German Open. Yesterday, Dinara Safina (sister of Marat Safin) took down Justine Henin in the Round of 16. Truthfully, even though the match went three sets, Safina flat out dominated Henin from the start; and besides a five game stretch that caused her to lose the first set, Safina was never really in any trouble. However, while surprising, I would not chalk up that upset to “shocking.” Henin has not been in top form for quite awhile, and is clearly struggling with her confidence, both mentally and technically. “Shocking” would be what Safina accomplished earlier today.

Serena Williams came into her quarterfinal match up against Safina having won 17 matches in a row. So, after they split the first two sets today (6-2 in the first for Serena, 6-1 in the second for Safina), one had to imagine Williams would find a way to win, will herself to victory as she normally does. Once it got to the third set tie-breaker, my guess is NO ONE watching the match thought Safina would be able to win, but win it she did 7-5. She will face Victoria Azaranka in her semifinal match (who beat Bondarenko, who in turn upended 4th ranked Kuznetsova the round before). The other semifinal will be between the winner of Ana Ivanovic and Agnes Szavay vs. Elena Dementiava, who scored a minor upset over Jankovic earlier today.

Edit: At posting time, Roddick has defeated Robredo in a 3rd set tiebreaker and Djokovic defeated Almagro when Almagro defaulted early in the second set,.

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