The Biggest Surprises of the 2013 Rogers Cup

The 2013 Rogers Cup was an amazing event that many fans surely enjoyed.

With a few big names such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer withdrawing from the event early on, it was looking to be a less important tournament.

Nevertheless, it was a week full of surprises and many dark horses saw their ways through to victory.

Though Rafael Nadal winning an ATP 1000 title is no surprise (he is the all-time leader in that category), there were still many of them elsewhere in the draw.

These were the biggest surprises of the men's 2013 Rogers Cup.

Vasek Pospisil's Top-Notch Results

Vasek Pospisil, the very talented and very young Canadian, impressed the home crowd on numerous occasions this past week.

He showed few weaknesses and only displayed a bad case of the nerves in the final-set tiebreak against countryman Milos Raonic.

Still, fighting courageously until losing narrowly in a third set of the semifinals is more than impressive.

Though his game still needs a few overall improvements, he is currently good enough to take out some of the world's best players. On top of that, he also has much promise and time ahead of him to grow as an athlete.

Milos Raonic's Run to the Final

Milos Raonic has already won a multitude of titles in his relatively short career so far.

But reaching the final of an ATP 1000 event and catapulting himself into the Top 10 was definitely something we did not expect from him this soon.

He served immaculately all week and even returned very well against his earlier opponents.

As his groundstrokes and court quickness get better over time, he will become more than just a dark horse in big events.

The two Canadians clearly left a lot of heart and effort on the courts of Montreal. Look out for them in the upcoming months.

Rafael Nadal's Clutch Factor Against Novak Djokovic

Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic participated in an epic semifinal match that many were looking forward to.

This affair did not disappoint, as Rafa returned and served more aggressively than usual while Djokovic put on a phenomenal display of serving and retrieving.

However, the most important part of the match was entirely dominated by the Spaniard.

He was down in a few service games of the final set, but came up big in each instance. Then, in the tiebreak, he tried a few new things—such as hitting slices as returns and during rallies—to race to a 6-0 lead.

Some people gave the edge to the Serb prior to the start of the third set, but not much separated these two supreme athletes until the last few points.

Andy Murray's, David Ferrer's, and Tomas Berdych's Early Exits

Tomas Berdych had a somewhat understandable loss to Vasek Pospisil. He was able to dominate the second set after losing a tight opener and came back from a deficit in the final set, though it was ultimately to no avail.

The Czech player was always in a losing position and wound up only losing by a single point in the tiebreak, but we were all expecting a simple win for Berdych.

Andy Murray also lost to a player who can be dangerous, Ernests Gulbis.

The match was quite ugly from both ends for the most part, though Gulbis came up big when down break point. He was also able to convert break points fairly easily, which gave him a definitive edge, but Murray's next couple events (Cincinnati and the U.S. Open) will surely be indicative of how he will end the year.

David Ferrer lost in his first match to Alex Bogomolov Jr., but many did not expect to see such an upset there. However, Bogomolov Jr. has the perfect game to beat the scrappy Spaniard, as he can match Ferrer almost perfectly from the baseline and in terms of anticipation.

Marinko Matosevic's First Masters Series Quarterfinal

Marinko Matosevic turned 28 just a few days ago and his Rogers Cup performance was perhaps the best birthday gift he has ever received.

Taking out Benjamin Becker, an injured Tommy Haas and a very hungry Benoit Paire was an impressive streak of wins for the Australian.

His recent success has been due to his incredibly consistent groundies and top-notch anticipation skills.

He is a very smart player who can use his weapons efficiently, though they are not always enough against the top guns.

Jerzy Janowicz' Failure to Convert

Jerzy Janowicz won two matches prior to his encounter with Rafa Nadal.

He did not look all that comfortable against the other men, but showed much tenacity and skill against arguably the best player of the year.

Janowicz did not play a poor match against Nadal by any means, but he did give up a lead in both sets. That proved to be more than costly.

He was also guilty of throwing in too many double faults. While they are usually very aggressive serves, he should definitely reconsider the strategy of going too big in crucial moments.

Several Time Violation Warnings by the Umpires

The umpires were very firm on the new time violation rules this past week.

Rafael Nadal was handed a few soft and in-game warnings throughout matches—some of which were during very important moments.

Other times, the umpires pointed out violations regardless of the way the crowd was behaving (and the crowd in Montreal was crazy).

Maybe the judgment on this new rule should be evaluated a little bit, or the time length should be extended a few seconds.

This rule is not supposed to affect actual gameplay, and maybe it did not in Montreal, but it surely will in the near future if something is not done about it.

Nikolay Davydenko Finding Some Success

Nikolay Davydenko, sometimes referred to as The Machine in the sport, has not seen too many great results in the past two or three years.

The once-frequent member of the Top Six in the rankings lost much of his form and ability—or so it seemed.

The Machine got oiled up and repaired to put on a great showing in Montreal.

The Russian was losing badly to Gilles Simon in the first round and flipped the script suddenly, winning 2-6, 6-1, 6-1.

He then won a three-setter against Pablo Andujar and easily took out David Ferrer's conqueror, Alex Bogomolov Jr.

He retired against Vasek Pospisil in the quarterfinals, but it sure is great to see Davydenko back to winning ways again.