Rogers Cup 2013: Final Grades for All the Top Stars

The 2013 Rogers Cup was definitely a spectacle to watch and experience.

All the top stars came in with goals and attempted to reach hard-fought success.

Some new players and dark horses made statements all week, taking those top athletes off their game and sending them home early on.

Surely, the event will not be entirely indicative of what will occur at the U.S. Open, but anything is possible, and it is important to analyze the most recent performances of the crucial players.

Here are the final grades for the top stars' report cards.

Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic's road to the semifinal was somewhat straight-forward.

The only challenge he faced (and it was definitely a tough one) was against Denis Istomin, who played lights-out all night. One break of serve in the final set was the difference between the two of them, though they each broke serve the same number of times.

Nole was sluggish in that match but shook it off prior to his semifinal showdown with Rafa Nadal.

He started off poorly in that one as well, hitting many double faults early on. He was able to recover and seemed to be the better player during some parts of the night, but Rafa capitalized in the last moments of the affair.

Grade: B+

Richard Gasquet

Richard Gasquet took out Martin Klizan and Kei Nishikori prior to drawing Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals.

Though his performances against those first two men were not great by his standards, they were still good enough, which proves that players outside the Top 10 must seriously bring their A-game in order to outlast the skilled Frenchman.

Gasquet has been having a solid year and is very much under-the-radar in some of the important tournaments. Still, his match against Novak Djokovic was certainly not accolade-worthy.

He could not use his weapons effectively and struggled to win any service games—let alone long rallies.

Grade: B

Juan Martin Del Potro

Juan Martin del Potro should be given a better grade just based on the fact that he won the Citi Open title the week prior. This could have taken some energy and zest out of him and his game during the Rogers Cup.

He had a very tough opener against Ivan Dodig, who is a methodical baseline slugger.

With Delpo taking the third set against the Croat 7-5, it seemed that his road would only get tougher. And it did.

He drew 11th-seeded Milos Raonic, who had his home crowd to cheer him on the whole time.

The controversy-filled match, which saw many breaks of serve and crucial Hawkeye challenges occur, was the end of the journey for the Argentine.

If he does not get his act together in Cincinnati, he may no longer pose any threat ahead of the U.S. Open.

Grade: C+

Milos Raonic

Milos Raonic made his way to the Rogers Cup final in what will be remembered as his best week of tennis thus far.

He dueled it out in so many tough battles, including three-set wins over Jeremy Chardy, Ernests Gulbis and Vasek Pospisil.

Still, only one of his five opponents en route to the final was a seeded player (Juan Martin del Potro), and at times he didn't play his best tennis.

His serve and forehand were the only things that really kept him in many of these matches, and that fact showed in pretty much the entire final match against Rafael Nadal.

Though he is now in the Top 10 and is clearly more than a dark horse at this point, he still did not bring his A-game and was slightly fortunate to slide through parts of the draw.

Grade: A-

Tomas Berdych

Tomas Berdych, the tall-standing and heavy-hitting Czech athlete, had a good win over Alexandr Dolgopolov in the opening round. However, he lost a very tight encounter to Vasek Pospisil, who played exceptionally well all week.

Berdych was down in nearly every part of the match, dropping the first set 7-5 and going down an early break in the final set.

He did well to claw his way back into the match, narrowly losing by one decisive mini-break in the third-set tie breaker. However, he was not able to carry his astounding second-set momentum into the final set and was clearly not the more dominant player.

He has been struggling a lot this year, though he still seems to be a worthy Top-10er.

Grade: D

David Ferrer

David Ferrer was taken out of the tournament in a pretty routine, straight-set match by Alex Bogomolov Jr.

Bogomolov Jr. is not a tremendous server, nor does he have all that much firepower, but he is incredibly steady and is perhaps one of the most consistent strikers from the baseline.

If anybody was to beat Ferrer outside of the Top 20, it was that man, whose game goes up almost perfectly against the scrappy Spaniard's.

Clearly, we expected to see more of a fight in that match, as he has had one of his greatest years to date in 2013. Let's hope he can regroup for the upcoming tournaments.

Grade: C

Nicolas Almagro

Nicolas Almagro has always held the reputation of being a talented and strong athlete who can beat the likes of anybody in the world, though he has some trouble against the top guns.

Now, his reputation also consists of being a mentally inferior player. This comes from many collapses after holding leads and from losing to unexpected opponents.

This trend continued in the Rogers Cup, as he was ousted in his first match by Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3.

The Czech player's unconventional style proved to be trouble for the hot-headed Almagro, and he has continued to struggle this year.

Grade: F

Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal won the tournament in style, dropping only one set on the week.

Though his win over Novak Djokovic in the semis could have gone either way, he toughed it out in the important moments and proved incredibly clutch in the final moments.

He also had to go through the likes of Jerzy Janowicz and Milos Raonic, so his run to the title was not easy.

He was very aggressive all week on his serve, return game and court positioning, and he was truly playing some exceptional hard-court tennis.

His forehand did damage consistently, and the points-leader for the year so far was firing on all cylinders.

Can he win the U.S. Open for a second time? It seems highly plausible.

Grade: A