Winners and Losers from Shanghai Masters Sets Up ATP Race to London
Roger Federer insists on winning more championships and creating more history. His victory to win the 2014 Shanghai Rolex Masters may not have been the upset of the year, but it's another remarkable anecdote in his storied career.
The following slideshow takes an alternate look at the past week of Winners and Losers. We frame this in the context of what it means as the ATP roars down the homestretch in its Race to London, where only the top eight players are invited. There are seven second-tier stars fighting for four remaining slots.
Is Andy Murray going to make it? What did his latest match against David Ferrer mean for both players?
Do youngsters Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov have enough wins in the tank to drive all the way to London? Shanghai was important, but it sets up even greater drama ahead.
What about Stanislas Wawrinka and other veterans? Are they in or out?
Will Rafael Nadal be able to compete at his best in early November? What could be the price for putting off another surgery?
We've got our weekly commentary and outlook for you right here as we examine the unusual, disappointing and triumphant happenings in tennis.
Winner: David Ferrer vs. Andy Murray
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Our weekly David Ferrer feature took an interesting turn in Shanghai's third round. The feisty Spaniard dug in the only way that he knows how and knocked off equally desperate Andy Murray 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 in a match that could figure big in the ATP Race to London.
Ferrer and Murray are battling to climb back inside the elite eight of the ATP. One week ago, Murray was 30 points ahead of Ferrer, but he now trails Ferrer by 60 points.
Ferrer still trails Milos Raonic for the eighth and final slot. Got that?
The match underscored the inconsistencies both players have had in 2014, with Murray easily winning the first set and Ferrer turning the table to dominate the rest of the way.
Certainly Ferrer, for all of his nagging injuries and subtle decline, has a more stable game plan and idea of what he needs to do. He plays with his legs, his heart and his relentless energy, more than a match for Murray's troubled play in 2014.
Ferrer went on to lose his quarterfinals match to World No. 1 Novak Djokovic.
If you didn't get enough of this match, stay tuned. Ferrer and Murray are seeded No. 1 and No. 2 for Austria, and they could conceivably play each other in the final. It might decide who stands first in the waiting list for London. If Murray indeed wants to stay in the conversation as a member of the Fab Four, he will need a ticket to ride.
Loser: Marin Cilic
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Right now Marin Cilic looks like he is struggling. You can see it in his face as he slogs through some patches of mediocre tennis with one eye on the finish line to London.
Unfair? Well, scrutiny naturally follows big winners, and the 2014 U.S. Open winner might be feeling the pressure of entirely new expectations. He is in a dogfight to stay in the elite eight for the ATP Race to London, something he might not have thought was possible a couple months ago.
The past week at Shanghai was a clear disappointment for Cilic who lost a third-set tiebreaker to Ivo Karlovic in the first round. Not exactly the first-class route to London, and as the No. 6-rated point winner of 2014, Cilic lost a golden opportunity to distance himself more from competitors nipping at his heels including Tomas Berdych, Milos Raonic, David Ferrer, Andy Murray and Grigor Dimitrov.
Up next, redemption in Moscow, where he will be on opposite ends of the draw from No. 8 Milos Raonic. It's another bracket with big implications for the year-end tournament.
Winner: Gilles Simon
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Five years ago, Gilles Simon was a Top 10 player with enough baseline sharpness to win against all but the best players on clay and hard courts. He only lacked a little more punch, a weapon to augment his terrific backhand.
And while the last couple of years have seen him hang on inside the Top 20, early 2014 was a struggle, signalling the decline that usually hits players as they cross over from 28 to 30 years old. It was easy to forget about the lean Frenchman with the pretty groundstrokes.
There were signs that he would reemerge. He defeated David Ferrer in the fourth round at the U.S. Open and pushed Marin Cilic to five sets in the quarterfinals. Had he found a win in that one, history would have changed.
This week he persevered. He rallied for a sublime pair of sets to close out Stanislas Wawrinka. He bageled Tomas Berdych in another third set. In the Shanghai final, he took Roger Federer to two tiebreakers, but by then the clock had struck midnight and he was left holding a glass slipper.
Good to have you back on the tour again, Simon.
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Loser: Grigor Dimitrov
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The last two months have been a quiet slide for Grigor Dimitrov. Since his semifinal loss at Toronto, he has stepped back with more passive play, best represented by his over-reliance on backhand slice shots.
Sure he lost to Novak Djokovic (China Open) and Gael Monfils (U.S. Open), but he also fell in second-round surprises to Jerzy Janowicz (Cincinnati) and Julien Benneteau (Shanghai). This latest defeat nearly shut the window for his chance to play in London next month.
It's not that Dimitrov has been bad, but that he has fallen back into the thick of second-tier blood feuds. There isn't room in any tournament's quarterfinals bracket for 11 of the top players in the world, and Dimitrov simply has not seized the moment with a timely streak of great matches.
Is it fatigue? A slump? Is superstardom just not going to happen?
Meanwhile, Kei Nishikori and Marin Cilic have roared past, and Milos Raonic has been more consistent.
Now Dimitrov heads to Sweden as the No. 2 seed and in desperate need to gain 250 points. Failing that, he might have to win Paris, and there's no precedence in Dimitrov winning Masters 1000 titles.
Winner: Roger Federer
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He's at the twilight of his career, but Roger Federer keeps adding accomplishments to the most impressive resume in tennis history. Not that it was completely a Shanghai surprise, but after slogging through an opening round match against Leonardo Mayer with 57 errors, it was quite a turn to see him holding his first career trophy here.
Along the way, he starred at the net, carving out a classic performance to defeat World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Over and over he could be found poaching Djokovic passes at the center of the net, his hands quick and flawless like, dare we say, a prime Stefan Edberg.
Would anyone have predicted that he would defeat Djokovic three times in 2014 and continue to lead their career head-to-head matches (19-17)?
The championship was the icing on the cake, but as always with Federer it was another reminder of his place in history. There's no question that Federer is the most complete player of the Open era.
Had he played in earlier eras, he would have dominated with server-and-volley skills, backed up by a baseline game that nobody else could bring, rather than the reverse of this the past 10 years.
And yet Federer is underrated in some ways. His serve has never been the biggest, but few in the history of tennis have defended it so well.
His defense may not quite be at the level of Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Bjorn Borg or perhaps Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi (though Agassi's defense was predicated on dictating with his offense), but he's well in front of the other offensive geniuses like Pete Sampras, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl and Rod Laver.
Really, this discussion deserves more than a winner's slide. We shall say that this topic will be continued in the near future, and probably for all time.
Loser: Milos Raonic
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Shanghai was a merry-go-round of missed opportunities, and it had plenty of room for big Milos Raonic. Not that anyone can blame him for waking up with the flu and retiring in his second-round match against Juan Monaco, but his soft trail to the final disappeared with his optimum health.
He stands only 20 and 60 points ahead of veterans David Ferrer and Andy Murray respectively in the Race for London and now must march to Moscow as the No. 1 seed for a run at this title, worth 250 points. It won't be easy if he has to play the final against Marin Cilic who will be looking to rediscover his U.S. Open form.
Raonic will also keep tabs on the Austrian tournament where his two aforementioned assailants will be looking to make up ground. Eastern Europe is the hot zone for the road west, as is the showdown at Sweden with the bracket balanced by Grigor Dimitrov and Tomas Berdych.
Oddly enough, Raonic and Dimitrov are each 44-15 in 2014, and both are Wimbledon semifinalists. Not much to separate the players at the edge of the Top 10. October has become the play-in rounds to London.
WTA Winners: Samantha Stosur and Alison Riske
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Alison Riske won her first career title by capturing the Tianjin Open against 17-year-old phenom Belinda Bencic. It also moved her up 18 slots in the rankings to No. 44.
Meanwhile, Samantha Stosur collected the title at Osaka for the third time in her career. What's amazing is that this amounts to half of her six career titles. Stosur was the 2011 U.S. Open champion, and now at 30 years old will certainly savor her latest title.
"It's great to win a title, and I left it pretty late to try and win one this year, so better late than never!" Stosur said in WTA Tennis. "But I really love playing this tournament. Three times now—it's just a great feeling to come back here each year, and if you win the title then it's even better, obviously!
The Women's Tour Championship at Singapore will be held October 17-26. The eight featured superstars are as follows:
Simona Halep
Petra Kvitova
Agnieszka Radwanska
Eugenie Bouchard
Ana Ivanovic
Caroline Wozniacki
Losers: Stanislas Wawrinka and Tomas Berdych
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Tomas Berdych and Stanislas Wawrinka were semifinalists at Australia, where the latter prevailed and carved his name into Grand Slam history.
Wawrinka looked awesome at times, taking Monte Carlo and sitting in on the No. 3 ranking for half the year. Then prosperity slipped away and Wawrinka was stranded to bang away with his hit-and-miss baseline mentality. He has the game to win it all, but he has been unable to weather adversity and his foundation has been shaky more often than not.
Berdych has merely reached into his grab bag of tennis seasons and found that they are virtual clones of each other. He's a consistent fourth-round kind of contestant, occasionally stepping into the party before being bounced out by his more elitist superiors.
No. 4 Wawrinka just got his boarding pass to London, but unlike 2013 is not peaking with his tennis.
No. 7 Berdych might have to win Sweden and impress at Paris. If not, he could be the odd man out.
Winner: Retro Look at Nikolay Davydenko
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While Gilles Simon was peaking in 2009, former Top-10 player Nikolay Davydenko was at the apex of his career. Yes, he was the first winner of the Shanghai Masters 1000 tournament that began as such in 2009. Since then, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have joined him. Not bad company.
Davydenko did not back into the title. It took him three sets to defeat pesky Radek Stepanek in the quarterfinals and then a three-hour marathon semifinal against Djokovic. Meanwhile, his finals opponent, Rafael Nadal, had mostly cruised, benefiting from an easy 6-1, 3-0 match (and retirement) over Feliciano Lopez (more on these two in the final slide).
But Davydenko closed out Nadal 7-6(3), 6-3 with his troublesome approach to stretching out the Spaniard legend.
Davydenko's primary plan was to win the backhand to forehand exchanges with Nadal. He had the patience and depth to keep Nadal at bay, and then when the opening came he ripped the backhand up the line. He also mixed in several short balls to Nadal's backhand, pulling him to uncomfortable replies. Eventually, Nadal tried his stubborn moonballs, clearly at a loss of how to dictate against Davydenko.
It's the kind of patterns that we've seen Djokovic adapt into a blockbuster series of championships the past year. Of course Djokovic has more talent than Davydenko and his defense is superior, but nonetheless might tip his hat to the blueprint that Davydenko crafted.
Davydenko is Djokovic's Godfather and Nadal's less-renowned nemesis. He won four straight matches versus Nadal beginning with that match at Shanghai and continuing at the WTF tournament.
Nadal finally snapped the streak in 2013, but still trails Davydenko 6-5 in their 11 career matches.
Loser: Rafael Nadal
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What a difference five years can make. In the last slide we noted that Feliciano Lopez only took one game off of Rafael Nadal. This past week, he delivered a 6-3, 7-6(6) victory over Nadal in the second round. Lopez enjoyed the momentum all the way to the semifinals before bowing out to Simon.
Of course Nadal is the bigger story, even if it's a tale that we've read countless times, albeit in alternate forms. Nadal, recently returned from a right-wrist injury announced that he will need surgery for appendicitis. He intends to do this in November after the WTF tournament in London.
Once again another setback for the Spanish superstar whose body has been breaking down more often in his late 20s.
Can he compete over the next few weeks?
Would he be better off getting the surgery now and then rehabilitating for another roll of the dice at the Australian Open in January?
Suppose he does not have enough recovery time and match play to peak as 2015 gets underway?
So the news is not good these days for Nadal. Once again, we wait and see when he can compete with the form that made him the best player in the world. The clock is ticking.
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