Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal Top Winners and Losers at 2015 Shanghai Masters
The king of Asian tennis is Serbian Novak Djokovic, who ripped through the Shanghai Masters like a boundless hurricane.
He’s at a level that other players cannot match, even though Rafael Nadal, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and others played very good tennis this past week.
If Djokovic was hot, then the Swiss stars were cold. Find out why as you peruse this week’s "winners and losers.”
In addition, we close the Asian tour with a few comments about its impact and future. Is it progressing just fine, or will it take another generation or two for the world’s most populated continent to take off with their own wave of stars?
Loser: Roger Federer
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Right out of the starting gate, defending Shanghai Masters champion Roger Federer was bumped over the rail. He fell to Spanish journeyman Albert Ramos-Vinolas in his opening match.
It might seem shocking for a great champion to lose in the second round of a Masters tournament, but it’s actually quite common for players to have letdowns or fatigue.
Federer has lost in the second round of these nine tournaments (including Hamburg and Shanghai as a combination) 10 times since 2004. That works out to almost once a year. In 2015, the 34-year-old was ousted in his opening match at Madrid and Shanghai.
Does this mean it’s harder to be consistent at Masters 1000 venues than at majors? Not exactly. Federer and the other stars prioritize only four major tournaments, and they often use several of the Masters tournaments as tune-ups or tests to help them peak for majors.
Someone like Federer typically prioritizes a favorite fast surface like Cincinnati, but he may not show up at Monte Carlo or Canada. Paris may or may not matter. So the stars are often at different timelines on their personal progress when they arrive at masters tournaments.
This week, Federer takes his loss, and we covered how important it will be for him to perform more like his usual self as he heads to Basel, Paris and the World Tour Finals in London.
Winner: Kevin Anderson
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Kevin Anderson quietly piles up wins, and occasionally against quality opponents late in his career.
The 29-year-old veteran, known most for his big serve, has supplemented his game with solid groundstrokes and returns. He has been dangerous and tough, piling up a 42-21 record in 2015. This week he defeated Tommy Haas, Fabio Fognini and Kei Nishikori, and he almost topped Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals.
Anderson just arrived at No. 10 for the first time in his career. What an achievement, even if it was for only a few days. Oddly enough, his loss to Tsonga will boost the Frenchman past Anderson into the No. 10 slot. Anderson has to take his seat at No. 11.
Just be sure to give a nice word or two for Anderson. He is not a name that will go down in the book of legends, but he has had a significant career that some tennis fans will remember.
Three small titles are quickly forgotten, but two big matches in 2015 proved memorable. He took Novak Djokovic to five sets in Wimbledon’s fourth round (Roger Federer is probably still shaking his head), and he defeated Andy Murray to get to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open.
Loser: Stan Wawrinka
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OK, Stan Wawrinka did just come off a level-500 title at Tokyo. He was probably tired out after a physical and draining match against Marin Cilic. But was that an excuse for the way he got drilled 6-2, 6-1 by Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals?
Is it slightly overrated to assume that a player cannot bounce back from three sets to play the next day? It depends. The Cilic match was late, so there was not much of a turnaround by the next day. And is it more difficult to play three long sets and then a next-day match, or to play a five-setter in a major but have a full day off before the next match? You make the call.
The reason Wawrinka gets the “loser” tag was the way he lost. The 30-year-old had no enthusiasm and clearly wanted to leave Shanghai part way into the second set.
The Swiss player went through the motions in serving as fast as he could. He sprayed weak, long shots everywhere because he hardly moved his feet.
If this were Paris or Philadelphia, there would have been hisses and boos. Wawrinka mailed it in, and that’s disappointing for the fans.
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Winner: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
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Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had a good week, but it probably won’t be enough to make it as one of the elite eight for London’s WTF showpiece.
The 30-year-old was not super like he was in sweeping through great players to win the 2014 Rogers Cup, but he was able to survive and win some tight sets, including four three-set matches.
His highlight was a semifinal victory over Rafael Nadal, before he ran into the unstoppable Novak Djokovic. His 6-2, 6-4 defeat was hardly worse than anyone else in recent weeks who have failed to slow down the world No. 1.
The Frenchman moves up five spots to No. 10 in the world as he prepares for Vienna this week. He probably needs to win that title and the year's final Masters tournament at Paris. Even so, he needs David Ferrer to fade away.
Nice to see Tsonga playing well for now, but it’s probably too little too late.
Loser: Andy Murray
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Maybe Andy Murray’s semifinal shellacking at the hands of Djokovic is revealing the way he can escape early from London’s WTF a wee bit early.
After all, the 28-year-old needs to get more time on red clay in mid-November in order to carry Team Britain’s Davis Cup championship hopes.
Or is King Novak just that far ahead of Murray, Rafael Nadal and the other stars? If it's the latter, they may as well cancel 2016 and send the Serbian four more major trophies.
Yes, Murray had a tough day serving against his big-brother nemesis, and there are times that his super rivals can make him look anemic. Maybe that was it, and he will move on from here. At least he can hold on to the Rogers Cup for a dose of confidence.
Winner: Rafael Nadal
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Labeling Rafael Nadal a winner or loser for this week’s column is almost a toss up. On the sunny side, the Spaniard arrived in Shanghai after a long week that resulted in getting drubbed by Novak Djokovic at Beijing. He started the week by winning a couple of matches against two huge servers, Ivo Karlovic and Milos Raonic.
The 29-year-old hammered a sluggish Stan Wawrinka to land in the semifinals of a Masters 1000 tournament. All of this is a fairly good week considering his relative struggles in 2015 and that he is playing on fast hard courts at the end of a long year.
Detractors would say all of this good momentum was eclipsed by a three-set loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a player he used to dominate, and the third-set loss coming after he had delivered a 6-0 bagel to Tsonga in the second set. So he couldn’t close it out?
If this were any prior year, we would stamp the loser tag on to his bag and tell him to get his act together in Paris. But this is late 2015 and Nadal's objectives are different for the moment. We’ll give him more credit for the success than the disappointing end.
Time for Nadal to take his winner’s tag and get out of town before somebody changes his mind.
Loser: Asian Tour Impact
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Tennis now has a presence in Asia, but it’s a very light impact. The men’s tour is three weeks, five tournaments and then back to Europe. It’s a token trip more or less, and granting Shanghai Masters status in 2009 was hardly the answer to establishing Asia as an important tennis stop.
David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych were the winners at Malaysia and Shenzhen, two rather insignificant 250-level tournaments.
Last week, it was Stan Wawrinka taking Tokyo and Novak Djokovic swatting aside Rafael Nadal at Beijing. These level-500 tournaments set up Shanghai, where the Serb rolled to his latest title.
Roger Federer played only one opening loss at Shanghai, Kei Nishikori was feeble and Wawrinka’s Japanese jet lag seemed to kick in with his tired effort in the Shanghai quarterfinal loss to Nadal.
While Asia is funding a much bigger presence among its youth and the sport is rising, according to research from Bleacher Report’s Merlisa Lawrence Corbett, it needs more than this key period and other scattered tournaments throughout the year. It needs more than the WTA year-end final at Singapore, recently retired star Li Na and men’s star, world No. 6 Nishikori.
It’s going to take a lot more time, perhaps several decades to establish a robust Asian tennis tradition. Asian tennis next needs more rising young stars, bigger TV deals, more variety of important venues and a few mega stars.
The last three weeks had some good tennis, but it was a butterfly flapping its wings. It’s a long time until the Asian tennis storm.
Winner: Novak Djokovic
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No matter how we look at Novak Djokovic’s dominance there are always new angles. It’s almost ridiculous how easily he has blasted through rivals and cream puffs alike. Nobody can survive. They are tomato cans that he bats aside one at a time.
King Novak is about as dominant as anyone has ever been in tennis history. Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal have had their times sweeping through the competition, and the arguments to separate them all really come down personal perspectives and preferences.
“I think in terms of the two tournaments in back‑to‑back weeks, this has been the best two weeks of my life, my career,” Djokovic said in ATP World Tour. “I think I've played the best tennis ever in these two weeks in terms of back‑to‑back. Honestly, that's how I felt.”
It’s so seldom that King Novak loses that in 78 matches in 2015, it’s easy to remember them all.
There was a rusty loss to Ivo Karlovic in January at Doha, the only tournament all year that the 28-year-old did not make a final. Those four final losses were to Roger Federer (Dubai and Cincinnati), Stan Wawrinka (French Open) and Andy Murray (Canada).
Right now the only one who can stop King Novak is himself. At some point he will drop a match or fall back, right?
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