This Week’s WATCH List: Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs?

Another week, another WATCH List – the weekly feature that purports to show every challenger-level player (i.e. those ranked between ATP #80-350) who’s achieved a career high as of the latest rankings period.  Warning: this list is not guaranteed to be complete or accurate.  But best faith attempts have been made.  Feel free to shout at me in the comments if you see something has gone awry, amiss or (especially) askew.  Akimbo’s OK, though.  You don’t have to tell me if this week’s list has gone akimbo.

Anywho, here it is: 

Player	NATIONALITY	Age	New High	Prev High	Why?
Go Soeda	JAPAN	26	90	91	Others lost points
Andreas Haider-Maurer	AUSTRIA	24	95	96	Others lost points
Julian Reister	GERMANY	25	100	102	W Monza
Albert Ramos-Vinolas	SPAIN	23	108	109	R2 Houston ATP
Ryan Harrison	USA	18	128	130	Others lost points
Rogerio Dutra de Silva	BRAZIL	27	137	154	W Pereira
Tatsuma Ito	JAPAN	22	135	162	W Recife
Franco Skugor	CROATIA	23	147	149	R1 Houston ATP (Q’ed)
Robert Farah	COLOMBIA	23	177	178	Others lost points
Facundo Bagnis	ARGENTINA	21	178	190	QF Pereira
Augustin Gensse	FRANCE	27	179	180	Others lost points
Maxime Teixeira	FRANCE	22	190	191	Others lost points
Cedrik-Marcel Stebe	GERMANY	20	218	219	Others lost points
Kenny de Schepper	FRANCE	23	242	251	R2 Monza
Jonathan Eysseric	FRANCE	20	257	258	Others lost points
Artem Smirnov	UKRAINE	23	262	263	Others lost points
Javier Marti	SPAIN	19	263	294	SF Pereira
Kristijan Mesaros	CROATIA	22	264	287	W Croatia F5
James Lemke	AUSTRALIA	23	266	278	W Australia F4
Gastao Elias	PORTUGAL	20	267	269	R2 Recife
Marcel Zimmerman	GERMANY	26	299	301	R2 Croatia F5
Jan-Lennard Struff	GERMANY	20	316	329	F Spain F10
Christian Lindell	SWEDEN	19	325	336	R2 Recife
Gerard Granollers-Pujol	SPAIN	22	326	331	R1 Casablanca ATP (Q’ed)
Guillermo Rivera-Aranguiz	CHILE	22	336	342	F Chile F1
Karlis Lejnieks	LATVIA	23	347	351	QF Switzerland F3

My finely crafted analysis is as follows: it’s a pretty youngish bunch this week (average age: 22.42).  Lindell, Marti and Harrison are the teens, while the gramps of the group are Gensse and Dutra da Silva at age 27.  France and Germany lead the way with four players each nabbing a career high at the moment.  Interestingly, Artem Smirnov is this month’s ITF Featured Player.  So go have a gander at that if you’re interested in learning more about him.

p.s. if you’re interested in those muckety-mucks higher up in the Top 80, our friends at Shank Tennis usually give it a good whirl.



Challenger Tennis Week 14 Recap

While I was living the good life at the Tallahassee Challenger, the three Week Fourteen tourneys managed to come to a close without me. Let’s see how they did.

I see that Monza took the Teutonic mini-trend idea I floated in my midview and ran with it throughout quarterfinal Friday. All the Germans who played? Won. Ninth seed Simon Greul thrashed Meknes finalist Guillermo Olaso 6-2 6-1, Andreas Beck beat fourth seeded Marsel Ilhan 6-3 6-7(5) 6-1, and seventh seed Julian Reister ousted Casablanca champ Evgeny Donskoy 6-1 6-2.

The only spoiler in the semifinal lineup was Marrakech semifinalist Alessio di Mauro, who edged Martin Fischer 7-6(8) 4-6 6-4. But that’s OK – Fischer’s Austrian, so it wasn’t a true trend spoiler. Plus that’s di Mauro’s natural role anyway, that of the spoiler. He spoils every event he plays, simply by entering it, haha. (I kid because I love.)

In the semis, di Mauro (whose name is Italian for “The Spoiler”, I’m pretty sure) continued his spoiling ways, defeating Greul 6-4 2-6 6-2. Now, some might argue that this pleased the home crowd greatly, the Italian doing well in Monza. But I’m in no mood to argue. Reister squeaked past Beck 6-3 6-7(5) 6-1 in the other SF.

And so it was up to Reister to dash the Italian hopes and avenge his fallen Austrio-German comrades in the final. And dash and avenge he did, serving up a cold comeback win, 2-6 6-3 6-3 over the 33-year-old former Top 70 player. In doing so, the 25-year-old Reister arrives in the Top 100 for the very first time in his career, checking in at #100.

In the doubles final, third seeds Fred “The Perry” Nielsen and Johan “The Bruni” Brunstrom beat the fourth-seeded British pair of Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray 5-7 6-2 10-7. Freddie’s now at a career high #108 in dubs after floating around the Top 200 for a good four year or so.

Freddie and Bruni star in “The Italian Job”

In Recife, 18-year-old wild card Tiago Fernandes tried to extend the wave of homegrown Brazilian talent all the way through the final. In a battle of 18-year-old wild cards, he beat his friend and former junior dubs partner, Guilherme Clezar, 6-4 3-6 7-6(3) in what was, by all accounts, an epic encounter indeed. Clezar served for the match and a 2-0 H2H advantage. Instead, Fernandes’ victory evened up their head-to-head tally at one win apiece. “It was one of the best matches of my life,” said the winner (in Portuguese), “We both played at a very high level and a tie would be a fair result today.”

In the other quarterfinals, the three older Brazilians (two of them seeded) couldn’t do what Fernandes could. Seventh seed Caio Zampieri lost his quarterfinal 6-3 3-6 2-6 to fourth-seeded countryman Julio Silva, which set up a semifinal match with a 13.5 year age discrepancy vs. Tiago. 25-year-old fifth seed Ricardo Hocevar was beaten 4-6 6-1 6-1 by second seed Tatsuma Ito, while 28-year-old Andre Ghem was handed a 4&4 defeat by third seed Giovanni Lapentti.

That’s when things got weird. And rainy. But mostly weird. In the rain-delayed Fernandes v Silva semi, Silva won the first set 6-2, and Tiago was asking for a medical time out for back pain when the rains came again and moved play indoors to a different court surface!

Once they got on indoor clay instead of an outdoor hard court, the 18-year-old turned the match around, winning 2-6 7-5 7-6(2). In the other semi, Ito prevailed over Lapentti 7-6(7) 6-3.

Tallahassee Chassis – Frameworks for Unqualified Day One Success

As anticipated, it was a scorching day of qualifying action Saturday at the Tallahassee Challenger, both on and off the courts. The temperature was predicted to reach a near-record 92 degrees, and it did not let us down. Nor did it let up, once the sun broke through the muggy morning clouds. This led to some heated tennis action on the DecoTurf as well as some heated exchanges off of it.

While the clouds still blanketed the ground in some sort of meteorological mercy, I started out beside Court 14 at the Forestmeadows Tennis Complex – a court which, despite its name, is really more like a grandstand/show court. It was there that 19-year-old Australian Mark Verryth, the former world junior #23 and 2009 Eddie Herr International doubles champ (with partner Harry Fowler), kicked off his long day, playing 22-year-old Macon, Georgia wild card Deo-Ray Brown.

Call It In The Air Like You Just Don’t Care

From the outset, it was clear that Brown was overmatched by the 6 foot 6 inch man from Melbourne (Australia, not Florida), as Verryth hammered home 11 aces and never faced a break point the entire match. Though he only put 50 percent of his first serves in, his kicking second delivery had Brown off balance throughout.

To his credit, Brown got more of a read on the Aussie’s serve toward the end, framing some short replies and delaying the point for at least one more shot, as Verryth supplemented his service profile with some blistering forehands.

But the match was over before 60 Minutes would’ve gotten to Andy Rooney. It wasn’t the most flawless performance (5 double faults, a number of unforced errors, and repeated self-admonishments that his serve was “too short”), but it didn’t need to be. It was still impressive enough that ball kids lined up for autographs afterwards.

And it was good that he conserved his energy, as the big man from the land Down Under would go on to play a 2 hour QR2 match in the midday sun, upsetting qualifying fifth seed Woong-Sun Jun 6-7(3) 7-6(5) 6-3. I didn’t get to see that one – as I can only be in so many places at once, you see - but I hoped to check out at least some of his final qualifying match against another Korean, Daniel Yoo. (Thank yoo verryth much.)

For the next match, I was intrigued to see how Devin Britton was doing these days, as the young American’s been struggling since he made his big splash against some dude named Federer in the 2009 US Open (losing twice as many matches as he’s won since that day). DevBritt came out a bit disheveled (TM Brad Gilbert) and never seemed quite at ease against his 23-year-old formerly Greek (now American) opponent, Vlademyros Mavropoulos-Stoliarenko (a spirited guy whom I unfortunately could not tweet about by name, as his name alone accounts for half a tweet as it is).

For his part, Stoliarenko (as the chair ump called him) came out guns blazing, breaking Britton at 15 with an inside-in forehand and a blistering forehand return winner up the line for an early 2-0 advantage.

Of course, he immediately was broken back to love, thanks to a double fault, a grunty drop shot wide, and a couple of D.Britted forehand winners. And that’s about how the whole first set went. Five breaks of service in all, with VMS getting the last of them for a 6-4 first set victory. Britton’s reviews of various parts of the first set: “That is so bad. So bad.” And “that’s embarrassing!” Can’t say as I disagree, especially since Devin missed a few fairly easy volleys, and his net play is supposed to be the strength of his game.

After the set, I overhear an awesome conversation between ballkids about their chosen craft. Highlight: “If it’s coming right at us, can we move or do we just have to wear it?” “You can move.” “OK, but are we allowed to wear it? I wanna leave with a battle bruise.”

Heh. Tough kid.

Meanwhile, back to the bruising battle on court: the second frame found Britton landing all the punches. And Stoliarenko sufferered from a few self-inflicted blows, to add to the punishment. For instance, when he smacked a groundie long down break point in the first game. Or threw in his only double fault of the set to help the Britton to a double break lead.

Tally Ho – Tallahassee Challenger Here I Come (aka Tallahassee CHIC)

Ah, the excitement. The first challenger of the year on Floridian soil, and I intend to cover the hell out of it – even though the forecast this weekend is for near-record 92 degrees Fahrenheit/33.3 degrees Celsius temperatures (speaking of hell). I know challenger tourneys in the USA can sometimes be challenging to follow from afar, due to lack of livescore or livestream, etc., but the Tally Chally really does have their act together, coverage-wise.

Their website is one of the better sites on the Challenger Tour, and they have a very active Twitter account that will no doubt keep you updated on the latest happenings. In addition, they’ve had a strong media presence already in the lead up to the tournament, and that bodes well as far as their online presence as the event unfolds. Tournament director Karen Vogter has already been featured prominently on local TV, even taking a turn as a celebrity chef! Anyone for goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes? Karen’s got you covered.

The Tall Chall is in their 12^th year, and they have a rich roster of past champions: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Mardy Fish, and John Isner among them. Brian Dabul beat Robbie Ginepri in the final of last year’s event, when Ginepri was felled by injury and had to retire in the second set. The big news this year, of course, is that James Blake has accepted a wild card into the tourney.

James will be joined by such players as Donald Young, Sarajevo Challenger titlist Amer Delic, Dallas Challenger champ (and, along with Young, another Andy Murray conquerer) Alex Bogomolov Jr., Ryan Sweeting – who’s still alive in the ATP Houston quarterfinals, having just taken out Sam Querrey – and Rainer Schuettler. You can check out the full roster at the bottom of my tournament entry list page. In addition to hosting some great tennis action, they have an amazingly altruistic community presence, hosting free clinics and giving money they raise back to the community.

Ryan Swatting: Sweeting at the Tally Chally

But however much the tournament hosts cover, I intend to supplement it. ‘Cause I’m that kind of guy. I’ll be keeping close tabs on the qualifying action this weekend, and if you live in the area, you can too. Qualifying rounds are free to the public, and feature some of the next great up-and-coming stars of the future. I highly suggest you check it out if you’re anywhere nearby (or even moderately far away – I myself am driving six hours to the event, so if you live closer than that I expect to see you there, haha).

The tournament takes place at the Forestmeadows Tennis Complex, located at 4750 North Meridian Road (in Tallahassee, of course). I’ll be the guy with the dorky Vero Beach baseball cap and the black rimmed glasses – feel free to approach/accost me as needed!

Challenger Tennis Week 14 Round Two In Review

The fields were whittled* down to the quarterfinalists in this week’s three challenger events. Let’s take a look at who was able to pass muster (hint: it wasn’t Thomas).

Monza – It’s been hard for me to get a handle on any definitive general trends taking place at this event, other than the fact I get “The Monster Mash” stuck in my head every time I think about it – which is more annoying than it is trendy.

I mean, three Germans made the quarterfinals – does that count for anything? It may, but as general trends go, it’s lukewarm at best. I guess I’ll just have to examine results here on a more case-by-case basis. Which sounds awfully labor intensive, but whatever.

The top half of the draw features one of them Germans, ninth seed Simon Greul, who beat unseeded Italian Andrea Arnaboldi 76(2) 63 to advance. Greul is the only remaining seed in the top half, and he wasn’t even meant to be seeded in the first place (erstwhile fifth seed Andreas Haider-Maurer withdrew with a right knee problem, so the seeds were all re-jiggered). Which means: the top of this draw is mild sauce, y’all. But also means: a big opportunity for one of the four remaining topside. Let’s meet them! *cues Dating Game theme song*

Guillermo Olaso is a 23-year-old Spaniard who’s currently ranked #205, who – with a win against Gruel – could very close to his career high of #193 (which he achieved when he made the final of the Meknes Challenger in February). According to a friend of mind on the Twitter, Olaso plays exactly like Rafael Nadal, only right-handed. And lower-level. And more inconsistent. But, you know. He lost 1 and 2 to Greul in their only previous meeting, but that was three years ago.

Whoa, that tired me out. I don’t think I wanna do introductions like that for Italian 33-year-old Alessio di Mauro or 24-year-old Austrian Martin Fischer, save to say their ages, nationalities and that they’ve never played. I premise to do a better profile of the guy who comes out the victor in this one, OK? (my money’s on Crivoi)

The bottom half of the draw features players who need less of an introduction. Former 33rd-ranked player in the world Andreas Beck continues his comeback from a bad back, taking out sixth seed Lukasz Kubot 7-5 7-6(6) in very circuitous fashion, having led 3-0 in both sets and having served for the match at 5-1 and 5-3 in the 2^nd set. But a win’s a win, and now he’ll face The Turkish Delight, 4^th seed Marsel Ilhan – a 6-2 7-6(4) winner over Victor Crivoi – in the quarters. It will be their first meeting.

Andi Beck Does The Monza Mash

Federico Delbonis will be kicking himself that he’s not in the QF’s, as he led seventh seed Julian Reister a set and a break, and led 5-2* in the second set breaker before going down 6-4 6-7(7) 1-6, his spirit all but broken in that third set, for all the opportunities missed. Reister will play Casablanca Challenger champ Evgeny Donskoy, winner of 15 of his last 16 matches, thanks in part to the 20-year-old Russian’s 6-2 7-5 victory over big French lefty qualifier Kenny de Schepper in round two here. It will be their first meeting as well.