Return of the Big Four

At its peak in 2011, the Big Four of Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer owned the ATP World Tour. In 2011, the four players combined to win all four slams, all nine 1000 events, the year-end Finals, along with eight other titles, and Nadal was part of the Davis Cup Champion team.

The four players didn't just win the events - they dominated them. Both finalists at all four slams were members of the Big Four. In fact, only three players ranked below four even reached the semifinals, and only four reached a final at a 1000 event. However, since Nadal lost to Lukas Rosol in the second round of Wimbledon in 2012, the members of the Big Four have not all been at their best at the same time.

After that loss, Nadal was out for seven months and didn't make his return until after the Australian Open. As soon as Nadal returned, Federer instantly began to struggle, starting with a loss in Rotterdam to Julien Benneteau. Federer's struggles continued all the way through to the US Open where he lost to Tommy Robredo.

After the US Open, Murray announced his season would end with back surgery, and Federer almost instantly began to improve. He reached the final in Basel, and semifinals of Bercy and the year-end Finals, beating Richard Gasquet and Juan Martin del Potro twice in the process.

Now, at the Australian Open, Murray is back from his injury, Nadal's knee issues seem to be a thing of the past, Djokovic is extrememly motivated, and Federer appears to be back to a high quality of tennis. So is the Big Four back?

From what we have seen at the Australian Open through one week, the answer would be a resounding yes! Not a single one of the four has so much as dropped  set on their straight-forward paths to the second week. With Del Potro falling out of the tournament in the first round, it would be surprising if anyone outside the Big Four reaches a final, let alone win one.

However, there is still one major hurdle before I am ready to say that the Big Four is truly back, and that is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. During 2011, it wouldn't be surprising to see all four reach the semifinals. However, that's impossible in Melbourne this year since Murray and Federer are both in the same quarter. So the best the Big Four can do is make sure that none of them lose to anybody outside the Big Four. Although Djokovic will face Stanislas Wawrinka and potentially Tomas Berdych or David Ferrer, Tsonga appears to be the biggest threat in this tournament to disrupt the Big Four's dominance.

So what is unofficially on the line tonight when Federer goes toe-to-toe with Tsonga is Federer's spot in the Big Four. Can the Big Four all dominate the sport at once the way they did in 2011? Or are Tsonga, Berdych, Del Potro, Wawrinka, and Ferrer too good to be second tier players?

The Forgotten Quarter

The Australian Open is mere hours away at this point, and as play begins, all eyes will be on the favorites to win the tournament to see how their form is. A lot has been made of the stacked top half of the draw in Melbourne and the possibility of a rematch between Stan Wawrinka and Novak Djokovic.  However, there is one quarter of the draw that has been overlooked significantly. David Ferrer's quarter is wide open and loaded with the possibility of a break-through performance.

It wasn't long ago that the Australian Open was the site of some of the biggest upsets in tennis. Whether it was Djokovic ending Roger Federer's streak of consecutive slam finals, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga taking out Nadal, or Marcos Baghdatis reaching the final, the Happy Slam was full of surprises.

This hasn't been the case in the last two years with the top four seeds all reaching the semifinals in both 2011 and 2012. However, Ferrer's quarter could potentially be the location of a huge surprise. With a spot in the semifinals up for grabs, it seems as though nobody in the quarter is prepared to take it. The eight seeds in this quarter of the draw have a combined record of 6-9, and six of the seeds have not even won a match yet this year.

The top seed in the quarter, Ferrer, went on a four-match losing streak to end 2013 after he upset Nadal. That proved to be the trend more than a fluke as he went on to be upset by two players ranked outside of the top 50 in his first two tournaments of the season. Last year's Wimbledon semifinalist, Jerzy Janowicz, won just a total of four games in his only match to get prepared for the first slam of the year.

Tomas Berdych isn't in any better form. Despite winning doubles in Doha, he was upset in straight sets in the first round by Ivo Karlovic, who is a potential third round opponent. The Czech has been known to suffer early upsets at the slams anyways. For seven years in a row, he has lost in the first round of at least one slam each year.

Also, Tommy Haas, Mikhail Youzhny, Ivan Dodig, and Kevin Anderson have all lost their only preparation match for Melbourne. So if all of this players, have such poor form coming into the slam, who is going to reach the semifinals? Someone in this section has to! These are the three unseeded players that I think have the best chance of making a run at the Australian Open.

1. Steve Johnson (USA)
This is a perfect storm for Stevie to have a breakthrough event at a slam. Not only is he playing in a weak section of the draw, but he is coming into this tournament in good form and will play under favorable conditions. Last week, he came one match away from qualifying for Auckland, where he was beat by college rival Bradley Klahn. However, he got into the draw as a lucky loser and made the most of it. He beat Marcos Baghdatis, who is always dangerous when he is playing down under. Then he knocked out one of the seeded players in this quarter, Kevin Anderson, in straight sets.

Johnson is no stranger to succeeding in extrememly hot temperatures. As a senior at USC, he had one of the best seasons in tennis history, which led to a National Championship. He knows what it takes to win, and has that winning mentality. When he gets on a roll he is tough to stop, which makes him dangerous to go deep in Melbourne.

The word on the streets is that the courts at the Australian Open are faster and the balls are lighter, which is more good news for the American. He loves to crank his serve and back it up with his best weapon, which is the forehand. The court speed and light balls play right into his strategy, which will make it very difficult to break his serve. This could be an exciting tournament for Johnson, who has never gone past a third round at a slam.

2. Alexandr Dolgopolov (Ukr)
In contrast to Johnson, Dolgopolov has had success at the slams before. In fact, in his first appearance at Melbourne Park, he upset Robin Soderling and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on his way to the quarterfinals. Dolgopolov's physical issues have prevented him from getting a high enough ranking to be seeded, but nothing is stopping him from making another run. He has already knocked off one of the seeds in this quarter, defeating Jerzy Janowicz 6-2, 6-2.

Nobody knows what to expect from the Dog from week-to-week, but this could be a couple of the best weeks so far in his career.

3. Ricardas Berankis (Lit)
Dolgopolov's first round opponent, Berankis, is another guy who has a chance to make a run. Unlike either of the other two on this list, Berankis came up through qualifying, which could give him an advantage. Players who come up through qualifying sometimes are able to use the momentum from the previous week to surprise their first round opponents. Berankis comes into the tournament after having played some incredible tennis. In qualifying he won all six of his sets without losing more than four games in any set.

Berankis is also capable of going on big runs when he gets hot. The first time I ever saw Berankis play in person was in Los Angeles in 2012, where he got all the way to the final. And guess what! He came up as a qualifier that week. We already know that Berankis is on fire right now. The only question is can he keep it up?

Australian Open Week 1 Preview

The Australian Open draw came out today with a stacked top half full of exciting matchups. Here is a look at the most anticipated matches during the first week of the first slam of 2014.

1st Round: Before the draw came out, I was looking at how many quality players were going to be unseeded, and I thought there would be plenty of exciting first round encounters. I was dead wrong about that. The most dangerous unseeded players like Querrey, Dolgopolov, Istomin, and Cilic avoided playing seeded players in the first round. Then Ivo Karlovic, who actually did draw a seeded player, got 32-seed Ivan Dodig. However, there are two matches that will get my full attention when they are on.

The first is No. 24 Andreas Seppi (Ita) vs. Lleyton Hewitt (Aus). If I had to bet that any match would go five sets, this would be the one. At the last five grand slams, Hewitt has played 11 matches. Four of them went five sets, and five of them were four sets. Seppi's numbers knack for long matches is even more impressive. He has played 11 five-set matches in his last 19 completed slam matches. Even in Davis Cup play last year, he had a five-set match. If you aren't convinced yet that this match is going the distance, let me tell you about their head-to-head record. In six matches, the record is tied 3-3. Although they have never played a best-of-five match, each of their first three encounters were determined in a deciding set. Many fans would argue that Hewitt always plays his best in Australia is playing too well right now to need five sets to beat Seppi. However, when they met merely three months ago, Seppi won 6-4, 6-2. Seppi also has already defeated Hewitt once in Australia with a 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 win in Sydney 2006. I am picking Hewitt to win though.

The second is No. 1 Rafael Nadal (Esp) vs. Bernard Tomic (Aus). Nadal will likely win this one in straight sets, but it should still be fun to watch. The two also met three years ago in Melbourne in the third round, where Nadal won in three sets, so it will be interesting to see how much Tomic's game has improved since he was just 18.



2nd Round: This is the last round before the seeded players begin to play each other, so this round also lacks some really intriguing matchups. Marin Cilic does have a chance to take out a seeded player when he plays against Gilles Simon. Also, Fernando Verdasco will take on red-hot Sergiy Stakhovsky for the right to play Roger Federer, who Stakhovsky beat in Wimbledon last year. As someone who used to attend the tournament in Los Angeles each year, a potential matchup of former champions Ernests Gulbis and Sam Querrey will be interesting.

3rd Round: This is where the fun begins. This is the kind of day where you want to have different matches being played on your computer, tablet, and phone all at once. Thankfully, at the slams each round takes two days.

Gael Monfils and Nadal should meet in a rematch of the Doha final, which went three sets. Kei Nishikori versus Lleyton Hewitt would be an instant sellout in the Asia/Pacific Slam. Then Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov would be a matchup between the two best young players on tour. Dimitrov would be in search of his first trip to the second week of a slam. Juan Martin del Potro will get his first test in the third round, where he will likely play Benoit Paire, who upset him in Rome last year.

Then we get to go through the awkwardness of Judy Murray being at a "Deliciano" Lopez match, when he takes on her son, Andy Murray. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will either face his countryman Gilles Simon or former top 10 player Marin Cilic, who is trying to climb the rankings again. Then, as mentioned before, we could see Stakhovsky get his rematch against Federer. All of those matches are just in the top half of the draw, so they will all be played on the same day. Thankfully Monfils is in one of the matches, so he and Dustin Brown likely won't play in doubles that day too.


However, there is one match that I left out, which I think will be the best out of all of them. That is the matchup between No. 21 Philipp Kohlschreiber (Ger) and No. 13 John Isner (USA). The pair met just yesterday, when John Isner came back from down a set to win in three tiebreak sets. Isner leads the head-to-head 4-2 now, but has never beat Kohlschreiber in a best-of-five match. Only one match between the two hasn't gone to a deciding set. That was a four-set match that the German won at the US Open, which was the second time Kohlschreiber has beaten the top-ranked American at his home slam. Needless to say, Isner would love to get some revenge.

Federer no stranger to facing a home-favorite

Federer d. Hewitt 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 in R16 of 2010 Australian Open

In a few hours, Roger Federer will play against Lleyton Hewitt in the 2014 Brisbane final. It is the pair's 27th meeting, tying them with Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl for ninth most meetings between two players in the Open Era. It will be the fifth meeting in Hewitt's home country of Australia. However, none of the previous meetings were in a final.

Federer, who will be playing in his 114th career final, has become accustomed to meeting the home-favorite in finals. This will be his 19th meeting against a player who represents the country that the tournament is held in. In the previous 18 finals, Federer holds a record of 13-5, including a nine-match winning streak that spanned from 2003 to 2009.

However, Federer's recent record in these finals should give Hewitt some hope. Federer has won just one of the last three, which includes his straight-set loss against Andy Murray in the Gold Medal match in London.

Here is a look at all of the finals in Federer's career against players on home soil:

No.	Year	Tournament	Opponent	Result
1	2002	Milan	Davide Sanguinetti	L 6-7(2), 6-4, 1-6
2	2002	Miami	Andre Agassi	L 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
3	2003	Halle	Nicolas Kiefer	W 6-1, 6-3
4	2003	Masters Cup	Andre Agassi	W 6-3, 6-0, 6-4
5	2005	Cincinnati	Andy Roddick	W 6-3, 7-5
6	2005	US Open	Andre Agassi	W 6-3, 7-6(0), 4-6, 6-3
7	2006	Indian Wells	James Blake	W 7-5, 6-3, 6-0
8	2006	US Open	Andy Roddick	W 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1
9	2007	Cincinnati	James Blake	W 6-1, 6-4
10	2008	Halle	Philipp Kohlschreiber	W 6-3, 6-4
11	2009	Madrid	Rafael Nadal	W 6-4, 6-4
12	2010	Madrid	Rafael Nadal	L 4-6, 6-7(5)
13	2010	Cincinnati	Mardy Fish	W 6-7(5), 7-6(1), 6-4
14	2011	Paris	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	W 6-1, 7-6(3)
15	2012	Indian Wells	John Isner	W 7-6(7), 6-3
16	2012	Halle	Tommy Haas	L 6-7(5), 4-6
17	2012	Wimbledon	Andy Murray	W 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4
18	2012	London Olympics	Andy Murray	L 2-6, 1-6, 4-6
19	2014	Brisbane	Lleyton Hewitt	??

One of reasons that Federer is so great for the sport of tennis is that he is internationally loved. However, this table shows that there are several countries that maybe shouldn't love him as much as they do. Federer has spoiled the United States' hopes of having a winner from their country nine times. He has done the same twice in Germany and one time in Italy, Spain, France, and Great Britain. Today, Federer will try to add Australia to that list for his 78th career title, which by the way, will put him ahead of John McEnroe for career titles won, moving him into third place in the Open Era.

 

Tennis Trivalries

This week, there was plenty of big news coming out of the Roger Federer camp. First he announced that he will be having another kid. Also Stefan Edberg will be joining Federer's team. With Edberg coaching Federer, he rejoins the tennis world along with Ivan Lendl (coaching Andy Murray) and Boris Becker (coaching Novak Djokovic) reigniting the some of the greatest rivalries of the 1980's.

Many people say men's tennis is in a golden era right now, because of what has been called the "Trivalry" between Federer, Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal. However, Becker, Lendl,  and Edberg also made up an exciting trivalry. This got me thinking about all of the greatest trivalries in tennis history and where the current trivalry fits in historically.

Lavallcombe - The first trivalry of the Open Era was between a trio of Aussies. John Newcombe, Rod Laver, and Ken Rosewall made up that trivalry. Officially, they played 46 matches against each other, but that doesn't count the hundreds of times they played before the Open Era. In the Open Era, they contested four grand slam finals, meeting nine times in slams and 16 times in WCT tournaments.  Rosewall's win over Laver in the 1972 Dallas WCT final was one of the best matches in Lavallcombe. Rosewall won 7-6(5) in the fifth set after losing the fourth set in a tiebreaker. The trio also made up a Davis Cup team, which played a huge role in bringing titles to Australia, including in 1973, which was the country's 15th title in 24 years.

McConnorg - The next trivalry spanned over three decades, going from the late 1970's to as late as 1991. This was between Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Bjorn Borg. They played each other 71 times, which included several of the all-time greatest matches in tennis history. In 1980, McEnroe and Borg met in both the Wimbledon and US Open finals, producing some of the most memorable five-set epics in tennis history. Connors also had his share of epic encounters with his rivals. He played five five-set matches against McEnroe, which includes the 1980 US Open semifinal that was determined by a fifth-set tiebreaker. McConnorg combined for 26 grand slam titles and occupied tennis' top ranking for 547 weeks.

Bendlberg - The three coaches also are three of the greatest players in tennis history. Edberg, Lendl, and Becker played each other 83 times, including 35 times between Edberg and Becker, which was the record before last year. Of the 83 meetings, 39 were in finals, which includes seven grand slam finals. However, some of their best matches were outside the finals. In the 1985 Australian Open semifinals, Edberg defeated Lendl 9-7 in the fifth set. In their final meeting, they had the benefit of a tiebreak, when Edberg again defeated Lendl in the 1992 US Open quarterfinals. The three players completely dominated their era with 336 combined wins against their peers in the top 10.

Courassi - This is another trio of countrymen. The 1990's were dominated by players from the United States. In particular, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, and Pete Sampras. The Americans met 66 times on tour with over half between Sampras and Agassi. In fact, most fans wouldn't have considered Courier part of any trivalry, but since this post is about trivalries, I added him in. And he was part of some amazing matches and even had a winning head-to-head against Agassi. Sampras also had two of the best matches of his career against Courier. In both the 1995 Australian Open quarterfinals and the 1996 Roland Garros quarterfinals, Sampras came back from two sets down to beat Courier. The rivalry between Agassi and Sampras, however, ranks as one of the best in tennis history. The pair played 34 times, including nine times in slams and in four grand slam finals. In total, the trio had 26 grand slam titles and spent 445 weeks at No. 1.

Fedalovic - So where does the current trivalry between Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal rank? For me, it is the best of all of them. Not only are they the three greatest players to be part of a trivalry, but they consistently meet on the biggest stages in the sport. Here are the numbers: 101 meeting, 15 grand slam finals, 32 meetings in any round of a slam, and 48 finals at any tournament. Each rivalry within the trivalry has to rank as one of the top 10 rivalries in tennis history. Each rivalry has met at least 10 times in slams and 30 times in total. The three players have fought each other for the top ranking in the game for the last 514 weeks and counting. They also have 36 combined grand slams and 396 wins against top 10 players. Also since Djokovic first reached the top three in 2007, only three other players have been able to crack into the top three, and only one reached the top two. We haven't even begun to talk about the incredible matches between these players.

In 2012, Djokovic and Nadal met in the Australian Open final in a match that took almost six hours to complete with Djokovic finishing on top 7-5 in the fifth set. Then this past year, Nadal defeated Djokovic 9-7 in the fifth set at the Roland Garros semifinals on his way to a record-setting eighth title in Paris. In both 2010 and 2011, Djokovic and Federer met in the US Open semifinals, and both times,  Djokovic saved two match points to defeat Federer 7-5 in the fifth set. Then there is the rivalry between Nadal and Federer, which is widely considered the greatest in tennis history, which includes what is widely considered the greatest match in tennis history. In 2008, Nadal defeated Federer 9-7 in the fifth set of the Wimbledon final for his first title at the most prestigious event in tennis. The trivalry continues to dominate tennis today with all three players still in the top 10 and 14 of the last 16 slam titles.