TENNIS TUESDAY: Laver Cup Goes To Europe Again; Osaka Impresses In Japan; Thiem Wins On 3rd Surface; Nadal Out Until London

LAVER CUP PART DEUX: EUROPE BEATS THE WORLD AGAIN
The second edition of the Laver Cup took place in Chicago last weekend and the result was the same as the first year in Prague. Led by Roger Federer (who has an ownership stake in the event), Team Europe defeated Team World. This time Team Europe featured two of the BIg 4: Federer and Novak Djokovic, who played doubles together (but lost) to the inspired team of Jack Sock and John Isner. Sock showed why he is considered the best doubles player in the world by winning all 3 doubles matches he played for Team World.

OSAKA IMPRESSES BY CONTINUING WIN STREAK  AFTER MAJOR WIN
2018 US Open champion Naomi Osaka continued her win streak to 10 matches, getting to the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open before losing to Karolina Pliskova 6-4 6-4.

DOMINIC THIEM WINS INDOOR HARDCOURT TITLE
World #8 Dominic Thiem of Austria won his first indoor hardcourt title in St. Petersburg over the weekend, by defeating Martin Klizan 6-3 6-1. It was Thiem's third title of 2018, in a year in which he reached his first major final in Paris (losing to Rafael Nadal).

NADAL PULLS THE CORD ON THE ASIAN SWING
World #1 Nadal put his top ranking in jeopardy by announcing he would miss the fall indoor swing through Asia, presumably nursing his body to try and make a run at the World Tour Finals in London

2018 AUS OPEN: Men's Final Preview (and Semifinals Review)

Roger Federer (SUI) [2] vs. Marin Cilic (CRO) [6]

Here are my predictions for the 2018 Australian Open men's final. Last year I correctly predicted Roger Federer would beat Rafael Nadal in the men's final and also correctly predicted  1 of 2 men's semifinals and 2 of 2 women's semifinals. This year I predicted correctly 2 of 2 women's semifinals, 2 of 2 men''s semifinals, 3 of 4 women's quarterfinals and 2 of 4 men's quarterfinals. I incorrectly predicted the results of the women's final this year.

MEN'S SEMIFINALS REVIEW

Marin Cilic (CRO) [6] d. Kyle Edmund (GBR) 6-2 7-6(4) 6-2.  This match continued to showcase Cilic's improved movement and the deadly weapons he possesses when his confidence is high and he goes for his shots. His first serve is extremely dangerous regularly getting into the 130 mph range and his backhand and forehand are hit deep and hard. Edmund can probably outmatch him for power on the forehand side (but not accuracy) and something was ailing the young Brit which made him unable to move his feet fast enough to be able to hit more forehands to make this a competitive match. Without his best weapon, the result was never really in doubt.

Roger Federer (SUI) [2] d. Hyeon Chung (KOR) 6-1 5-2 RET.  This match was even more impacted by injury than the first semifinal. Sadly, Chung, who had been battling blisters for the last week or so, could not even complete the second set as the pain became too great and he retired before he could fall down 2-0 down in sets to Roger Federer. Clearly his movement was becoming more hampered by his injury and I don't fault his decision to stop, but I do think he could have waited one more game "just for appearances."

MEN'S SEMIFINALS REVIEW

Although this is technically a reprise of the 2017 Wimbledon final, no one expects a repeat of the quality of that match, which was hampered by Cilic's lack of movement (again, due to blisters--good socks are very important in tennis, people!!). After all, on his way to winning the 2014 US Open Cilic basically destroyed Federer in straight sets in the semifinals so he most definitely can win this match. However, in 9 meetings that is the only match he has won, and there's no question both players are playing better tennis now than they were then. Most commentators expect a 5-set match but I think Federer will be able to get it done in four sets. Happily, I don't think physical stamina will play a big role in the outcome of the match, but even if it does I would still give the edge to Federer.

The two have both won majors before, so Cilic is hoping to become the 5th multiple slam winner (and youngest member of that group, at age 29) in the era of the Great Trivalry in Men's Tennis (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic) who have won an astonishing 47 major titles among them. Regardless of the result, the Croat will become the World #3, his highest ranking to date and is showing his all-court game by reaching the final of 3 of the four majors. Because Federer winning here would just repeat last year's result Nadal will still be #1 but the lead has been reduced, but Federer has a fair amount of points to defend in the Spring North American hard court season, having won both Indian Wells and Miami last year as well. But really the key point of this match is whether Federer can win his 20th major title in his 30th major final appearance at age 36. I believe he can, and amazingly, may even go further this year. If he does win his 20th, will that make him more likely to retire earlier than he planned?

 Mad Professah's pick: Federer.

2018 AUS OPEN: Men's Semifinals Preview and Predictions

Here are my predictions for the men's semifinals at the 2018 Australian Open. Last year I did not predict the quarterfinals but correctly predicted 1 of 2 men's semifinals and 2 of 2 women's semifinals. This year I predicted correctly 3 of 4 women's quarterfinals and 2 of 4 men's quarterfinals. I have also predicted the women's semifinals.

Rafael Nadal (ESP) [1] Marin Cilic (CRO) [6] vs. Kyle Edmund (GBR) Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) [3].  This was a very unlikely semifinal matchup (perhaps even more unlikely than the bizarre Tennys Sandgren-Hyeon Chung quarterfinal in the round before. Nadal had only lost one meeting in the six he had played against the 6-foot-5 Croatian. However, this time when he fell behind 2 sets to one, Cilic continued to play hard-hitting, confident tennis, and eventually forced a fifth deciding set against the World #1. It was clear Nadal was not at his best throughout the 4th set and early in the 5th (down 0-2) he pulled the ripcord and retired from the match, giving up his quest for a 2nd Australian Open title. But in some sense this was the lesser surprise result. Who would have thought that the first British player to reach a major semifinal this year would be Kyle Edmund? And he did so by defeating (primarily by outhitting) the World #3 (and last year's semifinalist) Grigor Dimitrov. Edmund and Cilic have only played once before, fairly recently at last year's Shanghai Masters and Cilic won in two relatively tight sets. Edmund has been playing some of his best tennis early in 2018 and is clearly better than his official World #49 ranking, but is he really ready for his first major final? Cilic is playing for his 3rd major final and I suspect he will get there, just so he can get another chance at denying Federer another major title. Mad Professah's pick: Cilic.


Roger Federer (SUI) [2] vs Hyeon Chung (KOR) Novak Djokovic (SRB) [14].  These two have never played each other. Although one would think this would make this result a slam dunk for the 19-time major champion, I seriously doubt it will be. Chung has already out-Djokovic'ed Djokovic and that game is something that has given Federer fits for years. However, I doubt that Chung has yet mastered the intangibles which make Djokovic so dangerous to Federer (winner takes all forehand service return winner down double-match point, anyone?) It's also true that Federer is not playing his best tennis either, but as a 19-time major champion he has figured out many ways to win matches when he is not playing his best and I suspect this will be another exapmle of this.Mad Professah's pick: Federer.

2018 AUS OPEN: Men's Quarterfinals Preview and Predictions

Here are my predictions for the men's quarterfinals at the 2018 Australian Open. Last year  I did not predict the quarterfinal rounds. This year I will also predict the women's quarterfinals.

Rafael Nadal (ESP) [1] vs Marin Cilic (CRO) [6].  This is the only quarterfinal match-up that was predicted to occur at the beginning of the tournament if results followed the seedings. In a tournament with lots of upsets it is significant that this match-up persisted. Nadal is playing excellent tennis and has only lost one set in four matches while Cilic has lost 2, one against Pablo Carreno Busta and another against Vasek Pospisil. The main problem for the hard-serving Croat is that he has played Nadal 6 times before and only won 1 match (and 3 sets out of 14 played) and half these matches occurred after he became a major champion himself. In fact, he has lost their 5 meetings in a row, including their one grand slam meeting, which was in Melbourne in 2011. That being said, Cilic does believe that he can beat Nadal and he has the game that could do it as well. I suspect he will win at least a set, and possibly even two but I don't see how he wins three. Mad Professah's pick: Nadal.

Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) [3] vs Kyle Edmund (GBR) Jack Sock (USA) [8]. Dimitrov has not been playing his best tennis for most of this tournament, but Melbourne often does bring out his best stuff, as he proved in last year's epic 5-set semifinal against Nadal. This year he had to survive a surprisingly tough early test against young American Mackenzie McDonald in the second round by coming back to win 8-6 in the 5th after losing the 4th set 6-0! I wonder if anyone has ever won a major tournament after suffering a bagel set loss in an earlier round? Fortunately for Grigor, after coming through a much-hyped showdown with Australian "It" boy Nick Kyrgios in 4 tight sets, his game seems to be peaking. He faces Briton Kyle Edmund who is playing in his very first major quarterfinal, which should give the now experienced Top 5 stalwart a key edge in this important match. Can we hope that lightning will strike 2 years in a row and we will have another amazing Dimitrov-Nadal semifinal match? I think we will, and this time I hope for a different result. Mad Professah's pick: Dimitrov.

Tennys Sandgren (USA) Dominic Thiem (AUT) [5] vs Hyeon Chung (KOR) Sascha Zverev (GER) [4].  This is the most unlikely men's major quarterfinal in years. 21-year-old Chung was ranked #58 coming into the tournament and is the first player from South Korea, male or female, to reach a major quarterfinal. His opponent, World #97 Tennys Sandgren is the American male player to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals in over 20 years. They both had very impressive wins to reach this round. Sandgren eliminated Dominic Thiem in 5-sets while Chung was even more impressive by defeating 12-time major champion (6-time Australian Open champ) Novak Djokovic without losing a set. The las time these two played there were 20 ATP ranking points, this time there will be 720 points, which is more than the final of all regular ATP tournaments except at the Masters Series or Majors. One key factor here will be which player will fare better in their first high-stakes showdown. Here I give the edge to Chung because he won the 2017 NextGen championships last year. Mad Professah's pick: Chung.

Roger Federer (SUI) [2] vs Tomas Berdych (CZE) [19] David Goffin (BEL) [7].  This a rematch of last year's 3rd round match when it became clear that Federer's form after a 6-month gap was high enough that he might actually have a shot at winning the tournament. These two have played 25 times on tour and Federer has a commanding 19-6 lead, but that means Berdych has beaten Federer 6 times before so that he should be confident that he can do so again.  Federer has looked fine all tournament long, and despite his draw looking much tougher than Nadal's at the beginning of the tournament, it has not turned out that way. If he gets past Berdych (which should happen), it is very difficult to see him not reaching the final, where perhaps another Fedal final awaits? I can't wait, eihter! Mad Professah's pick: Federer.