2017 AUS OPEN: 6-time Champ Djokovic Loses To Istomin (#117) In Shocking Upset

Wow! I'm still on vacation in Hawaii but I feel compelled to blog about one of the biggest upsets in recent history that happened last night. I caught about an hour of the 2nd round match of the Australian Open match between Dennis Istomin (ranked #117in the world) and the current World #2 Novak Djokovic. Amazingly, the 6-time Aussie Open champion lost to the hard-hitting guy from Uzbekistan in a high-quality 5-set match that was well over 4 1/2 hours long. The score was 7-6(8), 5-7, 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-4. Djokovic was so dominant in Australia that he had rarely lost a set in the first week of the tournament, let alone three, especially to someone outside of the Top100.

Istomin's defeat of Djokovic in Melbourne ranks up there with recent shocking upsets such as Djokovic's loss to Sam Querrey in the 3rd round of Wimbledon in 2016 and Rafael Nadal's loss to Lukas Rosol in the 2nd round of Wimbledon in 2012.

2015 WIMBLEDON: Nadal(#10) Upset In 2nd Round By Dustin Brown(#102)

For the fourth consecutive year 2-time Wimbledon champ (2008 and 2010) Rafael Nadal lost to a player ranked outside the Top 100. Before that he had reached the finals for five consecutive times that he played (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011). Today Nadal lost to 102nd-ranked Dustin Brown 7-5 3-6 6-4 6-4 in the 2nd round. Last year he lost to Nick Kyrgios in the fourth round, in 2013 he lost in the first round to Steve Darcis in the first round and in 2012 he lost to Lukas Rosol in five sets.

Amazingly, Brown is now 2-0 lifetime against Nadal, one of the very few people on the ATP tour who have a lead in their head-to-head record with the 14-time major champion. (Both meetings have occurred on grass.) Brown, 30, was born in Germany and has a Jamaican father and German mother. He is listed as 6-foot-5 and 172 pounds.

2014 WIMBLEDON: Rafa,Raja,Nole,Murray,Serena,Venus,Li,Sharapova All Into RD3

All the favorites in this year's Wimbledon are through to the 3rd round with the only (mild) upset being the departure of former World #1 Victoria Azarenka in the 2nd round. (Jelena Jankovic is also out of the tournament early.) Current World #1 Rafael Nadal survived a rematch with Lukas Rosol, who beat him in the 2nd Round here in 2012 in 5 thrilling sets. Today, Rosol started off well, racing to a 6-4 4-2 lead but then it slipped away and he lost the second set on a double fault in the tiebreak. From then on, it was all Nadal and the 2-time Wimbledon champion ended up winning 4-6 7-6(6) 6-4 6-4.

Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Li Na, Maria Sharapova are all through to the 3rd round. Venus has a tough 3rd round match against 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, and Serena plays Alize Cornet who beat her earlier this year, but the 17-time champion looks like she is a woman on a mission and will take this rematch seriously. Other players to watch are Madison Keys and Ana Ivanovic, who could play each other in the 4th round if they get past Yarolslav Shvedova and Sabine Lisicki, respectively.

Roger Federer has yet to drop a set, and Andy Murray dropped 2 games in his last match. Novak Djokovic had to get through a very determined Radek Stepanek in 4 tough sets to reach the 3rd round, but he did so and will face Gille Simon and possibly Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the round after that. Tsonga survived a second consecutive 5-set match, outlasting Sam Querrey 14-12 in the final set. The Frenchman has never lost a 5th set at Wimbledon!  The result of the day involved another Frenchman, it was Richard Gasquet's loss to 19-year-old Aussie Nick Kyrgios despite having 9 match points, 10-8 in the 5th. The french veteran had the advantage of serving first so that every breakpoint he had on the youngster's serve was basically a match point but Gasquet was unable to close and eventually he lost his own serve and the Aussie served it out. John Isner finally got to the 3rd round of Wimbledon, but he had to play a marathon to do it. This time, however it was just a marathon tiebreak which he won 19-17 against Jarko Nieminen.

2014 WIMBLEDON: The Draw Is Released: Nadal-Federer, Murray-Djokovic Semis Possible

The 2014 Wimbledon Championships start on Monday and the draw was released today. Wimbledon uses a seeding system which rewards results on grass, so even though he is ranked World #2, Novak Djokovic is seeded #1 (since he made the final last year, something #2 seed and World #1 Rafael Nadal has not done since 2011). If he thought winning the Wimbledon title was hard, how will #3 seed Andy Murray defend it, especially since he has not won a tournament since and after his break after surgery, has not even reached a final this year. And there's still 32-year-old 7-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, playing quite well this year, and Raja is usually up to bringing his best to the grass courts (last year's 2nd round upset notwithstanding). The bad news for Federer is that he is in Nadal's half of the draw and he has not beaten Nadal in a major tournament in over 5 years, including 3 straight losses on the hard courts of Australia. Of course, the last time they played in 2008 Nadal won what most people call the "greatest tennis match of all time." Nadal actually likes the grass and the 5 times he played this tournament from 2006 to 2011 he reached 5 consecutive finals in a row, but only won 2 titles.

However, will Nadal even reach the final this year? He just won his 9th French Open title and has 14 majors now, but he lost in the first round in 2013 (to Steve Darcis) and in the 2nd round in 2012 (to Lukas Rosol). He also last week in his 1st grass court match to Dustin Brown so his confidence on the surface can not be high. Nadal has  a tricky draw overall starting with lefty Martin Klizan and then could face a rematch with Rosol in round 2 and after that Ivo Karlovic looms. Milos Raonic or Kei Nishikori are also possible threats. Federer has a much kinder draw with only his 2nd round match with Julian Benneteau (who came within 2 points of beating him in 2012) potentially causing any agitation. Jerzy Janowicz and Stan Wawrinka are in his half of the draw but both are slumping this year. Djokovic has an okay draw, although he faces always-dangerous-on-grass Radek Stepanek in Round 2 and possibly Jo-Wilfried Tsonga later, but the Frenchman would do well to reach the 4th round with Nole. Ogf the Top 4, Murray was blessed with easiest draw, since the only other top seed in his half of the draw is David Ferrer who is not at 100% fitness right now. I believe Murray will repeat in the final, and I suspect Federer or perhaps someone surprising will face him there (possibly Raonic or Nishikori), but I would not be surprised if it is Nadal.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Dimitrov and Sharapova Win Titles On Same Day

Tennis' power couple Maria Sharapova and Grigor Dimitrov each won titles this weekend on clay. Dimitrov won just his 3rd career title, by defeating 2-time defending champion Lukas Rosol 7-6(2) 6-1 in Bucharest while Sharapova became a 3-time champion in Stuttgart by coming back from 0-5 down in the first set to win 3-6 6-4 6-1.

For Dimitrov it was his second title of the year and first ever on clay, but for Sharapova it was her first title since winning at Stuttgart last year. On clay, Sharapova has only lost to Serena Williams (3 times) in the last two clay court seasons (2012 and 2013) and has yet to face the World #1 on the surface this year. Serena is taking a long break from tennis after suffering a couple shocking losses this year, to Alize Cornet in Dubai and Jana Cepelova in Charleston.

Sharapova's win was timely because it forestalled her dropping out of the Top 10. Dimitrov's win keeps him at a career high #14 in the world. He will need to make some inroads at the Masters tournaments in Madrid and Rome coming up in order to reach the Top 10, but I certainly expect him to be there before Wimbledon.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Czech Republic Wins Davis Cup For 2nd Year in a Row

For the second year in a row, the Czech Republic won the annual Davis Cup competition, with Radek Stepanek claiming a win in the live 5th rubber. Last year, the Czech team beat the Spanish team when Stepanek defeated Nicolas Almagro. This year the Czech team beat the Serbian team when Stepanek defeated World #117 Dusan Lajovic. Novak Djokovic won both his singles matches, extending his current winning streak to 24 consecutive matches, but playing without Janko Tipsarevic or Victor Troicki those were the only ties the Serbian team was able to win, possibly because Djokovic did not play in the doubles rubber, where Tomas Berdych and Stepanek were able to beat the team consisting of doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozolac. Even Zimonjic is questioning that decision, although press reports claim it was a team-based decision.

2013 WIMBLEDON: Nadal Loses to Darcis(#135) in 1st Round!

For the first time ever, Rafael Nadal has lost in the 1st round, and it comes just weeks after he won his record 8th French Open title, losing to Steve Darcis of Belgium 7-6(4) 7-6(8) 6-4 in the first round of Wimbledon.

Is this loss by Nadal an even bigger upset than last year's 2nd round 5-set defeat by Lukas Rosol? Probably. In that match, the Spaniard was able to come back to win the 4th set and even though he was blown out in the 5th set, it was a much closer match than today's loss. Today, Nadal never looked comfortable on the grass today and he did well to keep the match as close as it was. He served for the second set at 6-5 (after breaking in the 10th game) and held a set point (on his opponent's serve) in the tiebreaker.

However after losing the second set tiebreaker Nadal was broken in the first set of the 3rd set and Darcis was able to eventually serve out the match, saving multiple breakpoints with excellent movement and a wicked slice backhand. The Belgian ended the match with 53 winners (to only 24 unforced errors), including 13 aces (even one on match point!). Nadal also had more winners than errors also. By the end, Nadal's movement was definitely compromised and was clearly impacted by his wonky left knee. Last year after the Rosol loss, Nadal did not play for the rest of the year.

Oh well, the Federer-Nadal quarter that people were looking forward to when the draw was first released is not going to happen now, and it means that the biggest match of the tournament will be the Andy Murray-Roger Federer semifinal (a reprise of last year's Wimbledon final won by Federer). Can we stop talking about whether Nadal or Federer is the best player of all time? Federer has never lost in early rounds of the clay court major while now Nadal has lost in the first and second rounds of the grass court major. In fact, this was Nadal's first 1st round loss in a major  tournament and Darcis at #135 is the lowest ranked opponent Rafa has lost to sincehe fell to Joach Johannson in 2006. Darcis is a good grass court player and last year upset 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych at the London Olympics. That win and the one against Nadal today are the only Top 10 wins  of his career so far.

SHOCK! Nadal Loses Clay Court Final In Comeback

AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo

Rafael Nadal, playing in his first tournament in seven months (since his shocking 2nd round exit from 2012 Wimbledon at the hands of Lukas Rosol), lost the singles final of the year's first clay court tournament in Vina del Mar, Chile to 73-ranked Horacio Zeballos 6-7(2) 7-6(6) 6-4. This was only the 5th clay court final Nadal had ever lost in his career and his first ever loss to a fellow left-handed player on red clay. (Nadal lost to Fernando Verdasco on the blue clay of the Madrid Masters tournament last May.)

Zeballos's title win was the very first ATP tour championship for the 27-year-old from Argentina despite turning professional in 2003. In 2012, Zeballos did not advance past the 2nd round of any tournament he entered on the ATP tour, but in Vina del Mar he beat four seeded players in succession to claim the title: #4 seed Pablo Andujar, #5 seed Albert Ramos, #8 seed Carlos Berlocq and #1 seed Nadal. The Argentinean won on his first match point at 4-5, 0-40 in the third set.

Nadal said that he felt some pain in his troublesome left knee earlier in the week. He teamed up with his good buddy Juan "Pico" Monaco to play the doubles and reached the final, losing to Potito Starace and Paolo Lorenzi of Italy 6-2 6-4.

Nadal will continue his comeback by playing another clay court tournament, in Sao Paulo, Brazil next week.

Czechs Beat Swiss In Longest Doubles Match Ever!

Amazing! After a 7 hour, 1 minute match the Czech team of Tomas Berdych and Lukas Rosol (yes, that guy who beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon last year) defeated the Swiss team of Stanislas Wawrinka and Marco Chiudinelli 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 24-22 on Saturday February 2nd in the second longest professional tennis match of all time, a mere four hours less than the infamous Isner-Mahut marathon that ended 70-68 in the fifth set at Wimbledon in 2010. It is also the longest doubles match of all time, and the longest match ever in Davis Cup competition as well.

The marathon doubles match turned out to the deciding point in the tie between the 2012 Davis Cup champions and the Swiss, with the Czechs prevailing 3-2.

The final set took an incredible 215 minutes, and the Czech blew 12 match points before Chiudinelli double faulted on break point down 22-23, 30-40 to give the game, set and match to the Czechs.

In other amazing Davis Cup news, Canada eliminated Spain (who had played in the Davis Cup final 3 of the last 5 years) when Milos Raonic defeat Marcos Granollers. None of the Spanish players in the Top 20 (David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco, Nicolas Almagro or Feliciano Lopez) participated in the tie. Canada has exactly one player in the Top 100, while Spain has had as many as 9.