TENNIS TUESDAY: France-Spain, USA-Croatia Davis Cup semis; Djokovic Drops Radek; Dellacqua Retires

DAVIS CUP SEMIFINALS SET: FRANCE VS SPAIN AND CROATIA VS USA
The quarterfinals of the Davis Cup were played this weekend and the results were: Spain (featuring the return of Rafael Nadal) defeated Germany 3-2 with David Ferrer outlasting Philipp Kohlschreiber in a 5-hour marathon match. United Staes blitzed Belgium (with ) 4-0, France beat Italy 3-1 and Croatia beat Kazakhstan 3-1. This set up a blockbuster semifinal between France and Spain in September and an intriguing tie between Craotia and the United States.

DJOKOVIC DROPS STEPANEK AS COACH, MAY BE WORKING WITH VAJDA AGAIN
After announcing a split with Andre Agassi, Novak Djokovic also ended his coaching relationship with Radek Stepanek last week.

KIKI BERTENS AND GARBI MUGURUZA START CLAY SEASON WITH TITLES
Garbine Muguruza won a clay title in Monterrey while Kiki Bertens won the Charleston tournament after having to play her semifinal (a tough 3-set win against Madison Keys) and final (a quick win against Julia Goerges) on Sunday.

HALEP AND NADAL REMAIN ON TOP OF RANKINGS
The rankings are mostly frozen with most players taking a break as the surface change goes into effect and the clay season begins. Simona Halep has nopw spent 22 weeks at #1, more than Viktoria Azarenka or Maria Sharapova. On the men's side, Rafael Nadal stays in the #1 spot.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Grigor Dimitrov and Maria Sharapova Split Up

Tennis supercouple Maria Sharapova and Grigor Dimitrov have broken up, more than two years after they publicly acknowledged they were a couple in May 2013 (although many people believe they started seeing each other well before that date.) Dimitrov, who is now ranked #16 but has been in something of a slump for most of 2015, gave a press conference to confirm the break-up after multiple reports said that Sharapova had gone on vacation without him to Montenegro after being beaten by Serena Williams for the 17th time in a row in the Wimbledon semifinals earlier this month. Sharapova, 28, is back up to World #2 in the WTA rankings and was in the 2015 Australian Open final.

The 24-year-old 6-foot-2 175-pound Bulgarian is considered one of the best-looking men on the ATP tour, although he was cryptically described by Serena as a "guy with a black heart." Somehow, I don't think it's his heart that has made him so popular! Maybe he should share notes with Radek Stepanek.

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 INDIAN WELLS: Both Defending Champions (Nadal and Sharapova) Lose!

Whooops! At the 2014 BNP Paribas Open Monday was a day of upsets as defending champion (and World #1) Rafael Nadal lost to Aleksandr Dolgopolov in a 3rd set tiebreak. This was a pretty big surprise since Nadal went undefeated on North American hard-courts in 2013, winning 2 ATP Masters series shields and the 2013 US Open. However, in his first match with Radek Stepanek Nadal was clearly not at his best, eking out a win 7-5 in the third set. He is not serving at 100%, which some people think may be due to a lingering back injury.

Amazingly, Nadal was not the only defending champion to lose on Monday because World #5 Maria Sharapova lost an ugly 3-set match to qualifier Camila Giorgi 6-3 4-6 7-5. Giorgi is clearly a big match player since last year she ousted former World #1 Caroline Wozniacki at the 2013 US Open.

The highest remaining seeds in the draw on the men's side are World #2 Novak Djokovic, World #3 Stanislas Wawrinka and World #5 Andy Murray. Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet are still in the draw. Wawrinka and Federer are into the quarterfinals in the doubles!

On the women's side of the draw the top seed is Li Na and Agnieska Radwanska is still in the draw, but Victoria Azarenka and now Sharapova are both out. Simona Halep and Jelena Jankovic are still around. Sloane Stephens eliminated Ana Ivanovic Monday night in straight sets.

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.

Kvitova Beats Kerber To Win WTA Tokyo Title

Petra Kvitova had a very good week in Tokyo, Japan, winning the Pan Pacific Open by defeating Angelique Kerber 6-2 0-6 6-3 in the final, the first WTA title decided between two left-handed players in over 20 years. Kvitova outlasted Venus Williams in the semifinals, winning 6-3 3-6 7-6(2) while Kerber beat Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets. It was Venus' best showing at a tournament all year, and she hit a serve at 129.9 mph (209.0 kph) that will not be documented by the WTA as a record due to a technicality.

Kvitova, 23, who is reportedly dating 34-year-old fellow Czech Radek Stepanek, will rise to World #7, making her atleast the third WTA champion the ATP champion has dated in his career. Stepanek married former WTA star Nicole Vaidisova in 2010 but they announced they were getting divorced in June 2013.

Czech Republic Wins 2012 Fed Cup and Davis Cup

The Czech Republic has completed an historic sweep of the annual international team tennis competitions known as the David Cup and Fed Cup (for men and women, respectively) by winning both titles in 2012.

On Sunday, 32-year-old Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic beat higher-ranked Nicolas Almagro of Spain 6-4 7-6(0) 3-6 6-3 in the fifth and final rubber to clinch the tie 3-2 for the Czech team over Spain, which had won the Davis Cup three of the last five years (2009, 2009, 2011) with its top player Rafael Nadal on the team. This year the Spanish team was anchored by World #5 David Ferrer and Almagro. The Czech team featured Stepanek, World #7 Tomas Berdych and Nadal-killer Lukas Rosol.

Amazingly, just about two weeks ago, in the women's competition the Czech team anchored by lefties Petra Kvitova and Lucie Safarova was able to defend their 2011 Fed Cup title by defeating Serbia 3-1 when Safarova defeated former World #1 Jelena Jankovic 6-1 6-1.

The Czech Republic also won the 2012 Hopman Cup, which is a much lower profile mixed doubles tournament which happens a few weeks before the Australian Open at the very beginning of the tennis season. This year's Hopman Cup-winning team consisted of Kvitova and Berdych.

2012 Wimbledon Day 5: Federer Passes 5-Set Test

Reuters

The day after the earth-shattering upset by World #100 Lukas Rosol from Czech Republic upsetting World #2 Rafael Nadal in the 2nd round everybody was wondering whether "upset fever" would be contagious among any of the other seeds. Encouraged by Rosol's success Julian Benneteau(29) and Radek Stepanek(28) nearly gave the Top 2 seeds as much as they could handle on their third round encounters. World #2 Roger Federer lost the first two sets and World #1 Novak Djokovic lost the first set in their matches but ended up winning. The seeds  that lost today were #8 Janko Tisarevich, #12 Nicolas Almagro,  #15 Juan Monaco, #17 Fernando Verdasco and #21 Milos Raonic.

On the women's side everyone who was expected to win did so, namely Maria Sharapova(1), Aggie Radwanska(3), Kim Clijsters, Angelique Kerber(8), Sabine Lisicki(15) and Maria Kirilenko.


Match of the Day: R. Federer SUI (3) d. J. Benneteau FRA (29) 4-6 6-7(3) 6-2 7-6(6) 6-1.
The 16-time major champion endangered his jaw-dropping streak of 32 Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances by flirting with disaster against the powerful Frenchman today. Benneteau played excellent tennis, staying close to Federer in the first set and sneaking away with it with one break. In the second set, Federer earned an early break but Benneteau was able to get the break back and again stay close, eventually pulling out the second set in a tiebreak. Now Federer had a tremendous task ahead of himself: coming back from 2-sets down to win a match at a major. He was able to step up his game and easily took the third set 6-2. In the fourth set, Benneteau was able to right the ship and was able to hold serve until the inevitable high-stakes tiebreak. The problem for Federer was that he was serving second in the 4th set so if his serve was broken it could mean sudden death; it turned out that five times he was two points from defeat but after a hard-fought tiebreak featuring amazing shotmaking Federer was able to win the 4th set, forcing a 5th set decider. Unfortunately, Beneteau's body betrayed him and he quickly succumbed 6-1 to lose his best chance to write his name in the history books. Interestingly, last year in the quarterfinals, Federer had been up 2 sets against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and never even earned a breakpoint in the last 3 sets in a stunning 5-set loss. This year the roles were reversed and Federer dropped the first two sets and then never faced a breakpoint in the final 3 sets, eventually winning.

Federer will have the entire weekend off and face Xavier Malisse in the 4th round and then either Denis Istomin or Mikhail Youzhny in the quarterfinals. Djokovic faces countryman Viktor Troicki in the 4th round and either Richard Gasquet or Florian Mayer in the quarterfinals. The #1 and #3 seeds are the only remaining players in the Top 16 in their half of the draw.

Paris Masters Semifinals: Nadal v Djokovic, Monfils v Stepanek

Gael Monfils will face Radek Stepanek in one semifinal while Novak Djokovic will face Rafael Nadal in the other to see who makes the final of the Paris Indoor Masters tournament.

I think I'll take Monfils over Stepanek, and Nadal over Djokovic, since the World #2 is playing on borrowed time after not one but two narrow escapes earlier in the week against Nicolas Almagro (saving 5 match points) and Tommy Robredo, although he had a good win over defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the previous round. Djokovic keeps on mentioning how tired he is, carrying the record of the most wins on tour for the year of any competitor, and starting off tired against a determined Nadal is not bode well for a good result.