Radek Stepanek lights up Brisvegas, Marc Lopez carries Nadal in Doha and Cilic enjoys the vindaloo

Here is a review of the opening week of the season.

We have completed the first week of the ATP circus, it's always the great unknown, because players are in theory meant to be starting from zero, but it doesn't always work like that. Since the season started a week later, some players were still back at home drinking too much, and others were in training and it showed, but this was the week that the ATP announced its new fearless leader, that's a topic for another post, because this one should be about the tennis.

In the Gulf state of Qatar, the home of Al-Jazzera, the attempt to buy Olympic gold medals by buying athletes, footballers and swimmers who are doing it for Qatari pride, enough of the tourist promotion. The King played here and lost to the Flea (Vliegen) in 3 sets and was leading 5-4 in the final set TB. The South Tyrolean sex machine finally won a match in Doha, before losing 3 and 3 to Federer, though he made it go for 89 minutes.

The Panther (Monfils) took out Nadal in straight sets, though he failed to back up the big win against Roddick, who seems to be a rare thing, a successful American in the Middle East, well the part not linked to Israel. Monfils has a lot of ability, but still doesn't know how he should play, he has Roger Rasheed in the corner which could be of benefit, if used the right way and he is a qualified fitness trainer, so Panther is going to have to work. The highlight of the week was Marc Lopez carrying Nadal to win the doubles title and on a sidenote Dunblane's finest defended his title.

Marc Lopez


Marin Cilic was successful in Chennai, though the event suffered a couple of withdrawals. The PMK withdrew against the Czech maestro Lukas Dlouhy with a heel problem and he had to pull out of the Aussie Open, hope he doesn't come back too soon. The other was Schuettler who has a wrist problem and withdrew against Somdev who made the final. It was great for the event that a local made the final. The man from the Assam province that borders Bhutan and not far from China, had an outstanding week, though his performance in the final wasn't great, he made too many mistakes and couldn't get enough length on the groundies. He is 23, but he went to university and played his way through the challengers and Futures and will make a good ranking jump into the 100s and hope he can qualify for the Aus Open.

Cilic didn't play a great match, but it was enough to get the job done and that's all it needs to happen to get the win. The young Croat is on the way to the top 10 barring injuries, but his forehand can be put under pressure in tight moments. The ceremony was well done and both of the guys were very respectful in victory and defeat.

Brisbane will only be a shortish write up, because there is an MTF poster krystelt who did an outstanding job of writing and I will link her blog. We had some good coverage and Marcos Baghdatis was back on tour, a dumb move by sacking Lundgren and he is always weak up from a long break, losing to the Shark (Nieminen). This will be a tough time for the Shark as he lost finalist points last year from Adelaide and also he has the QF points to defend from the Aussie Open. Nieminen started very well against Tsonga, leading a set and a break, but wasn't able to forclose the deal sadly.

But Brisvegas this was the week of Radek Stepanek (Thunder Lips), who gesticulated, wiggled the hips, screamed and used plenty of variation to take the title over Fernando Verdasco in the final, he also defeated the Toad (Söderling) and Gasquet (showpony) in the preceding rounds. He gave them all the first set, and then worked his way into the match, and was able to use his strengths, the solid and underrated serve, excellent volleys and the old Continental forehand wasn't breaking down. There were definitely some gamesmanship antics from Stepanek, he will do what is necessary to win and it's up to the opponent to deal with it. He has come a long way from 2002, when he was just a doubles player.

The ladies of Brisvegas, will be dripping in their underwear tonight, after they see Thunder Lips, though Vaidisova could learn from Radek about winning matches. As for the fashions, well good to see that a man is comfortable with himself to wear lavender, so in this week he showed why he is the "Lavender Lothario" or the "Purple Pimp".

All Hail Radek Stepanek


As for a preview for this weeks tournaments perhaps, but best of all I will be in Melbourne having fun at the AO qualies.