28th week

The only week in the year with four tournaments. After four weeks on grass, many players returned to European clay-courts to take an advantage of a lack of the best players in the world to improve their ranking positions. Janko Tipsarevic (the highest ranked player participating this week) fortifies his place in the Top 8 with a triumph in Stuttgart. The Serb, who got his third title (first on clay) survived an amazing 3-hour quarterfinal match with Bjorn Phau. Tipsarevic squandered 10 break points leading 4:2 in the 1st set (!) and found himself on four occasions one point away from elimination in the 2nd set as Phau was serving to win the match. Ultimately Tipsarevic won 6-7 7-6 6-4 and two following matches in 3-setters as well. “He went for a little bit too much on two occasions, but on the other two match points I think I played well.” commented Tipsy. Prior to Stuttgart, he had won three m.p.-down encounters at the main level but every time it happened in “the best of five” format. The runner-up, Juan Monaco, desperately seeking points to get the Top 10 for the first time in career, was involved in three amazing sets day by day. In quarterfinals he came back from 1:5 in the 2nd set, in semifinals wasted a 5:0 lead and five match points in the final set, but managed to beat Garcia-Lopez 6-3 3-6 7-5; finally on Sunday he won a set against Tipsarevic despite a *0:4 (deuce) deficit!
David Ferrer at the age of 30 is playing tennis of his life, he confirmed it in Bastad where he collected his fifth title of the year (16 in total) beating easily all four opponents, albeit he dropped a set to Tommy Robredo, for whom it was the first main-level tournament since last Autumn. Robredo [199] came back to the circuit last month and won back-to-back Challengers in Italy. It’s been a year since Robin Soderling won SkiStar Swedish Open and didn’t appear in any other tournament…
22 years waited Croatian fans in Umag for a triumph of a local boy. The inaugural event in 1990 had been finished in a Croatian duel Goran Prpic beat Goran Ivanisevic), but since then the best Croatian players skipped the tournament many times, also Marin Cilic, who made his debut here in 2005. This week the current best Croat, displayed great form and outplayed his four rivals including Alexandr Dolgopolov, to whom had lost in the last year’s final. Similarly to Tipsarevic, Cilic won his first clay-court tournament (8 titles altogether), and has now collected titles on all surfaces. “It’s a real privilege to be among these champions,” Cilic said. “It was really special this week. I played great tennis and I was enjoying every moment in my matches. I’m really glad I won for my supporters, my team and myself.” Cilic’s opponent in the final, Marcel Granollers has reached the Top 20 for the first time in the new ranking.
Just a few seconds after Cilic (the only non-top seeded champion of the week) made a forehand winner to finish the Umag final, in Newport John Isner [11] delivered an ace to defend his title. Isner didn’t drop a service game during his last nine sets, winning a tie-break set in each of his five matches (served 72 aces, respectively: 20, 13, 12, 11, 16). He was broken only once, in the 2nd set of an opening match. The tall American has claimed the fourth title.

Finals:

Stuttgart (250)
S: (1)Janko Tipsarevic d. (2)Juan Monaco 6-4, 5-7, 6-3
D: J.Chardy/L.Kubot d. (4)M.Mertinak/A.Sa 6-1, 6-3

Bastad (250)
S: (1)David Ferrer d. (2)Nicolas Almagro 6-2, 6-2
D: (1)R.Lindstedt/H.Tecau d. (2)A.Peya/B.Soares 6-3, 7-6(5)

Umag (250)
S: (2)Marin Cilic d. (4)Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-2
D: (3)D.Marrero/F.Verdasco d. (1)M.Granollers/M.Lopez 6-3, 7-6(4)

Newport (250)
S: (1)John Isner d. (WC)Lleyton Hewitt 7-6(1), 6-4
D: (3)S.Gonzalez/S.Lipsky d. (2)C.Fleming/R.Hutchins 7-6(3), 6-3

 Choker of the week:

Blaz Kavcic led *5:1 (30/15) in the 3rd set against Wayne Odesnik in the second round in Umag. Odesnik won 3-6 7-5 7-6(3). It’s the third time in the last two years Kavcic loses a match serving to win a match with a double cushion! Previously it occurred in Casablanca ’11 & Chennai ’12.