Interesting Tennis Season

This year, the upsets in tennis are coming more often than any other season so far. And even tough tennis was a tough sport to predict the results, this year that task may become even harder. Previous seasons, you could actually play combos on all the top 10 players and get a decent odd. But even If you are not gambling, and you go and buy a ticket for the whole tournament, expecting to see Federer play each day of the week, or even Nadal or Djokovic. This year, it’s a wise decision to buy a ticket for the whole tournament only if you like the sport, not the players. I will write a post about all the upsets of this season, but first of all I would like to talk about the cause, not the effect.

There are only 2 reasons to explain why the tournaments are won by players you wouldn’t expect : either all the players are playing great, either all of them are playing at a mediocre level. I think the second one is more appropriate to consider.

One year ago, they were saying that Federer is not actually the best player to ever play (also considering the natural advances of sports, and of the technology involved), but he might seem that way because of the weak competition. I did not know what to think about that because I could see Hewitt, Roddick, Safin and Nadal playing so well. But now I am sure that the level is not a great one. I followed a lot of matches this year, and I must confess that I was often tempted to change the channel or take a nap (I actually fell asleep at the Hewitt – Seppi match). I saw Murray against Haase and I could not believe that he won a few days earlier in Marseille. I also saw a player that is mediocre in all aspects of his game take out Hewitt and then even Raffael Nadal, the player currently sitting on the second position in the ATP. But the one person I tought is playing well has shown some weakness lately. Federer is not the robot he used to be, and the fact that he is 5-2 this season so far tells a lot about his level of play. But it should be an interesting season, if not the best one ever. I think that Djokovic and Nadal will continue to narrow the gap (Nadal is sitting at just -350 points), maybe even switching places before Shanghai, but my guess is Federer will win this season. But this is where the fun starts : I think we will have so many upsets and so many players will gain points, that we will have the most interesting season ending in a while. Why ? Only 1000 points separate place No. 8 and place No. 37. This is a small amount of points to win and lose throughout a season. We could also see Andy Roddick coming back to the top this year, after an impressive season start (15 – 2 so far and won 2 tournaments in 3 weeks). But I think we will see players like Ancic and Ljubicic back in the top 20 by November, and also new players like Soderling, Llodra, Tsonga and others. It should be an interesting season if not the best.