Weekend Tennis Roundup

Would have been happy either way, but Joao Sousa ended up beating American Frances Tiafoe 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 19 minutes to take the Estoril Open title. It was the 29-year-old Portuguese's third tour-level crown and first since 2015, when he prevailed in Valencia. Tiafoe had a great week upsetting Pablo Carreno Busta in straight sets in the semis, having outlasted ugly American Tennys Sandgren in a third-set tiebreak in the first round -- aka my favorite result from the week. 

Stefanos Tsitsipas followed up on his good results last week by upsetting top-seeded Kevin Anderson before eventually losing to Sousa in the semis. 

Kyle Edmund ran out of gas against Sousa in the quarterfinals. But then teamed with countryman Cameron Norrie (as in they were both born in South Africa!) to win their first career doubles title -- the start of a rather handsome partnership!

I was a little disappointed with the results in Turkey. Taro Daniel claimed his first ATP World Tour title Sunday after defeating Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri in straight sets to win the Istanbul Open. Daniel beat Jaziri 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 to win the ATP World Tour 250-level clay-court tournament at Garanti Koza Arena and cap off the best week of his career. (The 25-year-old jumped 32 spots in the ATP rankings to a career-high No. 82 with the maiden victory.) 

Nothing against Daniel -- whose story is kind of the male version of Naomi Osaka -- but it's kind of hard to root against a body like Jaziri's. (He became the first Arab since Younes El Aynaoui in Casablanca 2003 to make an ATP final when he beat also-easy-on-the-eyes Laslo Djere in the semis.) 

And No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev defended his title in Munich, with a straight-sets win over fellow German Philipp Kohlschreiber. Sasha's semifinal win over Hyeon Chung was probably the event's most noteworthy result as it was the German's first win over his Next Gen rival in three tries.

Petra Kvitova came from a set down to beat seventh-seeded Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the Prague Open final on Saturday, to capture her 23rd career title. The draw opened up when Karolina Pliskova withdrew from the event, dodging sister Kristyna in the first round. (To her credit, the less-gifted sister seized the opportunity and reached the quarters before losing to Buzarnescu.) 

Elise Mertens extended her winning streak to 12 matches by beating Australian Ajla Tomljanovic 6-2, 7-6(4) in the final of the Rabat Grand Prix in Morocco on Saturday. The 22-year-old Belgian took control of the match from the start as Tomljanovic struggled to keep up with the fierce Belgian’s creative and powerful onslaught of shots and was brushed aside in the first set.

And lastly, ESPN reports that Irina Khromacheva beat Zheng Saisai on Saturday in a dramatic final that saw the Russian win her first WTA 125K title. The 22-year-old, ranked World No. 210, saved three match points to upset No. 4 seed Zheng, winning the two-and-a-half-hour final in Anning, China, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(5). Khromacheva was trailing 5-3, 40-15 in the final set to Zheng's serve but managed a break and a later match point to take the game to a tense tiebreak, which she won.

The result gave some insight into what female players experience on social media. (I say these horrible things to Damian -- but I don't tweet them!) 

How quickly they forget that she was the one who rallied to win a 125K title just a couple weeks ago in Zhengzhou.

One of the best tournaments! Players Party with two legends! @mutuamadridopen #🕴 #✔️ #heretocreate

A post shared by Dominic Thiem (@domithiem) on May 5, 2018 at 10:39am PDT

The men and women are in Madrid now and from the looks of things it should be a fun week!

Weekend Tennis Roundup

Not a whole lot to say about Monte Carlo. Rafael Nadal was his dominating self, winning the title for the 11th time. I ended up seeing the final versus Kei Nishikori and it was definitely one of those matches that was a lot closer than the score indicated ... until it wasn't. The resurgent Japanese looked awfully good in that first set before fading away after not being able to clinch it. I fully expect Nadal to sweep the clay season and pick up his 11th French Open, too.

Novak Djokovic fared a bit better than his previous events this year. Although he couldn't hold it together to defeat Dominic Thiem even after having won the first set, he was able to beat a red-hot Borna Coric and countryman Dusan Lajovic. (Imagine if you'd told me a couple years ago that Nole's beating Borna was seen as a big deal!) 

Alexander Zverev and Grigor Dimitrov, two players who might be expected to capitalize on the sudden opening at the top of the game, did each reach the semis. Yet you never really had the feeling either posed a real threat to win it. Just when I think they're underachievers, I remind myself that it's not their fault they came along in the era of Nadal (clay), Federer (grass) and Djokovic (hard), so there's probably not a lot of hope until all three are done at the same time. Still, Sasha and Grigor have each used the opening to reach career-high rankings, even if I feel they should have asterisks next to them. As much as I like to bitch about Simona Halep being on top of the game ,keep in mind that Zverev has reached just one round of 16 in a major in his entire career. (His current No. 3 ranking includes losing in the first round in Paris, the second round in New York and third in Melbourne!)

And speaking of people who can't seem to get over the hump. Milos Raonic looked like he was on the road back to the Top 10 -- until he pulled out of Monte Carlo with a yet another injury. (This time it's his right knee.) Sucks because he looked strong in Indian Wells and Miami. 

On the women's side, unseeded Zheng Saisai came from a set down to clinch the 125K Zhengzhou Open title Sunday. Saisai recovered to beat compatriot and No. 4 seed Wang Yafan 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 in China.

Also caught some Fed Cup action. Call me a "casual American," but I was thrilled when CoCo Vandeweghe lost to Dominic Thiem's beard, Kristina Mladenovic, but then the U.S. won anyway. Madison Keys was a sight for sore eyes substituting for the big-cocked blond(e), beating Pauline Parmentier 7-6(4), 6-4 to put us in the second straight Fed Cup final. (I know Alize Cornet is a pain the country's ass, but does anyone know why Caroline Garcia wasn't there to help out instead of leaving the 32-year-old journeywoman to fight for her country's life?) 

Will be curious to see how we fare against the Czech Republic, who beat Germany to advance to their sixth final in eight years. Petra Kvitova defeated Angelique Kerber 6-2, 6-2 in under an hour to clinch the tie, with what proved to be a 4-1 win over Germany on Sunday. After Kvitova won the deciding rubber to make it 3-1, Katerina Siniakova and Barbora Strycova also won the doubles match that they were leading 7-5 when Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld retired after 37 minutes. 

So nice to see Kathy Rinaldi lead the Americans on another successful Fed cup run. Rinaldi replaced Tracy Austin in my heart for a while after her Cinderella run at the 1981 French Open. (We were both born in 1967, so she was my first actual contemporary on the tour.) 

I got myself a Prince Woodie and found a tennis shirt that matched her blue/red "rugby" style Ellesse top and went to town. (Mine was made by Jockey, which I found at Ross Dress for Less!) I compromised on navy shorts, although that skirt was the best.

 She never really became the next Tracy -- let alone the new Chris Evert, as she was billed -- but she she did get a few endorsements (remember her Lee jeans ads?!) and won three WTA titles, hitting No. 7 on the computer after reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon. As it would happen, her second career title was in Mahwah, where she outlasted a 16-year-old "West" German named Steffi Graf ... who became my next true love! 

This is their 1986 semifinal clash at Amelia Island.

4-21-18 the day I was lucky enough to marry the girl of my dreams!! Thank you to everyone for making this an unbelievably special day for us both.

A post shared by Steve Johnson (@steviej345) on Apr 22, 2018 at 7:00pm PDT

Oh, and Stevie Johnson made good on his heterosexual threat ...