The inbetweeners

The two weeks in between Wimbledon and the start of the US Open Series are puzzling ones indeed. With tournaments played on grass and clay before the impending Hard court slam, the answer as to why the two surfaces on which completed Majors are played are still on the schedule is not clear. Why the players are not getting another two weeks to lead in to the season’s final major still a mystery. So, it was only typical that two weeks which seem strange on the tour should yield some strange results for players who should be known as the inbetweeners, their results out of context of the tour, helpful only in their match play, points and prizes, which on second reading is very helpful overall. Indeed being an inbetweener is not something to be looked down on. Just a little strange, that’s all.

First, the 7-6, 7-6 defeat of Roger Federer to the Argentine Federico Delbonis in Hamburg was a strange result. It was Federer’s first loss to a player outside the top 100 at a regular tour event since Gasquet beat him at Monte Carlo ’05. But more tellingly it was Federer’s second loss in a row to a player outside of the cut off for Majors after his loss to Stakhovsky at Wimbledon. Like Stakhovasky, Delbonis qualified for the tournament and also like the Ukrainian, the Argentine was not afraid of the Swiss, holding his nerve in the breakers to get a famous win. It was both unusual to see Federer in a tournament so soon after Wimbledon, being as he is typically resting up after winning the trophy, and to see him going down against such an unheralded opponent. However, it seems, if recent results are anything to go by, we might have to get used to it. Federer, too, will have to get used to his new racket if he wants to do well in the US Open series and avoid further defeats to players who for nearly a decade would have thought it a career achievement to win a set against the now ranked number five player in the world, a strange situation for a man who has spent the best part of the last decade at the top of the rankings or at worst second best.

Another strange sight was seeing Serena Williams competing in the Bastad International event, only the sixth international of her career. Like Federer, Serena was ousted early from SW19 and had points she needed to make up for. The American world number One kept her formidable 2013 Clay court run going to 28-0 as she took the title, beating home girl Johanna Larsson in the final, without dropping a set. It was also strange to see Williams reaching her 51st win of the year so early in the season. Unfazed by the disappointment of losing her Wimbledon crown, the American is continuing on with her new found consistency as she seeks to put herself firmly in the Greatest of all time conversation with a career which at 31 years of age keeps hitting new peaks.

New peaks were certainly hit by Fabio Fognini, the most successful of the inbetweeners. How strange it must have been for him, previously titleless, to win back to back titles in Stuttgart and Hamburg. Another welcome strangeness for the Italian will also be his career high ranking of 19. The popular clay court specialist will not mind that the Grass season is followed up by two tournaments on his favorite surface bereft of many of the top players who are somewhat sensibly preparing for the upcoming hard court swing. Who knows how much confidence these titles will give him and what further foreign lands they will take him to tennis-wise.

Other players who will not be complaining of the tennis tour’s puzzling scheduling are Mahut who took the title in Rhode Island, Vinci who beat Errani in Palermo, Carlos Berlocq who won in Bastad, Ivo Karlovic who won the Claro Open Columbia, Simona Halep who won the Hungarian Grand Prix and Yvonne Meusberger who won the Bad Gastein Grand Prix. All these inbetweeners took home much deserved titles in a strange time for a sport whose scheduling is the strangest of the world’s top professional sports, a schedule stuck between tradition and modern economics, a schedule that puzzles all those but the inbetweeners who make it their own.