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Aussies Abroad in WTA and ATP

Roar Guru
30th January, 2012
8

Welcome to a new weekly segment updating the Aussies Abroad in the WTA and ATP tours. Every week, this article will look at the week that has just gone by and will also look at who is competing at the following week’s events.

This article will also provide the top ten Australian men and women based on the ATP and WTA rankings which are also released weekly.

This week, Aussies Abroad will look at the just completed Australian Open and how the Aussie men and women fared and also how that affected the rankings.

After that the focus will turn to this week’s events and look at what Australians are competing in this week.

Australian Open:

The first grand slam of the season saw seven men and nine women represent Australia. Of those 16, 10 received wildcards, while six automatically qualified through their ranking.

On the men’s side, Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the fourth round, each excelling in different ways. Tomic captured more Australian fans through his youthful exuberance and deft touch to eliminate Verdasco and Dolgopolov while Hewitt re-lived former glories using experience, determination and guts to beat Stebe, Roddick and Raonic.

Ultimately both would lose to top four players in the world but their performances certainly indicated men’s tennis in Australia was back on track after lean years.

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As for the others in the tournament Ben Mitchell, Greg Jones and Marinko Matosevic failed to make it past the first round, while James Duckworth and Matthew Ebden impressed making it through to the second round despite Ebden holding a two set to one lead over Kei Nishikori during his five set loss.

For the women it was a largely disappointing campaign. Only three women made the second round and our best ranked player Sam Stosur again failed to show her potential, losing in the first round to Sorana Cirstea.

It wasn’t all bad news for the women though with 15 year old Ash Barty playing well despite losing to Anna Tatishvili. Overall it was a fairly good campaign by the Australian contingent with Stosur the obvious disappointment of the Grand Slam campaign.

This Week:

With no Australians in the three ATP tour events this week and no WTA tour events, all eyes will be on the Challenger tournament in Burnie, Tasmania which contains a contingent of Australians competing in both the men’s and women’s singles.

On the men’s side 15 Australians will compete in the challenger tournament with Grand Slam players Greg Jones, James Duckworth, Marinko Matosevic and Ben Mitchell all competing in the event. Already Matosevic has been knocked out of the tournament and it will be interesting to see how the tournament unfolds throughout the week.

In the women’s side 10 Australians will compete including Olivia Rogowska and Anastasia Rodionova who both competed in the Australian Open. Similar to the men, the singles event for the women will be crucial to see how all the Aussies fare. A full wrap of the Burnie Challenger will be delivered next week in Aussies Abroad.

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Rankings:
Following the Australian Open we look at the Aussie top ten in both the ATP and the WTA and whether they have gone up or down since the last rankings release.

ATP WTA
34 Bernard Tomic UP 4 5 Sam Stosur
85 Matt Ebden UP 9 40 Jarmila Gajdosova DOWN 1
131 Lleyton Hewitt UP 50 67 Jelena Dokic DOWN 3
200 Marinko Matosevic UP 3 98 Anastasia Rodionova UP 5
205 James Duckworth UP 45 Casey Dellacqua UP 23
216 Greg Jones DOWN 18 141 Olivia Rogowska UP 27
221 Ben Mitchell UP 1 196 Isabella Holland DOWN 15
263 Chris Guccione 229 Sacha Jones UP 6
270 Peter Luczak UP 10 237 Bojana Bobusic UP 5
272 Matt Reid DOWN 1 269 Monique Adamczak UP 4

Following their great performances, Tomic, Hewitt and Duckworth all rise significantly in the rankings with both Hewitt and Duckworth up by over 40 spots. Greg Jones was the big loser out of the top ten men falling down 18 spots following his loss to Alexandr Dolgopolov.

For the women, no major changes at the top but both Casey Dellecqua and Olivia Rogowska move up in the rankings after first round wins at the Australian Open.

Finally in Aussies Abroad both the Fed Cup and Davis Cup squads have been announced for their upcoming ties.

The Davis Cup team will play China in Geelong on February 10-12 and Bernard Tomic, Lleyton Hewitt, Matthew Ebden and Chris Guccione have all been named for that clash. A full preview will be here next week.

For the Fed Cup team they play Switzerland this week in Switzerland on clay and have named Sam Stosur, Jarmila Gajdosova, Jelena Dokic and Casey Dellacqua for the important clash. The winner will move one step closer towards the main group while the loser will be relegated further down the Fed Cup ladder.

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Australia has won four of their past five meeting against the Swiss with the Swiss beating Australia in 1983. Given that Stosur’s best surface is clay and the sheer talent of Australia compared to Switzerland I feel that they will be too strong for the Swiss.

The danger for the Aussies is Stefanie Voegele but Australia should still comfortably win. TIP: Australia 4-1 or 5-0.

Next week we will review the Burnie Challenger as well as the Fed Cup tie and preview the big clash between the Australians and the Chinese in Geelong in the Davis Cup. See you then.

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