Top of the Crop
There has been some ups and downs to start this first quarter of the 2008 season. Probably the one that sticks out the most is Roger Federer’s decline. Well – maybe not decline – how about the narrowing of the gap between him and the minions chasing him? But for today, I’d like to put a positive spin on this post and talk about the players who have really stepped it up in the first two-ish months of the season: the top of the crop. (They’re not in any particular order because, as we all know, I’m very sensitive to the feelings of others and don’t want anyone to get their teeny-weeny feelings hurt.)
- I gotta start with my boy blue: Andy Roddick. The guy finally did something I could be proud of since winning the U.S. Open in…yeah, it’s been so long I don’t remember…2003. Roddick won the Dubai Open and did so by working his way through Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
- Speaking of Djokovic, he deserves a place here too. He won the Australian Open. He beat the King when the King still held that title with such ease. Maybe he bobbled against Roddick but darn it, if he just wasn’t the little Serbian who could.
- Jo-Wilfried Tsonga brought some emotion back into tennis and for that, he gets a nomi here for top of the crop. Tsonga worked Nadal, I mean worked him, in the Aussie Open. Tsonga also beat Andy Murray in the first round and a host of other folks en route to losing in the final. But Tsonga had an energy and a level of enthusiasm that seems to be missing from a lot of the others. I like that. It earned him his vote.
- To get away from the rather manly selection I’ve got going so far, how about…hmm…horse nuts, I’m going to have to pick Maria Sharapova, aren’t I? I’m no hypocrite. There isn’t a thing I like about her but she earns her spot here because of what she did Down Under. She mopped the floor with Justine Henin. That’s not easy to do even though the world No. 1 is only, what, 5-feet 6-inches and Sharapova is the blond equivelant of the Jolly Green Giant.
- As if being in her 30s wasn’t enough, Lindsay Davenport made her comeback toting a drooling baby and a diaper bag. That’s some determination, folks. And she’s being successful. She won a tourney in Miami. She did well in the Fed Cup. I’m not the type to go ga-ga over some cooing baby, but I’m giving props to Davenport for simultaneously making it work on the WTA tour and being Wonder Mommy.
- Hmm. I’m feeling like things need to be balanced for this quarter’s edition of top of the crop. Therefore we need another tennis skirt on here. Thinking. Still thinking. The brain is starting to hurt because it has to work hard. Well – if it isn’t that country of Serbia again! Ana Ivanovic. Or should I pick Jelena Jankovic? They’re both playing well. Ivanovic got to the finals in the land of the Aussies. Jankovic never goes away. I think they tie here because neither has done enough to sway me into believing they earn a whole section on the top of the crop.
Notice I didn’t give a spot to either of the world No. 1s. It’s not that they don’t deserve it…it’s just that they don’t deserve it. Next quarter we’ll do another top of the crop to see who has their tennis balls lined up and who needs to whip ‘em into shape.
