Rosol post Wimbledon

Lukas Rosol continues to maintain his good form after Wimbledon.

He beat Robin Haase on clay at Stuttgart in straight sets (Haase was the fifth seed) before going down in two very close sets (both went to tie-breakers) to Bjorn Phau.

He's currently playing Hamburg and has disposed of the eighth seed, Victor Troicki in three sets and faces the winner of Andujar / Ramos.

Looks like the 26 year old is putting together a nice run off the futures / challenger circuits he normally plays and is making a habit of knocking out seeds in ATP tournaments!

reckoner wrote:
Looks like the 26 year old is putting together a nice run off the futures / challenger circuits he normally plays and is making a habit of knocking out seeds in ATP tournaments!

And losing the next round....

It'll be Ramos (6:4 6:1).
If he gets past him then likely Cilic.

Good for him...would be a shame to see SW19 as a flash in the pan (even though I think it probably was in terms of beating top top players...I dont count Haase and Troicki as real top players...more on a slight par really given Rosol has been up to #65 ranking).

Troicki is legitimate 20-25 player and Haase is probably 30-35 rank on average over a year.

Hardly on par with someone ranked as high as 65!

lydian wrote:It'll be Ramos (6:4 6:1).

Ramos was up a TB set and 4-1 in the second set but Rosol came back and won the second set 6-4.

BTW, Mr 'Brokenback' Blake beat Ryan Harrison in Atlanta.

James Blake, what a guy!

Oh dear, Ramos serving for the deciding set.

GSM Ramos.

I could not find a stream for the Ramos-Rosol match (which was perhaps in the car park). From the scoreline, Rosol did have chances in the first set TB.

This is on Hamburg clay, one of the 'slow' surfaces and Ramos is a pretty good clay courter.

Rosol may do better on HC, perhaps.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Troicki is legitimate 20-25 player and Haase is probably 30-35 rank on average over a year.

Hardly on par with someone ranked as high as 65!

Shame about Rosol today...but I'm not surprised.

JM...there really isnt much difference between a player ranked 65 and 25...just a little consistency is all.
Players can regularly move up and down between these rankings...

Currently #10 ranking is 2620pts.
#25 ranking is around 1400pts.
#65 ranking is around 720 pts.

These lower guys play upwards of 30 events per year....so its 25pts per event difference between #25 and #65...or basically the difference between 1st and 2nd Round...so its just abit more consistency at the lower end but not much difference at the top end, i.e. #25 player will likely struggle similarly to #65 against a top 10er.

But isn't Rosol ranked something like #100? He may have been as high as #65 in the past but he's certainly continuing to play above his current ranking if he's beating #25.

If thats the case then yep agree reckoner

He's a player with potential for sure...you suspect he's been underachieving, lets hope the Rafa win gave him the confidence to push on up the rankings with belief - thats what many of the lower ranked guys lack, just self belief - they have the shots otherwise.

reckoner wrote:But isn't Rosol ranked something like #100? He may have been as high as #65 in the past but he's certainly continuing to play above his current ranking if he's beating #25.

He is ranked something like 103 or lower, but is 73 in the singles race to London: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/YTD-Singles.aspx so he is beginning to steadily climb the rankings.

It is quite interesting to look at this list as well as rankings to see that guys like Raonic are joint 11th on performance from January so have a chance, maybe, to make top ten with a good NA hardcourt swing. NB Murray has just climbed above Ferrer with a few points to spare after his Wimbledon final showing, before he was fifth in the singles race.

nice one lydian

Yeah Rosol is ranked at 107 apparently.

time please, I use this site: http://live-tennis.eu/race, which has Rosol at 70. I too find it a useful tool to keep a tab on how players are doing in the current year.

Can you send link again please Reckoner because didn't work - ta muchly!

time please wrote:Can you send link again please Reckoner because didn't work - ta muchly!

http://live-tennis.eu/race

I've properly tagged it so hopefully it'll work!

thanks reckoner - it did! Bang up to date too!

Yep, interesting to see whether Rosol's famous triumph can give him the impetus to 'kick on' post Wimbledon and perhaps make some serious headway in the rankings.

Let's hope he proves to be an exception to the rule of similar mega upsets, where history tells us that rarely is much heard of the hero ever again.

I checked back to a couple of other giant-killer Wimbledon episodes and the pattern of a return to near-obscurity is a common one, 15 minutes of fame and all that .....

- Round of 64 2002 : Georges Bastl (ranked 145) defeats Sampras (ranked 13, but seeded 6). Bastl never gets higher than 106 after that, and ends his career with no tour titles

- Opening round 1996 : Doug Flach (ranked 281) defeats Agassi (ranked 3). Flach's highest subsequent ranking is 109 and he ends his career with no titles

- Round of 64 1987 : Peter Doohan (ranked 70) defeats Becker (ranked 2 but seeded 1 AND the defending champion....). Doohan would later make it to 43 and retire with one ATP trophy, although that had been won back in 1984


But perhaps the biggest incident of all involved the only case (AFAIK...?) of a defending Wimbledon male champ being dumped in the very first round, and this time the hero of the hour did go on to better things :

- Opening round 2003 : Ivo Karlovic (ranked 203) defeats Hewitt (ranked 2 but seeded 1). Karlovic goes on to achieve a career high of 14 and has managed 4 tour titles to date. Still on the circuit of course, as the scariest OAP server in town at the ripe age of 33 ....

If you don't mind waiting until the Monday or Tuesday you can find the race rankings on the ATP website. They got rid of them for a while but they're back now. The only reason to look at the link above, which is unofficial, is if you want faster updates.

Lydian,

These guys may play upwards of 30 events per year but they are still limited to 18 countable events. That doesn't disturb the underlying logic of your argument but it means that the average points per tournament is rather higher.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2012/07/30/Kitzbuhel-Sunday-Rosol-Wins-Main-Draw-Opener.aspx

Rosol wins the opener in Kitzbuhel, goes up 10 places to break into the top 100 at #97.

Hey reckoner - this is now official RosolWatch thread!
It would be good to see him crack top 50...after all he has the game!

And beats the qualifier Antonio Veic to advance!

That was a brute of a draw for Hewitt.

You had me there bb with your sudden mention of Hewitt immediately after a number of posts talking about Rosol and and the current Kitzbuhel ATP event....!!

But I'm thinking you must be referring to Hewitt drawing Karlovic in R1 Wimbledon back in 2003 ....? If so .... agreed it wasn't the easiest of openers but the fact is any player seeded one and defending champ in his prime really should have more than enough to take care of a guy ranked 203. At the time it was qualifier Karlovic who surely would have been the one with more cause for concern when that draw came out ...?

I saw the blake match, he played awesome, he did in the very next match to and lost it.