Another great win by Argentine David Nalbandian. The 25-year-old unseeded Nalbandian outclassed world No 3 Novak Djokovic with a 6-4 7-6 victory to reach his first final of the year. As I said in my previous post, the guy can beat anyone on any surface IF he is in the zone. This week has been his “Zone” week.

Nalbandian’s main weakness has been his inability to close matches and win on important points. He has always been underestimated by the media and experts. He is not media favorite because he doesn’t have typical marketable personality and doesn’t like talking to them after he loses matches (his press conferences are just awful). Since I am a biased Nalbandian fan, I attribute it to the language and cultural barrier he has with English-speaking crowd:-) Otherwise he is quite nice and friendly when he speaks Spanish:-) Still I think David needs a PR consultant to better market his image.

Peter Bodo’s blog reveals a nice secret about David. His full name is … (are you ready for this?) Gervasio Esteban David Ezequiel Nalbandian.

Gervasio Esteban David Ezequiel Nalbandian will face world number one Roger Federer in Sunday’s final.

David Nalbandian, former No 3 and currently ranked No. 25, crushed second seed Rafael Nadal 6-1 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Masters. The match was over in just 1 hour and 33 minutes. While most of the media coverage explains Nadal’s loss as a result of post-Murray-match-fatigue-syndrome, I don’t understand why Nalbandian is always so underestimated. When he is in the zone he can beat anyone on any surface, even Roger Federer. He did beat Federer to win the Masters Cup in 2005 - a fact which the commentator on Tennis Channel chose to ignore by saying “this was David’s greatest win in his career.” ?????
When he beat Federer in a five-set thriller in the Master’s Cup final in 2005, everybody was talking about Federer’s post injury condition. David has been a consistent top ten player for several years though he is having a lousy season this year. If you ask me he is one of the talented players who didn’t win a Grand Slam, and who is consistently being ignored by media (thanks to his awful press conference skills:-)

The question is which David is going to show up at tomorrow’s match with Novak Djokovic.

(Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Congratulations to Portland, Oregon–one of the greenest, cleanest, and most progressive cities in the U.S. The United States will host Russia in the Davis Cup final in December in Portland, Oregon, the US Tennis Association announced Wednesday. Portland’s Memorial Coliseum was selected as the site for the final, which will be held November 30-December 2.

I have lived in Oregon for a couple of years. The place is absolutely beautiful.

Go Portland!!!
Davis Cup

Today’s New York Times has an interesting (or … maybe whining) article on why Davis Cup semifinals end up in a back seat.

…The matches that matter most at this late stage of the season are supposed to be the semifinals: the United States versus Sweden in Gothenburg and Russia versus Germany in Moscow. But the matches with the bigger buzz, larger crowds and more intriguing lineups are actually being played in Belgrade and Prague.

…It is a quirk of the Davis Cup’s oft-debated structure that this long weekend is also the long weekend of the World Group playoffs, eight matches that will determine the makeup of next season’s 16-team first division. It so happens that the two leading men at the moment, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, are involved in the playoffs, not the semifinals. It also happens that Tim Henman has chosen to say farewell to the men’s Tour in the playoff at the All England Club between Britain and Croatia.

…

The full article is here.

Peter Bodo at Tennis.com discusses on ESPN Tennis site about their recent findings on how efficient the tennis players are on Grand Slams. The rating that they came up with is pretty interesting. Here are some of the surprises and non-surprises that they have unraveled.

Non-Surprises:

Roger Federer (surprise!) is atop the leaderboard, averaging 4.09 wins per Slam. That’s a statement on something many of us forget: Roger’s “slow-start” as an impact player. Those first 16 slams, in which Federer never reached a quarterfinal, pull down his average — although he is still averaging one win per Slam more than did Pete Sampras. The overall Open era leader is Bjorn Borg, with a whopping 5.22 average.And consider this: for all the grief Andy Roddick takes for being unable to beat Federer, or failing to add a second Grand Slam title to his collection, his average of 3.07 wins over 27 majors leaves him third, behind Federer and Rafael Nadal. Dude ain’t into sunscreen, I guess.

Surprises:

David Nalbandian. Despite having a reputation for choking or mailing in sub-par performances at majors, Nalby, while ranked No. 23, has averaged three wins per slam (in 24 appearances). This represents a higher percentage than either James Blake (No. 6, but with a paltry 1.74 wins per slam) or Lleyton Hewitt (now No. 21, but a former No. 1 whose career average in Slams is 2.97).

No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko has played in 27 majors, but his average is an anemic 1.85. It may be cold comfort for Kolya the Obscure, but current No. 12 Ivan Ljubicic stinks out the big joints even worse than Davydenko. Although he finished 2006 at No. 5, Ljubicic doesn’t even average a win per Slam (.97).

The full post is at ESPN Tennis Blog.