2017 Early Impressions

The first tournaments of 2017 are completed, and here are my first impressions as we head toward the Australian Open:

Early showdown.  Number one Andy Murray played number two Novak Djokovic in the Doha final.  Djokovic prevailed in 3 sets and looked a bit more like the indomitable Djokovic of the last few years.  That’s good for Novak, who has a lot of points to defend in the early part of this year.  The irascibility Djokovic showed in the latter half of 2016 persisted, as demonstrated by a point penalty he received for racquet abuse at 30-30, 5 all in the second set.  That outburst cost him a game and he lost the second set.  Murray was also not quite at his best in this match.  Look for some grueling encounters between these two as the year progresses.

Dimitrov impresses.  Grigor Dimitrov defeated Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori on his way to the Brisbane title.  Grigor looked great in these matches, where he demonstrated fabulous racquet skills, terrific court coverage and more velocity and bad intentions on both his first serve and forehand.  He is definitely a player to watch this year.

Watch out for Zverev.  Alexander Zverev played exhibition matches at the Hopman Cup, but looked very good there.  He beat Federer in a match with 3 tiebreak sets, and although Federer tends to treat exhibitions like this as exercises for tuning his game rather than serious competitive encounters, Zverev looked really good.   Roger also hit the ball very cleanly and seemed to move better as the tournament progressed.  Both of these guys should be fun to watch in Melbourne. 

Pliskova continues.  On the women’s side, Karolina Pliskova picked up where she left off in the latter half of 2016, drubbing Alize Cornet in the Brisbane final.  She has amazing weapons and seems to be handling better the psychological stresses of top level competition.  It’s hard to know just yet what her best surface is, but it’s always been my contention that powerful hitters who are relatively lacking in quickness do better on slower courts.  They can still hit through the court under slow conditions, and slower surfaces allow them to get to more balls and set up better for their big shots.   Lauren Davis won in Auckland, a great win for the diminutive American.  She beat Ana Konjuh, a very talented youngster.  20-year-old Katerina Siniakova beat Johana Konta and Simona Halep en route to the Shenzhen final, where she defeated Alison Riske of the US.  Siniakova is another intriguing young player on the WTA tour along with Naomi Osaka and Konjuh.

            My opinion is that the women’s tour will be wide open this year.  I don’t see anyone really dominating, so it should be exciting.