4 months at a time

Ricardas Berankis won his first Tour-level main draw match in 16 months last week in Atlanta when he defeated Dmity Tursunov in the first round. His last win came at Indian Wells in 2011 while he was in the midst of his best season start (R3 at the Australian Open, QF in San Jose and career-high world No. 73). But a couple of weeks after that first round win in the desert, which was followed by a second round retirement and a first round loss in Miami, Ricardas was sidelined for 4 months with a pelvis stress fracture. When he rejoined the Tour in July, he’d fallen out of the Top 100 and spent the rest of 2011 in the challenger circuit.

These injury setbacks have been the biggest hurdle in Ricardas’s young career. And his pursuit of being one of the top players in the world. Earlier this year, just as he was gaining momentum—he notched wins over Nicolas Mahut, Sergiy Stakhovsky and the now-famous Lukas Rosol at the end of 2011, he was again sidelined for 4 months with a groin injury that required surgery.

Ricardas got back in action last month during the grass “season” but had minimal success. Grass isn’t exactly the ideal surface to find your “tennis legs” on. However, he seems to have found it on the hard courts this month. He was a finalist at the Winnetka challenger, qualified for the main draw in Atlanta and got that first round win over Dima. This week in LA, Ricardas is in the quarterfinals as a qualifier. He upset 7th seed Bjorn Phau in the first round and defeated former world No. 18 Igor Andreev today. He’ll face either Nicolas Mahut or Paolo Lorenzi in the last 8, a winnable match either way. A career-week in the City of Angels is in the works. (Jinx, I know.)

We’ll never know how far ahead he’d be by now without the injuries but when (if?) his body stops betraying him, he’ll no doubt top his career-high ranking.

Image © Getty

Australian Open 2011: A look ahead to Day 6

Last day of the first week. Let’s hope it’s a memorable one! Rafael Nadal, Kim Clijsters, Andy Murray, Vera Zvonareva, Samantha Stosur and Robin Soderling are all scheduled to play.

• Lucie Safarova [31] vs Vera Zvonareva [2]
  Lucie is always tricky. This will be another tough test for Bepa.
• Samantha Stosur [5] vs Petra Kvitova
  Kvitova didn’t get to the Wimbledon semifinals by accident. Girl’s got game and Sam’s going to need to raise hers.
• Rafael Nadal [1] vs Bernard Tomic
  Will Atomic finally leave? I think so.
• Flavia Pennetta [22] vs Shahar Peer [10]
  I haven’t seen Flavi play all week which is a shame. Also, didn’t realize Shahar’s seeded 10. Huh. Anyway, forza!
• Alexandr Dolgopolov vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga [13]
  Allez!
• John Isner [20] vs Marin Cilic [15]
  I honestly didn’t think Marin was going to make it this far. I’d like to see him win this one.
• Richard Berankis vs David Ferrer [7]
  The battle of the 5’9″s!

Complete Day 6 schedule here.

Image via Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Australian Open 2011: Day 4 wrap

Soooo, Day 4 was kinda boring. There were a few upsets but no real shockers. Bernard Tomic is still in the tournament. That upsets me. After that marathon 5-setter against Lleyton Hewitt the other day, David Nalbandian was unable to finish his match against Richard Berankis.

Unfortunately, Jelena Jankovic losing early is no longer news. Alisa Kleybanova, Maria Kirilenko and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez were the other women’s seeds that lost on Day 4.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga gets the picture because he won in straight sets!

Complete Day 4 results here.

Image via Australian Open / © Ben Solomon