1. Joseph Sirianni
The 32 year old(soon to be 33) Australian journeyman is no doubt the story of the week. Before 2008 Sirianni had only won 1 ATP tour match but did finish 2007 with two challenger titles and a victory in the Australian Open wild-card playoff. With the home crowd support in Adelaide he defeated Stepanek (ranked 30), Querrey (60) and Matthieu (25) before losing to eventual champion Llodra in the semi-finals. An amazing achievement.
What makes this more remarkable is that in the semi-final of his Adelaide wild card play off Joseph was down 6-0 5-3 to up and coming Greg Jones before coming back to win.
Sirianni moves to a career high 146 in the world and could be a chance of making the Australian Davis Cup team. You can follow Joseph's progress on his website http://www.josephsirianni.com/
2. Lindsay Davenport
Lindsay's comeback keeps going from strength to strength. Her victory in Auckland, where she only dropped one set, was her 3rd tournament win since her comeback at Bali in September last yera. In fact since her comeback she has only lost once - to Jelena Jankovic in the semi-finals of Beijing. It will be interesting to see how she does in her first grand slam since the 2006 US Open.
3. Andy Murray
The injury prone Brit (or Scot if he's not doing so well...) signalled his intentions for 2008 when he took out the Doha tournament with the drop of only two sets. Six of the ten sets he won were by a margin of 6-2 or less. All this without a full time coach since his split with Brad Gilbert.
However admitting to being tired in the final could raise questions over his fitness going into the Australian Open. Though no doubt a fit Murray in 2008 will be at least a top 5 player and who knows... a grand slam champion?
4. Chinese Comeback
Na Li made a triumphant return to the WTA tour by winning the Gold Coast tournament. Li who has been out of action since June 2007 defeated Vaidisova, Schnyder and the up and coming youngster Azarenka on her way to the title.
The pioneer of the Chinese tennis revolution, Jie Zheng also made her comeback from injury at the Gold Coast tournament. In the year of the Beijing Olympics Zheng and doubles partner Zi Yan are big favourites to medal and they made a solid start to 2008 by reaching the final in Queensland. Zheng has been out of action since the French Open.
5. Mikhail Youzhny
The under achieving Russian took out the fourth title of his career in Chennai. The most notable match was his demolition of Rafael Nadal in the final 6-0 6-1. Nadal's marathon four hour contest with Carlos Moya in the semi-final may have had something to do with the one sided result...
Youzhny has a career high ranking of 10 but has only gone beyond the 4th round of a grand slam once. With a decent draw at the Australian Open this could well change...
6. The Williams Sisters
Both Serena and Venus had valuable match practice before the first grand slam of the year. Serena took part in the mixed international competition in Australia, the Hopman Cup. Serena and Mardy Fish won the event for the United States with Serena defeating Safarova and Molik as well securing three mixed doubles victories.
Venus took out the JB Group Classic in Hong Kong, defeating Peng, Dementieva and Sharapova without the loss of a set.
7. Marina Erakovic
New Zealand has had little to celebrate since Brett Steven retired from the ATP tour however this could change with 19-year-old Marina Erakovic. Erakovic was ranked as high as number 5 as a junior and won the 2004 US Open double titles with Michaela Krajicek. She has yet to break through on the WTA tour though with home crowd support Marina reached her first semi-final defeating Zvonareva en route. Her ranking has moved to a career high 139 and will no doubt be a top 100 player in 2008. Something for the Kiwis to celebrate!
8. The Ratiwatana Twins
Thailand's Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana captured their second ATP tour doubles title in Chennia this week. The twins, who were the 38th ranked doubles pairing in 2007, moved to a career high equal individual doubles ranking of 56. The only grand slam tournaments the twins have played were the 2006 and 2007 Wimbledon championships (both as lucky losers) with their best result being the 2nd round in 06. Will the grand slam of the Asia Pacific - the Australian Open - provide them with an opportunity to improve on this record? Nevertheless their improvement is a boost for tennis in Asia and certainly makes the Thai Davis Cup team formidable opponents.
9. Brazilian giantkillers in Sao Paulo
Brazilian qualifier Thiago Alves, ranked 383rd, sensationally took out the $100,00 Sao Paulo challenger title. Alves who played in the 2006 US open and was ranked as high as 95 defated three seeds including 85th ranked Carlos Berlocq in the final.
This however was not the only remarkable Brazilian result. 23-year-old Eric Gomes, ranked 710, was unseeded in the pre-qualifying tournament however still won through to gain a wild card entry to the tournament. He then secured two victories (including 5th seed Brian Dabul) to reach the quarter finals before finally losing out to 107th ranked Brzezicki.
Alves moved up to 238 in the latest rankings whilst Gomes moved up 112 spots to a career high 599. A much needed boost for Brazilian tennis after no men featured in the top 100 in 2007.
10. A bad week for....
Igor Andreev finished 2007 ranked 33rd, his second highest year end finish. So hopefully his first match isn't indicative of his 2008 fortunes. Travelling all the way from Moscow to Doha for the first tournament of the year, Andreev could only manage to win won game. Losing in the first round 6-1 6-0 to Thomas Johansson.
Poor Meghann Shaugnessy. First she was a substitute for an 'ill' Serena Williams at the Hopman Cup where she helped secure an American victory over India before being booted back out to make way for the reigning Australian Open champion. (USA went on to win the title). She then had to scurry to the other side of the country to sign in for the Gold Coast tournament. But it gets worse... up 6-0 1-0 against Italian Schiavone poor Meghann had to retire. Not the best start for 2008!
Martina Hingis was suspended for two years after tesing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon last year. Hingis has already retired from tennis (again) and has claimed she is 100% innocent. The jury's out on public opinion. But an international 20 something visitor of London using a bit of charlie - never!!!
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