Surprise, surprise

If I were a betting woman, I would have bet that Juan Martin Del Potro would triumph at the Roger's 1000 Masters in Montreal and for Dinara Safina to win in Cincy at the Western and Southern Financial Group Women's Open. They were respectively facing Great Scot Andy Murray and WTA #1 Dinara Safina. Delpo or the Big Man, as the 21-year-old Argentinean is called, seems indomitable. He beat Rafa (sadly) in the quarters, and won over Andy Roddick in the semis. DP won the first set in a tiebreak, but Murray pulled out the second and won the third in 6-1! Crazy stuff. Don't get me wrong. I'm sorry for my man Rafa to have lost his #2 berth during the tendinitis hiatus. Murray, however, has grown on me, and I'm glad to see him pull through.

And then there's Dinara. Her brother, Marat Safin, is a volatile player. Very hard on himself (and that's a trait all too easy to identify with). Dinara is cut from the same cloth. I have no doubt she'll win a major one day. I didn't expect for her to lose today. Au contraire. JJ has been uneven all year, and I thought Safina would roll over her in two sets. I was astonished that wasn't the case. Jankovic ran Safina from one side of the court to the other, and looked like her old (fleetingly) #1 self. That's what makes watching the volatile WTA so weirdly exciting.