Welcome back to Net Talk. This is our section for tennis comment and analysis. As well as commenting on the latest issues in the game, I'll include links to things such as our regular betting tips. But I also want you to contribute. I'm happy to publish some of your comments and answer, if I can, any questions you may have about all things tennis. The email address is: tennisfeedback@sportinglife.com.
Suggestions are also welcome. The page will be regularly updated, so don't forget to check back soon.
Andy Schooler
WHICH PATH WILL ROBSON TAKE? - posted April 8
Laura Robson hit top spot in the world junior rankings last week and that got me thinking about how those who have previously held the position have fared in the professional game.
Not surprisingly the list contains both household names - Martina Hingis probably being the biggest - and some who never quite made the grade.
However, certainly in recent years, there are few examples of players failing to reach a decent level and by that we mean nearly all the former world champions have had good spells in the top 100, so history suggests Robson will at least enjoy a respectable pro career.
That said, she'll be wanting to emulate the likes of Hingis as opposed to becoming the next Nino Louarsabishvili.
As well as Hingis, Gabriela Sabatini, the top junior back in 1984, went on to Grand Slam glory, winning the US Open six years later, while Amelie Mauresmo won Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2006.
The 2005 world junior champion Victoria Azarenka has highlighted her potential over the past week in Miami where she claimed the biggest title of her career to date and she will now hope to join Hingis et al as a winner at the highest level.
But for all those who have become household names, there are players for whom their professional careers will never be remembered as much as their achievements in their youth.
Rossana de los Rios, Maria Emilia Salerni and Barbora Strycova are all still plying their trade on the tour, but none has yet cracked the top 50, Strycova's career-high of 55 in the rankings being the most successful.
The aforementioned Louarsabishvili, the leading junior back in 1993, also made the top 100 but is now the head professional at Round Hill Country Club in California.
The player who has found the gap between the juniors and seniors the biggest in recent times is arguably Belgian Kirsten Flipkens.
She had the misfortune of coming through at the same time as Belgium's tennis boom - when she was ranked number one in the junior world in 2003, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters were regulars in Grand Slam finals.
Perhaps it's no co-incidence that her best efforts in the senior game have come after the retirement of her compatriots - she recently broke into the top 100 at last and at only 23 still has time on her side to go higher.
So what will Robson do?
Frankly it's hard to say, but she clearly has plenty of talent and it will certainly be interesting to see how much impact she can make on the senior ranks over the coming season.
She's expected to play the senior event at Wimbledon in June on a wild card having won the junior title last year and the current plan is to continue to mix junior and senior events on her schedule.
At just 15, she has plenty of time on her side even considering that female tennis players are notoriously early bloomers.
And even if things don't go well on the court, things are already looking good off it with companies queueing up to agree endorsement deals with her.
That certainly worked for Anna Kournikova, the 1995 world junior champion.
She famously never won a WTA singles title, but did end her career a multi-millionaire.
Is Robson the real deal? Can she follow in Hingis' footsteps? Email your feedback to: tennisfeedback@sportinglife.com
RUSSIANS VALUE FOR CLAY FEAT - posted April 1
April is almost upon us and so, therefore, is the claycourt season.
Tennis' slowest surface often brings a break from the norm with some lesser-known names often coming to the fore.
For example, for all Roger Federer's years of dominance, he's never won the claycourt holy grail, the French Open. Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe are others who have failed to translate their impressive games to the red dirt, which requires the patience of a saint and ability to grind opponents down from the baseline.
History has shown us that tales of the unexpected can happen on the clay - and so April has also often been a good time to prey on the bookies, who have had a tendency to weight form from the first three months of a year a little too heavily.
As players head for the 'terre battue' of Europe, you can bet your bottom dollar that plenty who have struggled to win a match so far this term will soon be hitting winning streaks as they find their feet on their favourite surface (in the men's game, think Spaniards and Argentines).
So now's the time for us to take a look at just who might shine on the clay in 2009 - and who will reach the end of the spring campaign as champion at Roland Garros.
With four-time champion Rafael Nadal as short as 1/4 to make it five in a row, the most value is to be had by looking at the women's singles market.
The women's game is wide open right now and has been since the departure of clay great Justine Henin 11 months ago.
It's generally regarded that Serena Williams is the best player when fully focused, as she was in Melbourne when winning the Australian Open.
However, like messrs Sampras , Federer et al, clay has always been a problem surface and of her 10 Grand Slam titles, only one has come at Roland Garros (way back in 2002).
Currently a 5/1 shot, Williams has to be one of the coolest favourites for a Grand Slam tournament in recent memory.
Unable to hit so many winners on this surface, nor get many free points off her serve, Williams has often found those more at home on the clay just a little too good in Paris.
Part of the problem may well be her reluctance to play many warm-up tournaments and certainly at this stage we're prepared to look elsewhere.
That search doesn't take too long, as a look further down the list shows value leaping from the page in the shape of Russians Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva, both of whom are very much at home on the red stuff.
Let's start with Safina, last year's beaten finalist at Roland Garros.
Her rise to her current position of two in the WTA rankings began when she set foot on the European clay around this time last year.
Wins over Henin (which proved to be the Belgian's final match), Williams and Elena Dementieva saw her lift the trophy in Berlin, arguably the biggest of the warm-up events prior to Roland Garros.
Her winning run continued in Paris as Maria Sharapova, Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova were all beaten before Ana Ivanovic proved too good in the final.
Since then there have been three more WTA titles, an Olympic silver medal, a US Open semi-final and a run to the final of this season's Australian Open.
Safina may not have lifted a trophy yet in 2009, but her form is hardly shabby.
It's compares well to that of Ivanovic, yet the Serb - who has endured some awful results since breaking her Grand Slam duck - is as low as 7/2 to defend her title, while Safina is out at 10/1 (general).
Surely the only explanation for such a gap in the two prices is that Ivanovic is the better known player, and that's largely down to her good looks and subsequent tabloid coverage. Safina may not get her picture in the papers too often, but I know who I'd rather be backing right now at those prices.
Safina is due to play in Stuttgart, Rome and Madrid before the French and if she's still 10/1 after those events I'd be amazed.
Turning to Zvonareva and this Russian is one of the tour's hottest properties right now, although you wouldn't know it looking at the prices - Boylesports offer a whopping 16/1 (Boylesports).
It's been a flying start to the season for Vera. It started with a run to her first Grand Slam semi-final in Melbourne and has been followed by titles in Pattaya City and Indian Wells, the latter being the biggest win of her career to date.
And it would be foolish to write this off as a flash in the pan, as the evidence suggests it is anything but. She ended 2008 in similar fashion, reaching the finals in Moscow and Linz before really coming to the fore at the season-ending Tour Championships in Dubai.
That week she made everyone, at least everyone apart from the layers it seems, sit up and take notice as victories over Kuznetsova, Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and Dementieva sent her into the final in which she took the first set off Venus Williams before losing in three.
At time of writing she's won 30 of her last 37 matches and will also be looking forward to the clay campaign. She won a smaller tournament in Prague and finished runner-up in the Tier I Charleston event on the dirt in 2008.
Her record at Roland Garros isn't as good as it might be - one quarter-final in six appearances - but then again she's never been in this sort of form coming into a claycourt season before.
Again the price surely won't last, so get on while you can.
Finally we'll take a look at the men's singles, although it would admittedly take a very brave man to back against Nadal lifting the trophy once again.
I reckon it must be a good six years since Roger Federer was available at 7/1 for a Grand Slam tournament and frankly that price is getting to the sort of level where there's some each-way value involved.
During Nadal's period of clay domination - remember he's lost just two of his last 121 matches on the dirt and has never lost a best-of-five-set match on the surface - Federer has undoubtedly been the second-best claycourt protagonist.
Only Nadal has beaten him at Roland Garros in the past four years - once in the semis and three times in the final - while the Swiss star has lost just three claycourt matches to players other than Nadal in that period. He's also managed to claim the Hamburg Masters tournament twice.
Unless something highly unusual happens in the next few weeks,, Federer is certain to be seeded second behind Nadal in Paris and he would therefore only be able to play the Spaniard in the final.
Victor Chandler offer 7/1 but with only a third of the odds for a place.
Therefore we suggest heading for Betfred, Paddy Power or William Hill. Their 6/1 means Federer is basically a 3/1 shot to reach the final, something he has managed in each of the past three years.
The other man who catches the eye in the betting as it stands is Fernando Verdasco.
He's been in fine form so far in 2009, making the final in Brisbane before pushing Nadal all the way in the semi-finals ofthe Australian Open. A quarter-final defeat to Federer in Indian Wells was no disgrace either.
Given all these results were achieved on hardcourts, Verdasco must be relishing a return to clay, the surface on which he made his name.
He's currently available at 33/1 (Paddy Power) but the warning here is that, unlike Federer, it's basically a 50-50 call on whether he will be placed in Nadal's half of the draw or not.
If you are a real gambling man, you'll back him now - I feel the price is sure to be lower if he lands in Federer's half.
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