Arvizu still had enough matches played to not need a warm up before Wimbledon. Corbolan played a 500 level competition in Halle. Burmann knocked him out in the 3rd round. Got the matches under his belt but no improvement in the rankings states. In Wimbledon Corbolan was defending only a 3rd round showing, his worst in the past year. Arvizu had a 4th round to defend, one of only 2 decent results he has to defend before year end (the other being a 250 competition win). First two rounds were handy enough. Arvizu did lose a set on a tie break was rarely in any actual risk of getting broken. Tie breaks are a simple fact of grass due to the difficulty of breaking a serve on the surface. Both were then nicely in form for the important matches. Arvizu won against Haeusler easily. Winning over have the points while Haeusler was serving which is ridiculous on grass. I have no idea how that player is ranked so well (28th) but Corbolan's opponent Huinaguenta is one who I have no idea why they are ranked outside the top 100. In the end it came down to Corbolan's strong mental game as he took advantage of his break opportunities. He did lose one on a tie break but a good performance against a potential banana skin. Corbolan had Sabiri in the 4th round. Annoyingly he lost two tie breaks but was actually broken in the 3rd set to lose. In fairness he was badly beaten in those the tie breaks. Arvizu put in a great performance against the number 4 seed Vilkas. They traded two tie breaks and Arvizu had a break in two other sets for the win. In the quarter final Clericat was Arvizu's opponent. It was a tough 4 sets but he managed it. His first slam semi final and his opponent was Malmberg. For those who don't remember Malmberg was no.1 when his manager went inactive. It looks like he is now under new management and a serious threat. Not just as he could trip up high ranked opponents early as well as being a threat for the top 8. In the end Malmberg had too much for Arvizu and went on to win the slam. Acero did not even have a seed at this point but finally made it past the 3rd round! He got knocked out in the quarters but it was still nice.


This was the year of the Olympics. I hoped some would skip Barcelona 500 level competition due to the hectic schedule after it with Olympics, two masters and an open in a matter of weeks. Some did but there was still plenty of competition. Corbolan made the quarters but lost to Gherea while Arvizu lost in the semi finals. Looking at how their ranking points are made up both should have played in 250s and will have to after the US Open. That was a mistake. Arvizu skipped the Olympics but Corbolan played. It is on hard courts anyway and so would not have suited Arvizu. Corbolan had a bit of a hick up in the 3rd round but got through to face Sabiri in the quarter final. Surprisingly he managed to take the win here in 3 close sets. Lukas Borot was too tough as was Solheim in the Bronze play off. Borot took the gold medal, with Kallas of Hungary taking the Silver. Solheim was the Bronze winner obviously. Still the semi final and Bronze play off mean that Corbolan is definitely overplayed. The Canada Masters just went horribly, both getting knocked out round 2 to unseeded opponents. Still at least neither was defending large point totals from last year. A runner up place for Sabiri puts him in a fairly safe place in terms of the race to the WTF. Another space that Arvizu could grab likely gone. Stagg takes the title. In Cincinnati Corbolan does not do any better but at least it gives him a bit of a break for the US Open. Though with Burmann in the 3rd round he had a nice set up for a run here he did not take. They did avoid a first round loss like Calmette who is quickly losing his grip on his ranking position. The former world number 2 is out of the top 10. Looking at his history Calmette was not only a former junior number 1 he also went undefeated in his final year winning every junior major competition. Impressive really. Arvizu makes it to the 3rd round but faces Stagg there who is pretty untouchable on hard courts and Arvizu is not a hard court specialist. He does manage to take a set but that just seems to make Stagg angry as he is bagelled in the 3rd. Acero just had a JG2 were he came second to help his junior ranking a bit.

Then in the US Open I hoped to do a little better than the last two masters. Arvizu showed the way by winning the first two sets....before losing the next 3 and going out in round 1. It is up to a very physical up and comer hard court specialist but still, he is the better tennis player by far. Corbolan managed slightly better, going out in round 2 in 5 sets. Againt to a nobody pretty much. Stagg won the competition. Now Arvizu was only defending a 3rd round exit from last year so only lost 80 points and then shot up to 8th place somehow! Sabiri who I thought was safe lost in the 3rd round and was defending a final appearance from last year. Malmberg got a semi final and so could still crash the party. Still others are defending far more points than Arvizu (except Malmberg). Especially Clericat, 6th rank at the moment but only due to winning the WTF last year which does not count for this year's entrants. He is already out of consideration really. Still could be really tight but the right people lost early for Arvizu. In the junior Acero got Dreekmann in the 3rd round again and finally got his revenge and made it to the semi final leaving him in 18th.

I had not realised with Clericat falling down the rankings along side Caravia that Corbolan would suddenly make the world cup squad for Spain. Some nice extra games for him there as well some ranking points. With Denmark and Sweden in Spain's group it will be tough to advance however. Arvizu lost a few ranking points by losing a game on hard courts to a 60th seed or so. Argentina still beat Romania but it is a poor loss. The WC points will be tough for him to hold onto as he was impervious in the competition last year and so anything but perfect will be worse. Both opened up with a pair of 250s as a warm up. Arvizu managed to lose in the 2nd round both times, a feat made worse by the fact that he had a bye into the second round in both competitions. Following up his best year by going 1-3. Not much lost on the rankings although he is a little behind where I would like on form for the Australian. Corbolan lost in the opening round of 1 but made up for it by making the final in the other. A win might have been nice against Huinaguenta though given both sets went to a tie break. In the Australian itself Arvizu struggled against a qualifier, losing the first set and only winning the second on a tie break. He took control after that at least. He went out in the 3rd meeting hard court specialist Burstrom there. Matches his performance from last year but it would be nice to see him use that high seed of his to get somewhere in a hard court competition. Corbolan made easier work of his passage to the 4th where he lost to Malmberg which was expected. Again he matches his performance from last year. Malmberg comes second to Stagg here to move up to 2nd in the rankings with Arvizu dropping to 7th. He is not in danger of dropping out of the top 8 at least for a while as Ayer goes out in round 3, failing to defend his runner up position from last year. A lot will depend on the clay/grass as if Arvizu is not going to improve on hard courts he has to match his heroics from last year there. Cason, my latest junior, destroyed the number 9 seed in the junior Australian Open but bowed out to the number 2 seed in the 3rd round.

Arvizu then did manage to come 2nd in a 250 level clay competition. He lost to Ambrosio in the final which is not bad. He was lucky that Burmann was upset early as well. He was then relatively unopposed while defending his Argentina Open title (another 250 level competition). He will need to do a Rio 500 level for ranking points as well so I am hoping he won't be too overplayed going into Indian Wells/Miami. Corbolan made it to the semi final before losing to the up and coming Anderberg. Arvizu then lost to the same player in the final having beaten Ambrosio in the semi final. Anderberg also beat Burmann so an impressively tough competition on clay for him to come through.
Meanwhile Acero easily handled his first Amateur level competition. In Indian Wells Corbolan was beaten by the 21st seed the hard court specialist Barquero from Argentina. I think here is the issue with being a hard court specialist. It helps in a lot of competitions but there are so many of them it can mean you don't do well in any competition, Barquero is far too low ranked for his ability and should be doing better. Arvizu made round 4 before losing to Sabiri who is still knocking around and a threat to a lot of top players. Vilkas claimed the title against Stagg in the final. In Miami both got knocked out in the 4th round, Corbolan to Ambrosio in 3 sets while Arvizu lost to 31st seed Konovalov, an up and coming hard court specialist. This time Stagg got his revenge and beat Vilkas in the final.


Monte Carlo saw Corbolan beat Burmann in the 3rd round and Burmann really has not got his clay season started yet. Corbolan did lose to Vilkas in the quarter finals while Arvizu made it to the semi final before losing to Ambrosio in 3. Got destroyed in the 3rd as well. Ambrosio took the title here. Corbolan missed the chance to go to the Barcelona Open as I felt he would be overplayed. He will lose out on some ranking points because of it but hopefully he makes it up in the bigger competitions. I had high hopes for Madrid, home court for Corbolan and anything clay is good for Arvizu. Suddenly both were out in round 2. What in the world caused that. Somehow Arvizu gains two places to get to 4th as Burmann and Ambrosio had a lot of their ranking points dependent on that competition and also had poor showings as Coya takes the win. He is a similar age to Arvizu and had expected both on the Argentinian national team but Coya largely dropped off the map. Like last year a large proportion of Arvizu's current placing is due to his win in Rome. He needs to repeat or get close to avoid dropping at the moment. He made it to the 3rd round and swiftly dropped to 8th. A poor showing to start the year from both players and Arvizu is certainly not playing like someone going to get back into the WTF (top 8 players in the last calender year). Corbolan saved himself a bit with a quarter final appearance in Rome which was won by Anderberg. I even needed a warm up here due to the bad results, Corbolan came 2nd in a 250 competition in Geneva to Burmann who was playing on home soil while Arvizu lost in the quarters to Galante (yeah I don't know who he is either).


I need big results in the French Open. Corbolan is defending a semi final appearance and Arvizu a Quarter Final appearance. Not only that but events have not gone as Arvizu would have hoped so far and he needs to make up the points lost so far this year somewhere else and he will have to defend a semi final appearance at Wimbledon which is a big ask. A big result here could make up for the year so far. Stagg is not the threat on clay as he is everywhere else and Corbolan had an easy enough quarter final considering. Malmberg is similar but he ran Arvizu close 7/5, 7/5, 4/6, 7/5. Arvizu just tending to steal each set at the end but Arvizu managed to get through to the semi final. So Corbolan vs Vilkas and Burmann vs Arvizu for the semi finals. The final here the last two years has been Burmann vs Vilkas and Burmann has won the competition for the last 3 years running. Still Burmann has had a tough clay season and dropped a lot of points (granted so has Arvizu). Vilkas proved far too much for Corbolan who did at least defend his semi final placing from last year. Arvizu seemed determined to go down a break early in each set but in the end won a tough see saw match 6/4, 4/6, 6/4, 4/6, 6/3. My first ever Slam final! Vilkas is in his 3rd final and his first not against Burmann. However he simply failed to turn up against Arvizu in this match and failed to generate a single break point opportunity across 3 sets. Arvizu saw his chance for a slam and took it. This drops Burmann out of the top 10 and brings Arvizu back up to 4th. Looking at his generation Vilkas is ranked the highest, Malmberg has been no. 1 in the past and has 3 slams and Arvizu has one slam. Outside those 3 only Anderberg has even a masters title so he has had a good career so far.

The run up for Wimbledon was tough. I could either be slightly underplayed or overplayed. I ended up going with Arvizu slightly overplayed and Corbolan underplayed as Arvizu. Arvizu made the final of a grass 250 to get there, a semi final or a win would have been better. Either not overplayed or more ranking points. In Wimbledon Corbolan's strategy worked out well and allowed him to beat Vilkas in the round of 16 surprisingly. He did lose in the quarter finals against Ambrosio which was a winnable match. Arvizu lost in the round of 16 to Kallay who surprisingly went on to win the event. Arvizu loses his points from his semi final appearance here last year and drops to 5th but is well above 6th.

Acero was getting on well in futures level events but I simply don't see him getting to the big time. I found a French junior someone had created with great talent, good experience and incredible strength which I have not had before. The one point is that they named them Santa Claus... Still first player who I have found that I would be very disappointed with if he did not reach number 1.

At the German Open 500 level event both entered and Corbolan pulled a bit of a shock to beat Ambrosio on clay. The American Troake nearly pulled of another shock against Arvizu but for the first time both players faced off against one another in a final. Arvizu proved too strong and won his (and my) first 500 level event. Happy with that, 300 points for second pretty much replaces Corbolan's points from the Olympics which were about to run out. At 28 he also reaches his best ever position of 13th. Corbolan has lost his place on the Spainish team to Huinaguenta, not actually too sure when that happened but they are out of the WC this year anyway. Arvizu is in 5th and is fairly safe to make it back into the WTF. Canada again did not go to plan, Corbolan went out in round 1 to Belgy and in round 2 to Kostov and that was largely due to Arvizu getting a bye in round 1. Cincinnatti was a bit better with both players making the 3rd round, Corbolan losing to Kallay and Arvizu to Ayer. Neither was really an upset on hard courts. Last year Corbolan lost in the second round of the US Open and this year Arvizu lost in round 2 to an young Tunisian player called Chimane. Corbolan managed a bit better and pulled a bit of an upset against Ambrosio in the 4th round to make the second week of a hard court slam for the first time. Here Solheim had too much for him but a good strong performance. He followed it up with a second place finish in a 250 in St. Petersburg and retaining his title in the Malaysian 250.

In Shanghai Arvizu did make it to the 3rd round while Corbolan pulled a bit of an upset against Ayer to make it to the quarter finals, at 28 he is finally making quite the push. Vilkas took the title here. In the Vienna 500 he did lose to the Serbian Colanovic in the semi finals, an alright performance but Arvizu pulled some form together to take the title for his second ever 500 level win. I thought I might be a surprise package in Paris, especially with Arvizu winning on indoor courts a week ago and coming second in the WTF. This did not work out with Arvizu again losing to Galante and Corbolan to Burstrom in the second round. Vilkas took the title and number 1 in the world. Still the late season surge sees Corbolan to a best ever placing of 9th.

With a slam and a pair of 500 level events under his belt Arvizu managed to qualify for the WTF for the second year in a row. Here he lost to Malmberg and Vilkas which knocked him out. He did beat Kallay in two tie break sets. Poor Kallay, in a tough group he took 5 out of 6 sets to tie breaks and lost every single one. Stagg won his second title here making it 2 titles and 4 finals in a row for him.



I am curious as to how long both players have at this level. I reckon another season or two for him. Similarly for Arvizu but he might hold on a bit longer. Once enough people can challenge Arvizu on clay he will collapse. I am hoping at that point they can forge a doubles career together at that point. It will give me something to focus on as Cason is a good few years off getting up to the level of the slams etc. Arvizu moved from 6th to 6th while Corbolan gets a second wind going from 16th to 9th. The youngest in the top 10 is 26 so I reckon new blood will start to come in soon. Granted the oldest is 28. I reckon at a minimum Stagg will hold on for a good while longer than that even if he has lost the top spot to Vilkas. I don't think Corbolan can move up higher but to be fair I did not see him reaching the top 10. I think Arvizu should get at least 1 more shot at the WTF. Corbolan also gets back into the Spanish team for the start of the year at least.