Good week / bad week: Davis Cup semifinals

Weeks like this make it pretty tricky to do a Good Week / Bad Week. Why? Well, after the freneticism of Flushing Meadows, most of the world’s top players had a bit of a break. Most, but not all…

Good week

Juan Martin del Potro: Boom! Juan Martin del Potro just keeps on coming. The Davis Cup might be a team event, but Delpo almost single-handedly won the semifinal for Argentina when he downed Andy Murray in five thrilling sets on Day One. Sure, the rest of the tie went to form, but in beating the world No.2 the Tower of Tandil smashed down the door that led to the final.

Marin Cilic: Cometh the hour, cometh the big man. Croatia boasts a pretty strong Davis Cup team, but that team pivots around Marin Cilic. Against the French, Cilic was exceptional. The world No.11 dominated all three of his matches (winning nine sets for the loss of just two), securing Croatia’s first appearance in the final for over 10 years.

Fancy Bear: Who?! Before last week, a Fancy Bear was nothing more than a great big grizzly with a bow around its ear. Now the mere mention of Fancy Bears strike fear into the heart of athletes around the world. The Russian hackers garnered much attention – and opprobrium – after hacking the Wada database and releasing the medical certificates of the world’s best athletes (Serena and Venus included). What they did wasn’t good, but they will be happy with their week’s work.

An honourable mention to:
The other Davis Cup winners… We could list them, but frankly can’t be bothered. However, every single team that won in the Davis Cup this weekend are presumably happy with themselves.

Bad week

Serena & Venus: Serena and Venus haven’t actually done anything wrong, but they still make it into the Bad Week column. Why? Because they woke up one morning to find their Wada records leaked onto the internet. And that leak implied that they had been cheating (they hadn’t). If that doesn’t constitute a bad week, what does?

Genie Bouchard: Genie, Genie, Genie. A couple of years ago, Genie Bouchard would have wandered into Quebec, messed around a little bit and wandered off with the trophy. Not any more. Despite packing out the stands, Bouchard limped to a second round defeat to Alla Kudryavtseva (try spelling that when you haven’t had a coffee), proving that there’s still a lot of work to do…

Team GB: You’re hosting a Davis Cup tie in your own noisy backyard. You have arguably the best player in the world right now in your team. You do it all on your own terms. And you lose. We don’t want to call the GB team a one trick pony, but if Murray doesn’t win every single one of his matches, the Brits don’t tend to win either. Time for the other boys to step up…

An honourable mention to…
Sherzod Hasanov and Arkhip Molotyagin: ‘Who?!’ We hear you cry. A couple of Uzbek officials, that’s who. They were banned from officiating for life for putting in fictitious deuce games (nope, not a clue either).