A combination of cataclysmic weather, internet outages, the Olympics and oversight have left this The Daily Forehand fairly stagnant for a while, for which I apologize.

I haven't been able to follow tennis nearly closely enough pretty much all of February, and while it's probably the least important month in the tennis calendar it's still something for which I should make amends.

So here is the first of a three-part series which will try to make sense of the results (and some news) from the post-Australian Open happenings in the sport with the fuzzy balls. 

And if you haven't been playing super-close attention to tennis over these last few weeks either, hopefully this will serve as a nice way to get a digest of what's been going on.

ATP 250 Santiago - Movistar Open:

This marked the tournament's return to Santiago after nine years in Vina del Mar, a resort town which the players always seemed to enjoy.  I always found it sort of odd that the "Movistar Open" always had such a C-List field.  Not much of a red carpet.  I found out when I was in Spain last year that Movistar is a huge telecommunications corporation that dominates the market just about everywhere they speak Spanish.  It makes sense, then that 22 of the 32 players in the field at Vina del Mar hail from Spanish-speaking locales. 

The champion, Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci, is from the minority of non-Hispanophones, defying the odds and taking out Juan Monaco in the final, by the odd scoreline of 6-2, 0-6, 6-4.  It's Bellucci's second title, the first coming at Gstaad last summer at another 250 event on clay during non-clay season.  So while he's not any sort of world beater, two titles already for the young Bellucci is extremely solid.  A win over Fernando Gonzalez in the semifinals of his home tournament is also a nice feather in the cap.  Those 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro aren't really that far away, and if the tennis there is on clay (as I suspect it will be) there's no reason Bellucci can't be in the medal running at that point on home turf.

As for Monaco, it's nice that he finally got a chance to play in the Movistar final after having to pull out of the 2008 Vina del Mar final with an injury.  Not so nice that once he finally got there he lost, though at least he and Bellucci won an equal twelve games.

ATP 250 Zagreb - PBZ Zagreb Indoors:

Odd to think there are still tournaments at which Ivan Ljubicic could be a #2 seed, but he did win Lyon last year and is still a top 25 player (or at least he was during this event, having since fallen to #26).  Ljubicic didn't do much with his seeding, losing to Lukas Lacko in a third set tiebreaker in the second round. 

With Ljubicic out of the picture, the present and future of Croatian tennis was on display for the rest of the event, as top seed Marin Cilic cruised to a defense of his 2009 Zagreb title, not dropping a set until a surprisingly competitive final against Michael Berrer.  The most important match of this run was almost certainly a straight sets victory over compatriot Ivo Karlovic in the quarterfinal, a battle between the two uber-tall Croatians seen as the biggest threats to take a title any given week.

Speaking of uber-tall Croatians, I should point out here that this was Cilic's first tournament since enlisting Goran Ivanisevic as his coach, dismissing Bob Brett.  Coming off his first grand slam semifinal in Melbourne, it was decidedly odd timing for a coaching change, but presumably Cilic thought that Ivanisevic was the man to take his game to that next level.  Risky move, but it paid off in the short term, at least.

And as further evidence that the world is getting smaller every day, let it be noted that while the title sponsor of the tournament is PBZ (Privredna Banka Zagreb), the trophies appear to be sponsored by O₂.  And who bought O₂ in 2005? Telefónica, the same corporation which owns Movistar.  Those people like their tennis.  It's a good thing, then, that the ATP WTF in London is played in O₂ Arena, I suppose.

ATP 250 Johannesburg - SA Tennis Open

With defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga too exhausted to defend his 2009 title at this event, still only in it's second year, the field in Johannesburg was pretty wide open (though still the toughest of the week). 

Feliciano Lopez took advantage, winning his first title since 2004, an incredible drought for a player who has spent pretty much that entire time in the top fifty. 

Lopez beat Stephane Robert in the final, a 29-year old Frenchman who is playing by far his best tennis late in his career, reaching a career high rank of #67 with his run to the final, a rank which jumped further to #61 in the few weeks since.  Robert was the only one of the 108 direct entries at the Australian Open whom I hadn't heard of, so for him to vault from relative obscurity to a final this quickly is quite an accomplishment.  He was ranked #316 this time a year ago, which makes for as astronomical a climb as you'll ever see for an unknown his age.

Since the later stages of the tournament including top seed Gael Monfils, Jamaican Dustin Brown, Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu, India's Somdev Devvarman and America's Rajeev Ram, it's interesting to note that only three of the eight quarterfinalists in Johannesburg were white.  They don't keep stats on that sort of thing, but it must have been a first.  For it to happen in the only tournament on either tour to take place in sub-Saharan Africa makes it all the more significant.

WTA Fed Cup World Group Round 1

The four quarterfinals of World Group play in the 2010 Fed Cup took place the weekend after the finals of the Australian Open, scheduling that likely contributed to the absences of Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva, the Williams Sisters, and all the French women ranked inside the top fifty.

The most anonymous of the ties was between the USA and France, in which Melanie Oudin won her first main draw matches since her US Open run as the Americans blitzed the French 3-0, hanging on for a 4-1 win.  Hopefully it's a turning point in Oudin's sophomore slump, since she'll have a huge opportunity to make some noise on friendly turf in both Indian Wells and Miami in the coming months.

There were some big names present, though, especially in the tie between Serbia and Russia.  The tie, Serbia's first in the World Group, was easily the biggest women's tennis event to ever take place in the country, but sadly ended in defeat for the host Serbs.  Jelena Jankovic did her part, winning both her singles matches in dramatic fashion in front of the roaring crowd.  But unfortunately she doesn't have much of a teammate these days in Ana Ivanovic.  Ivanovic lost both her singles matches, to Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova, winning only five games in each match. She was then predictably ineffective in the doubles, the final rubber which ultimately handed the event to the Russians by the score of 3-2. 

The Russians stay on the road for their next tie, a semifinal match-up against the Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.  It will be interesting to see if the Williams sisters play--last time there was a semifinal on home soil, in the unlikely locale of Stowe, Vermont, Venus did.

Italians Francesca Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta won 4-1 on the road against the all-Bondarenko Ukrainian team by the score of 4-1, setting up a semifinal against the Czech Republic, who beat Germany 3-2 on that hideous acid green indoor court in Brno they seem to love so much.

Food for thought: Andy Roddick played all three of the week's ATP title winners during the Australian Open, beating two of them (Bellucci and Lopez) and losing to the third (Cilic) in a fifth set.