Monday Minibreak 4/9: This Column Still Exists

It's been a long time since the last of these columns was written. We've had two Masters 1000s, a handful of WTA Premier events, a Federer announcement, a Nadal return, and, yes, a John Isner win. Kill me with a rusted bayonet!This past week was a quiet one in the tennis world. The WTA had a couple of events with big names in the finals of both. The ATP was off this week, but Alex De Minaur, who rules, made it to the finals of a Challenger event. We'll go back to the Masters before we look forward, because while I am guilty of not writing enough, I will not pass up the opportunity to write about Juan Martín Del Potro.The Sunshine Swing as it is called (because everything needs to be called something) was, if we're honest, a bit of a let down for the men. Slow speed hard courts are not an enjoyable experience, nor are they good for consistently bringing us the best winners. Here's your seed list at Indian Wells.Somehow, Miami was even worse!This blog is firmly entrenched on "Grigor Dimitrov Actually Sucks Mountain," but something has to be questioned when virtually every seed loses early in consecutive tournaments. It's cool that Borna Coric seems to have turned the corner and that Hyeon Chung is now a consistent threat at every tournament he enters. It's less cool when your most consistent performer not named Del Potro over a back-to-back Masters swing is Kevin Anderson.(Note: Kevin Anderson deserves a ton of credit for turning himself into one of the best hard court players on tour. He isn't nearly as one-dimensional as you would think. His results since getting bounced by Kyle Edmund in the first round of Melbourne are exceedingly impressive.)The champions of the past two weeks were entirely deserving. Del Potro won in Indian Wells, and golly was it fun to watch. His win over De Minaur was professional (aided by De Minaur's entire game being built around giving neutral court forehands to his opponents which is a good way to get bageled by Del Po), he handled David Ferrer in straights, he came back from a set down against Phillip Kohlschreiber, then crunched a weirdly resurgent Milos Raonic to get to the finals. Then all he did was beat Roger Federer in a classic, complete with two tiebreaks in the final two sets. Anything written about Del Po almost has have a "imagine if his wrist never fell apart" paragraph. With a 500 title and a Masters title in tow already in 2018, he's getting closer to forcing us to leave those paragraphs out. He's having an incredible year, and he has plenty of time to add more slams to his trophy cabinet. He's only 29!John Isner was the man left atop the wreckage that was Miami, and as much as it pains me to admit, he was extremely deserving. I don't think he's had a better week off the forehand side in his life, and when that's going he's really hard to stop. He pounded Del Potro in the semis, Chung in the quarters, and Cilic in the fourth round. This isn't a Jack Sock At Paris kind of title. He took on all comers and buried them all.Also of note, Isner had been a garbage can all year. Shoutout to Matty Ebden though.Tennis isn't usually the sport most associated with "anyone can win any week." Isner shouldn't have been on anyone's radar as a threat to win coming in. Now, he's a threat to make the tour finals and he's claimed the biggest title of his life.For the women at Indian Wells, it was Naomi Osaka who emerged with the crown after besting fellow youngster, Daria Kasatkina, with a tidy 6-3, 6-2 win in the championship. There was, once again, an exciting injection of youth to the top of the women's game in an exciting week and a half. Sachia Vickery got into the main draw as a qualifier and promptly dispatched the No. 3 seed, Gabi Muguruza, in the second round. Vickery's an exciting 22-year-old who made it to the semis this week in Monterrey and is one of many young Americans worth keeping an eye on. Catherine Dolehide and her disgustingly good groundstrokes took out Dominika Cibulkova and routed Simona Halep in the first set of their third-round matchup before eventually running out of steam. Aryna Sabalenka, just 19, took down Svetlana Kuznetsova. But back to that championship match, because Osaka and Kasatkina are both very young (both 20), and both very exciting. Osaka is the attacker, Kasatkina the counterpuncher, but both will have long and exciting careers. Getting them in a title match was a gift.Miami for the women was a similar story as it was for the men. An American player on a poor run of form found their best game out of nowhere and came away with a huge win. Sloane Stephens had recovered form after her disastrous post-US Open losing streak but wasn't exactly riding high into the tournament. She had a great week, beat a number of top players (including the always fun Jelena Ostapenko in the finals) and earned a huge title.Buried in the great storylines of the week is, of course, Roger Federer. He never looked like he hit his B-game in Indian Wells and made the final. That's really good news! Then he lost to Del Potro in the final and to Thanasi Kokkinakis in his first match in Miami in deciding-set breakers. That's bad! And now he's sitting out the clay season again. So ends my delusions of Federer giving Rome a go before trying to take on Roland Garros for the last time in his career.And now look who's back just in time for the clay season.Rafael Nadal's lingering injuries cost him in Melbourne and took him entirely out of the rest of the winter hard court season. His first matches since coming back? Two dominant, three sets to none Davis Cup victories over Sascha Zverev and Phillip Kohlschreiber on the red clay.(Note: Sascha Zverev is finding form as he goes into the clay season. His run to the final in Miami was gritty and impressive, and his straight-set win over Ferrer in Valencia in a Davis Cup match is no joke. Clay can hide his occasionally spinny forehand and highlights how well he moves for his height.)Yeah, Nadal is still the best clay court player in the world, and he's about to dismantle the competition through the French Open. Ferrer clinched Spain's Davis Cup win with an epic, five-hour win over Kohlschreiber because of course he did.Next week for the men is merely filler before the optional Masters in Monte Carlo. The top American men and Nick Kyrgios will be in Houston while some Euros will be in Marrakech. Neither event really matters. The "big" WTA event of the week is in Switzerland, but when you top seed is Kiki Mladenovic, you're not really a big tournament.It's clay season now. Nadal is back and no one else in the top 10 (except Zverev?) has any prayer on this surface. It should be a fun few months of guys like Albert Ramos Vinolas and Roberto Bautista Agut winning tournaments before Nadal cleans up in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, and anywhere else he wants.Let's get it going.