Of all the personalities, Novak Djokovic is the one who has most embraced his fame.  Rafael Nadal does his duty, but you get the sense he’s shy and prefers a quiet time.  Roger Federer is friendly, but aloof.  Andy Murray is moody and when he isn’t, he seems kinda dull.  Djokovic likes being Djokovic, and it may say a lot about how he’s embraced the role of number 1.

His outgoing personality seems to extend to playing doubles.  Djokovic has wanted to play doubles with his fellow “big 4”, well, maybe not including Federer who, as already mentioned, is a bit aloof.  Two years ago, Djokovic wanted to play with Nadal in Montreal, a few weeks before the 2009 US Open.  2009, as you may recall, was not a good year for Nadal.  He lost at the French Open for the first time ever (and his last loss, so far).  He had to skip Wimbledon.  He rested all the way until Montreal.  However, in his zeal to train, he hurt his abdominals which wasn’t revealed until the US Open and certainly contributed to his lopsided loss to Juan Martin del Potro in the semifinals.

By 2010, Nadal was having a fantastic year.  He had won the French again, then reclaimed the Wimbledon title.  Being in good health, he and Djokovic teamed up to play Toronto.

It used to be that top players like Nadal and Djokovic routinely played doubles.  That was when serve-and-volley was a hugely popular style.  Playing doubles was merely an extension of playing singles.  John McEnroe, long known to hate practice, often preferred to play doubles rather than practice.  He may have been the last player to play high level singles and doubles (although Kafelnikov and Melzer are excellent doubles players).  Even in McEnroe’s era, players like Connors, Borg, and Lendl focused more on singles than doubles, such was the pressure of playing high-level singles.

Indeed, putting two baseliners like Nadal and Djokovic doesn’t even guarantee wins.  They’re both decent volleyers, but they’d rather do their damage at the baseline.  And besides, these pros basically play doubles for fun.  Players like Nadal, Murray, and Federer have done well enough to win doubles titles.  Nadal teams up with Marc Lopez a few times a year.  Murray teams up with his brother.

Even players that are trying to get their game back in shape play some doubles.  Juan Martin del Potro has been playing doubles lately.  It may not be his game, but it allows him to hone some volleying skills, and in a pinch, he might be able to play doubles in Davis Cup.

So while it was a surprise that Djokovic and Nadal lost in the opening round of the Rogers Cup in 2010 to a pair of local unknown boys, it was not that much of a surprise.

Which leads me to tell you the names of these two lads.  They were Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil.  If Britain wrings its hands over its inability to produce a Slam champion, they’ve at least had players that had a chance to win in the last 20 or so years including Andy Murray, Tim Henman, and John Lloyd.  Canada can barely make that claim.  They have no Fred Perry to hang their national hopes on.  Their best singles player, Greg Rusedski, defected to play for Britain who were only too happy to have someone–anyone–that could play top 20 tennis.

Although Americans have long though of themselves as the melting pot of the world, the reality is Canada has invited those yearning to be free too.  Raonic, for example, was born in Montenegro in the former Yugoslavia (which has been a hotbed for tennis with players from Serbia and Croatia most notably), but moved to Canada when he was 3.  Pospisil is a Czech name though Pospisil was born in Canada (but apparently given a Czech name).

This should be no surprise.  Agassi’s dad came from Iran.  Sampras is of Greek heritage.

Milos Raonic made his breakthrough earlier this year reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open where he lost, in 4 sets, to David Ferrer.  Raonic then won San Jose and then pushed Andy Roddick to three sets in Memphis.  Raonic was later injured and had to spend time off the tour recovering.

In the meanwhile, shortly after the US Open, Canada was trying to qualify for the World Group in Davis Cup.  To do so, they would have to beat Israel in Israel.  Now Israel isn’t exactly a hotbed of tennis, but they have something Canada doesn’t have.  They have a reasonably solid top 40 player in Dudi Sela who has been on the tour for many years, and they have a solid doubles team in Erlich and Ram that may not be at the top, but are reasonably solid and experienced.

Milos Raonic tried to come back in this Davis Cup tie, but he was still too hurt to play effectively.  They needed to rely on his teammate, Vasek Pospisil, to pull out the miracle.  The first upset occurred when Vasek Pospisil pulled out a 5-setter over veteran Dudi Sela.  Raonic was unable to play well, but completed a four set loss to Weintraub.  Pospisil then partnered with Canada’s only serious Slam player, doubles specialist, Daniel Nestor, and beat the veteran team of Erlich and Ram.

With Raonic out, Canada had to dip into its woeful backup, Peter Polansky, who is nonethless, a pretty young player (at 23), but was no match for Dudi Sela.  This left Pospisil to play his third match in three days Amir Weintraub in straight sets.

Pospisil has been mostly playing Challengers and Futures.  By and large, he does pretty well in Futures, tending to win them or go very deep, and he’s had mixed results in Challengers.  Pospisil’s game is a bit like Raonic: big serve, big forehand, inconsistent.

What Pospisil was looking for, as anyone ranked like Pospisil (in the low 100s), is a win over a top 30 player.  Pospisil took an early break and rose that to the first set, 6-3.  Isner came back and took the second set, 6-3.  To Pospisil’s credit, he kept in the third set and pushed it to a tiebreak.  He had a minibreak early on, but Isner got that back, but he was able to get another minibreak off a second serve.  This lead him to match point where he took the third set tiebreak, 11-9.

Earlier in the day, Nikolay Davydenko showed he can still play the occasional good tennis when he beat Gilles Simon, the fifth seed, 64, 46, 63.  Simon is still trying to qualify for the year-end championship, but he hasn’t played too well in the last few weeks.

Of course, since Valencia is in Spain, there’s a large number of Spaniards playing.  Unfortunately, today was not a good day.  Mahut upset Garcia-Lopez in straight sets while Fognini eliminated Gimeno-Traver, also in straight sets.

Basel

Today marked the first time Federer has played since the Davis Cup tie in Australia the week after the US Open.  Federer generally struggles a bit after a break (as do many players).  He needed a tiebreak and a close 64 set to beat Potito Starace.  Baghdatis, whose rank has fluctuated wildly this year, upset 8th seed, Troicki in three sets.  Donald Young lost easily to Kukushkin.

Tomorrow, world number 1, Novak Djokovic will play his first match since the Davis Cup tie against Argentina (where he had to retire against Juan Martin del Potro).  Djokovic arrived a few days early and said he has been training to get used to the indoor court.  He is hoping to bring out a costume for Halloween (it will be a day late, but Djokovic seems to enjoy this American holiday).  His opening round opponent is Xavier Malisse who recently reached the quarterfinals in Vienna (last week) and is in good form.

James Blake will play Mardy Fish tomorrow.  Tomas Berdych will take on Kei Nishikori.  This means Andy Murray won’t play until Wednesday where he’ll start his opener against Robin Haase.  Murray’s draw is particularly tough.  Haase took Murray to 5 sets back at the US Open in the second round.  Should he get past Haase, he might play Wawrinka, though Wawrinka is scheduled to play Dodig who has been playing well.  Should Murray get past the second round, he might have to play Tipsarevic who, after Murray, is the hottest player on tour since the US Open.  Tipsarevic has a tough opener against the trick Florian Mayer who upset Nadal in Shanghai.  Indeed, this whole section seems to be filled with players that have either given Murray trouble or Nadal trouble (Dodig and Mayer are in Murray’s section).

Recall Murray is on a three tournament winning streak having won Bangkok, Tokyo, and Shanghai.