Caroline Wozniacki could have been forgiven, at times, for thinking she was looking into a mirror on the other side of the net. Her opponent, 20-year-old Simona Halep of Romania, is a 5-foot-6 baseliner with a two-handed backhanded and a steady baseline game that at times resembles Wozniacki’s.

But the comparison only goes so far, and if Wozniacki’s 6-2, 6-3 win over the No. 53 Halep showed us anything, it’s how tough an opponent she remains to break down. The two traded holds until Halep served at 2-3. At that point, Halep’s concentration wavered for a split second, a couple of loose errors followed, and the set was essentially over. Wozniacki may be struggling against higher-ranked players and bigger hitters, but she never needed to leave her comfort zone today. She kept the winners and errors low, kept her returns, especially on the backhand side, forceful and deep, approached the net when she could, and ran out to a 6-2, 3-0 lead.

Wozniacki’s recent losses must have taken some mental toll, though, because she grew shaky trying to close out what had appeared to be a routine win. She was broken for 2-3 and for 3-4 before finally wrapping it up. Her forehand, always her weaker wing, betrayed her on a couple of occasions. Some of this can be chalked up to Halep’s ball-striking ability. For an undersized player, she packs a punch, and she can flatten out a forehand in a way that Wozniacki normally can’t. The Romanian has been stradily climbing the rankings for the last three years, and it doesn’t appear that climb is over.

Still, she was only going to climb so far today. The most telling moment came when Halep was serving at 3-4, 30-40, break point in the second set. Over the previous four games, she had built a little momentum and taken control of some of the rallies , but she needed this point. The two engaged in a long rally; when it became clear that Wozniacki wasn’t going to blink, Halep tried a desperation bailout drop shot. It floated hopelessly into the bottom of the net.

Wozniacki is no longer No. 1, but she can still drive an opponent to despair. We'll see if she can do it to another former top woman player, Ana Ivanovic, in the next round.

—Steve Tignor

In the second edition of the Fan Club, we talk about—I don't want to say look back at—a veteran American player who may be heading into the homestretch of his career. I discuss Andy Roddick with a longtime fan of his, Kristy Eldredge, a freelance writer from Brooklyn, New York.

*****

Kristy,

These are tough times for an Andy Roddick devotee, about as tough as they've ever been, don't you think? He's hurt again, his ranking just dropped 10 spots, to No. 27, and there's been word that he might retire next year.

Which makes this a good time, I think, to look at what his appeal has been. While Roddick has had his ups and downs playing-wise, and his career hasn't been what we thought it would be eight or nine years ago, he has still been one of the more (for lack of a better word at the moment) interesting characters in tennis, a guy with a brain and a sense of humor and a not-so-nice side that he couldn't always control—he's one of the game's big personalities, and one who has divided a lot of fans.

To start, let me ask you two questions.

Do you remember when you first saw Roddick play? My first memory was seeing him teamed with Taylor Dent in doubles at the U.S. Open in 2000. Their smash mouth style seemed to be a harbinger of bigger and bigger and bigger games stretching to eternity, though that future thankfully didn't quite come to pass. It was on a side court, and the force of Roddick's serve from that close up was astounding. Even in the warm-up, it brought gasps from the crowd. I liked the raw power, and Roddick's wide-eyed teenage enjoyment of every moment of being at Flushing Meadows and in New York.

Second, as a fan, how do react to Andy's, um, moodier or more abrasive moments on court? Even he has said that you get some bad with the good with him.

*****

Steve,

Yes, these is a low moment for Roddick fans. Not just because it's sad to know his retirement announcement is hovering on the horizon, but because it's hard to be excited or hopeful for him even in the short term. With his injury count mounting, his matches are becoming grim tests of his tissue strength and his trainers' bandaging skills instead of his will and mettle.

Unfortunately for our purposes, I don't remember the first time I saw Roddick. There was no "aha" moment—just an awareness of him as someone good looking and blond, with a cute grin and a bashing style. Oh, and a temper. I think the temper is what made me pay attention to him as I watched him battle Federer over and over. (Isn’t it odd to remember that he used to play Federer quite often in the late stages of tournaments?) But I’m not even sure that it was the temper and not the roguish grin. I think I saw Roddick, as many did, as the next big American star, and I thought he was worthy of that mantle, and likable. For a time, that’s about as deep as it went.

It was watching his prolonged struggle with Federer that made me aware of his other qualities—his valor, grit, and tremendous decency. Because he didn't win—he just didn't. He had to soak up loss after loss at the hands of the phenomenally talented Swiss. And Federer didn't just beat him, he tee'd off on every aspect of Andy’s game and made Roddick look like a lumbering fullback. Roddick often looked furious and miserable during these encounters, but afterward, he gave Federer his due every time. After one particularly brutal loss in Australia in 2007, he said Federer wasn't given enough credit as a tough competitor. To compliment someone who’s just smashed you into tiny crumbs on the court—to defend him against faint praise by the media—that seemed heroic to me. But so did Roddick’s ability to keep taking the losses. What is that like? I wondered over and over. What is it like to have a nemesis like that? And why did the question fascinate me?

I think the reason the dynamic intrigued me so much might be because I have a sister with an unusually buoyant temperament, whose graceful dance through life resembles Federer’s, while my own more truculent, embattled style is a lot closer to Roddick’s. His temper, which you mentioned, reminds me of pointlessly defiant moments of my own—for example, when my sister and I would play chess, as kids, and she always beat me. There came a moment in every game when I couldn’t stand it any more and I flipped the board into the air so all the pieces scattered and some went down the heating vents. That would not be a good moment for me—only fleeting satisfaction, and then the creeping shame. But could I ever keep from flipping the board? No, and so Andy Roddick has a devoted fan in me.

That said, I invariably cringe when Roddick starts a snipe-fest on the court. It’s so transparently an effort to vent his frustration with how the match is going, and his disdain for the officials he berates is often chilling. So the question of his abrasiveness is a hard one. I’m mortified by it, but I don’t defend it. I do understand it, though, since I can see it comes out of frustration. That doesn’t excuse it in the slightest.

I have way too much to say about Roddick, Steve. I hope this wasn't too longwinded. Look forward to talking some more.

*****

Kristy,

That’s interesting that you came to like Roddick basically because he didn’t win; that he, in fact, almost never won against Federer. I’m trying to think of analogies in team sports. The Chicago Cubs are “lovable losers” who still sell out every game anyway, but that isn’t the first description that comes to mind with Roddick, and that's not really what you’re saying about him, I don’t think.

It is amazing, looking back, that Andy never showed any bitterness toward Roger, or at least none that I remember. The worst must have been the 2009 Wimbledon final. He plays the match of his career, loses 16-14 in the fifth when he easily could have been up two sets to love, and then turns around and tells Federer, who has the number 15 on the back of his jacket, that he “deserves everything he gets.”

Now that I write that, though, Roddick’s attitude toward Federer begins to seem almost bizarrely respectful to me, or at least not the best way to approach an opponent. It was originally noted by a reader on my blog with the handle Slice-n-Dice that Roddick, like a good tennis soldier and Davis Cup leader, is sensitive to hierarchy, to chain of command. If he starts to lose to someone ranked below him whom he believes he should beat, he’ll get his back up: How dare you? This attitude has helped him survive many challenges from lower-ranked guys over the years and made him a strong competitor in general. But when he perceives that someone is better than he is, like Federer, he can be deferential to a fault and he loses that edge. In 2004, Roddick, who was the defending champion at the U.S. Open that year, played Rafael Nadal in an early-round night match. Roddick seemed offended by the teen Rafa’s fist-pumps, and he used that anger to basically tear him limb from limb. But since Rafa became Rafa, he’s treated him with the respect you would expect. He also hasn’t exactly torn him limb from limb, either. Last year at the Open, Nadal turned the tables and blew him out. Still, when it came to Federer, it was always going to be a bad match-up for Andy, whatever attitude he brought to the court.

Going back to how you’ve grown to like Andy in defeat over the years, I wonder if this is where being a tennis fan becomes more personal than it does in team sports. In American team sports, at least, we don’t decide whether we like an athlete based on how gracious they are or how they handle defeat. We like the team we like, no matter what they say in the interview room or how sincere they are when they shake hands after the game. But it was the way he handled himself, rather than his game itself, that was a big part of your Andy fandom.

You also say you identified with Roddick's heroic losing cause, and his truculent attitude. I'm trying to think if I've ever identified with a player in that way. I was an Andre Agassi fan rather than a Pete Sampras fan, I think out of some general youthful anti-establishment bias. But I'm not sure it ever got more personal than that.

With that in mind, do you see any general difference in the way men and women act as tennis fans? I ask mainly because the Internet has made me more aware of female fans and what they watch for than I was when I was almost exclusively reading the opinions of male sportswriters in magazines and newspapers. Women fans seem to be just as into stats and tactical anaylsis as men stereotypically are, but in general I think they add a personal dimension to it—now everything, from first-serve percentage to unforced error count to a player's choice of nail polish to how long a handshake lasts at the net, is worthy of discussion and judgment in the new media. This is the way fans have always talked about tennis in their living rooms, but now it's out there for everyone to see, which has made fandom more intense.

Looking forward to your responses tomorrow.

Thought I'd bring back this old title while Pete is away until next week. If you'd like to discuss any of today's matches or rehash yesterday's, you can do so here.

– Ed McGrogan

Even before Novak Djokovic had won the Australian Open this year, he was asked whether he thought that he could become the first man since 1969 to win a calendar year Grand Slam.

“I have to believe anything is possible,” he said.

So far, so good; one down, three to go.

A couple of weeks later, as he was receiving the Laureus Award for Sportsman of the Year in London, Djokovic was asked if he thought he could take it a step farther and throw the Olympics in with the Grand Slam, matching Steffi Graf’s once in a lifetime Golden Slam of 1988. Again, he didn’t blink.

“I think everything is possible,” Djokovic said. “I have to stay optimistic. I have to believe in what I do and believe in my abilities and that I can win on all surfaces.”

Soon after that, Victoria Azarenka, who like Djokovic won the Aussie Open, is No. 1 in the world, and has an unblemished record in 2012 thus far, was asked in Doha whether she thought that the Golden Slam was in her grasp as well. Azarenka also didn’t back down, even if she was just slightly more circumspect than the Djoker had been.

“That’s everybody’s dream to achieve,” Azarenka said, “but, I mean, it’s a very difficult task. But I definitely am going to have the mentality to try to do that.”

Has Djokovic started a trend? He has, at the very least, brought a different attitude to being No. 1 than his predecessor in that spot, Rafael Nadal. Ever the realist, Rafa has always stressed the difficulty of continuing to win “at the highest level,” and of taking home multiple majors in any year. It wasn’t just himself that he was talking about, either. After Djokovic beat him in last year's U.S. Open final to win his third major of 2011, Nadal told him that his season would probably be “impossible to repeat.” Rafa knew from experience. He had done the same thing the previous year and failed to do it again. The superstitious Nadal’s instinct is to be on guard at all times against overconfidence. Every win still seems, on one level, to be a relief to him, something to celebrate.

Djokovic, on the other hand, believes that a positive mindset, whether or not its totally realistic, is the only way he's going to create a positive reality. Nadal frees himself to compete by accepting that he can lose, that losing is part of the reality of sports, no matter who is playing. Djokovic begins by willing himself to believe he can do anything; when he loses, he can walk off knowing that at least he put himself in the best place, psychologically, to win.

It’s not always that easy, of course. In each of his last four matches at the Australian Open, Djokovic fought with himself for significant stretches before he could relax enough to play his best tennis. It took awhile for him to believe, but in the important moments he did, and it allowed him to win without his best stuff. This also isn’t the first time that Djokovic has talked a big game and backed it up. Remember the way the young Novak came up, happy to tell anyone who would listen that he wanted and expected to be the next No. 1? It took a little longer than he might have anticipated, but belief eventually created reality.

Does Azarenka’s echo of this anything-is-possible style signal a new school of Djokovichian positivity? I won’t say that. But I was curious to hear what John Isner thought about his own future after his win over Roger Federer in Davis Cup two weeks ago:

“I do realize now,” Isner said, “no matter the surface, no matter the opponent, a lot of times the ball, the point, the match is going to be in my control, no matter who I’m playing, no matter if it’s Roger Federer or somebody who isn’t even ranked.”

In Isner’s case, “reality,” or at least his performance against Federer, has begun to create belief. We’ll see how far it takes him. A tennis player could do worse than to think like Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka right now.

Ana Ivanovic wore a white, long-sleeve top over her adidas tennis dress as protection from a biting Dubai breeze, while Francesca Schiavone, showing no concession to the 55-degree desert chill, was dressed for a day at the beach in a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of shorts. In a battle of former French Open champions, Ivanovic delivered a dress down for one set, then stitched together timely shotmaking to deconstruct the layers of the Italian's game in posting a 6-1, 7-5 victory.

An aggressive Ivanovic opened the court cracking deep blasts that danced near the baseline before driving shots down the line in forcing Schiavone into a state of almost perpetual pursuit. The former world No. 1 built a 5-0 lead after just 19 minutes of play in a performance that would have left many opponents woozy. Schiavone absorbed the shellacking with defiance, exhorting herself as she paced around in circles behind the baseline between points. The stubborn Schiavone dug in and fought off seven set points in a near 11-minute sixth game to finally get on the scoreboard. She would save one more in the next game, but it was a temporary reprieve, as Ivanovic converted her ninth set point to take a one-set lead after 33 minutes.

The animated Italian owns all-court skills and can play heavy topspin that handcuffs opponents. The 6'1" Serb poses problems for Schiavone because she handles the high ball so well, often taking it on the rise, and responds with flatter, deeper drives that reduced the 2010 Roland Garros champion into a series of sideline-to-sideline splits. Ivanovic cracked nine winners to just one for Schiavone in the opening set.

The 31-year-0ld from Milan is a rare player who actually seems strengthened by struggle (see her epic 2011 Australian Open win over Svetlana Kuznetsova). She had two break points for a 2-0 second-set lead, but could not convert. Both women turned up the intensity in a 16-and-half minute fifth game that featured nine deuces, as Schiavone saved four break points only to drop serve netting a backhand off her back foot. But shrugging that marathon setback off as if it were a shawl, Schiavone immediately broke back for 3-3.

Ivanovic cast a concerned glance over at coach Nigel Sears when she was tested early in the eighth game, but held for 4-all. Under Sears' guidance, Ivanovic has (for the most part) tried to control her stray service toss and  impose two of her strengths—her ability to hit down the line and close points at net—and was successful in winning nine of her first 10 trips there. Typically a savvy match player, Schiavone served almost exclusively to Ivanovic's weaker backhand on the ad side, which predictability cost her, as Ivanovic often moved to her left while Schiavone's toss was in the air to cut off the wide serve. Ivanovic failed to serve it out at 5-4, but Schiavone brain-cramped in netting a horrid drop shot to surrender serve again. Ivanovic closed the one hour, 41-minute match in the next game.

—Richard Pagliaro

It feels a little like Groundhog’s Week on both tours. The women move from a rich event in Doha straight to an even richer event, per capita, in Dubai. The men stay small and spread out—the Americans go from San Jose to Memphis, the Europeans travel south from Rotterdam to Marseille, and the clay-courters move from the dirt of Brazil to the dirt of Argentina.

The Big 4? Federer, Murray, Djokovic, and Nadal all bide their time.

*****

Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (WTA)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
$2,000,000; Premier
DecoTurf II
Draw is here

There are 24 fewer players in Dubai than there were in Doha, but almost as much money—2 mil—is on the line. The seeds have a similar ring as well: Azarenka, Wozniacki, Stosur, Radwanska, Bartoli, Schiavone, Jankovic, and—too bad again—no Kvitova, who withdrew for the second straight week, this time with an illness.

There’s not much new in the theme department, either. We’ll see, first of all, whether Victoria Azarenka’s shaky ankle, and not so shaky confidence, hold for another week. She opens with Julia Goerges—winner over Kuznetsova in the opening round—and has Bartoli, Wozniacki, and either Schiavone or Ivanovic on her side.

Second, we’ll see whether Wozniacki can stop her slide and start doing what the world, and her father, have been telling her do—move up in the court. She showed a spark of defiant spirit this week when she shot back at her critics, the Martinas, Hingis and Navratilova. Now she just needs to take it out on the ball. Wozniacki will start with Simona Halep, winner over the still-reeling Pavlyuchenkova today. I’d like to see a Wozniacki-Azarenka semi, which could cement Vika's ascent and Caro's decline, or could turn everything back upside down.

On the other side, Kvitova’s absence opens a path to the final for Lisicki, Radwanska, the back-on-her-feet Sam Stosur, or maybe even Jelena Jankovic, who plays Flavia Pennetta next.

*****

Regions Morgan Keegan Championships (ATP)
Memphis, USA
$1,155,000; 500 points
Plexipave
Draw is here

Little venue, big shots. The men are squeezed into a racquet club in Memphis, where the fans better look out for errant missiles this week. Three of the games biggest servers, John Isner, Andy Roddick, and Milos Raonic, will be headlining.

So far the event is off to a dramatic start—Ivan Dodig beat Bernard Tomic 10-8 in a third-set tiebreaker, a few hours before Donald Young beat Grigor Dimitrov 8-6 in another deciding breaker. Coming up, the biggest—tallest, too—story of the week will be John Isner’s. We know what he did against Roger Federer in Davis Cup last week, and it seems to have made Isner, who says it’s “my time,” and that matches are on his racquet, think he can do things like that all the time. He’ll start showing what he can do against Gilles Muller, and then, if that goes according to plan, Donald Young.

There’s a similar story on the other side of the draw, in the form of Milos Raonic. Another giant serve, another confidence-building win, in San Jose. But there's also a tricky draw: The Canadian opens with Ernests Gulbis. As with Azarenka-Wozniacki, an Isner-Raonic final would offer its own clarification, of which towering bomb-thrower is the more dangerous competitor, and bigger threat to the Top 4, coming into the heart of the season. My only request: Start the match at 10-all in the third-set tiebreaker. It still might take an hour.

Other news:

Andy Roddick will try to hobble through on a bad ankle.

Sam Querrey, a wildcard, will play his first event after announcing a new coaching partnership with Brad Gilbert.

Two other, younger American wild cards, Jack Sock and Ryan Harrison, will play an intriguing first-rounder.

*****

Open 13 (ATP)
Marseille, France
$680,000; 250 points
Hard courts
Draw is here

Tsonga, check. Del Potro, check, Ljubicic, check, Tipsarevic, check. Dolgopolov, Llodra, Gasquet, check, check, check. Fish . . . wait, who? Yes, Mardy Fish got lost on his way to Memphis and ended up being the second seed in Marseille. We’ll see if the man who needs his dose of American coffee in the morning can build on his own Davis Cup heroics of last weekend. He has a manageable draw: Dolgo, Tipsy, and Ljuby are the seeds on his side.

In the other half, Tsonga and del Potro could meet in the semis and play for the title of World Champion Outside the Big 4—in boxing, the winner would be called the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World. First, del Potro has to get past a possibly resurgent Nikolay Davydenko.

Most flamboyantly named second round match: Edouard Roger-Vasselin vs. Flavio Cipolla

Most flamboyantly named qualifier: Roberto Bautista-Agut. As someone who types players’ names all day, I’m not sure I want him to get any better.

*****

Other events:

Copa Claro (ATP)
Buenos Aires
$484,000; 250 points
Red clay
Website here

Not bad for a 250: Ferrer, Verdasco, Nishikori, Nalbandian, Wawrinka, Simon, Verdasco, and Almagro

*****

Memphis International (WTA)
$220,000
Plexipave
Draw is here

*****

Whirlpool Monterrey Open (WTA)
Monterrey, Mexico
$220,000
Plexipave
Draw is here

Thought I'd bring back this old title while Pete is away until next week. If you'd like to discuss any of today's matches or rehash yesterday's, you can do so here.

– Ed McGrogan

Maybe it's the strength of the game at the moment. Maybe it’s the Aussie Open afterglow. Maybe it’s the Twitter effect—even small events seem more exciting when there’s lots of chatter about them—or maybe it’s the nice weather around here. But this has been a surprisingly entertaining and upbeat February. I used to think of the month as a black hole in the tennis calendar, filled with appearance-fee boondoggles, a place where the buzz and interest from Melbourne went to die. And there are still elements of that. But from Victoria Azarenka’s consolidation in Doha to John Isner’s breakthrough in Davis Cup to Milos Raonic’s ominous serving in San Jose, this has also been a fun and maybe even significant few weeks of tennis.

Yesterday alone there were three results of note. I’ll start the week with a quick review of two of them.

*****

Or Maybe it’s the Federer Effect…
There’s been a lot of talk among the top men about their onerous mandatory commitments, which include Slams, Masters, and the odd 500-level event or two. While this can add up over the course of the year, you don’t need to look any farther than last week’s 500 in Rotterdam to see the effect that one star has on a smaller tournament. Rotterdam had a nice draw, but Roger Federer’s presence at the top of it lifted the event into must-see territory. Over the weekend, it also brought a lot of energy into the often-quiet main arena there.

That seemed to put a charge into Federer, who was coming directly from his country’s dismal Davis Cup weekend against the Americans. He started slowly in Rotterdam, and was on the ropes against Nikolay Davydenko in the semis, but Federer finished with another masterful performance against Juan Martin del Potro for his 71st career title. It was such an invigorating week that he even speculated that, who knows, he might, like Andre Agassi, play until he’s 36. So much for enjoying him while we can; it sounds like we should be saying that about Nadal and Djokovic instead.

Speaking of Davydenko, his performance was another reason to cheer this tournament. Some of the old machine-gun magic was back in his racquet, both against Richard Gasquet in the quarters and Federer in the semis. Up a set and a break in the latter match, he could have easily reached the final based on how he was striking the ball.

But Federer had no such problems with del Potro, a man he seems to have solved for the moment. The key is never letting tennis’s tank find his rhythm and get his baseline game rolling forward—as Federer knows, it can roll right over you. Federer won with a mix of slice backhands and topspin, with surprise changes of direction, with swing volleys, with a stellar passing shot at break point in the second set, and with a classy backhand drive/drop shot/overhead combination in the first set. In other words, with a little bit of everything.

In both Rotterdam and Melbourne, Federer jumped ahead of del Potro early and then held off a later charge. This time the Argentine had five break points in the second set. His best opportunity came at 2-3, 30-40, when he bullied his way forward only to overswing and send an easy backhand long. On the next break point, in that same game, it was Federer who moved forward for a mid-court forehand. He made no mistake with it, curling the ball past del Potro for a crosscourt winner.

Six more years of this kind of variety and mastery? Del Potro must not like hearing that, but it’s music to the ears of tournament directors, and fans, everywhere.

*****

Déjà Vu All Over Again
What do they say when something is a little too familiar? It’s eerie? Victoria Azarenka’s 2012 is starting to feel eerily familiar to Novak Djokovic's 2011. As in: Talented but volatile second-fiddle solves mental and, so far, physical issues to win her first 17 matches; she uses outstanding returns and measured baseline aggression to finally take advantage of all of her athletic gifts with; and after dominating the Australian Open final she appears to gain even more confidence through the Gulf swing. That’s how Djokovic’s first couple of months went last year, and that’s how Vika is looking after her win in Doha last week. Call it the new template for (relatively) late-blooming dominance.

Azarenka didn’t drop a set in Doha, and lost just 18 games in total. Against U.S. Open champ Sam Stosur, she controlled the rallies from the first shot and won nine of the opening 10 games. Azarenka’s game in Doha also reminded me of Djokovic’s in its comprehensiveness. She didn’t go for broke, à la Petra Kvitova, but there didn't appear to be any exploitable weaknesses, either. Every shot was hit with conviction, and she was decisive with her selection of them.

You can take issue with Azarenka's grunting, which she now compares to an uncontrollable process like snoring (I'm not buying it). You might take issue, as her opponent Agnieszka Radwanska appeared to do, with Vika’s teary, drama-filled reaction to her ankle injury in their semifinal. But I liked the fact that she didn’t play if safe, the way a lot of players do these days, and retire from that match. Her hobbling, determined performance was gutsy—perhaps a champion’s new pride? Let’s hope she doesn’t regret it.

Most impressive is Azarenka’s concentration; she's aggressive with it. We’ve seen players use their serves and forehands and even their drop shots as ways to attack, but watching her throw up her service toss and stare for an extra second across the net in Doha, it seemed like Vika had a new weapon: her eyes. They don't lose their focus on what's in front of them.

Thought I'd bring back this old title while Pete is away until next week. If you'd like to discuss any of today's matches or rehash yesterday's, you can do so here.

– Ed McGrogan

The HP Pavillion is the home to the NHL's San Jose Sharks and though the baseline replaces the blue line when tennis comes to town, Denis Istomin looked like a beleaguered goalie lunging at a series of slap shots as Milos Raonic's serve roared past.

Blasting massive serves with the force of a man intent on bruising the ball with each swing, Raonic lost just four points on serve to successfully defend his San Jose title with an explosive 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory.

The son of engineers, Raonic admits he was a bit of a math geek growing up. He's grown into an impressive number cruncher.  The 21-year-old Raonic is 8-0 lifetime in San Jose without surrendering a set. Raonic, who opened the year edging Janko Tipsarevic in a tight Chennai final, raised his 2012 record to 11-1 in becoming the ATP's first two-time titlist this season.

There are few sights in tennis as foreboding as the 6'5" Canadian reaching his right arm up to unleash his imposing serve.  When a body serve runs the risk of imparting blunt force trauma on an opponent, you know you're looking at a lethal tennis weapon.  Sometimes Raonic served so big, it seemed the only true gauge was the sound of the ball bursting off the strings as Istomin seemed to struggle to see it.  You can hardly blame him for the rapid blinks he made between first and second serves as if trying to clear his vision. Raonic ripped a few 150 MPH serves that transformed the ball into a blur as it buzzed through the service box. He hit seven aces, won 17 of 18 points played on his second serve and held at love in seven of his 10 service games.

Still, Istomin, bidding to become the first man from Uzbekistan to win an ATP title, hung tough in digging out of 15-30 deficits in the third and eleventh games to stay on serve. The set escalated into the inevitable tie break and Istomin blinked first missing a backhand to hand Raonic a mini-break on the first point. Raonic turned the crack into a chasm, stretching the lead to 6-1 in a matter of moments before closing the set.

The cumulative effect of facing that wrecking ball serve exerts even more pressure on the opponent to hold.  Raonic stabbed a forehand return back near the baseline to extend a point and an anxious Istomin sailed a backhand beyond the baseline to drop serve and fall into a 1-3 hole.

When Raonic breaks serve, he shatters hope. Raonic trains in Spain with Galo Blanco, the man who swept Sampras in 2001 French Open, and his clay-court training is evident in the small preparation steps he takes to set up for his forehand as well as his willingness to explore angles with that shot.  Raonic closed in 79 minutes hugging his father and coach and humoring the Bay Era crowd that has embraced the man who was ranked No. 156 in January of 2011.

"If the real estate wasn't so expensive here, maybe I'd buy a place," Raonic joked during the trophy presentation. He isn't house-hunting but looks right at home as tournament champion.

—Richard Pagliaro