Island Idols Power Rankings: October 19

ATP Top Three

1. Andy Murray

It was a close call between Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych for the top spot this week, but  nature of Murray’s victory over David Ferrer in the Vienna final puts him over the top. Murray was down a break twice in the third set in Sunday’s final before breaking to stay in the match and ultimately getting the best of the Spaniard 7-5 in the final set. Murray’s win in Vienna provides him with 250 crucial points in his pursuit of a World Tour Finals berth. As of this moment, Murray is eighth in the race rankings with Valencia and Paris-Bercy looming.

2. Tomas Berdych

For the second season of his career, Tomas Berdych has won two titles. The Czech captured his second title of the season Sunday in Stockholm rallying from a set down to beat Grigor Dimitrov in three sets. Berdych was in fine form all week and currently stands in seventh place in the race rankings. He is set to appear in Valencia and Paris-Bercy as well.

3. Marin Cilic

With his victory in Moscow, Marin Cilic has now won 12 ATP 250 events and a grand slam. The Croatian has won four titles this season in what will likely go down as the best of his career. He’ll also be heading to London and will surely be a formidable opponent as the season winds down on the indoor hard courts.

ATP Bottom Three

3. Dominic Thiem 

Dominic Thiem had high hopes of putting together a terrific week in front of his home crowd in Vienna. Unfortunately for the young Austrian – and his fans – Robin Haase had other plans. The Dutchman eliminated Thiem in the first round, 6-3 3-6 6-3. Thiem opens up in Basel next week with the red hot David Goffin, the same man who beat him in the Kitzbuhel final earlier this season.

2. David Ferrer

Despite making the Vienna final, David Ferrer squandered a golden opportunity to elevate his race ranking and capture his second title of the season. Up 5-3 in the final set, Ferrer’s first serve deserted him entirely and before you could blink, Murray had won the set 7-5. Ferrer is currently ninth in the race standings and though we all know he’ll fight to the finish, but this loss has go to be demoralizing.

1. Milos Raonic 

Milos Raonic entered Moscow as the top seed and on the brink of a spot in London. Even though Raonic still has time to accumulate points in Basel and Paris Bercy, he did himself no favors by losing in the first round of Moscow to Ricardas Berankis. Raonic is currently 10th in the race rankings and is within touching distance of Andy Murray for the final spot.

 WTA

With just one event taking place on the WTA Tour this week, let’s take a look at the WTA’s newest title winner, the rising and possibly overlooked Annika Beck who turned around a very poor few months and won her maiden title in Luxembourg.

ON ANNIKA BECK…

The amount of young talent on the WTA Tour is seriously impressive. One youngster who hasn’t received as much attention as some of the other rising stars is Germany’s Annika Beck. Even though Beck hasn’t had the same level of success as some of her other rising contemporaries, she took a massive step in the right direction by winning her first career title in Luxembourg this week. Beck won her first title in style, not dropping a set the entire week and defeating the fast-rising Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-2 6-1 in the final.

Beck also displayed wonderful resolve this week taking into consideration her poor run of form since August. For those unaware, Annika Beck had not won a match since the qualifying rounds in New Haven and was on a seven match losing streak coming into this week.

She has yet to reach the third round of a Grand Slam tournament, but at just 20-years-old, this soft spoken youngster is moving in the right direction and has a great head on her shoulders to help her continue her trek to the top of the game.