Just before the clay season takes flight in Monte Carlo, small tournaments in Houston, Casablanca, Bogota, and Katowice offered another chance for underdogs to surprise and young stars to shine.  Order probably will be restored shortly, so we should appreciate the anarchy while it lasted.

Studs:

Spanish men:  Perhaps the deepest nation in men’s tennis produced five semifinalists and all four finalists at the two ATP tournaments this week.  Their achievements were not shocking, since it is the clay season, but Roberto Carballes Baena did surprise with his semifinal run in Casablanca.  Never had Carballes Baena won a main-draw match before reeling off three main-draw victories, one against a seeded opponent.  He also battled much more experienced compatriot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez for nearly three hours in their semifinal.  In the final, Garcia-Lopez squared off against clay specialist Marcel Granollers, who played three of his four Casablanca matches against fellow Spaniards.  A superior player on clay, Granollers built an early lead but eventually succumbed to Garcia-Lopez in a minor upset. 

Two more familiar names contested another all-Spanish final this weekend in Houston.  Both Fernando Verdasco and Nicolas Almagro held top-four seeds at the only ATP clay tournament on American soil.  A series of upsets throughout the Houston draw spared each of them from facing a seeded opponent until the final.  In fact, Almagro played nobody but unseeded Americans (see below) until that stage.  While he had not won a title since 2012, Verdasco sought to end a four-year drought.  A straight-sets triumph snapped the lefty’s six-match losing streak in finals and sent him to Europe in high spirits.

First-time women’s finalists:  Last week, Charleston and Monterrey witnessed breakthroughs by Jana Cepelova and Jovana Jaksic.  That theme continued this week with Caroline Garcia and Camila Giorgi starring in Bogota and Katowice, respectively.  In the Bogota final, Garcia stunned top seed Jelena Jankovic to record her first victory over a top-10 opponent and first career title on the same day.  Garcia had reached a semifinal in Acapulco this February, so this result continued an upward trend.  The clay of Bogota seemed less suited to her hard-hitting game than the Acapulco hard courts, but the altitude may have compensated for the slow surface. 

The indoor hard court of Katowice, by contrast, offered Giorgi a setting designed for her high-risk offense.  She upset two top-20 opponents in Roberta Vinci and Carla Suarez Navarro, showing flashes of the shot-making prowess that carried her past Maria Sharapova at Indian Wells.  The Italian fell just one point short of matching Garcia’s title breakthrough, battling Alize Cornet to the brink in a 191-minute final.  While Giorgi might always lack the consistency to become a truly great player, she should keep Italian tennis entertaining after its veteran stars fade.

Unseeded Americans:  Plenty of gloom and doom surrounds the current state of American men’s tennis.  A refreshing respite arrived in Houston, though, where three unseeded home hopes reached the quarterfinals.  Each of them upset a seeded opponent of some note.  While Sam Querrey toppled former Houston champion Lleyton Hewitt, Jack Sock dominated another former Houston champion in towering server Ivo Karlovic.  But the most impressive upset may have belonged to Donald Young, who ousted clay specialist Juan Monaco in a three-set comeback. 

Querrey built on his result to reach his first clay semifinal in nearly four years, and his first semifinal on any surface since last August.  Since his ranking has dropped to world No. 82, this strong result in his last American tournament of the first half came at an ideal time. 

Alize Cornet:  A wildcard into Katowice reaped a significant reward for the Frenchwoman with her first hard-court title.  Cornet has dramatically improved her resilience this year, as she showed by twice winning matches this week after losing 6-0 sets.  The second of those turnarounds came against world No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska, playing before her home crowd.  Cornet avenged a loss to Radwanska at Indian Wells before weathering Giorgi’s assault in the final. 

Duds: 

Men’s top seeds:  Top-ranked American man John Isner saw his title defense in Houston come to a quick end at the hands of Dustin Brown.  The upset marked Brown’s first victory over a top-10 opponent, an impressive achievement at the age of 29.  For Isner, however, the setback spurred memories of his familiar fades during this time of the season, disappointing in view of his vow to improve consistency.

A finalist in Casablanca last year, Kevin Anderson fell in his first match there this year.  The 19th-ranked South African had returned to the only ATP tournament in his home continent as the top seed, buoyed by the momentum of an excellent North American spring.  Anderson’s early exit in Casablanca showed how swiftly the tide can turn when the season shifts to clay.

Agnieszka Radwanska:  Putting a semifinalist in this category might seem harsh.  But Katowice seemed tailor-made to give Radwanska an emotional boost:  a hard-court tournament in her home nation where she was the only top-15 player.  Unfortunately, the world No. 4 continued to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with her fifth loss to a player outside the top 15 in seven tournaments this year. 

All No. 2 seeds:  Sidelined by an illness, Gael Monfils never took the court in Casablanca.  The entertaining Frenchman may have been the most fortunate of the four No. 2 seeds in action, for the other three staggered to early exits.  Uneven results on clay, his favorite surface, continued for Tommy Robredo when he bowed out to Santiago Giraldo in Houston. 

Officially in free fall, Roberta Vinci has won just two matches in nine tournaments this year.  Katowice did its defending champion no favors in changing the surface from clay to hard courts.  The fiery Giorgi served Vinci a third-set bagel, one of the few indignities that she had been spared in 2014.

Although she reached an Indian Wells quarterfinal this spring, Sloane Stephens has lost in the opening round at only four of her last six tournaments.  The latest setback came in Bogota, where Stephens lost her fifth and sixth consecutive sets.  Clay is her worst surface, as it is with most Americans, but someone who reached the second week of Roland Garros last year could have produced a better effort.

Gilles Simon:  Seeking to qualify for an ATP 250 tournament on his worst surface seemed like a strange decision.  Simon did qualify for Casablanca (barely) but lost his first main-draw match to clay specialist Federico Delbonis, hardly a surprising result.  Ahead of the season’s busiest stretch, this extra mileage was unwarranted for a roadrunner who has struggled with chronic injuries.