By Nick Georgandis

Sunday's action gave tennis fans a dose of something that has been missing from the game for a long time - the charismatic, enthusiastic, contagious play of Janko Tipsarevic.

Sunday in the Davis Cup semifinals, the Tipsarevic who tennis fans fell in love with four years ago when he gutted out wins over Radek Stepanek and Tomas Berdych to deliver Serbia into the Davis Cup finals, where the Serbs upset France.

That victory set the upswing of Tipsarevic's career in motion. He won two titles - Moscow and Kuala Lumpur - the next season, his first two ever. He reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal that year too, and finished the season 54-26 after having never won more than 30 matches in a single season and cracked the Top 10 late in the season, playing in the Barclays as well.

Tipsarevic was ranked in the top 10 straight through 2012, recording a 57-28 record, and kicked off 2013 with a win at Chennai, suggesting he was ready for an even better season, despite turning 29 this past June.

Unfortunately, Chennai turned out to be the high water mark for Tipsarevic in tournament play so far this season. After winning there and advancing to the fourth round of the Australian Open, he was forced to retire from the tournament with a heel injury. He was 7-0 at that point in the young season. He's gone 12-19 since, dropping from eighth to 23rd.

But over the weekend, all of his fire and bluster was back, and he improved to really amazing 33-14 all-time in Davis Cup singles matches.
Hopefully this will be the kick in the pants that Tipsarevic needs to return to the top of his form, particularly because he'll be 30 next April, the age where men start to face the inevitable slide in prowess on court.