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Australian Open 2012 - Day 4 Blog

2012-01-20T01:51:00.005+10:00

It’s only the second round of the Australian Open, but somehow the halving of the draw seems to feel like a huge difference in terms of what match options I have to start the day. Today is ANZ Day, where ANZ give out more goodies to their customers, and I was kind of pissed off lining up to see that they were handing out free ground passes to any customers, considering that I had bought mine.

The line appeared to be relatively long, but they do quick bag inspections here at the Australian Open. I’m not even sure that they even check them properly, but who cares, I can get into the tennis quickly. Margaret Court Arena was packed today with Aussie tennis players in the line-up. No chance of getting into those matches. For me, it feels absolutely silly to be queuing up to watch players that I’m not really a huge fan of – Nishikori, Monfils? No, thanks. I would have really liked to experience the atmosphere in Margaret Court Arena for following an Australian player for once, but it was not to be.

Instead it was a day out in the smaller courts for the most part, cheering on, or watching more low profile players. I went out to see Philipp Petzschner, who was playing against Milos Raonic, one of those frequently hyped players. Petzschner’s probably the only player on tour to wear the long socks. I think he must have only recently started doing it this year, or either I can’t remember (a bit of Google research indicates he only started doing so in 2012). Both players approached this match in a very aggressive manner, ensuring that above all, they wouldn’t engage in any overly long rallies. I liked that Petzschner came into the net quite frequently, serving and volleying, and finishing many points up there.

Despite all the hype about Raonic, I’ve decided yet again that I’m really not at all interested in him. The way he approaches his game seems very 90s-esque, with the short rallies, big game, big forehand and risk taker attitude, not only for the sake of creating opportunities but to save energy. Perhaps it’s reminiscent of Pete Sampras, not that I have much memory of him. It’s more like what I’ve heard about him, from commentators. Petzschner is playing with a similar attitude of not trying to engage in any rallies, and I don’t like it. I like the generation of Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. Great shotmakers without compromising consistency. It just doesn’t look impressive to me, not being consistent, and playing like this clearly requires a strong reliance on serve to make up for all those cheap errors, so I’ve decided to switch courts to something else. Petzschner might have taken a set, but Raonic was the far more solid player, and also a better server so always looked to have the advantage, I thought.

I couldn’t get into Tipsarevic’s match, so I settled on watching Marcel Granollers playing against Frederico Gil. Not exactly the most appealing match on paper, but somehow the intimate view makes it all look more impressive, the way both players are competing hard, constructing their points and basically striking the ball impressively (within their limitations, that is). The first thing that stands out to anyone watching is the Granollers grunt. He basically grunts loudly on every shot, while not really doing anything special with the ball. It’s very misleading, because it makes it look like he is hitting the ball harder than he really is.

When I first walked into the match, Granollers was a break down, but he was still competing and trying very hard. Grunting loudly tends to give that impression, but also his body language was still very positive. Even when he went down two breaks, he was still quite enthusiastic about trying to get one of those breaks back! He did end up getting one break back, and I did enjoy watching his determination to get to every ball, even if it looks like the point has been practically lost. That’s the thing I have been surprised about these few days, how some players can get to a shot that they’ve only just managed to reach by slicing underneath it just before the end of its bounce, then somehow turn a point from an impossible losing position to end up winning it. It’s amazing. Granollers does that quite a lot, as he likes to get down low and dig balls back. He doesn’t give up on shots. Another example is seeing awesome defensive lobs that completely reset a point – another favourite of mine watching live tennis.

It felt like watching a claycourt match of patient point construction, using the angles frequently to open up the court, and finally coming into the net when there was an opportunity to. It also had that claycourt mentality of trying to outmanoeuvre opponents rather than hitting winners through them. It was enjoyable to watch. But it also meant that both players were somewhat limited in their shotmaking, not as capable of changing directions and going down-the-lines as the better players. Also, not that capable of changing the pace. Whenever they went down-the-line, it was often to move the ball around from side-to-side so it went much higher over the net, and was hit as a safe shot. Gil was clearly the more aggressive player of the two. The big difference in this match was Gil’s forehand which he can hit inside out extremely well, and also he can increase the pace on it.

Sometimes Granollers has the ability of adding an extra dimension to his game, by coming into the net and mixing things up, but it didn’t seem to work well for him here, and he got discouraged sticking to a more predictable game. When Gil leaked some errors in the second set, Granollers took advantage of it but Gil cleaned up his game late in the third set, just in time for the crucial part of the set. There were a lot of people coming and going in this match, just taking a peek than leaving, as if it were of no interest to them. Later on, there became a more vocal group of people supporting Gil. He noticed them, and started directing his fist pumps over there, which was nice, I thought.

Nearing the match’s completion, I headed out of Melbourne Park for a break. I can’t really understand the weather, or how it feels sometimes. When I arrived, I was sure it was a nice, cool day with a breeze, and it still was even walking around the grounds. But whenever I get to those showcourts, to those seats which have heat reflecting on them, then when I sit down and the sun seems to be going straight to my pants and heating them up, somehow it just gets much hotter. I walked along the river, and I was reminded, that the weather is actually perfectly fine outside. But it’s always worse in the stadium courts, on the seats, where the tennis is being played…

After the quick break, I went back into the grounds. I couldn’t get into Gasquet’s match, because it was full. I couldn’t get into Margaret Court Arena. If there are Australians playing, you can be sure that the stadium will end up being full. So I went to Court 6, to watch Dominika Cibulkova against Greta Arn. I wasn’t really interested in that. I was just waiting for Simon’s match against Benneteau to get underway. I wasn’t expecting that much of a wait, but there was so much choking and errors all over the place that they took ages to finish their match. It went to 10-8 in the third set. Finally Arn took it, when Cibulkova was in the lead so many times I think.

It was then time for Gilles Simon and Julien Benneteau to get on court. Two Frenchmen playing against each other. They walked out on court, almost walking right next to each other, whereas usually one is far in front or behind the other player when they get on court for matches. I found this match to be incredibly fascinating, since they probably know each other’s game inside out, so I would have found it hard to believe that the match would simply be a case of “I’m going to play my own game.”

As the match begun, both players were exchanging light rallies with each other, almost as if they were just practicing except hitting with better accuracy. Target practice perhaps. They were both hitting the ball incredibly soft, nowhere near as hard as they’re capable of. It was very strange. I tried to watch for the subtle changes of pace, or figure out what they were trying to achieve with this tactic. Well, for Simon, it probably wasn’t really a tactic, but what about what Benneteau was doing? He had probably played a practice set against him before and noticed that going all out aggressively wasn’t working.

It was funny, because early on, I wasn’t really sure what Benneteau or Simon were trying to do. Lull their opponents into sleep, or hit a crappy short ball to bring them to the net and hit the pass? The more I watched, the more I could see looking back that the first set was kind of a warm-up of things to come.

Benneteau wasn’t having enough success with this very, very careful aggression. Simon served for the first set, but couldn’t convert. That’s when Benneteau started stepping in on the backhand to take it earlier and hitting it down-the-line more often, coming into the net far more often, and I think that was basically the turning point of a match. Coming into the net doesn’t only change that aspect of the game, but it changes the baseline aspect too. Benneteau’s play from the baseline started to become more confident with clear intent, unlike Simon who primarily stuck on the baseline.

Simon started muttering a lot of things to his coach from midway in the second set onwards. I have no idea about what, but I can’t really understand what he would have to complain about. He could either just change what he’s currently doing, or just move on with it. I guess he could have been complaining that he was making too many errors (surely the worst thing for him!), even though he wasn’t making that many. But maybe it was a bit more than usual for his standards. From then onwards, I noticed that he was flattening out his forehand more, which was good.

He played such a good second set tie-break to start with. He put more penetration on his forehand, started hitting deeper and refused to give much opportunity for Benneteau to create anything. But Benneteau created a few chances for himself at the net, and Simon dumped a forehand into the net on a very long rally on set point. There was a choke from both players – a double fault from Benneteau on his first set point, and also a double fault from Simon late in the tie-break. But Benneteau also hit two aces/service winners in that crucial moment, and ended up going up two sets to love. The third set was a massive concentration lapse from him, then it was getting late and I really wanted to leave by then.

It was my first time watching a night match outside of Margaret Court Arena, and it certainly is a much more quiet experience out there. The lighting is poor outside of the court, so it’s dark near the stands and there is a lot of space around you, where you can see that not much is going on. There were birds flying around in the sky, and sometimes they would land on the court in changeovers. Ball kids had to chase them away. I could hear noise from everywhere. The support for Lleyton Hewitt in his match against Andy Roddick on Rod Laver Arena was probably most distracting of all. Then you could hear the noise from Troicki’s five setter, the umpires calling out scores everywhere. You just start to get this sense or feeling that everywhere else is more exciting than here, though I don’t think it necessarily was, it was just the impression.

After the first two sets, many people left their seats. I stayed until the end of the third set. I would be willing to bet that by the time they got to the fifth set, the atmosphere was probably dead and gone completely quiet. At the time I was there, it was sparsely populated, though it felt like everyone that was still left was cheering for Simon. They wouldn’t even clap when Benneteau hit a great approach and volley. I clapped for Benneteau. I don’t know why these sorts of things happen at the Australian Open. I just thought all good shots should be applauded. Granollers didn’t get much in his match either.

Australian Open 2012 - Day 3 Blog

2012-01-18T22:43:00.005+10:00

I’m back now from the Australian Open, procrastinating about writing a blog entry because I’m feeling so crazy, and full of a wide range of emotions. I just got back from watching the five set thriller between David Nalbandian and John Isner. Drama overload. I feel like how Nalbandian must have felt when he threw his racquet in disgust after losing the match that got away from him. I could have thrown a racquet myself to relieve some frustration.

I’m going to do things backwards here today. Let’s just get it out of the way, and while the drink I have in my hand is still taking some effect. I thought that Nalbandian’s performance today was one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen live from him, for several reasons, despite the result. He appeared to be highly motivated the whole time, and his brain was switched on, in thinking mode the whole time. He played purposeful tennis. He cared about every point he was playing, but it didn’t seem manufactured like he was trying to put his opponent off, or convince himself that he was doing great, like what the WTA players tend to do. Just a whole lot of little things here and there like assertive hand gestures and/or silent fist pumps. I get a very good view of that, from where I’m sitting in the third row.

There was a special atmosphere to this match. They both seemed very eager to win. I guess it started with Nalbandian’s first loss of serve in the first set, where he hit the ball to the other side of the court in the direction of where Isner was standing. Isner glanced at him, not at all impressed. The battle was on.

Isner didn’t appear to be too confident from the baseline to start with though. He avoided backhands like the plague and managed to turn them into forehands relatively often. He was hesitant to enter any long exchanges and therefore ended up prematurely coming to the net, only to get passed all the time. This was playing right into Nalbandian’s hands, who has awesome passing shots, particularly the forehand angle crosscourt which he used quite frequently and the lob. It didn’t matter if Nalbandian was on the run, stretching and just bunting back a slice. If he got another shot at it afterwards, he’d win the point - somehow.

With live tennis, all court exchanges are particularly fun to watch, and these rallies often contained rapid fire exchanges, running all over the court and nice touch from Nalbandian. I should also mention that in this match, the players managed to make an impressive three under-the-leg shots, and zero failed under-the-leg shots. Nalbandian won a lot of points with dropshots and lobs, and the touch that he possesses is 100 times better than Isner’s, who was an embarrassment everytime he hit a dropshot. Still I had a bad feeling that these dropshots could harm Nalbandian towards the end, just because in my own experience playing tennis, dropshots are absolutely awful if you play them too often, and that’s what ended up happening. (I once made a comeback from 4-0 down to beat someone who hit dropshot after dropshot). There was more to this though, as Isner was cramping in the fifth set.

I really enjoyed the first set, but in the second set, Isner smartened up his game, staying back on the baseline more often, and using his big forehand instead, which would be how I’d recommend him to play if I was coaching him. The outcome of the next few sets was heavily dependent on second serves and how frequently they’d need to rely on them, both from Isner and Nalbandian. I don’t think either of them had much success on second serves, but I don’t really know as I don’t have the access to statistics. Isner didn’t really get much of an upper hand in the rallies but he crushed Nalbandian’s second serve, particularly off the forehand.

Nalbandian’s shot selection and accuracy was a pleasure to watch. It was such a contrast to watching Del Potro earlier in the day, where power is first, and accuracy is second (and not always necessary). I love it when every shot he hits is purposeful and deliberate, and it requires a certain mindset and mental attitude that is not always present that day in his matches. Sometimes he only showcases it on big points in matches, but hardly ever on regular points, but here he did on a more regular basis.

On the big points, he’d step it up even more to a whole new level. I don’t remember which set it was. I think it was the second or third set where Nalbandian had to save break points. On the big point, he made every intention of ensuring that every shot he hit was to a safe spot where Isner couldn’t hurt him, to his backhand. He’d give it extra air over the net, to make sure that he wouldn’t miss it, then once when he had the opening, he’d pull the trigger down-the-line or follow it into the net. I thought that was a very interesting lesson on how to play a big point, how to make a calculated risk. Anyone that tells you that it’s all about being brave on a big point is making it sound all too simple. No matter how well Nalbandian is hitting the ball, it looks completely deliberate and smart, rather than just trying to crush a groundstroke. Again, watching Del Potro play earlier made that a bit more obvious than it would have already been.

Nalbandian winning the third set was also due to a slight lapse in concentration from Isner, in the opening game. He missed quite a lot of first serves, and made some ugly errors. The third set was highly competitive, with many closely contested games despite it eventually going to a tie-break. Isner’s serve was amazing in the tie-break. He got a free point off it every single time. Even Nalbandian stepped up his serve in the tie-break as well, getting more first serves in than usual, but Isner had one opportunity and he took it by going after Nalbandian’s serve to take the fourth set.

Nalbandian bounced back well in the fifth set to play some awesome tennis, the best of the match from him I thought. Knocking groundstrokes into corners and coming into the net to finish it off. Pretty much winning every rally in emphatic fashion. Isner was struggling physically early on, before the adrenaline started kicking in, and Nalbandian should have taken advantage of it. He had played so well, but just couldn’t get that one extra point when he needed it to convert it into a break. Isner continued to pounce on Nalbandian’s second serve. There was one game at 4-3 where Isner had chances to break, due to all those first serves missed, and Nalbandian managed to dig back some very aggressive returns to turn the points into his favour. Some of those break points he saved would have been just as good as the match points he saved against Hewitt last year. That was the point where I thought – it’s the fifth set but Nalbandian is moving better than he ever did to start with. I think because it was an important point, and he didn’t need to conserve energy anymore.

The fifth set started to really stress me out, because despite Nalbandian playing at such a high level early on, all it meant was that the set was building up to be a potential lost opportunity. Not converting on Isner’s physical problems at the start of the fifth set. After the first few games, the adrenaline started kicking in and Isner started moving better, and more importantly serving better. Then he got cramps after Nalbandian’s bathroom break (which I briefly wondered whether it was strategic or not). More evidence there that Nalbandian should be winning, but he wasn’t. Some people in the crowd were cheering for Marcos Baghdatis, during the break, who was meant to be playing afterwards. The longer the match went on, the noisier the crowd got, with shouting out comments and getting involved (the match was already a full house to start with).

After the cramping, Nalbandian started to win most baseline rallies, but as the point got more important, the more effort Isner summoned from within himself to manage to serve an ace. That’s the dangerous thing about cramping opponents. They can appear to be so wounded, but whenever it gets more important, they put in more effort, they get themselves through the pain barrier and run anyway. Isner served the aces when he needed to, and he ran enough when he needed to. He anticipated Nalbandian’s dropshots to break serve to win the match, and he ran far more than he did on a less important point. Those dropshots and lobs might have won Nalbandian the first set, but it was his undoing in the final set.

Nalbandian played all the big points well, but there was one which he choked away at 8-8 on break point. If there was one point I’d look back on, it’d be that one where he set up the point completely in his control, probably thought he would win it about 5 shots in before he even hit the final backhand. He had a crosscourt backhand to get Isner out of position and hit it long by several metres. He eventually got to break point after that, and that was where the drama began of the umpire overruling the service fault and then Nalbandian taking too long, and eventually not being able to challenge it. Regardless of whether that was a poor decision or not, perhaps Nalbandian had it coming to him, with the way he has been treating challenges over the years. Throughout the match, I saw him putting up his finger several times and glancing around, only for it not to end up being a challenge. It’s very confusing. I don’t think it was even necessarily a factor in his loss of serve in the next game. He didn’t play it that horribly – just not strategically well, with those dropshots.

So that was the end of the match, and there was no way I was staying to watch Marcos Baghdatis without taking a single break or getting out of my seat. Going to the Australian Open by yourself sucks, in that you can’t leave at all for certain matches, otherwise you’ll lose your seat. I already stayed there without leaving for 5 hours or so, so it was definitely time to go home.

Before that, I watched some of Francesca Schiavone’s match against Romini Oprandi, the battle of the Italians. It was nice to see women’s players hitting with topspin, rather than everything so flat and one-dimensional. It is easier to generate angles when hitting with topspin. This could have been better than it was, but Schiavone was shanking her backhand all over the place. She does have a massive windup on the shot, and it looked like it was causing her problems. She hit three shanks to lose the match in the second set.

The first proper match of the day I watched was between Juan Martin Del Potro and Blaz Kavcic. This is the second time now that I’ve watched Del Potro where he’s started off the match by shanking forehands. It seems like it takes him a while to properly warm up on the shot, before finding some form, because of his huge preparation. Del Potro is such a heavyweight. His groundstrokes are so impressive. He thumps every shot, but is it really as impressive as it looks? It’s true that the average groundstroke of Del Potro is better than the average groundstroke of Kavcic, but Del Potro really wasn’t making the best of his ground game here. Instead, he relied on his raw, natural ability to hit the ball hard, and that because his average shot was better than Kavcic’s, he was more likely to win a baseline rally.

The match in the first set had a familiar feeling to it, the same feeling that I get watching Del Potro on TV, thinking, ‘wow, that was a great shot’, only for the rally to extend so many more shots with more of the same thing. So why is it that Del Potro hits all these great shots, but his opponents get them back, and he has to keep repeating the same thing over and over? It’s a nice display of patience, but he’s not following it up well. Surely he could make use of the net at some stage. I don’t think he made it there at all during the match. Kavcic would have done better if he didn’t double fault so much.

Also, Del Potro’s accuracy seemed to get worse as the match went on. It could be because he made a few too many errors to start with, and became discouraged that his accuracy was very poor in the second set. Kavcic had an early break on Del Potro, but leaked too many errors towards the end of the set. He picked up his game in the second set. I really liked Kavcic’s attitude. He appeared to be completely determined to chase after every shot, and to hang with Del Potro (whereas Nalbandian and Isner were being much more selective about which shots to chase after). In the second set, Kavcic started grunting louder which got many people imitating him and finding it all amusing. It really wasn’t a good match from Del Potro at all. I left after Del Potro took a two sets to love lead, as I really needed to get a break from the heat at some point during the day.

Australian Open 2012 - Day 2 Blog

2012-01-18T00:35:00.015+10:00

I don’t really seem to notice much anymore nowadays at Melbourne Park. This year was the first year that I really felt like the surroundings were incredibly familiar, about as close as can be to returning to a second home for me, considering that I don’t really have a second home. I try to look around to see what draws my attention, but nothing does really.

I walk to Melbourne Park these days rather than taking the ridiculously crowded tram, and walk through the ANZ queue, where if they happen to be your bank of choice, then you can get in far quicker than anyone else. If you’re an ANZ customer, you could also get a free ride on those pedestrian bikes, or whatever you call them, but I haven’t managed to ask for one yet.

After an incredibly quick journey into the Melbourne Park grounds, I've decided to watch Richard Gasquet play against Andreas Seppi. I hadn’t seen Gasquet for ages, so I don’t really know what has been going on with him lately. I wasn’t really sure what to expect except that at least maybe the tennis would look pretty, even if not all that great.

I started watching with Seppi up a break at 2-1, which is where it all started to go downhill for him from that point on. Seppi is supposed to be a consistent player, but he missed far too many shots overhitting while not really having a proper plan on how to win points.

Watching Seppi play, it probably takes a huge mental and physical effort to keep up that tennis that he plays, not possessing any reliable shot to win points quickly. Pretty much the only weapon Seppi has is that angled off-forehand that he likes to use to open up the court, but that requires many repeated forehands to get the right result. He’s surely got to enter matches thinking, ‘I’ve got to be patient. I’ve got to be prepared to stay on court all day rallying.’ Just that idea would probably be enough to depress me, and to completely self-destruct in the match.

Okay, so Seppi did self-destruct a bit to start with. It was as if he was caught in two minds as to what he should do, so he’d miss these shots trying to do something with the ball but without really going for it. Throughout the match, I hardly saw Seppi inject any change of pace. If he can’t do it, then that’s a huge disadvantage, because so many other players can hit the ball harder than he does. Gasquet kind of went along with him, and they both exchanged medium paced rallies, while also displaying extremely poor accuracy. I do like consistency, but I wasn't impressed with Gasquet hitting the majority of his shots several metres or more away from the lines (my knowledge of metres from my viewing distance is too terrible to make a good estimate). He has this weapon that he's famous for: the backhand, but what good was it when he rarely had the guts to go for it down-the-line? I am guessing that this shot started to pop up more in the fourth set though, when I disappeared.

So Gasquet won the first set through being more consistent, and through a very brief moment of nice transition play after going a break up. They both struggled with their serves, and I’m pretty sure Gasquet’s serving was much worse than I could remember in past matches watching him live. He used to be able to get more cheap points on his first serve. Maybe that will pick up again sometime.

Seppi cleaned up his game in the second set, while Gasquet continued to play tentatively. Gasquet appeared to have continual problems trying to bring out that confident side of him. I only saw glimpses of it in the first two sets. I kept hoping that it would start to come out eventually, but it was such a slow and gradual process that it was frustrating and painful to watch. When Gasquet increases the pace of his shots and hits through the ball, like he does occasionally in this match, it is so much easier for him to finish off points, and gives him many more options. To finish off points at the net, open up the court, etc.

He didn’t really appear to be enjoying himself I thought. He does generally wince quite a lot anyway, or perhaps it’d be more accurate to call it a twitch. But it did give the overall impression that he was basically battling it out for the win, and the only reaction that he would get once completed would be a sense of relief that it was all over. I didn’t stay for the end of the match, since it was quite a frustrating match, so I can only imagine what happened in the end.

I meant to watch Youzhny’s match, but I thought it was on the wrong end of the grounds near Hisense Arena, so while I was already there, I decided to watch Janko Tipsarevic play against Dmitry Tursunov. There were heaps of people wearing shirts supporting Serbia, Serbian flags, there was a tiny group of Serbian supporters there, yet not really a whole lot of cheering. I wasn’t even sure whether Tipsarevic was pleased with his small band of supporters, since I think they were the main reason why Carlos Ramos kept reminding the crowd to only make noise after the point had been completed.

By the way, it wasn’t very nice of them to put Tipsarevic, a new top 10 player into a tiny little court like that, though admittedly there were even a few spare seats. I sat on this very nice seat which was directly in line with where the players are generally standing / moving when on the baseline. Whenever Tipsarevic was on that side, I had a great view of his wild, athletic movements. He throws himself into every shot, whether defensively or offensively, bending down low to hit low backhands, getting up high to hit high backhands. The majority of players would probably only have one backhand that they’d try to replicate all the time, while Tipsarevic improvises, slides and stretches to the ball. It’s awesome to watch, and also looks like an injury waiting to happen, because the movements aren’t predictable or following some sort of textbook action. There was one entertaining point where Tipsarevic was defending every shot of Tursunov’s as if his life depended on it, where I thought, wouldn’t this just be perfect if the match continued like that? (even though Tipsarevic is also excellent at being aggressive)

Unlike the previous match, both players maintained an aggressive mindset here. What changed from time to time here was their mindset on errors. Sometimes they were very generous with their errors, then when the important points came, they’d try to focus a little harder to make sure they wouldn’t lose the point with a stupid error. The second set tie-break was the epic point of the match. Tursunov must have had around three set points to take a two sets to love lead, and if he had played one of those points equally as well as how he played to save set points or keep the tie-break going, then he would have won the set.

During the all-important second set, there were three cute little kids leaning over the net during the tie-break, saying things and putting up their banners. They pointed at the balls when Tursunov went to get one, but Tursunov kept his
concentration and didn’t look at them once. Tipsarevic was possibly struggling with the heat, pouring water over his head on many changeovers, and his movement generally became less explosive after the second set. He took an injury timeout at the start of the third set for a foot problem. His foot was already taped up.

Tursunov basically looks like a very well-trained tennis player. There is not much creativity or natural flair in his game. It just looks like he has spent a lot of hours bashing tennis balls to the point where he can make ball-bashing look like regular rallying. It’s impressive in a way, especially since Tursunov doesn’t just get his power off being big and tall. His forehand is the major weapon particularly hitting it inside out. Tursunov played a good match here. He just didn’t play the big points well enough. He could have so easily gone up two sets to love.

It had been a long day of tennis, so I kind of went on a mental walkabout for a while. I was standing and watching Radek Stepanek’s match against Nicolas Mahut, and Stepanek just fell over on his hand while getting wrong-footed. It looked painful at first, he called the trainer, but I don’t know whether it was one of those things that get painful then you can recover from afterwards. He seemed to be lacking the usual feel on his shots though. Mahut continued to put the pressure on Stepanek. I didn’t expect much from Mahut given his current form, but he played his usual game of being aggressive and serving-and-volleying. I think the plan worked well. Stepanek wasn’t allowed to dictate or control what he wants to do in the match. Therefore he looked pretty average, though he did make far more errors than usual. Maybe some were forced, some were not. I can’t say I was really paying full attention though. Everyone has lapses of concentration, not just the players…

But of course concentration returns for the more eagerly awaited match-ups, such as the night session on Margaret Court Arena between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Denis Istomin. Watching Istomin play in Brisbane was the first time I was able to gain appreciation of him as a dangerous floater, and the main reason for this is just because he hits the ball incredibly hard and appears to have no noticeable weaknesses. He has a big serve, an excellent backhand which he isn’t afraid of taking up the line, and the forehand is also capable of doing damage. The night match confirmed that Istomin indeed does have a lot of weapons, and he even possesses a nice all-court game which wasn’t apparent until late in the second set.

Prior to the start of the match, there was a buzz and air of excitement surrounding Margaret Court Arena, the kind of atmosphere I had not yet seen before this year. When people come to see Tsonga, they expect to be entertained. Whereas for other players, they simply come to watch the match, and nothing more. The stadium was packed from the start of play. I managed to grab myself a front row spot, after someone left at the completion of the Kuznetsova match. When Tsonga started the match with a jump smash, the crowd erupted in a way not yet seen before. Tsonga is clearly perfect for the Margaret Court Arena night match slot.

After a while, the crowd settled into the match, realizing that this might not be as much of the Tsonga show as they thought it would be. Tsonga can be unique and exciting, but he primarily approached this match by staying on the baseline, trying to establish control with his serve and forehand. I’ve certainly seen him play better before. From this view, I can see that Tsonga has a good kick second serve, which moves around unpredictably after its bounce and can be difficult to return, at least more so than many other players.

The match was a showcase of impressive power and consistency, both players getting into extended rallies while playing aggressively. I kept hoping that Tsonga would step it up another level, bringing out the killer forehand and moving in forwards, but it didn’t really happen until Istomin did exactly what I thought Tsonga would do late in the second set. I really like all-court tennis, so I started to enjoy the match a lot more. I like great shots to be taken advantage of, and constructed to completion, rather than getting ruined and lost in the middle of a long rally. Apart from that, it also looks clever, like a series of intentional shots strung together to get the right result.

Once Istomin started playing better, Tsonga also rose to the challenge, suddenly needing to make more urgent shot selections, or needing to hit passing shots. One advantage that Tsonga has over Istomin is that he can generate much better angles on the forehand, and he was able to use this to open up the court. In the last few games of the fourth set, there were some awesome exchanges containing dropshots, lobs, angled running shots, and there was one dive volley in there. This was exactly what the crowd had come to see.

Istomin must have won himself some fans too, even though some of them probably came to cheer for him originally just to balance out the huge amount of Tsonga fans out there. Serving to stay in the match, there were so many people cheering for Denis. There were also a huge amount of people cheering whenever Tsonga took his shirt off.

I’d say Istomin’s peak form was somewhere during the end of the second set to early in the third set, then the errors started creeping up and his choices to approach the net became more suspect. There were a few moments of self-destruction towards the end. Tsonga served a double fault and made a horrible error to lose serve when serving for the match, then Istomin gave away about three points on his serve to lose the match. Still, people stood up clapping when the match was done, in appreciation of what they had seen that night. It was a good, challenging first round match. Istomin put in a great performance for the most part. Tsonga needed to raise his level, and he did.

By the way, I don’t have any photos because I forgot to bring my USB cable that connects my camera to my laptop. It will have to come later, I suppose.

Australian Open 2012 - Day 1 Blog

2012-01-16T23:51:00.003+10:00

I swear I’m going to make better match selections. When I look back on what matches I chose to watch today, I’ll probably never understand myself. But they were spontaneous decisions based on a number of factors, such as timing and which matches were in their best stage to start following. For example, I avoided matches where match had gone underway and the first set was very one-sided. I’ll come up with a different formula, based more on what players I want to watch, and forget about the rest.

It was a relatively underwhelming day in Melbourne Park. I guess this is the result of watching one-sided tennis, patchy play and not a whole lot of top players. I started off with Lukasz Kubot and Nicolas Almagro, from early in the third set. Well, I was originally going to watch Mardy Fish, but walked in and saw that Daniela Hantuchova was playing. She just shouted ‘Come on’ about six times in two games, which I thought was horrible, then I headed off.

Kubot is probably one of the most aggressive players you’ll see on the tour. He’s tall and strong, and takes advantage of it as much as possible by leaning in, and putting all of his body weight into his shots, which also allows for easy transitions into the net within a few steps. His volleys are excellent. Because of his massive reach, he can finish a lot of points up there that many other people wouldn’t be able to.

The key difference was Almagro’s serve, because he was winning a lot of cheap points on his first serve, whereas Kubot’s was much more unreliable. It’s a very simple, fluid service action. It’s amazing how much he gets off it.

Due to Kubot’s aggressive play, he frequently dominated what would happen in this match either winning or losing points. He was going for broke almost all the time when returning serve. In the end, Kubot had something like 55 errors while Almagro had 11. It’s very rare that an unforced error count is that lopsided while the match is still relatively close. It was fitting that Kubot’s errors would cost him the match. One thing I’ve noticed is that Almagro tends to shout ‘Vamos’ quite passionately. It makes me feel his emotion… for a brief while.

Not really sure what to do next, I ended up going to see Stanislas Wawrinka play against Benoit Paire, or in other words to watch Benoit Paire self-destruct and make huge amounts of errors. Maybe he was injured though, as he did take an injury time-out in the second set. When I first started watching, I thought it was funny seeing Paire trying to slide around the court, probably completely ruining his shoes in the process. I don’t know how much he does that normally. I don’t know whether I stopped paying attention, or that he didn’t do it anymore afterwards. It obviously became less appealing once he was losing by huge amounts.

The other thing about Paire was that he was running around his forehand to hit backhands frequently. There was one shot which was clearly on the forehand side where he elected to hit a backhand! His backhand’s not even that great, just reliable. The way he was hitting the ball and his movement was very, very upright like he didn’t want to bend down at all. Maybe it was related to his injury.

The court was surprisingly quite full for this match. People were probably just waiting for Baghdatis. Wawrinka was hitting the ball quite hard and striking the ball well, but the whole time I was watching this match, I was thinking of leaving, and so I did after watching a set and a half. Sometimes I want to watch just enough so I can blog about it – what an idiot.

I went on to watch Bernard Tomic’s comeback against Fernando Verdasco on the big screen, which was awesome. All those down-the-line winners in the fourth set and clever slice backhands. In the fifth set, Verdasco started to open up the court better moving the ball around from side-to-side and not getting caught up with Tomic’s slice backhand all the time. But I really loved that match point where Tomic slowly rallied with Verdasco then hit that slice backhand down-the-line only to open up the obvious forehand winner down-the-line. It totally captured how Tomic had made his comeback in the match, by creating those little openings for those down-the-line shots then nailing them.

I just went randomly walking after that, caught a very short player in the corner of my eye, then realized that it was Olivier Rochus. Took a look closer then noticed two short players! The other one was Bjorn Phau. I stood there for a while evaluating whether I should watch the match. These guys have very aesthetically pleasing one-handed backhands, so that was a positive point. They also have great point construction and movement, though Rochus would definitely be better at point construction. His accuracy is great to watch. Rochus was grunting very loudly as if to make a strong point that he was trying very hard here.

This match really could have been a very entertaining match, had the match been like the first few games that I watched. But the rest were awful, just because Phau was awful. He was making a large amount of inexplicable errors of trying to hit the ball hard down the middle then missing. He shouldn’t be trying to play aggressively when he isn’t even doing anything with the ball. Maybe he had an injury, because I did see him bend over one point feeling out his leg muscles. I kept watching for longer than I should have, wishing that it would get better.

But after Rochus went up a break in the third set, I had a look at the fifth set of Donald Young’s match against Peter Gojowczyk. Switching over from Rochus’ match to this, it all seemed so unprofessional technically and mentally, but then again they were in the fifth set and probably spent. I think all that happened was that Young was serving terribly, so Gojowczyk took advantage of it by going up a service break and making a few backhand down-the-line winners. But being up a break was too much for him and he surrendered it straight away with some terrible errors, then Young picked up his serving and won comfortably after that, while Gojowczyk self-destructed. I would have never guessed that Gojowczyk was German, couldn’t really understand why he was getting an ‘Auf gehts’ in there by a supporter.

After a long day of having to deal with the annoying hot weather, it was good to finally get to the night session where David Nalbandian played against Jarkko Nieminen. Based on the quality of players, this match really should have been better than the other ones, and so it was at least in terms of consistency. I really enjoyed watching the players battle it out, as it seemed like there was no easy or reliable way to win points here.

I enjoyed watching Nalbandian’s awesome angles, dangerous enough to guarantee winning the point and being able to open up the court on the next shot, whereas many other players could hit a backhand crosscourt yet not really get anywhere near a point-ending shot. It just goes to show how a little difference makes a big difference, though that is also because Nalbandian is quite good at following up his most effective shots into the net.

Apart from that, it also surprised me how sometimes Nalbandian could come up with these spectacular shots from a losing position in a point, which would allow him to turn a rally that he looked almost certain to lose back into his favour. He can create those same trademark angles even from the defensive. Nalbandian was down break points on his serve at 3-3, then he saved them with some good play, then somehow that elevated level continued on to Nieminen’s service game where he broke serve and served it out.

Nieminen had some injury issues in the second set. It probably affected his serve more than the rest of his game. The rallies were still competitive, though Nalbandian’s consistency had gone down in the second set, which was probably what contributed to the close scoreline. It was such a shame that it ended in a retirement since I didn’t want the match to end. It was a good matchup which allowed me to see plenty of rallies, since neither of them had dominant serves.

Wednesday second round action in Brisbane

2012-01-05T07:45:00.003+10:00

It’s clear that the Brisbane International has grown in popularity over the years. It’s great for the tournament, and nice to see such huge support and interest for tennis here in Brisbane, but as a spectator, it can be such a pain. I hadn’t really found myself thinking about the good old days in the past, but today I found myself flashing back into time an awful lot, thinking of how back then, I could have sat anywhere I wanted to on an outside court, as long as there was still play going on in Pat Rafter Arena. Whenever you sit on small outside courts, there are always plenty of crappy seats, particularly anything that is blocked by an umpire's seat. Whenever I pick seats, it is always my main criteria - just anywhere without the umpire's seat in the way, please.

To accurately reflect the special circumstances under which I watched these matches, I decided to take accurate photos, rather than ideal photos. I could have of course zoomed in very closely, moved the camera up to avoid heads, waited for the players to be in the right position of the court to get the best shot. But photos are supposed to capture experiences, aren’t they, so I went for the more realistic choice.

Transport is always more relaxing when there’s nothing exciting on the schedule to start the day with, so I timed my arrival pretty well to get there close to the start of play. In the line-up, they were handing out free newspapers to everyone, which is a good deal. Almost everyone took one, but scanning around stadiums and seating areas all day, I hardly noticed anyone reading one. I guess it was all eyes on the tennis today.

I had some unfinished business to do from Monday. I went over to Tennis Central, as they call it, the entertainment area down the stairs. Before walking down the stairs, I stopped for a moment to take a look at what it looks like from higher up. It’s just funny how these things can appear to be more appealing to the eye the further away it is. As I walked down the stairs, the footing appears to be unstable and it’s clear that everything has been temporarily set up here. Nothing wrong with that, as it makes complete sense, but I was highly amused by the design of the pathways which lead to nowhere, so you have to walk through the artificial grass to get through to the dining area.

After taking a bit of time to figure out where to walk, I headed back to Pat Rafter Arena to watch Gilles Simon play against James Duckworth. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about that. End with Gilles Simon on Monday, start with him on Wednesday. If I didn’t know him any better, I could have thought that Simon looked like he just got out of bed. I was sitting in the back row, so there are some things I can’t see. But even from this far away, it’s easy to see Simon casually strolling around in between points. I wonder what it would be like trying to cheer him on, as a coach or fan. I wouldn’t bother to, because he doesn’t really look like he’d be bothered to step it up another level, unless if he was clearly losing.

From this view, I couldn’t really see what Duckworth looks like, so I’ve kind of made up a picture in my mind based on what I can see. I don’t have the ability to make up new faces, so I’ve decided that he looks like Sam Querrey without the cap from far away, and maybe made him look a bit more attractive or regular looking. From the start of the match, he looked very keen on putting in a good performance here. I liked the scorching forehand return winner in the first game. He broke serve in the first game, but it went downhill from there. He was the more aggressive player, and more adventurous in terms of shot selection, but the errors cost him the set, and perhaps he wasn’t really capable enough to try pulling off playing at this level, not that I would know.

As the match wore on, I started to lose interest. Simon was up an early break in the second set, though I did notice by the time I left that he was leaking more errors than usual. For such a one-sided match, it would have been nice if Simon could have shown more of his abilities, but he was as predictable as ever. Not taking a commanding position in the match, letting his opponent have a chance.

Sitting in the back row has a larger amount of distractions than anywhere else where the stadium is closed off from the outside. From here, I can smell food from the outside, which is a problem near lunch time. I can hear the sound of the Nova radio announcers who read out the schedule of play every 15 minutes or so. I can hear the sound of coffee being made. I decided I didn’t care anymore about the outcome, and the smell was luring me away, so I left for an early lunch break. The crowd erupted soon afterwards as Duckworth broke back.

It was not a great day for me. I spent much of the day being tired and distracted, and hardly ever getting a good seat. With Tommy Haas’ withdrawal, the court scheduling had been changed to move some Court 1 matches to Court 2. One of them being Radek Stepanek’s match against Jarkko Nieminen (see the photo for an idea of the crappy view I had to watch this match on). This match looked potentially interesting on paper, but the match-up wasn’t as interesting as I thought it might be. Stepanek didn’t mix it up all that much in the first set, resembling too much of a normal player for my liking. I tried to look closer, but as far as I could see, there wasn’t anything particularly clever in his play, a bit disappointing for such a deliberate player (he usually does everything for a reason). Nieminen hits the ball harder from the back of the court than from what I would have thought watching on television. He swings right through his backhand and gets a huge amount of racquet head speed on it.

Nieminen doesn’t look particularly expressive on his face, but he was frequently hitting balls into places in between points, throwing his racquet around, nothing too extreme for the most part. It’s very strange, because it feels like it’s coming from nowhere. About to lose the second set, he smashed a ball into the back fence without looking where he was going and nearly took out a ballkid. It doesn’t seem right that he gets a code violation for that, while Petzschner gets the same code violation for hitting a ball into the roof/court cover.

The second set, Stepanek was playing more intelligently, following up certain shots into the net. They weren’t noticeable net approaches. They didn’t come from completely opening up the court, so it must have taken a good eye and quick reactions to be able to pull off that kind of play. Nieminen was making a ton of errors, and watching live, it looks more appropriate that he would because he doesn’t hit the ball as safely as a lot of other players. It’s not as controlled and restrained.

Having watched that match with the umpire chair in the way for the most part, I was happy to be able to move on to watching Philipp Petzschner’s match against Santiago Giraldo. Surely with Jelena Jankovic playing at the same time, this would allow some additional comfort and breathing room in the stands. I arrived early with some women’s doubles still going on, and there’s this person sitting next to me taking an awful lot of photos of Carla Suarez Navarro sitting down cheering them on. I don’t know, it just looks a little stalkerish, though had I spotted someone I liked, I might have done the same thing.

I was a bit excited about watching Petzschner play. It’s always interesting to watch unique players live, or to have something in particular you can concentrate on, or notice. Giraldo on the other hand, is not one of those kinds of players. I watched him a few years ago, and I still can’t really recognise what he looks like, or the technique on any of his shots. But I did notice that he seems to have improved since then, and his forehand appears to be more of a weapon than it used to be.

Petzschner was fun to watch in the beginning. But you can tell he has a limited skillset. His game clearly revolves around his serve and forehand. His serve is huge. You can tell just from the sound that comes off his racquet, when he serves. His backhand slice floats across the court more so than the majority of players. Whether this is a positive thing or not, I don’t really know, but it looks artistic. Whenever he hits a forehand, he steps right into it, almost as if he was hitting an approach shot all the time. He doesn’t appear to have anywhere near the same level of consistency as most other players, as in, he doesn’t even attempt to have it. He prefers to play recklessly. Players hit to his backhand frequently. He slices it patiently crosscourt almost every time, and it’s like whenever he gets a forehand, he’s been waiting so long to get one, that he needs to rip it even if there isn’t any space in the court to justify doing it.

The matchup here wasn’t a good one. Clearly Petzschner’s slice backhand wasn’t being hit well enough, because Giraldo had plenty of time to run around and hit a forehand on the majority of them, while hardly making any errors. A player’s strength versus a player’s weakness. It’s clear to see who would win this battle.

After an underwhelming day of tennis, I decided to watch one more match, a rematch of last year’s match between Alexandr Dolgopolov and Igor Andreev, in very different weather conditions. Considering that I found it very hard to stay awake the previous match, it was probably helpful that I had a very strange older couple sitting next to me, who were commenting on everything. The lady was cheering for Dolgopolov so that she could watch more of the match, though it took her quite a while to figure out how to pronounce it, and what his first name was. Her husband cheered for Andreev, as a response to every time she yelled out, ‘come on Alex!’ Once they got into the third set, they switched roles, since the wife wanted the match to continue while the husband wanted it to finish. The husband kept saying, ‘More power, Igor!’ in this weird voice.

I also had to look through a fence for most of the match, since it was completely packed. It was nice to see two interesting players play against each other, something to admire from both sides. I started watching from late in the first set, and Andreev was definitely playing better than what I had seen from him in the past live. Clearly, winning in the qualies has given him some confidence in the main draw.

Andreev’s forehand is so much fun to watch live. It might appear to be one-dimensional on TV, but it just never stops getting exciting live. It draws gasps from the crowd, it looks and sounds like it’s dangerous enough to take anyone out, but it’s probably easier to defend against it than you would think. Or at least Dolgopolov’s backhand held up pretty well against it. Towards the end of the first set, Andreev was on this roll where he would hit all these forehands which were still in mid-air for the most part, until dropping right on the baseline at the last minute making it very difficult to return.

I was reminded again of how Dolgopolov is exciting to watch live as well, with his very energetic game and how he likes to mix it up constantly. Though in this match, it was Andreev doing most of the dictating. He should have won the match on his first match point, but he misfired a forehand long, while the rest of the tie-break seemed to be filled with tense moments containing long rallies, big forehands and excellent defending from Dolgopolov. Once Andreev had lost his opportunity, his game went downhill in the third set, playing nowhere near as consistently as he did when I first started watching. Occasionally he was still a threat to break back, but he couldn’t convert, so Dolgopolov went on to win the match.

Another Year at the Brisbane International - Monday's Play

2012-01-02T23:05:00.013+10:00

It’s New Year’s Day holiday here in Brisbane, and I’m pretty sure the crowd attendance figures I saw today were the biggest I’ve personally seen since the tournament began in Brisbane. They had a Kids Day initiative going on today, where kids 16 and under can get into the grounds for free, play mini-tennis on Centre Court in between matches, have access to more tennis games and entertainment than the standard amount and also get a free information pack, which presumably includes information on how to join a tennis club. I think it’s a nice initiative.

It’s always a familiar feeling coming back to the Brisbane International every year. In the past every time I’ve come back, it has looked exactly the same, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that this year they’ve made a few upgrades. In particular, the much-needed shade covers above the temporary stands on the two showcourts have been added, which will surely increase the popularity of the tournament. Also, they have doubled the amount of seats on Showcourt Two making it the second biggest court outside of Pat Rafter Arena. They’ve also expanded the entertainment area, which I didn’t really get the chance to check out because I didn’t notice it until after I left.

Attending the Brisbane International is still a must-see event for me years later, despite my regular Australian Open attendances each year. It’s a chance to see what Brisbane, the community is like, what our interest in tennis is like, etc. Also, since I happen to know many people who play tennis, I usually wonder how many people I will see that I know. Today’s count: 3. Though considering there were huge crowds, there were probably heaps of people that I just didn’t see.

Anyone that has been following the blog over the years will tend to know that if Florian Mayer plays in an event that I am going to, I am probably going to blog on it. I have had some very fond memories following Mayer over the years in Australia. I guess this match against Denis Istomin, probably wouldn’t rank up there with one of them. Though I didn’t really think it was one of his horror matches either. Maybe the first three or four games were horrible, but I’d put that down to rust.

First of all, I’ll backtrack to where I was standing. I woke up this morning with a really cool idea. I thought, I’m going to try something new and different. I’m going to stand and lean over the fence to watch Mayer today. I started to get really excited about it, as this kind of closeness is impossible to experience at the Australian Open so it was something that needed to be done today. I’ve got memories doing the same thing, watching Alexandr Dolgopolov and his dropshots from last year, while leaning over a fence. Once I’ve got an idea in my head, it’s pretty hard to get rid of it, because I might think that I’m chickening out if I don’t do it.

So I looked behind on the grassed area and everyone that is on it is sitting down, trying to watch tennis by peering through the fence. Those that don't want to peer through the fence, are of course on the other side. There are still some spare seats over there, if they'd prefer to have a better view. There’s no sign that says, no standing up here on this side of the fence, so I figured I should be right. However, further analysis of the situation and seeing that no one else has stood up against the fence the entire day shows to me, that maybe I was being rude, inconsiderate, etc. I do remember that this was normal behaviour when watching Gael Monfils two years ago though.

It would have been a perfect opportunity to personally cheer on Mayer, however I became too much of a nervous wreck being the centre of attention as it was, to the point where it was a bit hard to concentrate and appreciate the match. I was the only one standing one side leaning against the fence. I will not do it again.

As for the match, the first five games or so were dominated by serve, with both players not really finding their rhythm on both sides. Though I’m keeping myself busy looking at the little details, like Istomin’s smooth service motion, how low over the net and slow in pace Mayer’s slice backhand is, how amazingly hard Istomin hits his double-handed backhand. I think Istomin hits his backhand harder than his forehand.

The crowd are slow to react to clapping on some points, and whenever a winner comes out of nowhere, the crowd don’t notice it quickly enough to clap it compared to a rally where a player has opened up one side of the court and hit a winner the next shot. Based on that theory, you can tell that a lot of Mayer’s crosscourt forehand winners come out of nowhere, because hardly anyone would ever clap them.

As the scoreline suggested, the match was completely even the whole first set until the tie-break. Mayer was flashy at times, but not as consistent as he can be on his better days, and perhaps his movement was not at his best either. His forehand was much improved after a poor start, but his backhand was inconsistent. He missed two crosscourt backhands wide to lose the tie-break from 4-5 (on serve). Istomin was up 5-0 in that tie-break at some point, but lost some concentration after the huge lead.

Istomin was composed and reasonably consistent throughout the match considering how flat and hard he hits it, and he took his game to another level in the tie-break. The best point was definitely the third point in the tie-break, when Istomin nailed two double-handed backhand crosscourt shots that looked like winners, and would have been winners if Mayer had been moving like he did in the rest of the set. I just remember thinking at the time, how funny it is that they stepped it up for the tie-break.

From early on in the second set, Mayer started muttering a few comments to his coach or whoever it was, which was probably the only thing that made me suspect that maybe an injury concern was there. Not to mention that after that, in the next few points, he didn’t make much of an effort to move as if to prove a point. It’s always hard to tell the difference between negativity and injury. But one thing was sure. Based on that body language, he seemed like the clear underdog. Yes, that is what you can do when watching live tennis. Make a prediction on a match purely based on how a player is walking, or how many hand signals they’re making. So Mayer retired soon afterwards at 6-7(5) 3-2. Perhaps the fact that he didn’t call the trainer indicates that he already knows a bit about his injury.

After taking a short break, I headed into Pat Rafter Arena to watch Serena Williams play against Chanelle Scheepers. The last time I saw Serena play, I wasn’t exactly paying attention, so this time I felt I was better able to appreciate the experience. I really like watching how explosively Serena moves onto her forehand on the run. I think how she moves onto the ball is surely what separates her from many women’s players, which allows her to be such a good shotmaker even from a more defensive position. Also, all of her shots look so technically sound that it’s very aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps the technical aspect is another reason why she has been able to play so well in the past, coming back from injury.

I tend to pay more attention to matches early on than afterwards, and one of the highlights for me was seeing one of Serena’s scorching running forehand winners, then seeing the stare down of intimidation afterwards. It was just such a cool reaction. It didn’t seem as manufactured as it does on TV. It looked like a natural reaction, a very confident one. However, Serena went on to lose that service game, and took on a more relaxed mindset afterwards allowing herself more shots to play to control points, and she also started to serve better.

Despite Scheepers giving a good effort, there was always the sense that Serena had the upper hand with her greater weight of shot. Serena didn’t need to make it flashy straight away. Every shot she hit put her another foot in front of Scheepers until Williams could win the point. It felt inevitable, but Scheepers did well to prolong it in the second set. Unlike Serena’s serve, Scheeper’s serve looks like a wobbly mess, with how stiff she keeps her right arm when launching into the motion. There is no explosiveness in the action. It is like it is in slow motion, unlike Bernard Tomic’s super fast abbreviated motion (yet both arm motions in a way are similar). I think it is abbreviated, but maybe not entirely. The decisive break of serve in the second set came after Serena stepped in early on a second serve return to rip for a winner, then faced with a similar situation, Scheepers double-faulted with the threat in sight. Serena won 6-2 6-3.

Now onto the best match of the day which was between Bernard Tomic and Julien Benneteau. This was Tomic’s first appearance in Brisbane without a wildcard, and it is nice to see some improvements in his game from past years, such as the improved faster pace forehand which was probably the standout shot from the first set. Tomic does have the ability to sometimes rip winners on some shots, and even after he does it, I still don’t really know if the timing was clever. To me, it just seems more like completely random. But the forehand definitely does look like a much more potent weapon when he injects some extra pace into it.

Tomic raced off to a 5-0 lead but it didn’t seem entirely indicative of the match to me, because Benneteau was close to breaking back on one of those games earlier on. Despite the massive gap in the score, I decided that I really like watching Benneteau play, because of the way he moves onto the ball and also with his point construction. He makes so many little split steps when he moves that it’s great to watch, but it also looks incredibly tiring. I had a brief look at Tomic’s footwork, and he probably makes half or one third the amount of steps in comparison. Some might call this lazy footwork, or simply being more efficient.

Benneteau controls points once he hits an aggressive shot, and he tries to keep it there, with accurate ball-striking and good point construction. This also means that if he hasn’t started the first few shots aggressively that he’s likely to have to play more defensively after that, because he doesn’t have the same ability as many other players to hit impressive defensive shots. At least not to the same level. In the first set, Benneteau butchered a few key rallies that he had created in his favour, and his serve was also not up to scratch, not that I really noticed (heard the interview afterwards).

The second and third sets anyway were enjoyable to watch, filled with long and highly competitive rallies where both players appeared to be having difficulty with finishing off rallies. I’d say the rallies were filled with accurate, controlled ball-striking, so it wasn’t like the match was filled with passive rallies. In the end, the deciding factor was with Benneteau’s legs, and I guess it was understandable given all the running he did in the match and with it being the first match of the year.

Tomic could have made it easier for himself by converting one of his earlier match points, but in the end, Tomic finally pulled through on his sixth, helped by Benneteau double faulting on the match point. The result was 6-2 4-6 7-5. The crowd here in Brisbane have been extremely quiet, seemingly paying some sort of respect to the players by not talking during the matches, or very quietly if so. Only in the final stages, they started to show some support to Tomic. I guess you could say everyone was saving their breaths for when they really needed it.

So that was three matches done for the day, yet it still felt early. I left Pat Rafter Arena, and was able to see again that it was indeed a very, very crowded day at the tennis centre. I stood there waiting for the end of the Haas/Stepanek doubles match, catching people leaving at the end of the match to grab myself a seat for the match between Gilles Simon and Ryan Sweeting.

I had never seen Ryan Sweeting play before, or read anything about his game previously, so it was funny to see Andy Roddick’s service motion without expecting it. I wonder if he tried any other service motions before deciding to settle on this one. Anyway, his serve is good, but not great. The first serve seems incredibly flat, and with little margin for error unlike Roddick’s service which kicks up quite a lot. I was not at all impressed with Sweeting who seems to be a very loose cannon. He bases his game around a huge forehand, but misfires a lot with it. He also hits a slice backhand quite frequently, but its purpose is more just to extend the point to allow him to hit a forehand.

This was the perfect matchup for Simon. No expert strategy required, or any need to go out of his comfort zone. He could just use the pace he was getting from Sweeting, to keep returning the ball cleanly with interest, and also to hit great passing shots on the run if required. After the first three games or so, the way this match was going was almost inevitable. Sweeting was mainly only winning the short points, and not having much success on return though he did come close in that final game failing to convert two break points. This was a nice way to wrap up the day, I thought, as watching Gilles Simon can be a relaxing experience, how he so easily seems to have perfect timing on his shots particularly off the backhand.

Looking Back at Monte Carlo

2011-04-30T08:35:00.010+10:00

Usually the clay season is alive and kicking by the time Monte Carlo starts, but this year has been a little different. It wasn’t a mandatory event last year, but it still attracted good fields. The main difference was the absence of the unbeatable Novak Djokovic (check out this sketch), who has been taking a break/cautious injury pause in an attempt to peak for Belgrade. A huge tournament for the family.

The craziest match of all in Monte Carlo a couple of weeks ago was that match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, which I did have the pleasure of watching. There was about a half hour delay (or so it felt like) with Andy Murray warming up on another court when he was scheduled to play. The Tennis Betting sites must have given Murray no chance of winning, yet for a moment it looked possible, just because everything in the match seemed to defy belief. He could barely serve in practice, then he took anti-inflammatory medication. I was sure it was going to be a retirement. In hindsight, I did wonder if the delay was at least partially strategic, buying himself some more time so that the medication would kick in.

The match started, then I watched his serve. It looked fine to me. His body language was subdued, and he walked around the court like he didn’t really care. Though he must have cared to end up playing the match. I guess that was the amazing thing about the match to me. The attitude with which he played the match, contrasted with the outstanding tennis that he played. He didn’t match Nadal’s intensity or mental questions. He kept the points short (or at least tried to) and his movement was great, even though there was barely any energy about him. He is normally like that to some extent, but it was a level lower than usual. The surprising thing was that it didn’t affect his play.

After the subdued body language, and the lack of expectations, the longer the match went on, the more Murray was emotionally invested in it. His forehand looked better than usual. I really liked his sneaks into the net. He should do them more often. I think he should be able to spot openings like that more often, but it never enters his mind, that he should adopt that play at all.

I kept expecting Nadal to adopt more of a killer extinct but he couldn't string enough points together to take a good lead for himself. So far there has been something unremarkable about Nadal’s play this clay season. I think it is carried on from his hardcourt play, where he does give away more errors than he used to, but also playing a more aggressive style. He’s not as much of a relentless player in general, but I don’t know if that makes him any worse, since he has made other improvements. I expect that with more time to make adjustments to the clay again this season that he will start to find his best form.

After two sets of tennis with long and drawn out games, Murray finally ended up being too tired to put up a good fight in the third set, and Nadal steamrolled to a third set victory. This match was under so many special circumstances, that it didn’t really mean a thing in the grand scheme of things, but it was a highlight from what has been an underwhelming clay season so far.

Career Adjustments (and Miami)

2011-03-27T13:18:00.002+10:00

Usually on the first day of a Masters event, I tend to focus on the lower profile players, before they make their exit out of a tournament. Sometimes I make that choice just for the sake of watching a more competitive match, with more emotional ups and downs.

For a change, I took a glimpse at the early rounds of Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal, though for different reasons in each of these matches. I was already aware of Roddick losing, so I approached the match with a different perspective than I would have otherwise.

When you watch a top ranked player play, there are more clear expectations. It's also easier to observe because as soon as anything happens outside of what is expected, you can more easily compliment the underdog, or criticise the top player. This, you see on message boards frequently. Whereas with a player with a broader range of performances, almost anything can go under the expected category, though some people use this word in hindsight as a form of implying how great their tennis knowledge is.

In the early stages of Federer's match against Radek Stepanek, I was curious as to what kind of tricks Stepanek would have up his sleeve against Federer. The word 'tricks' is an appropriate term here because whatever he tried was obviously something he couldn't maintain. It was more like a show. In the second rally of the match, Stepanek half-volleyed a return of serve, charged to the net then showed off his excellent anticipation and volleying skills by somehow staying in the exchange with three more volleys. Then he ran back to retrieve a lob and dumped it into the net.

It's not often you see volleys go beyond a couple of strokes, and there's good reason for that. Because it rarely has a high winning percentage for the volleyer. Stepanek lost many points at the net, but there were some entertaining exchanges. Stepanek tried to bluff his way through the match, and naturally it didn't work. As if he would be able to throw off Federer's rhythm without having anything substantial to back it up.

Whenever he returned a couple of volleys, it was impressive, but he was rarely going to win them. From the baseline, he tried to half-volley and finesse shots into accurate positions but he never had enough power. His forehand was often mistimed and dumped into the net. I'm looking up photos of Stepanek to match my article, and almost every photo is of him stretching out to return a shot which seems indicative of this match. He is quite athletic.

Both players won many cheap points. In between some entertaining exchanges, there were a lot of short points and free points. That's exactly the way Federer likes it these days. Even when they exchanged longer rallies, they were half-volleying so often that the point finished in the blink of an eye. It was such a contrast to the Roddick vs Cuevas match, where both players comfortably waited until the ball would reach its peak height.

Federer only required a couple of shots to force Stepanek into a defensive position, and to finish it off. Apparently he hits the ball harder these days, according to a statistic that I heard from a commentator a while ago. Watching this match, and then moving onto the Roddick match, it did make me wonder what kind of adjustments Roddick will make as his career reaches its latter stages. He's reaching the age of 28 now, turning 29 this year and he might even be engaging in longer rallies than he used to. He also hit a famous diving winner on match point in Memphis, which revealed just as much his age as well as his fitness.

In his match against Pablo Cuevas, what I could see was Roddick trying to play incredibly smart tennis. It wasn't like he was hitting the ball into the middle of the court at all. With the slow pace of the match, sometimes I felt like I could get a glimpse into his thought process. I don't actually think he was playing smart tennis. It occurred every now and then rather than on a consistent basis. He was thinking too much.

In the first game, he ran around his backhand to hit a series of heavy forehands which would have been effective if he had his weight going the right way. That was a good reference point for later in the match, because he stopped doing that relatively quickly and ended up trading backhands. Much of that was due to illness though. Roddick really started to struggle in the second set, putting in a lacklustre performance and taking an injury time-out.

Cuevas was hitting his backhand well, but his forehand was quite inconsistent. I wasn't fully convinced of his performance, but one thing he did better than Roddick in particular was using the full width of the court. It didn't seem like a big difference until three shots later, when Roddick would end up having too much court to cover to have any chance of changing defense to offense.

Cuevas' crosscourt backhand is clearly one of his strengths. It's difficult to return the top spin when it bounces up high and deep, and he can also generate good angles. The kick serve on the ad court also works a lot better than it does on the deuce court. He's just naturally better on the backhand side.

Learning To Play Your Game

2011-03-16T01:12:00.002+10:00

It's a Grand Slam semi-final and the stakes are high. Rod Laver Arena is buzzing with crowd anticipation, and the players are walking through the hallway of champions.

An interviewer approaches them and asks, "What are your tactics coming into the match?" It's true that part of their reluctance to answer the question is down to not wanting to share their secrets, or to simply maintain their focus, but there is some truth to the good old saying, "I'm just going to play my game."

Tennis analysts like to glorify what happens in a match, particularly when the stakes are high. Often enough, it does come down to a moment of courage or brilliance, but brilliance isn't the key to success. The sky's not the limit, but it doesn't mean you should give up. Instead, adjust your goals accordingly to your strengths and weaknesses, and structure your playing style to what you're good at. Keep up the same mindset on the big points, and don't get caught up too much with the glorious clutch points from your tennis idols.

Weaker Shots
Everyone has a weaker side, either a shot that is liable to unforced errors or a side where it's more difficult to hit winners. Don't try to hit as many winners from one side if you can’t back it up with execution. Equally, if you have a big strength, allow yourself the opportunity to use it by being more conservative with your weaknesses. For example, James Blake could have become a better player if he used his speed more wisely to get back into points instead of trying to hit a low percentage winner.

Favourite Shots
Become knowledgeable in the exact strengths of your game. Know more about yourself beyond simply whether you prefer the backhand or forehand. Figure out which shot wins you the most points. Is it consistency and speed that wins the most points, or the sudden changes of pace, or overall power? The art of winning in tennis is knowing what will reliably win the most points.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knows that he can achieve an edge over his opponents with his transition game, so he builds his matches around imposing himself with his approach shots and net game, and the constant threat that he will regularly do it.

Using consistency or fitness as a strength can be a tricky one, as it shouldn't be the only thing you base your match tactics on. You still need to think about what other strengths you have that can create more damage. Juan Ignacio Chela uses power to hurt his opponents, while Tommy Robredo uses accuracy combined with favourite patterns of play.

Strategy over Technique
Tennis analysts always mention that a match court is different from a practice court, and they're right. For starters, there's a mental component involved. You can't simply make an error, then focus on perfecting it the next time. Not when the shot costs you points. Therefore, it's not only about adjusting technique. It's not as easy as thinking back to that practice session a while back, and remembering how it worked back then.

If you get caught up too much in obsessing over your opponent targeting your weaker shot all the time, then your opponent has succeeded in the psychological game. Think about what else you could do to change the pattern of play, so that it is more favourable for you. Perhaps start giving less angles or less pace for your opponent to work with. Start aiming your serves in different directions. Keep experimenting with little things, while remembering your strengths.

Take Calculated Risks
Don't change your game completely in hope of producing a once-in-a-lifetime performance. Take calculated risks. Play a slightly better version of your regular game. Despite what commentators tell you, if you haven't served-and-volleyed much before, it's probably not going to suddenly work now. Unless if you notice that your opponent is feeding you many weak replies on the return. Don't try to throw in many slice backhands if it floats too high and without enough spin. If touch shots and dropshots aren't in your repertoire, then don't throw it in there. It's fine to throw in a little bit of variety, as long as you realize that it won't have the same effect as the player that you borrowed the tactic from.

Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule, examples of players that have shown an amazing versatility in big matches. You'll probably know yourself after all those practice sessions and matches, whether you really have the capability to pull it off. If you want to add some versatility to your game, start first by finetuning it in practice then gradually implementing it in matches.

Gilles Simon Defeats Out of Form Davydenko in Marseille

2011-02-18T00:13:00.004+10:00

It was supposed to be a nice contrast of styles, when Nikolay Davydenko and Gilles Simon drew each other in the first round in Marseille. The problem with this match-up is that the way Simon plays largely has to do with the way Davydenko plays, so when Davydenko seemed completely unsure of himself and lacking in confidence, it was a bad spectacle all-round. Simon only plays as well as he needs to, and he prefers to use the pace of his opponents.

Davydenko is definitely going through a rough patch at the moment. His game doesn’t even look the same as it did to his off days when he was in the top 5. When he makes large amounts of unforced errors, they’re different kinds of errors. He doesn’t have anywhere near the same amount of racquet acceleration. Short balls are usually the easiest shots for professional players, but it was painful the way Davydenko showed no confidence whenever he had a short forehand to put away for a winner. Instead it was more like, “Oh no, I should hit a winner off this” so he’d aim it near the line but not really try to hit a winner.

The match started strangely with four consecutive breaks. The first set was the battle of two very indecisive players that didn’t know what to do with the ball once they got into an extended rally. The execution of the shots felt half-hearted, which is what happens when you don’t fully believe in the shot you’re trying to hit.

Davydenko was making all kinds of uncharacteristic shot selections. It was the worst to begin with. Most of his shots landed in the middle of the court, the complete opposite from his trademark accurate game. He came into the net from approach shots that landed down the middle of the court, then predictably he’d lose the point up at the net. You know there’s something very wrong with Davydenko when he’s trying to come into the net before he’s even hit a good enough shot. Yet it’s also very strange. It’s more common to stick to a more typical game in poor form, but does he really think he has a better chance at shortening the points and using the net than playing his standard baseline game?

Still Davydenko being willing to extend the rallies and hit with wider margins from the lines than usual kept the match competitive in the first set. Both players returned serve well in the first half of the set. It was like everything was much easier for them when they didn’t have to think about actual rallies and point construction.

The match made a sudden turnaround after Simon became the first player to hold serve for 3-2. I would have thought that would have been the equivalent of a break of serve, but instead they both held serve from then onwards.

Despite the rather drastic change of holds/breaks, the match still had a similar feel to me. I never know what Simon is actually trying to do with the ball while playing. He plays with such a reactive mindset. Even if his tennis isn't defensive all the time, his shot selection is based so much on what his opponent feeds him. Davydenko fed him plenty of errors so he happily took advantage of it.

The first set tie-break was perhaps of the best quality in the match, with more of the typical rallies that I expected from the match. Davydenko had a set point but missed a routine forehand, a pattern which repeated itself many times in the match. Then Simon won the set with a return winner.

In the second set, Davydenko sprayed errors everywhere to go down a double break that by then, I had lost all interest. He tried to play something closer to his usual game, but the more aggressive play didn’t pay off. He was actually close to levelling the set again and recovering the break, but in the end, Simon was able to hold off Davydenko and finish the match later on.

Soderling Shows Good Form in Rotterdam, Defeating Youzhny

2011-02-12T21:02:00.008+10:00

Robin Soderling isn’t anywhere near as much of an indoor specialist as he used to be, but in any case, he’s doing well this week in Rotterdam, bouncing back from a poor performance at the Australian Open in his loss against Alexandr Dolgopolov. Mikhail Youzhny also had a subpar Australian Open, losing to Milos Raonic in the 3rd round, but both players showed good form in this match. In a rematch of last year's final, Soderling defeated Youzhny 6-4 7-6(5).

They traded big shots against each other, but it wasn’t easy to hit winners, and most rallies ended up being long, drawn out, and competitive. It was a surprisingly complete display of tennis, complete in the sense that neither player showed an obvious weak side that leaked errors. Soderling also wasn’t as overly reliant on his forehand as usual, with his backhand sharing the workload, and winning just as many points with it.

Sometimes matches like this can be a little mind-numbing, and easy to take for granted. Especially since Soderling and Youzhny are top 10 players. There weren’t that many momentum swings in the match, instead it was hard-fought the whole match. Tactically they were playing aggressive but controlled tennis. It was very much, spot on.

Youzhny’s ability to control rallies was better than I thought. He was the player changing directions more often in this match, particularly when they traded backhands where Soderling would usually hit it back crosscourt but with good pace, while Youzhny had the additional option of nailing it down-the-line more often. His backhand was the best aspect of the match.

Soderling wasn’t as dominant as usual. By that, I mean the match wasn’t played on his terms as much as usual, and probably in the past, he would have been easily frustrated. But now, Soderling is pretty good at playing patient tennis too, so he hung in there and showed some respect towards Youzhny’s shots by waiting until the right moment to pull the trigger. There wasn’t much difference between the two, apart from a couple of points. This was a good display of top 10 level tennis.

It was one of those matches that bring forth the argument that the players these days have fewer obvious weaknesses. They have shots that can break down on their bad days, yes, but opponents can no longer relying on peppering one side knowing that they can’t be punished.

Is the modern era of tennis actually more exciting this way? I think what makes a tennis match exciting is once you get involved in it, then it reaches another level to simply appreciating it. Like holding your breath or showing a seed of doubt whenever a ball goes to a player’s weaker side, or getting excited whenever it goes to their stronger side. Or watching momentum swings, and seeing how a player stringing a couple of points together can suddenly turn into great form for the rest of the match (or the opposite could be said for poor play). I guess that’s why many people like the flashy players. It’s not only about the winners.

Momentum swings and drama are also make for great viewing, and there wasn’t that much of it in this match. It was a good quality match, but sometimes a little bit of imperfection can actually make a match better. Maybe a combination of more awful shots followed by great shots, would be good. I really am turning into a fussy tennis watcher. Oh well, I’m sure there will be plenty of Robin Soderling matches in the future that have them.

By the way, I am definitely covering up for my decreasing attention span these days by going more off-topic than ever. I hope it is not too obvious.

Marin Cilic defeats Jurgen Melzer in Rotterdam

2011-02-10T04:01:00.008+10:00

I’ve selected a very standard title for my new post and that seems fitting for a match like this. It wasn’t a pretty match, and I can’t remember any memorable rallies. But in the end, Marin Cilic was the more solid player and defeated Jurgen Melzer 6-2 6-4.

Cilic hasn’t had a good last 12 months after a maiden semi-final appearance at the Australian Open last year and cracking the top 10. He was also awful against Florian Mayer last week. Keeping in mind that I would possibly do a piece on him after this match, I took a closer look at his overall game.

Outwardly it looked similar to the way it always did, except a more unspectacular version of it. The same kind of low intensity game based on ball-striking and accuracy (though not so much on accuracy anymore). He was particularly passive to begin with, mainly focusing on getting the ball into the court. It took a while before he took it up another notch, taking the ball earlier on some of the shorter balls and hitting with better depth. It was good that he did that on occasion otherwise I would have thought he was warming up.

He comes across as so workmanlike that I’m not even sure if he likes playing tennis. I just assume he does, because he made it this far and apparently players in Croatia are harder working than the Brits for example because they had a tougher time growing up. That means there is more benefit for them to be successful.

His game was always lacking spark though. He’d change directions so smoothly that it just looked like he was casually rallying with his opponent. He relied so much on timing. His winners don’t catch the eye as much as Melzer’s winners do on a better day. You have to look closer. Melzer had some eye-catching errors today though. This season, he’s been confidently swinging away on his groundstrokes regardless of whether he’s been playing well or not. He’s been making a lot of rash errors. He hit a forehand that was out wide today by the equivalent of half the width of the court, timed in the middle of the strings. I suppose that’s proof he was trying to hit all kinds of shots that he wasn’t prepared for, in terms of footwork.

Anyway, it just wasn’t Melzer’s day. He didn’t have much success returning Cilic’s serve and he tried to improve his consistency in the second set, but it still wasn’t good enough. He takes big swings at the ball especially on the forehand, and he’s known more for his explosiveness than accuracy. Going up 0-30 at 3-3 on Cilic’s serve ended up being more of a mental hindrance. It was a huge disappointment for him even though he didn’t really do anything special to go up 0-30, so it wasn’t like a drop in level. He smashed a racquet once it got back to 30-30, then began to shout at himself almost every point from then onwards, and gave a sarcastic clap at the changeovers.

He was probably already in a bad mood to begin with though. The match had barely started and Melzer asked the umpire a couple of times to get the people to talk more quietly, especially those sitting near the court. A quick camera shot of the stadium shows that the stadium was reasonably empty. Melzer is known for finding every little thing that goes on externally annoying.

Sometimes Cilic’s calm approach gives him a disadvantage against more inspired players, but today it was surely the better approach. Some might say it is just a personality difference, but I’m pretty sure that playing with a relaxed demeanor would affect the way you move around the court, and the energy around the footwork as well. Then again, to put in a more simplistic manner, he was the more solid of the two players and was subsequently rewarded. He also won plenty of free points on his serve.

Ivan Dodig Continues His Great Run in Zagreb

2011-02-06T14:57:00.010+10:00

Every now and then, certain players find inspiration playing in their home country. There were numerous Croatian players in the draw of Zagreb, including the top two seeds, Marin Cilic and Ivan Ljubicic but in the end it was Ivan Dodig carrying the flag for Croatia at the last hurdle.

It’s always a great story for the tournament when stories like these happen, and it reels in the crowds too. Judging from the turnout in the semi-finals, people in Zagreb are incredibly patriotic to the point where they couldn’t even be bothered watching the second semi-final between Florian Mayer and Michael Berrer even though they had tickets for it. For me, I always approach these sudden improvements of form in a cynical manner. It’s a different life playing in front of a packed stadium cheering for you, compared to the little courts where no one really cares.

The fans got their money’s worth with Dodig and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez playing out a three hour marathon against each other, with Dodig making a surprising comeback from a set and a break down to win 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4. Every game seemed to be long and drawn out, until the third set where both players were too exhausted to give their full effort in every game, not to mention that Dodig had an early break and solely relied on that.

This match was played late at night in my timezone, so I really could have used a scoreboard on my stream that didn't disappear off the screen all the time. So I could actually feel the importance of a point. Has anyone watched a match without a scoreboard before and noticed how there is absolutely no drama in it, and also how incredibly difficult it is to follow?

I hadn’t watched Dodig play before until this match, but this commentator I was listening to obviously had from the sounds of it. He reminded me constantly that Dodig is a fighter, a very dogged competitor, difficult to put away, etc. The match had only just started so I couldn’t really notice myself. However, he did do a dive to retrieve a dropshot later on so there’s a piece of evidence. Also he won this match from a losing position so he was obviously a better fighter than Garcia-Lopez.

His groundstrokes are laboured, not effortless, and he puts a lot of energy into his movement. I also borrowed that statement off the commentator. His stroke production and movement reminds me a lot of Florent Serra, who also puts in a lot of effort behind everything, but Serra can hit the ball harder. Their shot selection is not that similar. Dodig hits typically deep shots and moves the ball around the court without the intention of ending the point (most of the time).

I didn’t really have a preference between the two, but I liked the contrast. Garcia-Lopez has some of the cleanest strokes I’ve seen. The closest player I can think of in terms of stroke production like that would be Tommy Haas. Both rely on clean shotmaking based on timing and their groundstrokes aren’t heavy enough. The problem with Garcia-Lopez seems to be that he doesn’t play with the same intensity levels and focus as many of the other players, and he tends to throw in some awful errors at times. Sometimes he likes to hit a backhand down-the-line when there was no way he should have hit one. I have a feeling he used to play like that much more often, before he made his rise up the rankings.

He can find surprisingly good angles on the inside out forehand. It’s not exactly a textbook shot, but it has to be a strength if he runs around to hit it this often. He positions his feet well while hitting it, and it helps that he's light on his feet. Without as much movement preceding the shot, his forehand isn’t as good from the other side of the court, when trading crosscourt.

Garcia-Lopez was playing relatively well in this match. He was the one making the majority of the winners. Just a slightly better performance in the crucial moments would have won him the match. Then again, it’s incredibly common in tennis for matches to be decided in this way.

Perhaps also what turned the match around was Dodig’s injury and fatigue, which resulted in a change of tactics. He took an injury timeout somewhere in the second set, then he started to hit the ball more accurately and constructing points better. He could have ended up playing overly risky tennis in a way that doesn’t match his game, but instead he played smarter tennis. His volleys were also surprisingly good for a solid baseliner, and by the third set he was coming into the net consistently to finish off points. I remember a serve-and-volley he did in the third set, where he was on the service line and he lunged far and low and somehow managed to hit a winning volley off it.

Once Dodig had the break in the third set, he tanked away some of the return games, but he was able to remain strong enough on serve surprisingly even holding his nerves well enough to serve out the match to love.

Tommy Robredo Cruises in Santiago, defeating Maximo Gonzalez

2011-02-05T14:21:00.016+10:00

I’m not quite sure how Tommy Robredo has slipped down to a ranking of 40 over the past year, apart from stating the obvious that he isn’t playing as well as he used to. That’s what the ranking suggests. A closer look at his rankings breakdown suggests that he’s not doing as well in the optional events as he used to.

2011 is a new year though, and he has gotten off to a good start with a 4th round result at the Australian Open (losing to Roger Federer) and now reaching the semi-finals of Santiago.

He will fancy his chances of going further in this draw with the remaining players in the draw having never won a title before. He faces Fabio Fognini in the semi-finals, then potentially the winner of Potito Starace and Santiago Giraldo. Though I think it would make a nice headline if Santiago Giraldo won in Santiago.

In today’s match, he defeated Maximo Gonzalez quite comfortably 6-3 6-1. This was the first time I had seen Gonzalez play before, so I had my eyes firmly focused on him rather than Robredo, out of curiosity. I like to scout players too. The signs were promising to start with. Gonzalez has nice heavy groundstrokes, and when he matches up with Robredo, he appears to be the stronger of the two. Stronger, not better. More penetrating in his groundstrokes. If we just looked at groundstrokes while they were warming up, and not accuracy or the ability to be aggressive with it, then Gonzalez would be more impressive. The heaviness of his groundstrokes reminds me a little bit of Jose Acasuso, but with nowhere near as much pace.

The match was even for the first half of the set, and I kept expecting Robredo to make more inroads into the return of serve. Mostly because Gonzalez’s serve is quite awful. I think even I have more a fluid motion than that (but mine is jerky in general too). It comes from the same school of serving that Juan Ignacio Chela graduated from, before he changed it into something much better midway into his career. He has his racquet back and his service motion halfway complete before he even tosses the ball up, then he briefly pauses as the ball goes up and finishes off the motion. The serve often lands in the middle of the box. Robredo generally returns serve quite far behind the baseline though, so it didn’t get punished that much. Except somewhere in the second set, when Robredo hit a backhand down-the-line return winner that he surely didn’t mean to hit.

While I’m currently into making player comparisons with myself, I was also amused to see that Gonzalez sometimes lifts his left leg up a little bit while hitting a forehand, just like I do but to a lesser extent. He does it particularly when hitting it aggressively. But he’s better than me. He can plant his left leg when he’s in a more defensive stance, which is good otherwise he wouldn’t have made it into this (clay) event.

In any case, I thought Gonzalez was playing better than his ranking of 140, until his game went downhill quickly after he missed many break points in one game. Suddenly he began to make plenty of awful errors, trying to play overly aggressively above his ability, and not digging very deep. His movement isn’t as good as Robredo’s. If he’s further behind the baseline then it needs to be more defensive. If he has more time, then he can go for it. Wow, I can relate to these points. Trying to hit a winner while going backwards is never going to work. I constantly mumble that to myself while playing.

I thought Robredo served quite well, for his standards. He has an accurate serve, and can get good angles on the wide serve on the ad court. He’s a good server for his height. Though I should also point out that Gonzalez’s return of serve is a weakness. He needs more time to hit good shots.

They tried to motivate the players before the match started by playing Eye of the Tiger, which I seem to remember was Hewitt’s favourite song to listen to before matches. Or was it Nadal? They liked to play rock music in the changeovers, even while players were walking out from their chairs. I think they only stopped it once they got closer to the baseline. Most tournaments playing music these days go with pop music, so this was a little different from the usual. I liked hearing Faith No More’s Epic.

Where does the blog go from here?

2011-02-04T14:39:00.000+10:00

The Australian Open may be over, but this blog will continue to roll on, with regular articles of any sort. Just in case that wasn't clear.

Andy Murray Isn't The Player You Want Him To Be

2011-01-31T18:38:00.006+10:00

For the last three years or so, Andy Murray established himself within the elite of the tennis game. He first caught the attention of the tennis world with his ability to match it against the top players. Someone to look to, who could break the Federer/Nadal stranglehold.

It’s a different perspective in the early stages of a player’s career. You look at their potential, what different things they bring to the table, and how they can progress in their career once they have ironed out those weaknesses. Then he made it into the top 5, defeated some top players, and became a Grand Slam contender. Everyone started to expect more from him.

After every loss, critics and tennis fans wrote about how Andy Murray needs to be more aggressive. After more Grand Slam disappointments following impressive Masters events results, it was changed to "Murray needs to be more aggressive to win a Grand Slam." This happens before and after every Slam, in particular at Wimbledon, often making big headlines. But this article isn’t about whether he should or not, but rather about this gap between what he wants to be, the way he wants to approach the game, compared to how everyone else wants him to approach the game.

This is a fair criticism if you’re not a fan of his tennis. But I’ve noticed that even plenty of his fans find it difficult to enjoy even his most straightforward wins, frustrated about why he is playing the way he is. Even if it's clear that he will breeze through a victory here. Many people are far more interested in the Andy Murray that shows up 10% of the time, with maybe half of that being his wins against Nadal, the one player that he can really admit to not being able to outlast or break down.

Can you really call yourself a fan if you don’t enjoy his normal style of playing? Or is that just being a fan of the player you wish he was? This is not a criticism, but something to ponder. I can see the dilemma here. There isn’t anyone else that plays like him.

The way I see it, Murray has had far too much success to figure out that he should do things differently, and he thinks tennis is too complicated and strategic to simply focus on whether he was passive or aggressive. He wants to figure out what shots his opponents hate playing, and hit as many of those as possible. He studies videos of his rivals playing. People often call him a true tennis strategist, because he bases his game around his opponent’s weaknesses, rather than his own strengths, like what the majority of players do. Though it doesn’t have to be a weakness, just whatever shot matches up well to his. Personally I’m not so sure that is the smartest thing to do, and sometimes he doesn't find anything. Using more of his strengths would greatly help his game, and make life easier.

Each year that passes, I am convinced he has decided on his own way to improving his game, and it’s not what people want from him. Before he made his rise up the rankings, he was inconsistent over the course of the year then he radically improved his fitness. He beefed up his serve, and went about improving as many gaping holes in his game.

The more he improved his fitness, the more it became a staple of his game. He also became more complete, to the point that it was always more likely he would break down your weakness, before you could get to his. Unless if he was having a bad serving day. He’s broken down Djokovic’s forehand before, Federer’s backhand and he’s outlasted Del Potro before. His return of serve ensured that he could engage in rallies far more often than players below him. Beating lower ranked players started to become a piece of cake, and with his quick, seemingly lazy movement, it was like he was on autopilot most of the time. He’d throw in a couple of flashes of brilliance, but importantly he knew he didn’t have to.

So if Andy Murray isn’t going to be more aggressive in the traditional sense, what could he do? He could start with his favourite backhand, the side he’s more confident with. Rip some more big backhands flat and hard crosscourt, and change it up down-the-line more often. He could serve-and-volley a bit. That’s smart tennis after all, isn’t it, just like how he likes to be seen?

Andy Murray loses another Grand Slam Final, this time to Novak Djokovic

2011-01-31T00:26:00.006+10:00

So the Australian Open is over for 2011, and Novak Djokovic has been crowned champion after defeating Andy Murray tonight 6-4 6-2 6-3.

For a couple of years, there has been a never-ending debate about who the better player is between Murray and Djokovic, and who the better player will be. Before the final, Murray had the opportunity to level the Grand Slam tally up with a win tonight, but now with Djokovic coming out on top, Murray will have an awful lot of catching up to do in this career rivalry.

He’ll have a lot of catching up, not only because of the result, but the increasing scars that have been left behind with each finals loss. Though in this match, the scars from the two Slam losses were evident enough. Murray has now failed to win a single set in three finals, raising huge question marks over his ability to play Slam finals.

He’ll need to do much better, if he wants to get over the final hurdle. Opinions of this match will probably be summarised by most people with two main points, that Murray was too passive, and also that his defeatist and negative attitude cost him the match. I find that people fall back on the overly simplistic statement of calling Murray’s play passive too often where it generally becomes the standard reason for any of his losses. This is forgetting or discrediting that he wins plenty of matches with the same kind of mindset, and has based his entire career around it, aside from a couple of wins over top players (but not all of the wins) where he has raised his level. In this case, it was a poor performance, not only a passive performance.

When Murray plays aggressively, it’s not like he hits a big shot off everything. That makes it difficult for him to hit through the nerves not to mention that he has to be playing quite confidently to be hitting his forehand well. It’s pretty hard to generate pace when you’re nervous and unsure of yourself, and as a result, his shots landed shorter than they usually do. The other point is that he doesn’t fire himself up, or play with the same intensity that Djokovic does, who has always come across to me as having the right big match mentality.

The whole first set was a nervy affair from both. Djokovic had opportunities to break in the second game of the match, then ended up losing it in a long back-and-forth game. Even though Djokovic was dictating the points, there was no clear advantage. Djokovic showed impatience in his shot selection, while Murray showed a lack of purpose and an overly reactive state of mind. The match started with a couple of awful dropshots from Djokovic, and he seemed to feel threatened by Murray’s defensive skills trying to finish points too quickly.

Both Djokovic and Murray can be quite good tactically, but I thought that tonight, it was all about handling the occasion. It was more about trying to play the next point as well as possible mentally, and finding the right energy for it, which is why this match didn’t remind me at all of any of their previous meetings. This is an area where Djokovic is a much better player. Though he also has more offensive options on the forehand, and uses his athleticism in a wider variety of ways.

There was a lot of jaw-dropping retrieving from Djokovic tonight, one of the main highlights of the match. Let’s not forget despite his acrobatic movement, it’s equally amazing the amount of feel he has once he gets to the ball. He basically put his body under all kinds of different positions and was still able to hit returns of serve, retrievals and defensive lobs close to the baseline. Whenever Murray built up a point in his advantage, Djokovic would somehow put the rally back in his favour often starting with a shot that he was barely able to reach.

As noted in his match against Federer, Djokovic has the ability to take his game up another notch to a whole new intensity and this is what won him the crucial first set. From then onwards, it was relatively one-sided, more than it should have been due to Murray spraying errors left and right. He had been wanting a racquet with a different tension the entire first set, then his game dropped a couple of levels as soon as he finally got to change it in the second set. Djokovic was now able to rally with Murray without feeling the pressure like he did in the first set. With all of the tension out of the match, this was Djokovic’s title now that he had built himself up a two sets to love lead.

The third set was more of a struggle, due to Djokovic’s groundstrokes becoming more inconsistent especially when trying to make things happen. I would put this down to nerves. Fortunately for Djokovic he could rely on his defensive skills for Plan B, and he was still able to win many points in that fashion. Murray battled through some tough games, they both did, but Djokovic was slightly the better player and there was a feeling he would play the big points better just like he had all match. Neither player managed to build on their leads in this set, and there were so many service breaks, but in the end, Djokovic proved yet again that he was the better player this match. He was the one in form, and the best player all tournament.

Novak Djokovic Outhits Roger Federer to Reach Consecutive Slam Finals

2011-01-28T02:10:00.012+10:00

So far, the big guns hadn’t really been tested. Rafael Nadal bowed out last night, but tamely with injury, and without much of a fight. To be honest, I didn’t watch, but this Australian Open match between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer promised good things. I had good memories about this match-up. Their US Open semi-final was by far my favourite match of last year, so there was a lot to live up to.

It felt like I wasn’t the only one with that epic match in the back of their minds. Djokovic and Federer came out with a certain respect against each other. They brought all their weapons out, their intensity, everything to the table. It was like tennis being played at a lightning speed, though it wasn’t exactly consistent to start with. It was more about sending the right message across. Federer tried to show that he’d be aggressive on return while Djokovic brought out the big forehand and they both traded blows.

I wasn’t really sure whether it was the best idea for either of them to be playing everything at such a rapid pace, since hitting it harder isn’t necessarily better and variety can be quite useful sometimes. The difference between these two hitting it harder, and other players is that their athleticism is quite spectacular. Both were so eager to take control of the points, and also perhaps wary that anything less wouldn’t be good enough. It reminds me of the post-match interview Djokovic did at the US Open last year when he was asked about what was going through his mind down match points. He replied by saying, he just tried to hit every forehand as hard as possible. That memory had obviously stuck with him, bringing out the big forehand here right from the start.

I like to watch Djokovic’s forehand because it’s such a free-swinging shot, not as restrained from precise technique and movement as most other players. Actually, his movement and athleticism is a lot like that too, and one of the main reasons why I enjoy watching him. Watching a guy slide around and stretching out wide from side-to-side is great entertainment, if it’s used with the right amount of aggression. And I really needed to include that last point to find a way to exclude Monfils out of that list. But it’s also a big advantage in a tennis sense, a strength which allows Djokovic to play with patience, and makes him more likely to win extended rallies.

The match was relatively even until the first set tie-break, where Djokovic proved himself to be the steadier player. Federer shanked too many shots, as he did during the entire match. Did he make too many errors because he tried to hit everything at a fast pace, instead of mixing it up?

Djokovic went up an early break in the second set, then Federer employed a change of tactics. I’d say he started to play a style more suited to his abilities on the backhand side, using a slower pace and hitting more slice backhands. This drew some errors from Djokovic, who had also dropped his intensity, then Federer was back on serve.

As the match was going on, the commentators had been wondering whether Federer had been feeding Djokovic too much pace. After all, there have been a couple of matches in the past where Andy Murray took apart Djokovic by feeding as many off-pace slices to his forehand as possible. I think Federer could have explored that more, or at least stuck with a clear idea.

For a while, Federer went on a tear, going from an early break down to serving for the second set, but he couldn’t serve it out. Djokovic had put him under too much pressure, and Federer was not up to the challenge today. On important points, Djokovic can play these long, intense rallies, the kind of points that have made some of his encounters with Rafael Nadal highly entertaining over the years. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a brilliant combination of aggressive and defensive play, and Federer’s not going to win many points in these kind of rallies. Djokovic broke back, and the match started to look much like it did at the start. I don’t really know where Federer’s brief change of tactics went. But I’m not sure whether 10 minutes of it is enough evidence to suggest that it could have worked.

By the third set, the match started to play out in a way that heavily favoured Djokovic’s strengths, though the rallies were still competitive and quite good at times. Federer continued to try to drive through the backhand, and shanked too many. By the third set, he had run out of ideas and played a more reactive style, particularly not doing much on the backhand side apart from driving it back crosscourt, opening up the down-the-line for Djokovic.

Djokovic lost his break of serve at 4-3, and I wasn’t sure what happened there. It was against the overall direction of the match, but it didn’t take long for Djokovic to bounce back, and show exactly why he was leading this match. He threw in another one of those good games filled with intense baseline play, where he does just about everything he can to win a point. It’s a combination of amazing determination, eye-catching athleticism and a rush of adrenaline. Federer lost that game with errors, but it would have been awfully hard not to make one against Djokovic in this mentality. Djokovic showed his first sign of nerves serving it out making two bad errors on the surprisingly reliable forehand (for the night) but he got it together and finished it off 7-6(3) 7-5 6-4.

Murray Ends Dolgopolov's Breakthrough Australian Open Run

2011-01-26T17:59:00.013+10:00

Quickly browsing around the internet, it seems like everyone agrees that Alexandr Dolgopolov is unique and a breath of fresh air. Straight after Andy Murray's four set win over the Ukrainian, 7-5 6-3 6-7(3) 6-3, Murray had similar things to say. "No one plays like him".

Murray was likely to be the winner for most of the match, due to Dolgopolov making too many unforced errors, but it was also a good demonstration of Dolgopolov's range of shots, his potential, and his flaws.

Here's some information I gathered on him:

Forehand: He can generate a lot of spin on the forehand, by brushing around the ball instead of driving through it, but it's not like a high-bouncing kind of top spin. He can create good angles crosscourt, or hook it down-the-line where it curves back into the sideline.
Backhand: The forehand is the more aggressive shot, while the backhand he uses more as variety. He has a very relaxed backswing on the double-handed backhand, and can change the pace with the same backswing. He likes to use his slice backhand to construct points, with accurate crosscourt and down-the-line slices but sometimes tries to hit it better than he is capable of.
Serve: He has a surprising ability to hit flat and hard serves sometimes, considering his height. Because of his quick action, it probably feels like it arrives to his opponent even quicker.
Mentality: He can make plenty of errors, but carry on the rest of the match without slumping the shoulders, and he'll still go for his shots.
Consistency: He is a streaky player, can string together some great points, then lose just as quickly, or even more quickly. There were phases in this match where he struggled to win a point.
Fitness: It looks like he doesn't ever get tired or sluggish ever. He does have plenty of concentration lapses though, and his shot selection could use some work. I get the sense he gets carried away sometimes, and sometimes he tries to hit shots that are better than required.
Movement: He has spectacular movement, as already mentioned before in a previous entry.

Compared to Dolgopolov's relaxed, fluctuating and varying performance throughout the match, Murray was a model of professionalism. Something that Dolgopolov will need to aspire to, to take his game to another level. He understands a little better the importance of putting your opponent under pressure.

Murray's return of serve was also a highlight, and gave him plenty of opportunity to compete well in the return games. His second serve could cause him problems from here onwards though, with a potential match-up against Rafael Nadal coming up next.

Personally for me, it's good to see a new and interesting player, but I'd prefer a player that doesn't make as many wild unforced errors. It amuses me that commentators and writers like to call wildly inconsistent players "an enigma" and "mercurial" like they're really fascinating and exciting characters. We'll see in the near future as to whether he can improve that area.

How Does Channel 7's Australian Open coverage get worse every year?

2011-01-24T18:48:00.010+10:00

Today was my first day back at work, so I had to rely on watching my recording of the Australian Open on TV. Every year, I am amazed at how Channel 7 manage to make their coverage even worse, just when you think it couldn't get any worse. Aside from that, it also sounds like they don't listen to any complaints, because they sure get plenty of those every year too (like here and here).

I've already got my remote control out, so being free from ads, I would have thought the experience would have at least been bearable. But it seems like every year, they are showing less and less tennis.

If I was watching it live, I would have already moved on to my slightly blurry live stream by now.

Every time I skip through an ad break (after a changeover), they manage to miss the first point every single time. Don't commentators always say it is important for the player to win the first point?

They've been doing this for several years now for the day sessions, but now they have added some additional ads in between games (without changeovers) where they also end up missing the first point.
Whenever a set is finished, they always do their best to intentionally come back to the match once the entire first game is over. Meanwhile, audiences are hoping they didn't miss anything important by hoping that player held serve.
I have just paused my video recording to come here, because yet again, they have shrunk the screen to one-third size, to show a match on the left and an interview on the right. This time, it's Francesca Schiavone's interview. I have to admit that her glowing review of Australian people was very nice and endearing, but perhaps that could be shown another time.
Ever since their Australian Open series coverage, starting in Brisbane this year, they've had a sudden obsession with constantly showing the scores on screen. This isn't just words coming across the screen, but they shrink the entire match, and show the score down the bottom. It's really annoying on the eyes. I remember, in Brisbane, they would show results of anything. Sydney qualifying, men's doubles, results from Chennai, results from Doha. Today they just put up scores of yesterday's results, maybe later there will be more of yesterday's results since there isn't much going on today. Probably there will be juniors and legends results up there soon too. Any excuse to shrink the bloody screen, and distract us from the match.
Sometimes when a player serves an ace, a commentator (usually Sandy Roberts) will remark that an "ANZ ace" was just served. What will happen next? Will forehands and backhands be sponsored next year?
When Soderling took an injury time-out for a blister on his foot, immediately an advertisement on the screen for Panadol (painkillers) came up. How cheesy is that?

Though I have to admit that Home and Away ad, with the three shirtless guys coming out of the tennis court is also really horrible (but I can also see how it might appeal to some people).
Then finally, of course there are the matches being delayed in states that aren't on the same time zone as Melbourne. That's the same every year though. Last year they finally started to take advantage of digital television with different shows on different channels, so it really should be live at least on there. There's no excuse not to.

Dolgopolov Outlasts Tsonga in a Topsy Turvy Match

2011-01-22T17:15:00.008+10:00

This was a match that looked to be in the grasp of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s hands up a set and a break against Alexandr Dolgopolov. Every time it looked like he had done enough to pull away from the match, a rash of unforced errors would creep in. By the time the fifth set came around, his fitness levels weren’t good enough to turn it around, and he ended up losing quite convincingly 3-6 6-3 3-6 6-1 6-1.

This was the match-up of two of the most energetic players on tour, though energetic in two different ways. Tsonga moves well going forward, and that’s how he gets his power by throwing his whole body into the ball. Dolgopolov on the other hand, moves well side-to-side. The first time I saw him play, I thought he was so confident with how well he was moving to the ball, with his feet constantly moving all the time. I think he would make quite a good dancer, though maybe not in the ballroom area. Now I’m convinced his feet are always moving regardless of whether he is playing well or not.

The only other player I’ve seen that does the same thing with his feet is Rafael Nadal, but he does it with a different intensity. Dolgopolov doesn’t have the same attention-to-detail. He’s quick, and sometimes he forgets to slow down when he arrives to the ball, so he can still make plenty of errors, even though tennis is a game that highly depends on movement. He’s quick in between points, and has a quick service action also.

Dolgopolov still has a lot to learn, but sometimes raw skill and athleticism is more fun to watch. He strikes me as a player that hasn’t had much training in the mental department. He could probably cut back on the errors if he would just slow down sometimes, like when he has a short ball and can put it away without having to cover large amounts of court.

It was one-sided to begin with. Dolgopolov was nervous and making plenty of simple errors, while Tsonga was explosive and powerful. I wanted to watch the match from Dolgopolov’s perspective, but it was quite hard to, because the fluctuating scores in this match were pretty much all to do with Tsonga, whether he played brilliantly or shockingly. I really thought Dolgopolov would have approached this match more aggressively just because that’s how he plays, and also because it’s useful to bring some weapons to the table, when your opponent has plenty to hurt you with. In any case, it was a good enough tactic for today.

Tsonga was in great form to start with, executing his very aggressive brand of tennis. The two and three shot combos were reliably winning him many points and it looked like he had the winning formula going. Big serve, flat forehand and then a volley to finish it off. Dolgopolov could barely pull off a passing shot, and his movement seemed like a useless weapon against Tsonga’s power and efficiency.

But it turned out to be a rollercoaster of a match for Tsonga with plenty of highs and lows, with too many of the lows coming straight after he had built himself a crucial lead in a set. Many of the games where he lost serve, he practically threw them away with three or so errors. After Tsonga broke serve at 3-2 in the second set, every game he played in that set onwards was filled with errors.

Just as soon as he appeared to be in trouble down a break in the third set, and his tennis going down the drain, he picked it up again and his all-court play was in full flow again. Tsonga was in a good mood again, smiling and joking with someone on the back of the court, a ballkid or linesman, I don’t know. Life was good again. But it didn’t last long. Another rash of unforced errors creeped into his game, losing serve to love with three bad errors, followed a great backhand crosscourt passing shot from Dolgopolov several metres behind the baseline. This was one of his few passing shots in the first three sets of the match, though this would later improve for him.

Fortunately for Tsonga, Dolgopolov can be loose and careless too, handing back the lead to Tsonga with some bad errors of his own. This time, Tsonga served it out comfortably.

The fourth set marked a more aggressive approach from Dolgopolov, finally making more use of his shotmaking ability. Like what happens with many other players, it was probably a sign of relaxation knowing that he was no longer in a position to win the match. First he had to level the match before he could even think about winning. He held serve in the opening game with his best game of the match hitting numerous winners, and generating racquet speed that I hadn’t seen from him the entire match. This earned him a break the following game. But soon afterwards, it became clear that Tsonga’s game had disappeared again.

Actually, not only had his game disappeared, but so had his concentration. After he went down a double break, his mind started to focus on other things and he was stretching often in changeovers, not only struggling with some physical problems but also thinking a lot about them too. It became a one-sided affair after that, and by the end of the match, Tsonga didn’t really have the capabilities to make a comeback. His legs were gone, and he tried to thump them with his hands but it didn’t work. Dolgopolov was relaxed by now, with Tsonga no longer being able to put pressure on him, and closed it out easily.

Australian Open 2011 - Day 4 Blog

2011-01-21T01:40:00.007+10:00

Today was a mixed bag of matches. With it being my last day in Melbourne, the intention was to watch as many matches as possible, and to stay as late as possible, but I didn’t end up being able to do that.

Of the early morning matches, I picked Michael Llodra’s match against Milos Raonic. Both are aggressive players in their own way, with Raonic being aggressive from the baseline and Llodra sneaking up into the net. This was a very efficient kind of tennis, a practical way of playing, to make it easier on the body. Short rallies, and consequently lots of breaks in between points. Less playing time, more walking time. Though I shouldn’t underestimate how tiring it is to serve-and-volley. Probably even more so, than baseline play.

In any case, the rallies were short here, and there were not many probing rallies. They liked to keep the ball away from the middle of the court, though Llodra would move around the ball with his slice and with less pace, whereas Raonic was much more explosive. I don’t know what to think of Raonic’s game. I can’t tell what level he is at either. He hits the ball hard, and if it works, it’s good. His winners count was significantly greater than Llodra’s, and I guess that’s what won him the match in the end. His movement is not that great, which is not that unusual since he’s a big guy.

I have seen Llodra play various matches, and I have to say I never find him all that successful with the serve-and-volley. Is it because he does it all the time and his percentages are lower, that it looks worse than someone who does it sometimes? I know his volleys are great, the record speaks for itself, but it doesn’t feel athletic to me. It’s more like he has good technique, good reach and consistently soft hands. Maybe his tennis works for others, but for me, I find it overly reliant on the serve. To win matches, he pretty much needs to serve well, to be able to hit easy volleys the majority of the time. I also found this match overly reliant on serve, so after one set, I headed off elsewhere.

The weather today was much more like summer weather, with it being hot instead of cold. I had a look at Mikhail Youzhny’s match against Blaz Kavcic which ended up being easily the highlight of the day. I wrote about not many probing rallies in the previous match, but there were plenty of them here. These were good rallies, not long rallies for the sake of being able to do more running, because running is fun. And it also wasn’t about making the opponent crumble.

The match started off with both players still trying to figure each other out. Moving the ball around the court, but not going for it fully, and also trying to keep up with each other. This made for riveting viewing, not knowing who would get the better of each other. Youzhny has a very smooth game, and it seems like he needs to rely on shot selection quite a lot because it’s not as easy for him to finish points. Compared to other top players, he needs to work harder, I think. The other reason would be because he doesn’t get that many cheap points on serve.

Youzhny did seem like the slightly more competent player though. In particular off the backhand side, where he could open up the court well, with a crosscourt, then followed by a down-the-line whether sliced or driven through. Kavcic seemed a bit like a workhorse in comparison, playing disciplined tennis. At the professional level, there are many players that play the game based on their own particular talents or strengths, but Kavcic plays tennis the way it should be played, not taking into account strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps I should call it textbook tennis. Anyway, textbook tennis is smart tennis, just lacking in flash.

He didn’t really do enough to dent Youzhny’s game to start with though. The first half of the set was close with many competitive rallies, but then Youzhny pulled away after he got out of the “figuring his opponent out” mode and started to play with a clearer frame of mind and implementing an all-court game. I noted down that after the second set, Youzhny was leading in the winners department 24 to 8.

In the second set, Kavcic started to pile on the unforced errors, just when I thought he was quite consistent in the first set. His body language completely changed, as he started to become dejected with his own play talking to himself and slumping the shoulders. At this stage, Youzhny had the match completely under control, and I thought this match was a good demonstration of how body language and attitude can impact on a player’s game. Had Youzhny not handed Kavcic an early break in the third set, Kavcic could have ended up being completely dejected in the third. That break of serve on Youzhny’s serve was all his own doing, filled with very sloppy errors and it continued for about three games or so. Youzhny was threatened to go down two breaks, until he finally picked up his play again on the break points and from then onwards.

The third set was the start of a more all-court approach from Kavcic, hitting more shots with purpose. The same guy that looked completely lost in the previous set, had just raised his game to a new level, and was now very energetic and pumped up. There were two guys sitting a couple of rows in front of me who had been shouting support for Kavcic the whole match. The first time they did it, Kavcic had a look at where it was coming from, but by now, he had started directing all of his clenched fists over there. And it just happened to be in the exact same direction to where I was sitting, so suddenly my involvement in the match had been taken up another level. Whenever Kavcic hit a poor shot and was disappointed, he’d look in my direction for encouragement too.

But in the third, fourth and fifth sets, Kavcic was extremely pumped. His body language and intensity was so much greater than Youzhny’s and I felt he had some kind of presence because of it. When watching matches on court in a live atmosphere, I would think that one person coming across very energetically would be an intimidating factor. Especially if the other guy is subdued. It was weird to think that Kavcic would win this match, just by looking at his body language. I had to keep reminding myself that the tennis was relatively even.

They were good sets of tennis, marked by a good fighting spirit by both players. Both players seemed quite determined almost each and every point. Kavcic had an early break in the fourth set and wasn’t troubled on serve until Youzhny had break points late in the set. It was at this stage when Youzhny couldn’t convert that he unleashed a sudden burst of anger, yelling intensely to Boris Sobkin. Since he was speaking in Russian, it could have easily looked like he was angrily yelling at the crowd. But my guess says he wasn’t. That seemed to help endear him to the crowd though, as they started cheering more loudly for Youzhny, sensing that he needed their support.

Now that Youzhny had let that out, it felt like a really intense match from then onwards. Both of these guys really wanted to win it. And it also seemed like Youzhny had finally matched Kavcic in intensity, though he was still more reserved on a regular basis. But when it came to the rallies, you got the sense that these points were treated importantly. Every cheap error was frustrating for them, so I didn’t want to judge them on it. There weren’t that many errors though. It was a good match.

In the fifth set, Youzhny broke serve with some good shotmaking, stepping into the ball a bit more than usual. From then on, Kavcic’s game had fallen to pieces, and he showed signs of frustration, with his legs not working as well anymore. This guy sure doesn’t keep his emotions and thoughts to himself. It’s a special experience to watch from this close, and the more the match went on, the more I started to root for him. Though I didn’t mind it when Youzhny came back to win it either, because he played nice tennis too.

I should also add that Youzhny pulled off an under-the-legs winner, one of the very few times that I’ve seen this shot go in. The percentage is usually extremely low. That was a good crowd pleaser.

Because of that long match, many of the matches I thought about seeing were either nearly over or over anyway. I took a break mentally, then I found out that David Nalbandian’s match against Richard Berankis was moved to court 2, so everyone tried to run up there quickly. I scored myself a good seat without the running anyway, as that stadium is considerably bigger than court 6.

I dreaded to write about this match, because there really is very little to write about. When the match started, I was surprised with how aggressively Berankis was playing, certainly not the same Berankis I saw in Brisbane, swinging away with all those forehand winners.

At first I hoped it was just a slow start from Nalbandian, but then I started to think that he was completely drained from the Hewitt match. It’s not a good sign for him to recover so badly. One would expect some tiredness, but not a complete inability to play. In any case, it didn’t take long for me to accept the fate of this match, and I think as the match went on, Berankis didn’t feel the need to go for his shots as much either. Pretty much nothing worked for Nalbandian, so there’s no point with picking out strengths and weaknesses here. It sure was disappointing given the long wait, though I didn't mind waiting when I was watching Youzhny's match.

I really didn’t want to end the day on that match, but unfortunately I had to, because Andy Murray’s match was full and filled with long queues, before it had started. If only I had a media pass this year. I remember getting into a fully occupied Andy Murray match on Margaret Court Arena with it last year. I thought at the completion of the women’s match, that some people would get out, but no one did. I didn’t think anyone would want to leave so early into the match, so I gave up and took an early night. The stadium being full probably had just as much to do with the fact that there were no other matches going on in the outside courts, so anyone in the grounds without a Rod Laver Arena ticket would have had to watch that.

By the way, I have now put up all my photos from the four days of play.

Australian Open 2011 - Day 3 Blog

2011-01-19T23:25:00.005+10:00

Due to last night's late finish and having to blog afterwards, today felt like a strange continuation of yesterday. I ended up watching fewer matches because I started to doze off after a while.

I really needed to be punctual for the 11am start, because Florian Mayer was scheduled against Kei Nishikori. When I arrived, Mayer and Nishikori had just walked onto Court 6, and I noticed there were plenty of empty seats so I tried to find myself the perfect seat. This ended up being a far more difficult task than I originally thought.

I already ranted about there being far too many shade covers on this court in the Simon vs Lu match, more so than on Court 7. But it turns out on the other side, if you sit too close to the middle opposite to the umpire chair side, you’ll be looking through blue sheets on one third of the court. Probably around 70% of the seats on that court have a restricted view. As Mayer and Nishikori were warming up, I switched seats about three times until I finally found a seat I liked. Thank goodness there was at least one good spot.

Unfortunately after all of that internal drama to start with, the spectacle was sorely lacking from Mayer. It was a very subdued performance from him, with everything slower paced than usual, and far too many errors creeping into his game. It was such a letdown from his fantastic win over Davydenko, and I think perhaps he was also a little tired, as he would sometimes bang his legs to try to get them moving more quickly.

To start with, it was mostly a defensive performance from Mayer, not going for his shots, but also not able to prolong rallies due to all those simple errors. Perhaps also, Nishikori didn’t give him that much pace to work with. It was a very controlled and disciplined performance, different to what I saw from him in the past where he’d try to be more flashy with the forehand. I saw Brad Gilbert in the stands a couple of rows ahead of me, and it seems like he is improving his tactical game as a result of that coaching change. I thought he played some very smart and patient tennis in this match. Could you believe it took him until the fourth set until he hit his first jumping forehand?

He played a different game today. Not focused on hitting outright winners, but on moving the ball around the court, using the full width of it. I’m typically a fan of this kind of play, going around your opponents instead of through them. Looking at Nishikori’s groundstrokes, they look so technically sound, much more so than the majority of players I have seen before. Playing like this, I could not notice any weaknesses in his game, aside from perhaps the serve which could get attacked. That was probably the main thing keeping Mayer’s chances alive in the match, his return of Nishikori’s serve.

I thought Nishikori was playing at around a top 20 standard today, but then again, I later saw Stanislas Wawrinka today, and maybe that was a level above. In any case, if he keeps playing like this, he will quickly rise up the rankings this year.

Today was the first time I had seen Mayer show such poor touch in a match. He missed practically every drop volley in the first two sets, or so it felt like. He definitely missed plenty of easy ones for his standards. Obviously the creative side of Mayer was missing in action today, but he did try to play better. It was just that every time he would string together a couple of good points, he’d ruin it with another error. On the defensive, he’d generally hit those low slices and slow shots, so those shouldn’t have ended up being errors because he didn’t even go for them. So I guess it was mostly to do with poor movement and energy.

Mayer’s level did improve each set though until the fourth set, but generally in a subtle manner. The second set had more of a mixture of good and bad play, instead of being just outright bad. The third set, he had better touch and a more aggressive strategy, but then in the fourth he was too inconsistent again. The third set was nowhere near as one-sided as the 6-0 scoreline suggests. All of the first three games were long and difficult games, but once Nishikori went down a double-break, he conceded the whole set.

From the fourth set onwards, Nishikori started to play more aggressively but I’m not sure whether that was due to increased confidence or a drop in fitness levels. He started to hit those bigger forehands that I’m more accustomed to seeing from him, and as mentioned earlier, more jumping forehands.

On the completion of that match, I made my way into Hisense Arena where I had tickets for throughout the week (so far) but preferred to stay on the outside courts. I think I was encouraged by the pleasantly decent view on my back row seats last night, that I thought the tickets I bought here would be fine.

I went into the stadium, as Janko Tipsarevic was serving for the second set against Fernando Verdasco. I took a quick look up the stadium, to notice a few people reading books, and another with a newspaper in their hands. The memories all came back to me now. How it’s just a completely different mindset in that stadium. It’s filled with plenty of people that are not actually fully concentrated on the tennis. They’re here just to relax.

My seat was slightly frustrating with the handrailing blocking my view. Just one more row up, and I would have been fine. Aside from that, everything seemed so far away in here, and it took me a while to find my concentration. Tipsarevic had just taken a two sets to love advantage, and generally third sets tend to be lacking in tension for the most part in this scenario. I don’t know about other people, but I generally don’t care for watching third sets, whenever the player favoured to win leads two sets to love. But in this case, Tipsarevic was the underdog.

Verdasco hadn’t begun the season in good form though. He lost in the first round of Brisbane to Benjamin Becker. One quick look up into the screen in the stadium shows that so far in this match, he had hit a ridiculously large amount of unforced errors. It would have been something like double the amount of Tipsarevic. I had already started to draw my conclusions before even watching it.

I saw the error count and had all the potential explanations for this match in place. But halfway into the set, I started to realize that Verdasco must have cleaned up his game a whole lot here, because he was moving the ball around nicely. In the first couple of games in the third set, I noticed some bad shanks and errors where it didn’t look like Verdasco had any feel on the ball.

Verdasco is definitely a player worth watching live, mainly to see the forehand, because live, you get even more of a sense that the shot looks very different to most other players. The spin that he puts on the ball is great to watch. It looks very skilful.

This was a relatively fast-paced match for the third and fourth sets (of course, I didn’t see the first two, so I don’t know). Aggressive tennis mixed with good athleticism from both players. I think Tipsarevic was better at absorbing the pace, and hitting higher quality shots on the defense though. Particularly off the backhand. I really like Tipsarevic’s jumping backhand. Okay, he hits it just as well, when he’s not jumping, but it looks good.

In the third set, Verdasco broke serve with some great forehands and aggressive play, aided I think by some first serves being missed by Tipsarevic. The way Tipsarevic failed to serve out the match the first time played out exactly the same way, as the end of the third set. Verdasco was allowed the opportunity to start off each point on the attack, and he took advantage of it.

The fourth set, though was where the match reached its epic climax. Tipsarevic had chances to go up a double break, then he served for the match, broke back, served for it again and had two match points. He was in firm control of the match, but he couldn’t seem to finish it off.

On his second attempt serving for the match, he showed a huge improvement to his first attempt. He played it much better, and on the first match point, he had full control over a rally, but was a little too safe with the putaway volleys, and Verdasco took advantage of it with a spectacular forehand winner. I thought it would have been good enough. But since it wasn’t, he really shouldn’t have been as passive as he was with those volleys. Tipsarevic played a great point too on the second match point. It was a long rally where he had started to up the tempo, and he had just hit a scorching backhand down-the-line. It was called out, and it must have been very close, but Tipsarevic had run out of challenges, making desperate and silly challenges earlier on. Who knows what the result would have been, if he had enough challenges left. Did they show the Hawkeye result of that on TV?

In the end, Tipsarevic didn’t manage to hold, so they went to a tie-break. Unfortunately, from then onwards, Tipsarevic was emotionally scarred from all the opportunities he had in the game before. While the tie-break was going on, he was on some other planet reminiscing about the past. The fifth set would continue in the same manner, with Tipsarevic not really giving his full effort, and looking forward to getting off the court instead.

I was looking forward to getting out of the stadium as well. During the Tipsarevic meltdown, the guy sitting two seats away from me, started rambling on about Tipsarevic. How he had played to lose the first break, how he was playing in the tie-break, how he wasn’t going to win a single game. For just about the entire fourth set tie-break and fifth set. There wasn’t really that much to say about it, so there was obviously a lot of repetition there.

After taking a break and nodding off to sleep in Marion Bartoli’s match (this really had nothing to do with her play), I tried to recover for Stanislas Wawrinka’s match against Grigor Dmitrov.

There has been a lot of hype about Dmitrov, and I had never seen him play before, nor even bothered to read much about how he plays. It seems like he is still very much a work in progress. At the moment, he only has the raw shotmaking ability, and a good serve, but he hasn’t quite figured out what to do with it yet. The way he plays, it all looks a bit random to me, apart from the fact, that his game does seem centred around the forehand, and the serve does help set it up.

His forehand looks impressive when he executes it correctly, but it mostly only looks good from an offensive point of view, not defensive. Whether he is trying to hit it as a winner, or whether he is retrieving it back deep into the centre of the court, he is still hitting it just as hard. It doesn’t look like good percentage tennis to me.

This was a match between two shotmakers, but one was much better in toughing out rallies, and that was Wawrinka. Both had similar amounts of winners, but Wawrinka had far fewer unforced errors. Both won plenty of cheap points on their serve, or followed it up with a winner after their serve, so that made the spectacle a bit dull at times.

Australian Open 2011 - Day 2 - Nalbandian Defeats Hewitt in Thriller

2011-01-19T05:13:00.009+10:00

The Rod Laver Arena night match between David Nalbandian and Lleyton Hewitt, was a whole new experience in itself, completely separate from everything, and the most memorable match I’ve seen live.

To read Day 2 reports of the other matches, click here.

Having purchased night session tickets the night before, I wasn’t quite sure where I’d end up sitting in the stadium. It was a good thing I arrived slightly early instead of wanting to watch as much tennis as possible, because I made a mess out of trying to find my seats walking up and down the staircase several times.

I found out I was in the back row, but the view looked okay from there. Not as bad as I imagined. At least it was facing the long side of the court, so that I could distinguish it from TV view, and also without the umpire chair’s seat in the way. I could see the rallies quite easily from here, it was just hard to see the players’ faces though to be honest, it’s hard to see faces even from much closer. The players looked quite small though, and dropshots looked really weird from here like I have no idea where the ball is going when they’re hit.

Fortunately for me, this view is good for watching the rallies, the accuracy and the use of the court which suits what you would want to look out for when watching Nalbandian.

They built up this match on the big screen by showing highlights from the Nalbandian vs Hewitt showdown from the 2005 Australian Open quarter-final, not that I could actually see the rallies on the screen. Okay, it’s not like they made a big effort to show that. That video is already a part of their Australian Open flashback clips that they show in between matches on the stadium courts. But it was appropriate for tonight anyway.

The players hadn’t come out on court yet, so there was a lot of chanting going on from the Fanatics, who don’t look like a particularly big group. They were doing all these patriotic Australian chants and singing the national anthem. No real mentions of Hewitt yet. Feeling naturally patriotic towards my own country, I remembered feeling quite conflicted at the time, but when it comes to choice in players, there is no contest here. David Nalbandian is my favourite player, while Hewitt doesn’t rank anywhere on the list.

Hewitt won the toss and elected to receive, so it was Nalbandian who served first. He seems to have an annoying knack of starting off slowly with sloppy service games and this match was no different. Except that he managed to pull himself out of it and hold somehow.

As the rest of the first set began to unfold, Nalbandian was still making too many unforced errors to threaten Hewitt, in particular off the forehand. Pretty much, the ups and downs of the match were often highlighted by how well he was hitting his forehand. Not because his forehand was the dominating shot, but he needed to stay consistent on both sides, to be able to get the better of all those protracted rallies.

This match was an incredibly tense and dramatic affair all the way throughout, mostly because of these long rallies that neither player appeared to be able to dominate. Service games were often hard-fought, and points weren’t easily won.

Hewitt played good tennis in the first set, with high quality counterpunching. Whenever he moved from side-to-side, whether on the backhand side or forehand side, he’d often manage to hit a penetrating crosscourt shot. Nalbandian bases his game around controlling rallies and getting the upper hand, but he was really struggling to find that here with Hewitt going toe-to-toe with him. I thought, he looked to be in trouble, if rallies were to continue in the same pattern as the first set. It certainly wasn’t only the errors that were doing Nalbandian harm. He couldn’t find a reliable way of regularly winning points aside from the occasional change of pace or sneak into the net, but that wasn’t something he could do often enough.

Hewitt had chances to go up an early break in the second set and continue on the roll he was on, but squandered it with some sloppy errors. There were many break points and opportunities from both players in this match. Some were saved spectacularly, while some were squandered. That particular one was squandered.

Hewitt was playing with impressive consistency and depth at that stage, and he continued to appear to be the better player until Nalbandian out of nowhere struck a couple of unreturnable shots to go up a break, although aided by a couple of Hewitt errors before that. Nalbandian then continued on the momentum built by those two winners, bossing Hewitt around the court more than he did before. But it was no easy task. From then onwards, his backhand down-the-line seemed to fire much better too, more accurately and closer to the lines. That shot won him so many points.

The rallies were still competitive in the second set though. They were competitive in all the sets, and the more important the point was, the more epic it felt. What made the match most memorable were the constant momentum swings, the long games and of course the occasion of playing a night match with home support for Hewitt. Though from the second set onwards, was also the introduction of the two drunk guys in the crowd, constantly talking and yelling silly comments the entire match. Unfortunately they were sitting relatively close to me.

Nalbandian led a break in the third set but then threw it away with horrible errors. Unfortunately it wasn’t a brief concentration lapse, but a rather long passage of poor play which consisted of many forehand errors, often into the net. That break of serve he lost, was with some very sloppy play, that led me to believe that he went on mental walkabout unable to deal with his own level going down, and instead just slapping at the ball. Because that’s what those forehand errors looked like. A slap into the net.

But after a couple of bad games, at least he started making some more respectable errors and grinding away into the rallies. The match started to resemble more of the first set again. Hewitt was playing some good tennis I had to admit. The more stable of the two.

There were so many key points in this match, that my notes don’t seem to cover them and I can’t remember them all. Hewitt had picked up his consistency, while Nalbandian continued to churn out too many errors. Hewitt was up 3-1, and 0-40 on Nalbandian’s serve to go up a double break. I can’t remember how exactly those break points were saved, but I’m 100% sure that Nalbandian played those points much better than the ones he played to go down 0-40.

From then onwards, it seemed being down on the scoreboard really helped Nalbandian play better. He was still making errors every now and then, but his attitude was better, and he was more relaxed also enabling him to hit more winners. But the fact that he won that set without playing that cleanly does suggest that Hewitt’s level dropped considerably as well.

Despite the quality declining in some stages, the drama never really disappeared probably because it didn’t seem like either were secure on their serve. Though Hewitt won many more easy points on his serve than I thought he would. Not necessarily with outright winners, but with a two-shot combo. His serves out wide would often open up the court for him to hit a winner.

Nalbandian had the chance to serve out the set at 5-3 in the fourth set but failed. Once he was back to 5-5, he played a much better service game now that there was no pressure. He continued to improve on his good tie-break record from the last year or so, quite convincingly overcoming Hewitt 7 points to 1.

But I hoped that all matches would not go according to previous records, now that they had entered a fifth set and Hewitt is quite good at those. The early signs didn’t look good for him though. He was playing horribly, the worst tennis he had shown in the match making all kinds of simple unforced errors now. I thought he appeared to be quite tired, but a game or two before Nalbandian needed to serve out the match, Hewitt’s game improved significantly perhaps finding a sudden rush of adrenaline. Just like the fourth set, Nalbandian failed to serve it out, and now they were fully locked into a battle.

As Hewitt started to go down on the scoreboard, the level of noise from the crowd increased dramatically, with people sensing that he might need some help to edge out the win. There’s a certain level where it’s just background noise, then there’s another level of noise where it makes you shiver a little bit. The latter was what the second half of the fifth set was like. Personally I thought it would have started much earlier, but it was mainly only some supporters doing the loud cheering. Of course, I mean what it was like from my section, the back row. I was stuck with the two drunk guys yelling instead. By now, one of the drunk guys had decided to try to operate the Channel 7 camera which no one was using. In some horrible timing, during the late stages of the fifth set while all the craziness was happening, some other people in the crowd decided to start swearing at the drunk guys. I just really hoped that it wouldn’t distract the players, because it was during the rallies. I guess at least they were far away from the action.

Hewitt had match points at 15-40, and the first one I thought he had converted for a brief while before gasping that Nalbandian had hit a crazy half-volley winner, I think it was. Yeah, a half-volley that required very good reflexes and touch. The second one was a long, tough rally, ending up with an excellent volley at the net. He played many of the break points really well today (when saving them), often at a different level to the other points.

I don’t really know exactly when Nalbandian started cramping, but he started keeping his legs moving in between points around about here, which I guess was when it got worse. It obviously helped him though, because he hit many winners on his following service game after saving those break points then on the return game afterwards. I am not sure about the game where he was serving for the match because I was too busy hoping for the right result (for me).

Basically it was a great match, and I gave it the standing ovation it deserved. The final scoreline was 3-6 6-4 3-6 7-6(1) 9-7.

(It is likely there are minor inaccuracies with the report, as there were too many important points for me to keep track of)

Australian Open 2011 - Day 2 Blog

2011-01-19T04:37:00.010+10:00

For the most part, whenever I make it to Melbourne Park, I try my hardest to spend as much time watching whatever match I want, rather than the match before the one I want to watch. But the usual plan isn’t working as well as it used to, yet I sometimes still feel stubborn about watching other matches beforehand.

In any case, Anna Chakvetadze was serving for the match at 5-2 in the second set, so there wasn’t that much to wait for, before Jurgen Melzer’s match against Vincent Millot would start. Ordinarily you would think there is not much to write about three games in a match, but it was highly amusing. Chakvetadze choked a bit, but ended up digging herself out of break points to finish it off 6-4 in the second set, and she sure made an internal drama out of it.

Chakvetadze basically threw away her first service game serving for it, with four horrible errors in a row. Her attempt at breaking was slightly better. At least she won some points in it. Almost every time she’d win a point, she’d pump her first, trying to prove to herself that she has determination and that she can fight through it. Usually fist pumps are a positive form of emotion, confident approval of whatever happened in the previous point. But every fist pump that came from Chakvetadze were off Govortsova’s errors, but Govortsova should have been pleased anyway that Chakvetadze seemed this insecure about herself.

It was only until Chakvetadze found herself down break points for the match to level up, that she started to play better. Playing better, because she felt like she was behind. Then finally, Chakvetadze earned herself a real point to celebrate, with a great down-the-line winner from what I could recall, and with the help of some errors from her opponent, she closed out the match.

That was a good little piece of drama and fortunately brief, because it can get depressing watching a trainwreck.

Jurgen Melzer’s match against Vincent Millot sure could have used some drama or intensity. Millot made it into the main draw from qualifying, and he was completely outplayed by Melzer in every department. He’s a short, left-handed player and reminds me a bit of Wayne Odesnik, especially on the forehand side where they both hit a relatively loopy shot with high margin over the net. The problem was that he was neither consistent or a good shotmaker, so he was often overpowered by Melzer, and he didn’t put him under much pressure either by making many errors.

Melzer seemed to be able to hit many winners, or unreturnable shots with ease, often coming out of nowhere. It wasn’t like he moved the ball around that much, before unleashing the winner. I guess that shows how much pace Melzer can hit the ball with, but he was also patient rallying.

This match was incredibly one-sided though, so I was feeling kind of bored watching it. Coming from court 7, there was a lot of cheering and noise, but coming from the surrounding courts instead rubbing in that feeling that there were better things going on elsewhere. Even in that 6-4 second set, Melzer was up a break, then lost it, then broke again. I left after the second set realizing it would probably reach its expected conclusion.

I tried to head down to watch David Ferrer against Jarkko Nieminen, until finding out that seats were full. I think many of them were part of the Greek contingent waiting for Baghdatis’ match afterwards.

So I went in to watch Juan Martin Del Potro’s match against Dudi Sela instead, starting right from the beginning. Players had not yet come onto court when I arrived, otherwise it would have been more difficult to find seats once the match had started.

Listening to the pre-match cheering, it looks like both players have their fair share of vocal supporters, but Sela has more. To begin with, this match featured an entertaining contrast of styles. The match-up between Del Potro’s power and shotmaking ability with Sela’s counterpunching ability and ability to move the ball around the court. One has a lot of power, while the other doesn’t.

In the early stages, Del Potro approached the match, by trying to play solid and consistently with changes of pace on the forehand. In my opinion, changes of pace is something that is much more obvious live, than on TV, and also one of my favourite things to watch live because of that reason. To see how players can catch their opponents off-guard and find winners much more easily by surprising their opponents with more pace than usual. It’s also good percentage tennis, to not hit everything at a fast pace though.

Del Potro played well to start with in the first half of the set leading 4-2, but then his game suddenly went downhill. The biggest problem by far since his comeback has been his forehand which he has been shanking and hitting all over the place at times. He pretty much threw away his service break with bad errors, but after that, the poor form continued with flashes of good shots.

Still, there were plenty of long rallies and the first set was quite entertaining. I really enjoy watching Sela’s accuracy and all-court game. He has a very smooth way of playing, but in this match, it was always evident from the start, that if Del Potro could keep his errors down, he could dominate the rallies.

The highlight and climax of the match, at least based on what I watched was the first set tie-break which Del Potro ended up winning 15-13. The tie-break had everything in it. Good shotmaking, missed opportunities, bad errors, big serving and many hard-fought points. When I saw Sela in Brisbane, I thought he played well for two sets except when it really mattered. The same ended up being true here. He had a forehand putaway off a short ball to win the set, and he shanked it. Then he followed it up with another bad error in the tie-break.

Del Potro had his own demons to battle as well, missing one easy shot on set point too, from what I could remember in that set. But Del Potro also came up with so many clutch serves throughout the set, that his play on big points also saved him many times. It’s hard to believe that Del Potro’s serve was often criticised as being poor when he first burst out onto the professional tour. A lot has changed since then, and it has easily been his best shot since his comeback from injury.

Long and dramatic sets seem to often end up in an emotional letdown, even if not from the players, but from the crowd. Or at least usually from me. Having watched that tie-break, everything early in the second set, immediately seemed much more boring. But it seemed like the momentum from the first set had carried on, and Del Potro started to play more confidently now, while Sela was nowhere near as consistent as he was in the first set. Definitely Del Potro was playing much better tennis from then onwards.

In the first set, Del Potro finished up with approximately double the amount of unforced errors as Sela. But the second and third set statistics must have surely been very different.

It became quite one-sided, so I decided to leave the match to watch Radek Stepanek’s match against Denis Gremelmayr.

While the match was going on, there was some very loud cheering going on nearby, people chanting and cheering for Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, not exactly a player you’d expect to receive that kind of attention. It was loud enough that it sounded like it was coming from the same court, except often while the points were being played too. Still, being scheduled on a court like that usually comes with background noise.

The scoreboard on this court hadn’t been working for a while, so it was stuck on 0-0 for a set and a half all over the grounds which must have been highly confusing. I didn’t miss out on much though, and they were at 3-2 when I arrived. Even though this was a one-sided match, this was better than the other one-sided matches. It was Stepanek in full flow, the master tactician. His shot selection, accuracy and all-court game is great to watch. But I think none of that would have been possible without his excellent ability to change directions on the ball, often hitting effective down-the-line shots, sometimes with slice and sometimes with topspin.

The match was one-sided enough, that I didn’t really pay close attention or judge Stepanek harshly if he made a few too many errors. He was in full control of this anyway. I was more looking at the shots, rather than the story.

Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve seen Gremelmayr play before. He has an odd lefty forehand with a very abrupt circular motion. Both his weapon and his weakness, I assume. He strung together a couple of good forehands to get back even on serve in the third set, but then Stepanek broke right back to take the match.

While this match was going on, Robin Soderling blasted through his opponent in quick time, so there was a half hour gap before Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s match with Philipp Petzschner. During the break, spectators were amusing themselves by hitting beach balls around the stadium. At first I didn’t see it, and didn’t know what all the cheering and booing was about, but they started booing when the ball fell onto the court. Then the Mexican wave started, a key feature of every Margaret Court Arena night match.

In the end, I didn’t end up seeing much of this match due to Kim Clijsters’ double bagel of Dinara Safina, but also because they had an epic game at 1-1. Petzschner had 7 break points in that game, but wasn’t able to convert. Once it was 2-1 on the scoreboard, Clijsters had already rolled through the first set.

It was a shame though, because it was quite an entertaining match, but also slightly inconsistent. A battle of two flashy players with big forehands, where style comes before tactics and grinding. Basically Tsonga and Petzschner try to win matches the way they want to, and if it’s not working, then they try harder to play better while playing similarly. There were a lot of forehand to forehand rallies, with both players using the angles, not exactly your typical match. Matches seem to revolve more around backhands as the rallying stroke these days, while players are more likely to change directions on the forehand side after a while.

Petzschner nearly went down an early break in the first set, with his forehand badly misfiring but it didn’t take him long to pick it up on that side. From then on, it was a mixture of flashy shotmaking and errors, but it was fast-paced enough that it was entertaining anyway. It’s surprising that the match went five sets though, with Petzschner taking a two sets to love lead, then Tsonga coming back in five.

The Rod Laver Arena night match between David Nalbandian and Lleyton Hewitt, was a whole new experience in itself, completely separate from everything, and the most memorable match I’ve seen live. It was a match that deserves its own report, and you will find it here.

Australian Open 2011 - Day 1 Blog

2011-01-18T00:41:00.006+10:00

Sometimes the first day of Grand Slams can be underwhelming and routine, but today was a good day for me. It was a day filled with competitive matches, a variety of styles, and good tennis for the most part. Conditions were cold and windy with the occasional spitting of rain, which is better than the heat I suppose. However, one recurring problem seemed to present itself throughout the day, and I fear it will throughout the rest of the tournament. From what I gathered today, there seems to be an increase in the crowd turnouts this year on the outside courts. Either that or poor scheduling.

There were many formerly good players playing today, that the tournament organisers took very little notice of. Nikolay Davydenko, Gilles Simon (however he just won Sydney last week) and Richard Gasquet were all playing on courts where it was difficult to get a seat. The problem was that even if you did end up getting a seat, chances are it would be a horribly obstructed view, with not only the umpire’s chair in the way, but also with plenty of shade covers over the players’ chairs.

Before my seating troubles started, I headed over to Show Court 2 to watch Sam Querrey in action against Lukasz Kubot. I arrived quite early and took the second row from the front. It’s a great view, without any obstructions. Better than watching on a tiny, intimate court in my opinion.

Querrey arrived about 8 minutes late, much later than Kubot and that is very rare in a Grand Slam, I think. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I saw a rather large amount of gesturing with his hands, once he got onto the court, as if to suggest he was misguided somehow into not finding his way to the correct place.

Play got underway soon afterwards, and it didn’t take long for the Polish fans to make their presence known. They were very frequent with their chanting and support, especially to start with, using any minor pauses in between points to make some noise. I kept trying to take photos of them while they were standing up but those pauses were really short, so I kept missing, and ended up giving up.

When Querrey started serving in the first game, I couldn’t believe the difference between his first and second serve. His first serve was hard and flat, and makes the kind of sound that comes from big servers. In comparison, his second serve seemed to float there forever after its bounce with plenty of time for players to take their racquet back and do whatever they want. He did improve it later on though, as it started to become a softer version of the first serve, but it still seemed to land mainly in the middle of the court.

In the early stages, Querrey’s forehand was nowhere near as potent as I thought it would be. He played mostly a counterpunching role to start with, hitting loopy shots with plenty of margin over the net, but he was okay when he was forced to go for it, like having to hit a passing shot. It’s amazing how many players seem to find it difficult hitting winners, but when presented with a “do-or-die” situation, they can do it pretty easily. Of course that is also because it is more difficult for the net player to run it down once it goes past them. Some players probably wished their opponents would run to the net all the time.

I’m not sure Querrey is one of them though. He just has better passing shots than expected. Especially on the backhand side, and his ability to hit down-the-line on that side is better than I thought too. He keeps his racquet very still and low while hitting it, and it’s more reliable than the forehand which is more prone to shanking or late timing.

The match was an entertaining contrast of styles, a battle between an aggressive all-court player Kubot and the counterpuncher Querrey.

Kubot is a strong player, hits the ball hard from both sides, seemingly throwing his weight around the court. By that, I mean, using it to generate penetrating groundstrokes and to move athletically. Kubot doesn’t have the best side-to-side movement, but he makes the transition from the net to the baseline extremely well. Today, he was often up there before I even noticed. He also rarely seemed to need to hit a low volley. Though I did find it odd that he was either passed or had an easy volley to hit every time he made it to the net. Perhaps Querrey didn’t even think about making Kubot hit that many shoelace volleys.

I watched the first two and a half sets of this match, and it was quite a streaky match, but mostly at a good standard. Querrey was still finding his timing and too passive in the first set, but after the first couple of games, his serving improved so much that it gave him an edge and Kubot’s high risk game abandoned him in the crucial stages when he needed it.

In the second set, Kubot started swinging away and making shots right from the beginning, as if the pressure from the first set had been suddenly relieved. I have been interested lately to see how players handle low and high pressure moments, letdowns in the beginning of sets, and how they play when they are down on the scoreboard.

In this case, being down on the scoreboard really helped Kubot kick off the second set impressively. He carried on this sudden wave of confidence to hit through Querrey with countless forehand winners, though also Querrey’s serving quality had decreased allowing him more opportunity to. By then, Querrey had also improved his baseline play so this became a better spectacle. Querrey’s backhand did more damage in this match than the forehand, presumably because the match-up with Kubot’s backhand is better.

Returning first in the third game, at first I thought Kubot would continue his practically flawless display when he got off to a 0-30 start in the first game. But it didn’t eventuate and both players ended up struggling on many of their service games. When I left the match, Kubot had broken back Querrey to return to level terms.

Nikolay Davydenko’s match against Florian Mayer had just started, not that I knew. The only scoreboard updates I get are the changing scorelines each changeover in the stadium courts, except that it would never cover all the matches, and often skipped on Court 7, where these two played.

The match was in its early stages, 2-1 in the first set when I joined and I immediately started to regret my decision after noticing that the stands were completely full. Eventually I found a spot where I could peek through the blue sheet covering the side of the stands, though this is obviously not the ideal way to watch a tennis match. I simply wanted to find out what this match was like so far. I most definitely wasn’t going to watch the whole match looking through the blue sheet.

But the match looked good. Plenty of long competitive rallies, where you couldn’t guess who would get the better of it. Of course, there were also plenty of rallies with the trademark variety of Florian Mayer. Mayer broke serve with some great shotmaking. He digs so many balls back when he’s playing, and he always looks like he’s trying to catch up when he’s playing against the top players, but he often hangs in better than it looks like he will. That is, if he is dealing with a player, that uses a lot of pace. He likes the pace.

Meanwhile, the lack of pace was really making it difficult for Davydenko to finish off points. Even if he could handle it, he wasn’t able to push Mayer around the same way he pushes his other opponents around. Especially not when Mayer was buying himself additional time by not giving Davydenko much pace.

After the initial break of serve, I found that there were many people leaving all the time in the changeovers. Many people walked up the stairs not knowing if they’d find a seat, so I followed and ended up sitting on the stairs for a while. They don’t have any security for monitoring this on the smaller courts. It was an extremely cramped position on the stairs. I hoped that I would make it to the actual seats soon, but it was a little difficult because whoever closest to that empty seat would usually get it. It wasn’t on a first come, first serve basis.

After going through three or four changeovers, I was finally able to grab myself a real seat, and I was rewarded for my patience. The kind of patience that I don’t necessarily always have, but what I saw in this match kept me hanging around long enough.

The first set contained many entertaining rallies, with a wide array of shots from Mayer. Davydenko didn’t play that poorly, but couldn’t seem to finish Mayer off. A change of tactics allowed Davydenko to convincingly win the second set, choosing to sneak up to the net whenever he had Mayer stretching out wide often finishing it with his favourite angled touch volleys. Suddenly the amount of extended rallies had drastically decreased.

It seemed like Davydenko had found the formula, and I thought he was on his way to winning the match. But the third set turned out to be a very inconsistent set from both players, with many losses of concentration. It was almost like both players were trying to conserve energy for the battle ahead. Mayer needed to fight through a service game early on, so it came completely out of the blue when he broke Davydenko’s serve to lead the match yet again. Mayer took a more aggressive approach this set, and he wasn’t always successful. But he needed to do so, as a weapon against Davydenko’s increasingly aggressive approach.

Mayer held onto his serve all the way through that set until he tried to serve for the set. At Deuce 5-3, Mayer dropped his racquet after his service motion then picked it up again to play a competitive, long rally. He ended up firing an impressive forehand crosscourt winner, but the umpire awarded the point to Davydenko. Mayer then smashed his racquet in frustration after losing the next ad point with a forehand error. Actually it was very much at the level of a Gonzalez racquet smash. I don't know why the umpire didn't stop the point earlier. One of the guys behind me repeated this story about the racquet drop and smash whenever his mates would walk past, so it happened a couple of times. It was obviously a dramatic moment.

That racquet smash really heightened the tension of the match, as it was drawing into the closing stages of the third set. Mayer was in a mentally fragile state, but also in an extremely fiery mood. Despite losing that break of serve, the energy and adrenaline going through him in the third set tie-break helped him raise his level, and ultimately win the set. Davydenko’s subdued body language and attitude surely didn’t help his chances, though the other reason is that he leaked a few key errors.

The fourth set was a continuation of the third set tie-break for Mayer, while Davydenko’s error count started to pile up immensely. At times, when he missed a shot, he’d have a dejected expression on his face, which is more rare than you would think in professional tennis. He looked sad and disappointed, not angry.

Mayer had break point chances in all of Davydenko’s service games in this set, and he really should have secured a second break to make it much easier for himself. After failing to convert in two separate games, Mayer lost his serve, then broke back again.

Despite Davydenko playing poorly for the most part in this set, there were a couple of games where he played some great tennis. The contrast between those two standards was really obvious, and I couldn’t believe how he could change from one extreme to another just like that.

The final game where Mayer served for the match was one of his great games, but not enough for him to fight back. That game had a controversial overrule, changing Mayer’s shot from an ‘out’ to ‘in’ call. Davydenko seemed to have a whole new intensity that game, nothing like what I saw from him in the last two sets. He threw everything he had at Mayer, and Mayer showed more determination than normal to get it back, and eventually he’d finally find the right time to pull the trigger himself.

Realizing how tough some of those last games were, Mayer was thoroughly happy with his win, celebrating by lying on the ground for a short while.

After this match, I quickly browsed the outside courts to see what was going on, then made an impulsive decision to watch the end of Philipp Kohlschreiber’s match against Tobias Kamke. Kamke had won the first two sets, Kohlschreiber had taken the third and was up a break in the fourth.

This was a relatively inconsistent match from the point where I started watching, where it became quite difficult to sink my teeth into it. Rather than trying to win in an outright way, it looked like it was more a matter of both players trying to manage their own games and fight through the match. Kohlschreiber was much more consistent in the fourth set, and that was the big difference. He was mixing it up more than I usually see from him on the backhand, hitting just as many slice backhands as drive backhands. Kamke was making plenty of errors, but seeing his play in the fifth set, might suggest that he was not exactly fully focused on the task in the fourth. Or either he was not as fired up anyway.

I’ve seen it often, players being less motivated to finish off a match in a fourth set (if struggling with tiredness, or poor play, or something else), but have a completely different mindset when it comes to the fifth. I suppose, it comes with knowing that the match will be over soon either way.

Kamke was down an early break in the fifth set but broke back. His consistency and execution of his aggressive shots improved greatly in this set. He really likes to step in and go for the backhand, but too much is going on before he hits the stroke, and he is prone to make errors on that side. Later, Kamke’s inconsistency came back to haunt him, losing the crucial break of serve.

One of the spectators sitting near me was constantly complaining about why the match wasn’t over yet, and wishing that it was, which was rather puzzling since there were plenty of other choices. Not to mention that leaving the grounds is another option. It was already around 5pm anyway. Eventually, after 15 minutes of complaining (or possibly more), they did leave.

After this, I thought about watching Gasquet’s match against Dancevic but the stands were already full, and on this court, there are only stands on one side. In my experience, that court is always overcrowded. So I referred back to my order of play sheet, and headed over to the court where Gilles Simon was playing to see if it had started yet. It had.

Simon was playing against Yen-Hsun Lu, who traditionally receives a lot of support from the Taiwanese fans. The same was true today, and the left side of the stands looked like it was filled with red, or at least bits of red everywhere. In between points, they would swing their flags around, but again I was not quick enough with the camera to capture it well. Sometimes they would do their chants which sounded a bit like "Aussie, Aussie, Oi Oi Oi" in another language, but whether it really was exactly the same, I'm not sure.

The stands were full, but on the right stand, people would leave often and there would be vacated seats. As soon as I sat down on one, I could see why. The view was terrible. This court seems to have a few additional shade covers on where the players are sitting compared to the court that Davydenko and Mayer played on. I can’t understand the need for all these “view blockages”. Make them sit in the changeovers in the sun for our benefit, or hold an umbrella themselves if they really want to. I quickly got up out of my spot and decided to stand up instead on the corner where I had a better view. From this view, whenever Lu comes over to the side where I'm standing, I can hear him loudly exhaling.

This was the battle of the consistent baseliners. The kind of match where it doesn’t take long to have a look, and think, they’re going to take all night. Despite a couple of 6-2 sets thrown in there, it did take a long time. The match also rarely changed from the original model that the match started with. In the beginning, Lu was like a slightly better version of Simon. Hitting the ball harder and taking more chances, going closer to the lines. On the other hand, it felt like Simon’s tactic was to make every rally as long as possible. This means not taking any chances. I wonder if this is how he played before he showed sudden improvements in 2008. The kind of tennis that earned him the tag of being known as a pusher.

The other thing that can be frustrating about Simon, is that sometimes it doesn’t look like he is giving it 100%. Because of that, it also looked like he could run all day, and play all day while running around just as effectively as before. After all he was barely breaking a sweat, as in everything seemed to come very easily to him. Gilles Simon makes tennis look very easy. Or more accurately, Gilles Simon’s B-grade standard is tennis made to look easy.

Today he was hitting every groundstroke at about 70% pace, compared to his full pace, and rarely changing it up. Hitting so many balls into the court, I often found myself wondering why he doesn’t try to do things differently. Again, he mostly stuck with going crosscourt, and they exchanged a ridiculous amount of backhand crosscourts with each other.

It was a real battle, but after the first set, Simon’s consistency began to improve, with the gap in unforced errors widening significantly between Simon and Lu. Lu had about 60 unforced errors, while Simon had around 30.

Sometimes when Lu was down in a match, he’d try to go for more, thinking that he would need to do more, and it would cost him an additional break in a set.

In the end, Simon’s continuing consistency was too much of a problem for Lu to overcome. The match ended with a really nice handshake, and I can see why, given how much both players battled in this match.

Australian Open Blogging

2011-01-13T23:39:00.002+10:00

Just a quick note that I will be blogging from the Australian Open again, but this time for the first four days only. By now, you should all know what to expect. If not, a quick look down the page at the blogs from the Brisbane International will give you an idea.

I really like reading comments, so I strongly encourage them. If you would prefer to use email, you could do that also.

Robin Soderling Smashes Through The Draw to Win Brisbane

2011-01-09T20:21:00.018+10:00

Last time Robin Soderling arrived in Brisbane, he was a top 20 player with a relatively low profile due to his less-than-impressive Grand Slam achievements. This year he returned as the #1 seed, and top 5 player, commanding the majority of the media attention in the tournament here. In fact, a couple of days ago, he featured in a video clip where one of the interviewers who barely knows how to play tennis tried to play against him, and he switched to playing left-handed.

Soderling is clearly a player to be feared now, rather intimidating and scary to play against. It’s hard to write about Soderling’s tennis abilities compared to the rest of the field. Is it less complimentary to write about a player’s ability to generate pace? He does hit quite a heavy ball too though. Is it mostly due to his big and strong stature, or the crazy big wind-up on the forehand? A couple of years ago, he was often criticised for the unreliability on the forehand side, but now it seems like that unorthodox style isn’t so bad after all. In fact, it’s his “money shot”.

The other big shot of his would be the serve, which seems to zip through the court before you’ve even seen it coming. During the commentary yesterday, I heard one of the most fascinating observations about Soderling. They said his serve is quite flat, and he can’t swing it out away from his opponents that well. So if there’s a big point, he always hits his favourite flat serve down the T on the deuce court, and out wide on the ad court.

Soderling defeated Andy Roddick in the final today, rather convincingly. It was similar to his win over Radek Stepanek in the previous round, where both players tried to throw Soderling off his rhythm (though in different ways), but found that their off-pace shots had very little effect.

As with many of Roddick’s matches (with opponents trying to target his backhand), there were many rallies on the backhand crosscourt side of the court, and Soderling seemed like far more of a dangerous player in this match-up. Able to run around and hit more forehands, penetrating and with surprisingly good angle.

With so many opportunities to hit off-forehands, it was easy to see how Soderling has much improved his footwork running around his backhand to hit forehands. Before he sets up to hit the shot, he throws his entire body into the shot, and this requires a lot of work, to make sure that everything is set up facing the right angle and on time. It’s always hard work on Soderling’s end, but it looks like he’s physically and mentally up to the task. It sure helped that he knew Roddick didn’t have much to hurt him with. He doesn’t seem to be using the backhand down-the-line as much as he used to during the best moments of his career.

I’d like to know what vision Larry Stefanki has for this period of Roddick’s career. Our commentators here in Australia have now painted him as a junkballer, beating his opponents by throwing off their game with off-pace shots. I wonder if this is what he thinks of himself. He has been using the slice backhand a lot, which seems to be one of Larry Stefanki’s favourite shots, when you look at how he handled Fernando Gonzalez’s game, and probably some others, not that I paid attention to his previous coaching roles. Is he developing his game in a direction of producing moderately high performances, but underwhelming results?

Roddick must not be using enough forward momentum on his groundstrokes. I had a look at his forehand, and he’d throw himself into it trying to get as much racquet head speed as possible on the forehand but by the time it reached the other side of the net it always looked underwhelming. So much effort to generate power, such little reward. I don’t think this is normally the case but he was being outplayed here, so he tried harder to penetrate through the court, and still ended up with 0 forehand winners by the end of the match.

There must be something technically wrong there, or either he is intentionally trying to hit these loopy, safe shots. At least his accuracy and consistency is quite good, and this will always ensure he can beat the majority of players ranked below him.

Frustrated with not having any control over proceedings in this final, Roddick used the entire rain delay to rant to the umpire Fergus Murphy about his way of checking whether the court was suitable for play or not. I thought the rant was rather rude and self-centered, and also annoyingly repetitive. In any case, Soderling continued in a business-like manner unfazed by all the distractions and broke serve soon afterwards giving him the crucial break to finish off the match.

Brisbane International - Wednesday Blog

2011-01-05T20:48:00.005+10:00

It’s the start of play on Wednesday, and Florian Mayer and Richard Berankis have just walked out on court, along with the officials. Mayer towers all over them, while Berankis fits in with the crowd of officials. Berankis looks like a cute little junior, while Mayer looks mature. Berankis had some headphones on in one ear, then I started to wonder which other players do the same thing.

Seeing his age, I thought to myself, maybe this would be a more difficult match than I originally thought. After all, young players can make quick strides in the rankings.

I quickly tried to acquaint myself with Berankis’ game. His groundstrokes look very technically sound, and he moves reasonably well, but not spectacularly. He’s a good ball-striker, and his double-handed backhand is the standout shot. Good ball strikers are always dangerous.

Mayer started off the match in aggressive fashion, not resorting to as many slow-paced shots as he did against Tomic. Even without the obvious slow slice backhands, he was still able to change the pace and keep Berankis off-guard, and Berankis made too many errors to start with. The biggest difference between the two though, was Mayer’s return of serve, which is definitely one of his biggest strengths when playing well. He’s very good at using the opponent’s pace against them, by taking the return early and reflexing it back.

The other factor that made Mayer clearly the better player in the first set and a half was his superior counterpunching ability. About midway into the first set, Berankis started to clean up his game, and Mayer couldn’t hit through him anymore.

The vast majority of winners must have been on the run from defensive positions. It really made me think about how Mayer relies on his movement so much, to be able to hit those great angled crosscourt backhands and forehands on the run. He has quite an aggressive way of moving his feet when he is hitting the shot. It’s not a smooth way of moving, but rather a very abrupt way of suddenly planting his feet firmly into the right position.

The point of the tournament came on 5-4 in the first set, 0-15, where both players exchanged fast-paced, high quality groundstrokes for 20 strokes or so, which ended in a forehand approach shot into the open court that looked like it could have won the point, then a great passing shot from Berankis that looked like it could have won the point, and finally a dive volley winner from Mayer to get to 0-30 and eventually break for the set. That entire game at 5-4 was high quality. Mayer finished it off with a backhand return winner down-the-line.

This was a match of two halves. The first set and a half, from where Mayer was up a set and 3-1, and then the rest of the match. I noticed today from the crowd, that there seems to be an annoying trend of the underdog player on the outside courts getting more claps from the crowd. It’s not really accurate, but I call it sympathy cheering. It was the same in Marion Bartoli’s match, how the player expected to win can hit a great shot and the crowd will be silent, then the other player might win a point through an opponent’s error and then they get an encouraging round of applause. But it doesn’t stop even when the underdog is winning. The seeded player will still get no additional encouragement! Of course, it doesn’t apply to the stars, and maybe also it had something to do with Berankis being young and decent looking.

Mayer had this match under control, up a set and 3-1, with his superior returning skills. At 15-30 on his serve, there was a ball that dropped on the baseline that I thought he just left because he thought it was landing out. But then on 15-40, he did it again, and this time it was not so close to the baseline. He definitely had to be injured, and soon enough his body language completely changed.

It’s quite frustrating when you’re watching a match, and even though one player is winning, it looks likely that they won’t win. Mayer had been relying on his movement the whole match, so I couldn’t see how he could finish this off. Unless if his condition improved, or he served extremely well, or relied on his returns. He sure hadn’t been able to smack that many winners, without doing some running beforehand. Berankis didn’t really need to play any better. Before this, every shot Mayer missed was close to the line, but now he was shanking it and hitting in the middle of the net.

This was frustrating for me to watch too, so I started snacking to distract myself. So how did Mayer end up winning it in the end? The third set was incredibly strange. Mayer was visibly frustrated with himself, smacking a ball into the fence after holding serve in the first game, then later on in the set hitting his knee and holding it (when he started to make more of an effort to move for shots). Maybe he started to move better, knowing that he was near the end of the match, and only had to keep it up for a short while. Or either he felt a little better. In any case, he was in a hurry to walk straight off the court when the match finished.

Berankis definitely had a part to play in this. He pretty much gave away the final game, with one bad error and a double fault. His game seemed to crumble in the key moments. I guess some more experience is required for him in this area.

While this long and fluctuating match was going on, it seems like the people inside Pat Rafter Arena were getting short-changed. I waited outside expecting to see some of Jelena Dokic’s match, but she had just lost 6-0 6-1, and they were already just about to start the 3rd match on the schedule - Andy Roddick’s match against Alexandr Dolgopolov. This was a highly disappointing match. I expected much more after seeing Dolgopolov’s match against Andreev.

Dolgopolov started off brightly, matching Roddick in the serving department and hitting superior groundstrokes. He can hit the ball with astounding pace at times. I suppose it looks spectacular when it works. But it turns out he’s just a flashy ball-basher. After that initial break of serve, Roddick’s service games became much simpler, while most of Dolgopolov’s shot selections seemed silly and over-the-top. He made many wild errors, and so this became a simple match for Roddick, just for being the more sensible player.

Roddick played solidly, but I really didn’t like the look of that slice backhand at times. Then again I was sitting so far back in the stadium, I couldn’t really see properly how high it typically went over the net, but it seemed to float too much for me.

So my $60 ticket for Pat Rafter Arena was basically spent on that disappointing match. It was back to the intimate and outside courts, where the only problem is that it can be unbearably hot, like it was on the second and third sets of the Mayer vs Berankis match. By now, it had significantly cooled down though.

Marion Bartoli had just started her match against Iveta Benesova in steamrolling fashion. I like to watch her relentless determination and killer instinct. She has a deadly look about her, and takes a very serious approach to her tennis. She also has entertaining routines in between points, sometimes practicing service motions in between points on her serve.

It’s a good thing that she plays in this way too, because she doesn’t look anywhere near as effective when she’s pulled out wide, like she was in the second set. From what I saw today and yesterday, maybe she runs out of steam after the first set, not being able to play at the same relentless pace point after point. But she picked it up again in the third set.

Benesova looked like she couldn’t quite understand how the match turned around against her so much in the third set. She spent the second half of the set being grumpy, and seemed to get annoyed at the umpire for not being able to hear one of her overrules, and rambled on about something else. Then the umpire replied with something like, “what else would I be commenting on?” But I’m really not sure whether I imagined that conversation in my head, because I couldn’t hear it properly or whether it really happened.

This was not a very clean match, with plenty of errors mixed with some good shots. Particularly I could not understand in this match, the same underdog mentality of the crowd that I mentioned earlier. Especially since Bartoli’s winners were often more impressive and better-looking than Benesova’s. I decided to make a point of clapping Bartoli’s winners, and I don’t think I could hear anyone else clapping while I was doing it (which is why this was very noticeable for me).

Feliciano Lopez walked onto the court wearing stylish big headphones and mouthing (or singing) the words to a song, only to head straight to the toilet then before coming back to the court. I managed to take one photo just before he took it off. That was probably the only positive memory I had of him, during his match against Kevin Anderson.

Both players started the match with dominant serving, and winning the first couple of service games easily. But soon afterwards, it turned into a real match with groundstrokes and rallies in it. And that’s when it started to look like, the only thing Lopez had today was his serve. I’ve noticed in these couple of days, that not many players are getting cheap points on their serve, like there haven’t been many serve-oriented matches. At least less than I thought there would be.

Anderson completely outplayed Lopez in this match, and Lopez struggled to win any baseline points. One was solid and consistent, and the other missed everything. Anderson’s groundstrokes looked good, but perhaps they’d look very different against a different opponent. I’d like to be more insightful, but this match was quite simple. The rain started in the final game of the match, which was good timing because that was the end of the singles matches on the outside courts.

Brisbane International - Monday Blog

2011-01-04T00:39:00.015+10:00

It’s not often I arrive early to a tennis tournament, so I found myself feeling slightly lost while also sensing a unique opportunity. I’d have to say I usually take a very one-dimensional approach to attending a tennis event, and that’s watching many matches and doing little else. I guess I would call that the “watching as if it was on TV” approach. Though I always find myself amused when I walk past a top player practicing and hear comments on what sets them apart from everyone else. I can’t tell anything from practice, and I don't bother to either.

The Brisbane International isn’t a place for watching players practice anyway, with the fencing surrounding the players. Great for their privacy, but difficult for the fans. I didn’t find anything of interest, until I spotted Radek Stepanek, but then I quickly walked off after taking this photo since it looked like he wasn’t playing.

There was still around 20 minutes until the start of play, so I thought I would go measure the speed of my serve, which ended up being a slightly traumatising experience.

I picked up the first racquet I saw, and it turned out it was a kid’s racquet. Now I don’t usually write about anything other than the players, but I was very grumpy when the reading showed me 75km/h, then 85, then 90. All five of my serves in that range. I didn’t care what the reading said, I was sure I could serve much better. After all I served 100km/h when I was 12 years old.

I spontaneously decided to take another turn before the lady interrupted me, and told me I should let others have a turn. The line wasn’t exactly in the shape of a line, so I didn’t know if anyone was waiting. While waiting I tried to concentrate on tossing the ball forward so I could hit it while moving forward. I picked up the adult’s racquet this time, then the first serve I hit was 130km/h. What a relief, but still a nuisance that I failed so badly the first time. Oh well, I still think I could do better, if I tried bending my knees more…

Enough of this evaluating of myself, it was time to focus attention on the players, even if they weren’t ready to take the court yet. I decided to sit down and relax for a while.

After a short break, Michael Berrer and Dudi Sela took to the court. I hadn’t thought much about the match-up beforehand, but a quick look at their statures reminded me that this would be a nice contrast of styles. If being much taller and bigger wasn’t enough, Berrer decided to put on a bright neon yellow shirt to emphasise his point. Though this reminded me of a traffic controller or construction worker’s uniform.

This was a very enjoyable match, probably the best one of the day from an objective point of view (the subjective choice would be Florian Mayer’s entertaining performance). I was pleasantly surprised with Berrer. Stylistically I would consider him more of an all-court player, rather than a serve-and-volleyer, but he has the mindset of one. His commitment to playing outright attacking tennis, without worry of making errors or getting passed, is nice to watch. He doesn’t worry about execution. He just concentrates on trying to play the match the best way according to his own strengths and weaknesses.

His game is aesthetically pleasing in style, but limited in execution. He can play aggressively with his forehand, mix it up with his backhand slice, and he can take the ball early to come into the net. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. When he was getting outplayed by Sela in the first two sets, it looked like it worked about half the time. He doesn’t move quickly enough into the net, and usually only makes high volleys. Shoelace volleys would often go into the bottom of the net. But he didn’t let the running passing shots from Sela phase him. I think it is this simple mentality that allowed him to hang into the second set, and nudge out the win.

Sela outplayed him for the majority of the match, and probably would have won the match, if only he had converted on breaking serve in the second set. His groundstrokes were accurate and controlled, with his running passing shots being a standout in the match. He also returned Berrer’s serve much better than the other way around.

Despite the 6-1 set scoreline in the first set, it was a relatively competitive first set apart from the final loss of serve. At least it seemed competitive up until the very long game at 3-1 on Sela’s serve, which Sela managed to hold onto. It was quite an intense match until that stage. Berrer brought out the extra loud grunt to try to get back into the match, but it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help, losing serve for a second time with overplayed shots.

The second set, was a slightly more patchy set of tennis. For starters, I couldn’t really understand why the score was still even despite all the errors Berrer was making considering Sela was barely making any mistakes. The only explanation I could make was that Berrer’s good shots (and Sela’s average shots) came at the right time, but he did have to dig himself out of some difficult games.

The second set tie-break was nothing like the rest of the match. Berrer won it with good, attacking tennis, and also by taking a more aggressive mindset on return than usual. It was a change to see him string together so many points like that. It was around this time that Sela started to become preoccupied with some sort of blister on his finger. He didn’t even bother to chase the shot on break point of the first game of the third set, and that was a sign of things to come.

The third set was basically a mental capitulation from Sela, though I can’t say whether he was distracted or noticeably hampered by the blister (or whatever it was on his hand). It did look like though, he was no longer able to play aggressively anymore, and his groundstrokes had significantly deteriorated. It’s hard to win matches while showing that kind of body language. Berrer continued the same way as he did in the second set tie-break, and not long afterwards, the match was his, 1-6 7-6(3) 6-2.

The completion of that match was timed well, as the rain began to pour soon afterwards, in what would repeat in brief intervals throughout the day. Sam Stosur was struggling against Lucie Hradecka while I was waiting outside the gate. She had just saved some set points, but after I made it inside, she barely dropped a game. She took it up another level in the tie-break, then carried the momentum into the next set.

It took me a while to adjust the surroundings of a big stadium, where I had to make an effort to look at the stadium. I couldn’t spend too much looking at what was adjacent to me, because that wasn’t in the same view as the same court. Tennis crowds are sometimes shown moving their head from one side to another, but in this case, I needed to keep it still.

As usual, Stosur did most of her damage with the serve and forehand, though to me, it felt almost like there was no one on the other side of the net, with the complete one-sided nature of the match. Don’t ask me how the first set was so close.

The scheduling of Australian players on Pat Rafter Arena continued on, with Bernard Tomic up next. Tomic, who is also a Queenslander strutted onto the court in his encounter with Florian Mayer. I can see why people call him cocky. He really does strut around the court, it’s not like a quiet confidence. Anyway, walking confidently is not going to intimidate anyone.

I had never paid any attention to the way Mayer warms up in his matches, but he mixes it up and hits as many low paced shots in the warm up as he does in the match, probably even more. I’m sure there are many players that like to use the warm up to get their energy up, but Mayer makes this impossible with his slow, lazy approach.

He came onto court wearing the same red shirt from the indoor season last year, and it seems like not much has changed since then. He is playing just as confidently as he did back then, though I wouldn’t call it good form yet after one match. His serve worked well, he was confident enough to play aggressively on the forehand and he was constantly changing the pace.

I noticed for the first time that I felt a sense of excitement whenever Mayer came into the net. He has such good touch up there, I always expect he will do something special. Such as creating a fine angle, or a delicate little dropshot. Most of the time, he doesn’t disappoint.

What Mayer does differently from most players is that he doesn’t use explosive shots on the run, at least nowhere near as often. He uses the slow floating shot or slow slice much more often to get back into points, to complete the glorious change of pace, which takes him from defense to offense. It really looks like his winners come out of nowhere when he does that. There’s just no way to see it coming. It’s not like a typical way of outmaneuvering opponents.

If there’s one criticism, it’s that he can get caught up with using too many floating shots on defense. He situates himself quite far behind the baseline, so it’s best to not hit too many consecutively. The slice backhand is nowhere near as effective, when it’s not combined with the drive backhand, and he was using too many in the first two games, perhaps focusing too much on how it might be a good idea to make Tomic bend his knees.

Once he started using the change of pace more often, he was completely dominant exposing Tomic’s lack of versatility, adaptability and movement. Tomic will need to improve his shotmaking ability on the run. He does seem to take overly large steps in his footwork sometimes, and he gets to his backhands out wide too late to plant his feet, to be able to hit a more aggressive shot. When he was able to take a good strike of the ball, Tomic played solidly, but he was not able to pose much of a threat. It was a convincing win for Mayer, 6-2 6-2.

The schedule on Court 1 was a match behind the main stadium, so I sat down to watch the start of Marion Bartoli’s match against Vania King. Of all the one-sided matches today, this was by far the most one-sided match. Bartoli basically just blasted winners through King, and her backhand is quite spectacular. Surprisingly a couple of her backhand winners, were the first time I gasped during the day.

King was basically a lightweight in comparison, and dropped the ball too short for Bartoli to attack sometimes. It felt like the first set was over in about 15 minutes. The second set was not as much of a display of winners, but with the same foregone conclusion.

The first upset of the day occurred soon afterwards, with Gilles Simon bowing out to Santiago Giraldo. That was a strange match, I thought. I must have spent the entire first set expecting Simon to improve his standard of play, and trying to figure out whether he had shaken out the rust yet.

I think what made it particularly difficult to figure out was that Simon didn’t exactly seem to know how he wanted to play the match. He definitely hadn’t figured out how he should play these rallies to maximize the percentage of points won. Occasionally, he’d show flashes of brilliance, where he’d suddenly decide to take the ball earlier or speed up the pace, that I thought he’d try to repeat that more often. His court coverage is so impressive and his shot production is so efficient, that he definitely has the ability to hit aggressive shots on the run. But he didn’t use it.

Just like how he didn’t take advantage of the strength of his backhand, instead choosing to knock it back crosscourt almost every time. There was one particularly great rally in this match where both players knocked it fast and hard at each other, and Simon won the battle of “absorbing pace” where I thought for a moment that Simon really does play like a wall. I mean that in a more accurate way, than simply saying that he gets the ball back all the time. He reflexes the ball back, and often in the same direction as where the ball came from, as a wall would. He also has the ability to always return a better version of someone else’s shots, which a wall also does.

I wouldn’t say that Giraldo put in an impressive performance exactly, but he was more consistent and slightly more aggressive, more willing to change directions with down-the-line shots. Simon struggled with his first serve percentage, as noted by the statistics, and Giraldo took advantage of it. Of all the players today, Simon probably talked to himself and complained the most, closely followed by Dudi Sela.

In the final game, it started raining, and many umbrellas went up obstructing my view. It’s a strange situation in Brisbane, as play can still continue on the covered courts with rain, but it is very uncomfortable to watch as a spectator. I, and many others were pleased that Simon was broken for a second time to quickly end the match there, so we could take cover.

I thought that maybe that would have been the end of my tennis night, but the rain cleared up quite quickly, so after having dinner, I went back to Court 1, to see the remainder of Igor Andreev’s match against Alexandr Dolgopolov. They were up to the back end of the first set.

I initially tried to watch the match from the stands but the chairs were all wet, so I thought it would be a better idea, and also very cool to watch the match standing up, leaning on the fence of the court. I really enjoyed this different view, seeing how players use their body to generate more pace and explosiveness.

By now, the number of people on the outside courts had cleared up completely now that the night session had started. Most of the people there before were just waiting for Andy Roddick’s match to start.

I don’t know the exact details of Dolgopolov’s recent results, and I’m sure just having a quick look at the wins won’t tell the story. But his body language seemed quite confident to me. He had a spring in his step about him, and his movement into his shots was very impressive, and what allows him to play aggressively. He has nice touch too, hitting many dropshot winners, but also one particularly bad one.

Andreev didn’t play a good match at all. Probably his only bright spot was the serve, but Dolgopolov completely outmatched him in terms of variety of shotmaking.

Andreev isn’t ranked as highly as he once was, but having a close look at his heavy game, it does remind me of some of the players you come across that seem intimidating, but aren’t anywhere near as scary as they initially come across. Then again, he just doesn’t have time to properly prepare on this surface. He puts in quite a grunt, only for the shot to come off as mediocre. I got the feeling that Andreev wishes the shot he just hit was bigger and better than it actually was, and you can see that in some of the errors he makes when he overplays it.

There's a new Tennis Brain!

2011-01-02T07:31:00.013+10:00

Tennis Brain is back and revamped for the upcoming Australian tennis season, where I will make my blogging comeback in the Brisbane International, and watching the matches courtside.

It's the first time I've changed the layout in over two years and I have no idea why I had waited that long, aside from being lazy! Though it seems I was still partially lazy, not really bothering to change the colour scheme. Naturally it looks better than the old layout, now that I develop websites for a living, and I also pumped it out rather quickly.

The new Tennis Brain has a silly and ambiguous banner up the top, and also a rather pretentious slogan. It's a sign of things to come, that I can put anything I want on this blog. A lot has changed since I last posted consistently. I don't see myself as a serious writer anymore (comparatively), so it really is for recreation only.

I have probably driven away the large majority of my visitors with my lack of activity, so I will just have to try to interest myself instead of others instead. I could include a more personal observation, write more informally, or add something random. But these will only be minor differences. After all I haven't written up a whole new blog description on the sidebar only to start doing the opposite of what it says.

Florian Mayer gives the fans in Hamburg something to cheer about

2010-07-24T19:11:00.018+10:00

I don’t think I’ve seen Florian Mayer lie on the ground like this. This is one of the high points of his career, and this image is symbolic of many things. Inspired tennis, a hard-fought match, and an epic home country win.

Mayer is into the semi-finals now, defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero, who

played a tough match but started to run out of gas towards the end.

Mayer can be a frustratingly low key character sometimes, looking as if nothing could excite him. When he’s not playing well, you wish he would just fire up a little bit. Like yesterday, in the first set against Maximo Gonzalez, where he seemed to constantly walk little circles in between return of serves. A sign of nerves, or confusion? After taking an injury time-out late in the first set, he was a changed man and went on a roll. It’s like he’s always walking a fine line between being the likeable vulnerable underdog, and the guy that doesn’t really know or believe in what he’s doing.

However it seemed like this time around, the slightly excitable Mayer turned up right from the start. Because from an outsider’s point of view, I can’t really see why he can be so unfazed by his own play sometimes. He plays a bit like a showman, but he doesn’t act much like one. I watched him play in Wimbledon this year, and it came to my mind that I don’t think I’ve ever seen another player on the tour enjoy bamboozling their opponents as much as he does.

It’s one thing to put disguise on your shots, and another to constantly try to make your opponents believe that you’re going to hit a different shot than you actually are. I think, the main reason is that it’s incredibly difficult to pull off, and it seems easier to just try to hit winners instead. For me, whenever I change my mind halfway through a stroke, it almost ends up with an error, or either it doesn’t really have anywhere near the effect I was hoping for.

Mayer is quite a talent on the backhand side. Early on, he sets up for a backhand by jumping on it, then sets up to hit a dropshot and pushes a slice deep in the last minute. That’s not one false backswing but two mindgames in the one shot, completely unheard of outside of exhibitions. And that was good enough to get the job done. It didn’t even matter that the slice backhand practically went mid-court deep, it forced an error from Ferrero because he had no idea where to set himself up.

Mayer can change the pace on the backhand crosscourt, create spectacular angles on it, hit cunning slice backhands, change directions down-the-line and hit jumping dropshots. It really is one of the most difficult to read shots in the game. Today, he seemed to be in a good mood. Because he was jumping on a lot of backhands. Definitely a good sign that plenty of energy was in reserves for today, and he really needed it.

This match wasn’t only about the high quality and varied play of Mayer today. It was a great match all-round. What makes the match even more spectacular is the physical ability that both players showed, in having to constantly chase wide balls and when you consider that means digging your feet into the ground and stretching wide all the time, that’s tough on the muscles. This was a match full of long rallies, utilizing many angles, dropshots and changes of pace. It was 3-1 in the first set, and even during those points, there were images of Mayer huffing and puffing, which in the end cost him his break of serve.

Ferrero was hitting the ball well, playing traditionally effective claycourt tennis which generally consists of a lot of side-to-side action and well-constructed points. I’d say he is the epitome of a professional player, and I’m sure his experience has much to do with that. His shots are consistently strong and he doesn’t give his opponents much to work with, when he’s hitting on the run. They just don’t decrease in quality that easily.

It was a battle on who would come out on top – whether Ferrero could keep Mayer on the run enough, or whether Mayer would throw just enough surprises to change the course of a rally. In the first set, both players had their fair share of success in this area, but I did think that Ferrero would come through, mainly because Mayer was playing a little above himself while Ferrero looked like he could keep it up forever.

I wouldn’t have thought that as the match wore on that Mayer’s forehand would become more of a prominent feature than Ferrero’s. I find it hard to believe that Mayer was having anything other than a spectacular day on this side, the way he cracked all these flat winners from up high in the second and third sets, often down-the-line. At first, he was lacking somewhat defensively on this side. Often his elbow would lift up a little too much, and he’d float it into the middle of the court, and he’d have to work hard to turn the rally back around. That was the exact weakness that he ironed out in the second and third sets, to manufacture a dramatic turnaround.

He didn’t only improve his defensive forehand. He tried to do more with it as soon as he had the chance to try to keep rallies more in his favour. I have to say I haven’t seen Mayer play this aggressively from the baseline before. Usually he uses his strong shots to follow into the net, but this is clay, and perhaps he just can’t make it into the net as much. At times, he surprised himself just as much. By the third set, he was occasionally smiling at some of his big shots. Let’s hope that he can carry this form into the semi-finals, because he knows it’ll be a good opportunity, playing against Andrey Golubev. If he can play anywhere near as well as he played today.

Surprise this week! Some match reporting… for Hamburg.

2010-07-23T22:42:00.014+10:00

It's been a while since I've sat in front of the computer, and had a look at the shot mechanics of a match. But it's been a quiet week for me, so I thought I would spend today staring as closely at the screen and the players, hoping that would provide some sort of inspiration.

In front of my screen was Thomaz Bellucci and Philipp Kohlschreiber. In particular, I remember writing about Bellucci around the same time last year, and it's good to re-write about young players because they sure improve quickly. Bellucci is no longer a player that you only see every now and then, and also more adaptable to other surfaces than he used to be. He's sitting at 22 on the rankings right now, and starting to develop some clear weapons on the serve and forehand.

I predicted more of an even battle, but early on, everything Bellucci hit seemed to be bigger and better. Better angles and better penetration. Kohlschreiber's signature backhand was no match for Bellucci's forehand, in the battle of crosscourt shots. It was a pattern which repeated again and again, and so the winner of that match-up convincingly won the match. This is where being left-handed helps, though you would have thought not in this case.

Bellucci has the ability to hook his forehand wider and wider, hit across or above the head if needed and also to switch it down-the-line once there is an opening. Though perhaps he was also allowed some time on this surface to show this versatility, since he does have a rather long backswing on the forehand. I wonder if the key to a fearsome forehand is large amounts of racquet head speed. I'm surprised he doesn't shank it more than he does, with the low to high stroke production, and he also hits it more open stance than many other players.

Why wasn't Kohlschreiber able to pull out his backhand down-the-line, as a change-up? Perhaps Bellucci had him pinned too high and too wide, that the only thing he could do was to hit harder and deeper rather than using a greater range of shots.

Bellucci could have won this easier than he did, but he seems to sometimes suffer from overconfidence and overhitting. He broke Kohlschreiber's serve late in the first set, then cranked it up an extra level to a very aggressive mode as if it didn't matter anymore. It didn't take long to pay the price. His serve was dropped immediately after one complacent game.

Sometimes playing well can make you feel like you can pull off anything you try. A more experienced player would have known what intensity and "gear" they should be playing at, their optimum level. But at least that break of serve shook him up, and back to reality he was, to play the same type of tennis that won him the initial break, to break serve and attempt to finish off the set again. This time, he learned his lesson.

This set the tone for the second set, where Bellucci kept himself in front with an early break in the set. The rest then played out just like it did from the start. Kohlschreiber tried to throw off Bellucci's rhythm with very deep shots, but to no avail. It's not often you see Kohlschreiber overpowered like this. I wonder if he has trouble generating pace on clay more compared to other surfaces. On the other hand, his topspin obviously benefits. Like all good, proper claycourt players, there were many excellent dropshots from Bellucci usually thrown in for good measure, and often well-timed after a long rally.

Australian Open Day 6 Blog

2010-01-24T11:07:00.013+10:00

It’s the first day of the weekend at Melbourne Park, and it shows in the crowd attendance. It’s hard to walk around anywhere, and it seems like there are big crowds wherever you go, too many people standing around doing other things than watching tennis matches because the stadiums are too full. The first couple of days of the tournament seemed fine with a greater spread of matches, but the last few days have been more problematic.

Today I decided to join the battle of trying to occupy good seats, although it was initially not my decision to do so. I had prepared to watch Mikhail Youzhny play then heard of his withdrawal so I walked into Margaret Court Arena to watch Vera Zvonareva play against Gisela Dulko.

The weather seemed continually threatening but in the end, it was simply a minor nuisance. What was probably more of a nuisance was the quality of the matches. By the end of the day, I felt like I just watched a first round day of coverage on TV where they pick the top players beating a poor hapless opponent for three tedious sets. For the first time, I left the grounds in the afternoon at 4:30pm, that’s how one-sided the matches were.

The match between Zvonareva and Dulko was fascinating to watch, just because it was refreshingly different to the other women’s matches I watched. Everything seemed at a pace slower, reminiscent of what 90s women’s tennis looked like, and at first this was exciting. This was tennis that was easy to watch, filled with rallies where players cared much more about accuracy than power.

Zvonareva can hit the ball significantly harder than Dulko, but at the same time it was obvious that she could hit it much harder if she wanted to. Instead, she chose to hit the ball side-to-side most of the time at about a medium pace.

In the first ten minutes or so, I found Dulko incredibly fascinating to watch. The way she hits the ball, she finesses it, she doesn’t drive through it. As a result, Zvonareva dominated the majority of points, and I thought it was an incredibly difficult way of playing because if she doesn’t find perfect accuracy then her shots end up being punished. Given Dulko’s stature, I am not sure why she can’t generate any more pace or whether she just chooses to play like this.

Dulko started poorly struggling with her serve and making far too many simple errors. But whenever they engaged in a rally, Zvonareva seemed to have the upper hand quite clearly, which made it difficult to shake off this preconceived feeling in the second set when things started to become more even.

I constantly wondered what it would look like, Dulko playing on a good day. She seemed too much of a crafty player to be overly reliant on her opponent’s errors. In the second set, I found out the answer to my question. She still swings at the ball just as timidly, and she doesn’t seem to find much racquet head speed at all. She finds that extra pace mostly through better timing. And with better timing came better depth and accuracy, and she ended up putting Zvonareva on the move more often than it would initially seem possible.

Still Zvonareva’s groundstrokes seemed too good overall, and it was more a case of her managing her own game. It was far more difficult for the Russian in the second set, but in the end she prevailed.

I hadn’t seen Nikolay Davydenko play yet this week, so it was my final opportunity to do so. He was scheduled to play against Juan Monaco, in what would end up being a one-sided victory for Davydenko.

From first glance, Davydenko has one of the more eye-catching games on the tour. I’m not sure why he has a reputation of not standing out when he clearly does. Compared to the majority of other players, Davydenko has an incredibly efficient game, and everything he does is so neat and perfect.

He has shorter backswings than the majority of players, and he takes everything so early that it looks like he’s catching it while the ball is still high. Every time he hits a backhand, it looks like a high backhand. I can see why they call him a ball machine, in a different sense. Because he manages to prepare early enough to be able to hit every shot almost exactly the same way, and this looks ridiculously good. Surely it has to be tiring to be so quick and early to every single shot. Everything he does, he does at a fast pace, whereas the majority of players are more selective.

When I watch Davydenko on TV, I usually focus most of my attention on the accuracy of his groundstrokes and his relentless aggression. But I found myself mostly looking at the technique and movement that Davydenko has on his groundstrokes. It’s hypnotising in a way, though I thought maybe I should actually take a step back and focus more on the tennis. I also think that his backhand looks so much better than his forehand live, whereas I normally think of them as being more even. And how about Davydenko's service motion where he seems to lean his back in a perfectly straight slanted motion?

Monaco doesn’t appear to be doing anything remotely interesting. Basically, Davydenko is playing at a fast pace and Monaco is playing at a medium pace, and being far less adventurous. His low winner count says it all. In the first set, he was making the simplest of errors, but in the second and third sets, he picked up his consistency.

The first set was Davydenko playing close to his best tennis, but his game dropped off to something more mediocre for his standards in the second and third sets, at least in the part that I watched. The match was a demonstration to me of both, why I like Davydenko play, but also why I don’t. As soon as his game dropped off, the funny thing was that his shots and movement still looked almost exactly the same. Except that it was less admirable given that he was making far more errors. I guess that’s because he relies so much on timing.

I wonder if Davydenko only reserves his all-court game for the higher ranked players, when he thinks he needs it, because he mostly stuck to the baseline and didn’t hit that many volleys.

Before the match ended, I decided to take off and watch Novak Djokovic’s match against Denis Istomin. As I sat down to watch this match, I started to gain a new appreciation of Davydenko’s match against Monaco, due to its one-sidedness. At least Monaco managed to extend many of the rallies, though it also put into perspective that even though Davydenko plays very aggressively, he doesn’t finish points in a couple of strokes that often.

It seems like the rest of the crowd were restless and bored as well, with someone behind commenting me that this was like watching an exhibition. It was a seriously underwhelming day all around, not only with the matches I watched but also with Koubek’s retirement against Verdasco, and one-sided victories for Azarenka and Serena Williams.

Djokovic had already won the first set 6-1 when I started watching it, and he seems incredibly relaxed. How can I judge a performance like this, with no pressure? Djokovic’s stroke production is so different from Davydenko’s by the way, so much looser and less precise especially on the forehand.

He seemed very keen on coming to the net today, maybe experimenting with his game, I’m not sure. And he hit more slice backhands than I can normally remember. He had a lot of success with it, and Istomin struggled with it all match long. The rallies and the pace of this match was so quick that sometimes it was difficult to see what Istomin was doing wrong, aside from being a weak, inconsistent player all-round. His defensive skills were particularly poor as he would often drop balls short anytime he had stretched out wide, and quickly Djokovic was able to dominate points easily.

Djokovic was up 5-0 in the third set, but had a slight concentration lapse towards the end. He tried to hit a shot behind his back to entertain the crowd but failed miserably in its execution. In the end, he served it out on second attempt, and that was the end of the horror of the day session.

I came back for the night session between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis hoping to watch a closely competitive match played in a emotionally charged atmosphere. After some early excitement with Hewitt gaining an early lead, it became obvious early that something was wrong with Baghdatis. Though I was not sure whether it was fatigue, or something more permanent.

He couldn’t seem to generate any racquet head speed on any of his shots, and I was wondering whether he had a slight problem with this in his match against Ferrer because the pace of shot did noticeably decrease towards the end.

It was the first time I experienced sitting near the Aussie supporters dressed in the yellow shirts, and the support group was nowhere near as big as I thought they would be. Where are the Fanatics? In any case, I really liked the variety and creativity of their chants, compared to the majority of support groups that generally chant the same thing over and over again.

The atmosphere died down quickly, when everyone realized that Baghdatis was struggling badly. It hadn’t been a satisfying day of tennis, and this match unfortunately didn’t live up to hopes of making up for the rest of the day’s tennis.

I walked over to Hisense Arena hoping that maybe this would be the match to do that, between Tommy Haas and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and fortunately it was an entertaining affair. Surprisingly the atmosphere in here was much more electric than it was in Rod Laver Arena, and later, it was easy to see why with the quality of play the fans were witnessing.

This was an entertaining display of all-court tennis from both players, and I loved the fast pace of the match, with both players barely taking much of a break in between points. This was a battle between Tsonga’s forehand and Haas’ backhand to see which shot would be more dominating.

Everything about Haas’ game is so clean and aesthetically pleasing. Haas’ backhand down-the-line is great to watch, and so are his dropshots though he overplayed it at times. I was looking at his shot selection, and he seemed very focused on playing beautiful tennis. I am not sure if this is a good thing.

Haas is a clean hitter of the ball, and he doesn’t seem to have much weight on his shots compared to a lot of the other players, especially on the forehand. Whenever he missed shots, he’d usually miss them by overhitting, often hitting it too long or trying to be accurate. I am not sure how much his defensive game was affected by the back injury that he had, where he called the trainer for at the end of the second set.

Tsonga was more explosive on the court and he had more power on his groundstrokes than Haas did. His serving was especially good, while the rest of his play was more up and down. The match was so fast paced though, that if ever there was a bad error in a point, it was easy to move onto the next point. Haas served for the fourth set, but Tsonga suddenly raised his game to a new level, making more of an effort to turn everything into a forehand and bludgeon his way into the match.

After spending so much time previously looking at Haas’ backhand and all-court game, it was like Tsonga suddenly made his presence loud and clear, raising the level of his shotmaking and athleticism, and hitting more spectacular forehands to take the match in four sets.

Australian Open Day 5 Blog

2010-01-23T08:25:00.006+10:00

This time last year, Jelena Jankovic was ranked world number 1, but this year she’s seeded 8 and flying under the radar. She was scheduled against Alona Bondarenko on Hisense Arena, in what promised to be a good test for where Jankovic’s form is at.

The match had barely started and Jankovic had already hit plenty of shots close to the lines. She seems to particularly like the crosscourt corners and her backhand down the line. It’s almost like she’s constantly picking these very small areas in the court and has her mind set on targeting them.

On first glance, her groundstrokes look very good, but she is already down on the scoreboard, so why is that? I think the athleticism on her groundstrokes really comes through well live particularly how she slides into her forehand on the run, similar in a way to how Rafael Nadal plants his foot on his double-handed backhand out wide.

The problem is that Bondarenko appears to be capable of hitting it at another pace above what Jankovic is capable of, regardless of how much Jankovic will exaggerate her forehand swing or put it further over her shoulder to try to generate more pace. Bondarenko just happens to have that pace, and it seems much easier for her to hit winners too. Part of the reason is that Bondarenko is more accurate, but also that she seems to hit much better shots on the run which enable her to keep her opponent on the move for more than one or two shots.

I don’t think this is normally the case though. There is a reason why Jankovic has such a dominant head-to-head over her. And Jankovic is known for her defensive skills which I thought were lacking today. After making too many errors to start with, Jankovic started to bring the percentages down, sticking more with crosscourt shots on the run. This helped bring the match closer, but not close enough.

It ended up being a bit of a Catch 22 situation because Jankovic’s aggressive game simply wasn’t working. New sets tend to be opportunities for players to try new tactics, and after reining it in, Jankovic tried that aggressive game again. She tried all her strengths: more backhand down the lines, more off backhands, and she also tried to maintain more depth again. Bondarenko was playing well enough, that Jankovic was probably on the right track in terms of ideas that she needed to play better to change the course of the match.

What was fascinating though was how quickly Jankovic ran out of ideas and looked unsure of herself. The majority of her play in the second set could probably be described as reckless experimentation, maybe hoping that she could accidentally stumble across some answers. The thing is, she never believed in what she was doing so she wasn’t close to pulling it off.

There was a moment late in the second set where it looked like Bondarenko was getting tight as she lost her serve, and that maybe Jankovic should have changed her tactics to allow it to happen more. But it ended up only being a temporary blip, and the way Bondarenko closed out the match on the return game with some impressive groundstrokes proved that it wouldn’t have been a good idea after all.

It’s interesting to watch two women’s matches in a row, because that allowed me to compare the two, and I really like comparing things. Actually the only thing that I really wanted to compare was the serves of the four women, and the fact that Alisa Kleybanova has a significantly better serve than the rest of them. It’s one of the more powerful serves on the women’s tour, and like the rest of her shots, the weight of shot on it is impressive. It’s not just a flat, hard serve.

Kleybanova was up against Justine Henin today. Given Kleybanova’s stature and her reputation, it’s not at all surprising that she has tremendous power on both sides, but what is impressive is the work that she gets on the ball which looks somewhat unique in women’s tennis.

I am not actually sure how to describe it, but I think by rolling her wrist over the ball on both sides, she has the ability to generate more spin than most players after the ball bounces, or at least in a way that many players are not used to dealing with. For example, in the third set, Kleybanova hit a forehand down the line winner that looked like it was going to fall out, but dropped in at the last minute, and it was no shank or poorly timed shot.

Henin couldn’t seem to deal with any of it at first, and maybe as a result of that, I might have been overestimating the effectiveness of Kleybanova’s shots. But early on, Kleybanova would consistently win points by hitting hard straight down the middle. Actually it was frustrating to watch seeing Kleybanova achieve so much success without maintaining much accuracy. I couldn’t understand the lack of rallies, why Henin couldn’t manage to extend them. Usually if you’re going to hit a winner against Henin, you need to make her cover large amounts of court because she’s that quick.

From a shot selection point of view, Henin was frustrating in her own way too. For some reason, she tried to hit winners in a couple of shots herself too. Why was she trying to play the same way as Kleybanova? Why was she not making Kleybanova move when it’s the Russian’s weakness, and why was she not being more patient when it would give her a clear advantage in the rallies? Yes, these were the old problems from a couple of weeks ago coming back to haunt Henin again. Her unforced error stats in the first set were terrible, and whenever she reached some sort of consistency, she’d appear much closer to evening up the match

At least in the second set, despite her continual struggles, she started to resort to a more consistent game. It looks like she has figured out that she can still make Kleybanova move around the court just by hitting crosscourt forehands and backhands the majority of the time, and maybe throwing in some slices as well. I suppose this is related to the story I heard about the crosscourt and down the line drill, that if one person hits crosscourt and one person hits down the line, the person retrieving the crosscourt shots will have to cover so much more ground. Of course Kleybanova didn’t hit all her shots down the line or crosscourt, but Henin should have no trouble covering that ground, should there have been a one-on-one battle in this.

As the rallies started getting longer, the more Henin appeared to be in control of them. Though the fact that the unforced error statistics were in Kleybanova’s favour for such a long time showed just how poorly Henin was playing when you consider what a risky game Kleybanova plays. But in the end, Henin wore her down, and I think she started to become more used to the types of shots she was getting from Kleybanova’s racquet too.

At one stage, Henin was a set and a break down, but she managed to come through in the end.

Following her match on Hisense Arena was Andy Murray and Florent Serra who I seem to somehow always end up watching live due to timing and luck of the draw.

During the warm-up, some Murray supporters in the crowd provided some light entertainment by surely distracting the players in the warm-up especially Murray, by calling out forehand, backhand or volley depending on what shot he was hitting at contact.

This time around I was situated in a much better position to see Murray than in my brief little encounter a couple of days ago on Margaret Court Arena about six rows back and behind the players. I think, given that Murray tends to have an understated game, it was difficult to know what to expect before this week. The lack of pace is not as evident live, definitely not in the same way as Fabrice Santoro anyway. And he doesn’t come across as being that lazy around the court either.

But I was pleased to learn that I liked what I saw. It’s nice to see a player that comes across as obviously being very good, while not overly relying on the shotmaking department. I like the fact that Murray builds up points with shots that are connected to one another, a series of shots that lead to the final winner. I also like that he doesn’t have to be playing incredibly well for it to be entertaining. Either that or I am taking for granted his quality of play.

Obviously Murray is incredibly good at spotting openings. He can generate some good angles on both sides, often short angles too, and as soon as he has his opponent leaving a gap in the court, he’ll throw in the down the line shot if he’s feeling confident enough.

Actually, it’s interesting to note the difference between Murray playing assertively as opposed to playing reactively. Obviously his shot selection will be different, with not as many down the line shots, but even the threat of his defensive abilities significantly changes. On an assertive day, Murray will seem to leave no gaps open for his opponents, neutralise everything and make it even better. But maybe after a short high forehand or a casually chipped shot, he’ll find himself blocking everything back and being almost on the permanent defensive.

This is important given that if Serra is given anything that resembles a short ball, he’ll pounce on it. Serra played a decent first set, though he faded away in the second. He is definitely a player that plays well in patches.

This is what happened here in the first set. Murray was confident to start with then he backed off midway through. So it is very possible that I was admiring the exact same thing that would end up being a weakness later in a match. Murray was in complete control of that first set and should have finished it off well before he ended up doing so 7-5 in the first set. He played a shocking service game serving for the set at 5-3 broken to love on the back of his own errors. It seems that whenever Murray returns serve well, with deep returns, he sets up all the rallies for himself but if he doesn’t block it back well enough then he’s in trouble.

In the second set was a more relaxed Murray, as if the match was now firmly in his control. This set marked the introduction of the trademark behind the baseline passing shot winners, which was what we all came to see. By now, he had also added some additional variety to his game, in terms of shot selection. It was good, but also very relaxed at the same time, partially due to the fact that Serra couldn’t seem to keep up a consistent standard in his own play.

Given that Murray was already up two sets to love, I thought I should head over to Rod Laver Arena to watch Florian Mayer against Juan Martin Del Potro, a rematch of last year’s second round match here in Melbourne. I didn’t want to be joining the match to watch with it nearing its conclusion so I left Murray’s match early, though it turned out as I made my way there, that Mayer had just taken a break to go up 3-0 in the second set.

As I sat down to take my place on the seat, Del Potro would hit a couple of scorching winners to suggest that this match was played fully in his hands. Del Potro seems to have the intimidating ability to hit huge return winners when he perfectly connects with a shot. Despite pace being the main attribute of those spectacular winners, I’m pretty sure he does it mainly through timing.

A couple of minutes later, and all of these spectacular winners started to make more sense. Del Potro has been swinging away on everything, because he’s only interested in keeping rallies short. I started to think that maybe he is injured, because only injured players play with recklessness like that, aside from Richard Gasquet’s play late last year. Now that I have hindsight, I can say that he merely tanked the rest of the set away to save energy, and maybe to protect that minor injury he has too.

Del Potro’s energy levels were up and down the whole set. It was one of Del Potro’s slow walking and shoulder slumping days, and his movement didn’t seem that active in the actual rallies themselves either. It was very deceptive movement because he didn’t move that energetically if he didn’t have to run far. He’d only move as much as required. But whenever he had to reach a shot on the stretch, suddenly he’d speed up and make his way there.

In any case, it was great to see Mayer showing the same form as he did against Troicki the other day, still striking that crosscourt forehand well, and throwing in just as much variety as he did back then. Except this time, Mayer probably has even a few more tricks up his sleeve, or at least he is using more of it today anyway. He’s throwing in more slice forehands especially on the run and using the angles even more than usual. But his biggest strength by far would have to be how well he’s sneaking up to the net.

One would think that in a baseline rally, Del Potro would have the clear advantage but Mayer has been doing an unexpectedly good job of closing that gap. And that’s because of how well he’s been sneaking up to the net, and sensing whenever he has Del Potro out wide, and out of position. He has been serving and volleying a lot on his own serve too.

Where Del Potro did end up getting the clear advantage over Mayer was on serve, how he’d be able to rely on it for so many more cheap points which made him much less prone to losing serve. Mayer had his chances to break back when Del Potro was serving for the match, missing a drop volley into the net that didn’t even need to be good to be a winner, not to mention that these kinds of shots are Mayer’s specialty.

Due to the match finishing close to 7pm, there was a half hour delay in the night matches. What I wanted to see was Rafael Nadal against Philipp Kohlschreiber, and it ended up being a decent match despite the poor start.

I think I had a fear on what I would comment on, given that Nadal’s strengths and weaknesses have already been extensively covered. And should I make the obvious comment on Nadal’s topspin? The most fascinating part of the match for me was going outside for a break and having a look at the TV screen to see the difference of what the match looked like from there. The context of all of this is that I watched the match from a very diagonal perspective which tends to distort what everything looks like, aside from being able to see everything closer.

I think, during the match, I had not realized that the players were using the whole court so much and having to cover so much of it. But aside from that, the other difference was that, you could barely see any spin on the television. In this particular match, both Nadal and Kohlschreiber were hitting with a lot of spin, though not in a similar way. Looking at all these rallies, almost all of these angles that the players are continuously generating is related to the spin that they are imparting on it to make it break away from the court so much, so it was strange not being able to see it. Though I think it was easier to admire the movement on TV view than live actually.

It was a very slow start indeed for Nadal, and he opened up the first game with a couple of shanked shots. Kohlschreiber was in good form early on in free hitting mode, and he must have been loving those high forehands which surely suit his exaggerated grip. Kohlschreiber looked as if he had plenty of time to hit the ball to wind up for his shots, and he was easily the aggressor early on in the match.

It’s a sign that Nadal isn’t playing well early on when the flow of play is so one-sided like this, with it depending so heavily on what Kohlschreiber does. Of course, early on I was curious about Nadal’s spin so I paid specific attention to the height he was getting over the net. It’s no surprise that it was a little higher than other players, but it seemed to be different every single time, and it was especially higher if he was running out wide.

He doesn’t hit a shot with a very clean sound on his racquet so it’s sometimes difficult to tell just how well he is hitting the ball, and how if he hits a ball higher over the net, whether it is intentional or not. Though it’s not like everything looks the same. There is a difference. It’s just less obvious.

In the first set, Nadal is still playing it safe. He’s picking a lot on Kohlschreiber’s forehand and willing to trade backhand crosscourts for a long time. But he starts to time the ball better and become more consistent, which makes it increasingly difficult for Kohlschreiber to execute his shots. Though I do think that Kohlschreiber lost sense of what he was trying to achieve in his shotmaking, and didn’t target Nadal’s forehand often enough at that stage.

Nadal’s forehand is nowhere near as mechanical live, by the way I think. I put it down to the movement that he has on that side, which just makes it more beautiful to watch how he will sometimes be off the ground for a short period of time when making contact with the ball. It’s very athletic.

In terms of Nadal’s movement, as expected, his feet are moving quickly all the time. The result of it is that unlike some other players I’ve seen, whether he gets to a shot or not is nowhere near as surprising because his first steps, middle steps and last steps are all as quick as each other seemingly. The longer the match went on, the more he started to hit that trademark running forehand passing shot which I find to be ridiculously accurate.

The first set was like the trial period for both players, and in the second set they started to figure out more of what worked. I don’t really know why they needed that period given that they’ve played against each other numerous times before, but nevertheless it was there. Kohlschreiber in the second set, despite being less consistent had discovered the type of all-court game that he needed to play which would give him more chance to be successful on a long term basis.

Nadal stopped hitting as many backhand crosscourt rallies and started making Kohlschreiber move side to side more. This is what he needed to do, to take further control of the match, and make it more about him. After a while, it ended up being a nice all-court battle to watch. Though in the end, Nadal’s ability to hit on the run would continually improve, and Kohlschreiber was bound to make a few too many errors under that much pressure. It was a long match though, and rather competitive.

Australian Open Day 4 Blog

2010-01-22T07:39:00.014+10:00

I don’t know whether I am more of a follower this year than last, but it feels like the stands are more packed than they were back then. I get a little tired of watching matches in Hisense Arena sometimes, because it’s lacking in involvement. Isn’t that the reason why we turn up to tennis matches to experience it in a way that the relationship between the TV and your sofa seat cannot offer you?

But as much as I wandered around the grounds, I always found myself going back to Hisense Arena today because of the limited options available. Though I had always planned to watch the match between David Ferrer and Marcos Baghdatis, which was surely the most promising match on paper.

In the past, I never really had much of an interest in Baghdatis because any media on him was always overly focused on his personality and big smile, and I didn’t find him to stand out in terms of shotmaking either, at least not like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga so clearly does.

But I am slowly starting to see it more in his game, although only when he is playing well like he did for most of the first set. Baghdatis was clearly the better player out of the two, manufacturing five break point opportunities for himself but without being able to convert.

The majority of good tennis players are great at changing directions and moving the ball from side to side. But what I like about Baghdatis is that he doesn’t follow this side to side rule as strictly, and he doesn’t stick to crosscourt shots either. He’s one of the few players that can consistently construct points that are completely unexpected, and maybe aside from the tactical side of things, he has great disguise too especially on the backhand. There aren’t that many people that wrong foot their opponents as often as he does. He can also hold his shots longer and create subtle changes of pace.

As I was watching the first set, I was wondering whether this is how Ferrer’s forehand looks typically live. Because it looks underwhelming and fails to stands out, regardless of how hard I look at it. Baghdatis doesn’t look like he has any problem with it, and it’s almost as if he has three or four more options than Ferrer does whenever he hits a shot from the baseline. But despite showing the more promising tennis, Ferrer puts together a consistent return game filled with deep shots and conjures up an unexpected break to take the set.

It turns out I was wrong about Ferrer’s forehand because he has now started hitting it much better in the second set. Flatter, harder and deeper now and it is easy to see the impact that it has on Baghdatis’ game, now unable to implement as many changes of directions.

On TV, you get a better sense of the athleticism and rotation that Ferrer throws into his forehand, but live from this far away it doesn’t look as powerful. What I could see was that he was starting to dictate the points more and hitting with great accuracy. Ferrer was also surprisingly adventurous often coming into finish points off at the net.

Ferrer’s speed around the court was particularly impressive, and maybe it was more noticeable because of the overly excessive dropshots and drop volleys that Baghdatis threw in. Most of the dropshot retrievals weren’t unexpected, but there were a couple which surprised everyone. I can’t recall the crowd clapping so many times expecting that a point was over only to find Ferrer scampering to it and hitting a winning shot from it.

Ferrer had a break in the third set and it looked to be nearly over. This is when Ferrer started to play his worst tennis of the match, throwing away so many unforced errors, it was difficult to believe.

The second half of the match from the third set onwards, however, marked a slight change in the patterns of play. Baghdatis had now decided to hang in longer in the rallies and raise the percentages of his shot selection. It wasn’t as exciting to watch, it must be said. Instead, it turned into an intense affair of difficult rallies every point, with long competitive games becoming more regular. It was a brave move indeed trying to beat Ferrer at his own game (to some extent) but of course, Baghdatis could still call on one of his extra tricks if he needed them, but he’d use them more sparingly.

Actually it was impressive for me to see Baghdatis grind away like this, given that he was down two sets to love and there was surely less immediate reward in doing so. I thought physically, he held on well so it seemed out of the blue to me when he started cramping in the final game. Ferrer seemed to back off somewhat towards the end with not as many net approaches and too many errors crept into the fifth set for him to stand any chance.

There was not much of note on the outside courts, so it’s no wonder that the Tommy Haas vs Janko Tipsarevic match completely filled up the stadiums. I initially attempted to try to watch the match from the top of the stands, but then decided it wasn’t worth it. For some reason, in the media seats, no one claps as if they’re journalists, not fans. Why should I be feeling weird when I’m doing what everyone else in the crowd does?

So after a while, I walked back to Hisense Arena to watch Serena Williams play against Petra Kvitova. They had both Williams sisters scheduled one after the other, which I think is too much of the same thing, not that they play similarly but a similar feeling is involved with the anticipation of watching them.

If I was to make a choice between the two, I’d choose Serena, and that’s what I did. I thought Serena was impressive in an all-round way, though there wasn’t really anything that made me watch and admire in amazement. Her serve was good, but that was to be expected. The sisters were known back in the day for their amazing power and athleticism, but Kvitova is just as much of a power player, though a very one-dimensional and limited one at that. Serena’s accuracy compared to Kvitova seemed so much better in comparison, like at a completely different level.

Kvitova’s left-handed and hits the ball incredibly flat, way too flat. Seeing her play in the first five minutes, it was obvious she was going to be hit-and-miss. She was quite adventurous on serve too, and sometimes went for big second serves, at least early on. Because of the game style she was up against, I don’t really feel Serena’s athleticism was showcased or tested, and so it became unknown what the extent of her injury was.

Anyway, it was a routine victory for Serena, so I didn’t have to wait that long to see the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Taylor Dent.

I had never seen Taylor Dent live before, and what I ended up seeing was not what I expected. It’s the first service game of the match and he’s hammering down serves at 210-230km/h. He’s the first player that makes you look at the radar gun consistently with interest. Even Andy Roddick only sticks to about 200km/h these days, opting for variety instead. In that first game, he missed almost all of his first serves, and missed one second serve as well.

But it added to the impression that Dent plays an overly high risk game, and not at all a classical style despite the serve-and-volley and occasional chip and charge. When he’s on the baseline, he’s always looking to hit big shots off the forehand which is especially risky because it’s not really that great of a shot. I guess where he is in the mould of players in a previous era is that he doesn’t hit with much spin at all. It’s fascinating, you would think that considering that he likes to hit slice backhands that it’s not possible for him to play a completely fast paced game, but his slice isn’t really that slow. It moves quickly through the court.

Dent’s always doing everything at such a fast pace, that I’m always wondering how he can manage to sneak into the net quick enough. Maybe it was too fast for me to even notice where he would be positioning himself at the net. But one thing was obvious, which was that he wasn’t having that much success volleying.

Tsonga hit so many winning passing shots today, that it made me almost comment on how surprisingly good his passing shots are. But then I remembered, that didn’t he often struggle in the past with hitting backhand passing shots? So what was the difference here that gave him so much success? I think, for one, that Tsonga really likes to use the pace especially on the backhand.

Tsonga must be a particularly good player reacting to quick, flatter shots. His unforced error count was incredibly good today. Normally hitting a moderate amount of unforced errors is good for him, considering how high risk his game is, but he had statistics that would have been great for anyone. Even if you took away the winners count, and only looked at unforced errors. Dent’s was rather horrid unsurprisingly.

After writing a couple of days ago about how unique Tsonga’s game is, I thought Dent’s game looked similar in terms of overall style of play, but not strengths and weaknesses. Like Tsonga, he was also looking to take forehands early and come in on it, though his movement to the net was nowhere near as good.

It was a comfortable victory for Tsonga in the end, and he always looked like the better player. Dent had good patches where he managed to keep up with Tsonga but he never threatened on serve, aside from the break of serve midway in the third set. But it always looked like Dent’s next bad service game was never far away, and his error count was consistently worse than Tsonga’s.

Australian Open Day 3 Blog

2010-01-21T08:02:00.031+10:00

It's early in the morning, and I'm not really bothered about whether I watch Tomas Berdych, Fernando Gonzalez or Andy Roddick. I have to admit that when blogging, I like to take into consideration, that I might actually want to write about someone that I haven’t already written about… only if I’m stumped as to what I would like to choose.

I chose Andy Roddick and he’s facing Thomaz Bellucci, a potentially promising young player with competent looking groundstrokes. I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say that they are stylish, but it is getting there. He has the type of groundstrokes filled with full, circular motions, and fluid motions like that are definitely more pleasant to watch than the abrupt. In the past, I had thought of him as a strong baseliner, who has the ability to hit forcing shots.

Sadly I had overrated his chances in this particular match, and about three games into the match, Roddick already appeared a heavy favourite winning far more points on Bellucci’s serve than the other way around. I remember those days when Roddick was thought of as unlikely to win baseline rallies against any player that thrives in that area, but that has changed now.

It was an inhibited performance from Roddick though, mostly staying within his comfort zone, disappointing from a spectator point of view because he can be more adventurous than that. There was not much of an attempt to hit baseline winners, it was more about forcing shots, finding depth and limiting his opponent’s options. Roddick had incredibly low unforced error statistics, which was impossible for Bellucci to keep up with, and it only increased the pressure on the Brazilian to come up with more spectacular points.

I just wonder, despite the one-sided victory, whether this is the correct way for Roddick to play because every time he reaches the latter stages of tournaments, we inevitably see him trying to play a more all-court game, and perhaps it would be best for him to use some extra practice on the approach shots.

It was interesting to see the development of Bellucci over the course of the match, and his attempt to play an all-court game, to break up the rhythm of Roddick. He was definitely the more aggressive player, but he never looked reliable enough, or even entirely certain on what he was trying to achieve. I am not sure whether Bellucci even pulled it off well enough to be considered an all-court player. He gets marks for trying, but maybe a little more practice in this area is required.

As the second set concluded, I decided that was enough for me so I made my way back to the main section of outside courts to see Philipp Kohlschreiber play against Wayne Odesnik. Only to find out that there are barely any seats there. Still, the alternatives I had in my mind were too far away for me to walk, so I stayed for a while. Just long enough to have a look at their groundstrokes.

This view I have directly facing the baseline, is one that looks a lot like the video camera shots you get in warm-ups of matches where you get an extremely close look at the players and their technique. Kohlschreiber’s groundstrokes look great from here, with the very noticeable shotmaking ability he has, but many of his shots aren’t even landing in the court. It doesn’t seem to matter from here, whether he misses or not.

His backhand obviously is the big strength, and at first glance it looks as aesthetically pleasing as Justine Henin’s. But again, not with the same effect. I think a common trait of all great single-handed backhands is that backhand crosscourts can be exceptionally potent in shots that look like rallying shots, not hit too far away from the opponent. Shots that just happen to spin further and further away from the opponent on landing.

Kohlschreiber’s shots tend to do that on both sides though because he does hit with a lot of spin without compromising pace or penetration. He has big grip changes on both sides, and he is literally uncoiling his shots, the way he will use his whole body. I suppose his forehand works in the same way that a discus is thrown in athletics although to a much lesser extent clearly. Again, you get the sense that all of this is great when it works, not so much when it isn’t.

Odesnik does a good job of keeping up with Kohlschreiber’s groundstrokes showing some very good side to side movement. He seems very light on his feet and capable of offering up shots that aren’t significantly weaker on the run. The problem is that all of his forehands are loopy and high over the net. To win rallies, he needs to play long points every point moving his forehand around using claycourt point construction.

In the first set, Odesnik had numerous opportunities and couldn’t convert, while Kohlschreiber converted his one chance. The match was mostly a matter of how well Kohlschreiber could play, with the match clearly in his hands.

There’s only so much tennis I can watch standing up so I decided to watch Feliciano Lopez’s match against Rainer Schuettler instead.

It was one set all, and they were midway into the third set. As I walk into the stadium, I see Lopez gesturing to his box, making a lot of arm signals about how bad his play is. When they get to exchanging rallies, the first thing that I notice is just how much Lopez steals the show, making Schuettler seem totally irrelevant. I think it’s all about that grunt. It doesn’t seem to matter whether Lopez is hitting a big shot or not, he puts in an effort grunt which says, look how hard I’m working out here.

But apart from that, Lopez seems very bouncy on the court, as he returns serve and it always looks like he’s constantly using his knees, bouncing them around in a very subtle manner. Watching him play live, I’m very surprised by how reliable his groundstrokes look and how well he moves. He’s comfortably exchanging long rallies with Schuettler, without looking like the worse player. I always thought of him more as a serve/forehand/volley player but his other attributes are not that terrible. Still, it was the forehand that made the rallies competitive between him and Schuettler, the main difference I think which allowed him to win.

Schuettler on both sides seemed lacking in potency, like a weaker and more one-dimensional version of the tennis Andy Roddick was playing this morning. He doesn't seem to have the ability to seize control of rallies without giving big chances to his opponent to balance it out again with a big shot. It’s interesting that more than a year ago, I wrote about Schuettler being the complete opposite of an effortless player, the way he would deliberately use a lot of his arms and legs in the creation of a forceful groundstroke. But to balance that, I think he is actually very efficient. He has textbook defensive skills, great at cutting across diagonally to retrieve wide balls. He meets the ball before it drops too far and he often seems to be in contact with the ball in the best position.

Unfortunately he doesn’t seem anywhere near as effective when he’s not counterpunching and trying to create something, and that’s where a lot of the mistakes come from. This is the difference between Schuettler playing well and playing poorly, whether he can pull off more aggressive, non-counterpunching shots where he can't just use the pace that he was given with. As the fourth set went on, the errors seemed to pile up for Schuettler and it became a more one-sided affair for Lopez.

For a player that is labelled as a serve-and-volleyer, Lopez didn’t really do that in spades today. I noticed that he really likes to use his forehand and the midcourt ball, and prefer to come in on the next shot instead.

After a decent chunk of waiting time and scoreboard monitoring during matches, the match between Florian Mayer and Viktor Troicki had finally arrived. I don’t like to leave matches abruptly, so they were midway in the first set when I first joined. They have scoreboards this year that have updated scores in the changeovers which is a great improvement from last year saving me from walking back to the IBM scoreboard on the grounds out of panic. Though this ends up taking my attention away from the players sitting at the changeover, and now I never have any clue what they are doing in those breaks.

As I take my seat, Troicki has just taken the first service break of the match and clenches his fist. It was only a matter of time, I pessimistically thought. Well, this is the match-up of the unorthodox techniques, so it seems appropriate that I should analyse that. Troicki’s serve consists of a ball toss that is thrown ridiculously far forward, and his legs are spaced so far apart at first, before moving them both together at front to create that universally slanted/forward-moving action. But it obviously works well. He generates a lot of pace on it, and it was a good serving day for him. Something around 20 aces.

With unorthodox technique usually comes technically liable shots and that’s what happened in the first set with the set being focused on both players’ flailing forehands. Both Troicki and Mayer are definitely more solid on their backhands. Troicki has more of an ability to get on top of forehands and hit it big though. For the first set, that’s what the difference between the two was.

Mayer was generally spending most of his time behind the baseline chopping and slicing shots in defense. His forehand was proving to be a big liability too, and Troicki went up an early break in the second set. But where Troicki should have capitalised and ran away with it, his game suffered too and started leaking errors. This gave the chance for Mayer to start working his way back into the match and solidifying his game.

It seems like lately, Mayer is a very slow starter as his game gradually turned from solid to assured and confident over the course of the match. What a difference it makes when Mayer is playing well and confident about his game. Sometimes he seems like a bit of a low key type of person and in between points, it shows but from late in the second set onwards, Mayer was transformed into a much better player. He was doing everything quicker now, and suddenly it seemed like he had much more offensive options.

The turning point was that forehand crosscourt. A shot that I didn’t even know was a weapon. The shot that he had been missing turned out to be one of his greatest strengths, the way he’d consistently find a great angle with it and use it to build and construct all his points with. Once he had that shot working, his whole game started to come together, that full-flowing unorthodox game in all its glory. Dropshots, serving-and-volleying, awesome double-handed slice backhands that barely skidded over the net, strong double-handed backhand drives and occasional forehand slices and just really fun all-round play.

There was no way I was going to leave this match, while it was this entertaining. And the intimate atmosphere is great too, not feeling distanced compared to other larger showcourts, and sitting near numerous German and Serbian supporters. I like how whether I decide to clap softly or loudly seems to make a noticeable difference to the atmosphere I am feeling around me.

I could barely believe it that Mayer would be controlling the match as much as this. This had to be a result of Troicki’s decision to play in a more restrained way on the forehand, because of the errors he was making. But by the time he had readjusted his aggression again, Mayer had built up all the confidence he needed. I think his decision to return Troicki’s serve much earlier and closer to the baseline made a big difference in the outcome.

Throughout this match, Troicki was animated and fiery. It seems to be a given almost these days that every match without Hawkeye will have some disagreement about a line call in it, and this was no exception. Except that Troicki went far enough to suggest that there is a problem with females umpiring men’s matches, which ended up causing a very charged atmosphere that had crowd members shouting comments at Troicki, but Troicki continued to direct all of his complaints to the chair umpire.

Troicki picked up his level of play in the third set which ended up being the best part of the match, featuring excellent all-court play from both players. Mayer seems to have a unique knack of being able to hit almost every passing shot low over the net by the way. The highlight of the match would have to be the third set tie-break, where Mayer broke open the tie-break and his lead, by hitting a spectacular dive volley where his racquet fell from his hands after contact, quite awesome under the circumstances.

After such an intense and high quality third set, Mayer took advantage of a loss in concentration to achieve the early break. Troicki had his chances to break back, but he didn't convert, and then he decided that he had enough. This was not a dejected performance. This was an immature release of frustration, almost as if he was making a statement. He made a specific effort to make no effort. Serving to stay in the match, he didn’t even plant his feet properly before serving and he hit every serve, first or second as big as possible and served and volleyed. This really is the kind of behaviour that can break your reputation, and he should have at least tried to keep it professional.

Nevertheless I was in a hurry to watch Andy Murray anyway in his first round match against Marc Gicquel, so I saw the good side of it. But even though Troicki tried to make the end of the match as quick as possible, so did Murray in the beginning of his. As expected, the stadium was fully packed though at what stage that happened I’m not sure. Fortunately I ended up occupying the media seats at the top row and end caught just over a set of this match.

At first it’s difficult adjusting to the view being significantly farther from the players. There’s definitely no connection here. Actually you can’t really see topspin that well from up here, instead you can just see the balls bouncing relatively high.

One of the first things I noticed is that it didn’t seem like one of Murray’s sluggish or behind-the-baseline days. He was very quick to move forward into the ball and on the rise. Most people hit their backhands by driving right through it, but Murray’s backhand looks like more of a reflective shot, which makes him great at redirecting shots on that side. In comparison to other players’ games, one thing that stands out is how Murray can play an all-court game more effortlessly and fluidly. He doesn’t need to charge into the net, and his way of showing urgency is to have his feet and racquet set up early.

Gicquel seemed to be on the right track tactically, but he didn’t have the game to back it up. He took his forehand early wherever possible, and took charge wherever possible. From this view, Gicquel’s movement onto his forehand and arm action reminds me of Stepanek’s, the way he moves forward to hit his racquet down onto the ball especially when it’s close to his body. The problem with it though, is that he is inconsistent with it and his game was not really technically sound enough for it to execute on the regular basis that was required.

Australian Open Day 2 Blog

2010-01-20T08:57:00.064+10:00

Tomas Berdych has been in good form recently, or at least in patches. He's commonly known for his smooth ballstriking, and I’ve recently come to appreciate that more after some high quality performances in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago.

When he’s on, it looks like he has more feel for the ball than the majority of players with the way he’ll casually just put every ball into the corner, because why not when it’s this easy?

Berdych was pitted up against Robin Haase and he picked up right where he left off in Brisbane. Although he really didn’t, because in between, he had a strange loss to Peter Luczak in Sydney.

When Berdych plays like this, it looks rhythmic like he has gotten himself into a nice groove in the same way that a dancer would be moving to the beat of music. I can see why commentators mention that Berdych only does things one way, and that’s making everything look pretty, not dirty. Even when he lunges out to reach a ball, he doesn’t look fully extended. It’s like his long limbs are doing the job for him, though that obviously isn’t the case.

But Grand Slams are made of best of five set matches, so it was never likely that he’d be able to put in a consistently perfect performance. I tried to enjoy it while it lasted, the first set of the match. Haase tried to keep up, but it never looked like he could get to the ball quickly enough to hit an effective defensive shot.

He seemed intimidated at first by Berdych’s quick start but he settled down early in the second set, helped by a very loose service game from Berdych. That service game didn't eventuate in a break, but it changed the course of the match. This was always in the cards for Berdych, who generally plays significantly worse even at a 5% lower level. The second and third sets showed Berdych playing at a more neutral level until picking it up again late in the third, where he started to put Haase back on a string again.

That’s what Berdych generally likes to do, make his opponents cover large distances. Not much else comes into consideration such as whether making that risk would be necessary. Tennis is an instinctive game for Berdych, and it looks like he’d like to keep it that way. The first set was somewhat exhibition-like in its execution, not that I had a problem with that.

I have to give credit to Haase though, who tried his best to turn the tables around. He’d put in a special effort to take the ball earlier and control the match with his forehand. This was a difficult task in itself, because Haase's forehand has a significantly greater margin over the net than Berdych’s, so it's easier to retrieve.

Comparing effort levels, it was like Berdych barely broke a sweat while Haase needed to give his full undivided attention and intensity in order to play tennis like this. Therefore it was no surprise whenever he’d throw in a disappointing error, he’d shout at himself in frustration. It’s a lot he has to manage out there, not only his game. He kept it together today, but not well enough. Not well enough for a top class player like Berdych.

Near the end of the match, in what was the best point of the match, Berdych had sent Haase running side-to-side all over the court almost in a Davydenko-like manner, doing everything but missing the delicate drop volley into the open court. As amusing and meaningless it all was in the context of the match, is this a typical Berdych point from a more general perspective?

In what seemed like relatively good timing, I was able to watch the conclusion of the Fabrice Santoro vs Marin Cilic match, which I thought might have been finished last night. Things picked up right where they left off stylistically anyway. Both Santoro and Cilic must have been quite pleased that far more people were watching them this time around, and in a much more enthusiastic manner too.

There’s not much to mention about Cilic in this match-up. He approached this the same way as many of the other top players have done in the past against Santoro, and that’s to play with patience. The point was not how many unforced errors he made, but whether he could keep a calm head and avoid overplaying, then he'd fancy his chances to win the match.

This is where Santoro looks a bit lightweight. Maybe in a dream world, it would be really cool if Santoro could hit chip shots like he currently does now, while being able to drive through the ball with more pace too, to drive opponents crazy with changes of pace. But I guess anyone that wants to see that will have to stick with Andy Murray for now. Then again that would probably take away all the admiration and amazement that tennis fans have for Santoro, how he has managed to make it this far in the tennis world with not only such an unorthodox game, but with such a lack of pace.

The problem with Santoro’s drive shots was mainly the depth, not the pace. It would land short too often and Cilic would take advantage of that with more net approaches than we usually see from him.

Still, he managed to show a nice mixture of play to keep the match interesting with net charges, slow probing slices and some lobs. One thing that I forgot to mention, or failed to notice yesterday in my report about Santoro, is how difficult must it surely be to bend down as low as that to hit low volleys with two hands. I wonder why he doesn't switch to a one-hander on the stretch but he never does unless he absolutely needs to.

The way the scheduling and timing worked out, this allowed me to watch the match between Jurgen Melzer and Florent Serra, right from 0-0. This match was played on Court 11, right in the middle of numerous outside courts. It’s basically the most distracting court in Melbourne Park, though I still think this is a fair deal considering that it’s not like players have to deal with any music or outside entertainment.

In my line of sight, I had the additional light entertainment of being able to see Tommy Robredo and Santiago Giraldo swing through their groundstrokes without having a clue where their shots were landing.

Melzer didn’t seem to like the atmosphere much though. I was amazed that every noticeable distraction, such as the umpire reading the score from a nearby court, a sudden cheer or someone walking into the stands mid-match, he’d notice it to the point of even stopping play because of it. It’s just that you would think that if everything was noisy and chaotic, that little things like people walking across the stands would mean little in comparison.

The way the stands on Court 11 are built, one side doesn't even have an entrance meaning you can just walk past and sit down straight away. Yet on the other side of the court, we’re practicing normal tennis rules here. I did think it was incredibly amusing though whenever the chair umpire would remind people to not come in until changeovers, as if the people sitting down were the same people who had not yet arrived.

As for the match itself, it was a bit of a grower. Early on, this definitely seemed like a lower standard of tennis than what I had been watching before. Whenever they were a little off their timing, the ball would fly on them. At least Serra was cracking his forehand though, so that made a big difference in dictating the match. The first set was more like a sub-plot in itself, separated from the rest because Melzer picked up his play after that.

The second and third sets were played at a whole new intensity, with rallies that were physically challenging and difficult to keep up with. Suddenly everything seemed to be moving at a faster pace, and sometimes I became fixated with watching the ball move back and forth, the ball being hit with such skill, noticing little angles here and there and down the line shots. Things like that are generally more interesting at this close side-on view. Melzer has a better ability to include subtle variety in his game, throwing in a double-handed slice backhand and a decent transition game which he used more sparingly than he normally does.

I really liked Melzer’s fighting spirit here, how he went from being dominated in the first set, to being able to dig deep enough to hold his own ground in the baseline rallies and slowly outmaneuvering Serra. Watching the match unfold, I could feel as if Melzer was increasingly starting to take over more control in the match. The third set was the critical stage, the one where he continually had more chances to break serve, only to lose his serve in the final game which was outlined by a potentially bad line call.

I took a short break after the end of the third set to prepare for the rest of the match, and this helped emphasise how the last two sets were so much different from the second and third. It must have been all that intensity from the earlier sets being so hard to keep up, that it became very patchy towards the end.

Somehow after all of that effort, Melzer snatched the fourth set rather tamely. By now, Serra had decided to hit the ball harder, though it seemed clear that Melzer was no longer chasing down balls as quickly as he was earlier. He has a reputation of this, of slowing down and becoming fatigued in the fifth set, and this is what happened here. Just like how he had resigned to the loss, I had too. It was a long match to follow, but I did it.

After watching an intense competitive match, it was refreshing to watch a more straightforward match storyline-wise, as I diverted my attention to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s match against Sergiy Stakhovsky. I thought for a moment with Stakhovsky going up a break in the second, that maybe it would be competitive. But as soon as I sat down in the arena after Tsonga broke back immediately, he never looked threatened.

It’s been a year now since I had seen Tsonga live, and straight away he reminded me again why he’s one of the most fun players to watch. Sometimes tennis can have a tendency of looking overly technical live but not for Tsonga. Tsonga’s game just stands out. He hits a couple of forehands, leans right into them, then he comes in to knock it off for a volley. Or at least that’s how he would like to play, by having as few in-between shots as possible.

He was able to do that at first, but after a while, he started to engage in more rallies with Stakhovsky and that’s when you start to see his range of higher looping balls too. I don’t think they’re a strength of his, but at least he covers the court well.

Stakhovsky’s game isn’t too dissimilar from Tsonga’s actually. He likes coming into the net and playing an all-court game, and he doesn’t hang around too long at the baseline. That’s why this match was being played at an extremely quick pace. He plays aggressively from the back of the court too, sometimes to his detriment because of his inconsistency.

Aesthetically it doesn't share many similarities to Tsonga though and his moves from the baseline to the net are nowhere near as smooth. His mannerisms especially when returning serve reminded me so much of Philipp Kohlschreiber, and his backhand is a little similar too, maybe more so just because I have already linked them together in my head.

It should be interesting to see over the coming years what Stakhovsky can add to his game, because it looked promising but rough to me. Like he seemed to be developing a good idea of how he should be playing but without pulling it off well enough. In the end, he was comfortably outplayed by Tsonga, who showed positive signs but will need to tighten up the screws over the coming days to avoid any potential difficulties.

In any case, that match was a nice short break from drama because I was in for another hotly contested match, this time between Richard Gasquet and Mikhail Youzhny. This was my first experience watching a late night match that ended up being extended late into the night, and I had a lot of trouble with it, clock-watching all the time to make sure I wouldn’t be back too late, whatever that meant.

This was a high quality match though, definitely the best match I’d seen so far. What I liked about it the most was not only the variety of both players, but the variety of shot selections from point to point. I think the best way of analysing whether a match has long lasting appeal, whether it will continue to be entertaining three hours onwards, is whether the pattern of play is predictable or not. Whether each point is played out a different way, involving different strategies, and not seeing similar contrasts again and again.

Youzhny opened up the match looking shaky and lost his opening service game. Gasquet seemed much more calm and controlled in comparison, an indication of all the tennis he’s played leading up to this event. From the view I’m looking at, at first it’s difficult to adjust to seeing the spins so clearly from the players, almost to the point where it looks like every shot is a safe shot because of the margin over the net.

Gasquet started to impose himself on the match quickly already with his trademark backhand, opening the match with some smart tennis while Youzhny was still finding his range. Soon enough though, Youzhny regained his consistency and they were back on serve in the first set.

There wasn't much separating the two quality-wise. Youzhny is great at creating clever rallies and opening up the court, while Gasquet is better at utilising his transition game and playing a more outright attacking, but straightforward game. This was always an entertaining match-up on paper because despite both players having great backhands, they were never going to be overly reliant on one shot or tactic.

I had the feeling initially that Gasquet had the upper hand because he had the ability to be more attacking and finish rallies in fewer strokes with his net ability. Yet Gasquet never really pulled away from the match that much, even though he threatened to several times. He snatched the first set on the back of a nervy tie-breaker from both players that was full of poor errors and double faults towards the end. It was great drama though, and the crowd reacting and making sounds during good points definitely added to that.

In the second set, Gasquet started to play more of a baseline oriented game. He appeared to be carrying a niggling injury in the beginning of the third set, then twitched his face to show he was in some pain, then switched his tactics back to play more aggressively again as a result. This was definitely the right way to go, and it helped him take the second set without the need of a tie-breaker.

The longer the match went on, the more enthusiastically I started to cheer for Gasquet hoping that it wouldn’t go too late in the night. But he continually refused to finish off the match. More accurately, he couldn’t finish off the match. I could tell Youzhny was getting stronger and stronger as the match went on. His forehand started to become much more of a weapon, whereas before he was guiding it to its spots. Then he also took some advice from Gasquet, and started shortening the points and coming into the net with far more frequency.

I think mostly, it just seemed that Youzhny had been re-energised. He started to look much more alert controlling the points more too. It all started from the third set tie-break, which also contained good serving from him. But his form continued to fluctuate in the fourth set, down an early break and down a match point in the fourth set, but Gasquet let Youzhny off the hook by playing far too passively.. Though when Youzhny played well in that set, he was brilliant.

Just as I happened to be mentally preparing for my exit, the fourth set finished in the best possible way I could have imagined. With both players running all over the court and Youzhny ending it with a backhand down-the-line winner that looked like a backhand crosscourt winner, based on how far Youzhny was out of court.

That was the shot that ignited the stadium, not that they weren’t already into it and Youzhny celebrated it in a way that a shot and point like that deserved to be celebrated. Gasquet realized the job that was ahead of him now and hit a ball out of the stands of Margaret Court Arena. At first I thought this was a terrible way to leave a match, but no, it was perfect and it provided some closure in the same way that a TV show cliffhanger does.

Australian Open Day 1 Blog

2010-01-19T07:42:00.061+10:00

It’s a difficult and frustrating day of tennis. Every 5 minutes or so, the weather changes from gloomy to drizzly to sunny, and from cold to hot in a matter of minutes. As I walk around the outside courts, there’s a distinct lack of atmosphere. Maybe it’s the puddles everywhere that have drawn people away from the courts, for the moment at least.

I’ve decided that I’m going to head where the large majority of people seem to be going according to where all the noise is coming from anyway, where the Chilean supporters are. They’ve taken up a massive block in the middle of the stadium right behind the umpire’s seat. Sometimes to show how patriotic they are, they'll collectively raise a big Chilean flag right above their head but this confuses me, because doesn’t this interfere with their sight? Either that, or they are looking for the TV camera to be heading into their direction in between points.

It's Fernando Gonzalez on court playing against Olivier Rochus. On first opinion, Gonzalez doesn’t look like a player that wears his heart on his sleeve. He is volatile, and he has shown it in the past enough times before, but he looks too tightly strung to be fully taking in the experience. He’s an intense character and almost singularly focused on his tennis. I prefer the more relaxed demeanour of Rochus, who comes off as being extremely genuine, with his own self-directed hand gestures and reactions to events in a way that is not too dissimilar to how Gilles Simon carries himself.

I hadn’t seen Gonzalez play live before, and in hindsight maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Taking into the match all these preconceived ideas of Gonzalez’s forehand being an explosive, intimidating shot, I was expecting Gonzalez’s forehand to be a sudden burst of excitement. The fact that Gonzalez has opened up the match with numerous forehand winners, without having that effect on me seems to suggest that this is probably not going to happen.

Actually Gonzalez’s forehand looks surprisingly contained, more skilful and less wild. I guess it’s like that for most players though, how everything looks so technically sound. It’s a very good shot though, and it’s obvious he can dominate matches with it. It’s only when he goes to huge lengths to run around to it where it starts to look more like a risky shot.

However, it didn't take me long to adjust my eyes to it and this was when I started to focus more on the match being of a high quality. These guys were playing extremely clean tennis. Gonzalez’s winner count kept piling up, without throwing in too many errors. This was definitely the highest quality match of the day that I saw.

It was a good match from a tactical point of view too. Rochus, in particular was fun to watch because he seemed to have a good idea of how to finish off points, despite not really having the power to do it in one sudden change of pace. It’s a massive disadvantage having to do so much when Gonzalez can sometimes just slap a winner that isn’t even far away from Rochus, without him getting anywhere near reaching it.

I’ve seen Rochus try to play a moderately aggressive game in the past before in an attempt to keep up with his opponents, but often hurting himself more than his opponent in the process. But today was different. Today, he was great at taking any midcourt ball early and closing it off at the net. I think the backhand crosscourt really helped too. That was the one safe place Rochus could go to at least for a while without getting burnt. Maybe with other opponents he doesn’t have that.

Still, it seemed that for the majority of the match that Gonzalez was one step ahead of Rochus the whole time while Rochus was desperately clinging on. Gonzalez kept threatening to break serve with many break point opportunities, but the games were too extensive to call this a simple, one-sided match. It’s just a good thing that Gonzalez’s winners to unforced error ratio was so high.

Strangely the trend of the match never seemed to fluctuate much, with both players knowing their own games well enough and playing well enough to try to execute them the same way the whole match through. Even in Gonzalez’s third set loss, the difference was just a little bit of sluggishness and concentration loss, before normal service resumed in the fourth set.

I left the match at around 4-0 in the fourth set due to a more extensive rain delay. Then I turned my attention onto a more low key match, to see the all-German battle between Philipp Petzschner and Florian Mayer. Mayer was on his way to making a comeback, leading in the 4th set, making me feel like a conditional supporter, now that Mayer was obviously playing well enough to be “worth watching”.

I billed this as the battle of the slice backhands, though it didn’t end up being 100% correct. Mayer likes his two-handed backhand, and hits through it most of the time, though he does possess the variety to throw in enough slice backhands for it to be a decent description of the match. You would think from the one-sidedness of the scoreline that it could have been a self-destructive match.

It looked that way when I first headed there. I was in the corner of the stands waiting for a changeover and Petzschner was looking around outside the court so much that it often looked like he was looking at me. I was obviously not the right person to ask for support because I was firmly on Mayer’s side.

It was an interesting adjustment to make in this match though. I’ve noticed recently that a large part of my observations tend to come from comparing the most recent match to the last couple that I watched live. And my first impression was that Mayer does not look like a professional player.

That is probably part of his charm. He has awkward looking groundstrokes and he seems to dig the ball back, rather than athletically drive it back like most players do. Still, the more I watch his backhand, the more it’s obvious that it’s a very solid shot and he hits it crosscourt especially well. In terms of constructing points, he has a special ability of being able to sneak into the net, and because he’s often hitting low slices anyway, it doesn’t look like that much of a transition for him to hit low volleys.

In this match, he was picking on Petzschner’s backhand which seemed to have completely broken down. Almost every error that he made was off the slice backhand, and I’m not sure if he can even hit a drive backhand, that's how little he utilised it.

It looked to be turning into a very one-sided match, until from about 4-0 down in the fifth set when Petzschner started to play more freely and show some good shotmaking of his own. I really liked the variety in this match, but unfortunately for Petzschner, when he couldn’t convert break points to get back even on serve in the fifth set, his game dropped back a level yet again.

Two breaks down and Mayer serving for the match, neither player seemed to be bothered much about the rain falling yet again. Until it started pouring down at match point, then Petzschner waited and shrugged his shoulders, before briefly pausing thinking it was too much to continue. This is where it’s probably not useful for countrymen to play each other, as Mayer friendly urged Petzschner to finish off the point, which he did by intentionally hitting a forehand return long.

It had been threatening to rain numerous times in the morning, but it never eventuated long enough to interrupt play until now. Unfortunately this is where the fun of following simultaneous matches ended, with the matches now being limited to Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena.

For me, I am not sure whether I can objectively report on Juan Martin Del Potro’s match against Michael Russell because I definitely wished I could have been somewhere else. It’s not like I lost interest in it immediately, but as soon as I did, it was always going to be difficult for the players to win me over again.

It was midway in the first set when I arrived there, and there were hardly any rallies going on. Del Potro was dominant on serve, and Russell seemed incredibly nervous that on one point he seemed to have tangled himself up, trying to move for a particular shot. I just don’t think that Russell, being a counterpuncher, should be making this many errors. The first thing I noticed when I was first able to observe a rally, was how Del Potro moves so much better now than the last time I saw him. Note that this was an initial reaction, not the final one, because I think he got more sluggish as the match went on.

His legs seemed to be doing a ridiculous amount of work, constantly moving to get himself into the best position possible. I’m not sure if it’s his long limbs that make it look like he does it more than other players. He was especially quick moving out wide to his forehand side though and moving side-to-side as well. I would think that on a good day that this has definitely improved. His running forehand is his trademark shot after all. Early on, it seemed almost like he was moving too quickly, his feet, that when he got to the ball, he wasn’t static enough. That’s how I explained the errors he was making anyway.

Still, he was controlling the match, hitting big shots and making enough of them to have a comfortable lead. Though the way the match started to turn made me wonder whether it was Russell making the errors or Del Potro being too strong. Regardless, it was a poor match to start with. So in the second set, my wish for there to be more long rallies came true, and amazingly it turned into a completely different match.

This was exciting for a while, being able to marvel at the athleticism of both players and being able to watch competitive rallies. This was more of how I expected Russell to play, consistent and steady. He doesn’t seem to have much of an ability to finish off points though, mostly only through being able to force his opponents out of position.

The longer it went on, the more clear it became that Del Potro had taken it down a gear. Del Potro in more average form will generally hit large amounts of crosscourt shots, and I was reminded of that yet again today. Despite Russell’s crowd-pleasing effort, the match was largely tedious and also littered with errors as the statistics board would show. Still, some people in the crowd managed to enjoy it based on the numerous positive comments I heard as I would constantly wander in and out of the match hoping that play had resumed on the outside courts.

I suppose it's because it had all the attributes of what you would describe as a professional tennis match – power, athleticism, consistency, technique, competition. So if you came along to the tennis and decided you wanted to watch a match so you could admire the pros and how skilled they are, then this would be it. While mentioning athleticism, I should add that even I joined in on the collective gasp when Russell did the splits running to a dropshot.

Del Potro can obviously play better than this, and in a more entertaining way. This is merely a description of the match itself. He did, though attempt to play more aggressively in the fourth set, but his form wasn’t good enough for it to be called a vintage performance.

Seemingly numerous hours later, it was Justine Henin’s return to the court, and for some reason, Hisense Arena suddenly looks significantly more empty than when Roddick and Del Potro were playing. The on-court announcer put in a rather pathetic effort at trying to pronounce her name too.

In the warm up, I am taken by surprise as Henin hits her first two serves with an abbreviated service motion. Has she changed her service motion yet again? But no, it looks like maybe she has forgotten that she has a different one now, as she started to move into a slower, overall longer service action, one that simply requires more thinking.

Since her comeback, Henin’s serve is something she’s been struggling with, and this was the case yet again today in terms of first serve percentage. It definitely caused her more trouble in the match than there needed to be, but fortunately I never pay much attention to service percentages in matches anyway until breaks of serve and double faults happen.

This was a very stylish performance from Henin, and you could tell from the beginning that she was keen on mixing up the play. Four points into the match, and she’s already hit a slice backhand on each one of those points. What a difference it makes too, because Henin’s slice sets up whole rallies. It helps her construct points. I think it’s when she throws in the slice that she starts to earn her tag of being the “female Federer”, otherwise she’s missing some much-needed finesse.

Overall it was a great backhand day for Henin, definitely much better than when I saw her in Brisbane. Her backhand pretty much dominated the match, in the first set at least, then her volleys also ended up being a big part of that as she spent the large majority of the second set at the net barely hitting more than three consecutive baseline shots in one rally. The thing is, Henin didn’t need to be at the net that often. But she chose to be, because she wanted to, and that’s not really her natural game. 40-0 serve-and-volleys seemed to be common for her in this match too.

She was playing in such an aesthetically pleasing way that it didn’t really matter that she was hitting so many unforced errors. Mostly from the forehand, by the way. But she always contained it well enough for it to not leak quickly in rapid succession. I remember one game in particular where she lost serve due to three forehand errors, only to win the next game with four winning forehands. That was impressive.

Somehow it seemed, whenever Henin played a poor game, she’d bounce back right away with an even more aggressive than usual return game. This usually means standing incredibly close to return serve, and that was the manner in which she finished off the match.

So after such a long period of being restricted to Hisense Arena, I took the risk of heading back outside to watch one of my anticipated matches between Fabrice Santoro and Marin Cilic. Rain ended up wrecking havoc in this match not long after, so I didn’t end up catching much of this. By now, the majority of spectators had already gone home anyway, and the match felt like it was played at midnight, when it was really only about 9:30pm.

Normally I wouldn’t write about such a small portion of the match, but in some way I’d like to make a tribute to Santoro, to his unique brand of tennis. Whenever he’s hitting the ball, it looks like he’s gently floating it across. But somehow how he manages to finesse it deep on the baseline time and time again without putting any noticeable power into it.

When he’s running out wide, he can hit this slow, probing slice backhand that keeps curving back into the court like a paper aeroplane. He also seems to have two slice backhands, the slow annoying floating shot, and the one that he carves across to skid low. It’s quite amazing how much finesse he has. His whole game is made up of it.

Courtside Coverage of the Australian Open

2010-01-16T13:00:00.003+10:00

It's that time of the year again, and I will be writing Australian Open blogs for the first six days, from Melbourne, covering matches from the first round to the third round.

This year, the blogs will be posted on Tennis Brain, taking the very indie route. It's a lot of work writing recreationally on so many consecutive days when I'm already busy with following matches day and night. Sure I like writing, but not as much when I know I'm going to wake up next morning feeling incredibly tired. I hope to see comments, viewers and feedback, and I look forward to sharing my experiences/observations with everyone.

If you like the reports/blogs, feel free to share them, in the form of a link. The more people reading them, the better! (and the more motivated I will feel)

Day 6 Brisbane International Blog

2010-01-09T18:22:00.024+10:00

It’s difficult to recall all the emotions and sensations that went with the larger portion of a match that was so lopsided. In this case, it was Radek Stepanek’s surprising win over Gael Monfils, despite his currently superior ranking.

Match reports like this tend to focus on the first couple of games, when everything still seems important, the difference between a player winning and a player losing. Midway through the first set, the match fell flat quickly and before it was even over, it felt like it was over.

Fortunately I can still recall the events of the match. How much promise the match began with, only to quickly fade into disappointment. This was an exciting match-up between two contrasting players, and in your face personalities.

Monfils likes long rallies. Stepanek likes to shorten them. Monfils prefers to stay far behind the baseline, and Stepanek loves dropshots. The difference between Stepanek’s dropshots and everyone else who can hit them well, is that he can follow them up at the net. He gets away with it far more often than it looks like he should and he’s always bordering on being obsessed with the shot.

Both players opened the match with comfortable service games, as the players were still on their way to settling down in the match. There were a few too many unforced errors, but the rallies were promising. Stepanek, whenever he had a slightly shorter ball would take it on the rise and swiftly move into the net, especially on the forehand side. Stepanek seems to have this wonderful ability to be able to make the slightest differentiation between a shot he should be rallying on an even keel with, and when he should step it up.

It’s a different challenge against Monfils, however and he loves to hit passing shots on the run. For some reason, he actually appears to have more precise footwork hitting on the run, than from down the middle. I think it’s because of the way he plants his foot on the ground so he can recover to make it to the other side of the court if he needs to.

After the first couple of games, the players settled in, and the way the rallies unfolded, it was the perfect showcase of the athleticism of both players. Especially with all of those dropshots and lobs from Stepanek. No one really talks about Stepanek’s movement or athleticism much, but he is exceptionally quick and athletic. There was a lot of squeaking of the shoes around the court, and it was coming from both sides. It appears that Stepanek can also slide all over the court, although nowhere near as well of course. There was one rally where he did it three times amazingly.

Midway through the set, it actually looked like Monfils started to get the upper hand on Stepanek, as the rallies started to turn more and more into long, drawn out rallies. By now, Monfils had found his depth and consistency of shot. Given the reputation that Monfils has as a super athletic, amazing defensive player, I always seem to put the high expectation on Monfils to rarely throw in any unforced errors. I mean, doesn’t he only lose because he’s passive?

Surprisingly over the course of a match, his level can dip drastically, and it did so here quite suddenly at 2-3 down in the first set. It’s hard to explain why when he appears so secure sometimes. It took me a while to put a finger on it, but I started to notice the types of errors he was making. Usually setup big forehands, shots that are either putaway shots, or setups for winners. The shots that are supposed to be easiest for the players, but Monfils doesn’t like playing purposefully. He likes to play whatever he feels like in the moment.

Equally as disappointing as Monfils’ poor performance, was what happened as a direct result of it. Stepanek’s decision to play more direct, simple tennis. He earned his first break of serve with early, deep returns down the middle, but the longer the match went on, the more he sensed that he didn’t really need to do anything spectacular. I’m sure he wouldn’t have believed in the beginning that engaging in regular rallies would have done the job. But that’s the path he ended up taking as Monfils would throw in these strange errors.

Instead of trying to put in a big effort to focus and play out some tough points, Monfils had resigned himself to a loss. He’d laugh at himself, and he appeared sluggish all the time. Stepanek would throw in a couple of fist pumps and positive displays of emotion just to make the situation more clear. And he aimed it directly towards his camp, at his coach, Petr Pala. You had to love the precision of the raised little twirl of the finger he did in his camp’s direction at the end of the first set, straight after hitting a smash winner, and with his back turned away from them.

In little over an hour, Stepanek had made it into his second Brisbane final, and he’ll face Andy Roddick in the final. The day was in danger of becoming a big disappointment, and it seemed headed in that direction at the end of the first set between Roddick and Tomas Berdych, which Berdych won 6-1.

Speaking of consistency, Roddick is another one of those players that I expect to rarely make any unforced errors. To be fair, he didn’t make an excessive amount and it wasn’t shockingly bad. But it was bad for his standards.

To be honest, I had mixed feelings with how the match was going. I think on most occasions, if I’ve decided to root for a player that I have clear preferences for, I’ll find it hard to make that step of wishing it was a better match. Because that would be like completely switching sides and loyalties. It’s different if you’re confident of that player winning anyway, such as the first round of the Australian Open and you’re hoping that the low-ranked underdog will play a little more inspired than he currently is. But this is Roddick against Berdych, and he’ll be dangerous or maybe even favoured once he starts playing better.

In the end, I was pleased that Roddick did pick up his level though because it turned out to be a much better match to watch. Still, Berdych’s performance in the first set should be acknowledged, because it was impressive in the same way that his one-sided win over Marcos Baghdatis was.

This was Berdych hitting the lines with remarkable consistency. When Berdych is on form, it’s impossible to not be on the back foot spending all your time lunging around and scrambling his shots back. It looks great when it works, but generally the longer the rally goes, the less likely he’ll be able to keep it up.

I am not sure how much was forced or unforced, but Roddick couldn’t find his range on his aggressive forehand early on, and his transition game. Whenever he tried to hit a forehand to come in on, he’d miss it almost every single time. Then he’d start to miss these slower floating balls on his forehand side as well, much to his frustration.

Roddick casually threw around his racquet, hit a ball into the roof, then to end the set, dropped his racquet and quickly walked to take a bathroom break almost as if he wanted to get off court as soon as possible. Yet in spite of all of this, he always seemed committed to what he was doing, what he wanted to achieve tactically. After Monfils' earlier lack of fighting spirit, it was great to see Roddick competing well and digging deep, not that we would expect anything less. Though putting it into perspective, Roddick's antics were almost like a sideshow, not a display of serious frustration.

He continued to try to hit his forehand with purpose and slowly it came together. His forehand is effective in more subtle ways than Berdych’s is. It's accurate and heavy, effective enough to keep Berdych moving side to side, and he has the additional option of coming into the net, something that Berdych rarely does. When Berdych does it, he looks hesitant.

I also found a weakness in the Berdych smash. Apparently he doesn’t appear to know how to hit a slice smash or a three-quarter paced smash, or either he doesn’t want to. He seemed stubbornly committed to trying to hit a winner off whatever lob was thrown at him, if it was high enough for him to smash. Regardless of whether it was close to the roof or too close to the baseline.

What Roddick is exceptionally good at doing is piling the pressure on, and as soon as he started playing better, the consistency of good quality rallies started to significantly increase. Now they were having tough points almost every single point, and it was really only a matter of execution. By now, Roddick’s forehand was working much better, so his well-known serve/forehand combo allowed him to hold serve more easily.

Berdych continued to try to push the boundaries and his ball-striking abilities, hitting close to the lines with frequency. His level had dropped a little from the first set, but he was still capable of being accurate often enough. Accurate enough to be a potential threat, although the match was starting to turn in Roddick’s favour. I started to hold my breath whenever Berdych hit a shot, and when he hit a great shot, I would often gasp. Because he would often save break points and other important situations with high risk, difficult shots. Berdych doesn't hit with safe margins over the net either. He really needs to add a transition game to make it easier on himself.

There was hope of Berdych suddenly putting together a glorious game, but in the end, it followed the same trend that the match had been heading. Berdych finding himself undone by his own errors, as a direct result of all the consistent pressure that Roddick put him in. And Roddick hitting a couple of aggressive returns in the decisive game.

It was strange to hear in the on-court interview, Roddick putting all the credit on Berdych for the loss of the first set, despite all of his on-court antics. This only adds to my impression that part of his reactions were more for the show, than anything else.

Day 4 Brisbane International Blog

2010-01-07T01:02:00.026+10:00

It’s night time at around 5:20pm and Show Court 1 is absolutely packed. There are no matches currently going on in Pat Rafter Arena, and it’s obvious that everyone has migrated over to watch Gael Monfils play against Florent Serra. There are only stands on one side of the court, and it’s already full. Large amounts of people are standing around in the grassed area, and I’m wondering if it’s worth watching to peek through the gaps between everyone’s heads.

Fortunately one person in front of me leaves, and I’m at least now standing with no one else standing in front of me. The scoreboard isn’t visible from here, A group of people behind me are discussing and asking each other who it is that Gael Monfils is playing against. One woman takes out her order of play, then reads out the name. This is what it’s like standing amongst a crowd watching tennis where all of the “expert” commentary is coming from the people next to you.

It looks like I’ve come at an important stage of the match, the tie-break in the first set but I was still acquainting myself with the match and my surroundings. This kind of view and atmosphere is almost like a complete shift in focus. I can’t really see the lines that well but I can see the pace of shot and the types of movement. The sound effects are exceptionally loud from this close, then again the hard shaded cover that the players play on amplifies all the sounds. When I moved onto watch the matches in Pat Rafter Arena, it just occurred to me, that do we perceive the pace of the ball almost entirely on sound, and is this an inaccurate way of judging things?

It’s clear that Serra is hitting his forehand exceptionally well today. It reminded me of the couple of matches I covered of him playing in Brisbane last year. His forehand is definitely his strength, the one he has more options with, off-forehand or down the line. He seemed to use his forehand to move Monfils around side-to-side, and assert his authority on the match, though strangely there were much fewer very long rallies than I was expecting, although there were some medium length rallies.

Monfils seemed to be doing everything at a snail pace in between points, walking as slowly in between points as possible. Given that I watched Sunday’s matches from a bit of a birds-eye view, it had been a while since I had been able to observe facial expressions. They really help fill in the gaps, such as why Monfils is taking so much time. Is he timewasting, being calculated and composed, dejected or whiny? Monfils is one of the most expressive characters on tour, and half this match ended up being about Monfils’ antics and the other about the tennis.

Maybe I caught Monfils on a bad day, but watching his facial expressions, I find it easy to believe that half the time he’s playing, he’s concentrating on something else other than the match. His mind looks like it’s completely elsewhere even when he’s not disagreeing with line calls and talking to the umpire. Though it must be said, there was a lot of that in between.

I don’t understand what was so serious that required a chat to the umpire almost every changeover, and one to the referee as well. It was clear that Monfils was unhappy with the line calls. I wasn’t in a position to comment, but I am certain that by the end, Monfils went ridiculously overboard in questioning almost every ball that landed close to the line. Somewhere in the second set, there was this really odd exchange between Serra and Monfils that had them both laughing about something to do with the line calls. This was after Serra hit a winner.

My impression of the section of the match I saw, only the second set really was that whenever Monfils picked up his consistency, he was the better player. I thought it was a good example, of how good consistency and defense can render an opponent almost completely ineffective. So it could be said that even though Serra played more aggressively, the match was more in Monfils’ hands. Monfils was the better player, but prone to concentration lapses. Serra had an excellent opportunity to break to serve for the match though, with 0-30 at 4-4 in the second set, but missed a makeable short ball, then mistakenly approached crosscourt off a dropshot instead of down the line and got passed easily with a shot that almost landed in the middle of the court.

It’s a unique experience getting to see the movement of Monfils up close, close enough to be able to hear it and watch him recover from those quick bursts of speed. I’ve heard a lot about how his choice to slide on the hardcourts strains his body and makes him injury prone. But you’ll notice also how when he moves, he quite often digs his feet into the ground and plants it. It’s a very aggressive way of moving around the court.

I didn’t watch the rest because I figured I wouldn’t have time to see it all anyway, and I needed to get some dinner. Besides I was primarily here to see Justine Henin, in her match against Sesil Karatantcheva. As Henin walked out, I expected to hear louder applause from the crowd, but it was a very mediocre volume of noise really. I’ll just interpret that to mean that plenty of people were interested in seeing her play, without being fans of her.

Immediately it was difficult making the adjustment to my seats in the stadium compared to before, and strangely the difference was more in the sound than the view. The TV coverage this week in Brisbane has been recording the ball-striking as being very lively on TV, and it’s odd to adjust to the fact that it’s actually softer from where I’m sitting. Because it's almost always louder in real life.

The other day I called her a ball basher based on TV and today it doesn’t look like she’s hitting the ball that hard to me. I’m pretty sure she’s hitting it at about the same pace today. Is it really all about the sound? Anyway, the first impressions of the match were that for such a high caliber player, Henin isn’t having an easy time winning points. She's having to engage in longer rallies and she's not looking all that reliable either.

Henin’s shotmaking was a little off to begin with. Sometimes she’d try really hard to pull the trigger straight away, and sometimes she’d rein it in too much not being accurate enough in her shotmaking. I guess you could say she looked distinctly average, unable to find that special shot to pull her opponent off the court and dictate it, and being too error prone too. Not being able to control points without trying to hit winners. Still, it was clear that her game was very different from all the other WTA players, in the manner she wins points.

Her backhand, as expected was very aesthetically pleasing to watch, especially from a side-on view, though she seemed to hit far more forehands in this match than backhands. I don’t think she hit that many winners on the backhand either. She definitely has much better disguise on this side compared to the forehand, but the forehand is a quick enough swing that opponents don’t really get much time to react.

Henin’s forehand really was shaky, and cost her dearly in the first half of the set. Credit must be given to Karatantcheva, however, who easily played a better match than I expected her to. She kept up the pace with Henin, strong groundstrokes on both sides and rarely looked like breaking down at first, even when stretched out wide. I cannot understand, however, why when the match was still even at 3-2 and Karatantcheva was playing a perfectly good match, she felt the need to call on her coach for advice.

In the end, I think the one-sided second set had just as much to do with Karatantcheva’s game starting to show some cracks, and showing signs of tiredness, as it did with Henin playing better. Henin did definitely show signs of improvements. For me, it’s a sign of reliability when I no longer watch wondering at the point of contact whether a shot will make it or not. Yep, Henin struck it firmly into the court almost every time. Though it seems whenever she hits a forehand, she has to put in a big effort to make sure that her body is moving forward into the court, to make sure that the ball doesn’t fly on her, or lose accuracy or pace.

I noticed that whenever Henin didn’t move right into the ball like it was short, she wasn’t able to hit down-the-line on the forehand anywhere near as effectively. In the coming weeks, she will need to add some accuracy on the forehand, in making it less predictable. I thought her forehand was much better on the return of serve compared to the normal rally, but on the other hand, she had the luxury of dealing with some short serves from Karatantcheva.

The final match I watched was between Tomas Berdych and Marcos Baghdatis, a surprisingly quick match. I’d say the whole match could have been summed up in the first 10 minutes, because I formed my first impressions then they stayed the same the whole way through.

About 5 minutes into the match, Berdych was already on form. It was easy to see already that Berdych is a more aggressive player than Baghdatis is, or at least more consistently aggressive anyway, whereas Baghdatis is more capable of throwing in some surprise changes of pace and shotmaking. This is definitely Berdych on one of his good days, seemingly changing directions on almost every single shot and pulling it off, hitting near the lines.

Baghdatis just can’t seem to keep up to that pace, always one step behind Berdych and unable to find himself back into the match. If anything, it was thought that Berdych would let the Cypriot into the match, rather than Baghdatis finding his way into it. That was some high risk tennis that Berdych was playing. Baghdatis’ (perceived?) low first service percentage certainly didn’t make matters any better. I think it was like the match, that you kept expecting to change at some stage but it just never did. It never woke up from the dream, or at least it didn’t for Berdych.

It was a surprisingly decent match for its 6-0 6-1 scoreline. I didn’t feel like Baghdatis was terrible, more like too quickly overwhelmed to be able to find his range. I also find Baghdatis’ defensive forehand to be lacking sometimes, too prone to hitting it in the net especially when he is on the run and the ball has already started dropping.