FO Day 9: Djokovic beats Ginepri in 4 sets (4R)

Fans have been anticipating a Federer-Nadal final ever since the French Open started.  After all, Nadal had pulled off the “triple” by winning Monte Carlo, Rome, and Madrid, the first time any player had won three Masters 1000 events on clay.  And Federer, who keeps reaching Slam finals.  The last time Federer failed to reach a Slam final was the 2008 Australian Open.  Few people had anyone else on the list of potential winners.

Heading into the French, the following were considered remote possibilities to win: Fernando Verdasco, who reached the finals of Monte Carlo, won Barcelona, and runner-up in Nice.  Then, David Ferrer, who reached the semifinals of Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and Madrid, and reached the finals of Rome.  Ernests Gulbis beat Roger Federer in the 2nd round of Rome and took a set off Nadal in the semifinals, almost pulling off the rare double: defeating both Federer and Nadal in the same tournament.  The first two showed consistently good results on clay.  Gulbis was beginning to show some of the talent and toughness needed to beat the game’s best.

These three were considered favorites based on their clay court performance.  However, all three had suffered losses to Nadal, and two (Ferrer and Gulbis) had also lost to Federer.  This gave reasons to think that despite a great clay resume, none of these three were ready to take the mantle from the top 2.

There were two other names in the play.  One was last year’s surprise finalist, Robin Soderling.  Soderling reached the finals of Barcelona losing to Verdasco, but had indifferent results in Rome and Madrid.  To be fair, Soderling didn’t have such great results last year when he made a surprise win.   One reason Soderling is a popular choice is that when he plays as well, he is among the hardest hitters in the game, comparable to Verdasco and del Potro.  Soderling has already reached the quarterfinals where he’ll meet Roger Federer, though he is 0-12 against Federer.

The other name is one that people should have talked about, but has had so much drama in recent months, that he was pretty much ignored, is two-time French Open semifinalist, Novak Djokovic.  Let’s examine this drama.  Normally, Djokovic is as comfortable on hard courts as clay.  However, he felt he needed to rework his serve, allegedly for shoulder issues.  It’s hard to tinker with a world class shot, especially one as important as the serve, and not expect some issues to arise.  Maria Sharapova is one of those players that has tried to rework her serve and it lead to numerous double faults.

Djokovic lost in the 4th round in Indian Wells.  He then lost in his opening round in Miami to Olivier Rochus.  Once action went to clay, he reached the semifinals of Monte Carlo losing to Fernando Verdasco, a respectable result, but what was worrisome was the score, a lopsided 6-2, 6-2.  Then, he lost again to Verdasco in the quarterfinals of Rome, a three setter that he seemed capable of winning.  Then, in his home tournament, Belgrade, he lost to Filip Krajinovic, who needed a wildcard just to play.  Djokovic blamed allergies for his woes and chose to skip Madrid to recover and train.

So, by the time the French Open started, no one knew how Djokovic was doing.  Had he recovered?  Was he really ready to play two weeks?  Two losses to Verdasco raised questions whether he could beat the second tier players, those just outside the top 5.  During this whole period, Djokovic was either ranked 2 or ranked 3.

Djokovic ended up with a pretty sweet draw.  The first seeded player he met was 31st seed, Victor Hanescu, in the 3rd round.  He played Korolev in the opening round, then Nishikori, who had been playing challengers to get himself back after having been off the tour due to elbow injury for more than half the year last year.  In the fourth round, the high seed was Juan Carlos Ferrero, seeded 16th, in other words, the lowest possible seed he could have faced.  And Ferrero didn’t even make it.  Instead, a plucky Robby Ginepri, who upset Sam Querrey in the first round, also upset Ferrero in five sets.

On paper, this match shouldn’t have been close.  Ginepri and Djokovic had only met 4 times, but Djokovic had won all 4 times, and never dropped a set.  The only time they met on clay was in 2005 in the first round, long before Djokovic had his breakthrough year (in 2007) where Ginepri only won 3 games. Ginepri has had some success on clay.  In 2008, he had worked with Jose Higueras (as had Roger Federer) and reached the fourth round.  Even so, his resume pales compared to Djokovic.

Ginepri kept the match close in the first set.  They went to 4-all, when Djokovic played a solid game, broke, and served out the set.  But then, Djokovic started to flake out.  Normally, a steady player that doesn’t make too many errors, Djokovic started spraying balls, losing longer rallies to Ginepri and Ginepri looked solid, making good solid shots, moving Djokovic around.  He broke Djokovic twice and took the second set, 6-2.

However, Djokovic has been having hiccups throughout his run in the French, dropping the second set to Korolev and Hanescu, but then playing solid tennis to win the last 2 sets comfortably.  And so the pattern continued.  The errors went away on his end and Ginepri began missing more, and Djokovic took the last two sets 6-1, 6-2.

Djokovic will again face a player that wasn’t expected to be there: Jurgen Melzer.  David Ferrer was Djokovic’s expected opponent.  However, Ferrer lost in straight sets to Jurgen Melzer.  Melzer faced Teimuraz Gabashvili, a hard hitting player who upset (if that’s the right word) Andy Roddick.  Gabashvili has already played 3 matches more than most, since he qualified to play in the main draw.

For a while, Gabashvili kept close to Melzer.  He was pushing Melzer around, but Melzer has some power and speed of his own.  Even so, this is Melzer’s best result in a Slam.  He often loses in the first three rounds and has never reached the quarters of a Slam.  Melzer took the first set in a close tiebreak.  Gabashvili kept it close in the second set and took it 6-4.  Melzer then used his veteran savvy and took sets 3 and 4 by the scores of 6-1 and 6-4.

Unusually, Nadal and Bellucci have had 12 breaks of serve.  Nadal has been broken 4 times.  Bellucci might have had a chance if he could have held his own serve.  Nadal is probably going to complain how poorly he played.  Bellucci has decided to play the way most play against Nadal: hit big.  Even so, Nadal took the first set 6-2, struggled to take the second set, 7-5, and finally takes the third set, 6-4.  When you play the “hit big” strategy, you need this to be a natural playing style.  Del Potro would beat Nadal because he wasn’t playing outside his comfort zone, but Bellucci is probably playing outside his comfort zone.

And that leaves one more fourth round match to be completed.  Almagro is a big hitter and took the first set, 6-1.  Verdasco has come back to take the second set, 6-4, but Almagro is now up 5-0 in the third set.  Verdasco played a ton of clay tournaments.  In addition to playing Monte Carlo, Rome, and Madrid, he also played Barcelona and Nice and reached the finals of Nice that was played just before the French.  One wonders whether Verdasco has played too much tennis and is tired.

If Almagro wins, he’ll try again to outhit Nadal as he did in Madrid where he won a set off Nadal, but was unable to beat Nadal.  Almagro has the kind of game that can upset Nadal, but he has to be perfect.  He can’t lapse too much.  And of course, he still has to beat Verdasco.

Tomorrow, Roger Federer will play his toughest match so far against Robin Soderling.  Federer has never lost to Soderling, but like del Potro who Federer had a great record against, Soderling has the kind of game that can bother Federer.  In the end, he’ll be favored to win.  Federer will hope to play sublime tennis and beat Soderling quickly, but that seems unlikely.  In the other quarters, Tomas Berdych will play Mikhail Youzhny.  The two have played 10 times, and Youzhny has a 6-4 lead, but one of Berdych’s win was a walkover.  Certainly, Youzhny will feel confident playing Berdych and he is playing well.  Still, either player could win.

FO Day 8: Onto Week 2

I was at the Essential Tennis Clinic, Day 2, in Baltimore (it’s really closer to Towson, but good enough), so most of what I’m going to cover is just reaction from hearing the scores.  The only matches (or parts of) was the Sharapova-Henin third set.

Since there weren’t that many matches, let’s go over each one then talk about the matches on Monday.  Today’s weather was allegedly poor.  It was cool and wet.

Roger Federer v Stanislas Wawrinka Roger won this in straight sets.  Roger still has a gaudy record against most players, including Stan Wawrinka.  There are only a handful of players that Roger has lost to who have played well against him rather than Federer playing poorly.  Wawrinka had a win over Roger Federer and that was in 2009 Monte Carlo when Roger had just returned from his wedding and decided to go to Monte Carlo last minute and was granted a wildcard.  Except for that, Roger has never dropped a set against Wawrinka and beat him recently in Madrid rather easily.  So, this result was hardly a surprise.

Robin Soderling vs. Marin Cilic The two play a similar style, but Soderling pounds the ball more than Cilic.  Soderling credited his serve with making what appeared to be a tough match into a relatively easy 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 match.  Most people expected a tougher win, probably in four sets.  In any case, Soderling does what he normally does, which is get deep into a Slam and face Federer.  Soderling, who once used to consider clay his weakest surface, seems to have built an affinity for the surface.  Certainly, he has fond memories of playing in Paris, and has done so again.

Mikhail Youzhny vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga It’s too bad that the top 2 French players, Tsonga and Monfils, are so injury proned.  I had predicted Youzhny to beat Tsonga, based on his recent play, but I had expected them to play a match.

Andy Murray vs. Tomas Berdych This result was mildly surprising.  Berdych is, of course, a hard hitter, but he can be inconsistent.  People have been looking for him to make a move to the top 10 ever since he pushed Federer to 5 sets at the Aussie Open last year.  Somehow, he plays inconsistently, and loses to weaker players, but has the potential to beat top ranked players.  Perhaps next to Cilic, Berdych is one of the better movers for a big guy.

One question for Murray is something that must have occurred to Pete Sampras: how much effort should Murray make to win the French?  Federer and Nadal aside, it’s been historically very difficult for someone to win both the French and Wimbledon.  It takes a lot of physical effort to win the French, and this effort often leaves players too weary to make a serious attempt at Wimbledon.

On the one hand, any Slam title would look good for Murray who has yet to win.  On the other, his chances of winning the French are much slimmer where there are many good players that would give him a serious challenge including Federer, Nadal, Soderling, and a whole raftful of other players.  Murray has, at the very least, played well at Wimbledon.  Last year, he played his best Slam at Wimbledon, making it to the semifinals.  It’s not clear why Murray plays better at Wimbledon when the Australian Open or the US Open seem better suited to his game.  More than likely, though, Murray’s loss is as it is.  He isn’t fully comfortable on clay, despite making some strides to play better on it.

Tomorrow, Robby Ginepri plays Novak Djokovic, and the magic carpet ride most likely ends here.  Djokovic seems to be back to playing good clay court tennis and he’s just too good for Ginepri and would probably be too good on nearly all surfaces.  Djokovic will want to win this quickly.  His section of the draw opened up pretty much and only a mental lapse (which alas happens a bit too much with Djokovic) will prevent him from meeting Nadal in the semifinals.  If he gets past Ginepri, Djokovic will take on the winner of veteran Jurgen Melzer and Teimuraz Gabashvili.  He would again be strongly favored against either player.

The match between Jurgen Melzer and Teimuraz Gabashvili seems like one of those “who cares who wins” matches.  Neither were expected to get this far.   The two have never played before.  I suppose, in such a situation, I would pick the veteran, Melzer.  It’s not that Gabashvili is that young either.  Melzer has had indifferent results in the Slam.  Usually he’s out by the third round.  He had one of his best showings at a Masters 1000 event reaching the quarterfinals in Madrid and is probably still riding a high from that good result.

Rafa takes on Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil.  They’ve only played once, two years ago at Roland Garros, when Rafa steamrolled his way to the French title.  Bellucci is a solid clay court player.  No one expects him to bother Rafa, and he’ll probably fall in straight sets.

The most intriguing match is between the Spaniards Fernando Verdasco and Nicolas Almagro.  These two have met three times and Verdasco has yet to drop a set.  Their matches have an interesting pattern.  They play one set where Verdasco gets like 2 breaks, and the other sets are tiebreaks.  Of the two, it’s been Almagro who has taken a set off Nadal.  Verdasco has managed to avoid Nadal except in Monte Carlo where he won only a single game.  If Verdasco wins, he can take solace in the fact that Robin Soderling beat Nadal despite Soderling being crushed by Nadal only a few weeks earlier.  I expect a Nadal-Verdasco quarterfinals and I think Verdasco might be able to take a set off Nadal.  Nadal was just zoning in Monte Carlo, and has not been nearly as sharp in Rome and Madrid and the French (I say this despite the fact that Nadal has not dropped a set–and, interestingly enough, Roger hasn’t dropped a set either).

Interesting to note.  Roger has never reached the finals of the French without dropping at least one set.  Clearly, a player like Soderling could take a set from Roger, and even someone like Berdych has given Roger trouble, though the players that could have given him trouble (outside of Soderling) like Gulbis, Lopez, Monfils lost before they reached Fed (not that they would have given him too much trouble).

Of Roger and Rafa, Roger’s toughest challenge appears to be Soderling, a guy he’s never officially lost to (he lost in an exhibition).  Berdych would probably be the tougher of the two semifinalists.  Federer is 10-0 against Youzhny and 8-2 against Berdych including their first meeting during the Olympics.

On the other hand, Djokovic has 7 wins over Nadal, although every win was on hard courts.  The fact of the matter is Djokovic knows he can beat Nadal and I would take that over the chances over Soderling/Youzhny/Berdych beating Roger.  Admittedly, Djokovic has to reach Nadal, but his chances are very good to get there.  The only one that will stop Novak is himself.  Right now, his serve is giving him some issues, and he’s dropped a set twice so far.  He’ll hope to get that corrected before meeting Rafa.

Djokovic is seriously flying under the radar.  If he gets past Ginepri, he’ll start to get in the discussion as he moves to the quarterfinals.  Of course, if Djokovic loses before Nadal, there will be serious questions about his mental (or physical) fitness.

FO Day 7: Day of Surprises

Going into the French Open, you’d give it a toss-up as to who was playing better after Rafael Nadal: David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco.  I mean, sure you could point to Roger Federer, but he only had one good tournament, and two “bad” ones (Estoril and Rome).

You wouldn’t have expected David Ferrer to struggle against veteran lefty Jurgen Melzer, but apparently he did.  Without having seen the match, I can’t say how it ended up this way, but one thing Ferrer likes to do is to camp on the ad side and pick on a right hander’s backhand by playing inside out.   But this strategy puts the ball to Melzer’s forehand.  In any case, Ferrer goes out surprisingly in straight sets.

Perhaps nearly as surprising was Roddick’s loss to Gabashvili.  Gabashvili is a qualifier, and one would imagine that Roddick could still beat him, but even if he lost, you’d think it would be tighter, perhaps a tiebreak or a fourth set, instead of the 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 loss.

More surprising than that was Robby Ginepri beating Juan Carlos Ferrero.  At the beginning of the year when many players were in the US prepping for Indian Wells and Miami, some stalwart clay courters head to South America and Mexico to play on clay.  Two players that did well at the time where Juan Carlos Ferrero and David Ferrer.  Ferrer continued to play well once Miami was over and the true clay season started.  Ferrero, on the other hand, didn’t have such a great clay season.  Even so, Ginepri’s year had been pretty much going nowhere.  His victory over Querrey seemed tainted since Querrey had lost interest in playing.  Yet, it seemed to give Ginepri confidence who beat Potito Starace in the second round, then beating Ferrero.  It was all the more impressive because Ginepri won the first two sets, dropped the next two, and won the last.

Bellucci beating Ljubicic was not so much of a surprise.  Bellucci’s results had been better on clay this year.  Nadal beating Hewitt again was also not a surprise, but Hewitt no longer leads in their head-to-head.  They are tied 5 wins apiece.  Verdasco eked out a 5 set win over Kohlschreiber who is tough on clay.

Alexandr Dolgopolov whose new name change (from Oleksandr) just took effect wasn’t able to continue his string of upsets.  After beating Fernando Gonzalez, he lost to hard hitting Nicolas Almagro, in straight sets.

Novak Djokovic continues a solid run with the expected victory over Victor Hanescu of Romania in four sets.

Tomorrow, Federer plays his first tough challenge, countryman Stanislas Wawrinka.  Fed had an easy victory over Wawrinka in Madrid.  One imagines the match should be closer, but still be a comfortable Fed victory.  Youzhny plays Tsonga in what promises to be a tough match.

Cilic plays Soderling in perhaps the toughest of the fourth round matches, the winner to take on the winner of Federer-Wawrinka.  Murray takes on Berdych who easily dispatches of John Isner.

FO Day 7: Gabashvili crushes Roddick 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 (3R)

This is one of those matches that shows Roddick isn’t exactly a clay courter.  Gabashvili is one of those dangerous players who hits hard but whose errors typically do him in.  But not today.

Gabashvili kept hitting balls hard and Roddick, in an effort to keep up, made a few too many errors.  Roddick came out a bit flat and was just thumped having no answers for Gabashvili’s power shots, which is surprising because Roddick usually does fine against hard hitters, but the clay doesn’t help his footing.

In any case it’s interesting to look ahead to a potential 4th round meeting with David Ferrer.   Ferrer generally does well against guys with pace, and certainly, he’s had no problems so far.  Of course, Ferrer still has to win his 3rd round match over Melzer.  Melzer is a hard hitting lefty veteran from Austria, but it’s hard to believe Melzer can manage the upset.

This leaves Robby Ginepri as the only American left, and he plays Juan Carlos Ferrero, where he will not be favored.

In a match that was called because of darkness, Michael Youzhny came back against Viktor Troicki (who was recently in a video with countryman Novak Djokovic, where Troicki played Nadal to Djokovic’s Shakira).  Troicki took the first set, 6-2, but then it was Youzhny 7-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the next three sets.

Youzhny will take on Tsonga in the 4th round.

Novak Djokovic plays Victor Hanescu later today.  Rafael Nadal will play Lleyton Hewitt (once again, at the French).  Verdasco takes on Kohlschreiber.  Melzer plays Ferrer.  Ferrero plays Ginepri.  Ljubicic plays Bellucci.

The Bryan brothers were upset by the Brazilian duo of Melo and Soares 6-3, 7-6(6).

FO Day 6: Ljubicic beats Fish 10-8 in the fifth (2R)

With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged.  Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today.  In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today.

All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, and Soderling.  But one of the most intriguing matches came from Mardy Fish.  This year has to be one of the best years for Americans at the French.  This is, alas, not exactly a compliment.  Most years, nearly all the Americans exit in round 1, with maybe 2 going to later rounds and one of the two losing in the 2nd round.

This year, hopes were a little higher with the surprising clay results of Querrey and Isner who reached the finals of Belgrade.   Little did anyone know that Querrey would suffer burnout at the French.  Querrey complained of not wanting to be on court and lost to fellow American, Robby Ginepri.  That left Ginepri, who had had a lackluster year so far into the second round, where he faced Potito Starace.  Starace is one of those clay courters that should have had enough savvy to beat Ginepri, but perhaps, buoyed by his success over Querrey, Ginepri found enough confidence to beat Starace and did so in 4 sets.

Mardy Fish is best buddies with James Blake.  Their fortunes seem inextricably tied with one another.  When Blake was reaching the top 10, Fish was in the top 20.  Now that Blake is about to fade out of the top 100, Fish doesn’t seem too far behind.  Ranked at 97, Fish’s chances at the French seemed unlikely.  Fish is more of a fast court player, playing a style much like Blake.   But Fish won a tough five setter in the first round against Berrer and found himself pitted against 14th seeded Ivan Ljubicic.

This was a match of the old guys.  Ljubicic is 31 and is having a pretty good year.  After 3 runner up finishes in Masters 1000 events, Ljubicic held together mentally tough at Indian Wells, and beat Rafa in 3 sets and beat Roddick in the finals.  Ljubicic found himself down 2 sets to 1 against Fish, but quickly turned around the fourth set, winning 6-2, then going a marathon fifth set.  Ljubicic broke at 8-all to 9-8, and at 30-0 up with Fish approaching the net, Ljubicic blocked a backhand pass past Fish and did a dance.  A big serve and Ljubicic raised his arms in victory.

For those who saw Nishikori win Delray Beach in 2008, where he beat Sam Querrey in the semis and James Blake in the finals, many wondered whether this would be the next great Asian tennis star.  Japan has produced one other recent pro of note, Shuzo Matsuoka, who was a pretty decent grass court player.  Nishikori is more like today’s player, aggressive off the ground.

Unfortunately, Nishikori injured his elbow right before the clay season last year and was out the rest of the year.  This year, he’s been working his ranking up by playing Challengers and has had some success doing so winning Savannah and Sarasota on clay.  Nishikori’s first round match was against Santiago Giraldo.  Normally, this match might be hard to call.  Who is Giraldo, after all?  But a while back, he beat Juan Carlos Ferrero easily, so it seemed he might be a guy on the rise.  Nishikori had only played one ATP level event and lost early.  So it seemed Nishikori wasn’t ready to play with the big boys yet.  Apparently, not so.  The talent that Nishikori showed as an 18 year old winning his first tournament in 2008 was there again, and Nishikori won in 5 sets.

Nishikori’s reward was to play Novak Djokovic.  Under normal circumstances, Djokovic’s name would be put among the favorites to win the French.  He’s got a versatile game that works on clay and hard courts.  And yet, because Djokovic was mentally flaking out since Australia, especially at Miami where he lost in the second round, and in Belgrade where he lost to Filip Krajinovic and then blamed the loss on allergies, many were looking past Djokovic and ready to talk about yet another Federer-Nadal final.

While this is still the odds-on final, Djokovic, when he’s playing well, is still a formidable clay court player.  He pushed Rafa last year during the clay season and had a very good season after the US Open (and including the US Open) up to the ATP World Tour Finals.  Djokovic has alternate bursts of unexplainable mediocrity and moments where he looks like a solid contender to win a Slam.

Late in the third set, with the score 4-3 and Djokovic trying to hold serve, Nishikori had several opportunities to break and perhaps force a fourth set.  In the rallies, you got a sense why Nishikori is one of those promising up-and-comers, but you also got a sense of Djokovic starting to play good tennis again.  Both moved the ball around well, but in the end, Djokovic was able to hold then break and hold and move to the next round in straight sets.

Federer played a qualifier in Julian Reister.  Reister wasn’t expected to give Roger much work, but this was the 3rd round after all, and he had beaten Olivier Rochus who, while not top 10 talent, has remained a solid player his entire career.  As with his other matches, Federer wasn’t able to take advantage right away.  He and Reister played even until 4-all when Federer upped his game, broke, and held for the set.  Then, Reister seemed to lose some belief as Federer broke him 3 more times to win the second set, 6-0.  Apparently, Reister was able to be more competitive in the third set, but still lost 6-4.

Rafael Nadal continues to beat folks he should beat.  Horacio Zeballos is a solid clay courter, much like Seppi or Starace or any number of solid clay courters that don’t give a player of Nadal’s caliber much pause.  Straight set win for Nadal.  Nadal is going to play Lleyton Hewitt in the third round.  Hewitt’s probably tired of seeing Nadal again.  Hewitt has played Nadal 4 times in the last 6 years.  Hewitt needed 5 sets to beat Istomin.  Even if he weren’t tired, beating Nadal will be a tall order.

After the five setter with Monfils, Fognini was not really ready to take on Stanislas Wawrinka who was not going to mess around the way Monfils did.  Wawrinka plays more offensive than Monfils does and won the match over the plucky Italian in straight sets.  Wawrinka’s reward for his hard work is to face his former Olympic doubles partner, Roger Federer.  Federer recently beat Wawrinka in Madrid rather handily.  Even so, Wawrinka will be Federer’s first tough opposition, though one he’s expected to win.

Cilic needed 5 sets to beat Leonardo Mayer of Argentina, a relatively tough clay courter.  Robin Soderling got his first challenge against Albert Montanes dropping his first set, but won in four sets.  The two will meet each other in the fourth round.  The two have never played each other.  Soderling should be favored, but it could be close.

Looking at the draw, it was hard to believe that Murray could beat Baghdatis, but once he fought his way past Gasquet and past Chela, I felt he had good chances to beat Baghdatis.  Murray has finally adapted his game on clay to be more of the kind of offensive player that he needs to be on clay.  In particular, although Murray wasn’t going for winners, he was happy enough moving Baghdatis around making him run and run, then deftly hitting drop shots or luring him to net where he’d make a good pass.  Murray took the first two sets easily, but dropped the third 6-0 and was down a break in the fourth before he turned on the groundies and took the fourth 6-2.

Murray’s recovery into solid tennis is nearly as impressive as Roger Federer.  Where I can see Roger Federer holding back what he wanted to do until the French, I felt Murray has taken a crash course in clay court tennis and adapted his game in only a month’s time.  It probably doesn’t hurt Murray that Baghdatis’s first serve percentage is generally as bad as his first serve percentage and in this match, he put in a very good 62% of his first serves, but Baghdatis was only around 40% (a number not too uncommon for Baghdatis).  In the end, Murray won because he was able to impose himself in the rallies and play enough touch shots to upset Baghdatis’s timing.

Up next for Murray is Tomas Berdych.  Berdych has done what few have done.  Return Isner’s serve.  A typical Isner match goes something like this: Isner serves bombs, and takes you to a tiebreak, and he wins the tiebreak.  Isner doesn’t break a lot, but he usually doesn’t get broken a lot either.  Apparently, Berdych had few issues breaking Isner 7 times, and never facing break point himself, winning 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, perhaps one of Isner’s most lopsided wins.  Berdych will be a tough opponent for Murray, but Murray tends to like big hitters provided they are inconsistent.  I think he has a solid chance to reach the quarters, though Berdych will likely press him.  I don’t quite trust Berdych’s mental consistency yet.

Tsonga had to work hard to beat Dutch player Thiemo de Bakker.  Tsonga lost the first set in a tiebreak, got the second in a tiebreak, and took sets 3 and 4 comfortably.  Tsonga will play the winner of Troicki-Youzhny.  Troicki won the first set 6-2, but is down 4-2 in the second set.  They have maybe another hour to an hour and a half of play before it gets too dark.

Like Andy Murray, Verdasco had a four set win losing the third set, 6-0.  Other than that hiccup, Verdasco looks solid in his 2nd round win.  Melzer, the 22nd seed, beat Mahut in four sets.  Bellucci needed five sets to beat Spaniard Andujar.  David Ferrer continues to roll with a 6-2, 6-2, 2-0 retirement over the Belgian, Xavier Malisse.  Ferrero needed 4 sets to beat fellow Spaniard, Riba.  Hanescu, Kohlschreiber, and Almagro won in straight sets.  In a bit of a surprise, Dolgopolov beat Gonzalez in straight sets.  Gonzalez was a semifinalist last year losing to Soderling.

Tomorrow, Djokovic plays Hanescu.  Djokovic should win.  Nadal plays Hewitt.  Nadal should win.  Roddick plays Gabashvili.  Roddick should win.  Verdasco plays Kohlschreiber.  This is a tough one, but Verdasco should win.  Melzer vs. Ferrer.  Ferrer should win.   Ferrero vs. Ginepri.  Ferrero should win.  Ljubicic vs. Bellucci.  Hard to call.  Bellucci has better results on clay, but Ljubicic is a wily veteran.  The two have never met.

So another day full of action tomorrow!

FO Day 5: Fognini wins 9-7 in the fifth over Monfils

Perhaps the most peculiar match of Day 4 was the one between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini.  That the match needed to go to an extra day to get finished was a “shame on Gael” situation.  Gael Monfils was winning comfortably, up 2 sets to none.  His athleticism should have been enough to win.  Fognini wasn’t exactly considered a paragon of mental toughness, but then, Monfils has never had his act together.  It often seems like Monfils wants to show how talented he is and fool around instead of playing serious.

And so, even though Monfils had a break in the third set, two breaks up in the fourth set, he found himself mired in a fifth set, with daylight dimming (the French Open does not play under lights) and at 4-all, the supervisor wanted to call the match because of darkness.  Apparently, he asked both players if they wanted to continue and initially, both agreed.  But Team Fognini nixed the idea and then Fognini refused to play.  The chair umpire penalized him a point to get him to play.  Fognini was down 0-15 and even down break point before he pulled out the game.

Then, Monfils was cramping and went down 15-40 on his own serve, and the decision to play the match seemed foolhardy.  Fognini would get another match point but was unable to break.  At 5-all, they called the match because of darkness.

This match was concluded today, and Monfils apparently played quite passively letting Fognini control the match, and won this 9-7 in the fifth.  That’s again, one less potentially tough player that Federer has to play.  To be fair, Federer won over Monfils very easily.  Fognini claimed to have no hard feelings with Monfils who he considers a friend, having played against him since they were juniors.

Andy Murray also had his match called due to darkness Wednesday night.  He was up 3-2 with a break, but Chela broke back to 3-all, and the match was called due to darkness some 20 minutes before the Monfils-Fognini match.  Chela would come back and win the third set in a tiebreak, but Murray took sets 3 and 4 handily, 6-3 and 6-2.  Chela simply does not move well enough to challenge Murray.

Murray takes on Baghdatis next.  Baghdatis has given Murray trouble in the past although the two haven’t played in a while.  Baghdatis will probably be favored.  He’s got the kind of game that works well on slower as well as faster surfaces.  Baghdatis beat Marcel Granollers of Spain in four sets.  He had finished 3 sets yesterday and just needed one more today.  Murray, on the other hand, had finished one set and a half, and played 2 and a half sets, admittedly 2 of those sets being pretty easy.  Murray and Baghdatis play each other on Day 6 (tomorrow).

Andy Roddick found himself playing Blaz Kavcic, a qualifier from Slovenia.  This should have been a straight forward match, but clay is Roddick’s weakest surface and after the rain, clay tends to play really slow.  Roddick tends to be rock steady at about 70% first serves, but he was down a little at 65% (a number Murray would be thrilled at), and needed four sets to win over the qualifier.  Roddick takes on the big hitting Gabashvili.  He’ll hope that his steadiness outdoes the erratic Russian.

John Isner won a tough match over Swiss number 3, Marco Chiudinelli (a Federer childhood friend), in 4 long sets.  Isner has shown some mental toughness winning against clay courters.  His big serve and big forehand served him well.  Isner can now focus just on singles as his doubles partner, Sam Querrey, headed back to California, feeling burned out.

Two other matches were started but not completed: surprisingly, Andujar has split sets with Bellucci, the 24th seed.  Ljubicic and Mardy Fish have also split the first two sets.

Many of the matches were washed out.  Play didn’t start until about 3:30 PM about 4 hours later than its original scheduled time.  Nadal and Djokovic had their matches pushed to Friday.  Murray will also play on Friday against Baghdatis.  Federer, who has been pretty much on schedule, plays Julian Reister who beat Olivier Rochus to get to the 3rd round.  Rochus had beaten Djokovic back in Miami and had played doubles with Federer when they were juniors.  Reister, meanwhile, has not had great results.  However, he must be playing half-way decent to get to the third round.  However, it’s hard to imagine that Federer won’t steamroll over Reister.

Tomorrow, they will need to make up a fair number of matches.  This is one reason Federer, Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic are all scheduled to play.

FO Commentary: What’s Up with Sam Querrey?

The closest I’ve ever heard someone making comments like Sam Querrey was the brief disgust that Roger Federer had shortly after losing in the semifinals at Miami.  Federer said he was glad to leave hardcourts and was eager to play on clay again.

After Querrey lost to Robby Ginepri, admittedly a guy he lost to last year in the Indianapolis final but also admittedly a guy who had only won one match at the 250 level, Querrey went into the interview and bared his soul.  He said he was just not feeling it.  He had been in Europe for about 5 weeks, played in Rome and Belgrade and a World Cup of Tennis in Dusseldorf the weekend before the French Open and he had simply stopped caring.  He felt his mind was in the wrong spot, and he was eager to head home.

Querrey and Isner were playing doubles, but he was planning to inform Isner that he was heading back to the States, presumably back to California and decide what he wanted to do.  Andy Roddick was asked, in his interview, what he thought about Querrey’s action.  Roddick refused to be baited into the situation, at least, without having talked to Querrey first.  He must have been burned by how the press twists things to get their angle in.

Ultimately, there were comparisons made between Querrey and Isner.  Both had traveled together, were training together.  Both were tall guys that played similar styles, and yet, for the most part, Isner was the one that had better results, at least better recent results.  Querrey had expressed frustration that while he was doing well in 250s, the “lowest” point-value tournaments, he was not doing well in the Masters 1000 events.  In particular, although he won Belgrade, his ranking didn’t move (see here for explanation: http://essentialtennis.com/tournews/2010/05/how-isner-jumped-querrey/).

Querrey said he had been feeling this way on and off for a few months, and he wanted to stop fighting himself as well as his opponent.  Querrey has the reputation of being a nice guy, perhaps not as fiery competitive as he could be.  Querrey would say he was competitive on the inside.  By contrast, Isner spent his formative years playing college tennis.  He said he wasn’t good enough to consider turning pro in his first two years, and only when he became number 1 in the nation did he begin to ponder a pro career.

Perhaps that team camaraderie, or perhaps a more innate sense of competition, helped Isner with the pro tour.  Another odd possibility–and this is mere speculation–is that both Querrey and Isner have been traveling together for the last few months.  This relationship seems to be helpful to both guys.  They’ve improved the bigness of their shots, especially their forehand.  Querrey’s improved his movement a great deal too.

But one possible downside is friction that sometimes arise traveling with someone.  Many doubles team have split up when the team dynamics don’t work out as well as they could.  In particular, one can imagine Isner, a collegiate player, poking fun at Querrey like he did with his Bulldog teammates, and Querrey not taking it that well.  Who knows?  Although Querrey was honest enough to say that he wasn’t feeling good, an admission so frank in its honesty, one can hardly imagine another player confessing as much, even if that was what was troubling them.

Querrey had his training derailed a bit last year.  After a successful US Open series, Querrey was going to the Asian part of the post-US Open circuit when he got cut after sitting on a glass table.  Querrey didn’t return back to the tour until just before the Australian Open, and didn’t play that well.  However, after a few weeks, he was starting to win, including a defeat of Isner at Memphis, and then a defeat of Isner again at Belgrade.  Querrey’s dissatisfaction with himself seems to stem sometime during this period, even though he played decent tennis.

So now Querrey has headed back to California and questions remain as to what he will do now.  Will he return by Wimbledon?  Or will he take more time off?  While Querrey’s dilemma seems an order of magnitude better than, say, Dinara Safina, whose mental woes arise more from wanting it too much rather than from a desire to get off the court, it still seems bothersome enough that he will have to do some soul searching.

Hopefully, he finds the answers he’s looking for.

FO Day 4: Monfils-Fognini match called due to darkness (2R)

For a while, Gael Monfils was cruising to an easy win over his Italian opponent.  Up 6-2, 6-4 and a break in the third, Monfils began fooling around a bit and eventually lost the third set 7-5.  Monfils was also up two breaks in the fourth set, but again lost this set, 6-4.  At 4-all, with other matches being called because of darkness, Monfils insisted on continuing and Fognini didn’t want to continue.  The Parisian crowd was cheering for more play.

With light becoming increasingly scarce, Fognini managed to hold his serve saving a break point in the game.  At this point, it was decided that only one more game would be played.  Monfils was down 15-40, double match point and managed to save match points and eventually save the game.  It was getting bad enough that Monfils was spinning very slow serves for first serves.  The commentators were incredulous how anyone could see what was going on.  Neither player wanted to hit the ball and approach the net.  Monfils was hitting drop shots earlier on and decided not to do that either.

At 5-all, the match was called at around 10 PM local time (the sun set around 9:40 local time) and will be continued tomorrow.  Other matches that were also called: Isner was down a set to Chiudinelli, but is on serve in the second set at 5-all.  Andy Murray is up 6-2, 3-all on Chela.  Baghdatis took sets 2 and 3 over Granollers who took the opening set.

Berdych won his match over Roger-Vasselin in straight sets.  de Bakker beat Garcia-Lopez in 4 sets.  Reister beat Rochus in straight sets.  He plays Roger Federer next.  Wawrinka beat Beck in straight sets.  He will face the winner of Monfils-Fognini.

Most of these matches failed to be completed because of rain delays earlier in the day.

FO Day 4: Federer wins comfortably over Falla (2R)

One wonders where this Roger Federer was a few weeks ago with backhand flying out and losing early.  It seems Roger’s priorities are to win Slams and that early losses are not bothersome to Roger, or for the conspiracy-minded, Roger selectively loses so as not to tempt injury or to keep some of what he does hidden until it’s too late to adjust.

Falla is probably the kind of player Federer wants to play: a hard-hitting lefty.  He’s no Rafa, but he does give Roger a lefty look and that’s something Roger probably wants to see.

For a while, Falla was winning serves easily and even had a break late in the first set.  However, Federer quickly broke back, pushed it into a tiebreak and won it handily.  From that point on, Falla missed more than he had in the first set and Federer’s confidence grew.

This match was interrupted by rain twice.  The first delay was rather short last 10-15 minutes and both players agreed to forgo the warmup.  The second delay was closer to an hour.  After Falla was broken early in the 3rd, it was just a matter of time for Federer to serve out the match.  Roger played this match with a lot less finesse than he did against, say, Peter Luczak, where he hit lots of drop shots.  Against Falla, he opted for a more straight-forward play.

Final score: 7-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Taylor Dent was hoping his serve and volley style would give Robin Soderling trouble.  Soderling had other ideas and hardly lost a game winning 6-0, 6-1, 6-1.  Tsonga rebounded after a five set first round match and had a much easier time with countryman Josselin Ouanna.  If Gianni Mina is little Monfils then maybe Ouanna is Tsonga-lite.  Tsonga easily won this 6-0, 6-1, 6-4.  Leonardo Mayer beat the guy that beat Gulbis, Julien Benneteau 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Cilic won in straight sets over Gimeno-Traver.  Youzhny needed four sets to beat Lukas Lacko.  Troicki beat Aussie Carsten Ball in straight sets.  The X man, Xavier Malisse beat Simon Greul in 3 close sets.  Albert Montanes had a fairly easy match over Tobias Kamke in straight sets.

Currently, Garcia-Lopez, the 32nd seed, playing Thiemo de Bakker.  Julien Reister has a 2 set to none lead over Olivier Rochus.

Monfils, Murray, Berdych, Baghdatis, Isner, and Wawrinka scheduled to play today which has seen a few rain delays.

FO Day 3: And Now For Something Completely Different

We take a brief detour from covering the men’s game to bring you commentary on a women’s game.

Imagine, if you will, that you could somehow transport Jimmy Connors from the past to the present, a man who was both a combination of old school (flat groundstrokes) and new (two-handed backhand) and you had him on tour playing, oh, I don’t know, someone modern.  Verdasco, perhaps?  And imagine that Connors shot-making was so out of the ordinary, so befuddling, that modern players didn’t know what to do with it.  And imagine that you didn’t take Connors from his prime, but the Connors from 1991, a 39 year old Connors.  And imagine he hadn’t continued to play continuous tennis up to 39, but had actually retired.

Well, that’s the scenario that occurred in the first round which pittegot d Kimiko Date-Krumm, 39 years old, retired back in 1996 and had been content not to play tennis.  She got married in 2001 to Michael Krumm, a German race car driver, and began running marathons to keep herself busy.  As the years passed, Krumm wanted to see his wife play pro tennis, an idea that was frankly insane.

It’s one thing for Kim Clijsters or Justine Henin to retire and come back.  Both players were in the middle of their careers and came back at respectable ages.  Neither was off the tour for more than about 2 years.  Date-Krumm had not seriously hit for around a decade.  To decide to pick up a racquet and start training lead her down one of those improbable journeys.  Initially, she played an exhibition with her old rival Steffi Graf then played some tournaments in Japan before playing some small tournaments and even getting a wildcard into Wimbledon.

Of all the seeded players to play, Date Krumm was perhaps lucky that she got Dinara Safina whose mental confidence has long since abandoned her.  Although she was a finalist at the French last  year, she had not had any real serious results.  Even so, she was still seeded ninth, and her size, 6’1″, towers over her diminuitive opponent at 5’4″.

Date Krumm has long had to find ways to beat bigger women.  By the time she was playing her best tennis, throughout the early 90s, the days of dainty figured women like Chris Evert were long past, and bigger women, like Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, and Mary Pierce were beginning to fill the landscape of women.  Mary Carillo termed the phenomenon “big babe tennis”.  These were big women who hit big.  Date Krumm was often a David among female Goliaths.

She built a style of play much like Connors, predicated on hitting the ball off the rise with a minimal backswing.  No loop.  No windshield wiper follow-through.  Today’s modern woman player may hit flatter than, say, the men, but they still hit with topspin.  Not so with Date Krumm, whose flat ball whizzes through the air.  This flat style and her short height lead to a perennial problem: unforced errors.  Date Krumm makes so many unforced errors that she would make Roger Federer on a bad day blush.

Anyone who looked at the score 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 would have said “there goes Safina, breaking down mentally again”.  And that is right.  Safina was fighting more than an opponent that’s old enough to be her mother.  She was, of course, fighting her own demons.  Safina hit 17 double faults.  Ok, that sounds bad, but let’s make it a bit more even.

Kimiko Date-Krumm hit 63 unforced errors!  63!  This was compared to a somewhat respectable 38 unforced errors on Safina’s part.  Date-Krumm’s aggressiveness lead to 37 winners to Safina’s 12.

OK, let’s make this even more interesting.  Date-Krumm had her calf taped up and it was bothering her throughout the third set.  She was down 4-1, double break, with Safina ready to serve to go up 5-1.  In this game, she felt a muscle pull and began to hobble her movement.  She managed to somehow win this game through, yes, a double fault by Safina, but also two consecutive down the line return winners, and get to 4-2.  She asked for a trainer who was, at best, only able to massage her calf.

You would imagine that Safina would only need to move Date-Krumm around, or drop shot her, or get her going side to side.  But because Date-Krumm would often take aggressive swipes to one side or the other, Safina was lobbing shots up the middle to recover.  This is one case where a tall woman having to hit low shots struggled.

Somehow, Date-Krumm managed to hold to 4-3, then break again to 4-all.  She held again to 5-4.  She was leading in that game and it seemed that Safina would lose 6-4, but due to errors from Date-Krumm, Safina held serve to 5-all.  Date-Krumm then got down 0-30 on her own serve and it seemed Safina might break and be serving for the match herself.  But Date-Krumm dug out of that game and was up 6-5.

Safina then opened the game with her last double fault, going down 0-15.  In the second point, Date-Krumm hit two very deep shots near the baseline eliciting an error from Safina.  0-30.  In the third point, Safina hit a crazy lob forehand that sailed long, 0-40.  And finally, Date-Krumm hit a return and Safina hit another shot just long and the match was over, 7-5.

In the end, one wondered what Date-Krumm had to prove.  She could have retired.  Things looked dire.  And yet, she said she doesn’t like to retire, and she just fought on.  Hobbled by an inability to full-out move, she resorted to drop shots, forays to the net and drop volleys.  It was as improbable a victory as you’d ever hope to see.  And even if Safina is a basket case, just consider how a woman who didn’t play tennis for a dozen years could beat players half her age.  And it’s not just Safina that she’s beaten.  Date-Krumm has beaten Hanchutova, Kirilenko, and Medina Garrigues.

Date-Krumm may not make it much further in this tournament.  But she can say that an old lady playing old school tennis can still beat today’s players, even if some of those players don’t always show the resolve that she’s shown.