Ernests Gulbis.  Loves.  Drop shots.  I mean, the man really loves them.  In the 1980s, when clay court tennis meant interminably long rallies, the drop shot seemed a rarity.  Few people could hit it well and some chose to almost never hit it.  For every horribly awkward Lendl drop shot, there was a Mats Wilander who just never drop shotted.

The drop shot has been coming back lately perhaps with a vengeance.  Two players have really used it a lot in their games: Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.  Even the great Roger Federer, who once derided the drop shot as the tool of a weaker player, has come to embrace this shot, especially as his game has often gone awry.  The drop shot is one of those shots he doesn’t mishit very often.

But none of them use it with the frequency of Ernests Gulbis, who must use it more than any player on the tour.

Gulbis’s game is now getting some recognition now that he wins more than a round a tournament.  In the first round, he faced Albert Montanes.  In a breath of refreshing frank admission, Gulbis felt Montanes was faking his injury near the end of their match, when Gulbis had had a big lead.  He could admit that Montanes might have been hurt–who isn’t in the pro tour, but that it affected his movement?  Gulbis felt Montanes was moving fine and the move was a way to upset his rhythm.  Gulbis, in any case, is a new player and broke him after the timeout, and he felt he just tanked the last game, not desiring to work hard and win (a tough task to be sure).

A year ago, Gulbis might not have taken distractions so well.  Ever since Gulbis has worked with Hernan Gumy, formerly the coach of Marat Safin, he’s learned to play to his strengths.  Gulbis has a big serve, and this often sets him up for easy points.  But he is also very steady off the backhand.  Indeed, Gulbis decided to play a lot of shots to the Youzhny backhand even though Youzhny’s backhand is one of the better backhands on the tour.

Youzhny can mix up the backhand, hitting slices and drive shots, and is steadier on that side than he is on the forehand, which is bigger, but more inconsistent.  Gulbis was, nonetheless, content attacking backhand to backhand.

And because Gulbis has a big forehand, indeed, big strokes overall, he can keep his opponents pinned far behind the baseline when he then unexpectedly.  Drop shots!  It seems he must hit about a dozen drop shots a match, probably easily twice as many as the next player.

The first set with Youzhny proved tough.  Youzhny had looked, for all the world, that he would lose to the flatter hitting Lukas Lacko, but it turned out it was just a little rust, and Youzhny began playing a lot steadier and took the second, then third sets easily.   Gulbis would make silly errors, and chastise himself.  The match went on serve, however, with Gulbis, by and large, not running into trouble on serve.  Then, in the tiebreak, Gulbis raced to a 6-1 lead and eventually won 7-2.

In the second set, Youzhny played a loose game early on, and apparently broke a string to 0-40 and lost the game.  Gulbis had another chance to break the Youzhny serve, but Youzhny held tough.  Gulbis continued to hold serve, and held comfortably.  Up next for Gulbis is Feliciano Lopez.  Gulbis beat Lopez in Rome, so it will be interesting to see how they fare in the rematch.

American Sam Querrey lost in the first round of Madrid, but his buddy, John Isner, continues to show some affinity for the clay.  He beat Christophe Rochus 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round.  Today he dropped the first set against Santiago Giraldo 6-1, but rebounded to take the second set in a tiebreak, 7-6(6), and then win the third set handily, 6-2.  Isner takes on the winner of Nadal and Dolgopolov Jr.

Andy Roddick, who was scheduled to play Madrid, withdrew with a stomach virus.  He’ll head into the French having played no clay tournaments.

Lopez had an easy win over Oscar Hernandez who replaced Roddick as a lucky loser.

Hanescu needed three sets to be Munoz-De La Nava, the player that beat Sam Querrey.  Cilic had an easy win over Schwank.  Monaco beat Bellucci easily.  Monfils beat Petzschner who retired early in the first set.  Andy Murray is scheduled to play later today.