Nalbandian lights up the indoor season again

David Nalbandian has traditionally done well indoors, where he has compiled his best results of his career. This year has been no different, yet it has come as some sort of a surprise, because of the year he has had which saw him not advance past the third round of any of the four Grand Slams.

Last year he picked up back-to-back Masters Series titles in Madrid and Paris and in 2005, he won his biggest title in winning the Masters Cup over Roger Federer in the final. Now he is into the final of the Paris Masters Series, where he next faces Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, having defeated the likes of Juan Martin Del Potro, Andy Murray and Nikolay Davydenko to advance into the finals.

In defeating Andy Murray on Friday, who had been on a 14 match winning streak, Nalbandian was at his very best, putting on a fine display of smart, patient, all-court tennis. When Nalbandian is in this sort of form, it is hard not to marvel at the variety, shot selection and shotmaking capabilities that he possesses. I tend to think, that out of all the players, he possesses some of the most variety off the groundstrokes.

Some people think that variety tends to refer to only things like slice backhands and changes of spins, so in that case you'd think of Andy Murray or Roger Federer. But Nalbandian has so many options from the back of the court, because of the accuracy of his groundstrokes and his ability to change directions, to go down-the-line on both sides or pull his opponent off court with extreme angles off both the forehand and backhand. This allows him to implement any pattern of play that he wants, but he also has the tactical game as well as a solid net game to effectively make use of it. Combine that with early ball striking and that allows him to dictate play and open up the court better than almost anyone else in the game. Often he was catching Murray off balance in the baseline exchanges by taking his forehand up the line, then coming in and knocking off the backhand volley, short and wide wrong-footing Murray.

The match, in itself, was really a treat, with two of the best tactical players coming up against each other, both probing each other for openings and then pulling the trigger when they had the opportunity. Both Nalbandian and Murray seem to utilise more.blocked shots and deep floating slices to get back into the point than the majority of their peers, which is what makes the both of them so effective at changing from offense to defense and vice versa. As a result, both players really had to set up their points amazingly well to finish it off, which produced many entertaining rallies.

The biggest difference in this match was the strength of Nalbandian's return of serve coupled with Murray's low first service percentage, which allowed Nalbandian to consistently attack Murray right from the outset and put the Scot under consistent pressure. Nalbandian's return of serve really is amazing when it is on. He is consistently able to knock it back deep on the baseline time and time again to effectively set up the point or rip return winners off second serves. But he also has the ability to block it back deep when returning a more effective serve. Murray tried to use the wide serve slicing out to Nalbandian's forehand, which seemed like a good tactic in theory going out to Nalbandian's weaker side, but he got burnt time and time again, with Nalbandian reading it and quickly pouncing on it.

Sometimes when I watch performances like this, I wonder why it is that Nalbandian is as inconsistent as he is. Technically he is very sound, and he has efficient groundstrokes which should allow him to play with some sort of consistency. Even though his game is based around accuracy and timing, he is usually sensible enough to play within himself when he is not playing well enough which should give him enough margin for error to do better than he does. Having watched quite a number of his matches in recent times, I can say that I have some sort of explanation.

 

It was in the very next match that Nalbandian produced a very up-and-down performance to overcome Nikolay Davydenko who most certainly was nowhere near his best in this match. Nalbandian started off showing the same rich vein of form that he had carrying from the match against Andy Murray, particularly on the return of serve, where he was seemingly able to maintain incredible depth on almost every return he was able to come in contact with. But where Nalbandian could have closed it out comfortably in straight sets, he instead let Davydenko into it by losing his intensity and consequently looked like he was playing with no tactics at all.

When Nalbandian is playing well, he is excellent at moving forward into the ball and being proactive, often being quick to take advantage of any opening that he creates to close it out at the net.

It takes focus and concentration to play that sort of tennis, to be able to quickly sense which shots are good enough to take advantage of, and which shots to neutralise to get into the point, and that's what I think the main problem with Nalbandian's game is.

I tend to find in most cases that the more tuned in he seems to be in the match, not only does he play better, but he tends to play more creatively as well. Often when he doesn't have that sense of urgency, he starts to look like a much more mediocre player, showing none of the variety and tactical game that he is capable of and his movement generally tends to suffer too.

It's hard to know exactly just how much his fitness is an impact in the sluggishness that he sometimes has in his movement, because that as well as the lack of energy that he sometimes exhibits are both related to each other, in his overall approach to the game. Having watched quite a number of his matches as of late, it is interesting to note the amount of times where his poor form (and the errors he produces) seems to be a direct result of the lack of energy he displays in his matches, rather than his game simply going off.

Davydenko, in comparison, who also showed poor form in this match simply could not find the range of his groundstrokes. He continued to swing away with full commitment, while appearing to have no idea where he hit it, until after he executed it. He wasn't only missing his groundstrokes, but by large margins at times and missing shots that were seemingly very easy.

Davydenko doesn't hold back when he isn't playing well. He continues to play with that same rapid pace that he usually does, perched on the top of the baseline and trying to generate large amounts of racquet head speed. You can see why he can mishit so many shots playing that way and sometimes you think he should just slow down the pace and give himself time to find his rhythm.

It's a good thing that he is such a gritty competitor, that can he still find the energy to play the fast paced game that he does regardless of his own poor form, and this allows him to edge out numerous matches throughout the course of a season.

Although from my point of view, these kinds of matches from the Russian tend to be extremely hard to watch, and a result it puts me off him sometimes because he can be fantastic to watch when he is cleaning the lines. He's also a dangerous customer, because there's always a chance that he can string together a couple of spectacular points to get back into the match, since he tends to continue to go for his shots.

Whereas Davydenko treats every point the same regardless of the score, Nalbandian is the exact opposite and generally likes to play to the score, which can be both an advantage or disadvantage. On break points, he can come up with brilliant change-up tactics that take his opponents by surprise, or either he can knuckle down and perfectly construct a point taking full use of his own strengths and favourite playing patterns. But he can also get complacent or lose concentration at particular stages of the match, which seems to be more likely to happen the less he is able to get into a rhythm. Because the more he is able to get into a rhythm, the more he is able to play the points he likes and the more enjoyable the match is for him.

Davydenko started to play better midway into the second set winning many more cheap points on serve, and occasionally strung together some good points. He was doing all of the dictating and the match was seemingly played on his own terms. I kept waiting for Nalbandian to take it up a notch in the business end of the second set, or early on in the third set, but he continued to play the same sort of uninspired tennis for one and a half sets. The biggest advantage that Nalbandian has over Davydenko is variety, and finally at 2-2 in the third set, he started to lean into those groundstrokes again, take Davydenko off-balance looking to come into the net, and as soon as that happened, that was enough to win the match.