Fernando Verdasco, this year’s Australian Open giant killer

Each year, the Australian Open has been known to throw up some surprise packets. Players that managed to navigate their way deep into the tournament against all odds. This year's surprise packet, Fernando Verdasco has just beaten last year's surprise packet Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and two days ago, he defeated the Scot Andy Murray, the man who was initially the bookies' favourite heading into the event. Murray had shown sensational form in winning Doha, and performing well in the exhibition prior to that.

Verdasco's rise in form and career-best result of reaching a Grand Slam semi-final is more than just a great run, an unheralded player achieving something they had never yet achieved. It is more like a feel good story, the mental transformation of a player that had long been known for not only failing to close out matches, but closing out sets, and flinching at any sign of a tense moment. It is more a story that the tennis fans that have been following the sport more closely will appreciate, having seen more of Verdasco's older matches to be able to compare with how he has been this Australian Open.

Looking back on some of Verdasco's matches last year, he was known to consistently throw in double faults at tense moments, particularly at the end of sets. But it wasn’t limited to that as he often found it difficult being able to swing his racquet freely enough on those occasions for his shots to be able to make their mark. It made for difficult viewing at times, the seemingly long build-up to the conclusion of each set where he would predictably have his end-of-set meltdown on any moderately big stage.

His opponents were well aware of it and one of the most uncomfortable feelings that can accompany a viewer watching tennis is seeing an opponent practically float the ball to a player on big points, in preparation of that potential choke. Feeding them shots that would ordinarily be put away with no trouble at all, yet seeing that player painfully misfire that shot.

Anyone that has seen the Davis Cup final, the match that is fully responsible for Verdasco’s success today, knows that it was an absolute train wreck of a match. It was a match that Verdasco was strongly favoured to win, against Jose Acasuso who had barely notched up any hardcourt wins over the indoor season. A match that he knew that even if he couldn’t bring his best, that it would still be enough to get the job done.

Within the match, Verdasco continually gifted points to his lower-ranked opponent with double faults and excruciating errors, but Acasuso returned the favour to keep it a level match. In the end, Verdasco managed to steady his play enough to importantly lift the trophy for his country, and that’s a triumph in itself for him. Sometimes winning ugly has a better mental effect, overcoming all of those demons.

Now it's one thing to notch up a win like that, and another to carry the momentum into the next season, and importantly into a Grand Slam. It's not only that Verdasco has improved mentally, but it's like he has ridden the wave and continued that emotional high to be able to play with full confidence. He isn’t only not flinching under pressure, he’s trusting himself and hitting big serves and big forehands when he needs to.

Earlier today against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, down break point in the third set, close to relinquishing his two break advantage, Verdasco serves a swinging serve out wide on the ad court, and follows it up with a big forehand crosscourt right on the line, and finishes it off with a swinging volley. Hitting the lines, showing the huge amount of confidence that he has in his game at the moment.

What seems to have made the biggest difference in his game, is his decision to crank up his serve and go for that pacier serve more often than he used to while maintaining the variety that he has on it. How he manages to still record incredible first service percentages around the 70-80% mark, while hitting it more aggressively than he used to is remarkable to me. Maybe it's not so much how often he is doing it, but when he is doing it, going after the big serve on the bigger points. He always had the vicious swinging serve, and because of that, his body serve is an excellent shot as well, so now he has the devastating combination of both power and variety.

In his match against Tsonga, Verdasco was able to consistently win points using his big weapon, the forehand to drag Tsonga out of court, yet another example of Verdasco using more of a mix of power and variety these days. It doesn’t always have to be a winning forehand, and just because he can hit flashy forehand winners doesn’t mean he has to. Like his serve, he has the ability on the forehand side to have it spinning out wide to completely take control of the point, and of course he can flatten it out, something that we’re all already accustomed to seeing.

The other aspect of his game that has improved are his defensive skills, and his willingness to stay in points. Verdasco in the past year has already been steadily improving, and this is an area in particular that has been responsible for his ever-increasing consistency which saw him compile his career-best season last year. In recent times, there has been less flashy shotmaking from Verdasco on the dead run. None of the flattening out on shots, going for broke if he can get himself back into the point even if that means running all the way from one side of the court to the other.

Instead, he'll throw in that more defensive shot that other players do, and wait for his chance to fire the winner, with which he has been doing with relative frequency. It has been well-documented that Verdasco worked with Gil Reyes in the off-season, a move that would further improve his defensive skills as well as overall fitness, which surely would help in the heat of the Australian sun.

In the next round, Verdasco will face an even tougher mental hurdle, and of course, his form on the day is important too. Maybe it's not so much about whether Verdasco will win this match or not, facing the current world number 1, Rafael Nadal, but how he approaches this match. Think back to last year's French Open match where Verdasco overplayed to the point of barely managing to win any games. Trying to hit spectacular winners, and in the end handing the match on a plate to his fellow Spaniard. It is clear that Verdasco has a lot of respect for Nadal, so will he be able to show the right balance between offense and defense to be able to bring the best out of his game?