Recounting Tuesday at the Brisbane International

I arrived at the Brisbane International just in time to see the start of play, which opened up with Tomas Berdych taking on the Australian wildcard, Brydan Klein. Klein had somewhat been controversially awarded the wildcard over the more proven Chris Guccione, and Klein didn't do much to show that he was the better choice. I wasn't at all pleased that I had to start off my live tennis experience by watching a player ranked nowhere near the cut-off rankings. How then was I supposed to be able to accurately judge that performance without comparing it to others?

To make matters worse, I was situated too close to the front where there was a bit of a blind spot on the far outside line on the right-hand side. Berdych had a small group of very loud and vocal Czech supporters, with which I was surprised later when I briefly saw them in my quick visit to see Berdych and Stepanek play doubles, that there seemed to really only be about three of them in total given how vocal they were, although I think there could have been marginally more at the singles match.

Klein started off the match tentatively in the worst manner possible losing his serve by making three or four tame errors almost all off second shots, straight after the serve. Immediately he was frustrated by his performance bouncing racquets and slumping his shoulders, both of which he did with relative frequency. All this did was add to the overall impression of Klein, the feeling that you're watching a juniors player that starts complaining as soon as things don't go his way. With which then, the match could be described as the professional giving the junior a tennis lesson. To be fair, I didn't really know what to expect of Klein, what he was capable of, but it was only later in the match that I found that he was capable of much more.

At least he wasn't overplaying and self-destructing, I thought, just so I can focus on Berdych and admire his performance instead, even if he was being made to look good. Klein was relatively consistent off both wings after the initial blip, but was easily getting overpowered by Berdych and many of his weak shots were sufficiently punished, especially his serve. But really, all of his groundstrokes looked like they were sitting up there, floating with no penetration at all begging to be hit. With which Berdych obliged and hit some very nice winners.

Berdych looked really focused today to me, at least for a set and a half, which he most certainly didn't need to be if he didn't feel like it, like everything was measured and controlled. That is, excluding his attempt at serving out the set where he threw in two careless double faults, but he rebounded to bagel Klein in the first set. I think one of the most amazing things about many of the professional players watching them live is the amount of control that they can still have on their groundstrokes when on the run, the ability to still hit an aggressive shot that is well-placed and this is one area where Berdych had a big advantage over Klein. I like Berdych's body language and overall presence, and quietly confident posture which makes him look like an intimidating figure to play against at times.

The second set was like a completely different match, with Klein taking more of an aggressive mindset starting to hit through the ball now. Consequently the number of winning shots coming off the Berdych racquet declined significantly. As what usually happens in matches like this, Klein got a massive sympathy cheer from the crowd when he finally got his first game at 6-0 3-0 down. The obvious question here is why it took Klein so long to attempt to execute this kind of game. It didn't need to be risky tennis, just more penetrating. Berdych seemed to take his foot off the accelerator a bit towards the end, once he got the initial break playing a more relaxed brand of tennis, but he managed to overcome difficulty serving out the match, by saving that one break point and avoiding a more even contest.



Then I headed over to the outside courts to see Juan Carlos Ferrero take on Florent Serra. I had arrived just as the doubles match scheduled beforehand had concluded and I was highly amused later on, that this pattern of each match conveniently finishing at a time to allow me to watch all matches in full was repeated several times, until it finally failed me towards the end. Obviously what I wanted to see the most was the famous Ferrero forehand in action, so I took a closer look at that to start with. Up close, you can see the work that he gets on the ball and its general heaviness which seems to be a tad more than most other players. Ferrero started off the match trying to dictate proceedings, and it brought him mixed results. I remember most of all, him digging out of a 0-40 situation in the first set with three winners or near-winners, only to eventually lose serve for the first time in the match. He hit a couple of particularly nice forehand winners and cleanly struck backhand down-the-lines early on, but then it went downhill from there.

Serra on the other hand was absolutely stingy with the amount of errors he was coughing up and would rarely play a string of bad points. I initially felt like his game was the epitome of simple, effective tennis and he often took the straightforward route, attacking when given the opportunity to do so. Whenever he needed to defend, he'd situate himself about a metre or so behind the baseline and it felt like he barely made any errors off a defensive shot, like the majority of them came from when he was trying to step up the pace. But he proved me wrong by stepping up the pace and accuracy of his groundstrokes as he grew in confidence as the match went on, particularly on the forehand side where he would sometimes change the pace off the same backswing.

Ferrero's game went off the boil more and more as the first set went on making more strange errors, and as the match wore on, it no longer looked like he was the one trying to dictate the play. Serra maintained his level until serving for the match where he made a couple of poor errors, but Ferrero returned the favour in the tie-break by losing it fairly comfortably, and subsequently the match.



This is when I took a short break and returned to watch Novak Djokovic, who was clearly the biggest drawcard for the event. There was a bit of a buzz around the stadium, and not surprisingly he was given the biggest cheer as he walked onto court. I remember, in particular, the first point of the match where both Djokovic and Ernests Gulbis exchanged big groundstrokes before Djokovic pulled the trigger down-the-line on the forehand, one of his trademark shots. The man that was sitting next to me was laughing in awe of that shot, to which I was thinking, it's a little bit early to start applauding those kind of shots.

It turned out that Djokovic put in an erratic performance, not really showing much of the qualities that we see from him on a good day. I did notice though that he gets a lot of kick on his serve, really jumping up high although his second serve landed a bit short and ended up being attacked by Gulbis. Djokovic was particularly unimpressive defensively, often not being able to stay in points long enough and he was generally inconsistent overall, much to the disappointment of the man sitting next to me who only clapped when Djokovic won a point, but not when Gulbis did. The woman sitting in front of me got strangely excited everytime there was a dropshot in the rally, as if it was a brilliant shot, even if the dropshot itself was terrible and begging to be punished.

I started to divert more of my attention to Gulbis, whose shots seemed pacier and more effective, and his serve was winning him a lot of points. It seemed that both players were a bit erratic throughout the match, except that Gulbis was far more impressive in his shotmaking. His forehand really is a big shot, and his racquet acceleration looks impressive to the point that you could easily imagine him mistiming a shot and shanking it if he starts his swing just a bit too early.

The early part of the second set was easily the worst part of the match, with Gulbis' game going off the boil, and both players exchanging breaks in the first four games or so, the first break notably conceded by Djokovic with a dropshot. Of which I wrote down on my notebook as if it was a potentially crucial moment, but it turns out that more breaks of serve were to occur. Bad passage of play overall from both players, but Gulbis picked it back up at the end. The manner in which he broke serve to serve for the match was particularly memorable which featured the best rally of the match, where Gulbis managed to return a short drop volley, digging it right underneath his racquet narrowly before the double bounce and then followed it up with a nicely anticipated volley. So there it was, Djokovic out of the tournament, although I can't say I was disappointed about it.



So I headed back outside the stadium to the outside courts, and Mathieu had just won his match against Gabashvili, so I had yet again arrived for the start of a match. During the anticipation for the match, there were a couple of vocal people sitting behind me that were convinced that Kei Nishikori was a girl, as they had put it and were really confused as Bobby Reynolds walked onto the court. Nishikori made his way onto court far later than Reynolds. The stands were not that well populated for this match, with the majority of people deciding to watch the match between Ancic and Delic which was closely contested.

The match started off slowly with both players making a number of errors. Reynolds looks like a fairly limited player to me, incapable of being consistent and not looking particularly dangerous either. As long as Nishikori could turn in a solid performance, the match was going to be his. Nishikori quickly went up an early break, then handed it straight back notably with three backhand errors and a double fault. I noticed straight away that his forehand looks different from most players, that he gets a lot of arm on it, with more of a bent elbow than others. At this point of the match, Nishikori mainly kept it solid, but unspectacular.

As the match wore on, he started to show more of his shotmaking abilities seemingly growing in confidence. He seemed to have a knack of hitting unexpected winners, creating shots out of nowhere, showing that he must have great hands and feel to be able to pull off shots like that. Towards the end, Nishikori's forehand really caught fire, hitting a string of winners off that side, and flashy winners they were. It was like an exhibition of forehand winners, and it was definitely the highlight of my day. Nishikori seemed to be strangely unexcited by them (compared to me), in terms of body language, although it was clear that he was feeling good confidence-wise. The level of Reynolds' play didn't change that much throughout the match, and he was thoroughly outplayed by the end.

So having watched a series of matches, I took a short break to start wandering around the grounds, except to realize that there isn't much to wander to. I noticed, by the way, that the players here seem to be able to wander around wherever they like, or come off the court from practice without anyone bothering or approaching them. Which I found to be fascinating, because my only previous experience (that I can remember) was back in the Gold Coast where the players had a separate section on the opposite side where they walked around, that was restricted to the general public.



Given that there was not much else to do, I took a seat to watch the second and third sets of the match between Michael Llodra and Joseph Sirianni, who surprisingly reached the Adelaide semi-finals last year. So there were a lot of points at stake for him. When I first sat down to watch, I was constantly thinking that there was no way that Sirianni normally plays like that. I remember him having a flashy backhand from Adelaide last year and he was hitting a number of cleanly struck winners off that side. He was also able to stay relatively consistent on both sides, although I think his forehand looks like a dodgy shot technically. Although I don't mean to suggest that he was playing exceptional tennis, more that he was for his standards.

Llodra made a fair amount of errors, particularly if the rallies went on longer, maybe unsurprisingly since he is somewhat of a short point player. But as the match went on, it started to turn more in Llodra's favour, who started to mix things up much better and dictate play. More changes of pace, approach shots and better placed shots. Sirianni's game started to look more average as the match wore on, and after losing the second set in a tie-break, his game fell off considerably making many errors, dropping his level just as I had expected him to.

Then that was it for me, given that the other match that I had wanted to watch between Gasquet and Dent was significantly delayed and due on court relatively late.