Saturday, February 28, 2009

Almagro and Monfils square off in the Acapulco final

Nicolas Almagro celebrating his semi-final win in AcapulcoLast year, Nicolas Almagro dominated the Latin American claycourt swing with two titles in Costa Do Sauipe and Acapulco, but heading into this week in Acapulco his claycourt season had been a disappointment.

There were surprise losses to Federico Gil and Oscar Hernandez in Costa Do Sauipe and Buenos Aires respectively, but this week Almagro finds himself in the Acapulco final, although off the back of questionable form where he next meets Gael Monfils. Both Monfils and Almagro had struggled throughout the week in maintaining consistency and focus, but given that both players tend to enjoy the big occasion, it should be an intriguing and hard-fought final.

Lack of consistency plagued Almagro in his semi-final match, where he defeated Martin Vassallo Arguello 6-4 6-4. He started off the match showing flashes of brilliance, in particular he had the ability of hitting these incredibly powerful forehand winners on-the-run. On occasion he'd find himself catching the ball late moving out wide. But instead of having to resort to an inconsistent or more defensive shot, he generates such impressive racquet head speed, that it's like he manages to catch up to the ball to be able to whip right through it on time, particularly on the pacier forehand side catching his opponents by surprise.

He broke Vassallo Arguello's serve early on hitting impressive return winners from shoulder height off high jumping kick serves, both from the forehand and backhand sides showing that he is dangerous off both wings. The faster court players tend to handle higher bouncing balls by stepping in and taking the ball earlier, but Almagro instead pushes back a couple of steps and gives himself enough time to set up. That he is able to hit powerful and penetrating shots from that position is impressive, particularly on a one-handed backhand.

With Almagro, at times it can seem like the more difficult shots are easier to execute than the routine shots. Give him a putaway forehand and he usually deals with it, but rallying around and trying to remain consistent can be a problem. Particularly off shots that he isn’t hitting with intent, where he starts to lose concentration and doesn't know how he should be controlling his shots if he isn't outright attacking or defending.

As the match went on, those brief flashes of brilliance from Almagro started to fade away more, as he descended more into mediocrity. Making use of the break of serve that he had created for himself earlier, and often holding onto his own serve by the barest of margins. It seemed like a lackadaisical effort, like he could only motivate himself whenever he was threatened, playing considerably better on many of the 30-30, 15-30 points. Showing purpose right from the start of the point with a well-placed serve, then finishing it off with those two or three shot combos that are a big strength of his.

The match was always going to be on his racquet, facing an opponent like Vassallo Arguello, who has to be one of the least imposing players I've ever seen. Camping metres behind the baseline hitting medium topspin shots into the court, with no purpose whatsoever. Almagro finally knuckled down at 2-2 in the second set, playing the longer points better. Then he played a sloppy service game at 4-3, but broke Vassallo Arguello's serve again immediately to serve for the match.

The second semi-final promised more than it delivered, given that Jose Acasuso had put together a consistently good run this claycourt season, with semi-finals or better in the last four matches. But from the start of the match, it felt like there was only going to be one outcome in the match, and that was Monfils winning.

Monfils seemed to be in more of a competitive mood than last time I saw him in his second round match against Thomaz Bellucci. You can tell on which days Monfils seems to have more of a killer instinct, when he manages to stay through the flight of the ball when he's running to hit a shot, keeping shots lower and more penetrating rather than having it sit up high and short in the court. It was his best performance of the tournament, and it seems like he is gearing himself up nicely to peak for the final.

Acasuso is the kind of player that plays his best when he sticks to his strengths, and keeps things simple. Thinking about what he has to do more on his side of the court, rather than his opponent's, but it seemed like he was too often thinking about how he should be winning points, in fear of the movement that Monfils possesses. Overplaying, hitting shots long by metres and coming to the net too early when his volleys are nowhere near adept enough. He already hits a forehand hard enough as it is, so putting that extra bite on it is only going to send it long more often than not.

Monfils was never threatened for the main reason that his serve was on song, and Acasuso wasn’t even close to getting a read on it. He could be forgiven for any minor lapses of concentration, when his serve is as secure as this and sometimes it's better to put all of your energy into the important junctions of a match.

Watching Monfils play on clay, definitely the main appeal is his movement and how he slides into his shots, particularly on the forehand. Out of all the players, he quite possibly moves his legs the furthest apart from each other, to the point where I think he’s going to lose his balance during his racquet swing. Maybe he could do with having more precise movement so that he can change directions more effectively without hitting a squash shot.

With Monfils, it's definitely movement first, before racquet technique in terms of what his thought process is. At times it looks like he has forgotten that he has to figure out what to do with a shot, and ends up going with this strangely improvised shot instead. On one point, he made a backhand error that looked like it was aimed right into the air as if he was swinging straight through it like a cricket bat. To which the commentator on the live stream I was watching appropriately said that "Sometimes it just doesn’t even look like Monfils is hitting the ball with the intent of it going into the court".

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Inconsistent Mauresmo overcomes Jankovic to reach the Paris final

Amelie Mauresmo, success at her home eventAmelie Mauresmo hasn't had the best of form in the last couple of years, after posting a career season in 2006. Inconsistency and tentativeness are qualities that have been associated with her game in recent times, but more worryingly she seems no longer capable of stringing together good matches, a quality with which was in display at a smaller scale yesterday in the Paris Indoors against Jelena Jankovic.

It was the best and worst of Mauresmo in the same match, a topsy-turvy affair that ended in Mauresmo’s favour 6-2 0-6 6-1. As entertaining as it was to watch Mauresmo in full flow at times, it’s worrying that her game seems to be stuck in a fragile state. That particular games and points in matches can so easily impact her standard of play for stretches of matches. But it can work in her advantage as well like it did in this match, where she rode the momentum from the leads she had built for herself to finish strongly in the first and third sets.

Prior to this match, Mauresmo had held a 5-1 match-up advantage over Jankovic, and there was evidence as to why this is the case. Jankovic likes rhythm and pace to feed off and Mauresmo didn’t give her it. Creating heavily topspun shots to open up the court and generate superb angles on both sides combined with an effective slice backhand to stop Jankovic from dictating play and yanking her opponent from side-to-side. All weapons that cause major headaches to Jankovic and her defensive abilities, not being able to maintain consistent enough depth having to hit shots from over her shoulder or when unbalanced.

It was an aggressively-minded Mauresmo, showing superb accuracy on her shots to consistently keep shots out of Jankovic’s reach. The rallies were kept short and whenever Mauresmo created an opening for herself, she seized it at the net. Conditions-wise it looks like playing on a low-bouncing indoor court strongly favours the Frenchwoman. Giving her the extra penetration that she needs on her shots and making it almost impossible for Jankovic to offensively counter Mauresmo’s lethal slice backhand that skids low on the court.

If there was one weakness in the Mauresmo game, it was her forehand approach shot and her ability to deal with midcourt shots on that side. Midcourt short balls are meant to be relatively simple shots to execute for most players but with the western grip that Mauresmo hits her forehand with, she sometimes struggles more with the lower bouncing balls, unable to effectively hit underneath the ball and shanking the ball far too frequently. At times her approach shots lacked direction and depth, landing in the middle of the court giving an easy target for Jankovic to hit a winner.

It's amazing that after Mauresmo's game rapidly descended in the second set, that all it took was one good game in the third set to turn the match. In fact, that particular crucial game was the first that she had won in eight games, where a lesser experienced player would have been happy just to have avoided an embarrassment. But instead Mauresmo used it to fuel herself for the battle, firing herself up believing that she had every chance to take the third set. On the subject of belief, did anyone notice that Mauresmo jogged to the chair at the end of the second set after getting fed a bagel?

Soon enough, the third set started to look more like the first set with the same pattern of play emerging, after an initial battle where both players were pushed on their own service games. Jankovic was relatively erratic herself, her footwork not looking as precise and her shots looking more careless than usual like a bit of a free swing.