Can Thomaz Bellucci win his first title in Gstaad?

Video clips of this match: First set | Second set | Downloadable full match

Earlier this year Thomaz Bellucci reached this first ATP final in his home tournament of Costa Do Sauipe, losing to Tommy Robredo in the final. This time around in reaching the final of Gstaad, he faces an easier task against the German Andreas Beck, who prior to yesterday had never reached an ATP final himself.

Bellucci at the moment has been sporadic with his results on clay, the surface that is likely to bring him his biggest successes. Still only 21 years old, there's plenty of room for his game to develop, and from a technical point of view, his game looks formidable on clay at least.

It was semi-finals day in Gstaad yesterday, and if you ever wanted to watch a typical claycourt match where players respected the characteristics of the surface, then the match between Bellucci and Igor Andreev would have been perfect for that. There is something beautiful about watching topspin in groundstrokes, the curved shape of the flight path of a ball which always makes for great Hawkeye demonstrations on TV. I think it's the additional sense of ball control, and the greater margin of shot that makes it look like you're watching something extremely skillful.

Both Bellucci and Andreev had that, particularly Andreev who is well-renowned for his unique forehand which has sometimes drawn comparisons to Rafael Nadal's forehand, in terms of spin. Andreev uses an exaggerated motion, as if he's trying to put as many rotations on the ball as he can. He hits it with a similar mindset to a batter in baseball, as if it were the only shot that he needed to hit rather than one in a series of shots. He exerts all of his energy into the one shot, and doesn't seem to recover all that well afterwards as a result. Subsequently watching him play brings the same kind of feelings, where you can find yourself mesmerised by his forehand, to the point of ignoring the rest of his game.

In terms of accuracy, Andreev's forehand isn't as good as Nadal's. When he has time, he can create some superb angles and use that to open up the down-the-line shot. But if he's pushed back with a deep shot, he's really only limited to a deep and heavy response. It's not entirely a negative aspect, because it's an excellent shot in itself and one that Bellucci had trouble dealing with early on given that Bellucci doesn't take the ball early himself.

Bellucci took a similar mindset to Andreev, hitting these moderately loopy balls in response to deep shots, in particular on the backhand side. It's nice to see a change of spins in a match, and utilising that loopy ball as a legitimate defensive option. Both Bellucci and Andreev have similar backhands in that they are lacking offensively, although Bellucci is slightly better in this area. It's more of a neutralising shot to set up for their favoured forehand.

As heavy as Bellucci hits his shots himself, his shots looked completely standard compared to Andreev at first. You would expect that it would take a while for opponents to adjust to the uniqueness of Andreev's game, and that's what happened here. It felt like Andreev's shots were consistently shooting through the court, almost as if it was like a bad bounce, even though it clearly wasn't.

Bellucci seems to be the kind of player that really needs to develop into a rhythm to play well, so it took him a couple of games for the match to be played on even terms. The way he hits his shots reminds me of an intense practice session. It's something to do with how he never seems to chase the ball or move forward to hit it on the rise, how it often seems to be within his reach instead. It's unbelievable how often he can still manage to keep the two hands on the racquet stretching out to his backhand side.

Tactically he is very sound, it's just that he's also patient. Often he is happy exchanging three-quarter paced groundstrokes manouevring his opponents further out of court with each stroke, although it must be said he still generates good pace on it. The more important the point is, the more you get an idea of what each player's favourite patterns of play are. And when Bellucci had to fend off break points, or when he was down in a service game, he liked to hit crosscourt forehands into Andreev's backhand, gradually moving it wider out of court to set up the down-the-line shot. Interestingly enough, he's not usually as stubborn about that and is more than happy to utilise more of a complete tactic normally.

The biggest difference was that Bellucci had a greater variety of groundstrokes, the ability to change pace and flatten out his strokes on both sides. It's difficult to read and often surprising, how he can be comfortably exchanging groundstrokes then suddenly unleash a winning shot. It's also a sign of being tactically smart, playing percentage tennis waiting for the right opportunity to attack. His serve must be difficult to read as well, because it's such a quick service action that you would get barely any time to read his ball toss, which is apparently where most people anticipate serves from.

At the end of the first set, Bellucci stepped it up a gear at one stage winning 6 points in a row to crucially win him the set, suddenly appearing more confident in his shotmaking. But late in the second set, Bellucci showed signs of nerves serving to stay in the set, something that he may have to work on. Because he wasn't only nervous in terms of appearing tight, but tactically his game had changed as well. Where he was comfortably exchanging three-quarter paced shots all match long, he started to become impatient trying to use the same swing but hitting the ball harder so naturally it landed long more often than not. It wasn't like he was intentionally flattening out on the shot.

On other instances, he would sometimes attempt to finish points quicker by moving into the net. In some ways, it's a change-up tactic but also it's openly admitting to nerves and impatience. It would have to be planned in a smart way to work, not only as a means to end a point. Gilles Simon does this well, Bellucci not so much. Fortunately for Bellucci, he managed to scrape through that one service game where he battled nerves, then he grew in confidence as a result afterwards and managed to rediscover his game from the earlier part of the match to later break Andreev's serve and win.