US Open Day 5: Del Potro defeats Melzer to safely navigate into the 3rd Round

One thing that separates the top players from the rest of the pack is their technical ability, their ability to safely rally from the back of the court reliably, while naturally having good penetration on their shots. It's having a good solid base to build the rest of the game from, and when you feel you've got that, it becomes a whole lot easier to execute the more difficult shots and the tactical side of things.

When it comes to technically sound groundstrokes, Juan Martin Del Potro would have to be right up there with the best. On the basis of this, he always had the upper hand against Jurgen Melzer in his second round match. It's always a worrying match-up when it looks like one player doesn't really need to do anything to win, and that's what it was like for Del Potro. He can pretty much just rely on what is already naturally there, the power, the mechanics of the shot.

To break out of that pattern, Melzer really needed to come up with something special, anything to disrupt the flow of play, to not allow Del Potro to hit his shots. Melzer's strength isn't in long rallies anyway, and this is what he specialises in. He might exchange a couple of shots relaxed from the baseline, but his shot tolerance isn't high. At some point he'll want to step in and rip a shot, taking the ball as early as possible and changing the pace.

I thought early on that maybe this is not such a bad match-up for Melzer, when comparing top players he'd rather play against anyway. If you're going to take advantage of Del Potro's slight weakness in movement, it's best to do it early in the rally and Melzer is certainly capable of doing that. That is: taking the ball early and approaching the net, which he did with good shot selection.

I noticed that almost every time Melzer came into the net, he had a good hit at the ball, a sign of good approach shots and net coverage. Del Potro even if he won points could rarely hit a clean pass through Melzer. He also threw in some double-handed backhand dropshots for good measure which worked well for the most part, his self-confessed favourite shot.

The problem for Melzer though was the ongoing pressure of executing with consistency because he doesn't have that solid base he can fall back on. It's so easy for him to snatch on a shot he's trying to take early, and surely on some points he feels the pressure of having to end the rally to avoid hanging around in long rallies.

Melzer is a player that has excellent feel on the ball, particularly in terms of finesse and variety, capable of playing aesthetically pleasing points but also capable of missing the easiest of shots, particularly under pressure. It became an ongoing theme, Melzer putting himself in winning positions to finish points then missing the most routine of shots right at the end.

The first crucial point that cost Melzer was the way in which he conceded his break of serve at 3-1 up, in a game where he missed an overhead smash into the open court on a point which would have won him the game. It was unexpected because up until that point it was the best service game that Melzer had played in the match, finally a game where he didn't have to fight through multiple break points to hold.

The next crucial stage was the first set tie-break, which seemed to be in Melzer's pocket all along until near the end. Frankly it was a set that Melzer should have taken advantage of, given how poorly Del Potro played in the first three points with wild groundstroke errors. But instead, he slowly threw away his lead with a double fault, then after a perfectly constructed point, getting carried away and running too close to the net and bouncing a smash right into the service box only to get lobbed by Del Potro.

By then, Del Potro had found the range on his serve, winning a couple of points with unreturnable serves. Melzer doesn't exactly have the same luxury on his serve, but he hit quite a good serve set point down but missed the forehand down-the-line follow-up shot. What a microcosm of how the whole set had panned out.

I would have thought at some point that Del Potro would raise his game, or at least attempt to, but he stuck with the mechanical game of the first set. I mean, pretty much every shot he hit was aimed close to the middle of the court but he can get away with it to some extent because he has more natural penetration and power than most players, and he's also consistent. Not to mention that he can rely on his serve, to maintain a certain level. Unfortunately Melzer's game slowly began to decline in the second set, with more errors flying out of his racquet so it all started to look routine.

I wouldn't read much into Del Potro's performance in this match. Maybe what is equally important is how calm he remained the whole match, aside from the couple of errors in the opening of the first set tie-break. The thought never even entered his mind that he might struggle in this match.

My stream stopped working in the third set, but when I turned it back on halfway through, the commentators mentioned that Melzer had cleaned up his game. But when I switched it back on, it started to look a lot like how he lost the second set with inopportune errors and Del Potro served out the match for a relatively comfortable victory.