It's not the first time I've realized this, but it started to sink in on the day that I heard about Tennis Week closing down (and Most Valuable Network which hosts Tennis Diary will also do so at the end of the year).
In a completely unprepared and spontaneous decision, I have decided to do a wrap-up of the London World Tour Finals. What I can remember the most out of it was closely paying attention to sets and games more than I ever did in previous years because that's what it came down to, more often than not. Juan Martin Del Potro edged out a semi-final place over Andy Murray by one single game, and almost all of the matches were decided in three sets.
In a way it was an accurate representation of men’s tennis as it is today. It is fair to say that the top 10 as a whole looks stronger than it has in a while. On the bottom of the top 10, we have more dangerous players that might not be considered as legitimate contenders for big tournaments but perfectly capable of competing well against the top players, ie. Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling. Though it must be said that Verdasco was quoted to having a record against the top ten along the lines of 1-12 for the year, which was what prompted me to suggest that he lost some of his flashiness in my description of him a while back.
I can’t understand what goes inside Verdasco’s head sometimes. I suspect he’s just as confused himself. His game is smooth and effortless, and he has this nonchalant attitude about him as if he doesn’t care much about what’s going on, though it’s hard to tell whether this is actually the case. Part of it is surely a mental holiday, but part of it is also a side effect of the more mature and calm Verdasco. Or at least I found him to be strangely lacking in fire at times at the US Open. The way he’s been playing in the last couple of tournaments seems to be suggesting the same thing, quick to pull the trigger out of impatience after focusing so strongly on playing disciplined tennis this year.
Steve Tignor made an interesting point on his blog, that Verdasco’s problem seemed to be that he wasn’t able to control points without hitting shots that were close to being winners. Del Potro is an obvious example of someone that can do this easily, and the same could be said of Davydenko. Verdasco, on the other hand needs to rely on his go-to shots. The down-the-line forehand is a big point-finisher and Verdasco is a much better player when it works, but at the same time, it’s a high risk shot. I’d also add the wide serves to the list, particularly on the ad court, and when he serves well and accurately, it tends to make the rest of his game look more accurate too having more angles and gaps to work with.
I’ve started to warm to Del Potro more lately because of his eye-catching ability to hit winners out of shots that didn’t look like they could be winners. He also has this ability to suddenly change gears at the drop of a hat, and I would go even further to suggest that he can change moods in the drop of a hat also. Turning negative body language into positive body language.
If he wasn’t such a good shotmaker and able to pull it off, I’d call him an idiot for trying to hit the cover off the ball on a big point, and trying to hit a forehand winner two steps away from where his opponent was standing. Jason Goodall has coined a new term for Del Potro’s ferocious forehands, “vapourising the ball” and “forehands hit at the speed of the light”. I think the big crosscourt forehand returns stand out the most.
For me, I’m just as much impressed by the less flashy but equally as effective double-handed backhand of Del Potro’s. He can do exactly the same thing on that side, trade crosscourt backhands and suddenly rip a backhand winner in the same direction, only slightly wider and deeper and have that come off as a clear winner. Actually Murray can do that too which puzzles me because I would have thought you'd have to hit it ridiculously hard to do that, but he just flattens it out and hits it deep into the corner having it skid through the court.
Del Potro started off slow in the tournament, but this is the week he got out of his post-Slam win hangover, just in time for the start of the new season. It marked the time when his competitive instincts took over, his obvious love for competing and he has the confidence to back it up. Strangely he looked subdued in the final match against Davydenko, and for the first time aside from his first set loss to Andy Murray, never looked like getting going. Though perhaps it could be said, that Davydenko just happened to be one step in front of him at all times, playing at a pace faster and forcing Del Potro to play catch-up all the time.
Federer strangely lost two consecutive matches in similar fashion against Del Potro and Davydenko, on the brink of victory to only have the tables turned on him the following game. Federer had break points in the all-important 7th game in the third set (or something along those lines) in both matches. I’d roughly estimate that in two thirds of those points, Del Potro and Davydenko saved them with courageous play.
The way Davydenko grunted on some of his groundstrokes towards the end serving for the match, it was like the audio equivalent of trying to assert his authority against all of his inner demons. Davydenko’s wide serve on the deuce court is deceptively good, moving out further wide than what it would initially seem. It looks like it’d sit up high once it hits the court, but instead it continues to swing away and skid low. It's hard to get a clean hit on it unless if you can read it early enough, and he can generate good angles on that side because of the good body rotation he has on serve. Federer certainly had a hard time dealing with it.
What does Davydenko’s title win mean for his career? As far as I’m concerned, Davydenko has always been one of the best players, as his consistent top 5 ranking over the years would show. He’s capable of giving Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Del Potro a run for their money, and I think aside from winning this title, he can be just as much encouraged by the increasingly open state of the tour and the decreasing aura surrounding the top players.
Davydenko doesn’t strike me as a player that seems to use momentum to build on form, however over long periods, he tends to generally have a lot of good days. He’s more up and down the charts over the course of a season and more so in a best-of-five set match against the top players, but he has proven he can string it together in a tournament. The question is whether he can convert those into wins.
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