Reporting on standard, meaningless early round matches of Nadal and Murray

It's the first day of televised coverage in Miami, not exactly the most interesting day to be covering, but I have limited options to report given I’m usually sleep-deprived on weekdays.

To be honest, I'm not usually interested in analysing early round matches of top seeds, to the point of reading into the performances knowing that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean a whole lot - but sometimes it's not about that. It's about the spectacle and dissecting certain parts of matches.

The best match of the day was the night match between Rafael Nadal and Teimuraz Gabashvili, which was like a fascinating thrill ride on Gabashvili's end, like I was right there feeding off every emotion that he was feeling throughout the match. It was the first official meeting between the two players, and right from the outset it looked like Gabashvili had read up on the "how to play against Nadal" manual executing that game plan that we see the more successful players against Nadal implement. Taking away the whole element of tactics as a contributing factor and making it all about execution.

But that wasn't the fun part, it was seeing Gabashvili relish the occasion as if he was having the time of his life. He got broken straight away on serve overplaying on shots going for too much, too soon. Then two games later, he hits this extreme backhand crosscourt angle winner, pumps his fist, what turned out being the start of a hot streak of Gabashvili hitting big winners from everywhere and running like a madman. One of those matches where I questioned myself how long it would last – five minutes, ten minutes?

So ten minutes it ended up being, of super-charged energetic shotmaking as if he was on a major emotional high. I think it’s the first time I got reminded of what it feels like to have one of those great days, admittedly those times when I get overexcited trying to do too much – but it's incredibly fun playing like that anyway.

Unfortunately but predictably the streak didn’t last too long. Gabashvili from 2-0 went up on a tear winning ten points in a row, but from 30-0 up on his own serve inexplicably made four cheap errors to go down a break yet again. There were spurts of brilliance after that, but it was clear much of the belief was gone, not that Gabashvili was capable of stringing together tennis like that for longer periods anyway.

I didn’t agree with the commentators' assessment that Gabashvili should be ranked higher based on a performance like that. Ultimately he still wasn't able to string together enough to read much into the match and it didn't really feel like he was playing a normal match, more like a free-swinging match.

Nadal himself was business-like on his end playing well in a far more continuous manner. It has to be incredibly hard to dominate rallies, or even take control of them when you see what Nadal does with his shots on the run consistently hitting forceful shots to either side. Despite Gabashvili trying to be the aggressor in the match, it was not a match played on his terms, more like a desperate attempt to break out of the pattern of Nadal pinning him on the defensive.

Earlier in the day, Andy Murray overcame a slow start to defeat Juan Monaco. Despite Murray lacking purpose in his shot selection, I found it somewhat fascinating seeing Murray trade groundstrokes of 40 shots or so with Monaco as if his consistency is so good, he can do it in his sleep. It also looks like he can move pretty well in his sleep too. But Monaco is a patient player himself too, and in rallies like that, he waited for his opportunity to strike and took advantage of Murray's passiveness.

I remember watching Monaco in 2007, his breakthrough year and watching this match, I was wondering, has Monaco lost some pace on his groundstrokes, whether it was just a tactic or whether he simply didn't have much pace to feed off? Because it didn't look like he had much finishing power off both sides unless if he had a short ball to deal with. He has good placement on both sides, particularly on the forehand side but it’s making things far more difficult than it could be needing to construct points like that each time to win points meaning that he needs to be near the top of his game to be doing well in matches.

Murray began to turn around the match in the second set after fighting off three break points in his opening service game with much better width on his shots, spreading the court making Monaco move much more than he did earlier in the match. From then on, it seemed like Murray was simply playing a better version of tennis than Monaco did, and was thoroughly in control.

In other news, David Ferrer needed three sets to defeat John Isner, a match which featured a nice contrast of styles. The match appeared to be heading in a one-sided direction in Ferrer's favour for the first set and a half, with the amount of points Isner won on Ferrer's serve somewhere near single digit figures.

Ferrer was getting a good read on the Isner serve, showing good hand-eye co-ordination in being able to seemingly connect with each return right in the sweet spot despite the ball bouncing incredibly high due to the high trajectory it was coming from. Robbie Koenig makes a good point that Isner doesn't really get the best out of his serve, mainly relying on the height he can create off the bounce off the back of his own serve coming from a great height himself.

It's hard to make out anything from Isner’s ground game himself which seems a bit inconsistent in general, capable of going through ups and downs. Though one thing is certain, that he should just not attempt to engage in long rallies because he is rarely going to win any of them. As soon as he reverted to a more aggressive game, looking to hit the one big groundstroke and coming in on it, he looked like a far better player often putting Ferrer under pressure far more often. The result was almost immediate in the second set breaking Ferrer’s serve twice to win the set.

But inconsistency is going to be something that always plagues Isner and the match started to turn again in Ferrer’s favour after a string of errors from Isner, as well as poor tactical decisions like deciding to approach the net on Ferrer's forehand.

What can we expect from Lleyton Hewitt, or should we expect anything at all?

Having recently turned 28 last month, Lleyton Hewitt is now approaching the final stages of his career, one that presents different challenges and expectations. Hewitt has had a long and illustrious career that has spanned 12 years at the ATP level achieving success at an early age. He captured his first career title at the age of 16 in his home town of Adelaide in 1998 and became the youngest player to end the year at world number 1 in 2001.

Hewitt has always been known as determined and confident, a guy that fully believes in his abilities and where he belongs in the game, up there mixing it with the best of them. In interviews, over the last couple of years, he has always spoken highly of his goals and abilities. But with injuries hampering him and undergoing hip surgery at the end of last year, and his ranking taking a nosedive to the low 70s, he is now forced to take a different perspective of his near future.

In previous years, he may have known to do too much talking about his own prospects particularly with the Australian press. But this year is more about taking a more low-key approach and letting the tennis speak for itself. Thinking about the present only, and not getting ahead of himself as he may have in the past.

Initially I thought it was only a matter of time before Hewitt made his way back up to a point in the rankings where he would make direct entry into the majority of ATP events, but so far this year, he has done little to add to his ranking points. In the last few weeks, he lost in the first round to Yen-Hsun Lu in Delray Beach, what initially seemed like a good opportunity amongst a weaker field and a five-set loss to Danai Udomchoke in Davis Cup, more an indication of his poor form more than anything else given that he has always taken pride in representing his country.

With that track record in mind, I was interested to see how Hewitt would go in Indian Wells, one of Hewitt's favourite tournaments, the city where he has captured his lone two Masters Series shields. It was a rematch of this year’s first round five set Australian Open match against Fernando Gonzalez.

The initial signs were looking good, Hewitt looking confident and playing surprisingly aggressively, using the pace of the Gonzalez groundstrokes and changing directions far more than I could remember doing in recent times. Then the memories continued to flood back, seeing Hewitt's explosive movement how he would move quickly to move on top of those forehands and counterpunch them back sending them back at a lightning pace.

Using the pace of his opponents to hurt them, making up for the fact that he couldn't generate it himself that effectively, and his return of serve was a strength as well. He hadn’t lost as much movement as I remembered him doing, though now that the match has ended, I’m still sitting on the fence on this thought.

But I thought this aggressive mindset was like conceding that he didn't have that same rock solid consistency as he used to, and instead trying to make up for it in other ways. Besides, based on my experiences watching Hewitt’s matches in the last few years, playing conservatively has never guaranteed him any more consistency really - so why shouldn’t he back himself?

Hewitt raced away to a 5-1 lead in the first set in some part due to Gonzalez’s rustiness, sometimes mistiming forehands by large margins, closer to hitting the backboards than the baseline at times. Gonzalez hadn't played a competitive match since capturing the title in Vina Del Mar after the Australian Open, being hampered by a sciatic nerve injury.

Early on, even without watching Gonzalez in full flight, he looked like a potential threat. His forehand has to be one of the most intimidating shots in tennis, a shot that doesn’t only win him large amounts of points but one for opponents to be fearful of in another sense. It amazes me how little he seems to be rushed on that side given the massive backswing he has on it, one reason why he can send them so far long on occasions.

He wasn’t consistent enough initially but it was almost impossible to tell which shots he was going to have a crack at, as if he just decides to unload on it at random times. It sometimes didn't matter that he had to half-volley a forehand right on the baseline, he’d try to change direction and send it down-the-line anyway while other times on a three-quarter court ball, he'd hit a more controlled crosscourt forehand with higher margin over the net. Regardless of how Hewitt was defending, if Gonzalez was going to pull off unexpectedly aggressive shots like that, Hewitt wasn’t going to get anywhere near it.

From 5-1 onwards in the first set, Hewitt started to get more into his comfort zone opting for a more high percentage brand of tennis, allowing Gonzalez that extra bit of time for set up for his shots. That shift of tactics, following a more predictable pattern of play in turn didn’t keep Gonzalez off balance enough and subsequently the match turned quickly in Gonzalez's favour winning six of the next seven games.

The start of the second set was a strange one, seeing Hewitt suddenly change tactics again quickly making his way to the net early in the point, before he had moved Gonzalez sufficiently out of court. Was this the sign of Hewitt trying to rediscover his aggressive tennis, but going about it the wrong way? His approach shots were often landing short in the court and he was suitably punished getting broken straight away.

He learned his lesson after that, and went back to basics, the roots of his game. It was like a repeat of the end of the first set, and the kind of tennis that I normally associate with Hewitt, moving his opponents around with his forehand more using his accuracy, rather than pace. He was no longer getting to the wide shots as effectively, though it was likely more to do with Hewitt’s preceding shots which were not as deep anymore.

It took for a while for Hewitt to slowly regain his depth and consistency but he started to regain some of his form in the third set, where the pair of them engaged in some entertaining rallies. Finally, it was both players playing good tennis at the same time. But in the end, Hewitt's errors proved to be costly, particularly in the crucial game where he lost serve missing three or so shots by small margins, perhaps aiming too close to the lines.

The statistics in the end showed that Gonzalez had cleaned up his game considerably in the latter two sets, even recording fewer unforced errors than Hewitt, as well as more winners of course. So after a promising start, it ended up being another early exit in a tournament for Hewitt.