Andy Murray surprisingly struggles against Julien Benneteau

Video Clips: First set | Second set | Third set

It was supposed to be a straightforward match on paper, but somehow Andy Murray's match against Julien Benneteau in the quarter-finals of Cincinnati turned into a dramatic contest that was reminiscent of Murray's match against Del Potro in last week's Montreal final. It was yet another case of Murray outlasting one of his opponents, and a showcase of Murray's fighting abilities.

He didn't play his best tennis, but he kept spurring himself on, like a nagging inner voice in his head and in the end, it paid off. It's almost like Murray needs to be disgusted with himself before he can push himself to do better things.

I like the mindset that Benneteau took in this match, not flustered or trying too hard to make things happen. I've heard commentators say that you have to red line your game against the top players, but Benneteau played within himself, comfortable in his own shoes and not intimidated by the occasion. Sometimes it's better to feel your opponents out and see what they have to offer. This is where it's Murray's job to quickly show why he's ranked where he is, and he didn't do that.

In fact, he did the complete opposite. It looked like a clear case of Murray underestimating his opponent. The more Murray has improved his fitness, the more he gets away with daring his opponents to find a way through him, to find an unlikely gaping hole in his defense. It's a lazy way of playing to me, a reactive way of playing, almost like he's only trying to protect his territory, not making any attempt to make that knock-out blow on the other side of the court. This might sound like a strange suggestion, but I'd like to see him put more thought into his shot selection. He is obviously capable of doing so, but doesn't use it as a weapon as much as he should.

It wasn't a good day for Murray, and that was just as much of a reason for the loss of the first set, as his shot selection. He made some strange errors, sometimes hitting the bottom of the net on his groundstrokes which is a rare sight, and his serve was nowhere near finding its timing. It had to be confidence shattering, the manner in which Murray lost the first set shanking his serves all the way into the wrong side of the court. If he played the same way tactically as he did, but had better timing overall, he probably would have won the first set as well.

Still, Benneteau played a smart match, and I liked how calm he was as if he was playing any other match. He's been involved in many battles over the course of the week, including a three hour match against Garcia-Lopez that was physically exhausting and filled with long, competitive rallies. Maybe it's because he's become so battle-hardened with all the tennis he's played this week that he can find the tennis that works best for him without overly dwelling on it.

In a way, I think Benneteau plays an efficient game. He takes the ball early, has short backswings and he doesn't really have a lot of excessive rotation on his shots. That's what allows him to achieve good accuracy, but at the same time, generating pace doesn't really come naturally to him. He couldn't really hit the ball through Murray, but he found ways around him and he followed it up at the net when he could.

Whenever he hit an intentionally short slice, he had good results pulling Murray off the court. It's a good way of getting Murray out of position to defend the next shot, taking his foot speed out of the equation. It was a good, subtle display of variety and Benneteau showed some nice feel at the net with the drop volleys at times.

Even though Benneteau played an well-constructed game overall and the accuracy on his shots were good in terms of placement, I wasn't impressed by the depth on his shots which made his shots clearly attackable. That was the biggest weakness in his game, and Murray didn't take advantage of it.

After that horrible shanked serve at the end of the first set, Murray seemed affected mentally at the start of the second set, playing a similarly poor game to lose the second set. It was an interesting situation that I wish would have been explored more, to see how Benneteau would respond mentally in a winning position to close out the match. When it comes to closing out important matches and playing with leads, I would personally rate Benneteau as being one of the weakest. It's often strange how his groundstrokes can sometimes look completely relaxed while other times it can look completely mechanical and tight.

Instead, Murray responded quickly to the threat of losing. This was to be the game where Murray suddenly raised the effort level of his game. It's almost like Murray isn't really chasing the win, but it's because he hates losing that drives him to raise his energy levels. The reason why the 2-0 game was so important was because Benneteau also put all of his mental and physical exertions into it.

It must have been heartbreaking the way he constructed the 50+ shot rally, doing all the hard work to move Murray out of court only to miss the smash on the final shot. It was a match-changing point, and one which sped up the change of momentum into Murray's favour. I think, eventually Murray would have wormed his way into the match anyway but this point quickly changed it into a one-sided affair.

It fired up Murray in a way that allowed him to strike the ball better, and amazingly, the depth and pace on his shots naturally got better as a result of how he was feeling in this match. Suddenly his backswings seemed less lazy then they were and he was generating better racquet head speed than before. At least Benneteau continued to fight hard during the rest of the match, but he simply couldn't make any dents into the match out of fatigue.

What is going on in Novak Djokovic's head?

Video Clips: First set | Second set

What would Novak Djokovic's game look like if somehow all of the pressure was relieved from his shoulders? I've been closely observing Djokovic's body language lately, in particular in his third round against Jeremy Chardy, and to me, it looks like much of the tennis that Djokovic has been showing has a lot to do with nervous tension. The kind of nervous tension that doesn't allow you to swing at the ball freely, to take a big cut at the ball without thinking about whether it will make its target or not. And Djokovic does take big cuts at the ball, especially on the forehand. It could just as much be interpreted as lack of confidence, and that's part of the story as well.

Watching how Djokovic reacts to his own shots, it looks like he's consistently irritated at himself, setting overly high standards for himself. Perhaps he needs to take a step back and think more about how he wants to play the match, rather than the outcome or result of the match. To somehow find a relaxed state of mind so he can rediscover the free swinging nature that he used to have on his forehand.

Against Chardy, Djokovic's groundstrokes looked inhibited and mechanical, lacking in pace particularly on the forehand side. At least on the backhand side, he can still use his left wrist for that extra sense of control, and he does have good feel on that side. It was a very deliberate way of playing, hitting controlled loopy shots trying to guide the ball to where he wanted them to land. Yet he still couldn't really string together his shots that well, that's what a lack of confidence does. He won't be winning any big matches playing like this, but it could be a completely different situation if he takes the mindset of being the underdog.

This match was a test of Djokovic's patience because he was clearly playing the better tennis of the two, yet it wasn't showing on the scoreboard because of his inability to play the bigger points. Watching the match, I really didn't know how Djokovic hadn't yet managed to score a break in the first set, when Chardy must have gifted him about three free points in each of his first three service games.

Chardy is one of the more inconsistent players on the tour, although he does have weapons to make up for it, particularly on the serve and forehand. Generally if Chardy serves well, he plays well. That's the barometer of his game, because then that takes the pressure off the rest of his game, and he can afford to make a couple of mistakes here and there. His serve wasn't working great here, but it was working well enough to dig himself out of holes, and to hang in his own service games.

Chardy's game reminds me of a less effective version of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's. Like Tsonga, Chardy looks like a completely different player when he leans in on his shots and looks to move forward into his shots. He likes to control the centre of the court and he's quick to step in and take the ball on the rise, which is particularly useful given the extreme grip he has on his forehand to make it easier for himself. He covers the court with long strides, and he has a large wingspan which makes him an intimidating presence at the net if he chooses to make it up there.

Out of all the players, Chardy probably has some of the most unorthodox techniques in the game, so inevitably there's a big chance of his game breaking down. His forehand is both his big weapon and his achilles heel at the same time. He uses a big backswing, and he basically takes a swipe at the ball in a similar way that Robin Soderling does except that he uses a far more side-on stance than Soderling. It's the opposite of having a fluid stroke and it must be particularly difficult trying to manage when there are so many things going on at the same time.

His forehand is an attacking shot, there's not much of a happy medium. It's a flat stroke, with not much topspin particularly under pressure. I find that he gets more height over the net and better topspin when he's energetic and launching into the shot almost like he's jumping on it, but that doesn't seem to happen when he's tight. He's one of those players that need to play aggressive tennis to do well, and that makes his decision-making a whole lot easier. He doesn't really have a whole lot of attacking options on the backhand, so essentially he puts a lot of pressure on his forehand to do most of the work in his matches.

The forehand doesn't need to function consistently. It just needs to hold up and his main aim is to hope that he can string together some big shots on one of his returning games, most likely with the aid of some second serves because he doesn't return big serves that well. I thought Chardy should have returned Robredo's serve better than he did in their second round match, missing far too many returns not even putting himself in a position to play another shot. I think if Chardy is going to take his game to the next level, he needs to develop more of a complete, all-court game rather than relying as much on his forehand as he currently does.

Chardy's serve is an interestingly produced shot as well, often struggling with the ball toss, sometimes throwing it too far to the right. His serve is based around a big shoulder and hip rotation to the point where I think it would be easy for him to lose track of where the ball is once he has to hit it. He hit a couple of double faults in this match, mostly with bad ball tosses, or at least in a way that doesn't synchronise with how he set up to hit the stroke. When it works, he generates good pace and the slice serve out wide on the deuce court works out great breaking out wide away from the opponent.

In the end, the match seemed relatively simple. Chardy was able to control the points off the back of his own serve, but didn't have much of a look into Djokovic's. What Chardy needed to hope for was Djokovic to play a sloppy error-strewn game, which he finally did midway in the second set. This was when Djokovic was at his most vulnerable, at boiling point after smashing a racquet at the loss of the service game. Just when Chardy needed to capitalise on that with a strong passage of play, Chardy's game went to pieces returning the favour with an equally error-strewn service game.

James Blake's return to court comes to a crashing halt

(This is an old post that I posted on The Daily Forehand)

It's not often that matches make me feel an inner rage inside of me, but I feel that James Blake brings out that kind of emotion out of me more so than other players. I don't know how many people caught his opening round match against Igor Kunitsyn, but it could really be described as nothing other than a trainwreck of a match. At first, I thought I should cut him some slack. He's been off the tour for a while, hasn't played a match since Wimbledon and has had a few niggling injuries. He obviously hasn't had a whole lot of match practice, so why should I be criticising his performance as if he should do well straight off the blocks?

The early signs were okay. He broke Kunitsyn's serve straight off the bat, with the kind of trademark second serve returns that we've come to expect from him. Kunitsyn looked like a lightweight, as I grumbled at the potential one-sidedness of the encounter to the extent, where Blake didn't really need to bring anything close to his A-game.

But then Kunitsyn broke back quickly with some decent returns and good play. Maybe he's not so bad after all. His serve looked weak and lacking in pace, but on the other hand, it's deceptive. It floats up high, but it's accurate and deep especially going out wide to the corners. Blake just seemed rusty to me initially, struggling on the return of serves and snatching at times on his groundstrokes, but nothing to get overly frustrated about.

You see, it's not the slight inconsistencies that bother me. His whole body language and attitude during most of this match drives me insane. I'm watching the errors he's making late in the first set, and he's got his feet wide apart, open stance and trying to hit all these big shots while barely even moving his feet. In between points, he's got his shoulders slumped and he's walking slow in between points.

I don't like to call it this, but it looks like he's moping. I can't explain this mentality in any other way, other than the fact that he didn't want to be out there. And maybe Blake is one of those players. He only likes it when he's playing well. He can't really be bothered on those other days, which is crazy sometimes when you look at what he can do when he just decides to use his speed. Take for example, the second set tie-break. Suddenly he's decided that he wants it more and is going to decide to cover all of the court. Why couldn't he have done that earlier? I can't say what happened in the third set because as much as I would have loved to report on the match, I could not watch it any longer but I've heard that it was played at a similar quality.

Kunitsyn played a part too in this "special" match. Not that you could hold it against him, not only because of his status as a player but because he competed well. He stayed calm and collected, and played with a workmanlike attitude which is all you can ask for. Though both players did their fair share of gifting each other points, which got a little ridiculous. Kunitsyn was up 0-40 on Blake's serve at 5-5 in the second set, but shanked and showed no control over his shots to blow that advantage. At least in the end, it was good that the better competitor prevailed.

Murray outlasts Del Potro in the Montreal final

Video Clips: First set | Second set | Third set | Presentation

Andy Murray once again solidified himself as one of the main contenders in the upcoming US Open with a Masters win in Montreal over Juan Martin Del Potro in the final. But what information can we take from his form this week?

Murray and Del Potro are starting to develop a strong rivalry, and today’s match was yet another competitive affair like their last couple of encounters. It was originally thought that Murray possessed the variety that could unravel Del Potro’s game, but it hasn’t really turned out to be the case.

Del Potro is starting to develop a more complete game, making subtle changes in his game but without losing sight of what makes him so difficult to play against. These days it’s becoming increasingly difficult to break down Del Potro’s game. It’s been a while since Del Potro has been made to look clumsy, discounting the Wimbledon loss to Hewitt which looked more like a surface-specific loss in hindsight. He isn’t only staying consistent, he’s improving and becoming a much better big match player.

One of the most impressive things about his performances this week has been shotmaking under pressure. In fact, he’s not only ice cool under pressure. I really think he plays even better when he needs to. He finds his best serves. He hits the ball harder and closer to the lines, whereas he’s happier to play a more balanced game at other times. When Del Potro hits the ball as hard as he can, it’s incredibly hard. It draws gasps from the crowd, and his opponents can’t see it coming because he uses practically the same backswing.

The quality of the match wasn’t great. It was more about the battle and the occasion. Murray started off the match with a clear game plan, trying to move Del Potro short and wide out of his comfort zone. He was playing the better tennis of the two, but with little reward as Del Potro managed to hold on the back of his strong serving.

Early on in the match, they showed a comparison of the shot placement of both Murray and Del Potro and there was a huge contrast. Del Potro’s shots were mainly down the centre of the court, and his backhand wasn’t firing as well as it had been in the last couple of matches either. Murray’s placement was far better, accurate and varied, not only terms in width but depth as well, forcing Del Potro to move up and down the court.

Del Potro clearly didn’t like it, and at one stage he looked completely confused as to what to do on the court. It’s not often you see Del Potro attempting drop shots, and clearly it was a sign of resignation more than anything else. But he held on with good serving, and started to find his way into the match just as the match was starting to reach its climax. For someone that is known for having a one-dimensional game, Del Potro did a good job of changing his tactics and exploring a more all-court game. I’m sure that even a couple of months ago, he wouldn’t have attempted something like this.

I’ve rarely seen Del Potro miss any simple volleys, and even the medium difficulty volleys are very solid. He understands better than most that it’s not necessary to overplay them, and he’s okay with hitting a second volley if he needs to. Just like how he approaches the rest of his game. It wasn’t necessarily his decision to come forward that helped him, but I think that whole mindset helped him play a more purposeful game. To construct his points in a way that would lead to an attacking approach shot.

With Del Potro not hanging around in the long rallies as much as he did earlier, it really exposed Murray’s lack of finishing ability on his shots. He essentially nudges his opponents around, but he’ll always give his opponents a sniff at regaining control. It’s fine for the majority of players, but it’s dangerous with Del Potro because he can generate so much power on the run with his long wingspan. And when Del Potro takes control of a point, he doesn’t back off or let you off the hook. That’s where I think Del Potro is better than Murray.

I wonder what was going inside of Murray’s head as the match progressed, as he began to lose sight of his tactics more and more. Did he come out with tactics that were specifically discussed by his coaching team, then lost track of it as he started to lose himself in the battle? Sometimes it’s easy to start to focus on the little things, and forget about the bigger picture which is what seemed to happen here. I think, while it’s fine initially in the rally to hit that slow probing shot to move Del Potro out of court, he needs to step it up to take advantage of the openings he creates for himself. He can’t keep letting his opponents back into points.

They showed on the statistics count late in the second set that Murray had only approached the net about 10 times compared to Del Potro’s 27 times. To some extent that’s because Del Potro’s groundstrokes are more penetrating, but I still see Murray as being capable of stretching his opponents out wide to the point where they can only block back shots. Not to mention that his volleying ability is better than Del Potro’s.

To be fair, the credit lies with Del Potro in the first set for playing great points, and for being more adventurous. Apparently he won the first set tie-break with 6 outright winners. To break Murray’s serve to crucially win the tie-break, he leaned in on a backhand and followed it up to the net. I can only count on one hand the amount of times that Del Potro has ever followed up a return into the net. That has to be admired, trying out something new on a big point, on one of the make-or-break points of the first set.

Unfortunately from here on in, Del Potro started to fight an uphill battle with himself, fighting fatigue from his physical exertions of the last couple of weeks. He saved a couple of break points in his first service game of the second set in quite spectacular fashion, with big shots but eventually conceded the game through inconsistency. He was no longer left with much choice as to how he could play this match. He had to be aggressive and shorten the points.

Murray could sense that this was his chance to seize control of the match, knowing that his next service game was potentially a great chance to stamp his authority on the match. The problem was that Del Potro sensed the same thing and played his best game of the match to break serve. He summoned all of the energy he could find in an attempt to hit Murray off the court, ripping winners from the baseline. Murray was furious with himself, knowing that as long as the match stayed even, Del Potro still had every chance to win on the back of his serve, and he was still dangerous off the ground playing such an aggressive game. Murray had to be careful not to give him too many second serves to work off.

Murray wasn’t happy with his returns. Usually he gets his biggest advantage with his return of serve, which is usually deep and accurate. He couldn’t seem find his timing on Del Potro’s serve often enough, not finding enough depth on his return. Maybe the trajectory of Del Potro’s shots coming down from a great height makes it more difficult to block back effectively, to make use of those short backswings. It must be said that it’s not like anyone else has been able to effectively figure out how to deal with Del Potro’s serve this week either. He’s been consistently hitting it with accuracy close to the lines.

As the match entered the second set tie-break, the curious question was whether Del Potro would be able to make yet another quick surge, knowing that he was close to the finishing line. He tried to, and as long as he was still winning points, the adrenaline was still there to carry him through. But one tired forehand error midway into the tie-break, and the body language had significantly changed. He could no longer summon any additional energy and he didn’t have the belief anymore.

The third set continued in the same vein, and it became obvious that this was Murray’s title to win. The only way Del Potro was going to win this in this condition was on the back of his serve. Except that his serve had now significantly slowed down, so it turned into a one-sided blowout.

Still, Del Potro can take a lot of positives from this tournament. He’s definitely much more of a contender for big events than he used to be, more capable of upsetting the best players and better at performing under pressure. Though I still question whether he can perform under pressure as well against the likes of Federer and Nadal compared to Djokovic, Roddick and Murray because he did look a little shaky against Nadal the other day in the first set.

What happened to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer in their Montreal match?

Video clips: First set tie-break | Third set tie-break

In one of the most bizarre and wildly dramatic matches of the year, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga somehow rose from the ashes to recover from a two break deficit in the third set to defeat Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the Montreal Masters. Normally making a comeback in a match of this magnitude would be associated with great fighting spirit and mental fortitude. Yet as spectacular and unlikely Tsonga's come-from-behind victory was, there was no way that Tsonga's performance could be described like that.

Tsonga had just played a superb first set of tennis, then it went quickly downhill after that. In fact, it was a high quality first set all-round from both players. What I really liked about Tsonga at the start of the match was how he approached this match, as relaxed as I'd ever seen him. Energetic, but not overdoing it. Sometimes Tsonga tries extremely hard to create pace that it looks like he's slapping at the ball. Perhaps if he took that mindset in this match, he would have created too much pressure on himself. But it's not like he tried to hit Federer off the court as well.

Instead he focused on trying to mix things up to avoid getting into the situation of being dragged into playing shots that he didn't want to. He knew that in order to do that, he had to avoid long baseline rallies. It was a battle of first strike tennis, of trying to control the point early on and looking to follow it up at the net. It wasn't outright aggression, and he didn't look like he was muscling the ball as much as he sometimes does. He was prepared to use his athleticism if he needed to. I really liked his movement. It was so smooth that it looked like he was dancing around the ball at times.

In fact, when having a look at the match-up, Federer and Tsonga share a lot of similarities. They both don't like to hang around on points on serve, and both have all-court games. But more so because both have such naturally fluid and instinctive games, though Tsonga is more explosive while Federer is more effortless. It was an entertaining display of all-court tennis and superb athleticism.

I wonder how much of an effort Federer made to play targeted tennis, as in targeted towards playing against Tsonga specifically or whether he relied more on his own natural game. Because I didn't see Tsonga being pressured that much to play uncomfortable shots, shots that were a specific weakness for him like Federer did to him in Madrid last year indoors. Maybe it was simply that Tsonga didn't allow him to, which is at least partially what happened.

The first set went with serve, and despite both players playing relatively aggressively, it was a clean set of tennis. Both Federer and Tsonga had their one chance to break, one game where they had break point opportunities. Federer saved his break points with great serving like he often does. Federer had one chance to break with a makeable forehand passing shot into the open court. He missed it, then his chance quickly disappeared after that.

It was a high quality first set tie-break, underlined by an amazing dive volley on set point from Tsonga. After hitting an off-forehand approach shot, Tsonga had all of his body weight moving towards the right trying to cover the centre of the court. Federer wrong-footed Tsonga with a sharp slice backhand crosscourt angle that looks completely unreachable and unplayable given Tsonga's position. Tsonga is big and strong, but also wonderfully athletic and somehow manages to violently push his body in the other direction to dig out the volley from the ground. I don't think I recall seeing a shot like that before. Usually dive volleys are used to reach shots that would normally be too far out of reach. The crowd erupts and Federer's puzzled that he managed to lose the point.

I can't imagine any greater adrenaline rush than what Tsonga experienced in the first set. Surely there had to be an emotional letdown. Tsonga was so charged up from that tie-break that he was still moving his feet the way he had then, but it wasn't matched by how he was swinging the ball so he made a stack of wild errors. But that's all I thought it was at the time, a concentration lapse.

It was inexplicable that Tsonga could continue to play like that for almost two entire sets. Well it ended up being one and a half sets given that the third set extended further than originally thought. It is amazing how quickly Tsonga can lose games and points in a match. It felt like the second set lasted around 5 minutes, though of course it was more than that. The majority of errors that Tsonga was making were early on in the point, often on the follow-up shot on the serve.

Part of the reason was because he was struggling with his first serve percentage, but after seeing how he played in the third set, it was definitely a case of a lack of effort as well. His mind wasn't on the job, and tactically, he had lost track of what he needed to do. He carelessly tried to hit his way out of trouble and made no attempt to come to the net, or structure his points in a way that would allow him to. To me, it looked like he was solely concentrating on hitting the one shot on serve, and the groundstroke following that and that was it.

There wasn't a whole lot to admire during that stretch of Tsonga's poor passage of play, so I had a look at his service action which he was struggling with. It's a very front-on action, and his racquet face is quite flat as he hits it into the court, rather than cutting across the side of the ball like other players. It looks like he generates all of his spin on the kick serve at the very end of the stroke when he hits down on the shot. It looks like a potentially inconsistent stroke, then again it's easy to conclude that in a match where it is.

Federer continued playing the second set relaxed like in the first set, being able to control the proceedings more because Tsonga wasn't throwing him anything different. He didn't show any signs of taking his foot off the accelerator despite Tsonga not showing any intensity. He played with freedom tactically as well, implementing whatever shots he wanted to.

The second and third sets continued in the same vein, until late in the third set at 5-1 when Tsonga suddenly started hitting out, with the big difference being that he was moving better and more energetically and that's why he made more shots. It looked like the typical scenario of players playing better when they no longer believe they can win. Except that in this case, it couldn't reasonably explain why it happened because Tsonga looked like he had no chance of winning much earlier than that.

He had this hangdog look about him that surely would have been partially responsible for Federer losing concentration. Catching him by complete surprise by suddenly forcing Federer to come up with more complete points to win them. It's probably a similar effect as faking an injury, except of course in this case it was legitimate and not at all poor sportsmanship.

Federer is an experienced player anyway, and he hasn't blown a lead like this in a long time. If I was him, I'd just write it off as a unique situation and not be bothered about it. Surely no one will think it's a lack of confidence, given what he has achieved recently.

Just when I thought that the third set was turning around in a way that was beyond belief, there were several twists and turns left. Tsonga went on a big streak of winning points late in the third set, and goes up 0-40 on Federer's serve at 6-5. Three match points, but Tsonga doesn't convert. Tsonga misses a couple of makeable backhand passing shots on match points, though admittedly that has never been a strength for him and the see-saw nature of the match continued into the tie-break. It was an appropriate and fitting finish to the match.

Federer starts to panic a bit, trying to find his way to the net as much as possible. Tsonga had the momentum going in his favour if he could block out the match points he lost in the third set, and that's what he did. He continued to charge at Federer in the same way as he had the last ten minutes, and was rewarded for it with an unlikely win. Unfortunately after such an epic match that had the crowd on the edge of the seats, it ended with a muted celebration after a Federer double fault.

Juan Carlos Ferrero's mini-resurgence

Video clips: 50+ shot rally | Second set tie-break

Sometimes it's nice to see a change of pace. These days, the tennis ball seems to move back and forth at lightning pace, to the point where if you're not paying close enough attention, it can be easy to lose track of what's happening. I don't know if this happens for anyone else, but I sometimes feel that way watching Roger Federer's early round matches, as good of a shotmaker he is. And that's what yesterday's second round match in Montreal between Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gael Monfils ended up being, a welcome change of pace, as well as offering a hard-fought battle.

On Ferrero's end, it was an excellent display of point construction as well, which is something that becomes easier to appreciate in a match-up like this when there are no easy ways of winning points. He knew exactly how he wanted to play this match and that's what I really liked about it, from a spectator point of view.

Ferrero started off the match in fine form, so confident in his ability to maintain the aggression on extended rallies. His forehand was really on song, using it to open up the court with a variety of spins, and finding some good angles on it. It seemed like he had such a control on his shots from the back of the court that he was rarely going to miss, and only by small margins if so. That's a sign of a very accurate player.

It's just that he lacks the ability to inject additional pace when he requires it compared to his peers, and I don't think he counterpunches in a way that uses his opponent's shots against them either. He does make up for that lack in power with excellent shot selection though. The longer a point is, the more you get a feel for how players like to construct points and when Ferrero's confident, it's one of his strengths.

It takes two to throw up an entertaining match, and the match-up here is what made it most fascinating. To see how Ferrero could slowly outmaneuver Monfils out of court but without giving Monfils too much to work with to counterpunch off. So that's maintaining an aggressive game, but without going overboard and staying within the comfort zone.

It was about Ferrero not allowing Monfils to play the way he likes, though Monfils made things harder for himself by choosing not to take the initiative on most occasions. Ferrero wouldn't allow Monfils to hit these spectacular shots on the run, either consistently keeping him on the move and trying to restrict the amount of times Monfils could make those crowd-pleasing violent bursts of athleticism, or by surprising him with sudden changes of pace and direction. It doesn't matter as much how quick a player is, if he can't read the shot at all.

I'm starting to find that Monfils is a habitually slow starter on the tennis court. He really needs a trigger, something to excite him, whether it's celebrating his own shots or finding his back against the wall in order to produce something special to stay in the match. Often when he's trying to make a run, firing himself up to find that quick burst of adrenaline, you'll see him suddenly move more energetically even in his return stance, dancing his feet up and down. There's a certain cockiness to it, like now he's decided that he's going to play better in this match, so that's exactly what he will do.

He played the opening set of this match, casual and lacksadaisical like he wasn't ready for the occasion. It was like his brain wasn't even switched on, just reacting to what Ferrero was doing. I couldn't see what he was trying to achieve at all, and I imagine that when you're playing a predictable and one-dimensional same-pace game, not a whole lot of thought goes into it. Just how much more imposing would he be, if he decided to change the pace like we know he can do, especially given that's the one big advantage he has over Ferrero and he's not using it.

I'd also like to see him run around his backhand more often. His off-forehand is one of his best attacking shots, and definitely much better than his backhand which seems to be often lacking in penetration when he's not timing it perfectly. Because Monfils hits the ball closer to his body hitting inside-out, he seems to move better and more athletically to the ball to generate that extra pace, and he can find good angles on it too. If other players that don't move as well can manage to do it on a regular basis, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do more frequently.

In a way, it was strange the match seemed to move away from Ferrero's dominance into a very competitive second set of tennis. What happened was that what triggered Monfils to make a slight adjustment in his game was actually out of sheer frustration, rather than any intended change of tactics.

In his first service game, it looked like he was lashing out at balls, carelessly hitting them, flat shots with pace. It wasn't that Monfils was frustrated with his own play, more so because he wasn't enjoying the match and the rallies he was consistently been drawn into. It really was not as much of a hopeless situation as Monfils thought at the time. If he doesn't want to be stuck in those rallies, then he doesn't have to be. In fact, he lost that service game straight away and given how dominant Ferrero was in his own service games, I thought it was going to be the end of it.

But once Monfils had composed himself again, it seemed like that quick spurt of frustration did him a favour in terms of his shot selection. Finally more changes of pace and more variation in his baseline position. I think he started to return serve much better too, getting more balls into play. Ferrero helped him out by playing one loose service game that he seemed to lose in a flash. But by now, the baseline rallies had turned into a much more even contest, hard-fought battles that could go either way.

I don't think I've ever seen anything more hard-fought than the amazing extended rally that went over 50 strokes at 5-4 in the second set. It actually ended in a spectacular winner, by the way. Both players battled nerves late in the second set, making their fair share of uncharacteristic errors but Ferrero stepped it up in the most crucial stage, 5-5 in the second set tie-break with two aggressive baseline points, just like how he had typically played the first set with such success.

Fernando Gonzalez and His Forehand

A couple of years ago, Fernando Gonzalez was known to be a loose cannon, a risk-taker and a big shotmaker. When you possess as much power and weaponry as Gonzalez does, it can be incredibly tempting to rely overly on it. But there's a time and place for big shots and if you wait around long enough for the right shot, you can actually increase the number of times of hitting that spectacular winner. By taking a mindset like that, he essentially took the possibility of using variety in his game, and all the shots in between.

Fortunately times have changed and now he's not afraid to use a wider range of shots, recognising that it's about doing what's required for the situation, nothing more, nothing less. Today's match against Tommy Haas in Washington showcased Gonzalez at his controlled best, aside from a couple of wobbles towards the end of the second set. When he blasts his forehand, it can be difficult to remember that there is actually a lot more to the shot than the sheer pace that he can create. It's actually an amazing shot all-round.

I spent the majority of the first set watching how he somehow makes the low percentage look high percentage by consistently hitting close to the lines over and over again on the forehand side. But that's not the impressive part. It was how he consistently hit his forehand close to the lines, breaking away further outside of the court after its bounce making the court look far bigger than it is. It's like he somehow curls outside the ball, so it's not like it creates a high bounce, but it moves away from the court. I think out of the other players, only Roger Federer can do the same although Nadal can create the same effect with additional topspin.

Gonzalez doesn't need a whole lot to work with to start dominating a rally with his forehand. That's why he's so difficult to break on his service games if he keeps it together concentration-wise. Gonzalez does have a great serve especially in terms of accuracy and the additional slice he adds to it to open up the court, but how he backs it up makes it look like an even better shot than it is. It's not really good enough to simply block back a return or hit a decent return that lands in three-quarter court.

He didn't receive anywhere near as many cheap points as Haas on first serve on the outright first stroke, but it had essentially the same effect, with Gonzalez usually winning it on his second or third shot. He didn't go for the outright flat scorching winner that much, this time favouring accuracy and spin over power with the intent of making Haas cover as much ground as possible. If Haas was to have any success on the Gonzalez serve, he needed to do something drastic. He needed to break the pattern, and with urgency.

Haas has the ability to do that, to chip and charge on the return of serve with which he tried at times but more so to mix up the play, rather than employing it as a consistent tactic. Unfortunately sometimes Haas lacks the depth on his returns, possibly because he stands so far behind the baseline to return. His strength is more in the consistency of his returns, and to hope that he can slowly turn around the point in his favour. That's why when he did come in to chip and charge, Gonzalez usually found an answer for it hitting passing shot winners seemingly at will.

Gonzalez can hit some beautiful dipping forehand passing shots, that by the time it reaches the other side of the net, it's well and truly past the area where Haas is standing to cover the net. Haas needs to target Gonzalez's backhand if he wants to approach the net, and he did it with more success on his own service games coming in on his own terms. It's a different situation on Gonzalez's backhand, where he really has a problem maintaining enough control to find a target if he's rushed trying to half-volley a shot.

It was a good tactical match from both sides, and in the end it came down more to execution and concentration, though Gonzalez's greater shotmaking ability also played a part in it. It was a combination of both because he needed Haas to play a couple of loose points on serve, and whenever the opportunity presented itself, Gonzalez was quick to take advantage of it and find his best shots, such as the backhand down-the-line winner at set point in the first set.

One poor service game from Haas, and the match had turned completely in Gonzalez's favour. What initially seemed like a small blip from Haas turned into a giant hole that he dug for himself, still recovering from the disappointment of the first set. Sometimes Haas reads too much into his own play, punishing himself unnecessarily for simply playing a couple of poor points. Forgetting that he had played a good match for the most part. He dropped his next service game with three or so cheap errors. Mentally he had checked out of the match.

It seemed like smooth sailing for Gonzalez, until Gonzalez's own moment of dropping his focus nearly cost him. Haas had one chance on a baseline rally that could have gone either way. He shanked a forehand wide by several metres. Then to make things worse, he played yet another service game reminiscent of the first game of the second set. Clearly Haas doesn't have much of a selective memory. Gonzalez dropped his next service game, but he was always in control given that he had a two break cushion and served it out the second time around to move into the semi-finals.

Tournament Wrap-Up: The Winners in Umag, Gstaad and Los Angeles

Note: I've now added Youtube links to videos I've uploaded myself...

Umag

Winner: Nikolay Davydenko (d. Juan Carlos Ferrero)

What a tournament and what a performance it has been for Nikolay Davydenko this week in Umag, particularly in his two closing matches against Jurgen Melzer and Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Russian will surely take a huge confidence boost from his performances, but will he be able to translate a good run of form on clay to good form on the hardcourts? Maybe not initially, but he has plenty of time to gear up for the US Open.

Watching Davydenko play, I felt the same kind of helplessness that both Melzer and Ferrero felt, that’s how dominant he was. Out of all the players on tour, I’d have to rank Davydenko up there as quite possibly one of the most frustrating to play against, due to the sheer rapid pace of his game. He doesn’t give his opponents room to breathe, to play the shots that they’d like to play. So what you often see instead is silly shot selection, doing anything to stay one step ahead of Davydenko rather than reacting to what he does. And I sympathise completely with them, because when Davydenko’s playing like this, he’s close to unbeatable.

There is virtually no way of winning points against him, he dominates the baseline rallies and his return of serve is one of the best. He doesn’t really care what you throw at him, he’s going to be up for the task and return it with interest. He’s relentless. I think what made it great was that he didn’t allow his opponents to do anything. They weren’t even allowed to have a great day, to play out of their skins. Melzer won 2 games against Davydenko, and Ferrero lost 9 games in a row to lose the match.

Davydenko didn’t start off in imperious form. He was erratic but you could tell he was searching for his form. Being ambitious in his shot selections trying to pull off the same kind of shots as he did against Melzer the previous day. It was obvious that he had a lot of belief in his game. Initially it seemed like Ferrero would be able to put up a better fight, given that he is better equipped to deal with a fast paced game than Melzer was. Better at counterpunching and redirecting shots, being able to create opportunities for himself. But the more Davydenko started to clean up his game, the more Ferrero started to be fighting an uphill battle.

Gstaad

Video Clips: First set | Second set tie-break / Presentation

Winner: Thomaz Bellucci (d. Andreas Beck)

We were guaranteed a first time ATP title winner in the final, and it ended up being Thomaz Bellucci who had taken the more impressive scalps during the week, including a win over top seed and home favourite, Stanislas Wawrinka as well as Igor Andreev in the semi-final. It was a rare match between two left-handers, and one which featured two players with similar strengths, serve and forehand.

Bellucci is a more complete player, and also more consistent. I like how he constructs his service games with purpose, going after his serve but also using it to create gaps in the court and finishing off points in an efficient manner. It was a different match to the semi-final match against Andreev, with Bellucci not finding himself being pushed behind the baseline as much and therefore having more opportunities to attack and hit those faster-paced groundstrokes. He really has a nicely balanced game. It looks high percentage and aggressive at the same time.

Beck on the other hand is rarely consistent, not even in his match wins. You can pretty much expect that his standard of play will wildly fluctuate, but maybe that his serve will hold it all together which is what happened here and in his semi-final match. Against Daniel, he had brief moments of the match where he’d unleash a couple of big, forceful shots and that’s what won him the match. But in the final, Bellucci was equally as dominant on serve, creating a lot of problems for Beck with the lefty swinging serve and being more consistent in other areas.

Beck had a poor start to the match, broken on his opening game and wasn’t able to capitalise on a loss of concentration from Bellucci straight after the rain delay midway in the second set. Bellucci entered this event as a qualifier and after this week’s great run makes a big ranking jump from 119 to 66 which should allow him main entry into far more events.

Los Angeles

Video Clips : First set | Second set | Third set | Ending / Trophy presentation

Winner: Sam Querrey (d. Carsten Ball)

Querrey played a great match in the semi-finals against Haas, showing some of the most impressive retrieving abilities that I'd seen from him. He was fired up, and surely his Samurai supporters (pictured above) helped with that. There was one point late in the second set with Querrey scampering all over the court, hitting this really nice one-handed backhand flick from behind to stay in the point, then sprinting to the other side to recover and hit a great crosscourt forehand. It's in the video here.

The pressure was on Querrey to back up that performance against Haas, but more importantly to finally win one of those finals he was strongly favoured to win. I think if he had lost this one, we would have safely pegged him as a finals midget but after two close sets, Querrey ran away with the match when Ball ended up being too fatigued to put up anything resembling a fight. It was a strange match. Despite both players possessing great serves, they exchanged numerous breaks of serve throughout the first two sets and had terrible second serve winning percentages.

Querrey really struggles with his serve when he’s tight. It’s amazing that his big weapon, the serve just looks like a loopy shot that seems to sit up for ages, like the worst kind of second serves. I think because it’s based so much on his loose arm action to get that racquet head speed, whereas if it was a dynamic service action, like a natural way of leaning into the shot then the power would take care of itself. It was difficult to assess the rest of his game, given that Ball is such a streaky player that it can’t really be compared to playing against Haas. He’s not going to let Querrey put together great points, more or less ending it on his own terms.

Ball is as much of an outright aggressive player as you’ll see. He doesn’t hit the ball completely flat but generates massive amounts of power, I guess because of his size. You can tell why he’s ranked where he is, because he can be really careless with the simple shots, putting away midcourt balls that were practically set up for him by his big serve. And his volleying technique is suspect as well, not being clinical with the high volleys like he should be.

But it must be said that his serve is an amazing stroke, not to mention that I also find it one of the most aesthetically pleasing serves on tour. It’s a big lefty serve. It has power, kick and sidespin, swinging increasingly further out of reach after its initial bounce. It’s like Chris Guccione’s serve with more spin, but less variety since it’s more of the same thing with each delivery. Perhaps it’s better to simply watch the video itself.

I really believed that Ball would be favourite in the third set, given the strength of his own serving, and how he often punished Querrey’s serve late in the second set. But Ball surrendered his first break of serve with some of the most horrendous shots I’d seen. Soon afterwards he didn’t even make an attempt to hide the tiredness in his body language, seemingly laboured even in his walking in between points. It was no longer about winning points, but trying to end them in any way possible, and I don’t think he was even attempting to hit winners.

I guess he had decided that he’d had a good week and that he’d happily accept the outcome of this match. And it has been a great week for Ball, coming into this event ranked in the 200s, and having never even won a single ATP main draw match prior to this week.

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.

Profiling Simone Bolelli's Claycourt Game (and Performance) in Umag

On the back of last week's title win in Hamburg, Nikolay Davydenko heads into the Umag semi-finals as the clear favourite to take the title. But what has his form been like this week? He's not really on top of his game, nor is he fading badly. But like all good players, Davydenko is surely making the most out of the fact that he can do so much with the ball, that he has so many attacking options from the baseline.

Yesterday's match against Italian Simone Bolelli was a difficult match, as unpredictable as a match could be in the first set and not as one-sided in the second set as the scoreline suggested, resulting in a Davydenko win 7-6(10) 6-1. It was really only when Davydenko achieved his second break of serve that the outcome seemed finally set in stone, given that so many of the games prior to that were closely contested.

It wasn't one of Davydenko's rhythmic ball-striking days, he had to rely more on his speed instead, and he didn't exactly get to play the match on his terms given Bolelli's highly aggressive game. Bolelli is one of those players that have been mentioned from time-to-time as one of those dangerous claycourt players, as one of those steadily rising players, and he definitely captured some attention with his rather flashy game. At the top of his game, he looks like a stylish player, capable of hitting clean winners on both sides, not to mention that he has a very aesthetically pleasing single-handed backhand.

Though I have come to learn that he also has the tendencies of a power hitter, and the tactical side of the game is certainly something that he can work on. He takes big cuts at the ball particularly on the forehand side, and can be prone to shanking shots especially when returning fast-paced serves, or in other words first serves. Whereas on the backhand side, he can make the adjustment and shorten his backswing on return.

Just like in the first couple of games of the Hamburg final, Davydenko went down an early break lead, and the manner in which it happened seemed similar as well. Davydenko missed a couple of first serves, and Bolelli hit some unlikely winners. Unlikely because when he wins a point against Davydenko, he doesn't really wrest control of a point. Instead he pulls out spectacular shots in the middle of a competitive rally, overwhelming Davydenko with pace to the point where he either can't reach it or has to hit a defensive shot off a ball that's only one metre away from him. I think it's not only power, but also the heaviness of Bolelli's shots that makes it difficult to deal with.

For a powerful hitter, Bolelli can generate some excellent angles on his forehand, sometimes finding good angles on a crosscourt shot when it doesn't seem like he has much to work with. I guess it's because of that over-the-head swing that he uses on the forehand sometimes to find that extra angle, by applying additional spin.

But as well as Bolelli played to achieve that first break of serve, he returned it back with numerous tame errors in a way that looked familiar for him. I mean, based on that shot selection, surely he is always having to fight the ups and downs of his own play. He doesn't even react externally that much to what he does. I guess he's used to it.

So that's what the match ended up being like on both sides of the court. A match of uncompromising shotmaking, erratic on both sides but full of drama due to the sheer unpredictable nature of it. I would have thought that Davydenko would have been able to capitalise on his breaks of serve in the first set better, but strangely he had a hard time pulling away from the match. It was like whenever he had the opportunity to take a clear lead in the match, he had trouble stringing together points and kept letting Bolelli back in.

Bolelli remained in a neutral mindset the whole first set, sometimes hitting great shots and sometimes hitting awful shots but I never got a sense of momentum or a rise in confidence. When I watch him play, I feel his patterns of play are more based on instinct more than anything else, though he does like to hang in the backhand corner and run around to hit forehands. He doesn't strongly stick to that strategy in the same way that for example, Tommy Robredo does although for good reason because his backhand is a good shot as well.

The power that he can generate off both sides is particularly impressive. Looking at his physique, it reminds me somewhat of Nicolas Almagro, how they use a lot of their upper body strength to generate that pace, keeping their stance more upright than most other players. I can see why Bolelli sticks to playing a primarily attacking game, because when he's defending, it looks rather poor. Bolelli's mindset is to use attack as a form of defense. I think in a lot of cases, I actually see him hitting more aggressive shots when stretched further out wide, than when he's hitting a shot from the centre of the court.

In terms of court coverage, it's like there's a certain distance of the court he can cover across the court where he can still maintain his footwork and slide properly into the court. I'd say it's about the same distance as the width of the court between the two singles sidelines, and whenever he gets pulled outside of that, wider with angle then that's when he comes unstuck and tries to hit low percentage, unlikely shots. When he's still within that strike zone, it's amazing the amount of power he can generate on the run. But unfortunately when it comes to hitting low percentage, improbable down-the-line running shots, he's also very prone to doing that.