Sportingo Competition

Sportingo.com are currently holding a competition, where if you write an article between September 25 - Thursday October 1 and your article is chosen as the winning article in the tennis section (same applies for other sports), you win £50.

So far I haven't seen anyone submit any articles in the tennis section during this period, so unless if everyone writes all their articles at the last minute, I don't imagine that the participation would be exceptionally high. Anyone can write an article just by registering for free.

The word limit is between 400 to 600 words, which has always been a difficulty for me. Articles, as per normal procedure on that website are proofread and modified by the editors, and will take a while to show up.

The winning article is judged by four things: the number of views, the number of comments received, the thumbs up rating given and quality according to a panel of judges. Not my ideal way of judging definitely, so I've had to think about what topics would attract the most viewers, the most people to even open it up.

Juan Martin Del Potro, the 2009 US Open men's champion

It’s been a while since we’ve had a new Grand Slam champion, not since Novak Djokovic captured the Australian Open title in 2008. You’d be hard pressed to find a more impressive performance than the one that Juan Martin Del Potro displayed today against Roger Federer, in what was the Argentine’s first Grand Slam final.

I have already made reference to it numerous times before, the rapid pace with which Del Potro seems to be improving, yet he still seems to find a way to amaze me just when I thought I had already handed out enough compliments his way as of late.

It was a high quality match, full of drama and unpredictability, and it was a welcome change to see a new Grand Slam champion at the end. Now that Federer has already broken all sorts of records, I think it’s a positive sign for men’s tennis to have this additional competitiveness near the top, especially if it means we’re going to get matches of this quality to look forward to in the future.

In regards to Del Potro’s performance in the final, he was impressive on so many levels, that it warrants a list of exactly why this was the case.

• Del Potro played the best match of his life in the biggest match of his career, his first Grand Slam final against Roger Federer, recently been acknowledged as the Greatest of all Time and winner of the last couple of Grand Slams. He hadn’t won a single match against Federer in the past, though I think Del Potro took a lot of confidence from their previous meeting in Roland Garros.

• It wasn’t like Del Potro came out firing on all cylinders and played lights out tennis to start with. In fact, he was made to look clumsy to start with, having to stretch his long limbs all over the court rarely getting a shot in his comfort zone. But the biggest problem seemed to me, that Federer didn’t even let Del Potro get into a rhythm, the opportunity to raise his level of play. He was thoroughly outplayed, and it could have been easy to think that he simply wasn’t in the same league as Federer, at least not at this point of his career.
  In his post-match interview after his semi-final win, Del Potro promised the crowd that he would fight for every point, and he delivered on this promise in a way that no one could have imagined or expected. Del Potro wasn’t deterred by the fact that he was comfortably outplayed. All he needed was a slight drop in level from Federer, and once they were back on serve, it turned into a completely different ball game. Del Potro was now feeling loose and confident and had turned the match on its head, not only on the scoreboard but he had somehow changed the match to be played in his favour, exchanging the type of rallies that he likes.
  Even when Del Potro started to pick up his play initially, it wasn’t like he suddenly found the range on his shots. In fact, his play was on and off, brilliant shots combined with errors as you would expect with a game as aggressive as that. But it was like he was somehow able to not associate himself with whether a shot landed in the court or not, focused on each individual shot only, trying to play the best he could. Then the more he got into this frame of mind of hitting big shots, the more consistency he developed and confidence in himself of being able to back it up.
  

• This ability of Del Potro’s to find a way to elevate his game when he needs it is currently what puts him in front of Andy Murray, the ability to sense when he needs to take it up a notch, that his current game isn’t good enough, and more importantly, he has the execution to back it up.
  Del Potro didn’t have much of a say early in the match, but he slowly started making himself known as a threat, both through his energy, on-court presence and the way he stepped up the pace on his groundstrokes. Del Potro is normally selective about which shots he decides to unload on because he doesn’t really need to red line his game, but when he removed that margin of error, the end result was quite devastating, especially his forehand which caught fire from the fourth set onwards.

• Serving to stay in the third set of the match, Del Potro served two consecutive double faults to lose the set. He vented his frustration at the changeover, and buried in his head in the towel, a look of extreme disappointment heading into the fourth set, but he didn't forget how he played himself into this position and continued in the same vein going after his shots.
  He came across a couple of stumbling blocks, and his level did dip inevitably having to save break points in his opening two service games, but whenever he needed it he came up with his best shots. It seems like there is no limit to Del Potro’s mental stability, no occasion that is too great to shake his extraordinary self-confidence.
  Then his game picked up midway from the fourth set, and that’s when he started to stamp his authority on the match, looking like the noticeably better player. He wasn’t as secure on his service games as he usually is, and he lost his serve once here, and once in the previous set as well, but he was able to let it go and continue to chase after the next game. Usually big servers hate it when they lose their service games, but it didn’t bother Del Potro, and he’s willing to accept a few errors here and there knowing that he’s playing the right way.

• Del Potro’s return of serve which started to land the sweet spot more and more as the match went on, able to knock it back quick and fast with devastating pace right back at Federer’s feet.

• Federer started to look more rattled as the match went on, trying to rush Del Potro before Del Potro could rush him, but Federer’s backhand got him into trouble with that blocked, short backswing not really doing much in terms of being able to reflect the pace coming off Del Potro’s racquet. In my mind, Del Potro’s game forced Federer into error, and into helplessness. It's pretty hard trying to execute any kind of game plan when you're up against someone hitting as hard as that.
  

• Does Del Potro have any sense of fear whatsoever? It seemed like regardless of the situation, whether it was recovering from disappointment, fighting to maintain a lead, saving break points, or whether he was close to victory, he maintained the same kind of racquet head speed and continued to hit almost with reckless abandon. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain the same quality of play playing that aggressively, where any drop in racquet head speed will pretty much result in an error.
  As impressive as Del Potro was mentally, he played with the mindset of an underdog, of someone that had nothing to lose. Djokovic and Murray to some extent have shown that it is incredibly difficult to keep up that kind of attitude and confidence. How will Del Potro change mentally when he’s expected to make the back end of tournaments, and more of the mainstream press have started to focus their attention on him?

• How determined is Del Potro that the first thing that he mentions on his victory speech after playing the match of his life is that he still has a long way to improve before he can catch up to Federer career-wise? I know it was intended to be a compliment to Federer's achievements, but it also spoke volumes about Del Potro's intentions on trying to maximise his game and that he's not yet satisfied with where he currently is.

What a comeback for Kim Clijsters in this year's US Open

Some people will consider the run of Kim Clijsters as a sign of weakness in the WTA tour that it could be possible for the Belgian to come back and win a Slam after a two year hiatus. Clijsters did it the hard way too. For all the upsets and surprises of this year's US Open, Clijsters needed to defeat both Williams sisters on her way to the title. The form that she showed over the course of the week was quite superb showing very few signs of a rusty player, of a player that had been away for so long.

Since Clijsters retired, the top of women's tennis has changed significantly and it's tempting to want to compare how Clijsters played here, to the other top players of today. Though I think at times it can be difficult to remember what Ivanovic, Jankovic and Safina were like even at their peak, but the combination of athleticism and controlled aggressive tennis that Clijsters showed, to me seemed more impressive than what we typically see from the previously mentioned players.

The biggest difference is that Clijsters appears to have very few noticeable weaknesses whereas I could name one thing for either one of those players and her movement is exceptional. Only time will tell as to whether Clijsters will begin to show more signs of weakness, of shots breaking down on her when things aren't going her way.

The interesting thing to me is that I never really looked at Clijsters' game with that much enthusiasm back in those days, thinking she was just as much of a one-dimensional player as most of her peers. The only thing I remembered her for was her trademark splits, which she seems to do less of these days, but given the more error-strewn nature of the WTA these days, it was simply refreshing to see someone not pull the trigger on almost every shot and hit wayward groundstrokes everywhere, yet have the ability and firepower to hang with the very best players.

Maybe over the years, the women have become even more accustomed to flattening out on their groundstrokes, because those loopier balls and occasional slices that Clijsters likes to throw in to enhance her defensive game look like shots I haven't seen much of before in the past. I like how well Clijsters gets behind every ball, always prepared so early both in her backswing and footwork, setting herself in the right position to be able to launch herself fully into the shot.

When Serena Williams played against Clijsters in that controversial semi-final, it looked like Serena didn't really know what to do, and at times tried to hit her way out of the match. Whenever she was down in a match, she felt a sudden urgency to bludgeon her way into the match with as many winners as possible. It was almost a cocky way of playing, though in all likelihood it was simply Serena not thinking straight, of thinking that by hitting harder and playing better, she could take Clijsters out of the equation just like that.

But Clijsters was in it for the long haul. She played with freedom and brought a consistent energy on the court, while remaining composed the entire evening. She was patient and had her eye on the bigger picture, which the same could not be said of Serena. It's interesting because the mood swings that were prevalent in this match from Serena, aside from the final game of the match are probably not much different from how she has handled herself in the past. Serena has always been transparent and dramatic with her emotions and on-court antics, it's her way of driving and pushing herself to do better in matches. It's that refusal to be content with her current form in any given match that allows her to raise the bar in crucial situations. She's one of the few players on the women's tour that is capable of using her emotions to her advantage, to find her best tennis when she really needs it. And Serena really needs that extra element to her game, because her effort levels and overall athleticism can vary significantly over the course of a match.

Despite Serena's renowned athleticism and foot speed, she can often be seen sluggish and her footwork nowhere near as precise as it needs to be. She doesn't naturally enjoy chasing for balls in a way that Clijsters does, and for some reason it isn't all that automatic for her. She really needs to send internal messages in her head to be tough and show that extra desire. Though I have a feeling that Serena was sending herself all the wrong messages against Clijsters. Rather than calling on her fighting abilities or looking to increase her energy levels, Serena wanted to do it the easy way. The problem was not only that she tried for too much too soon, but she couldn't sustain it. The lack of purpose in what she was trying to do really cost her. It was a fascinating spectacle though, with every shot selection and rally, a reflection of Serena's current mood, sheer unpredictability on her part as to what she might come up with next.

It was such a stark contrast seeing Clijsters on the other side of the net, so composed and patient. She never let herself get caught up too much on the scoreboard and played every point as if it was the same magnitude. She had a clear plan to lengthen the rallies, and to not give Serena too much pace to work with, or at least not the kind of pace that can be easily returned off the racquet. She used the full width of the court, and moved her shots around nicely, enough to keep Serena consistently moving.

The match-up against Caroline Wozniacki was a different matter however. The match was always in Clijsters' hands, with the outcome depending on whether she could execute her shots the way she needed to. Had this been an earlier round match, there would have been little doubt that Clijsters would have been able to. But the pressure on her was immense, easily the favourite to win the championship.

I noticed straight away that from a technical point of view, there are a lot of similarities between Clijsters and Wozniacki on the groundstrokes, how they both have that solid base that allows them to maintain some sort of consistency when setting up for their groundstrokes. They have the same consistently energetic footwork, where it seems like their feet are consistently moving all the time whether it's to recover from the previous shot, or running explosively to the next. Whereas I'd say for example, that for Serena and Venus, they probably only make that effort to make that explosive movement when they have their eye on a shot to run down, it's not consistent. Other less athletic players have had to work hard on their movement, and it's not automatic for them. You don't really see Clijsters or Wozniacki make a whole lot of errors out of poor footwork, or catching themselves in knots. If anything, it's a problem with their follow-through, backswing or racquet head acceleration.

In the end, there wasn't a whole lot to notice about this match, except that after a slow start, Clijsters got herself together enough to win the match in a convincing fashion. She easily had the better shotmaking ability out of the two, and she made the most of it. Wozniacki surprisingly has a decent all-court game, more of a willingness to come to the net than the majority of players even though technically her volleys are not all that sound. I'm not sure much can be read into Wozniacki's run into the final, aside from the fact that anything can happen in a Slam on the women's side these days, and that Wozniacki has the mental strength and consistency to take advantage of that.

Juan Martin Del Potro reaches his first Grand Slam final

It was an impressive performance from Juan Martin Del Potro to take apart Rafael Nadal like that, in three consecutive one-sided sets, yet somehow the performance itself didn’t seem overly surprising, though maybe the scoreline did. Del Potro has the ability to play consistent and aggressive tennis, a lethal combination and he can execute it time and time again as he has shown us throughout the year with his overall consistency.

I think the impressive part is that it didn’t really look like he was playing out of his skin, instead it just looked like an extremely confident young man who had absolutely no doubt that he could play at this level. To some degree, it was the kind of inspired performance you usually only see at Grand Slams, progressively building up confidence over a two week period and the opportunity to seize the moment.

It didn’t go Del Potro’s way initially, and it was much more closely contested than the score suggested. The stage looked set for a long, hard battle, with Nadal trying to maneuver Del Potro around the court, and Del Potro trying to overpower Nadal, or more specifically rush him into error. Del Potro looked comfortable trading groundstrokes, making use of that effortless power of his not really going out of his comfort zone, mostly trading crosscourt blows and not really hitting that close to the lines.

The early signs for Nadal were okay. He came out with a clear idea to use the slice backhand, to not only make Del Potro bend down, but to have it breaking away from the court to open up the court for himself to take control of. At the time, the only thing that appeared to be separating the two, were the big difference in quality of serves between Nadal and Del Potro. Del Potro already has a significantly better serve than Nadal, or at least one that is far more capable of obtaining cheap points, but the gap seemed greater magnified by Nadal’s abdominal injury which meant that his serve lacked in pace.

Still it was difficult not to be amazed yet again, by Del Potro’s newfound ability to play well on the big points, where he routinely found big serves then finished it off with a groundstroke with no hesitation. Considering the relatively large backswing that Del Potro has on the forehand, it becomes particularly noticeable how much confidence plays a part in this, and he almost always maintains his racquet head speed.

Nadal had his fair share of break points, but every time he got a look in, Del Potro saved it. As much of a fighter Nadal is, it had to wear on him mentally and he didn’t have the security on his own serve, so he started to feel a sense of hopelessness. As Del Potro started to gain in confidence from the back of the court and take more risks, Nadal’s game subsequently started to look weak in comparison, not capable of making enough of an impact.

As well as Nadal can scramble, the ball shoots through the court in New York, and while he can somehow often reach Del Potro’s stinging groundstrokes with his racquet, it became a familiar sight seeing the ball bounce too low for Nadal to do anything with it often slicing it into the net.

Nadal’s returning position certainly didn’t help matters, and put him from the defensive right from the start. The interesting thing is that on these fast courts, if you move up to the ball, you really don’t need to do that much with it to get good reward from it basically by using the pace that is already there. I mean, you don’t really need to make a big effort to hit it hard if you take the ball early. Short backswing, and it will quickly make its way back to the opponent’s side.

But as hard as Nadal tried to generate pace on his own given that the ball had lost its sting by the time it reached contact point, it still didn’t end up being all that effective. Unfortunately midway into the first set, it looked like Nadal had already given up on the idea of using the slice backhand, and from then on, he didn’t seem like much of a threat anymore.

About midway into the second set, or early in the third set, Nadal didn’t really believe he could pull off the victory anymore. I suppose because Nadal’s game is so much about building up pressure and Del Potro didn’t allow him that. Del Potro played the match almost entirely on his own terms. And the bigger the lead Del Potro got, the better he played and the more risks he started to take. That’s when it gets scary because it’s almost machine-like, and that’s why it’s hard to feel any hope being on the receiving end of this barrage.

US Open Day 7: Daniel Koellerer Entertains The Crowd on Grandstand

At the US Open, the New York fans have always taken a liking to the more unique characters of the tour. This was the first time the crowd were introduced to Daniel Koellerer, the Austrian whose antics have become well-known even at the challenger level to the point of earning him a suspension at one point, and players once passing around a petition to have him banned off the tour.

Despite all the negative press surrounding him, the above video clip of his match against Juan Martin Del Potro yesterday shows that Koellerer can actually be quite charismatic, and the crowd loved every minute of it, as did Koellerer himself. What I particularly like is that Koellerer didn't only make a sideshow out of it, he played with passion. Look at how energetic and determined he chases down every ball, and how he lives off every point he wins or loses, disregarding that he doesn't have much chance of winning this match. He plays with an amazing energy that looks impossible to keep up, yet he does because of the pure adrenaline running through his veins.

The above video clip is worth checking out for Koellerer's amazing dive volley lob that he hits 15-0 down, not to mention the entertaining celebration afterwards.

Another highlight of the match (see below) is Koellerer's hilarious reaction to receiving a lucky net cord in his favour, doing the complete opposite to what you'd expect from a typical player, jumping up and down in joy like he had just won the tournament then kissing the net. The most amusing part was that the net cord had no bearing on the match, and never looked like it was going to, occurring at the least important of stages on 40-0 down on Del Potro's serve.



I would imagine that on the challenger tour, his on-court celebrations and antics would look like obvious attempts to distract his opponents, with which it could have easily had the same effect here but in this match, his celebrations were like crowd pleasers. It's obvious that he's a showman and he loves the spotlight, and he looked like he was having so much fun, that it was almost contagious watching it.

US Open Day 6: The best win of John Isner's career

Almost every time you hear the name John Isner, you’ll hear references to his 6 foot 9 frame, his big serve and comparisons to the other ‘big giant’ of the tour, Ivo Karlovic. Isner first made his name on the tour on the back of a unique run to the finals of Washington a couple of years back, with his ability to win numerous third set tie-breaks in succession. It’s hard to forget a run like that, and immediately it attaches the idea of Isner being a serve specialist, which he most certainly was at that point of time in his career.

All these comparisons to Karlovic have certainly done him no favours, because Isner is a far more exciting player, more of a risk-taker and more of a shotmaker. Karlovic doesn’t have much of a presence on his return games. He usually sticks to playing a mostly defensive baseline game pinned to his backhand hitting slice backhands all day.

But with Isner, he has the ability to string together brilliant points, or at least he intimidates opponents with his firepower and puts more pressure on his opponents to keep him on the move. The first set tie-break that Isner played against Roddick is easily the best tennis that I’ve ever seen Isner play. That whole tie-break as a whole would have been worthy of making a highlights reel. When you see Isner ripping backhand winners, to complement the forehand winners, you know he’s having a good day.

For me, the winners he’s capable of hitting on his backhand is a sign of the natural power that he possesses. There’s no other way of explaining it because his racquet head speed on that side doesn’t look impressive at all, neither does the timing on the shot. Quite simply he leans into the shot and hits through it firmly, two hands right through the flight of the ball. Firm and strong, using his long levers to generate the power for him.

The second set, Isner continued the same impressive rich vein of form, continuing with the unlikely backhand winners, sometimes crosscourt passing shots and down-the-line shots. In the end, it was Roddick’s weak service game that ended up being the decisive factor but in my mind, Isner played the better tennis by far, high in the winners count and doing significantly better than Roddick in this category while keeping his errors down. It was quite possibly the cleanest set of tennis that I’ve seen Isner play before, and the question is how often he is capable of playing like this. It’s a high risk game he plays, and I suppose it’s not necessary that he keeps up this consistency when he has the serve to back it up. He just needs to put it all together in a short space of time, and his serve will take care of the rest.

If Isner gets a shot that’s anywhere near his strike zone, he can rip forehands and follow it up at the net in a few big strides. I really like that one-two punch, the big shot followed by the volley into the open court. It’s one of my favourite things about watching him.

His net coverage is spectacular basically because of his wingspan where it’s pretty much impossible to get a ball past him. I’d say if you were looking to pass him, the better option would be to dip the ball low at his feet, make the big man bend down, which isn’t really one of Roddick’s strengths. Technically his volleys are also quite good. I’d back him to win any rally where he can get a racquet on it and a clean hit on it against most players.

Isner’s game hasn’t always been like this. He used to be far more inconsistent from the back of the court that it was difficult to get a sense of what he was trying to do on the court. I think a year or two ago he wasn’t as aware of how to use his strengths, or just as much how to manage the weaknesses in his game. It surely has helped that he is now more consistent than he used to be, that he can maintain a rally for a couple of shots to allow for this newfound patience to come through, to wait for the right ball to rip for a scorching winner. The way he has started to tailor his game towards his strengths more reminds me a bit of how Sam Stosur has improved her game on the women’s tour to revolve more around her serve, forehand and volleys.

But one thing that has always been there with Isner is his competitive spirit, and he needed it more than ever today battling through fatigue. Anyone watching this match would have thought that the match was slipping by Isner, but Isner maintained his positivity and belief through all of that and pulled out the victory. He had to battle through his own inconsistency, cramps, the pressure of having to hold onto his own serve and fighting through break points and he came out on top on all accounts. I've always liked his positive body language, and those low-key but assertive clenched fists that he does in between points.

When you’re feeling tired, it’s easy for it to cloud your decision making and to try to opt for that quick exit. Isner had that one service game at the end of the fourth set, and almost at the start of the fifth set but he found his best serves when he needed it just like he had all match. Could Isner really win five more service games in that kind of condition? Isner must have a really strong mind to be able to maintain his focus on trying to do what he does best with full commitment and intensity, and with his game struggling increasingly, he needed to put an even bigger effort to compensate.

Isner is a big match player and he thrives playing in front of big crowds, yet he had never proven himself in a match of this magnitude. The tie-break that he played in the fifth set was quite amazing given the circumstances, like a demonstration of mind over matter. And when he most needed it when it finally came down to crunch time, he was still as cool as under pressure as he had been all match playing two of the best volleys you could play under those circumstances to win the biggest match in his career.

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.

US Open Day 5: Taylor Dent dazzles the New York Crowd

It's not often that you see two pure serve-volleyers come up against each other at a tournament outside of Wimbledon these days. The night match between Taylor Dent and Ivan Navarro was as traditional as it gets, two players that I consider to play true serve and volley tennis, as a complete package, not only as a means to back up their big serve. Both Dent and Navarro don't have the biggest of serves, or at least they don't really meet the required standard for anyone that's looking to serve and volley these days.

I've always liked watching Taylor Dent's old school style of play. He might be the only active player that I can think of from the top of my head that actually chips and charges regularly. Unfortunately given the match-up he wasn't able to do it today though because Navarro took the net away from him by coming in first.

They really did look like mirror images of each other, Navarro and Dent, right down to their physical appearance which looked scarily similar from far away on TV view. When the match first started, I got a little shocked expecting to see Dent's face when they zoomed in on Navarro after showing him from a distance. Embarrassingly I wondered for a brief moment what Dent had done to his face, before figuring it out a couple of seconds later!

Then I spent almost the entire match trying to find little details here and there that set them apart. The first one is obvious: their service actions but that doesn't really define how a match is played, it's more like a stylistic issue. I've already seen Navarro play before, so I know all about his Novak Djokovic ball-bouncing routine, the whole bending down extremely low to bounce the ball, and the quickness of the ball bounces which have a slight obsessive-compulsive nature to it.

In fact, his whole service action is quick. He basically hits his serve while his ball toss is still on the way up, and the best part about his serve is the slice that he gets on it which makes what would otherwise be a relatively easy serve to return more difficult to control. What gave him so much success in this match was his amazingly high first serve percentage, which somehow stayed in the 80% range the entire match. Any time you reach numbers like that, it's good serving regardless of whether you possess a great serve or not, as long as it's not a three quarter-paced compromised serve.

In terms of pace of serve, Dent easily has Navarro beaten and he does a better job of throwing his whole body weight into the shot, though he also has more to work with in this area. His serve is more of a kicking serve, and his first serve has always been a weapon throughout his career. It was more the consistency of the shot, the double faults at crucial times and low first serve percentages that plagued him, but it was fine in this match.

Although it must be said that neither Dent nor Navarro needed to maintain the standard on serve that you would expect from the higher ranked players. Now this is where their games really started to look like each other's, their approach to their return games. It was the same defensive returning mindset, chipping almost every single return of serve, or at best opting for a short swing blocked return on the forehand.

This is where the top players have a big advantage being able to take a full-blooded swing at any serves that don't meet a certain standard. In fact, they can even do it on the full stretch. There's a certain intimidation factor that comes with being able to hit it back flat and hard straight at the incoming server that wasn't felt here. It took away the challenge of trying to find a good net position in time to make that high putaway volley.

So that gets back to the idea of traditional tennis then, seeing chips, blocked shots and plenty of finesse. Their idea of hitting passing shots was to hit a setup passing shot, a chipped shot low at their opponent's feet then using the weak reply to hit a passing shot into the open court. In the end, in the battle of volleying and passing shots, volleying won more often than not which is what you'd expect given the strengths of the two players.

It might have worked against other players, but both Navarro and Dent are too technically sound with their volleys to be bothered about digging out shots below the height of the net. They both had a knack of making the moderately difficult look easy, and almost always found the open court when it was there to hit into. Dent has slightly more flair, more keen to use the drop volleys and short volleys whereas Navarro played a more straight-forward style of hitting the high percentage volley into the open court.

What I most enjoy about watching the expert volleyers is seeing a volley punched away with conviction, seeing it skid low on the court and cut away from the opponent at impact. In my opinion, it's the sign of a good volleyer. At first, I thought Navarro was lacking slightly in this department, focusing more on accuracy than penetration but after the loss of the first set, his volleys improved to the point where it wasn't noticeable anymore and he hit some amazing volleys under pressure in the fifth set, despite ending up on the losing end of the match. In fact, his consistency was quite impressive for such an unheralded player, always bending down low for the volleys when he needed to, which not a whole lot of other players manage.

But like most matches, it's the weaknesses that end up being the decisive factor in matches and it was Taylor Dent's passing shots in the fourth and fifth sets that allowed him to break serve and win the fifth set tie-break. Out of the two players, he was easily the better shotmaker from the back of the court, more capable of hitting flashy groundstroke winners due to sheer pace especially off the backhand. From what I could remember, almost all of Dent's impressive groundstroke winners came from the backhand.

He almost threw away the advantage he created for himself at match point in the fifth set tie-break with an easy forehand volley missed, but he recovered quickly to maintain his level and finish the match with a slice backhand return winner. The atmosphere on Grandstand in the final set tie-break was quite spectacular. Incidentally that was when I switched streams due to some ill-timed technical problems, and just when I was about to comment on the strangely subdued atmosphere, it seemed electric on a different feed with better sound effects. I'm thoroughly confused but Dent sure seemed to enjoy and appreciate it himself which is what matters.

It was quite a sight seeing Dent's victory celebration, in what must have surely been the highlight of his return judging by his reaction. It's his first five set win since his return, after two five set losses in the opening round of the Australian Open and Wimbledon. In his post-match celebration, Dent grabbed the microphone from the umpire's chair and thanked the crowd for their support, then went on to high-five some crowd members sitting at the front.

US Open Day 3: Hewitt shows signs of good form against Chela

I had just been watching Richard Gasquet's performance against Rafael Nadal earlier, and I was shaking my head with the careless, free-hitting nature of it. I completely understand that Gasquet was rusty, that was clearly evident there but it was like he was trying to create damage with one shot rather than approaching tennis as a combination of shots. I could see what he was trying to do, but at the same time it seemed like a cheap way of playing, and a cheap way of giving away points when it all goes wrong.

So when I switched over to Lleyton Hewitt's match against Juan Ignacio Chela, it had an immediate appeal to it, two guys playing grinding tennis as if every point was a matter of life and death.

A lot of tennis revolves around the serve these days, but somehow Hewitt and Chela couldn't win any cheap points which was strange for Hewitt given he usually has a good sliding serve and whenever they engaged in a rally, it was almost inevitably extended. You have to admire the concentration, intensity and ball-striking that's required to consistently play at a level like that. It was quite amazing to see. It was a bit like watching good claycourt tennis, except that Hewitt consistently took the ball on the rise, not that doing that on clay is all that uncommon these days.

The first thing you'll notice is how Chela seems to wait for every ball to drop somewhat before hitting it. To me, his footwork looks good enough to the point where you'd think he'd be able to catch it on the rise, but he doesn't. Instead he takes the patient and reliable mindset, maybe so he can afford the additional time to step up the pace and swing harder if he wants to.

It was an interesting dynamic to start with, because it was like Hewitt had the upper hand but Chela kept hanging on, and wouldn't let go. Hewitt had more options and he was looking to do more with his shots. In fact, he played with as much variety as I'd ever seen from him, consistently looking to make use of his underrated net game at every opportunity. Playing with that mindset basically means that even when he's not coming into the net, he's hitting every shot with intent, always on the look out for ways he can keep Chela off-balance. It's a good way for Hewitt to maintain an aggressive mindset overall. I liked how confidently he was striking his forehand, getting good racquet head speed on it and using it as a consistent weapon to rush Chela with.

Chela did remarkably well to hang in the rallies as well as he did, and that's what made it a high quality affair. I wasn't expecting much in this match because I couldn't recall Chela even playing any ATP matches of late, and the commentators mentioned that Chela has really only been involved in a couple of challengers lately, given that he has only recently returned from injury.

There is no way that I would expect a guy returning from a long lay-off to be trading blows shot for shot with Hewitt, with amazing consistency. There were no strange, uncharacteristic errors that I usually associate with rustiness. In fact, it felt like Chela made no unforced errors, or at least just about every error he did make was late in the rally, and mostly forced.

It reminded me a whole lot of what Chela's game is all about, not giving any ground to his opponents and nothing to work with. He generates good pace on his groundstrokes and consistent depth, and rarely gives away any obvious angles to work with or openings. The saying of having no holes in your game couldn't be more accurate with Chela. It's hard to break his game down. It's better to find ways around him, and keep him on the move, which is essentially like taking control and winning the point yourself.

Throughout his career, Chela hasn't really been thought of as a great athlete, because of the way his game can be exposed by players that make him move short and wide. But the reason why he hung in for so long against Hewitt in the first set was purely defensive skills, the ability to stay in rallies that he was not in control of. He had an uncanny knack of being able to turn around points from hopeless situations by somehow floating up a lob that would land close to the baseline almost every single time. That's the kind of skill you usually associate with the higher end players, and that's what made the rallies so epic.

Chela had break points to get back on even terms at 4-3 in the first set, putting all of his energy to get back on serve but couldn't convert. That seemed to knock the belief out of him, and he started to tire physically as well, a result of his recent lack of match play. Hewitt started to reach his peak level from the second set onwards, looking to win points in fewer shots by stepping up and flattening more shots. Helped by Chela's declining movement, Hewitt used his early ball striking to consistently rush Chela and he was confident enough to change directions at will as well.

It was an impressive all-round game and I would have liked to have seen how this brand of tennis that Hewitt brought would match up against some of the top players of today. But unfortunately Hewitt comes up against Federer next, and as well as Hewitt played, Federer is at a completely different level when it comes to playing a fast-paced game and rushing opponents.

US Open Day 2 Round-up: Gonzalez wins battle of Chileans, Djokovic makes short work of Ljubicic

Fernando Gonzalez def. Nicolas Massu

Gonzalez and Massu know each other well, and this match had an interesting dynamic. It was almost like a quiet determination because they both respect each other. Sometimes I see Massu put in some shocking performances, but this one should probably be considered good in comparison. It was an entertaining match, the contrast of Gonzalez's showmanship and Massu's fighting spirit.

Massu did everything right execution-wise and in terms of effort, it's just that he doesn't have the extra spark that Gonzalez naturally does, the explosiveness in shotmaking. He went after his shots, hit bigger than he normally would and used his forehand the best way he could instead of grinding it out. Gonzalez hit some spectacular shots, unpredictable shots, but Massu was unfazed by all of it and I guess the familiarity of having known Gonzalez for such a long time would have helped with that.

Gonzalez's performance was almost like a direct contrast to Verdasco's earlier in the day. Gonzalez is a moody and unpredictable player, which is the only way I can explain his random shot selections, when he decides to pull the trigger and when he chooses to dig them out instead. And lately, he has been particularly moody, so I think this was almost a demonstration of playing tennis that interests him, an uncompromising approach. It's not like he hit every ball as hard as he could, he played with more flair than that. At one point, he returned with a serve with one of those chopped sidespin shots that you see in a junior social tennis game.

Gonzalez wasn't completely focused on the job but he was hungry for the win, you could see on the basis on the urgency of his movement. Sometimes he'd throw away return games, and he'd throw in numerous cheap errors, but he hit enough spectacular shots to think that at some point he'd get that break of serve he wanted. It's hard to play against someone that doesn't really show any patterns of play and lashes out at the ball as often as that. It's almost like everything is dictated by whatever he decides to do and nothing else, and soon enough you'll end up constantly looking over the other side trying to figure out what he's thinking, but the next minute Gonzalez might be thinking and feeling something else.

Gonzalez mentally checked out for a while in the last couple of games in the third set, but managed to pull himself together just enough to serve it out the third time after finding himself down break points yet again.

Novak Djokovic def. Ivan Ljubicic

Djokovic came out hitting the ball more cleanly than I'd seen from him in a while in an early round match. The sound of his ball-striking sounded great, though I can't tell whether it's just that the sound effects of my TV are merely better than they were in Cincinnati. But I think Djokovic looked confident to begin with, while the opposite must be said for Ljubicic. Djokovic's movement and intensity looked great, and he had no problem using his long levers and dynamic movement to return Ljubicic's serve with ease. Rarely would Djokovic reduce himself to a one-handed return on the backhand.

This looked like a potential banana skin for Djokovic, but for me when I looked at this match-up, Ljubicic has never really had any success against Djokovic recently. He had no belief in himself, and didn't really know what he was doing on court. There was no energy about him, which is what it typically looks like when Ljubicic is in a slump. He was literally walking around the court, and whenever he seemed to temporarily pick up the energy of his footwork enough, all Djokovic had to do was feed him more balls and eventually a sluggish error would come his way. I must say it was impressive that Djokovic only hit two unforced errors in the opening two sets. The match had an air of inevitability about it, so I skipped past it after the second set reached its completion.

US Open Day 2: Fernando Verdasco and his improving reliability

Benjamin Becker has a big-hitting baseline game, but it doesn't come naturally to him. He plays with relentless aggression on his service games, and his game is almost exclusively constructed around his first serve where he looks to push his opponents out of court, then he keeps them on a string. He doesn't let them off the hook.

I think you'll find in most cases, he hits almost every shot into the open court, though he does also enjoy hitting the off-forehand like most players. It's typical hardcourt tennis. Maybe it's because of the way he dresses on-court but the mechanical nature of his groundstrokes reminds me of a fellow German, Rainer Schuettler, particularly on the forehand side where he really throws themselves into the shot and muscles it, but not in the same way that for example, Novak Djokovic uncoils himself.

Becker really has to put in a lot of effort to get the most out of his service games. The way he plays, you can tell that he knows that he needs to be on the front foot. He can't let his opponents control him, because his movement is suspect, and I think just as much his reactions aren't that great to take that first quick step as well.

On the basis of this, Becker played a good match against Fernando Verdasco like a man who had a vision for what he wanted to do with the ball, and he executed it well, aside for one poor service game at the start of the match and one at the end of the match, the latter which was pressure-induced.

To play well, he needs to serve well and that's what he did. I really like his serve out wide on the deuce court and down the T on the ad court in particular. He has a knack of being able to make them slide out wide further than most players, and from then he can control the point with his forehand. After the serve, the groundstrokes did the job for him but it didn't look secure, like they needed to be hit without hesitation and good timing to hit their targets. Becker's forehand looks like a shot that's prone to break down under pressure, and that's what happened in the end of the match.

It seemed a mismatch, in that Becker would have had to play at the top of his game, and Verdasco to have an off-day, for this to be anything other than a routine victory for Verdasco. The difference in natural ability seemed quite evident, in that Verdasco hardly had to push himself or exert his full effort to make the most out of his shots, he simply needed to be committed to a point and not make any cheap exits out of it, like he might have done over a year ago.

Sometimes I tend to read natural and effortless power for having a more technically sound game, but in this case the evidence was there in Verdasco's shot selection as well. He largely kept it high percentage, and whenever he needed a point, instead of raising his game, he raised his effort level and willingness to stay in rallies and that proved to be too much for Becker. Verdasco seems to have learnt a lot about how to play pressure-inducing tennis, that if you make your opponent fight to win every point, it can build up to have its greatest benefits when you most need it.

These days, there doesn't seem to be as much of a discrepancy between Verdasco's forehand and backhand, and he can use his backhand quite well to place the ball and construct points. He doesn't use his forehand to hit outright winners or go for the full-paced shot as much anymore. It's more of a controlled shot, and he's been exploring more what he can do with the spin that he generates on the ball to take his opponents off court

He played one poor service game in the middle of the second set but the way he recovered and found his best tennis to break back immediately and break again to win serve spoke volumes about his status as a much improved match player.