Day 1 Brisbane International Blog

It was a muted start to proceedings at the Brisbane International, on a very rainy and windy day. At most venues, tennis would have been cancelled but in Brisbane, they have shaded covers on both Pat Rafter Arena, and on the two outside courts. But no covers for anyone watching on the outside courts, only for the players.

To make sure that as many qualifying matches were completed, all the ATP first round matches were cancelled which was disappointing. I hesitated buying a ticket and ended up on the back row. The whole stadium was almost sold out, which is quite amazing for such an early stage of the tournament.

First impressions of the view: Not bad at all. The positive part of the Pat Rafter Arena is that you feel very connected to the crowd, not completely distanced from everything if you don’t happen to sit close like in Hisense Arena at the Australian Open. If you’re going to sit near the back, it may as well be on the back row where you get the added view of being able to see Show Court 1, enough to be able to track what they’re up to, if you happen to be situated on the correct side like me. There you get just as much a feel of the atmosphere outside and you can hear anything loud that goes on instead of everything being confined.

At first it’s hard to concentrate but after a while, you get used to it. That is, until it starts raining. On any other day, these would have been great seats but the weather has kind of ruined it. First up, the qualifying match between Matheson Klein and Xavier Malisse, probably the only player I would want to watch from qualifying. Still, I was cynical of whether Klein would be able to turn this into a decent match. Fortunately, he put up a good fight and it turned out to be a good match.

A couple of minutes into the match, and it seems to be a very backhand-oriented match, both guys trading shots to that side continuously on a frequent basis. It was smooth and effortless. Klein hits two superb backhand down-the-lines and breaks serve early on. These guys seem to be both technically sound with nothing overly strange jumping out in terms of their shot production. Though Klein hooks his forehand above his head, which seems to look uglier the harder he hits it. It’s nothing like that smooth backhand of his.

Malisse is better at getting on top of the ball and creaming it. It’s the urgency with which he gets up there combined with his racquet preparation that makes it intimidating and it allows him to finish points with the earlier ball striking. Malisse has more variety on the backhand too, able to throw in slice backhands which really helps break out of those backhand crosscourt rallies that Klein really enjoyed in the first set.

Klein threw away his break of serve lead with a sloppy game at 3-3, but for the next ten minutes, Malisse raised his game and played his best tennis of the match. He started throwing himself more into forehands, and running around more backhands. He tried a few early on, but only had moderate success. For a moment, his forehand caught fire, and I became reminded again of what it looks like on Malisse’s good days. He tends to become more athletic in his stroke production almost jumping on top of everything, and hitting a lot of forehand winners. Because Malisse hits his forehand close to his body, he’s much better hitting the forehand from the left side of the court compared to crosscourt. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, and soon enough we were back to seeing Malisse casually trading groundstrokes. At least the good part of this match was that both players were relatively consistent.

With a series of deep returns of serve, Malisse breaks Klein’s serve to serve out the set. Klein hit back with one of his most inspired points at 5-6, a big approach shot followed by a superb reflex volley only to be beaten unexpectedly by a great lob from Malisse on the first point. That was enough to deject Klein and Malisse served it out without the loss of a point 7-5.

The second set was more of a grind, not as smooth and effortless, and more rough around the edges. More of a battle, particularly from Klein who had decided to switch his attack to revolve it around his forehand. Far more of those faster-paced hooky forehands. I’m surprised whenever he manages to successfully hit it down-the-line. It seems more like a guiding shot more than anything else. I think it was his way of trying to step up his game.

It was a battle the whole way in the second set, and Malisse didn’t seem to try to do anything in particular to create a lead for himself. He simply focused on being steady and being good in an all-round way as Klein’s game started to show more holes as the match went on as if he had to specifically put in a big effort just to keep up. Malisse started picking up his return game getting better depth, and often utilising the deep down-the-middle return. I think in a subtle way, Malisse’s movement improved as the match progressed. Klein recovered one break as a final effort suddenly increasing pace on his shots but Malisse broke back to take the match 7-5 6-3.

I think if Kim Clijsters wasn’t on the Sunday Order of Play, I might not have bought tickets. She might just have been the most impressive women’s player I’ve seen, though don’t read too much into that because I haven’t seen that much. Let’s wait until I get to see Henin, if I do at some point!

Clijsters got off to an error-prone start in the first couple of points but it was no big deal because she was clearly the “controller” of the match. What’s impressive about Clijsters is the fact that she seems to be able to bludgeon any ball she wants, as in suddenly increase the pace of the ball. I’ve never really noticed this before. Yes, she does hit her average shot hard, but she has the ability to hit it even harder anytime especially on the forehand. She also takes the ball earlier than I thought she did.

In the warm up, it’s clear that Clijsters not only has powerful shots, but she also hits a heavy ball. I love her movement around the court and the liveliness of her movement. She seems to be doing everything at a speed faster than everyone else, for example, how she will split step in between shots in a much more lively way compared to everyone else. It’s also little details like that, which show how much Clijsters enjoys playing, at least at this point of time.

I thought Garbin would put up more of an even battle, but she appeared to be intimidated. Maybe appropriately so, or knowing she’d get overpowered in a longer rally. I don’t know whether it’s the right thing to do, for the less powerful player to be the one to shorten the points. But that’s what she did, seemingly throwing in a large amount of short crosscourt slice backhands and dropshots, and approaching the net as soon as possible. The thing is, you can’t just hit an approach shot to the opposite side of where Clijsters is standing expecting that the width of the court will be enough to get Clijsters off balance. She’s too good of a mover for that, and so she passed Garbin almost every time. Though I think in trying to hit a good approach shot, Garbin also often put herself in knots by not giving herself enough time to find a good net position.

The problem with Garbin’s game is that her topspin backhand is weak, lacking in pace. She cannot flatten it out, and her wrist is not strong enough. It looks like more of a flick than a drive. Regardless, it’s clear that Clijsters is at a different standard and forehand winners seemed to be coming at a rapid rate. Soon enough, Clijsters had bludgeoned her way into a relatively comfortable victory, though perhaps Garbin’s tactics showed that she never believed herself that she could win anyway.