Of the early morning matches, I picked Michael Llodra’s match against Milos Raonic. Both are aggressive players in their own way, with Raonic being aggressive from the baseline and Llodra sneaking up into the net. This was a very efficient kind of tennis, a practical way of playing, to make it easier on the body. Short rallies, and consequently lots of breaks in between points. Less playing time, more walking time. Though I shouldn’t underestimate how tiring it is to serve-and-volley. Probably even more so, than baseline play.In any case, the rallies were short here, and there were not many probing rallies. They liked to keep the ball away from the middle of the court, though Llodra would move around the ball with his slice and with less pace, whereas Raonic was much more explosive. I don’t know what to think of Raonic’s game. I can’t tell what level he is at either. He hits the ball hard, and if it works, it’s good. His winners count was significantly greater than Llodra’s, and I guess that’s what won him the match in the end. His movement is not that great, which is not that unusual since he’s a big guy.
I have seen Llodra play various matches, and I have to say I never find him all that successful with the serve-and-volley. Is it because he does it all the time and his percentages are lower, that it looks worse than someone who does it sometimes? I know his volleys are great, the record speaks for itself, but it doesn’t feel athletic to me. It’s more like he has good technique, good reach and consistently soft hands. Maybe his tennis works for others, but for me, I find it overly reliant on the serve. To win matches, he pretty much needs to serve well, to be able to hit easy volleys the majority of the time. I also found this match overly reliant on serve, so after one set, I headed off elsewhere.
The weather today was much more like summer weather, with it being hot instead of cold. I had a look at Mikhail Youzhny’s match against Blaz Kavcic which ended up being easily the highlight of the day. I wrote about not many probing rallies in the previous match, but there were plenty of them here. These were good rallies, not long rallies for the sake of being able to do more running, because running is fun. And it also wasn’t about making the opponent crumble.
The match started off with both players still trying to figure each other out. Moving the ball around the court, but not going for it fully, and also trying to keep up with each other. This made for riveting viewing, not knowing who would get the better of each other. Youzhny has a very smooth game, and it seems like he needs to rely on shot selection quite a lot because it’s not as easy for him to finish points. Compared to other top players, he needs to work harder, I think. The other reason would be because he doesn’t get that many cheap points on serve.Youzhny did seem like the slightly more competent player though. In particular off the backhand side, where he could open up the court well, with a crosscourt, then followed by a down-the-line whether sliced or driven through. Kavcic seemed a bit like a workhorse in comparison, playing disciplined tennis. At the professional level, there are many players that play the game based on their own particular talents or strengths, but Kavcic plays tennis the way it should be played, not taking into account strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps I should call it textbook tennis. Anyway, textbook tennis is smart tennis, just lacking in flash.
He didn’t really do enough to dent Youzhny’s game to start with though. The first half of the set was close with many competitive rallies, but then Youzhny pulled away after he got out of the “figuring his opponent out” mode and started to play with a clearer frame of mind and implementing an all-court game. I noted down that after the second set, Youzhny was leading in the winners department 24 to 8.
In the second set, Kavcic started to pile on the unforced errors, just when I thought he was quite consistent in the first set. His body language completely changed, as he started to become dejected with his own play talking to himself and slumping the shoulders. At this stage, Youzhny had the match completely under control, and I thought this match was a good demonstration of how body language and attitude can impact on a player’s game. Had Youzhny not handed Kavcic an early break in the third set, Kavcic could have ended up being completely dejected in the third. That break of serve on Youzhny’s serve was all his own doing, filled with very sloppy errors and it continued for about three games or so. Youzhny was threatened to go down two breaks, until he finally picked up his play again on the break points and from then onwards.
The third set was the start of a more all-court approach from Kavcic, hitting more shots with purpose. The same guy that looked completely lost in the previous set, had just raised his game to a new level, and was now very energetic and pumped up. There were two guys sitting a couple of rows in front of me who had been shouting support for Kavcic the whole match. The first time they did it, Kavcic had a look at where it was coming from, but by now, he had started directing all of his clenched fists over there. And it just happened to be in the exact same direction to where I was sitting, so suddenly my involvement in the match had been taken up another level. Whenever Kavcic hit a poor shot and was disappointed, he’d look in my direction for encouragement too.
But in the third, fourth and fifth sets, Kavcic was extremely pumped. His body language and intensity was so much greater than Youzhny’s and I felt he had some kind of presence because of it. When watching matches on court in a live atmosphere, I would think that one person coming across very energetically would be an intimidating factor. Especially if the other guy is subdued. It was weird to think that Kavcic would win this match, just by looking at his body language. I had to keep reminding myself that the tennis was relatively even.They were good sets of tennis, marked by a good fighting spirit by both players. Both players seemed quite determined almost each and every point. Kavcic had an early break in the fourth set and wasn’t troubled on serve until Youzhny had break points late in the set. It was at this stage when Youzhny couldn’t convert that he unleashed a sudden burst of anger, yelling intensely to Boris Sobkin. Since he was speaking in Russian, it could have easily looked like he was angrily yelling at the crowd. But my guess says he wasn’t. That seemed to help endear him to the crowd though, as they started cheering more loudly for Youzhny, sensing that he needed their support.
Now that Youzhny had let that out, it felt like a really intense match from then onwards. Both of these guys really wanted to win it. And it also seemed like Youzhny had finally matched Kavcic in intensity, though he was still more reserved on a regular basis. But when it came to the rallies, you got the sense that these points were treated importantly. Every cheap error was frustrating for them, so I didn’t want to judge them on it. There weren’t that many errors though. It was a good match.
In the fifth set, Youzhny broke serve with some good shotmaking, stepping into the ball a bit more than usual. From then on, Kavcic’s game had fallen to pieces, and he showed signs of frustration, with his legs not working as well anymore. This guy sure doesn’t keep his emotions and thoughts to himself. It’s a special experience to watch from this close, and the more the match went on, the more I started to root for him. Though I didn’t mind it when Youzhny came back to win it either, because he played nice tennis too.
I should also add that Youzhny pulled off an under-the-legs winner, one of the very few times that I’ve seen this shot go in. The percentage is usually extremely low. That was a good crowd pleaser.
Because of that long match, many of the matches I thought about seeing were either nearly over or over anyway. I took a break mentally, then I found out that David Nalbandian’s match against Richard Berankis was moved to court 2, so everyone tried to run up there quickly. I scored myself a good seat without the running anyway, as that stadium is considerably bigger than court 6.
I dreaded to write about this match, because there really is very little to write about. When the match started, I was surprised with how aggressively Berankis was playing, certainly not the same Berankis I saw in Brisbane, swinging away with all those forehand winners.At first I hoped it was just a slow start from Nalbandian, but then I started to think that he was completely drained from the Hewitt match. It’s not a good sign for him to recover so badly. One would expect some tiredness, but not a complete inability to play. In any case, it didn’t take long for me to accept the fate of this match, and I think as the match went on, Berankis didn’t feel the need to go for his shots as much either. Pretty much nothing worked for Nalbandian, so there’s no point with picking out strengths and weaknesses here. It sure was disappointing given the long wait, though I didn't mind waiting when I was watching Youzhny's match.
I really didn’t want to end the day on that match, but unfortunately I had to, because Andy Murray’s match was full and filled with long queues, before it had started. If only I had a media pass this year. I remember getting into a fully occupied Andy Murray match on Margaret Court Arena with it last year. I thought at the completion of the women’s match, that some people would get out, but no one did. I didn’t think anyone would want to leave so early into the match, so I gave up and took an early night. The stadium being full probably had just as much to do with the fact that there were no other matches going on in the outside courts, so anyone in the grounds without a Rod Laver Arena ticket would have had to watch that.
By the way, I have now put up all my photos from the four days of play.
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