Davydenko captures his first title of the year in Hamburg

Video clips of this match: Start of First set | End of first set | End of match

Heading into yesterday’s Hamburg final, Nikolay Davydenko was a strong favourite to take the title in Hamburg over Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu. But for a moment there, it looked like it was going to be a close contest, a toe-to-toe baseline duel of big groundstrokes.

Mathieu came out firing perhaps knowing that anything less wouldn’t cut it against Davydenko, trying to push Davydenko around, to avoid the same being done to him. It was a clash of a similar brand of attacking tennis, rallies traded at lightning pace back and forth.

Mathieu went an early break up, and I was initially surprised that the Frenchman was able to play this brand of tennis and end up on the winning side of those rallies more often than not. He must have been playing right at the peak of his abilities. When I looked at the strengths and weaknesses of both players, it definitely looked like Davydenko was capable of doing everything a little better than Mathieu. Particularly in terms of movement and ability to change directions, not to mention that Davydenko loves to work with the pace he’s given with.

Mathieu’s run of form really only lasted about three or four games or so, and by then Davydenko had started to really find his form and timing. Because of his movement, it’s like Davydenko catches each ball at the top of the bounce, hitting it in the most favourable of positions even when being stretched out wide. But I also like how well he sets up for his strokes, how it seems like by the time he’s making contact with the ball, his feet are firmly planted in the ground, not still recovering from the sprint.

It’s no wonder that he can dash from side-to-side so quickly then when his feet are ready to move the other way as soon as he’s finished his stroke. Because he hits the ball at the top of the bounce, it also enables him better margin on the down-the-line shots that he likes so much, less chance of hitting the net.

It ended up being more of a showcase of Davydenko’s shotmaking from midway in the first set onwards which is where he really started to hit his straps. Consistently creating angles and accurate down-the-line shots to take Mathieu out of the court, and essentially out of the match, helpless to do anything but defend. As well as Mathieu can attack while being on the front foot in a rally, he’s nowhere near as good at turning defense into attack as Davydenko. If he’s stretched out wide, he’s not going to be hitting a down-the-line winner.

What he needed to do was try to keep Davydenko off-balance and limit his offensive options, but that’s a difficult task in itself if you consider how difficult it is to get Davydenko off balance. Davydenko doesn’t compromise as much as other players, he likes to take risks and he can because his movement and footwork is so good. He doesn’t block a whole lot of shots back preferring to take a full swing most times which I think is one reason why his return of serve is so good. He could be on the full stretch returning a serve that lands right on the line, down the T and he’ll still set himself up to take a full swing and return it with interest deep close to the baseline.

There was not a whole lot Mathieu could do, and it ended up being one-way traffic for Davydenko. Unfortunately for Mathieu, he started to run out of ideas after the end of the first set. He occasionally tried to make things happen but he was too far behind the baseline that instead, all he did was make things easier for Davydenko.

In the end, it was a relatively one-sided match for Davydenko after the first four games, which resulted in his first title of the year. His ranking took a hit earlier in the year after injury, meaning that he wasn’t able to defend some of his points, but I’d like to see him start to make a climb up the rankings again and edge closer towards the top 5, where he belongs.

Mathieu fails to serve out the match against Cuevas twice, but wins

There were lawsuits filed, but in the end Hamburg lost their bid to keep their status as a Masters Series event, so subsequently the event ran as an Open 500 event. Now the event has been moved to the lull period in the calendar after Wimbledon, not leading up to any part of the season but rather an opportunity for players to build up ranking points and prizemoney.

It has been a memorable week for Pablo Cuevas, the 23-year-old qualifier from Uruguay who recorded his best career result in singles by reaching the semi-finals in Hamburg, recording upsets on the way over Jurgen Melzer, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Nicolas Almagro. Based on his performances this week, it is hard to believe that Cuevas was actually ranked below the top 100 prior to this tournament.

Everything about Cuevas is smooth and solid, a sign that he doesn’t really have any noticeable weaknesses especially on this surface. It’s not the type of game that immediately demands attention, but rather what he can do over extended rallies and points that really starts to look impressive.

He has heavy groundstrokes on both sides, and beautifully produced shots particularly on the backhand side, the shot which single-handedly dominated the early part of the semi-final match against Paul-Henri Mathieu. They exchanged large amounts of crosscourt backhands which allowed me to get a good look at the shot, and Cuevas looked so comfortable as if he could do this all day, replicating the same motion over and over. He doesn’t step in on his backhand, but rather waits for it and sets up for his wind-up.

Slowly he started to work over Mathieu with depth and angle, hitting heavily topspun shots that landed deep limiting Mathieu’s attacking options. Once he had opened up the court, that’s when he took the risk to go down-the-line, playing well and within himself at the same time. He doesn’t really possess a good flat down-the-line shot and prefers to hit it with a decent margin over the net, which means he really needs to construct his points to get that opening. So that’s what he did in the first set and a half working the angles in the backhand corner, aided by Mathieu’s lack of variation in shot selection.

A key reason and perhaps the biggest reason for Cuevas’ successes this week was the effectiveness of his serve, causing all kinds of problems for his opponents trying to deal with the ball kicking up high out of their strike zones. It was the combination of placement and spin that made it impossible to deal with. What can you do to deal with a serve that takes you metres outside of the sideline, if it’s placed so wide and short in the box? Not to mention that it usually takes a while to adjust to such special shots like that. So Cuevas found himself having a whole court open to him, and starting off the rally with a big advantage even if they engaged in one.

A set and a break up, and this looked like Cuevas’ match in convincing fashion, but it was a huge occasion for him, the opportunity to reach a final of an Open 500 event, and one with a prestigious history, having been a Masters event in previous years. Where Cuevas had looked so in control and convincing, he started to show more hesitation and unsure of himself, making these strange errors that he never looked close to making early on, shanking a couple of shots and hitting too close to the centre of the court. Though I should also give credit to Mathieu’s tenacity hitting those shots on-the-run so much better, putting in a lot of effort to hit that double handed backhand on-the-stretch that requires so much strength and balance.

I noted in the following game that Cuevas attempted to hit two forehand down-the-line shots, running around from the backhand corner, one of the most difficult shots in tennis because you really have barely any room to work with. And I was wondering why Cuevas would attempt to hit that shot, when he had not used it to find himself in a winning position originally. It was a panic shot obviously, and Cuevas was wondering the same himself motioning to himself to stick with the off-forehand.

Unfortunately for Cuevas, by now Mathieu had started to grow in confidence and was more willing to go down-the-line particularly on the forehand. All of his shots started to gain in pace and accuracy, and he was hitting the shoulder-high loopy balls so much better. Mathieu is definitely a player that runs on adrenaline in order to play better given that he’s not really one of those effortless players. He needs to generate power, and that requires energy and confidence to find that racquet head speed.

A lot of credit has to go to Mathieu for the positive body language that showed in the match, the belief that he could still win the match and raise his game, something that must have surely been intimidating for Cuevas. Every time I watch Mathieu play, I’m always impressed with how positive he is, how he is constantly trying to encourage himself regardless of the scoreline. So it doesn’t work much of the time, but that just impresses me even more that he doesn’t just drop those shoulders and start thinking about the past instead. He keeps himself in the moment instead.

The third set turned to be mostly a nerve wracking affair on both sides, where the quality of play from both players seemed to be largely dependent on the scoreboard. Strangely despite having a 45 minute delay from a leaking roof, once play had resumed at the start of the third set, it was like nothing had changed.

Mathieu continued to ride the wave of confidence, while Cuevas put in a very tame performance until Mathieu served for the match at 5-1, where Cuevas started to play more relaxed, loose tennis. It was a role reversal because it was Mathieu’s turn to tighten up squandering two breaks. Unbelievably as soon as the match leveled back to 5-5, Cuevas played a shocking game to give Mathieu yet another chance to serve for the match and this time he did so successfully.

Seeing Potential or Limitations?: Discussing Sam Querrey's Prospects

This time last year, Sam Querrey seemed to be on his way to making a steady rise up the rankings. Before his performance at the US Open last year where he lost to Rafael Nadal in the 4th round, perhaps it was hard to see what Querrey could develop his game into to become a consistent threat.

When it comes to spotting raw talent, it must be said that it’s not really my forte. When do you decide that some weaknesses are holes in a player’s game that can be considerably improved or whether it will end up being their achilles heel for the rest of their careers?

I recall commentators years ago mentioning how Dinara Safina’s movement was a big weakness. And it’s not like her ball-striking abilities impressed people in a way that Lindsay Davenport did. Should it be concluded that because of Querrey’s height, we can’t really expect him to be that mobile around the court?

It’s been documented in the past year that Querrey has been working on his fitness and movement. Watching him play, footwork should probably be just as much of a priority. I was having a look at his stroke production and it seemed to be very much an upper-body motion, particularly with one of his major weapons, the forehand.

With the top players, footwork and stroke production is really combined as one action in itself, so I guess I’d describe that as having as a fluid motion. But with Querrey, he’s trying to hit his forehand with as much force as possible with his racquet swing, while trying to maintain the right footwork in his movement and keeping his steps precise. I don’t think footwork comes naturally to him. It’s something he’s had to work on, and will need to continue to work on. He’s just so naturally relaxed in his approach to tennis that it bogs him down at times, although it would surely make him an excellent Davis Cup player.

The Newport semi-final contested between Querrey and Fabrice Santoro was an interesting contrast of styles, demonstrating two very different ways of taking control of points. Querrey using the natural power that he possesses on his groundstrokes, particularly his forehand to dominate points. But Santoro showed that there are other ways to take control of a point other than hitting hard, penetrating groundstrokes.

The intent wasn’t to place the ball out of Querrey’s reach, but rather to try to make Querrey stretch out for shots, hit shots off-balance then keep him moving around on the dead run, defending while being completely helpless. Those crosscourt short angle slices really work well to open up the court, particularly on the backhand side. Grass is definitely an excellent surface for Santoro, his slice shots skidding lower and being more difficult to punish for his opponents.

The problem was if Santoro couldn’t place the ball wide enough or deep enough, that allowed Querrey to take control of the points, and Querrey was patient enough to not give away too many errors. He was hitting the ball hard while realizing at the same time that often it’s not necessary to hit the ball close to the lines. In this particular match-up, he could afford to be patient. Patience is also something that Querrey has had to work on over the years, being less of a loose cannon in his shotmaking and waiting for the right shot to pull the trigger. He still makes a fair amount of errors although I feel that more of those are movement-related, where he struggles particularly on the dead run to do anything other than block the ball back.

In the end, the biggest difference in this match was the strength of Querrey’s serve. They popped up on the screen the serving statistics of all the entrants of the tournament, to show that Querrey was convincingly leading the ace statistics of all four semi-finalists, serving about twice as many as the second place scorer, Rajeev Ram.

Querrey has a nice and relaxed smooth service action, and it’s very efficient too. It doesn’t look like anything spectacular; it’s more of an upright motion than most of the good servers. He doesn’t throw his body weight into the shot as much but the simplicity of it allows him to hit his spots well (or at least he did in this match). He played a superb second set tie-break, hitting an unreturnable serve on every one of his service points, as well as stepping up his level on return as well to comfortably take the tie-break in the second set, and win in straight sets.

Roddick fights his way past Hewitt in a five set thriller

Before Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt stepped on court for their quarter-final showdown, they showed an interview from Roddick describing what it feels like to play against Hewitt.

"It's a fight. Everything is a fight. Lleyton's not going to give you anything. A lot of guys you can get on top of, you can get on top of their game, you can look for holes in it. Lleyton doesn't really have a lot of holes. He's pretty solid off both sides. He volleys well. You're definitely not going to get on top of him mentally."

That's what the match turned out to be, a battle between two seasoned professionals on the tour, two guys that know exactly how to play the big points pushing each other to find their best tennis when they needed it most. Hewitt hasn't enjoyed as much success as he would have liked the last couple of years, but mentally and subsequently strategically his game yesterday brought back memories of what it was like when he was near the top of the game.

In the recent couple of years, Hewitt had reverted to a slightly more defensive game, a product of the hesitancy which often affected his game. More than anything, I felt watching Hewitt playing well, suddenly his game looked far more simple than it had in recent times, more assured of himself and punishing short balls with more authority, quick to spot openings in the court as if it was obvious that he should hit it there.

Because of his amazingly consistent return of serve, his ability to dip returns at his opponent's feet and his excellent counterpunching abilities, he's able to create more opportunities for himself than most, as well as put his opponents under immense pressure. Players know when they play Hewitt that they have to attack against him, yet they know that if they don't put him away that he has them exactly where he wants them - in position to hit his targets, using pace and angle to redirect it with accuracy.

What Hewitt wants to do is to crush his opponents mentally, to have them feel like they've done everything they can in a point then to run it all down and turn it into a counterpunching winner right at the end. It's clear it's the kind of point he enjoys the most and he celebrated one of these with his loudest 'Come on' of the match.

But Roddick is mentally strong as well, and he was fully prepared for the battle. Roddick played almost a perfect match tactically, looking to keep Hewitt off-balance in a variety of ways. First there was the much-improved slice backhand, which worked great as an approach shot deep and skidding low after its bounce, but also to mix up the play in the baseline rallies.

When he hit through his backhand, he hit it as confidently as I'd ever seen with great accuracy, quick to go down-the-line whenever he sensed the opportunity to avoid getting pinned on the backhand corner. I feel like the slice backhand has made a major resurgence this tournament with Roddick, Haas, Murray now alongside Federer making the shot a very effective weapon on its own. In fact, that makes it all four semi-finalists that have utilised the slice backhand.

When Roddick was with Connors, it looked like Roddick was rushing the net, more with the intent of pouring pressure on his opponents but these days it's like he naturally finds himself up there, building up the point and thinking of a point as a whole rather than simply taking an aggressive mindset. It's as if he has earned the right to make it up there, rather than trying to bluff his way up there.

Roddick was in front almost the entire match long, and Hewitt looked down and out at the start of the fourth set but it went right down to the wire in the fifth set. In a way the match became somewhat aligned to their well-known reputations, Roddick as being an excellent front-runner and Hewitt being one of the best fighters on the tour.

What I liked most about the match were some of the amazing shots that both players came up with under pressure, Roddick in particular. Half-volleys that landed on the line and amazing depth on his groundstrokes, most surprisingly on the backhand side. Hewitt isn't as good as he used to be on the big points but he still has the heart.

It wasn't at all like a typical Roddick match, where you would expect one service break to seal the deal and that added the element of unpredictability to the match, and in turn it forced both Roddick and Hewitt to fight their way out of difficult situations. There was no room for cheap errors here. Hewitt started off hesitantly in his first service game costing him the first set, then it turned into an epic battle after that. As the match progressed, Hewitt started to read Roddick's serve better winning more than half the points on Roddick's second serve and sometimes even being able to connect with the first serve on the middle of his racquet.

I was certain when the match was prolonged to a fifth set that it was going to turn into another Hewitt classic, one of those great comebacks that we were used to seeing purely because of his five-set record. But Roddick didn't allow himself to be deterred by the loss of the fourth set after the initial break of serve. Maybe his utmost respect for Hewitt's competitive abilities allowed him to remain positive in the fifth set, and in the end he was the deserving winner for playing the better tennis overall, for showing more creativity in his shot selection as well as executing his shots better and more consistently.

In other news, Dmitry Tursunov wins a grasscourt title in Eastbourne

A couple of points into the Eastbourne final between Frank Dancevic and Dmitry Tursunov, and Dancevic looks up for it, ready to give the ball a good crack. Dancevic is one of the flashier players on the tour. When he launches into a shot, he throws all of his body weight into it. It's power, compromising balance. He's running to his backhand corner and he tries to hit a sweeping one-handed drive winner, literally with his legs above ground. I think, sometimes when he's moving, it looks like he's flying around the court, but I can't explain why I think this is the case. To set the record straight, he didn't make that backhand down-the-line and it wasn't even close, but the adrenaline was there.

And that's why he didn't win the match, nor did he ever look like winning the match. He doesn't have the balance when he's hitting a shot, although sometimes his athleticism makes up for it. Watch for it particularly on return of serve, how he catches himself in knots trying to change his racquet swing to make up for the fact that his feet aren't really in the right position. But mostly how his body doesn't seem to be positioned right in front of the ball, though he does better in this area in baseline rallies when he's running towards the ball.

He needs time to do what he wants with the ball, and Santoro gave him the opportunity to do so in the previous round, particularly on return of serve. His entire game is revolved around moving forward, taking advantage of any big shots or serves he hits by charging forward to the net. I love the forward movement he gets on his serve, how it seems so natural that he should find himself right at the net to follow it up with a typically high putaway volley.

Tursunov is a better striker of the ball, such a relaxed hitter of the ball, more capable of consistently controlling proceedings in neutral rallies. It's not like it's a secret that Tursunov is a big hitter, yet I think in some ways he is a deceptively big hitter of the ball because of how his forehand seems to pick up speed towards the end of its flight swing. Clearly this more casual, smooth approach to hitting has its benefits, being able to maintain a rhythm and timing on the groundstrokes.

But sometimes when I see how Tursunov handles shots on the dead run, attempting to hit shots with the same motion and backswing as he usually would and failing miserably, I think that in part has to do with laziness. For someone with such natural backswings, he really does lack in the improvisation department, and whether that's due to a lack of urgency, I don't know. On one point, at 40-0 down, Tursunov after seeing that his return of serve had popped up high in the middle of the court started strolling over to his chair for the changeover, which in itself doesn't mean a whole lot but I think it represents his character well. He doesn't have the same will to win as some of the other players.

If his normal effort isn't good enough for the day, then that's pretty much all he will offer – nothing more, nothing less. I don't often see him trying to dig out or scrambling balls on the dead run. As soon as he loses balance, that's when he'll go for the unlikely winner maybe just as much as a way to exit the point, rather than the intent to win the point. Maybe only on an important point, he'll decide to do some more running, like in the second set tie-break.

That wasn't much of a big deal today though, because Dancevic doesn't like to hang around in points much either, even less so than Tursunov. I think, quite simply because he can't. He gets pushed around if he doesn't push his opponents around first. In the end, it turned out to be mostly about first strike tennis, but on the odd occasion when it came down to second strike tennis (if you can guess what that means), then Tursunov had the advantage.

It all looked to be comfortable on serve for both players, then out of nowhere Dancevic makes a couple of awful errors: a missed high backhand volley, a shanked forehand and backhand that misses wide by metres. The kind of errors that generally creep into a service game in small amounts, but that you don't expect to suddenly turn a match around. Right now, I'm thinking that the intensity level in this match is almost as low as it gets.

Dancevic sometimes tries to go for the aggressive approach, big returns just like he did against Santoro but it rarely works. I think the more desperate he is for a point, the more he attempts the flashier winner like when Tursunov was serving for the first set. But when he blocks it back, it's just as suicidal with Tursunov taking care of the floating return easily.

Tursunov goes for a more instinctive approach on return of serve reacting to the ball if he needs to using the pace to hit a decent return, or going for a slightly more aggressive approach if he has time to do so. In the end, I just think he has better feel of the ball. He seemed to have the edge early on in the first set, threatening to break Dancevic's serve at 1-1 but Dancevic held on with good serving and with some luck on the net cord.

Strangely after the mostly serve-dominated proceedings of how the first two sets had panned out, the tie-break ended up being a largely unpredictable affair. But the one thing that remained consistent was that Tursunov was the slightly better player, more capable of winning points on return and the longer baseline rallies.

For a brief moment, the match had sprung to life. Dancevic had decided that this was his last chance to get things back on even terms, and threw every ounce of energy he had to hanging into the point at 6-4 in the tie-break. In the longest rally of the match, Dancevic finally drew the error from Tursunov, with some impressive hustling that I don't think you would normally see from him, without that added determination. But Tursunov bounced back quickly, forcing Dancevic to hit a shoelace volley on return and he dumps it into the net to finish the match.

Big hitting and big serving: Soderling and Federer advance to the finals in similar style

Is there some kind of significance of yesterday’s French Open men’s semi-finals? The line-up consisted of Robin Soderling, Fernando Gonzalez, Juan Martin Del Potro and Roger Federer. Players that all have the ability to generate their own pace, and create winners from the back of the court combined with a lot of cheap points on serve.

Clay has always been thought of as a surface that neutralises the serve the most, but it’s turned out to be more of a factor than it has in previous years. It’s no wonder that Davydenko felt completely hopeless in his blowout loss to Soderling, whereas Gonzalez was able to hold onto his serve and take his opportunities late in the third and fourth sets, waiting for Soderling to briefly flinch to take the sets.

It’s not like we’re seeing an exhibition of aces, but one thing that an effective serve does is put the point firmly in favour of the server. Setting up the point with a big forehand, and on clay, once you get pinned back on the defense, it’s harder to instantly counterattack, it requires a lot of hard work. But when you come up against big hitters that can do more with one shot than most like Soderling, Del Potro, Federer and Gonzalez have recently shown, it becomes almost impossible.

In the case of Soderling and Del Potro, interestingly their defensive skills come up short when compared to some of their peers but they make up for it in other ways. It’s not as impressive as the athleticism of a Djokovic or Davydenko, but they seem to have this ability to give the ball a good slap on the stretch making use of their great reach and ability to generate power. Restricting the ability of their opponents to yank them around the court too much, and if all else fails, then they’d look for a way out of the point, with a low percentage shot. Reinforcing that they’re the one in control of points, not their opponents.

It was an interesting match-up, Soderling having the clear advantage on the backhand wing, dangerous off both sides, but Gonzalez being the significantly better athlete, often winning points through sheer determination, sometimes just looking to get one ball back on a point that seemed already lost – but finally drawing the error on the final shot. And that’s something to admire, when you consider how Gonzalez normally wins his matches, through outright attacking. When he first stepped out on court, that’s how he expected to win. But he found the balls coming back too quickly, and shanking and mistiming balls trying to create big swings off shots where he had no right to. So he adjusted his game and started to dig more balls out, prolong points any way he could and throw in as much variety as he could.

Despite Gonzalez’s reputation as a big hitter, I think of him as being a good thinker on the court as well at times, at least at this stage in his career, and I’ve seen him in the past expose many players with short wide balls, slices and dropshots. But I think based on this match and Del Potro’s match, slice backhands don’t penetrate as much through the court, creating this higher bounce that doesn’t bother their opponents as much. And I guess Gonzalez needs to have that additional variety on his backhand, kind of like how Andy Roddick has developed his to a lesser extent to make up for his lack of shotmaking ability on that side.

Soderling had been winning the majority of his matches on the back of his strong forehand, the initial shot that takes his opponents off-balance but he was equally as lethal on the backhand yesterday. His crosscourt backhand is like a smothering shot, so penetrating and deep that he doesn’t need to achieve any exceptional accuracy on it to cause damage on it. It’s particularly useful coming up against Gonzalez, who could not find his way around to a forehand, and is nowhere near as threatening when restricted to a backhand. But the shot that I was most surprised with was the effectiveness of Soderling’s down-the-line backhand. How he managed to on so many occasions, on the return of serve with Gonzalez’s serve breaking away wide on the ad court, step in and change directions with ease for a winner.

In the end, what it came down to was that when both players were trading blows with each other, toe-to-toe, that Soderling was the better player. It looked like Gonzalez was on his way for getting rewarded for his efforts, as Soderling started to leak more errors and lack the sting on his groundstrokes that he had maintained earlier allowing Gonzalez to control more points with his forehand. Soderling couldn’t maintain the hitting from the first two sets, so what he did instead was save his final reserves for a final couple of launched attacks at Gonzalez.

The first one was in the first game of the fourth set, but Gonzalez rose to the challenge, and that seemed to knock the belief out of Soderling. He went through frustration and despair at the thought of the match slipping out of his hands, then finally he started to feel some kind of freedom again after being down a break in the fifth set. He started going for his shots again at full throttle, and pulled them off. Then once he achieved that initial break back, it was like he was revitalised again, rediscovering the same devastating pace that he had on his groundstrokes in the first two sets to convincingly win the decisive fifth set.

It was an exciting, and entertaining semi-finals day in Roland Garros, two high quality five-set matches that were underlined with incredible fighting spirit from all four players. Juan Martin Del Potro in the past hasn’t had much success against Roger Federer, having failed to take a set, making this five-set performance all the more impressive. There is no doubt that Del Potro is becoming one of the fastest improvers on the tour, seemingly addressing every criticism coming his way.

Now everyone knows that Del Potro has improved his serve leaps and bounds ever since the beginning of that well-documented four title run. But when did it become such a big weapon, the ability to win all those cheap points? It used to be more of a consistently powerful stroke, very good but not brilliant the way it was against Federer.

Then there’s the development of Del Potro’s forward movement, taking advantage of his shots at the net. And maybe the claycourt season has been perfect for him to develop this kind of extra layer to his game, given that it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to completely finish off shots from the back of the court on this surface. But also incredibly tiring if you choose to do so. It has always been thought that Del Potro didn’t need to possess great volleys to finish off some of his shots, but simply that he needed to make his way up there. Though it must be said that he is very reliable and solid up there, and seems to know where to position his racquet in order to make his volleys as simple as possible.

But aside from that monster serving performance, what really put Del Potro in a winning position was through the strength of his groundstrokes, which seemed heavier and consistently more penetrating than Federer’s. Federer didn’t seem to do anything wrong specifically, and he didn’t crumble on the big points like he did against Haas a couple of rounds earlier. He was simply not given much opportunity to do as much with the ball as he’d like to. Though at times, it was rather incredible what Federer could come up with on the half-volley.

Just like in the Soderling vs Gonzalez semi-final, it was interesting how much of an impact that the extra bit of pace that Del Potro was able to generate on his groundstrokes, had on the match. Tennis is a game of cause and effect, how hitting a shot slightly harder or deeper prevents your opponent from attacking. Or how missing one or more first serves can get you into trouble, and that’s what happened here. To be fair, it was a rather steep decline on Del Potro’s end though, as he started to wear out physically from the start of the fourth set onwards. But it was interesting how the options started to open up for Federer with that additional time to set up, able to implement more touch shots, more variety and control the points better.

This sets up for what could potentially be an entertaining, hard-fought battle, but there are no guarantees. We’ve seen what Del Potro did to Federer, and Soderling has the ability to implement the same game, except with even more force than what Del Potro did.

The best of the French Open: The top 3 matches of the week

The not-so-definitive list of the best matches of the first week...

[1] 3rd round: Robin Soderling def. David Ferrer 6-7(5) 7-5 6-2 7-6(5)

Robin Soderling has never been much of a factor in the Grand Slams, and prior to this match had never advanced past the 3rd round in any Slam, which is rather awful for a player of his standard, one I consider to be consistently top 30 calibre and for someone that possesses such big weapons. It was over three and a half hours of absorbing tennis, and a match which featured around 60 winners from Soderling. And that's 60 winners against Ferrer on clay.

It reminded me of the brief experience I had watching Soderling at the Brisbane International, leaning over a fence, so close to the action that I could pretty much feel and hear the shots coming off Soderling's racquet. Clean, big hitting with Soderling pounding the ball into submission on a frighteningly regular basis, though his consistency was not as prevalent as it was in this match. Against Ferrer, I was reminded of the same kind of thing. It was an ongoing onslaught of weaponry, with Ferrer tried to fend off as much as he could.

It didn't initially seem like it was going to be one of those days for Soderling. It was a slightly patchy match at first, a combination of impressive shotmaking and errors, from both players, and not only from the more volatile Soderling. For Ferrer, they were uncharacteristic errors, but for Soderling, he was pretty much living up to expectation. The rallies were surely too lengthy for Soderling to keep up that kind of flat ball-striking, and so it was slightly up and down, but good enough for it to be entertaining. This made for a wonderfully dramatic and unpredictable match, and there were numerous service breaks which added to the feeling that anything could happen.

But that was where the slight inconsistencies started to disintegrate, making for a high quality affair from the second set onwards. Consistently entertaining rallies, hard-fought games and high emotions as you would expect, when it comes to Soderling and Ferrer. You could literally see Soderling gradually gaining in confidence as the match went on to the point of being able to replicate it on the big points, a skill that usually eludes him. But today, there was full commitment on his shots particularly on the sometimes troublesome forehand, seemingly able to reel off large amounts of forehand winners at will.

From the third set onwards, Soderling had hit a purple match. On any normal day, Ferrer would have surely done enough to throw off Soderling's rhythm. So what we had then were these drawn out rallies that started to defy belief more and more as it went on. That Soderling could continually hammer the ball in the corners, with little hesitation and few mistakes and that Ferrer could keep chasing them down. One thing I like watching is how explosively Ferrer moves out to return serve, that he so often seems to be able to retrieve serves that land on the lines, and then recovering easily afterwards.

It wasn't like Ferrer played a defensive match, he went for his shots, maintaining good accuracy on his shots and moving the ball side-to-side. But what he needed to do was to explore the angles more, and have Soderling lunging out to reach for shots more often, because it seemed like the majority of shots somehow landed into Soderling's strike zone. He also needed to make more use of the dropshot, which was strangely lacking in Ferrer's repertoire that day.

[2] 2nd round: Roger Federer def. Jose Acasuso 7-6(8) 5-7 7-6(2) 6-2

There's something that I find incredibly exciting and entertaining about unexpectedly good performances. Acasuso, who is sometimes a good claycourter, and sometimes just completely out-of-form, had won just one claycourt match during the European season leading up to Roland Garros and struggled in the opening two sets of his first round match before turning it around. But in this match against Federer, Acasuso was on the verge of gaining a stranglehold on the match at 5-1 in the third set, and it looked fairly certain to be heading into a fifth set.

I was reminded yet again of how Acasuso is such a smooth, yet explosive shotmaker. Long, flowing groundstrokes and armed with a very dangerous forehand that consistently put Federer on the back foot. It was a simple game plan, a somewhat predictable one at that, but executed almost perfectly to keep Federer off-balance. In many instances, I've seen players simply trying to pound Federer's backhand relentlessly with little change-up, but with few results. Federer simply isn't that vulnerable to making errors if he can anticipate it every single time. But Acasuso was seemingly able to hit that off forehand time and time again practically in the same spot, close to the sideline and reaped the rewards. It wasn't like taking the high percentage way out though, and Acasuso would change it up to hit down-the-lines whenever he had found an opening, coming into the net as well when he sensed the opportunity.

What I liked the most was that he never backed off, and continued his aggressive game plan, even if he wasn't mentally strong enough to pull off his best shots when he needed them. Until the third set, from 5-1 that is, when unfortunately, instead of asking Federer some serious questions, Acasuso went back into his shell and started dropping balls short, with less pace. Still, it was a tension-filled match for three sets with the potential upset factor involved, and a high quality affair that featured plenty of variety and all-court tennis. Though if I was to measure a match in its parts, I think the fourth set of the Federer vs Mathieu match is worth a mention as well, which features both players playing at the top of their games.

[3] 1st round: Radek Stepanek def. Gaston Gaudio 6-3 6-4 6-1

It didn't have the drama, but it had the show. It wasn't Gaudio's best performance, and in the end it was all about Stepanek. It was like Stepanek pulling the strings in a puppet show yanking Gaudio wherever he wanted to side-to-side, front-to-back, and vice-versa. I don't think it's possible to see anyone use the entire court better, than Stepanek did in this match. Aside from Stepanek's variety which he is well-known for, it's also impressive how well Stepanek changes directions on both sides and that's how he's able to take his opponents out of their rhythm as often as he does.

I've seen the dropshot used in so many instances throughout the tournament, but no one follows up their dropshots better than Stepanek does, often frustrating the hell out of his opponents by making them cover large amounts of court, while feeling they have no control over what happens in the point, running for no reward. It wasn't an impressive performance from Gaudio, nothing more than solid, and we know he's capable of much better shotmaking. But his court coverage is impressive, and that adds to the entertainment factor of the match. It's a truly unique match, at least in the first two sets.