Ivan Dodig Continues His Great Run in Zagreb

Every now and then, certain players find inspiration playing in their home country. There were numerous Croatian players in the draw of Zagreb, including the top two seeds, Marin Cilic and Ivan Ljubicic but in the end it was Ivan Dodig carrying the flag for Croatia at the last hurdle.

It’s always a great story for the tournament when stories like these happen, and it reels in the crowds too. Judging from the turnout in the semi-finals, people in Zagreb are incredibly patriotic to the point where they couldn’t even be bothered watching the second semi-final between Florian Mayer and Michael Berrer even though they had tickets for it. For me, I always approach these sudden improvements of form in a cynical manner. It’s a different life playing in front of a packed stadium cheering for you, compared to the little courts where no one really cares.

The fans got their money’s worth with Dodig and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez playing out a three hour marathon against each other, with Dodig making a surprising comeback from a set and a break down to win 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4. Every game seemed to be long and drawn out, until the third set where both players were too exhausted to give their full effort in every game, not to mention that Dodig had an early break and solely relied on that.

This match was played late at night in my timezone, so I really could have used a scoreboard on my stream that didn't disappear off the screen all the time. So I could actually feel the importance of a point. Has anyone watched a match without a scoreboard before and noticed how there is absolutely no drama in it, and also how incredibly difficult it is to follow?

I hadn’t watched Dodig play before until this match, but this commentator I was listening to obviously had from the sounds of it. He reminded me constantly that Dodig is a fighter, a very dogged competitor, difficult to put away, etc. The match had only just started so I couldn’t really notice myself. However, he did do a dive to retrieve a dropshot later on so there’s a piece of evidence. Also he won this match from a losing position so he was obviously a better fighter than Garcia-Lopez.

His groundstrokes are laboured, not effortless, and he puts a lot of energy into his movement. I also borrowed that statement off the commentator. His stroke production and movement reminds me a lot of Florent Serra, who also puts in a lot of effort behind everything, but Serra can hit the ball harder. Their shot selection is not that similar. Dodig hits typically deep shots and moves the ball around the court without the intention of ending the point (most of the time).

I didn’t really have a preference between the two, but I liked the contrast. Garcia-Lopez has some of the cleanest strokes I’ve seen. The closest player I can think of in terms of stroke production like that would be Tommy Haas. Both rely on clean shotmaking based on timing and their groundstrokes aren’t heavy enough. The problem with Garcia-Lopez seems to be that he doesn’t play with the same intensity levels and focus as many of the other players, and he tends to throw in some awful errors at times. Sometimes he likes to hit a backhand down-the-line when there was no way he should have hit one. I have a feeling he used to play like that much more often, before he made his rise up the rankings.

He can find surprisingly good angles on the inside out forehand. It’s not exactly a textbook shot, but it has to be a strength if he runs around to hit it this often. He positions his feet well while hitting it, and it helps that he's light on his feet. Without as much movement preceding the shot, his forehand isn’t as good from the other side of the court, when trading crosscourt.

Garcia-Lopez was playing relatively well in this match. He was the one making the majority of the winners. Just a slightly better performance in the crucial moments would have won him the match. Then again, it’s incredibly common in tennis for matches to be decided in this way.

Perhaps also what turned the match around was Dodig’s injury and fatigue, which resulted in a change of tactics. He took an injury timeout somewhere in the second set, then he started to hit the ball more accurately and constructing points better. He could have ended up playing overly risky tennis in a way that doesn’t match his game, but instead he played smarter tennis. His volleys were also surprisingly good for a solid baseliner, and by the third set he was coming into the net consistently to finish off points. I remember a serve-and-volley he did in the third set, where he was on the service line and he lunged far and low and somehow managed to hit a winning volley off it.

Once Dodig had the break in the third set, he tanked away some of the return games, but he was able to remain strong enough on serve surprisingly even holding his nerves well enough to serve out the match to love.