Another Year at the Brisbane International - Monday's Play

It’s New Year’s Day holiday here in Brisbane, and I’m pretty sure the crowd attendance figures I saw today were the biggest I’ve personally seen since the tournament began in Brisbane. They had a Kids Day initiative going on today, where kids 16 and under can get into the grounds for free, play mini-tennis on Centre Court in between matches, have access to more tennis games and entertainment than the standard amount and also get a free information pack, which presumably includes information on how to join a tennis club. I think it’s a nice initiative.

It’s always a familiar feeling coming back to the Brisbane International every year. In the past every time I’ve come back, it has looked exactly the same, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that this year they’ve made a few upgrades. In particular, the much-needed shade covers above the temporary stands on the two showcourts have been added, which will surely increase the popularity of the tournament. Also, they have doubled the amount of seats on Showcourt Two making it the second biggest court outside of Pat Rafter Arena. They’ve also expanded the entertainment area, which I didn’t really get the chance to check out because I didn’t notice it until after I left.

Attending the Brisbane International is still a must-see event for me years later, despite my regular Australian Open attendances each year. It’s a chance to see what Brisbane, the community is like, what our interest in tennis is like, etc. Also, since I happen to know many people who play tennis, I usually wonder how many people I will see that I know. Today’s count: 3. Though considering there were huge crowds, there were probably heaps of people that I just didn’t see.

Anyone that has been following the blog over the years will tend to know that if Florian Mayer plays in an event that I am going to, I am probably going to blog on it. I have had some very fond memories following Mayer over the years in Australia. I guess this match against Denis Istomin, probably wouldn’t rank up there with one of them. Though I didn’t really think it was one of his horror matches either. Maybe the first three or four games were horrible, but I’d put that down to rust.

First of all, I’ll backtrack to where I was standing. I woke up this morning with a really cool idea. I thought, I’m going to try something new and different. I’m going to stand and lean over the fence to watch Mayer today. I started to get really excited about it, as this kind of closeness is impossible to experience at the Australian Open so it was something that needed to be done today. I’ve got memories doing the same thing, watching Alexandr Dolgopolov and his dropshots from last year, while leaning over a fence. Once I’ve got an idea in my head, it’s pretty hard to get rid of it, because I might think that I’m chickening out if I don’t do it.

So I looked behind on the grassed area and everyone that is on it is sitting down, trying to watch tennis by peering through the fence. Those that don't want to peer through the fence, are of course on the other side. There are still some spare seats over there, if they'd prefer to have a better view. There’s no sign that says, no standing up here on this side of the fence, so I figured I should be right. However, further analysis of the situation and seeing that no one else has stood up against the fence the entire day shows to me, that maybe I was being rude, inconsiderate, etc. I do remember that this was normal behaviour when watching Gael Monfils two years ago though.

It would have been a perfect opportunity to personally cheer on Mayer, however I became too much of a nervous wreck being the centre of attention as it was, to the point where it was a bit hard to concentrate and appreciate the match. I was the only one standing one side leaning against the fence. I will not do it again.

As for the match, the first five games or so were dominated by serve, with both players not really finding their rhythm on both sides. Though I’m keeping myself busy looking at the little details, like Istomin’s smooth service motion, how low over the net and slow in pace Mayer’s slice backhand is, how amazingly hard Istomin hits his double-handed backhand. I think Istomin hits his backhand harder than his forehand.

The crowd are slow to react to clapping on some points, and whenever a winner comes out of nowhere, the crowd don’t notice it quickly enough to clap it compared to a rally where a player has opened up one side of the court and hit a winner the next shot. Based on that theory, you can tell that a lot of Mayer’s crosscourt forehand winners come out of nowhere, because hardly anyone would ever clap them.

As the scoreline suggested, the match was completely even the whole first set until the tie-break. Mayer was flashy at times, but not as consistent as he can be on his better days, and perhaps his movement was not at his best either. His forehand was much improved after a poor start, but his backhand was inconsistent. He missed two crosscourt backhands wide to lose the tie-break from 4-5 (on serve). Istomin was up 5-0 in that tie-break at some point, but lost some concentration after the huge lead.

Istomin was composed and reasonably consistent throughout the match considering how flat and hard he hits it, and he took his game to another level in the tie-break. The best point was definitely the third point in the tie-break, when Istomin nailed two double-handed backhand crosscourt shots that looked like winners, and would have been winners if Mayer had been moving like he did in the rest of the set. I just remember thinking at the time, how funny it is that they stepped it up for the tie-break.

From early on in the second set, Mayer started muttering a few comments to his coach or whoever it was, which was probably the only thing that made me suspect that maybe an injury concern was there. Not to mention that after that, in the next few points, he didn’t make much of an effort to move as if to prove a point. It’s always hard to tell the difference between negativity and injury. But one thing was sure. Based on that body language, he seemed like the clear underdog. Yes, that is what you can do when watching live tennis. Make a prediction on a match purely based on how a player is walking, or how many hand signals they’re making. So Mayer retired soon afterwards at 6-7(5) 3-2. Perhaps the fact that he didn’t call the trainer indicates that he already knows a bit about his injury.

After taking a short break, I headed into Pat Rafter Arena to watch Serena Williams play against Chanelle Scheepers. The last time I saw Serena play, I wasn’t exactly paying attention, so this time I felt I was better able to appreciate the experience. I really like watching how explosively Serena moves onto her forehand on the run. I think how she moves onto the ball is surely what separates her from many women’s players, which allows her to be such a good shotmaker even from a more defensive position. Also, all of her shots look so technically sound that it’s very aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps the technical aspect is another reason why she has been able to play so well in the past, coming back from injury.

I tend to pay more attention to matches early on than afterwards, and one of the highlights for me was seeing one of Serena’s scorching running forehand winners, then seeing the stare down of intimidation afterwards. It was just such a cool reaction. It didn’t seem as manufactured as it does on TV. It looked like a natural reaction, a very confident one. However, Serena went on to lose that service game, and took on a more relaxed mindset afterwards allowing herself more shots to play to control points, and she also started to serve better.

Despite Scheepers giving a good effort, there was always the sense that Serena had the upper hand with her greater weight of shot. Serena didn’t need to make it flashy straight away. Every shot she hit put her another foot in front of Scheepers until Williams could win the point. It felt inevitable, but Scheepers did well to prolong it in the second set. Unlike Serena’s serve, Scheeper’s serve looks like a wobbly mess, with how stiff she keeps her right arm when launching into the motion. There is no explosiveness in the action. It is like it is in slow motion, unlike Bernard Tomic’s super fast abbreviated motion (yet both arm motions in a way are similar). I think it is abbreviated, but maybe not entirely. The decisive break of serve in the second set came after Serena stepped in early on a second serve return to rip for a winner, then faced with a similar situation, Scheepers double-faulted with the threat in sight. Serena won 6-2 6-3.

Now onto the best match of the day which was between Bernard Tomic and Julien Benneteau. This was Tomic’s first appearance in Brisbane without a wildcard, and it is nice to see some improvements in his game from past years, such as the improved faster pace forehand which was probably the standout shot from the first set. Tomic does have the ability to sometimes rip winners on some shots, and even after he does it, I still don’t really know if the timing was clever. To me, it just seems more like completely random. But the forehand definitely does look like a much more potent weapon when he injects some extra pace into it.

Tomic raced off to a 5-0 lead but it didn’t seem entirely indicative of the match to me, because Benneteau was close to breaking back on one of those games earlier on. Despite the massive gap in the score, I decided that I really like watching Benneteau play, because of the way he moves onto the ball and also with his point construction. He makes so many little split steps when he moves that it’s great to watch, but it also looks incredibly tiring. I had a brief look at Tomic’s footwork, and he probably makes half or one third the amount of steps in comparison. Some might call this lazy footwork, or simply being more efficient.

Benneteau controls points once he hits an aggressive shot, and he tries to keep it there, with accurate ball-striking and good point construction. This also means that if he hasn’t started the first few shots aggressively that he’s likely to have to play more defensively after that, because he doesn’t have the same ability as many other players to hit impressive defensive shots. At least not to the same level. In the first set, Benneteau butchered a few key rallies that he had created in his favour, and his serve was also not up to scratch, not that I really noticed (heard the interview afterwards).

The second and third sets anyway were enjoyable to watch, filled with long and highly competitive rallies where both players appeared to be having difficulty with finishing off rallies. I’d say the rallies were filled with accurate, controlled ball-striking, so it wasn’t like the match was filled with passive rallies. In the end, the deciding factor was with Benneteau’s legs, and I guess it was understandable given all the running he did in the match and with it being the first match of the year.

Tomic could have made it easier for himself by converting one of his earlier match points, but in the end, Tomic finally pulled through on his sixth, helped by Benneteau double faulting on the match point. The result was 6-2 4-6 7-5. The crowd here in Brisbane have been extremely quiet, seemingly paying some sort of respect to the players by not talking during the matches, or very quietly if so. Only in the final stages, they started to show some support to Tomic. I guess you could say everyone was saving their breaths for when they really needed it.

So that was three matches done for the day, yet it still felt early. I left Pat Rafter Arena, and was able to see again that it was indeed a very, very crowded day at the tennis centre. I stood there waiting for the end of the Haas/Stepanek doubles match, catching people leaving at the end of the match to grab myself a seat for the match between Gilles Simon and Ryan Sweeting.

I had never seen Ryan Sweeting play before, or read anything about his game previously, so it was funny to see Andy Roddick’s service motion without expecting it. I wonder if he tried any other service motions before deciding to settle on this one. Anyway, his serve is good, but not great. The first serve seems incredibly flat, and with little margin for error unlike Roddick’s service which kicks up quite a lot. I was not at all impressed with Sweeting who seems to be a very loose cannon. He bases his game around a huge forehand, but misfires a lot with it. He also hits a slice backhand quite frequently, but its purpose is more just to extend the point to allow him to hit a forehand.

This was the perfect matchup for Simon. No expert strategy required, or any need to go out of his comfort zone. He could just use the pace he was getting from Sweeting, to keep returning the ball cleanly with interest, and also to hit great passing shots on the run if required. After the first three games or so, the way this match was going was almost inevitable. Sweeting was mainly only winning the short points, and not having much success on return though he did come close in that final game failing to convert two break points. This was a nice way to wrap up the day, I thought, as watching Gilles Simon can be a relaxing experience, how he so easily seems to have perfect timing on his shots particularly off the backhand.

Brisbane International - Monday Blog

It’s not often I arrive early to a tennis tournament, so I found myself feeling slightly lost while also sensing a unique opportunity. I’d have to say I usually take a very one-dimensional approach to attending a tennis event, and that’s watching many matches and doing little else. I guess I would call that the “watching as if it was on TV” approach. Though I always find myself amused when I walk past a top player practicing and hear comments on what sets them apart from everyone else. I can’t tell anything from practice, and I don't bother to either.

The Brisbane International isn’t a place for watching players practice anyway, with the fencing surrounding the players. Great for their privacy, but difficult for the fans. I didn’t find anything of interest, until I spotted Radek Stepanek, but then I quickly walked off after taking this photo since it looked like he wasn’t playing.

There was still around 20 minutes until the start of play, so I thought I would go measure the speed of my serve, which ended up being a slightly traumatising experience.

I picked up the first racquet I saw, and it turned out it was a kid’s racquet. Now I don’t usually write about anything other than the players, but I was very grumpy when the reading showed me 75km/h, then 85, then 90. All five of my serves in that range. I didn’t care what the reading said, I was sure I could serve much better. After all I served 100km/h when I was 12 years old.

I spontaneously decided to take another turn before the lady interrupted me, and told me I should let others have a turn. The line wasn’t exactly in the shape of a line, so I didn’t know if anyone was waiting. While waiting I tried to concentrate on tossing the ball forward so I could hit it while moving forward. I picked up the adult’s racquet this time, then the first serve I hit was 130km/h. What a relief, but still a nuisance that I failed so badly the first time. Oh well, I still think I could do better, if I tried bending my knees more…

Enough of this evaluating of myself, it was time to focus attention on the players, even if they weren’t ready to take the court yet. I decided to sit down and relax for a while.

 

After a short break, Michael Berrer and Dudi Sela took to the court. I hadn’t thought much about the match-up beforehand, but a quick look at their statures reminded me that this would be a nice contrast of styles. If being much taller and bigger wasn’t enough, Berrer decided to put on a bright neon yellow shirt to emphasise his point. Though this reminded me of a traffic controller or construction worker’s uniform.

This was a very enjoyable match, probably the best one of the day from an objective point of view (the subjective choice would be Florian Mayer’s entertaining performance). I was pleasantly surprised with Berrer. Stylistically I would consider him more of an all-court player, rather than a serve-and-volleyer, but he has the mindset of one. His commitment to playing outright attacking tennis, without worry of making errors or getting passed, is nice to watch. He doesn’t worry about execution. He just concentrates on trying to play the match the best way according to his own strengths and weaknesses.

His game is aesthetically pleasing in style, but limited in execution. He can play aggressively with his forehand, mix it up with his backhand slice, and he can take the ball early to come into the net. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. When he was getting outplayed by Sela in the first two sets, it looked like it worked about half the time. He doesn’t move quickly enough into the net, and usually only makes high volleys. Shoelace volleys would often go into the bottom of the net. But he didn’t let the running passing shots from Sela phase him. I think it is this simple mentality that allowed him to hang into the second set, and nudge out the win.

Sela outplayed him for the majority of the match, and probably would have won the match, if only he had converted on breaking serve in the second set. His groundstrokes were accurate and controlled, with his running passing shots being a standout in the match. He also returned Berrer’s serve much better than the other way around.

Despite the 6-1 set scoreline in the first set, it was a relatively competitive first set apart from the final loss of serve. At least it seemed competitive up until the very long game at 3-1 on Sela’s serve, which Sela managed to hold onto. It was quite an intense match until that stage. Berrer brought out the extra loud grunt to try to get back into the match, but it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help, losing serve for a second time with overplayed shots.

The second set, was a slightly more patchy set of tennis. For starters, I couldn’t really understand why the score was still even despite all the errors Berrer was making considering Sela was barely making any mistakes. The only explanation I could make was that Berrer’s good shots (and Sela’s average shots) came at the right time, but he did have to dig himself out of some difficult games.

The second set tie-break was nothing like the rest of the match. Berrer won it with good, attacking tennis, and also by taking a more aggressive mindset on return than usual. It was a change to see him string together so many points like that. It was around this time that Sela started to become preoccupied with some sort of blister on his finger. He didn’t even bother to chase the shot on break point of the first game of the third set, and that was a sign of things to come.

The third set was basically a mental capitulation from Sela, though I can’t say whether he was distracted or noticeably hampered by the blister (or whatever it was on his hand). It did look like though, he was no longer able to play aggressively anymore, and his groundstrokes had significantly deteriorated. It’s hard to win matches while showing that kind of body language. Berrer continued the same way as he did in the second set tie-break, and not long afterwards, the match was his, 1-6 7-6(3) 6-2.

 

The completion of that match was timed well, as the rain began to pour soon afterwards, in what would repeat in brief intervals throughout the day. Sam Stosur was struggling against Lucie Hradecka while I was waiting outside the gate. She had just saved some set points, but after I made it inside, she barely dropped a game. She took it up another level in the tie-break, then carried the momentum into the next set.

It took me a while to adjust the surroundings of a big stadium, where I had to make an effort to look at the stadium. I couldn’t spend too much looking at what was adjacent to me, because that wasn’t in the same view as the same court. Tennis crowds are sometimes shown moving their head from one side to another, but in this case, I needed to keep it still.

As usual, Stosur did most of her damage with the serve and forehand, though to me, it felt almost like there was no one on the other side of the net, with the complete one-sided nature of the match. Don’t ask me how the first set was so close.

 

The scheduling of Australian players on Pat Rafter Arena continued on, with Bernard Tomic up next. Tomic, who is also a Queenslander strutted onto the court in his encounter with Florian Mayer. I can see why people call him cocky. He really does strut around the court, it’s not like a quiet confidence. Anyway, walking confidently is not going to intimidate anyone.

I had never paid any attention to the way Mayer warms up in his matches, but he mixes it up and hits as many low paced shots in the warm up as he does in the match, probably even more. I’m sure there are many players that like to use the warm up to get their energy up, but Mayer makes this impossible with his slow, lazy approach.

He came onto court wearing the same red shirt from the indoor season last year, and it seems like not much has changed since then. He is playing just as confidently as he did back then, though I wouldn’t call it good form yet after one match. His serve worked well, he was confident enough to play aggressively on the forehand and he was constantly changing the pace.

I noticed for the first time that I felt a sense of excitement whenever Mayer came into the net. He has such good touch up there, I always expect he will do something special. Such as creating a fine angle, or a delicate little dropshot. Most of the time, he doesn’t disappoint.

What Mayer does differently from most players is that he doesn’t use explosive shots on the run, at least nowhere near as often. He uses the slow floating shot or slow slice much more often to get back into points, to complete the glorious change of pace, which takes him from defense to offense. It really looks like his winners come out of nowhere when he does that. There’s just no way to see it coming. It’s not like a typical way of outmaneuvering opponents.

If there’s one criticism, it’s that he can get caught up with using too many floating shots on defense. He situates himself quite far behind the baseline, so it’s best to not hit too many consecutively. The slice backhand is nowhere near as effective, when it’s not combined with the drive backhand, and he was using too many in the first two games, perhaps focusing too much on how it might be a good idea to make Tomic bend his knees.

Once he started using the change of pace more often, he was completely dominant exposing Tomic’s lack of versatility, adaptability and movement. Tomic will need to improve his shotmaking ability on the run. He does seem to take overly large steps in his footwork sometimes, and he gets to his backhands out wide too late to plant his feet, to be able to hit a more aggressive shot. When he was able to take a good strike of the ball, Tomic played solidly, but he was not able to pose much of a threat. It was a convincing win for Mayer, 6-2 6-2.

 

The schedule on Court 1 was a match behind the main stadium, so I sat down to watch the start of Marion Bartoli’s match against Vania King. Of all the one-sided matches today, this was by far the most one-sided match. Bartoli basically just blasted winners through King, and her backhand is quite spectacular. Surprisingly a couple of her backhand winners, were the first time I gasped during the day.

King was basically a lightweight in comparison, and dropped the ball too short for Bartoli to attack sometimes. It felt like the first set was over in about 15 minutes. The second set was not as much of a display of winners, but with the same foregone conclusion.

 

The first upset of the day occurred soon afterwards, with Gilles Simon bowing out to Santiago Giraldo. That was a strange match, I thought. I must have spent the entire first set expecting Simon to improve his standard of play, and trying to figure out whether he had shaken out the rust yet.

I think what made it particularly difficult to figure out was that Simon didn’t exactly seem to know how he wanted to play the match. He definitely hadn’t figured out how he should play these rallies to maximize the percentage of points won. Occasionally, he’d show flashes of brilliance, where he’d suddenly decide to take the ball earlier or speed up the pace, that I thought he’d try to repeat that more often. His court coverage is so impressive and his shot production is so efficient, that he definitely has the ability to hit aggressive shots on the run. But he didn’t use it.

Just like how he didn’t take advantage of the strength of his backhand, instead choosing to knock it back crosscourt almost every time. There was one particularly great rally in this match where both players knocked it fast and hard at each other, and Simon won the battle of “absorbing pace” where I thought for a moment that Simon really does play like a wall. I mean that in a more accurate way, than simply saying that he gets the ball back all the time. He reflexes the ball back, and often in the same direction as where the ball came from, as a wall would. He also has the ability to always return a better version of someone else’s shots, which a wall also does.

I wouldn’t say that Giraldo put in an impressive performance exactly, but he was more consistent and slightly more aggressive, more willing to change directions with down-the-line shots. Simon struggled with his first serve percentage, as noted by the statistics, and Giraldo took advantage of it. Of all the players today, Simon probably talked to himself and complained the most, closely followed by Dudi Sela.

In the final game, it started raining, and many umbrellas went up obstructing my view. It’s a strange situation in Brisbane, as play can still continue on the covered courts with rain, but it is very uncomfortable to watch as a spectator. I, and many others were pleased that Simon was broken for a second time to quickly end the match there, so we could take cover.

 

I thought that maybe that would have been the end of my tennis night, but the rain cleared up quite quickly, so after having dinner, I went back to Court 1, to see the remainder of Igor Andreev’s match against Alexandr Dolgopolov. They were up to the back end of the first set.

I initially tried to watch the match from the stands but the chairs were all wet, so I thought it would be a better idea, and also very cool to watch the match standing up, leaning on the fence of the court. I really enjoyed this different view, seeing how players use their body to generate more pace and explosiveness.

By now, the number of people on the outside courts had cleared up completely now that the night session had started. Most of the people there before were just waiting for Andy Roddick’s match to start.

I don’t know the exact details of Dolgopolov’s recent results, and I’m sure just having a quick look at the wins won’t tell the story. But his body language seemed quite confident to me. He had a spring in his step about him, and his movement into his shots was very impressive, and what allows him to play aggressively. He has nice touch too, hitting many dropshot winners, but also one particularly bad one.

Andreev didn’t play a good match at all. Probably his only bright spot was the serve, but Dolgopolov completely outmatched him in terms of variety of shotmaking.

Andreev isn’t ranked as highly as he once was, but having a close look at his heavy game, it does remind me of some of the players you come across that seem intimidating, but aren’t anywhere near as scary as they initially come across. Then again, he just doesn’t have time to properly prepare on this surface. He puts in quite a grunt, only for the shot to come off as mediocre. I got the feeling that Andreev wishes the shot he just hit was bigger and better than it actually was, and you can see that in some of the errors he makes when he overplays it.