Australian Open 2012 - Day 2 Blog

I walk to Melbourne Park these days rather than taking the ridiculously crowded tram, and walk through the ANZ queue, where if they happen to be your bank of choice, then you can get in far quicker than anyone else. If you’re an ANZ customer, you could also get a free ride on those pedestrian bikes, or whatever you call them, but I haven’t managed to ask for one yet.

After an incredibly quick journey into the Melbourne Park grounds, I've decided to watch Richard Gasquet play against Andreas Seppi. I hadn’t seen Gasquet for ages, so I don’t really know what has been going on with him lately. I wasn’t really sure what to expect except that at least maybe the tennis would look pretty, even if not all that great.

I started watching with Seppi up a break at 2-1, which is where it all started to go downhill for him from that point on. Seppi is supposed to be a consistent player, but he missed far too many shots overhitting while not really having a proper plan on how to win points.

Watching Seppi play, it probably takes a huge mental and physical effort to keep up that tennis that he plays, not possessing any reliable shot to win points quickly. Pretty much the only weapon Seppi has is that angled off-forehand that he likes to use to open up the court, but that requires many repeated forehands to get the right result. He’s surely got to enter matches thinking, ‘I’ve got to be patient. I’ve got to be prepared to stay on court all day rallying.’ Just that idea would probably be enough to depress me, and to completely self-destruct in the match.

Okay, so Seppi did self-destruct a bit to start with. It was as if he was caught in two minds as to what he should do, so he’d miss these shots trying to do something with the ball but without really going for it. Throughout the match, I hardly saw Seppi inject any change of pace. If he can’t do it, then that’s a huge disadvantage, because so many other players can hit the ball harder than he does. Gasquet kind of went along with him, and they both exchanged medium paced rallies, while also displaying extremely poor accuracy. I do like consistency, but I wasn't impressed with Gasquet hitting the majority of his shots several metres or more away from the lines (my knowledge of metres from my viewing distance is too terrible to make a good estimate). He has this weapon that he's famous for: the backhand, but what good was it when he rarely had the guts to go for it down-the-line? I am guessing that this shot started to pop up more in the fourth set though, when I disappeared.

So Gasquet won the first set through being more consistent, and through a very brief moment of nice transition play after going a break up. They both struggled with their serves, and I’m pretty sure Gasquet’s serving was much worse than I could remember in past matches watching him live. He used to be able to get more cheap points on his first serve. Maybe that will pick up again sometime.

Seppi cleaned up his game in the second set, while Gasquet continued to play tentatively. Gasquet appeared to have continual problems trying to bring out that confident side of him. I only saw glimpses of it in the first two sets. I kept hoping that it would start to come out eventually, but it was such a slow and gradual process that it was frustrating and painful to watch. When Gasquet increases the pace of his shots and hits through the ball, like he does occasionally in this match, it is so much easier for him to finish off points, and gives him many more options. To finish off points at the net, open up the court, etc.

He didn’t really appear to be enjoying himself I thought. He does generally wince quite a lot anyway, or perhaps it’d be more accurate to call it a twitch. But it did give the overall impression that he was basically battling it out for the win, and the only reaction that he would get once completed would be a sense of relief that it was all over. I didn’t stay for the end of the match, since it was quite a frustrating match, so I can only imagine what happened in the end.

I meant to watch Youzhny’s match, but I thought it was on the wrong end of the grounds near Hisense Arena, so while I was already there, I decided to watch Janko Tipsarevic play against Dmitry Tursunov. There were heaps of people wearing shirts supporting Serbia, Serbian flags, there was a tiny group of Serbian supporters there, yet not really a whole lot of cheering. I wasn’t even sure whether Tipsarevic was pleased with his small band of supporters, since I think they were the main reason why Carlos Ramos kept reminding the crowd to only make noise after the point had been completed.

By the way, it wasn’t very nice of them to put Tipsarevic, a new top 10 player into a tiny little court like that, though admittedly there were even a few spare seats. I sat on this very nice seat which was directly in line with where the players are generally standing / moving when on the baseline. Whenever Tipsarevic was on that side, I had a great view of his wild, athletic movements. He throws himself into every shot, whether defensively or offensively, bending down low to hit low backhands, getting up high to hit high backhands. The majority of players would probably only have one backhand that they’d try to replicate all the time, while Tipsarevic improvises, slides and stretches to the ball. It’s awesome to watch, and also looks like an injury waiting to happen, because the movements aren’t predictable or following some sort of textbook action. There was one entertaining point where Tipsarevic was defending every shot of Tursunov’s as if his life depended on it, where I thought, wouldn’t this just be perfect if the match continued like that? (even though Tipsarevic is also excellent at being aggressive)

Unlike the previous match, both players maintained an aggressive mindset here. What changed from time to time here was their mindset on errors. Sometimes they were very generous with their errors, then when the important points came, they’d try to focus a little harder to make sure they wouldn’t lose the point with a stupid error. The second set tie-break was the epic point of the match. Tursunov must have had around three set points to take a two sets to love lead, and if he had played one of those points equally as well as how he played to save set points or keep the tie-break going, then he would have won the set.

During the all-important second set, there were three cute little kids leaning over the net during the tie-break, saying things and putting up their banners. They pointed at the balls when Tursunov went to get one, but Tursunov kept his
concentration and didn’t look at them once. Tipsarevic was possibly struggling with the heat, pouring water over his head on many changeovers, and his movement generally became less explosive after the second set. He took an injury timeout at the start of the third set for a foot problem. His foot was already taped up.

Tursunov basically looks like a very well-trained tennis player. There is not much creativity or natural flair in his game. It just looks like he has spent a lot of hours bashing tennis balls to the point where he can make ball-bashing look like regular rallying. It’s impressive in a way, especially since Tursunov doesn’t just get his power off being big and tall. His forehand is the major weapon particularly hitting it inside out. Tursunov played a good match here. He just didn’t play the big points well enough. He could have so easily gone up two sets to love.

It had been a long day of tennis, so I kind of went on a mental walkabout for a while. I was standing and watching Radek Stepanek’s match against Nicolas Mahut, and Stepanek just fell over on his hand while getting wrong-footed. It looked painful at first, he called the trainer, but I don’t know whether it was one of those things that get painful then you can recover from afterwards. He seemed to be lacking the usual feel on his shots though. Mahut continued to put the pressure on Stepanek. I didn’t expect much from Mahut given his current form, but he played his usual game of being aggressive and serving-and-volleying. I think the plan worked well. Stepanek wasn’t allowed to dictate or control what he wants to do in the match. Therefore he looked pretty average, though he did make far more errors than usual. Maybe some were forced, some were not. I can’t say I was really paying full attention though. Everyone has lapses of concentration, not just the players…

But of course concentration returns for the more eagerly awaited match-ups, such as the night session on Margaret Court Arena between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Denis Istomin. Watching Istomin play in Brisbane was the first time I was able to gain appreciation of him as a dangerous floater, and the main reason for this is just because he hits the ball incredibly hard and appears to have no noticeable weaknesses. He has a big serve, an excellent backhand which he isn’t afraid of taking up the line, and the forehand is also capable of doing damage. The night match confirmed that Istomin indeed does have a lot of weapons, and he even possesses a nice all-court game which wasn’t apparent until late in the second set.

Prior to the start of the match, there was a buzz and air of excitement surrounding Margaret Court Arena, the kind of atmosphere I had not yet seen before this year. When people come to see Tsonga, they expect to be entertained. Whereas for other players, they simply come to watch the match, and nothing more. The stadium was packed from the start of play. I managed to grab myself a front row spot, after someone left at the completion of the Kuznetsova match. When Tsonga started the match with a jump smash, the crowd erupted in a way not yet seen before. Tsonga is clearly perfect for the Margaret Court Arena night match slot.

After a while, the crowd settled into the match, realizing that this might not be as much of the Tsonga show as they thought it would be. Tsonga can be unique and exciting, but he primarily approached this match by staying on the baseline, trying to establish control with his serve and forehand. I’ve certainly seen him play better before. From this view, I can see that Tsonga has a good kick second serve, which moves around unpredictably after its bounce and can be difficult to return, at least more so than many other players.

The match was a showcase of impressive power and consistency, both players getting into extended rallies while playing aggressively. I kept hoping that Tsonga would step it up another level, bringing out the killer forehand and moving in forwards, but it didn’t really happen until Istomin did exactly what I thought Tsonga would do late in the second set. I really like all-court tennis, so I started to enjoy the match a lot more. I like great shots to be taken advantage of, and constructed to completion, rather than getting ruined and lost in the middle of a long rally. Apart from that, it also looks clever, like a series of intentional shots strung together to get the right result.

Once Istomin started playing better, Tsonga also rose to the challenge, suddenly needing to make more urgent shot selections, or needing to hit passing shots. One advantage that Tsonga has over Istomin is that he can generate much better angles on the forehand, and he was able to use this to open up the court. In the last few games of the fourth set, there were some awesome exchanges containing dropshots, lobs, angled running shots, and there was one dive volley in there. This was exactly what the crowd had come to see.

Istomin must have won himself some fans too, even though some of them probably came to cheer for him originally just to balance out the huge amount of Tsonga fans out there. Serving to stay in the match, there were so many people cheering for Denis. There were also a huge amount of people cheering whenever Tsonga took his shirt off.

I’d say Istomin’s peak form was somewhere during the end of the second set to early in the third set, then the errors started creeping up and his choices to approach the net became more suspect. There were a few moments of self-destruction towards the end. Tsonga served a double fault and made a horrible error to lose serve when serving for the match, then Istomin gave away about three points on his serve to lose the match. Still, people stood up clapping when the match was done, in appreciation of what they had seen that night. It was a good, challenging first round match. Istomin put in a great performance for the most part. Tsonga needed to raise his level, and he did.

By the way, I don’t have any photos because I forgot to bring my USB cable that connects my camera to my laptop. It will have to come later, I suppose.

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.