Australian Open Day 1 Blog

It’s a difficult and frustrating day of tennis. Every 5 minutes or so, the weather changes from gloomy to drizzly to sunny, and from cold to hot in a matter of minutes. As I walk around the outside courts, there’s a distinct lack of atmosphere. Maybe it’s the puddles everywhere that have drawn people away from the courts, for the moment at least.

I’ve decided that I’m going to head where the large majority of people seem to be going according to where all the noise is coming from anyway, where the Chilean supporters are. They’ve taken up a massive block in the middle of the stadium right behind the umpire’s seat. Sometimes to show how patriotic they are, they'll collectively raise a big Chilean flag right above their head but this confuses me, because doesn’t this interfere with their sight? Either that, or they are looking for the TV camera to be heading into their direction in between points.

It's Fernando Gonzalez on court playing against Olivier Rochus. On first opinion, Gonzalez doesn’t look like a player that wears his heart on his sleeve. He is volatile, and he has shown it in the past enough times before, but he looks too tightly strung to be fully taking in the experience. He’s an intense character and almost singularly focused on his tennis. I prefer the more relaxed demeanour of Rochus, who comes off as being extremely genuine, with his own self-directed hand gestures and reactions to events in a way that is not too dissimilar to how Gilles Simon carries himself.

I hadn’t seen Gonzalez play live before, and in hindsight maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Taking into the match all these preconceived ideas of Gonzalez’s forehand being an explosive, intimidating shot, I was expecting Gonzalez’s forehand to be a sudden burst of excitement. The fact that Gonzalez has opened up the match with numerous forehand winners, without having that effect on me seems to suggest that this is probably not going to happen.

Actually Gonzalez’s forehand looks surprisingly contained, more skilful and less wild. I guess it’s like that for most players though, how everything looks so technically sound. It’s a very good shot though, and it’s obvious he can dominate matches with it. It’s only when he goes to huge lengths to run around to it where it starts to look more like a risky shot.

However, it didn't take me long to adjust my eyes to it and this was when I started to focus more on the match being of a high quality. These guys were playing extremely clean tennis. Gonzalez’s winner count kept piling up, without throwing in too many errors. This was definitely the highest quality match of the day that I saw.

It was a good match from a tactical point of view too. Rochus, in particular was fun to watch because he seemed to have a good idea of how to finish off points, despite not really having the power to do it in one sudden change of pace. It’s a massive disadvantage having to do so much when Gonzalez can sometimes just slap a winner that isn’t even far away from Rochus, without him getting anywhere near reaching it.

I’ve seen Rochus try to play a moderately aggressive game in the past before in an attempt to keep up with his opponents, but often hurting himself more than his opponent in the process. But today was different. Today, he was great at taking any midcourt ball early and closing it off at the net. I think the backhand crosscourt really helped too. That was the one safe place Rochus could go to at least for a while without getting burnt. Maybe with other opponents he doesn’t have that.

Still, it seemed that for the majority of the match that Gonzalez was one step ahead of Rochus the whole time while Rochus was desperately clinging on. Gonzalez kept threatening to break serve with many break point opportunities, but the games were too extensive to call this a simple, one-sided match. It’s just a good thing that Gonzalez’s winners to unforced error ratio was so high.

Strangely the trend of the match never seemed to fluctuate much, with both players knowing their own games well enough and playing well enough to try to execute them the same way the whole match through. Even in Gonzalez’s third set loss, the difference was just a little bit of sluggishness and concentration loss, before normal service resumed in the fourth set.

I left the match at around 4-0 in the fourth set due to a more extensive rain delay. Then I turned my attention onto a more low key match, to see the all-German battle between Philipp Petzschner and Florian Mayer. Mayer was on his way to making a comeback, leading in the 4th set, making me feel like a conditional supporter, now that Mayer was obviously playing well enough to be “worth watching”.

I billed this as the battle of the slice backhands, though it didn’t end up being 100% correct. Mayer likes his two-handed backhand, and hits through it most of the time, though he does possess the variety to throw in enough slice backhands for it to be a decent description of the match. You would think from the one-sidedness of the scoreline that it could have been a self-destructive match.

It looked that way when I first headed there. I was in the corner of the stands waiting for a changeover and Petzschner was looking around outside the court so much that it often looked like he was looking at me. I was obviously not the right person to ask for support because I was firmly on Mayer’s side.

It was an interesting adjustment to make in this match though. I’ve noticed recently that a large part of my observations tend to come from comparing the most recent match to the last couple that I watched live. And my first impression was that Mayer does not look like a professional player.

That is probably part of his charm. He has awkward looking groundstrokes and he seems to dig the ball back, rather than athletically drive it back like most players do. Still, the more I watch his backhand, the more it’s obvious that it’s a very solid shot and he hits it crosscourt especially well. In terms of constructing points, he has a special ability of being able to sneak into the net, and because he’s often hitting low slices anyway, it doesn’t look like that much of a transition for him to hit low volleys.

In this match, he was picking on Petzschner’s backhand which seemed to have completely broken down. Almost every error that he made was off the slice backhand, and I’m not sure if he can even hit a drive backhand, that's how little he utilised it.

It looked to be turning into a very one-sided match, until from about 4-0 down in the fifth set when Petzschner started to play more freely and show some good shotmaking of his own. I really liked the variety in this match, but unfortunately for Petzschner, when he couldn’t convert break points to get back even on serve in the fifth set, his game dropped back a level yet again.

Two breaks down and Mayer serving for the match, neither player seemed to be bothered much about the rain falling yet again. Until it started pouring down at match point, then Petzschner waited and shrugged his shoulders, before briefly pausing thinking it was too much to continue. This is where it’s probably not useful for countrymen to play each other, as Mayer friendly urged Petzschner to finish off the point, which he did by intentionally hitting a forehand return long.

It had been threatening to rain numerous times in the morning, but it never eventuated long enough to interrupt play until now. Unfortunately this is where the fun of following simultaneous matches ended, with the matches now being limited to Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena.

For me, I am not sure whether I can objectively report on Juan Martin Del Potro’s match against Michael Russell because I definitely wished I could have been somewhere else. It’s not like I lost interest in it immediately, but as soon as I did, it was always going to be difficult for the players to win me over again.

It was midway in the first set when I arrived there, and there were hardly any rallies going on. Del Potro was dominant on serve, and Russell seemed incredibly nervous that on one point he seemed to have tangled himself up, trying to move for a particular shot. I just don’t think that Russell, being a counterpuncher, should be making this many errors. The first thing I noticed when I was first able to observe a rally, was how Del Potro moves so much better now than the last time I saw him. Note that this was an initial reaction, not the final one, because I think he got more sluggish as the match went on.

His legs seemed to be doing a ridiculous amount of work, constantly moving to get himself into the best position possible. I’m not sure if it’s his long limbs that make it look like he does it more than other players. He was especially quick moving out wide to his forehand side though and moving side-to-side as well. I would think that on a good day that this has definitely improved. His running forehand is his trademark shot after all. Early on, it seemed almost like he was moving too quickly, his feet, that when he got to the ball, he wasn’t static enough. That’s how I explained the errors he was making anyway.

Still, he was controlling the match, hitting big shots and making enough of them to have a comfortable lead. Though the way the match started to turn made me wonder whether it was Russell making the errors or Del Potro being too strong. Regardless, it was a poor match to start with. So in the second set, my wish for there to be more long rallies came true, and amazingly it turned into a completely different match.

This was exciting for a while, being able to marvel at the athleticism of both players and being able to watch competitive rallies. This was more of how I expected Russell to play, consistent and steady. He doesn’t seem to have much of an ability to finish off points though, mostly only through being able to force his opponents out of position.

The longer it went on, the more clear it became that Del Potro had taken it down a gear. Del Potro in more average form will generally hit large amounts of crosscourt shots, and I was reminded of that yet again today. Despite Russell’s crowd-pleasing effort, the match was largely tedious and also littered with errors as the statistics board would show. Still, some people in the crowd managed to enjoy it based on the numerous positive comments I heard as I would constantly wander in and out of the match hoping that play had resumed on the outside courts.

I suppose it's because it had all the attributes of what you would describe as a professional tennis match – power, athleticism, consistency, technique, competition. So if you came along to the tennis and decided you wanted to watch a match so you could admire the pros and how skilled they are, then this would be it. While mentioning athleticism, I should add that even I joined in on the collective gasp when Russell did the splits running to a dropshot.

Del Potro can obviously play better than this, and in a more entertaining way. This is merely a description of the match itself. He did, though attempt to play more aggressively in the fourth set, but his form wasn’t good enough for it to be called a vintage performance.

Seemingly numerous hours later, it was Justine Henin’s return to the court, and for some reason, Hisense Arena suddenly looks significantly more empty than when Roddick and Del Potro were playing. The on-court announcer put in a rather pathetic effort at trying to pronounce her name too.

In the warm up, I am taken by surprise as Henin hits her first two serves with an abbreviated service motion. Has she changed her service motion yet again? But no, it looks like maybe she has forgotten that she has a different one now, as she started to move into a slower, overall longer service action, one that simply requires more thinking.

Since her comeback, Henin’s serve is something she’s been struggling with, and this was the case yet again today in terms of first serve percentage. It definitely caused her more trouble in the match than there needed to be, but fortunately I never pay much attention to service percentages in matches anyway until breaks of serve and double faults happen.

This was a very stylish performance from Henin, and you could tell from the beginning that she was keen on mixing up the play. Four points into the match, and she’s already hit a slice backhand on each one of those points. What a difference it makes too, because Henin’s slice sets up whole rallies. It helps her construct points. I think it’s when she throws in the slice that she starts to earn her tag of being the “female Federer”, otherwise she’s missing some much-needed finesse.

Overall it was a great backhand day for Henin, definitely much better than when I saw her in Brisbane. Her backhand pretty much dominated the match, in the first set at least, then her volleys also ended up being a big part of that as she spent the large majority of the second set at the net barely hitting more than three consecutive baseline shots in one rally. The thing is, Henin didn’t need to be at the net that often. But she chose to be, because she wanted to, and that’s not really her natural game. 40-0 serve-and-volleys seemed to be common for her in this match too.

She was playing in such an aesthetically pleasing way that it didn’t really matter that she was hitting so many unforced errors. Mostly from the forehand, by the way. But she always contained it well enough for it to not leak quickly in rapid succession. I remember one game in particular where she lost serve due to three forehand errors, only to win the next game with four winning forehands. That was impressive.

Somehow it seemed, whenever Henin played a poor game, she’d bounce back right away with an even more aggressive than usual return game. This usually means standing incredibly close to return serve, and that was the manner in which she finished off the match.

So after such a long period of being restricted to Hisense Arena, I took the risk of heading back outside to watch one of my anticipated matches between Fabrice Santoro and Marin Cilic. Rain ended up wrecking havoc in this match not long after, so I didn’t end up catching much of this. By now, the majority of spectators had already gone home anyway, and the match felt like it was played at midnight, when it was really only about 9:30pm.

Normally I wouldn’t write about such a small portion of the match, but in some way I’d like to make a tribute to Santoro, to his unique brand of tennis. Whenever he’s hitting the ball, it looks like he’s gently floating it across. But somehow how he manages to finesse it deep on the baseline time and time again without putting any noticeable power into it.

When he’s running out wide, he can hit this slow, probing slice backhand that keeps curving back into the court like a paper aeroplane. He also seems to have two slice backhands, the slow annoying floating shot, and the one that he carves across to skid low. It’s quite amazing how much finesse he has. His whole game is made up of it.

US Open Day 2 Round-up: Gonzalez wins battle of Chileans, Djokovic makes short work of Ljubicic

Fernando Gonzalez def. Nicolas Massu

Gonzalez and Massu know each other well, and this match had an interesting dynamic. It was almost like a quiet determination because they both respect each other. Sometimes I see Massu put in some shocking performances, but this one should probably be considered good in comparison. It was an entertaining match, the contrast of Gonzalez's showmanship and Massu's fighting spirit.

Massu did everything right execution-wise and in terms of effort, it's just that he doesn't have the extra spark that Gonzalez naturally does, the explosiveness in shotmaking. He went after his shots, hit bigger than he normally would and used his forehand the best way he could instead of grinding it out. Gonzalez hit some spectacular shots, unpredictable shots, but Massu was unfazed by all of it and I guess the familiarity of having known Gonzalez for such a long time would have helped with that.

Gonzalez's performance was almost like a direct contrast to Verdasco's earlier in the day. Gonzalez is a moody and unpredictable player, which is the only way I can explain his random shot selections, when he decides to pull the trigger and when he chooses to dig them out instead. And lately, he has been particularly moody, so I think this was almost a demonstration of playing tennis that interests him, an uncompromising approach. It's not like he hit every ball as hard as he could, he played with more flair than that. At one point, he returned with a serve with one of those chopped sidespin shots that you see in a junior social tennis game.

Gonzalez wasn't completely focused on the job but he was hungry for the win, you could see on the basis on the urgency of his movement. Sometimes he'd throw away return games, and he'd throw in numerous cheap errors, but he hit enough spectacular shots to think that at some point he'd get that break of serve he wanted. It's hard to play against someone that doesn't really show any patterns of play and lashes out at the ball as often as that. It's almost like everything is dictated by whatever he decides to do and nothing else, and soon enough you'll end up constantly looking over the other side trying to figure out what he's thinking, but the next minute Gonzalez might be thinking and feeling something else.

Gonzalez mentally checked out for a while in the last couple of games in the third set, but managed to pull himself together just enough to serve it out the third time after finding himself down break points yet again.

Novak Djokovic def. Ivan Ljubicic

Djokovic came out hitting the ball more cleanly than I'd seen from him in a while in an early round match. The sound of his ball-striking sounded great, though I can't tell whether it's just that the sound effects of my TV are merely better than they were in Cincinnati. But I think Djokovic looked confident to begin with, while the opposite must be said for Ljubicic. Djokovic's movement and intensity looked great, and he had no problem using his long levers and dynamic movement to return Ljubicic's serve with ease. Rarely would Djokovic reduce himself to a one-handed return on the backhand.

This looked like a potential banana skin for Djokovic, but for me when I looked at this match-up, Ljubicic has never really had any success against Djokovic recently. He had no belief in himself, and didn't really know what he was doing on court. There was no energy about him, which is what it typically looks like when Ljubicic is in a slump. He was literally walking around the court, and whenever he seemed to temporarily pick up the energy of his footwork enough, all Djokovic had to do was feed him more balls and eventually a sluggish error would come his way. I must say it was impressive that Djokovic only hit two unforced errors in the opening two sets. The match had an air of inevitability about it, so I skipped past it after the second set reached its completion.

Fernando Gonzalez and His Forehand

A couple of years ago, Fernando Gonzalez was known to be a loose cannon, a risk-taker and a big shotmaker. When you possess as much power and weaponry as Gonzalez does, it can be incredibly tempting to rely overly on it. But there's a time and place for big shots and if you wait around long enough for the right shot, you can actually increase the number of times of hitting that spectacular winner. By taking a mindset like that, he essentially took the possibility of using variety in his game, and all the shots in between.

Fortunately times have changed and now he's not afraid to use a wider range of shots, recognising that it's about doing what's required for the situation, nothing more, nothing less. Today's match against Tommy Haas in Washington showcased Gonzalez at his controlled best, aside from a couple of wobbles towards the end of the second set. When he blasts his forehand, it can be difficult to remember that there is actually a lot more to the shot than the sheer pace that he can create. It's actually an amazing shot all-round.

I spent the majority of the first set watching how he somehow makes the low percentage look high percentage by consistently hitting close to the lines over and over again on the forehand side. But that's not the impressive part. It was how he consistently hit his forehand close to the lines, breaking away further outside of the court after its bounce making the court look far bigger than it is. It's like he somehow curls outside the ball, so it's not like it creates a high bounce, but it moves away from the court. I think out of the other players, only Roger Federer can do the same although Nadal can create the same effect with additional topspin.

Gonzalez doesn't need a whole lot to work with to start dominating a rally with his forehand. That's why he's so difficult to break on his service games if he keeps it together concentration-wise. Gonzalez does have a great serve especially in terms of accuracy and the additional slice he adds to it to open up the court, but how he backs it up makes it look like an even better shot than it is. It's not really good enough to simply block back a return or hit a decent return that lands in three-quarter court.

He didn't receive anywhere near as many cheap points as Haas on first serve on the outright first stroke, but it had essentially the same effect, with Gonzalez usually winning it on his second or third shot. He didn't go for the outright flat scorching winner that much, this time favouring accuracy and spin over power with the intent of making Haas cover as much ground as possible. If Haas was to have any success on the Gonzalez serve, he needed to do something drastic. He needed to break the pattern, and with urgency.

Haas has the ability to do that, to chip and charge on the return of serve with which he tried at times but more so to mix up the play, rather than employing it as a consistent tactic. Unfortunately sometimes Haas lacks the depth on his returns, possibly because he stands so far behind the baseline to return. His strength is more in the consistency of his returns, and to hope that he can slowly turn around the point in his favour. That's why when he did come in to chip and charge, Gonzalez usually found an answer for it hitting passing shot winners seemingly at will.

Gonzalez can hit some beautiful dipping forehand passing shots, that by the time it reaches the other side of the net, it's well and truly past the area where Haas is standing to cover the net. Haas needs to target Gonzalez's backhand if he wants to approach the net, and he did it with more success on his own service games coming in on his own terms. It's a different situation on Gonzalez's backhand, where he really has a problem maintaining enough control to find a target if he's rushed trying to half-volley a shot.

It was a good tactical match from both sides, and in the end it came down more to execution and concentration, though Gonzalez's greater shotmaking ability also played a part in it. It was a combination of both because he needed Haas to play a couple of loose points on serve, and whenever the opportunity presented itself, Gonzalez was quick to take advantage of it and find his best shots, such as the backhand down-the-line winner at set point in the first set.

One poor service game from Haas, and the match had turned completely in Gonzalez's favour. What initially seemed like a small blip from Haas turned into a giant hole that he dug for himself, still recovering from the disappointment of the first set. Sometimes Haas reads too much into his own play, punishing himself unnecessarily for simply playing a couple of poor points. Forgetting that he had played a good match for the most part. He dropped his next service game with three or so cheap errors. Mentally he had checked out of the match.

It seemed like smooth sailing for Gonzalez, until Gonzalez's own moment of dropping his focus nearly cost him. Haas had one chance on a baseline rally that could have gone either way. He shanked a forehand wide by several metres. Then to make things worse, he played yet another service game reminiscent of the first game of the second set. Clearly Haas doesn't have much of a selective memory. Gonzalez dropped his next service game, but he was always in control given that he had a two break cushion and served it out the second time around to move into the semi-finals.

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.

What can we expect from Lleyton Hewitt, or should we expect anything at all?

Having recently turned 28 last month, Lleyton Hewitt is now approaching the final stages of his career, one that presents different challenges and expectations. Hewitt has had a long and illustrious career that has spanned 12 years at the ATP level achieving success at an early age. He captured his first career title at the age of 16 in his home town of Adelaide in 1998 and became the youngest player to end the year at world number 1 in 2001.

Hewitt has always been known as determined and confident, a guy that fully believes in his abilities and where he belongs in the game, up there mixing it with the best of them. In interviews, over the last couple of years, he has always spoken highly of his goals and abilities. But with injuries hampering him and undergoing hip surgery at the end of last year, and his ranking taking a nosedive to the low 70s, he is now forced to take a different perspective of his near future.

In previous years, he may have known to do too much talking about his own prospects particularly with the Australian press. But this year is more about taking a more low-key approach and letting the tennis speak for itself. Thinking about the present only, and not getting ahead of himself as he may have in the past.

Initially I thought it was only a matter of time before Hewitt made his way back up to a point in the rankings where he would make direct entry into the majority of ATP events, but so far this year, he has done little to add to his ranking points. In the last few weeks, he lost in the first round to Yen-Hsun Lu in Delray Beach, what initially seemed like a good opportunity amongst a weaker field and a five-set loss to Danai Udomchoke in Davis Cup, more an indication of his poor form more than anything else given that he has always taken pride in representing his country.

With that track record in mind, I was interested to see how Hewitt would go in Indian Wells, one of Hewitt's favourite tournaments, the city where he has captured his lone two Masters Series shields. It was a rematch of this year’s first round five set Australian Open match against Fernando Gonzalez.

The initial signs were looking good, Hewitt looking confident and playing surprisingly aggressively, using the pace of the Gonzalez groundstrokes and changing directions far more than I could remember doing in recent times. Then the memories continued to flood back, seeing Hewitt's explosive movement how he would move quickly to move on top of those forehands and counterpunch them back sending them back at a lightning pace.

Using the pace of his opponents to hurt them, making up for the fact that he couldn't generate it himself that effectively, and his return of serve was a strength as well. He hadn’t lost as much movement as I remembered him doing, though now that the match has ended, I’m still sitting on the fence on this thought.

But I thought this aggressive mindset was like conceding that he didn't have that same rock solid consistency as he used to, and instead trying to make up for it in other ways. Besides, based on my experiences watching Hewitt’s matches in the last few years, playing conservatively has never guaranteed him any more consistency really - so why shouldn’t he back himself?

Hewitt raced away to a 5-1 lead in the first set in some part due to Gonzalez’s rustiness, sometimes mistiming forehands by large margins, closer to hitting the backboards than the baseline at times. Gonzalez hadn't played a competitive match since capturing the title in Vina Del Mar after the Australian Open, being hampered by a sciatic nerve injury.

Early on, even without watching Gonzalez in full flight, he looked like a potential threat. His forehand has to be one of the most intimidating shots in tennis, a shot that doesn’t only win him large amounts of points but one for opponents to be fearful of in another sense. It amazes me how little he seems to be rushed on that side given the massive backswing he has on it, one reason why he can send them so far long on occasions.

He wasn’t consistent enough initially but it was almost impossible to tell which shots he was going to have a crack at, as if he just decides to unload on it at random times. It sometimes didn't matter that he had to half-volley a forehand right on the baseline, he’d try to change direction and send it down-the-line anyway while other times on a three-quarter court ball, he'd hit a more controlled crosscourt forehand with higher margin over the net. Regardless of how Hewitt was defending, if Gonzalez was going to pull off unexpectedly aggressive shots like that, Hewitt wasn’t going to get anywhere near it.

From 5-1 onwards in the first set, Hewitt started to get more into his comfort zone opting for a more high percentage brand of tennis, allowing Gonzalez that extra bit of time for set up for his shots. That shift of tactics, following a more predictable pattern of play in turn didn’t keep Gonzalez off balance enough and subsequently the match turned quickly in Gonzalez's favour winning six of the next seven games.

The start of the second set was a strange one, seeing Hewitt suddenly change tactics again quickly making his way to the net early in the point, before he had moved Gonzalez sufficiently out of court. Was this the sign of Hewitt trying to rediscover his aggressive tennis, but going about it the wrong way? His approach shots were often landing short in the court and he was suitably punished getting broken straight away.

He learned his lesson after that, and went back to basics, the roots of his game. It was like a repeat of the end of the first set, and the kind of tennis that I normally associate with Hewitt, moving his opponents around with his forehand more using his accuracy, rather than pace. He was no longer getting to the wide shots as effectively, though it was likely more to do with Hewitt’s preceding shots which were not as deep anymore.

It took for a while for Hewitt to slowly regain his depth and consistency but he started to regain some of his form in the third set, where the pair of them engaged in some entertaining rallies. Finally, it was both players playing good tennis at the same time. But in the end, Hewitt's errors proved to be costly, particularly in the crucial game where he lost serve missing three or so shots by small margins, perhaps aiming too close to the lines.

The statistics in the end showed that Gonzalez had cleaned up his game considerably in the latter two sets, even recording fewer unforced errors than Hewitt, as well as more winners of course. So after a promising start, it ended up being another early exit in a tournament for Hewitt.

Trademark Shots: Which shots make a player stand out?

One interesting aspect of tennis is the varying techniques and shots that players can have in their repertoire.

Particularly at a higher level, players tend to have trademark shots, shots which that player is known for, and one that most other players don't even seem to attempt, let alone execute. A player's trademark shot is not necessarily their best shot or strength, and could be something that’s more unique or unorthodox rather than spectacular.

Below is a list of some of those trademark shots, while obviously there are still quite a few that I've missed out on.

Rafael Nadal

The unusually powerful double-handed backhand crosscourt passing shot, where he swings the racquet through in a straight line making the racquet seem more like a sword or cricket bat. He bends his knees down incredibly low and his racquet nearly hits the ground on the initial contact. Commentators refer to it as being like a double-handed forehand.

Roger Federer

The flick backhand half-volley passing shot. His opponent comes in on an approach shot right to his backhand side and Federer’s still on the forehand side of the court. He smoothly and casually strolls his way there, or so it looks and barely makes any backswing nor does he even look up, he just keeps his head still. He flicks the backhand right at the last second and directs it exactly where he wants to for a winning shot.

He's also got the short-slice backhand intended to make his opponents scoop it back up and force themselves into the net, after finding themselves in no-man’s land. Then Federer whips across an easy passing shot winner straight past them, while making his opponents feel silly and hopeless in the process.

Andy Murray

The high loopy forehand crosscourt that he throws in to completely take his opponent off-rhythm before throwing in the fast-paced flat forehand or backhand the next shot. Two of the most contrasting shots you could play consecutively, and Murray does it deliberately. Most players only hit change-up loopy forehands to give themselves more time to get back into the court, or either they usually hit with a fair amount of topspin as it is. But Murray uses it as a regular shot in his repertoire.

Nikolay Davydenko

I once read someone describe Davydenko on form as like “playing on skates”. The way he sprints from side-to-side, then sets himself in position right on top of the ball each time with perfect timing, makes movement and racquet control almost synchronous with each other at contact.

I also like the strangely nice feel he has on those double-handed volley dropshots. He can’t seem to hit any other kind of effective volleys but he bends down really low and opens his racquet face right out flat, instead of at an angle like most people would. He barely moves his racquet at all, keeping it in the same position to cut under the ball making it stop dead as it bounces over the net.

Andy Roddick

Roddick's serve reminds me somewhat of a rocket or missile launch, in how the motion is almost completely straight up and down and the way he literally launches into it. He gets his feet set close together, then extends his racquet all the way down and bends his knees really low to push forward and create a violent, powerful motion.

David Nalbandian

The backhand crosscourt angle shot, that he throws in the middle of a neutral rally catching his opponents completely by surprise. He flicks his racquet across, using almost entirely his left wrist, with his right hand as support. Most players need to either slow the pace down when attempting a short angle, roll over it with top spin or both but Nalbandian almost does it entirely with racquet control and feel.

David Ferrer and Tommy Robredo

The effort that they put in to make sure that they hit as many forehands as possible, even if that requires running all the way out of court, only to hit a three-quarter kind of shot, not even a near-winner or setup shot. You get the feeling that not much thought goes into whether any sort of reward will come out of doing it, but rather to follow the mindset of making everything into a forehand, as long as it's humanly possible.

Gael Monfils

He teases his opponent with a floating, mid-court ball, begging for it to be hit for as an approach shot. His opponents do exactly as they should, hitting a deep approach shot into the corner, then you can feel Monfils lighting up with excitement already anticipating the glorious running passing shot winner. He sprints over to the corner three or so metres behind the baseline, does a trademark slide and finds the down-the-line shot, just as he knew he would letting out a predictable “Allez!”.

Fernando Gonzalez

The go-for-broke inside-out forehand, where he takes a massive backswing and you know it’s going to be big before it's even hit. The backswing itself is intimidating itself, then he gets his footwork in position like he’s putting every ounce of energy into it knowing that he’s not going to be in position if it comes back. But that’s okay because he wants to hit an outright winner off it. I remember when Andy Roddick got back one of his “forehand bombs” in the US Open match, and Gonzalez got to it late and slapped a forehand two metres long afterwards, to essentially give up the point.

Igor Andreev

The sound that comes off his racquet after hitting a forehand. Andreev gets right under the ball, then whips right across it to send it spinning several rotations. Like the complete opposite of a cleanly struck shot.

Richard Gasquet

When he's on one of his hot streaks and you can tell how eager he is to hit his shots before he even hits them. Gasquet wants to hit glorious winners and he wants them to be spectacular. He puts in that extra hop on the backhand to make it a jumping backhand and gets right on top of that forehand. And just because he's in that kind of form, most of those winners actually come off. It even looks like he's walking quicker and more purposefully in between points than usual.

 

Then there are the more unique trademarks, those that aren't necessarily considered to even be close to a strength:

Andy Roddick’s drive backhand, how he grips his racquet with both hands together close to the middle of the handle, leaving a gap down the bottom, depriving himself of getting the full amount of power out of it.

Janko Tipsarevic, when he's wrong-footed, going back to retrieve a shot on the backhand side, hits the ball on the other side of the racquet strings. Like a very strange kind of forehand.

Tommy Robredo’s backhand, where he sets himself up with an exaggerated backswing then whips through his backhand, in a windmill sort of motion making almost a full circular rotation. His opponents predictably kick it up high to that side on serve, and he falls backwards three metres behind in the baseline just to be able to prepare for that stroke.

Fernando Gonzalez's backhand down-the-line, in that his racquet face is so flat on contact that after the ball bounces, that it kind of side-spins to the left. He sets up for his backhand in a manner that would seem to strongly favour the crosscourt backhand. Surprisingly he executes this shot, more often than would seem possible and it often catches his opponents by surprise because of the unlikelihood of the shot, as what happened to Federer in their Tennis Masters Cup 2007 match.

Mikhail Youzhny's service motion. He starts off his service motion with his front foot a fair distance from the baseline, to enable himself to move his front foot a couple of steps forward before making contact. As far as I know, he's the only active professional tennis player to do this, while everyone else starts with their front foot as close to the line as possible, while the back foot moves during contact, to get the body weight moving forward. Then, of course, Youzhny also has the one-handed backhand that starts off like a two-hander.