Day 6 Brisbane International Blog

It’s difficult to recall all the emotions and sensations that went with the larger portion of a match that was so lopsided. In this case, it was Radek Stepanek’s surprising win over Gael Monfils, despite his currently superior ranking.

Match reports like this tend to focus on the first couple of games, when everything still seems important, the difference between a player winning and a player losing. Midway through the first set, the match fell flat quickly and before it was even over, it felt like it was over.

Fortunately I can still recall the events of the match. How much promise the match began with, only to quickly fade into disappointment. This was an exciting match-up between two contrasting players, and in your face personalities.

Monfils likes long rallies. Stepanek likes to shorten them. Monfils prefers to stay far behind the baseline, and Stepanek loves dropshots. The difference between Stepanek’s dropshots and everyone else who can hit them well, is that he can follow them up at the net. He gets away with it far more often than it looks like he should and he’s always bordering on being obsessed with the shot.

Both players opened the match with comfortable service games, as the players were still on their way to settling down in the match. There were a few too many unforced errors, but the rallies were promising. Stepanek, whenever he had a slightly shorter ball would take it on the rise and swiftly move into the net, especially on the forehand side. Stepanek seems to have this wonderful ability to be able to make the slightest differentiation between a shot he should be rallying on an even keel with, and when he should step it up.

It’s a different challenge against Monfils, however and he loves to hit passing shots on the run. For some reason, he actually appears to have more precise footwork hitting on the run, than from down the middle. I think it’s because of the way he plants his foot on the ground so he can recover to make it to the other side of the court if he needs to.

After the first couple of games, the players settled in, and the way the rallies unfolded, it was the perfect showcase of the athleticism of both players. Especially with all of those dropshots and lobs from Stepanek. No one really talks about Stepanek’s movement or athleticism much, but he is exceptionally quick and athletic. There was a lot of squeaking of the shoes around the court, and it was coming from both sides. It appears that Stepanek can also slide all over the court, although nowhere near as well of course. There was one rally where he did it three times amazingly.

Midway through the set, it actually looked like Monfils started to get the upper hand on Stepanek, as the rallies started to turn more and more into long, drawn out rallies. By now, Monfils had found his depth and consistency of shot. Given the reputation that Monfils has as a super athletic, amazing defensive player, I always seem to put the high expectation on Monfils to rarely throw in any unforced errors. I mean, doesn’t he only lose because he’s passive?

Surprisingly over the course of a match, his level can dip drastically, and it did so here quite suddenly at 2-3 down in the first set. It’s hard to explain why when he appears so secure sometimes. It took me a while to put a finger on it, but I started to notice the types of errors he was making. Usually setup big forehands, shots that are either putaway shots, or setups for winners. The shots that are supposed to be easiest for the players, but Monfils doesn’t like playing purposefully. He likes to play whatever he feels like in the moment.

Equally as disappointing as Monfils’ poor performance, was what happened as a direct result of it. Stepanek’s decision to play more direct, simple tennis. He earned his first break of serve with early, deep returns down the middle, but the longer the match went on, the more he sensed that he didn’t really need to do anything spectacular. I’m sure he wouldn’t have believed in the beginning that engaging in regular rallies would have done the job. But that’s the path he ended up taking as Monfils would throw in these strange errors.

Instead of trying to put in a big effort to focus and play out some tough points, Monfils had resigned himself to a loss. He’d laugh at himself, and he appeared sluggish all the time. Stepanek would throw in a couple of fist pumps and positive displays of emotion just to make the situation more clear. And he aimed it directly towards his camp, at his coach, Petr Pala. You had to love the precision of the raised little twirl of the finger he did in his camp’s direction at the end of the first set, straight after hitting a smash winner, and with his back turned away from them.

 

In little over an hour, Stepanek had made it into his second Brisbane final, and he’ll face Andy Roddick in the final. The day was in danger of becoming a big disappointment, and it seemed headed in that direction at the end of the first set between Roddick and Tomas Berdych, which Berdych won 6-1.

Speaking of consistency, Roddick is another one of those players that I expect to rarely make any unforced errors. To be fair, he didn’t make an excessive amount and it wasn’t shockingly bad. But it was bad for his standards.

To be honest, I had mixed feelings with how the match was going. I think on most occasions, if I’ve decided to root for a player that I have clear preferences for, I’ll find it hard to make that step of wishing it was a better match. Because that would be like completely switching sides and loyalties. It’s different if you’re confident of that player winning anyway, such as the first round of the Australian Open and you’re hoping that the low-ranked underdog will play a little more inspired than he currently is. But this is Roddick against Berdych, and he’ll be dangerous or maybe even favoured once he starts playing better.

In the end, I was pleased that Roddick did pick up his level though because it turned out to be a much better match to watch. Still, Berdych’s performance in the first set should be acknowledged, because it was impressive in the same way that his one-sided win over Marcos Baghdatis was.

This was Berdych hitting the lines with remarkable consistency. When Berdych is on form, it’s impossible to not be on the back foot spending all your time lunging around and scrambling his shots back. It looks great when it works, but generally the longer the rally goes, the less likely he’ll be able to keep it up.

I am not sure how much was forced or unforced, but Roddick couldn’t find his range on his aggressive forehand early on, and his transition game. Whenever he tried to hit a forehand to come in on, he’d miss it almost every single time. Then he’d start to miss these slower floating balls on his forehand side as well, much to his frustration.

Roddick casually threw around his racquet, hit a ball into the roof, then to end the set, dropped his racquet and quickly walked to take a bathroom break almost as if he wanted to get off court as soon as possible. Yet in spite of all of this, he always seemed committed to what he was doing, what he wanted to achieve tactically. After Monfils' earlier lack of fighting spirit, it was great to see Roddick competing well and digging deep, not that we would expect anything less. Though putting it into perspective, Roddick's antics were almost like a sideshow, not a display of serious frustration.

He continued to try to hit his forehand with purpose and slowly it came together. His forehand is effective in more subtle ways than Berdych’s is. It's accurate and heavy, effective enough to keep Berdych moving side to side, and he has the additional option of coming into the net, something that Berdych rarely does. When Berdych does it, he looks hesitant.

I also found a weakness in the Berdych smash. Apparently he doesn’t appear to know how to hit a slice smash or a three-quarter paced smash, or either he doesn’t want to. He seemed stubbornly committed to trying to hit a winner off whatever lob was thrown at him, if it was high enough for him to smash. Regardless of whether it was close to the roof or too close to the baseline.

What Roddick is exceptionally good at doing is piling the pressure on, and as soon as he started playing better, the consistency of good quality rallies started to significantly increase. Now they were having tough points almost every single point, and it was really only a matter of execution. By now, Roddick’s forehand was working much better, so his well-known serve/forehand combo allowed him to hold serve more easily.

Berdych continued to try to push the boundaries and his ball-striking abilities, hitting close to the lines with frequency. His level had dropped a little from the first set, but he was still capable of being accurate often enough. Accurate enough to be a potential threat, although the match was starting to turn in Roddick’s favour. I started to hold my breath whenever Berdych hit a shot, and when he hit a great shot, I would often gasp. Because he would often save break points and other important situations with high risk, difficult shots. Berdych doesn't hit with safe margins over the net either. He really needs to add a transition game to make it easier on himself.

There was hope of Berdych suddenly putting together a glorious game, but in the end, it followed the same trend that the match had been heading. Berdych finding himself undone by his own errors, as a direct result of all the consistent pressure that Roddick put him in. And Roddick hitting a couple of aggressive returns in the decisive game.

It was strange to hear in the on-court interview, Roddick putting all the credit on Berdych for the loss of the first set, despite all of his on-court antics. This only adds to my impression that part of his reactions were more for the show, than anything else.

Day 4 Brisbane International Blog

It’s night time at around 5:20pm and Show Court 1 is absolutely packed. There are no matches currently going on in Pat Rafter Arena, and it’s obvious that everyone has migrated over to watch Gael Monfils play against Florent Serra. There are only stands on one side of the court, and it’s already full. Large amounts of people are standing around in the grassed area, and I’m wondering if it’s worth watching to peek through the gaps between everyone’s heads.

Fortunately one person in front of me leaves, and I’m at least now standing with no one else standing in front of me. The scoreboard isn’t visible from here, A group of people behind me are discussing and asking each other who it is that Gael Monfils is playing against. One woman takes out her order of play, then reads out the name. This is what it’s like standing amongst a crowd watching tennis where all of the “expert” commentary is coming from the people next to you.

It looks like I’ve come at an important stage of the match, the tie-break in the first set but I was still acquainting myself with the match and my surroundings. This kind of view and atmosphere is almost like a complete shift in focus. I can’t really see the lines that well but I can see the pace of shot and the types of movement. The sound effects are exceptionally loud from this close, then again the hard shaded cover that the players play on amplifies all the sounds. When I moved onto watch the matches in Pat Rafter Arena, it just occurred to me, that do we perceive the pace of the ball almost entirely on sound, and is this an inaccurate way of judging things?

It’s clear that Serra is hitting his forehand exceptionally well today. It reminded me of the couple of matches I covered of him playing in Brisbane last year. His forehand is definitely his strength, the one he has more options with, off-forehand or down the line. He seemed to use his forehand to move Monfils around side-to-side, and assert his authority on the match, though strangely there were much fewer very long rallies than I was expecting, although there were some medium length rallies.

Monfils seemed to be doing everything at a snail pace in between points, walking as slowly in between points as possible. Given that I watched Sunday’s matches from a bit of a birds-eye view, it had been a while since I had been able to observe facial expressions.  They really help fill in the gaps, such as why Monfils is taking so much time. Is he timewasting, being calculated and composed, dejected or whiny? Monfils is one of the most expressive characters on tour, and half this match ended up being about Monfils’ antics and the other about the tennis.

Maybe I caught Monfils on a bad day, but watching his facial expressions, I find it easy to believe that half the time he’s playing, he’s concentrating on something else other than the match. His mind looks like it’s completely elsewhere even when he’s not disagreeing with line calls and talking to the umpire. Though it must be said, there was a lot of that in between.

I don’t understand what was so serious that required a chat to the umpire almost every changeover, and one to the referee as well. It was clear that Monfils was unhappy with the line calls. I wasn’t in a position to comment, but I am certain that by the end, Monfils went ridiculously overboard in questioning almost every ball that landed close to the line. Somewhere in the second set, there was this really odd exchange between Serra and Monfils that had them both laughing about something to do with the line calls. This was after Serra hit a winner.

My impression of the section of the match I saw, only the second set really was that whenever Monfils picked up his consistency, he was the better player. I thought it was a good example, of how good consistency and defense can render an opponent almost completely ineffective. So it could be said that even though Serra played more aggressively, the match was more in Monfils’ hands. Monfils was the better player, but prone to concentration lapses. Serra had an excellent opportunity to break to serve for the match though, with 0-30 at 4-4 in the second set, but missed a makeable short ball, then mistakenly approached crosscourt off a dropshot instead of down the line and got passed easily with a shot that almost landed in the middle of the court.

It’s a unique experience getting to see the movement of Monfils up close, close enough to be able to hear it and watch him recover from those quick bursts of speed. I’ve heard a lot about how his choice to slide on the hardcourts strains his body and makes him injury prone. But you’ll notice also how when he moves, he quite often digs his feet into the ground and plants it. It’s a very aggressive way of moving around the court.

I didn’t watch the rest because I figured I wouldn’t have time to see it all anyway, and I needed to get some dinner. Besides I was primarily here to see Justine Henin, in her match against Sesil Karatantcheva. As Henin walked out, I expected to hear louder applause from the crowd, but it was a very mediocre volume of noise really. I’ll just interpret that to mean that plenty of people were interested in seeing her play, without being fans of her.

 

Immediately it was difficult making the adjustment to my seats in the stadium compared to before, and strangely the difference was more in the sound than the view. The TV coverage this week in Brisbane has been recording the ball-striking as being very lively on TV, and it’s odd to adjust to the fact that it’s actually softer from where I’m sitting. Because it's almost always louder in real life.

The other day I called her a ball basher based on TV and today it doesn’t look like she’s hitting the ball that hard to me. I’m pretty sure she’s hitting it at about the same pace today. Is it really all about the sound? Anyway, the first impressions of the match were that for such a high caliber player, Henin isn’t having an easy time winning points. She's having to engage in longer rallies and she's not looking all that reliable either.

Henin’s shotmaking was a little off to begin with. Sometimes she’d try really hard to pull the trigger straight away, and sometimes she’d rein it in too much not being accurate enough in her shotmaking. I guess you could say she looked distinctly average, unable to find that special shot to pull her opponent off the court and dictate it, and being too error prone too. Not being able to control points without trying to hit winners. Still, it was clear that her game was very different from all the other WTA players, in the manner she wins points.

Her backhand, as expected was very aesthetically pleasing to watch, especially from a side-on view, though she seemed to hit far more forehands in this match than backhands. I don’t think she hit that many winners on the backhand either. She definitely has much better disguise on this side compared to the forehand, but the forehand is a quick enough swing that opponents don’t really get much time to react.

Henin’s forehand really was shaky, and cost her dearly in the first half of the set. Credit must be given to Karatantcheva, however, who easily played a better match than I expected her to. She kept up the pace with Henin, strong groundstrokes on both sides and rarely looked like breaking down at first, even when stretched out wide. I cannot understand, however, why when the match was still even at 3-2 and Karatantcheva was playing a perfectly good match, she felt the need to call on her coach for advice.

In the end, I think the one-sided second set had just as much to do with Karatantcheva’s game starting to show some cracks, and showing signs of tiredness, as it did with Henin playing better. Henin did definitely show signs of improvements. For me, it’s a sign of reliability when I no longer watch wondering at the point of contact whether a shot will make it or not. Yep, Henin struck it firmly into the court almost every time. Though it seems whenever she hits a forehand, she has to put in a big effort to make sure that her body is moving forward into the court, to make sure that the ball doesn’t fly on her, or lose accuracy or pace.

I noticed that whenever Henin didn’t move right into the ball like it was short, she wasn’t able to hit down-the-line on the forehand anywhere near as effectively. In the coming weeks, she will need to add some accuracy on the forehand, in making it less predictable. I thought her forehand was much better on the return of serve compared to the normal rally, but on the other hand, she had the luxury of dealing with some short serves from Karatantcheva.

The final match I watched was between Tomas Berdych and Marcos Baghdatis, a surprisingly quick match. I’d say the whole match could have been summed up in the first 10 minutes, because I formed my first impressions then they stayed the same the whole way through.

About 5 minutes into the match, Berdych was already on form. It was easy to see already that Berdych is a more aggressive player than Baghdatis is, or at least more consistently aggressive anyway, whereas Baghdatis is more capable of throwing in some surprise changes of pace and shotmaking. This is definitely Berdych on one of his good days, seemingly changing directions on almost every single shot and pulling it off, hitting near the lines.

Baghdatis just can’t seem to keep up to that pace, always one step behind Berdych and unable to find himself back into the match. If anything, it was thought that Berdych would let the Cypriot into the match, rather than Baghdatis finding his way into it. That was some high risk tennis that Berdych was playing. Baghdatis’ (perceived?) low first service percentage certainly didn’t make matters any better. I think it was like the match, that you kept expecting to change at some stage but it just never did. It never woke up from the dream, or at least it didn’t for Berdych.

It was a surprisingly decent match for its 6-0 6-1 scoreline. I didn’t feel like Baghdatis was terrible, more like too quickly overwhelmed to be able to find his range. I also find Baghdatis’ defensive forehand to be lacking sometimes, too prone to hitting it in the net especially when he is on the run and the ball has already started dropping.

Juan Carlos Ferrero's mini-resurgence

Video clips: 50+ shot rally | Second set tie-break

Sometimes it's nice to see a change of pace. These days, the tennis ball seems to move back and forth at lightning pace, to the point where if you're not paying close enough attention, it can be easy to lose track of what's happening. I don't know if this happens for anyone else, but I sometimes feel that way watching Roger Federer's early round matches, as good of a shotmaker he is. And that's what yesterday's second round match in Montreal between Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gael Monfils ended up being, a welcome change of pace, as well as offering a hard-fought battle.

On Ferrero's end, it was an excellent display of point construction as well, which is something that becomes easier to appreciate in a match-up like this when there are no easy ways of winning points. He knew exactly how he wanted to play this match and that's what I really liked about it, from a spectator point of view.

Ferrero started off the match in fine form, so confident in his ability to maintain the aggression on extended rallies. His forehand was really on song, using it to open up the court with a variety of spins, and finding some good angles on it. It seemed like he had such a control on his shots from the back of the court that he was rarely going to miss, and only by small margins if so. That's a sign of a very accurate player.

It's just that he lacks the ability to inject additional pace when he requires it compared to his peers, and I don't think he counterpunches in a way that uses his opponent's shots against them either. He does make up for that lack in power with excellent shot selection though. The longer a point is, the more you get a feel for how players like to construct points and when Ferrero's confident, it's one of his strengths.

It takes two to throw up an entertaining match, and the match-up here is what made it most fascinating. To see how Ferrero could slowly outmaneuver Monfils out of court but without giving Monfils too much to work with to counterpunch off. So that's maintaining an aggressive game, but without going overboard and staying within the comfort zone.

It was about Ferrero not allowing Monfils to play the way he likes, though Monfils made things harder for himself by choosing not to take the initiative on most occasions. Ferrero wouldn't allow Monfils to hit these spectacular shots on the run, either consistently keeping him on the move and trying to restrict the amount of times Monfils could make those crowd-pleasing violent bursts of athleticism, or by surprising him with sudden changes of pace and direction. It doesn't matter as much how quick a player is, if he can't read the shot at all.

I'm starting to find that Monfils is a habitually slow starter on the tennis court. He really needs a trigger, something to excite him, whether it's celebrating his own shots or finding his back against the wall in order to produce something special to stay in the match. Often when he's trying to make a run, firing himself up to find that quick burst of adrenaline, you'll see him suddenly move more energetically even in his return stance, dancing his feet up and down. There's a certain cockiness to it, like now he's decided that he's going to play better in this match, so that's exactly what he will do.

He played the opening set of this match, casual and lacksadaisical like he wasn't ready for the occasion. It was like his brain wasn't even switched on, just reacting to what Ferrero was doing. I couldn't see what he was trying to achieve at all, and I imagine that when you're playing a predictable and one-dimensional same-pace game, not a whole lot of thought goes into it. Just how much more imposing would he be, if he decided to change the pace like we know he can do, especially given that's the one big advantage he has over Ferrero and he's not using it.

I'd also like to see him run around his backhand more often. His off-forehand is one of his best attacking shots, and definitely much better than his backhand which seems to be often lacking in penetration when he's not timing it perfectly. Because Monfils hits the ball closer to his body hitting inside-out, he seems to move better and more athletically to the ball to generate that extra pace, and he can find good angles on it too. If other players that don't move as well can manage to do it on a regular basis, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do more frequently.

In a way, it was strange the match seemed to move away from Ferrero's dominance into a very competitive second set of tennis. What happened was that what triggered Monfils to make a slight adjustment in his game was actually out of sheer frustration, rather than any intended change of tactics.

In his first service game, it looked like he was lashing out at balls, carelessly hitting them, flat shots with pace. It wasn't that Monfils was frustrated with his own play, more so because he wasn't enjoying the match and the rallies he was consistently been drawn into. It really was not as much of a hopeless situation as Monfils thought at the time. If he doesn't want to be stuck in those rallies, then he doesn't have to be. In fact, he lost that service game straight away and given how dominant Ferrero was in his own service games, I thought it was going to be the end of it.

But once Monfils had composed himself again, it seemed like that quick spurt of frustration did him a favour in terms of his shot selection. Finally more changes of pace and more variation in his baseline position. I think he started to return serve much better too, getting more balls into play. Ferrero helped him out by playing one loose service game that he seemed to lose in a flash. But by now, the baseline rallies had turned into a much more even contest, hard-fought battles that could go either way.

I don't think I've ever seen anything more hard-fought than the amazing extended rally that went over 50 strokes at 5-4 in the second set. It actually ended in a spectacular winner, by the way. Both players battled nerves late in the second set, making their fair share of uncharacteristic errors but Ferrero stepped it up in the most crucial stage, 5-5 in the second set tie-break with two aggressive baseline points, just like how he had typically played the first set with such success.

Almagro and Monfils square off in the Acapulco final

Last year, Nicolas Almagro dominated the Latin American claycourt swing with two titles in Costa Do Sauipe and Acapulco, but heading into this week in Acapulco his claycourt season had been a disappointment.

There were surprise losses to Federico Gil and Oscar Hernandez in Costa Do Sauipe and Buenos Aires respectively, but this week Almagro finds himself in the Acapulco final, although off the back of questionable form where he next meets Gael Monfils. Both Monfils and Almagro had struggled throughout the week in maintaining consistency and focus, but given that both players tend to enjoy the big occasion, it should be an intriguing and hard-fought final.

Lack of consistency plagued Almagro in his semi-final match, where he defeated Martin Vassallo Arguello 6-4 6-4. He started off the match showing flashes of brilliance, in particular he had the ability of hitting these incredibly powerful forehand winners on-the-run. On occasion he'd find himself catching the ball late moving out wide. But instead of having to resort to an inconsistent or more defensive shot, he generates such impressive racquet head speed, that it's like he manages to catch up to the ball to be able to whip right through it on time, particularly on the pacier forehand side catching his opponents by surprise.

He broke Vassallo Arguello's serve early on hitting impressive return winners from shoulder height off high jumping kick serves, both from the forehand and backhand sides showing that he is dangerous off both wings. The faster court players tend to handle higher bouncing balls by stepping in and taking the ball earlier, but Almagro instead pushes back a couple of steps and gives himself enough time to set up. That he is able to hit powerful and penetrating shots from that position is impressive, particularly on a one-handed backhand.

With Almagro, at times it can seem like the more difficult shots are easier to execute than the routine shots. Give him a putaway forehand and he usually deals with it, but rallying around and trying to remain consistent can be a problem. Particularly off shots that he isn’t hitting with intent, where he starts to lose concentration and doesn't know how he should be controlling his shots if he isn't outright attacking or defending.

As the match went on, those brief flashes of brilliance from Almagro started to fade away more, as he descended more into mediocrity. Making use of the break of serve that he had created for himself earlier, and often holding onto his own serve by the barest of margins. It seemed like a lackadaisical effort, like he could only motivate himself whenever he was threatened, playing considerably better on many of the 30-30, 15-30 points. Showing purpose right from the start of the point with a well-placed serve, then finishing it off with those two or three shot combos that are a big strength of his.

The match was always going to be on his racquet, facing an opponent like Vassallo Arguello, who has to be one of the least imposing players I've ever seen. Camping metres behind the baseline hitting medium topspin shots into the court, with no purpose whatsoever. Almagro finally knuckled down at 2-2 in the second set, playing the longer points better. Then he played a sloppy service game at 4-3, but broke Vassallo Arguello's serve again immediately to serve for the match.

The second semi-final promised more than it delivered, given that Jose Acasuso had put together a consistently good run this claycourt season, with semi-finals or better in the last four matches. But from the start of the match, it felt like there was only going to be one outcome in the match, and that was Monfils winning.

Monfils seemed to be in more of a competitive mood than last time I saw him in his second round match against Thomaz Bellucci. You can tell on which days Monfils seems to have more of a killer instinct, when he manages to stay through the flight of the ball when he's running to hit a shot, keeping shots lower and more penetrating rather than having it sit up high and short in the court. It was his best performance of the tournament, and it seems like he is gearing himself up nicely to peak for the final.

Acasuso is the kind of player that plays his best when he sticks to his strengths, and keeps things simple. Thinking about what he has to do more on his side of the court, rather than his opponent's, but it seemed like he was too often thinking about how he should be winning points, in fear of the movement that Monfils possesses. Overplaying, hitting shots long by metres and coming to the net too early when his volleys are nowhere near adept enough. He already hits a forehand hard enough as it is, so putting that extra bite on it is only going to send it long more often than not.

Monfils was never threatened for the main reason that his serve was on song, and Acasuso wasn’t even close to getting a read on it. He could be forgiven for any minor lapses of concentration, when his serve is as secure as this and sometimes it's better to put all of your energy into the important junctions of a match.

Watching Monfils play on clay, definitely the main appeal is his movement and how he slides into his shots, particularly on the forehand. Out of all the players, he quite possibly moves his legs the furthest apart from each other, to the point where I think he’s going to lose his balance during his racquet swing. Maybe he could do with having more precise movement so that he can change directions more effectively without hitting a squash shot.

With Monfils, it's definitely movement first, before racquet technique in terms of what his thought process is. At times it looks like he has forgotten that he has to figure out what to do with a shot, and ends up going with this strangely improvised shot instead. On one point, he made a backhand error that looked like it was aimed right into the air as if he was swinging straight through it like a cricket bat. To which the commentator on the live stream I was watching appropriately said that "Sometimes it just doesn’t even look like Monfils is hitting the ball with the intent of it going into the court".

Australian Open Day 4 Blog

(This Australian Open blog was posted on Tennis Week here.)

Today was a day that featured a mixed quality of matches, one that I considered to be a disappointing day of tennis until later in the day when I witnessed the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ivan Ljubicic which was easily the best match that I’ve seen so far this Australian Open.

I started off the day over in Court 6 to watch Jurgen Melzer play against Andreas Beck. Beck is a player that I knew little about, but as soon as the match began in progress, it looked like I had underestimated him as he got off to a quick start. It didn’t take long for me to change my mind about him, and I soon decided that he was a dangerous kind of player.

He’s got flat groundstrokes off both sides, particularly off the forehand side and generates some good pace on it. He surprised me numerous times in the beginning how Melzer would be trying to build up a rally with slice backhands and keeping relatively good depth but Beck would just ignore it and go right ahead with trying to blast a winner quickly to end the point. And so it worked for a while, but with shots as flat as that, it was inevitable that he was going to throw in some poor service games as well. So the key for Beck was to try to get the most out of his serve, and he won a lot of points early on with fast, deep serving, although its accuracy in terms of its width was hardly impressive.

Melzer soon started to realize what Beck was doing himself and suitably adjusted his game, to start to play more first-strike tennis, following up shots better on his own serve and adopting a more aggressive game himself. Incidentally the game he was starting to play was a very similar style to Beck’s, so it was like trying to beat him at his own game. Implementing the big, flat shots and following them into the net. Except that Melzer clearly has more flair than Beck and can implement a greater variety of play especially on defense.

The big problem about this match was the inconsistency of both players and the outcome of the match being overly reliant on simply who could execute their game better. Both players were capable of playing consecutively poor points and they often made too many errors off the follow-up shot, the shot straight after the serve which should be a relatively easy putaway shot at times. So in short, it was a match that featured flashes of brilliance, but not at a regular rate.

What was most engaging about the match was the sheer unpredictability of the match and the closely contested nature for the first three sets, which is why I lost interest as soon as Melzer had taken the lead in the fourth set. Beck had his chances to take a two sets to love lead after leading in the second set tie-break, but that was when the momentum switched to Melzer who ended up winning the fourth set comfortably 6-2 to take the match.

I had contemplated at the time as to whether I should have searched for another match to watch but I was simply not interested in watching only one set of tennis. The live scores suggested that most of the men’s matches at the time were already near their closing stages into potentially the final third set, when the outcome of the match itself was not in doubt.

So I walked over to Hisense Arena to watch the match between Gael Monfils and Stefan Koubek, a match which in hindsight was maybe a poor choice as I found myself completely restless and bored. It was a match-up issue that I could not have foreseen myself giving the impression that Monfils was in utter control and that there was little that Koubek could do about it. Playing against someone like Monfils really emphasises Koubek’s limitations in his offensive play, his inability to hit winners when not given pace or angle to work with.

At first I could see that Koubek was doing well in using the full dimensions of the court to patiently move around Monfils. Monfils started off slowly himself, so the start of the match was slow paced, compared to what I’m usually used to watching. But as soon as Monfils started to implement more changes of pace on the forehand and backhand sides, which occurred with more frequency as the match went on, Koubek could no longer match him. Midway in the first set was when Monfils converted his first break of serve.

To make matters worse, Koubek knowing what he was up against would try to implement some more aggressive play which just often led to tame errors on his side. Having Monfils, primarily a defensive player play against someone like Koubek does not bring the best out of him, in terms of the spectacle, and subsequently Monfils wasn’t particularly animated either. In terms of the match, it’s good for him because he’s better in all departments but he isn’t given the opportunity to hit those amazing shots on the stretch. In fact, because Koubek plays a slow-burning kind of game, he never even looked like he had to show exceptional movement around the court.

Even though Koubek had gone up an early break in the third set, it definitely looked like nothing more than a lapse of concentration from Monfils, and so I continued to be bored. Then in one of the changeovers, the live scoring popped up for Court 13. Radek Stepanek had taken the first two sets comfortably but Michael Berrer had won the third and was up a break in the fourth. I was originally reluctant on it given the distance between Hisense Arena and most of the other showcourts, especially if I was planning on coming back relatively soon for the following match, but I rushed over there anyway.

Could this be an exciting five-setter? We all know that five-set matches generally tend to have a much better atmosphere surrounding them, and that was evident straight away as I sat down to watch Berrer serve for the fourth set. But from then on, is where Berrer barely won any points at all getting broken twice comfortably to lose the match 7-5 in the fourth set, but at least I experienced a brief moment of excitement.

From where I was sitting, I was surrounded with people shouting out German comments to Berrer, and maybe some Czech thrown in there as well, if I knew what Czech sounded like. I liked how the tension and drama in the match was particularly emphasised by the loud grunting of both players after they hit a shot. At one point, Stepanek did a fist pump in Berrer’s face which drew a smile out of Berrer, an interesting and refreshing reaction I thought. Stepanek hit quite a few dropshots and touch shots which are the kind of shots that I like to see him play and when I find him to be most enjoyable. It looked like it was some good all-court tennis from both, although I definitely shouldn’t be judging given how little I watched.

In some ways it turned out well that it didn’t go to five sets because that meant that I was able to watch the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ivan Ljubicic right from the beginning, and what a match it was. It was high quality tennis from both ends, aggressive tennis from both sides while keeping the errors down.

Ljubicic’s groundstrokes look better in real life than they do on TV, more penetrating than it looks and he gets quite a bit of work on the ball. This must have been the best match he has played in a while, at a similar level to when he was at his peak around 2006. His forehand in recent years had been a declining and error-prone shot and early on, I was expecting him to make some tame errors on it but it held up well for the majority of the match, a sign of how well he was playing.

What I like most about Ljubicic’s game is the variety of his game, which didn’t allow Tsonga to take control of the match. He made good use of the slice backhand in particular to mix up the play which allowed him to stay in rallies and turn defense into offense on a number of occasions. Not allowing Tsonga to take control with a single forehand, which I mentioned earlier as one of his strengths, and also implementing a nice all-court game.

It was a display of good shotmaking from both sides, and that Ljubicic was able to generate almost as many winners as Tsonga, one of the most explosive shotmakers on tour was yet another sign of his good form. I liked in particular how both players were able to elevate their games even further under pressure, especially in the tie-breaks.

The atmosphere was electric in Hisense Arena, with the crowd sensing that maybe Tsonga needed some help. Ljubicic must have been devastated in the third set tie-break, how he did everything right on his end to take a 6-3 lead, only for Tsonga to elevate his game to amazing heights to make a comeback and take the third set. Then Tsonga ran away with the fourth set, hitting aggressive returns and passing shots, helped by the declining quality of the Ljubicic serve.

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.

Monfils shows he still has a lot to learn while Roddick shows flashes of his old form

Gael Monfils had been long touted as one of the young guns, one of the upcoming stars of the men's tour but failed to live up to expectations for a number of years. He had been frequently disrupted by niggling injuries for most of his career, and when he was healthy enough to play, there was a distinct weakness in his tactical game and he was constantly criticised for his overly defensive game.

In the last few months, he has slowly finetuned his game with the help of new coach, Roger Rasheed, Lleyton Hewitt's former coach, who apart from adding some discipline into the Frenchman's training regime, has also helped Monfils slowly transform his game into a more well-rounded game that is a healthy mix of offense and defense.

He still gets stuck behind the baseline on occasions, but he no longer appears to be pinned back with no options, instead being able to effectively neutralise shots before throwing in that change of pace or running passing shot that has been long known as one of his trademarks.

From a tactical point of view, yesterday's match up against the world number one, Rafael Nadal was a fascinating encounter because it would answer a lot of questions about Monfils' willingness to attack and how he would approach the match in general. The Spaniard is often known for wearing his opponents down and being relentless in his consistency, but more importantly because of his superior defensive skills, he forces each and every single player on the tour to play an aggressive game in order to threaten him.

Masters Series TV commentator, Robbie Koenig mentioned that Monfils had been practicing specific drills to upset Nadal's rhythm, including one that involved hitting a series of crosscourt forehands to open up the court to drill the forehand down-the-line into Nadal's forehand corner, which is the one clear weakness in the Spaniard's game. David Ferrer's two performances against Nadal at the US Open last year and at the Masters Cup specifically come to mind, where he exploited this tactic relentlessly and with little subtlety, as he frequently nailed his off forehand into Nadal's forehand side time after time.

Monfils started off the match doing exactly just that, showing excellent footwork and movement to consistently run around his backhand and hit big forehands. But unfortunately, that sort of aggressive tennis was short-lived as Monfils reverted back to the defensive game that he is known for, and what he is comfortable with. Monfils usually loves playing on the big stage, and with this being a centre court match in his home country against the world number 1, more fireworks were to be expected.

His entire performance in general reminded me much of the style of tennis that he exhibited when I first sat up and took notice of his game when he took out Marcos Baghdatis at the Australian Open in 2007, after Baghdatis had his magical run to the finals the previous year. Back then I noticed that he had one of the most unpredictable games, and that he often seemed confused as to how he should approach his matches. With most players, you get a feel for the patterns or combinations of shots that a player likes to implement. But while Monfils himself did have a general playing style, he would also often throw in awkward shots out of nowhere, but it didn't feel like it was brilliant, more that it was random.

Monfils's performance was not awkward yesterday against Nadal, but it was puzzling that he would achieve so much success with one particular tactic, but that he would completely abandon it for the vast majority of the match. One can only conclude that he found it too difficult to break out of his old habits and go out of his comfort zone, but in this particular match, he had nothing to lose. Nadal's performance himself left a lot to be desired, where a lot of his shots were sitting up high and looked very attackable.

Andy Roddick yesterday, in contrast was particularly impressive against Madrid finalist, Gilles Simon. Roddick hasn't really shown much form in recent times, despite having some moderate success at the lower level events. On occasions, Roddick can get caught into the trap of playing solid, consistent tennis, not making full use of the power that he is able to generate on his groundstrokes especially on the forehand side. Roddick tends to try and win service games by placing consistent pressure on his opponents and hoping to get one service break per set, which is all he needs to pocket a set on most occasions.

On a different note, Roddick also has a tendency to associate aggressive tennis with constant netrushing without acknowledging that he has to effectively set up a point to increase his chances of having success at the net. Often he only reserves his aggressive game for the top players, for example, against Novak Djokovic at the US Open where he had relative success going for his shots but crumbled on the big points. To be honest, because he does not attempt this sort of tennis often enough, it is still difficult to tell whether Roddick is actually able to implement this sort of strategy consistently with success.

However, yesterday against Simon, he was in particularly impressive form, where his groundstrokes looked dangerous and he had an extremely intimidating presence about him which isn't always the case. Simon, in contrast, with his energy-saving game, looked like a decidedly small and irrelevant figure although to be fair he has a knack of hanging around and generally beats his opponent in a much more subtle fashion.

Right from the outset, it looked like he wanted to send a clear message to Simon, and this was no clearer than when he stepped in and crushed Simon's weak second serve on numerous occasions. On the backhand side, he was stepping in and taking it early, making it difficult to Simon to extend the points as he would like to. The final game of the first set was the standout, where at one point, Roddick hammered three consecutive off forehands to take the set.

However, the second set had a slightly different tone to it as Roddick went down two break points, showing some overeagerness in his shotmaking, mishitting a couple of forehands and throwing in some double faults. But Roddick saved all of the break points, often opting for the high percentage well-placed kick serve, which caused Simon all sorts of problems. This pattern repeated numerous times later in the set, and whenever he needed a big point, he went for that same reliable and high percentage strategy.

The baseline rallies in this set were much more closely contested, as a result of Roddick stepping his foot off the accelerator as well as Simon playing more solid tennis and seemingly getting his teeth into the rallies more. I noted often that Roddick started off many of the points keen to get his opponent off the back foot by taking the ball early, but as soon as they engaged in longer rallies, Roddick started to hit those loopier, medium-paced shots again. However, in the final game of the match, Roddick went back to the successful strategy of attacking Simon's second serve, and despite some shakiness in the big points in that game, earned himself the crucial break to take the match.

Simon, for a brief moment, showed some of the fighting qualities that saw him reach the final of the Madrid Masters only just two weeks ago, but it wasn't enough for him to win the match. At one point, in the final game when moving out wide to retrieve a forehand, Simon slipped over and dropped his racquet in the process, but recovered quickly to hustle to the opposite side of the court, before Roddick made the error on the following point.

In the final match of the day, Nikolay Davydenko continued his dominance over Tomas Berdych extending his head-to-head record over the Czech to 8-0, barely dropping any games in a convincing 6-1 6-1 win. I remember watching one of their earlier matches from the Australian Open in 2005, which was closely contested, and featured some impressive ball striking from both players but since then Berdych has lost much of his belief against Davydenko, which adds up to the difficult match up problem that he faces.

Davydenko is one of the few players on the tour, who I feel are extremely difficult to overpower because he is able to use an opponent's pace against them to redirect the ball and move them around. Compared to Berdych, Davydenko takes the ball earlier than Berdych, is more accurate in his shotmaking and can generate better angles and is a better mover. I like the rotation that Davydenko gets on his groundstrokes which enables him to change directions on his groundstrokes effectively, and he was doing this frequently like he usually does, often going down-the-line on both sides.

In terms of game, Davydenko had the clear advantage, so Berdych needed to hope that Davydenko was slightly off his game, and that he himself was on good form. When that didn't turn out to be the case, the shoulders started slumping quickly for Berdych. As soon as Davydenko went up a double break in the first set, Berdych never looked like he was even going to make this a contest.