Wednesday second round action in Brisbane

It’s clear that the Brisbane International has grown in popularity over the years. It’s great for the tournament, and nice to see such huge support and interest for tennis here in Brisbane, but as a spectator, it can be such a pain. I hadn’t really found myself thinking about the good old days in the past, but today I found myself flashing back into time an awful lot, thinking of how back then, I could have sat anywhere I wanted to on an outside court, as long as there was still play going on in Pat Rafter Arena. Whenever you sit on small outside courts, there are always plenty of crappy seats, particularly anything that is blocked by an umpire's seat. Whenever I pick seats, it is always my main criteria - just anywhere without the umpire's seat in the way, please.

To accurately reflect the special circumstances under which I watched these matches, I decided to take accurate photos, rather than ideal photos. I could have of course zoomed in very closely, moved the camera up to avoid heads, waited for the players to be in the right position of the court to get the best shot. But photos are supposed to capture experiences, aren’t they, so I went for the more realistic choice.

Transport is always more relaxing when there’s nothing exciting on the schedule to start the day with, so I timed my arrival pretty well to get there close to the start of play. In the line-up, they were handing out free newspapers to everyone, which is a good deal. Almost everyone took one, but scanning around stadiums and seating areas all day, I hardly noticed anyone reading one. I guess it was all eyes on the tennis today.

I had some unfinished business to do from Monday. I went over to Tennis Central, as they call it, the entertainment area down the stairs. Before walking down the stairs, I stopped for a moment to take a look at what it looks like from higher up. It’s just funny how these things can appear to be more appealing to the eye the further away it is. As I walked down the stairs, the footing appears to be unstable and it’s clear that everything has been temporarily set up here. Nothing wrong with that, as it makes complete sense, but I was highly amused by the design of the pathways which lead to nowhere, so you have to walk through the artificial grass to get through to the dining area.

After taking a bit of time to figure out where to walk, I headed back to Pat Rafter Arena to watch Gilles Simon play against James Duckworth. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about that. End with Gilles Simon on Monday, start with him on Wednesday. If I didn’t know him any better, I could have thought that Simon looked like he just got out of bed. I was sitting in the back row, so there are some things I can’t see. But even from this far away, it’s easy to see Simon casually strolling around in between points. I wonder what it would be like trying to cheer him on, as a coach or fan. I wouldn’t bother to, because he doesn’t really look like he’d be bothered to step it up another level, unless if he was clearly losing.

From this view, I couldn’t really see what Duckworth looks like, so I’ve kind of made up a picture in my mind based on what I can see. I don’t have the ability to make up new faces, so I’ve decided that he looks like Sam Querrey without the cap from far away, and maybe made him look a bit more attractive or regular looking. From the start of the match, he looked very keen on putting in a good performance here. I liked the scorching forehand return winner in the first game. He broke serve in the first game, but it went downhill from there. He was the more aggressive player, and more adventurous in terms of shot selection, but the errors cost him the set, and perhaps he wasn’t really capable enough to try pulling off playing at this level, not that I would know.

As the match wore on, I started to lose interest. Simon was up an early break in the second set, though I did notice by the time I left that he was leaking more errors than usual. For such a one-sided match, it would have been nice if Simon could have shown more of his abilities, but he was as predictable as ever. Not taking a commanding position in the match, letting his opponent have a chance.

Sitting in the back row has a larger amount of distractions than anywhere else where the stadium is closed off from the outside. From here, I can smell food from the outside, which is a problem near lunch time. I can hear the sound of the Nova radio announcers who read out the schedule of play every 15 minutes or so. I can hear the sound of coffee being made. I decided I didn’t care anymore about the outcome, and the smell was luring me away, so I left for an early lunch break. The crowd erupted soon afterwards as Duckworth broke back.

It was not a great day for me. I spent much of the day being tired and distracted, and hardly ever getting a good seat. With Tommy Haas’ withdrawal, the court scheduling had been changed to move some Court 1 matches to Court 2. One of them being Radek Stepanek’s match against Jarkko Nieminen (see the photo for an idea of the crappy view I had to watch this match on). This match looked potentially interesting on paper, but the match-up wasn’t as interesting as I thought it might be. Stepanek didn’t mix it up all that much in the first set, resembling too much of a normal player for my liking. I tried to look closer, but as far as I could see, there wasn’t anything particularly clever in his play, a bit disappointing for such a deliberate player (he usually does everything for a reason). Nieminen hits the ball harder from the back of the court than from what I would have thought watching on television. He swings right through his backhand and gets a huge amount of racquet head speed on it.

Nieminen doesn’t look particularly expressive on his face, but he was frequently hitting balls into places in between points, throwing his racquet around, nothing too extreme for the most part. It’s very strange, because it feels like it’s coming from nowhere. About to lose the second set, he smashed a ball into the back fence without looking where he was going and nearly took out a ballkid. It doesn’t seem right that he gets a code violation for that, while Petzschner gets the same code violation for hitting a ball into the roof/court cover.

The second set, Stepanek was playing more intelligently, following up certain shots into the net. They weren’t noticeable net approaches. They didn’t come from completely opening up the court, so it must have taken a good eye and quick reactions to be able to pull off that kind of play. Nieminen was making a ton of errors, and watching live, it looks more appropriate that he would because he doesn’t hit the ball as safely as a lot of other players. It’s not as controlled and restrained.

Having watched that match with the umpire chair in the way for the most part, I was happy to be able to move on to watching Philipp Petzschner’s match against Santiago Giraldo. Surely with Jelena Jankovic playing at the same time, this would allow some additional comfort and breathing room in the stands. I arrived early with some women’s doubles still going on, and there’s this person sitting next to me taking an awful lot of photos of Carla Suarez Navarro sitting down cheering them on. I don’t know, it just looks a little stalkerish, though had I spotted someone I liked, I might have done the same thing.

I was a bit excited about watching Petzschner play. It’s always interesting to watch unique players live, or to have something in particular you can concentrate on, or notice. Giraldo on the other hand, is not one of those kinds of players. I watched him a few years ago, and I still can’t really recognise what he looks like, or the technique on any of his shots. But I did notice that he seems to have improved since then, and his forehand appears to be more of a weapon than it used to be.

Petzschner was fun to watch in the beginning. But you can tell he has a limited skillset. His game clearly revolves around his serve and forehand. His serve is huge. You can tell just from the sound that comes off his racquet, when he serves. His backhand slice floats across the court more so than the majority of players. Whether this is a positive thing or not, I don’t really know, but it looks artistic. Whenever he hits a forehand, he steps right into it, almost as if he was hitting an approach shot all the time. He doesn’t appear to have anywhere near the same level of consistency as most other players, as in, he doesn’t even attempt to have it. He prefers to play recklessly. Players hit to his backhand frequently. He slices it patiently crosscourt almost every time, and it’s like whenever he gets a forehand, he’s been waiting so long to get one, that he needs to rip it even if there isn’t any space in the court to justify doing it.

The matchup here wasn’t a good one. Clearly Petzschner’s slice backhand wasn’t being hit well enough, because Giraldo had plenty of time to run around and hit a forehand on the majority of them, while hardly making any errors. A player’s strength versus a player’s weakness. It’s clear to see who would win this battle.

After an underwhelming day of tennis, I decided to watch one more match, a rematch of last year’s match between Alexandr Dolgopolov and Igor Andreev, in very different weather conditions. Considering that I found it very hard to stay awake the previous match, it was probably helpful that I had a very strange older couple sitting next to me, who were commenting on everything. The lady was cheering for Dolgopolov so that she could watch more of the match, though it took her quite a while to figure out how to pronounce it, and what his first name was. Her husband cheered for Andreev, as a response to every time she yelled out, ‘come on Alex!’ Once they got into the third set, they switched roles, since the wife wanted the match to continue while the husband wanted it to finish. The husband kept saying, ‘More power, Igor!’ in this weird voice.

I also had to look through a fence for most of the match, since it was completely packed. It was nice to see two interesting players play against each other, something to admire from both sides. I started watching from late in the first set, and Andreev was definitely playing better than what I had seen from him in the past live. Clearly, winning in the qualies has given him some confidence in the main draw.

Andreev’s forehand is so much fun to watch live. It might appear to be one-dimensional on TV, but it just never stops getting exciting live. It draws gasps from the crowd, it looks and sounds like it’s dangerous enough to take anyone out, but it’s probably easier to defend against it than you would think. Or at least Dolgopolov’s backhand held up pretty well against it. Towards the end of the first set, Andreev was on this roll where he would hit all these forehands which were still in mid-air for the most part, until dropping right on the baseline at the last minute making it very difficult to return.

I was reminded again of how Dolgopolov is exciting to watch live as well, with his very energetic game and how he likes to mix it up constantly. Though in this match, it was Andreev doing most of the dictating. He should have won the match on his first match point, but he misfired a forehand long, while the rest of the tie-break seemed to be filled with tense moments containing long rallies, big forehands and excellent defending from Dolgopolov. Once Andreev had lost his opportunity, his game went downhill in the third set, playing nowhere near as consistently as he did when I first started watching. Occasionally he was still a threat to break back, but he couldn’t convert, so Dolgopolov went on to win the match.

Brisbane International - Monday Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can Thomaz Bellucci win his first title in Gstaad?

Video clips of this match: First set | Second set | Downloadable full match

Earlier this year Thomaz Bellucci reached this first ATP final in his home tournament of Costa Do Sauipe, losing to Tommy Robredo in the final. This time around in reaching the final of Gstaad, he faces an easier task against the German Andreas Beck, who prior to yesterday had never reached an ATP final himself.

Bellucci at the moment has been sporadic with his results on clay, the surface that is likely to bring him his biggest successes. Still only 21 years old, there's plenty of room for his game to develop, and from a technical point of view, his game looks formidable on clay at least.

It was semi-finals day in Gstaad yesterday, and if you ever wanted to watch a typical claycourt match where players respected the characteristics of the surface, then the match between Bellucci and Igor Andreev would have been perfect for that. There is something beautiful about watching topspin in groundstrokes, the curved shape of the flight path of a ball which always makes for great Hawkeye demonstrations on TV. I think it's the additional sense of ball control, and the greater margin of shot that makes it look like you're watching something extremely skillful.

Both Bellucci and Andreev had that, particularly Andreev who is well-renowned for his unique forehand which has sometimes drawn comparisons to Rafael Nadal's forehand, in terms of spin. Andreev uses an exaggerated motion, as if he's trying to put as many rotations on the ball as he can. He hits it with a similar mindset to a batter in baseball, as if it were the only shot that he needed to hit rather than one in a series of shots. He exerts all of his energy into the one shot, and doesn't seem to recover all that well afterwards as a result. Subsequently watching him play brings the same kind of feelings, where you can find yourself mesmerised by his forehand, to the point of ignoring the rest of his game.

In terms of accuracy, Andreev's forehand isn't as good as Nadal's. When he has time, he can create some superb angles and use that to open up the down-the-line shot. But if he's pushed back with a deep shot, he's really only limited to a deep and heavy response. It's not entirely a negative aspect, because it's an excellent shot in itself and one that Bellucci had trouble dealing with early on given that Bellucci doesn't take the ball early himself.

Bellucci took a similar mindset to Andreev, hitting these moderately loopy balls in response to deep shots, in particular on the backhand side. It's nice to see a change of spins in a match, and utilising that loopy ball as a legitimate defensive option. Both Bellucci and Andreev have similar backhands in that they are lacking offensively, although Bellucci is slightly better in this area. It's more of a neutralising shot to set up for their favoured forehand.

As heavy as Bellucci hits his shots himself, his shots looked completely standard compared to Andreev at first. You would expect that it would take a while for opponents to adjust to the uniqueness of Andreev's game, and that's what happened here. It felt like Andreev's shots were consistently shooting through the court, almost as if it was like a bad bounce, even though it clearly wasn't.

Bellucci seems to be the kind of player that really needs to develop into a rhythm to play well, so it took him a couple of games for the match to be played on even terms. The way he hits his shots reminds me of an intense practice session. It's something to do with how he never seems to chase the ball or move forward to hit it on the rise, how it often seems to be within his reach instead. It's unbelievable how often he can still manage to keep the two hands on the racquet stretching out to his backhand side.

Tactically he is very sound, it's just that he's also patient. Often he is happy exchanging three-quarter paced groundstrokes manouevring his opponents further out of court with each stroke, although it must be said he still generates good pace on it. The more important the point is, the more you get an idea of what each player's favourite patterns of play are. And when Bellucci had to fend off break points, or when he was down in a service game, he liked to hit crosscourt forehands into Andreev's backhand, gradually moving it wider out of court to set up the down-the-line shot. Interestingly enough, he's not usually as stubborn about that and is more than happy to utilise more of a complete tactic normally.

The biggest difference was that Bellucci had a greater variety of groundstrokes, the ability to change pace and flatten out his strokes on both sides. It's difficult to read and often surprising, how he can be comfortably exchanging groundstrokes then suddenly unleash a winning shot. It's also a sign of being tactically smart, playing percentage tennis waiting for the right opportunity to attack. His serve must be difficult to read as well, because it's such a quick service action that you would get barely any time to read his ball toss, which is apparently where most people anticipate serves from.

At the end of the first set, Bellucci stepped it up a gear at one stage winning 6 points in a row to crucially win him the set, suddenly appearing more confident in his shotmaking. But late in the second set, Bellucci showed signs of nerves serving to stay in the set, something that he may have to work on. Because he wasn't only nervous in terms of appearing tight, but tactically his game had changed as well. Where he was comfortably exchanging three-quarter paced shots all match long, he started to become impatient trying to use the same swing but hitting the ball harder so naturally it landed long more often than not. It wasn't like he was intentionally flattening out on the shot.

On other instances, he would sometimes attempt to finish points quicker by moving into the net. In some ways, it's a change-up tactic but also it's openly admitting to nerves and impatience. It would have to be planned in a smart way to work, not only as a means to end a point. Gilles Simon does this well, Bellucci not so much. Fortunately for Bellucci, he managed to scrape through that one service game where he battled nerves, then he grew in confidence as a result afterwards and managed to rediscover his game from the earlier part of the match to later break Andreev's serve and win.

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.

Nalbandian and Del Potro take Argentina to a commanding 2-0 position

The Davis Cup semi-final tie between Argentina and Russia promised to be a closely contested encounter on paper, but it didn’t turn out that way as Argentina took a comfortable lead winning both rubbers in straight sets. With Juan Martin Del Potro’s sudden rise up the rankings, Argentina are starting to look like a highly formidable team and they showed this yesterday as both Del Potro and David Nalbandian outclassed their Russian opponents in straight sets, Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev.

The first rubber contested between David Nalbandian and Igor Andreev was a slightly inconsistent affair especially in the first set, but in the end, Nalbandian’s variety, tactical game and ability to play the big points was the decisive factor. For anyone that has seen Nalbandian play Davis Cup before, especially in Argentina, will know that Nalbandian thrives in Davis Cup playing for his country, and in this kind of atmosphere. He is especially animated in these kinds of matches and plays with more focus than in main tour matches.

Andreev, in comparison is hard to read in terms of what mental state he is in for these matches and seems to have his ‘game face’ on for the entire match. Andreev, himself has been known to perform impressively for his country on some occasions, the win against Fernando Gonzalez in Chile last year comes to mind specifically although this year, he also lost to Radek Stepanek at home, on clay in three convincing sets.

The match started off evenly poised in the first set with both players holding serve, and only one break point being fashioned which was on Nalbandian’s serve. The level of play from both players was inconsistent, but both were effective enough to take care of their own service games. Nalbandian looked flat-footed with his movement often coughing up errors getting caught out of position, although he was clearly not lacking in energy.

Andreev was efficient in his game, and stuck to his strengths during the match using his heavy and accurate serve to good effect and making use of his favoured off-forehand, although it started to look more predictable as the match went on. Despite some inconsistent play, Nalbandian looked ready for the battle and although he was lacking in execution, he wasn’t going to let it deter him and he continued to show purpose in his shot selections and strike his groundstrokes with conviction.

In the first point of the first set tie-break, Nalbandian missed a backhand return long by a couple of millimetres, which would have been a winner, then he later missed a forehand deep by a similar amount which allowed Andreev to take a commanding 4-1 lead in the tie-break. It looked like Nalbandian’s luck was all going against him when one of his shots clipped the top of the tape and was called out. But it was then overruled, which Andreev disputed to no avail. That changed the momentum as Andreev started to get tight and tried to bludgeon his way out of trouble with big shots, which appeared more forced than usual. Nalbandian then played his best point of the set to win the set moving Andreev out of position after an extended rally, and quickly seizing the opportunity at the net.

The second and third sets had a different tone, with Nalbandian starting to play with more confidence and looking like he had the match under control. His footwork was starting to look better and he was getting more comfortable in his movement, moving more effortlessly around the court.

As the match progressed, Nalbandian was starting to learn that he could open up the court, then approach to Andreev’s backhand and finish off the point at the net which was a lower risk strategy than what he was doing before. Andreev was finding it harder to take control of the points, although he was able to remain on serve until the final game in the third set. Nalbandian played the best game of the match to break serve to win the match, which he won with two return winners and a trademark backhand down-the-line.

The match between Juan Martin Del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko turned out to be a one-sided affair right from the outset, with the exception of the end of the second set where Del Potro nearly relinquished a double break advantage. Del Potro is currently on a run of good form winning 23 of his 24 last matches, and is a player on the rise. He had previously played two singles matches in Davis Cup for Argentina, but both away matches in Austria and Sweden respectively.

Given that this was his debut at home and that with his current run of form brings high expectations, it was a test to see if Del Potro could handle the pressure. Based on what I had seen of him in the last few months, I expected that he would react to the occsion positively, given his relatively calm demeanour, which he did. Davydenko, in comparison has been known to struggle to find his best tennis in this competition and is often slow to adapt to changing surfaces.

The match was characterized by long baseline rallies with both players playing controlled aggressive tennis, with the difference being that Del Potro was doing it much better with more margin of error on his shots (or so it seemed given how well he was playing) whereas Davydenko was trying to hit closer to the lines and was often the one making the errors at the end of points.

One telling statistic in the first set was the winners-unforced error count which was a mere 2-2 for Del Potro suggesting that he was winning the majority of points by forcing errors. Davydenko could not seem to get any advantage on his serve as they started to engage in extended rallies on the majority of points.

The second set started in the same vein as the first and it looked like it was going to be an embarrassing rout for Davydenko at 4-1 and two breaks down. Del Potro started to get nervous with more errors coming off his racquet while Davydenko started to get the upper hand in more of these long rallies. The game at 5-3 was the climax of the match, which was extended to five or six deuces until Del Potro finally served out the set.

One interesting thing I noticed in this match was how in these rallies, Del Potro looked every bit as impressive defensively as Davydenko. He doesn’t look as effortless with his movement and sometimes it looks as if he is taking a giant lunge (even though he isn’t) but he positions himself well and this was particularly evident in one point in the third set when he bent his knees all the way down to find an exceptional angle on the backhand passing shot winner.

As soon as Del Potro won the second set, normal service resumed and he continued to break Davydenko’s serve at will wrapping up the match with ease 6-1 6-4 6-2.