James Blake's return to court comes to a crashing halt

(This is an old post that I posted on The Daily Forehand)

It's not often that matches make me feel an inner rage inside of me, but I feel that James Blake brings out that kind of emotion out of me more so than other players. I don't know how many people caught his opening round match against Igor Kunitsyn, but it could really be described as nothing other than a trainwreck of a match. At first, I thought I should cut him some slack. He's been off the tour for a while, hasn't played a match since Wimbledon and has had a few niggling injuries. He obviously hasn't had a whole lot of match practice, so why should I be criticising his performance as if he should do well straight off the blocks?

The early signs were okay. He broke Kunitsyn's serve straight off the bat, with the kind of trademark second serve returns that we've come to expect from him. Kunitsyn looked like a lightweight, as I grumbled at the potential one-sidedness of the encounter to the extent, where Blake didn't really need to bring anything close to his A-game.

But then Kunitsyn broke back quickly with some decent returns and good play. Maybe he's not so bad after all. His serve looked weak and lacking in pace, but on the other hand, it's deceptive. It floats up high, but it's accurate and deep especially going out wide to the corners. Blake just seemed rusty to me initially, struggling on the return of serves and snatching at times on his groundstrokes, but nothing to get overly frustrated about.

You see, it's not the slight inconsistencies that bother me. His whole body language and attitude during most of this match drives me insane. I'm watching the errors he's making late in the first set, and he's got his feet wide apart, open stance and trying to hit all these big shots while barely even moving his feet. In between points, he's got his shoulders slumped and he's walking slow in between points.

I don't like to call it this, but it looks like he's moping. I can't explain this mentality in any other way, other than the fact that he didn't want to be out there. And maybe Blake is one of those players. He only likes it when he's playing well. He can't really be bothered on those other days, which is crazy sometimes when you look at what he can do when he just decides to use his speed. Take for example, the second set tie-break. Suddenly he's decided that he wants it more and is going to decide to cover all of the court. Why couldn't he have done that earlier? I can't say what happened in the third set because as much as I would have loved to report on the match, I could not watch it any longer but I've heard that it was played at a similar quality.

Kunitsyn played a part too in this "special" match. Not that you could hold it against him, not only because of his status as a player but because he competed well. He stayed calm and collected, and played with a workmanlike attitude which is all you can ask for. Though both players did their fair share of gifting each other points, which got a little ridiculous. Kunitsyn was up 0-40 on Blake's serve at 5-5 in the second set, but shanked and showed no control over his shots to blow that advantage. At least in the end, it was good that the better competitor prevailed.

Australian Open Day 2 Blog

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

It was the second day at the Australian Open and for the most part, my experience today mainly consisted of watching routine straight set matches, in other words, watching the favorites apply their trade.

I didn’t have Rod Laver Arena access to see the anticipated Hewitt vs Gonzalez match, although I did very briefly see the late stages of the fifth set, where Hewitt broke back to give a brief false sense of hope (and Gonzalez received his medical time-out) before further getting outplayed again to lose the match. Now I would have thought that the whole point of gathering around the big screen was to cheer on the Aussies, yet instead I found the group of Chilean fans sitting right next to me to be far louder in their support. Although it must be said that there are several TV screens located around the venue, so my own experience might not be particularly representative of the entire surroundings.

I started off the day session in Court 6 to catch the match between Jurgen Melzer and Kei Nishikori, one of my most anticipated matches personally because I actually enjoy watching both players, not just one. As I made my way into the stands, Nishikori had taken an early break lead, so when I started watching was pretty much when Melzer started to take control of the match.

The first set was by far the highlight of the match with Melzer playing at the top of his game, doing all of the dictating and pulling it off. He plays a forward-moving kind of game, looking to take the initiative wherever possible by leaning into the ball and following it up at net. It was an entertaining brand of tennis, although it didn’t seem to be particularly appreciated by the Japanese fans I was surrounded by where those winners were often treated with a silence.

I often get the sense that this kind of play is risky, and watching in the early stages I was wondering whether Melzer even possesses a safe rally shot that can be relied on in longer rallies. That I couldn’t tell is a sign of how often he likes to mix up the play with changes of pace and all other kinds of riskier methods, as well as how well he was playing today.

Nishikori remained relatively passive in the early stages, not making much of a dent in the match, although this seemed magnified by Melzer’s initially aggressive play. Nishikori didn’t seem to be that effortless with his movement and groundstrokes today compared to what I can remember seeing from him previously. This was particularly noticeable in the second and third sets where Nishikori started to attempt to adopt a more aggressive approach, which all it did was make this match an even more comfortable one for Melzer.

Having sensed that Nishikori was struggling, Melzer took the foot off the accelerator in the last two sets, not going for the flashy winners he was earlier but still continuing to play with controlled aggression. For once, he proved to me that he actually is capable of playing with some sort of consistency. Once Nishikori realized that Plan B, the more aggressive tactic didn’t work either then that’s when he got started playing without any real belief. That was also when I decided that the match was not worth watching anymore, although I was only about ten minutes away from its completion when I left.

Then in a completely unplanned move, I walked past Court 3 on my way to check the scores, to notice that Richard Gasquet had lost the first set against Diego Junqueira, and was just about to contest the second set tie break. So I went right into the stadium to find out what it was that Gasquet must have been doing wrong to be losing to a player of that calibre. But then as I took a glimpse of that second set tie break, I saw a similar brand of tennis that I usually associate with Gasquet, a nice variety of play and he was quick to come to the net to seize any opportunities that he created. So in short, it was not at all a bad performance from the Frenchman.

At times he struggled with maintaining consistent depth on his groundstrokes, but I have never really found that to be one of Gasquet’s greatest strengths anyway compared to someone like Djokovic who has well-measured groundstrokes. Instead what is most impressive about Gasquet, is how difficult it must be to read and feel comfortable playing against him given that he tends to vary just about everything in his game.

Sometimes he takes the ball on the rise to return serve, while on other occasions he backpedals a couple of steps. He serves-and-volleys on some points, can unleash winners from any position at selective moments and he is excellent at changing the height and trajectory of the ball during rallies. Basically he doesn’t give his opponents any rhythm at all, and I would have to think that playing this kind of game even makes it difficult for himself, not having that clear purpose and strategy to implement again and again.

The match in itself was of a good quality which was evidenced by the high winners count on both ends, which by the end of the match reached a very impressive 76 winners for Gasquet, showing that Junqueira must have played a good match himself. Junqueira is a tricky, slightly unorthodox kind of player. He’s left-handed and likes to generate topspin off both wings, to the point where he gets so much margin over the net. It amazes me his ability to finish off points without needing to flatten out his shots noticeably. Overall he didn’t have that much success on the Gasquet serve and it seemed like he needed to be able to start a point on his own terms to be able to finish it in that same manner.

At times Gasquet would land a ball short near the service line or so, an ineffective forehand whether intentional or not bringing Junqueira into the net only to get passed. In the end, Gasquet’s greater shotmaking ability and ability to remain unfazed and confident over the course of the match got him over the line. Mentally he seemed to be in a very good frame of mind, and I particularly liked his post-match reaction where he seemed to be very delighted with his win.

This is when I made my way into Hisense Arena to go watch yet another Frenchman with flair, the more highly-ranked Gilles Simon playing against Pablo Andujar from late in the first set onwards. I noticed on the way there, that on the billboard showing the schedule of Rod Laver Arena matches that they had mistakenly displayed Olivier Rochus’s photo next to Christophe Rochus, an embarrassing error on the organizers' part that was finally rectified later in the day.

For such a one-sided match, I found the Simon match to be a rather entertaining match due to the kind of shots coming off his racquet. But to be fair it also had something to do with a lack of expectation from Andujar, who I consider to be somewhat of a pushover.

The first thing that I noticed about Simon straight away was how it seemed like he generates more pace on the ball live, than it does on TV. He really does have great hands, excellent feel and this was in full display against Andujar.

Simon’s backhand in particular is a very creative and impressive shot. Two things he can do that a lot of other players can’t is to change the direction on a high-bouncing ball to redirect it down-the-line or flick his backhand in any given direction holding it until the last second. Because his backhand is based so much around possessing good feel, he is able to do a lot with the ball even in tricky situations. I noticed on one point, in response to a very deep and penetrating ball, Simon stuck out his racquet face opening it up just in the right angle to reflect it back into its ideal spot, to generate a short angle into the open court.

In the end, it almost seemed a bit like a practice session for Simon, a chance to experiment with playing more adventurously. Whenever he did make any errors, it was usually off the forehand side trying to step up the pace, but who’s going to complain when you win the last two sets 6-1 6-1?

So after the match’s completion, I headed back to the outside courts to watch Mikhail Youzhny take on Stefan Koubek. It was a match that promised more than what it actually delivered. It was very much like the Nishikori vs Melzer, in terms of how the match unfolded. The first set being the most closely contested before the overall quality of the match gradually descended as Youzhny lost confidence in his own game.

The start of the match featured long, extended rallies. The goal of both players to hurt their opposition seemed to be the same, to open up the court and put their opponents out of position before hitting the outright winner. The biggest advantage that Koubek seemed to have over Youzhny was his defensive skills and ability to stay in rallies making it incredibly difficult for Youzhny to hit through him. He could also create some good short angles particularly on the forehand side, which of course being left-handed meant that they landed into Youzhny’s backhand corner.

In a typical Youzhny moment, the Russian when holding three consecutive opportunities to break serve at 0-40 started to verbally show his disgust towards himself after making a poor error. Even though he still had two further opportunities to break. In the second and third sets, Youzhny simply got thoroughly outplayed in all areas, not only defensively but also offensively and his game started to look extremely poor.

Due to the previous two incredibly one-sided matches, it felt like I was able to witness a large number of matches today. I went back into Hisense Arena to watch the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Monaco. Heading into the event, Tsonga was under an injury cloud so I thought that this might be a potentially difficult banana skin for Tsonga, drawing Monaco who was a solid top 30 player before experiencing numerous health and injury problems last year. This was the kind of match-up where I wanted to see a contest, and all this expectation did was add to the disappointment despite the fact that Tsonga had put in a rather impressive display. The first two games started off promisingly for Monaco, consistently being able to hit well-placed forceful shots and showing the kind of level that forces his opponents to need to play well to beat him. But it turns out that those two games were just about the only two good games that Monaco played all match as it turned out to be a relatively one-sided affair.

The one thing that I noticed about Tsonga was how much reward he seems to be able to get off the forehand, his big weapon. It is such a big shot when he unloads on it that he was often able to virtually win points with one shot, in that it would put him in such a winning position to win the point. Given how impressive players can defend these days, it really is a strong weapon to have. The match mainly seemed to be able Tsonga dominating with the forehand, which he seemed to unload on with more frequency as the match unfolded. Towards the end of the second set is where I decided not to watch the match any longer and instead take a look at Radek Stepanek playing against Nicolas Lapentti.



But I found it difficult to get into this match maybe because of the generally quiet atmosphere and surroundings, so I went into Margaret Court Arena to watch one of the most explosive shotmakers on tour, James Blake play against Frank Dancevic. It was a very entertaining match which featured superb athleticism and exciting winners. I remember once hearing from commentators that Dancevic’s game is based around pure athleticism and that is one of the first things that stand out about Dancevic. The way he moves around the court is reminiscent of Pat Rafter, who was also known for that, and I particularly liked the way he moved into his one-handed backhand where it sometimes looked like his feet comes off the ground on contact.

Blake’s movement around the court is enjoyable to watch the way he seems to accelerate his movement and move violently into the ball to the point where he would often have to slide in the last second to put the brakes on, to be able to be balanced for the shot. As you would expect in a Blake match, there were also plenty of winners to admire and enjoy. Dancevic himself seemed to be a far more streaky player in comparison, able to string together entertaining shots for brief periods of time but not threatening long enough. From his point of view, the third set was definitely his best period in the match where he played some inspired tennis. But Blake withstood the challenge from Dancevic, sometimes needing to dig himself out of difficult games on his own serve and crucially broke serve at 4-4 to win the match 6-4 in the third set.

Some of the other highlights of the US Open

Instead of concentrating of the back end of this year’s US Open and the major stories like Roger Federer breaking what would be a Grand Slam drought (for him!) or Andy Murray’s impressive run to the final, I decided to write about some of the more memorable moments of this year’s US Open as well as some other observations which may not necessarily be considered a highlight.

One of the most memorable moments for me would have to be the fourth set tie-break that was contested between Nikolay Davydenko and Gilles Muller. The first thing that struck me in this match was the determination and will to win that Davydenko showed. He was hustling around the court showing a sense of urgency in his movement and grunting louder, or should we call it breathing, because his grunt sounds like him taking a very deep breath? Keep in mind that it was only two weeks ago when Davydenko was quoted as saying that he had currently lost his passion in tennis, so it looked like playing in a grand slam event had fired him up.

The tie-break in this match was epic, extending all the way to 12-10 which Muller finally won. It was full of drama, intensity and backed up with high quality play from both players, with all of this occurring on Armstrong stadium with barely anyone in the stands. Muller, in comparison to Davydenko was calm and collected under pressure, often coming up with big serves and following them up with solid volleys.

Muller’s volleys are mediocre but he covers the net well with his large wingspan and he is an intimidating presence. Davydenko hit possibly the best shot of the tournament to get himself up a mini-break when he hit a running forehand crosscourt squash winner passing shot, with all of his body weight going backwards, moving from short in the court to the baseline.

From then on, every point was decided by winning shots from both sides until Davydenko thought he served an ace. Muller then challenged it and was successful, and what so usually happens when there is a delay in between first and second serves, Davydenko threw in a double fault to hand over the crucial break.

On the match point, Muller hit a drop volley that was backspinning wide to the doubles alley of the court but sat up high for Davydenko to put away, which he failed to do so, missing wide. Davydenko then smashed his racquet in disgust and I don’t mean one of those racquet bounces that you regularly see, then he collected himself to give Muller a warm handshake at the net.

Another match that had some of the same qualities was the fifth set between Kei Nishikori and David Ferrer. For me, it is one of the most fascinating things to witness, when a relatively inexperienced player is in a position to produce a big upset and one of the biggest wins of their career, and to have their opponent force them to come up with their best tennis to win the match.

Nishikori is one of the rising stars of the ATP tour, and first caught the attention of the tennis world when he captured the Delray Beach title while being ranked in the 200s defeating James Blake in the final, and later in the year pushed Rafael Nadal to three tough sets at Queen’s Club. Nishikori is a shotmaker and unlike some of the other young guns, he is able to quickly recognise an opportunity to come to the net and has the tactical awareness to switch between defense and offense quickly, although in the matches that I watched, he had a tendency to be a little impatient at times.

Playing in the first five set match in a Grand Slam against a tough competitor like Ferrer who had compiled an almost perfect five set record of 9-1 prior to this match, it seemed like a daunting task especially given that Nishikori had dropped the third and fourth sets after taking the first two. Nishikori served for the match unsuccessfully the first time at 5-4 and this started to look like another typical Ferrer match where he grinds his opponent down both mentally and physically.

Ferrer continued to make Nishikori work hard to win every point, but Nishikori put the disappointment of being unable to serve out the match out quickly and continued to go for his shots with authority. One of the best examples of this was the match point where it looked like Nishikori had just about won the match, then Ferrer threw up a high defensive lob that landed deep about a metre from the baseline to essentially restart the point. Nishikori then got it back deep and folllowed it up with a winning forehand down-the-line to win the match.

The best match of the first week of the US Open was surprisingly between Donald Young and James Blake, which looked like it was going to be a rout at least on paper. It turned out to be just that in the first set, and the first thing I noticed about Young is how fidgety and impatient he looks when he is playing, and he started off the match rushing on most of his shots. I had heard a lot about Young’s apparent variety and court smarts which made him different from the other American players. But in the first two sets, what I saw was poor shot selection and erratic play from both players, with Young often wanting to finish off the point far too quickly. What they did have was fast-paced rallies and plenty of ebbs and flows of the match which made for compelling viewing. Blake let Young into the match late in the second set when he dropped his own service games with three or four unforced errors and from that on is when the quality of the match picked up.

Young started to figure out that he didn’t need to play so aggressively and started standing a metre further back than he was from the baseline giving him a bit more time to react and started to open up the court much better with his forehand catching Blake out time and time again trying to camp out in the backhand side looking to run around it.

Young’s forehand is a dangerous shot. He is able to generate large amounts of racquet head speed on that side and that allowed him to produce flashy winners on that side on many occasions in this match. His backhand is compact and solid especially when given pace to work with. Blake’s shot selections were questionable to say the least and his shots were lacking in accuracy, but in the end, his greater experience (or his opponent’s lack of experience) won him the match.

But this match is memorable more because of Young’s performance, because of all the potential he showed, which for now, I can’t really pinpoint a spot in the rankings that he should be at, because while he does have an excellent all-round game, good shotmaking abilities and court speed, there are noticeable weaknesses in his game and there is a reason why he is ranked where he is now.

Other observations worth mentioning

• I enjoyed seeing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga back more than I thought I would. I couldn’t believe how well he was playing against Moya in the 2nd round given how long he was out for. He is such an explosive player that it is hard not to be excited when he puts it all together. Unfortunately he was not able to back it up in the next round against Tommy Robredo where he tried to force himself to raise his energy levels, but it didn’t work and he ended up not being anywhere near as consistent as he needed to be.

• Both Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils won over the crowd with the enthusiasm and energy they showed in their tennis and their interaction with the crowd. Is it me or does Monfils slip and slide around even more when there is a big crowd and they respond to him? While I admit that it was somewhat enjoyable watching both of them this US Open, I don’t think it would be the same watching them play in front of a crowd that didn’t make any noise where they wouldn’t be feeding off the energy of the crowd. Having said that, I didn’t enjoy Monfils’ matches in his run to the French Open semi-finals this year at all, especially his matches against Ferrer and Ljubicic.

• Has anyone noticed that since Richard Gasquet started working with Guillaume Peyre, he has reverted to playing a more aggressive game, but often in the matches he has lost, like the matches against Haas (at the US Open), Tursunov, Nadal and Murray, he was far too quick to go for big shots in the closing stages of the match and ended up losing convincingly in that final set. His forehand which was criticised for being too loopy and landing too short, now sometimes flies on him when he tries to accelerate through it. I find it interesting that he has gone from being too defensive at times, to the other way around, but most of all, I’m curious to see if he can end up finding the right balance.

• The two best matches that I watched in the tournament were between Gilles Simon and Juan Martin Del Potro, and the semi-final match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal.

• When is there going to be an official pay live stream of the US Open and other grand slams (excluding Wimbledon)? Wimbledon is really the only grand slam that offers this worldwide, with their coverage extending to eight simultaneous courts and all of those matches being available on-demand. Eurosport have had their Eurosport Player service where Europeans are able to pay to watch from a choice of five courts for a couple of years, but no such luck for the rest of us. I was frequently hopping onto my computer hoping that there would be a live stream of the match that I wanted to see. It was a difficult decision to make everytime I found one that was in poor quality (usually on justin.tv) to decide whether that would be worse than watching a match that I was not interested in, but could see what was going on. I usually prefer not to watch early round matches featuring Federer, Nadal or Djokovic if there are other choices unless if they have a match that looks more difficult on paper than usual. I think this is an opinion shared by many tennis fans, but TV coverage is catered towards casual fans which is why there needs to be better online coverage.