Davydenko captures his first title of the year in Hamburg

Video clips of this match: Start of First set | End of first set | End of match

Heading into yesterday’s Hamburg final, Nikolay Davydenko was a strong favourite to take the title in Hamburg over Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu. But for a moment there, it looked like it was going to be a close contest, a toe-to-toe baseline duel of big groundstrokes.

Mathieu came out firing perhaps knowing that anything less wouldn’t cut it against Davydenko, trying to push Davydenko around, to avoid the same being done to him. It was a clash of a similar brand of attacking tennis, rallies traded at lightning pace back and forth.

Mathieu went an early break up, and I was initially surprised that the Frenchman was able to play this brand of tennis and end up on the winning side of those rallies more often than not. He must have been playing right at the peak of his abilities. When I looked at the strengths and weaknesses of both players, it definitely looked like Davydenko was capable of doing everything a little better than Mathieu. Particularly in terms of movement and ability to change directions, not to mention that Davydenko loves to work with the pace he’s given with.

Mathieu’s run of form really only lasted about three or four games or so, and by then Davydenko had started to really find his form and timing. Because of his movement, it’s like Davydenko catches each ball at the top of the bounce, hitting it in the most favourable of positions even when being stretched out wide. But I also like how well he sets up for his strokes, how it seems like by the time he’s making contact with the ball, his feet are firmly planted in the ground, not still recovering from the sprint.

It’s no wonder that he can dash from side-to-side so quickly then when his feet are ready to move the other way as soon as he’s finished his stroke. Because he hits the ball at the top of the bounce, it also enables him better margin on the down-the-line shots that he likes so much, less chance of hitting the net.

It ended up being more of a showcase of Davydenko’s shotmaking from midway in the first set onwards which is where he really started to hit his straps. Consistently creating angles and accurate down-the-line shots to take Mathieu out of the court, and essentially out of the match, helpless to do anything but defend. As well as Mathieu can attack while being on the front foot in a rally, he’s nowhere near as good at turning defense into attack as Davydenko. If he’s stretched out wide, he’s not going to be hitting a down-the-line winner.

What he needed to do was try to keep Davydenko off-balance and limit his offensive options, but that’s a difficult task in itself if you consider how difficult it is to get Davydenko off balance. Davydenko doesn’t compromise as much as other players, he likes to take risks and he can because his movement and footwork is so good. He doesn’t block a whole lot of shots back preferring to take a full swing most times which I think is one reason why his return of serve is so good. He could be on the full stretch returning a serve that lands right on the line, down the T and he’ll still set himself up to take a full swing and return it with interest deep close to the baseline.

There was not a whole lot Mathieu could do, and it ended up being one-way traffic for Davydenko. Unfortunately for Mathieu, he started to run out of ideas after the end of the first set. He occasionally tried to make things happen but he was too far behind the baseline that instead, all he did was make things easier for Davydenko.

In the end, it was a relatively one-sided match for Davydenko after the first four games, which resulted in his first title of the year. His ranking took a hit earlier in the year after injury, meaning that he wasn’t able to defend some of his points, but I’d like to see him start to make a climb up the rankings again and edge closer towards the top 5, where he belongs.

Mathieu fails to serve out the match against Cuevas twice, but wins

There were lawsuits filed, but in the end Hamburg lost their bid to keep their status as a Masters Series event, so subsequently the event ran as an Open 500 event. Now the event has been moved to the lull period in the calendar after Wimbledon, not leading up to any part of the season but rather an opportunity for players to build up ranking points and prizemoney.

It has been a memorable week for Pablo Cuevas, the 23-year-old qualifier from Uruguay who recorded his best career result in singles by reaching the semi-finals in Hamburg, recording upsets on the way over Jurgen Melzer, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Nicolas Almagro. Based on his performances this week, it is hard to believe that Cuevas was actually ranked below the top 100 prior to this tournament.

Everything about Cuevas is smooth and solid, a sign that he doesn’t really have any noticeable weaknesses especially on this surface. It’s not the type of game that immediately demands attention, but rather what he can do over extended rallies and points that really starts to look impressive.

He has heavy groundstrokes on both sides, and beautifully produced shots particularly on the backhand side, the shot which single-handedly dominated the early part of the semi-final match against Paul-Henri Mathieu. They exchanged large amounts of crosscourt backhands which allowed me to get a good look at the shot, and Cuevas looked so comfortable as if he could do this all day, replicating the same motion over and over. He doesn’t step in on his backhand, but rather waits for it and sets up for his wind-up.

Slowly he started to work over Mathieu with depth and angle, hitting heavily topspun shots that landed deep limiting Mathieu’s attacking options. Once he had opened up the court, that’s when he took the risk to go down-the-line, playing well and within himself at the same time. He doesn’t really possess a good flat down-the-line shot and prefers to hit it with a decent margin over the net, which means he really needs to construct his points to get that opening. So that’s what he did in the first set and a half working the angles in the backhand corner, aided by Mathieu’s lack of variation in shot selection.

A key reason and perhaps the biggest reason for Cuevas’ successes this week was the effectiveness of his serve, causing all kinds of problems for his opponents trying to deal with the ball kicking up high out of their strike zones. It was the combination of placement and spin that made it impossible to deal with. What can you do to deal with a serve that takes you metres outside of the sideline, if it’s placed so wide and short in the box? Not to mention that it usually takes a while to adjust to such special shots like that. So Cuevas found himself having a whole court open to him, and starting off the rally with a big advantage even if they engaged in one.

A set and a break up, and this looked like Cuevas’ match in convincing fashion, but it was a huge occasion for him, the opportunity to reach a final of an Open 500 event, and one with a prestigious history, having been a Masters event in previous years. Where Cuevas had looked so in control and convincing, he started to show more hesitation and unsure of himself, making these strange errors that he never looked close to making early on, shanking a couple of shots and hitting too close to the centre of the court. Though I should also give credit to Mathieu’s tenacity hitting those shots on-the-run so much better, putting in a lot of effort to hit that double handed backhand on-the-stretch that requires so much strength and balance.

I noted in the following game that Cuevas attempted to hit two forehand down-the-line shots, running around from the backhand corner, one of the most difficult shots in tennis because you really have barely any room to work with. And I was wondering why Cuevas would attempt to hit that shot, when he had not used it to find himself in a winning position originally. It was a panic shot obviously, and Cuevas was wondering the same himself motioning to himself to stick with the off-forehand.

Unfortunately for Cuevas, by now Mathieu had started to grow in confidence and was more willing to go down-the-line particularly on the forehand. All of his shots started to gain in pace and accuracy, and he was hitting the shoulder-high loopy balls so much better. Mathieu is definitely a player that runs on adrenaline in order to play better given that he’s not really one of those effortless players. He needs to generate power, and that requires energy and confidence to find that racquet head speed.

A lot of credit has to go to Mathieu for the positive body language that showed in the match, the belief that he could still win the match and raise his game, something that must have surely been intimidating for Cuevas. Every time I watch Mathieu play, I’m always impressed with how positive he is, how he is constantly trying to encourage himself regardless of the scoreline. So it doesn’t work much of the time, but that just impresses me even more that he doesn’t just drop those shoulders and start thinking about the past instead. He keeps himself in the moment instead.

The third set turned to be mostly a nerve wracking affair on both sides, where the quality of play from both players seemed to be largely dependent on the scoreboard. Strangely despite having a 45 minute delay from a leaking roof, once play had resumed at the start of the third set, it was like nothing had changed.

Mathieu continued to ride the wave of confidence, while Cuevas put in a very tame performance until Mathieu served for the match at 5-1, where Cuevas started to play more relaxed, loose tennis. It was a role reversal because it was Mathieu’s turn to tighten up squandering two breaks. Unbelievably as soon as the match leveled back to 5-5, Cuevas played a shocking game to give Mathieu yet another chance to serve for the match and this time he did so successfully.

Australian Open Day 1 Blog

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

In my first visit to the Australian Open, I noticed that I found the experience to be more overwhelming rather than any feeling of excitement. After all, a Grand Slam is like a festival of tennis, over twenty courts of simultaneous action played at the highest level of intensity, and basically the pinnacle of tennis. But instead I felt a lack of patience, like if a match wasn’t up to standards then I wanted to be somewhere else and I found myself often uncertain about which match I wanted to watch.



I arrived about 20 minutes late and quickly made my way over to Court 3 to watch Tomas Berdych play against Robby Ginepri. This match I picked more due to the potential difficulty of the match-up compared to a typical early round match rather than any interest I had in either player. I was particularly disgruntled when as soon as I sat down to watch, Ginepri lost his serve at 2-1 with three or four awful errors then to later witness Ginepri continue to play at that similar standard for a further one and a half sets. Which brings to the question, is it better to simply watch players you like or the most interesting matches?

The match in itself was characterised by Berdych comfortably moving around the ball keeping the rallies going, while peppering the Ginepri forehand more often than not. Ginepri in the first set and a half barely managed to win any rallies that went over four shots or so, especially not any consecutive points in that vein. Normally I find Ginepri’s game to be strangely interesting due to his somewhat unconventional technique, but I failed to see any of that today. He would take a short loopy swing, without really having the normal forehand backswing that most other players do and if he doesn’t time it correctly it just lands all over the place.

Berdych himself looked to be playing in a relatively comfortable rhythm without much trouble until when he went a double break up in the second set, where he surrendered one of them back, and since then continued to struggle to hold onto serve, nearly almost letting Ginepri get back onto level terms. To be fair, it wasn’t only Berdych’s inconsistency. Ginepri was no longer spraying balls anymore and I didn’t need to be so pessimistic about his chances during rallies.

The atmosphere in this match was particularly strange. I think watching the matches at home, what you notice are the certain groups of supporters that are there, and in this case, Berdych had his. But sitting in a different section of the stadium, I noticed that it was more of an unbalanced atmosphere, like the cheering was really only coming from one direction, however loud it was.

So this improving performance from Ginepri put me somewhat of a dilemma after initially deciding that two sets would be enough for me. But as it happened, I took off anyway to go watch Robin Soderling take on Robert Kendrick.

It felt like the stands were literally packed with Swedish fans and as the day unfolded, they proved themselves to definitely be the loudest group at the Open. In particular I liked the alternating chant they were doing, by having one group on the left chanting one line, and the other group on the other side doing the next, giving the impression of the fans being everywhere. Although that’s not to say that there were few of them, because there were plenty, and later on you could hear them from all the other outside courts when Sofia Arvidsson took to the court.

This in turn, immediately made this a more entertaining match, but the tennis was of a relatively good standard as well. A match between two aggressive players, but two different types of aggressive players. Soderling likes to dominate from the back of the court while Kendrick likes to throw in some more variety and changes of pace and charge the net when he has the opportunity. I like Kendrick’s style of play, but often he found himself being pushed around not being able to regularly control the points the way he would like, and he was generally less consistent than Soderling.

I think the biggest difference between the two, was the effectiveness of the second serve. Kendrick seemed to be far more affected negatively whenever he needed to resort to one, which either could have been due to his less effective groundstrokes (not being able to serve-and-volley like he would on a first serve) or worse serving in general. So it didn’t surprise me when Soderling eventually managed to break Kendrick’s serve in each set.

I also think that Soderling has the slightly better defensive capabilities, whereas Kendrick doesn’t seem to be able to do much with the ball on the stretch. Soderling is far from being a smooth mover, but he does a good job of lunging to the ball, mainly to keep the ball going, and deep if possible rather than anything else.

From my point of view, there seemed to be a lot of line calls of shots that looked in to me, that were called out on that close sideline, but considering the view that I had, I’d assume that it was more likely me that was incorrect rather than the linesmen. At 30-30 in the game where Kendrick got crucially broken in the final set, Kendrick thought he served an ace. This is the incident that prompted Pam Shriver to come onto the court when the match finished to interview Kendrick, which amused me given that players themselves surely do not want to be doing an interview at such a heated moment.

This is where I went to take a quick look at the match between Feliciano Lopez and Gilles Muller, the match that I found out later turned out to be an epic five-set match that extended to 16-14 in the fifth set, won by Muller. Not that I regretted walking away from it one bit. It was early in the third set when I started watching, where Lopez had just broken Muller’s serve with a couple of low slice backhands.

It’s interesting that both Lopez and Muller are considered to have relatively unique games being lefty serve-and-volleyers but playing against each other, it was a bit like watching a mirror image. Except Lopez has a one-handed backhand and Muller has a two-handed backhand but both resort to the slice more often than not so it’s barely noticeable. At first I thought watching slice backhands made a nice change, but about ten minutes later I realized I was mainly watching a match dominated by serve. It was very much a case of putting in the first strike, and not much shotmaking here to admire.

So at this point, I thought maybe I should take a look at Taylor Dent who was returning to action after injury problems for the last couple of years or so, up against Amer Delic. Then as I walked over to court 10, I noticed that there were really only one or two rows of seats on each side of the court to the point where if you sat down, you’d have to put up with seeing a fence. I don’t understand the scheduling decision to put a man who was once considered to be half-Australian, and had moderate amounts of success on one of the smallest capacity courts, considering that the majority of outside courts at least have around four rows of seats on each side. I later saw when the match was into a fifth set that it was packed with people standing everywhere wherever they could, with which I simply do not see how people can actually even see, then again I am relatively short.



I wasn’t that desperate to watch it, I decided and the heat was hard to deal with at times so I thought I’d go watch Jelena Dokic, another player on the comeback trail, up against Tamira Paszek. It was much like watching the opposite of the Lopez vs Muller match. Reasonably long rallies, played under a nice rhythm. I found it amusing that even Paszek and Dokic’s grunting which is characterised by a louder level of breathing than most people, seemed to be incredibly similar.

Having seen Dokic’s match against Mauresmo in Brisbane earlier this year, the one thing that I had feared the most was her ability to take advantage of leads she had built for herself, and her serve potentially failing her. After going up an initial early break at 2-0, Dokic quickly gifted it back with two double faults. But surprisingly, that was just about the end of it, and despite brief moments of shakiness, she managed to deal with the occasion relatively well, at least compared to that dreaded Mauresmo match.

In the first set, both players were playing relatively similar styles keeping the ball going crosscourt the majority of times, and only pulling the trigger down-the-line when they had an opening. The difference was that Dokic was the more aggressive player hitting the ball harder and at a lower trajectory which in the end got her a much bigger winners tally than Paszek did.

The first set was Dokic’s most consistent set, good ball-striking and a low amount of wild errors. The one thing I noticed about both players was that whenever they were pushed on the defensive, they were rarely able to turn defense into offense, meaning that both Dokic and Paszek were not very impressive defensively. It felt like to me from watching it that the majority of shots both players were hitting seemed to be well within their reach.

The second and third sets were a more inconsistent affair with numerous changes of momentum. Both Dokic and Paszek started to go for riskier shots, down-the-line shots except Dokic’s shots were far pacier. It no longer looked like Dokic was playing a relatively patient game, sometimes trying to do too much. In the end, it seemed like the one service break in the third set for Dokic was enough to put the momentum in her favour to snatch her a second service break. Dokic showed a brief sign of nerves after going up that lead but was able to remain composed enough to serve out the match successfully.

Then I headed back over to the outside courts to catch the first set between Paul-Henri Mathieu and Jarkko Nieminen. I noticed that recently Mathieu has been subjected to a couple of very one-sided losses early in the season to Verdasco and Djokovic, the former of which I watched live myself in Brisbane. So I was hoping that this time Mathieu would put in a better performance this time and showcase more of his skills. Immediately right off the bat he went down a couple of break points, but saved them all with good serving, then the match started to turn right in his favour. His groundstrokes were much better this time, opening up the court nicely with accurate groundstrokes and excellent angles.

The first set was one of the more entertaining sets that I watched that day, in terms of the quality of play from both players. Nieminen in the end got pushed back most of the time, forced to play from a defensive position due to Mathieu’s controlled aggression. I didn’t notice Nieminen to be struggling noticeably with his movement until when he took an injury time-out at 5-2 in the first set, then strangely served-and-volleyed on one of his weak second serves. Then later in the game, he served a meek double fault to lose the set 6-2. I noticed him take another injury time-out after that and that was when I left the match.

I then had a brief look at the closing stages of Dinara Safina’s match which seemed to feature many breaks of serve, until Safina won the match 7-5 in the second set.

So up next on court was David Nalbandian against Marc Gicquel, the first full men’s match that I watched that day. Nalbandian started off the match moving the ball around well, but struggling on his serve to the point where it looked like maybe he would prefer returning instead of serving. It was interesting to specifically pay attention to the consistent accuracy of Nalbandian’s groundstrokes which seemed more impressive compared to most players. In the early stages, he was able to stave off all of his break points which made for a not very representative first set scoreline of 6-1.

Gicquel himself has relatively flat groundstrokes and short backswings on both sides. But these short backswings seemed to be nullified by Gicquel’s relatively late preparation on both sides which limited his offensive capabilities to some extent. There seemed to be a noticeable difference between Gicquel hitting a rally shot and stepping it up to change the pace whereas with Nalbandian, it all seemed relatively similar in terms of energy. In the first set, Gicquel seemed to be rushed a number of times, but he started to maintain far more consistency in the second set.

The second set is when the match started to turn with most of the focus being on Nalbandian berating himself constantly, unhappy with the feel that he was getting on the ball and his poor first serve percentage. Watching it live, it was slightly uncomfortable to watch seeing Nalbandian frequently frustrated with his own play. There were some awful forehand errors, some short balls that were dumped and his volleys were particularly poor that day sitting up high most of the time for Gicquel to put away.

Gicquel started to hang in the rallies in the second set much better, and from here on in, the rallies going on seemed to be relatively neutral whereas earlier it looked like Nalbandian had the upper hand in controlling points even though he had hit fewer winners than Gicquel that set. Having shown signs of frustration for a fair amount of time, after a while, Nalbandian imploded smashing his racquet which drew several jeers from the crowd. But that wasn’t enough to release the tension, and did so again the following point although to a lesser extent.

That was when he went through a two game period of showing some very uninspired play before composing himself again to be able to play some more solid tennis in the final two sets. I didn’t really notice much of a difference between the third and fourth sets in terms of Nalbandian’s quality of play, with the difference being that Gicquel was simply more consistent in the fourth set compared to the third.

Saturday: Verdasco and Stepanek reach the final in Brisbane

It was men’s semi-final day at the Brisbane International, a line-up that consisted of three out of four players that I had not yet watched live this week. Something that I was immediately pleased about, despite the fact that I intentionally overlooked some of Mathieu and Verdasco’s matches earlier in the week in favour of other players.



I must have had one of the best seats in the house this time, just high enough to be able to see the entire court without turning my head and situated right in the middle of the action. The match between Paul-Henri Mathieu and Fernando Verdasco, was one between two of the bigger shotmakers on the tour. Mathieu lost the crucial Davis Cup rubber in the final a number of years back for France, while Verdasco won it for his country. I just wonder how much that final win has helped Verdasco, considering that he has struggled mentally throughout his career.

Obviously what I wanted to see the most was Verdasco’s big weapon, the forehand, which was flowing as well as ever in this particular match. Seeing it live, it is one of the more unique shots on the tour, despite seemingly having a conventional technique, largely due to the spin that he generates on the ball. You can pretty much tell how much spin he puts on it based on the completely different sound that comes off his racquet.

Verdasco started off playing more within himself in the first few games, getting plenty of height over the net on the forehand but placing his shots well. His serve was also working particularly well, earning him plenty of cheap points at the start. One thing I was surprised about was how much time Verdasco seemed to have to set up to play his shots, and the relaxed swing that he possesses on both sides that sometimes it doesn’t even look like he gets that much racquet head speed on it, unless if he’s going for a big shot. But you can see the end result of his shots to know that he does.

His backhand looks so simple and basic mainly because of the relaxed manner in which he positions himself when he’s hitting the ball, almost like he’s walking through it. The kind of shot that you would think would be nothing more than solid, but he was consistently redirecting it to the right spots with ease. As the match progressed, he started to flatten out on the forehand more, and it started to dominate the match. With his forehand working that well, it looked like he was able to do whatever he wanted with it, and the winners were flowing off his racquet.

Mathieu, in comparison, has what I’d call laboured groundstrokes. It looks like he bludgeons the ball instead of relying on timing, and he didn’t seem to have the full range on the groundstrokes today. He has big backswings off both sides, and it’s like he has to swing through the ball at the right speed. If he does it too quickly then it lands long by large margins. He would cleanly strike the ball, but would send it too deep at times.

The way Mathieu sets up his groundstrokes, it looks like they would be easier to read than most players, and at times I could tell when he was going to hit a more aggressive shot, based on his preparation. It most definitely looked like he was mainly bashing the ball in the first set, not showing much finesse at all.

Then in the second set, he tried to exploit the angles more but with little success, although it did make the match slightly more aesthetically pleasing. Much of the reason behind the lack of success was that he’d open up the court, then fail to make the big down-the-line shot after. I think it’s safe to say that there wasn’t much to admire in Mathieu’s performance today given the one-sided performance, but the match ended up being more about Verdasco and his winners anyway. Which by the way, there is no way that Verdasco will be able to repeat this scintillating performance tomorrow, not to this extent anyway.



So just over an hour later, Richard Gasquet and Radek Stepanek took the court for the second semi-final. I strongly favoured Gasquet’s chances in this match-up because I thought his passing shots and natural feel would work well against a net-rushing Stepanek, given how easily Gasquet has dismantled players like Fish and Lopez in the past. Not to mention that Gasquet doesn’t seem to have any problems dealing with variety.

For Stepanek, this was a completely different match-up to the last time I watched him play against Llodra, in that he was playing against someone that would easily outplay him from the baseline. So Stepanek would have needed to throw in as much variety as possible, not so much to throw off the rhythm of his opponent but to avoid getting into baseline rallies that he would lose. There were plenty of slice backhands, short angles and well-placed shots. It worked out well for Stepanek at first, in the first two games as he got up an early break. But that’s where the match completely turned around, with Gasquet taking the next six games to convincingly take the set 6-2.

Stepanek basically tried to come in after every midcourt short ball, and Gasquet just passed him again and again. I think Stepanek barely won any points at net in the first set, but he continued to try to make his way up there anyway. Gasquet has very excellent improvisation skills, and I like how he adjusts his swing to hit shots on the dead run emphasising that he has a very natural feel for the game. It never looks like he’s lunging for the ball or muscling it. It was a very nice all-court game that he was playing. Of all the matches I had seen, this match featured some of the most variety overall from both players. That was probably the main appeal of the match, more than the quality itself which fluctuated during the match.

At this point, I thought that the match was mainly on Gasquet’s racquet and that the only way he would lose it, would be by dropping his own level. It didn’t really happen immediately or noticeably. It was more of a slow decline. Slightly more erratic play and not making as many passing shots, not moving with as much urgency as he had earlier in the match. It was seemingly out of nowhere when Stepanek broke serve to win the second set, then the match continued in a similar vein in the third set. Stepanek seemed to get a bit more sting on his approach shots forcing more errors out of Gasquet. Clearly persistence paid off for Stepanek.

Both players seemed very animated in this match for their standards, and it was clear that the match meant quite a bit to both of them. Predictably Stepanek’s antics drew quite a bit of laughs from the crowd, and having watched him a couple of times, Stepanek is definitely a guy that enjoys his tennis.

Given what had happened in the second set, I felt like I had no idea what would happen in the third, and unpredictable it was. Mentally Stepanek seemed to have the edge, showing far more positive body language jogging to the chair on changeovers and celebrating, or rather enjoying his own winners. But then Gasquet seemed to relax as soon as he went a break down, hitting a string of winners. However, as soon as the match went back to being an even contest, Gasquet started to display the same sort of tennis as he had earlier in the set to lose serve again. Stepanek then served it comfortably with big serves to take the match and advance to tomorrow’s final.