Looking Back at Monte Carlo

Usually the clay season is alive and kicking by the time Monte Carlo starts, but this year has been a little different. It wasn’t a mandatory event last year, but it still attracted good fields. The main difference was the absence of the unbeatable Novak Djokovic (check out this sketch), who has been taking a break/cautious injury pause in an attempt to peak for Belgrade. A huge tournament for the family.

The craziest match of all in Monte Carlo a couple of weeks ago was that match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, which I did have the pleasure of watching. There was about a half hour delay (or so it felt like) with Andy Murray warming up on another court when he was scheduled to play. The Tennis Betting sites must have given Murray no chance of winning, yet for a moment it looked possible, just because everything in the match seemed to defy belief. He could barely serve in practice, then he took anti-inflammatory medication. I was sure it was going to be a retirement. In hindsight, I did wonder if the delay was at least partially strategic, buying himself some more time so that the medication would kick in.

The match started, then I watched his serve. It looked fine to me. His body language was subdued, and he walked around the court like he didn’t really care. Though he must have cared to end up playing the match. I guess that was the amazing thing about the match to me. The attitude with which he played the match, contrasted with the outstanding tennis that he played. He didn’t match Nadal’s intensity or mental questions. He kept the points short (or at least tried to) and his movement was great, even though there was barely any energy about him. He is normally like that to some extent, but it was a level lower than usual. The surprising thing was that it didn’t affect his play.

After the subdued body language, and the lack of expectations, the longer the match went on, the more Murray was emotionally invested in it. His forehand looked better than usual. I really liked his sneaks into the net. He should do them more often. I think he should be able to spot openings like that more often, but it never enters his mind, that he should adopt that play at all.

I kept expecting Nadal to adopt more of a killer extinct but he couldn't string enough points together to take a good lead for himself. So far there has been something unremarkable about Nadal’s play this clay season. I think it is carried on from his hardcourt play, where he does give away more errors than he used to, but also playing a more aggressive style. He’s not as much of a relentless player in general, but I don’t know if that makes him any worse, since he has made other improvements. I expect that with more time to make adjustments to the clay again this season that he will start to find his best form.

After two sets of tennis with long and drawn out games, Murray finally ended up being too tired to put up a good fight in the third set, and Nadal steamrolled to a third set victory. This match was under so many special circumstances, that it didn’t really mean a thing in the grand scheme of things, but it was a highlight from what has been an underwhelming clay season so far.

Australian Open Day 5 Blog

This time last year, Jelena Jankovic was ranked world number 1, but this year she’s seeded 8 and flying under the radar. She was scheduled against Alona Bondarenko on Hisense Arena, in what promised to be a good test for where Jankovic’s form is at.

The match had barely started and Jankovic had already hit plenty of shots close to the lines. She seems to particularly like the crosscourt corners and her backhand down the line. It’s almost like she’s constantly picking these very small areas in the court and has her mind set on targeting them.

On first glance, her groundstrokes look very good, but she is already down on the scoreboard, so why is that? I think the athleticism on her groundstrokes really comes through well live particularly how she slides into her forehand on the run, similar in a way to how Rafael Nadal plants his foot on his double-handed backhand out wide.

The problem is that Bondarenko appears to be capable of hitting it at another pace above what Jankovic is capable of, regardless of how much Jankovic will exaggerate her forehand swing or put it further over her shoulder to try to generate more pace. Bondarenko just happens to have that pace, and it seems much easier for her to hit winners too. Part of the reason is that Bondarenko is more accurate, but also that she seems to hit much better shots on the run which enable her to keep her opponent on the move for more than one or two shots.

I don’t think this is normally the case though. There is a reason why Jankovic has such a dominant head-to-head over her. And Jankovic is known for her defensive skills which I thought were lacking today. After making too many errors to start with, Jankovic started to bring the percentages down, sticking more with crosscourt shots on the run. This helped bring the match closer, but not close enough.

It ended up being a bit of a Catch 22 situation because Jankovic’s aggressive game simply wasn’t working. New sets tend to be opportunities for players to try new tactics, and after reining it in, Jankovic tried that aggressive game again. She tried all her strengths: more backhand down the lines, more off backhands, and she also tried to maintain more depth again. Bondarenko was playing well enough, that Jankovic was probably on the right track in terms of ideas that she needed to play better to change the course of the match.

What was fascinating though was how quickly Jankovic ran out of ideas and looked unsure of herself. The majority of her play in the second set could probably be described as reckless experimentation, maybe hoping that she could accidentally stumble across some answers. The thing is, she never believed in what she was doing so she wasn’t close to pulling it off.

There was a moment late in the second set where it looked like Bondarenko was getting tight as she lost her serve, and that maybe Jankovic should have changed her tactics to allow it to happen more. But it ended up only being a temporary blip, and the way Bondarenko closed out the match on the return game with some impressive groundstrokes proved that it wouldn’t have been a good idea after all.

It’s interesting to watch two women’s matches in a row, because that allowed me to compare the two, and I really like comparing things. Actually the only thing that I really wanted to compare was the serves of the four women, and the fact that Alisa Kleybanova has a significantly better serve than the rest of them. It’s one of the more powerful serves on the women’s tour, and like the rest of her shots, the weight of shot on it is impressive. It’s not just a flat, hard serve.

Kleybanova was up against Justine Henin today. Given Kleybanova’s stature and her reputation, it’s not at all surprising that she has tremendous power on both sides, but what is impressive is the work that she gets on the ball which looks somewhat unique in women’s tennis.

I am not actually sure how to describe it, but I think by rolling her wrist over the ball on both sides, she has the ability to generate more spin than most players after the ball bounces, or at least in a way that many players are not used to dealing with. For example, in the third set, Kleybanova hit a forehand down the line winner that looked like it was going to fall out, but dropped in at the last minute, and it was no shank or poorly timed shot.

Henin couldn’t seem to deal with any of it at first, and maybe as a result of that, I might have been overestimating the effectiveness of Kleybanova’s shots. But early on, Kleybanova would consistently win points by hitting hard straight down the middle. Actually it was frustrating to watch seeing Kleybanova achieve so much success without maintaining much accuracy. I couldn’t understand the lack of rallies, why Henin couldn’t manage to extend them. Usually if you’re going to hit a winner against Henin, you need to make her cover large amounts of court because she’s that quick.

From a shot selection point of view, Henin was frustrating in her own way too. For some reason, she tried to hit winners in a couple of shots herself too. Why was she trying to play the same way as Kleybanova? Why was she not making Kleybanova move when it’s the Russian’s weakness, and why was she not being more patient when it would give her a clear advantage in the rallies? Yes, these were the old problems from a couple of weeks ago coming back to haunt Henin again. Her unforced error stats in the first set were terrible, and whenever she reached some sort of consistency, she’d appear much closer to evening up the match

At least in the second set, despite her continual struggles, she started to resort to a more consistent game. It looks like she has figured out that she can still make Kleybanova move around the court just by hitting crosscourt forehands and backhands the majority of the time, and maybe throwing in some slices as well. I suppose this is related to the story I heard about the crosscourt and down the line drill, that if one person hits crosscourt and one person hits down the line, the person retrieving the crosscourt shots will have to cover so much more ground. Of course Kleybanova didn’t hit all her shots down the line or crosscourt, but Henin should have no trouble covering that ground, should there have been a one-on-one battle in this.

As the rallies started getting longer, the more Henin appeared to be in control of them. Though the fact that the unforced error statistics were in Kleybanova’s favour for such a long time showed just how poorly Henin was playing when you consider what a risky game Kleybanova plays. But in the end, Henin wore her down, and I think she started to become more used to the types of shots she was getting from Kleybanova’s racquet too.

At one stage, Henin was a set and a break down, but she managed to come through in the end.

Following her match on Hisense Arena was Andy Murray and Florent Serra who I seem to somehow always end up watching live due to timing and luck of the draw.

During the warm-up, some Murray supporters in the crowd provided some light entertainment by surely distracting the players in the warm-up especially Murray, by calling out forehand, backhand or volley depending on what shot he was hitting at contact.

This time around I was situated in a much better position to see Murray than in my brief little encounter a couple of days ago on Margaret Court Arena about six rows back and behind the players. I think, given that Murray tends to have an understated game, it was difficult to know what to expect before this week. The lack of pace is not as evident live, definitely not in the same way as Fabrice Santoro anyway. And he doesn’t come across as being that lazy around the court either.

But I was pleased to learn that I liked what I saw. It’s nice to see a player that comes across as obviously being very good, while not overly relying on the shotmaking department. I like the fact that Murray builds up points with shots that are connected to one another, a series of shots that lead to the final winner. I also like that he doesn’t have to be playing incredibly well for it to be entertaining. Either that or I am taking for granted his quality of play.

Obviously Murray is incredibly good at spotting openings. He can generate some good angles on both sides, often short angles too, and as soon as he has his opponent leaving a gap in the court, he’ll throw in the down the line shot if he’s feeling confident enough.

Actually, it’s interesting to note the difference between Murray playing assertively as opposed to playing reactively. Obviously his shot selection will be different, with not as many down the line shots, but even the threat of his defensive abilities significantly changes. On an assertive day, Murray will seem to leave no gaps open for his opponents, neutralise everything and make it even better. But maybe after a short high forehand or a casually chipped shot, he’ll find himself blocking everything back and being almost on the permanent defensive.

This is important given that if Serra is given anything that resembles a short ball, he’ll pounce on it. Serra played a decent first set, though he faded away in the second. He is definitely a player that plays well in patches.

This is what happened here in the first set. Murray was confident to start with then he backed off midway through. So it is very possible that I was admiring the exact same thing that would end up being a weakness later in a match. Murray was in complete control of that first set and should have finished it off well before he ended up doing so 7-5 in the first set. He played a shocking service game serving for the set at 5-3 broken to love on the back of his own errors. It seems that whenever Murray returns serve well, with deep returns, he sets up all the rallies for himself but if he doesn’t block it back well enough then he’s in trouble.

In the second set was a more relaxed Murray, as if the match was now firmly in his control. This set marked the introduction of the trademark behind the baseline passing shot winners, which was what we all came to see. By now, he had also added some additional variety to his game, in terms of shot selection. It was good, but also very relaxed at the same time, partially due to the fact that Serra couldn’t seem to keep up a consistent standard in his own play.

Given that Murray was already up two sets to love, I thought I should head over to Rod Laver Arena to watch Florian Mayer against Juan Martin Del Potro, a rematch of last year’s second round match here in Melbourne. I didn’t want to be joining the match to watch with it nearing its conclusion so I left Murray’s match early, though it turned out as I made my way there, that Mayer had just taken a break to go up 3-0 in the second set.

As I sat down to take my place on the seat, Del Potro would hit a couple of scorching winners to suggest that this match was played fully in his hands. Del Potro seems to have the intimidating ability to hit huge return winners when he perfectly connects with a shot. Despite pace being the main attribute of those spectacular winners, I’m pretty sure he does it mainly through timing.

A couple of minutes later, and all of these spectacular winners started to make more sense. Del Potro has been swinging away on everything, because he’s only interested in keeping rallies short. I started to think that maybe he is injured, because only injured players play with recklessness like that, aside from Richard Gasquet’s play late last year. Now that I have hindsight, I can say that he merely tanked the rest of the set away to save energy, and maybe to protect that minor injury he has too.

Del Potro’s energy levels were up and down the whole set. It was one of Del Potro’s slow walking and shoulder slumping days, and his movement didn’t seem that active in the actual rallies themselves either. It was very deceptive movement because he didn’t move that energetically if he didn’t have to run far. He’d only move as much as required. But whenever he had to reach a shot on the stretch, suddenly he’d speed up and make his way there.

In any case, it was great to see Mayer showing the same form as he did against Troicki the other day, still striking that crosscourt forehand well, and throwing in just as much variety as he did back then. Except this time, Mayer probably has even a few more tricks up his sleeve, or at least he is using more of it today anyway. He’s throwing in more slice forehands especially on the run and using the angles even more than usual. But his biggest strength by far would have to be how well he’s sneaking up to the net.

One would think that in a baseline rally, Del Potro would have the clear advantage but Mayer has been doing an unexpectedly good job of closing that gap. And that’s because of how well he’s been sneaking up to the net, and sensing whenever he has Del Potro out wide, and out of position. He has been serving and volleying a lot on his own serve too.

Where Del Potro did end up getting the clear advantage over Mayer was on serve, how he’d be able to rely on it for so many more cheap points which made him much less prone to losing serve. Mayer had his chances to break back when Del Potro was serving for the match, missing a drop volley into the net that didn’t even need to be good to be a winner, not to mention that these kinds of shots are Mayer’s specialty.

Due to the match finishing close to 7pm, there was a half hour delay in the night matches. What I wanted to see was Rafael Nadal against Philipp Kohlschreiber, and it ended up being a decent match despite the poor start.

I think I had a fear on what I would comment on, given that Nadal’s strengths and weaknesses have already been extensively covered. And should I make the obvious comment on Nadal’s topspin? The most fascinating part of the match for me was going outside for a break and having a look at the TV screen to see the difference of what the match looked like from there. The context of all of this is that I watched the match from a very diagonal perspective which tends to distort what everything looks like, aside from being able to see everything closer.

I think, during the match, I had not realized that the players were using the whole court so much and having to cover so much of it. But aside from that, the other difference was that, you could barely see any spin on the television. In this particular match, both Nadal and Kohlschreiber were hitting with a lot of spin, though not in a similar way. Looking at all these rallies, almost all of these angles that the players are continuously generating is related to the spin that they are imparting on it to make it break away from the court so much, so it was strange not being able to see it. Though I think it was easier to admire the movement on TV view than live actually.

It was a very slow start indeed for Nadal, and he opened up the first game with a couple of shanked shots. Kohlschreiber was in good form early on in free hitting mode, and he must have been loving those high forehands which surely suit his exaggerated grip. Kohlschreiber looked as if he had plenty of time to hit the ball to wind up for his shots, and he was easily the aggressor early on in the match.

It’s a sign that Nadal isn’t playing well early on when the flow of play is so one-sided like this, with it depending so heavily on what Kohlschreiber does. Of course, early on I was curious about Nadal’s spin so I paid specific attention to the height he was getting over the net. It’s no surprise that it was a little higher than other players, but it seemed to be different every single time, and it was especially higher if he was running out wide.

He doesn’t hit a shot with a very clean sound on his racquet so it’s sometimes difficult to tell just how well he is hitting the ball, and how if he hits a ball higher over the net, whether it is intentional or not. Though it’s not like everything looks the same. There is a difference. It’s just less obvious.

In the first set, Nadal is still playing it safe. He’s picking a lot on Kohlschreiber’s forehand and willing to trade backhand crosscourts for a long time. But he starts to time the ball better and become more consistent, which makes it increasingly difficult for Kohlschreiber to execute his shots. Though I do think that Kohlschreiber lost sense of what he was trying to achieve in his shotmaking, and didn’t target Nadal’s forehand often enough at that stage.

Nadal’s forehand is nowhere near as mechanical live, by the way I think. I put it down to the movement that he has on that side, which just makes it more beautiful to watch how he will sometimes be off the ground for a short period of time when making contact with the ball. It’s very athletic.

In terms of Nadal’s movement, as expected, his feet are moving quickly all the time. The result of it is that unlike some other players I’ve seen, whether he gets to a shot or not is nowhere near as surprising because his first steps, middle steps and last steps are all as quick as each other seemingly. The longer the match went on, the more he started to hit that trademark running forehand passing shot which I find to be ridiculously accurate.

The first set was like the trial period for both players, and in the second set they started to figure out more of what worked. I don’t really know why they needed that period given that they’ve played against each other numerous times before, but nevertheless it was there. Kohlschreiber in the second set, despite being less consistent had discovered the type of all-court game that he needed to play which would give him more chance to be successful on a long term basis.

Nadal stopped hitting as many backhand crosscourt rallies and started making Kohlschreiber move side to side more. This is what he needed to do, to take further control of the match, and make it more about him. After a while, it ended up being a nice all-court battle to watch. Though in the end, Nadal’s ability to hit on the run would continually improve, and Kohlschreiber was bound to make a few too many errors under that much pressure. It was a long match though, and rather competitive.

What an epic day in Paris Bercy

It's been a while since we've had a genuinely exciting day of tennis, and yesterday was it. The billing would not have suggested it, standard early round matches for the big guns, Nadal vs Almagro and Federer vs Benneteau.

I was originally more interested in the outside court, and it's a testament to how dramatic the matches were, that I was somehow able to feel the tension in it while knowing the result of it (but not the scoreline).

Marat Safin vs Juan Martin Del Potro

It was Marat Safin's final tour match officially, an occasion that meant something to Safin himself, not only his fans like his previous ceremonies. The tournaments beforehand had been building up to it with little ceremonies everywhere for Safin in the last month or so, but this was the real one. I found the match had more sentimental value than I thought it would. Safin is the first big name player to retire that I've followed since the beginning of his career, at least the first to be given a proper farewell.

I tuned in at the end of the first set, and saw Del Potro's amazingly good winners-unforced error statistics. My first impression was that both players play relatively similarly, especially feeding the pace off each other, hard-hitting groundstrokes that would usually be characterised by clean struck shots right off the centre of the racquet in the first few strokes, then it would be more of a battle to see who could keep up.

Safin had a lot of trouble returning Del Potro's serve but he held up his end of the bargain on serve. Typically as you'd expect Safin sprayed more off the forehand, and he tended to overplay more than Del Potro did. Somehow I think that's what we wanted to see in Safin's final match though - losses of concentration, glimpses of brilliance and a close, dramatic contest. For a period in the middle to end of the second set, Safin went through a good period with his backhand at one point hitting this amazingly powerful backhand down-the-line winner, reflexed right from the shoelaces off one of Del Potro's shots that landed near the corner on the baseline.

The third set was more erratic on Safin's part, now sensing that the end of his career was closing. And his attitude summed up much of the conflicting and confused emotions that often characterised his career. In the change of ends, he was smiling and leaned over in his chair, relaxed and enjoying the atmosphere. Then two points after the changeover, Safin's disgusted with his effort and throws his racquet in frustration after hitting another wild forehand error.

The most touching moment in the ceremony was seeing Safin's tribute in the form of other players, former and current, and also a wonderfully ecletic mix of players in terms of nationality and personality, from Ivo Karlovic to Novak Djokovic and Tommy Robredo. Realizing that this ceremony was just as much a celebration and form of closure for Safin, as it was for everyone else, and having that added warmth about it. It's the sentiment, not that spectacle that counts.

Rafael Nadal vs Nicolas Almagro

The way the match was played out, this was Almagro's match to lose. Five match points squandered and multiple leads lost in the second and third sets. Some credit must be given to Nadal's fighting spirit, the way he saved those three match points from 0-40 down.

As a spectacle I found it in an incredibly strange match to watch. It was long and drawn-out, but not tension-building.  Nadal's missing an element of specialness to him, that sense that he can turn difficult points around right into his favour. Almagro went all out, plenty of winners and plenty of errors, but errors didn't seem to bother him much. In the past, players had to be a little more consistent to have success against Nadal. Think about how Youzhny, Blake and Berdych would generally be able to keep up great shotmaking point after point. And Cilic and Del Potro in recent times.

The backhand looked particularly worrying for Nadal. It was most noticeable on the big points when Almagro tightened up, and started playing more passively. Every shot went to Nadal's backhand, and Nadal would slice it back with no penetration whatsoever, until Almagro eventually made a mistake. The commentators, Robbie Koenig and Jason Goodall have mentioned continuously that the key for overcoming Nadal is to attack his forehand. But to me, it's a combination of hitting to the backhand first, then getting that floating ball to hit deep and hard to Nadal's forehand.

After breaking Almagro's spirit in the second set, surprisingly Nadal took his foot off the accelerator early in the third and Almagro was back in it. For an instant it looked like Almagro's tiredness, turned to cramping later on would help him favourably, after showing a sudden improvement that allowed him to break serve late in the third set. I was somewhat confused at the end, as to how that great shotmaking suddenly turned into a poor effort the following game when Almagro was serving for the match again. He didn't only miss shots, he missed them by several metres. And he looked like he was incapable of doing anything other than standing and delivering completely upright.  Then his shoulders slumped afterwards and Almagro never looked like winning the match again.

Roger Federer vs Julien Benneteau

This match was the anti-thesis of the Nadal vs Almagro match, straightforward in the way the scoreline played out, but compelling in its own right. What was most impressive was the fact that Benneteau never even blinked. He never even faltered with one noticeable bad or nervous point.

It was Benneteau's typical game red-lined. Typically solid ball-striking, defending his own side of the baseline perfectly seemingly showing no gaping holes to hit into. Whenever he ran to a shot to the open court, he looked like was huffing and puffing to get there, not to the point of tiredness, but not looking like he'd be able to recover for the next shot.

Buoyed by the support from the French crowd, everything Benneteau did was just a little bit better than usual for him - deeper shots, more energetic movement and some inspiration that helped him finish off rallies with impressive crosscourt and down-the-line backhands. What I liked the most was how well Benneteau closed off the net, which was the key to him winning the most crucial of points.

It was a big occasion for the Frenchman and he relished it. The more the match reached closer to the end, he focused more on the crowd, and chose to direct his emotions positively and outwardly. It's one of the few times I've felt a shared experience, emotionally involved in a match that I didn't expect to feel involved in. These are the kind of matches that are worth watching tennis for, those little heartwarming moments that don't mean much in the main scheme of things but make for great viewing.

The strengths and weaknesses of the ATP top 10

This is the article I wrote for Sportingo in an attempt to win the £50 prize, but was unfortunately unsuccessful.

Roger Federer

Known for having one of the most complete, all-round games, Federer has the unique knack of being able to combine sheer pace with finesse. The best shotmaker in the game, capable of winning matches with the most dazzling display of winners.

Defensively he is very light on his feet and has excellent reflexes which allows him to half-volley shots on the defensive, to be able to quickly turn defense into offense.

His forehand is a creative shot which allows him to create bigger openings than most other players can, due to his superior racquet control and improvisation skills. His backhand is a solid shot, but his backhand slice especially short in the court is the great strength, for putting opponents in uncomfortable positions and making it difficult for them to take complete control of rallies.

Federer can be prone to shanking balls because of his quick racquet head speed, though he does this surprisingly rarely as his strong record over the years shows. He is most prone to succumbing to the players that are most difficult to break down, such as Nadal, Murray and Djokovic, that force him into long, competitive rallies.

Rafael Nadal

One of the great competitors of the game, Nadal is famous for his intense approach to the game, and attention-to-detail. Undoubtedly one of his biggest strengths is his willingness to improve his game, his gradual transition to becoming more of a shotmaker and more adaptable to all surfaces.

Nadal's game revolves around his forehand, similar to Federer's, how he can force his opponent to cover large amounts of court with the angles he can create on it due to the topspin.

Nadal never succumbs to impatience, and is an expert at pounding at his opponent’s weakness relentlessly, particularly if that weakness is a right-hander’s backhand. He has a knack of hitting superb passing shots on the run. His backhand crosscourt is an improving shot and he can generate impressive pace on it, usually to his opponent’s surprise. Fitness-wise, he can outlast anyone in the game, which can make it a painful experience for his opponents trying to compete with him.

The best chance for opponents to attack him is through his second serve, which has the tendency to land short on occasions. His forehand defensively can also be a problem on hardcourts, because of his big swings which may force him to catch it late. Nadal’s confidence levels tend to fluctuate over the course of the season, which can make him beatable by the very best players or players playing well on their day.

Novak Djokovic

Djokovic is one of the most complete baseliners in the game. He made a name for himself in 2008 with his superb down-the-line shots and impressive athletic ability, the extra effort he puts in to ensure a deep, effective defensive shot on the full stretch. These days, he possesses a relatively complete baseline game, difficult to outrally or break down. He is capable of grinding out matches when he isn’t playing his best tennis, and his backhand is a technically sound shot.

His second serve is becoming more of a liability these days landing shorter than it used to, and his forehand is not an efficient enough shot which can lead to having its bad days. His forehand seems to struggle particularly when not given pace or height to work with. Djokovic has a tendency of turning difficult matches into dramatic spectacles, which can be his own undoing in bad matches.

Andy Murray

Known for his unique, crafty approach to the game, Murray is one of the few players that utilise the full area of the court, famous for finding his way around his opponents rather than through them. Most of this is through to the creative slice backhand he possesses, inside-out curving outwards or short angled wide, and he is also capable of creating short angles on the forehand side.

His game is a strange combination of low-paced and fast-paced shots, taking his opponents by surprise more often than not. Like Nadal, he has an excellent ability of hitting superb shots on the run, and he has great passing shots. His backhand is his biggest strength, and almost never breaks down. He is extremely consistent and loves long rallies.

Murray is capable of finishing points off at the net, but often prefers not to, moving his opponents around instead. In today’s stronger and more powerful generation, Murray’s lack of power on typical shots can prove to be a problem if not executed perfectly. He can also be overly conservative on return of serve, which works against him on some occasions. His second serve and first serve percentage has also been commonly mentioned as a weakness.

Juan Martin Del Potro

The reason for Del Potro’s success is his lethal combination of power and consistency, the ability to maintain long rallies while remaining aggressive and in control of rallies. He’s accurate, but doesn’t need to hit close to the lines because he’s so powerful. Backed up by a strong serve, Del Potro excels at the simple quick shot combos to kill off short balls, and any weaknesses thrown by his opponents.

He shows good point construction, and is able to sense when he needs to play more aggressively to turn around a match. He’s mentally strong, and becoming increasingly difficult to break down.

His weakness is his foot speed, and his ability to change from defense to offense is not as good as the players ranked above him. He operates best when given a rhythm to work with, and he doesn’t like bending down too often. He is excellent at covering up his weaknesses however, and he doesn’t often relinquish a point he has under his control.

Andy Roddick

The man with the fastest serve in men’s tennis history, Roddick is difficult to break because of his strong first serve percentages and variation on serve – a mixture of pace, kick and slice. The rest of his game is solid and smart, varied enough to make it difficult for his opponents to attack his obvious weakness on the backhand. His strength over the course of his career has been his adventurous approach to his game, the willingness to tinker with various aspects of his game to keep it fresh and relevant.

Roddick can be outrallied by strong baseliners, so it’s always a battle for him to break out of other players’ patterns of play. His backhand, especially as a passing shot is the great weakness as it showed against Isner in the US Open. If serving well and playing confidently, Roddick can be a threat to many players, but the difference between him and the players ranked above him is that he can also lose to moderately ranked players more often, though he rarely loses to low ranked players.

Nikolay Davydenko

For better or worse, Davydenko has a one-size-fits-all approach to the game. Aggressive, early ball-striking based on the idea that if you attack your opponent first, they can’t attack you. Thankfully he is a superb ball-striker and has a great combination of foot speed and footwork.

He can create excellent angles, and is one of the best at changing directions. The key to breaking down Davydenko’s game is to generally throw him out of his rhythm, though it can be a difficult task, but on some days, Davydenko has the capabilities to break down his own game with a rash of errors. Another weakness is that Davydenko doesn’t really possess a change of pace. Fortunately Davydenko is a shot-focused player and will rarely be bothered about his own errors, hopeful that his game might come together quickly.

Fernando Verdasco

Verdasco always had the weapons to become a top player, but didn’t know how to harness those strengths. His strength is clearly his forehand, which he can use to control proceedings, and because of the spin he generates on the ball, he is capable of hitting forceful shots without hitting anywhere near full pace, though he can flatten it out also.

The variety on his forehand is excellent, and tactically he is improving, especially in terms of killing off points under his control, realizing that it doesn’t need to be done in one shot. Given the explosive nature of his forehand, he has a tendency to try to win matches cheaply with his forehand, especially pulling the trigger on the high-risk high-reward forehand down-the-line too much. He has an excellent sliding serve especially on the backhand court, and often serves high first serve percentages.

By tactically playing better, he has removed some of the flashy shotmaking that made him dangerous. His return of serve is solid and consistent, but not that great offensively. He doesn’t utilise an all-court game as much as he should, and sometimes he can be lacking in fire and motivation in matches, though that has also improved.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Tsonga is one of the best short point players in the game at the moment, which allows him to maintain good consistency despite not being as solid of a player as many of his peers. He can create so much damage with the one shot, due to his big forehand as well as his follow-up ability at the net. He has a great transition game, because of his impressive athleticism. Because of his attacking style of play, he is capable of covering his weakness on the backhand, difficult to drag into long rallies.

The weakness for Tsonga is that he doesn’t seem completely sure of what style of play he wants to play, and sometimes doesn’t commit fully to being aggressive, and putting pressure on his opponents. He can also rely too much on his shotmaking, and doesn’t yet know how to grind out matches. His return of serve can be a weakness, especially against better servers.

Robin Soderling

Soderling has been a surprisingly consistent player after his breakthrough run at the French Open, despite not having the characteristics that would suggest he would be one. His game is strongly based on a powerful serve, and he backs it up with a big forehand and solid backhand. Pace of shot and shotmaking are Soderling’s greatest strengths. He can overpower most of his opponents, and has the ability to string together a great return game to break serve.

He's likely the most one-dimensional player in the top 10, not really capable of much subtlety and he can appear to be lunging around the court when moving. The movement to his forehand out wide can be exploited, especially if he has to bend down low, and he has problems moving forward as well. With Soderling, it’s very much a case of sticking to his strengths and he has shown good form and confidence recently which is the key to his success. He is also stronger mentally than he used to be, thanks to the help of his current coach Magnus Norman.

Juan Martin Del Potro reaches his first Grand Slam final

It was an impressive performance from Juan Martin Del Potro to take apart Rafael Nadal like that, in three consecutive one-sided sets, yet somehow the performance itself didn’t seem overly surprising, though maybe the scoreline did. Del Potro has the ability to play consistent and aggressive tennis, a lethal combination and he can execute it time and time again as he has shown us throughout the year with his overall consistency.

I think the impressive part is that it didn’t really look like he was playing out of his skin, instead it just looked like an extremely confident young man who had absolutely no doubt that he could play at this level. To some degree, it was the kind of inspired performance you usually only see at Grand Slams, progressively building up confidence over a two week period and the opportunity to seize the moment.

It didn’t go Del Potro’s way initially, and it was much more closely contested than the score suggested. The stage looked set for a long, hard battle, with Nadal trying to maneuver Del Potro around the court, and Del Potro trying to overpower Nadal, or more specifically rush him into error. Del Potro looked comfortable trading groundstrokes, making use of that effortless power of his not really going out of his comfort zone, mostly trading crosscourt blows and not really hitting that close to the lines.

The early signs for Nadal were okay. He came out with a clear idea to use the slice backhand, to not only make Del Potro bend down, but to have it breaking away from the court to open up the court for himself to take control of. At the time, the only thing that appeared to be separating the two, were the big difference in quality of serves between Nadal and Del Potro. Del Potro already has a significantly better serve than Nadal, or at least one that is far more capable of obtaining cheap points, but the gap seemed greater magnified by Nadal’s abdominal injury which meant that his serve lacked in pace.

Still it was difficult not to be amazed yet again, by Del Potro’s newfound ability to play well on the big points, where he routinely found big serves then finished it off with a groundstroke with no hesitation. Considering the relatively large backswing that Del Potro has on the forehand, it becomes particularly noticeable how much confidence plays a part in this, and he almost always maintains his racquet head speed.

Nadal had his fair share of break points, but every time he got a look in, Del Potro saved it. As much of a fighter Nadal is, it had to wear on him mentally and he didn’t have the security on his own serve, so he started to feel a sense of hopelessness. As Del Potro started to gain in confidence from the back of the court and take more risks, Nadal’s game subsequently started to look weak in comparison, not capable of making enough of an impact.

As well as Nadal can scramble, the ball shoots through the court in New York, and while he can somehow often reach Del Potro’s stinging groundstrokes with his racquet, it became a familiar sight seeing the ball bounce too low for Nadal to do anything with it often slicing it into the net.

Nadal’s returning position certainly didn’t help matters, and put him from the defensive right from the start. The interesting thing is that on these fast courts, if you move up to the ball, you really don’t need to do that much with it to get good reward from it basically by using the pace that is already there. I mean, you don’t really need to make a big effort to hit it hard if you take the ball early. Short backswing, and it will quickly make its way back to the opponent’s side.

But as hard as Nadal tried to generate pace on his own given that the ball had lost its sting by the time it reached contact point, it still didn’t end up being all that effective. Unfortunately midway into the first set, it looked like Nadal had already given up on the idea of using the slice backhand, and from then on, he didn’t seem like much of a threat anymore.

About midway into the second set, or early in the third set, Nadal didn’t really believe he could pull off the victory anymore. I suppose because Nadal’s game is so much about building up pressure and Del Potro didn’t allow him that. Del Potro played the match almost entirely on his own terms. And the bigger the lead Del Potro got, the better he played and the more risks he started to take. That’s when it gets scary because it’s almost machine-like, and that’s why it’s hard to feel any hope being on the receiving end of this barrage.

Reporting on standard, meaningless early round matches of Nadal and Murray

It's the first day of televised coverage in Miami, not exactly the most interesting day to be covering, but I have limited options to report given I’m usually sleep-deprived on weekdays.

To be honest, I'm not usually interested in analysing early round matches of top seeds, to the point of reading into the performances knowing that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean a whole lot - but sometimes it's not about that. It's about the spectacle and dissecting certain parts of matches.

The best match of the day was the night match between Rafael Nadal and Teimuraz Gabashvili, which was like a fascinating thrill ride on Gabashvili's end, like I was right there feeding off every emotion that he was feeling throughout the match. It was the first official meeting between the two players, and right from the outset it looked like Gabashvili had read up on the "how to play against Nadal" manual executing that game plan that we see the more successful players against Nadal implement. Taking away the whole element of tactics as a contributing factor and making it all about execution.

But that wasn't the fun part, it was seeing Gabashvili relish the occasion as if he was having the time of his life. He got broken straight away on serve overplaying on shots going for too much, too soon. Then two games later, he hits this extreme backhand crosscourt angle winner, pumps his fist, what turned out being the start of a hot streak of Gabashvili hitting big winners from everywhere and running like a madman. One of those matches where I questioned myself how long it would last – five minutes, ten minutes?

So ten minutes it ended up being, of super-charged energetic shotmaking as if he was on a major emotional high. I think it’s the first time I got reminded of what it feels like to have one of those great days, admittedly those times when I get overexcited trying to do too much – but it's incredibly fun playing like that anyway.

Unfortunately but predictably the streak didn’t last too long. Gabashvili from 2-0 went up on a tear winning ten points in a row, but from 30-0 up on his own serve inexplicably made four cheap errors to go down a break yet again. There were spurts of brilliance after that, but it was clear much of the belief was gone, not that Gabashvili was capable of stringing together tennis like that for longer periods anyway.

I didn’t agree with the commentators' assessment that Gabashvili should be ranked higher based on a performance like that. Ultimately he still wasn't able to string together enough to read much into the match and it didn't really feel like he was playing a normal match, more like a free-swinging match.

Nadal himself was business-like on his end playing well in a far more continuous manner. It has to be incredibly hard to dominate rallies, or even take control of them when you see what Nadal does with his shots on the run consistently hitting forceful shots to either side. Despite Gabashvili trying to be the aggressor in the match, it was not a match played on his terms, more like a desperate attempt to break out of the pattern of Nadal pinning him on the defensive.

Earlier in the day, Andy Murray overcame a slow start to defeat Juan Monaco. Despite Murray lacking purpose in his shot selection, I found it somewhat fascinating seeing Murray trade groundstrokes of 40 shots or so with Monaco as if his consistency is so good, he can do it in his sleep. It also looks like he can move pretty well in his sleep too. But Monaco is a patient player himself too, and in rallies like that, he waited for his opportunity to strike and took advantage of Murray's passiveness.

I remember watching Monaco in 2007, his breakthrough year and watching this match, I was wondering, has Monaco lost some pace on his groundstrokes, whether it was just a tactic or whether he simply didn't have much pace to feed off? Because it didn't look like he had much finishing power off both sides unless if he had a short ball to deal with. He has good placement on both sides, particularly on the forehand side but it’s making things far more difficult than it could be needing to construct points like that each time to win points meaning that he needs to be near the top of his game to be doing well in matches.

Murray began to turn around the match in the second set after fighting off three break points in his opening service game with much better width on his shots, spreading the court making Monaco move much more than he did earlier in the match. From then on, it seemed like Murray was simply playing a better version of tennis than Monaco did, and was thoroughly in control.

In other news, David Ferrer needed three sets to defeat John Isner, a match which featured a nice contrast of styles. The match appeared to be heading in a one-sided direction in Ferrer's favour for the first set and a half, with the amount of points Isner won on Ferrer's serve somewhere near single digit figures.

Ferrer was getting a good read on the Isner serve, showing good hand-eye co-ordination in being able to seemingly connect with each return right in the sweet spot despite the ball bouncing incredibly high due to the high trajectory it was coming from. Robbie Koenig makes a good point that Isner doesn't really get the best out of his serve, mainly relying on the height he can create off the bounce off the back of his own serve coming from a great height himself.

It's hard to make out anything from Isner’s ground game himself which seems a bit inconsistent in general, capable of going through ups and downs. Though one thing is certain, that he should just not attempt to engage in long rallies because he is rarely going to win any of them. As soon as he reverted to a more aggressive game, looking to hit the one big groundstroke and coming in on it, he looked like a far better player often putting Ferrer under pressure far more often. The result was almost immediate in the second set breaking Ferrer’s serve twice to win the set.

But inconsistency is going to be something that always plagues Isner and the match started to turn again in Ferrer’s favour after a string of errors from Isner, as well as poor tactical decisions like deciding to approach the net on Ferrer's forehand.

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.

Gilles Simon battles past Nadal to reach his first Masters final

Gilles Simon had saved six match points in two separate matches to reach the semi-finals of the Masters Series in Madrid. In his toughest test of the week against the world number 1, Rafael Nadal, Simon was tested in every way possible in one of the most physically and mentally draining three set matches that I have seen, and came out triumphant.

The match was an exhausting three hour, 20 minute marathon which featured exceptional court coverage point after point, with both players probing each other and moving each other around superbly. Even at the end of the second set, Simon looked like he was on the verge of being beaten to the ground with the amount of energy that he was needing to expend each and every point, and he would often bend down in tiredness before composing himself again for the next point. But looks can be deceiving, and Simon continued to dig deep, and come late in the third set, Simon was still there, still willing to grind out every point and still having the courage to go for his shots.

Contrast this to their previous match that these two played in the third round of the Australian Open earlier this year, before Simon had made his big breakthrough, where they had similarly gruelling rallies in the first set and Simon expended all of his energy in an attempt to win the first set where he did hold a couple of set points, but as soon as the set had slipped out of his hands, he ran out of gas and was beaten convincingly in the next two sets.

The match started off in a routine manner with Nadal being able to boss around the rallies. Simon was relaxed in his approach to his tennis, content to play reactively and keep the ball going crosscourt the majority of the time, often going to Nadal's backhand. It felt like Nadal was able to move Simon around with little effort and without risk, much like what would you expect when Nadal plays against a lower ranked player, not in the semi-finals of a Masters Series.

There was speculation that maybe Simon was jaded from the energy he had expended during the week, as he gave himself more time to get to the ball, letting the ball come to him instead of playing it on the rise. Typically Simon has the sort of easygoing strokes that with the way he hits the ball, sometimes it feels like he can afford to swing late because of his short backswings.

Simon is one of those players who I have always thought had excellent feel and finesse on his groundstrokes, much like someone like Anna Chakvetadze on the women's side except that Simon bases his game around consistency whereas Chakvetadze is the opposite. They both have a knack of hitting shots into tricky positions time and time again, and have excellent placement on their groundstrokes. They also thrive on their opponents giving them openings or angles to work with to set up their groundstrokes, and this was again evident in this match as Simon and Nadal were consistently outmaneuvering each other in one gruelling rally after another.

After losing the first set, Simon promptly adjusted his game plan, started taking the ball earlier (which is what we were expecting right from the outset), hitting the ball a little bit harder and opening the court much better. In the last two sets of this match, Simon took his (usually) subtle game to another level executing everything that he normally does with more power and conviction.

Simon's backhand is his stronger wing, where he possesses a lot of variety and is able to redirect the ball with ease, either angled crosscourt or down-the-line, and his return of serve on that side is one of his biggest strengths. However, it was his forehand that was the revelation in this match. He usually only unloads on it selectively but it became a big weapon in this match as he flattened out on it consistently and was often able to win points hitting it hard and flat to Nadal's forehand.

Simon possesses very flat groundstrokes on both sides, and as a result, he doesn't unload on his groundstrokes often and uses it more as a surprise tactic, as a change of pace, while relying on placement other times but against a player as good defensively like Nadal, he opted for a more aggressive game plan.

It must be said that the high bounce that Nadal gets on his shots worked in Simon's favour from that standpoint, to give a bit more margin for error on Simon's flat shots, whereas I'd say against Andy Murray, he's going to be having a lot of problems when Murray slices his backhand to Simon's forehand side, or at least that will limit his offensive options.

However, what was most impressive about Simon was the courage and fighting spirit that he showed to continually battle for each and every single point, despite the constant mental and physical pressure that was placed on him throughout the match. The 15 minute game at 3-3 was the best example. Simon had set up the point perfectly pulling Nadal way out of court finally after stringing together five or so perfectly executed strokes then found himself with a floater that he would have just needed to tap into the open court, but the shot was landing dangerously close to the line and Simon didn’t know whether to leave it or not. In the last minute, Simon stuck out his racquet with two hands as to hit a swing backhand volley but failed miserably as it sailed long by quite some margin. Then immediately the next point Simon bounced back and continued to take the game to Nadal, taking the ball early and moving it around.

He doesn't get discouraged by the past. Each and every point, he is prepared to put in just as much effort, never resorting to cheap ways of winning points, even if he just ran a couple of laps around the court in the previous 25+ shot rally. In that way, he was able to deal with the pressure that usually allows Nadal to get on top of his opponents. At times, Nadal thought he had done just about everything to win the point, then Simon in that final shot when completely out of position, came up with the unlikely winner, much to Nadal's surprise.

Nadal kept plugging away and continued to try to move Simon around the court in a controlled and relentless manner. His shots, especially on the backhand side looked to be lacking in its usual pace which allowed Simon to dictate more than he'd like. Most of his shots were hit at medium pace at best on his end, and he was never really able to step up the pace when he had maintained control of the rally. Towards the closing stage of the match, a few errors started to creep in especially when he had to deal with deep shots which he ended up mishitting badly, while Simon continued his relentless consistency.

For Nadal, he might view this match as the one that got away considering that he was only able to convert a miserable 5/22 break points. As for Simon, apart from reaching his first Masters Series final, his chances of making the elite eight man field at the year end Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai have improved greatly, and he now must be considered one of the main contenders to take one of the final spots.