Career Adjustments (and Miami)

Usually on the first day of a Masters event, I tend to focus on the lower profile players, before they make their exit out of a tournament. Sometimes I make that choice just for the sake of watching a more competitive match, with more emotional ups and downs.

For a change, I took a glimpse at the early rounds of Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal, though for different reasons in each of these matches. I was already aware of Roddick losing, so I approached the match with a different perspective than I would have otherwise.

When you watch a top ranked player play, there are more clear expectations. It's also easier to observe because as soon as anything happens outside of what is expected, you can more easily compliment the underdog, or criticise the top player. This, you see on message boards frequently. Whereas with a player with a broader range of performances, almost anything can go under the expected category, though some people use this word in hindsight as a form of implying how great their tennis knowledge is.

In the early stages of Federer's match against Radek Stepanek, I was curious as to what kind of tricks Stepanek would have up his sleeve against Federer. The word 'tricks' is an appropriate term here because whatever he tried was obviously something he couldn't maintain. It was more like a show. In the second rally of the match, Stepanek half-volleyed a return of serve, charged to the net then showed off his excellent anticipation and volleying skills by somehow staying in the exchange with three more volleys. Then he ran back to retrieve a lob and dumped it into the net.

It's not often you see volleys go beyond a couple of strokes, and there's good reason for that. Because it rarely has a high winning percentage for the volleyer. Stepanek lost many points at the net, but there were some entertaining exchanges. Stepanek tried to bluff his way through the match, and naturally it didn't work. As if he would be able to throw off Federer's rhythm without having anything substantial to back it up.

Whenever he returned a couple of volleys, it was impressive, but he was rarely going to win them. From the baseline, he tried to half-volley and finesse shots into accurate positions but he never had enough power. His forehand was often mistimed and dumped into the net. I'm looking up photos of Stepanek to match my article, and almost every photo is of him stretching out to return a shot which seems indicative of this match. He is quite athletic.

Both players won many cheap points. In between some entertaining exchanges, there were a lot of short points and free points. That's exactly the way Federer likes it these days. Even when they exchanged longer rallies, they were half-volleying so often that the point finished in the blink of an eye. It was such a contrast to the Roddick vs Cuevas match, where both players comfortably waited until the ball would reach its peak height.

Federer only required a couple of shots to force Stepanek into a defensive position, and to finish it off. Apparently he hits the ball harder these days, according to a statistic that I heard from a commentator a while ago. Watching this match, and then moving onto the Roddick match, it did make me wonder what kind of adjustments Roddick will make as his career reaches its latter stages. He's reaching the age of 28 now, turning 29 this year and he might even be engaging in longer rallies than he used to. He also hit a famous diving winner on match point in Memphis, which revealed just as much his age as well as his fitness.

In his match against Pablo Cuevas, what I could see was Roddick trying to play incredibly smart tennis. It wasn't like he was hitting the ball into the middle of the court at all. With the slow pace of the match, sometimes I felt like I could get a glimpse into his thought process. I don't actually think he was playing smart tennis. It occurred every now and then rather than on a consistent basis. He was thinking too much.

In the first game, he ran around his backhand to hit a series of heavy forehands which would have been effective if he had his weight going the right way. That was a good reference point for later in the match, because he stopped doing that relatively quickly and ended up trading backhands. Much of that was due to illness though. Roddick really started to struggle in the second set, putting in a lacklustre performance and taking an injury time-out.

Cuevas was hitting his backhand well, but his forehand was quite inconsistent. I wasn't fully convinced of his performance, but one thing he did better than Roddick in particular was using the full width of the court. It didn't seem like a big difference until three shots later, when Roddick would end up having too much court to cover to have any chance of changing defense to offense.

Cuevas' crosscourt backhand is clearly one of his strengths. It's difficult to return the top spin when it bounces up high and deep, and he can also generate good angles. The kick serve on the ad court also works a lot better than it does on the deuce court. He's just naturally better on the backhand side.

Novak Djokovic Outhits Roger Federer to Reach Consecutive Slam Finals

So far, the big guns hadn’t really been tested. Rafael Nadal bowed out last night, but tamely with injury, and without much of a fight. To be honest, I didn’t watch, but this Australian Open match between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer promised good things. I had good memories about this match-up. Their US Open semi-final was by far my favourite match of last year, so there was a lot to live up to.

It felt like I wasn’t the only one with that epic match in the back of their minds. Djokovic and Federer came out with a certain respect against each other. They brought all their weapons out, their intensity, everything to the table. It was like tennis being played at a lightning speed, though it wasn’t exactly consistent to start with. It was more about sending the right message across. Federer tried to show that he’d be aggressive on return while Djokovic brought out the big forehand and they both traded blows.

I wasn’t really sure whether it was the best idea for either of them to be playing everything at such a rapid pace, since hitting it harder isn’t necessarily better and variety can be quite useful sometimes. The difference between these two hitting it harder, and other players is that their athleticism is quite spectacular. Both were so eager to take control of the points, and also perhaps wary that anything less wouldn’t be good enough. It reminds me of the post-match interview Djokovic did at the US Open last year when he was asked about what was going through his mind down match points. He replied by saying, he just tried to hit every forehand as hard as possible. That memory had obviously stuck with him, bringing out the big forehand here right from the start.

I like to watch Djokovic’s forehand because it’s such a free-swinging shot, not as restrained from precise technique and movement as most other players. Actually, his movement and athleticism is a lot like that too, and one of the main reasons why I enjoy watching him. Watching a guy slide around and stretching out wide from side-to-side is great entertainment, if it’s used with the right amount of aggression. And I really needed to include that last point to find a way to exclude Monfils out of that list. But it’s also a big advantage in a tennis sense, a strength which allows Djokovic to play with patience, and makes him more likely to win extended rallies.

The match was relatively even until the first set tie-break, where Djokovic proved himself to be the steadier player. Federer shanked too many shots, as he did during the entire match. Did he make too many errors because he tried to hit everything at a fast pace, instead of mixing it up?

Djokovic went up an early break in the second set, then Federer employed a change of tactics. I’d say he started to play a style more suited to his abilities on the backhand side, using a slower pace and hitting more slice backhands. This drew some errors from Djokovic, who had also dropped his intensity, then Federer was back on serve.

As the match was going on, the commentators had been wondering whether Federer had been feeding Djokovic too much pace. After all, there have been a couple of matches in the past where Andy Murray took apart Djokovic by feeding as many off-pace slices to his forehand as possible. I think Federer could have explored that more, or at least stuck with a clear idea.

For a while, Federer went on a tear, going from an early break down to serving for the second set, but he couldn’t serve it out. Djokovic had put him under too much pressure, and Federer was not up to the challenge today. On important points, Djokovic can play these long, intense rallies, the kind of points that have made some of his encounters with Rafael Nadal highly entertaining over the years. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a brilliant combination of aggressive and defensive play, and Federer’s not going to win many points in these kind of rallies. Djokovic broke back, and the match started to look much like it did at the start. I don’t really know where Federer’s brief change of tactics went. But I’m not sure whether 10 minutes of it is enough evidence to suggest that it could have worked.

By the third set, the match started to play out in a way that heavily favoured Djokovic’s strengths, though the rallies were still competitive and quite good at times. Federer continued to try to drive through the backhand, and shanked too many. By the third set, he had run out of ideas and played a more reactive style, particularly not doing much on the backhand side apart from driving it back crosscourt, opening up the down-the-line for Djokovic.

Djokovic lost his break of serve at 4-3, and I wasn’t sure what happened there. It was against the overall direction of the match, but it didn’t take long for Djokovic to bounce back, and show exactly why he was leading this match. He threw in another one of those good games filled with intense baseline play, where he does just about everything he can to win a point. It’s a combination of amazing determination, eye-catching athleticism and a rush of adrenaline. Federer lost that game with errors, but it would have been awfully hard not to make one against Djokovic in this mentality. Djokovic showed his first sign of nerves serving it out making two bad errors on the surprisingly reliable forehand (for the night) but he got it together and finished it off 7-6(3) 7-5 6-4.

London World Tour Finals Wrap-Up

It just occurred to me that this blog will soon be the only avenue I have for tennis writing. Since I haven’t done much in the last couple of months to try to keep it alive, I felt like I should.

It's not the first time I've realized this, but it started to sink in on the day that I heard about Tennis Week closing down (and Most Valuable Network which hosts Tennis Diary will also do so at the end of the year).

In a completely unprepared and spontaneous decision, I have decided to do a wrap-up of the London World Tour Finals. What I can remember the most out of it was closely paying attention to sets and games more than I ever did in previous years because that's what it came down to, more often than not. Juan Martin Del Potro edged out a semi-final place over Andy Murray by one single game, and almost all of the matches were decided in three sets.

In a way it was an accurate representation of men’s tennis as it is today. It is fair to say that the top 10 as a whole looks stronger than it has in a while. On the bottom of the top 10, we have more dangerous players that might not be considered as legitimate contenders for big tournaments but perfectly capable of competing well against the top players, ie. Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling. Though it must be said that Verdasco was quoted to having a record against the top ten along the lines of 1-12 for the year, which was what prompted me to suggest that he lost some of his flashiness in my description of him a while back.

I can’t understand what goes inside Verdasco’s head sometimes. I suspect he’s just as confused himself. His game is smooth and effortless, and he has this nonchalant attitude about him as if he doesn’t care much about what’s going on, though it’s hard to tell whether this is actually the case. Part of it is surely a mental holiday, but part of it is also a side effect of the more mature and calm Verdasco. Or at least I found him to be strangely lacking in fire at times at the US Open. The way he’s been playing in the last couple of tournaments seems to be suggesting the same thing, quick to pull the trigger out of impatience after focusing so strongly on playing disciplined tennis this year.

Steve Tignor made an interesting point on his blog, that Verdasco’s problem seemed to be that he wasn’t able to control points without hitting shots that were close to being winners. Del Potro is an obvious example of someone that can do this easily, and the same could be said of Davydenko. Verdasco, on the other hand needs to rely on his go-to shots. The down-the-line forehand is a big point-finisher and Verdasco is a much better player when it works, but at the same time, it’s a high risk shot. I’d also add the wide serves to the list, particularly on the ad court, and when he serves well and accurately, it tends to make the rest of his game look more accurate too having more angles and gaps to work with.

I’ve started to warm to Del Potro more lately because of his eye-catching ability to hit winners out of shots that didn’t look like they could be winners. He also has this ability to suddenly change gears at the drop of a hat, and I would go even further to suggest that he can change moods in the drop of a hat also. Turning negative body language into positive body language.

If he wasn’t such a good shotmaker and able to pull it off, I’d call him an idiot for trying to hit the cover off the ball on a big point, and trying to hit a forehand winner two steps away from where his opponent was standing. Jason Goodall has coined a new term for Del Potro’s ferocious forehands, “vapourising the ball” and “forehands hit at the speed of the light”. I think the big crosscourt forehand returns stand out the most.

For me, I’m just as much impressed by the less flashy but equally as effective double-handed backhand of Del Potro’s. He can do exactly the same thing on that side, trade crosscourt backhands and suddenly rip a backhand winner in the same direction, only slightly wider and deeper and have that come off as a clear winner. Actually Murray can do that too which puzzles me because I would have thought you'd have to hit it ridiculously hard to do that, but he just flattens it out and hits it deep into the corner having it skid through the court.

Del Potro started off slow in the tournament, but this is the week he got out of his post-Slam win hangover, just in time for the start of the new season. It marked the time when his competitive instincts took over, his obvious love for competing and he has the confidence to back it up. Strangely he looked subdued in the final match against Davydenko, and for the first time aside from his first set loss to Andy Murray, never looked like getting going. Though perhaps it could be said, that Davydenko just happened to be one step in front of him at all times, playing at a pace faster and forcing Del Potro to play catch-up all the time.

Federer strangely lost two consecutive matches in similar fashion against Del Potro and Davydenko, on the brink of victory to only have the tables turned on him the following game. Federer had break points in the all-important 7th game in the third set (or something along those lines) in both matches. I’d roughly estimate that in two thirds of those points, Del Potro and Davydenko saved them with courageous play.

The way Davydenko grunted on some of his groundstrokes towards the end serving for the match, it was like the audio equivalent of trying to assert his authority against all of his inner demons. Davydenko’s wide serve on the deuce court is deceptively good, moving out further wide than what it would initially seem. It looks like it’d sit up high once it hits the court, but instead it continues to swing away and skid low. It's hard to get a clean hit on it unless if you can read it early enough, and he can generate good angles on that side because of the good body rotation he has on serve. Federer certainly had a hard time dealing with it.

What does Davydenko’s title win mean for his career? As far as I’m concerned, Davydenko has always been one of the best players, as his consistent top 5 ranking over the years would show. He’s capable of giving Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Del Potro a run for their money, and I think aside from winning this title, he can be just as much encouraged by the increasingly open state of the tour and the decreasing aura surrounding the top players.

Davydenko doesn’t strike me as a player that seems to use momentum to build on form, however over long periods, he tends to generally have a lot of good days. He’s more up and down the charts over the course of a season and more so in a best-of-five set match against the top players, but he has proven he can string it together in a tournament. The question is whether he can convert those into wins.

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, the 2009 US Open men's champion

It’s been a while since we’ve had a new Grand Slam champion, not since Novak Djokovic captured the Australian Open title in 2008. You’d be hard pressed to find a more impressive performance than the one that Juan Martin Del Potro displayed today against Roger Federer, in what was the Argentine’s first Grand Slam final.

I have already made reference to it numerous times before, the rapid pace with which Del Potro seems to be improving, yet he still seems to find a way to amaze me just when I thought I had already handed out enough compliments his way as of late.

It was a high quality match, full of drama and unpredictability, and it was a welcome change to see a new Grand Slam champion at the end. Now that Federer has already broken all sorts of records, I think it’s a positive sign for men’s tennis to have this additional competitiveness near the top, especially if it means we’re going to get matches of this quality to look forward to in the future.

In regards to Del Potro’s performance in the final, he was impressive on so many levels, that it warrants a list of exactly why this was the case.

• Del Potro played the best match of his life in the biggest match of his career, his first Grand Slam final against Roger Federer, recently been acknowledged as the Greatest of all Time and winner of the last couple of Grand Slams. He hadn’t won a single match against Federer in the past, though I think Del Potro took a lot of confidence from their previous meeting in Roland Garros.

• It wasn’t like Del Potro came out firing on all cylinders and played lights out tennis to start with. In fact, he was made to look clumsy to start with, having to stretch his long limbs all over the court rarely getting a shot in his comfort zone. But the biggest problem seemed to me, that Federer didn’t even let Del Potro get into a rhythm, the opportunity to raise his level of play. He was thoroughly outplayed, and it could have been easy to think that he simply wasn’t in the same league as Federer, at least not at this point of his career.
  In his post-match interview after his semi-final win, Del Potro promised the crowd that he would fight for every point, and he delivered on this promise in a way that no one could have imagined or expected. Del Potro wasn’t deterred by the fact that he was comfortably outplayed. All he needed was a slight drop in level from Federer, and once they were back on serve, it turned into a completely different ball game. Del Potro was now feeling loose and confident and had turned the match on its head, not only on the scoreboard but he had somehow changed the match to be played in his favour, exchanging the type of rallies that he likes.
  Even when Del Potro started to pick up his play initially, it wasn’t like he suddenly found the range on his shots. In fact, his play was on and off, brilliant shots combined with errors as you would expect with a game as aggressive as that. But it was like he was somehow able to not associate himself with whether a shot landed in the court or not, focused on each individual shot only, trying to play the best he could. Then the more he got into this frame of mind of hitting big shots, the more consistency he developed and confidence in himself of being able to back it up.
  

• This ability of Del Potro’s to find a way to elevate his game when he needs it is currently what puts him in front of Andy Murray, the ability to sense when he needs to take it up a notch, that his current game isn’t good enough, and more importantly, he has the execution to back it up.
  Del Potro didn’t have much of a say early in the match, but he slowly started making himself known as a threat, both through his energy, on-court presence and the way he stepped up the pace on his groundstrokes. Del Potro is normally selective about which shots he decides to unload on because he doesn’t really need to red line his game, but when he removed that margin of error, the end result was quite devastating, especially his forehand which caught fire from the fourth set onwards.

• Serving to stay in the third set of the match, Del Potro served two consecutive double faults to lose the set. He vented his frustration at the changeover, and buried in his head in the towel, a look of extreme disappointment heading into the fourth set, but he didn't forget how he played himself into this position and continued in the same vein going after his shots.
  He came across a couple of stumbling blocks, and his level did dip inevitably having to save break points in his opening two service games, but whenever he needed it he came up with his best shots. It seems like there is no limit to Del Potro’s mental stability, no occasion that is too great to shake his extraordinary self-confidence.
  Then his game picked up midway from the fourth set, and that’s when he started to stamp his authority on the match, looking like the noticeably better player. He wasn’t as secure on his service games as he usually is, and he lost his serve once here, and once in the previous set as well, but he was able to let it go and continue to chase after the next game. Usually big servers hate it when they lose their service games, but it didn’t bother Del Potro, and he’s willing to accept a few errors here and there knowing that he’s playing the right way.

• Del Potro’s return of serve which started to land the sweet spot more and more as the match went on, able to knock it back quick and fast with devastating pace right back at Federer’s feet.

• Federer started to look more rattled as the match went on, trying to rush Del Potro before Del Potro could rush him, but Federer’s backhand got him into trouble with that blocked, short backswing not really doing much in terms of being able to reflect the pace coming off Del Potro’s racquet. In my mind, Del Potro’s game forced Federer into error, and into helplessness. It's pretty hard trying to execute any kind of game plan when you're up against someone hitting as hard as that.
  

• Does Del Potro have any sense of fear whatsoever? It seemed like regardless of the situation, whether it was recovering from disappointment, fighting to maintain a lead, saving break points, or whether he was close to victory, he maintained the same kind of racquet head speed and continued to hit almost with reckless abandon. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain the same quality of play playing that aggressively, where any drop in racquet head speed will pretty much result in an error.
  As impressive as Del Potro was mentally, he played with the mindset of an underdog, of someone that had nothing to lose. Djokovic and Murray to some extent have shown that it is incredibly difficult to keep up that kind of attitude and confidence. How will Del Potro change mentally when he’s expected to make the back end of tournaments, and more of the mainstream press have started to focus their attention on him?

• How determined is Del Potro that the first thing that he mentions on his victory speech after playing the match of his life is that he still has a long way to improve before he can catch up to Federer career-wise? I know it was intended to be a compliment to Federer's achievements, but it also spoke volumes about Del Potro's intentions on trying to maximise his game and that he's not yet satisfied with where he currently is.

What happened to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer in their Montreal match?

Video clips: First set tie-break | Third set tie-break

In one of the most bizarre and wildly dramatic matches of the year, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga somehow rose from the ashes to recover from a two break deficit in the third set to defeat Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the Montreal Masters. Normally making a comeback in a match of this magnitude would be associated with great fighting spirit and mental fortitude. Yet as spectacular and unlikely Tsonga's come-from-behind victory was, there was no way that Tsonga's performance could be described like that.

Tsonga had just played a superb first set of tennis, then it went quickly downhill after that. In fact, it was a high quality first set all-round from both players. What I really liked about Tsonga at the start of the match was how he approached this match, as relaxed as I'd ever seen him. Energetic, but not overdoing it. Sometimes Tsonga tries extremely hard to create pace that it looks like he's slapping at the ball. Perhaps if he took that mindset in this match, he would have created too much pressure on himself. But it's not like he tried to hit Federer off the court as well.

Instead he focused on trying to mix things up to avoid getting into the situation of being dragged into playing shots that he didn't want to. He knew that in order to do that, he had to avoid long baseline rallies. It was a battle of first strike tennis, of trying to control the point early on and looking to follow it up at the net. It wasn't outright aggression, and he didn't look like he was muscling the ball as much as he sometimes does. He was prepared to use his athleticism if he needed to. I really liked his movement. It was so smooth that it looked like he was dancing around the ball at times.

In fact, when having a look at the match-up, Federer and Tsonga share a lot of similarities. They both don't like to hang around on points on serve, and both have all-court games. But more so because both have such naturally fluid and instinctive games, though Tsonga is more explosive while Federer is more effortless. It was an entertaining display of all-court tennis and superb athleticism.

I wonder how much of an effort Federer made to play targeted tennis, as in targeted towards playing against Tsonga specifically or whether he relied more on his own natural game. Because I didn't see Tsonga being pressured that much to play uncomfortable shots, shots that were a specific weakness for him like Federer did to him in Madrid last year indoors. Maybe it was simply that Tsonga didn't allow him to, which is at least partially what happened.

The first set went with serve, and despite both players playing relatively aggressively, it was a clean set of tennis. Both Federer and Tsonga had their one chance to break, one game where they had break point opportunities. Federer saved his break points with great serving like he often does. Federer had one chance to break with a makeable forehand passing shot into the open court. He missed it, then his chance quickly disappeared after that.

It was a high quality first set tie-break, underlined by an amazing dive volley on set point from Tsonga. After hitting an off-forehand approach shot, Tsonga had all of his body weight moving towards the right trying to cover the centre of the court. Federer wrong-footed Tsonga with a sharp slice backhand crosscourt angle that looks completely unreachable and unplayable given Tsonga's position. Tsonga is big and strong, but also wonderfully athletic and somehow manages to violently push his body in the other direction to dig out the volley from the ground. I don't think I recall seeing a shot like that before. Usually dive volleys are used to reach shots that would normally be too far out of reach. The crowd erupts and Federer's puzzled that he managed to lose the point.

I can't imagine any greater adrenaline rush than what Tsonga experienced in the first set. Surely there had to be an emotional letdown. Tsonga was so charged up from that tie-break that he was still moving his feet the way he had then, but it wasn't matched by how he was swinging the ball so he made a stack of wild errors. But that's all I thought it was at the time, a concentration lapse.

It was inexplicable that Tsonga could continue to play like that for almost two entire sets. Well it ended up being one and a half sets given that the third set extended further than originally thought. It is amazing how quickly Tsonga can lose games and points in a match. It felt like the second set lasted around 5 minutes, though of course it was more than that. The majority of errors that Tsonga was making were early on in the point, often on the follow-up shot on the serve.

Part of the reason was because he was struggling with his first serve percentage, but after seeing how he played in the third set, it was definitely a case of a lack of effort as well. His mind wasn't on the job, and tactically, he had lost track of what he needed to do. He carelessly tried to hit his way out of trouble and made no attempt to come to the net, or structure his points in a way that would allow him to. To me, it looked like he was solely concentrating on hitting the one shot on serve, and the groundstroke following that and that was it.

There wasn't a whole lot to admire during that stretch of Tsonga's poor passage of play, so I had a look at his service action which he was struggling with. It's a very front-on action, and his racquet face is quite flat as he hits it into the court, rather than cutting across the side of the ball like other players. It looks like he generates all of his spin on the kick serve at the very end of the stroke when he hits down on the shot. It looks like a potentially inconsistent stroke, then again it's easy to conclude that in a match where it is.

Federer continued playing the second set relaxed like in the first set, being able to control the proceedings more because Tsonga wasn't throwing him anything different. He didn't show any signs of taking his foot off the accelerator despite Tsonga not showing any intensity. He played with freedom tactically as well, implementing whatever shots he wanted to.

The second and third sets continued in the same vein, until late in the third set at 5-1 when Tsonga suddenly started hitting out, with the big difference being that he was moving better and more energetically and that's why he made more shots. It looked like the typical scenario of players playing better when they no longer believe they can win. Except that in this case, it couldn't reasonably explain why it happened because Tsonga looked like he had no chance of winning much earlier than that.

He had this hangdog look about him that surely would have been partially responsible for Federer losing concentration. Catching him by complete surprise by suddenly forcing Federer to come up with more complete points to win them. It's probably a similar effect as faking an injury, except of course in this case it was legitimate and not at all poor sportsmanship.

Federer is an experienced player anyway, and he hasn't blown a lead like this in a long time. If I was him, I'd just write it off as a unique situation and not be bothered about it. Surely no one will think it's a lack of confidence, given what he has achieved recently.

Just when I thought that the third set was turning around in a way that was beyond belief, there were several twists and turns left. Tsonga went on a big streak of winning points late in the third set, and goes up 0-40 on Federer's serve at 6-5. Three match points, but Tsonga doesn't convert. Tsonga misses a couple of makeable backhand passing shots on match points, though admittedly that has never been a strength for him and the see-saw nature of the match continued into the tie-break. It was an appropriate and fitting finish to the match.

Federer starts to panic a bit, trying to find his way to the net as much as possible. Tsonga had the momentum going in his favour if he could block out the match points he lost in the third set, and that's what he did. He continued to charge at Federer in the same way as he had the last ten minutes, and was rewarded for it with an unlikely win. Unfortunately after such an epic match that had the crowd on the edge of the seats, it ended with a muted celebration after a Federer double fault.

Big hitting and big serving: Soderling and Federer advance to the finals in similar style

Is there some kind of significance of yesterday’s French Open men’s semi-finals? The line-up consisted of Robin Soderling, Fernando Gonzalez, Juan Martin Del Potro and Roger Federer. Players that all have the ability to generate their own pace, and create winners from the back of the court combined with a lot of cheap points on serve.

Clay has always been thought of as a surface that neutralises the serve the most, but it’s turned out to be more of a factor than it has in previous years. It’s no wonder that Davydenko felt completely hopeless in his blowout loss to Soderling, whereas Gonzalez was able to hold onto his serve and take his opportunities late in the third and fourth sets, waiting for Soderling to briefly flinch to take the sets.

It’s not like we’re seeing an exhibition of aces, but one thing that an effective serve does is put the point firmly in favour of the server. Setting up the point with a big forehand, and on clay, once you get pinned back on the defense, it’s harder to instantly counterattack, it requires a lot of hard work. But when you come up against big hitters that can do more with one shot than most like Soderling, Del Potro, Federer and Gonzalez have recently shown, it becomes almost impossible.

In the case of Soderling and Del Potro, interestingly their defensive skills come up short when compared to some of their peers but they make up for it in other ways. It’s not as impressive as the athleticism of a Djokovic or Davydenko, but they seem to have this ability to give the ball a good slap on the stretch making use of their great reach and ability to generate power. Restricting the ability of their opponents to yank them around the court too much, and if all else fails, then they’d look for a way out of the point, with a low percentage shot. Reinforcing that they’re the one in control of points, not their opponents.

It was an interesting match-up, Soderling having the clear advantage on the backhand wing, dangerous off both sides, but Gonzalez being the significantly better athlete, often winning points through sheer determination, sometimes just looking to get one ball back on a point that seemed already lost – but finally drawing the error on the final shot. And that’s something to admire, when you consider how Gonzalez normally wins his matches, through outright attacking. When he first stepped out on court, that’s how he expected to win. But he found the balls coming back too quickly, and shanking and mistiming balls trying to create big swings off shots where he had no right to. So he adjusted his game and started to dig more balls out, prolong points any way he could and throw in as much variety as he could.

Despite Gonzalez’s reputation as a big hitter, I think of him as being a good thinker on the court as well at times, at least at this stage in his career, and I’ve seen him in the past expose many players with short wide balls, slices and dropshots. But I think based on this match and Del Potro’s match, slice backhands don’t penetrate as much through the court, creating this higher bounce that doesn’t bother their opponents as much. And I guess Gonzalez needs to have that additional variety on his backhand, kind of like how Andy Roddick has developed his to a lesser extent to make up for his lack of shotmaking ability on that side.

Soderling had been winning the majority of his matches on the back of his strong forehand, the initial shot that takes his opponents off-balance but he was equally as lethal on the backhand yesterday. His crosscourt backhand is like a smothering shot, so penetrating and deep that he doesn’t need to achieve any exceptional accuracy on it to cause damage on it. It’s particularly useful coming up against Gonzalez, who could not find his way around to a forehand, and is nowhere near as threatening when restricted to a backhand. But the shot that I was most surprised with was the effectiveness of Soderling’s down-the-line backhand. How he managed to on so many occasions, on the return of serve with Gonzalez’s serve breaking away wide on the ad court, step in and change directions with ease for a winner.

In the end, what it came down to was that when both players were trading blows with each other, toe-to-toe, that Soderling was the better player. It looked like Gonzalez was on his way for getting rewarded for his efforts, as Soderling started to leak more errors and lack the sting on his groundstrokes that he had maintained earlier allowing Gonzalez to control more points with his forehand. Soderling couldn’t maintain the hitting from the first two sets, so what he did instead was save his final reserves for a final couple of launched attacks at Gonzalez.

The first one was in the first game of the fourth set, but Gonzalez rose to the challenge, and that seemed to knock the belief out of Soderling. He went through frustration and despair at the thought of the match slipping out of his hands, then finally he started to feel some kind of freedom again after being down a break in the fifth set. He started going for his shots again at full throttle, and pulled them off. Then once he achieved that initial break back, it was like he was revitalised again, rediscovering the same devastating pace that he had on his groundstrokes in the first two sets to convincingly win the decisive fifth set.

It was an exciting, and entertaining semi-finals day in Roland Garros, two high quality five-set matches that were underlined with incredible fighting spirit from all four players. Juan Martin Del Potro in the past hasn’t had much success against Roger Federer, having failed to take a set, making this five-set performance all the more impressive. There is no doubt that Del Potro is becoming one of the fastest improvers on the tour, seemingly addressing every criticism coming his way.

Now everyone knows that Del Potro has improved his serve leaps and bounds ever since the beginning of that well-documented four title run. But when did it become such a big weapon, the ability to win all those cheap points? It used to be more of a consistently powerful stroke, very good but not brilliant the way it was against Federer.

Then there’s the development of Del Potro’s forward movement, taking advantage of his shots at the net. And maybe the claycourt season has been perfect for him to develop this kind of extra layer to his game, given that it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to completely finish off shots from the back of the court on this surface. But also incredibly tiring if you choose to do so. It has always been thought that Del Potro didn’t need to possess great volleys to finish off some of his shots, but simply that he needed to make his way up there. Though it must be said that he is very reliable and solid up there, and seems to know where to position his racquet in order to make his volleys as simple as possible.

But aside from that monster serving performance, what really put Del Potro in a winning position was through the strength of his groundstrokes, which seemed heavier and consistently more penetrating than Federer’s. Federer didn’t seem to do anything wrong specifically, and he didn’t crumble on the big points like he did against Haas a couple of rounds earlier. He was simply not given much opportunity to do as much with the ball as he’d like to. Though at times, it was rather incredible what Federer could come up with on the half-volley.

Just like in the Soderling vs Gonzalez semi-final, it was interesting how much of an impact that the extra bit of pace that Del Potro was able to generate on his groundstrokes, had on the match. Tennis is a game of cause and effect, how hitting a shot slightly harder or deeper prevents your opponent from attacking. Or how missing one or more first serves can get you into trouble, and that’s what happened here. To be fair, it was a rather steep decline on Del Potro’s end though, as he started to wear out physically from the start of the fourth set onwards. But it was interesting how the options started to open up for Federer with that additional time to set up, able to implement more touch shots, more variety and control the points better.

This sets up for what could potentially be an entertaining, hard-fought battle, but there are no guarantees. We’ve seen what Del Potro did to Federer, and Soderling has the ability to implement the same game, except with even more force than what Del Potro did.

The best of the French Open: The top 3 matches of the week

The not-so-definitive list of the best matches of the first week...

[1] 3rd round: Robin Soderling def. David Ferrer 6-7(5) 7-5 6-2 7-6(5)

Robin Soderling has never been much of a factor in the Grand Slams, and prior to this match had never advanced past the 3rd round in any Slam, which is rather awful for a player of his standard, one I consider to be consistently top 30 calibre and for someone that possesses such big weapons. It was over three and a half hours of absorbing tennis, and a match which featured around 60 winners from Soderling. And that's 60 winners against Ferrer on clay.

It reminded me of the brief experience I had watching Soderling at the Brisbane International, leaning over a fence, so close to the action that I could pretty much feel and hear the shots coming off Soderling's racquet. Clean, big hitting with Soderling pounding the ball into submission on a frighteningly regular basis, though his consistency was not as prevalent as it was in this match. Against Ferrer, I was reminded of the same kind of thing. It was an ongoing onslaught of weaponry, with Ferrer tried to fend off as much as he could.

It didn't initially seem like it was going to be one of those days for Soderling. It was a slightly patchy match at first, a combination of impressive shotmaking and errors, from both players, and not only from the more volatile Soderling. For Ferrer, they were uncharacteristic errors, but for Soderling, he was pretty much living up to expectation. The rallies were surely too lengthy for Soderling to keep up that kind of flat ball-striking, and so it was slightly up and down, but good enough for it to be entertaining. This made for a wonderfully dramatic and unpredictable match, and there were numerous service breaks which added to the feeling that anything could happen.

But that was where the slight inconsistencies started to disintegrate, making for a high quality affair from the second set onwards. Consistently entertaining rallies, hard-fought games and high emotions as you would expect, when it comes to Soderling and Ferrer. You could literally see Soderling gradually gaining in confidence as the match went on to the point of being able to replicate it on the big points, a skill that usually eludes him. But today, there was full commitment on his shots particularly on the sometimes troublesome forehand, seemingly able to reel off large amounts of forehand winners at will.

From the third set onwards, Soderling had hit a purple match. On any normal day, Ferrer would have surely done enough to throw off Soderling's rhythm. So what we had then were these drawn out rallies that started to defy belief more and more as it went on. That Soderling could continually hammer the ball in the corners, with little hesitation and few mistakes and that Ferrer could keep chasing them down. One thing I like watching is how explosively Ferrer moves out to return serve, that he so often seems to be able to retrieve serves that land on the lines, and then recovering easily afterwards.

It wasn't like Ferrer played a defensive match, he went for his shots, maintaining good accuracy on his shots and moving the ball side-to-side. But what he needed to do was to explore the angles more, and have Soderling lunging out to reach for shots more often, because it seemed like the majority of shots somehow landed into Soderling's strike zone. He also needed to make more use of the dropshot, which was strangely lacking in Ferrer's repertoire that day.

[2] 2nd round: Roger Federer def. Jose Acasuso 7-6(8) 5-7 7-6(2) 6-2

There's something that I find incredibly exciting and entertaining about unexpectedly good performances. Acasuso, who is sometimes a good claycourter, and sometimes just completely out-of-form, had won just one claycourt match during the European season leading up to Roland Garros and struggled in the opening two sets of his first round match before turning it around. But in this match against Federer, Acasuso was on the verge of gaining a stranglehold on the match at 5-1 in the third set, and it looked fairly certain to be heading into a fifth set.

I was reminded yet again of how Acasuso is such a smooth, yet explosive shotmaker. Long, flowing groundstrokes and armed with a very dangerous forehand that consistently put Federer on the back foot. It was a simple game plan, a somewhat predictable one at that, but executed almost perfectly to keep Federer off-balance. In many instances, I've seen players simply trying to pound Federer's backhand relentlessly with little change-up, but with few results. Federer simply isn't that vulnerable to making errors if he can anticipate it every single time. But Acasuso was seemingly able to hit that off forehand time and time again practically in the same spot, close to the sideline and reaped the rewards. It wasn't like taking the high percentage way out though, and Acasuso would change it up to hit down-the-lines whenever he had found an opening, coming into the net as well when he sensed the opportunity.

What I liked the most was that he never backed off, and continued his aggressive game plan, even if he wasn't mentally strong enough to pull off his best shots when he needed them. Until the third set, from 5-1 that is, when unfortunately, instead of asking Federer some serious questions, Acasuso went back into his shell and started dropping balls short, with less pace. Still, it was a tension-filled match for three sets with the potential upset factor involved, and a high quality affair that featured plenty of variety and all-court tennis. Though if I was to measure a match in its parts, I think the fourth set of the Federer vs Mathieu match is worth a mention as well, which features both players playing at the top of their games.

[3] 1st round: Radek Stepanek def. Gaston Gaudio 6-3 6-4 6-1

It didn't have the drama, but it had the show. It wasn't Gaudio's best performance, and in the end it was all about Stepanek. It was like Stepanek pulling the strings in a puppet show yanking Gaudio wherever he wanted to side-to-side, front-to-back, and vice-versa. I don't think it's possible to see anyone use the entire court better, than Stepanek did in this match. Aside from Stepanek's variety which he is well-known for, it's also impressive how well Stepanek changes directions on both sides and that's how he's able to take his opponents out of their rhythm as often as he does.

I've seen the dropshot used in so many instances throughout the tournament, but no one follows up their dropshots better than Stepanek does, often frustrating the hell out of his opponents by making them cover large amounts of court, while feeling they have no control over what happens in the point, running for no reward. It wasn't an impressive performance from Gaudio, nothing more than solid, and we know he's capable of much better shotmaking. But his court coverage is impressive, and that adds to the entertainment factor of the match. It's a truly unique match, at least in the first two sets.

It's a familiar sight: Federer shows signs of weakness, Djokovic faces Nadal again in a final

A few weeks back before the start of Monte Carlo, both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were known to be having some sort of mini-slump. It's a mini-slump because consistently making quarter-finals and semi-finals of bigger events suggests that things could be worse than they currently are. But what could be associated with the tennis from Federer and Djokovic was that it was a bit rough around the edges, their games not looking as neat and tidy as it used to look, and more patchy in general.

But since then, things have changed for the better for Djokovic, as he finds himself in another consecutive Masters final this week in Rome, the most promising sign being his performance against Nadal in the Monte Carlo final. Federer, in comparison is still searching for his game, but more so his confidence and as to what kind of balance he should try to achieve when executing his game.

What I wanted to see was Djokovic asserting his authority over Federer, showing the same sort of intensity and energy that he showed in that final against Nadal. But it didn't happen, except in brief spurts, although seemingly in exactly all the right moments. It didn't feel like a battle of the heavyweights in terms of shotmaking, but rather a mental battle, both players not wanting to give an inch to each other. Especially Federer who clearly didn't want to repeat the Miami performance, where he literally self-destructed with a multitude of unforced errors.

Instead it became more about trying to take control of points in more subtle ways, relying more on shot selection, placement and defensive abilities. It was like they were both probing each other looking for weaknesses, and trying to set up points by moving their opponents out of position. I had the feeling that it was more like they were gearing up, making sure they had found their full range before bringing the weaponry. The match was building up to its climax, and the signs were looking good for a competitive affair.

Federer's forehand seemed particularly dangerous, despite tempering it somewhat, it still put him in control of most points, though helped out by Djokovic's struggling first serve percentage at times. Djokovic was patchier, especially on his returns and backhand, but whenever he was down a break point, he stepped it up on most occasions. His off-forehand to Federer's backhand was working well, and he hit some great crosscourt backhands on the stretch at times, but also had his fair share of errors on that side usually just missing long.

In the end, Djokovic's more inconsistent play cost him the first set, but the manner in which it happened, a crowd member calling out during Djokovic's ball toss put an unfortunate spin on the match. After saving a multitude of break points, Djokovic had finally conceded the set.

The crowd incident ended up being an influential one in the context of the match, one of two key events in this match, more so because of how negatively Djokovic responded to it. Suddenly it looked like he was irritable, and soon after, he even showed his frustration towards the sky for distracting him with the sound of thunder. The forehand in particular, isn't a particularly efficient shot, and can get a bit messy when he's not fully focused, although of course it can break down for other reasons as well. Seeing Djokovic play like this, lacking in concentration, belief and energy, compared to some of the latter stages of the match confirmed to me that he is so much better when he's playing with insane amounts of determination, and more entertaining as well.

Whenever Djokovic sensed a chance to take advantage of Federer's shortcomings, and build a lead, it was like the chances of him making him an incredible retrieval would increase dramatically. Case in point, on break point at 3-3, Djokovic returns a deep off-forehand from Federer that looks almost like a winner with an even better shot, a blocked backhand down-the-line right on the line but it doesn't win him the point. Then in that very same point, a shot skids right off the line and he desperately tries to get out of the way of the ball in time, to be able to hit a safe, deep backhand into the court.

That's why I think Djokovic has had some kind of success against Nadal, not only because of his attacking abilities, but his ability to put together these monumental points. The kind of points that have pretty much everything in it, the ones that you think are just great rallies in general, not just extraordinary winners from one player.

The turning point of the match was the rain delay, a chance for Djokovic to mentally regroup which he needed badly. With Federer these days, one break is hardly a done deal especially whenever he's up against Murray, Nadal or Djokovic. He had played almost entirely a clean match up to midway in the second set, but then the same kind of error-strewn games that we've seen from him in the past few months on occasions reared its ugly head again.

In that Miami final, I've heard that maybe Federer could have managed his game better, by being more cautious in his shot selections and opting for the off-forehand on more occasions instead of the higher risk down-the-line shot. But this time, Federer took the cautious approach, so what advice is there left for him?

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.