Australian Open Day 2 Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Australian Open Day 1 Blog

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogging from the Australian Open

This a quick note to say that I will be blogging from the Australian Open, for the first six days. However, unlike my Brisbane reports, my reports will be published on the Tennis Week website. My first writing breakthrough, and it will be in a similar format to the Brisbane blog although I would imagine that it would be slightly more descriptive of the surroundings, merely because Melbourne Park is such a big venue.

So feel free to leave your comments on those blogs here, or in fact any comments about the website here.

Here is a link to each individual blog as well as the matches covered in each of them.

Day 1 blog: Tomas Berdych vs Robby Ginepri, Robin Soderling vs Robert Kendrick, Feliciano Lopez vs Gilles Muller, Jelena Dokic vs Tamira Paszek, Paul-Henri Mathieu vs Jarkko Nieminen, David Nalbandian vs Marc Gicquel.

Day 2 blog: Jurgen Melzer vs Kei Nishikori, Richard Gasquet vs Diego Junqueira, Gilles Simon vs Pablo Andujar, Mikhail Youzhny vs Stefan Koubek, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Juan Monaco, James Blake vs Frank Dancevic.

Day 3 blog: Marin Cilic vs Janko Tipsarevic, Jelena Jankovic vs Kirsten Flipkens, David Nalbandian vs Yen-Hsun Lu, Juan Martin Del Potro vs Florian Mayer.

Day 4 blog: Jurgen Melzer vs Andreas Beck, Gael Monfils vs Stefan Koubek, Radek Stepanek vs Michael Berrer, Ivan Ljubicic vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Day 5 blog: Juan Martin Del Potro vs Gilles Muller, Tommy Robredo vs Yen-Hsun Lu, Andy Roddick vs Fabrice Santoro, Stanislas Wawrinka vs Tomas Berdych.

Day 6 blog: Carla Suarez Navarro vs Maria Martinez Sanchez, Gilles Simon vs Mario Ancic

Saturday: Verdasco and Stepanek reach the final in Brisbane

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Recounting Wednesday: Tsonga wins, Mauresmo struggles

Second day at the Brisbane International, and today was a different kind of day, one which featured many more extended matches, which in turn meant a lot of waiting around. To make matters worse, both Pironkova and Govortsova served for the match to take a straight sets victory, incidentally around the time when I started to make my way to the show court. Not that losing serve in a WTA match is that uncommon.



Up first, I had a look at the middle portion of Amelie Mauresmo's match against Julie Coin, my first WTA match for this year's event. Initially I had trouble readjusting my standards. What depth should they be hitting at, and what accuracy should they be getting on their shots? Because both these areas seemed to be lacking in comparison to the men. It was late in the first set when I started watching, and I noticed a lot of midcourt balls coming from the Mauresmo racquet especially on the forehand side. It was no wonder that she struggled quite a bit then.

But the most interesting part was seeing how she got her game together, or moreover, what she did to take her game up another gear. She forced herself to start moving forward into the ball more to try to get that additional depth and penetration needed to upset the rhythm of Coin. It didn’t initially work at first, or at least I thought her approach shots were extremely poor, I’d call them bluff approaches. But they actually worked a fair amount of times drawing the error from Coin, and I noticed that even though Mauresmo came to net a lot, it felt like she rarely had to hit any volleys, since I wanted to take a good, close look at that as well.

Eventually after some persistence, Mauresmo started to get better depth and accuracy on her shots, particularly on that sometimes troublesome forehand. She started moving Coin around better as well, with fewer shots landing in the centre of the court. I got to see the much-talked about Mauresmo backhand, and it is a beautiful shot. But what I like most about it is the variety of it, how she can change the topspin of the ball and make it jump up higher or flatten it out for a winner. Then of course, she has the slice backhand as well.

Of all the players I have seen so far, I think Mauresmo has the most natural looking game. What I mean by that is when I first arrived at the tennis yesterday, I noticed how well-trained all the players looked in terms of their groundstrokes from a technical point of view. To the point where their groundstrokes looked very mechanical, in that it was clearly obvious all of the repetitious training they had put in to be able to replicate that shot again and again. Which is interesting because I don’t get as much of that same impression on TV, but I later found that I got used to it, and no longer noticed it. It wasn’t that Mauresmo gave the impression of the opposite, but it seemed more natural rather than forced to me.

I had a brief look at the third set of the match, until around 3-2 to see how things had changed to become a more balanced match yet again. Coin, who was initially not doing much to even draw my attention, started to do what a lot of WTA players don’t do, come to the net. This reflected in her baseline play as well, as she started to strike the ball harder and closer to the lines and seemingly further away from Mauresmo compared to before. Mauresmo got back into a more reactive style of play, so they continued to battle it out. While I was in the outside show courts, I was keenly listening to the sound of the umpire’s voice which is very audible on the grounds, when the match went to the third set tie-break. 7-7, 9-8, until Mauresmo finally took it at 13-11.



What I was watching instead was the remainder of the match between Tsvetsana Pironkova and Sara Errani, even though I would have preferred to watch the conclusion of the Mauresmo match. There was one epic going on in Pat Rafter Arena, and yet another long, contested match here played at the same time. Pironkova was clearly the bigger and flatter hitter of the two and was sometimes able to hit big forehand winners. At first it looked like the match would be decided mainly on Pironkova's racquet due to her greater firepower, but then as I started to watch for longer periods, I noticed that Errani was playing a better tactical match. Moving her opponent around better and better defensively overall. She also had a loud grunt that seemed to only appear in particular situations.

It was a fiercely competitive match, and both ladies were relatively animated, often questioning calls. Both seemed to lose their trust in the officiating, challenging any shots that landed close to the lines. In the end, Errani’s greater ability to play the bigger points got her over the line.



So about three hours later after the start of play, Jurgen Melzer and Florent Serra made their way onto court, a match I had been keenly waiting for. As soon as the match started, I was surprised to see Serra adopting a more aggressive, inconsistent game compared to yesterday. However, he started to regain more of his consistency as the match progressed and was clearly the more solid player of the two.

It was a set that was mainly dominated by serve, with the majority of winning shots being set up by that shot, and neither player having any real opportunity to break until Serra did so to take the set at 5-4 on the back of two poor dropshots from Melzer. Melzer then regrouped briefly to break serve in the opening game of the following set, starting to take the ball earlier looking to move forward into the court and playing more of an all-court game, the kind of tennis that I like to watch.

Melzer seems to really enjoy hitting that big double-handed backhand change of pace that’s taken so early like a half-volley that it almost looks like it could be an approach shot. It takes exceptional timing to pull that shot off, and it doesn’t really work for Melzer much of the time. Neither does the change of pace off the forehand side, which looks to be an extremely flat stroke, but when it does come off, it shoots through the court in an impressive manner.

Serra then immediately broke back to level proceedings, and then was gifted a second break with two double faults coming off the Melzer racquet. It was a strange service game, the one that featured the second service break. Melzer looked like he was dejected after one or two bad shots already and seemed resigned to defeat, with some of those double faults looking like very careless shots. In the end, on match point, Melzer conceded the match relatively tamely by not even bothering to stick his racquet out on the return of serve. Then he didn’t even bother to shake the umpire’s hand, Steve Ullrich for some unknown reason.



So then I went back into Pat Rafter Arena to watch what ended up being easily the best match that I saw over the last two days, between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Jarkko Nieminen. It was an interesting match even on paper, a match-up between two very different players. The explosiveness of Tsonga against the counter-punching abilities of Nieminen, who really enjoys using the pace of his opponents. Nieminen started out the match on top returning exceptionally well, and using the pace to redirect the ball to move Tsonga around. At this point, it looked like Nieminen would rather return serve, than serve himself.

Tsonga had his chances to break Nieminen’s serve in the opening two service games, but made too many wild errors to be able to convert. He hadn't yet found the range on his groundstrokes and was shanking balls, particularly on the weaker backhand side. Nieminen hit what could have been the shot of the tournament, when Tsonga hit a very athletic overhead jump smash, only to see it returned down-the-line for a winner. Just in case you didn’t notice how well Nieminen was playing this entire set. This is when Tsonga amusingly bowed down to Nieminen on court.

But the second set was a different story, after Tsonga went down the initial break of serve. It was almost like watching a completely different player, with none of the erratic play from the first set from Tsonga. Tsonga seems to have about three levels, or standards of play that he can play at. Either he’s making a lot of errors overall, or he’s forcing himself to play better through almost energy alone (this is usually where his game wildly fluctuates) or he's consistently good. The latter of which I will further elaborate on, because that’s how he played the second and third sets. He was in the kind of form, where I no longer watched his shots to see if he’d shank them and when he missed, it was by relatively decent margins, not the wild shots that I saw earlier.

Now one thing that I really enjoy about Tsonga’s game, and this seemed magnified in this match for some reason, is his straight to the point style of play. Every shot that comes off his racquet, is an attempt to attack and hurt his opponents, and there isn’t much waiting around for opportunities to come. He was controlling the centre of the court and quick to move into the net, where he seems to get a big advantage by having the ability to be able to hit a big enough forehand as an approach shot, the kind of flat shot that shoots through the court and skids, which is the sign of a good approach shot, one that doesn’t sit up. I like the way he is quickly able to move from the back of the court to further up the court to take advantage of the shorter ball, moving so swiftly that allows him to quickly move back into an aggressive position after getting pushed back.

Nieminen continued to play well, seemingly moving exceptionally quickly around the court and being able to hit effective passing shots with short backswings. By the end of the match, I had to admire the competitive abilities of Nieminen, but in the end Tsonga was just that bit better in the crucial moments to take the match.



After the excitement of the previous match, I took a bit of a mental break where I sat down to watch Olga Govortsova play against Sesil Karantantcheva, who is recently making a comeback to the main tour. There wasn't much interest in this match overall, and I was fascinated that the stands seemed significantly more full to watch Hantuchova and Sugiyama play doubles instead. This trend of spectators preferring to watch doubles of higher profile players continued later in the night when more people decided to watch Tsonga and Gicquel play instead of Stepanek against Llodra.

Govortsova had her fair share of chances to close it out in two sets, but frustratingly she blew it and to three sets it went. To be honest, I was more blindly cheering for whoever was leading the match, rather than giving it my full attention. Karantantcheva lead 3-0 with a double break in the third set, so I started cheering for her then when I noticed her serving nervous double faults serving for the match later on, I realized she couldn’t win it so I turned to Govortsova instead.

I couldn't help but notice the incredibly long rallies that the pair of them exchanged, to the point where it looked like I was watching two ball machines play against each other. They also both possessed relatively weak serves, but it didn’t look to be that crucial given that they were almost guaranteed to get into a rally yet again. Except for when Karantantcheva served for the match.



Then Radek Stepanek took the court to take on Michael Llodra, a battle between two serve-and-volleyers, a marked contrast from the previous match, and there was big serving involved as well. Llodra is the flashier shotmaker from the back of the court, with his ability to change pace, while Stepanek is the steadier of the two and far more athletic. From a match-up point of view, I thought Stepanek's superior returning and passing shots would give him an advantage, his ability to be able to guide and place shots low down at his opponent’s feet.

There was no evidence of that in the earlier stages of the match, as both players held serve relatively comfortably apart from the one break point which Stepanek saved in the first set with a superb lob that landed marginally out of Llodra’s reach. The tie-break was then dominated by Stepanek who picked up his passing shots and often made Llodra hit low shoelace volleys.

I really like Llodra's volleys, by the way, particularly the high backhand volley which he really strikes firmly, to the point where it is unreturnable. He punches it away with such assertiveness and it skids incredibly low with it moving out of court. But in the end, Stepanek’s superior passing shots made the difference in this match. The other thing I noticed about Stepanek is the impressive flexibility that he possesses, his ability to be able to put his body in a position to return a shot on the full stretch.

Like Melzer, Llodra also seems to enjoy hitting that early ball backhand, except in Llodra’s case, he hits it with more of a point of taking a net position in the following point. Again, given the timing required of the shot, it was a relatively inconsistent shot. Llodra seemed to have the support of the crowd, where the applause seemed to be significantly greater whenever he won a point compared to Stepanek. Llodra’s verbal outbursts throughout the match also seemed to help in endearing himself to the crowd.

Recounting Tuesday at the Brisbane International

I arrived at the Brisbane International just in time to see the start of play, which opened up with Tomas Berdych taking on the Australian wildcard, Brydan Klein. Klein had somewhat been controversially awarded the wildcard over the more proven Chris Guccione, and Klein didn't do much to show that he was the better choice. I wasn't at all pleased that I had to start off my live tennis experience by watching a player ranked nowhere near the cut-off rankings. How then was I supposed to be able to accurately judge that performance without comparing it to others?

To make matters worse, I was situated too close to the front where there was a bit of a blind spot on the far outside line on the right-hand side. Berdych had a small group of very loud and vocal Czech supporters, with which I was surprised later when I briefly saw them in my quick visit to see Berdych and Stepanek play doubles, that there seemed to really only be about three of them in total given how vocal they were, although I think there could have been marginally more at the singles match.

Klein started off the match tentatively in the worst manner possible losing his serve by making three or four tame errors almost all off second shots, straight after the serve. Immediately he was frustrated by his performance bouncing racquets and slumping his shoulders, both of which he did with relative frequency. All this did was add to the overall impression of Klein, the feeling that you're watching a juniors player that starts complaining as soon as things don't go his way. With which then, the match could be described as the professional giving the junior a tennis lesson. To be fair, I didn't really know what to expect of Klein, what he was capable of, but it was only later in the match that I found that he was capable of much more.

At least he wasn't overplaying and self-destructing, I thought, just so I can focus on Berdych and admire his performance instead, even if he was being made to look good. Klein was relatively consistent off both wings after the initial blip, but was easily getting overpowered by Berdych and many of his weak shots were sufficiently punished, especially his serve. But really, all of his groundstrokes looked like they were sitting up there, floating with no penetration at all begging to be hit. With which Berdych obliged and hit some very nice winners.

Berdych looked really focused today to me, at least for a set and a half, which he most certainly didn't need to be if he didn't feel like it, like everything was measured and controlled. That is, excluding his attempt at serving out the set where he threw in two careless double faults, but he rebounded to bagel Klein in the first set. I think one of the most amazing things about many of the professional players watching them live is the amount of control that they can still have on their groundstrokes when on the run, the ability to still hit an aggressive shot that is well-placed and this is one area where Berdych had a big advantage over Klein. I like Berdych's body language and overall presence, and quietly confident posture which makes him look like an intimidating figure to play against at times.

The second set was like a completely different match, with Klein taking more of an aggressive mindset starting to hit through the ball now. Consequently the number of winning shots coming off the Berdych racquet declined significantly. As what usually happens in matches like this, Klein got a massive sympathy cheer from the crowd when he finally got his first game at 6-0 3-0 down. The obvious question here is why it took Klein so long to attempt to execute this kind of game. It didn't need to be risky tennis, just more penetrating. Berdych seemed to take his foot off the accelerator a bit towards the end, once he got the initial break playing a more relaxed brand of tennis, but he managed to overcome difficulty serving out the match, by saving that one break point and avoiding a more even contest.



Then I headed over to the outside courts to see Juan Carlos Ferrero take on Florent Serra. I had arrived just as the doubles match scheduled beforehand had concluded and I was highly amused later on, that this pattern of each match conveniently finishing at a time to allow me to watch all matches in full was repeated several times, until it finally failed me towards the end. Obviously what I wanted to see the most was the famous Ferrero forehand in action, so I took a closer look at that to start with. Up close, you can see the work that he gets on the ball and its general heaviness which seems to be a tad more than most other players. Ferrero started off the match trying to dictate proceedings, and it brought him mixed results. I remember most of all, him digging out of a 0-40 situation in the first set with three winners or near-winners, only to eventually lose serve for the first time in the match. He hit a couple of particularly nice forehand winners and cleanly struck backhand down-the-lines early on, but then it went downhill from there.

Serra on the other hand was absolutely stingy with the amount of errors he was coughing up and would rarely play a string of bad points. I initially felt like his game was the epitome of simple, effective tennis and he often took the straightforward route, attacking when given the opportunity to do so. Whenever he needed to defend, he'd situate himself about a metre or so behind the baseline and it felt like he barely made any errors off a defensive shot, like the majority of them came from when he was trying to step up the pace. But he proved me wrong by stepping up the pace and accuracy of his groundstrokes as he grew in confidence as the match went on, particularly on the forehand side where he would sometimes change the pace off the same backswing.

Ferrero's game went off the boil more and more as the first set went on making more strange errors, and as the match wore on, it no longer looked like he was the one trying to dictate the play. Serra maintained his level until serving for the match where he made a couple of poor errors, but Ferrero returned the favour in the tie-break by losing it fairly comfortably, and subsequently the match.



This is when I took a short break and returned to watch Novak Djokovic, who was clearly the biggest drawcard for the event. There was a bit of a buzz around the stadium, and not surprisingly he was given the biggest cheer as he walked onto court. I remember, in particular, the first point of the match where both Djokovic and Ernests Gulbis exchanged big groundstrokes before Djokovic pulled the trigger down-the-line on the forehand, one of his trademark shots. The man that was sitting next to me was laughing in awe of that shot, to which I was thinking, it's a little bit early to start applauding those kind of shots.

It turned out that Djokovic put in an erratic performance, not really showing much of the qualities that we see from him on a good day. I did notice though that he gets a lot of kick on his serve, really jumping up high although his second serve landed a bit short and ended up being attacked by Gulbis. Djokovic was particularly unimpressive defensively, often not being able to stay in points long enough and he was generally inconsistent overall, much to the disappointment of the man sitting next to me who only clapped when Djokovic won a point, but not when Gulbis did. The woman sitting in front of me got strangely excited everytime there was a dropshot in the rally, as if it was a brilliant shot, even if the dropshot itself was terrible and begging to be punished.

I started to divert more of my attention to Gulbis, whose shots seemed pacier and more effective, and his serve was winning him a lot of points. It seemed that both players were a bit erratic throughout the match, except that Gulbis was far more impressive in his shotmaking. His forehand really is a big shot, and his racquet acceleration looks impressive to the point that you could easily imagine him mistiming a shot and shanking it if he starts his swing just a bit too early.

The early part of the second set was easily the worst part of the match, with Gulbis' game going off the boil, and both players exchanging breaks in the first four games or so, the first break notably conceded by Djokovic with a dropshot. Of which I wrote down on my notebook as if it was a potentially crucial moment, but it turns out that more breaks of serve were to occur. Bad passage of play overall from both players, but Gulbis picked it back up at the end. The manner in which he broke serve to serve for the match was particularly memorable which featured the best rally of the match, where Gulbis managed to return a short drop volley, digging it right underneath his racquet narrowly before the double bounce and then followed it up with a nicely anticipated volley. So there it was, Djokovic out of the tournament, although I can't say I was disappointed about it.



So I headed back outside the stadium to the outside courts, and Mathieu had just won his match against Gabashvili, so I had yet again arrived for the start of a match. During the anticipation for the match, there were a couple of vocal people sitting behind me that were convinced that Kei Nishikori was a girl, as they had put it and were really confused as Bobby Reynolds walked onto the court. Nishikori made his way onto court far later than Reynolds. The stands were not that well populated for this match, with the majority of people deciding to watch the match between Ancic and Delic which was closely contested.

The match started off slowly with both players making a number of errors. Reynolds looks like a fairly limited player to me, incapable of being consistent and not looking particularly dangerous either. As long as Nishikori could turn in a solid performance, the match was going to be his. Nishikori quickly went up an early break, then handed it straight back notably with three backhand errors and a double fault. I noticed straight away that his forehand looks different from most players, that he gets a lot of arm on it, with more of a bent elbow than others. At this point of the match, Nishikori mainly kept it solid, but unspectacular.

As the match wore on, he started to show more of his shotmaking abilities seemingly growing in confidence. He seemed to have a knack of hitting unexpected winners, creating shots out of nowhere, showing that he must have great hands and feel to be able to pull off shots like that. Towards the end, Nishikori's forehand really caught fire, hitting a string of winners off that side, and flashy winners they were. It was like an exhibition of forehand winners, and it was definitely the highlight of my day. Nishikori seemed to be strangely unexcited by them (compared to me), in terms of body language, although it was clear that he was feeling good confidence-wise. The level of Reynolds' play didn't change that much throughout the match, and he was thoroughly outplayed by the end.

So having watched a series of matches, I took a short break to start wandering around the grounds, except to realize that there isn't much to wander to. I noticed, by the way, that the players here seem to be able to wander around wherever they like, or come off the court from practice without anyone bothering or approaching them. Which I found to be fascinating, because my only previous experience (that I can remember) was back in the Gold Coast where the players had a separate section on the opposite side where they walked around, that was restricted to the general public.



Given that there was not much else to do, I took a seat to watch the second and third sets of the match between Michael Llodra and Joseph Sirianni, who surprisingly reached the Adelaide semi-finals last year. So there were a lot of points at stake for him. When I first sat down to watch, I was constantly thinking that there was no way that Sirianni normally plays like that. I remember him having a flashy backhand from Adelaide last year and he was hitting a number of cleanly struck winners off that side. He was also able to stay relatively consistent on both sides, although I think his forehand looks like a dodgy shot technically. Although I don't mean to suggest that he was playing exceptional tennis, more that he was for his standards.

Llodra made a fair amount of errors, particularly if the rallies went on longer, maybe unsurprisingly since he is somewhat of a short point player. But as the match went on, it started to turn more in Llodra's favour, who started to mix things up much better and dictate play. More changes of pace, approach shots and better placed shots. Sirianni's game started to look more average as the match wore on, and after losing the second set in a tie-break, his game fell off considerably making many errors, dropping his level just as I had expected him to.

Then that was it for me, given that the other match that I had wanted to watch between Gasquet and Dent was significantly delayed and due on court relatively late.

Blogging from the Brisbane International

This is a really late post, more late than initially intended because I got lazy (or I ran out of time?). But this was to mainly say that I will be blogging from the Brisbane International on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. So come back to check the site if you wish to.

It has been the first year that Brisbane has gotten a professional tennis event and there has a been a lot of buzz surrounding it from the press and the general public. I think when you see a large amount of spectators turn up just to see the official opening, which featured nothing more than a five game hit-and-giggle exhibition, then you know that people are excited.

Also, I meant to give up a heads up to my fellow Brisbane/Queensland blogger, to get people to have a look at New Balls Please. He/she has told me that there will also be reports on the event, which I don't see yet, then again I haven't even put up mine yet (it's about 5 minutes away from going up). But for the moment, check out the WTA/ATP predictions for the new year. Where has Marko Djokovic gone by the way? I thought he was supposed to be playing the doubles but I don't see his name anywhere.