In other news, Dmitry Tursunov wins a grasscourt title in Eastbourne

A couple of points into the Eastbourne final between Frank Dancevic and Dmitry Tursunov, and Dancevic looks up for it, ready to give the ball a good crack. Dancevic is one of the flashier players on the tour. When he launches into a shot, he throws all of his body weight into it. It's power, compromising balance. He's running to his backhand corner and he tries to hit a sweeping one-handed drive winner, literally with his legs above ground. I think, sometimes when he's moving, it looks like he's flying around the court, but I can't explain why I think this is the case. To set the record straight, he didn't make that backhand down-the-line and it wasn't even close, but the adrenaline was there.

And that's why he didn't win the match, nor did he ever look like winning the match. He doesn't have the balance when he's hitting a shot, although sometimes his athleticism makes up for it. Watch for it particularly on return of serve, how he catches himself in knots trying to change his racquet swing to make up for the fact that his feet aren't really in the right position. But mostly how his body doesn't seem to be positioned right in front of the ball, though he does better in this area in baseline rallies when he's running towards the ball.

He needs time to do what he wants with the ball, and Santoro gave him the opportunity to do so in the previous round, particularly on return of serve. His entire game is revolved around moving forward, taking advantage of any big shots or serves he hits by charging forward to the net. I love the forward movement he gets on his serve, how it seems so natural that he should find himself right at the net to follow it up with a typically high putaway volley.

Tursunov is a better striker of the ball, such a relaxed hitter of the ball, more capable of consistently controlling proceedings in neutral rallies. It's not like it's a secret that Tursunov is a big hitter, yet I think in some ways he is a deceptively big hitter of the ball because of how his forehand seems to pick up speed towards the end of its flight swing. Clearly this more casual, smooth approach to hitting has its benefits, being able to maintain a rhythm and timing on the groundstrokes.

But sometimes when I see how Tursunov handles shots on the dead run, attempting to hit shots with the same motion and backswing as he usually would and failing miserably, I think that in part has to do with laziness. For someone with such natural backswings, he really does lack in the improvisation department, and whether that's due to a lack of urgency, I don't know. On one point, at 40-0 down, Tursunov after seeing that his return of serve had popped up high in the middle of the court started strolling over to his chair for the changeover, which in itself doesn't mean a whole lot but I think it represents his character well. He doesn't have the same will to win as some of the other players.

If his normal effort isn't good enough for the day, then that's pretty much all he will offer – nothing more, nothing less. I don't often see him trying to dig out or scrambling balls on the dead run. As soon as he loses balance, that's when he'll go for the unlikely winner maybe just as much as a way to exit the point, rather than the intent to win the point. Maybe only on an important point, he'll decide to do some more running, like in the second set tie-break.

That wasn't much of a big deal today though, because Dancevic doesn't like to hang around in points much either, even less so than Tursunov. I think, quite simply because he can't. He gets pushed around if he doesn't push his opponents around first. In the end, it turned out to be mostly about first strike tennis, but on the odd occasion when it came down to second strike tennis (if you can guess what that means), then Tursunov had the advantage.

It all looked to be comfortable on serve for both players, then out of nowhere Dancevic makes a couple of awful errors: a missed high backhand volley, a shanked forehand and backhand that misses wide by metres. The kind of errors that generally creep into a service game in small amounts, but that you don't expect to suddenly turn a match around. Right now, I'm thinking that the intensity level in this match is almost as low as it gets.

Dancevic sometimes tries to go for the aggressive approach, big returns just like he did against Santoro but it rarely works. I think the more desperate he is for a point, the more he attempts the flashier winner like when Tursunov was serving for the first set. But when he blocks it back, it's just as suicidal with Tursunov taking care of the floating return easily.

Tursunov goes for a more instinctive approach on return of serve reacting to the ball if he needs to using the pace to hit a decent return, or going for a slightly more aggressive approach if he has time to do so. In the end, I just think he has better feel of the ball. He seemed to have the edge early on in the first set, threatening to break Dancevic's serve at 1-1 but Dancevic held on with good serving and with some luck on the net cord.

Strangely after the mostly serve-dominated proceedings of how the first two sets had panned out, the tie-break ended up being a largely unpredictable affair. But the one thing that remained consistent was that Tursunov was the slightly better player, more capable of winning points on return and the longer baseline rallies.

For a brief moment, the match had sprung to life. Dancevic had decided that this was his last chance to get things back on even terms, and threw every ounce of energy he had to hanging into the point at 6-4 in the tie-break. In the longest rally of the match, Dancevic finally drew the error from Tursunov, with some impressive hustling that I don't think you would normally see from him, without that added determination. But Tursunov bounced back quickly, forcing Dancevic to hit a shoelace volley on return and he dumps it into the net to finish the match.

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?

Will Ferrero capture the title in Casablanca?

This week, we have a couple of lower-tier events in Casablanca and Houston, kind of like a breather of a week before the Masters Series events begin, starting in Monte Carlo on Sunday.

Most notably on the players' list in Casablanca, is former world number 1 and French Open champion, Juan Carlos Ferrero making his comeback from injury in Buenos Aires. Before that he had an injury-riddled year or so as well, being relatively light on match practice and subsequently his ranking has dropped outside of the top 100. He hasn't won a title since 2003 and his form looks good to break that drought so far, although I'd give Igor Andreev a good chance of winning the title as well.

It was quarter-finals day yesterday, where Ferrero faced Victor Hanescu in the third match of the day. It was a nice contrast of styles, a contrast of spins to admire and different methods of controlling baseline rallies. Hanescu with his more upright, cleanly struck groundstrokes as opposed to the more topspin oriented game of Ferrero's.

I like the way Ferrero whips across his forehand in a vicious manner, how he rotates his whole body across to generate excellent racquet head speed. On a claycourt, he can get that extra bit of reward off his forehand which moves further out of court after its bounce, making that combination of an off-forehand followed by a down-the-line forehand incredibly lethal.

It was a gradually improving performance from Ferrero, one that initially seemed controlled yet effective. It was a display of good claycourt tennis, with Ferrero effectively spreading the court and making Hanescu move all over the court, but doing so without taking any unnecessary risks.

The initial stages of the match were more a result of Hanescu appearing a bit sluggish, not yet finding the range of his groundstrokes. The way Hanescu moves to the ball, it's like he makes horizontal strides to the ball rather than the light, quick steps from Ferrero whose feet never seem to stop moving. Hanescu shanked a few shots off the forehand in the first game, and couldn't seem to get into the rhythm to exchange long rallies. Being a flatter hitter of the ball, Hanescu relies more on needing to find the timing to be able to hit accurate, sweetly struck groundstrokes otherwise they just don't have the penetration (or accuracy) needed to hurt Ferrero.

I was surprised at how quickly it took for Ferrero to find his confidence, and three games into the match he started striking his forehand with full confidence, stepping up the pace and unleashing more winners on that side. It was an impressive display of variety of spin, placement and pace.

I had my headphones on with the volume turned up moderately loud and I got the full experience of hearing all of the sound effects coming from Ferrero, all of the energy that he puts in to get the best out of his game. And from what I heard, it does sound like he plays a fast-paced, energetic game in terms of his movements, one that not only requires energy, but good confidence as well. That's only in reference to Ferrero playing at the top of his game though, because he can still play a good, consistent and smart match without that.

But on another note, the other impression I got listening to the match was that I thought Ferrero looked like he was really enjoying himself, maybe more so than usual given his injury layoff. Whenever a shot didn't hit its targets, he reacted off it like he was riding the emotion of whatever was happening in the match, a sign that he was fully focused. I loved the replay they showed of him moving to one of the dropshots, of him sliding forward and cutting underneath the ball just before it hits the ground. There were some sublime drop volleys as well, how difficult it must be to maintain control on those drop volleys on the full stretch with your feet inevitably sliding further apart on the stretch.

Hanescu picked up his game midway in the first set onwards, which made for some entertaining exchanges but Ferrero always seemed like the better player the whole way through. The one more capable of turning rallies around, coming up with something special towards the end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can we expect from Lleyton Hewitt, or should we expect anything at all?

Having recently turned 28 last month, Lleyton Hewitt is now approaching the final stages of his career, one that presents different challenges and expectations. Hewitt has had a long and illustrious career that has spanned 12 years at the ATP level achieving success at an early age. He captured his first career title at the age of 16 in his home town of Adelaide in 1998 and became the youngest player to end the year at world number 1 in 2001.

Hewitt has always been known as determined and confident, a guy that fully believes in his abilities and where he belongs in the game, up there mixing it with the best of them. In interviews, over the last couple of years, he has always spoken highly of his goals and abilities. But with injuries hampering him and undergoing hip surgery at the end of last year, and his ranking taking a nosedive to the low 70s, he is now forced to take a different perspective of his near future.

In previous years, he may have known to do too much talking about his own prospects particularly with the Australian press. But this year is more about taking a more low-key approach and letting the tennis speak for itself. Thinking about the present only, and not getting ahead of himself as he may have in the past.

Initially I thought it was only a matter of time before Hewitt made his way back up to a point in the rankings where he would make direct entry into the majority of ATP events, but so far this year, he has done little to add to his ranking points. In the last few weeks, he lost in the first round to Yen-Hsun Lu in Delray Beach, what initially seemed like a good opportunity amongst a weaker field and a five-set loss to Danai Udomchoke in Davis Cup, more an indication of his poor form more than anything else given that he has always taken pride in representing his country.

With that track record in mind, I was interested to see how Hewitt would go in Indian Wells, one of Hewitt's favourite tournaments, the city where he has captured his lone two Masters Series shields. It was a rematch of this year’s first round five set Australian Open match against Fernando Gonzalez.

The initial signs were looking good, Hewitt looking confident and playing surprisingly aggressively, using the pace of the Gonzalez groundstrokes and changing directions far more than I could remember doing in recent times. Then the memories continued to flood back, seeing Hewitt's explosive movement how he would move quickly to move on top of those forehands and counterpunch them back sending them back at a lightning pace.

Using the pace of his opponents to hurt them, making up for the fact that he couldn't generate it himself that effectively, and his return of serve was a strength as well. He hadn’t lost as much movement as I remembered him doing, though now that the match has ended, I’m still sitting on the fence on this thought.

But I thought this aggressive mindset was like conceding that he didn't have that same rock solid consistency as he used to, and instead trying to make up for it in other ways. Besides, based on my experiences watching Hewitt’s matches in the last few years, playing conservatively has never guaranteed him any more consistency really - so why shouldn’t he back himself?

Hewitt raced away to a 5-1 lead in the first set in some part due to Gonzalez’s rustiness, sometimes mistiming forehands by large margins, closer to hitting the backboards than the baseline at times. Gonzalez hadn't played a competitive match since capturing the title in Vina Del Mar after the Australian Open, being hampered by a sciatic nerve injury.

Early on, even without watching Gonzalez in full flight, he looked like a potential threat. His forehand has to be one of the most intimidating shots in tennis, a shot that doesn’t only win him large amounts of points but one for opponents to be fearful of in another sense. It amazes me how little he seems to be rushed on that side given the massive backswing he has on it, one reason why he can send them so far long on occasions.

He wasn’t consistent enough initially but it was almost impossible to tell which shots he was going to have a crack at, as if he just decides to unload on it at random times. It sometimes didn't matter that he had to half-volley a forehand right on the baseline, he’d try to change direction and send it down-the-line anyway while other times on a three-quarter court ball, he'd hit a more controlled crosscourt forehand with higher margin over the net. Regardless of how Hewitt was defending, if Gonzalez was going to pull off unexpectedly aggressive shots like that, Hewitt wasn’t going to get anywhere near it.

From 5-1 onwards in the first set, Hewitt started to get more into his comfort zone opting for a more high percentage brand of tennis, allowing Gonzalez that extra bit of time for set up for his shots. That shift of tactics, following a more predictable pattern of play in turn didn’t keep Gonzalez off balance enough and subsequently the match turned quickly in Gonzalez's favour winning six of the next seven games.

The start of the second set was a strange one, seeing Hewitt suddenly change tactics again quickly making his way to the net early in the point, before he had moved Gonzalez sufficiently out of court. Was this the sign of Hewitt trying to rediscover his aggressive tennis, but going about it the wrong way? His approach shots were often landing short in the court and he was suitably punished getting broken straight away.

He learned his lesson after that, and went back to basics, the roots of his game. It was like a repeat of the end of the first set, and the kind of tennis that I normally associate with Hewitt, moving his opponents around with his forehand more using his accuracy, rather than pace. He was no longer getting to the wide shots as effectively, though it was likely more to do with Hewitt’s preceding shots which were not as deep anymore.

It took for a while for Hewitt to slowly regain his depth and consistency but he started to regain some of his form in the third set, where the pair of them engaged in some entertaining rallies. Finally, it was both players playing good tennis at the same time. But in the end, Hewitt's errors proved to be costly, particularly in the crucial game where he lost serve missing three or so shots by small margins, perhaps aiming too close to the lines.

The statistics in the end showed that Gonzalez had cleaned up his game considerably in the latter two sets, even recording fewer unforced errors than Hewitt, as well as more winners of course. So after a promising start, it ended up being another early exit in a tournament for Hewitt.