Tournament Wrap-Up: The Winners in Umag, Gstaad and Los Angeles

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Umag

Winner: Nikolay Davydenko (d. Juan Carlos Ferrero)

What a tournament and what a performance it has been for Nikolay Davydenko this week in Umag, particularly in his two closing matches against Jurgen Melzer and Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Russian will surely take a huge confidence boost from his performances, but will he be able to translate a good run of form on clay to good form on the hardcourts? Maybe not initially, but he has plenty of time to gear up for the US Open.

Watching Davydenko play, I felt the same kind of helplessness that both Melzer and Ferrero felt, that’s how dominant he was. Out of all the players on tour, I’d have to rank Davydenko up there as quite possibly one of the most frustrating to play against, due to the sheer rapid pace of his game. He doesn’t give his opponents room to breathe, to play the shots that they’d like to play. So what you often see instead is silly shot selection, doing anything to stay one step ahead of Davydenko rather than reacting to what he does. And I sympathise completely with them, because when Davydenko’s playing like this, he’s close to unbeatable.

There is virtually no way of winning points against him, he dominates the baseline rallies and his return of serve is one of the best. He doesn’t really care what you throw at him, he’s going to be up for the task and return it with interest. He’s relentless. I think what made it great was that he didn’t allow his opponents to do anything. They weren’t even allowed to have a great day, to play out of their skins. Melzer won 2 games against Davydenko, and Ferrero lost 9 games in a row to lose the match.

Davydenko didn’t start off in imperious form. He was erratic but you could tell he was searching for his form. Being ambitious in his shot selections trying to pull off the same kind of shots as he did against Melzer the previous day. It was obvious that he had a lot of belief in his game. Initially it seemed like Ferrero would be able to put up a better fight, given that he is better equipped to deal with a fast paced game than Melzer was. Better at counterpunching and redirecting shots, being able to create opportunities for himself. But the more Davydenko started to clean up his game, the more Ferrero started to be fighting an uphill battle.

Gstaad

Video Clips: First set | Second set tie-break / Presentation

Winner: Thomaz Bellucci (d. Andreas Beck)

We were guaranteed a first time ATP title winner in the final, and it ended up being Thomaz Bellucci who had taken the more impressive scalps during the week, including a win over top seed and home favourite, Stanislas Wawrinka as well as Igor Andreev in the semi-final. It was a rare match between two left-handers, and one which featured two players with similar strengths, serve and forehand.

Bellucci is a more complete player, and also more consistent. I like how he constructs his service games with purpose, going after his serve but also using it to create gaps in the court and finishing off points in an efficient manner. It was a different match to the semi-final match against Andreev, with Bellucci not finding himself being pushed behind the baseline as much and therefore having more opportunities to attack and hit those faster-paced groundstrokes. He really has a nicely balanced game. It looks high percentage and aggressive at the same time.

Beck on the other hand is rarely consistent, not even in his match wins. You can pretty much expect that his standard of play will wildly fluctuate, but maybe that his serve will hold it all together which is what happened here and in his semi-final match. Against Daniel, he had brief moments of the match where he’d unleash a couple of big, forceful shots and that’s what won him the match. But in the final, Bellucci was equally as dominant on serve, creating a lot of problems for Beck with the lefty swinging serve and being more consistent in other areas.

Beck had a poor start to the match, broken on his opening game and wasn’t able to capitalise on a loss of concentration from Bellucci straight after the rain delay midway in the second set. Bellucci entered this event as a qualifier and after this week’s great run makes a big ranking jump from 119 to 66 which should allow him main entry into far more events.

Los Angeles

Video Clips : First set | Second set | Third set | Ending / Trophy presentation

Winner: Sam Querrey (d. Carsten Ball)

Querrey played a great match in the semi-finals against Haas, showing some of the most impressive retrieving abilities that I'd seen from him. He was fired up, and surely his Samurai supporters (pictured above) helped with that. There was one point late in the second set with Querrey scampering all over the court, hitting this really nice one-handed backhand flick from behind to stay in the point, then sprinting to the other side to recover and hit a great crosscourt forehand. It's in the video here.

The pressure was on Querrey to back up that performance against Haas, but more importantly to finally win one of those finals he was strongly favoured to win. I think if he had lost this one, we would have safely pegged him as a finals midget but after two close sets, Querrey ran away with the match when Ball ended up being too fatigued to put up anything resembling a fight. It was a strange match. Despite both players possessing great serves, they exchanged numerous breaks of serve throughout the first two sets and had terrible second serve winning percentages.

Querrey really struggles with his serve when he’s tight. It’s amazing that his big weapon, the serve just looks like a loopy shot that seems to sit up for ages, like the worst kind of second serves. I think because it’s based so much on his loose arm action to get that racquet head speed, whereas if it was a dynamic service action, like a natural way of leaning into the shot then the power would take care of itself. It was difficult to assess the rest of his game, given that Ball is such a streaky player that it can’t really be compared to playing against Haas. He’s not going to let Querrey put together great points, more or less ending it on his own terms.

Ball is as much of an outright aggressive player as you’ll see. He doesn’t hit the ball completely flat but generates massive amounts of power, I guess because of his size. You can tell why he’s ranked where he is, because he can be really careless with the simple shots, putting away midcourt balls that were practically set up for him by his big serve. And his volleying technique is suspect as well, not being clinical with the high volleys like he should be.

But it must be said that his serve is an amazing stroke, not to mention that I also find it one of the most aesthetically pleasing serves on tour. It’s a big lefty serve. It has power, kick and sidespin, swinging increasingly further out of reach after its initial bounce. It’s like Chris Guccione’s serve with more spin, but less variety since it’s more of the same thing with each delivery. Perhaps it’s better to simply watch the video itself.

I really believed that Ball would be favourite in the third set, given the strength of his own serving, and how he often punished Querrey’s serve late in the second set. But Ball surrendered his first break of serve with some of the most horrendous shots I’d seen. Soon afterwards he didn’t even make an attempt to hide the tiredness in his body language, seemingly laboured even in his walking in between points. It was no longer about winning points, but trying to end them in any way possible, and I don’t think he was even attempting to hit winners.

I guess he had decided that he’d had a good week and that he’d happily accept the outcome of this match. And it has been a great week for Ball, coming into this event ranked in the 200s, and having never even won a single ATP main draw match prior to this week.

Can Thomaz Bellucci win his first title in Gstaad?

Video clips of this match: First set | Second set | Downloadable full match

Earlier this year Thomaz Bellucci reached this first ATP final in his home tournament of Costa Do Sauipe, losing to Tommy Robredo in the final. This time around in reaching the final of Gstaad, he faces an easier task against the German Andreas Beck, who prior to yesterday had never reached an ATP final himself.

Bellucci at the moment has been sporadic with his results on clay, the surface that is likely to bring him his biggest successes. Still only 21 years old, there's plenty of room for his game to develop, and from a technical point of view, his game looks formidable on clay at least.

It was semi-finals day in Gstaad yesterday, and if you ever wanted to watch a typical claycourt match where players respected the characteristics of the surface, then the match between Bellucci and Igor Andreev would have been perfect for that. There is something beautiful about watching topspin in groundstrokes, the curved shape of the flight path of a ball which always makes for great Hawkeye demonstrations on TV. I think it's the additional sense of ball control, and the greater margin of shot that makes it look like you're watching something extremely skillful.

Both Bellucci and Andreev had that, particularly Andreev who is well-renowned for his unique forehand which has sometimes drawn comparisons to Rafael Nadal's forehand, in terms of spin. Andreev uses an exaggerated motion, as if he's trying to put as many rotations on the ball as he can. He hits it with a similar mindset to a batter in baseball, as if it were the only shot that he needed to hit rather than one in a series of shots. He exerts all of his energy into the one shot, and doesn't seem to recover all that well afterwards as a result. Subsequently watching him play brings the same kind of feelings, where you can find yourself mesmerised by his forehand, to the point of ignoring the rest of his game.

In terms of accuracy, Andreev's forehand isn't as good as Nadal's. When he has time, he can create some superb angles and use that to open up the down-the-line shot. But if he's pushed back with a deep shot, he's really only limited to a deep and heavy response. It's not entirely a negative aspect, because it's an excellent shot in itself and one that Bellucci had trouble dealing with early on given that Bellucci doesn't take the ball early himself.

Bellucci took a similar mindset to Andreev, hitting these moderately loopy balls in response to deep shots, in particular on the backhand side. It's nice to see a change of spins in a match, and utilising that loopy ball as a legitimate defensive option. Both Bellucci and Andreev have similar backhands in that they are lacking offensively, although Bellucci is slightly better in this area. It's more of a neutralising shot to set up for their favoured forehand.

As heavy as Bellucci hits his shots himself, his shots looked completely standard compared to Andreev at first. You would expect that it would take a while for opponents to adjust to the uniqueness of Andreev's game, and that's what happened here. It felt like Andreev's shots were consistently shooting through the court, almost as if it was like a bad bounce, even though it clearly wasn't.

Bellucci seems to be the kind of player that really needs to develop into a rhythm to play well, so it took him a couple of games for the match to be played on even terms. The way he hits his shots reminds me of an intense practice session. It's something to do with how he never seems to chase the ball or move forward to hit it on the rise, how it often seems to be within his reach instead. It's unbelievable how often he can still manage to keep the two hands on the racquet stretching out to his backhand side.

Tactically he is very sound, it's just that he's also patient. Often he is happy exchanging three-quarter paced groundstrokes manouevring his opponents further out of court with each stroke, although it must be said he still generates good pace on it. The more important the point is, the more you get an idea of what each player's favourite patterns of play are. And when Bellucci had to fend off break points, or when he was down in a service game, he liked to hit crosscourt forehands into Andreev's backhand, gradually moving it wider out of court to set up the down-the-line shot. Interestingly enough, he's not usually as stubborn about that and is more than happy to utilise more of a complete tactic normally.

The biggest difference was that Bellucci had a greater variety of groundstrokes, the ability to change pace and flatten out his strokes on both sides. It's difficult to read and often surprising, how he can be comfortably exchanging groundstrokes then suddenly unleash a winning shot. It's also a sign of being tactically smart, playing percentage tennis waiting for the right opportunity to attack. His serve must be difficult to read as well, because it's such a quick service action that you would get barely any time to read his ball toss, which is apparently where most people anticipate serves from.

At the end of the first set, Bellucci stepped it up a gear at one stage winning 6 points in a row to crucially win him the set, suddenly appearing more confident in his shotmaking. But late in the second set, Bellucci showed signs of nerves serving to stay in the set, something that he may have to work on. Because he wasn't only nervous in terms of appearing tight, but tactically his game had changed as well. Where he was comfortably exchanging three-quarter paced shots all match long, he started to become impatient trying to use the same swing but hitting the ball harder so naturally it landed long more often than not. It wasn't like he was intentionally flattening out on the shot.

On other instances, he would sometimes attempt to finish points quicker by moving into the net. In some ways, it's a change-up tactic but also it's openly admitting to nerves and impatience. It would have to be planned in a smart way to work, not only as a means to end a point. Gilles Simon does this well, Bellucci not so much. Fortunately for Bellucci, he managed to scrape through that one service game where he battled nerves, then he grew in confidence as a result afterwards and managed to rediscover his game from the earlier part of the match to later break Andreev's serve and win.

Profiling Simone Bolelli's Claycourt Game (and Performance) in Umag

On the back of last week's title win in Hamburg, Nikolay Davydenko heads into the Umag semi-finals as the clear favourite to take the title. But what has his form been like this week? He's not really on top of his game, nor is he fading badly. But like all good players, Davydenko is surely making the most out of the fact that he can do so much with the ball, that he has so many attacking options from the baseline.

Yesterday's match against Italian Simone Bolelli was a difficult match, as unpredictable as a match could be in the first set and not as one-sided in the second set as the scoreline suggested, resulting in a Davydenko win 7-6(10) 6-1. It was really only when Davydenko achieved his second break of serve that the outcome seemed finally set in stone, given that so many of the games prior to that were closely contested.

It wasn't one of Davydenko's rhythmic ball-striking days, he had to rely more on his speed instead, and he didn't exactly get to play the match on his terms given Bolelli's highly aggressive game. Bolelli is one of those players that have been mentioned from time-to-time as one of those dangerous claycourt players, as one of those steadily rising players, and he definitely captured some attention with his rather flashy game. At the top of his game, he looks like a stylish player, capable of hitting clean winners on both sides, not to mention that he has a very aesthetically pleasing single-handed backhand.

Though I have come to learn that he also has the tendencies of a power hitter, and the tactical side of the game is certainly something that he can work on. He takes big cuts at the ball particularly on the forehand side, and can be prone to shanking shots especially when returning fast-paced serves, or in other words first serves. Whereas on the backhand side, he can make the adjustment and shorten his backswing on return.

Just like in the first couple of games of the Hamburg final, Davydenko went down an early break lead, and the manner in which it happened seemed similar as well. Davydenko missed a couple of first serves, and Bolelli hit some unlikely winners. Unlikely because when he wins a point against Davydenko, he doesn't really wrest control of a point. Instead he pulls out spectacular shots in the middle of a competitive rally, overwhelming Davydenko with pace to the point where he either can't reach it or has to hit a defensive shot off a ball that's only one metre away from him. I think it's not only power, but also the heaviness of Bolelli's shots that makes it difficult to deal with.

For a powerful hitter, Bolelli can generate some excellent angles on his forehand, sometimes finding good angles on a crosscourt shot when it doesn't seem like he has much to work with. I guess it's because of that over-the-head swing that he uses on the forehand sometimes to find that extra angle, by applying additional spin.

But as well as Bolelli played to achieve that first break of serve, he returned it back with numerous tame errors in a way that looked familiar for him. I mean, based on that shot selection, surely he is always having to fight the ups and downs of his own play. He doesn't even react externally that much to what he does. I guess he's used to it.

So that's what the match ended up being like on both sides of the court. A match of uncompromising shotmaking, erratic on both sides but full of drama due to the sheer unpredictable nature of it. I would have thought that Davydenko would have been able to capitalise on his breaks of serve in the first set better, but strangely he had a hard time pulling away from the match. It was like whenever he had the opportunity to take a clear lead in the match, he had trouble stringing together points and kept letting Bolelli back in.

Bolelli remained in a neutral mindset the whole first set, sometimes hitting great shots and sometimes hitting awful shots but I never got a sense of momentum or a rise in confidence. When I watch him play, I feel his patterns of play are more based on instinct more than anything else, though he does like to hang in the backhand corner and run around to hit forehands. He doesn't strongly stick to that strategy in the same way that for example, Tommy Robredo does although for good reason because his backhand is a good shot as well.

The power that he can generate off both sides is particularly impressive. Looking at his physique, it reminds me somewhat of Nicolas Almagro, how they use a lot of their upper body strength to generate that pace, keeping their stance more upright than most other players. I can see why Bolelli sticks to playing a primarily attacking game, because when he's defending, it looks rather poor. Bolelli's mindset is to use attack as a form of defense. I think in a lot of cases, I actually see him hitting more aggressive shots when stretched further out wide, than when he's hitting a shot from the centre of the court.

In terms of court coverage, it's like there's a certain distance of the court he can cover across the court where he can still maintain his footwork and slide properly into the court. I'd say it's about the same distance as the width of the court between the two singles sidelines, and whenever he gets pulled outside of that, wider with angle then that's when he comes unstuck and tries to hit low percentage, unlikely shots. When he's still within that strike zone, it's amazing the amount of power he can generate on the run. But unfortunately when it comes to hitting low percentage, improbable down-the-line running shots, he's also very prone to doing that.

Davydenko captures his first title of the year in Hamburg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeing Potential or Limitations?: Discussing Sam Querrey's Prospects

This time last year, Sam Querrey seemed to be on his way to making a steady rise up the rankings. Before his performance at the US Open last year where he lost to Rafael Nadal in the 4th round, perhaps it was hard to see what Querrey could develop his game into to become a consistent threat.

When it comes to spotting raw talent, it must be said that it’s not really my forte. When do you decide that some weaknesses are holes in a player’s game that can be considerably improved or whether it will end up being their achilles heel for the rest of their careers?

I recall commentators years ago mentioning how Dinara Safina’s movement was a big weakness. And it’s not like her ball-striking abilities impressed people in a way that Lindsay Davenport did. Should it be concluded that because of Querrey’s height, we can’t really expect him to be that mobile around the court?

It’s been documented in the past year that Querrey has been working on his fitness and movement. Watching him play, footwork should probably be just as much of a priority. I was having a look at his stroke production and it seemed to be very much an upper-body motion, particularly with one of his major weapons, the forehand.

With the top players, footwork and stroke production is really combined as one action in itself, so I guess I’d describe that as having as a fluid motion. But with Querrey, he’s trying to hit his forehand with as much force as possible with his racquet swing, while trying to maintain the right footwork in his movement and keeping his steps precise. I don’t think footwork comes naturally to him. It’s something he’s had to work on, and will need to continue to work on. He’s just so naturally relaxed in his approach to tennis that it bogs him down at times, although it would surely make him an excellent Davis Cup player.

The Newport semi-final contested between Querrey and Fabrice Santoro was an interesting contrast of styles, demonstrating two very different ways of taking control of points. Querrey using the natural power that he possesses on his groundstrokes, particularly his forehand to dominate points. But Santoro showed that there are other ways to take control of a point other than hitting hard, penetrating groundstrokes.

The intent wasn’t to place the ball out of Querrey’s reach, but rather to try to make Querrey stretch out for shots, hit shots off-balance then keep him moving around on the dead run, defending while being completely helpless. Those crosscourt short angle slices really work well to open up the court, particularly on the backhand side. Grass is definitely an excellent surface for Santoro, his slice shots skidding lower and being more difficult to punish for his opponents.

The problem was if Santoro couldn’t place the ball wide enough or deep enough, that allowed Querrey to take control of the points, and Querrey was patient enough to not give away too many errors. He was hitting the ball hard while realizing at the same time that often it’s not necessary to hit the ball close to the lines. In this particular match-up, he could afford to be patient. Patience is also something that Querrey has had to work on over the years, being less of a loose cannon in his shotmaking and waiting for the right shot to pull the trigger. He still makes a fair amount of errors although I feel that more of those are movement-related, where he struggles particularly on the dead run to do anything other than block the ball back.

In the end, the biggest difference in this match was the strength of Querrey’s serve. They popped up on the screen the serving statistics of all the entrants of the tournament, to show that Querrey was convincingly leading the ace statistics of all four semi-finalists, serving about twice as many as the second place scorer, Rajeev Ram.

Querrey has a nice and relaxed smooth service action, and it’s very efficient too. It doesn’t look like anything spectacular; it’s more of an upright motion than most of the good servers. He doesn’t throw his body weight into the shot as much but the simplicity of it allows him to hit his spots well (or at least he did in this match). He played a superb second set tie-break, hitting an unreturnable serve on every one of his service points, as well as stepping up his level on return as well to comfortably take the tie-break in the second set, and win in straight sets.

Roddick fights his way past Hewitt in a five set thriller

Before Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt stepped on court for their quarter-final showdown, they showed an interview from Roddick describing what it feels like to play against Hewitt.

"It's a fight. Everything is a fight. Lleyton's not going to give you anything. A lot of guys you can get on top of, you can get on top of their game, you can look for holes in it. Lleyton doesn't really have a lot of holes. He's pretty solid off both sides. He volleys well. You're definitely not going to get on top of him mentally."

That's what the match turned out to be, a battle between two seasoned professionals on the tour, two guys that know exactly how to play the big points pushing each other to find their best tennis when they needed it most. Hewitt hasn't enjoyed as much success as he would have liked the last couple of years, but mentally and subsequently strategically his game yesterday brought back memories of what it was like when he was near the top of the game.

In the recent couple of years, Hewitt had reverted to a slightly more defensive game, a product of the hesitancy which often affected his game. More than anything, I felt watching Hewitt playing well, suddenly his game looked far more simple than it had in recent times, more assured of himself and punishing short balls with more authority, quick to spot openings in the court as if it was obvious that he should hit it there.

Because of his amazingly consistent return of serve, his ability to dip returns at his opponent's feet and his excellent counterpunching abilities, he's able to create more opportunities for himself than most, as well as put his opponents under immense pressure. Players know when they play Hewitt that they have to attack against him, yet they know that if they don't put him away that he has them exactly where he wants them - in position to hit his targets, using pace and angle to redirect it with accuracy.

What Hewitt wants to do is to crush his opponents mentally, to have them feel like they've done everything they can in a point then to run it all down and turn it into a counterpunching winner right at the end. It's clear it's the kind of point he enjoys the most and he celebrated one of these with his loudest 'Come on' of the match.

But Roddick is mentally strong as well, and he was fully prepared for the battle. Roddick played almost a perfect match tactically, looking to keep Hewitt off-balance in a variety of ways. First there was the much-improved slice backhand, which worked great as an approach shot deep and skidding low after its bounce, but also to mix up the play in the baseline rallies.

When he hit through his backhand, he hit it as confidently as I'd ever seen with great accuracy, quick to go down-the-line whenever he sensed the opportunity to avoid getting pinned on the backhand corner. I feel like the slice backhand has made a major resurgence this tournament with Roddick, Haas, Murray now alongside Federer making the shot a very effective weapon on its own. In fact, that makes it all four semi-finalists that have utilised the slice backhand.

When Roddick was with Connors, it looked like Roddick was rushing the net, more with the intent of pouring pressure on his opponents but these days it's like he naturally finds himself up there, building up the point and thinking of a point as a whole rather than simply taking an aggressive mindset. It's as if he has earned the right to make it up there, rather than trying to bluff his way up there.

Roddick was in front almost the entire match long, and Hewitt looked down and out at the start of the fourth set but it went right down to the wire in the fifth set. In a way the match became somewhat aligned to their well-known reputations, Roddick as being an excellent front-runner and Hewitt being one of the best fighters on the tour.

What I liked most about the match were some of the amazing shots that both players came up with under pressure, Roddick in particular. Half-volleys that landed on the line and amazing depth on his groundstrokes, most surprisingly on the backhand side. Hewitt isn't as good as he used to be on the big points but he still has the heart.

It wasn't at all like a typical Roddick match, where you would expect one service break to seal the deal and that added the element of unpredictability to the match, and in turn it forced both Roddick and Hewitt to fight their way out of difficult situations. There was no room for cheap errors here. Hewitt started off hesitantly in his first service game costing him the first set, then it turned into an epic battle after that. As the match progressed, Hewitt started to read Roddick's serve better winning more than half the points on Roddick's second serve and sometimes even being able to connect with the first serve on the middle of his racquet.

I was certain when the match was prolonged to a fifth set that it was going to turn into another Hewitt classic, one of those great comebacks that we were used to seeing purely because of his five-set record. But Roddick didn't allow himself to be deterred by the loss of the fourth set after the initial break of serve. Maybe his utmost respect for Hewitt's competitive abilities allowed him to remain positive in the fifth set, and in the end he was the deserving winner for playing the better tennis overall, for showing more creativity in his shot selection as well as executing his shots better and more consistently.