Australian Open Blogging

Just a quick note that I will be blogging from the Australian Open again, but this time for the first four days only. By now, you should all know what to expect. If not, a quick look down the page at the blogs from the Brisbane International will give you an idea.

I really like reading comments, so I strongly encourage them. If you would prefer to use email, you could do that also.

Robin Soderling Smashes Through The Draw to Win Brisbane

Last time Robin Soderling arrived in Brisbane, he was a top 20 player with a relatively low profile due to his less-than-impressive Grand Slam achievements. This year he returned as the #1 seed, and top 5 player, commanding the majority of the media attention in the tournament here. In fact, a couple of days ago, he featured in a video clip where one of the interviewers who barely knows how to play tennis tried to play against him, and he switched to playing left-handed.

Soderling is clearly a player to be feared now, rather intimidating and scary to play against. It’s hard to write about Soderling’s tennis abilities compared to the rest of the field. Is it less complimentary to write about a player’s ability to generate pace? He does hit quite a heavy ball too though. Is it mostly due to his big and strong stature, or the crazy big wind-up on the forehand? A couple of years ago, he was often criticised for the unreliability on the forehand side, but now it seems like that unorthodox style isn’t so bad after all. In fact, it’s his “money shot”.

The other big shot of his would be the serve, which seems to zip through the court before you’ve even seen it coming. During the commentary yesterday, I heard one of the most fascinating observations about Soderling. They said his serve is quite flat, and he can’t swing it out away from his opponents that well. So if there’s a big point, he always hits his favourite flat serve down the T on the deuce court, and out wide on the ad court.

Soderling defeated Andy Roddick in the final today, rather convincingly. It was similar to his win over Radek Stepanek in the previous round, where both players tried to throw Soderling off his rhythm (though in different ways), but found that their off-pace shots had very little effect.

As with many of Roddick’s matches (with opponents trying to target his backhand), there were many rallies on the backhand crosscourt side of the court, and Soderling seemed like far more of a dangerous player in this match-up. Able to run around and hit more forehands, penetrating and with surprisingly good angle.

With so many opportunities to hit off-forehands, it was easy to see how Soderling has much improved his footwork running around his backhand to hit forehands. Before he sets up to hit the shot, he throws his entire body into the shot, and this requires a lot of work, to make sure that everything is set up facing the right angle and on time. It’s always hard work on Soderling’s end, but it looks like he’s physically and mentally up to the task. It sure helped that he knew Roddick didn’t have much to hurt him with. He doesn’t seem to be using the backhand down-the-line as much as he used to during the best moments of his career.

I’d like to know what vision Larry Stefanki has for this period of Roddick’s career. Our commentators here in Australia have now painted him as a junkballer, beating his opponents by throwing off their game with off-pace shots. I wonder if this is what he thinks of himself. He has been using the slice backhand a lot, which seems to be one of Larry Stefanki’s favourite shots, when you look at how he handled Fernando Gonzalez’s game, and probably some others, not that I paid attention to his previous coaching roles. Is he developing his game in a direction of producing moderately high performances, but underwhelming results?

Roddick must not be using enough forward momentum on his groundstrokes. I had a look at his forehand, and he’d throw himself into it trying to get as much racquet head speed as possible on the forehand but by the time it reached the other side of the net it always looked underwhelming. So much effort to generate power, such little reward. I don’t think this is normally the case but he was being outplayed here, so he tried harder to penetrate through the court, and still ended up with 0 forehand winners by the end of the match.

There must be something technically wrong there, or either he is intentionally trying to hit these loopy, safe shots. At least his accuracy and consistency is quite good, and this will always ensure he can beat the majority of players ranked below him.

Frustrated with not having any control over proceedings in this final, Roddick used the entire rain delay to rant to the umpire Fergus Murphy about his way of checking whether the court was suitable for play or not. I thought the rant was rather rude and self-centered, and also annoyingly repetitive. In any case, Soderling continued in a business-like manner unfazed by all the distractions and broke serve soon afterwards giving him the crucial break to finish off the match.

Brisbane International - Wednesday Blog

It’s the start of play on Wednesday, and Florian Mayer and Richard Berankis have just walked out on court, along with the officials.  Mayer towers all over them, while Berankis fits in with the crowd of officials.  Berankis looks like a cute little junior, while Mayer looks mature.  Berankis had some headphones on in one ear, then I started to wonder which other players do the same thing.

Seeing his age, I thought to myself, maybe this would be a more difficult match than I originally thought.  After all, young players can make quick strides in the rankings.

I quickly tried to acquaint myself with Berankis’ game.  His groundstrokes look very technically sound, and he moves reasonably well, but not spectacularly.  He’s a good ball-striker, and his double-handed backhand is the standout shot.  Good ball strikers are always dangerous.

Mayer started off the match in aggressive fashion, not resorting to as many slow-paced shots as he did against Tomic.  Even without the obvious slow slice backhands, he was still able to change the pace and keep Berankis off-guard, and Berankis made too many errors to start with.  The biggest difference between the two though, was Mayer’s return of serve, which is definitely one of his biggest strengths when playing well.  He’s very good at using the opponent’s pace against them, by taking the return early and reflexing it back.

The other factor that made Mayer clearly the better player in the first set and a half was his superior counterpunching ability.  About midway into the first set, Berankis started to clean up his game, and Mayer couldn’t hit through him anymore.

The vast majority of winners must have been on the run from defensive positions.  It really made me think about how Mayer relies on his movement so much, to be able to hit those great angled crosscourt backhands and forehands on the run.  He has quite an aggressive way of moving his feet when he is hitting the shot.  It’s not a smooth way of moving, but rather a very abrupt way of suddenly planting his feet firmly into the right position.

The point of the tournament came on 5-4 in the first set, 0-15, where both players exchanged fast-paced, high quality groundstrokes for 20 strokes or so, which ended in a forehand approach shot into the open court that looked like it could have won the point, then a great passing shot from Berankis that looked like it could have won the point, and finally a dive volley winner from Mayer to get to 0-30 and eventually break for the set.  That entire game at 5-4 was high quality.  Mayer finished it off with a backhand return winner down-the-line.

This was a match of two halves.  The first set and a half, from where Mayer was up a set and 3-1, and then the rest of the match.  I noticed today from the crowd, that there seems to be an annoying trend of the underdog player on the outside courts getting more claps from the crowd.  It’s not really accurate, but I call it sympathy cheering.  It was the same in Marion Bartoli’s match, how the player expected to win can hit a great shot and the crowd will be silent, then the other player might win a point through an opponent’s error and then they get an encouraging round of applause.  But it doesn’t stop even when the underdog is winning.  The seeded player will still get no additional encouragement!  Of course, it doesn’t apply to the stars, and maybe also it had something to do with Berankis being young and decent looking.

Mayer had this match under control, up a set and 3-1, with his superior returning skills.  At 15-30 on his serve, there was a ball that dropped on the baseline that I thought he just left because he thought it was landing out.  But then on 15-40, he did it again, and this time it was not so close to the baseline.  He definitely had to be injured, and soon enough his body language completely changed.

It’s quite frustrating when you’re watching a match, and even though one player is winning, it looks likely that they won’t win.  Mayer had been relying on his movement the whole match, so I couldn’t see how he could finish this off.  Unless if his condition improved, or he served extremely well, or relied on his returns.  He sure hadn’t been able to smack that many winners, without doing some running beforehand.  Berankis didn’t really need to play any better.  Before this, every shot Mayer missed was close to the line, but now he was shanking it and hitting in the middle of the net.

This was frustrating for me to watch too, so I started snacking to distract myself.  So how did Mayer end up winning it in the end?  The third set was incredibly strange.  Mayer was visibly frustrated with himself, smacking a ball into the fence after holding serve in the first game, then later on in the set hitting his knee and holding it (when he started to make more of an effort to move for shots).  Maybe he started to move better, knowing that he was near the end of the match, and only had to keep it up for a short while.  Or either he felt a little better.  In any case, he was in a hurry to walk straight off the court when the match finished.

Berankis definitely had a part to play in this.  He pretty much gave away the final game, with one bad error and a double fault.  His game seemed to crumble in the key moments.  I guess some more experience is required for him in this area.

While this long and fluctuating match was going on, it seems like the people inside Pat Rafter Arena were getting short-changed.  I waited outside expecting to see some of Jelena Dokic’s match, but she had just lost 6-0 6-1, and they were already just about to start the 3rd match on the schedule - Andy Roddick’s match against Alexandr Dolgopolov.  This was a highly disappointing match.  I expected much more after seeing Dolgopolov’s match against Andreev.

Dolgopolov started off brightly, matching Roddick in the serving department and hitting superior groundstrokes.  He can hit the ball with astounding pace at times.  I suppose it looks spectacular when it works.  But it turns out he’s just a flashy ball-basher.  After that initial break of serve, Roddick’s service games became much simpler, while most of Dolgopolov’s shot selections seemed silly and over-the-top.  He made many wild errors, and so this became a simple match for Roddick, just for being the more sensible player. 

Roddick played solidly, but I really didn’t like the look of that slice backhand at times.  Then again I was sitting so far back in the stadium, I couldn’t really see properly how high it typically went over the net, but it seemed to float too much for me.

So my $60 ticket for Pat Rafter Arena was basically spent on that disappointing match.  It was back to the intimate and outside courts, where the only problem is that it can be unbearably hot, like it was on the second and third sets of the Mayer vs Berankis match.  By now, it had significantly cooled down though.

Marion Bartoli had just started her match against Iveta Benesova in steamrolling fashion.  I like to watch her relentless determination and killer instinct.  She has a deadly look about her, and takes a very serious approach to her tennis.  She also has entertaining routines in between points, sometimes practicing service motions in between points on her serve.

It’s a good thing that she plays in this way too, because she doesn’t look anywhere near as effective when she’s pulled out wide, like she was in the second set.  From what I saw today and yesterday, maybe she runs out of steam after the first set, not being able to play at the same relentless pace point after point.  But she picked it up again in the third set.

Benesova looked like she couldn’t quite understand how the match turned around against her so much in the third set.  She spent the second half of the set being grumpy, and seemed to get annoyed at the umpire for not being able to hear one of her overrules, and rambled on about something else.  Then the umpire replied with something like, “what else would I be commenting on?”  But I’m really not sure whether I imagined that conversation in my head, because I couldn’t hear it properly or whether it really happened.

This was not a very clean match, with plenty of errors mixed with some good shots.  Particularly I could not understand in this match, the same underdog mentality of the crowd that I mentioned earlier.  Especially since Bartoli’s winners were often more impressive and better-looking than Benesova’s.  I decided to make a point of clapping Bartoli’s winners, and I don’t think I could hear anyone else clapping while I was doing it (which is why this was very noticeable for me).

Feliciano Lopez walked onto the court wearing stylish big headphones and mouthing (or singing) the words to a song, only to head straight to the toilet then before coming back to the court.  I managed to take one photo just before he took it off.  That was probably the only positive memory I had of him, during his match against Kevin Anderson.

Both players started the match with dominant serving, and winning the first couple of service games easily.  But soon afterwards, it turned into a real match with groundstrokes and rallies in it.  And that’s when it started to look like, the only thing Lopez had today was his serve.  I’ve noticed in these couple of days, that not many players are getting cheap points on their serve, like there haven’t been many serve-oriented matches.  At least less than I thought there would be.

Anderson completely outplayed Lopez in this match, and Lopez struggled to win any baseline points.  One was solid and consistent, and the other missed everything.  Anderson’s groundstrokes looked good, but perhaps they’d look very different against a different opponent.  I’d like to be more insightful, but this match was quite simple.  The rain started in the final game of the match, which was good timing because that was the end of the singles matches on the outside courts.

Brisbane International - Monday Blog

It’s not often I arrive early to a tennis tournament, so I found myself feeling slightly lost while also sensing a unique opportunity. I’d have to say I usually take a very one-dimensional approach to attending a tennis event, and that’s watching many matches and doing little else. I guess I would call that the “watching as if it was on TV” approach. Though I always find myself amused when I walk past a top player practicing and hear comments on what sets them apart from everyone else. I can’t tell anything from practice, and I don't bother to either.

The Brisbane International isn’t a place for watching players practice anyway, with the fencing surrounding the players. Great for their privacy, but difficult for the fans. I didn’t find anything of interest, until I spotted Radek Stepanek, but then I quickly walked off after taking this photo since it looked like he wasn’t playing.

There was still around 20 minutes until the start of play, so I thought I would go measure the speed of my serve, which ended up being a slightly traumatising experience.

I picked up the first racquet I saw, and it turned out it was a kid’s racquet. Now I don’t usually write about anything other than the players, but I was very grumpy when the reading showed me 75km/h, then 85, then 90. All five of my serves in that range. I didn’t care what the reading said, I was sure I could serve much better. After all I served 100km/h when I was 12 years old.

I spontaneously decided to take another turn before the lady interrupted me, and told me I should let others have a turn. The line wasn’t exactly in the shape of a line, so I didn’t know if anyone was waiting. While waiting I tried to concentrate on tossing the ball forward so I could hit it while moving forward. I picked up the adult’s racquet this time, then the first serve I hit was 130km/h. What a relief, but still a nuisance that I failed so badly the first time. Oh well, I still think I could do better, if I tried bending my knees more…

Enough of this evaluating of myself, it was time to focus attention on the players, even if they weren’t ready to take the court yet. I decided to sit down and relax for a while.

 

After a short break, Michael Berrer and Dudi Sela took to the court. I hadn’t thought much about the match-up beforehand, but a quick look at their statures reminded me that this would be a nice contrast of styles. If being much taller and bigger wasn’t enough, Berrer decided to put on a bright neon yellow shirt to emphasise his point. Though this reminded me of a traffic controller or construction worker’s uniform.

This was a very enjoyable match, probably the best one of the day from an objective point of view (the subjective choice would be Florian Mayer’s entertaining performance). I was pleasantly surprised with Berrer. Stylistically I would consider him more of an all-court player, rather than a serve-and-volleyer, but he has the mindset of one. His commitment to playing outright attacking tennis, without worry of making errors or getting passed, is nice to watch. He doesn’t worry about execution. He just concentrates on trying to play the match the best way according to his own strengths and weaknesses.

His game is aesthetically pleasing in style, but limited in execution. He can play aggressively with his forehand, mix it up with his backhand slice, and he can take the ball early to come into the net. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. When he was getting outplayed by Sela in the first two sets, it looked like it worked about half the time. He doesn’t move quickly enough into the net, and usually only makes high volleys. Shoelace volleys would often go into the bottom of the net. But he didn’t let the running passing shots from Sela phase him. I think it is this simple mentality that allowed him to hang into the second set, and nudge out the win.

Sela outplayed him for the majority of the match, and probably would have won the match, if only he had converted on breaking serve in the second set. His groundstrokes were accurate and controlled, with his running passing shots being a standout in the match. He also returned Berrer’s serve much better than the other way around.

Despite the 6-1 set scoreline in the first set, it was a relatively competitive first set apart from the final loss of serve. At least it seemed competitive up until the very long game at 3-1 on Sela’s serve, which Sela managed to hold onto. It was quite an intense match until that stage. Berrer brought out the extra loud grunt to try to get back into the match, but it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help, losing serve for a second time with overplayed shots.

The second set, was a slightly more patchy set of tennis. For starters, I couldn’t really understand why the score was still even despite all the errors Berrer was making considering Sela was barely making any mistakes. The only explanation I could make was that Berrer’s good shots (and Sela’s average shots) came at the right time, but he did have to dig himself out of some difficult games.

The second set tie-break was nothing like the rest of the match. Berrer won it with good, attacking tennis, and also by taking a more aggressive mindset on return than usual. It was a change to see him string together so many points like that. It was around this time that Sela started to become preoccupied with some sort of blister on his finger. He didn’t even bother to chase the shot on break point of the first game of the third set, and that was a sign of things to come.

The third set was basically a mental capitulation from Sela, though I can’t say whether he was distracted or noticeably hampered by the blister (or whatever it was on his hand). It did look like though, he was no longer able to play aggressively anymore, and his groundstrokes had significantly deteriorated. It’s hard to win matches while showing that kind of body language. Berrer continued the same way as he did in the second set tie-break, and not long afterwards, the match was his, 1-6 7-6(3) 6-2.

 

The completion of that match was timed well, as the rain began to pour soon afterwards, in what would repeat in brief intervals throughout the day. Sam Stosur was struggling against Lucie Hradecka while I was waiting outside the gate. She had just saved some set points, but after I made it inside, she barely dropped a game. She took it up another level in the tie-break, then carried the momentum into the next set.

It took me a while to adjust the surroundings of a big stadium, where I had to make an effort to look at the stadium. I couldn’t spend too much looking at what was adjacent to me, because that wasn’t in the same view as the same court. Tennis crowds are sometimes shown moving their head from one side to another, but in this case, I needed to keep it still.

As usual, Stosur did most of her damage with the serve and forehand, though to me, it felt almost like there was no one on the other side of the net, with the complete one-sided nature of the match. Don’t ask me how the first set was so close.

 

The scheduling of Australian players on Pat Rafter Arena continued on, with Bernard Tomic up next. Tomic, who is also a Queenslander strutted onto the court in his encounter with Florian Mayer. I can see why people call him cocky. He really does strut around the court, it’s not like a quiet confidence. Anyway, walking confidently is not going to intimidate anyone.

I had never paid any attention to the way Mayer warms up in his matches, but he mixes it up and hits as many low paced shots in the warm up as he does in the match, probably even more. I’m sure there are many players that like to use the warm up to get their energy up, but Mayer makes this impossible with his slow, lazy approach.

He came onto court wearing the same red shirt from the indoor season last year, and it seems like not much has changed since then. He is playing just as confidently as he did back then, though I wouldn’t call it good form yet after one match. His serve worked well, he was confident enough to play aggressively on the forehand and he was constantly changing the pace.

I noticed for the first time that I felt a sense of excitement whenever Mayer came into the net. He has such good touch up there, I always expect he will do something special. Such as creating a fine angle, or a delicate little dropshot. Most of the time, he doesn’t disappoint.

What Mayer does differently from most players is that he doesn’t use explosive shots on the run, at least nowhere near as often. He uses the slow floating shot or slow slice much more often to get back into points, to complete the glorious change of pace, which takes him from defense to offense. It really looks like his winners come out of nowhere when he does that. There’s just no way to see it coming. It’s not like a typical way of outmaneuvering opponents.

If there’s one criticism, it’s that he can get caught up with using too many floating shots on defense. He situates himself quite far behind the baseline, so it’s best to not hit too many consecutively. The slice backhand is nowhere near as effective, when it’s not combined with the drive backhand, and he was using too many in the first two games, perhaps focusing too much on how it might be a good idea to make Tomic bend his knees.

Once he started using the change of pace more often, he was completely dominant exposing Tomic’s lack of versatility, adaptability and movement. Tomic will need to improve his shotmaking ability on the run. He does seem to take overly large steps in his footwork sometimes, and he gets to his backhands out wide too late to plant his feet, to be able to hit a more aggressive shot. When he was able to take a good strike of the ball, Tomic played solidly, but he was not able to pose much of a threat. It was a convincing win for Mayer, 6-2 6-2.

 

The schedule on Court 1 was a match behind the main stadium, so I sat down to watch the start of Marion Bartoli’s match against Vania King. Of all the one-sided matches today, this was by far the most one-sided match. Bartoli basically just blasted winners through King, and her backhand is quite spectacular. Surprisingly a couple of her backhand winners, were the first time I gasped during the day.

King was basically a lightweight in comparison, and dropped the ball too short for Bartoli to attack sometimes. It felt like the first set was over in about 15 minutes. The second set was not as much of a display of winners, but with the same foregone conclusion.

 

The first upset of the day occurred soon afterwards, with Gilles Simon bowing out to Santiago Giraldo. That was a strange match, I thought. I must have spent the entire first set expecting Simon to improve his standard of play, and trying to figure out whether he had shaken out the rust yet.

I think what made it particularly difficult to figure out was that Simon didn’t exactly seem to know how he wanted to play the match. He definitely hadn’t figured out how he should play these rallies to maximize the percentage of points won. Occasionally, he’d show flashes of brilliance, where he’d suddenly decide to take the ball earlier or speed up the pace, that I thought he’d try to repeat that more often. His court coverage is so impressive and his shot production is so efficient, that he definitely has the ability to hit aggressive shots on the run. But he didn’t use it.

Just like how he didn’t take advantage of the strength of his backhand, instead choosing to knock it back crosscourt almost every time. There was one particularly great rally in this match where both players knocked it fast and hard at each other, and Simon won the battle of “absorbing pace” where I thought for a moment that Simon really does play like a wall. I mean that in a more accurate way, than simply saying that he gets the ball back all the time. He reflexes the ball back, and often in the same direction as where the ball came from, as a wall would. He also has the ability to always return a better version of someone else’s shots, which a wall also does.

I wouldn’t say that Giraldo put in an impressive performance exactly, but he was more consistent and slightly more aggressive, more willing to change directions with down-the-line shots. Simon struggled with his first serve percentage, as noted by the statistics, and Giraldo took advantage of it. Of all the players today, Simon probably talked to himself and complained the most, closely followed by Dudi Sela.

In the final game, it started raining, and many umbrellas went up obstructing my view. It’s a strange situation in Brisbane, as play can still continue on the covered courts with rain, but it is very uncomfortable to watch as a spectator. I, and many others were pleased that Simon was broken for a second time to quickly end the match there, so we could take cover.

 

I thought that maybe that would have been the end of my tennis night, but the rain cleared up quite quickly, so after having dinner, I went back to Court 1, to see the remainder of Igor Andreev’s match against Alexandr Dolgopolov. They were up to the back end of the first set.

I initially tried to watch the match from the stands but the chairs were all wet, so I thought it would be a better idea, and also very cool to watch the match standing up, leaning on the fence of the court. I really enjoyed this different view, seeing how players use their body to generate more pace and explosiveness.

By now, the number of people on the outside courts had cleared up completely now that the night session had started. Most of the people there before were just waiting for Andy Roddick’s match to start.

I don’t know the exact details of Dolgopolov’s recent results, and I’m sure just having a quick look at the wins won’t tell the story. But his body language seemed quite confident to me. He had a spring in his step about him, and his movement into his shots was very impressive, and what allows him to play aggressively. He has nice touch too, hitting many dropshot winners, but also one particularly bad one.

Andreev didn’t play a good match at all. Probably his only bright spot was the serve, but Dolgopolov completely outmatched him in terms of variety of shotmaking.

Andreev isn’t ranked as highly as he once was, but having a close look at his heavy game, it does remind me of some of the players you come across that seem intimidating, but aren’t anywhere near as scary as they initially come across. Then again, he just doesn’t have time to properly prepare on this surface. He puts in quite a grunt, only for the shot to come off as mediocre. I got the feeling that Andreev wishes the shot he just hit was bigger and better than it actually was, and you can see that in some of the errors he makes when he overplays it.

There's a new Tennis Brain!

Tennis Brain is back and revamped for the upcoming Australian tennis season, where I will make my blogging comeback in the Brisbane International, and watching the matches courtside.

It's the first time I've changed the layout in over two years and I have no idea why I had waited that long, aside from being lazy! Though it seems I was still partially lazy, not really bothering to change the colour scheme. Naturally it looks better than the old layout, now that I develop websites for a living, and I also pumped it out rather quickly.

The new Tennis Brain has a silly and ambiguous banner up the top, and also a rather pretentious slogan. It's a sign of things to come, that I can put anything I want on this blog. A lot has changed since I last posted consistently. I don't see myself as a serious writer anymore (comparatively), so it really is for recreation only.

I have probably driven away the large majority of my visitors with my lack of activity, so I will just have to try to interest myself instead of others instead. I could include a more personal observation, write more informally, or add something random. But these will only be minor differences. After all I haven't written up a whole new blog description on the sidebar only to start doing the opposite of what it says.

Florian Mayer gives the fans in Hamburg something to cheer about

I don’t think I’ve seen Florian Mayer lie on the ground like this.  This is one of the high points of his career, and this image is symbolic of many things.  Inspired tennis, a hard-fought match, and an epic home country win. 

Mayer is into the semi-finals now, defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero, who

played a tough match but started to run out of gas towards the end.

Mayer can be a frustratingly low key character sometimes, looking as if nothing could excite him.  When he’s not playing well, you wish he would just fire up a little bit.  Like yesterday, in the first set against Maximo Gonzalez, where he seemed to constantly walk little circles in between return of serves.  A sign of nerves, or confusion?  After taking an injury time-out late in the first set, he was a changed man and went on a roll.  It’s like he’s always walking a fine line between being the likeable vulnerable underdog, and the guy that doesn’t really know or believe in what he’s doing.

However it seemed like this time around, the slightly excitable Mayer turned up right from the start.  Because from an outsider’s point of view, I can’t really see why he can be so unfazed by his own play sometimes.  He plays a bit like a showman, but he doesn’t act much like one.  I watched him play in Wimbledon this year, and it came to my mind that I don’t think I’ve ever seen another player on the tour enjoy bamboozling their opponents as much as he does. 

It’s one thing to put disguise on your shots, and another to constantly try to make your opponents believe that you’re going to hit a different shot than you actually are.  I think, the main reason is that it’s incredibly difficult to pull off, and it seems easier to just try to hit winners instead.  For me, whenever I change my mind halfway through a stroke, it almost ends up with an error, or either it doesn’t really have anywhere near the effect I was hoping for.

Mayer is quite a talent on the backhand side.  Early on, he sets up for a backhand by jumping on it, then sets up to hit a dropshot and pushes a slice deep in the last minute.  That’s not one false backswing but two mindgames in the one shot, completely unheard of outside of exhibitions.  And that was good enough to get the job done.  It didn’t even matter that the slice backhand practically went mid-court deep, it forced an error from Ferrero because he had no idea where to set himself up.

Mayer can change the pace on the backhand crosscourt, create spectacular angles on it, hit cunning slice backhands, change directions down-the-line and hit jumping dropshots.  It really is one of the most difficult to read shots in the game.  Today, he seemed to be in a good mood.  Because he was jumping on a lot of backhands.  Definitely a good sign that plenty of energy was in reserves for today, and he really needed it.

This match wasn’t only about the high quality and varied play of Mayer today.  It was a great match all-round.  What makes the match even more spectacular is the physical ability that both players showed, in having to constantly chase wide balls and when you consider that means digging your feet into the ground and stretching wide all the time, that’s tough on the muscles.  This was a match full of long rallies, utilizing many angles, dropshots and changes of pace.  It was 3-1 in the first set, and even during those points, there were images of Mayer huffing and puffing, which in the end cost him his break of serve.

Ferrero was hitting the ball well, playing traditionally effective claycourt tennis which generally consists of a lot of side-to-side action and well-constructed points.  I’d say he is the epitome of a professional player, and I’m sure his experience has much to do with that.  His shots are consistently strong and he doesn’t give his opponents much to work with, when he’s hitting on the run.  They just don’t decrease in quality that easily. 

It was a battle on who would come out on top – whether Ferrero could keep Mayer on the run enough, or whether Mayer would throw just enough surprises to change the course of a rally.  In the first set, both players had their fair share of success in this area, but I did think that Ferrero would come through, mainly because Mayer was playing a little above himself while Ferrero looked like he could keep it up forever.

I wouldn’t have thought that as the match wore on that Mayer’s forehand would become more of a prominent feature than Ferrero’s.  I find it hard to believe that Mayer was having anything other than a spectacular day on this side, the way he cracked all these flat winners from up high in the second and third sets, often down-the-line. At first, he was lacking somewhat defensively on this side.  Often his elbow would lift up a little too much, and he’d float it into the middle of the court, and he’d have to work hard to turn the rally back around.  That was the exact weakness that he ironed out in the second and third sets, to manufacture a dramatic turnaround. 

He didn’t only improve his defensive forehand.  He tried to do more with it as soon as he had the chance to try to keep rallies more in his favour. I have to say I haven’t seen Mayer play this aggressively from the baseline before.  Usually he uses his strong shots to follow into the net, but this is clay, and perhaps he just can’t make it into the net as much.  At times, he surprised himself just as much.  By the third set, he was occasionally smiling at some of his big shots.  Let’s hope that he can carry this form into the semi-finals, because he knows it’ll be a good opportunity, playing against Andrey Golubev.  If he can play anywhere near as well as he played today.

Surprise this week! Some match reporting… for Hamburg.

It's been a while since I've sat in front of the computer, and had a look at the shot mechanics of a match. But it's been a quiet week for me, so I thought I would spend today staring as closely at the screen and the players, hoping that would provide some sort of inspiration.

In front of my screen was Thomaz Bellucci and Philipp Kohlschreiber. In particular, I remember writing about Bellucci around the same time last year, and it's good to re-write about young players because they sure improve quickly. Bellucci is no longer a player that you only see every now and then, and also more adaptable to other surfaces than he used to be. He's sitting at 22 on the rankings right now, and starting to develop some clear weapons on the serve and forehand.

I predicted more of an even battle, but early on, everything Bellucci hit seemed to be bigger and better. Better angles and better penetration. Kohlschreiber's signature backhand was no match for Bellucci's forehand, in the battle of crosscourt shots. It was a pattern which repeated again and again, and so the winner of that match-up convincingly won the match. This is where being left-handed helps, though you would have thought not in this case.

Bellucci has the ability to hook his forehand wider and wider, hit across or above the head if needed and also to switch it down-the-line once there is an opening. Though perhaps he was also allowed some time on this surface to show this versatility, since he does have a rather long backswing on the forehand. I wonder if the key to a fearsome forehand is large amounts of racquet head speed. I'm surprised he doesn't shank it more than he does, with the low to high stroke production, and he also hits it more open stance than many other players.

Why wasn't Kohlschreiber able to pull out his backhand down-the-line, as a change-up? Perhaps Bellucci had him pinned too high and too wide, that the only thing he could do was to hit harder and deeper rather than using a greater range of shots.

Bellucci could have won this easier than he did, but he seems to sometimes suffer from overconfidence and overhitting. He broke Kohlschreiber's serve late in the first set, then cranked it up an extra level to a very aggressive mode as if it didn't matter anymore. It didn't take long to pay the price. His serve was dropped immediately after one complacent game.

Sometimes playing well can make you feel like you can pull off anything you try. A more experienced player would have known what intensity and "gear" they should be playing at, their optimum level. But at least that break of serve shook him up, and back to reality he was, to play the same type of tennis that won him the initial break, to break serve and attempt to finish off the set again. This time, he learned his lesson.

This set the tone for the second set, where Bellucci kept himself in front with an early break in the set. The rest then played out just like it did from the start. Kohlschreiber tried to throw off Bellucci's rhythm with very deep shots, but to no avail. It's not often you see Kohlschreiber overpowered like this. I wonder if he has trouble generating pace on clay more compared to other surfaces. On the other hand, his topspin obviously benefits. Like all good, proper claycourt players, there were many excellent dropshots from Bellucci usually thrown in for good measure, and often well-timed after a long rally.