June 25, 2011

The Future Thus Assured

Wimbledon, Second Round

Tomic d. Andreev, 4/6 5/7 6/3 6/4 6/1

John Newcombe was back in full voice last night for the concluding sets of Bernard Tomic’s five-set win over Igor Andreev, a victory that has apparently saved Australian men’s tennis, in much the same way that Tennis Australia hasn’t. Each set’s contrasting vibe was masterfully captured in Newk’s commentary. The mounting tension of the fourth set found expression via dire mutterings about Tomic’s court position and second serve, which were too deep and piss-weak, respectively. These musings gave way to triumphant if overwrought panegyrics in the fifth, like a lost verse of Advance Australia Fair, and including the bold assertion that the young Australian boasts a superior backhand slice to Roger Federer’s. He doesn’t, but forgive Newcombe his follies, for it was a stirring win. It also means that when the rankings are next released Tomic will be the highest ranked Australian male player. The future of Australian tennis is thus assured, apparently, although that assurance is rather diminished if we consider that had Tomic lost, Marinko Matosevic would have been top dog. And anyway, surely having only one good player at a time is why Australian men’s tennis is in this mess? Even Switzerland, who have the greatest player ever, find it useful to maintain a spare.

Playing offsider, Todd Woodbridge made a telling if slightly obvious point when he remarked that the passive and weird way Tomic rallies owes a great deal to the ease with which he dominated the juniors. If he could win all his matches like that he would, and so far through a lauded junior career, he mostly has. It’s the kind of game designed to transfigure an opponent’s off day into a very embarrassing one, an arrhythmic and nearly unpatterned assault that demands unwavering concentration and iron discipline, which are the things most juniors lack. So is it any surprise that his professional highlights have come against Feliciano Lopez, or Marin Cilic?

That said, it’s pretty obvious to everyone – even to Tomic himself, and maybe even to his father – that this style doesn’t particularly impress the very best. Just picture the day out Djokovic would have. To that end, Tomic played Nadal very differently back in Melbourne, where he wedded aggression to the inescapable variety, and refused to back off the baseline, to the world No.1’s sustained consternation. That is what was so fascinating about Tomic’s fifth set against Andreev today. Tomic grew most imposing at the precise point when it was least required. Down a few breaks, the Russian was basically done, and Tomic could have safely noodled his way to the win from a couple of metres shy of the baseline. But he stepped in and began upping the pace, scorching backhands up the line, biting his slices, foraying into the forecourt, and injecting pop and variety into a hitherto powder-puff second serve.

This would seem to run counter to Woodbridge’s assessment. (And it’s worth bearing in mind that despite Woodbridge’s lightweight media personality and his apparent eagerness to meet the surely-onerous requirements of cross-promoting whatever he is told to, he’s an all-time great who has had a lot to do with Tomic.) But if Tomic at his most comfortable grows more passive, then what do we make of that fifth set, in which he betrayed a Federer-like tendency to lift dramatically when least threatened? He didn’t exactly run away with that fourth set; he took it by breaking against the run of play, camped back in Monfils-territory. Having barely forced a decider, it’s doubtful whether he was tuning his game up for Robin Soderling in the next round. That would entail arrogance to the point of lunacy from an 18 year attempting to reach his first Wimbledon third round, against a mercurial tour veteran with the capacity to transmute frustration into a torrent of forehand winners. I doubt Tomic felt this match was won until it actually was.

As it happened, Andreev’s frustration blossomed into nothing more fearsome than petulance. For a career also-ran now half a decade past his best, it was a humiliating way to go out, being broken three times. On a couple of those breaks, he shaped up to smash his racquet, but each time thought better of it. By the end, he just looked resigned. Like so many others, Andreev had failed the Tomic Test.

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June 24, 2011

The Paradox of Experience and Decline

Wimbledon, Second Round

(5) Soderling d. Hewitt, 6/7 3/6 7/5 6/4 6/4

The choice of commentary, ultimately, came down to Greg Rusedski or John Newcombe. Who was less unbearable? On the one hand, Newcombe’s approach was neatly summed up by the man himself: ‘I’m sorry if that sounds biased, but I am!’ On the other hand, Rusedski’s capacity to say almost nothing at narcoleptic length promised to make a potentially epic match feel merely endless. In the end I went with Newk, not out of any special sense of patriotism, but because his unrelenting encomiums could grow out of proportion when things got tight, or if Hewitt got ahead. There’s a certain interest in witnessing someone go off their nut.

As it happened, Hewitt did get ahead, though Newk regrettably held it together for the most part. This was a shame, for if ever there was a moment to give it up it was as the Australian broke in the second set, courtesy of a miraculous diving, somersaulting backhand pass that brought even Hewitt up short, staring at his box in disbelief before launching into the usual routine of come-ons and that hand-to-the-forehand thing he tried to trademark some years back. There were also a couple of full-stretch diving volleys that nearly did for Newk’s heart. I’m pretty sure that’s how he’d want to go.

Through two and a half sets, today’s match recalled Hewitt’s victory over Juan Martin del Potro here two years ago, a succinct example of grass-court nous and variety trumping a uni-dimensional power baseline game. On that occasion del Potro had shown little inclination or capacity to vary a losing gameplan, until the end maintaining his determination to hit through an unyielding opponent. Today it appeared as though Soderling might display similar limitations. ‘It looks like he has no Plan B,’ remarked Newcombe wonderingly, and not a little derisively. His man was ahead, and there was just no way he was losing this thing from two sets up. Some stats were paraded to the effect that Hewitt hadn’t lost at Wimbledon after claiming the first set in a long time. Not to be outdone, I turned to my wife and informed her that this pair had split their last two meetings, and that in both cases the winner had dropped the opening set, thus proving that stats can prove anything, and that I’m just a huge tennis nerd.

It has been demonstrated convincingly that Soderling’s service motion creates certain limitations, most notably in that he lacks an effective slider. His wide serve to the deuce court comes in flatter and harder than those of other players, enabled by his height and excellent extension, deriving its potency from pace rather than placement. In short, it don’t slide. That said, it appears to be a limitation he has been addressing, since today his wide serves were landing wider and breaking more sharply than has hitherto been the case. Nonetheless, it remains a glaring omission from his repertoire.

Hewitt’s slider, though boasting nothing like the raw pace of his opponent’s, was considerably more effective. He went relentlessly at Soderling’s forehand, even second serves, reflecting a determination to break that wing down, clearly a tactic he and Tony Roche had thrashed out beforehand. The theory is that despite Soderling’s forehand rating among the sport’s more feared weapons, it is an all-or-nothing shot, and faced with sufficient variety and the vagaries of the surface, it might turn out to be nothing more often than it was all. And so it proved, for a bit. Despite Hewitt’s abysmal first serve percentage in the first few sets, the near-unrelenting forehand attack yielded countless fluffed returns, which consequently infected the groundstrokes.* Most of Soderling’s unforced errors were generated from that wing.

The change came late in the third, with the match finely balanced. Whereas he’d looked flustered at the deaths of sets one and two, Soderling now looked incongruously serene. He began to take some pace off his groundstrokes, which in real terms means he began to hit them about as hard as Hewitt was. He began to bunt or even slice his forehand returns, forcing Hewitt to make the pace. He reigned in his aggression, and although his winners remained numerous, they became natural extensions of the rally. It turned out he did have a Plan B, and this was it, and it was working. Admirably, Newk conceded as much. Hewitt was broken whilst serving to stay in each set, and it moved to a decider.

Momentum lurched back the Australian’s way as he broke early in the fifth, but he soon yielded it back. Then, for the third set in a row, he saved his worst for the moment he needed his best, as he was serving to stay in the match. Soderling’s calmness has allowed him to rise into the elite, but Hewitt, mentally, is no longer the man who once dismantled Pete Sampras at Flushing Meadows. Four loose errors later and four hours in, and it was over. Soderling was chuffed, and rightly so. His draw is utterly uncivilised, but he is still standing.

Hewitt was stoic and gracious, as he invariably is in defeat. Tough losses to high-quality opponents have defined his late career. Think of Gonzalez or Nalbandian in Melbourne. He is now mired well outside the top hundred, yet he can push any number of top players to the very brink. It’s a paradox, mostly owing to that rare mix of experience and decline that defines fading champions, and one he might resolve only by winning more, or by leaving the game for good.

 

*Hewitt’s percentages have always been poor, though it worth reminding that pre-Roddick there was a general conviction that anything above 55% meant you weren’t going for enough, or that you were a girly claycourter. Now most top players hover in the mid-sixties.

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June 23, 2011

Expected Upsets

Wimbledon, Second Round

If an upset is not unexpected, is it still an upset? If a defective seed tumbles in the forest, does anyone really give a toss? If that’s too philosophical: if Stanislas Wawrinka is handcarted out of Wimbledon in three sets by Simone Bolelli, should we feign surprise? How about Fernando Verdasco going out in four sets to Robin Haase? Juan Ignacio Chela out in three sets to Alex Bogomolov Jr, including a bagel? They were all seeds, and the rankings differential was in each case profound, but surely no one expected any of these guys to go deep. Presumably they could have won, and no one would have minded much, but if they had to go out, it might as well be now.

Concerning the seeds of whom anything was realistically expected, none were troubled at all. Nadal, Berdych, Murray, Roddick, Monfils, Fish and Gasquet dropped a single set between them. Of the seeds for whom great things were hoped, perhaps unrealistically – Milos Raonic – the news is rather less encouraging. Up an early break against Gilles Muller, he slipped and tumbled heavily, and could not continue. Muller, ranked a terrifying 92, will now face Nadal in the third round. Much ado is being made of the fact that Muller is the last player other than Federer to defeat Nadal at Wimbledon, notwithstanding that it happened back in 2005, when Muller was in his prime and Nadal was in his adolescence. I am wearily reminded of Federer’s quarterfinal with Mario Ancic in 2006, which generated ludicrous hype based on the Croat being the last man to defeat the mighty Swiss at at the All England Club four years earlier. Displaying no patience for such foolishness, Federer saw him off in three very straight sets. Expect Nadal to inflict similar treatment on Muller.

Hopefully the tournament will kick into gear tonight, with Soderling and Hewitt headlining. The Australian broadcaster is keenly spruiking its merits. Their head-to-head is essentially meaningless, given both players boast such radically segmented careers. Since Soderling became Soderling, and since Hewitt stopped being Hewitt, they’ve split a pair of encounters, but have never met on grass. Even without Channel 7 telling me so, I suspect Hewitt has a chance.

For now enjoy this excellent article on Roger Federer. For the Federer faithful, here’s a guy who gets it.

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June 22, 2011

Those Little Flags

Wimbledon, First Round

Tomic d. (29) Davydenko, 7/5 6/3 7/5

Hewitt d. Nishikori, 6/1 7/6 6/7 6/3

Last week, my boss participated in the CEO Sleepout, a fund raising event at which scores of managing directors and politicians and sundry men-about-town were granted the opportunity to spend a night out on the street, the better to lobby each other away from prying eyes, much like real homeless people do. Commendably, various millions of dollars were raised. More importantly, following a night of privation, soul searching and light drizzle, many of Australia’s top executives now know exactly what it feels like to queue for tickets at Wimbledon. Success had more or less insulated them from this type of experience, which differed from the London one only insofar as it lacked vocal knots of canary-yellow clad hooligans bellowing ‘Come On!’ at the insistence of passing reporters. Wimbledon’s official Australian broadcaster has changed this year, but the clichés haven’t, including these tired interviews with the tedious Fanatics, yet another example of television bringing people into our lounge room we wouldn’t otherwise allow into our house. A night on the footpath had done them few favours, although their penchant for lusty exhortation appeared undiminished.

Speaking of fanatical patriotism, Channel 7 has recycled their idea of putting a little Australian flag next to the Australian player’s names, an idea they unleashed to such cringeworthy effect at the Australian Open. Presumably market research has suggested that many viewers don’t know who the Australians are, and are at risk supporting players for reasons other than citizenship. It was discovered that otherwise red-blooded Australians were even supporting foreigners. As ever, there are no flags next to the foreign player’s names. Thus the merely casual viewer might have wondered where, say, Juan Ignacio Chela hails from, though there were granted enough information to know they wanted Marinko Matisevic to thrash him. As it happened, he didn’t thrash him, though he did eke out a set.

For Australian fans thus enamoured by accidents of birth, the heartwarming news is that both Lleyton Hewitt and Bernard Tomic won three sets each in their matches, and were summarily awarded victory. Tomic’s victory was on paper an upset: straight sets against the No.29 seed Nikolay Davydenko. However, ‘hard’ barely begins to describe the times Davydenko has fallen on, and he was never much chop on grass, anyway. Tomic, on the other hand, has performed well as a junior here, and his fundamentally weird and arrhythmic approach would have posed issues for the Russian even in the latter’s prime, which was all of 18 months ago. Still, straight sets . . . Hewitt had a rather tougher time of it against Kei Nishikori, who made the semifinals at Eastbourne last week, and thus joined a host of players in proving that doing well the week before a major is about the worst preparation possible. (The Nice curse strikes again; both Tipsarevic and Dodig are also out.) That being said, Hewitt is hardly a gimme first round at Wimbledon. Today he played well in patches, and the old fight remains. A willing spirit counts for a lot, especially here. Men’s tennis may have moved on, but on grass it hasn’t moved on quite so far. Variety is still amply rewarded, and an experienced campaigner with the ability to explore more of the court can make hay, ironically in the first week when the sward is lushest. Of course, it still favours big serving, too, a fact that Milos Raonic is celebrating by championing a return to short shorts.

It is for this reason – variety, not short shorts – that the Philips Kohlschreiber and Petzschner were expected to go far. Both were finalists in Halle, where both displayed their excellent grass pedigree. Kohlschreiber, however, fell to Denis Istomin for no reason at all, while Petzschner went down to Robin Soderling in an entertaining four-setter. He could well have won it, but will now become merely the first step in a very tough draw for the Swede, who next faces Hewitt. Channel 7, via the miracle of the promo, has already commenced explaining to me that this will be rather a big deal, and that I’d do well to get behind Our Lleyton, if I know what’s good for me.

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June 19, 2011

Eternal Bridesmaid

Aegon International, Eastbourne, Final

Seppi d. (3) Tipsarevic, 7/6 3/6 5/3 ret.

Janko Tipsarevic remains the highest profile player without a career title, although, thanks to Florian Mayer’s recent resurgence, he at least isn’t the highest ranked. This is presumably cold comfort, given that today the Serb was overwhelmingly favoured to win Eastbourne. The deck was stacked: a 3-0 head-to-head against his opponent Andreas Seppi, a ranking 21 places higher, and he was decidedly more rested, having already mastered the lousy conditions and a lousier Kei Nishikori earlier in the day.

Seppi, by contrast, is a dirt-balling journeyman who’d struggled through his delayed semifinal in three awkward sets. The Serb is more talented, boasts a wider array of strokes, greater power, and routinely graces far more illustrious venues. He took Roger Federer to 10/8 in the fifth, for God’s sake. On the other hand, he’s also a mercurial headcase with a tendency to drop his bundle, and about as capable of weathering pressure as the protagonists of the novels we’re endlessly told he’s read. Werther and Raskolnikov don’t have any ATP titles. Think about it.

As far as I can remember, they also didn’t win any sportsmanship awards, and after today I presume Tipsarevic won’t be handed one, either. Having ground back to 3/4 in the final set, he then slipped and seriously hurt himself, which was a shame, but provided a useful excuse to remonstrate further with the umpire. He was told to get on with it, and eventually did. However, the Will To Power promptly deserted him, and he was broken again.

Seppi stepped up to serve for his maiden title. The guy has been on tour since 2002, and has only contested one other final (Gstaad 2007). Tipsarevic, surely, should have realised how tight the Italian would be. Fabio Fognini certainly would have, and commenced lustily swinging at any object within reach. But Tipsarevic, wrapped in a solipsistic miasma, could no longer see past his own navel, and at 15-0 down he marched to the net and defaulted, pointlessly denying Seppi the pleasure of serving out his first title. Really, Tipsarevic could have just planted himself on the baseline and watched some aces go by. It might have proved good practice for his upcoming Wimbledon first round against Ivo Karlovic. Now there’s a deft machination by a capricious cosmos.

Speaking of Wimbledon, the Australian broadcaster has started trying to pique viewer interest, assuming those viewers were tuned in to 7TWO at 9.30am on a Sunday morning, in which case they were treated to no fewer than three Wimbledon programs. The first, the official 2010 commemorative film, ably demonstrated just how unmemorable last year’s event was, Isner-Mahut aside. The second – The Spirit of Wimbledon – was the best of them. Structured around an evocative retelling of the 1980 Men’s Final, it laudably resisted the urge to mention Andy Murray at every opportunity, or indeed at all. The third, a shorter preview piece, knew no such restraint. Aside from some glaring factual inaccuracies – Sampras did not win 15 majors – it mainly traced the recent form of the big three, and asked whether they can pose a realistic challenge to Murray. The consensus among the various talking heads was that they could indeed, notwithstanding their superior rankings, vast experience, and tendency to win whenever they show up.

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June 17, 2011

Luck of the Draw: Wimbledon 2011

If tennis draws are rigged – that cherished belief of the zealots and crackpots – then you’d imagine whoever rigged the Wimbledon draw today should have done a better job at masking their handiwork. It just looks so obvious. That they haven’t covered their tracks apparently indicates nothing more than a brazen willingness to thumb their nose at all that is sacred, or so the reasoning goes. And so what if it is the AELTC conducting the draw, an organisation whose slavish veneration of tradition is exceeded only by the Catholic Church, and then not by much? Well, clearly they are willing to violate any number of traditions in order to achieve their clear goal, which is world domination by any means possible, including perpetual singles finals featuring Nadal and Federer.

Astoundingly, Federer and Nadal are once more on opposite sides of the draw, and once again drawn to meet Djokovic and Murray in the semifinals respectively. Admittedly, this happens a lot at the majors. There’s not much else to say about it. It has happened again. It’s unlikely that all four will make it to the final four. That hasn’t happened in weeks. It’s also nearly two weeks off, so any musings can wait.

Of more immediate interest are the first rounders. Lest you somehow hadn’t heard, Isner and Mahut have been drawn to meet. (What are the chances? These are.) One to watch, to be sure, though I’ll extend my neck and suggest it may not go the distance, especially this pair’s interpretation of ‘the distance’. Mahut’s form hasn’t been tremendous, and he is apparently struggling with a foot injury. Still, it will be one of those myriad first week Media Events, which mercifully peter out by the second week but seem vital enough at the time. Janko Tipsarevic has been drawn to meet Ivo Karlovic, a tough one to pick. Tipsarevic is looking a reasonable chance to capture his maiden title in Eastbourne this week, which is what weeks like this are for.

Assuming he turns up, Lleyton Hewitt will face Kei Nishikori. It is a testament to how far Hewitt has fallen that this can now be considered an enticing first round. Nishikori’s ranking has lately slipped from its high of 46 – agonisingly short of realising Project 45 – but it hasn’t slipped into the subterranean depths Hewitt now inhabits. Actually, the more I think on it, this probably won’t be a first round to savour at all, although you can bet it’ll be headlining the Australian television coverage. Speaking of a receding ranking, and patchy form, and injuries, and overblown media-interest in the home country, James Black will open against Marcos Baghdatis, who until this week hadn’t managed back-to-back wins since February. Still, the Cypriot is doing well in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, although as I write this he’s just attempted to serve out the first set, been broken to love, and then flubbed the tiebreak. Expect more of the same against Blake. Balls will be struck tremendously, and very few of them will go in when it matters.

Soderling versus Petzschner has upset written all over it, again assuming the German is fit, since he withdrew from the Halle final last week. Speaking of which, Fabio Fognini will face Milos Raonic. I’m not as sold on Raonic’s chances as some others. The real hope is that Fognini does something zany and dramatic, and thereby generates a Media Event. Naturally he will, since he must. The whole thing is rigged anyway.

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June 14, 2011

Sod-Kissing

Aegon Championships, London, Final

Murray d. Tsonga, 3/6 7/6 6/4

There is a winsome brashness to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s approach to the net – his net approach – a vibe and bravura far from the solemn ineptitude of Andy Roddick’s endeavours, which somehow treat the chip-charge as an extension of his dour ground game, and not, as it should be, a blessed relief from it. Serve aside, Tsonga steams in behind bigger stuff, but there’s a commensurate level of bluff. His superior athleticism means he’s holding better cards, naturally, but it’s the ebullience with which he plays his hands that proves the difference. He genuinely wants to win at the net, regardless of how good he is at it.

He isn’t necessarily bad at the net, but he is limited. For all that his drop volleys are excellent, any volley he must push deep is destined to sit up begging to be dealt with, like a dandelion. Like a lad with a five-iron, Murray invariably dealt with them. Even so, anything passing within about eight feet of the Frenchman saw him explode horizontally sideways. Even that great sod-kisser Boris Becker hardly dove so relentlessly in a single match, although Italian strikers can be trusted to do so.

All told, today’s was an outstanding final, featuring some of the most charmingly virtuosic tennis of recent times, eliciting gasps and titters and whoops from the jaded crowd and the even more jaded hacks in the commentary box. At one point, as Murray struck a deft tweener pass from the baseline, only for Tsonga to cut it off with yet another airborne diving volley, the Scot almost succumbed to a smile, and Frew McMillan almost let his reserve crack. Almost. McMillan steadfastly refused to lose it even when Tsonga pulled off a running one-handed ­backhand pass up the line. No grin from Murray on that one, either.

The Eurosport sundries know no such qualms. Tsonga in sparkling flight is a pleasure to watch, admittedly. Apparently, he is also a pleasure to commentate, if the welter of thread-bare Ali comparisons are anything to go by. He has a big serve, and a big forehand, though neither are truly huge, and the various boxing analogies have always sounded forced. Both strokes are doubtless hit harder than, say, Federer’s, but neither feels as big, and they certainly aren’t as effective, as Ali-esque.

What Tsonga has however, is enthusiasm, and it is infectious. As the second set got underway his unswerving audacity looked fit to tear the crowd away from Murray as surely as it was the match. Gradually, however, Murray began to up the pace and variety in his strokes, and the English were jolted back into the recollection that they were actually British, and the contempt they feel for the Scots pales beside the loathing they feel for the French.

The key moment in the match came at 5/5 in the second, as Murray fell to 15-40. If Tsonga broke, there was a pretty good chance he’d serve it out. Somehow Murray fought back to hold. A tiebreaker ensued, which is when Tsonga fell apart for the precise reason he always does: none. His hitherto measured aggression grew mildly unhinged. It is a shame that the most pivotal period of the match was the flattest, and that an otherwise brilliant final hinged on a truly poor breaker, in which the imposing Frenchman stopped diving, and fell in a dull heap. The third set, sadly, felt foregone. The vim had drained from Tsonga’s game, and Murray just grew stronger, and faster.

A deserved win for the Scot, and nuclear fuel for the hype-machine, with Wimbledon only a week away.

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June 13, 2011

Normal Service Resumes

Aegon Championships, London, Final

Garry Weber Open, Halle, Final

Kohlschreiber d. Petzschner, 7/6 2/0

The story overnight was of a final without a finale and a final that couldn’t start. The first saw the first all-German final in Germany since 1973 fizzle to a dispirited default. The second, as typical drizzle washed against London, saw Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga honing their table tennis skills in the player’s lounge. These miraculous goings-on were duly captured by eager reporters, and were thus elevated to the status of Media-Event, with the players cast as battlers battling on and making do. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

It’s hard to know what to make of it: the facilities seem very nice, and the table was in good nick. Quite a scoop, although judging by the folks lurking in the background they crashed a convening of the Awkward Club. Murray and Tsonga’s friendly handclasp looked genuine enough, especially for two guys due to decide a fairly prestigious tournament. Luckily, both are too important to be playing anywhere else this week. They have all the time in the world. Murray can work on enhancing that grin of his, which was seen briefly after he thrashed Roddick in the semifinal, but not since.

Meanwhile in Halle, Philipp Kohlschreiber has captured his third career title, testament to an outstanding week in which he saw off two seeds (Dolgopolov and Monfils) and the defending champion (Hewitt). His victory over Hewitt proved especially significant, mostly because it has sent Hewitt outside the top hundred, an indignity not lessened by Kohlschreiber cheekily kitting himself out in Australia’s Davis Cup uniform.

Both Kohlschreiber and Petzschner have displayed superb grass court skills this week, placing them among a small minority of Tour players, who have mostly looked inept, tired or slow. Other exceptions included Roddick and Monfils. However, the former sadly reverted to the passive noodling that has so characterised the latter part of his career, whilst the latter managed to get injured. Normal service has resumed.

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June 11, 2011

The Rule of Pairs

Kohlschreiber d. Hewitt, 7/6 6/3

Tsonga d. Nadal, 6/7 6/4 6/1

Roddick d. Verdasco, 6/2 6/2

The best day’s line up since yesterday provided some better play, and an uneasy sense of things happening in pairs: both defending champions went out, two Brits made the last four at Queens, two Germans made the semis in Halle, two Frenchmen impressed mightily, and two things happened that haven’t happened in a long time, namely that Rafael Nadal lost to someone other than Novak Djokovic, and that Andy Roddick played imposingly well. These goings-on all interlock, which may seem cosmically significant, but isn’t.

Lleyton Hewitt fell to Philip Kohlschreiber, a victory for German patriots and aesthetes and lovers of tremendous ball striking, the last of which includes Hewitt. It somewhat eases the pressure on the Australian. He now has no titles to defend, and courtesy of his busy schedule of surgery and aborted comebacks he won’t have a top 100 ranking to worry about either. Somehow, in spite of it all, he still believes he’s a chance at the majors – a living advertisement for psychotically positive thinking – though it’ll be interesting to see if he still believes it whilst submitting to Qualifying, and after he has cleared 30.

Andy Murray has come out this week and decried the slowness of the Queens grass, which as an assessment hardly gels with my overall viewing experience. It seems pretty slick to me, although that impression may partly owe to how poorly some players are transitioning from the clay, or just how rubbish they are on grass in the first place. Either way, it is clearly too fast for real tennis, and therefore for Fernando Verdasco. Fortunately, Roddick was unreal, for the first time in years.

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June 10, 2011

You Can’t Have Everything

Of all the tournaments huddled in the shadows of the majors, Queens and Halle are in the most awkward position, as are the top players around whom these events are currently marketed. In part this owes to Wimbledon commencing only two weeks after Roland Garros ends, although it owes something to the two most dominant players of the era developing a taste for the Channel Slam.

The last man with such tastes was Bjorn Borg, who achieved it no fewer than 27 times, if memory serves. Since his retirement it fell rather out of fashion for a few decades, until Rafael Nadal broke Roger Federer’s heart by taking away his most treasured bit of silverware, and then biting it. Since 2008 however, the whole thing has become decidedly de rigeur. My two-year-old son has known nothing else, and my five-year-old daughter has only the dimmest memory of being hauled out of bed to celebrate Federer’s 2007 victory, though it will eventually resurface in therapy. When I explained to them at considerable length just how difficult a feat the Channel Slam is – in a presentation heavy on flowchart and graph – they merely stared back blankly. Point made.

In any case, you don’t have to win the French and Wimbledon to find their juxtaposition wearying. Roland Garros can prove sufficiently gruelling even for the quarter-finalists, as attested to by a dinged-up Fabio Fognini, or even for the fans. The upshot of these considerations is that both Halle and Queens have compelling reasons for withdrawals coming at them from both directions. An exhausted French Open finalist is likely to be, well, exhausted, while an injured one will be unwilling to risk pressing the issue so close to Wimbledon.

This precisely describes the situation with Federer this week, whose form in Paris was impressive, but not so impressive that he could breeze through the final two rounds unscathed. He spent a long time on court last week, attacking the sport’s two greatest defenders on the sport’s slowest surface. In doing so he apparently sustained a minor groin injury, and, having decided that idleness is the better part of prudence, he has pulled out of Halle. Halle’s tournament director was livid, but really he must have seen it coming, as last Sunday’s final entered its fourth hour. Federer, who has won Halle five times already, might rightfully point out that he owes them little, and that he stuffed his back there last year.

Regardless, the proximity to Wimbledon, and the criminally short grass court season, mean that both Queens and Halle command far better fields than any comparable event slotted the week after a major. Players boasting meagre grass court credentials will turn up even while injured, since they need all the exposure they can get. Djokovic and Federer notwithstanding, just about everyone has fronted up.

Happily, both tournaments have thus far bucked the season’s prevailing fashion for an early and massive seed-haemorrhage. The seeds have mostly fared well. Two rounds in, and last night pulled out the best line-up of matches shy of a good Masters event. Sadly, few of the matches lived up to their billing, but you can’t have everything. Nalbandian – Verdasco fizzed, as did Kohlschreiber – Dolgopolov. Del Potro was upset, and Nadal dropped a set and fell over against Stepanek. The most impressive player was Gael Monfils. On Grass. In Germany. Who saw that coming?

Tonight’s line up looks even better.

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