2011: Tennis Confessional.

 

Heck….has it actually been one month?

 

I don’t tend to do that good a job of staying away during the off-season, but the truth is that this year, I really needed some time apart.

 

I’d love to say this has something to do with my flamboyant Howard Hughes  lifestyle – the truth is I’d simply had enough.

 

 

Confession #1: You really can have too much of a good thing (That’s right, I said it).

 

The Fedal charity gig (raising over $5M in various fine causes – nice work gents) was particularly excruciating –  sitting through three engineered sets of pseudo-tennis twice, after a well-rounded, fulfilling season that actually ended on a good note smacks of the type of gluttony that leaves you feeling bloated, gaseous and in my case, nauseous.

 

Only when the start of the official season barely registered, did I sense something might be drastically wrong. Fortunately tennis-rehab came in the form of one of last years best WTA matches (Henin v ElenaD in R2 of Aus) – that’s right, it took a replay of a match that was played 12 months ago to reignite my interest in a sport I’m meant to enjoy enough to spend a criminal amount of time writing about.

 

 

 

Do a youtube search and you’ll find reams and reams of highlight reels – that’s no mistake: almost every other point was a highlight.

 

It was “only” two sets of tennis – but those two sets were uncontaminated, crystallised excellence.

 

All of which isn’t just a very long way of telling you how scandalous I find it that it didn’t even feature as a nominee for match of the year on any 2010 poll anywhere (not once). But rather to highlight that things rather faltered for the WTA from that point on  - I’d go as far as to say that all of the best women’s tennis of 2010 was played in its first month.

 

And that’s only the start of it, because I’m afraid:

 

Confession #2: I don’t consider 2010 to have been a vintage year of tennis.

 

I don’t expect Rafaelites to agree of course – come to think of it, I don’t “expect” anyone to.

 

It’s all subjective after all and I’m even willing to concede I might be wrong.

 

Even so, that many false starts, failed deliveries & soggy reams of disappointment (often from the highest of levels) speaks more of “fug” than it does “vintage”.

 

And besides, I figure we’re done pontificating on how great it all was.

 

1) All the best women’s tennis was played in its first month.

 

See above. ElenaD/Henin (Aus - R2) remains my personal fave, though the Serena/Henin final and the Brisbane final between Henin & Kim weren’t far behind.

 

The French Open final, perhaps, may have recaptured something of the drama but it remains the case that nothing came close in quality to what we saw in that very promising start to the season.

 

2) Men’s Grand Slam finals (and two of the women’s) were strictly one-sided affairs – only of any lasting interest to those strongly invested in Rafa or Fed.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with that and both the Aus & USO men’s finals were spellbinding if only in a torturously one-sided way.

 

 

Doesn’t stop a season devoid of a competitive (if not a five set) men’s Slam final from being, well…just a wittle-bit rubbish.

 

3) The Spectre of Delpo

 

Only including this for the sake of completeness, because as far as I’m concerned he could have taken off the entire year to recover from what can, after all, turn into a career-ending injury(history is full of the stinking carcasses of careers blighted by an ill-conceived desire to return too soon).

 

Even so, that didn’t stop me feeling twitchy when he (those two matches towards the end of the year not withstanding) went and did just that.

 

4) Muzz won another seventy billion Masters titles….and still less than precisely one Slam.

 

Seen it, been there, done that. NEXT.

 

5) Henin’s comeback miscarriage

 

Justine probably deserves more generosity on my part considering she gave us some of the best matches of this year and spent much of its second half with a fractured elbow.

 

 

All the same, I’m calling fug on a year in which she plays her best three matches in its opening month – one of which was in the opening week of the season.

 

Harsh, I know – fracturing her arm is hardly her fault though I’m not sure her win in Stuttgart was terribly convincing either.

 

6) Player of the year: Kim Clijsters…WTF result of the year Petrova d. Clijsters 60 61.

 

Its been almost 12 months yet no one’s come up with any more cogent an explanation for what’s unanimously held to be the single most WTF result of the year, than that Kim can be both alarmingly good and unnervingly bad – both it seems in equally disturbing measure.

 

I’ve mostly given up trying, yet what's remained overlooked is that Petrova played an exceptional match – something that got drowned out  by the pitch-black humour surrounding Kim’s performance.

 

 

 

I don’t have a problem with Kim being voted POY – in fact I was rather grossed out by the redundant groans of disgust at Serena being passed over.

 

Newsflash: Serena stepped on a shard of glass and it ended her year after playing all of six events. Sad, but that precludes her from POY contention (YES even if the two events she won were Slams). Sometimes it’s not a conspiracy.

 

Contrast that with Kim winning the USO, the SEC, Miami, Cincy AND Brisbane – a title at every level. She’s not my favourite player but arguing against those numbers is futile and smacks of sour grapes.

 

Despite all of that, Kim still has a certain ‘transient’ quality to her game that no one’s quite been able to put their finger on - who’s completely convinced we won’t see more WTF results from the Player of 2010? I know I'm not.

 

7) Djoko’s Title “Tally”

 

Remember when Djoko won Dubai early on last year?

 

It would be one of only two singles titles he would win in 2010 – both of them ATP 500s.

 

To put this into perspective, Djoko won a Masters title and reached the final of four others in 2009. He also won two Masters titles in each of the two years preceding that, which makes this the first time since 2006 that he’s not won a single Masters title.

 

Disappointing for a season in which he played some of the best tennis we’ve seen from him in over two years – though admittedly most of it was towards its back end.

 

8) Rafa’s clay-court clean sweep

 

Rafa’s clay seasons are always laughably one-sided but this year he won all three Masters and RG – all for the loss of only two sets. That would be two sets over the entire clay season.

 

 

That’s not domination, that’s tennis sacrilege.

 

As pleased as I was for him, that stat also speaks of underperformance from the rest of the tour (especially the top guys).

 

It’s ok, we can say that now. The dust has settled on Rafa’s year.

 

9) Greatest “Diss-appointment of” 2010?

 

Whither comeback queens Masha, Henin? Whither Sveta? Marin?? Those last two, in particular, have a lot to answer for.

 

Not according to tennis.com, who pronounced Dinara, who spent the better part of the year out with a bad back, their “Biggest Disappointment of 2010”.

 

They took the edge off it by noting that “few believe Dinara belongs outside the top 50”, but that headline is plain irresponsible.

 

Call me cynical, but if Serena isn’t POY because she only played six events then Dinara’s not DOY for precisely the same reason.

 

10) When is a scandal not a scandal?

 

Hey psssst! Have a hot tip for ya.

 

You ready? Get this – Rafael Nadal has just expressed a desire to win the Australian Open.

 

[furious scribbling noises]

 

Got that? Not only that [breathless] ….not only that….he’s even said he intends to try his level best to defeat whomsoever he should face in the final.

 

There’s more where that came from:  next week I’ll be revealing how the UK’s most savage spending cuts since the 1920s are likely to prove “deeply unpopular” and how all 33 of the freed Chilean miners were said to be “happy to be reunited with their loved ones”.

 

 

More of an off-court disappointment this one.

 

From what I can tell, if Fed passed on any “inside information” at all, it’s that he allegedly intimated to “someone” (we don’t even know this was Forstmann) that he intended to try and defeat Rafael Nadal in the 2007 RG final.

 

That’s about as “shady” as the Mercurian stratosphere and about as “scandalous” as Rupert Everett in drag.

 

If there’s a story here at all, it’s how easy it is to drag a high profile name into what seems to be nothing more than litigious hustling between the IMG kingpin and an estranged former business associate.

 

And how willingly irresponsible members of the media lapped it all up.

 

11) Demmie’s Retirement

 

The good news: I’m no longer in denial about this.

 

***

 

Still largely playing catch-up tennis-wise.

 

Normal service will resumptionalise in due course.

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WTA Championships: Emotional Whiplash

 

 

Was I the only one that thought Kim was spectacularly under par in Doha?

 

And I don’t just mean the double faults, entertaining though they were.

 

There was simply no continuity to this final however you choose to spin it.

 

The most frightening demonstration of this was in the way Woz was allowed to claw her way back into the match from a set and 4-1 down – credit to Woz for seeing it through, but it’s something that should never have been allowed to happen.

 

All the same, kinda difficult to complain when the best player in the world right now (please note the bold font before excommunicating me from your rss reader) caps off the year without playing her best tennis -  in a way which, to my mind, puts an end to the question of who the ‘player of the year’ is (see below).

 

 

Fact: Caz hit 35 winners in the final – only one less than Kim Clijsters.

 

Fact: The day before in the semis, she came out all guns blazing.

 

Fact: Caz hit forehand winners throughout the week.

 

(In other news, Yvgeny-Unicorn won a pot of gold in a Challenger event held at the other end of the rainbow. Delegates from Mars and Lilliput expressed an interest in hosting similar events in their home nations.)

 

It wasn’t always pretty, it didn’t always work – but it’s yet more evidence of the growth in her game. And of the awareness of the need for such growth.

 

Belly-Flop of of the Week.

 

Bepa’s second set bagel against Caz. I’m almost not in favour of the “keeping-the-emotions-in-check” approach anymore– which, to be fair, got her to where she is today, but has now, one feels, run its course.

 

Not that she should return to being ‘Crazy-Bepa’.

 

But I really can’t see there being that much wrong with breaking a racquet or two occasionally (and to then move on, rather than letting it fester in the way she used to before), if that’s what it takes to avert these horrendous beatdowns we still occasionally get.

 

Some people just aren’t built to “button it up” – and it’s as wrong to expect them to do that, as it is for them to fly off the handle once too often.

 

Weaka-Vika

 

I really hope I’m wrong about this, but it seems to me that Vika joins a growing line of upcoming Slam contenders upended by breathing problems, heat and fatigue.

 

More Demmie.

 

Not over it. :((

 

There’s a small chance I may have shed non-virtual tears over this one. ACTUALLY THEY WERE GREAT BIG “MAN” TEARS.

 

It would probably have been the same for any player (even one I wasn’t as emotionally invested in) if they went so abruptly.

 

You have to be a very special, well-loved player to warrant and to then carry off a farewell tour – which is why I’m not, in general, a fan of them.

 

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I’m not a fan of the emotional whiplash I’ve suffered over the past few days – a direct consequence of being forced to go ‘cold turkey’.

 

Can we agree on a more manageable, staged withdrawal strategy – a kind of halfway house – for when, say, Venus retires? The way Amelie cautiously signalled her intent a few months before making it official?

Player of the Year?

 

Has there ever been such intense speculation over this issue before? Probably not.

 

It’s easy to see why of course: never have such conflicting notions of consistency, quality, Slams and rankings points come to a head so acutely - nor grated against one another so viciously.

 

It’s as if Serena, Kim and Woz deliberately set out to demonstrate the three prevailing attitudes to the tour that may as well represent the Bolshy left, centre-right and far right of rankings system politics.

 

Woz is the young wannabe-opinion-maker eager to make a name for herself by being seen with all the right people at all the right parties – only one that hasn’t yet quite learnt the perils of overexposure.

 

Kim’s the former tree hugging liberal that has seen fit to drop her most provocative opinions as the demands (and comforts) of family life and the pragmatism of tennis-middle-age kick in.

 

Serena’s the eccentric aristocrat that expects the ‘National Trust’ to foot the bill for an extension to her country house; that is when she’s not shooting down ramblers exercising their right of way on her land.

 

Can you be player of the year having only made one Slam semi? I don’t think so.

 

Can you be player of the year having only played six events, all of which took place in it’s first half? Winning two Slams helps your cause as the best player in the world – but that’s not quite the same as ‘player of the year’.

 

Kim certainly wouldn’t be my centre-right WTA presidential candidate of choice in any other year – but she’s won a Slam, the WTA Championships, a premier mandatory (Miami), a premier 5 (Cincy) and an International event in Brisbane – that’s one event at every WTA tier.

 

If that doesn’t make you player of this (not especially representative) year, then I’m not sure what does.

 

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Do Svidánija, Elena :’-)

 

 

Q: Why are you doing it?
ELENA DEMENTIEVA:  (Laughter.)  I need some support.  Why are you asking me these questions?
    I think it's the right time for me. I never wanted to wait until my ranking dropped and I'm not going to be able to go to the main draw.  I always wanted to leave this sport with a passion for it.  Tennis has been such a big part of my life, and always will be.
    To be honest with you, I mean, if I would be a man I would never stop playing.  But in the age 29; I have to think about something else.  I think I'm ready for the big change in my life.
    Still, it's very tough decision to make.  Very emotional.  I made the decision in the beginning of this season, so it was very hard coming to the tournaments knowing that this was my last one.  It was very emotional for me to play the whole year.
    But, I mean, that's decision like you know, it will happen to every athlete, and you have to get ready for this.

 

 

It’s not often that I’m prescient.

 

In fact most of what I say bears very little relation to reality.

 

But when Demmie went down to Stosur at NY this year – there was a feint but lingering whiff of despair in the air.

 

 

You didn’t need a MENSA-like emotional intelligence quotient to realise that so much more than a simple loss lay behind the way she despondently mouthed ‘no’ to her mother - heartbreak with a vivid suggestion of finality mixed in.

 

Not only was this completely out of character for one of the tour’s best known fighters– she seemed to be closing the door not just on any future hopes of Slam glory, but on tennis itself.

 

Knowing what I now know (that she had made up her mind at the very beginning of the season to pack it in), it makes perfect sense she would feel that loss so keenly: this was to be the last Slam match she would ever play.

 

Ditto her tearful retirement from RG – her 46th consecutive Slam appearance, and the one she’d felt herself best placed to win, even in her final year.

 

Well, I always had a dream of winning French Open, so starting you know, playing this season, I just wanted to give myself another try.  After Olympic Games, that was the biggest dream of mine.  I was so close.
    But I mean, I was pretty lucky.  I never had so many injuries during my career.  I was pretty healthy.  But that injury probably happened in the worst moment in my entire career.

Yeah, but, you know, I have no regrets.  I think I was practicing very hard; I was trying very hard; that was my way.
    If it didn't happen, it didn't happen, but I have nothing to blame myself.  I was very professional and I had nothing but tennis, tennis, tennis, and I did it with passion.
    So I have absolutely in regrets.  I have so many things to be proud of.  It was a very difficult and long way for me.  So, yeah, I just have very nice and unforgettable memories.

 

Ditto-Ditto her final ever tour win against (funnily enough) Sam Stosur just three days ago – the happy-screech she let out after three long sets (surprising at the time)was not unlike the one emitted after winning gold in Beijing – only now has the penny so heart-wrenchingly dropped.

 

As the season wore on and further losses followed (most recently to Polona Hercog in Luxembourg) I all but resigned myself to an inexorable, James Blake almost-but-not-quite-winding-down phase of her career.

 

 

Not once in my wildest dreams, however, did I imagine a retirement announcement would follow so soon.

 

Thinking back now, it all accords perfectly with Elena’s natural, unaffected, no-nonsense disposition – no emotionally-messy swan-song for her - no staged withdrawal dragged out mercilessly over the year.

 

The time was right. Her physicality/fitness, her most prized asset, had begun to fail her – what more was there to be done? And why need anyone else know about it?

 

***

 

-- ElenaD: Neither “classy” nor “nice”

 

*scrunchy-wincey face*

 

Yes, I’m afraid I really do struggle with those words.

 

With the frequency those superlatives are doled out you’d think we were living in Camelot itself – or some equally cosy-but-liberalised postmodern equivalent.

 

Well neither Lady Guinevere nor Audrey Hepburn has made an appearance in the top ten yet, so I’m assuming it’s the terms themselves that have been devalued.

 

 

Smile a lot, engage in tour pleasantries, but more importantly, possess the “right” sort of look (it helps if you score some big wins, though this is not strictly necessary) and you’re suddenly an “ambassador for the sport”. Whatever that means.

You see where I’m headed with this: the tendency is at it’s pug-ugliest when you can find nothing nice, nor classy, about the player you’re being invited to drum up. Not so much because they’ve done anything wrong as the plain absence of merit.

 

“Class” is, at least, quantifiable by how well you take defeat and so on, but what exactly is “nice”? And if we’re so intent on passing certain players off as “nice”, what, precisely, does that make legions of others that don’t make the cut? Not nice, presumably.

 

All this makes it rather difficult when someone really worthy of these labels shows up – only then is it plain to what degree they’ve been devalued.

 

I would have to say, therefore, that I never found Elena either “nice” or “classy” (she was too classy for that). Not as we’ve been primed to understand those terms.

 

She gave quite serious (sometimes stern) , honest and well-thought out responses to tricky questions posed in pressers. Not nice.

 

Q.  How do you want people remember you in the future? 

ELENA DEMENTIEVA:  Well, I don't know if I want people to remember me.  I'm sure I'm going to remember myself as Olympic champion.  That's the best thing could ever happen in my career.  That was the biggest goal, and I'm so proud of that moment.  It was unforgettable experience and unforgettable memories for me and my family.

I don't think about how people going to remember me.

 

 

She chose hard-won prize money over the million-dollar endorsements she could easily have had as a “leggy blond”.

Image clearly not “everything” ----> Not at all marketable ----> *So* not nice.

 

Here was a player that actually preferred getting rough and dirty and worse still, seemed to harbour an unfashionable enjoyment of her chosen sport. Really not classy Elena.

 

-- “Best player never to have won a Slam”

 

Surely now as bad as the posthumous Oscar for “Lifetime Achievement”. The Academy’s way of saying sorry to have missed out on you.

 

It actually brings into focus, quite brutally, what you haven’t achieved. Close, but no cigar.

 

 

Elena’s frailties were well known – I rooted for her because, rather than in spite of them. Fed, Rafa and Serena all have their place, but I’ve always liked my players flawed and I like to see them striving to overcome those flaws – the more powerfully juxtaposed they are alongside their immense talent the better (Think Marat. Think Sveta).

 

It’s why she’ll likely remain my second fave WTA player for many years to come (Sveta’s queer mix of on-court genius, unceremonious cool and gangsta rap means she comes first. God knows how I’ll cope when she retires).

 

Her serve stank for the better part of her career. Let there be no illusions as to how debilitating this actually was. This was far more ‘schlock-horror’ than the kind of service yips that continue to plague Ana or Masha (both of whom had perfectly competent serves pre 2008), which have always been more ‘symptomatic’ than they are ‘systemic’.

 

Yet she played with that debilitation through an iridescent era that included The Williamses, Henin, Masha, Kim, Amelie, Davenport – all (perhaps with the exception of Lindsay) in their prime.

 

 

She didn’t have winning records against any of them – but was still able to beat all of them multiple times (5-7 against Serena).

 

You’ll hear much of her unimpeachable professionalism and work ethic, and how good she was at making the most of a limited game. Not that any of that isn’t true, but it feels too much like selling her short (mainly, I suspect, because it is).

 

You’ll also hear a lot of commentary on how Elena worked extraordinarily hard to make up for her calamitous serve, this most peculiar of failings (one which should, by rights, have precluded her from ever being a factor given the competition she was up against) and was able to maintain her top ten standing over the best part of a decade largely by shoring up other facets of her game.

 

I disagree.

 

For one thing, and as much as I luuurve her, Elena didn’t have that many facets in her game to shore up.

 

Her greatest strengths – her fitness and timing off the ground -- were pure talent. No denying she worked hard to maintain and improve both, but they were as organic to her as the air we breath.

 

Perhaps fittingly, the biggest demonstration of this organic talent was destined to come not, sadly, in the form of a Slam, but in career statistics that make your eyes water.

 

 

Career statistics that could not have been born of anything other than organic talent.

 

Career statistics that make you wonder what might have been had she been in her prime in these past few years of less lacquered competition.

 

It’s certainly difficult to see someone who “merely works hard” (and I mean that in the most flattering sense possible to Daveed Ferrer or Shahar Peer) producing results like these against the players she did:

 

» 10 out of the last 11 WTA Championships

 

» 46 consecutive Slam appearances ending at RG 2010 during which she made 3 quarters, 7 semis and 2 finals.

 

» top ten 7 out of the last 8 years (328 career weeks inside the Top 10)

 

» Career high world #3

 

Or, for that matter, a match like this:

 

 

Wimby 2009 is held up, depending on who you speak with, as either the “best match of her career”, or as a perfect example of the kind of frailty that precluded her from being “Slam material”.

 

I’m not sure it’s either.

 

There’s an unfortunate (if understandable) tendency to sanctify admittedly powerful moments beyond their worth, just as there is to stigmatise players beyond their measure.

 

The truth is, Elena had played as well as this against the top players many times in her career, though this was likely the most visible of those.

 

As to the infamous, fateful (has the word ever carried so much weight?) decision not to go down the line in that glorious summer of 2009, I’ve always thought of it as a moment of madness. True, it cost her a spot in the final, but it’s not that different to the kind of errant nonsense we’ve seen from either one of the Williamses or Justine 1.0 many times over.

 

The other, somewhat inconvenient, point to remember is that had Elena gone down the line, she would still have had to go through Venus in the final – whom she was a significantly less flattering 2-8 against at the time.

 

If we are to entertain any regrets, let it not be for this moment of madness, let it not even be for the USO 2004 (Sveta was simply that good). RG 2004, however, like one Mr Coria that same year, is a title she ought have made her own.

 

I have no regrets because, you know, that was my way.  That's the way I played.  I was far away from being perfect, but, you know, I had a great fighting spirit.  Even without good serve, I was struggling for so many matches, but I was fighting and I was never give up.  I was giving 100% on the court no matter who well I was playing.  This is what I like.

    You don't have to be perfect, but you have to try very hard, and I did all the time.

 

 

And yet, as a fan I’m left with a bitter aftertaste.

 

 

 

 

I wish her well of course. But I also feel like that cat put out in a winters night after spending all day luxuriating by the fire.

 

Or like that kid that drops his ice cream on the pavement after crowing over everyone else (there’s one in every family in every country).

 

My player was clearly better than everyone else’s :’-(

 

Mostly, however, I feel stone cold – which is funny, as I’ve never been a fan of farewell tours: they mostly end up being a fare-thee-well-but-get-thee-on-with-it tour.

 

It’s babies of course.

 

And I’m told the man responsible is Maxim Afinogenov.

 

So that’s what you call yourself. >:- (

 

YOU TAKE GOOD CARE’A HER YA HEAR.

 

 

You’ve only just deprived us of one the most professional, thoughtful, fittest, well-mannered, intelligent, honest, beautiful, cleanest strikers and best timers of the ball this generation’s seen.

 

(Images: Getty)

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USO: “Best Player never to have won a Slam”

 

LIke Roddick, her last chance may have come and gone at last year’s Wimby. She’ll likely retire as the “best player never to win a Slam”. I had to say it.

 

Yet I root for Demmie not in spite of her frailties, but because of them.

 

And as for talent and hard word, well let’s just say you don’t reach 7 semis and a couple of Slam finals by accident – mainly it has to be said on the back of her returning and fitness rather than any inherent guile - that’s somewhat closer to Kolya rather than Nalbie, that other “Best Player never to have won a Slam”.

 

 

I’m not going to go through the match. Demmie would fail to hold four match points before Stosur held one of her own and who now, along with Venus, Sveta, Masha, Bepa and Franny remains my last stand against Woz and Kim.

 

The pictures tell you all you need to know.

 

 

    

 

Most gut-wrenching moment of the past week: Stosur at match point, 6-2 up in the deciding tie break.

 

Demmie had left everything out there and had still pulled up short. 

 

In a thespian moment which might well serve as a tragic metaphor for her career, staring up tearfully to Vera and, one suspects, with an acute sense of awareness of her limitations, she shook her head lightly & mouthed the word "no".

 

It was over.

 

And I fear it is too. :’(

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Slippage.

getty

 

Zheng d. Dementieva 7-6 (3) 6-4

 

It’s not quite James Blake proportions just yet, but many would argue the slippage has begun.

 

If so, I can’t watch.

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Roland Garros: Heads and Hearts

I love it when the bikers goggles come out. No prisoners, as they say.

Within the past week she’s beaten the undisputed best two players of the past decade. Now another former #1 and arguably the best defender in the game has succumbed to her charms.

A Slam final. Consider the possibilities. I’m sure most of you already have.

Having the slightest of difficulty, however, with the idea currently doing the rounds that she’s “unplayable” in this sort of form….other than that, she deserves all the success she’s getting for being able to execute under some very trying circumstances,...and it’s all good.

Both Serena and Venus can be, and very often are, unplayable. Roger and Rafa have been known to throw in the odd unplayable zinger en route to any one of their very many Slam victories – it’s not usually lost on any of us when they do. Big Rob, I’m sure most would agree, was nothing short of unplayable two nights back.

Sammy, however, is simply executing a wonderfully varied game-plan born of her very distinctive bag of tricks. No one in the women’s game has much experience of dealing with either the kick or pace she generates on serve, and to be honest, no one out there’s executing as well as her.

What she perhaps deserves more praise for is the way in which she seems to be closing out matches in moments she might previously have been relied upon to wilt. And for that I really do salute her.

Never underestimate the power of good execution. But it’s usually playable.

“…I just I don't know what happened, but I just you know, she was the better player.
I mean, she did what she had to do. You know, she played her game. I wasn't even 20% of my ability, so that shows. When we played in Indian Wells and I was, you know, on my game, I was playing aggressively, I returned well. I won in two easy sets.
Today I was just I wasn't like myself. I don't even know who that was on the court.”

That’s the look of a bored eight year old with their face pressed up against a steaming window pane anxious to get out and play. Or, as in this case, off court.

It’s not often I take her self berating, seemingly ungracious pressers that seriously. But I confess I didn’t know who that was either. And 20% is way too kind.

I had thought that with that win in IW, these performances were mostly behind us. A Slam Semi – with not an Henin or a Williams Sister in sight. That’s what you blew today.

She made a Slam final too. After playing only a set of tennis.

Franny played Sammy last year in round one of this very event. Now the two are what they call Slam Contenders.

My head says Sammy. My heart says Franny. Game, Set and Match Heart.

43 Slams without a single retirement. And suddenly she’s Medusa? Get real.

And whilst getting real, consider precisely whose interests would be served by her further tearing the calf muscles that were causing her “shooting pains” throughout the match.

Consider, also, whose interests would be served by her fighting her way to a Slam final (were that even possible) in which she’s either unable to give her all -- resulting in another one of those duff WTA finals -- or worse, forced to withdraw.

Still think she was wrong to retire when she did?

(Photos: AFP/Getty)

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Rome: Ana’s Back…sorta

Ana Ivanovic has won three matches in a row.

I kid ye not - two of those were top ten wins.

Linz 2008, for the wannabe-eggheads amongst you, was the last time that happened.

When I heard she’d put out Vesnina (a player ranked 26 spots above her), I put it down to chance.

When I heard she’d taken down Vika, I put it down to injury.

As I watched her opposite Dementieva today, there was little doubt in my mind I was seeing a player transformed (That doesn’t mean I approve of all the changes, but we’ll get back to that).

You’ll hear it said often enough over the next 24 hours, so let me just observe right out that Dementcha was not at the races. Disembowel anyone that tries to tell you otherwise.

I just don’t think it matters very much is all and, in any case, doesn’t account for the radical way in which Gunhardt appears to have gone about stripping down and gutting out Ana’s game – before seemingly rebuilding it from the ground up.

Which you might argue is exactly what was required (She’d done the whole one-step-fwd-two-steps-back dance for nearly two years).

Gone, I hope, is the over-pressing, try-hard neurotic – the one that likes to paint all her misgivings as being born of “perfectionism” – and in her place sits a focused but chancy competitor. I did say I hope.

What immediately leaps out at you is how she’s no longer as interested in going for the lines – electing instead in favour of a greater margin for error, mostly (it must be said) through increased spin and height over the net.

That’s right folks, Ana’s gone down the grinders route, much in the way Novak did in 2008. He’s not been the same ever since.

Though I’m more inclined to agree that this was the right thing to do in Ana’s case seeing as how the levels of toxicity present in her game had breached all internationally agreed limits, and how taking the pressure off herself in this way seems to have allowed her to relax. She’s certainly not spraying errors anymore.

There’s also the beefier serve of course, which no longer appears to suffer from those giddy ball tosses, and which dug her out of many tough spots today.

What happens from this point on is largely down to her opponents and whether or not Ana’s in her happy place.

At her best she now seems capable of exactly the kinds of changes in pace and direction missing from her tennis philosophy only a few months ago (the word “texture” was mentioned). That I like.

At its worst, it’s little more than pushing (which would likely quickly be seized upon by a more demanding presence than Elena proved to be today).

But you know what? She doesn’t appear to care. For now it’s good enough to have her winning matches again, so I can’t in all honesty say that I do either.

Over in Estoril, some guy called Roger Federer won his first clay court match of the season. From what I hear he’s considered a good bet for the French Open, though he himself insists he’s not the favourite.

He’s right.

(Photo: AP)

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Miami: Upset-me-nots and What Not.

I wasn’t that intent on posting until after coverage began today – then this happened.

Rochus d. Djokovic 6-2 6-7 (7-9) 6-4

"He picks up the ball very early and he runs all over the court. He was playing really well today, so I want to congratulate him. Definitely he deserves it."

-- Djokovic on losing to Olivier Rochus

A “how’d that happen” result if ever I saw one.

Djoko’s form just like his disposition yesterday, has appeared slightly frayed since the season began. If it has sometimes seemed like he’s been trying rather too hard to shake off an awareness he must surely feel of the built in limitations of the way his game has evolved, it’s because he has.

As to Rochus, this wouldn’t be the first (and won’t be the last) time he’s “Zheng-Jied” a top ten player.

Perhaps not that “how’d that happen” after all.

Henin d. Demmie 6-3 6-2

I didn’t see any of these matches – though this result in particular was in some ways the least surprising.

The Belgian comeback has been slightly derailed since the beginning of the year, with Kimmie going out early twice in the most inauspicious of circumstances and Henin seemingly suffering a similar fate at IW.

Conventional wisdom would have us believe that “cherry picking” your way through the calendar is not as easy as the Williamses make it seem.

To which I say, agreed, though they have been doing it for a lot longer than either of those other two.

Even so, it’s been Kimmie rather than Juju that’s born the brunt of the censure – whilst it’s not been that difficult to think of IW as something Henin can and will bounce back from, Kimmie’s results remain as inexplicable as ever.

Agreed on that point too.

Demmie’s poor showing in IW was perhaps her worst in around a year (sorry Aggy, your win over her was closer in nature to a default).

All of which meant I wasn’t expecting this to be their second consecutive Academy Award Nomination for match of the year. Seems I was right.

Roddick d. Andreev 6-4 6-4

Yeah he beat ‘The Forehand’, but that’s not the half of it.

The half of it is that his section of the draw just went to pot.

With Djoko, Querrey, Ljubicic and of course Andreev all out, I’d say a semi-final spot is now all but a certainty.

Photos by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

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Indian Wells: Ladies Preview

A couple of days too late, but here it is.

1st Quarter

Contenders: Clijsters, Kuzzie and Jankovic, Penetta, Kleybanova

‘Upsets’ waiting to happen: Jankovic goes down to Peer/Penetta in R16, Kuzzie downed by Szavay R3

Needs to happen: Penetta v Clijsters QF

Good things for: Jankovic. I’ll say no more.

(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)

Dunno why, but despite Kuzzie’s presence and Jankovic’s assumed underdog status, I’m not the least bit invested in this quarter.

Maybe I’m worried Kimmie will clean up without so much as a peep from the competition.

Then again I’ve never seen Penetta give anything other than her very best, and emit rose-tinged smilies while doing it.

Jankovic has it all to do.

2nd Quarter

Contenders: Vika, Ivanovic(???), Zvonareva, Stosur and Wickmayer

‘Upsets’ waiting to happen: Safarova/Oudin down Wickmayer R2/R3, Ivanovic loses her opener

Needs to happen: Zvonareva v Azarenka QF

Good things for: Ana Ivanovic.

(Photo: AP)

There’s certainly plenty of ‘belief’ present here in the guise of Vika, Bepa and Oudin, for each of whom winning seems a birthright.

Maybe Heinz and Ana can infuse some of that into whatever regime they’re following.

But really, I see this one as Vika’s for the taking.

Her main malady over the last year has after all, been the presence of the Williamses. Though look out for stiff competition from Bepa – which really could turn out to be the match of the event.

3rd Quarter

Contenders: A-Rad(???), Bartoli, Schiavone, Dementieva, Henin

Upsets waiting to happen: Bartoli downs Henin R4 (As in Wimby 07)

Needs to happen: Demmie v Henin QF

Good things for: Anne Keothavong, at her first tier one back from a teary-eyed, injury blighted 2009

(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)

For any player not given a bye to round two, this is, for all intents and purposes, a Slam: seven (potential) three setters. In the desert. With opponents like Demmie and a ton of young blood bouncing around on the other side of the net.

Which means Henin’s fitness will be a key consideration if she doesn’t manage to keep her opening few rounds as short as poss (great start by the way).

Henin or Demmie really should get through this, though look out for Demmie v Franny and Henin v Bartoli, both in R4.

4th Quarter

Contenders: Li Na, Zheng Jie, Shaza, Caz-Woz, Petrova

‘Upsets’ waiting to happen: Too many - Kirilenko downs Caz-Woz, Bondarenko downs Petrova, Medina-Garrigues downs Li Na and Zheng Jie downs Shaza, all in R3

Needs to happen: Cirstea v Shaza

Good things for: Shaza.

(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Really hope Caz-Woz lives up to her #2 seeding.

I can totally see Shaza making the quarters. Then again I can totally see her returning to service purgatory and crashing out to Zheng Jie or Cirstea.

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Weekend Round Up.

Dubai: Djokovic d. Youzhny 7-5, 5-7, 6-3

That trophy’s a ship, but viewed side on it’s very Burj-ul Arab no?

Yes that distant wail that could be heard over the horizon for the best part of today was the sound of the moaners and haters crooning in unison. Myself at their helm.

"It's a very mental game," said the Serb. "People don't realize how much tension you have to go through throughout the match. It took a lot of energy for me. Stopping and playing, and coming back and then again stopping the match last night because of the rain."

…

"Today was another good example of how much I believe in myself and how much I fight till the end," added Djokovic, who gained swift revenge for Youzhny's straight sets victory in the semi-finals of the Rotterdam Open earlier this month.

(Fox News)

I’ve said all I want to say about Djoko coming out on top against a field of also rans on Twitter – the fact remains he still had to go out there and win it.

The fact also remains however, that I’d like to see him kick butt at the Masters 1000’s and Slams -- something I don’t deem him unqualified for -- and a front on which, outside of clay, I remain fundamentally dissatisfied.

Acapulco: Williams d. Hercog 2-6 6-2 6-3

Mexico seems to agree with V. Only at Wimbledon itself is she more radiant.

After that unceremonious outage in Oz, she’s gone from strength to strength, winning her second successive title in two weeks

As Mr Wertheim pointed out in the TwitterSphere earlier, Dubai, Acapulco and the Billie Jean Cup in Madison Square Garden on March 1st makes a total of three events in 8 days.

Meditate on that thought for a while the next time you want to accuse her of only caring about the Slams.

Acapulco: Ferrer d. Ferrero 6-3 3-6 6-1

After beating his compadre in Buenos Aires last week, Ferrero fails to make it three in a row.

No matter. I treat Ferrero's return and the news of Ferrer winning titles in South America, as a sign that our stock of functioning clay courters not named Nadal is in nothing less than full working order.

I’m sizing the next few months up as Armageddon on clay.

Kuala Lumpur: Kleybanova d. Dementieva 6-3, 6-2

I’m almost relieved to see Dementieva lose at a tier two/three event.

Maybe it’ll prompt her to attend to that less ennobling Grand Slam record of hers.

Probably not.

Kleybanova gets all sorts of wierd grief about her size – but she’s too good a player not to have won a title.

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Oz Withdrawal Symptoms: Extrication Complete.

It took a while in getting there, but I think I’m ready to move on.

With Warped-Pete’s blessings.

ABM AMRO Rotterdam: Soderling d. Youzhny 6-4 2-0 (Ret.)

(Photo: Getty)

This title had Davy, Djoko or Big Rob written all over it.

Hard indoor ones tend to have the Swede’s name etched in a little more deeply – exactly the kind of event suited to his flatter-than-flat hard boiled style of play, and one he really should bag if we are to treat his top-ten maverick status very seriously.

Besides, what better way to snap out of that heady stupor he’s been in since the beginning of the year?

And so it played out – with Big Rob mostly keeping things simple (as if his game could be anything else), and with Davy and Djoko both falling in the semis and reassuming their lovingly-tended spots in the playground of ‘nearly-man’ tennis.

Except this was a 500 event. Where the nearly-men are supposed to go to town.

Maybe that’s a tad harsh to Davy, but with Djoko looking as 0ut of sorts as he did opposite Youhzny, one wonders what remedy if any will effect a turnaround, or whether that Serbian shooting star really has shot it’s last.

I tend towards believing it’s been shot down. And you know who I hold culpable? Marat Safin.

Cast your minds back two years - deep in the inner most recesses of those tennis-heads of yours lies embedded a memory, one which I like to think of as Marat’s Last Stand.

In 2008 Safin wowed his way to his last ever Slam semi-final at Wimbledon. Perhaps the greatest story of 2008 – second only to that greatest-of-all-finals itself.

His fans, tennis aficionados, and the rest of the world waited for, wished for good things to follow. In vain as it turned out.

But there was another story too. One that’s mostly been relegated to a footnote in history, if that.

For the Djoko that emerged from that punishing three set 2nd round loss displayed an almost dismembered look, one that I put down at the time to being ridden over roughshod by the Mighty Hippo.

Marat may have breathed what turned out to be his last gasp that year, but with it too he appeared to extinguish Djoko’s only remaining flame.

He has never regained that glint in his eye.

Gone was the cocky free-swinger and in his place stood an inhibited, austere, risk-averse, neurotic ‘Grinderman’, intent on reinventing himself as a clay courter.

That part of his post-‘Safinated’ agenda at least, remains intact.

In the eighteen or so months that have followed that psychosomatic shakedown, only two hard court Masters titles have been forthcoming, though it’s on clay that he appears to have retained at least some afterglow of his pre-Safinated self, the most notable example of which being that semi-final at Madrid last year.

I have no idea why exactly this is – in the same period he’s reached a further four hard court Masters finals, though in neither of which he displayed a shadow of the confidence that was so inextricably a part of what for the time being remains his only Slam title.

But consider this: if the experience has left him more of a force on clay, then Marat might very well be considered the architect of Federman’s revival.

Confused?

I was. At first.

I’m following a lengthy, loosely connected, slightly indulgent, and not entirely water-tight train of thought here – I must ask that you bear with me.

Whether or not you fully care for the creature Djoko’s morphed into, and whether or not you fully agree with the direction he’s headed in, he remains – perhaps by virtue of that grind -- for the time being at least, a force on clay.

Had he not been taken to the cleaners by Marat, he might never have evolved into Grinderman.

Had Djoko not seen fit to undergo this transfigurement, we might very well never have had that Madrid semi.

And if we didn’t have that maddeningly delicious Madrid semi, Nadal may have made the final only fractionally as exhausted as he turned out to be.

You follow?

Three setters are as ruthless as they are unforgiving affairs – where the slightest lapse in concentration, a single break can decide the course of a match.

Suppose Fed didn’t win Madrid, would he still have entered Roland Garros the energised figure we are told to believe he was?

Would Rafa still have lost?

Would Fed have still have served his way to number fifteen, on the back of 55 aces?

I would still say yes to those last two. But I would also say that there’s a ‘house-that-Jack-built’, in there somewhere.

This is the legacy that Roger built.

This is the GOAT that sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

Madrid is the event that freed the GOAT,

That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

This is the bull, a step too slow,

That found Madrid a step too far,

Thus freeing the GOAT,

That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

This is the grind that stirred-up the clay,

That irked the bull, a step too slow,

That found Madrid a step too far,

Thus freeing the GOAT,

That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

This is the kid, that would be King,

That took to grind that stirred-up the clay,

That irked the bull, a step too slow,

That found Madrid a step too far,

Thus freeing the GOAT,

That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

This is the match that Marat played,

That swept the kid, that would be King,

That took to grind stirring up the clay,

That irked the bull, a step too slow,

That found Madrid a step too far,

Thus freeing the GOAT,

That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.

Honorary mention to Mikhail, who truly earnt his final spot, despite some lackadaisical play from Djoko.

This week’s Dutch Master: Big Rob

This week’s Wooden Clogs: Davy, Djoko

In other news….

Open GDF Suez Paris: Dementieva d. Safarova 6-7, 6-1, 6-4

(Photo: AP)

What, another tier two title Elena?

I was more interested by the way Safarova came into this. Quite the most confident exhibition of ‘line and length’ from her in around 3 years.

Except not very many players do line’n length as well as Elena.

Pattaya Open Thailand: Zvonareva d. Tanasugarn 6-4 6-4

Brasil Open Costa do Sauipe: Ferrero d. Kubot 6-1 6-0

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