Wimbledon: Buzz-About-Muzz

 

PA

 

The Andy Murray column. No really.

 

The first year I played in the juniors [of Wimbledon] I was 14 or 15 and I lost in the first round for the first two years, I never did well here as a junior, but the record as a senior has been a bit better.

It's a lot nicer for me now that I actually live nearby. When I played here the first couple of years I was in hotels, and the year when I'd just started working with Mark Petchey as my coach at Queen's I actually stayed at his house.

 

Heart goes out to you. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

 

Lloydy thinks his attitude needs looking at. He also thinks Querrey’s the only guy in his draw that can “hurt him” and that he should have beaten TBerd at RG. Erm, Ok then.

 

For the record I don’t feel the same buzz-about-Muzz I did last year.

 

I don’t even feel the same buzz about Wimbledon as I did last year.

 

Part of this is down to Fed’s very blah draw.

 

Part of it is down to Muzz and Djoko still being in a funk.

 

Part of it is down to Delpo likely being out until well after Flushing. I had a theory about him on grass.

 

A lot of it, however,  is about neither Big Rob nor Kolya having made it past the 4th round even though in principle they should be successful playing tennis in sand dunes if necessary.

 

All that might change, however:

 

» should England go out of the World Cup. As if the Queen showing up wasn’t pressure enough.

 

» should Muzz be seen using an Official Adidas World Cup Jabulani Match ball in his football-tennis warm ups. I wouldn’t recommend it. Robert Green wouldn’t either.

 

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Eleventh Hour Wins.

 

With only one day to go, some folks are still hard at it.

 

 

AP

 

Great name for a tournie and a great cookie tray for winning it.

 

All well and good. Though I’ll be looking for a little more “boom-boom” from that serve we’ve been hearing so much of and a little less of forehand-horribilis. This result suggests match-fitness. And if she’s still stuttering she might just find herself getting smacked into shape by those other heavyweights in her quarter.

 

Smacked into shape rather than smacked straight out one hopes.

 

Now or Never.

 

 

AFP/Getty

 

This one needs a bulleted list.

• Unseeded qualifier
• Ranked #100 in the world
• Beats Flavlova, Nadia, Kuzzie, Stosur and, of course, Vika to win her first WTA title in Eastbourne
• Doesn’t drop a single set in doing it.

If that doesn’t put some colour in your cheeks I don’t know what will.

 

Round of applause please.

 

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Said that already, no?

 

 

 

 AP

A real shame.

 

Vika’s run at Eastbourne this week included wins over Bartoli, Clijsters and ARad before seizing up with a leg injury in the final.

 

Only two days before the start of “The Championships”. Never fails to amaze me how full-of-oneself that sounds.

 

AFP

Amelie’s protege won the men’s event.

 

 Canadian Press

 

This lot went to Ascot. She’ll also be doing the rounds at “The Championships” this year. Lord, how droll that sounds.

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Wimbledon: ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN

 

 

Federer goes down to Hewitt.

 

The rest of the top ten go down to Fish/Querrey

 

Spain go down to Switzerland.

 

Germany miss a penalty.

 

Still think I’m kidding?

 

 

LEGEND

Grass court pedigree. Sort of.

Red hot. Cilic Peppers need not apply.

 

ATP

 

Q1	Fed/Robredo Yoyo/Feli	So. Yeah.
	TBerd/Wawa Davy	TBerd needs to make the quarters. Nothing else matters.
Q2	Djoko Hewitt/Monfils	Not entirely convinced Djoko will make it past Hewitt should he face him in R4.
	Cilic Roddick/Kohls	A-Rod not match-fit enough to be surrounded by “those people”
Q3	Dasco Almagro/Tsonga	Not entirely convinced Murray/Tsonga will make it out of this alive.
	JCF/Querrey Murray	Not entirely convinced Murray/Tsonga will make it out of this alive.
Q4	Sod Baggy/Ferrer	Sod will probably find some way to balls this up. With it being grass and all.
	Youznhy/Isner Rafa/Blake	Oh Rafa – whose picnic blanket did you poop on?

 

WTA 

 

Q1	Serena Dani/Masha	And yet one must leave us. That’s too bad.
	Li/Kuzzie Aggie	Li just won Birmingham. Which probably means Aggie will go through.
Q2	CazWoz Zheng/Vika	Belarusian expletives back in the Eastbourne final this week. You leave me sore and yet you have been sorely missed.
	Flavs/Rezai Stosur	Rezai and Stosur. That power vs. variety thing again.
Q3	Kimmie/Kiri Henin/Petrova	Biff! Pow! The beefiest section of the draw. That big serve you’ve been working on Juju? Now or never.
	Wicky/Bepa JJ/Bondarenko	I can’t pick this one. I only know JJ won’t get through.
Q4	Franny/Shvedova MJMS/Bartoli	Bartoli made the semis at Eastbourne. Oh and nothing Franny does will ever vex me again.
	Peer/Ivanovic/Oudin Venus/Kleybanova	I see no problems for Venus. You’d better ‘believe’ it. Did I just say that?

 

 

**Update: MJMS out with knee injury, her #22 seeding now taken by K.Bondarenko. Safina out with lower back injury – her #20 spot taken by Oudin.

Ernie out too – his #33 spot taken by Philipp Petzschner

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Why that’s an outrage!

 

 

-- Roger Federer seeded #1 at Wimbledon.

 

Scandalous I know. Why anyone in their right mind would want to confer a #1 seeding on a guy that’s won 6 of the last 7 titles here and had a complete stranglehold on the #1 ranking during that time is beyond me.

 

Never underestimate the audacious logic espoused by Neanderthals in sufficiently high numbers.

 

By the amount of hot air this issue has generated you’d almost think that Fed had received a bye to the final.

 

For better or worse, Wimby has for many years now, chosen to distinguish itself through use of a seeding formula that rewards grass court prowess.

 

You can, indeed,  argue that seedings for a surface that exposes the utter uniformity of the majority of hard court players and the unique adaptive ability of a select few, should, in some way, reflect that distinction - a distinction I’d be prepared to extend to clay.

 

You can argue that Venus Williams ought to be seeded #1.

 

You can even argue that Nikolay Davydenko should be seeded outside of the top 50.

 

Of course you can choose to bin all of that, and argue, instead, that it’d be perfectly valid for Wimbledon to simply mirror the rankings the way the other Slams do.

 

And that’d be fine too.

 

Once you choose to go with the formula, however, continuing to argue in favour of your favourite player on the basis of a H2H begins to make you look petty, paltry and confused.

 

Verdict: There’s clutching at straws and there’s clutching at toothpicks. Not an outrage.

 

-- #342 ranked Brit, James Ward went out of the QFs of Eastbourne today

 

To reach that point he put out both Feli and Scheuttler. Back to back.

 

You’d think such an audacious feat on home turf would be enough to earn him a wildcard at Wimbledon.

 

The LTA’s top 250 cut off point (for affording WCs) and an illness at the end of last year that saw him drop out of that range (a position he’d previously held for 18 months) means you’d be wrong.

 

All of which has put us in the slightly laughable position of not having a single English player in the Wimbledon draw - a historical first, though hardly the kind of history to aspire for.

 

I understand the LTA are focused on “creating an environment where more British players aren't just in the first round because of a wild card, but on merit…”.

 

I also understand their position is a little “damned if you do damned if you don’t”.

 

How often, after all, have we seen them burnt at the stake for a spate of first round losses from “undeserving” Brits that were afforded WCs?

 

I don’t, however, understand the sheer lack of imagination that sees The-Powers-That-Be doggedly stick to “policy” and artificial cut off points at the expense of a fine BRITISH run of form.

 

What precise “metric” do you need to tell you that a Brit getting to, say, the third round of Wimbledon would represent a fine thing for British Tennis?

 

Verdict: Not simply an outrage. A scandal.

 

-- Thomas Muster. Comeback. 42. No really.

 

Verdict: Not an outrage. Simply outrageous. And yet I’m keen to see how this plays out.

 

-- SUI(24) d. ESP(2) 1-0

 

 

The equivalent of say Stan Wawrinka knocking out Rafael Nadal.

 

Verdict: Outrageous. On every imaginable level. And some unimaginable ones too. And yet I believe it would have played out rather differently on clay.

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Folie de Grandeur. Men’s Tennis I’m looking at YOU.

No I mean it.

Amelie began coaching Michael Llodra at Queens last week (yes, I know), but she may as well have been cringing over the entire ATP top ten.

Congratulations to Rusty and Querrey for making good in a week when order, reason and good old common sense seemed to fail us.

Actually, I excuse both Rafa and Roger. Their loss last week is not quite the cause for the Requiem Mass some are now undertaking. It certainly doesn’t seem to me to warrant anything more than a half-raised eyebrow.

Nadal got to the quarters, seized up with a hamstring problem against a grass court specialist playing in his own words “the best match of his career”. Hardly surprising given the season he’s just had – perhaps even a blessing in disguise. Besides, it’s a hamstring problem – not the knees – read not a Code Red. Nothing a ten day fishing stint in Majorca can’t fix.

Half Raised Eyebrows.

Federer’s loss to Hewitt, breaking as it does a 15 match winning streak against him and a winning record at Halle that dates back to 2003, is….concerning. It’s also just another instance of his less polished record outside of the Slams. Whether you think that’s because “he doesn’t care” (laughable notion), or is more prone to the unforgiving three-set format, or is simply less attuned to winning these tune-up events, the results speak for themselves. For my part, I defer exercising my right to get more “up in arms” about it for when the same thing starts happening at Slams.

Four other reasons why my arms aren’t up:

1) Federer had his worst clay court season in 6 years, even though in my mind he was playing, during parts of it, better than he was in 2008.

2) For what its worth, I do believe he found his form in Madrid in a final where both he and Nadal moved around like two-bit drunkards, performing at about 70%.

3) The loss in RG? NO ONE beats Sod in that form (see Sod’s first law).

4) Yet, despite all this, he still made the finals of the first grass court event of the season in the same week that no other top ten player even managed a semi.

Eyebrows still only half raised .

***

Not quite as ready to absolve the rest of the “top ten” from tennis purgatory.

Since Muzz lost at Oz he appears to have joined Djoko in a rut of disillusionment whose only distinguishing feature is it’s ability to produce a string of “nearly-man” results. Just about enough to maintain a ranking but not nearly enough to keep you relevant.

Both of them right now, in fact, seem to occupy a no-man’s land of the top ten: neither threatening the top, nor standing in the way of those that do.

Marin and A-Rod are more perplexing. When Roddick took off the early part of the clay season for what sounds like a second honeymoon with his Misuss, he got, what I thought at the time, was a disproportionate amount of flak for it. Sela, unfortunately for A-Rod, gave what’ll likely be a once-in-a-lifetime performance at Queens that lead to him being termed “Baby Reeshie”.

Not quite sure how that works, but it also means Roddick enters Wimbledon with the least amount of matches he’s likely ever had.

As for Marin I’m pretty sure now that at some point , he’ll come through as “this year’s Delpo” – just don’t be surprised if he takes until next year to realise it. He’s certainly taking the more torrid, torturous route.

At RG, I suspect, he was simply unlucky to run into Sod. Who promptly murdered him. Which might explain his loss here this week – hard to string two wins together if you’re not a shadow but a mere chalk outline of yourself.

(Photos: AFP/Getty)

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Roland Garros: Reflections

-- Postmodernity told to go to hell:

You could of course treat what Sod threatened to pull off as a reaction to the truths, certainties and objectivities of the past.

The type of objectivity that held a Fedal Duopoly as both sacred and sacrosanct. A duopoly widely seen as a triumph over the big servers and power-ballers of the late nineties that were perhaps a natural, but no less unwelcome consequence of advances in technology and nutrition.

We had arrived. And it was perfect.

Well to hell with all that said Sod, as he burst on the scene with his petrol-bombing squad of heavies and heavy metal band in tow, wrenching the door of the ATP courtyard off its hinges, overturning every last table, only stopping once to spit in your eye.

Only once in the past six years have Rafa or Roger been beaten in a Slam final by someone other than Rafa and Roger.

Had Sod pulled it off, it would have changed EVERYTHING. He would have been crowned “king” in a short, ill-fated tyrannical reign blighted by infighting and brought down, ultimately, by it’s own recklessness in a bloody coup.

And yet it would have left behind it, an awareness that there is another way.

If a postmodernist viewpoint says anything, it’s that it’s OK to be naturally suspicious of any such duopoly.

Yet here we all still are, five years later - Rafa and Roger take the first two Slams of the year and are, funnily enough, still playing beach volley with the #1 ranking, while most everyone else simply spectates.

Seems Postmodernity’s gonna have to wait.

-- Sod’s Law Revisited

I’ve been banging on about *hard, deep and flat* for what seems like eons now, so I figure it’s time to give it a name, whilst also paying homage to the man that ended two of the greatest streaks our sport has ever known.

Sod’s First Law: Deep, flat & relentless pace - trumps anyone on any surface

An unthinkable truth, that most daren’t mention. Doesn’t make it any less true.

Whether it’s Safin over Fed in Aus 05, Delpo over Fed USO 09 or Sod over both Nadal and Fed here at RG, there’s a certain threshold of pace (The Delpo/Sod Barrier?) which if exceeded, makes weathering the storm the only viable option - only sometimes the storm never ends.

Sod’s Second Law: The Storm always abates at least once over seven five set matches.

An uninterrupted storm would entail breaking the laws of physics.

Just as matter is constrained by the speed of light, the natural order of the universe has somehow seen fit to shackle the big guns so they aren’t completely effective throughout a Slam.

Sod flatballed relentlessly and perfectly for 5 out of 7 matches. His dispatching of Marin (a top tenner) in particular, was like watching the ATPs edition of ‘Kill Bill’.

He started coming apart at the seams against Berdych, in what turned out to be a five set war of attrition that left him in tears. The wheels came off completely against Rafa.

Sod’s Third Law: Sod eats clay courters for breakfast

Their loopier short balling suits him to a tee. It’s why he’ll always have success even against Nadal, who reverts back to short balling under pressure. Only Rafa’s comparative depth and awesome defence and Sod’s subsequent mental collapse prevented it from happening this time round.

-- Clay Court Tennis is dead, Long Live Clay Court 2.0

Ferru and Ferrero going out in week one make official what many like me have been saying for a long time – that loopy short balling has no place in the modern game. Not on clay not on any surface.

The last great stylist of that mode of play was probably Guillermo Coria. What’s this I hear of a comeback?

I know people will say no pride’s lost in going out to Melzer, an eventual semi-finalist who you’ll remember is no Jurgen-Schmergen, but there’s also the more perplexing question of JCF’s loss to Robby Ginepri. Not Big Rob, but Robby Ginepri.

Add to that, that it happened at the only Slam played on clay and you have what seems to me an untenable style of play.

They’ve been replaced by an elite group of aggressive baseliners effective on every surface playing mostly the same way: Federer, Djoko, Marin, Jo-Willy, Wawa even (lets not forget that QF he contested against Murray at Wimby last year or that he reached the final of Rome two years back).

Viewed in this light Clay Court 2.0 is actually just Tennis 2.0.

The old-school clay courters will still be around of course -- relics from a bygone age usually are – but they’ll mostly be consigned to the ATP 250 clay events. Or at least that’s the way I see it being played out.

-- I’m not that big on history and record books.

Fed lost the #1 ranking last week. Should he win Wimby he’ll likely go on to reclaim it sometime after. Should he hold on to it then for a further two weeks – because that’s all he needs – he’ll be one up on Pete Sampras yet again.

It’s a record, but it’s no ‘23 Slam SFs’. Nor a ‘never been beaten at Roland Garros’.

Perhaps my ambivalence is an understandable consequence of living in an age where records are broken and created with the frequency of ATP-250s.

Both those streaks, incidentally, brought to a halt by you-know-who.

-- Rafa hit flatter in the final. Or so I’m told.

Much has been made of his attempts to hit through and wrap round more of his forehands (rather than finishing up and over his head). The strings have changed too.

*wince* It’s not that I don’t believe in any or all of that. I just think his level of play in the final transcended , as it’s done so many times in the past, any such technical considerations.

And it’s no different with conditions.

-- Conditions, Conditions, Conditions.

The damp conditions gave Big Rob the upper hand against Federer after the rain delay – no one doubts that. But that doesn’t suddenly translate into Robin not being able to keep a ball in court only a couple of days later against Tomas in drier sunnier conditions.

Nor does Rafa become any less of a clay monster because the sun’s not out.

Q. But today is not very sunny day. It was rainy in the morning. So could you explain what kind of condition it was out there today?
RAFAEL NADAL: Maybe I had a mistake before to say I would love to have a sunny day. Maybe it was better to have a day like today, cloudy. I don't know. I don't know.
My feeling before the match was we have a sunny day with hot, the bounce gonna be bigger and gonna be easier for me to control his ball.
But in the same time, this year the court is more slippery than usual. With this weather, the court is more normal clay court, you know.
At the same time, I can run better. I feel more (through translation) stable on court than when the court is very dry. So that's the very important point for me today.

It’s not that I don’t think conditions play a part – they just seem to me to be over-emphasised, and at every opportunity.

You almost get a sense that somewhere, someone’s just itching to have a discussion on why it’s easier to open jam jars at a high altitude.

The take-away: With Rafa playing the way he is, conditions matter about as much as jam jars do.

-- What “most people” think

“Most people” seem to agree Rafa played a corker of a match.

Me too.

“Most people” also seem to agree Soder-Pop, for whatever reason, wasn’t able to bring it mentally.

Me too.

“Most people” seem also, to believe it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference if he had brought it.

Disagree. See Sod’s First Law.

I’d be happy to take this up with “most people”. “Most people” are requested to get in touch.

Put simply, Rafa won this by recognising that his best chance of success was in engineering the conditions for Sod’s mental collapse. He did just that by maintaining impeccable depth and with an inspired defence that is quite possibly the last word in clay court tennis.

Poor serving (50%) and UFEs followed and, perhaps more importantly, Sod wasn’t able to convert on the opportunities he was presented with (more of those than you’ve been led to believe) - not that Rafa’s play, inspired as it was, meant that there were no opportunities to convert on.

Rafa opting to break Sod down mentally, is both a sound and solid basis for a win.

It should not however be confused with “taking him on and winning”.

-- Jurgen-Schmergen

I started the event not giving a flying forehand about Melzer or his style of play.

Then he lit up Chatrier by coming back from two sets down to get his first win over Djoko.

Around the same time Kamakshi Tandon gave me three further reasons to care.

Subsequent to that I discovered his nickname to be “YoYo”. And then of course Rafa called him “George-En” in his post-match interview.

I’m not quite sure where that leaves me. But I probably won’t be calling him Jurgen-Schmergen again.

***

Parting Shots:

Rafa’s defence - quite possibly the last word in clay court tennis (A+)

Best opening set played: Federer against Sod. Right before all hell broke loose. (A+)

Worst beatdown of the event: Sod over Marin in the quarters. Marin looked like he’d been put through a wood chipper. Twice. Tarantino or the Coen Bros. on court. You decide. (A+)

“Lights Out” Tennis: The crazy decision to continue play was only upstaged by La Monf and Fognini’s on court theatrics. One of the “highlights” of week one. Which is kinda funny given there was no light. (B)

Robin? You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! 23 Slam SFs - It will never be bettered (A+)

Last Man Standing: American that is. Take a bow Robby Ginepri. (A)

SoderPop Cries: I was there. And it was just as weird as seeing your teacher outside of school. (A)

Sveta’s twitter commentary of men’s tennis. Both “Talanted” and “Stuning” in equal measure. Priceless too.(A+)

Worth mentioning but not dwelling on: Fed’s loss to Sod here makes this his worst clay court season since 2004. Doesn’t feel like it somehow. (C)

(Photos: AFP/Getty)

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Roland Garros: Conflict Resolution

Postmodernity's gonna have to wait then….

Nadal d. Soderling 6-4 6-2 6-4

And that’s fine by me.

I have a rather heftier post in the works that touches, amongst other things, on why I think Big Rob seized up so. Not dissimilar to Sammy the day before.

For now I intend to revel in Rafa’s “full circle” (© 2Hander 2010) return to form – a win I felt he needed just as much as Federer needed Wimbledon last year.

It’s no secret how conflicted I was about all this.

I’ve been backing Big Rob since he upset Nadal last year. His wins here over these two years are no fluke. He brings something a little different to the table – in a way only a walking scorched earth policy can.

Had he come through yesterday he would have beaten the best-ever-on-clay and the best-ever-period, at the same event...picking up, almost as an unintended side-effect, his first Slam title. As it is, he'll have to console himself with having taken out one, only to go out to the other in a straight sets final, for two years running - an odd sort of symmetry.

Results like that usually imply some sort of cult status.

Witnessing such a win may perhaps have proved more exhilarating - it would, however, also have proved more devastating seeing Nadal lose.

Unspeakably subjective I know. But it’s the only way I see to resolving this conflict.

I might have felt differently if Robin lost it having taken it to 16-15 in the fifth, or had Nadal not been able to perform.

But that’s not the way it played out.

Nadal outperformed himself. I’ve not seen him defend that well since 2008. At one point in the third set he was serving at 95%.

All three Masters events and Roland Garros - a staggering clean sweep of the clay court season in which he dropped only two sets (take a bow Ernie Gulbis and Nico Almagro).

And already, within hours of the win, he was on the phone to the director of Queens requesting a practice court for today and entry to the doubles draw.

Try. Just try and refuse him.

(Photo: Getty)

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