Miami: Ladies Wrap Up

 

 

Novak,Rafa and Fed stole most of my bandwidth this week, but there’s still enough time for a ladies wrap up almost a full week after Miami ended.

We already knew Vika could win a title as big as this (she already did, two years ago), we already knew she’s capable of winning a Slam. We’ve always known.




So are Caro and Vera. So were Dinara, JJ and, dare I say it, Sam Stosur.

When Vika peaked the last time back in 2009, she was, in my opinion, the most credible maiden-Slam contender, second only to Dinara Safina. All of that was put paid to by Serena Williams, time…..after time….after time. And all of those Slam QFs were only possible when she wasn’t injured, passing out in the sun or, you know, dodging falling pianos.

All of which is to say….long time coming girl, but perhaps, now, even more welcome.

And as for those only now discovering that ‘neath that stroppy exterior lurks someone almost as likeable and (dare I say it) “nice” *shudder* as Caro or Kim, well…lets just say a bunch of us were on this bandwagon first; that’s right we’all took the finest seats already – and I’m not even remotely sorry that there’s standing room only.

Why should it be any different from 2009 this time? For one thing, Serena’s (sadly)not around, and it’s not at all clear what shape she’ll be in when she does return. That leaves Kim, with her uber-curtailed Super-Mom schedule. Venus has signalled a return in May, Henin, as we know, is no more. All in all, just as depleted of heavyweight talent as the field was back in 2009. Vika has as good a chance as any to capitalise on this (as does Bepa), but something tells me Woz will be first. 

 

Maria Sharapova’s tennis may be in the gutter – but she is clearly looking at the stars.

A SF followed by a final at the two most prestigious events outside of the Slams – whatever else might be going on with her game, her champions spirit is wholly intact, and just waiting, willing you, daring you to bait it into action. Mock at your peril.

That said, the dysfunction once thought limited to her serve has gone viral.

Even as recently as the middle of last year I was fond of saying that whilst her serve may never again be what it once was, her groundies are (for the most part) looking like a loose approximation of the player I once knew. Not so anymore.

It didn’t go wrong all at once, of course. In the beginning there was light, and only the mere suggestion of the error (unforced or otherwise). UFE soon begat UFE, and it wasn’t long before we began to hear of matches composed, in their entirety, of (50, 60+) UFEs.

 

The common denominator in all this was an organically-conceived defiance that simply refused to flinch in the face of malfunction: the resulting UFEs were, therefore, long (sometimes horribly so), insupportably wide, but rarely in the net.

The latest and most irksome “anti-feature” is to be found in forehands that flop, comatose, at the bottom of the net. This is not the stuff of netcords.

What really irks, is that she often seems to set up well, and even when she’s been off-footed, you kinda just expect her to shunt it wildly away somewhere in the stands: soulless, complacent, ineffectual grunge is simply not her style.

To put it very bluntly, its difficult to see her, in the immediate future, stringing together the requisite 7/7 matches to win a Slam with this degree of entropy in her system – she’s just as likely to oust Kim as she is to be ousted by a Virginie Razzano (I pledged to pick whoever I found ranked at #100, honest).

Which kinda makes you marvel all the more at what she achieved in these last two events. 

Miami: Mens Final

The world can sometimes seem irritatingly divided into two groups: the overwhelmingly hormonal, and the irritatingly pedantic. Most of us sit somewhere in the middle. In so far as I fit into any of the two, it would be the latter.

I’m a stickler for form, procedure and detail. I don’t say that with any type of pride – but then I’m not ashamed of it either.

So when most were busy (rightfully) basking in the dizzying, rarefied heights of the last set of the Miami mens final, I was having, what most would think of as, an utterly inconsequential soliloquy on why the preceding two sets couldn’t have been even half as good.

Leaving aside the question of my own idiosyncrasies (some of which are best kept to myself), let us just remind ourselves of what was at stake – because, quite honestly, some of us have simply forgotten.

The world’s top two players (indeed, two of the best ever) contesting the final of what some call the “fifth Slam”. One  of them in GOAT contention, who only missed out on the calendar Slam last year by a mere two matches and a physical complaint. The other, the best player on the planet right now, winner of the last Slam, winner of the last 26 matches he’s played.

Call me a stickler, call me a pedant, call me a feckless nutter if you must – but I don’t think I was out of line in demanding something a little more, nor in calling out the first two sets, both of which I felt fell far short of what these two were capable of.




OF COURSE THE WIND WAS A FACTOR.

Question: Have these two not played (well) in wind before? You’d think not given some of the early reactions to the ‘quality’ of the first set.

Isn’t that precisely the kind of impediment they’re supposedly uniquely equipped to overcome? Who, if not the worlds top two players? Who, indeed?

I’m not sure I accept some of the more generous estimates of the role of the wind, but even if we concede the wind rendered conditions largely unplayable, are we to believe all of that suddenly disappeared in the last set? It didn’t.

The somewhat inconvenient answer is that neither Nole nor Rafa were up to scratch. Not initially. Sorry, but there it is. Nole, having not been broken the entire week, was duly broken in his opening game and (third set aside) was as erratic thereafter as he’s been since before his run began. Rafa, listless, lifeless and uncharacteristically restrained (the odd winner aside) had nothing on any of his balls.

Nole picked things up marginally in set two. Rafa, remained largely comatose. All of which is to say, Nole won that 2nd set by simply not letting Rafa get away with the criminal depravity of set one. Nothing more, nothing less. Glad that he did so, but hardly the stuff of epics. Or, for that matter, “the most compelling rivalry in mens tennis”.

 
Set three was what it was – and what it was, was simply spellbinding. But before we all get too carried away consider this: when these two played in Madrid 2009, they produced this quality over the entire three sets. Worth remembering too that neither were the player they are today.

I realise I’m being a pain, I just don’t believe in letting two of the best players ever get away with junk.

Leaving all that aside, Nole’s run is, of course, something quite special. Its not just the IW/Miami double (Fed’s achieved that twice), it’s not even Oz followed by the Miami double (Fed achieved that too) – its actually DC, followed by Oz, followed by the IW/Miami double – and more importantly, going through some of history’s best players to do this.

In the final set tie break (a set that most expected Rafa to win on fight alone, now that he’d raised his game), Nole did something that I’ve only ever seen one other player (guess who) do when Rafa’s been injury free: run Rafa ragged to a degree that left him winded and bent over double in between subsequent points. He would never recover.

Perhaps this wouldn’t have been possible had Rafa played a more tight first couple of sets. That really is neither here nor there. No one, not even Rafa, is capable of playing every set of every match at 99.99%. Its seems a very strange condition to place on him – and worse, to then blame ‘form’ or ‘injury’ when he’s fails to meet that impossibly high grade. Let us, also, please not forget how poorly Nole played set one – coz I sure as hell haven’t.

The streak will come to an end of course – they always do. I’d argue, in any case, that he seemed to have lost his utterly carnal edge in the last few matches he played in Miami. The bigger question, of course, is what’ll remain in place once he does re-enter earth’s atmosphere. If he’s grown as much as I think he has, we won’t be seeing very much of the self-perpetuating despondency that marred his previous lows during late 2008 and 2009.

 

One final point about Rafa: ever since the year began, he’s been susceptible to these  fleeting, utterly inexplicable, emotionally crippling lapses in concentration.

They’d be more understandable if they lasted for most of a match – but they tend to wreak their havoc in  just a single set or part of a set (see IW final, Miami final or Miami QF vs Berd), and as far as I can tell, don’t proceed from any injury.

What’s perhaps more troubling is his own reaction to it. He’s quickly reduced to a panic-stricken, un-Rafa-like shell, which is something we’ve only seen when he’s badly injured.

How this affects him going into the clay court season remains to be seen – personally, I think Nole’s playing well enough to score his first win over Rafa on clay this year anyway.

Miami: The Beginning of the End (BOTE)

Winners post coming up, but I’ve had a multitude of thoughts swirling through my mind since watching Fed go down – oh *so* horribly – to Rafa, which I’m going to try and bring together.




Let me first state what this is not: a rant against the premature write-offs.

I don’t feel the slightest need to rant against that, nor the spectacularly pathological levels of denial some of Fed’s defenders continue to embody: both, I hope you’ll agree, have been done to death – both will continue to perpetuate their self-evident lunacy irrespective of what I or anyone else might have to say

Yet there remains something incredibly galling in hearing the “beginning of the end” eulogies every time Fed suffers a loss like this. What precisely is being insinuated?

Not only is it incredibly boring, it’s also a chronological absurdity: if every loss is the BOTE, then there can’t, by definition, be either a beginning or an end?

But what’s really interesting is this: no one in their right mind seriously disputes that Fed is now in his twilight and/or decline. In so far as we agree on anything, it’s that the BOTE  occurred as far back as two (or even three) years ago (when Fed, by the way, was still winning Slams).

I think there’s something more questionable at work (not nearly as sinister as it is morally dubious): stating the obvious in order to confer legitimacy on the entirely spurious.

It’s a well known device, of course, familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in the rhetoric that surrounds religion and politics – both of which seem to conflate impossibly well in the realm of tennis dogma.



1) You start by stating something entirely reasonable, largely indisputable – something known either by necessity, or well within the prevailing consensus.

"We are in an economic crisis”.
“We are facing an unprecedented terrorist threat”.
“Fed is in decline”.
“The beginning of the end”.

 

2) And then go on to make, either implicitly or explicitly, an inference or extrapolation that, whilst seeming sound and/or innocent enough, simply doesn’t bear any scrutiny whatsoever.

"Deficit reduction, wide-ranging cuts and mass-redundancies is the only way out of the crisis”.
“Saddam has WMDs and is in league with Al-Qaida”. 

“Fed will never win a Slam again”.
“Fed will never beat Rafa or Nole again”.

 

Umm…

The key to selling the deceit (coz that's what it is) lies in pure stealth: in the implicit, entirely insidious suggestion that this secondary inference is either wholly subsumed within, or a necessary consequence of, the original uncontroversial assumption (preferably the former).

Taking  stock of of Fed’s opponents as they relate to his current ‘twilight’:

1) There’s the other big-wigs, most notably Rafa and Nole, both of whom he can continue to score wins against, but both who will, it seems, be beating him more often than he does them.

I’m going to leave the question of surfaces out for now, partly because we all know who excels on what, and partly because there’s a dreadful tendency to read way too much into it. [I don’t have a problem admitting that it must necessarily factor into any analysis, but its getting a bit much when people start pretending that match results are almost exclusively determined by an exotic mathematical function of surface, conditions, altitude, frame size and string tension]

Put simply, Rafa will beat Fed 7 times out of 10 because the match up suits him to a tee. This has nothing in the slightest to do with Fed being “over the hill”. It’s simply a matter of fact that by pummelling Fed’s backhand mercilessly with his monster (lefty) forehand, Rafa can win most of their encounters; rather crucially, he doesn’t even need to be at his best to do execute this “strategy” successfully.

People looking for a headline like to paint this as a sign that the SHB is out of date – the rather inconvenient fact that Fed’s “dated” SHB suppresses 90% of the opposition is routinely ignored. The reason it’s a problem against Rafa is that no one hits a forehand like Rafa. No one has ever hit a forehand like Rafa. EVER.

Nole benefits from no such inherent advantage. Its certainly clear that he can beat Fed soundly having not yet been beamed down from whatever planet he’s playing on right now. Need I remind you that since 2011 began he beat Rafa (twice) and everyone else in such a state too?

But leaving aside the question of when the streak will end and when his level will tail off, it does seem reasonable to think that in the long term, his intensity will give him the upper hand.   

2) The rest of the competition: aside from irregular, sporadic, Godzilla-like appearances from Berd and Sod (Delpo deliberately left out for now for the sake of simplicity as much as anything else), Fed is winning 80-90% of his matches here –dominating, you might say.

Indeed, since the beginning of the year, Fed has only lost to Nole and Rafa and is actually 2nd in the ATP Race (the now discarded measure of performance based strictly on the current year).

Against this backdrop its crucial to ask, what precisely the purpose is of all these constant allusions to the BOTE; else it simply allows loose tongues to define the landscape by filling in the gap with their own spurious inferences.

Do we see him never winning a Slam again? Possibly, though this is by no means certain.

Do we not see him ever beating Rafa or Nole again? Less often perhaps, but never say never. Nole is on an unprecedented high right now, but it won’t last forever – nothing ever does. And I hardly need add, I hope, that he beat Rafa in straights just over four months ago at the WTF.

What then? Do we see him losing to Olivier Rochus? I should think not.

Yet any, or all, of the above might be reasonably inferred on the basis of the BOTE – depending on how (maliciously) open-ended you leave things, you can argue pretty much anything you want.

My own view is he will continue to suffer losses against those top two (most though not all of the time) whilst still dominating 80-90% of the competition.

Whether or not he’s still winning them, he’ll remain in contention of winning every event he enters until the day he quits.

 

That would allow him to retire (whenever he chooses) comfortably ensconced in the top ten or top five at some point in the future.

All of this may seem obvious, but say “beginning of the end” (or hear it being invoked) enough times and it begins to insidiously redefine your perspective like some mind-warping spell spun by Lord Voldemort.

I’m not nearly convinced that something so very different is at work here.

Miami: Noticeboard

 

 

Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Rafa	Fed	Fish	Nole

Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Petko	Pova	Bepa	Vika

LEGEND
Top Guns

Young'n Restless
HotStuff
Sympathy Vote

Q. She said that one of the things that makes you such a good champion is that you sense right away a weakness in the other player and basically you jump on that. She said that she felt that you sensed she was hesitating, whatever. Can you talk about that?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Well, to be honest, I felt like I was just making a lot errors in the first set and I wasn’t moving my feet at all. And especially with the wind I wasn’t moving towards the ball and letting the ball come to me and not really being aggressive. That’s what’s won me so many matches in my career is when I step in and I hit my strokes and they come deep. I just wasn’t doing that

So first and foremost I felt like I had to start doing that and making little steps and adjusting my game a little bit. More than anything, I sensed that she was tired probably a lot of the dancing that she’s been doing and I took advantage of it.
Q. She thought you would be tired in the third after the long match you had the previous night. Didn’t seem to be that way.
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Because I didn’t do the dance after. I wasn’t tired.

Ummm…

To be perfectly honest, I’m kinda glad Pova called this out. Not because the dance is meant to offend (it isn’t), not because Petko is anything other than an immensely likeable, intelligent soul – but because it showed, in very clear terms, that not everyone (least of all Petko’s opponents) is as hopelessly enamoured with it as is generally being suggested.

Nor should they be required to be.

Miami: The strange, intangible, utterly befuddling notion of ‘Loyalty’

Nadal d. Berdych 6-2, 3-6, 6-3

My favourite Rafa pic until further notice.

It’s been a long time since I’ve rooted for Rafa so strongly. If anything I’m more interested in what Berd can make of the talent he only now seems to realise he has. But when you’re watching a match with players you’re largely uninvested in, something strange often happens.

Ever so gently, almost without you knowing it, the forces of loyalty begin to take shape, coiling themselves surreptitiously around you, manipulating your emotions and senses on almost every level.

How this happens remains largely a mystery - don’t get taken in by anyone that claims to know how it works. What is indisputable, is that by the end of it you’re rooting for one of the two players like your life depended on it.

That’s where I was early on in the final set.

Rafa started off well. Very well. Berd wasn’t playing badly but simply wasn’t allowed to settle. Then in set two, almost as inexplicably as Petko vs Pova at the same position, it all started to go horribly awry.



A neck/shoulder problem turned out (apparently) to be at the bottom of it – with Rafa receiving treatment during several of the subsequent changeovers.

My own feeling (he says authoritatively) is that the injury (assuming we can call it that) was less of a problem than Rafa’s own reaction to it – an electrifying anxiety that seemed to be born as much of appreciating the very real threat posed by Berd, as in being unable (perhaps by the shoulder) to respond in the way he would have liked.

In so far as the neck/shoulder was a problem at all, it it seemed to be in the way it elicited that crazy crippling anxiety in him – it all but caused him to seize up, in a manner not dissimilar to the way Petko did vs Pova.

All very “chicken and egg”, all remarkably presumptuous of me I know, but there it is.

However wavering and indeterminate my loyalty was at this point, what happened at the beginning of the third set decided firmly in Rafa’s favour: down 0-40 on his serve, and lacking all confidence in a way I’ve not seen in over a year, he pulled out three of the biggest serves you might ever see – it was all rather reminiscent of the USO last year (when Rafas newly unveiled serve was arguably the story of the event), except that this time it was arguably his opponent that had the upper hand, and it was Rafa the one struggling with confidence (and, as it seems, injury).

And that, further underscoring everything we’ve seen from Pova this week, is what Champions do.




Berd looked befuddled and bruised. He continued, to his credit, to play as well as he had been to this point (arguably as well as during his best moments at Wimbledon last year), but the little burst of energy and belief that induced in Rafa proved to be all that was required to get the break and close it out 6-2, 3-6, 6-3  - all, interestingly, with that same jarring blend of big serving and dicey, sub-par groundies.

There’s not, frankly, more than about 3 (or at most 4) players – male or female – that could have turned the match around playing as atrociously as Rafa was yesterday or Pova the day before.

We’ve still a few matches to go, but if there’s a theme emerging in Miami, it’s one of ‘true grit’ – which, contrary to prevailing, overwhelmingly hormonal opinion, only really comes into its own when the truly great one is stripped of precisely those dazzling assets that actually only appear to make them great.

Miami: ‘True Grit’

 
MATCH OF THE WEEK. YEAAAAAH, I SAID IT.

And please don’t bore me by stating the ear-bleedingly obvious, that whilst full of ‘drama’ and ‘spirit’ the match was pretty shoddy in terms of quality and the preponderance of UFEs.

I’m well aware of that: Pova hit 76 UFEs. Her serve was predictably senile, but perhaps most shockingly, her forehand calcified disturbingly enough to make the most routine of strokes a major logistical exercise – furiously struck balls that would once sail long/wide now barely reaching the net. And it seems to be happening more and more.

As an exhibition of execution and technique it was simply criminal. A shoddy, garish abomination.

But the fact that Pova fought through on spirit and spirit alone, in spite of her uncooperative, beleaguered toolset, in spite of her ankle injury, against her very able opponent, and (let us please not forget) at 3hrs and 28 mins, against the limits of her own endurance, make this something very special.


 
To argue that the quality wasn’t there is to SPECTACULARLY miss the point: like arguing about the intricacies of Atomic Physics under the shadow of an incoming Nuclear Bomb.

We can all ooh and aah at Nole inflicting a flawless, clinical beatdown on his fellow Serb. We can admire the technique, the efficiency,  the fluency – attributes which acquire even more greatness when they are on show against the very best. As they were against Federer in the USO semis last year or against Nadal in Madrid 09. All spiritually exhilarating matches more akin to an “experience”.

Then there’s the flipside: and it’s equally if not more spiritually exhilarating. Where a competitor finds a way to win based on little more than inner resolve. If there’s a  gene for ‘true grit’, then it’s one Pova has in spades and perhaps only shares with Rafa and Serena.


 
As for Dulgheru, I’ll be the first to admit I’d not seen her play before – though after last night, that “least known player in the top 30” tag should, if we have any sense of decency at all, be torn to shreds and not spoken about in polite company ever again.

To say she acquitted herself doesn’t even come close. It’s true Pova wasn’t striking with the fluency she once had – most of her shots were rather desperate winners, UFEs or low pace balls sent confusingly and pointlessly straight down the middle – but Dulgheru did succeed in moving Pova around in a way Sam Stosur entirely failed to.

She forced Pova to play for as long as she did. She also defended immaculately well and, when it was all over, was utterly gracious in defeat. What’s not to like?

There were reports circulating on twitter this morning of how Dulgheru was barely mentioned in the commentary, so intense was the sense of adulation surrounding Pova.

This is no longer a surprise to me – I actually assume it to be the default form of “tribal” behaviour exhibited by certain media outlets. 

Let us not forget that Bartoli only last week went through the very same in her match against Caro. Neither Pova, nor Caro, are to blame, of course.

Unfortunately, and however resigned you may be to it, it still grates.

Whatever you may think about both players, whatever your sympathies may be with a former Slam-winning world #1 on the comeback, its’ simply good form and good manners, is it not, to give both players their due? And not just when they put on the soul-stirring show BOTH Pova and Dulgheru did last night. It’s even possible (believe it or not) to do this whilst retaining loyalty with your fave.

When fans are unable to do this, it grates, but you kinda indulge it. When the media behaves this way, it’s simply inexcusable.

I, for one, will be keeping an eye on Miss Dulgheru from this point on. She deserves nothing less.

Petko for Pova next, who battled past JJ with the same brand of feistiness and angular aggression that put paid to the Woz.

Pova can’t have anything left in the tank (and that’s assuming her ankle even lets her move). I think Petko’s gonna make her first Premier-Mandatory final – that’s what I think.

And then, who knows what?

(Pics: Getty)

Miami: Heartbreak

 

Clijsters d. Ivanovic 7-6(4) 3-6 7-6(5)

If you can’t win a match at 5-1 0-40 up in the final set, however well your opponent suddenly, mysteriously begins to play, you choked. Plain and simple.

And not ALL the kind, fanciful spin in the world will change that.

That said, and I’m not a great fan of either player, but you need help if you can’t conjure up even the pretence of sympathy.

Miami: News and Views

 

1) Murray has officially parted ways with Corretja and is, one assumes, on the look out for a new coach. “Open to new opportunities”, or however it’s being framed. 


 
Lendl’s name has been in the mix for a few days. Some of the reaction to this has been as outrageous as it is predictable, with SKY viewers yesterday emailing alternatives ranging from JMac to Martina Navratilova to Maclaghan again…

No one explicitly dissed Lendl, but it’s very clear who they DON’T want.

Never mind that none of those other suggestions have put themselves forward.

Never mind that Lendl is an 8 time Slam winning former world #1 who might, you know, know a little something about success on tour.

I’m not saying it struck me as the obvious choice either (both are strong willed, though that might be EXACTLY what Murray needs), but it seems to me it ought at least to be tried before being so routinely dismissed.  Stranger things have happened.

My own somewhat cynical suspicion is that a legacy of dislike continues to pervade Lendl’s public persona – he certainly wasn’t out to win any popularity contests during his career. I’m still waiting to hear why that should have ANY bearing on his suitability as a coach.

Whatever the case, the truth is Muzz very likely represents GB’s best chance of winning a Slam for many years to come. Perhaps even decades. I hardly need to remind you that the next highest ranked Brit is James Ward at #213 – and this is actually better than things have ever been.

To be blunt about it, beggars can’t be choosy. And you could do a LOT worse than Lendl. Let us hope he doesn’t reconsider.

2) A few further things need to be said about Petko’s win over Caro. 


The first is that however well Petko played (and don’t let anyone tell you she didn’t), she simply wasn’t facing the Caro that has dominated the tour outside of the Slams, and that people so enjoy poking fun at.

Anyone that claims otherwise needs to explain away the whopping 52 UFEs from Caro that equates to over a hundred from anyone else. Good luck with that.

The second, is that this is a relatively new experience for Caro and one from which she’ll likely benefit. It brought home in the most stark way imaginable that she might be just as prone as any other top player to a bad day at the office.

I doubt it’ll cause her to substantially alter her game, but if it results in a few new wrinkles it will have been worth the pain.

The third, is that this anguish resulted in the emergence of a new shouty, screechy Caro that I’ve actually become rather fond of.

I doubt she’ll be around very much. Yesterday is likely to remain her finest “big screen” moment – expect her to fade away into a less-distinguished daytime TV career.

And finally, I’m still not a fan of Petko. Not at least in the way some people are. (I’m not wholly convinced by her game either – but there’s still time to improve upon that)

 

I realise that puts me very much in the minority. Fine by me.

I’ll certainly concede that she’s #goodfortennis, though I’ll hope you’ll give me leave not to succumb to the hopeless strain of infatuation that lead to en-masse Petko mini-raves after her win yesterday.

Word soon after was that she’s “bored” of the Petko dance and is looking for a new “thing”.  I was bored of it too – and pretty soon after the initial novelty wore off. She seems to me to be talented enough and charismatic enough to be above gimmicks like that.

And as far as a new “thing” is concerned, here’s a somewhat wacky idea: her new thing could be, you know, not having one.

 

3) Delpo’s 63 62 win over Sod was perhaps the greatest sign yet that he’s steadily progressing towards the top ten if not the top five in the not too distant future. You could infer all of that on the basis of the serve alone. It was also the most beleaguered form of underperformance I’ve seen from Sod in a long time. 


I’ve seen Sod play badly before: I’ve seen him thrown off balance, having trouble with the elements, and leaking UFEs of nearly every shade. I’ve not, however, seen him shank this many balls in a single match – say what you will about him, but that’s just not his style.

At the end of the match the stats showed that both men hit only 18 winners apiece. Two of the heaviest ball strikers of this generation only managed to conjure up 36 winners between them.

That tells me Delpo, despite being in his element, felt he didn’t need to hit many winners. And that Sod simply couldn’t.

None of this is to suggest that Delpo isn’t progressing entirely steadily and appropriately – it just could have been a very different match.

4) Pova’s win over Sam said more to me about where Sam is than it did about Pova.

Like Delpo, Pova got through doing exactly what she needed to, and not an iota more. Why would she?

The serve is still not under control, but really, neither was Sam’s. More worryingly, she wasn’t able to convincingly get Pova off balance the way her game is custom built to. and to which Pova is uniquely vulnerable to.

When she did manage to, it all had a laboured feel to it that speaks to me of a player struggling to cope.

And that kick serve we’re all so fond of musing over? The stats showed that Sam served only marginally better than Pova. That’s not a comparison anyone should be flattered by. 



 

Miami: 52 = 100

These things happen. Even to the best of us. Or, you know, the most consistent of us.

I daresay it might even benefit her in the long time.

I really hope all those Neanderthals that pretend EVERY win by Caro is a case of her opponents’ capitulating, are as vociferous today about her errors.

52 UFEs from someone as passive as her equates with at least 100 from anyone else. That’s, like, a LOT to merely “explain way”.

Great win for Petko, but anyone pretending that Caro wasn’t struggling, perhaps as badly as she ever has, needs to be punched in the face. Repeatedly.

Miami: On Anarchy and Perspective

Murray routed in straights. He’s 0-9 sets since the final of Oz. 



 
This is no longer a slump. He’s practically comatose.

“He needs to snap out of it.”

“He needs a coach.”

”He needs to be slapped about the chops with a wet (Omega-3 rich) halibut.”

We get it.

Expect a slew of smug, utterly irritating, self-satisfied, vindictive screeds, some not even bothering to masquerade as “commentary”, on how he might never win a Slam. On how he’s toast. On how this would never happen to <insert fanboy fave>.

I’m not denying that it’s all oppressively bleak right now. It just seems to me we’ve seen worse, from bigger and better players than Murray.

For all we know he might even look back upon this one day as a necessary dip. I’ve seen it happen before.

A little perspective wouldn’t go amiss.

 

”Call me ‘Bogie’ one more time…”

Meanwhile GGL and Dasco’s departure  (in addition to Kolya and TooMuch yesterday) has effectively killed the top section of Nole’s draw and rendered his entire quarter positively plebeian.

Did I mention Stan went down to Granola in three?

Or that Boy Wonders, Harrison and Milos bit the dust (as did Grigor AND Berankis AND Sock)? Boy bands must suck in Miami.

And the crazies don’t end there.

Maka slew Kleybanova – actually that’s not crazy. [In fact I gotta ask: how many of these “upsets” will Maka have to pull for us to concede they might not be, ya know, upsets?]

Even both of Robin and Marion had to go three sets to secure their openers.

So when Dinara snagged a set from Bepa it somehow didn’t seem so anarchical amidst what was otherwise absolute anarchy.

Whatever. See if I care. 



JAMES BLAKE KNOCKED OUT THE 27TH SEED, PEOPLE.

James Blake: Who can barely put two matches together for as far back as I can now remember.

A little perspective, if you please.




I doubt it amounts to much seeing as he’s playing Nole next.

But God help you, if you can’t find it within yourself to celebrate (or at least look fondly upon) this.

Your soul’s depravity clearly knows no bounds.

And the angels will WEEP for you.

(Pics: Getty)

Miami: Fashionably Late Roundup

I didn’t have time to chalk up much of what happened in the latter stages of the men’s event in Miami – hence the distinct lack of coverage of some quite jarring results. Belated apologies.

-- Andy Roddick is back in the big time after a lengthy four years out of the (Masters) winners circle. Did he overcome Berdych with what many are so keen to characterise as smart tennis? Almost certainly, though I would say that the intelligence that saw him frustrate Berdych into submission with a one hundred and three minute “you-say-I-say” pushathon, or down Rafa with a flurry of inside-out forehands and serve-volleying that turned the tide of the match, was born of the experience and wisdom one must surely accrue after spending the best part of a decade in the top ten.

Randy’s critics will tell you that this top ten status has been born both of hard graft and a big serve in equal measure. His more fruitful recent endeavours meanwhile result largely from his association with Larry Stefanki.

The former may sound both harsh and reductive but is certainly true of his earlier years – the latter, whilst true in part, fails to take account of the maturity and depth of experience one realises as a result of spending so long on the front line of tennis.

Stefanki’s been instrumental, having had at times, an almost mystically curative and ennobling effect on his game – though it would appear to me to be wantonly obtuse to insist that he had little or no raw ingredients to work with.

It’d be wrong to get drawn into speculating as to the degree this win will empower him at the Slams – though I will say I quite fancy his chances against any top five player not named Federer.

-- Tomas Berdych did what so many of us friends, family and fans of tennis alike were hoping and praying he might, by following up on that fine win over Federer in R4 – for that alone he deserves a pat on the back (thought it might be more appropriate if someone with bigger hands than my own were to give it to him – John Isner anyone?).

But it’s more than that isn’t it. For there were plenty of moments subsequent to that win where he might have faltered into the obsolescence that usually mars his most breathtaking performances at the most critical junctures.

He saved that pivotal match point against Federer that left him with a wry smile and his tongue hanging out, an expression he chose to wear for a further thirty seconds or so, as he took it all in: he was in his element and was enjoying every minute of it.

And that’s the quality that stood out for me most, one he’s been scandalously devoid of in the past. Fans have been unable to warm up to the sometimes spectacular but no less spectacularly po-faced Tomas precisely because of how little of himself he was able to share – when he did choose to, it was with all the schmuck-like timing and (mis)calculation that saw him shush a Spanish crowd after overcoming Rafa in a heated encounter some years back – earning the further ire of an already fuming crowd and a reprimand at the net from the big man himself (“Very bad Tomas”).

An assessment with which I can only concur. Bad, Bad, NAUGHTY Tomas.

But when he saved those two match points opposite Roddick in the final last weekend – it all came together for me and seemingly for Tomas (there were never very many doubts about the relative completeness of his game even if the movement sometimes continues to disappoint). For he was able to to do so with such a calm (almost friendly) matter-of-factness, that I don’t even think it mattered to him very much that he went on to lose the match. For all intents and purposes, the battle raging inside of him over the last four years already appeared to have been won.

I don’t believe that a top ten position is immediately warranted, or his by birthright of the immense talent he’s still not in complete control of, and which has taken so long to flower. But I do depend now (as I once never did) on viewing him as a more secure and worthy top twenty presence.

-- Rafa? Troubling though curiously hopeful times, no?

On the face of it, two consecutive Masters semis ain’t half bad, and he’d entered the one in Miami in particular having played his best tennis of the last 11 months.

Against Jo-Willy he seemed to be putting a conscious line under all the unwholesome discrepancies since Rome of last year – a match that was everything the Big Rob/Gonzo blowout had promised to be.

That he should fall from those highs to the errors and uncharacteristic testiness that marred the second half of his semi final against A-Rod has to be of some concern to his camp.

There’s even speculation from some quarters of the Spanish media that his knee is at it again. He was certainly very upbeat about it in his presser. (Uncle Toni has indeed confirmed problems in his left knee.)

If we were to base our assessment on the totality of the last few months, rather than that one fuming shot of him flinging down that towel, we would have to conclude that he is apparently within spitting distance of his best - yet still held back by the faintest of aftershocks that must accompany any extended downturn – not that different to where I’d say Federer was at 12 months ago.

Fortunately for him, the clay season is upon us – for fans and critics alike, I’d say it’s put up or shut up time.

Greg Rusedski has Rafa rebounding convincingly on his favourite surface and going on to win the French Open. You’d like to think, for the sake of world serenity, that it’ll be as easy as that.

It sure as hell won’t make pleasant reading if he goes out of Monte Carlo (or Barcelona, or indeed Rome) early.

-- Big Rob? Disappointing. MUCH.

Not ready to talk about it. Not just yet.

I was willing to forgive him that lapse he suffered against Roddick in IW (very much “the one that got away”), but the bombsite he turned his match against Berdych into here, reeks of impertinence of the highest order.

Go away. And take your laundry with you.

(Photos: Getty, AFP)

Miami: Cringe.

Perhaps the only valuable observation after the debacle that was this final came from Serena on her twitter feed.

serenajwilliams @venuseswilliams is such a champ if I were playing I would have cracked 5 rackets by now!!Wow she's to be admired and I can learn from her!!

She had been following Venus’s matches courtside all week long – I almost wish she did crack something from the sidelines.

Venus was taped up quite heavily – though how much that had to do with what transpired on court remains up for debate – my own feeling is it was simply one of those days.

It’s not as if this just crept up on us either: I barely managed to suppress the urge to cringe when I kept hearing of how her match against Bartoli was amongst her best performances of the week. Really?

Set two certainly, but it seems to me there were very many apparent holes in Venus’s game during the opener and that Bartoli played it with such a telling lack of conviction, it somehow seemed apt when she served four double faults in a single game.

Clijsters d. Williams 6-2 6-1

Kimmie deserves full credit for seeing things through against a struggling opponent, a win that will see her enter the top ten on Monday. Congratulations – it was only a matter of time.

Though I hope you’ll understand why I can’t claim to have seen her either “crush” or “thrash” Venus – it seems to me V already did that to herself.

Oh there'll be cringing alright.

(Photo: Reuters)

Miami: “Forehand Vulgaris”

The funny thing is I didn’t expect this one to be as “off the charts” or “lights out” as it was being bigged up to be.

Kimmie had come into the match the more stable and confident of the two – there was simply no reason not to expect her to come through in (possibly) three well-fought sets.

In the end it was something less agreeable – overwrought, taxing, way too long and at times headed nowhere. Kimmie displayed the squeaky clean shotmaking that’s been a hallmark of her return for one half, and played the other like like it was 2004 all over again.

She may well have pipped Justine to the post but it was arguably JuJu’s forehand that was the bigger story of her undoing.

Justine has (almost since the very beginning of her second coming) taken it upon herself not just to upgrade that serve of hers, but to thwack several shades of felt off anything that comes her way.

She’s clearly comfortable enough in her skin doing this – even on the very precipice of defeat. How this squares up with that well publicised intent of hers to win Wimbledon remains to be seen.

But If JuJu has seen fit to rip the cover off every return sent her way, then she’ll have to be prepared to live with the consequences of her debauchery.

In the short term it’s led to the conception of forehand-vulgaris.

Forehand-vulgaris is the miserable lovechild Justine might rather sooner forget about, the unfortunate issue of a bold, but dangerous liaison with Big-Babe Tennis.

Forehand-vulgaris usually picks it’s moments to inflict maximum damage – unravelling JuJu's game at the moments she should be most in control - just like the forgotten lovechild it is might noisily turn up uninvited at the charity ball of an exclusive country club, intent on undermining Juju’s carefully cultivated image of respectability.

What are the chances it shows up at the Wimbledon final?

(Photo by Michael Heiman/Getty Images)

Miami: Freud, Pestilence and a Universal Theory of Everything

Canas-Canas-Fish-Roddick-Murray-Djoko-Baggy-Berdych….?

Fed’s season of pestilence is upon us once more.

Berdych d. Federer 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 7-6 (8-6)

Whatever spores have given rise to Fed’s inexplicable and at times unnerving results at IW/Miami over the past four years are in full bloom again.

It can be both spiritually satisfying and comforting to our analytical fibre to have it all explained to us – a theory both simple and elegant that in a single sweep, ties up all those loose ends and affords us a rational basis for what is ultimately conjecture.

Not that different perhaps to Scientists’ uncompromising quest for a Universal Theory of Everything.

Reading through some of the post-match commentary however, I was reminded of a quote from an article I’d read earlier this week on Freud’s attempts at capturing something of Da Vinci’s mystique:

His [Freud] famous book on Leonardo da Vinci is anything but conservative. Making bold claims about Leonardo's sexuality, personality and the way works of art relate to real life, his book on this Renaissance genius is hugely suggestive and stimulating. It's one of the classics on Leonardo and always will be.

But what is wrong with it is the belief that art can ultimately be theorised and explained. It's not that Freud gets the artist wrong – his essential claims are convincing, his characterisation of the genius's indecisive and gentle personality acute – but that the quest for ultimate origins and final explanations seems futile.

-- Jonathan Jones, The Guardian

There is of course little wrong with seeking to understand the nature of Fed’s losses in terms of an all-encompassing and poetic theory that would appear to follow on from the natural fabric of tennis reality – I should say such an impulse is as innate to the human psyche as anything else Freud might have attributed to it.

Needless to say it’s also both proper and befitting to seek out an altogether more rudimentary explanation to the apparent rot that’s set in to his results at IW/Miami – events he’s won thrice and twice in succession respectively.

But can we really hope to capture the totality of what drives the man and the tennis within him - and frame it in one (admittedly pithy) sentiment?

Not all theories on the workings of the universe are nearly as elegant and concise as popular science would have you believe.

Some are several pages long, born of excessive shoe-horning and still only an approximation of our partial understanding of the forces and matter that surround us – the provenance of Epistemology rather than any exacting science.

Not that dissimilar I think, to what we’ve seen with Federer over the past four years.

1. The Guillermo Double Whammy (2007)

Not a South American Tag Team Wrestling move, but the first signs perhaps that all was not well in Camp TMF – at least not when he’s nursing doubts.

It’s worthy of our consideration I think, that this defeat followed a period widely acknowledged as an all time high in respect of his form– a period that began at the back end of 2006 and carried through to Oz in early 2007.

Was there perhaps the faintest awareness of the apparent implausibility of being able to maintain those unprecedented highs?

If there were any insecurities, then the backboard that is Canas was just the man to tease them out.

2. The All-American Beatdown (2008)

Clearly in a funk for the best part of the year – and then some. I’m almost indifferent now to the question of how much mono had to do with this - attempting to rationalise those losses to Fish and Roddick strikes me as about as meaningful as a treatise on the efficacy of Gordon Brown’s hair products.

An absolute horror of a year that would see further losses to Simon, Karlovic and Blake.

3. Racquet-Gate (2009)

More complex this one.

There was certainly something of a hangover from the absolute lows of 2008 and that loss he suffered to Nadal in Oz was, as we all now know, “killing him”.

Fertile grounds for the seed of self doubt.

4. 2010???

Inclined to agree with the Picket Fence thesis that he’s having a problem with motivation and conserving momentum in particular – to what end indeed, is momentum to be conserved if it’s not leading up to anything other than the start of the clay court season?

A thesis that assumes even more weight when viewed under the lens of Fed’s post-sixteen agenda.

The common denominator in all these cases is the absence of a common denominator – certainly not enough raw ingredients to begin conceiving a Universal Theory of Everything.

He’s not won Canada in three years either, with the losses incurred to Simon (2008) and Tsonga (2009) not substantially different to anything we’ve seen here - are we to assume the air is stale there too?

The match itself, aside from the second set, was another tawdry affair, with Fed just two points from going out in straight sets and unable to make good on a match point of his own in the third.

Nobody’s gladder than I am that Berdych put right whatever’s been holding him back these past five(?) years (even if it is only for a couple of matches) – but only those with a vested interest in seeing Federer lose would try and pretend he was at the races – or anywhere near the ticket booth in fact.

Perhaps the most revealing viewpoint came from the man himself:

“Look, it's no secret I've struggled the last, what is it, five matches I've played here in the States.

…

“But I fought as much as I could under the circumstances with my game having issues at the moment. Definitely lack timing. I don't know where that comes from, because I played so nicely in Australia.

…

“It (losing) fuels my desire to go to the practice courts, because I don’t like to lose these type of matches”

-- Tennis.com

Push come to shove I’d say the lengthy gap he’s been taking in between Oz and IW over the past two years has something to do with it, but really, “I dunno where it comes from” either.

(Photos: Al Bello/Getty Images and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Wilfredo Lee)

Miami: “Lose” Cannon.

(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

Soderling d. Gonzalez 6-0 6-7 6-2

Bit disappointed with this one. For a match that threatened to bring the house down in no uncertain terms, it was all strangely subdued and anything but certain – from Gonzo at least.

You could argue Big Rob didn’t allow him to settle into any kind of rhythm - to which I say he shouldn’t have to.

Whatever else you might say about The Gonz, he’s not generally known as a shrinking violet. It’s unqualified folly to speculate on what might have been, but had he displayed even half the intent shown in set two throughout the match, we might at least have had one.

I never thought I’d hear myself saying this, but for one night only, Gonzo’s cannons weren’t loose enough.

Nadal d. Ferrer 7-6(5) 6-4

A hugely visceral and entertaining match made much more so by how scrappy both players allowed things to get.

Ferrer didn’t convert the chances he got in the first set, and Rafa didn’t appear anywhere near as penetrating or assured as he was in IW.

I don’t like it – it doesn’t bode well for Rafa to have this much trouble against someone he has an 8-2 H2H against.

(Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Tsonga d. Ferrero 6-2 6-2

Quite possibly the best performance from anyone this week. I know he was “only” playing Ferrero, but it’s not often you see him bring it together so confidently – heads tend to roll when he does.

There were points during this match where it appeared he could do no wrong. We’re all acutely aware however, of just how much wrong he’s capable of.

Still spells trouble for Rafa.

Miami: Hand-Me-Downs and French Effervescence

V. Williams d. Hantuchova 1-6 7-5 6-4

A match in which we saw the worst (set one) and (in the second half of the final set) the best of Venus Williams.

The match reports I’ve read suggest V turned it around in set two – well of course she did, else she wouldn’t have won it silly.

Don’t let’s pretend however that she applied (or was even capable of applying) the stranglehold until well into the business end of that final set. Before that it was spotty and at times potty, to say the least.

Dani seems to have effected something of a turnaround since the last time I saw her – and that was quite a long time ago. I didn’t enjoy watching her when she was a top tenner: neither a herd of wild horses nor a string of more demure Shetland Ponies will likely induce me now.

Still, she did manage to impress me a little with what she achieved out there – trouble is, you get the feeling what was achieved was likely on the back of some horrendous hand-me-downs from Venus and a Krajan-like spell Mr Cahill tried to cast on Dani during the changeover.

In vain, as it turned out.

Venus up one set against Aggy as we speak – give me one good reason why this should not be over in straights. I can give you three.

Federer d. Serra 76 76

Not a great day at the office for TMF either.

It wasn’t quite Long-Shanks, though not all of those forehands were what you’d call clean strikes, and the serving was really quite sketchy.

His focus however was also compromised by a Frenchman with a disposition so effervescent it made you want to crack open the bubbly.

Serra was quite simply the antithesis of everything I find objectionable about French tennis on a bad day (of which there are many) with his uncompromising intent to remain rooted on the baseline and let rip even in the face of an all-encompassing adversity- not that different actually from Simon Greul.

Que Serra Serra?

***

Clijsters d. Azarenka 6-4 6-0

A letdown.

That said, it surprises me not that Kimmie won. She seems to me to be uniquely placed to expose Vika’s poor movement and inability to play big budget tennis without the one commodity Kimmie seemed adamant to deprive her of – time.

Henin d. Zvonareva 6-1 6-4

The match that would appear to suggest that IW really was a blip.

Photos: Getty