“Sun is Energy”, remember? Turns out it’s also plain hot.

 

It’s that ‘pit-sniffing’ forehand again.

 

 

“The heat here is important,” Nadal said. “It’s not easy to play here.”

 

You know it’s been bad when “the solar-powered one” declares it unfit for purpose.

 

He wasn’t the only one.

 

“The conditions are tough here,” Murray said. “I’ve played seven matches in nine days, and every one was between noon and 3 o’clock, when it’s warmest. I think anybody would be feeling (tired) in my position.”

 

Both toughed out three setters over Ernie and Benneteau respectively.

 

It wasn’t USO winning form. Few expected it to be.

 

Benneteau, in particular, seemed set to repeat the kind of upset he pulled off in Paris against Fed last year – ya know, when he turns into that nutter at the net.

 

Unfortunately, in doing so, he also succumbed to a bout of muscle cramp allowing Rafa to meekly close it out 5-7 7-6 6-2.

 

Djoko had what, perhaps on paper, seems the easier 6-1 7-6 win over Daveed.

 

Anything but, as it turns out: as has been the case all too often recently, he found a way of making things more difficult for himself and when he did finally make  his victory wave, did so looking scrawnier than usual and with his eyes bulging out a little more than usual.

 

Heat? Clearly not an issue.

 

Roddick won over Sod in three, but not before being dragged kicking and screaming into a 2nd set tie break, in which he blew match point and then went all “fire and brimstone” on the ump for allowing Sod to challenge what he presumably thought was well outside the scope of time allowed either by the rulebook or umpire’s discretion (also, funnily enough, part of the rulebook).

 

Roddick’s version of events:

 

 

 

Discretion: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it….

 

Love you Andy, but a piece of string is as long as discretion says it is.

 

Robin didn’t hear the call and the ump obviously exercised discretion in allowing him to challenge once he had realised the true score.

 

It’s the very same discretion that allows Rafa to habitually creep over the unofficial 25 secs allotted to complete your serve.

 

In either case, no malice is involved and so, well, it should be ok.

 

It was very close, but ARod would likely have gone on to lose that set anyway: Sod seemed to have picked up his game and was crunching those groundies in the way only he can. He saved match point by finishing at the net – do we need further proof he was in the zone?

 

It’s become increasingly difficult to stomach the patronising way in which Roddick takes aim at officials: it’s both insulting and counterproductive – berating an ump with poor English about his communication skills makes for a far uglier spectacle.

 

In other news Brad Gilbert almost got arrested by a rentacop and was practically frogmarched out, after demanding access to the locker room on the back of his “former champ” status:

 

 

 

 

“Commentating Ugly”. Look out for the forthcoming book.

 

Why is it that all the best shit seems to go down when I’m tucked up in bed dreaming about jellybeans?

 

When TopSpin’s away, the mice will play…

Moratorium

 

 

Djokovic d. Bennetau 7-5, 7-5 (Just)

 

Not funny.

 

"It was obvious that on the court I wasn't feeling the best, but I [overcame] it," he said.
Djokovic described the problem as "nothing unusual, just little heat issues that I have," but added, "I will never ever risk my health just to win. Today I was really on the edge."

-- tennis.com

 

Alright, I’ll admit there was a time when he was both an irritating prick and a bit of a drama-king. Quite a bit of one in fact.

 

It’s one thing taking the occasional jab at his fitness: he’s likely made his peace with his health issues being the butt of jokes until well after his career’s over.

 

It’s also true that his breathing problems are very real and date back to before 2005, something he had nasal surgery to help with.

 

It can’t be helpful knowing you must either push your health to it’s limits or else risk the ire of a merciless tennis media waiting to pounce with it’s agenda.

 

What we have now is a player who’s ditched the sillies (arguably what gave him his edge) yet continues to struggle with what almost, now, seems a chronic condition and, as David Laws would have it, almost seems resigned to it.

 

Man Down = Stop Kicking.

 

Again.

“Everybody was Kung-Fu FIghting”

 

My fondness for the tennis on offer in July lies only marginally above my fondness for Steven Segal movies and considerably lower than Andy Roddick’s fondness for clay. Which probably means I should be making more of an effort.

 

Point taken.

 

» France d. Spain 5-0

 

Love it or loath it, Davis Cup has an indisputable knack for bringing the best from talent that should, but doesn’t always quite, cut it at tour level - preferably at home, preferably coming back from a set down and preferably in front of hundreds of face-painted hopefuls wielding breadstick-balloons.

 

Conspire to arrange all of that, and you’ll find them transformed into something altogether more formidable.

 

reuters

 

Whenever I talk about La Monf, I end up lamenting how his remarkable shotmaking ability is only outdone  by his very French insistence on squandering his talent and life away behind the baseline playing, what amounts to, clay-court tennis.

 

He was joined by Llodra, Bennetau and a Gilles Simon on the comeback from injury. No shortage of talent, but hardly a bastion of dependability.

 

And yet Spain somehow came away without a single rubber to their name - not even a dead one – and quite possibly scarred for life.

 

LaMonf’s shotmaking sticks out.  Dasco going down in four to Llodra sticks out. As does Simons straight sets win over Almagro.

 

As, indeed, does Bandian’s electrifying performance against Russia over in Moscow.

 

Very romantic.

 

But it’s a familiar old Davis Cup “picture of imperfection”, is it not?

 

You need talent to succeed at DC, which is after all a tennis tournament like any other. But you feel it’s precisely this grizzled, vulnerable, intensely patriotic and, dare I say it, French sort of talent that’s so perfectly attuned to doing well here.

 

Nadal and Federer may leave us in awe, but they ain’t got nothing on that.

 

Argentina d. Russia 3-2

Serbia d. Croatia 4-1

Czech Rep. d. Chile 4-1

 

» World Cup: Spain d. Netherlands 1-0

 

After winning the Channel Slam and securing the #1 ranking until, quite probably, the end of the year, do we really want to see Rafa playing DC?

 

Or do we want to see the dork dressed like this:

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t the only one to predict he’d do this:

 

 

 getty

 

My Precioussss……

 

 

 

 

Alright. I’ll admit it wasn’t the most cleanly contested final Holland have ever played. It certainly wasn’t “Total Football”, unless that is you’re thinking of “totalling” the opposition.

 

 

 

 

What’s a little axe-kick amongst overpaid footballing superstars anyway?

 

Point is, they had to come through Denmark, Cameroon and favourites Brazil to reach this point. And it’s not their fault they only had to play competent football to get there.

 

Which brings me to my other point.

 

Now that it’s all over, can we agree that, with the exception of Germany and Spain, how uniformly shite the top teams and, in particular, their top players were?

 

Ronaldo, Rooney, Messi and a raft of other top talent all underwhelmed.

 

Germany began the event by missing a penalty, which happens to be about as frequent an occurrence as Federer going out in the first week of a Slam.

 

None of the favourites seemed willing or able to produce anything more daring than draw after draw.

 

Argentina went down Germany 4-0. No shame in going down to the Germans, but that score-line, really?

 

France? Let’s not even go there. Oh ok then.

 

And the defending champions went out to Slovakia. A competent enough side but still, no comment.

 

If I wanted to argue asterisks, I’d say Germany had the tougher route through and were a better team, qualitatively, than Holland. There’s that word again.

 

In the end, however, the #2 ranked team hoisted the trophy having had to go through powerhouses Portugal, Germany and a Dutch side where “everybody was kung-fu fighting”.

 

The best team won.

A Blow for the Little Man…

Julian Benneteau has just played the match of his life, knocking out Roger Federer in three sets, in his opening match.

(Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

The funny thing is it’s difficult to see what Federer did wrong. If anything. He’s cruised through similar stages in the past playing only fractionally as well.

Today, he hit fifteen aces, hit more winners than Benneteau and served in the 70s. That’d be percentages, not the era of disco jingles.

He could maybe have thrown in a few more tactical lobs to Julian’s rabid net rushes, and I’m sure we’ll hear that rust had something to do with this.

But every once in a while someone succeeds in landing a blow for the little man. You'll pardon me if I take a moment to celebrate that (no offence Fed Fans); whether he was bolstered by the Parisian crowd or not, Julian will likely treasure this one for years.

(Photo: AP)

Now watch him go out in the very next round.

Roger will feel this one keenly too I believe; his second consecutive loss remember, and something of a knock to his campaign to end the season as world #1.

I still think he’ll keep a hold on to it however.

It would be more worrying had he lost due the errant play we saw so much of earlier on this year. Today he appeared confident and secure as ever; and if you contrast that with the horror of a match Nadal played today, you'll likely understand why I believe Rafa will need to pull out all the stops (and then some) to get anywhere near to staking a claim for the top spot.

Rafa got through alright. But only just, and he was considerably aided by Almagro in the later stages of this sorry mess; besides, rank amateurs get through, park players get through. Heck, I even get through sometimes.

Most troubling of all was the way he let rallies lengthen and play out unnecessarily in the most unRafa-like way imaginable; at times, it almost had the feel of an exhibition match, with the way in which each ball was fed systematically back to Almagro, who possessed neither the will nor the might to put it away.

A confusing, convulsing bloodied pulp of a mess.

I know it’s not always that Rafa does well here, but we’ve usually season ending injuries to thank for that.

Cincy Open: Are you counting?

58 shots.



That's what it took Murray to break back against Julian Benneteau in the second set of their quarter final match.