Tennis

I only saw the last few points, so here is a chunk of the post match interview that sheds some light on what happened on court:

Q. You were serving at about 130 kilometer an hour after the back problem. What exactly happened? Was it tight?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, a few days ago it just got really tight and I had no rotation on it. I went for this dropshot in the second set and it just locked up on me, so...
I think that it just I couldn't really rotate after that, which I guess is normal. I don't know.

Q. That point where it happened, can you talk us through that moment.
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, I was running to the net for a dropshot. As I went to hit it, it was on the backhand. I even screamed on the court. I was like, Ahh. I totally locked up after that. It was just like it was a little painful.
But, I mean, it's okay. It was what it was.

Q. When you went off court, what sort of treatment did you have? Did you take any antiinflammatories?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, there's only so much you can do for that. Not too much you can do. Just tried to have it loosened up a little bit. I'm always on antiinflams for my ankle, so you can't do too much more.

Q. Did it feel better when you came back on? Were you freer?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No. It was still tough. It's hard to rotate to the backhand. It was giving me trouble. But it was fine. I think my opponent played well and was able to do a really good job.

Q. The microphones on court picked up you saying this has been the worst two weeks. What did you mean by that?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I've had a tough two weeks between the ankle, which is like this big every day, and my back, which started hurting. A lot of stuff, so...
It was what it was.

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Serena Williams without her serve and backhand is a much less formidable opponent, but then again, Stephens still had to fight against the aura and will of her idol and the pressure of this momentous occasion to reach the semi of a slam. Many would have beat themselves, but Stephens managed to keep enough composure to prevail. It should also be mentioned that she played a decent first set, winning to love three service games and saving two out of three break points in a fourth.

So we have our semi finals and... surprise surprise... the four top seeds went through. In the history of open era tennis, it's a relatively rare event (17ishth time out of 190ish slams), but somehow a lot more common in the past few years!

Djokovicwas expected to struggle against Berdych, but the 5th seed only managed to break out of his shell and swing freely for the duration of one set, the second. A bit of a pity considering he won it.. only to badly lose the next two.
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Ferreris the weakest of the top four, knowing full well that he is a mere alternate for an injured Nadal. For the longest time in his quarter, it seemed Almagro would prevail as he was cruising against an out of sorts Ferrer. Leading two sets to love, serving several times for the match, somehow the underdog could not close it, putting his nerves and then his fitness under the microscope. Both flinched, giving Ferrer an opportunity he did not refuse.

With a surprisingly easy and fast victory over Berdych, Djokovic arrives in this semifinal with a lot more confidence and energy than previously expected. The opposite is true for Ferrer, who found himself in an endless dogfight where he struggled greatly with his level of play. The spaniard knows that he will have to play a lot better to stand any chance at all against Djokovic, so that's additional pressure right there. The start of the match should give the tone.


Murraycruised past Chardy. The frenchman managed to fight back from a two breaks deficit in the first set, but then Murray put the kibosh on this rebellion and left only crumbs to his opponent.
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Federercruised through his tough draw until facing Tsonga, who proved as dangerous as expected. Serving well, aggressive from the get go, managing his forehand well and, most importantly, playing some heavy and steady shots with his backhand, Tsonga managed, without redlining his game, to make things very uncomfortable for Federer. Playing a decent match, the swiss did not serve as well as he hoped, and maybe played a little too conservatively, probing Tsonga with his shots, trying to get errors from him (errors that were too rare today for this to be a very good strategy). Still, the world N?2 managed to produce some stellar stuff when he needed it the most to bank the first set in a breaker. Not demoralized, Tsonga soldiered on, capitalized on a rare opportunity while not giving any and tied the match. Breaks got exchanged in the third and it seemed for a while that Tsonga was dominating the debate, but Federer managed to reach and win another tie-break and immediately broke Tsonga in the fourth. Surely that blow would be fatal to the underdog? Not so: Tsonga immediatly broke back, charged on, broke again and won the fourth. At this point, Federer decided a change in strategy was in order and decided to be more aggressive, go forward and asphyxiate Tsonga. It payed dividends as after three hours of high octane tennis there was a little drop in the intensity and precision of the frenchman, making him commit a little more unforced errors. That was enough for the World N?2 to dominate and close the match.

Federer was pushed the distance, but his match still remained relatively short and his previous rounds definitely were, so he should still be pretty fresh for the semi. Murray certainly will be fresh, but that could also be a double edged sword as, going through a very easy draw (the only seed he faced was an injured Simon) he is not battle hardened and so might find it difficult to raise his game straight from 2nd gear to 6th. I doubt that could cost him the match, but that could cost him the first set or an early break.


PS: By reaching the semifinal, Djokovic will keep his N?1 ranking no matter what.

AngryGerbil_sl said:

Wow. The story will be that Serena was injured but still...wow.

I haven't used the word wow enough in this thread.

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The real story should be Serena is old(for Tennis that is) and this is what happens to old tennis players. No wow's for me.

Sloan lost. =(

Hopefully we see more of her in the later rounds of future slams.

I did not see the match, but it was one way traffic between Djokovic and Ferrer, resulting in a crushing straight set victory in 90 minutes!

It was another story between Federer and Murray. The swiss played an ok match, but found himself on the edge of the sword the whole way through as Murray served supremely well and gave precious little on the return of serve. With two or three unreturned serves per game and some very solid and positive ground strokes (by positive, I mean trying to do something with the ball, trying constantly to move and hurt the opponent, not just trying to stay in the rallies), Murray's service games were a fortress. A 70ish first serve percentage made sure it remained impregnable. Having to fight tooth and nail on most his service game, Federer could not avoid the occasional break in the first set and barely managed to steady the ship to force a breaker in the second. At this point, Murray displayed some little signs of tension: less first serves, a couple wayward shots... so the GOAT pounced on the opportunity and tied the game.

Unruffled, Murray went back to his arsenal of bombs down the T and daggers sliced wide, happy to trade backhands with Federer should a rally ensue. This time again, Federer blinked first and found himself two sets to one down. Just when things started to smell rotten for the World N?2, he got what he hoped for: a bad service game by Murray. Here again, Federer made the most of the opportunity to break and take the lead. Murray's lull almost cost him a double break, but he shook out of it and not only did he save his serve, he broke back and then even broke again to serve for the match at 6-5. During the change of ends, sitting on his chair, Federer knew he still had the tiniest of chances: closing a match is always tough. Compound the pressure of the moment and the pressure of an opponent giving nothing for free and good things can happen (see: Almagro vs Ferrer). And good things happened for the man from Basel: suddenly finding two extra gears in front of a nervous Murray, he pushed the set to a tie-break and then pushed the match to a fifth set! That was some major Houdini shit right there!

Serving first in the fifth, Murray had a very bitter potion to swallow: two points away from victory on his own serve and now back to square one after more than three hours of play he dominated almost through and through. A lesser player would have crumbled. In fact, Murray most certainly would have been that lesser player one or two years ago. But not today. Not today. The world N?3 came strengthened out of his ordeal. Hungry, aggressive, intense, he raced to a 3-0 lead winning 12 of the first 16 points of the set. Dominated and shell-shocked by Murray's barrage of service winners, Federer tried to hang in there, to wait for an opening even if it should come, like in the fourth set, at the very last moment. This plan did not come into fruition as Murray did not have to serve for the match. At 5-2 a couple good returns and a couple unforced errors sealed the fate of the four hours match: an impressive Murray is through to the final.

The screeching on the women side has gotten out of hand so I don't blame anybody for hating on the screehers. It needs to go.

Uh no, Serena does it. She sounds like a hog in heat when she gets going. There are more.

Yeah, it's annoying and retarded. There's a difference between a loud exhale (Agassi comes to mind) and a fucking screech. Screeching is gamesmanship, whether it has become automatic through repetition or not.

There are several layers with the screaming debate in women's tennis. Let's look at a specific one through this question: Why does Sharapova scream? A part of the answer comes with another question: When doesn't Sharapova scream? Sharapova usually stops screaming at around the tenth shot of a rally. This begs another question: How comes she seems to always be screaming? Because in 99% of the cases, she won or lost the point before the tenth shot. Why? Because Sharapova, like several others on the WTA, has a pretty simple game plan: hit every single shot with the highest possible intensity. There is no construction, no variation, just relentless assault. You don't need to be Miyagi sensei to know that if you want to get the highest possible intensity in an explosive movement, you need to shout. You also don't need to be Goliath to know that women's larynx tend to produce sounds with a higher pitch.

There are many male player who also shout on high intensity shots. The thing is that points are built, so these shots are occasional. There are exceptions though, like Ferrer who screams on like 80% of his shots.

Gamesmanship would be Radwanska screaming when she hits a drop shot (which she does not).

PS: Djokovic won. I hear they played long rallies and in the end the guy who played the 90 minutes semi three days ago beat the guy who played the 240 minutes semi two days ago.

It's the first round of the Davis Cup this week-end.

After two days, Serbia beat Belgium, France beat Israel and Argentina beat Germany. This last one is a bit surprising, but Haas was not playing for the germans and Kohlschreiber found himself in a dog fight against the unheralded Berlocq and was forced to retire because of a hamstring injury while on serve in the fifth.

Italy, at home, leads 2-1 againstCroatia, the italian clinching a possibly crucial point in the double after both N?1 won their single.

TheUSAlead 2-1 againstBrazilin Jacksonville, the double specialists Mello and Soares dening the Bryan brothers the winning point, but probably only delaying the inevitable as even if Bellucci beats Isner, I have a hard time believing journeyman Alves could pull the upset against Querrey.

KazakhstanleadsAustria2-1. This one is a bit odd, because even if Kazakhstan is playing at home, they are spearheaded by Kukushkin who is 155 at the ATP and who did not even play! The N?2 is the extremely talented but losing machine Golubev (165) and the third is the short tempered and now poorly ranked Korolev (211)... to make things even more bizarre, all these Kazakh players are former Russians who changed passport for money and a shot at playing Davis Cup. To make things even more odd, the point the Austrian won is actually the double as Korolev beat Melzer(30) in straight sets!

Last but not least,Czech Republicis leadingSwitzerland2-1 in Geneva. Historically, both teams are two men teams: Federer and Wawrinka for one and Berdych and Stepanek for the other. The thing is this time (like most times) Federer is not playing and Stepanek is injured. On day one, Wawrinka discarded with ease the Czech N?2 Lukas "Nadal Slayer" Rosol and Berdych did the same against the swiss youngster Laaksonen (a sacrificial lamb to allow the swiss N?2 to be fresher on day three). At 1-1, the double was critical as a Swiss win would mean a shot for Wawrinka to pull the upset against Berdych (not totally unlikely considering his current level of play) and a shot for Chiudineli, a competent but often injured player, to pull the upset against the erratic Rosol. Both team were very aware of that fact so they fought tooth and nail, the biggest surprise coming from the quality of Chiudineli's serve, dropping bomb after bomb, hour after hour. Yeah... because it lasted a long while.

It was pushed to a fifth set, but the swiss had the double disadvantage of serving behind and of having not broken the czech since the second set... they got a few opportunities they did not convert and on their serve managed to pull one unlikely Houdini escape trick after the other, well helped by a Rosol missing most of his returns and a Berdych winning most his receiving points... except on break points. Break points that at 5-4 started to become match points. And those piled up as twice Wawrinka recovered from 0-40 in ten minutes games (notably saving one with the boldest of backhand down the line). It also seemed that there never was two players of the same team playing well at the same time, making a break of serve that much more unlikely. As the score grew and the time elapsed, it became clear that *something* needed to happen for the match to ever finish. That something took the shape of Chiudineli's first bad serving game, unceremoniously concluded by a cold shower of a double fault on the czechs' 13th match point. 24-22 in the fifth after 7h02 of battle, making it the second longest lasting match in the history of tennis and by a significant margin the longest single day match ever.

Cilic kept the croatian hopes alive by beating Seppi and winning his 2nd single point, leaving Italy on the pretty dangerous situation: relying on head case Fognini to win a match. As Dodig clinched the first set, the italian public must have started to doubt the coach's choice, but Fognini turned the match around and gave to Italy its first Davis Cup World Group victory in 15 years!

As I anticipated, Bellucci managed to beat Isner leaving all the brazilian hopes on the shoulder of Alves. The underdog won the first set against a probably nervous Querrey, but then the american set the record straight even if he needed a tie-breaker in the fourth.

Switzerland needed two wins on Sunday and it looked all the more unlikely when an opportunistic Berdych raced to a two sets to love lead against Wawrinka. In front of his home crowd, the swiss managed to raise his level in the third grabbing an early break and not letting go of it. That lead to a pretty high quality fourth set, made that much more impressive when you realize the amount of tennis played by both guys in the last couple of days. Both managed to defend their service games, so we found ourselves in a tie-breaker. Wawrinka raced ahead with some aggressive play and quickly lead 5-2. The impressive scoreline is a bit misleading as only a single mini-break separated the two players. Wawrinka almost got a second one with an attempt at a winning return down the line, but missed, allowing Berdych to reach the much more threatening scoreline of 5-4. Still, the swiss had two serves to tie the match and push it to a fifth where he would be serving first... We'll never know what would have happened in that decisive set as a rock solid Berdych proceeded to steal both of Wawrinka service points and close the match and the tie on his serve. The team really can't be blamed, but there are certainly some regrets to have, especially in this year's draw where Spain lost in the first round and the USA faces Serbia in the second. Bah.



In other news, Nadal should be back playing this week as he is doing the south american clay swing (much to the chagrin of Ferrer and Almagro I assume).

If there was a single right way to teach tennis, there would not be such a rich variety of techniques among the top players. I mean I read a book by a french coach who was a pretty mediocre player and brought a club player to the top 100 through breathing, relaxation and body awareness techniques, mostly hand feeding balls from a basket with the player in the service box! The difficulty is finding the right person with the right method for oneself.

I am happy with mine because I respect his achievements as a player and his experience as a coach, he is clear in his explanations and has a sharp eye to see what went wrong in the execution of shots. He has a kind of spacio-musical approach though that I am not 100% in sync with (for him, each type of shot has it's own little preparation-bounce-execution rhythm and a specific point of impact in relation to the body - when he wants to be super steady he mentally counts 1 2 3 with the correct rhythm on each and every shot... let's just say I am more instinctive!).

So.... It's Master 1000 time in Indian Wells which is almost a mini Grand Slam as it's a 96 players draw with both men and women playing. The first two rounds have been played already and, surprisingly, almost a third of the seeded players lost their opening match! Let's go through the draw:


Djokovichas yet to lose a match in 2013 but found himself in a strange topsy-turvy affair against italian head case Fognini. The world N?1 raced through the first set in 17 minutes against a barely playing Fognini who accumulated unforced errors, but as Djokovic lost a bit of focus and intensity in the second, the italian started to play dramatically better even winning the second set and having opportunities to break early in the third. Order was restored though and the serb won the decider.
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Dimitrov

Querreydealt well with Karlovic's serve and won in straight sets without a breaker. Still a decent week for croatian veteran Karlovic has he went through qualies and won a match in the main draw.
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Matosevicbenefited from the funk Monaco seems to be into since the olympics. The guy has one good week in Kuala Lumpur and won the title there he has a 4 win to 11 losses record on the atp tour!

Cilic
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Raonicwho benefited from Llodra retirement.

Fishplayed a topsy-turvy match against compatriot Reynolds for his first match on tour since the US Open.
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Tsongagot well tested by Blake but the aging american wild card could not do more. We shall see more of his marvelous brand of tennis though as some wins at challenger level put him back in the top 100.


Murraystarted a little flat against a not intimidated russian youngster: Donskoy. Playing a pretty complete game, with a decent first serve, a very steady backhand, a forehand that he can lift a lot but also flatten, decent net play, good shot selection, willing to defend patiently if need be (over the course of the match the russian won two third of the long rallies!) and not afraid to take the ball early and inject a lot of pace when he has opportunities, Donskoy raced to a 5-1 lead. Murray rebelled, managed to even the score at 5-5 and just when you expected the russian to melt down, drop his shoulder and except his fate, he broke Murray for a third time and closed the set! The third seed did not find the joke to his liking though and raised his game another notch as Donskoy's level dropped a little (less first serves, more unforced errors) which resulted in two 6-2 sets. It will be interesting to see more of Donskoy in the future.
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Lubeat the very talented and seeded Klizan in two tie-breakers.

Berlocqupset a Dolgopolov who has not won many matches lately other than a good run in Valencia back in October.
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Nishikoriis on a very good run in 2013 with an ATP 500 win and only three losses: two to top 10 players an a retirement. It takes something special to beat him lately.

Almagro
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Haashas been playing so well since his 876876th return. The thing is he is not only playing well, he is playing consistently well! Impressive.

Phau, the german journeyman, got the better of Chardy.
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Del Potrohad a tricky first match against nemesis Davydenko. The tower of Tandil is a lot closer to his very best than the russian is, so the seventh seed prevailed.


Berdych
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Mayer(note that the 27th seed easily beat Goffin who has yet to confirm the promising things he showed back in the French Open).

Janowiczhad the misfortune to play one of the toughest unseeded player in the draw in Nalbandian, but he managed to prevail in three sets.
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Gasquetreminded Tomic that he is not yet as good as he believe he is.

Simonplayed a simonesque match against italian Lorenzi as he won 7-5 in the third after being lead 5-1 or something... I recently saw him play another match against a player ranked a lot lower than him that turned into yet another three sets dogfight and Simon was furious "Why does it always have to be like this! Why can't I just win 6-2 6-2 without drama!" On the up side for the frenchman, he tends to win most of these matches!
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Paire, the french trickster, cleanly beat the 21st seed Kohlschreiber.

Nieminenis in form, Verdasco has not been for a while, the seeded spaniard scored a single game!
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Andersonhas big weapons with his serve and groundstrokes and it rewarded him with the biggest upset sofar: a three sets win against 4th seed Ferrer. To make it even sweeter for the south african, he fought back from a set down.


Nadalplayed the south american clay court swing, won two titles there with good wins over Almagro and Ferrer, but also lost in a final against Zeballos of all people! He faced a good test during a set against american youngster Harrison, but prevailed in straight sets.
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Mayerupset the 30th seed Youzhny who has been caught in a spiral of losses.

Seppiis 29 but is currently near its best ranking ever, thanks to some decent performances at Grand Slam level and some very good results at ATP 250 level.
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Gulbis, as you might know, is one of my favorite players. After spending the bulk of 2012 losing first round matches he counted on his fingers the number of years he could hope to be in top shape and wisely decided to train a little more and party a little less. In fact, instead of going to the Australian Open qualies, he decided to train some more and start his season later. A good idea as he now played 18 matches on tour and won 16, his two losses coming to Berdych and Del Potro in competitive matches. This week, after fighting his way out of qualies, he convincingly beat Lopez and then dismantled a discombobulated Tipsarevic 6-2 6-0. It should be noted that he once again changed his forehand and has now one of the most strange preparation on tour, with a huge loop and the left arm straightened like the wing of an albatross. Ugly... but effective.

Hewittfights and over the course of three sets against Isner, he managed to be the one never dropping his serve! Come Ooooooooooooooooooooooon!
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Wawrinka

Dodigis no stranger to upsets and pulled a clean one against Benneteau.
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Federerhad not the most successful run since the AO, has he lost in straight sets to the aforementioned Benneteau in Rotterdam and lost to Berdych in Dubai after having three match points. This puts his N?2 ranking in jeopardy, but the swiss did not seem to feel any pressure from it as he played some brilliant, half-exhibition half-execution tennis against Istomin. The Uzbek still managed to be the one making the the shot of the day, with an astounding reflex at the net, redirecting a Federer smash to the open court!


The bottom half of the draw plays today.

Third round is completed. Today is the day of the round of 16:

Djokovicgot tested during a set by Dimitrov. The bulgarian broke first and served for the first set, but served four doubles (not in a row, but still...) and later got trampled in the tie-breaker before fading in the second set. Not just there yet...
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Querrey

Raonicrallied from a set down to upset Cilic.
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Tsongafound himself in a tough battle against Fish, but the american's lack of match play showed more in his mental fortitude than in his game as he lost his lead in the first set breaker and then lost his lead in the second set to get crushed in a second tie-break...

Murray
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Berlocqimpressed me in his match against Nishikori, playing with a lot of intensity, a lot of spin, power, pace and with alarmingly few unforced errors. I am not sure if the japanese N?1 was dejected or injured, but in the end he just rolled over.

Haaswas almost the victim of a nasty trick played by the rules and the in the end he played a nasty trick on Almagro. 4-4 40-40 in the third set, Haas gets a time violation (more on that in another post), lose his temper and, two points later, his serve. Almagro reaches match point on his serve, a big rally ensues, guys hit hard and deep, move themselves around and suddenly Haas decides to break the rythm and play a pretty crappy down the line drop shot. So crappy in fact that Almagro is on it with ease. Early enough in fact to play an aggressive shot, a final emphatic winner to put the match to bed. Problem: 99% of easy shots are played cross court and Haas knows this, anticipates, and manage to redirect Almagro's missile into the open court... You need to be a Zen master to get over that on a match point and Almagro is no Zen master. Two games and a tie-break later, Haas is in the fourth round.
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Del Potro

Berdych
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Gasquethad a surprisingly easy time discarding Janowicz. The pole played a poor match though. The serve misfired a lot and when it happens to a player that heavily relies on it to win a lot of free points, it puts a lot more pressure on the rest of their game than usual and as a result also misfire ground strokes. Gasquet made the most of the situation, ran away with the first set, took an early lead in the second and never surrendered it.

Simonpulled a simon and won in three sets after losing the first against compatriot Paire.
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Andersonmust be in very fine form because he had no problem at all against Nieminen.

Nadaldid not have to play as Mayer retired because of back problems.
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Gulbismade it look like smooth sailing at first, but played a catastrophic service game when came time to close the first set and totally lost the plot for a few games after that. It seemed the Gulbis of old was back, with broken rackets and constant chatter with the ref' and all (he took a warning for coaching at some point, upon denunciation from a line judge, he sure did not enjoy that!), but he somehow managed to refocus and overpower Seppi, whose consistency remained a constant source of frustration for the latvian.

Wawrinkaproved a little too solid to allow Hewitt to plant the seed of doubt.
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Federer



A lot of intriguing match-ups in this round of 16! Let's hope the Gulbis vs Nadal delivers!

For a tournament that started with some crazy upsets, there is not much left of it in the draw: eight spots in the quarter finals, seven of the top eight seeds made it through there. The one missing is Ferrer, the fourth seed, and Anderson managed to confirm his second round giant slaying feat by beating Nieminen and then the 13th seed Simon to go all the way to the quarters. It's nice, because usually the guy that claims the big scalp just opens the draw for others. Here, Anderson is reaping what he sowed.

So:

Djokovicbeat Querrey in straight sets with a surprisingly not that unconventional Bagel / Breaker combo. I'll leave psychologists explain that one.
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Tsongaprevailed in a very tight three sets match against Raonic, where both guys gave each other very few opportunities. This one had the most bizarre ending because the scoreboard croaked and both players lost track of the score. So when Raonic served a double fault on match point, he realized he got broken, but not that he lost and Tsonga did not realize he won until the chair umpire had to insist "That's it guys, it's over! I said it: game set and match." Most anticlimactic ending ever!

Murraybeat Berlocq in straight sets, but the argentinian probably regrets that he was not able to clinch at least one considering he broke Murray three times.
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Del Potrowon the most one sided of the fourth round match against Haas.

Berdychlost his previous two matches to Gasquet, but a strong start cemented a straight set victory.
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Andersonalmost got simon'ed, but in the end won in three.

Nadalfound himself in the tough battle that was expected. Gulbis started strongly, serving well and dominating from the baseline to the point Nadal avoided the Gulbis forehand, fearing the random winners more than hoping for the unforced errors. The problem is that Gulbis' backhand is the steadier, sounder shot. He is certainly less aggressive from that wing, but even the Nadal spin does not bother him that much because of his size and a strength, enabling him to play shoulder height backhands without much trouble. At the end of the first set, Nadal played, out of nowhere, a terrible game on serve to give the first set to Gulbis, but the spaniard made amend immediately at the beginning of the second set by jumping to the throat of a slightly unfocused Gulbis. At first it seemed like the set would flew by the latvian (I *think* Nadal had a two breaks leads), but he still managed to make it somewhat competitive by breaking Nadal once. The third set proved to be a very very tight affair, with a lot of 30-30 points very well defended by the servers, a number of high quality shots at very tense moments (notably Gulbis managed to manufacture the most subtle sliced passing shot with an acute angle while pushed back and on the run), but just when we thought it would culminate in a third set breaker, Gulbis missed just a little too many forehands and Nadal made the most of his only break point of the set. A tough lesson for Gulbis who paid a steep price for two short passages of poor play.
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Federerstarted his match against Wawrinka by getting broken to love... and followed that by winning four games in a row. Pretty fast, the reason Wawrinka has such a poor record against Federer became apparent: the swiss N?2 simply does not dare to play his game. Playing pacy, flat, penetrating shots against Hewitt two days ago, Wawrinka seems too worried by Federer's abbility to counter-punch and redirect this pace to play like this. So, he tries to play heavily lifted shots to the Federer backhand, basically trying to Nadalize Federer. The problem is that the pattern is very predictable, allowing Federer to camp on the backhand corner and robbing Wawrinka of some of his best shots like his backhand down the line. It looked like a nice day at the office for the World N?2, but when came the time to serve for the match... he played a game as shocking as the one he started the match with. This lifted Wawrinka, confused Federer and a tie-break later it was one set all. Another bad game early in the third (punctuated with an argument with the ref' about his ability to challenge his own serve on a serve & volley - he thought the serve was out so he played an half-assed volley thinking the call would come, but it did not and was refused the challenge because he played the volley) and suddenly things looked grim for Fed and his fans. The swiss N?1 immediatly reacted though and narrowly escaped a third set tie-breaker by breaking a disappointed Wawrinka at 6-5.


Berdych vs Anderson is about to start and Nadal vs Federer will be the night session match of the day. Note that both guys already managed expectations: Federer has a fubared back since the middle of his match against Dodig and Nadal said that he is not back at his best just yet and does not expect to be during the quarter and that it should probably be not enough to win...

Better late than never: two rounds for the price of one.


SEMIS:

Djokovicplayed a solid match. No great heights, but no lows. It proved too much for Tsonga to live with.
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Del Potrohad opportunities early in the first set, then lead in the tie break, but still lost it. Lesser players would fade away, Del Potro did just the opposite against a Murray abandoned by his serve and lacking a clear game plan. 6-7 6-3 6-1 in the end.

Berdychreally got tested by a very aggressive Anderson, but the south african tamely surrendered his serve at 5-4 in both sets. Berdych gladly accepted the gift.
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Nadalhas his work cut out for him as Federer was hampered in his movement because of his back. Bad movement, means bad adjustments, means more unforced errors. Bad back also means less effective serving. Nadal did not play a stellar match, but he did not have to.


FINAL:

Del Potroonce again fought from a set down, but this time Djokovic rebelled in the third, rushing to a 3-0 lead, but then the World N?1 seemingly ran out of gas and often found himself losing long physical rallies. There was a glimmer of hope for the serb when it seemed Del Potro was both tense and exhausted when came time to serve for the match, but Djokovic did not mamage to play a clean enough return game to capitalize on his opponent's weaknesses.
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Nadalcame into the semi with the worst breaking record of the semi finalists and Berdych with the best holding record. It happened these stats had very low predictive values! The match was a relatively close one, but Nadal managed the tight moments better and displayed a good offensive mentality, looking for any opportunity to take the ball early and become the aggressor.



Playing Nadal on the back of two long three sets matches that were both taxing mentally and physically might not be the best scenario for Del Potro, but there is no doubt he has enough weapons to make it a competitive match and even win his first (1st) Master 1000 title (isn't it scary that a guy like Del Potro has none and a guy like Berdych just the one from back in 2005?)