Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Choupi in Stuttgart with reports on the King, fun in Båstad, snow in Gstaad

Choupi in Stuttgart with reports on the King, fun in Båstad, snow in Gstaad

Well once again Fearless Leader Mr.Disney is at. The genius idea of having 4 events in one week and also making them 28 player fields, it's moronic then and it's moronic now, plus the old chestnut when in doubt blame the Olympics is always used.

Stuttgart

Nadal was meant to be the big atttaction at this event, but he has withdrawn and this is no surprise. At the same time the Stuttgart owners were able to use his name to get some ticket sales. The true attractions of Stuttgart are not the 28 player field, the fact that there will be a roving reporter there from tomorrow, to get some of the action.

Baby Gordo Schwank is playing the weasel Coria, at least it will be a Germany vs Argentina second round match. Nice to see Calleri in Stuttgart, just hope he sticks around long enough so that he can be seen by Choupi and also he will play Cuevas if he gets past pretty boy Melzer in the 1st round. Almagro is the highest seed in this section, though little Richard Gasquet is the 2nd seed and should have a tough one against the Bye and then both qualifiers.

Results so far del Potro and Cuevas won their matches. Once again Acasuso from a break is rubbish and he lost to Fat Albert Montañes, who now plays the real headliner of Stuttgart King Oscar Hernandez, who handled Santi Ventura very easily. These guys are friends and the King needs the points, so I think Montañes will do the right thing and bow down to the King.


Båstad

The field isn't as good as it usually is, but with Disney doing this to the summer clay events, then this is not likely. Crazy Dani Koellerer qualified and he will play Darcis, this will be interesting to see how he acts, how he plays and also what the Swedes will think of this unstable cat.

Nieminen and Roitman, both of these guys need a good result and quickly, though Boredo is lurking and he wants to peak at this event. Moya is back here and has won Båstad before, but he is using this practice to peak for Umag next week. Great to see Marc Lopez in a MD, very humble and nice guy, just not strong enough to compete regularly on the tour, and Safin will be too busy fucking to concentrate on the tennis.

Berdman is another one who needs to get it back on track, he will hope that the wind stays away, but this isn't very likely in Båstad, being on the ocean will do that. I think it will be a Ferrer-Berdych final, just hope there is some good tennis and Volandri losing early would help.

Gstaad

The mountain and exclsuive air in Gstaad, one of the more scenic places on tour, well both the finalists are here again. Mathieu has to play Cilic again, well I think they should be familiar with each other now. Stani is the number 1 seed at home for the first time in his career and he should have had enough time to adjusted to the altitude and looks like a strong favourite here.

Lucho Horna fresh from qualifying for and winning the Lugano Challenger is in a tough section with Karlovic and Seppi. Ivo likes playing here, his serve is even more effective. but with him one can never tell. Seppi is playing a big server in Meffert, it's just the usual take care of your own service game and concentrate hard on the big servers, he should do enough and make it through to the next round.

Andreev finally won a match and hope he can finish the clown Serra as he needs to get back on track, since dumping Altur as coach, though at least he has Kirilenko, so not everything is going against him at the moment.

Newport

Just a total Mickey Mouse event, hope old man Santoro defends.

Wimbledon Review

It's time for the Wimbledon review and since I couldn't be bothered writing a preview, because the expected finalists were known before the event and this came true, but more on the final later. This was quite an enjoyable Wimbledon event, any time that Andy Roddick loses early, then it's a good event. His victor Janko Tipsarevic is the man who plays well against the big players, but struggles against the players he should beat, and he ended up losing in the 4th round to Rainer Schüttler who saved his singles career with this result in making the semi finals. The likable and hard working German had suffered from glandular fever and he came back too soon, which put him further behind than he would have been initially, but I'm happy he did well here at the veteran stage and after the 1st set against Nadal, while outgunned, he played a tactically sound match.

The enigmatic volcano Marat Safin making the semi finals of Wimbledon, if someone said this before the start of Wimbledon, then it would be a trip to the special place where they like to keep people away from the general population. The big man played very well and he is thankful that the surface has been slowed significantly for him to win this many matches in a row on grass. He made Djokovic look fairly pedestrian and followed it up some excellent wins. The match against Seppi was of a high standard, though it should have been suspended or at least, the players given high visibility wear, it's very hard to play tennis when you can't see the ball. Marat also handled Wawrinka and LaLo who has always been a very tough opponent for him, he must get freaked out by LaLo's serve or the sexy backhand.

Good results for Andy Murray, Cilic once again made a 4th round of a Slam, but losing to Clement easily, is never a good thing. Martin Vassallo Argüello winning a match on grass is something that should be marked down in the calendar and it doesn't matter that he was donkey punched by Kiefer in the next round. Ernests Gulbis took out the serving tree Isner and gave Nadal, plenty to think about. Just hope he can continue to develop and progress and start giving the big players something to think about.

Onto the final now. It's better to get this out of the system now. It's interesting how the slowing down of the grass courts has impacted on tennis. I could probably do a separate article on this, but would require more work, so it will just be a summary. What was happening in the 80s and 90s, it was serve and volley tennis, this was the case when Edberg, Cash and Becker were playing, but as they were leaving the game this evolved into what became the hideous serve tennis. Just hitting bombs to the corners on bowling greens and blind monkeys could make those volleys, it was the equivalent of watching a football match and going straight to penalties. Understandably they slowed down the courts to create more rallies, but grass rewarded specific skills, encouraging the serve/volley, but as technology advanced it became, biff, bang, wallop, boom tennis and this was problematic for the fans. At the same time the glaring hypocrisy is that the clay courts have been sped up and they are using a lighter ball, yes but nothing is said about this at all. The overall homogensiation of the game in relation to surfaces is a greater factor, but if you want me to go into it further, then I will try and write something more on it.

The final, well it had plenty of drama and was good to watch, more so the last 2 sets, the first 3 sets weren't of the highest quality. Nadal was just solid and Federer a mix between good, tactically inept and woeful esepcially with his backhand. Federer's serve had been the best thing about his tournament so far and he wasn't serving that well, he lead 4-2 in the 2nd set and had numerous chances to break, but of course the relentless Nadal took his few chances and then wins the 2nd set 6-4.

Pretty much most people watched this match and as an overall match to say it was the best ever final is hyperbole at its best. Yes, it had drama, but that was it, plus the 4th set had 2 classic shots, not sure how this makes an all time classic match. As for the result, it was well deserved for Nadal, in the way, that his mental strength and his excellent break point conversion, were the keys to this match. Federer dumping backhands into the net on break points on second serves, which weren't that menacing, the fact he wanted to hit topspin backhands and approach the net, when it goes straight into Nadal's strike zone.

Time for Federer to learn something from this defeat and push forward and Nadal to be a factor at hardcourt Slams.