Monte Carlo Masters is upon us. One of the best settings on tour, no lack of money in the principality. Yes, the place is tacky but the courts are beautiful. Jimmy's Bar isn't too bad a place to visit.
Murray taking a wildcard when he and Berdych should have committed, yes I mean committed to the tournament, not committed to a mental asylum.
Will Gimeno-Traver win a match this season, he plays Giraldo for the third time. Nieminen plays Benneteau, who struggled to take out Tomic in qualies, which leads me to Rui Machado. I don't mind MacHado but losing to Tomic on clay is unforgivable at the best of times.
Enjoy the tournament for the settings, and the matches Nadal isn't involved in and I will be getting fan reports which are always good from Merton.
Allez Monaco
Monday, April 11, 2011
Pablo Andujar wins first title in Casablanca and his football team win 5-0
Andujar wins Casablanca
Pablo Andujar with Casablanca title
The spring clay season kicked off with a couple of surprising title winners in Casablanca and Houston. While Andujar had the capabilities of winning a small clay title, the fact that the Bahamian Ryan Sweeting won Houston is bemusing at best, besides his immediate family and friends no one thought he’d win. It shows Houston has some special characteristics. In addition that if Sweeting can win an ATP title, it should be inspiration to other players.
Casachallenger was quite entertaining this year. Had some good weather which made the courts play fairly quickly. There is only so much clay one can lay down, water, sweeping in either direction before Mother Nature takes its course. Since the readers of this blog are educated, there was very little point to this paragraph.
Before moving to Andujar. There was a brilliant choke in the 2nd round in the match between Blaž Kavčič and Fabio “the Fog” Fognini. This probably should have had a separate entry and it may do so in the future. It’s hard to write about this as Kavčič is someone who I happen to like and “the Fog” is just the “the Fog”. He’d be top 10 in the world if it was down to strutting ability.
Kavčič takes the 1st set 6-1 and the only game Fog got was because he broke the Kavčič serve. Second set is going along the same path, a few breaks and Kavčič is up *5-2 has a chance to serve the match out, fails to do it at the first time of asking. Then in the Fog’s next service game he had 4 match points couldn’t convert any. After this Blaž loses the next 4 games and set 7-5.
Third set was a breakathon and Blaž had another chance to serve it out at *5-4, loses his serve and then drops the 12th game to love and the Fog sneaks out another win. It’s annoying yet hilarious at the same time on a personal level. This should have been livestreamed just for the entertainment value alone, at the same time as a Blaž fan watching this on a computer could have done bad things to my health and sanity. It doesn’t help I had a small wager on him before the match at good odds. Choking to the Fog isn’t nice and it’s the second time this player cost me financially.
All players have choked matches away at some point, but it’s how they recover from it. Voinea has done great work with Blaž so far and it’s been a problem for Blaž too many times he gets defensive and tight, where he is just pushing the ball instead of hitting it. Naturally when the arm is tighter the racquet head isn’t going to accelerate as quickly through the ball, hence the fodder and short stuff that can be exploited.
Señor Andujar started the week by taking out Florent “que sera” Serra he dropped a set, which is more due to a lack of concentration, once he got that back it was 6-2 in the 3rd. After that he played the captain of the French baseball team Jeremy Chardy who makes PHM look like Einstein, believes in the close your eyes and hit as hard you can theory. Too solid for Chardy and “Arriba” Pere Riba in the quarter finals.
Andujar lifted his game for the semi against Montañes. He was placing the serve well, using excellent angles on the forehand especially pushing Montañes further back and finish many points at the net with good volleys. It shows that volleying can be effective on any court surface.
The best was yet to come for Andujar in the final, it was his second final after Bucharest last year where he was so tired and offered token resistence to Chela. This time around he was fresher and his opponent Starace who was favourite for the final had a brutal match with Hanescu in the semi. Starace had chances to serve out the match in 2 sets, then ends up in a 3rd set buster.
Andujar had a confident opening and broke Starace early, while the Italian was serving at a high percentage it wasn’t doing much damage. Andujar on the ad side was taking away Starace’s favourite serve the kicker wide. He was stepping into the court and hitting backhands down the line, to keep him off balance. Andujar playing good all round clay court tennis and yes this includes volleys wins 6-1.
Starace who seemed a bit heavy legged and tired lifts his game to a higher level. Many of the service games are hard fought this time around, but Andujar had the answers. The forehand doing the damage, the backhand solid and came into the net on good stuff.
Once Andujar broke for the final time he was able to serve out the match and well deserved winner of his first title.
As for Sweeting, less said the better.
The spring clay season kicked off with a couple of surprising title winners in Casablanca and Houston. While Andujar had the capabilities of winning a small clay title, the fact that the Bahamian Ryan Sweeting won Houston is bemusing at best, besides his immediate family and friends no one thought he’d win. It shows Houston has some special characteristics. In addition that if Sweeting can win an ATP title, it should be inspiration to other players.
Casachallenger was quite entertaining this year. Had some good weather which made the courts play fairly quickly. There is only so much clay one can lay down, water, sweeping in either direction before Mother Nature takes its course. Since the readers of this blog are educated, there was very little point to this paragraph.
Before moving to Andujar. There was a brilliant choke in the 2nd round in the match between Blaž Kavčič and Fabio “the Fog” Fognini. This probably should have had a separate entry and it may do so in the future. It’s hard to write about this as Kavčič is someone who I happen to like and “the Fog” is just the “the Fog”. He’d be top 10 in the world if it was down to strutting ability.
Kavčič takes the 1st set 6-1 and the only game Fog got was because he broke the Kavčič serve. Second set is going along the same path, a few breaks and Kavčič is up *5-2 has a chance to serve the match out, fails to do it at the first time of asking. Then in the Fog’s next service game he had 4 match points couldn’t convert any. After this Blaž loses the next 4 games and set 7-5.
Third set was a breakathon and Blaž had another chance to serve it out at *5-4, loses his serve and then drops the 12th game to love and the Fog sneaks out another win. It’s annoying yet hilarious at the same time on a personal level. This should have been livestreamed just for the entertainment value alone, at the same time as a Blaž fan watching this on a computer could have done bad things to my health and sanity. It doesn’t help I had a small wager on him before the match at good odds. Choking to the Fog isn’t nice and it’s the second time this player cost me financially.
All players have choked matches away at some point, but it’s how they recover from it. Voinea has done great work with Blaž so far and it’s been a problem for Blaž too many times he gets defensive and tight, where he is just pushing the ball instead of hitting it. Naturally when the arm is tighter the racquet head isn’t going to accelerate as quickly through the ball, hence the fodder and short stuff that can be exploited.
Señor Andujar started the week by taking out Florent “que sera” Serra he dropped a set, which is more due to a lack of concentration, once he got that back it was 6-2 in the 3rd. After that he played the captain of the French baseball team Jeremy Chardy who makes PHM look like Einstein, believes in the close your eyes and hit as hard you can theory. Too solid for Chardy and “Arriba” Pere Riba in the quarter finals.
Andujar lifted his game for the semi against Montañes. He was placing the serve well, using excellent angles on the forehand especially pushing Montañes further back and finish many points at the net with good volleys. It shows that volleying can be effective on any court surface.
The best was yet to come for Andujar in the final, it was his second final after Bucharest last year where he was so tired and offered token resistence to Chela. This time around he was fresher and his opponent Starace who was favourite for the final had a brutal match with Hanescu in the semi. Starace had chances to serve out the match in 2 sets, then ends up in a 3rd set buster.
Andujar had a confident opening and broke Starace early, while the Italian was serving at a high percentage it wasn’t doing much damage. Andujar on the ad side was taking away Starace’s favourite serve the kicker wide. He was stepping into the court and hitting backhands down the line, to keep him off balance. Andujar playing good all round clay court tennis and yes this includes volleys wins 6-1.
Starace who seemed a bit heavy legged and tired lifts his game to a higher level. Many of the service games are hard fought this time around, but Andujar had the answers. The forehand doing the damage, the backhand solid and came into the net on good stuff.
Once Andujar broke for the final time he was able to serve out the match and well deserved winner of his first title.
As for Sweeting, less said the better.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
2011 Clay season, same old shit with different dates
The clay season has started, well on the main ATP tour anyway. This could be one of the shorter previews that I will do and this is not a bad thing. In fact I could just end it with Rafael Nadal as long as he is semi fit and yes this means even at half capacity, he should win everything on clay as he usually does. Yes, it's boring and has been boring since 2005, but that's not his fault that his level of competition are incapable of presenting anything resembling token resistence. You know it's bad when his toughest Roland Garros win was against Mariano "I failed a drug test twice" Puerta in 2005.
Houston and Casachallenger are on this week. Already there have been some hilarious things happen, the worst of all was the Sweeting and Querrey match. Only bad thing was that I missed it and it sounded it was so bad, it was good. Mikey Russell lost to Andreev in straight sets, sure Andreev hasn't been at his best for a long time but a tough draw for Russell after all there were a lot of wood ducks in this draw and he got one of the better players. Charly Berlocq did the good Samiritan thing and let James "I'm went to Harvard, but play elementary tennis" Blake off the hook in their match, this result was popular among the locals. If he made main draw at Roland Garros, people will be praying to draw him.
Casachallenger hopefully there'll be a new title winner at this prestigious event. Pere Riba and Andujar are in the quarter finals playing each other, definitely not the most talented guys around but Andujar is alright by me. He hangs out with Gimeno-Traver and even plays doubles with him, so Daniel can get a winners purse this season, plus he took out the ballbashing buffoon Chardy which is never a bad thing. DGT needs to play Chardy, so he could get a win this season. He is getting closer at least he has taken sets in his last 2 losses but his break point conversion against Lurch Hanescu was awful.
Match of the day involves Fabio "I lack self confdence" Fognini against the feisty Slovenian Blaž Kavčič. The organisers have made an error putting this on a non-tv court. The gestures here could be quite funny with the Fog strutting around like he owns the tour and not giving a shit. Kavčič getting pissed off about something usually happens within the match. He has good chances today if he can play to his level, not making mistakes and providing his ankle is fine. The Fog can play but he is very moody even for a diva.
Not exactly inspiring, unless you are a Nadal fanboy or fangirl. Watching him beat up the opposition on clay, only difference is the dates of these executions. Greater interest in who will win the tournaments he isn't playing or who can make the latter stages of the events he is in.
Houston and Casachallenger are on this week. Already there have been some hilarious things happen, the worst of all was the Sweeting and Querrey match. Only bad thing was that I missed it and it sounded it was so bad, it was good. Mikey Russell lost to Andreev in straight sets, sure Andreev hasn't been at his best for a long time but a tough draw for Russell after all there were a lot of wood ducks in this draw and he got one of the better players. Charly Berlocq did the good Samiritan thing and let James "I'm went to Harvard, but play elementary tennis" Blake off the hook in their match, this result was popular among the locals. If he made main draw at Roland Garros, people will be praying to draw him.
Casachallenger hopefully there'll be a new title winner at this prestigious event. Pere Riba and Andujar are in the quarter finals playing each other, definitely not the most talented guys around but Andujar is alright by me. He hangs out with Gimeno-Traver and even plays doubles with him, so Daniel can get a winners purse this season, plus he took out the ballbashing buffoon Chardy which is never a bad thing. DGT needs to play Chardy, so he could get a win this season. He is getting closer at least he has taken sets in his last 2 losses but his break point conversion against Lurch Hanescu was awful.
Match of the day involves Fabio "I lack self confdence" Fognini against the feisty Slovenian Blaž Kavčič. The organisers have made an error putting this on a non-tv court. The gestures here could be quite funny with the Fog strutting around like he owns the tour and not giving a shit. Kavčič getting pissed off about something usually happens within the match. He has good chances today if he can play to his level, not making mistakes and providing his ankle is fine. The Fog can play but he is very moody even for a diva.
Not exactly inspiring, unless you are a Nadal fanboy or fangirl. Watching him beat up the opposition on clay, only difference is the dates of these executions. Greater interest in who will win the tournaments he isn't playing or who can make the latter stages of the events he is in.
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