Steve,
OK, so Brad Gilbert is better at picking matches than I am. Yes, Kendrick lost to Nadal, but pushed him to the brink, certainly much further than I thought possible. We should’ve gotten BG into our suicide pool. It wouldn’t be the first time I would’ve stuck my keyboard in my mouth. Last year while blogging from Paris I wrote that there would be ice skating in Hades before Davenport would beat Clijsters in the 4th round. Not my best prediction.
Anyway saw some great 5-setters today. Besides Nadal, watched Safin blow a two set lead over Gonzalez. There was some really great points and attitude in that match. When they went toe-to-toe Safin actually got the better of Gonzo. But I have to give Gonzalez credit, he used his head. Never thought I’d write that. He started chipping his backhand, taking pace out of the rallies, and keeping the ball low. Safin would get frustrated and eventually make a bad error. And then the anger came. Safin started getting testy with the ump, barked at himself, and broke a racquet or two. All in a day’s work.
By the way, you were right, Court 2 is special. Guess you can call me a gravedigger. Got the Nadal-Agassi and Roddick-Murray match-ups we were hoping for. Should be a lot of fun.
Have a good one, and I’ll be in touch.
JL
Jon,
Pretty strong stuff from Wimbledon today. Over here we started with all-Agassi, naturally. ESPN even refused to switch to Nadal-Kendrick when that match was at 5-5 in the first and Agassi had just started the second set. Oh well, we saw a good portion of Rafa anyway. In fact, in the parts I watched, he looked great, controlling the action with his forehand and generally bullying the American around. Kendrick must have done something in the first two sets, but I didn’t see much from him. BG, of course, was in his glory, basically coaching Kendrick from the booth.
Who do you have in Nadal-Agassi Saturday? Andre looked better today, and his serve was good enough to get him out of a lot of jams. Still, I’m going to go with Nadal simply because of the physical differences—you’d have to think the Spaniard can play at a top level for much longer than Andre. Other than that, I don’t see a lot to separate them. They played a very good three-set match on a hard court in Montreal last year. My main memory of that one is Agassi scampering back and forth across the baseline and lunging to catch up with Nadal’s topspin. That’s probably not what he’s looking to do a lot of at this point in his life.
I missed Venus’ comeback, but did see Safin’s meltdown and Roddick’s blitz job. Hey, if you want Andy to play better, force him to play faster. It looked like having a goal—ending the match by sundown—helped focus him. Hopefully, it will carry over. His match-up with Murray isn’t quite set, though. Benneteau, pain in the neck that he is, came back from a break down to win the third set. I think Roddick will take whoever wins that one.
For Safin-Gonzo, I watched with our friends Pete Bodo and Tony Lance (an associate editor at TENNIS). Pete was trying to find anything to do to keep him from having to do his Paris expenses and ended up in front of the TV set (just kidding!). He didn’t seem too pleased about being there. I’m not sure if you saw his post from a couple days ago, but Pete’s down on today’s players for not having the warrior mentality to force their way to net and make the other guy beat them. Watching Safin and Gonzo trade ground strokes, he kept asking, “Why couldn’t he have come in on that? These guys just want to show how many great shots they can hit in a row.” Tony took issue with that, saying it’s a low-percentage play these days to come in because everyone’s passing shots and returns have gotten so strong. Tony thinks the days of the serve-and-volleyer are definitively over, that the game that Tim Henman was taught—slice one-handed backhand, Eastern forehand grip—can never win again, no matter who’s using it. Pete’s not buying it.
What do you think? Have the pros lost the aggressive warrior mentality and become just vain shot machines? Or is it just a natural evolution of the game toward the backcourt? I don’t agree that today’s players want to win any less than the pros of the past. But I also don’t think that serve and volley is necessarily dead. It comes down to how a player is taught. Juniors of the last decade (or more) have won by slugging from the baseline with Western grips. Coming forward and volleying is never natural to them. I think if you took the most talented 12-year-old player in the world and taught him to be a serve-and-volleyer—get him a good kick serve, quicken his hands and reflexes, teach him to anticipate around the net, and force him to use an Eastern-to-semi-Western forehand grip and one-handed backhand—he could still become a Wimbledon champion.
Suicide time. Grosjy and Ivanovic came through for me. Now it’s getting tougher. I’m going to be bold and take Gonzo. Not the best guy to rely on, but he is 3-1 against Ferrer and has a surprising feel for the grass. On the women’s side, I think it’s time to go with Myskina. She’s another wildcard, but there aren’t many other good choices.
Who do you have on the men’s side, Jon?
Tommorow: I look forward to trying to see the ball when Mirnyi and Blake go at it; Wawrinka/Ancic and Haas/Berdych in heavyweight slugfests; the fifth set of Hewitt/Lee, if ESPN shows it (I’ve always liked the clean way Hyung-Taik hits the ball; unfortunately it also seems to make for a nice ball for his opponents to hit back); and Vaidisova/Sprem. How has Vaidisova looked so far? I haven’t seen her hit a ball
One other question for you: Is Federer peaking too early?
Steve