When you have a big, lefty serve like Michael Llodra's, you can be a little like the spoiled child of rich parents. You know that no matter how much trouble you get into, you can get bailed out at the snap of a finger.
However, you need to deploy that big serve well, which Llodra failed to do today at the Paris Masters. Having no Plan B, he went down swinging against another big-serving lefty, Feliciano Lopez, who won their first-round clash 7-6 (7), 6-3.
Last year, Llodra served and volleyed his way to the semis in Paris on this same court. But this time around the surface is somewhat slower. It undoubtedly hurt Llodra's chances, but not as much as Llodra hurt himself with a deadly combination: A poor 51 percent first-serve conversion rate and a marked lack of consistency in almost every other aspect of his game.
On the surface, this was a compelling battle between two serve-and-volley stylists who might have been more comfortable playing in an earlier era, and who certainly would have fared better in the days of yore, mainly because the faster surface speeds that once characterized the game would have helped them execute their attacking strategies. But let's not confuse either of these two with serve-and-volley practitioners of the highest order, and conclude that their game just can't work on today's tour. For while both men have potent serves that would have been weapons in any era, neither man has the right tool and skill set to dominate in the leisurely, firm, artfu manner of the true serve-and-volley genius.
That's partly because neither man hits deep and accurate shots; both Llodra and Lopez are a bit wild, and prone to taking big cuts without getting adequate depth. Therefore, they do a lot of chasing, spearing and stabbing. Still, the brio with which they pursue their attacking philosophy makes for fireworks.
The match started calmly—when two attacking players with big serves meet, you can expect service games to go by quickly. So it was until the fourth game of the match. In that one, Llodra was the first to earn a break point, dispatched with alacrity by Lopez via a swerving, lefty hook near-ace. But Llodra still broke Lopez with a forehand swipe service return winner down the line.
In the next game, Llodra established the pattern of the match when he immediately went down 0-40, and ended up broken. Things then went quiet again for a spell and the shotmaking was often bewitching if erratic. The tiebreaker was inevitable, and Llodra looked safe when he jumped out to a 5-2 lead. But Lopez fended off four set points and finally had one of his own, at 8-7, with Llodra to serve.
The 6'3" Frenchman threw in a double fault. Set over.
In the second set, Lopez's superior consistency and basic craftsmanship saw him through to a 4-0 lead. There were a number of cat-and-mouse exchanges of drop shots and volleys, as you can expect any time two men who are always looking to take control of the net go at it. Lopez won almost all of those entertaining exchanges, because he's just that much more nimble. Llodra managed to break Lopez in the fifth game with an impressive backhand stab service-return winner down the line, but that was it for the big Frenchman. Lopez would end up serving it out.
In an era when great serve-and-volley players walked the earth, these men would have been solid, middle-of-the-pack pros. But in an era when the serve-and-volley style appears dead, they seem almost outrageous—daring and bold, and always fun to watch.
—Pete Bodo