by Pete Bodo
[[Sorry, Folks, the server at Getty Images seems to be down; no pic for now]]
Mornin', everyone. I just finished my first contribution to a new blog here at Tennis.com. It's called Racquet Reaction, and it was the brainchild of Easy Ed McGrogan. These Racquet Reaction posts, written by Ed, Steve Tignor or me (eventually, we hope to add other contributors), are brief (300 or so words) reactions to matches, published in as close to real time as we can get. So if you want to see what Ed thought of the Nadal vs. Melzer battle, or check out my reaction to the Federer-Seppi match, head over and cruise the entries at RR.
We won't be doing RR posts for every match, but we're going to try to provide you with these on a daily basis, cherry-picking the matches as we go. Of course, something like a Djokovic vs. Federer semifinal might warrant a deeper or more detailed treatment, and we'll continue to provide that type of in-depth coverage at our respective blogs, as well as news stories on the home page. So all in all, RR probably will be a place where you can jump in and read an easily digestible report on what in many cases would fall into that "just another tennis match" category.
As we have a few RR posts up already, and are still figuring out how to place it with greater visibility on the Tennis.com home page, we'd appreciate your comments. Do you like the basic idea? Do you have an any suggestions? Do you find it helpful to have original content to consume so frequently, or so swiftly after a match ends? Would you be inclined to jump into RR and poke around, just to see what you'll find? Any thoughts you have will be appreciated.
The big news out of Shanghai today was, of course, the win by Jurgen Melzer over Rafael Nadal—a major disruption of Nadal's fall plans, I'm sure, and an unexpected result given Nadal's 3-0 head-to-head lead, and the fact that Melzer had never taken a set off Nadal. In their only previous meeting on hard courts, at the Beijing Olympics, Nadal won 6-0, 6-4.
But this win was a long time coming for the 29-year old veteran from Vienna, who's riding a streak that's yielded the highest singles ranking he's attained in his career, No. 12. And it puts a stamp of credibility on this run, raising the inevitable question: has this guy, at 29, somehow jumped a plateau (or two, or three) and established himself as a Top 10 contender for the foreseeable future (which in tennis means somewhere between 12 and 18 months, give or take).
Melzer started the year ranked No. 28, and took a straight-set beating in Brisbane from an Aussie ranked No. 258, Matthew Ebden. Can you say, inauspicious debut? He then lost a tough five-setter to No. 64 Florent Serra at the Australian Open. But Melzer got his game track in the ensuing weeks in Europe, with a quarterfinal and two semis, the latter against a strong field in Dubai. He hit his stride at the Madrid Masters, losing to Nicolas Almagro in the quarters, but then he made the semis at Roland Garros, where he lost to Nadal. It was a loss he would remember, and ponder, in the weeks and months to come.
After his win today, he revealed what he had been thinking: You cannot let him play his game. You'll always be second. That play with his forehand—he's just too good. So I tried to take the ball early. I was serving really well, especially on big moments. I executed my game plan, which was to put a lot of pressure, especially on his forehand side."
Easier said than done. Sure, Melzer had a career day. But he also demonstrated that he's has been thinking and playing like a guy patiently figuring things out—things he may not have paid much heed to earlier in his career. He is, after all, a lefty—that immediately makes you think the flake factor might play a significant role in everything he does. And Melzer's remarks betray a brand of confidence that isn't standard issue on the ATP tour. You get the sense that he's thinking, "Hey, I can beat Nadal, why not?" And that's more than half the battle.
Remember that after that semi in Paris, he chugged along just fine at the next two majors, losing to Federer at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, both fourth-round matches. Yet somehow, Melzer is one of those guys who hasn't exactly made people believe in him. Perhaps they don't want to. Has anyone else noticed that, generally speaking, the Austrians haven't really produced players that anyone wants to embrace? Horst Skoff, Thomas Muster, Melzer. . . all good players, all unloved, in the grand scheme of things. But that's a subject best left for another day.
With this win, Melzer is suggesting that this run of his has been no fluke, and that he's not about to go away. It would be silly to get all carried away with his upside; he is, after all, 29. Maybe this is just one of those autumn-of-the-career streaks that so many players seem to put together. But while you may not pencil him in as one of the half-dozen serious contenders at big tournament, he can certainly turn an otherwise good day into a bad one for any of those guys.