Steve,
Just watched big, bad Berdych finish off Haas 8-6, in the fifth set. His reward? King Roger in the fourth round. By the way, Federer is in the stands right now watching countryman Stanislas Wawrinka play Mario Ancic, wearing his posh blazer. Nice gesture. I’m just waiting for that guy to make a PR mistake. Maybe become a spokesman for Tinactin or something. He did force poor Tony Roche to watch the match with him, and he looks really to keel over in boredom. Got to get ol’ Rochey a new hat.
I didn’t think Berdych would recover when he was down 2 sets to 1 and a break in the fourth against Santoro last round, so I’ve got to give him credit for his fifth set mettle. No James Blake jokes, please. But I also heard that Berdych was mocking Santoro’s Ginsu knife forehand, and I will not stand for mocking of Fabrice.
Tough day for some high seeds. Blake, Nalbandian, Kuznetsova, and Hingis all tasted defeat. I really thought Blake was in a light quarter and had a great shot at the semis. Now either Mirnyi, Bjorkman, Ferdasco, or Stepanek will make it to that round. Love to know how many people in our office pool have that quartet.
Well that’s it for now. Tomorrow looks to be a rousing day here with Nadal-Agassi first off on Centre Court, followed by Sharapova-Frazier to cleanse the palette, and Murray-Roddick to finish the day. Evidently there’s also a little futbol game going on around the same time that might distract people from the real event at hand.
Whatever baby.
Until tomorrow.
JL
Jon,
You know I’m not the world’s biggest Max Mirnyi fan; in fact, I’ve accused him of not even being a tennis player in the past. I thought that anyone who can’t hit a ground stroke is not really playing the sport. So why did I suddenly find myself enjoying the Beast’s game today?
Mirnyi beat James Blake with old-fashioned grass-court tennis. It’s a style I hadn’t seen in a while, and one that I’m not sure I particularly liked back when everyone was using it. It’s about relentless pressure and forcing your opponent to make a perfect shot or lose the point. You could see that it was taking its toll on Blake as early as the first set. He would get to 30-30 or break point (even 0-40 one time), but he couldn’t quite get over the hump for the first set and a half. With the imposing Mirnyi on top of the net, it became that much harder to hit the finishing shot for the break.
This is a style that in my lifetime has been associated only with Wimbledon. What was always interesting to me was how it made such a stark contrast with clay-court tennis. The grass game was just as mentally taxing as the long rallies at the French Open, but it was utterly compressed—a set often came down to a single stroke, or mishit, or blink. After a few years of watching Federer and Roddick win on grass from the backcourt, it was refreshing to see this game being played again, even if it was the Beast who was doing it to an American. Hey, I even started to believe that Bodo may be onto something when he talks about the particular warrior mentality needed for grass.
Then Blake turned the tide, winning the second and third sets. It seemed that our old friend Tony Lance had been right after all—even the grass game is no match for today’s returns of serve and passing shots. Once Blake got his teeth into the match, he began to punish Mirnyi from the backcourt; he suddenly had no trouble at all coming up with the big shot to break. At that point, I left my apartment and came to work, thinking Blake was going to cruise and baseline tennis was still safe at Wimbledon.
By the time I got to the office, Mirnyi had won the fourth set, gone up 3-0 in the fifth, and Bodo was grinning from ear to ear. Why did Blake collapse? Did you see any of it? My guess was that Mirnyi’s pressure had taken its toll mentally on Blake, who wasn’t used to having to come up with three sets worth of excellent passing shots. Or did Blake just go away on his own? Either way, JB is now 0-9 in five-setters, a serious problem if he ever wants to contend at a Slam.
Anyway, Pete and Tony kept up their conversation about Wimbledon and s & v. Bodo says that it’s a shame that no top players now change their games for Wimbledon—it’s just another stop on the tour. Borg had changed his serve to win it in 1976 (of course, it only took him about two weeks to make it good enough to win the whole thing five straight times); Sampras had switched to a one-handed backhand as a kid expressly to win Wimbledon; and Lendl had skipped the French and serve and volleyed on every point to reach two finals. Nobody does anything like that now.
The argument against this is that it just doesn’t pay to change your game for a four-week grass-court season, especially if you make your living on clay. And at the same time, Hewitt and Federer have shown that you don’t need to leave the baseline now that the grass is a little slower. What do you think: Should we ask the pros to take Wimbledon as seriously as Borg, Sampras, and Lendl did and risk changing their games for it?
Anyway, on a more pressing subject: Who's everyone got for Nadal-Agassi tomorrow? I'm taking Rafa in a long one.
Steve