{"id":311,"date":"2006-04-02T21:01:53","date_gmt":"2006-04-03T05:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=311"},"modified":"2006-04-02T21:01:53","modified_gmt":"2006-04-03T05:01:53","slug":"nasdaq-100-mens-final-a-tale-of-three-tiebreakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/nasdaq-100-mens-final-a-tale-of-three-tiebreakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasdaq-100 men\u2019s final: a tale of three tiebreakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roger Federer beat Ivan Ljubicic in three straight tiebreakers to win the Nasdaq-100 final, 7-6(?), 7-6(?), 7-6(?).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Ivan Ljubicic lost to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals at Indian Wells two weeks ago, he said that he thought he went too fast in the first set. Dingbat that I am, I thought he meant that he was rushing his shots. What he meant was that he tried to end the point too soon. To me it looked like he didn’t attack as much as he should have in the second set because his 1st sv % was very high (how high-look at my match scoring). If you’re getting that many 1st serves in, you probably should be more daring and go for more lines. Ljubicic [READ THE TRANSCRIPTS] said that his strategy today was to keep the ball in play more, he probably hoped to be a bit less jittery about Federer and play his own game a bit more. [I think I asked L about that at the presser. What did he say? “You cannot win a match with your serve.” Well yes, but it’s a bit here and there. Go for a bit less on the winners, go for a bit more on your serve.<\/p>\n

The solution to the problem is that you play all of your strokes as best you can, in L’s case hit a lot of aces and thereby win his service games, approach on a very good shot only, go for winners only when you’re in a good position to go for them, attack F’s only weakness – his bh – and hope that you can hang with Federer and get to the tiebreaker. If Federer plays his very best game, it might not be enough but when you try to do more than that, the score ends up like the last time they played, 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n

And that is exactly what Ljubicic did. He got to three straight tiebreakers. And lost them all.<\/p>\n

[match description]<\/p>\n

[ending] What more could he have done? A more careful bh in the 1st tiebreaker and L could have won it.<\/p>\n

It’s time to go back to Lanny Bassham, one of the mental game experts we turn to in times of big events: Bassham thinks that the single biggest mistake athletes make is to try too hard. Luby went for too much in Indian Wells because, what’re you gonna do against Federer If you’ve lost to him the last five times, you try something different.<\/p>\n

It’s not an easy thing to do. If you go for too much, you take yourself out of your game. If you don’t pressure F, he’ll eat you alive. So what should he do. Well, his biggest weapon is his serve. He’s not a groundstroke grinder but he has a good backhand [and forehand. So he needs<\/p>\n

Today, L is not going for too many winners early but he is approaching more than he usually does and F is passing him. L can approach but he’s not that comfortable at the net. Serving at 3-4, F passed him twice and they got to deuce. L hit a good fh cc to get ai1 and an ace to get to 4-4.<\/p>\n

Once of the reasons F has such confidence is that he plays within himself. He, of course, changes tactics from players to player but they are shots within his arsenal.<\/p>\n

Luby got up 0-30 in the first two of F’s svc games. In the second one, F hit an overhead into the net to give L a bp. F hit an i\/o fh and faked an approach making L go for a better shot than he might have otherwise. F hit a mh for a 2nd bp. F fh v of a Luby fh ps. L ue fh. L ue bh l. game.<\/p>\n

Serving at 1-2, L hit a great i\/o fh that F barely got to. F flicked the ball just over the net, short enough that L couldn’t get to it. That’s the difference between these two players. F has luck with him, people like him always do, and more importantly, though L has a graceful gamhttp:\/\/tennis.mostvaluablenetwork.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?action=edit&post=401e with a wide variety of shots, he’s not as fast.<\/p>\n

Both players were sailing along on their serve when F got a break pt on L at 3-3 because L sprayed a few ground strokes. But F hit two straight bh’s and one into the sky to get to deuce. L hit a bh into the net himself to give F another bp. L then made a mistake by getting into a long rally with F and F had his 1st break and, of course, now is when you think that F is on his way to another straight set victory. Except that L took the game to F in the next game. This is a dangerous time because L has to attack and yet that usually brings out the errors. He appoached the net and hit one of his beautiful backhands then F slightly mishit a bh after a weak return off a good sv followed by a good L return and they were back on serve. This time L took chances, he hit out on everything, and it worked.<\/p>\n

Then L hit a few more loose ground strokes in the next game and F got another break point. F had L at the net but hit a swinging volley long and they stayed on serve. This is a day when L could take advantage. F is not at his best.<\/p>\n

third set, F serves the 1st game: F shanks another ball, gets a return at his feet when he serves and volleys then loses when L hits a good return to give L three bp’s. F sw. F hit a slice bh that got changed by the net and made it hard for L to hit. High kicker sw 2nd sv deuce. L good rt for another bp. F takes a shot ball, comes in and hits the approach long. L has his break.<\/p>\n

second game, third set: F gets two bp’s then L hits two sw’s and a great ap to get a g.p. ace. 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

L serving ahead 3-2: a long ap shot and his 1st df then a bh into the net [cosidering how many bh ue’s L has had, he’s probably going to kick himself for not winning the match considering how close he came]. Another bh error of a deep F fh and they were back on serve.<\/p>\n

[refernce the Sampras-Agassi match that was all tiebreakers, no service breaks. This match was not like that.]<\/p>\n

[look at interviews]<\/p>\n

The stats in the 1st set were almost identical. All of them except that L had two bp’s he couldn’t convert. L benefited from 23 ue’d by F.<\/p>\n

The statistics for the match were pretty similar. Despite the futility of some of L’s approaches, he won 69% of his pts. at the net while F won 71% of his. Federer won 3 more points that L. However, L had 21 aces to 8 for F, his 1st sv % at Indian Wells (look in my notebook) and here [compare the last match and this] was over 80% and though he did hit 21 aces today, I still think that you aren’t going for enough if your % is that high.<\/p>\n

Three straight tiebreakers, it looks like a close match but it didn’t feel like it. There weren’t a lot of good points. Neither player was super sharp. F was just a bit sharper.<\/p>\n

Tiebreaker one. L had a chance to go up 5-3 and hit an average F fh into the net. They got to 5-5 with L serving when L put a bit too much on a bh putting the set on Federer’s racket. F took it with an ace. !st set over.<\/p>\n

Tiebreaker two: L up 2-1 as F shanks two balls in a row. 3-1 after an L sw. The conditions are ripe for L. He’s hitting a lot of aces and F is shanking shots. 4-1 after an F missed ps down the line. Golden opportunity. L ms bh rt 2nd sv. L ue fh dl, went for winner when he was not in position. What did we tell him about that? Short ball by L turned into a winner by F, 4-4. L bh ue trying to go up the line. At this point L had 2 bh winners and 25 bh errors. Ouch. L approached then put a volley into the middle of the court giving Roger the option of going into him or past him off either wing – set point for F. L short rt on a 2nd sv and F had the 2nd set.<\/p>\n

Tiebreaker 3. F sw. L ace. L df. F ue fh l. L fe fh cc, F 3-2. Short bh by L, F ap for winner, 4-2. L w fh cc ap. F 2nd sv ace, 5-3. F bh slice into net off L bh wide sharp angle, 5-4. F fh mh, 5-5. HERE IS LUBY’S CHANCE! L good 1st sv (139mph), short F rt, L ap for winner, L 6-5, set point. F sw, 6-6. F sw 7-6. He does just what he needs to do when he needs it. Oh noooo<\/p>\n

Up 5-3 in the third set tiebreaker, Federer hit a backhand slice in to the net then mishit a forehand and the pattern of the day changed. Luby served a 139 mph serve when he had to have it for a set point. No matter how good you are, winning three straight tiebreakers is very hard. I guess it’s good enough. Federer came up with a service winner and an ace to get his own match point. Luby hit a fault on his first serve then, oh no, I can’t believe it, who is the last person in the world who needs luck? Federer hit a backhand return that tipped off the top of the net and landed on Luby’s side of the court.<\/p>\n

Indian Wells and Miami in succession. Who was the last person to do that? Oh, right, Federer. Last year. Never mind.<\/p>\n

By the way, big shout out for Martina Navratilova who went for her 176 doubles title today playing with Liesl(?) Huber against Samantha Stosure and Lisa Raymond. She lost but, damn, she’s forty-nine years old and still getting to doubles finals in Masters Series events. I just love her to death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}