{"id":678,"date":"2007-09-02T13:48:05","date_gmt":"2007-09-02T21:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=678"},"modified":"2007-09-02T13:48:05","modified_gmt":"2007-09-02T21:48:05","slug":"tsonga-gets-a-lesson-and-nalbandian-continues-to-sink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/tsonga-gets-a-lesson-and-nalbandian-continues-to-sink\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsonga Gets a Lesson and Nalbandian Continues to Sink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men\u2019s U.S. Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday, September 9th at 4pm EST<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played well for one hour while David Nalbandian played well much longer and it still wasn\u2019t enough.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When France gave Jo-Wilfried Tsonga<\/strong> a wild card into the French Open two years ago, I thought to myself: \u201cThis guy will never make it, he\u2019s too slow and klunky.\u201d Don\u2019t hire me to evaluate talent for your management company any time soon. The guy looked very good against Rafael Nadal<\/strong> in the third round at the US Open. At least for one set.<\/p>\n

In defense of my evaluation skills, Jo-Wilfried (love that name) has played a total of eight clay court matches his entire career. He\u2019s one of those rare net guys. He might not serve and volley but he\u2019ll get to the net soon enough and he has arrived this year. He won four challenger events \u2013 the level just below the ATP \u2013 and got to the fourth round at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got game alright but he still has a lot to learn and Rafa was just the person to teach him.<\/p>\n

Tsonga held his serve through the first set and got to the net 18 times. In the first set tiebreaker, though, Nadal\u2019s experience won out. Veteran players have a feel for the rhythm of a match based on the situation. If they see their opponent\u2019s shoulders sag, they\u2019ll increase the pressure. If they\u2019re in a tiebreaker, they\u2019ll play with controlled aggression because every point is crucial.<\/p>\n

A veteran also tries to keep the same level of effort throughout the match while Tsonga and his fellow newbies look like emotional rollercoasters. Intense periods of aggression are followed by inexplicable letdowns. A few loose points in the tiebreaker and Tsonga lost the first set.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t give up quite yet. He got a break point at 2-2 in the second set with a hard forehand shot down the line and he would have had another break point if Nadal hadn\u2019t hit a beautiful running wraparound passing shot. Most players Tsonga faces won\u2019t be that good.<\/p>\n

Tsonga should be able to do well on fast courts if he can figure out how to stick around mentally for the entire match. He ended up losing the second set and going away in the third. He lost by the score of 7-6(3), 6-2, 6-1.<\/p>\n

France is blowing up. They have 13 players in the top 100 and 2 in the top 20. Richard Gasquet<\/strong>, Paul-Henri Mathieu<\/strong>, Gael Monfils<\/strong> and Tsonga can all be top players. That is if Gasquet can serve up a bit of gumption. He quit the US Open after his first round match because of a measly fever. Gimme a break, this is a slam. What\u2019re you worried about, giving Roger Federer the flu?<\/p>\n

By the way, John and Patrick McEnroe were in the USA Network commentary booth on Sunday and it wasn\u2019t as entertaining as I thought it would be. You\u2019d be hard pressed to find two people who know more about today’s game but they\u2019re too deferential to each other. Mary Carillo will go at John when they\u2019re working together and Patrick and Pam Shriver tease \u201cCliffie\u201d Drysdale mercilessly, but John and Patrick played it straight up.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the tension boys? Commentating is like anything else, there\u2019s no drama without a bit of tension.<\/p>\n

David Nalbandian<\/strong> is still putting up the big fight but his downward spiral continues. After three hours and fifty minutes, Nalbandian had match point on David Ferrer<\/strong>\u2019s serve in the fifth set. Early last year, Nalbandian might have put the match away but the shots don\u2019t fall consistently these days. Forehands go long and backhands go into the net.<\/p>\n

Ferrer saved his serve then won the next two games to take the match, 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-5.<\/p>\n

If Tsonga didn\u2019t learn enough from Nadal, he should look at Ferrer. Ferrer isn\u2019t the most talented player around but nobody works harder and these two matches had something in common. In both cases, the grinder beat out the shotmaker.<\/p>\n

Tsonga might want to take note of that.<\/p>\n

\n

Check out our myspace page<\/a> and add us to your friends network!Read more about Nadal, Nadal Gets ‘Scoped and Blake Takes the Fifth<\/a>, and find the answer to the question: Is the US Open faster than Wimbledon?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men\u2019s U.S. Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday, September 9th at 4pm EST Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played well for one hour while David Nalbandian played well much longer and it still wasn\u2019t enough. When France gave Jo-Wilfried Tsonga a wild card into the French Open two years ago, I thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atp-players","category-atp-tournaments","category-u-s-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","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=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}