Author Archives: nrota

Tall Dudes in Cincinnati

The U.S. is turning out tall dudes who serve big.

John Isner is a shade over 6ft 9in and he hit a 125mph (201km/h) second serve in Cincinnati today. Damn that’s quick. Isner has really awkward ground strokes though. He stands straight up when he hits the ball. With all that height, imagine how hard he could hit it if he bent his knees a tad.

Isner was ranked number 745 less than a month ago. Then he won a challenger and hit 144 aces in Washington and now his ranking is 192. Today he hit only nine aces and lost in straight sets to David Ferrer, 7-6(3), 6-3.

Amer Delic is similar. He’s 6ft 5in and he’s good as long as he gets his first serve in. He couldn’t get it in often enough today and he fell to Ivan Ljubicic, 1-6, 7-6(3), 6-3.

The U.S. is turning out tall dudes with big serves and they are hopeless once they leave hard courts. Sam Querrey is 6ft 6in. He played six clay court tournaments this year and lost in the first round four times. That was so discouraging that he lost in the first round of his next four tournaments.

Querrey is slightly different from Isner and Delic because he has a baseline game. He had a beautiful thirty stroke rally today with Marc Gicquel, a master retriever. Querrey lost the point but he won the match, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4

Every day on my way to the media room at last week’s WTA event in Los Angeles, I passed a demo of a synthetic red clay court. They’re rare in the U.S. but there are a few thousand of them in Europe. No watering necessary and the lines are painted on. The USTA should start peppering the country with these things and see if the U.S. can turn out some tall dudes who can serve big but also have the patience to construct a point.

It’s a lot cheaper than sending all our juniors to a tennis academy in Barcelona for their teenage years.

Finally, a New Poll

I kept forgetting to change the poll over there on the right side of this page. As a result, it had some interesting numbers. The poll asked the following question: How many Wimbledons will Rafael Nadal win?

Originally, the choices were 1, 2, and 3 or more. I left out 0 because I assumed most people watched Nadal lose Wimbledon by a hair to Roger Federer this year. Someone disagreed and added the choice 0 and that turned out to be the winner.

It only won by one vote but you have to wonder what those people were watching. Nadal is only getting better on grass. Today I’m putting up a new poll and I’m leaving the 0 off again. Here’s the question:

What are Roger Federer’s chances of winning the U.S. Open? 25%? 50%? 75%? 100%?

They just went down with his loss to Novak Djokovic in Montreal and they’d already suffered with Federer’s other hard court results. We just started our fourth hard court Masters Series event of the year and he has yet to win one.

Look to the right side of this page and do your duty. Vote!

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A Serbian Weekend in Tennis

The Serbs dominated professional tennis this weekend as Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic both won titles.

Ana Ivanovic knew that Novak Djokovic had already beaten Roger Federer before she took the court for the final here at the East West Bank Classic just south of Los Angeles. “I was motivated to do the same thing,” she said and she did exactly that.

Except for failing to serve out the first set at 5-4, Ivanovic had few problems winning a straight set victory over Nadia Petrova, 7-5, 6-4. And so we came to the end of a Serbian Weekend.

In Montreal, Novak Djokovic edged his way into the Roger Federer–Rafael Nadal perennial two-step with a 7-6(2), 2-6, 7-6(2) victory for his second Masters Series title. Not only that but he beat Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal along the way.

Ivanovic said she has known Djokovic since they were both 4 years old and they’re good friends:

As kids we would practice sometimes together and then go play hide and seek for the rest of the day. …It’s nice to know someone for so long and look back at your childhood… I love spending time with him.

The same is not true for Jelena Jankovic, the third member of the Serbian troika. She was not in the same age group as Ivanovic and they do not appear to be as friendly. The weekend started off with a semifinal between the two and it was a battle from beginning to end.

Jankovic was up a break in the first set and serving at 4-3 when Ana put her hand up for a timeout because the ball kids were rolling balls behind Jelena. Jelena stopped for half a second – essentially ignoring her – then went into her service motion. Ana mishit the return and stood there with her hands on her hips. She was not amused.

It was another one of those serving incidents that display gamesmanship. Jankovic should have waited until the ball kids were finished. She was clearly letting Ana know who was in charge.

Jelena was in charge and she stayed that way until Ivanovic pulled even with a break to go up 4-2 in the second set. Ivanovic had to fight off thee break points to serve out the set but she’d evened the match.

Jankovic got two match points with Ivanovic serving at 4-5 in the third set and though Ivanovic won the game, it looked like it was just a matter of time before Jankovic won the battle.

Then it happened:

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM. Five straight forehand winners from Ivanovic and she had the break she needed. Jankovic had run out of energy. She’d suffered through a case of the flu last week so she couldn’t practice and her conditioning failed her. Ivanovic won the battle, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.

Djokovic had his own battle with Federer. He fought off six set points to get to 6-6 in the first set then won the tiebreaker 7-2. He took the third set tiebreaker by the same score.

It’s been a historical day for Serbian tennis and now it’s time to ask if Serbia is prepared to win a U.S. Open title.

Renae Stubbs and Kveta Peschke came into the media room after they won the doubles title today and Stubbs gave us one of the answers. Stubbs is fantastic. They should put her in a commentator booth immediately.

In addition to an excellent comparison of Steffi Graf‘s and Ivanovic’s forehand*, she said that Ivanovic has the skills to win a slam but might not have the mentality yet.

Ivanovic may not be ready yet, but after today, Djokovic is.

*Ivanovic hits harder but then Graf didn’t have current racket technology and, by the way, Graf moved better.

ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks: Cincinnati

We’re deep into the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out my Fantasy Tennis Guide. You’ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.

Sign up and join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

The deadline for picking your team this week is Monday, August 13, 10am EST, 4pm CET.

Rear View Mirror – a look at last week’s picks

I got only half of the quarterfinalists in Montreal and that ain’t good but look at it this way: I’m still in 23rd place in the standings and Fernando Gonzalez, Tommy Robredo, Tomas Berdych and Richard Gasquet were all gone by the time the third round rolled around.

Radek Stepanek got to the semifinals, for heaven’s sake, so we’ll have to make a decision about him. Novak Djokovic knocked Rafael Nadal out and that’s important because Nadal has a big lead in this year’s race and he could have made a significant step towards the number one ranking.

Cincinnati (hard court, first prize: $400,000)

Court speed is a significant factor this week. Tennisinsight.com gives Cincinnati a percentile of just under 2% versus other hard courts. This means that it plays faster than 98% of the other hard court tournaments. Montreal is playing at about 19% which means it’s about 17% slower.

That may explain why Andy Roddick has won this tournament twice and also explains why I won’t be choosing Nikolay Davydenko.

Roger Federer’s Quarter

As usual, the idea is to pick two guys from each quarter to make up our 8 player team. Federer should be an easy pick but he’s not wild about back to back one week Masters Series events. Last year he lost here in the second round to Andy Murray and his record in Canada is far better than here. But he has won this thing and Nadal is breathing down his neck so you have to pick him.

As for the bottom part of his quarter: good luck. Everyone told me I shouldn’t have picked Tommy Robredo last week and they were right and they’re probably still right.

Ivan Ljubicic was having a good year on hard court until he lost to a qualifier in the first round at Montreal. He reached the quarterfinals at Indian Wells and the semifinals at Miami. Jarkko Nieminen is in this quarter but Ljubicic beat him at Miami so I’m going with Ljubicic.

Novak Djokovic’s Quarter

Djokovic is in the final against Federer today so he he’ll be tired. He did reach the Indian Wells final then win Miami which are consecutive Masters Series events, but they’re two week events, not one. Still, there’s really no competition in his part of the quarter so you have to take him.

Lleyton Hewitt and Richard Gasquet should meet in the second round and that’s a tough pick. Hewitt beat him last year at the US Open but Gasquet is the better player, it’s just that he’s so maddeningly inconsistent.

Tommy Haas got to the third round in Montreal before losing to Stepanek so he could easily get one round further. He plays Mario Ancic in the first round but Ancic has never done well on this hard court swing.

Since the Gasquet-Hewitt match is a tossup and either one could be gone early, I’m going with Haas.

Andy Roddick’s Quarter

My writing partner, Pat Davis, is picking Stepanek to beat Roddick. Stepanek almost beat Roddick in Washington and I like Stepanek’s game but I’m not picking him for two reasons: the court is fast and he could be out of kilter emotionally because his engagement to Martina Hingis was called off.

I’m not picking Davydenko because he’s got that stress fracture in his foot and hard courts are hard on feet. I think he played well last week to prove that he doesn’t tank matches and that motivation is now gone.

Tomas Berdych is something of an enigma. He plays better on clay and grass than he does on hard court. You can’t count on him to reach a quarterfinal in the summer hard court swing. His main competition here is Paul-Henri Mathieu but you can’t count on him to reach a hard court quarterfinal either. Berdych and Mathieu have never played each other.

Mathieu is 11-7 on hard courts this year while Berdych is 7-6 so Mathieu is my pick.

Rafael Nadal’s Quarter

Mikhail Youzhny beat Nadal the last two times they met on hard court but Nadal is now better on that surface and Youzhny is not.

James Blake has an abdominal muscle pull and they’re notorious for taking a long time to heal. Nicolas Kiefer isn’t available for ATP fantasy tennis because his ranking dropped too low due to injury and he’ll probably take out Marat Safin in the first round.

I don’t want to pick Fernando Gonzalez till he straightens himself out but he has a 3-0 record over Ferrero on fast courts so Gonzalez it is.

Cincinnati draw

My Picks

Here’s my team: Federer, Ljubicic, Djokovic, Haas, Mathieu, Roddick, Gonzalez and Nadal.

Happy fantasies!

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Sania Mirza’s Fiery Forehand

What dictates a player’s game: temperament or skills?

I wandered over to one of the outside courts yesterday so I could check out Sania Mirza and see what makes that forehand such a weapon. And how the hell does she get those sharp angles? Is it the wrist action that Martina Hingis demonstrated in her belly dancer imitation after she lost to Sania? Or is it something else?

What I found was something else and it doesn’t have much to do with the forehand. Sania fussed and fumed and finally lost to 52nd ranked Virginie Razzano after struggling through a slow start and running into a big problem in the second set tiebreaker.

Sania had lost the first set 6-1 and was down 0-1 in the second set tiebreaker when she hit a backhand approach that appeared to land on the sideline. The chair umpire disagreed and overruled the call costing Mirza the point. She dropped her racked in disbelief. The chair umpire had just overruled a call on the sideline farthest from her chair and she did it in a tiebreaker:

By the time Sania regained her composure, she was down 5-1 in the tiebreaker. She fought back to 6-6 but Razzano hit a winner and Sania sent an angry return flying past the baseline and the match was over.

Did Sania’s temper lose her the match? Here’s what she said afterwards:

I’m a very short-tempered person off the court. On the court I’m not so bad but sometimes I just let it out and today was one of those days when I wasn’t playing well and then finally I was fighting so hard. …I hit a clean winner and she overruled the far sideline so what can you do? I got pissed and I lost.

Now we know. Sania is one fiery being and that’s what I found when I went looking for her forehand. It’s not the technical things that make it a strong stroke – apart from the wicked racket head speed of course. That same fire that undid her today is the same fire that makes her an ultra-aggressive player and no doubt adds some speed on the radar gun to the forehand.

Compare her with Razzano for instance. Razzano is a good, steady defensive player without a big weapon. She’s extremely annoying because she’s good enough to jump on errors and put the ball away but she can’t force her offense on you. She has to be calm and steady because she doesn’t have enough weapons to come back from a deficit

Mirza, on the other hand, tries to end points as soon as possible. Balls go flying all over the place as she tries to hit winner after winner.

What dictates a player’s game: is it temperament or skills?

For instance, does the fiery temperament come first or does a player tailor they’re game to their skills.

Look at Roger Federer. He had a terrible temper as a junior but winning is his first priority and now, as Debra our reader says, you can hardly hear him when he plays whereas other players are grunting and groaning and yelling. Bjorn Borg too. He used to insist on playing games with his father when he was a child then throw a complete fit if he lost.

The answer, then, is neither. The overriding factor for the aggressive play and strong strokes is the desire to win and players who want to win badly enough tailor their temperament to get the best results. If screaming makes you play better – think of John McEnroe – then that’s what you’ll do. If unnatural calmness works, then a player who wants to win strongly enough will become an unnaturally calm player regardless of his or her fundamental temperament.

This is my theory. Feel free to weigh in with yours.

Oh, and about those sharp angles that befuddled Hingis. Sania goes for winners which means she goes for lots of angles. And when she hits an angle, her opponent will often go for more angle. I’m not observant enough to know if her shot is particularly wristy or not but if you create angles, you get a lot more opportunity to hit them.

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To read more about Sania, Martina and Marion, check these out:
Hingis Compares Herself to Chakvetadze
Bartoli is Out of Sorts in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, Montreal, Lego Man and Bud Collins

Ana and Jelena Square Off in Los Angeles

Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic have opposing styles both on the court and off.

We got a double dose of the Serbian women today here at the East West Bank Classic just south of Los Angeles. One after the other. First Ana Ivanovic defeated Maria Kirilenko, 6-4, 6-4, and then Jelena Jankovic defeated Victoria Azarenka, 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2. They’ll meet in the semifinals tomorrow but the contrast in their personalities is as fascinating as any match they’ll play.

Ana has model good looks in that baby-face way that made Anna Kournikova so deliciously appealing. It’s that combination of openness and sensuality that literally pulls you in. She’s very affable and eager to cooperate. Ask her about her match and she’ll spill out a summary that could end up in tomorrow’s sports pages without any further editing. For example:

I was 5-2 up with a double break and she played an unbelievable game on my serve. She was just going for her shots and I was mostly running and defending in that game and then she served well. On a break at 5-4 I was trying to focus on what I have to do and just realizing that I have still to be aggressive and not wait for her to miss because she was on a run. Yes, I served very well that game and I was really happy I closed the match.

And then there is Jelena. She has exotic looks with a long, distinctive face instead of that round baby face. Rather than being eager to please, she says whatever comes to her mind and doesn’t care what you think. And she won’t hesitate to call you out if you’re wrong. For example, when someone asked her how she felt about playing Ana tomorrow she said:

It’s just like any other match for me …it’s just another girl on the other side of the net.

Is that a bit of antipathy on Jelena’s part towards her countrywoman? No it’s not and if you think that, you can blame the media:

The media, most of the time, you guys, you make some kind of, like when we get off the court we kind of hate each other for no reason. Nothing really happened between us…I think that’s wrong.

When one of us accursed media suggested that people were just interested in a rivalry she said the following:

I don’t want to look behind me, you know, I want to look in front of me. I am the number three player in the world and I’m looking at number two and number one.

Ana is ranked number five by the way. Can you really blame the media?

They’re playing style is different too. Ana depends on a big serve and forehand and she likes to end points quickly. If Jelena can get her into long rallies tomorrow, she could beat her with her speed.

They don’t even agree on their first meeting. Ana says they met at that famous swimming pool when Jelena was 10 and Ana was 8. There weren’t many tennis facilities in war-torn Serbia so a swimming pool was emptied and converted into a few tennis courts. Ana says that Jelena beat her easily.

Jelena says that is completely wrong because she didn’t even start playing until she was 9 ½ years old and was still only a beginner at 10 years old. She did play in the swimming pool, though, and she won a tournament there. Instead of a trophy she received a watermelon.

As Jelena left the media room, she picked up a deflated oversized rubber tennis ball in the shape of a watermelon and asked if anyone wanted an autograph.

Not yet, we’ll just keep watching the rivalry. That’s more fun.

Check out our myspace page and add us to your friends network!

To read more about Sania, Martina and Marion, check these out:
Sania Mirza’s Fiery Forehand
Hingis Compares Herself to Chakvetadze
Bartoli is Out of Sorts in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, Montreal, Lego Man and Bud Collins