How did Roger Federer lose to wild card Filippo Volandri in the Masters Series event in Rome? Let me count the ways.

1. Mistaken Identity

Federer couldn’t hit the side of a barn with his forehand – he hit two forehand winners all day – but he kept going for big shots. If he’d been playing Rafael Nadal that would have made sense, but it wasn’t Nadal, it was Filippo Volandri who is currently number 53 in the world. Federer should have made the adjustment any amateur knows how to make: get the ball in play and let your opponent make an error. At the very least, make your opponent hit some shots. Volandri had no opportunity to lose his nerve because Federer didn’t make him hit enough balls to lose his nerve.

2. No Returns Accepted

Volandri is a weak server. When he was serving for the match, one of his first serves came in at 86 mph. Olivier Rochus is 5ft5in and his serve is more intimidating. Yet Federer got exactly one break because he couldn’t return the ball and he didn’t pressure Volandri’s second serve (which is barely stronger than my second serve).

3. Server Down

Federer’s first serve percentage was 44%. It’s clay court tennis, if you can’t get your first serve in it’s not like the lighting fast court gives you a second opportunity to hit a big serve. Here’s the stubbornness again. Take something off the first serve and just get it in! Works for Rafael Nadal.

4. Can’t Get a Break

When Federer lost to Guillermo Canas earlier this year, he said he wasn’t playing the big points well. Today Federer had seven break points and he converted exactly one. Volandri, on the other hand, had eight break opportunities and converted four.

5. Wrong Side of the Bed

Maybe Federer fell out of bed and knocked himself unconscious without knowing it because he forgot how to slide. Clay court movement is not his forte but again and again Volandri hit a deep cross court shot and Federer couldn’t get himself close enough to slide into the ball on the soft red clay. I’ve never seen him play so badly. Forty-four unforced errors in two sets with four double faults and only twelve winners.

Volandri is not one of those wild cards who’s ranked two or three hundred and something, he’s a pretty good clay court player. He won more clay court matches than Nadal last year and took the title at Palermo. Of course, Nadal was undefeated and Volandri lost fifteen matches but still, he’s not chopped liver.

Right about now, Federer is chopped liver. His last four tournaments ended with four Federer losses and today, a meltdown. The edge is gone, at least for the time being. There’s no longer that feeling that Federer will pull a win out by suddenly taking over a match and easily dispatching his opponent. His opponents frequently show more desire than he does. His clay court season is in tatters and Nadal is running away with every tournament.

The best we can do is hope that Novak Djokovic can beat Rafael Nadal – they play each other next. That’s not likely but then neither was today’s result.

See Also:
Rerun in Rome: Preview and Picks
B**tch and Sing Dept: Early Rounds in Rome

Qualifiers and veterans are retiring this week and a few other players look like they should.

This Qualifier Is Ready for Retirement

Juan Martin Del Potro is building a highly undesirable reputation for fragility. Last week he retired in his second round match in Estoril, he retired in his second round match at the Australian Open, he even retired during his first round match in qualifying this week. Most of the time these retirements only hurt Del Potro, but when he retired in a match against James Blake in Las Vegas, he deprived Blake of an opportunity to advance to the knockout round of the round robin tournament. That in turn rang the death knell for the round robin format when ATP CEO Etienne de Villiers tried to advance Blake anyway thus showing that it was silly to think that fans could understand the round robin rules when de Villiers didn’t know them himself.

It reminds me of something I read in a book about a Zen monastery called The Empty Mirror. A Zen priest castigated his student by pointing out the consequences of the student’s carelessness:

“I saw you turn a corner the other day and you didn’t hold out your hand. Because of your carelessness a truck driver, who happened to be driving behind you, got into trouble and had to drive his truck on the sidewalk where a lady driving a pram hit a director of a large trading company. The man, who was in a bad mood already, fired an employee who might have stayed on. That employee got drunk that night and killed a young man who could have been a Zen master.”

Besides the fact that it took me less than five minutes to find this quote in a book I read more than twenty years ago just by entering “zen mirror carelessness” into the google search bar, there’s a lesson here. The only thing Del Potro might have killed is round robin and most people are happy about that, but if he’d been more aware, he would have completed the match with Blake. And if he didn’t feel well enough to play, he’d have given up his qualifying spot in Rome which would have allowed someone else to enter.

There was another notable incident in qualifying. Guillermo Canas is running up the rankings ladder so quickly that he’s now number 21 in the world. But a short while ago he wasn’t ranked high enough to get into the draw here so he had to qualify. That meant that he was ranked higher than his first round opponent – Jurgen Melzer, number 32 – even though he was a qualifier. Poor Melzer lost easily, 7-5, 6-2. And Tomas Berdych is probably not happy that he’s ranked number 12 yet he has to play the number 22 – Jarkko Nieminen. Aren’t you supposed to lower ranked players in the first round?

Clijsters Retires and Hewitt Runs Out of Gas

We knew Kim Clijsters was ready to leave the game but not quite so soon. She’s only twenty-three years old but she’s so beat up she has to stretch for an hour after she wakes up just to get going. That was just too much so she abruptly announced her retirement over the weekend. Ten years on the tour and she’s worn out.

Clijsters’ former fiancé Lleyton Hewitt isn’t looking so good himself. He’s only in his ninth year and he’s had multiple injuries the past few seasons. Today he lost the third set 1-6 to qualifier Oscar Hernandez. It’s not surprising that Hewitt is breaking down. He never had enough offense to dictate matches so he wore himself out playing defense and exercising his indomitable will.

Are current players wearing out sooner? A quick look at a few recent slam winners says yes. Lindsay Davenport lasted thirteen years, Monica Seles fourteen, and Steffi Graf fifteen. On the men’s side, Jim Courier played for twelve years, John McEnroe fourteen, Ivan Lendl sixteen, and Andre Agassi twenty.

Twenty years might be too much too ask but ten years is a decided drop from the last crop of big players. There are as many reasons for this drop as there are reasons for the increasing number of injuries on tour: more travel, harder hit balls, luxilon strings, shorter off-season… Feel free to add your own. The WTA and ATP are desperately making changes to keep their top players in one piece but it’s not a trend that’s likely to change anytime soon.

Enjoy your favorite players while you still can.

See Also:
Rerun in Rome: Preview and Picks

Will Rome be a three man race between Canas, Federer and Nadal?

I got all excited there for a moment. I saw Guillermo Canas in the qualifying draw here in Rome and thought to myself, wow, how great would it be if Canas ended up in Roger Federer’s half of the draw? All of a sudden there would be a real possibility that Federer might lose and we’d have a three man race instead of the usual two way race that passes for ATP tennis these days.

Two years ago, Rafael Nadal and Guillermo Coria played an epic five hour match in the final with Coria suffering a heartbreaking loss in the fifth set tiebreaker. Last year, Nadal and Federer played an epic five hour match in the final with Federer losing in the fifth set tiebreaker. Coria lost his confidence after a shoulder injury and hasn’t played this year, Federer was ineffective against Nadal in the Monte Carlo final two weeks ago, and Rome will no longer play best of five matches in its final.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Canas ended up on Rafael Nadal’s side of the draw and now I’ll have to wait until next week in Hamburg or two weeks after that at Roland Garros to get excited again. If you want to beat Nadal, you have to attack the net and rush him otherwise he’ll have time to run around his backhand all day long. Federer is the only clay court player who can do that. Canas has shown that he can beat Federer – he’s beaten him twice this year – but Nadal is beyond his skill set.

Enjoy back to back clay court Masters events while you can, by the way. Hamburg will probably be downgraded by 2009. The ATP is eliminating back to back Masters events and five set finals and using a fifty-six player draw. The smaller draw gives the top eight players a first round bye so they only have to play five matches to win the title. The point of all this is to make life easier for the top players and encourage them to turn up at required tournaments.

Nadal’s Half of the Draw

So far it’s working. All top ten players are present and accounted for in Rome. I had no idea that Djokovic was up to number five. Wasn’t he number ten only a few weeks ago? He beat Richard Gasquet for the title in Estoril this week and looks to be the only player standing in Nadal’s way. Djokovic and Nadal should meet in the quarterfinals.

Andy Murray has yet to show much on clay, Nikolay Davydenko hurt his wrist, and Tommy Robredo could well lose to Canas in the third round since Canas has a 3-1 record over him. If Canas doesn’t wear himself out – he had blisters in Barcelona, an abdominal strain in Estoril and a foot problem in the qualifiers here – we’re likely to see a Canas-Nadal semifinal.

Federer’s Half of the Draw

Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych are in Federer’s quarter but Gasquet will lose to Federer before he reaches Berdych. The only interesting match left is Berdych and Ivan Ljubicic in the third round. Berdych reached the semifinals in Monte Carlo and Munich while Ljubicic has one clay court win in Monte Carlo and that’s it. I’m picking Berdych.

The bottom part of Federer’s half is the hopeless quarter. Andy Roddick, James Blake and Dmitry Tursunov don’t threaten anyone on clay and Fernando Gonzalez is sinking fast – he lost in the first round in Monte Carlo and Estoril. It’s so bad that I chose Nicolas Massu to get to the quarterfinal where he should lose easily to David Ferrer.

It will be shocking if Nadal doesn’t win here for the third year in a row.

Picks

Quarterfinalists: Federer. Berdych, Ferrer, Massu, Canas, Agustin Calleri, Djokovic, Nadal
Semifinalists: Federer, Ferrer, Canas, Nadal
Finalists: Federer, Nadal

Rome Singles Draw

See also:
Federer-Nadal VI (last year’s Rome final)