Category Archives: ATP Tournaments

Andy, Robby and David in Madrid

Andy Murray is playing excellent tennis in Madrid, Robby Ginepri and David Ferrer are not.

Robby Ginepri’s Long Strange Trip

What happened to Robby Ginepri’s career? Why has he dropped from a career high ranking of 14 to number 72?

The guy can serve, he can move, and he can hit the ball very hard. He was facing set point in the first set of his second round match in Madrid when he got into a long rally with his opponent, one Mr. Roger Federer. Ginepri got Federer on the run with a forehand down the line. He got him running a second time with a backhand down the line. A shot behind Federer, a shot to the opposite corner, one more down the line and Ginepri saved the set point.

When you go to enough post-match media sessions, you’ll hear the following question again and again: “What helps your confidence the most?” The most common answer doesn’t sound like it belongs on the dust jacket of a self-help book. You don’t create your own reality in tennis, your opponent tells you exactly what level your game is at.

It’s very simple: what helps confidence the most is winning.

On the way up that means a win over a big opponent. For Ginepri, beating then number seven Marat Safin to get to the quarterfinals at Indian Wells in 2003 was big. Following that up with a quarterfinal at Miami helped a lot too.

But the converse is also true. What hurts confidence the most is losing. The next year, Ginepri only reached the second and third round in Indian Wells and Miami and that started a dive in his ranking.

He managed to make it all the way back and he reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 2006 where he played a magical five round match with Andre Agassi. The next year he only reached the third round and his ranking has never recovered.

Because his ranking is so low, Ginepri had to go through qualifying to get into the main draw in Madrid. He went to all that trouble because he plays well here and because he wanted to defend his quarterfinal finish last year. The lower your ranking, the earlier you’ll face a big player. This time it was Federer.

Ginepri got to the first set tiebreaker where Federer raised his game and Ginepri did not. It was a good outing, though, Ginepri lost the match by one break of serve in the second set: 7-6(2), 6-4.

Once you slide down the rankings slope, it’s that much harder to climb back up again. When the rankings come out next week, Ginepri will be somewhere in the 90’s.

Andy’s Back

I love watching Andy Murray play tennis. It’s a bit like watching a circus performer.

Here he is loping after the ball and just when you think it’s impossible, he gets to the ball and hits a deep shot back over the net. I don’t know whether it’s his long arms and legs or a secret technique he’s developed, but he can hit the ball later than anyone else I’ve seen.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t take the big windup and the big follow-through on his ground strokes. He directs the ball rather than smashing it. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t look fast enough to get to all those balls and he surprises us when he does.

In the second set of his second round match with Juan Ignacio Chela, Murray ran on a straight line from the net to the baseline to track down an overhead. Once he got there, he hit a flat-footed overhead with his back to the net and placed the ball smack on the sideline to win the point.

One point later he retrieved two balls deep in the deuce court then motored all the way to the other corner to hit a gorgeous passing shot down the line. The crowd was clapping and yelling as Chela was waiting to serve the next point. Murray lifted his racket in recognition of the crowd as he shyly dropped his head.

I sometimes forget that Murray is a good returner. He’s in the top ten in three of the four statistical categories for return of serve. The one thing he doesn’t do well is convert break points. It’s the same problem he has closing out matches. He doesn’t win the pressure points.

Murray had his usual hiccup closing the match out but he won it easily, 6-1, 6-3.

Did I say that I love watching this guy play?

David Ferrer on the Fast Stuff

I was right about David Ferrer. He’s the hottest player on the tour but I didn’t expect him to do well in Madrid because he’s not a good indoor player. Lefty Feliciano Lopez took Ferrer out in the second round, 7-6(3), 7-5.

Why doesn’t Ferrer play well indoors? If you go to tennisform.com’s Games Per Set Page, you’ll see that Madrid is ranked number 15.

Fifteen what you ask? The faster the court, the harder it is to break serve and therefore the more games will be played in each set. By that measure, Madrid is one of the top 15 fastest tennis courts on the tour.

That’s a problem for David Ferrer because it also means there’ll be more tiebreakers. He’s 11-10 in tiebreakers this year because he doesn’t have a big enough serve. Lopez, on the other hand, has a big serve and the match turned on his serving.

At the beginning of the match, Lopez couldn’t buy a serve and Ferrer was up a break. As soon as Lopez found his serve, he was able to win the first set tiebreaker and go on to win the second set.

It also helps that Lopez is a lefty. Ferrer was serving for the first set 5-3 when he came to the net and reflexively hit a volley to the ad corner which is the backhand side for most players. For Lopez, though, it was right in his wheelhouse and he hit a forehand passing shot and ended up breaking Ferrer.

This was a big loss for Ferrer. He’s ranked number six and he’s very close to clinching a spot in the final eight for the year end championships. He’s got two more weeks on the fast stuff. If he can’t win at least one or two matches he could be in trouble.

Whaddya think? Can Ferrer learn to live with the fast stuff and make it to the year end championships?

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

ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Madrid

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 morning: 1am in Los Angeles/4am in New York/9am in London. Make you picks before you go to bed Sunday night.

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

I picked two of the three winners and jumped from number 53 to number 14 in the standings. Remember, though, that I took Novak Djokovic and the sure $183,000 in Vienna so I may pay for that in Madrid and Paris because I can’t pick him any more.

This is a huge week because Madrid is a Masters Series event with lots of points and there are a number of players who can still qualify for the year end championships – only the top eight players qualify. It’ll be too late for most people by the time the Paris Masters rolls around in two weeks.

We need eight players so let’s pick the top two players in each quarter of the draw – in other words, the quarterfinalists.

Madrid (indoor hard, first prize: $468,860)

Roger Federer’s Quarter

I still have one Federer left so I’m picking him because he’s 10-2 here and he won last year.

Now I have the toughest pick in the draw. David Ferrer is on fire but he has a losing career record indoors. He got to the quarterfinals in Madrid two years ago but he beat clay court players to get there. Also, Feliciano Lopez is in his part of the draw and he beat Ferrer in Stockholm last year.

Ivan Ljubicic has a clear path to the third round so I’m picking him.

Nikolay Davydenko’s Quarter

Nikolay Davydenko has never gone past the third round in Madrid and he could meet Ivo Karlovic in his first match if Karlovic can get past Marat Safin. I can only use Davydenko one more time so I’m saving him for Paris which he won last year.

Safin got to the quarterfinals in Madrid last year and won it the year before. On the other hand, Karlovic is 11-3 on indoor hard court this year and he won the title in Vienna. Safin has been playing so badly this year that I have to go with Karlovic.

I’m ignoring Mikhail Youzhny and Stanislaw Wawrinka because Youzhny has lost in the first round in Madrid the past three years and Wawrinka has never played Madrid and hasn’t done well in Paris.

Tommy Haas got to the semifinals in Stockholm last week and he has an 11-2 record on hard court this year, but he’s never been past the third round in Madrid. I can only use him one more time so I’m saving him for Paris where he got to the semifinals last year.

The question in this part of the draw is whether we can count on Fernando Gonzalez to turn up. He got to the final here last year but he’s still up and down this year. What the hell, he doesn’t do well in Paris and I can only use him one more time so I’m going with Gonzalez.

Novak Djokovic’s Quarter

I’m in trouble here because I’ve used Djokovic up and James Blake is 0-3 in Madrid.

I’ll have to choose between Richard Gasquet and Paul-Henri Mathieu to get my first pick in this section. Gasquet is 3-0 over Mathieu so I’m taking Gasquet.

Carlos Moya has one victory indoors in the last two years and Juan Carlos Ferrero got to the semifinals in Vienna so I’m taking Ferrero who will only get to the third round before he loses to Djokovic.

Rafael Nadal’s Quarter

I used up all my Rafael Nadal picks on the clay and hard court season.

David Nalbandian reached the semifinals the past two years but he’s playing badly. I’m picking Tomas Berdych over Tommy Robredo because Robredo hasn’t gone past the third round the past two years.

Assuming Marcos Baghdatis continues to flounder, the tough pick is between Andy Murray and Radek Stepanek who unfortunately meet in the first round. Murray beat Stepanek on grass in their only meeting and Murray’s record indoors is far better so I’m picking him.

Madrid Draw

My Picks

Here’s my team: Federer, Ljubicic, Karlovic, Gonzalez, Gasquet, Ferrero, Berdych, Murray.

Happy fantasies!

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

Floyd Landis and the Miranda Warning

Are athletes receiving fair treatment at the hands of anti-doping agencies?

Gambling is the raging subject in the tennis world today and steroids are on the back burner. I’ll get back to gambling soon enough but in light of the recent decision in the Floyd Landis case, I want to look at the process of handing out drug suspensions to athletes.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is currently 35-0 in cases brought against athletes suspected of using banned substances. In other words they’ve haven’t lost a case yet. If the athlete never wins, is the process fair?

One way to answer the question is to compare an illegal drug case in a court of law to a case brought by an anti-doping agency against an athlete. Since the USADA is based in the U.S., I’m going to use the U.S. judicial system for my example.

Let’s say a police officer finds you holding a bag of cocaine before you can flush it down the toilet or, heaven forbid, swallow it. The police officer arrests you but he trips over his drug-sniffing dog and sprains his ankle then forgets to give you the Miranda warning (“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”)

When you get to court, the judge throws the case out because the police officer forgot to read you your rights. Now let’s look at the Landis case.

Landis tested positive for an abnormally high testosterone to epitestosterone ratio after stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France. Landis had given urine samples in previous stages of the Tour but the samples hadn’t tested positive for any banned substances. After Landis’ positive test, the USADA went back to those previous samples and ran more sophisticated tests which showed the presence of synthetic testosterone.

Three weeks ago, the USADA ruled against Landis and stripped him of his Tour de France title. In the decision, the USADA threw out the results of the initial positive test because the test wasn’t done correctly but accepted the second set of tests for synthetic testosterone.

Was Landis guilty of using performance enhancing drugs when he won the Tour de France? Yes, he probably was but so was the guy with the bag of cocaine. If correct procedures were not followed, the case would have been thrown out in a U.S. court of law.

Let’s look at another case involving Argentinean tennis player Guillermo Canas and the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) which is based in Switzerland.

Canas tested positive for the diuretic Rofucal in February 2005. The Association for Tennis Professionals (ATP) suspended him for two years. Canas appealed the decision to the CAS. At the CAS hearing, Canas presented witnesses to show that he had been mistakenly given a prescription that was meant for a tennis coach who’d been at the same tournament.

The CAS believed Canas’ witnesses but didn’t give Canas the maximum reduction in his suspension because he didn’t present those same witnesses at his initial hearing with the ATP. Think about that. Let’s say you were convicted of a crime but you later found evidence that exonerated you. I can’t imagine an Argentinean or Swiss court sending you back to jail because you didn’t come up with the evidence soon enough.

I’m still suspicious of Canas’ evidence and I wonder why he didn’t come up with it earlier too, but he should have gotten the maximum reduction if the CAS believed him.

Anti-doping agencies can’t possibly satisfy the laws of every country represented by the athletes it passes judgment on, but the process is currently weighed in favor of the anti-doping agencies. If an athlete’s career can be taken away, that balance needs to be adjusted to give the athlete a fairer decision.

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

I’m in Love with Steffi Graf

Steffi Graf or Pete Sampras, who’s slam record is most impressive?

You might know the actor Hugh Laurie as Dr. Greg House from the U.S. television show House. Or you might remember him as Bertie Wooster, the hapless employer of Jeeves in the British television show Jeeves and Wooster. Maybe you watched him in Black Adder, a British television show that starred Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr. Bean.

Laurie is another one of those ridiculously talented British actors. He’s a successful novelist and he’s also a singer/songwriter. If you go to the right side of this page and tune in to Tennis Diary TV you can see Laurie perform the song, “I’m in love with Steffi Graf.” (Click on Channel Guide if it’s not the current video.)

Laurie’s Steffi is an angel who “folds her wings and walks like you and me.” And it doesn’t matter whether it’s clay or grass, “she’ll flay your ass.”

For some reason I had forgotten that Margaret Court holds the record for most slam wins with 24. Graf is second with 22. I consider Graf the better tennis player because her era was more competitive. Graf beat Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Monica Seles and Martina Hingis to win slams.

Of course it would have been much more competitive if a crazed fan of Steffi’s hadn’t stabbed Seles in the back but here’s the question: Is Steffi Graf’s record of 22 slams a bigger accomplishment that Pete Sampras’ 14 slams? Go over to the right side of the page and cast your vote.

On the face of it, you might think it’s a no-brainer. Steffi won all four slams at least four times including the golden slam in 1988 (all four slams and the gold medal at the Olympics). Sampras won the gold medal at the 1987 Olympics but he never won more than two slams in one year and he never won the French Open.

But the top women won a lot more slams than the top men. The number five woman on the list, Chris Evert, has four more slams than Sampras. And the women won a whole lot more career titles. Martina Navratilova has 58 more titles than the men’s leader in that category: Jimmy Connors. That’s pretty ridiculous.

Clearly the men’s tour is more competitive. The slams even more so. Steffi won her 1988 French Open final by the score of 6-0, 6-0. Has that ever happened on the men’s tour? Then there is that little matter of five set matches. All of the men’s matches in slams are best of five sets while the women play best of three sets.

Whaddya think?

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

Ferrer Over Gasquet in Tokyo: The Energizer Bunny Beats the Tired Teddy Bear

David Ferrer beat Richard Gasquet easily in the Tokyo final on Sunday. Let’s find out why Ferrer is on fire this year and Gasquet is not.

Poor Richard Gasquet. This is the second week in a row he’s reached a final, he just slogged his way through a tough three set semifinal, and who does he have to play now? The energizer bunny of the ATP, the guy who outgrinded the biggest grinder of them all at the U.S. Open, one David Ferrer. Ferrer is the player who finally wore out Rafael Nadal at the U.S. Open this year.

If Ferrer is an energizer bunny, Gasquet is more like a rechargeable battery – he doesn’t last anywhere near as long. Two tournaments in a row is Gasquet’s max running time. He dropped out of this week’s tournament in Vienna after playing this match whereas Ferrer is playing Stockholm this week and will also play next week in Madrid.

That could also explain why Gasquet has bounced back and forth between a ranking of 8 and 14 since June while Ferrer is in good position to take one of the final eight places in the year end championships. Playing the summer hard court season is a lot harder on the body than gliding around on clay, Gasquet’s favorite surface.

Speaking of conditioning, in the Metz final on Sunday, Andy Murray took the first set from Tommy Robredo 6-0 and ended up losing the match which tells you he ran out of gas. Murray explained it like this:

The lesson to learn is that you must not ease the pressure after winning a set easily.

Another lesson might be to go to the gym more often though in this case, Murray has a legitimate excuse because he’s just coming back after a long layoff for a wrist injury. Still, he’s another one of those guys who could be running more stadium steps and going to a few more spinning classes.

Ferrer was aggressive from the very first point in the match but that’s not so hard when your opponent loses his first two service games while getting less than a quarter of his first serves in.

Ferrer is not an overpowering player but he’s a smart guy. He uses his speed to get to the net and once he’s there he volleys well. This is rarer than you’d think. There are lots of quick players on tour but they seldom use their speed to move forward. They spend all of their time running horizontally behind the baseline.

Gasquet may be smart but he wasn’t during this match. He made two silly plays while he was serving to stay in the first set. First he tried to be cute with a difficult short hop volley and put it into the net. Then he tried to run around his backhand and hit a shot down the line over the highest part of the net. He was too tired to try a shot like that and it gave Ferrer three set points. It took Ferrer only one of those to win the first set 6-1.

Believe it or not, Ferrer is the top returner in the league. Check it out: he’s second only to Nadal in points won returning first serve and he’s number one in the following three categories: break points converted, points won returning second serve, and return games won. That means he’s number one or two in all four return categories. That is impressive!

Except for getting a lot of first serves in, you won’t find Ferrer at the top of any serve statistics. Yet here he was hitting two aces and a service winner to go up 3-0 in the second set. Ferrer was moving the serve around well but it also helped that Gasquet was too knackered to get to the ball.

One more break of Gasquet at the end of the second set and Ferrer has his third title of the year, 6-1, 6-2.

Will Ferrer be one of the eight players left standing at the end of the year? The two biggest tournaments left are the Masters events in Madrid and Paris and they’re both fast indoor events. Ferrer got to the quarterfinals in both places two years ago but he has a losing career record indoors and there are lots of young players who can beat him indoors these days. The main guy he has to worry about is James Blake but Blake has never won a match in Madrid, strangely enough, and he’s never been past the third round at Paris.

Ferrer looks like he’s in but I’ll say this, whenever Gasquet and Murray figure out how to last more than a few tournaments in a row, that’ll be the last time we’ll see David Ferrer at the year end championships because Gasquet and Murray will be there instead.

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