39 posts categorized "March 2011"
 by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—In the beginning, when Roger Federer first began soaring toward the sun, oblivious to the fact that all wings contain some degree of wax, this very idea—"rivalry"—made him uncomfortable. It was, well, irritating. Invasive. Perhaps even improbable.
As he told us in an extraordinarily frank and borderline touching few moments here after he advanced to another potential meeting with Rafael Nadal, this time in the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open:
"When I became the world No. 1, I didn't really have that rival, and I was very happy about it. I was just able to win, win, win...and dominate and go on and lose, you know, (just) ten matches in two years, (that) kind of thing. That was quite incredible.
"So in the beginning, I guess, I struggled to embrace the rivalry I had with Rafa. Only later on I was able to say this is actually quite cool. Sleeveless, pirate pants, you name it, long hair, lefty, spins, more with the flat shots and so forth and double‑handed against one‑handed, lefty against righty. I think it all kind of made sense, and I was able to embrace it then..."
He went on to describe how this rivalry, the best tennis has produced since the salad years of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, has matured—become less irritant than inspiration; less a cause for "why me?" bitterness than for celebration. Something to appreciate. Something to cherish and value, a realization that may have been accelerated in Federer's mind by the fact that at the moment, the most accurate descriptive for his—and Nadal's—situation is "trivalry." CBS commentator Mary Carillo used that term today, as Federer contemplated a semifinal with Nadal, followed by a final-round confrontation with black-clad and hungry Novak Djokovic.
"I think we had some good times in the past," Federer went on, talking about Nadal. "And they have changed (the rivalry) into what it is today. Really respectful and helping each other for good causes, foundation matches, you name it, for tsunamis. We've done so many things together. It's been a lot of fun."
The first word that pops into their or our minds tomorrow will not be "fun." It promises to be a protracted and ennervating fight, and to hail with what that means for Sunday, when Djokovic, licking his chops like the patient predator he is, probably will be waiting for either man to venture his way.
It may be hard for U.S. readers to believe, but Rafa and The Mighty Fed have crossed swords only twice on U.S. soil. That was back-to-back, in 2004 and 2005, when Rafa was barely out of his diapiratas. Both meetings took place here in Miami. Nadal shocked TMF, 6-3, 6-3, in that first meeting, setting a pretty good precedent for himself. A rivalry was born that day, although neither man could know it.
Recalling that match, Federer said: "What I remember from seven years ago when I played him the first time (here, the third round), is that I came back from sun stroke in Indian Wells after beating Henman, and kind of dragged my way through the (second-round) match (here) with Davydenko. I don't know how much I had actually heard about Nadal before that match.
"I remember seeing him for a bit over a year, I think, because he had a breakthrough maybe in Monaco the year before or somewhere else. I knew he was good, you know, but he, I guess, surprised me to some degree that he was so consistent, so good on hardcourts already so early.
"That really showed me he was going to become a probably world No. 1, Grand Slam champion, just a really special Spaniard who could not only play on clay but other surfaces as well. He clearly lived up to all the expectations. From then on it went; the rest we know."
Rest assured, the rest we know.
But there was still one stumbling block to the match that everyone other than Lucie Safarova (Tomas Berdych's girlfriend) wanted to see on the schedule, and that was Berdych. Federer got off easy today in what promised to be a tricky but hardly life-threatening quarterfinal when Gilles Simon developed a stiff neck during his warm-up. The tweak ultimately forced him to quit on Federer—and a packed Crandon Park stadium crowd—after just three games.
 Nadal had no such luck. In fact, he developed some neck and shoulder problems of his own shortly after he powered through Berdych with a two-break 6-2 first set. The discomfort was nothing compared to what Berdych would make Nadal feel for the rest of the match. Is there a tougher out in men's tennis than Tomas Berdych when he's cast in the role that suits him best—that of the spoiler?
As the air went out of Nadal's game, Berdych grew increasingly confident and those long, sweeping strokes of his put him in charge of most of the rallies. As good a defender as Nadal is, Berdych stretched and bullied him all over the court. It was all Nadal could do to hang in there. Berdych won the second set comfortably, and serving the first game Nadal immediately fell into a love-40 hole. The dream semi-suddenly was looking more like the match everyone might be tempted to boycott.
But that's exactly when the momentum turned. Nadal hit a forehand winner, three consecutive aces, and a volley winner to save the game. The set. The match. The dream semi.
Earlier today, I walked out to our press box halfway up the stadium here, where Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim had been watching Federer practice. "Did you see any of this?" he asked.
No, I confessed. Jon went on to describe how Federer can "make the ball talk." How he simply has a degree of feel and facility that nobody, not even Nadal, can match. We all know that to be true, but it's nice to reaffirm it now and then with an experience like that. It's always good to have a refresher course in genius, because we grow too accustomed to watching Federer perform under stress. It's like reading so much Rilke that you forget Wordsworth ever existed.
Under match conditions, practical realities force even the most uninhibited and creative of players to rein it in a bit, to play the percentages and distill talent down to the concentrated essence demanded by what remains the overriding mandate in tennis: to win points, games, sets, matches—as quickly, easily and safely as you can.
Still, you can bet we'll see some of that archingly pretty tennis that TMF conjures up, even when he's impersonating a working stiff just trying to get the job done. The men have no secrets dividing them, no reason to turn away and whisper into the telephone if either of them is within hearing range. If there's such a thing as a comfortable rivalry lacking petty jealousies, resentments, or phony pleasantries delivered through pursed lips and clenched teeth, this is it. If you had told that callow youth whom Federer described earlier, the one who thought he would rule the world and fly circles round the sun, that a rivalry could be so enriching, he probably wouldn't have understood.
Both men have a right to be sick and tired of all the punditry, armchair psychology, and Monday morning quarterbacking that invariably surrounds their meetings, their history. I'm not sure how Nadal feels about that, but this is what Federer said about the process, when he was asked if we make too much of the rivalry, or are too quick to try to create new or different ones.
"Yeah, I think it's understandable you talk about rivalries, and especially you have such a big one going, it's clear that you address the next big player who's playing so well at the moment, which is Novak. What we know is that it moves very quickly, in terms of how the press reacts to results and losses and wins and so forth, ranking swaps. So that's just part of the game. But at the end, I think the players, they look more in the long‑term. You can't be too rattled about quick news.
"At the end, I think the press knows that as well. At the same time, we have to come up with a story at the very moment. That's completely understandable. It's fine. I also like good headlines for tennis. I don't want them to be boring and always the same. It's all fine."
It's only natural that Federer would like good headlines. He's made enough of them, and tomorrow night, with a little help from his career rival, he'll surely make one more.
 by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—Victoria Azarenka, a semifinalist in Key Biscayne after eradicating world No. 2 Kim Clijsters, apparently has discovered the secret to life, and it turns out not to be all that complicated. "I'm just in a good mood always, now," said the 21-year old. This comes as somewhat shocking news to many tennis regulars, who had long since anointed Azarenka the Miss Sorehead of the WTA. "Doesn't matter when I'm on the court, off the court," she gushed after the match. "I feel like I'm happy all the time."
Well, Vika, good for you! But then many of us—or your peers, anyway—might be also be loving life if the only thing standing in our way to the semifinals in a tournament as big as the combined Miami event was a listless and seemingly uninterested Clijsters. Usually, when a player of Clijsters' caliber pulls off the sort of escape she managed the other night against Ana Ivanovic—a former Grand Slam champion and world No. 1 player herself—she (or he) is apt to feel invincible and is thus especially dangerous. That Clijsters bounced back from such a potentially inspirational comeback with such an uninspired performance tells you something. Where was the adrenaline surge that players so often surf after the big fightback?
"I just didn't feel good out there," Clijsters admitted in her presser afterward. "Just mentally, physically, didn't feel right...just kind of feel like I didn't have any fighting spirit."
Alright, some things you can't force or control, and Clijsters was honest enough to admit: "(It's been) a tough few last days. (But) not in a way that I should not be ready for. I train hard enough to physically be capable of doing that."
But that still leaves open the question: Why can someone of Clijsters ability and status be so...wasteful? Especially when she might have gained valuable ground on No. 1 Wozniacki by winning here? When it comes to providing incentive, the tournament can't be faulted.
It was clear from the start last night that Clijsters seemed intent on duplicating her adventure with Ivanovic. The really surprising thing is that she did it. Think about it. What were the odds, given all the possible combinations and variables, that Clijsters would wind up facing match points while down 1-5 in the decisive set? I wonder what Clijsters' final 2011 W-L record will be for matches in which she was down 1-5 and match points in the decisive set?
Granted, Azarenka looked pretty good. Just as surviving an impossible situation usually inspires a player, returning to a scene of success can also lift and energize a player. When Vera Zvonareva gets off the plane in Pattaya City, she must feel like Martina Navratilova strolling through the Fred Perry gate at Wimbledon. But Azarenka played down that angle when she was asked if she's starting to feel like it was 2009 (when she won here) all over again:
"No, it doesn't not at all," she said, smiling. "It's 2011. Completely new year; different tour. And I played Kim. And she was not there at 2009, so definitely not the same."
Well, let no one say she doesn't think literally. But Azarenka did admit, "Miami certainly is a great place. So much excitement from people and so many great fans coming. I don't know, it's always going to be a special place for me, so I'm really enjoying my time here."
This was Azarenka's second win (against four losses) over Clijsters, and she believed it was built upon her overall fitness and good health, as well as a willingness to play more aggressively and to move forward into the court. And with both Wozniacki and Clijsters, the top two seeds respectively, out of the event, the tournament is really there for any of the semifinalists to win. Sharapova is the only Grand Slam champion in that group, yet she's also the one who's been most inconsistent, and looked most vulnerable. Clijsters, the only other former Grand Slam champ to reach the quarterfinals, looked less than commanding herself in the run-up to last night's quarterfinal.
Clijsters' loss to Azarenka suggests that at some elemental level, the Belgian No. 2 has a motivation problem. The opportunities are enormous; how can she pass them up, what with the Williams sisters out of the picture and Wozniacki still too green to dominate (if that's what she's destined to do)? But I wonder if her heart is really in it. I have no doubt that she wants to try (or, to use my preferred phrase, she wants to want); she certainly works hard and does all the due diligence of a true professional.
But you can't fool the heart, no matter how much "sense" it makes for Clijsters to continue playing in an environment where merely showing up guarantees material rewards that nobody in his or her right mind would pass up. Who can blame Clijsters? What would you do, in her Filas?
The WTA needs to load up with players who can imagine nothing more enjoyable than winning big tournaments, and being out there testing themselves, week-after-week. Women who love to compete and play and bask in the adulation of the crowd. Women who like a good fight, cat or court.
Happy Azarenka is in that category, as are a number of other young players in the current pipeline, including another Miami semifinalist, Andrea Petkovic. It's the job of those women to shove the reluctant, uncommitted, flawed or wounded competitors out of the way. It sounds cruel, but that's how a healthy game works.
That would make everyone happy, just like Azarenka.
MIAMI, Fla.—David Ferrer had a case of indigestion yesterday. So, apparently, did an infant who began to wail just as Ferrer prepared to serve, down 5-7, 1-1, 30-40 in his quarterfinal with Mardy Fish at the Sony Ericsson Open. Twice, Ferrer pulled back off the service notch because the unhappy baby interrupted his concentration, glancing toward the source of the noise.
The gesture may be enough to shame a couple of chatty friends, or one of those ultra-important types who just can't turn off his cell phone like ordinary people do, but an infant couldn't care less. Not about Ferrer's stomach issues, or his equally pressing service issues. Ferrer quickly realized that he wasn't going to win this one, so he gritted his teeth and forged ahead with his toss and swing despite the Sesame Street sound track.
Whap! Double fault—whereupon Ferrer petulantly fired a ball in the direction of the crying infant, causing all the young parents in the crowd to gasp (most of them had the good sense to leave their childrern home with grammy, but must have been moved by feelings of solidarity). With his tummy aching and even the babes-in-arms clearly against him, Ferrer folded up his game. He won just one more game before Fish wrapped it up on his first match point.
"You tried to clock (the baby) with the ball," a reporter charged during the formal post mortems.
"It was one moment in the match," Ferrer said, shrugging, "but nothing special."
"He'd probably take that one back if he could," Fish remarked. "He's a very nice guy. Obviously he was flustered."
It isn't the best of days to parse Ferrer's game, although his stomach ailment didn't appear to be a factor until after he'd dug himself into a big hole. Fish has been serving extremely well in this tournament, lobbing rather than merely firing aces, and generally confusing opponents with a colorful palette of spins and cuts. Fish is no giant at 6'2", but then Ferrer is well below the ATP mean at 5'9". Thus, when Ferrer is receiving a powerful, rangy opponent's serve, he has to maneuver his racket less like a baseball or cricket player taking a cut than a Romanian monk trying to fend off a vampire with a cross.
Fish made some interesting comments about his serve; he obviously knows where his break points are buttered. He confessed that he tends to "overserve," citing his first-serve percentage of 37 in his match against Richard Gasquet. "I know he's a very good returner, so sometimes in the back of your mind you're trying to over-serve and hit it much too hard."
Fish worked on various parts of his serve after the Gasquet match to get it back in good working order, and has served with greater modulation—and success—since. He likens big servers such as himself to baseball pitchers, who pay a lot of attention to the mechanics of their motion and are well aware of the need to keep batters guessing. His next opponent probably will be that lethal returner, Novak Djokovic, so Fish will need to be in full command of his service powers. "I'll have to mix up speed, spins, kicks, flats, hard, slice, all that stuff—just to keep him off balance."
Admittedly, Ferrer had an unusually difficult day, but it still leaves open the question: Why do these sorts of things happen to him at big tournaments? He's been an absolute model of consistency, and he's maintained a ranking over a significant period that even Fish can only covet (long stretches in the Top 10, a career-high of No. 4, a current ranking of No. 6). He's been to the final of the year-end ATP championships, and made a semi and two quarterfinals at Grand Slam events. Yet he's never won a Masters 1000 event or better and reached only one final (Rome, 2010). And he's already 28 years old.
Other players who never made No. 1 and/or won a major have done better. The extreme example is Andy Murray, although he's been ranked higher than Ferrer. Murray has already bagged six Masters Series titles and been in three Grand Slam finals. Nikolay Davydenko, who's just a little older than Ferrer provides a better comparison; he has three Masters titles to his name. Ivan Ljubicic has played four finals, winning one. Fish himself has played—and lost—three Masters finals.
 I asked Fish why he thought Ferrer had so much trouble punching through at that highest of levels, and he wouldn't bite. He said: "No, this guy's got some solid results. He's got results on every surface. I think he's made the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. He's put himself in the semifinals of Australia and the U.S. Open at different times. He's got tournament wins on clay, on indoor hard courts, fast courts, slow courts, doesn't matter. The guy is one of the fittest guys in the world in any sport. Guy can run forever. You know, he battles and plays hard.
"You respect the heck out of him just the way he plays. He's one of my favorite players to watch. Fights for everything. There's nothing—he doesn't go out and blow anybody off the court. I respect the heck out of his career. It's tough to play like that. You've got to be real strong."
Okay, but...
I broached the subject with Ferrer, too, trying to be respectful and knowing that he's a tough quote, especially in a language not his own. Why has he had so much trouble getting over the hump at big events?
"Well, it's my game, no? My game need to do a lot physic (fitness). My fitness is very important for me. I need to work every day, no, because my game is very consistent, and I need to play very regular all the time."
I'm assuming "regular" means "consistent," but that reply still fails to satisfy, as did the spirited defense of Ferrer offered by Fish. Ferrer seems to have the fitness thing nailed, as well as the consistency thing. My own feelings are pretty simple; Ferrer just seems to come up small at big moments (shrug). It's a psychological thing—some deep-seated if not terribly meaningful lack of self-confidence or self-worth as a player. Many pros have that problem, although it kicks in much more frequently and/or sooner, keeping them out of that elite Top 10 group of which Ferrer is a legitimate and deserving member.
So the mystery continues and the career clock keeps ticking. Should Ferrer end his career without having won a Masters or better, he would truly have a unique if not particularly desireable distinction.
by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—Near the end of Ana Ivanovic's press conference yesterday, someone asked her to talk about Andrea Petkovic, who is nominally a German, having spent almost her entire life there, but was born in Tuzla, Bosnia. "A lot of us don't know her well," the reporter admitted, "Obviously she did well in Australia. I know she is 23. Can she beat anyone out there?"
"Yeah," Ivanovic replied, her eyes lighting up. "You gonna get to know her."
Ivanovic's tone suggested that we would not be disappointed, but also that it was going to be fairly impossible not to get to know Petkovic, and that doing so would be an experience comparable to, oh, your first ride in an F-15 fighter jet, or your first Lady Gaga concert. "She's great girl, and she's playing really well. I think she can challenge anyone out there...She's (also) very, very smart girl—and very well educated."
"And she's really a Serb, of course," someone interjected.
"Yeah. Exactly."
Now keep in mind that Ivanovic had just lost a match (to Kim Clijsters) after being up 5-1 (and, ultimately, five match points) in the third set—not an ideal time for talking about how great some other player is, especially one who, unlike Ivanovic, was still in the hunt at the tournament. But Ivanovic is one of those girls who just can't help but be nice, and Petkovic is not just her doubles partner but a fellow Serb. And there isn't a group of players on tour who share a comparable sense of solidarity, or seem to draw as much inspiration from each other (and we're talking about players of both sexes), as the Serbs.
Petkovic has captivated one and all here in Miami, as she has at past tournaments. And that "Petko dance" is the least of it. She's one of those people who seems to exist to remind you that there's no point twisting yourself up in knots, putting on airs, adopting a game plan for how to deal with the basics of life, or worrying about how you'll be perceived by others. Just go out there and be yourself; meet the world with an open mind and a smile and all the rest will take care of itself.
She isn't the first person to bring us this message, but it's rare to get it from a professional tennis player. As a group, ATP and WTA pros are a clannish, self-sufficient and stand-offish group, and there's no point blaming them for it. It wasn't always that way, of course; you can blame the degree to which tennis pros seem to occupy a different plane of existence (where their neighbors are film and rock-music stars) on the growth of the game, and the specific direction of that growth (the march has been relentlessly upscale—bourgeois, if you prefer—since Day One, Bethanie Mattek-Sands with her knee socks and eye-black non-withstanding).
But lo and behold, here's Petkovic, a young lady who engages the people living outside her bubble without simultaneously implying she's only doing it because some agent or tennis official is holding a gun to hear head. Walk away from a meeting with her and you're likely to ask yourself, "Why are the rest of them so guarded and opaque? It doesn't seem all that complicated..."
Petkovic appears to live by the advice good parents give their good children as they prepare for life: Look people in the eye, shake hands firmly, always tell the truth, give others the benefit of the doubt—and don't ever think you're better than anyone else. This isn't an easy attitude to maintain in a game that thrives on notions of elitism, right down to the ranking system, and it can get you in plenty of trouble on the WTA side, where secrets are closely guarded and the overarching seige mentality keeps many women from ever saying what they really feel. I asked Petkovic if she ever got in trouble for actually saying what she thinks, and she answered:
"It gets me often in trouble...Sometimes I talk sarcastically and people don't seem to get it, especially in the writing media. You cannot really bring that to the media, so I get in trouble all the time. But I learned to deal with it in the last (recent times). I'm not so long on the tour. I'm now on the tour maybe for one‑and‑a‑half years. Especially in the beginning I made some mistakes that got back to me, and I'm more careful now. But I still try to stay as honest as I can."
That's good enough, I suppose, given her situation. And it's only going to be more challenging for this refereshing new voice and face as she improves. She'll be playing Maria Sharapova in the semis of the Sony Ericsson Open tomorrow, in what is most decidedly a great opportunity. Sharapova showed last night that her game is still infected with the virus that causes it to freeze up for long periods, and she can't afford to have that happen against Petkovic, at least not the way the 23-year-old from Darmstadt, Germany, has been playing. Remember, Petkovic knocked out Venus Williams and Sharapova in back-to-back matches just a few months ago at the Australian Open. And here, she's taken the scalp of Caroline Wozniacki (the current No. 1) and Jelena Jankovic (No. 7).
Petkovic is only just making her move (her current ranking is 23), but that's partly because she chose to complete a university-level education in Germany before taking her chances on the pro tour. As the daughter of a teaching pro whose dreams of playing the tour were crushed, she not only understood the risks of trying to become a pro, she had them drilled into her. She practiced and played a bit while she was school, but didn't really fling herself into the tennis culture with the requisite commitment until around 2009.
"I had a big fight with my dad because he didn't want me to be a professional tennis player at that time when I was making decisions if I should go to university or try to be a professional tennis player...he didn't really make it and I think he didn't want his little daughter to go through the same things. But, yeah, I had the bigger head in this decision, and I'm quite happy that it ended this way."
Stylistically, Petkovic plays a bread-and-butter game. She's very solid, but also aggressive and always looking to force the action. And she's willing to follow up her penetrations with finishing placements or volleys. She considers herself (along with the likes of Petra Kvitova) part of a "new generation"—women who have big games and a less defensive mindset than some of the old guard.
"I think what we all have in common is just the general fitness level is just raised so much," she said. "That's why you have to be—even for an aggressive player like me or Petra who are going for their shots—we have to be able to play them 10 or 12 times in a rally. That's just a big difference to earlier times, maybe."
It will be worth remembering those words when the season of interminable matches, aka the European clay-court circuit, gets underway. And, as befits a woman with her attitude, Petkovic is awed by Steffi Graf but was most impressed and influenced by Serena Williams.
"I can really relate to her (Serena) with her fighting spirit on court, and she impressed me so much with the way she turned around matches even when everything was lost. I just remember this match against Azarenka at the Australian Open, where she was down 6‑2, 4-0 and Azarenka was playing unusual and she kept playing unbelievable. Serena just stepped it up two levels, and it was too much for Victoria. That impressed me so much. She was the first player that really, really, yeah, that really touched me emotionally on the court."
Perhaps if Petkovic were a German by blood rather than citizenship (her father initially went to Germany to coach tennis, but moved the family there when the former Yugoslavia began to disintegrate) she might feel differently. But she seems so much more the Serb. Let's be real here; Graf was known and adored for many reasons, but a sense of humor was not among them. Whereas...
"We (Serbians) hang around all the time together, you know, and Novak is making his jokes, you start to try to be funny, as well. Sometimes you are; sometimes you are not. And it's just a very good energy between all of us. So I really enjoy all my time spending with them."
Petkovic insists that whatever else happens here in Miami, this will be the last place where she'll perform the Petko dance after each win. It's a good move, because the times she's done it here she seemed to be merely going through the motions, quickly and half-heartedly. Clearly, the dance has become dangerously close to something like a trademark or "brand," instead of a spontaneous act.
And that's not how Petko rolls.
by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—Kim Clijsters can talk about the joys of motherhood all she wants. She can wax philosophical about the hardships of a tennis pro's life until the cows come home. Her opinions about the long-term effects and dangers posed by radioactive fallout in Asia might be of passing interest to some. But if you really want to learn something useful, ask Clijsters what you should do if you hope to advance to the quarterfinals of a big tennis tournament, but find yourself down by 1-5 and love-40 in the third-set. To a former Grand Slam champion and world No. 1.
That was the position in which Clijsters found herself tonight at the Sony Ericsson, as Ana Ivanovic showed flashes of her former, confident self and built the lead cited above—a lead so prohibitive that nobody but Clijsters herself seemed interested in sticking around to see how it all turned out.
Well, what happened is that Ivanovic experienced a decline in that newly tapped confidence and that uncharacteristically sharp, aggressive focus she exhibited early in the match. Not a great amount, mind you, but enough to make Clijsters feel that when she looked up out of that very deep hole, she could see a small patch of blue. Bright blue. Not much, but as much as a seasoned champion needs.
Just how Clijsters extracted herself (fending off five match points) is a complex, some might say convoluted, tale (this is, after all, WTA tennis). And there's little to be gained by parsing the games: And then Clijsters cracked a massive forehand! Ivanovic failed to stick her serve at 30-15 and was forced to pay! Had Clijsters' backhand landed two inches shorter. . .
What does it benefit anyone to know such things, once the last ball is struck? It's a different story when a match is determined by two or three swings of the racket. But this one, like so many others (Clijsters' first two meetings in 2010 with her original rival Justine Henin come to mind), was determined by broader, interior trends and swings of competitive mood. There's a short version, and an ultra short version, the latter of which is the one preferred by Ivanovic. She articulated it shortly after the match, after smashing up a racket and shedding a few tears in the locker room.
"You know, she (Clijsters) really served well and played well on those (match points). On my service games I didn't get any match points, and I do feel like I created chances. But, you know, many times in 30‑all or important points, she played really well and, you know, got lucky with a few lines. You know, just really, really tough. I think no matter what the ranking says, I think she's the hottest player at the moment."
Clijsters offered the longer, more nuanced rationale: "I think because I have been on the tour for many years, you realize that you have to keep trying until the last point is played. In tennis, that's sometimes probably the frustrating part about it. But in my situation now, the good thing about it is that it's never over until that last shot is played. And, again, you know, even if it's 5‑1, Okay, you start a game 0‑0. She has to win four points.
"So you just try to work your way into it. And you do feel when your opponent starts to be a little less aggressive, starts to make a few more easier mistakes. You see her look at the sideline a little bit more. . . those kind of things. I notice that, and I think that's kind of what gave me a little bit of a like. . . Ah, you know, maybe (the sense that) there is a little chance."
It may not be poetry, but that's as fine a description of what it takes to mount the kind of comeback that Clijsters pulled off today. And it capped a miserable day for the two most prominent Serbian women—Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic.
Jankovic was enagaged in a genuine tug-of-war with Andrea Petkovic (more about her tomorrow) and never did get to match point against her Serbian-born, German-raised rival. But she was up a break at 4-3 in the third set and couldn't hang on. Petkovic broke her and survived a harrowing ninth game to go up 5-4. She broke Jankovic again in the 10th game, and will now play a winnable semifinal against either Maria Sharapova or Alexandra Dulgheru.
I saw Jankovic briefly after the match. She was acutely disappointed, and angry with herself for letting the match get away, especially because she felt she was back on track and playing her way into good form. "I had problems with my ankle early in the year, but I felt much better starting in Dubai and Doha (she was in the semis at both). This (game) means a lot to me. If I didn't care, I wouldn't play. I love winning. I want to be in the big tournaments."
I couldn't help but think then of Ivanovic, who was less hard on herself and more inclined to look at the bright side of her loss—a formidable act of creative thinking, all things considered, and in light of Clijsters convincing reprise. Ivanovic said: "You know, it was gonna be a good test for me, and I managed to stay out there with her physically and also to create opportunities and to create lots of match points for myself.
"That's a very positive thing for me to take from here, because, you know, coming into Indian Wells and Miami, honestly I wasn't feeling great physically. So to come all that way and challenge myself against, you know, best player, it's a good thing."
I suppose it's better to be positive than negative, but being realistic about what happened, what it means, and what it demands that you do isn't the worst course either. Whether the frustration and anger of Jankovic is a more productive reaction than the optimism and self-medication of Ivanovic remains to be seen. The one thing we know for sure is that both women are still trying to recapture something they've lost, and having a hard time of it.
It will be interesting to see which one of them finds it first—if either finds it at all.
by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—It's a measure of how much tennis has changed, even more than how far it has come as a popular spectacle, that on a day when Mardy Fish struggled to press forward as the American standard-bearer at the Miami Masters, his fans were routinely drowned out by the Argentinians and other South Americans who had assembled, complete with the obligatory baby-blue-and-white striped Argentian soccer shirts and hand-painted signs, to help nudge Juan Martin del Potro into the quarterfinals.
Ole, Ole, Ole, Del-po, Del-po...
All else aside, I'm still trying to figure out what tribal, atavistic or, well, just plain juvenile gene would move theoretically mature men to paint their faces and/or chests to chant and cry out the name of another man. . .one who might be even younger than they, whose only real claim to fame is proficiency at the game of tennis. I mean, it's not like you need to do that stuff in order to properly appreciate the skills and virtues of a del Potro, or a Fish, right?
Ole, Ole, Ole, Del-po, Del-po...Is anyone else bored to death by the one-note singsong "Ole, Ole, Ole" thing yet?
It's not like the support for del Potro made much difference, either. Even Fish took it in stride. "I didn't know where I was," he mused after playing a fine match to advance to the semifinals, 6-4, 7-6 (5). "He (del Potro) certainly has a lot of support here. I didn't think it was going to be that much. He certainly had the crowd on his side...(But) I did hear some people rooting for me. I appreciate that."
Lest anyone get the wrong idea here, Fish wasn't complaining or being snide; he merely responded to a question put to him by a reporter. Besides, Fish and del Potro are buddies and have been doubles partners. After his resounding upset of Robin Soderling the other day, del Potro said of Fish, "Yeah, he's a great player. I'm very friend to him. He's a nice person, too. It will be a special match because I know him. He knows my game."
The friendship seems an unlikely one, given that del Potro is just 20 and from Argentina, while Fish is an American closing on 30. It wasn't so long ago that Delpo seemed a painfully shy and self-conscious teenager who usually walked with his head down to avoid eye contact and his shoulders slumped. But the two men hit it off when they played doubles together, in Madrid in 2009. And when Delpo hurt his wrist early in 2010 and subsequently missed almost the entire year, Fish remained in touch, via telephone and text message.
Describing how the friendship developed, Fish said: "I don't play doubles with too many guys outside of James and Andy, but he's certainly one of the best guys around. His team, you know, they just play. There's no nonsense, you know, coming from his box when you're playing him, or yelling or screaming. There's no screaming from him. He's just a professional. It's pretty impressive at his age."
This type of relationship isn't unusual; even with the nationalistic undertones that sometimes infuse Davis Cup, the irony in contemporary tennis is that the players are nowhere near as jingoistic as some of their fans. They take the urges and longings of the crowd in stride, unless the degree of support is such that it provides one or the other player with an unfair advantage. And in that case, the player whose fans are out of line is likely to express his displeasure.
In many ways, the "international" nature of tennis is an illusion. Beyond the basics—place of birth, the accent one happens to carry—tennis players are basically meta-national. They constitute a class of like-minded and similarly trained artisans who have more in common with each other than their respective countryman.
Tennis obliterates rather than represents "internationalism," at least in the ways that really matter. Court surfaces offer another piece of evidence. Remember the days when it was commonly assumed that every nation tended to put tournaments on surfaces that favored its own players? They're mostly gone. The French Open isn't held on red clay because it's the surface on which French players do best; the determining factors are tradition and precedent.
The speed of the court here at Key Biscayne also supports the idea that people just don't care to favor one or another player, or group of players. They're looking for the surface that offers the most entertainment for fans and TV viewers. With a few exceptions, American players like Fish, Andy Roddick and James Blake have done much better on relatively fast courts. But U.S. tournament promoters are particularly interested in tailoring the court surfaces to suit them.
The other day, after beating Juan Monaco, Roger Federer said: "This is as slow as it gets on a hard court. It's a bit of clay...almost...except that you can't slide."
Fish, who's now on the verge of surpassing his pal Roddick in the U.S. pecking order, doesn't seem especially bothered by this state of affairs. Its almost as if phrases like "top American" or "the decline of US tennis" have limited meaning for him—much as Fish may go out of his way to play Davis Cup, or feel honored at selection to play for his country. Asked about Federer's remark, Fish said that the court plays much faster during the day, but is "extremely slow" at night.
"I haven't played at night here," he added. "I've requested to play during the day every single match, and thankfully they've given me that. You know, (at night) the humidity drops a little bit, the temperature drops a little bit, and the balls get pretty big. It's frustrating, because you want some big tournaments to be on faster surfaces, and there just isn't any."
It's a pity about that. This match, for example, might have been even more entertaining had the potential payoff for attacking been larger, whatever the nationality of the players involved.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems a waste to see men as big, strong, and powerful as Delpo and Fish standing in the backcourt, taking huge cuts, only to see the ball come right back with impressive but never quite endgame pace. All either man can do under those conditions is go for the angle, refining the search with every subsequent shot. That's pretty much what this match, a great demonstration of ball striking by both men, became: a hunt for the angles, a battle of inside-out and inside-in forehands. To their credit, the men did venture forward now and then. Those interludes were exciting and refreshing, and we could have used more of them.
Delpo's achilles heel in the match was his failure to convert all but one of six break points. But Fish had even more break points (eight), and converted only two. The statistics are less a testament to incompetence than the serving prowess and go-for-broke shotmaking of both men. Fish hit 35 winners to 23 by Delpo, and made just three more unforced errors (28). Delpo's 62 percent first-serve percentage was just two points better than that of Fish, who generally served more effectively—10 aces to Delpo's six, 84 percent of first serve-points win, to 62 percent by Delpo.
Should Fish reach the semis (and on the three previous occasions when he made a Masters quarterfinal, he ended up playing the final), he'll rise to No. 12, leapfrogging ahead of Roddick (who's about to fall out of the Top 10). And if he wins here, he could crack the Top 10 himself. He's pretty ambivalent about becoming the highest-ranked American and suggested that it would be hard to feel like the best American player, given Roddick's record.
"I mean, his career, put on my career—he could put it on top of mine 15 times. I mean, he's won so many more matches, so many more tournaments, you know, so many more Davis Cup matches. So I don't think I would ever feel like the No. 1, even though, you know, if I were to win tomorrow the number next to my name would be smaller than his."
So the rejuvenation of Mardy Fish turns out to be a continuing story, despite the toll take by those thyroid-related problems that impaired Fish's performance earlier this year. I'd be tempted to say that this is a good thing for American tennis, but i'm not sure that would be at all meaningful.
 by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—The urge to find the "magic bullet" isn't exclusive to tennis players, although something about the process is especially appealing—and suited to—the profession. After all, there's only so much a pro can do in pursuit of a win. Fight hard (nothing magical there); master your nerves (it's a process somewhat beyond your control); keep the ball in play (it's extraordinary how large a role this plays in a tennis match, despite the self-evident benefits—just ask Caroline Wozniacki). Come up with and implement a brilliant strategy.
Now we're talking magic bullets, as in: You gotta set him up so he has to go down the line with the forehand; he hates that! Or, She can only go cross-court with the backhand, so work her way over there, then when you have her out of position, pull the trigger down the line. Who can forget how Arthur Ashe beat overwhelming favorite Jimmy Connors in the 1975 Wimbledon final, taking the pace off everything (including that whiplash Ashe forehand, a feat unto itself)? Ashe just dumped everything over the top of the net, on the center service line. He was rewarded with his only Wimbledon title.
And I swear, Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario beat Steffi Graf in the 1991 French Open semis, 6-0, 6-2 (I think that was the year, but all I really remember is that I was there, it happened, and I was amazed) by...hitting to her forehand.
Yep. Sanchez-Vicario went right at Graf's biggest shot, taking off the pace, daring Graf to do what she did best—tag the winner. But Graf was more accustomed to hitting those big forehands into an open court, and/or on the run; she wasn't prepared to go for the winner off a neutral, slow-to-medium paced ball that literally begged to be spanked. Basically, that forehand was not a rally shot; it was a lethal weapon used to end points. Graf made numerous errors, and I found myself wondering why more women didn't try the ploy. The answer is now obvious to me. To successfully implement that strategy requires a high level of "execution" from both parties—although I'm sure the person playing the Graf role in this scenario wouldn't exactly describe it that way.
Today, Andrea Petkovic toppled world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. And she's convinced that she did it with a "magic bullet" she loaded up with the help of her coach, Petar Popovic. And being Petkovic (I'll do a full post on her later this week, probably tomorrow), she felt no compunctions about broadcasting her discoveries. Petko is no paranoid, run-of-the-mill pro, worried that the entire world is going to steal her brilliant ideas and trade secrets.
"Most of the players think they can overpower Caroline. I think that's the wrong approach, because that's where she's most comfortable, when she can run and bring the most balls back. Then when you lose your concentration for once on your shot, she goes for it. It's not like she's...some like to say that she's pushing...But it's not like the balls are slow and they are not short, you know. They are quite deep, so you cannot really attack them.
"So what I try to do is mix it up and to make her play, and then when I had the short ball to go for it. Because if you try to hit every single shot with full power, full power, full power, she just gets more comfortable, more comfortable, and eventually you're gonna miss. She's not gonna miss the last one.
"So this is what I tried to do, just be patient and wait for the short ball, and until then try to mix it up and also give her the initiative to try to play."
To all of which Wozniacki replied: "Well, I don't know. You know, I lost the match. That's what happens. If she had a plan, great for her."
Oh.
But seriously, this episode raises tennis' version of the age-old "chicken-or-egg" question. Did Petkovic win because she had a superior game plan—a magic bullet? Or merely because Wozniacki played a lousy match? One thing about these situations where a magic bullet has been fired: the loser almost never acknowledges that the winner has found her soft underbelly. It would be downright stupid to do so for various reasons, including the state of her self-regard. Jimmy Connors retired, happily oblivious to the fact that he had trouble dealing with low, soft balls to his forehand. Graf left us behind without ever demonstrating that her forehand could be serviceable as a rally (rather than point-ending) shot. And more power to those icons; their resumes are all the defense they need.
Wozniacki's reaction to the loss was telling, especially in light of the mild controversy surrounding her status as a player who reached and remained at No. 1 without having won even one Grand Slam title. She didn't make excuses, and she didn't downplay the significance of the result. She mused, "Well, it always hurts to lose, no doubt about it. You always want to win. I'm a fighter. I'm a competitor. So I definitely always want to win...(But) um, you know, there's very good players out there, and I cannot win every time. Then sometimes you just need that, you know—sometimes when you lose, you realize you still have somewhere to work to do, you can still improve, and you go back on the practice court and come back even better."
It's important to remember that a magic bullet is only as good as the aim of the person firing it, and likely to find its target in direct relation to how little that target moves—how easy or difficult it is to hit. Petkovic had a pretty large target yesterday. A shell-shocked reporter, noting all those forehand errors by Wozniacki, asked, "What was going on with your forehand today?"
To which Wozniacki replied, "Well, nothing was going on with my forehand. Nothing was going on with my backhand. You know, I lost the match. She played a good match. I had so many chances in my first set. You know, I had set points and I didn't take them. You know, then just the energy level dropped a little bit and I lost the match. That's what happens in sport."
I don't know if it took a magic bullet to hit the bull-seye that's now painted on Wozniacki's back, but there are times when any cartridge will do, and tomorrow we'll see if Petkovic can build upon this good win.
by Pete Bodo
MIAMI, Fla.—Today was a good day to be Maria Sharapova. It hasn't been like that all the time lately, not since she pulled the plug on her 2008 season in order to have the shoulder surgery from which she is still recovering. But on this dense, humid day in Miami, with thunderheads massed high above the stadium at Crandon Park (they ultimately showed mercy on the colorfully-dressed players cavorting on the court below), it was good. Maybe even "old days" good.
You know, those days when, unselfconsciously issuing that war cry (how does that terrifying, voluble shriek come so...naturally?), Sharapova brazenly hit through even the most resistant of opponents. Those days when Sharapova's serve caused the racket to spin and almost fly from the hand of the hapless returner. Those days when she would create those three- or four-shot combinations that ended points before the other women could get back on even ground to fight them, or to exploit Sharapova's lack of reactive flexibility and mobility.
Today, Sharapova beat Sam Stosur, the world No. 5 and No. 4 seed here in very convincing fashion, 6-4, 6-1, and it felt just like old times. In fact, maybe it was just like the old times, an issue I raised when Sharapova came to the press room. I wondered aloud if, since coming back from her surgery, she's ever felt like she's played as well as at any time before she went under the knife.
"I haven't thought about it, but there have been some matches where I felt like...little pieces start coming together and you get a sense of the court. When I came back after missing so many tournaments and matches, the first thing I just noticed was how those natural instincts just go away so much. You really have to—it's not something that you work—you work on it, but it's not just something that comes."
That's about as good an explaination as you can ask for about why today was different from recent yesterdays, but it also raises the question of what tomorrow might bring. And that's a tougher question to answer, because it invokes that familiar Catch-22: You can't get that "sense of the court" to which Sharapova alluded without winning matches, but you can't win the requisite number if matches without that sense. It's a particularly tough issue for a player like Sharapova, who's got a worker's game—one that's more studied than spontaneous, and to which that extra bit of help from the senses and instincts comes in mighty handy.
So what can Sharapova do to improve her chances of playing tomorrow like she did today? Although she hit five double-faults and served just 55 percent in the first set, she pulled it together and served 75 percent in the second set. More importantly, she attacked Stosur's serve with gusto. As she explained: "Well, against a good server, that (returning) is sometimes even more important than your own serve because it puts a little bit of, you know, thought process into their minds when they step onto the line, you know."
Shrewd girl, that Maria...
That combination of serving well and returning with confidence and vigor is a pretty good start for a player with her profile. That is, a quick strike player for whom a lot rides on either the serve or the return. But the best part of her performance today probably was the way she controlled the damage in the first set and mitigated her shortcomings in the second—all the while attacking Stosur with her return and off the ground as if she had no exposed flank herself.
This was an upset, given that Sharapova is the No. 16 seed (she's ranked three places better, thanks too some solid recent performances) and still groping to find the consistency that once enabled her to hold, or contend for, the No. 1 ranking on a predictable basis. On the other hand, Stosur's game has been in ebb since the start of the year, and even at the best of times she never could decipher the Sharapova code. The head-to-head going in was 6-0 in favor of Sharapova; Stosur won just two sets in those six meetings.
Sharapova is approaching the place where she can take that big serve/big return game to anyone. She just needs to get over that case of the serving yips and get to the point where she can string together five or six performances of the kind she turned in today (something she was unable to do at Indian Wells, her last event, where she battled through some tough matches but was battered in the semifinals by No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki).
Today was a good day to be Maria Sharapova. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
by Pete Bodo
Two-thousand and eleven has not been a very good number so far for Andy Roddick. He embarked on the campaign with a good number of points to defend. In 2010, he won Brisbane and made the final in San Jose in advance of the two big U.S. early-season hard-court Masters events, where he played for the championships each time. Roddick was the runner up at Indian Wells last year (to surprise winner Ivan Ljubicic), and he took the Miami title from Tomas Berdych. That Berdych went on to make the semifinals of the French Open and the Wimbledon final is a pretty good indication of the quality of Roddick's win on Key Biscayne.
Roddick's career-defining result may be the 2009 Wimbledon final, when he came within a swat or two of preventing Roger Federer from bagging his 15th major. Federer won that epic, 16-14 in the fifth, ensuring Roddick a major place in the highlight reel of Open Era tennis history. That loss was a bitter pill for Roddick to swallow, yet it seemed somehow an accurate encapsulation of his career—a career spent in the shadow of the man who beat him, if only by a whisker.
Nobody likes to think of a runner-up finish as someone's finest moment, but if you value pathos, and could have measured it that day with a meter, the results would have been off the charts. Roddick lost a big match day but he won many, many friends.
Miami is a full grade below Wimbledon, and while Roddick's win there last year isn't quite as significant as his triumph at the 2003 U.S. Open, or career-defining, it was in some ways the most emblematic of his big moment.
Last year on the Key, Roddick showed what a man could achieve if he had unrelenting faith in himself and allowed himself to want and pursue something without brooding, second-guessing, or becoming side-tracked. It revealed what a man could make of himself, starting with fairly common clay. And it was a testament to—and a payoff for—a remarkable amount of work, almost all of it carried out under stressful conditions with players ready and willing to punish every failed experiment, every bit of reaching out for something that wasn't necessarily within Roddick's grasp—like straight-on serve-and-volley tennis. Federer's mastery of him nonwithstanding, Roddick is tennis' ultimate self-made man, and he has many characteristics of the type, including a realistic streak that can seem harsh.
Roddick beat a couple of good clay-court players early at Miami last year, and he took out Rafael Nadal in the semifinals. In doing so it helped keep Nadal from becoming a Federer-sized obstacle in Roddick's path. Roddick is 3-6 against Nadal, but 2-20 with Federer. Somehow, I think that if you offered Roddick the same winning percentage he has with Nadal but over 22 matches (the number he's played against his nemesis, Federer), he'd gladly take it—and the titles it would represent.
Roddick's win over Berdych was the happy ending he was unable to create at Wimbledon in 2009—and his biggest title in the nearly four years since he won Cincinnati in 2006. The victory left Roddick in good stead for the rest of the year. He spent it paddling around the eddy at the lower end of the Top 10. He came into this new year with high hopes, but has struggled since the get-go, despite starting with a final at Brisbane.
Roddick was defending quarterfinal points at the Australian Open, where last year he lost a painful five-setter to Marin Cilic. He went down one round sooner this year, a victim of an in-form Stan Wawrinka—just the kind of guy Roddick needs to beat routinely to keep up his mid-level Top 10 status. Roddick earned back some ground when he won Memphis. He won two Davis Cup matches, and that always makes Roddick feel good. But then came the fall: fourth round (but third match) at Indian Wells, second round at Miami. As a result, Roddick could drop as low as No. 15.
There are mitigating circumstances in play here; Roddick left Miami limping on a bad ankle and, in his own words, sounding "like a car that won't start" when he laughed. Apparently, he's had a lingering bronchial infection, and he's worried. At this time last year, a case of mononucleosis prevented him from building on the momentum he built in Miami. Roddick did not play from the end of March until the end of May last year, and when he returned at Roland Garros he went three rounds. Yesterday, after that frustrating loss to Pablo Cuevas, he told the press:
"Well, I'm going to get to the clay a lot earlier than I did last year, hopefully. I probably. . .I'm going to have to talk to my coach about that. There is a lot coming in here (the press interview room) I don't have the answers for you. You normally regroup after this tournament and see where you're at."
The lay of the land doesn't look great for Roddick, and the kind of competitor he is, he'll be the last to know, even when the game has clearly passed him by. I can't imagine that's the case yet. Roddick is a big, strong guy and he's still just 28. And that serve, combined with his record and attitude on grass courts, positions him as a contender at Wimbledon for at last a few more years to come. Roddick has always loaded up his points bag during the hard court segments. Those points will be harder to earn, especially if his ranking/seeding drops, but not by that much.
I've always felt that Roddick could do better than he has thus far in his career on clay. That's because clay gives players that extra bit of time to set themselves up for a shot, or to reach a ball (that helps explain the success on clay of players like, say, Sam Stosur or Robin Soderling). Roddick has told me in the past that he enjoys clay (he earned three of his first four titles on the surface), and he was bummed out last year when mono greatly reduced his spring schedule. If Roddick can get over what presently ails him, he'll go into this clay-court season with a greater sense of urgency and more at stake than at any time in recent years. Will that translate to wins?
I don't imagine we'll see Roddick toppling Nadal in Rome, or blasting Federer off the court in Madrid. But with his re-tooled game (he has a rally stroke now in that versatile backhand), his general wisdom and experience (he more and more sounds like late-career Andre Agassi when he talks Xs and Os), and—of course—that atomic serve, Roddick might have a better time of it on red dirt than most people might expect. And there are always the turf wars of June and July to motivate him.
Mornin'. I'm on the trot here, doing errands and such before heading off to Miami tomorrow. But I wanted to give you a place to discuss today's matches at the Sony-Ericsson Open in Miami. I checked the scores this morning and must say that while I know Murray has been playing like dog poop, if you told me that he'd reach (and lose) the Australian Open final and then fail to win even a set in his next three matches/events I'd say "impossible."
But there it is. And it's not like Murray ought to feel devastated by that admittedly lackluster performance at the first major of the year. Novak Djokovic, who pounded him into submission in that Australian final, has now created the best start (19-0) since Ivan Lendl rolled out to a 25-0 start in 1986. Murray had nothing to be ashamed of, and you can't exactly say he blew an opportunity in Melbourne. It wasn't like he lost to Arnaud Clement in the final.
Granted, players suffer slumps. Happens to everyone. But this streak of Murray's is of a different order of magnitude, and I'm searching my mind for valid parallels. Anyone care to chime in? The only analogy I can think of is "writer's block." Something from which I've never suffered, although I'm sure many of you wish it were otherwise. Anyway, enjoy today's tennis. I'm hoping to wrangle another post out of Lance Harke today or tomorrow, but in any event I'll be back later this evening or early tomorrow morning.
-- Pete
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