48 posts categorized "June 2011"
by Pete Bodo
LONDON—Petra Kvitova was about to toss the ball to serve at 3-1, 40-love in the fifth game of the first set today at Wimbledon when an alarm went off in Centre Court, causing her to pull up momentarily. Both the source of and reason for the siren remain unknown, but I have my own theory. The hoary heads at the All England Club had determined that Kvitova's serve is so menacing a weapon that both her opponents and the public need to be alerted, much like they would be during an air raid. This, sadly, is a subject with which elderly British citizens who lived through the Blitz of World War II are more than familiar.
The interruption was relatively brief and completely ineffective, at least in terms of making Azarenka's life easier or safer. Kvitova immediately went back to the business at hand and blasted her way to a 6-1 first-set win. Azarenka won the second set, but Kvitova was able to notch a service break in the second game of the third set, and won the match on the strength of it, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2. It was a tightly scripted, orderly match; a testament to the idea that the advantage of serving ought to impose a satisfying sense of structure on a match, particularly one on a grass court.
"I think she started, you know, serving, and she really played very well on her service game," Azarenka conceded afterwards. "It was a little bit of a bad luck. . . I just miss just couple (in the third set), and she really took great advantage of it."
If you didn't know better, you might have plopped down on Centre Court and wondered if Azarenka and Kvitova weren't the WTA version of the Bryan twins, warming each other up for a doubles match. The young ladies had identical hairdos—the almost obligatory French braid—and similar, pristine white samurai headbands. They were both attired in chaste white. Anyone less than eagle-eyed was more likely to tell them apart by which hand they used to serve, or better yet, what we might call their auditory signatures.
Azarenka accompanies nearly every shot with a prolonged shriek of something like ecstacy. While largely silent, Kvitova will react to winning a particularly important point with a terrified shriek—you expect her to leap up on a stool, as if she'd just spotted a mouse. My pal Doug Robson of USA Today, who really ought to apply his imagination to more useful things, suggests that Kvitova sounds like a pterodactyl giving birth.
Oddly, though, Kvitova is largely silent during play. Today, she appeared to be making a strenuous effort to remain calm and in control of the situation—just what you might expect from a 21-year-old trying to surmount the semifinal barrier for the first time at a Grand Slam event, and this the most renowned of them all, as well as the one most favorable to her game and technical assets. In fact, if there was a danger in her approach, it probably lay less in getting careless than in becoming tied up in one too many knots. The silence was misleading, for at almost every critical moment she subtly clenched a fist or went into a momentary spasm, whirling to glance at the player guest box.
A player in that state is always prone to relax, even if it's inadvertently, after she wins a set—and so it was today. After losing the first set, Azarenka bolted to a 3-0 lead in the second and had two more break points with Kvitova serving at 1-4. Had Azarenka converted one of them, it might have opened floodgates. But Kvitova held fast, thereby buying time to get her game—and composure—back on track.
Kvitova's first-serve conversion rate was merely good (60%), but she won 73% of her successful first-serve points. More important, her serve kept Azarenka, an aggressive if somewhat one-dimensional baseliner, back on her heels. Azarenka had a chance to level the match in the third with Kvitova serving at 3-1, 15-40. Kvitova dismissed the first break point with a bold attack and forehand volley winner, and the other with an inside-out forehand winner. A deadly second serve to the Azarenka backhand at deuce, followed by a wide-swinging sliced ace, secured the game—and foiled Azarenka's last threat. The thread that ran through the entire match was the effectiveness of Kvitova's serve.
"Well, yeah, I think it's about I have a good serve," Kvitova said afterward. "And I'm not afraid of going to volley because we practiced with my father when I was young."
It isn't really the speed of Kvitova's serve that bowls anyone over. Even in an overpowering performance of the kind that Kvitova turned in earlier in the tournament against Yanina Wickmayer (Kvitova crushed her, 6-0, 6-2), she rarely tickles the speed gun much past 110 MPH, where some others (Sabine Lisicki comes to mind) are routinely breaking the 120 mph barrier. Rather, it's that Kvitova fully exploits the formidable combination of her height (6' 0"), reach, and left-handed-ness—perhaps more than comparable WTA pros, or even many of the ATP southpaws.
The key serve for Kvitova is that ad-court, wide-swinging slice. It's a devastating serve, easily differentiated from the standard cannonballs, kickers and even right-or-left-handed slices. That serve almost belongs in a category of its own, because of the slightly different rotational demands it puts on the server's shoulders. John McEnroe sliced his way into the International Tennis Hall of Fame with that serve, and Feliciano Lopez has it; Rafael Nadal doesn't exploit it, and Martina Navratilova never really developed her heavy swinger either.
 The match statistics confirm the extent to which speed isn't the critical component in this devastating serve. In many of her matches, Kvitova barely breaks 100 MPH with the serve that ought to be her most potent, that swinger sliced wide in the ad court. You'd never confuse her delivery with any other 99 MPH serve on the tour. The credit for that serve seems to belong to Kvitova's coach, David Kotyza.
Kvitova is a shy young lady of few words, and when she was asked how and when she developed that natural hook serve, she surprised us with her simple answer: "Well, I didn't have good serve, so I had lots of work with this. You have to ask my coach, because we are together with coach three years already, so it's three years ago."
Overall, it was an excellent performance by Kvitova, and yet another cruel blow to Azarenka's ambitions. The growing meme, that Azarenka is a kind of hologram who vanishes on the biggest of occasions, doesn't seem quite fair or accurate. I asked her about the bad luck she's had running into women destined to win tournament and she replied, "I actually haven't lost to anybody who didn't win the tournament since March. So if you can say it's a bad luck, I don't know." She tried a joke. "Maybe I'm just the one who gives so much confidence or whatever. . .But, yeah, I think I'm playing always somebody who is in a great form, but I have to take it."
I had to admire Azarenka's attitude following this difficult loss (she was beaten by a comparably adept Li Na at the French Open), especially when she responded to a question put by someone who obviously thought she ought to have been shattered by the loss.
"Well, I may not show you that I'm disappointed right now. I'm not going to sit and cry here that I lost the match. But I am disappointed with the loss. . . I have to, you know, keep working hard." She illustrated her next statement with convincing gestures. "I cannot sit here and cry, 'Oh, my God, I lost today. What do I have to do now?'"
Today was Kvitova's day, but Azarenka's suggested that she will have a comparable one of her own, and soon.
LONDON—Grand Slam tournaments often produce surprise semifinalists, and it always to leads to much weeping and gnashing of teeth among the usual suspects at that stage: To wit, the top names are apt to be spotted shaking their fists at the ether, bellowing, “Oh, why couldn’t I be the one who gets [fill in the name of your choice, from Martin Verkerk to Rainer Schuettler]????”
It isn’t going to be that way this year. Top seed and world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and No. 4 Andy Murray are probably perfectly content to let No. 2 Novak Djokovic deal with that big bronze bundle of thunder, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. It may seem a misnomer to call Tsonga a “surprise semifinalist,” but the bottom line is that he’s the No. 12 seed—and while he's a former Grand Slam finalist (Australian Open, 2008), few pundits would have penciled him into the final four here, at least not before the Queen's Club tournament.
In the final of that event, Tsonga was up a set and a break on Andy Murray, although he let it slip away and lost, 6-4 in the third. But then, in a familiar scenario, he lost meekly to Radek Stepanek at Eastbourne, winning just five games. As usual, Tsonga was an unknown quantity coming into Wimbledon, but now we all know, and most of us probably would agree with this assessment rendered by Rafael Nadal:
“You know how difficult is this surface, how difficult is everything. Because when you play against one player like Tsonga that he has this fantastic serve, you are under pressure all the time even if you are winning two sets to love, because you have a break, you have few mistakes with your serve, he has a break, probably he has the set. And that's every time. . .”
Tsonga has an outstanding, 5-2 record against Djokovic, all the matches on hard courts, but none more current than 2010—before Djokovic morphed into the main challenger to Nadal's sovereignty. Still, Tsonga promises to be a particularly troublesome opponent for Djokovic, who has frittered away opportunities at Wimbledon almost every year he’s played here.
In 2007, Djokovic allowed a two-sets lead against Marcos Baghdatis to disappear, and while he won the match in five sets, he sustained an injury that ultimately contributed to his having to retire against Nadal in the semis. The following year, he lost in the second round to a guy famous for stinking up the joint here, Marat Safin. In 2009, he was beaten by Tommy Haas, who’s never been in a major final. And last year, he lost a semifinal match against Tomas Berdych, one that he later admitted was a passive, strategic disaster.
In Tsonga, Djokovic is facing a man much like Berdych—a big, powerful, hard-serving competitor who isn’t afraid to take chances or seize the initiative in a match. We all saw how quickly and comprehensively Tsonga turned the tables on Federer the other day; a mere glimmer of hope in the third set turned into a supernova that pulverized the No. 3 seed. While Federer had a two-sets to none lead at one point, he had just one break point in the entire match.
This is bad news for Djokovic, who followed form and allowed his last opponent (Bernard Tomic) a lot of wriggle room. Granted, Tomic’s off-pace, tricky game irritates Djokovic, but he can’t afford to be so up-and-down against a player who can put a lid on a match as firmly as does Tsonga. “Let's say the performance against (Michael) Llodra was great,” Djokovic said yesterday. “Against Baghdatis, not so great. First two rounds was really good. Kind of up and down. But hopefully now it's going to go up.”
The bottom line: This one is the upset special. I’m picking Tsonga in four sets.
The other semifinal is less compelling, partly due to recent history. Nadal has is 11-4 overall against Andy Murray, and 4-2 against him in Grand Slam events (both of Murray’s wins were on hard courts). Nadal handled Murray in straight sets in Paris just weeks ago, and he’s won their only two meetings at Wimbledon, including last year’s semifinal, in straight sets as well.
One of Nadal’s trademarks is the genuine respect he has for all his opponents and rivals, and you can tell it’s a genuine component of his character when he digs down into the memory bank and extemporaneously says, “I think I played two fantastic matches against Andy (at Wimbledon). 2008 probably was a different situation, because Andy started to play really well that year, but especially after that.
“Last year I beat him here in the semifinals, but was very close match, even if was in straight sets. Second set he had a set point with his serve. . . For me, the last few months of Andy was very, very good.”
As it turns out, the panic over the state of Murray’s game, which reached a fevered pitch this spring, was overblown. Murray’s resurgence is complete, and may never have been much of a makeover anyway. As he said: “You know, I was not in a great position mentally. But, I was trying to say all along I didn't feel like I was in sort of a crisis. . . It's not like you lose your game overnight. It doesn't go away. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time to find it.”
The problem I see for Murray in this match is that the relatively low bounce and speed of Centre Court greatly reduces his counter-punching options. His style is best suited to a court that’s fast enough for him to hit winners and exploit potential changes of pace, but slow enought to be capable of producing a high bounce—high enough to allow him to get a look at the high-quality shots of his opponents and, ideally, enable him to make a smooth transition from defense to offense.
One intangible that could hurt Murray in this match is his friendship and regard for Rafa, which seems a bit more authentic and deeply felt than the de rigeur if genuine esteem he feels for his other rivals. They are, as both of them let us know the other day in their press conferences, PlayStation buddies.
“Normally we play PlayStation outside the court when we are in the same hotels in the tournament,” Nadal said. “Now he really don't want to play more. He lost the last few times.” Nadal smiled. “Well, no, seriously. Well, seriously, that's true. He lost almost every time. He played with his friend Danny (Vallverdu) against (Juan) Monaco and me, and we won.”
Murray retorted to that blast: “He (Rafa) actually isn't very good at PlayStation. His partner is very good. He plays with Juan Monaco, and Juan Monaco is very good.” Murray smiled. “As a team, they play well.”
Tomorrow, it will be about rackets, not joysticks, and grunts of effort rather than electronic blips and cues. And while Juan Monaco won’t be at Nadal’s side, I still think Rafa will win.
Here you go, have at it, folks! I've got to run out and watch this first women's semi before it's over - which could be in the blink of an eye.
-- Pete
 by Pete Bodo
LONDON—When Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was asked to explain why he might enjoy meeting Muhammad Ali, the boxer whom Tsonga resembles in a number of ways, he was hard-put to come up with an elaborate reply. The trace of a smile crept over his face and he offered the hint of a shrug as he answered, "Just a nice moment, you know, because in life you have to live of course some good moments. That's it."
As an explanation, it must have been an easy one to arrive at because Tsonga had just lived one of those precious moments, his stirring and improbable five-set quarterfinal win over Wimbledon icon Roger Federer. I say "improbable," because while Ali specialized in winning enormous, world-riveting prize fights with his fists, Tsonga thus far in his career has too often lost the small, winnable matches that are the building blocks of a good career. And he hasn't exactly stepped up at major events. At the outset today, it appeared that he once again was about to disappoint.
In all fairness, part of Tsonga's long-term problem has been a string of injuries: whereas this Wimbledon is Roger Federer's 47th consecutive Grand Slam appearance, Tsonga has only played 16 majors, and never more than eight consecutively, even though he's already 26 years old.
Today, though, none of that mattered, in one of those rare matches that featured a simple, brutal narrative (think of the usual beginning-middle-end saga, but without any middle to speak of). Tsonga started slowly. Imagine a steam locomotive just about to depart, the steel wheels squealing and protesting as the coupling rods force them to turn. He came out so cold that, as John McEnroe observed, "It looks like he just came out of a freezer."
In the blink of an eye, it seemed, Tsonga lost the first set 3-6 and was heading into a make-or-break second-set tiebreaker. Still, from about midway through the first set, Tsonga was playing quite well, but was lost like features of a landscape under the blizzard of Federer winners. But Federer raced through the tiebreaker, 7-3, and Andy Murray and Feliciano Lopez must have jumped up in the locker room to start stretching, eat a bananna, or pack the racket bag, for they were next up on Centre Court.
It got worse. At one point early in the third set, Federer, standing on the baseline, appeared ready to powder a forehand. He stepped back in that signature way of his, to get a little more oomph behind his shot, but deftly turned the racket face and kissed an exquisite drop-shot across the net. As McEnroe said, "It's like getting a pie in the face." Given that Federer, who plays quickly, was finishing his service games in under two minutes (literally; his average was 1:47) it appeared that this might go down as the shortest Wimbledon quarterfinal in history.
Instead, it became one of the shortest five-set quarterfinals ever played here, at 3:08, with Tsonga winning 3-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Like that steam locomotive, Tsonga proved virtually impossible to stop once he got out of the railyard and the engine and wheels overcame the enormous start-up inertia. This was a match with a single turning point, which is a very brief middle to stick between the beginning and end.
That juncture occurred in the third game of the third set, when a volley error and a carelessly mishit overhead left Federer down 15-40. He dispatched the first break point with a service winner, and the second with a forehand blast. But a forehand winner earned Tsonga another break point, and he converted that one with a dazzling, running forehand pass down the line.
Huh?
At that point, a wiser man or woman than I might have noted that despite the huge lead, Federer had seen exactly one break point—already two fewer than Tsonga. It was an omen, too, for Federer would not see a break point for the rest of the match—and I doubt that the 100 percent conversion rate he posted on his lone opportunity gave him much comfort. "It was more just a serving contest," Federer would eventually say of the match. "Good one-two punches."
It was an accurate description, but it fails to answer why and how Federer could go from winning to losing in what amounted to a turn on a dime. After all, Federer even posted a better first-serve-points-won percentage than Tsonga, 78 percent to 73. Granted, Tsonga's serve is heavier, but Federer won a slightly higher percentage of his second serves as well. This tells you that Fedrerer had an easier time holding serve, so how come he couldn't hold onto the match?
To me, the answer lies partly in the superior mental toughness shown by Tsonga. After he finally won it, he explained, "I think I improve a lot mentally. I'm stronger because I change a lot of things and now I try to stay focused at the time and just breathe and stay quiet. I did it today and it worked. . . I played three years now, not far from the Top 10, or in the Top 10, and now I want more." He added, as if for emphasis, "I want more."
But the monochromatic turnaround can't be explained merely by Tsonga's newfound gumption. At many points in the final two sets I found myself wondering if Federer really wanted the match with the same degree of yearning. For he's at that point in his career where the wanting is no longer automatic, and sometimes a player gets stuck and starts spinning his wheels because he wants to want it, rather than simply wanting it—if that makes sense.
I don't know how else explain the curious air of detachment about Federer as the match ground on. Most champions walk with their heads held high, and at least attempt to convey a sense of confidence control, even when all the walls are tumbling around about them. By contrast, Federer seemed to retreat into a shell. He appeared to run for balls less because he wanted to than because had to; it was a reactive attitude that certainly could not have helped him get a jump on Tsonga's serve or even his groundstrokes. Tsonga was powerful and swift, but did Federer's passivity make him appear a little bit more invincible than he was? It's a tough question to answer.
What I do know for sure is that for long periods, Federer just hung his head, accepting his punishment—those sledgehammer serves, those lashing forehands and stinging volleys!—like a guilty schoolboy. I tried to imagine what I would write in a thought bubble above Federer's head when I regarded his comportment, and the best I could come up with was, This guy is playing great, what the hail am I doing out here? Maybe he'll trip and break a leg. . .
Federer's reaction to the loss also was remarkably temperate. For the second year, he had a chance to equal his pal Pete Sampras' mark of seven Wimbledon singles titles, and for the second year he came up short. He was entitled to defend his performance by saying, "Look, I played too good to (be upset). It wasn't a shocker, second-round loss in straight sets, some stupid match I played. It was a great match, I think, from both sides. To talk bad about this match would be unfortunate, I think. I really did play well, and I also thought Jo played an amazing match, as good as I've seen him play for such a long period of time."
But is that really a good baseline for a champ, that he didn't lose to a stiff in the second round? Federer also added, "Even though I took a tough loss today, I don't feel, you know, discouraged in any way. I think that's key right now, to not let anything get to me."
When a veteran champion makes a point of saying he has to keep from letting things get to him, you know things are getting to him. Adopting a philosphical attitude is always a good thing, but in tennis it's not the best thing. The best thing is to strive and give yourself over entirely to something you really want, the way Tsonga wanted this match, adding a twist to that most famous line of Muhammad Ali's, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
Today, Tsonga's serve was less stinger than bludgeon, but his attitude throughout the match could almost be described as carefree.
"I felt so good on the court," he said. "I was quick, I was just perfect today, I don't know—every time I was feeling like a dream, you know? Even at two sets down, because I was in a quarterfinals against Roger Federer. The stadium was full. It was 6-3, 7-6, I was not ridiculous. I was in my match and, yeah, feeling good all the match."
It wasn't a championship fight for tennis's version of Muhammad Ali, but today he knocked out a champ. The title fight is still one bout removed.
Mornin'. It promises to be a very busy day today, so this will be extra brief. I'll be covering the Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs. Roger Federer match today, and looking ahead later to the men's semifinals. The big question here is, just how injured is Rafael Nadal? Apparently, not very, which is not exactly great news for Mardy Fish, the second match on Court No. 1. Enjoy the tennis today, everyone, and fill 'er up!
- Pete
 by Pete Bodo
LONDON—No era or dynasty ends on a specific day, although sometimes it may appear to. Who can forget the day the Berlin Wall came crashing down? Or that image of the last helicopter, taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon with people hanging onto it? Yesterday, the day when Venus and Serena Williams both crashed out of Wimbledon within hours of each other, felt a little bit like one of those days.
It was a hectic, hot, humid day, a day when the air clung to your skin and the sky was right there above your brow, slightly portentious and somewhat oppressive. That, coupled with the fact that the sisters both lost in straight sets to women who didn't have a Grand Slam title between them (as opposed to Venus and Serena, who have a combined total of 20), probably helped advance that notion—one which Serena dealt with firmly if not with her trademark aggression when the question was put to her bluntly by a member of the press:
What would you say those who question whether this is the end of an era in terms of the Williams sisters dominance?
Serena replied, "I don't know. Like, I'm still here. I plan on doing better."
It was a good answer, not at all defensive. But it left me wondering, just what price is either sister willing to pay in order to add to her resume? For it's unlikely to get much easier from here on in, partly because Venus is over 30 and Serena rapidly approaching that landmark. And there have been signs this year, particularly in these last two major events, that the other women in the WTA are ready to move on. Ready to really challenge Venus and Serena in a way they would not have dared—in fact, did not dare—under less favorable circumstances a few years ago.
My own reaction to the twin losses yesterday was a mild touch of melancholy. Maybe it was just that the results once again confirmed the relentless passage of time. Wasn't it just yesterday that Serena was tromping around in that ridiculous biker outfit she auditioned at the U.S. Open? What happened to willowy and lithe Venus, running down and whacking a ball so acrobatically that the WTA chose to make its logo out of the negative?
It didn't help that throughout the press room here at Wimbledon, reporters were scurrying around and firing out stats at each other—first time in 93 years that all eight quarterfinalists are European! First time the sisters lost on the same day since—French Open, 2008! A reporter laid that trap for Venus during her presser, knowing the answer full well when he asked: When was the last time you and your sister both went out on the same day of a tournament?
 "I don't keep the stats now," Venus frostily replied.
You can't remember a day yourself? 2008 French Open.
"Thank you. Great to remember all these losses, right?"
But it was no use fighting that tide, it sweeps away all things. One thing that players absolutely don't understand when they're on top of the game is how swiftly their domain goes to pieces, how soon people forget, how frequently critics feel a measure of schadenfreude at the plight of all the most diplomatic and beloved of icons.
I wondered how others experienced that day; was it with their heads or hearts? Did they shrug and think, Well, the U.S. Open will be here soon. . . or brood, like I did, wondering if it something magical, frustrating, riveting and so easily taken for granted was coming to an end faster than I ever imagined it would. How did people feel?
"I was saddened," Bud Collins said. "I thought maybe both could move a little farther on. To many people, Wimbledon means the Williams sisters. But I don't get the feeling (that it's the end of an era). I would hate to see the end of this era because—I have to be jingoistic here—if it's the end, it's the end of the U.S. era, too."
Chris Evert was talking with her fellow ESPN commentor Hannah Storm when I caught up with her. "It seemed anti-climatic to me," she said. "I wished the crowed supported Serena a little more, but I guess Bartoli won them over with her effort. I felt a little sadder for Venus. She went down so. . . quietly. Serena, you know she'll be back. I believe she'll win a major again. But you have to wonder about Venus."
"I looked at their mother (Oracene)," Storm added. "I wondered, 'What must it be like to see both your children lose, back-to-back like that? I feel for the family, because they've always tended to support one another and when one of them was having troubles you could almost count on the other one to keep things going, to provide that lift. But this was like, 'Who do you turn to now?'"
Ken Solomon, CEO of Tennis Channel, said, "I've seen that 'end of an era' thing disappear really quickly. Two years ago, some people were saying Roger (Federer) would never do anything again. We've seen the Justine (Henins) and Kim (Clijsters') and Andre (Agassis) come back from much further down."
Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who becomes the top ranked U.S. player (No. 31) on Monday, had a bad feeling about Venus' match when she saw that the older Williams sister was watching Serena collapse. "It was one of those matches where every television in the locker room is tuned to the match," Mattek-Sands told me. "It had to be tough for Venus to go out there after that, and in my opinion Pironkova played great. But for all we know, come the U.S. Open Series, they may dominate again."
I caught up with Todd Martin on the player's terrace, where he was talking with some old friends and former players. He said, "We've grown to expect that if not one then the other sister will succeed here, which is maybe why this feels a little strange. But then it's been an incredibly strange year for them. That inactivity clearly hurt. I guess it's tough for American tennis, but look—Mardy (Fish) did a great job today. . ."
At that point, Tim Henman interjected, "It's a cycle. Look at us (the UK). We're at the bottom now, it just happens to be a real deep cycle."
Everyone laughed.
"You used to dominate," Henman added, good-naturedly. "You've got no players. You're worse than we are."
"Don't you feel any sympathy for us ?" I asked Henman.
"Not really," he replied. "You never knew how good you had it."
by Pete Bodo
LONDON—For a pleasant, friendly young lady with a ready smile and a wide-eyed appreciation of a professional tennis player's way of life, Sabine Lisicki has certainly endured a fair amount of drama and heartache. Remember that three-set loss to Dinara Safina in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, when Lisicki was just 19 and playing in SW19 for only the second time? She won the first-set tiebreaker, but just couldn't hold it together from there on.
Then there was that second-round U.S. Open match in 2009, when she rolled her ankle at match point against Anastasia Rodionova and left the court a loser, in a wheelchair. How about that more serious ankle injury in 2010, the one that was originally misdiagnosed but ended up costing her the No. 26 ranking (just four places removed from her career high), two missed majors (French Open and Wimbledon) and five months of competition?
Surely you also remember how, at the French Open a few weeks ago, Lisicki fought through qualifying and had No. 2 seed Vera Zvonareva on the ropes. But the ropes frayed and broke, and at the conclusion of the 7-5 in-the-third loss, Lisicki was taken off the court on a stretcher, tears streaming down her face, still cramping (which she attributed to her new, improperly balanced a gluten-free diet). How could this girl not have an endorsement deal with Ace bandages?
Well, Lisicki was back at it today at Wimbledon, trying to become one of only two WTA wild cards to make the Wimbledon semifinals (the other one was Zheng Jie of China, in 2008). To achieve that honor, she had to subdue feisty, confident Marion Bartoli, while thunderbolts flashed through the skies above London. They illuminated the translucent, Centre Court roof overhead while rain hammered down, sounding like a stream of BBs dumped on a snare drum. Given Lisicki's hard-luck history, you half-expected the roof to cave in and wash everyone down to the Thames.
This frog-drowner probably wasn't what the architects and engineers had in mind when they designed the retractable roof; what passes for rain on most days here is best described as light perspiration on the air. But credit both quarterfinalists for battling conditions that bordered on the surreal with a commendable degree of forbearance and skill in a match that lasted two hours and 21 minutes and ended with Liscki in the semifinals for the first time in her brief career, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-1.
Bartoli had been playing great tennis for well over a months. She's survived match points and lived by her wits—and those big, roundhouse two-handed groundstrokes that are so reminscent of Monica Seles in her heyday. Bartoli's miminalist game is an acquired taste but one which, over time, you can grow to appreciate if not necessarily love. Lisicki, by contast, has a classic style, and is a master of the stroke that has caused so many women so much grief, the serve.
That serve was in fine working order today, and it helped account for Lisicki's 52 winners. And she used it in admirable conjunction with a sometimes devastating drop shot. Bartoli gamely stood right on the baseline to receive Lisicki's blistering serves but was unable to take control of points with her return. Lisicki would drive her back, working either wing, and then sneak up to end the point with a drop shot. It seemed a clever and effective strategy on grass, where any ball hit without pace bounces about as energetically as a hacky sack. But it wouldn't have been nearly as viable were it not for that booming serve.
Of course, this being Lisicki, we couldn't really expect a routine 6-4, 6-3 win. As the rain pounded down during the second set, Bartoli contrived to dodge fate one more time, leaving that many more people muttering, Well, she's kind of weird, but you've got to love the way she fights. . .and what's up with those practice swings? Actually, they ought to issue OSHA-approved safety equipment to the ball kids when Bartoli is in action; at least once today she nearly decapitated a ball boy with one of those vicious air-backhands with which she whiles away the time between points.
Lisicki appeared to take control of the match after she won the first set and broke Bartoli to lead 5-4 in the second. Then things got kind of western. In the next game, she had three match points, but couldn't convert any of them. She made tentative errors on two of those points, but the other one was a gem that had a little bit of everything: big groundstrokes, lobs and drop shots—by both women—before Bartoli outfoxed Lisicki. Bartoli finally got the break-back the easy way, with a double fault.
Given the missed opportunity, Lisicki did well to force the tiebreaker, in which 10 of the 11 points were mini-breaks. That might suggest that the women needed someone to perform a heimlich maneuver on them, but the truth is that they both played well; they swung from the heels, took big chances, and hit that competitive plateau where you can throw the conventions out the window. It was highly entertaining for the crowd if ultimately disappointing for Lisicki, who came up on the short end of the 7-4 breaker.
In the blink of an eye, though, Lisicki powered through her first service game of the third set and broke Bartoli convincingly. The Frenchwoman was clearly tired; it was easy to tell because she no longer even had the energy to do her shuffle-and-swing routine between points. She just gave a half-hearted wriggle of the hips now and then while awaiting serve.
As Bartoli said in her presser afterward: "My mind was trying extremely hard, but just my body couldn't do anything anymore. I think I really paid all the effort I had since one month. Since Strasbourg (final), French Open (semis), Eastbourne (winner), I play a lot of matches—a lot of long matches. At the end, I couldn't anymore. But, you know, there is nothing I can do about it. I still fought very hard, especially in that second set. I had some match point down. I have no regrets. You know, I really try my hardest, but at the end my body just was not able to do it anymore."
I asked Bartoli what it was like facing that Lisicki serve (the winner converted 60 percent of her first serves and clubbed nine aces, stats that don't really do justice to the advantage she enjoyed). But Bartoli didn't seem to want to talk about that. Instead, she added: "Of course, Sabine was playing very well, but I was aware about it and I was still able to take her to a third set. I really do feel like if I had just the same level of energy as yesterday I would be able to win that match, but it was just not the case."
It wasn't the most gracious analysis, but Bartoli is a different breed of cat. She sometimes seems blissfully unconscious of how she sounds, which in a weird way is the aural equialent of how she often looks. Those mechanical—almost robotic—ticks and preparatory swings and shoulder-shifts exude a similar kind of self-absorption and disregard for how she might appear or sound. Most people by now recognize Bartoli for the borderline eccentric that she is, and in the end she's a pretty good sport—as is Lisicki. For example, neither woman favors the aggressive, menacing fist pump. After winning a point, either woman will make a fist and shake it lightly, as if she were about to roll dice. They both seem more intent on communing with inner spirits than getting into an opponent's face.
Lisicki, who's more ace machine than quote machine, was asked how different she is from that player who made the quarterfinals in 2009. "I think I'm more experienced and calmer. I've been at that stage (quarterfinal). Two years ago it was different. I was more nervous. I couldn't sleep so good. You know, all those little things. Obviously, everything was new so. . .But now it's different.
"Also, after the injury, uhm, it's so nice to be back. I know how fast it can be gone, you know. So I just try to enjoy myself even more and just try to enjoy every minute that I'm on the court. That's why I'm saying it's just nice to have another match to be playing here still. I think that helps me a lot. I think the experience, especially on grass, is important, and that calmness."
Composure is an especially important quality to maintain during the late stages of a tournament, especially when the venue is less tennis cathedral than thunderdome. Today, she needed neither wheelchair nor stretcher, and left the court under her own power, the first German semifinalist since Steffi Graf in 1999.
 Howdy, folks. Your on-the-scene weather report at 11:30 AM is that it will be cooler today, and cloudy, with a chance of flubbed second serves and a 99 percent chance of blood-curdling shrieks, rising from both Centre Court and Court No. 1. If we get showers (as predicted, but fairly late in the afternoon) and the roof is used, people might be staggering out of the stadium clutching their bleeding ears if Sharapova is involved in a real tussle.
The other champion shrieker is the tournament's No. 4 seed, Victoria Azarenka. She's be bringing her own brand of music to Court No. 1, where if she is sufficiently voluble she simply might blow over her mouse of an opponent, Austrian Tamira Paszek. It's hard to imagine Paszek keeping pace with Azarenka, but the volatile Belarusian is becoming one of those players who will almost always let you down when you invest big hopes in her. I think she's better than that, or will be, but I also thought that about Elena Dementieva, and we all know how that played out.
In other matches, I like Petra Kvitova over Tsvetana Pironkova (who doesn't?) and, in the upset of the day, diminutive Dominika Cibulkova over Sharapova. If Sharapova doesn't have confidence in her serve, I don't either. And I put a lot of stock in the serve at Wimbledon.
Enjoy the tennis, everyone.
-- Pete
by Pete Bodo
LONDON—As little as two weeks ago, Rafael Nadal appeared ready to trade his Nike grass-court shoes for a pair of flip-flops, his specially concocted energy and recuperation drink for a pitcher of sangria, and his Babloat Aeropro Drive for a Shakespeare Ugly Stick. But it turns out that what he probably most needed after another season in the red dirt is a return to the pale, cool green grass of London. Funny, what a change of scenery can do for a guy.
Nadal has looked rejuvenated and, well, happier, now that he's been rolling again at Wimbledon, and today he took another step toward a successful defense of his title by surviving a bitter, closely contested Centre Court clash with one of the few men capable of planting real doubt in his mind, Juan Martin del Potro. The match lasted almost four hours and didn't even go five sets. Nadal won it, 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4, playing as carefully and warily as if it were a Grand Slam final instead of the kind of humdrum fourth-round encounter that a guy working on his 11th Grand Slam title is expected to endure with little fuss or drama.
Nadal may not have a penchant for unnecessary drama, and he doesn't like to make much of a fuss. That isn't his way. You may not guess it from that borderline reckless game he plays, but Nadal is the soul of prudence. He's very good at crossing his "t"s and dotting his "i"s, and that was probably the outstanding meta-technical element of his win.
Del Potro, you'll remember, is the guy who's supposed to have problems on grass. Who's never survived to play during the second week at Wimbledon (never mind that he's just 21 and has only played here three times—losing to a former champ [Lleyton Hewitt] on one occasion and the defending champ [a guy named Federer] on another). The guy whose backswing is blah-blah-blah and whose movement is yadda-yadda-yadda. Nadal has probably heard those criticisms as well, but chronic t-crossers and i-dotters don't pay much attention to clubhouse lawyers and they never, ever, take any opponent less than seriously.
I broached this subject with Nadal in the post-match presser, and he explained: "Always is the same history. The same was wth me when I lost in 2005 in second round against Muller. My game is not ready for grass. After four years I played two finals, two champions. . . here I am (again) in quarterfinals. He (Juan Martin) is young. He has unbelievable potential. With this serve, he is always very competitive in these courts. And for sure (having been) No. 4, 5 in the world and winning Grand Slam titles, he's one of the favorites to win here. And why not? He has a very good serve, very good shots from the baseline, and his volley looks good. I don't seen no reason to think he's not gonna play really well here."
About that serve Nadal praised: It almost saved del Potro's day on any number of occasions, although it let him down at the time when Nadal was most vulnerable—at the end of the first set. Nadal had two set points with del Potro serving at 4-5, but the sinewy, 6' 6" Argentine produced first-serve bombs each time, the ball striking Nadal's racket as if it were a rock rather than a lively, rubber orb. Nadal had another break chance in the 12th game, but Delpo swept it away with a forehand approach-shot winner, then blasted his way out of trouble with an ace and an unreturnable to Nadal's backhand.
At that point, though, instead of lining up to start the tiebreaker, Nadal approached the umpire, uttered a few words, and plopped down in his chair. It turned out he had called for the trainer. After he was examined, Nadal took a full medical time-out and had his left foot heavily taped as del Potro, either baffled, irritated, or both, looked on.
Nadal explained later that he felt a sharp pain while hitting the forehand bullet that gave him his last set point before the tiebreaker. The pain was so severe that, he said, "I seriously didn't know at that moment in the match if I will have a chance to continue playing." Delpo must have asked himself the same question as he watched the trainer working on Nadal's foot. If you're wondering how Nadal rebounded and managed to keep his level high enough from that point on to win the set—and ultimately the match—all I can offer is his official explanation:
"The pain stay with me for the next points, for sure, and for all the match stays with me. But with the tape, I think we changed a little bit the direction of the support, and probably didn't hurt me much. But to run to my forehand (which Nadal regularly hits off his back, left foot) was very, very tough for me. I felt pain because I cannot push with the foot to defend my forehand. To go against my backhand wasn't a problem, I can run fast there. The biggest problem I had is when I had to defend my forehand."
Given this revelation, the first set tiebreaker looms like even more of a missed opportunity for del Potro. It started well enough for the No. 24 seed, when Nadal, presumably distracted by his inexplicable injury, drove an ugly forehand into the net. Delpo served up winner and elicited an unforced backhand error to go up 3-0, but Nadal controlled the damage, winning the next two points. The next five points all went against serve, but Delpo reached set point at 6-5 thanks to a forehand error. Nadal disarmed that threat with a service winner, and hit a whistling backhand winner to the back of del Potro's baseline to get a set point of his own. Then, del Potro double-faulted; it was an exquisitely self-sabotaging thing to do, and suddenly the pain in Nadal's foot probably felt more manageable for reasons not bio-mechanical.
It's always hard to assess the impact of injury on a match, and I'd just as soon stay clear of it unless, as in a case like this, ignoring it seems a willful oversight. In retrospect, there was only one inkling that all was not well in Nadal's world during play. It happened when del Potro decisively served out the second set, 6-4. As a wave of applause broke over Centre Court, Nadal just stood with head hanging at the spot where he had lost the last point, staring at the ground, disconsolate and seemingly inconsolable. It was so striking, and unlike Nadal, that I made a note of it. It just isn't the kind of thing he's given to doing, not when he's just split sets against a powerful rival. Perhaps he was worried about that foot, and feared that his chances were slipping away.
But Nadal quickly recovered from that sinking spell, and he controlled the critical third-set tiebreaker from the onset. He continued to pull ahead in the fourth and finally broke down del Potro's resistance. It was a typically meticulous, careful win by this superb i-dotter, who spent a his next hours trying to figure out when and where to have an MRI.
Once again, that beach, those flip-flops, and that fishing rod must look tempting.
by Pete Bodo
LONDON—Wimbledon hasn't had an 18-year-old champion since Boris Becker won the title at age 17 in 1985, but that may not be much of a deterrent for Bernard Tomic, who crushed Xavier Malisse in straight sets (6-1, 7-5, 6-4) in the fourth round of Wimbledon today. One of the more impressive aspects of this performance is that it backed up Tomic's equally savage destruction of Robin Soderling in his last match.
So, could it happen? Could Tomic, at 18, actually rip through, say, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal in consecutive matches to win this thing?
"Wow, that's a big question," Tomic said after his latest win. "Well . . . anything is possible. I wouldn't be sitting here now in the quarters, let alone think I'm in the quarters . . . I could be talking to you right now in four days, I don't know, or I could be talking to you again—this could be my last time."
Short version: Yup.
Clearly, Tomic hasn't spent the days since he upended Soderling (who was seeded No. 5) gazing at a mirror, popping his bi-ceps ("Firepowah!") and practicing his pick-up lines—or, if he has, he knows when to drop all that nonsense and get serious. It's something Malisse, once a promising talent comparable to Tomic, may not have learned soon enough. That's why, at the age of 30, Malisse is trying to re-invent himself as a dedicated, fit and focused competitor. He's making a good job of it, too—he's back in the Top 50 after falling out of the top 100 (and not for the first time) about 18 months ago.
Today, though, Tomic was not just the clearly superior player, he also provided the perfect dramatic foil to the beleaguered veteran out there on Court 18 where, if you plan adequately (or wear a press badge), you can sit close enough almost to reach out and touch the players. If Malisse was a player desperately seeking redemption with a late-career surge, Tomic appeared a young man whose time as a kid (at least in tennis) had unexpectedly run out.
There Tomic was, suddenly a man, a lean and lithe specimen of 6'4," built up top like a clothes hanger and down below like a long distance runner. His swagger was no longer that of an impetuous youth hoping to look confident; it now radiated purpose as well as a hint of menace that might have been communicable to Malisse. How else can you explain the way the older player meekly yielded to Tomic in the critical second set?
The match started at noon, which for most players is a little early. But Tomic had no sleep in his eyes; he fired out as if he'd been sitting on the edge of his bed, racket in hand and white trucker cap pulled firmly down over his eyes since daybreak. He swept the first set, 6-1. Malisse eventually loosened up and found his hold game in the second set, and the dramatic potential of the match increased.
Both men know how to address the yellow ball and make it say something interesting, and the fact that their opportunities to do so were strictly limited by the number of service winners each one hit only made the points that went on for four or six or even eight hits that much more interesting. And it's not like Tomic needs help from the grass court or the intimate atmosphere on Court 18 to be interesting. He's rangy, with a terrific combination of power and touch—both of which were put to good use in the important 11th game of the second set, with Malisse serving to go up 6-5.
For the first few points, it looked as if Malisse was on track for another hold, and I probably wasn't the only witness contemplating the prospects of a tiebreaker. Then Malisse made a forehand error off a terrific, down-the-line service return, and Tomic belted a stone-cold forehand service-return winner. Hello? Break point.
Tomic produced a signature combination during the next point. He started with softly-hit, probing, groundstrokes—until he saw the shot he wanted; then loaded up and lashed out with a forehand to Malisse's forehand corner, applying a vicious snap of the wrist at the moment of contact. It was a winner and, for all intents and purposes, the match point.
After Tomic held the next game with ease, Malisse walked toward his chair, taking out-sized steps and lifting his left foot high enough to take a vicious whack at the sole of his shoe with every stride. Finally, on about the fourth try, the head of the racket splintered. Now that's one for the highlight reel—or the reality show, Hey, How Did They Do that?
The third set was a formality, and after Tomic officially became the youngest quarterfinalist in Wimbledon history since Becker in 1986 (the year of his successful title defense), the natural question was, "Why here, why now?"
"It's got to happen sometime," he replied without thinking, a smile slowly forming on lips that, judging from photographs, are far more easily persuaded to frown, like a comma knocked over. "I said to myself, you know, I'm going to have a tournament here. Play well. Ever since the quallies, I tried to play a little bit more relaxed than I'm used to . . . Now I found my game, where I need it be, and that's to have fun, relax out there, not play under pressure whereas maybe six months ago I was playing a little bit more defensive, not playing my game. I think now I"ve really learnt the way I should play my game."
Tomic went on to explain that in his distinguished junior career, he won many titles because of his defensive skills. But, as he noted today, "Juniors is where players miss. Here, they don''t miss much."
It was a revealing if simple analysis that says much about the transition from junior to main-tour tennis. If I understand correctly, Tomic is saying that he's had to overcome a passive, reactive mindset and learn to approach matches more militantly. He's decided that he needs to advantage of any opportunity to be aggressive. It's a useful piece of knowledge, if not the easiest to execute successfully.
In his next match, Tomic will play Novak Djokovic, with whom he's become friendly and with whom he hit shortly before the tournament began. Tomic explained, with some trepeditation. "We played a set. He destroyed me. Things are not looking good for me . . . but hopefully he destroyed me then, and not on this game on Wednesday."
Tomic has done a lot of growing up these past two or three weeks (he battled through qualifying to make the main draw), who knows how much more he can grow by Wednesday?
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