Archive for the ‘Male Players’ Category

Clay Season underway

Andy Murray’s year not improving…

Poor Andy Murray’s year is not looking any brighter. Starting with that blaze of form at the Australian Open, the loss in the finals and the following few months seem to have knocked it all out of the Scot. At home he is garnishing criticism for not playing in the GB Davis Cup team, and out on the circuit he is being knocked out of the earliest of the early rounds. His latest disappointment was at the Monte Carlo masters. He had a bye in the first round, but was out in the second, losing 6-2 6-1 to Philip Kohlschreiber. ‘Muzza’ is going to have to pick himself up from this quickly; last year his clay season was an impressive improvement on the surface, and if he gets a bad season under his belt who knows what that’ll do to his confidence come Wimbledon.

…but Rafael Nadal’s year improving significantly

It’s been a bit of the grind the last eighteen months or so for the Majorcan. Fortunately for Rafa fans, he appears to be back to fighting fitness ready for his favourite season of the year. Those vibrant clay courts just wouldn’t be the same without him. His latest title, and first for a while, was taken at the Monte Carlo Masters, beating Fernando Verdasco 6-0 6-1.  This is the sixth consecutive time he has won his tournament. Well, some people are just greedy like that. With his form as blistering as it is at the moment, he looks on track to get his old French Open title back from Federer. Finger more »

Starkly Different Semi-Finals

To get to the epic final that has now been set up, two very different semi-finals took place. First, there was Murray vs. Cilic. The excitement was palpable. In Britain, the BBC had whipped every ‘Muzza’ fan into an hysteria. Supporters of Cilic were trembling with the idea of another fairy-tale final for a lower ranking player.

Anyone who saw the match will know that the big Croat made the Scot work for the advance to the finals that he desired. He took the first set in a rather brutal fashion, with his serve his best bet against a nifty Murray. The eventual scoreline was 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2, but the battle to get the finals for Murray only really began to ease off at the end of the third set.

As the third set came to a close, Cilic needed to step it up a gear to have a chance, and unfortunately he just couldn’t find it. The words ‘pummel’, ‘batter’ and ‘broken’ started to appear in the running commentaries, whether they were Murray-backing or not. It was four sets, but it may as well have been 3. After a rocky start, Andy Murray found his game, the kind of form that may win him this Open.

The second semi-final, Roger Federer vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was over and done in 88mins. With a scoreline of 6-2 6-3 6-2 and a time like that, I’m sure you wouldn’t need more than the one guess at who was the winner. Federer demolished an exhausted, listless Tsonga, who looked like he had decided he wasn’t going to win before he even arrived on the cour more »

Men’s Quarter Finals

With all the drama of the past few days, and two of the top four seeds making their exit, the quarter finals of this years French Open are wide open, and with Federer barely able to scrape through his fourth round match the safest bet of the tournament is that there are no safe bets.

Robin Soderling vs Nicolay Davydenko

Can Davydenko beat the man who beat ‘The Man’?

On paper he is the higher ranked of the two players and has a superior track record on clay, but suprisingly trails 2-3 in their head to head matches - with two of those losses to Soderling coming on clay.

There has to be a massive come down for Soderling after such an upset win, and history is littered with examples of such winners being unable to raise their game in their very next match and tumbling out straight after.

The one that instantly springs to my mind is the Australian Open of 1996 when a 19yr old (and not yet broke) Mark Phillipoussis turned in a stunning performance to dominate world number 1 Pete Sampras in straight sets.

He was bundled out in the very next round, and as it turns out never made it past the 4th round of the Aussie Open in his whole career, even though at the time he was being pegged as a future champion.

So I’m going to go with Davydenko in this one - he’s a talented player who’s been involved in his fair share of controversy but he seems to be playing close to his best at the moment.

Andy Murray vs Fernando more »

 

Djokovic Out

The world No. 4 Novak Djokovic was one of the first major casualties in the early rounds of the French Open. Today he was beaten Kohlschreiber of Germany 6-4 6-4 6-4. It sounded like a lot of it was in his mind; after the defeat Djokovic himself admitted that he couldn’t get into a rhythm or get his body moving well.

 

This is a major disappointment; it seemed as though the Serb would go far in the French Open. I had him lined up as a strong competitor for Nadal’s crown. Then again, I like many others thought he could retain his Australian Open title at the beginning of the year.

 

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Day One: It begins again