Greetings, Tribe. I have just got back from having lunch with fellow TennisWorlder skip1515, and his lovely wife. He has been doing some coaching over here in England, and luckily we managed to find a window of time before he returns home, in order to meet. That's one of the reasons for the slight lateness of this post.
As, always, this thread will be for discussing today's tennis matches. In Toronto's final, Justine Henin faces Jelena Jankovic at 2pm EST. In Cincinnati, Roger Federer meets James Blake in the final, at 4pm EST.
By some strange coincidence, both world number ones possess a 6-0 head-to-head record over today's opponents. Federer and Blake have never met on any surface other than hard or carpet, and Blake has only succeeded in taking one set off Federer to date (at last year's US Open). Their last meeting was in the final of the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, of course, when the score was 6-0, 6-3, 6-4.
Henin and Jankovic have played four times in 2007 already, with their most recent meeting being the semifinal at Roland Garros, a straight sets affair. Not so their previous meeting, in Berlin (also on clay), when I watched Jankovic somehow contrive to lose the match after leading 4-0 in the decider (clearly, this had much to do with the strength of Justine the Comeback Queen, but it was an extraordinary match all the same). In any event, Jankovic and Henin have met only twice on hardcourts, and both matches went the distance, including the memorable US Open semifinal last year (not entirely for the tennis, of course).
As always, I hope everyone has an enjoyable day watching the finals.
-- Rosangel
And now for the real meat of the day, and my other reason for this post being late. Codepoke was lucky enough to spend Friday in Cincinnati, and here is his typed-on-the-blackberry-on-the-spot report for TennisWorld:
I made it into the Cincy tennis center. Phew. Getting through the gate in the fuschia chiffon was a little dicey, but anything for TW.
I walked in first on Knowles/Nestor, down a break in the second. They were hang-dogging pretty badly, but there was obviously a little fight left in them. It's my first live pro doubles experience. It's just like I'm used to playing back at home, except that the serves are machine-like in speed and efficiency, the returns are punishing, the ball is never more than one foot above the net, even when reacting to a 70 mph shots at the feet, and all four players constantly adjust court position during the point.
Yeah. Pretty much the same.
Oh yeah, and they have ball kids. I think they're all 10 years old or less, and must weigh about 40 pounds. If we had ball midgets, I'm sure our serves would speed right up.
Knowles hits a tremendous return - right at Dlouhy's feet. Soon, good things are happening for the favorites. By 15-40 the crowd is synch-clapping for the break. It's not really a crowd, of course, but there are enough people around for it to feel like one. Then the break does come, and everyone's loving life.
I watched a little longer, but couldn't quite believe they'd pull off the match. Evidently, they didn't either. Shortly after I left they lost the fight, 5-7.
While they were sinking, I took off for the practice courts. I later learned that the boards tell you who's practising where. Oh well. Without the benefit of intel, I still managed to stumble upon Moya making forehands look easy and Kiefer making serves look hard. If Kiefer was aiming for 2 feet long on purpose, then he was doing alright. Moya is much more imposing out on a practice court than in a little computer window from the atpmasterseriestv feed. Frankly, he's just plain big up close. Not so much from the nosebleeds, maybe, but that's to be expected.
Next over to watch Djoko try his skill at doubles. I don't "know" how it ended yet, but Zimonjic had his hands full carrying that little doubles slacker. Djoko's volleys were high, his returns buried in the net, and his court movement minimal. Ram and Erlich targeted Zimonjic a lot, so they must respect Djoko, but I never saw why. He barely even held serve. After they dropped the first set convincingly, I was convinced and wandered off for anything less painful.
The singles goodness finally got started. I doubt I can add anything to whatever ya'll already analyzed live of the Moya-Hewitt match. Obviously, Moya found a way to hit errors from the first moment, and in any situation. It happens.
I noted two things. The first was that in his practice session, Moya was hitting a simple, efficient forehand. Western, with a very straight motion through the ball. I was watching specifically for his motion, and I was shocked at how simple it was. During the match, though, he reverted very quickly to a heavy windshield wiper motion on a lot of shots. All day, Hewitt hit a flatter, more aggressive shot.
The second thing was much more frustrating. At love-30 in the first set, Moya was trying to avoid a second break. He followed a pair of forehands to the net, and levelled the game and quickly took it. He seemed to be able to volley against Hewitt at will. All day, Moya dominated from the net, but he must not have averaged more than one approach per game. It was hard to watch him fail to capitalize on the one thing that was really working for him. Maybe the foot injury was worse than it looked. Though at one point, Moya began staging a little comeback, using that simpler forehand motion again.
I took the opportunity to eat lunch during one of Lleyton's easier holds. The sandwich and chips were good, even if the potato salad was utterly devoid of flavor. $10. Oh well, I'm sure it all goes to a worthy cause. ;-)
The weather is surely not the problem. Cincy in August doesn't get any nicer than this. The sun is at my back, and the breeze is perfect. I could play for hours in this "heat." It's a wonderful day to spectate.
Mercifully, Moya was quickly overwhelmed in the last game by an unblinking Hewitt. He made a good show of it, and got the crowd behind him.
Federer versus Almagro. I will not presume to say a lot about Roger's play. Matt Zemek hit the nail on the head about winning being the thing. Roger delivered, and pretty comfortably. Even as he lost the second set, there was never the feeling of danger that Baghdatis created.
Roger seems to play by pattern. The pattern today was "blunt, blunt, turn, kill." Almagro was wickedly dangerous, but only for two or three shots, then he would run out of steam. Roger would blunt those rippers, then hit something deep. At this point, Almagro would seem to run out of aggression. By his third or fourth shot, Almagro was in "rally mode," and Fed was pretty safe. Then Fed would find an opening, and make Almagro pay.
The lady in the next section was calling, "Vamos, Nico Almo!" Was not happy to see that.
The one thing that TV really doesn't capture for me is the wicked nastiness that is the Federer slice. I'm used to seeing his forehands on the little screen, and they look the same in person. That slice, though, looks vicious in person. I'm not sure it's always possible to physically get low enough to return that thing with authority.
After the happy ending of the first set, one of the sections threw their hands in the air, yelled, and pointed to the next section. Six times they did that, and nothing happened. Undeterred, they kept on calling. And poof - the whole stadium started cheering. Those stalwart fans made the wave go all the way around. We were so proud of ourselves for figuring it out that it went around three times before the chair ump finally shut us up with a polite thank you.
Then Roger came out and was promptly broken. No more of "The Wave" for me!
While I did not exactly thank Nico for gifting me with a third set of tennis viewing pleasure, I enjoyed it all the same. Just hearing Roger's, "NooOO," put a grin on my face. Ah, and I have to thank Slice 'n' Dice for pointing out the step forward on the service return. Fed does it every time.
Since the matches both moved pretty quickly, they moved the Bryan Brothers up to Center Court. Is it just me, or have the Bryans made it to double capitalization status? It would be the Jones brothers, but it's definitely the Bryan Brothers.
The best part of the match was the B-Block, or whatever they call themselves. 5 girls in lime green shirts 12 rows up led the crowd in Bryan-appropriate cheers. They were indefatigable, and gave cheer to us all.
The first set had everything - lob-winners, ankle shots, aces and some seriously beautiful rallies. The Bryans gave us their whole serious but amusing show. They would be a great animated cartoon. My favorite moment was one of Aspelin's blazing returns. He found the gap, and tickled the baseline. Bob and Mike were chatting at the point of impact for a while before I figured out what they were doing. They were deciding whether to challenge. Eventually, Bob looked up at the chair and kind of apologized for the bother, but they wanted to see it. I was blown away, but they were right. They seemed almost as amazed as any of us, and laughed right along with us at their good fortune. They're good folk, and seem to help each other make good decisions. :-)
As is so common in doubles, the Bryans were the better team, but not enough so to force the break. And as is also often the case, the tiebreak showed the actual flow of the match. The Bryan's didn't give up a point until the matter was well in hand, and they took it for the loss of two points.
In the second set, the story was emotional. Everyone made some mistakes, but the Bryans kept talking to each other, while Aspelin/Knowle drifted into silence. I'm sure that's a place Mike and Bob have been, but they've really learned to pick each other up. That was clear as the match rolled on. You could see Knowle putting on a professional display, but feeling it less and less. His volleys were drifting long, and he lost a couple of knife-fights up at the net. He was feeling it pretty bad, and Aspelin just didn't seem to "be there" for him, to pump him back up.
At 3-3 Knowle served. The Bryans started by fighting off a dropper and an overhead for the first point. The game knotted up quickly at 30-30, and Knowle responded with a double, and another. The quadruple fault gave the break to the Bryans! It's amazing how the feel and flow of a match, even when the score is so close, will make itself known. If Knowle had pulled that off, I'd have been hatless for the rest of the day. He never had a chance. The Bryans put a love holding hurting on them for the next game, and Bob served it out. No chest bump moments until they took match point, but it was a good match, and a good show.
After the Bryans, it was time for a lemonade. The girl was really nice, and made it with half sugar and double lemon, just like my personality. With lemon-power in hand, I found Dmitry Tursunov practicing in the Grandstand court. It was cool watching him miss return after return. Heck, I can do that. :-) At one point, he completely trashed a racket. (No, I cannot do that. I tried to destroy an already terminally cracked Wilson 6.1 once - it's much harder than it looks). Anyway, Tursunov gave the trashed racket to an eight year old kid watching him. Yeah. I'm now officially jealous of an eight year old. Very cool. He even talked to the kid for a minute about playing tennis.
I probably shouldn't write about the weakness he was working on, but I learned a LOT in that half-hour. Tursunov told his coaches that he was amazed, because two years ago he could hit this particular shot in his sleep. Now he was re-learning it. Sounds like my whole life story. Amusingly, his two coaches disagreed about what the problem was. One of them found the whole problem in his swing, and the other in his legs and wrist. I love how different we all are. The coaches were not as quick as Dmitry, but they knew their stuff and he listened to them and adjusted as they requested. They didn't hesitate to tell him when they thought he was wrong, and it was odd to see.
This is what Fed is without right now. Having someone almost as smart as you making suggestions can really free you. If they're right, you're golden. And if they're wrong, heck, it wasn't your idea in the first place. You trash the dim ideas, and keep the bright ones without quite the ego investment. And then again, maybe that's why Roger does so well without a coach. Maybe his ego is lightly enough invested to just up and try dim stuff and see if it works. Who knows?
I then made the mandatory stop at the serving cage, or should I say serving zoo? It is so much fun watching kids trying to police kids. It just doesn't work. And they're also such good salesmen. He immediately told me the machine wasn't reliable. Anyway, I walked out happy enough. I added 1 mph to last year's 103 mph, and this year my spins are more aggressive than last. Maybe I'll find that 110 mph serve next year.
Not much to report from Blake's warmup. It was afternoon cleanup time, and we had to watch from the chains. His brother was trying to hit the ball with the handle of his racket while holding its head. I totally did NOT expect that. But James himself was all business. His hitting partner took a number of serves at him from the service line. James worked patiently through all the basic returns like a pro. We'll see whether it helps.
When I went back to Dmitry, he had a new hitting partner. His wife was in the stands, and a 2-foot little Dmitry was chasing balls with a racket. Hand-eye coordination was not yet evident in the little guy, but he couldn't have been cuter. And Dmitry Snr showed unparalleled patience with the kid as he insisted on placing himself in the line of fire. Tursunov obviously loves the boy, and really enjoys the time with him.
Later, I saw him leaving the locker room with the little guy on his shoulders. Even at age 2, he has his father's penetrating eyes. As I followed him to the lounge, they passed about 30 people. Not one recognized him. Pretty amusing.
Did I mention that Dmitry was wearing his hat backwards on the practice court? Everyone who walked up guessed him to be Lleyton Hewitt. I'm telling you, when a girl changes her hair none of us guys knows her, and evidently when a guy changes his hat he becomes Lleyton Hewitt.
Now for Blake-Querrey. Forgive me, but I still think the dude that wins the toss should elect to serve. But Blake elects to receive - against Querrey? I cannot imagine intentionally playing a whole set from behind against a server that big if I can help it.
As I type, the first set has gone to 5-6 and I still cannot see anything between these two. They are both attacking, and both blunting each other's attacks beautifully. The server has the breathing room, but that should surprise no one. No one expects big returning skills of Sam. The tiebreak should be tough.
Then, "Wow!" Blake cracked, and Querrey was right there to take full advantage. The crowd was appropriately shocked. I feel like it's a Blake crowd, but they are all ready to get behind the kid if he comes through again. Even the two Blake-obsessed college girls sitting next to me know his reputation. If he's not careful, he may lose some fans tonight.
The second set starts with Blake losing a point due to following a poor approach shot forward. I think Blake has lost three of his last four net approaches due to weak approach shots.
