All tennis players know the importance of momentum—the almost tangible shift in a match when one player seems to find the lines at will, while the other watches shots sail just long, or agonizingly drop on his side of the net.
Careers have momentum, too. Last year, Ernests Gulbis made an impressive push in the clay-court swing, beating Roger Federer in Rome and giving Rafael Nadal all he could handle in the semis. Unfortunately, a hamstring injury at Roland Garros checked his run of good form, and this year he's reverted to looking like a talented shotmaker with a reputation for checking out of matches.
Milos Raonic is this year's young player with a bullet. At this time in 2010, Raonic was munching kimchee during a Korean Futures swing on hard courts. Now he's in the main draws of Masters events, with the cognoscenti muttering about a second Sampras. Sampras' calling card wasn't his clay form, though, so I was interested to see whether Gulbis' pedigree on the surface would reassert itself, or whether Raonic would do enough with his big serve and attacking game to prevail.
By the scoreboard—6-4, 7-5, to Raonic—it was a relatively tight match. The two men traded breaks in the third and fourth games of the match, but in the seventh game, the umpire's "not up" call (a double-bounce, when trying to reach a drop shot) at 30-15 unsettled Gulbis, and Raonic converted the next two points and rode this break to the set.
There were no further break points until 4-4 in second set, at which point Gulbis played a sloppy service game, putting Raonic in position to serve for the match. That's when things got interesting. At 40-0, you'd have said all the momentum was with the Canadian, and he finished the match with an ace.
But it wasn't an ace—the umpire had called a let for the thinnest of net cords. Raonic proceeded to double-fault on that point, and he couldn't get a first serve into court on the next four points, each of which was won by Gulbis with patient, deep, steady groundstrokes. Finally, Gulbis looked like he was using his greater experience at this level.
So, back on level terms, had the momentum swung back to Gulbis? Sadly, veteran Gulbis-watchers have learned not to assume he'll hang on to an advantage. Gulbis again found something to distract his focus—this time, it seemed to be a spectator shifting position in the stands—and he was broken at love. Once again, Raonic went 40-0 up when serving for the match, but this time he ended the match with an ace on the T on his fifth match point.
Raonic's game is still a work in progress: his backhand, though serviceable, is overwhelmingly used as a defensive shot. But he has a very cool head and refused to panic when the match seemed to be snatched from his grasp. I still hope to use the words "cool head" and "Ernests Gulbis" in the same sentence.
—Andrew Burton?