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by Pete Bodo
Why is it that every time I criticize someone, a few outraged voices accuse me of "hating" my subject, or having a hate-filled soul? Not that it troubles me, I just find it baffling. You'd think that by now readers of this blog would know that I love the game, the play -- not (necessarily) the players.
Sure, I have my likes and dislikes. But hate? Fanboy love? Are you kidding me? I've lived and worked among these people for over 30 years, forgive me for seeing them as normal human beings subject to the same stresses and challenges as the rest of us, and prone to the same habits, behaviors, and triumphs and failures. Oh, I know, it's all about shooting the messenger, and that's fine by me. I'm bullet-proof because I don't inordinately hate, or love, any tennis player (but if it makes you feel better to think so, feel free). It's the game that counts. Just the game. It's a liberating attitude that I highly recommend.
Anyway, on to today's matches of interest:
Ivo Karlovic vs. Rafael Nadal (2) (Nadal leads H2H, 2-0)
You can count on the fingers of one hand the men who are capable of serving an opponent off the court, and Ivo Karlovic is one of them. Note that in their head-to-head meetings, Karlovic won a set each time. Furthermore, Roger Federer's willingness to engage Rafa on his own terms, even on clay, shows just how ill-advised that approach can be. It isn't like you're blowing a potential opportunity if you just try to keep Rafa from playing -- if you try to get under his skin by leaning on him and taking away his greatest asset, his legs, and the thing he most loves to do, run.
So this match could be interesting -- certainly much more than the disparity in their rankings indicate. (Ivo is No. 39, Nadal No. 2.) But unlike most of the 37 men positioned between them, Ivo has something that can hurt Rafa. It took on-fire Nikolay Davydenko two tiebreakers to beat Karlovic in Ivo's only previous tournment of 2010, Doha. And you know how it is with tiebreakers; anything goes.
Granted, Karlovic's Croatian mate, Davis Cup-hating Ivan Ljubicic, stinks the joint out at Grand Slams, but that four-set win had to do a lot for Ivo's confidence, as I imagine did Ivo's five-set hero moment against Radek Stepanek. This one could be closer than we think.
Svetlana Kuznetsova (3) vs. Nadia Petrova (19) (Kuznetsova leads, 5-1)
Petrova's lone win in the H2H occurred in Stuttgart, way back in 2006, and it was a hard-fought three-setter. So Kuznetsova should have an easy time of it, right? But as we saw the other day, Petrova has hit a new level -- or she just hit the lottery and managed to get into the mythic Zone on a day when had the most to gain from doing so.
I'm going to assume it was the former; is there any WTA player who's in such sore need of a little respect? Anyone whose performances have elicited so many guffaws and comments like, When it comes to crunch time, she folds up like a cheap jacknife? It can't have been easy being Petrova these past few years, so why not exact a little payback? And she's been around long enough to know that if she can't build on the kind of licking she gave Kim Clijsters, the significance of that victory diminishes. She was 0-2 coming into the Australian Open, but Nadia hasn't lost a set here.
If Kuznetsova were half as demonic as she looks in her picture at the WTA website, I'd rate her higher, simply because of her athletic ability. But she sometimes gets caught asleep at the wheel (as she did in that 6-4 in the first-round squeaker here), even though she's played well in her two subsequent matches. Petrova will need to end points quickly and take care of her serve if she hopes to survive; Sveta will have to...stay awake and be ready to run.
Justine Henin vs. Yanina Wickmayer (no previous meetings)
The other night, Alisa Kleybanova blew a big chance to go Petrova on the other famous Belgian, Henin. But she demonstrated that Henin will always be vulnerable to big, strong, physical players -- if not to big, strong, physical players who run out of steam after a set and a half. Wickmayer is (there's no polite way to put this), a beast. And that ought to cause plenty of problems for Henin, who appeared to hit the wall, physically, in her last match.
Does anyone doubt that Wickmayer will steal a page from the Nadal playbook, and pound Justine's backhand with high-bouncing topspin shots, preferably off the forehand wing? That's just the trouble, the set-up is a little too obvious -- and it discounts Justine's ability to put Wickmayer out of position, and use that tricky slice to keep Yanina from getting under the ball with sufficient lift. The decisive factor is likely to be Henin's fitness, and/or Wickmayer's ability to handle the most diverse game in women's tennis.
The fact that this yet another "Battle of the Belgians" just adds a little extra spice.
Juan Martin del Potro (4) vs. Marin Cilic (14) (Del Potro, 2-0)
On the surface, this match has the makings of a nail-biter, but Delpo's two wins over Cilic were at Grand Slam events last year (one of them in Melbourne), and the Tower of Tandil won both in four sets, but going away (Cilic won a grand total of three games in those two fourth sets).
All things being equal, this match will be a great yardstick for Cilic's progress -- or lack thereof. He passed a real test in his win over Stan Wawrinka; he'll be under much less pressure in this one. Delpo has hit rough patches in Melbourne, but Cilic's big problem is that Delpo plays a similar game to his own, only better. It's hard to imagine Cilic -- or anyone -- out-blasting del Potro.
Enjoy!