Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Ferrer, French, Roll Post Wimbledon

Three tournaments were held last week after the Wimbledon fortnight ended, two of them on clay and one on grass in Newport, Rhode Island. On the lawn, it was an all French final as Nicolas Mahut, a 6’ 3” 25 yr old throwback serve-and-volleyer, took on the diminutive 34 yr old veteran Fabrice Santoro, he of the unorthodox, two handed slice shots from both sides, always trying to confuse and surprise his opponents with odd spins and angles rather than pace. If you’ve never seen the ‘French Magician’ as he is called, just imagine a quick little 5’8” guy chasing down balls and then hitting them with underspin, sidespin, and topspin (loves to lob) at the point of retrieval. Santoro won the match to earn his 5th career title and first since Dubai in 2002.

The other two tournaments were on clay – Gstaad, Switzerland and Bastad, Sweden. In Sweden, the Spanish Armada dominated, but none more so than David Ferrer. One of 3 Spaniards in the semi’s, Ferrer beat Filippo Volandri 6-2, 6-1, and then dismantled countryman Nicolas Almagro in the final 6-1, 6-2. Outside of the 2nd round, where he dropped the 2nd set to Nicolas Massu, Ferrer never lost more than 3 games in any match in the tournament on the way to winning his 2nd tournament in 2007 and 4th of his career. In Gstaad, it was another strong showing from the French as 4 Frenchmen made the quarterfinals, led by Paul-Henri Mathieu, who ended up winning his 2nd tournament of the year, beating Italian Andreas Seppi in the final 6-7, 6-4, 7-5. Mathieu’s best season ever continues as he’s now ranked a career high # 23. 20 yr old Gael Monfils, one of the French quarterfinalists, beat top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko in the first round before losing to Mathieu in 3 sets in the quarters. The other two Frenchmen in the quarters, Richard Gasquet and Marc Giquel, lost to Radek Stepanek and Igor Andreev respectively.

The three tournaments this week are in Los Angeles on hardcourts (I’ll be there on Tuesday), Stuttgart, Germany on the clay, and Amersfoort, Netherlands, also on clay. Already, Todd’s Tennis Takes favorite Tommy Robredo has lost in the opening round at Stuttgart – darn those French – as Monfils pulled off the upset.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Todds Tennis Takes

I’m a huge fan of tennis – both watching and playing - and hope to someday see a revival in its popularity. Since the Wimbledon Updates I've included my blog @ Technorati Check out myTechnorati Profile.

Federer Again

For a 5th straight year, Roger Federer has vanquished all challengers at Wimbledon and now stands tied with the sublime Swede Bjorn Borg for the most consecutive Wimbledon titles. Unlike prior years though, Federer was finally pushed to a 5th set in the final, again against Rafael Nadal (his opponent in last year’s final and the last two French Finals). But after becoming a bit unnerved in the 4th set over the Hawkeye technology and some uncharacteristic mistakes, Federer harnessed his focus and supreme shot-making ability for the fifth set, breaking Nadal for the first time since the 2nd game of the match after twice climbing out of 15-40 holes at 1-1and 2-2. Both players repeatedly came up with amazing, memorable shots, and the overall high quality of the match stood in stark contrast to the French Open final where Federer failed to play to his level. Federer now has 11 grand slam titles, tying him with Borg and Rod Laver at 3rd all time, behind only Roy Emerson (12) and Pete Sampras (14).

Speaking of Borg, no other tennis career has more ‘what ifs’ than his. Despite the fact that he only played the Australian Open once (as an 18 year old in 1974), was 0-4 in US Open finals, and retired totally healthy at only 26 years old, he still managed to gather more slams than all but one player, Emerson, at the time of his retirement. It’s not inconceivable to imagine him with 18-20 slams – retirement at 30, play the Aussie Open every year, win just half of those US Open finals…but alas, we’ll never know. Because of all these factors, I will put Borg and Federer atop the all-time greats list – Laver & Sampras just a notch below, in that order.

Back to Wimbledon, there were some notable emergences during the often wet fortnight. Richard Gasquet finally made a Grand Slam quarterfinal and made the most of it after spotting Andy Roddick a 2 set lead and then storming back to win the match in 5, eventually losing to Federer in the semi’s. His countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, ranked 212 at the start of 2007, lost to Gasquet in the 4th round and is now 74th in the world. Janko Tipsarevic solidified himself as a top 30 talent after making the 4th round, too, after making the 3rd round of the French this year. Young studs Tomas Berdych (quarterfinals) and Novak Djokovic (semi’s) also solidified their stature in the game, while veteran Juan Carlos Ferrero’s quarterfinal appearance showed he is still a formidable opponent on most any surface.

Looking ahead, this week it’s back to the European clay in Sweden, at Bastad, and Switzerland, at Gstaad. A third tournament, on U.S. soil, is being played on grass at Newport Rhode Island.