Tennis

We have our semis:

Djokovicdropped a set and if Youzhny did not start poorly, it could have been more competitive.
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Wawrinkamanaged to edge past Murray at the end of the first set, and it turned into a launch pad for his confidence. Some massive hitting on both wings, some great offensive patterns of play and quality serving kept the title defender's head under water in a straight set victory for the underdog. The most impressive stat? Murray did not get a single break point on the Wawrinka serve. Do give a sense of how rare it is, the last time it happened was in the World Tour Final of 2010 against Federer... and that was a best of 3 match! In a grand slam you have to move back to a quarter final of Wimbledon in 2008 against Nadal!

The big fortune of Wawrinka here is that he had a very tricky draw, but dropped only two sets. That means he is battle hardened, confident and still pretty fresh, so really in optimal condition to face the World N?1 at this stage. Obviously Djokovic is even fresher, but only Youzhny pushed him a little. Going from easy to trivial to the guy who pushed you to five sets in Australia could be a problem. If the match is even half as good as the one in the AO, we are in for a threat.


Nadalmade light work of Robredo as expected.
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Gasquetfound himself in a nightmarish scenario. He played some great offensive tennis, forcing his nature, and dominated a nervous Ferrer. Things started to get tougher at the end of the second set that the frenchman still managed to close, but then it was obvious that the gas ran out. Marathon man Ferrer took full advantage of it, pushed Gasquet back, pressured him to milk errors and banked the third and fourth sets. At the beginning of the fifth, 99% of the observers were ready to shelf that one in the "Gasquet has no fitness and no resolve" category, but the frenchman rebelled against that scenario, summoned some energy, fired himself up and managed to produce again some of the great shots that earned him the first two sets. A pretty heroic victory.

Gasquet did not have Wawrinka's fortune: he had to battle extremely hard both in his R16 match against Raonic and his quarter against Ferrer. Even with an additional day of rest (both semis are played Saturday), that is not how you want to prepare for a clash against Nadal. Gasquet surprised me twice, maybe he will surprise me a third time? After all, he allready beat Nadal in the past... when he was 13!

The Wawrinka vs Djokovic match was all kind of strange. Blame the wind or the nerves, the World N?1 made a poor start and quickly found himself down 6-2 4-2 against a Wawrinka that did not even had to red line his game to get such a commanding lead: some well constructed offensive plays and a heap of serbian unforced errors made the trick, despite an horrendous first serve percentage. At that point though Djokovic rebelled, started to make dramatically less unforced errors, forcing the swiss to work extremely hard for every single point. This added pressure and possibly the realization that he was about to take a two set to love lead over the N?1 seed, derailed the Wawrinka express. The set ended in breaker dominated by Djokovic. The match tied at one set all, the outcome of the rallies was also evenly split, but Wawrinka remained the one taking the risks and the initiatives, but he could not find again the right balance of patience and aggressiveness that gave him his initial advantage. Out of nowhere though, Djokovic made a cluster of unforced errors that basically gave a break and the set to Wawrinka. Things looked good for the swiss, but only for a short while as he went down an early break in the fourth, seemed to struggle physically, left the court for an injury treatment and could not catch up. The beginning of the fifth saw for the first time both competitors playing well at the same time, the height of drama being reached in a 21 minutes hold of serve by Wawrinka, packed full of break points saved and grueling rallies. Djokovic did not blink though and continued to be the one with the break opportunities and with the comfortable service holds. He eventually broke and never surrendered his lead.

The level of play was a lot lower than at the AO and in the end Wawrinka was never as close to victory here as he was then, but when you win the first set, are in a good position to win the second only to lose it in a breaker and then win the third, you must legitimately feel that there was an opportunity to make things a lot cleaner and easier in your favor.


In the other semi, Gasquet showed some decent things and even got to be the first to break Nadal in this year's US Open (!). Overall, he made it more competitive and for a longer time than Kohlschreiber could, but it still ended in a straight set victory for Nadal. So AngryGerbil's dream final it is! Smart money is on Nadal.

I saw most of it. Very impressive athleticism, great fighting spirit (Djokovic winning the 2nd set out of nowhere, Nadal able to stay the course in spite of it) and amazing shot production under extreme duress on both sides. But, for my money, not that much tennis. In a way it is because of a negative spiral: both manage to keep such length of shots that the other cannot really step in and attack and when suddenly there is a short ball, it's often too late in the rally for anyone to have the explosiveness, the guts or the clarity of thoughts to turn it into a decisive advantage. Here and there you have some brilliant returns by Djokovic or some brilliant passing shots by Nadal or some long rallies where they actually try to change rhythms and directions to find openings, turning the match into super athletic chess, and as a whole it's more entertaining than a Murray vs Djokovic (because the spin of Nadal allows him to be both safe and aggressive), but yeah... Wawrinka vs Gasquet would have been dramatically more fun to watch I am sure (their French Open match being a good proof).

Szlia_sl said:

but yeah... Wawrinka vs Gasquet would have been dramatically more fun to watch I am sure (their French Open match being a good proof).

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You say that, but it would have been both of there's first grand slam final and probably last chance to actually win one. Too many times I've seen first-timers completely fold under the pressure that they feel from crowd, media, and even themselves. I argue it would have been drama, but not good tennis. Much higher % of unforced errors and service breaks compared to the top 4.

So far, I just saw bits and pieces of matches here and there. I don't expect next week to be much better (film festival!). Anyway, Haas is injured so the event instantly becomes a lot less interesting!

The two big upsets up until now are the defeats of Del Potro in five against journeyman Bautista Agut and Gasquet who fell to a very tough and clutch Robredo. We also lost Isner and Haas to injuries. Among the lower seeds, Seppi fell to Young in five, Verdasco to Gabashvili in five, Dodig to Dzumhur (he retired), Janowicz to Mayer (Florian the german trickster not Leonardo the argentine dirtballer) and Gulbis lost to Querrey.

The funny story of this first week is that french marathoner Simon was walking with clutches a couple days before his first match and he ended up winning it 16-14 in the fifth against Brands and then won another five-setter against Cilic!

A brief look at the draw for the top dogs on their path to the quarters:

NADAL faces Monfils who is surprisingly not injured at the moment. Could be a tricky one if the frenchman serves well and does more than just run around. Next it will probably be Nishikori who does not really have the right set of weapons to hurt Nadal. As Del Potro is no more, this will probably lead to Raonic or Dimitrov in the quarter final. I am sure the spaniard is hoping for the federeresque bulgarian instead of the canadian bomber who typically has the kind of big game that can hurt him (and anyone else really).

DEL POTRO lost.

MURRAY will face Lopez. The spaniard will really need to play a prefect match to beat such a good returner and passing-shotter as Murray, even with the help of slightly faster courts than usual at the AO. Injuries and retirements opened the draw for the next round as Murray will face frenchman Robert (lucky loser) or slovakian Klizan (qualifier)! Note that Klizan has been a top30 player and beat Tsonga at the US Open in 2012, but he had a terrible 2013 and arrived with very little confidence (his preparation tournament was a Challenger in Noum?a and he lost first round to a player ranked 256 in the world!)

FEDERER has to face a tough competitor in Gabashvili, but on the back of a marathon against Verdasco, I suspect the giant slaying russian will falls short. Next it will be Tsonga (unless Simon pulls another miracle) who seems to be in great shape. Not too sure we'll see the swiss in quarter final even if he played rather well in these early rounds.


The bottom half of the draw already played the 3rd round so:

BERDYCH will face Anderson for the 3rd AO in a row and for the 10th time since 2012! Somehow, Anderson lost all 9 of these previous encounters and, worse, managed to only win 4 sets! I find this stat very surprising, so we'll see if Anderson is able to steer it somewhat toward something more reasonable.

FERRER will have to deal with Mayer who has a surprisingly good record against the valencian. Ferrer is known to very rarely lose to player ranked lower than him, but the big serve, the variations and the strange patterns of play of the german rewarded him with 3 wins in 5 matches. In truth, two of those wins were very early in both guys careers, but Mayer won convincingly their last meeting a couple months ago.

WAWRINKA reached this stage playing very little tennis has his first round opponent (Golubev) retired after a set and a half and his third round opponent (Pospisil) was simply too injured to play. He played an ok match against counter-puncher Falla in the second though. The upside is of course the rest it provides when others are toiling under the brutal sun of Australia's summer, the downside is that he is not really battle hardened. For his opponent, Robredo, it almost the opposite as the spaniard had three tough battles to reach this stage and spent more than 9 hours on court (4ish for Wawrinka).

DJOKOVIC impressed so far and never lost to Fognini, his next opponent. That said, the italian is at his best ranking ever and on the way to this third round he won rather convincingly against two tricky players in Nieminen and Querrey. If Fognini manages to stick his teeth into the match it might become very entertaining.

Sucks Del Potro lost. He's currently my favorite player on the tour but I wonder if he'll win another slam again. He was playing really well up till the AO too. Does anyone think Raonic will make it to top 5 eventually?

Serena just eliminated by Ana. Ana played a great game. I hope she wins the AO.

Sloane apparently doesn't like Serena.

I am pretty sure no player left in the draw like Serena when she is still in the draw. Whenever she loses, that seriously boosts the chances of everyone else. As I write this though, Stephens is learning the hard way that the biggest beneficiary of a Williams loss is Azarenka.

Yeah, Sloane is getting her ass kicked. Maria is out now too which isn't too surprising. She hasn't been playing that well.

Seven of the top 8 seeds in quarter with only Dimitrov replacing Del Potro... that AO is not one for surprises at the top of the hierarchy!

That said, Dimitrov upset Raonic and Nadal is very very lucky that Nishikori could not keep his nerves every time he was ahead because the japanese could have won in straight sets, but instead lost in straight sets on a very close 7-6 7-5 7-6. Nishikori played a good match (when not being a break up), taking the ball early and using his well worked forhand and solid backhand to move Nadal around, forcing the spaniard to defend with his forhand, but the spaniard made an unusual amount of unforced error and had very sub-par movement, especially toward his forehand when wrong-footed. It was so uncharacteristic at times and he had such a somber demeanor that he seemed to have problems with a knee really. Luckily for him, the very high quality of his serving saved his neck when his rallying could not. That and Nishokori's nerves.

As Nishikori kept me awake past dawn, I missed the Federer vs Tsonga match and I must say I am very surprised to see that he won in straight sets, only facing and defending a single break point!

I got to see big chunks of the match as they aired it again. Federer just smothered Tsonga by serving very well, taking the ball early and being very aggressive. He went like 45 times to the net in 3 sets and won the huge majority of those points. Mouratoglou said something interesting about the match: it felt like Federer had an actual game plan that he devised with Edberg and applied from start to finish. That may sound silly, but Federer has been known to just improvise and only worry about his own game and not his opponent's (the exception being Nadal). That obviously worked well for him for a very long time, but I guess at this stage of his career, he needs that additional work before the matchs to be more competitive during them.

Anyway, the big up-sides, other than the quality of serving and the aggressive intent, were the quality of his movement and the fact he played a full match. That last point is particularly important as a good chunk of his recent losses were due to moments of absence, costing him two or three service games per match. So far, he lost his serve only once in 12 sets.

That good level of play paired with Murray who was cramping a bit during his fourth set against Robert could mean a quarter a lot more opened than Federer fans could have feared. Throw a hobbling Nadal in the mix and who knows what can happen.