Tennis

Federer did not play the best or cleanest of matches, but Cilic played an incredible match. The serving quality was expected, as was the rock solid backhand, but this returning quality and the very consistent depth and weight of shots preventing Federer to mix things up was astonishing. And so was his cool under pressure, not blinking when closing sets, immediately refocusing after the poor start of the third set. He only left Federer the tiniest of opportunities and the swiss was not able to make the most of them. There are maybe 5 or 6 points like that, missed 2nd serve return, unforced errors at 30-30 on the Cilic serve, so not an horrible match, but certainly a few costly mistakes. Toss an amazing return game by Cilic in the first set, a terrible service game by Federer in the 2nd and a couple so-so games in the third and that's all she wrote.

Tactically, I was also a bit surprised to not see Federer try to go more to the Cilic forehand. I understand it might be difficult (aka risky) to leave the diagonal of the backhands if Cilic consistently hit deep and heavy balls, but in the few and far between opportunities Federer had to be the aggressor, it's the backhand he targeted with minimal positive results.

This is the first Grand Slam final without a member of the Big Four since the Australian Open in 2005 (Safin beating Hewitt). Still, I would not bury these guys too fast, because we often did and they are still here. It's a time of opportunities though for the players, like Cilic and Nishikori (and Del Potro and Gulbis), who are slightly younger than Nadal/Djokovic/Murray, but slightly older than the next wave (Raonic, Dimitrov, Pospisil, Thiem...). If they don't want to be crushed between the two, now is their time to shine. Del Potro got his slam, one of Cilic or Nishikori will get his, how many more titles for this 88-89 generation?

History time.

For shit and giggles I wanted to check how rare a grand slam final between the 10th and 14th seed is and the answer is... pretty damn rare. I checked from 1980 onward and it did not happen in the US Open.

The best I could find for the Australian Open were a Safin (9) vs Johansson (16) in 2002, a Kaflenikov (10) vs Enkvist (unseeded) in 1999 and a strange
1980 Teacher (8) vs Warwick (14) with both far out of the Top 10 since most player did not make the australian trip at the time.

Unsurprisingly, the French Open, realm of the specialists had more. 2002: Costa (20) vs Ferrero (11). 1998: Moya (12) vs Corretja (14), 1997: Brugera (16) vs Kuerten (unseeded).

Last but not least: Wimbledon. 1996: Richard Krajicek (17) vs MaliVai Washington (20). I must confess I had never heard of Washington, an american player who never had two greater weeks in his career. Also, in that final, this happened:





So yeah... that's the sixth time in the last 140 Slams! The bad news though is that only two of these matches were somewhat close. That's the risk with player not used to this stage of the competition, you don't really know how they will react to the occasion. No matter their abilities nor the match-up: if one craps the bed then the other will win. Let's hope that they both raise their level for the occasion and deliver a great final.

gg Nishikori. Ain't nobody gonna beat that big of a server moving that well.

Nishikori did not play his best, but Cilic played another full match. Some unforced errors here and there, sure, but he served well enough for those to be of little consequence. Like Federer in semi, Nishikori had some opportunities but did not make the best of those. Would it have been another match if Nishikori managed to break first at the very begining? Or if he managed to stay with Cilic deep in a set? We will never know, because the young croatian took an early lead in all three sets and played some inspired front-running tennis. He really only had two bad service games, one in the 2nd set when he had a two break lead and the penultimate one of the third where he had to save two or three break points but found a way to hold. A worthy winner considering the quality and consistency of his tennis this two weeks.


We knew for years that Cilic had great potential (for several years in a row we asked ourselves on these boards 'Will this be the year of Cilic?') and we knew he was going in the right direction when we saw some of his matches this year, like how he pushed Djokovic at Wimbledon, but still, this US Open performance is a surprise. We are talking about a guy who never made it past the quarter final in a Master 1000 and who, even this year, took spankings from Wawrinka (6-2 6-0 in Monte-Carlo, 3-6 6-1 6-0 in Cinci) and lost to the likes of Roger-Vasselin, Istomin, Matosevic or Melzer, all outside the Top 40. Was this a couple of magic weeks for Cilic, or will he be able to sustain or at least summon this level of play again and again, tournament after tournament, match after match? If the answer is yes, he has a lot of trophy lifting in his future, because beating the Cilic of these last three matches seems very very difficult.

Davis Cup Week-End!

France vs Czech Republicat Roland-Garros, the grounds of the French Open. Amusingly, a tennis stadium was first built on these grounds for the Davs Cup final of 1928!

Berdych is playing for this tie and a ailing and aging Stepanek has been replaced by the somewhat unreliable but in form Rosol. At least that's what has been penciled in. These things can change up until pretty late. Tsonga and Gasquet are on singles duties with Benneteau and Monfils in double (Llodra is injured and I guess the french did not want to go with Mahut or Roger-Vasselin, two good double players but not great single players on clay).

Switzerland vs Italyat Palexpo, a trade show hall by the Geneva airport. This temporary indoor hard court should offer less surprises than the temporary clay courts of Fribourg that cost Switzerland dearly in both Fed Cup and Davis Cup a couple years ago. Fun fact: this temp' stadium is supposed to seat 18,400 people! In the tennis world, that's second only to Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York (22k).

Federer and Wawrinka are on schedule for all matches and should be a tad more fresh than after the Australian Open (the up side of losing earlier!). The italian team is fielding Fognini as N?1 and Bolelli, who made a good US Open, as N?2. Seppi, the better ranked player but more of a dirt-baller, is playing the double along with veteran journeyman Lorenzi. Depending of how the first day goes, I suspect we will see adjustments in the double team. Chiudinelli and Lammer (the pair that won the double in Serbia) are waiting in the aisles.

Anyway... expect picture coverage, as I am ready:





During this week-end the play-offs, to see who joins and who leaves the World Group, also take place. The USA is facing Slovakia in Chicago as the overwhelming favorite as the best possible team was fielded, but things could be a bit more tricky for Spain in Brazil and for Serbia in India!

My almost 10 year old digital camera proved to be a little too crappy to take decent pictures from my seat (a tad too far + artificial light). But here is one of Bolelli and Federer warming up:



The italian played a very good match, forcing Federer into backhand to backhand rallies or dictating with a potent and precise forehand. In fact, he often had the upper hand in the rallies. A pretty decent Federer managed to stay ahead though thanks to some high quality serving, some pretty crazy half-volleying from the back of the court and some surgically precises pushes. To Bolelli's credit, he kept his composure and high standard of play through the whole match and really only poorly played a handful of points, if that.


The second match was another cattle of fish as Wawrinka played very very well against an up and down Fognini who struggled on his serve. The whole crowd was eager to get on the italian's case as his reputation preceded him and it did not take long for it to happen.

2-0 lead, 6 sets to love: it's hard to complain, but I feel the double might be critical tomorrow as today's Bolelli could beat a sub-par Wawrinka and who knows what Fognini has in store on any give day?




Gasquet and Tsonga, in Paris, made surprisingly light work of Berdych and Rosol, so it looks like it's going to be France and Switzerland in the final.

After the double matches, France is through to the final as Tsonga and Gasquet beat the super excellent Berdych-Stepanek duo (their two Davis Cup crowns were gained thanks in no small part to how efficient this pairing has been over the years). Apparently, Berdych played very poorly and in spite of Stepanek's best efforts the frenchmen prevailed in four sets.

In the play-offs, the USA also secured a spot in the world group by defeating Slovakia and Australia did the same against Uzbekistan. That's 2-1 for all other seven ties. Worrying time for Spain against Brazil (even if they are still the favorites) and Argentina against Israel (but, here also, the reverse singles should favor the trailing team).

As for Switzerland vs Italy, Bolelli and Fognini challenged Wawrinka and Chiudinelli (a pair involved in the longest single day tennis match in history against Berdych-Rosol - 7h02). The weakest link on paper, Chiudinelli set the tone of the match. At first nervous (broken twice in the first set) and then pretty outstanding in the return of serve and at the net (winning sets two and three), he crumbled a bit in the fifth, but after Wawrinka, who played as a whole a worse match than Chiudinelli, blinked in the fourth. These Davis Cup double matches are always a bit strange because it's made of four players who are not used to play in double, so it's tactically a bit shit and full of points that last longer than they should and of missed volleys. The drama and tension are probably better than way though as there were many long and close games, allowing the crowd to really get into it (the end of the third set was deafening!), while double specialists tend to cruise through their service games.

On the up side, I get to see more tennis tomorrow. On the down side, you never know what Fognini will have in store and Bolelli played very well these first two days.

Federer might score his first Davis Cup! I hope Team Swiss does it!

Federer closed the deal in three sets against Fognini (and its better than way because the italian was playing very very well in the third) to book Switzerland's spot in the final for the second time in the long history of the event (the first time was in 1992 against the USA that then fielded a team composed of Aggassi, Courier, McEnroe and Sampras! The lanky big serving Rosset beat Courier in five sets and, paired with Hlasek, won the first two sets of the double against McEnroe-Sampras before losing in five).

The final will take place in France at the end of November, most probably in Lille. Here is to hoping Federer and Wawrinka will squeeze a couple tournament in double before then or manage to make room for a double training block with a double specialist (why not former Davis Cup captain Rosset). But again, they might chose not to to conserve energy, because they both will play the Masters Cup right before the final while it's unlikely any frenchman will (maybe Tsonga but it's a reach).

Anyway it was a pretty cool week-end packed full of good tennis, chanting, feet stomping, mexican waves and enough clapping to pee red (though I did not - that supposedly how african percussionists know they are working hard enough). It was also pretty crazy, after so many years and so many wins, to see how not jaded Federer is about the whole thing. To top it all, in the final dead rubber I got to see Seppi win a tennis match, so it does happen!



Lammer and Seppi warming up from the top of the stadium:




The outside of the stadium from the same spot:




The structure from the outside:






In the play-offs, Spain got beat by Brazil and Serbia's destiny rests in the racket of Krajinovic (ATP 107) facing India's Bhambri (ATP 157).

Pretty crazy draw in Beijing's ATP 500 this week. We currently have a first round Nadal vs Gasquet and later we will get a Fognini vs Gulbis and a Janowicz vs Murray! Tomic vs Raonic in Tokyo also sounds intriguing.

The ATP 1000 in Shanghai started the other day and it's a seedicide in full effect.

Anderson[16] ousted in straight sets by Kukushkin.
Dimitrov[10] discarded in straight sets by Benneteau.
Nishikori[7] too banged up after two straight tournament wins to resist Sock.
Cilic[9] met an inspired Karlovic.
Fognini[15] played an ok match but faced an inspired chinese wild card in WANG Chuhan.
Wawrinka[4] played a topsy turvy match against Simon (not the brightest of idea with the Davis Cup final looming in the horizon)
Raonic[8] was sick and retired when facing Monaco.
Gulbis[12] got tamed by Youzhny.
Nadal[2], playing with an appendicitis, got bested by a pretty amazing Lopez.

Federer was also very very close from an early exit as Leonardo Mayer walked on water during 99% of the match, making meaningful return after meaningful return, painting the line with both wings and Federer was pretty off color, missing a number of routine volleys. The argentinian served for the first set, but Federer found a way to bag it 7-5, Mayer dominated in the second, got match points on the Federer serve at 5-4 in the third, lead 5-2 in the breaker, had another three or four match points in said breaker, but in the end, pulling several rabbits from his hat, Federer won on his first match point with a perfect top spin lob. Federer was elated to have found a way through and competed so well, but Mayer was disgusted and on the verge of tears. Poignant.

We have our semis in Shanghai:

DJOKOVICbroke early in the first against Ferrer, but then it turned into a battle the whole set through, culminating with an almost 15 minutes long 10th game on the Djokovic serve that the World N?1 finally managed to bag along with the first set. The spaniard continued to fight hard in the second, but could not derail the Djokovic train.
vs
FEDERERdominated on serve, but could not find an opening on the Benneteau serve. The frenchman played some well constructed all court tennis, peppering the Federer backhand with a whole array of shots. An old school chip and charge earned him an early lead in the breaker, but Federer responded well, producing some key passing shots and big serves under pressure and closed the first set by a brilliant backhand winner cross court. Benneteau could not maintain the same level during the second set (unlike Mayer the other day in similar circumstances) so Federer sprinted to a 6-0 win.

SIMONedged past Berdych in a first set breaker, but the czech responded well by winning the second. You would think that would lead to a Berdych dominated third, using all his momentum, or at least a close contest. Nope, Berdych apparently only had two sets worth of patience for Simon's grinding style so he faded hard in the third and went home with a bagel.
vs
LOPEZpulled some nice rear guard action from a set and break down, well helped by a Youzhny who lost the plot at the end of the second and who could not capitalize on a nervous Lopez at the end of the third (the spaniard delivering a miserable game when serving for the match, but Youzhny replied in kind when serving to stay in it).



It should be mentioned that after a lackluster american swing, Djokovic is playing really well in China (where he has a 25+ winning steak going), that Federer will be back at N?2 on Monday no matter what and that the race for London is still very much on as most contenders for the last few spots available lost early (Berdych, Raonic, Ferrer, Murray and Dimitrov battling for 2 spots - The top 3 are in, Wawrinka and Cilic are in by virtue of winning a Slam and Nishikori, despite an early exit this week, is way ahead of the others).

We got our final:

FEDERER, when facing Djokovic, is supposed to avoid long rallies from the back of the court. Well... he did just that. But instead of rushing head first to the net without sense or reason, he threw the occasional serve & volley in there, but he mostly engaged rallies with the idea that at the first opportunity he would be super aggressive. Maybe he would follow a bitting slice or a fizzing inside out forehand to the net, maybe he'll just place a deadly forehand or a winning comination of two or three. The miracle is that he found this balance just right and absolutely did not stop when he got passed after poor approach shots, did not get frustrated when free points did not come on serve and he just went at it again and again, putting pressure on Djokovic, asking him again and again to come up with great returns, great passing shots, great depth, great court coverage. The serb was almost up to the task, but a passing shot landing in the net on break point gave Federer the edge he needed to bag the first set.

In the second set, Djokovic was flustered as he felt absolutely not in control of the match, always having to react to Federer's initiatives and not finding any reliable way to win points. He tried a bit to take the net before the swiss, but he gave up on that very fast (despite more than honorable results). The confusion also effected the quality of his ground shots and so found himself quickly a break down. What followed was a nerve wracking set for Federer fans: Djokovic had tremendous trouble to win his service games and had to save break points in most if not all of them, while Federer cruised... until a game late in the second where Federer had 7 opportunities to close the game without being able to. It reeked of the late break and momentum shift, but Federer wanted none of that, he closed the game on his 8th chance, missed another couple break points in the next for good measure and won the match on the following service game, on the most ridiculously floaty sliced approach down the middle, but at this juncture it was enough to get a first volley to put the serb out of position and a second to close the match.

vs

SIMONdominated with ease his first set again Lopez as the spaniard found himself in way to many baseline rallies. He fared a lot better in the second, but a terribad tie-break sealed the deal.



Fun fact: with Djokovic probably taking some weeks off for the birth of his first child, Federer has a realistic shot at the year end N?1 spot (should he win tomorrow and have good showings in Basel, Paris and London)

Fun fact 2: today Simon won in his 2nd ATP 1000 semi final. Today it was Federer's 52nd semi at that level...

Simon started well against a somewhat nervous Federer and then the frenchman managed to lull the swiss with his strange brand of consistent off-pace tennis. Mid way through the set, Federer started to produce a little more game, notably slicing his backhand a lot more to try and upset the rhythm of Simon and payed divident just in time as he broke back when the underdog served for the match and then won a tight breaker. Simon had an abysmal first serve percentage, but still Federer could not capitilize on it, a lot more timid than in his semi, at least in the return games. He turned that up a bit in the second set and it caused Simon a lot more problems, but a mix of brilliant passing shots by Simon and poor misses by Federer kept the match leveled. It reeked once again when at 6-5 Simon got two set point on the Federer serve, but the swiss steadied the ship and then dominated the breaker for a somewhat laborious straight sets victory against an ailing Simon.


Two Master 1000 crowns on the trot for Federer along with 3 Master 1000 finals earlier in the year: that will earn him the N?2 spot in the rankings on Monday and a realistic shot at world N?1 by the end of the year.

Also of note: this was Federer's first title in Shanghai, so now, just like Nadal and Djokovic, he won Master 1000 titles in 9 different locations (Monte-Carlo, Rome and Montreal still to go!)

Things are heating up for the Masters' Cup: Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Wawrinka and Cilic (by virtue of winning the US Open and the other three slam champions being assured to be in the top 7) are in. Nishikori should be ok, but then it's a fierce race between Berdych, Murray, Ferrer, Raonic and even Dimitrov for the remaining two spots. Sunday we will have Murray vs Ferrer and Berdych vs Dimitrov in finals of 250 events and after that there are two ATP 500 and Paris' ATP 1000.

Nadal who played in Shangai with an appendicitis kept under control with antibiotics actually went on to play in Basel (Soriak's home town!). He won two rounds with ease but then announced he would not play in Paris and after that lost to 17 year old wild card Coric! Nadal almost got bageled in the first set after 22 unforced errors (in ended on a 6-2). The horrible part is that Coric served decently (good first serves but at a poor percentage) and then did preciously nothing other than run around and put balls back in play. He could do that because Nadal had no timing on his shots and simply could hurt Coric with then because of a lack of penetration or bounce, when he was not just missing that is... Things got a lot tighter in the second set and Coric did well to stay focused and play with great consistency and court coverage to edge past Nadal in a breaker. Soon after, Nadal announced that he would get his appendix removed on the 3rd of November and that he would no longer play this season.

I wonder what goes through Nadal's mind and through the minds of his team when they do bonehead stuff like having him play for weeks when ill during what is the worst part of the year for him anyway instead of just saying: 'See Ya in 2015 bitches!' It's true though that last year he signed a 3 year commitment with the Swiss Indoor in Basel (for about $1 million) and had to skip it in 2013 already. Still, letting people down, efunding them some or even all of their money vs risking your health and jeopardizing your inter-season training? Very strange.

Anyway, a terrible year for Nadal, but he can find some solace in the fact he still reached his N?1 objective: winning at the French. I guess a lot of people would like this kind of shitty year!


Nadal ending his season early also opens a spot for the Year End Championship. On top of that, Cilic will not play in Paris because of an arm problem so I guess you can put a question mark next to his name. Two contenders, Murray and Ferrer will play each other again tomorrow and the one winning will have a little breathing room since Berdych, Dimitrov and Raonic all lost this week.

A guy who is not losing is Goffin. The young Belgian who arrived at the US Open with a 20ish winning streak built another one of those with a win at a 250 and another in a challenger event. All in all he won 42 of his last 44 matches. The 23 year olf will face 17 year old Coric in the Basel semi (the other semi being Federer, 33, vs Karlovic, 35, that's probably the biggest age differential between two semi ever!).

It should be added that Karlovic played Becker like a fiddle and that Federer beat Dimitrov in a very high quality match that probably had more winners than there were unforced errors in the Nadal vs Coric match!

A great week-end of tennis: Federer survived a nail-biter against Karlovic, Murray beat Ferrer for a second time in a third meeting during this race to London which lead to two totally brilliant and totally different finals. In Basel Federer gave a masterclass in attacking tennis, discarding a very nervous Goffin 6-2 6-2 in 51 minutes, while Murray and Robredo fought an epic battle in one of the best matches of the year. Murray was a little too passive and Robredo was absolutely relentless in the implementation of his aggressive baseline play, that lead to an number of spectacular rallies with Murray running around like a madman trying to stay alive or find a counter-shot while Robredo tries shot after shot after shot to hurt Murray and keep the pressure on. Murray was able at times to turn the points around and dictate play, but then it's Robredo who did the running and the retrieving and the spectacular shot making under extreme pressure (he made two running backhand passing shots from 3 meters behind the baseline, one cross court the other down the line, that were worth the admission price). There were too many twists and turns to recall, but Murray managed to save 5 match points, some at the end of the 2nd set, some at the end of the third, before winning 4-6 7-6 7-6 in 3h20 (longest best of 3 match of the season). The match was so grueling that both players looked like they were about to die on court mid way through the 2nd set.

Check that point at 2:20 in this highlight reel! Also 5:22 and 6:34 for the passing shots.



The match point and Robredo's gag salute (I bet he'll get fined anyway).

Oh... I skipped the Paris Master 1000. Djokovic ended up winning it, beating Murray, a tired Nishikori and the Raonic in the final (the canadian beating Federer for the first time in their quarter final match). Raonic's run, Nishikori beating Ferrer, Murray beating Dimitrov en Berdych reaching the semi final gave us our 8 players for the season ending championship aka The ATP World Tour Finals aka The Masters' Cup! And that starts tomorrow.

A brief recap: the 8 players are divided in two pools of four, they play against each other and the best two of each group go through to the semi finals. To make the groups, the top two seeds are split and then they randomly pick how to assign the following three pairs (3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8). End result of this prossess:

GROUP A

DJOKOVICdefended his title in Paris, won last year at the O2 and as such is on a big indoor winning streak. Federer losing in quarter final in Paris also almost assured him to finish the year at N?1.

WAWRINKAmanaged to win a match in Paris and then play a decent match against Anderson. Anyway, he is pretty short on confidence, but it is likely he will feel less pressure facing top players.

BERDYCHconsistency in results paid once again.

CILIChad a little injury problem and skipped Paris because of it. As it is also his first time at the Masters' it's close to impossible to know how he will perform.


GROUP B

FEDERERhad a bit of a heartbreaker in Paris losing to Raonic. I personally blame the remarkably slow surface they used in Paris this year. It allowed Raonic to run around his backhand a lot more than you would expect for indoor. The swiss' first match will be against the canadian so we'll see how it goes this time. NB: It's Federer's 13th attendance in a row to the World Tour Finals.

NISHIKORIjust ran out of gas in Paris. Let's hope the week between the two events allowed him to supercharge his batteries. It's his first Masters' too, so we'll see how he deals with that pressure.

MURRAYhad to play a lot more tournament than originally planned to be able to qualify. He did qualify though and with some quality tennis along the way. How rested will he be this week though? We'll ahve to wait and see.

RAONIChad a great week in Paris, reaching the final and beating Berdych and Federer along the way. These heroics along with Nadal's surgery and a solid 2014 allowed him to join the elite few for the first time.



On paper, Federer probably had the worst possible draw, but, in a funny twist of fate, the other three people in his group all just got beat by Djokovic in Paris!



The event starts Sunday afternoon (at 2pm in the UK) with Nishikori vs Murray and later Federer vs Raonic (8 pm in the UK).

Very strange start to the event: Nishikori and Murray both were extremely nervous and played poorly. The japanese found his form first at the end of the first set, calibrating his range and being able to dictate play. That allowed him to bag the first set and race to a 3-0 lead in the 2nd. Murray then improved a bit just in time to avoid the 4-0 and it was enough to make Nishikori nervous again and level the set. Luckily for the japanese player he did just enough to hold serve at 4-4 to lead 5-4 and and then played a very positive return game, well helped by a Murray that was unable to hit a first serve. 6-4 6-4.

Nishikori will be pleased that he managed to win even when playing well bellow his standard. Not only win, but win in straight sets, which is both good for his recovery and his standing in the group.