Cupcakes & Tennis

It was Australia Day yesterday, similar to our Fourth of July, including fireworks downtown over the river, and fly bys earlier in the day.  Probably lots of barbies.  It’s summer Down Under, remember.  The fireworks are visible, at least from certain seats, from Rod Laver Arena and whether you can see them or not, they’re noisy.  Hence, when the fireworks begin and for the ten or so minutes they last, play on court is suspended.

That happened at 5-2 in the second set between Roger and Rafa last night, with Rafa about to serve for it.  The players left the court, were permitted to hang out in massage rooms, presumably separate ones, close to the court; they were not allowed to go to the locker room, and their coaches were not allowed to leave the box.

The break was not especially beneficial, if anything the opposite.  With temperatures cooling rapidly, and no warm up, it wasn’t that easy to just pick up where you left off.  Roger seemed sluggish.  Rafa went ahead and leveled the match to one set a piece.  Roger won the first set in a tiebreak but at first took a 3-0 lead and then was up 5-2, so winning in a tiebreak was an indication of just how difficult the whole thing was.

It always is.  I had hoped this match would be somewhat different from their others.  We all know Rafa has the head to head on this, almost to the point of not being able to call it a rivalry as much as a domination.  There is always talk in tennis about match-ups.  For instance, Andy Roddick’s game is not a good match-up with Roger’s.  Andy doesn’t really have anything that bothers Roger.  That’s why Roger always beats Andy.

Two years ago no one was beating Rafa.  But then along came Djokovic last year and he figured out a way.  Basically he just goes to Rafa’s backhand, especially in the deuce court, over and over and then some more.  Do that enough and you’ll get the errors off of Rafa’s racquet.  These days Novak is in Rafa’s head the same way Rafa is in Roger’s.  That seems fair, doesn’t it?  Rafa couldn’t beat Novak last year and as the year progressed and he kept on getting beaten by him, you could really tell it bothered him.

I had hoped last night’s match would have been different.  Roger’s got that shot, he can do that, too.  Over and over again to the backhand.  Talk about fair, that’s really really fair.  After all, that’s Rafa’s strategy with Roger.  Over and over to his backhand, high up, where it’s hard to get it.

So I don’t know why Roger didn’t do that last night.  He did it some, but not enough.  Patrick McEnroe was commenting on it, thinking maybe it’s just too boring for Roger to have set plays.  Like a brilliant chef making the same brownies again and again.  But I think Darren Cahill may have more insight to offer on this.  Apparently, Darren spent some time with Roger going over video of matches to analyze what happens in break point situations, another weak spot.  Roger gets break points against Rafa, but only converts a small percentage of them.

Darren said that Roger had thought he had been aggressive in these situations.  That was his perception of his behavior.  But once they viewed the video and broke it all down, it was clear that he actually had not been.  Heartening in a way to the common folks that the master is just as human as we are.  He can’t see himself clearly just like we can’t.

Rafa won it in four sets and Roger did look discouraged.  I hope Darren gets to him for another session sometime.  It would be fun to see him beat Rafa at least some of the time.  This is really too painful now.

Depending on what happens tonight in the other semifinal match between Djokovic and Murray, we may see a Rafa/Novak final.  And if we do, I’m thinking my pick two weeks ago of Novak to win the whole shebang may just be the way it turns out.

Prior to the Big Match, between Roger and Rafa, there were two semifinal women’s matches and the way those shook out was one of the newbies and one of the veterans.  Victoria Azarenka won her match against Kim Clijsters in three interesting sets.  Maria Sharapova prevailed over Petra Kvitova, got her revenge for Wimbledon.

The main thing to note about this is if you want to watch the final be prepared for the double shrieking.  Vika and Maria shriek with every swing of their racquet.  Every swing.  There will be no respite.  First Maria will shriek, then Vika, then Maria and on and on.  Honestly, I hope the tennis is great because their voices are almost enough not to watch, they give you a headache.  Personally, I’ll take Vika’s scream over Maria’s.  It’s less irritating, not as high pitched.

People have been very aware of this situation a lot during this Australian Open but if public objection were the change factor here, it would have changed a long time ago.  I missed Monica Seles and the tennis of those years but she was one for the ages, people say.  And no one changed anything.

Where it really has to change is on the court, with other women players objecting to it as a hindrance.  I’m not sure why they don’t object more but I think it’s our only hope and clearly a slim one.  Azarenka and Maria both weighed in on this during the tournament, aware of the crowd mocking, etc…, and basically said this is the way I play.  End of story.

Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

Okay, let’s get caught up on all the quarterfinal matches, starting with the women.  Azarenka took on her good friend Aggie Radwanska.  She dropped the first set in a tiebreak, after a seesaw tight set that featured eight breaks of serve.  Clearly, serve was not going to be the determining factor.

Radwanska is a kind of surprising player.  She doesn’t look the part.  She’s petite in stature, doesn’t look beefed up even if she is.  No guns.  Sam Stosur has guns.  Aggie’s arms are just lovely and shapely and look like they could use a little more sun tan lotion.  They don’t look like they work hard, those arms.

But they do.  She gets a ton of balls back and relies on laser like placement of the ball rather than power to get her ahead in the score line.

After losing the first set, 7-0 in the tiebreak, really?, how often do you see that?, Vika shook it off and never looked back.  She took sets 2 and 3, 2 and 0 and advanced to the semifinals.

More on the shrieking.  The purchasers of the tickets, i.e. the crowd, are fighting back.  You could hear during this match, and apparently others, members of the crowd imitating Azarenka’s shrieks.  And I just saw a comment thread on the Australian Open website with various people weighing in on the subject in at least four languages.  From what I could understand, everyone hates it.  I find myself, like others it seems, not wanting to watch a match especially if there are two screamers.  Watch out, we may have a Sharapova/Azarenka final.

Yes, Sharapova also advanced.  She beat Ekatarina Makarova in a match that was closer in actuality than the score line, 2 and 3.  Sometimes when a player upsets a top player the next match is a come down, but it wasn’t the case here.  Having taken down Serena,  Makarova came fully prepared to play her game and win if she possibly could.  I’m not a big Maria fan, but you have to give her credit.  She knows everything there is to know about determination.

And Maria is the highest paid, wealthiest woman athlete in any sport.  She could sleep in late tomorrow morning and every morning thereafter, but instead she works hard on her tennis game.  She’s one of four women with a very decent chance to win the title.

Petra Kvitova doesn’t look quite as balls to the wall as she did last June when she surprised everyone by claiming the Wimbledon title.  But she’s getting the job done even if she isn’t playing her very best tennis.  Sara Errani gave her some work to do, a creditable job, but Kvitova walked off with a 4 and 4 straight set victory.  Errani is fun to watch.  Italians play tennis the way they drive – all over the place.  Big tall Wagnerian Kvitova, blonde blue eyed with the braid down her back against the Roadrunner.

Finally, Kim Clijsters took the win over Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets.  There had been intense concern about Kim’s ankle injury and whether she would be able to play this match but she came out looking sharp and running all over the court.  So much for that problem.  In the second set she let a 5-2 lead slip but made up for it in the tiebreak where she sealed the deal.

Caroline Wozniacki will be relieved of her number 1 position in the rankings, a source of great debate.  How can she be number one if she hasn’t won a Grand Slam?  Ask the WTA, it’s their ranking system.  Still, the real issue is her game, not the WTA, and Caroline is an inferior version of a female David Ferrer.  She gets everything so she wins a lot, but that doesn’t mean she is a champion.  I think she’s a nice girl, but I don’t see her game as being on the level with the greats.  Maybe she’ll get the monkey off her back now, if she’s no longer number one everyone can stop talking about how unfair it is since she hasn’t won a Grand Slam and then maybe she’ll develop her game and talents into the kind of thing that wins on the last Sunday.

So, in summary, and in just a few short hours, the women’s semifinals are Clijsters vs. Azarenka and Sharapova vs. Kvitova.  Look for Maria to be seeking revenge in this match, add it to the big bonfire of desire for another Grand Slam title burning inside her.  Maria got told what by Kvitova in the Wimbledon final last year.  Centre Court.  The Queen of Big Stages in tennis.  That did not feel good.  I’m looking for some cold stares across the net, Maria can get that going.

These are great match-ups.  In each case, a former, experienced Grand Slam champion meets up with one of the two best new players.  I chose Azarenka to win the tournament, along with Darren Cahill, it seems, and I’ll stick with it.  But any of these four could bring it home.

On the men’s side, things lined up just like we pictured them.  The top four seeds, the four who dominate men’s tennis.  Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Murray.

Nadal won in four sets over Thomas Berdych, and it looked dicey there in the early stages of the match.  Federer and del Potro played a rematch of their US Open final from 2009, prior to del Potro’s wrist surgery and absence from the tour for nearly a year.  He’s playing well now, but Roger is playing better than ever.

Andy Murray had an easy time of it over Kei Nishikori who turned in a worthy performance but not one that advanced him.  No matter, Kei has had a great tournament, he’s gone further in a Grand Slam than any Japanese player before him.

Djokovic was the last of the four to play his quarterfinal match and it was brutal for two sets against David Ferrer.  A thoroughly physical match, such hard hitting, such pressure not to lose your focus for a nanosecond.  David almost took the second set to level it at one a piece and he had chances, but Novak eked out the second set and what was a thoroughly discouraged but still fighting Ferrer to do?  The legs these guys have to have just to play a match like this.

Tonight, in the wee hours here, Federer will play Nadal for a berth in the final. Every time these two take the court, almost always in finals, it’s an occasion.  Twenty eight or nine times, that many chapters in a book that still is being written.  In his match against del Potro, Roger logged his 1,000th match, that’s a whole lot of tennis.  And now he takes on his rival and friend one more time to see who will prevail.  I’ll take Federer in this one, especially if he manages to get out in front from the beginning.

Murray vs. Djokovic?  Should be a great match, anyone’s game.  Murray is fresh, he’s had an easy draw, easy tournament.  Novak is in supreme form.  I’ve got Novak winning the Open, so I’ll stay with that.  How could I not?

Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot and keep enjoying the Aussie Open as it edges toward the conclusion.

I think it was just a matter of time.  Serena hasn’t played many matches and she retired from Brisbane with an ankle injury.  So she wasn’t 100 per cent, we knew this.  We just didn’t know how much less than that, something only she and the rest of us could find out when she was put to the test on the tennis court.

That finally came in the form of Ekaterina Makarova, a Russian player with a bit of a track record of upsets Down Under.  Last year she beat Ivanovic to get to the quarterfinals.  This year she beat Zvonareva, already an upset, to get a chance for the big one.

So Serena came out with the taping, as she  has been.  Makarova came to play.  She’s remarkably unintimidated by top players.  Unlike Greta Arn who played Serena in the last match and was reverential beyond it serving anyone well.  And even if Serena isn’t at her best, you have to believe she is an intimidating sight across the net.

But Makarova played some fantastic tennis, hitting the balls hard, showing a variety of shot, agility.  And Serena turned in a poor performance, lots of unforced errors.   Even her serve was off and that shot usually gets her a pass on sluggish movement.  You can use a lot of words to describe Serena but graceful isn’t one of them.  And our Serena, who is just so glad to be alive after her serious health problems last year, was one big grump on the court.

Ms. Makarova won it in straights, 2 and 3.  Quite a day in her life.

Now we will see if she can threepeat it, take down Maria Sharapova.  Maria beat Sabine Lisicki, one of my favorites, yesterday in three.  Many people were excited at the thought of a quarterfinal featuring Maria and Serena, but it’s not to be.  Maria may have been one of the few people who was relieved not to face that.  But she’ll have to play better than she did today against Makarova.  The possible upset will make that one very interesting to watch.

Shriek alert: During the match between Maria and Sabine on Rod Laver, Christine McHendry and Chris Evert of ESPN could hear it all the way over at their broadcasting set.  If you’ve tuned in to ESPN at all, you see the sports desk and Rod Laver in the background.  It’s hard to tell from that visual how far away the court is, but I can tell you from being there that it probably takes at least five minutes of fast walking to get there.  The shrieks waft out of the open roof and into the air, like all the birds and seagulls that fly in and around the stadium.

Lleyton Hewitt put in a valiant effort but since no one else is having any luck beating Novak Djokovic these days, why would we think a thirty year old player who has had repeated hip surgeries could do it?  Novak won in four.

David Ferrer won his match against Gasquet.  If you need some inspiration, an example of how to take what you’ve got and maximize it, get to know Ferrer.  He’s the man.

And Kei Nishikori pulled out a five setter against Tsonga in the brutal heat of the middle of the day.  Good for him.

This is what I love and everyone else who loves tennis loves.  The stories, the upsets, the successes of players on their way up or on their way back or on their way down, or fighting to keep position.  And it’s still anyone’s guess who will be in the finals and who will gain the title.

Djokovic and Azarenka, my picks, are still very much alive.  But will it be Kim or Andy Murray or Caroline Wozniacki or…?

I’ll be watching and reporting.  Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

Surely one of the best matches of the tournament took place on Rod Laver last night between Aussie Bernard Tomic and Alexander Dolgopolov.  This is the definition of a popcorn match.  Tennis just doesn’t get better or more entertaining than this and when the home crowd is in the mix, it’s just too much fun.  Outside, in the beer garden to the back of the arena and in the public spaces in front, Aussies were jammed in, decked out and ready to cheer their man on.

Bernard Tomic is probably a good poker player, he doesn’t show much emotion and part of the strength of his game is that the first, last and middle shots all get the same cool attention from him.  He’s also capable of strategy and theatre unique even in this world.  I love it that he played possum in his match against Fernando Verdasco, got him to 3-3 in the third set, two sets down, making Fernando believe there was nothing left in the tank – and then turned it on.

As tall and rangy as Tomic is, and not fully grown into his body at nineteen, that’s how compact and wiry Dolgopolov is.  He’s incredibly light on his feet, just seems to bounce around everywhere.  And both of these players are idiosyncratic in the extreme.  You never know what to expect.

They each and both play a lot of cat and mouse, slicing backhands back and forth in an elliptical pattern.  Wicked spin.  Then one or the other lets loose on a huge forehand, lights out.  Both can lay down powerful serves.  They’re both like stallions, quite beautiful, unpredictable, wild.  Tomic has a vision of the game that is his own; he knows why he’s using different spins and paces and it’s unlike any other player in the game.

Not surprisingly, this match went the distance.  Alex took the first set, Tomic the second and third, beating his opponent in a 7-0 tiebreak.  Alex won the fourth set and then they were on for a deciding fifth set.  Tomic won it 6-3, but even at 5-2, you really didn’t know which player would win.

It was an altogether fascinating and compelling display of antics and tactics and strategy, and some drama as well.  The only thing missing was the ATomic Kittens, a group of five female diehard fans who could not get tickets into Rod Laver.  I would have liked to see the Kittens in Bernard’s box but his girlfriend probably would have objected.  Hence they had no choice but to enjoy the match from the beer garden.

The color for this tournament is ORANGE.  Everyone is wearing it.  Even Carlos Ramos, the umpire for the Tomic match, was sporting orange sneakers and an orange pullover under his sport coat.  Dolgopolov had orange on.  Many other players have been wearing it – Jelena Jankovic who beat Christina McHale yesterday, both in the same color and hard to tell apart, Sorana Cirstea, Fernando Verdasco, and many others.  What up?

The Saturday matches have begun.  I need to go get caught up.  Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.

I’ve long been a fan of Kadir Nouni, the experienced umpire with the midnight smoke and bourbon voice.  Currently, Kadir is sporting a full black beard which seems to suit him.  That said, I sure didn’t agree with or like how he ruled on the court day before yesterday in the match between David Nalbandian and John Isner.  Here’s a You Tube clip, you can see and judge for yourself.

That was John McEnroe commentating, apparently for Fox News, and he’s no stranger to bad calls.  Honestly, now finally there is Hawkeye, for just this kind of occasion.  Isner serves a first serve, called a let.  Then he serves another first serve up the T, called out loudly by the linesman.   And then overruled by the chair umpire, though it was hard to hear because the crowd was so noisy.  Nalbandian goes to check the line and as he’s doing that, Nouni calls out the score “Deuce”.  Nalbandian raises his hand to challenge as he finishes looking at the line to see if he can see a mark.  Nouni refuses to allow the challenge saying it’s too late.

It is the fifth set, it is 8-8 and a break point for Nalbandian.  Think there’s anything on the line here?   And, what you don’t see here is according to hawkeye the original call of out was the correct call.  The ball was out by an inch.  Had it gone properly, Isner would have served a second serve and the action would have unfolded from there.

Most of the time a player has a distinct advantage when returning a second serve over a first.  The second serve comes in at a much lower speed, lots of players just throw it in.  You have a lot more time to respond.  This is not true of a power server like John Isner.  In this particular match, not long before the controversy erupted, he had put in a second serve at 146 mph.  Most players are happy with a first serve speed in the 120′s, just to put that in perspective.

So there was and is no way of knowing what would have happened in the match had Nalbandian been allowed the challenge.  Still.  The upset and disruption casued to David by this terrible and unfair call should not be underestimated.  The beauty of Hawkeye is that players can resolve any doubt in their minds and go forward without being plagued.  Nalbandian should have been allowed the opportunity and then the outcome of the match would not have been marred by unnecessary and unjust interference from the umpire.

It was a thoroughly critical point in the match, a time when any seasoned umpire should know to leave himself out of it.  Nalbandian said in his press conference afterwards that it wasn’t the reason he lost the match, but in this case I would beg to differ.  I think it was a lot of the reason, maybe the reason.  I hope Kadir Nouni gets served up some harsh treatment for his action.

And here, more for fun, is Marcos Baghdatis breaking four racquets.

Andy Roddick pulled his hamstring on court last night against Lleyton Hewitt and had to retire.  Tough deal.

And I was wrong about Bernard Tomic no longer being in the tournament. Apologies.  He did not lose to Sam Querry, Sam lost to him.  So we will get to see Tomic go up against another quirky player, Alexander Dolgopolov in action today.  Check that one out.

I’m still furious about the Nalbandian business.  Nouni didn’t even give him a chance to make a challenge decision.  Sometimes you see players taking time, looking up at their box, and they do take too long and often are allowed to do so.  But on this occasion, with everything on the line, David took no extra time, there was noise, there was confusion, even John Isner went up to the umpire and said let him challenge.  Kadir just dug in his heels, figured he had announced the score and that was that.  Just wrong.  No place for his stubborn assertion of authority.  It’s about the match, the players, the tennis.  I hope Nouni is at least man enough to admit he made a mistake and apologize.   But I’m not holding my breath.

More later, after I calm down.

Week 1 and Week 2 of a Grand Slam are very different.  The point of Week 1 to any player is still to be there for Week 2, just that simple.  But not always simple to execute.  Hence, the upsets and surprises.

Mardy Fish should have won his match against Alejandro Falla of Columbia, he’s the number 8 ranked player in the world.  Falla is a veteran who has improved his game recently and apparently, though I did not see him remove his shirt so I can’t say for sure, he’s just built like an ox, totally ripped.  So between the expectation now on Mardy’s shoulders that he should go out there and win, that he is expected to win and the new, improved Falla, you can do the math.

Falla took the first set.  Okay.  Then he took the second set.  Well, tough grind now for Mardy.  Two sets to love down.  But in the middle of the third set, Falla started cramping.  Despite the fact that he was up two sets and he’s fit as can be.  Strange things happen on the tennis court.  So Mardy should have won that third set and he got close, and if he had, you had the feeling he would have won the match.  But Falla hung in there and came out on top.

So much of this game is mental.  Mardy was in a sour mood the whole time it seemed.  Everything was bothering him.  He’s not usually like that, so I’m not sure what was up.  But there you have it.

And over and over, you see that the more aggressive you are, the more you take the win.  Tennis is a shot by shot, point by point affair.  The more you stay focussed on each shot, each point and play your game, the better you do.  Mardy let mental distraction and expectations get in the way of just going out there, playing his game and getting it done.

I always have a little soft spot for Falla,, though for Mardy I have a big soft spot, not really because he’s American, I just like him and his game and what he’s done the past three years to get serious and realize his potential.  But for a few nights two years ago, Falla and I were across the hall neighbors in a hotel in Melbourne.  A hotel that should have been nice (or at least clean), but wasn’t, or cheap, but wasn’t.  I was making a hotel change one morning when his door was open and a bunch of people with cameras were there, and I met him then.

Not every player stays at the Hyatt.

One of the great things about the first week of a Grand Slam, and that is different from the second week, is you can see some great matches between lower ranked players.  Players you don’t know, qualifiers, players coming back.  Such was the match last evening between Christina McHale, a young American player, and Marina Erakovic, a Croatian woman from New Zealand.

The match took place on Court 6, no hawkeye, just some bleachers.  Erakovic is 24 years old and trying to climb up the rankings for a second time.  She’s 63 in the world now.  She had injuries that sidelined her a year or two ago.  Most of the crowd was cheering for her.  It’s not that hard for Kiwis to get over to Melbourne for the tournament, a much longer hike for Americans.

Christina McHale looks likes she’s in high school and somehow found herself on a tennis court to play a match rather than at the orthodontist’s office where she has an appointment.   She lost the first set 6-3.  Then rallied back and took the second set in a tiebreak.

Both of these girls wanted this win badly and for either one it meant a lot.  For McHale, this is the kind of match she has to be able to win if she’s really going to make it.  For Marina, it’s part of her comeback.  So they played their hearts out and it’s always a real treat to see that, especially if you’re there on a small court where you can feel and see it all.

McHale left a little more of her heart on the court and took the win.  She will face former number one Jelena Jankovic next.  It should be a good match, two players who hit the ball hard, get everything back and Christina has a good shot, I’d say.  I haven’t seen Jelena play recently, but I have seen Christina and I’ll be rooting for her.

Marcos Baghdatis was pretty unhappy with his play against Stan Wawrinka.  On one changeover, sitting down next to his tennis bag, he trashed not one, not two, but four racquets.  Four.  Three of them still in the plastic.

John Isner, tall American of Wimbledon longest match fame, eked out a five set win over David Nalbandian, veteran Argentine player who likes fast cars and lots of other things more than he likes to practice but who is so naturally talented he can always make a good showing.  That one was hard to call ahead of time.  Do you figure the powerful server, Isner, will always blast his opponent off the court?  It’s hard to bet against him, that’s for sure.  Never count out Nalbandian though, you love watching him, he does amazing things, has wonderful hands, is crafty as a fox.

And Tomic lost to another American player, Sam Querry, in four sets.  So much for Aussie hopes.  Casey Dellacqua lost to Victoria Azarenka.

But they will graciously continue to host this famous and fun event, even if they don’t have a chance of winning.

Thanks for reading Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.  The live tennis has just started, at 5 pm this Wednesday, so I’ll see you tomorrow.