The transition from the indoor courts in Paris to the outdoor arena in Dubai proved to be too much for rising star Petra Kvitova; she flamed out in her first round match. But Milos Raonic was undeterred by his red eye flight to Memphis and has played himself right into another final. As we speak, the semi-final match between del Potro and Roddick is about to begin; the winner will meet Milos in the final.
The pattern for his play this week has gone something like this: win the first set, lose the second, win the third, hit more than twenty aces per match. Currently Milos has over 255 aces for the season (and the night is young!), leading the ATP pack, a hard hitting bunch. What? Ahead of Dr. Ivo? Uh-huh. John Isner, yup. Marin Cilic, Andy Roddick, check, check. And this new Canadian, and our northern neighbor is beyond elated over this development, has an evolving, but already varied game. He’s not just a big server.
When you watch him play, you see him change it up from all parts of the court, effectively depriving his opponents from finding any rhythm and allowing him to dominate. Mardy Fish just played a very good match against him in the first semi and it wasn’t good enough. Milos played better. To frustrate the other players even more, he isn’t making the rookie mistakes you would reasonably expect, like choking on the big points, or having difficulty closing out the match. He’s this even tempered likeable giant (six foot five), doesn’t seem to get rattled. A nightmare for quite a few who have already been scalped by him.
And, you have to love this. His first round match was against Fernando Verdasco, as you may remember, he of the sour grapes from his loss last week in San Jose. Milos beat him in three sets on Wednesday evening, the third going to a close tiebreak. No shame for Fernando, right? Well, not exactly. Now Fernando is saying these weren’t real matches and just wait until the clay court season and we’ll see if Milos is the tennis player of the future or not. Something like that. Honestly, Fernando is revealing himself to be a real embarrassment. It’s bad enough that he actually thinks like this, but even worse that he states it publicly.
As it turns out, the final in Memphis tomorrow will be between Raonic and Roddick. Andy just beat Delpo in two sets, 6-4,6-4. Good to see Andy playing well and more interestingly than often is the case, being more aggressive, coming forward. He barely won his previous match against Hewitt, was lucky to be on court today and in true Roddick style, took the lessons and applied them.
It will be worth watching tomorrow. Two big servers, US vs. Canada, one veteran, one newcomer. Who knows? Maybe Andy will be player to put a stop to Raonic’s winning streak. Roddick isn’t a player who depends on rhythm to win so it won’t bother him not to be given rhythm. He’ll have the hometown crowd advantage. And you know whatever happens Andy will compete to the last shot.
Speaking of competing to the last shot, how could I have known last night that my words would be prophetic? Check out this UTube clip, match point in Memphis this afternoon, Roddick’s fifth championship point.
That is one for the ages. You won’t see a more fantastic shot, and the entire match was really worth watching. Two tight sets that went to tiebreaks. Roddick had three championship points in the second set tiebreak and couldn’t convert. Andy is a veteran and it shows at these times. Coughing, looking like he should have been in bed the whole day kicking back tea and aspirin, instead he played a third set, took the lead to 4-1. Then Raonic fought back to 4-4, then to 5-5. Andy was up 6-5, with the advantage of serving first in the set. Raonic nearly pulled it out to bring it to a tiebreak again but then made a couple loose shots, setting up the match point. Roddick gave all credit to Raonic at the award ceremony, but Roddick deserves a lot himself. He wasn’t well, and still played all out tennis for nearly three hours. Andy has never been a whiner, not one to call attention to any physical limitations. I was glad to see him win today. Raonic will have many opportunities and reaching the final for the second week in a row was an achievement in itself.
It was Roddick’s thirtieth title (third time winning in Memphis), his fiftieth final. Andy and Roger Federer are the only two players on the tour to have taken a title at least once in each of the past eleven years. It was Milos Raonic’s second final. A year ago he was 360th in the world and lost in the first round of a challenger event. Today he’s climbing fast into the forties in the tour rankings and he won’t be needing wild cards to get into any more of the tournaments.
Over in Dubai, Caroline Wozniacki won over Svetlana Kuznetsova and she’ll regain her number one position in the WTA rankings. Sveta had been playing fabulous tennis all week and then was more inconsistent in this final, always her downfall. You just never know if she’s going to be on or off. At the very end she pulled out some of the best tennis, but it was too little too late. Jelena Jankovic did well in Dubai, beating Sam Stosur in a three setter with a tense tiebreak in the third. Good to see her playing well again. And would somebody please tell the camera guy over there that these shots of the ball toss are annoying? It adds nothing to your visual enjoyment, in fact it makes you dizzy.
Robin Soderling won in Marseille. Almagro took Buenos Aires.
More tennis this week, men in Dubai and Delray Beach, women in Doha. Both in Acapulco.
Keep it tuned to Cupcakes and Tennis, the tennis blog with a sweet spot.
