Pierre's Tennisrulz Blog (get your own blog here)

Friday, September 22, 2006

Will this surprise choice pay off?

As Andy Roddick and the USA team headed into this semifinal of the Davis Cup, they were expecting Nikolay Davydenko, the top ranked Russian player and semifinalist at the 2006 US Open to be the #1 player on the Russian squad, but the Russians had a surprise in mind as they put Marat Safin instead. "It's the Davis Cup and the difference in 10-20 places makes no difference," Tarpishchev said. "We have a very even lineup in our team, and in terms of tactics it's the best solution for us." Andy Roddick has a career 3-2 record against Safin, having won the last 3 meetings (although all 3 were played on hard courts).

Interesting tactics...

# posted by Pierre : 4:28 AM  0 comments  

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Upcoming: Two great semifinals!

No doubt about it, the upcoming weekend will show off some great tennis and anyone looking for proof that Davis Cup is not dead needs only look at one of the two upcoming ties to see what tennis is all about in this world where you play for a team, for your country with no points, no money, only pride to earn. Earlier this year, a struggling Andy Roddick said he would be thrilled with his year even if he won no other ATP matches this year as long as his team would capture the Davis Cup.

And Roddick is certainly putting every possible ounce of effort into insuring that his team can overcome a tough Russian team and an even tougher red (and probably very heavy and slow) clay... Roddick even admitted he went to Pete Sampras in order to get some advice about the upcoming tie. On the US side, it's as good of a team as it could hope for. To Andy Roddick and the top doubles team in the world, the Bryan brothers, we can add James Blake, who has taken out all doubt about the fact that he is a world class player and a contender for a top 5 ranking. But beating a tough Russian team will be quite a task. For Russia, there will be Nikolay Davydenko, Marat Safin, Dmitry Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny. The first has been one of the best and most consistent players on tour this year... We all know that Marat Safin is capable of the very best (as well as the worse). The following two others have been playing impressive tennis lately and among other things in this year's US Open. What better way to introduce the choice of surface than letting Marat Safin explain: ""To play against the United States on a hardcourt -- I think it is not a right choice," Safin said. "Someone has to suffer and it will be not us. That's for sure.".

The other tie is as interesting if not more. It's all about Lleyton Hewitt. One of the best fighters in the game, he's had numerous feuds with Argentines, having spitting incidents, being bumped on during a changeover, etc. But Guillermo Coria was the one who explained his dislike the best saying he would probably get in a fight with Lleyton if he met him off-court. That was said before last year's match where Lleyton gave a good effort but lacked support as his team lost to the Argentines... But this time, he has a wild card with him, playing with Mark Philippoussis. Now the main problem is that Argentina also has the choice of surface, which will cause significant problems for the Aussies... but with an increased determination, everything is possible....

# posted by Pierre : 5:30 PM  0 comments  

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Henin-Hardenne stirs more controversy

Well well well... Justine Henin-Hardenne has not been getting things easy. A few months ago, she was under critics from many in the tennis world (including current and former champions) because of her decision to stop the match midway through her final against Amelie Mauresmo in Melbourne. That decision had put a very strange taste in most fans, and probably much worse in Amelie Mauresmo's as she would always have a little reminder about her first grand slam win, a reminder about how she did not have to play a full match to win it... Months later, Justine still persisted in saying she had made the right decision...


Then, a few months later, another controversy, this time not as much against her, although initially it certainly was. Days before the Fed Cup semifinals, Justine was battling hard in Wimbledon trying to win the title but she was also saying she'd be playing (as planned) the semifinal. Wimbledon ended and still nothing was announced, but then, a few days later, she said she would not be able to play because she was exhausted. She was under fire from all over the tennis world and in Belgium more than anywhere else. She did not respond until her coach, through her official website, explained that in fact she had told the Belgian Tennis Federation over a week prior to the announcement that she would be unable to play but the federation had asked her to hold the news as it hoped no top players from their opponents, the United States, would join in the tie as a result of Justine's announcement. The Federation did say it was sorry and it hoped for Justine to play in the final...

Belgian fans were relieved, but that was even more true when her all star teammate Kim Clijsters was forced to withdraw from the event because of a wrist injury... Still, with a US Open run that went on, fans wondered, but Justine assured she would be playing, and she did indeed show up. All of tennis knew she needed to play very well in order to give Belgium a chance in the final, and so she did. After seeing Kirsten Flipkens drop the opening match on Saturday, Justine rallied to win back-to-back matches against the top 2 Italian players and thus give Belgium a 2-1 lead...

After another disapointing loss for Flipkens, Justine was asked to play the doubles match... She and Kirsten fought hard but in the end, Justine's body gave out and she was forced to withdraw in the 3rd set. "I could not stay on court for another point," the French Open champion said. "It was like a ball blasted me at the back of the knee." Sadly for her and her fans, given everything that happened this year, she will doubted and criticised for her decision to stop even though we can imagine that with only one set to go, she probably had to be in a lot of pain to stop....

Still, this will be talked about for a while....

# posted by Pierre : 3:02 PM  0 comments  

Thursday, September 14, 2006

i am back

Hello everyone and sorry for the delay in this post! I did not get a chance to write much since getting back from New York. But I do intend on having this blog updated on a regular basis and while I will certainly not live up to Todd Spiker blog quality, I will give my best effort to make it an interesting read.

We have entered the “dead period” of the year. We all know players live for the grand slams, for most top players, they’ll admit it, other tournaments are nothing but preparation for the big 4 events. So then what happens when an off-season as well as about 4 months separate us from the next slam, to be played in Melbourne? It gets a little boring… Ok, not that much, but just a little. For now, a lot of the players are trying to recover from the tough US Open series, that go on for several week and include back-to-back-to-back events for many.

But thankfully, there are some fairly big events coming up, namely the Kremin Cup and Zurich Open played in Moscow and Zurich, I will personally be seeing one or two days of tennis in Moscow, which will be a new thing for me. I will write more about it soon.

All for now!

# posted by Pierre : 11:15 AM  0 comments  

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Moscow, we have a problem

by Pierre Cantin

Another day filled with very cold and bad weather but this time, rain was not part of the mix, at least not until the end of the day when it did not bother me (for other reasons, I had to leave the stadium at 7PM anyway).

So yesterday was the start of the 3rd round in the women's draw, a day that marks a complete different start of paste for myself and for the tournament as a whole. After 2 rounds, you can feel that there is less action going on the grounds. While during the whole week there are matches on 15 or more courts, it starts to go down on the first Friday, as well as the number of players and thus the interesting practices become rare. So I make it a point every year starting on that day, to spend less time running around from court to court and more time finding some good matches to watch.

Yesterday I started off with the matchup between Jelena Jankovic and Nicole Vaidisova. It was a good match but strange, Nicole seemed to be going on and off all the time, she was going for her shots so much that it was hard for her to get into any rythm, I guess it's the same in all of her matches but for some reason, I thought it created more problems against Jankovic. The Serbian has deceptive speed around the court and made Nicole hit a few more shots than I would have thought, which got some more errors from the Czeck. I think in the end Jankovic won because she was able to stay composed throughout Nicole's ups and downs and was just more consistent. Nicole still needs to work on her movement a lot more, especially the movement up and down the court, and also I think she really needs to work the points a lot better. Her coach seemed to be telling her to do that, but she is not choosing well enough when to go for winners which can create so many unforced errors as well as open angles up for Jankovic to hit in.... So disapointing loss for Vaidisova, but she'll be back...

I then saw a bit of some doubles matches, mostly Benesova and Strycova against Zi and Yan, it was a pretty intense battle, I would have liked them to defeat the #2 seed Chinese team but in the end they came up just a bit short... Then a bit of mixed doubles with Azarenka/Mirnyi facing Paes/Stosur, it was a great match, very entertaining:)

And finally, the match of the day for me as Maria Kirilenko faced Aravane Rezai, an upcoming French player. It was stunning to see what happened in this match. I already thought Kirilenko lacked power but thought she could get through this match, but not at all... On every point she was getting pushed back in the court, getting played with almost, it was anything but a tight match. I really think Kirilenko needs to all a lot more power and pace to her shots, she was hitting going backwards in that match, never really was close to pulling this match off which was sad for me to say the least. I think Kirilenko still has loads of talents, but she needs to work very hard on her game because she is getting further and further from the top instead of the opposite...

After that, some running around but not much, I'm just hoping my last day of tennis will not be rained out!

Talk to you all later!

# posted by Pierre : 5:19 AM  0 comments  

Friday, September 01, 2006

US Open Day 4: Why it's called a tie-breaker

by Pierre Cantin

As yesterday started, it promised to be a great day with 32 ladies singles matches planned for the day and among others, a big test for Andre Agassi later that evening. Day started with a few practices, Viktoriya Kutuzova... It was strange to watch, she seemed upset about everything, the wind especially, she was missing her shots by miles, and really, it was a bad practice. I don't get why she was so upset with herself, especially so close to a match...which she eventually lost, no idea if the practice helped or not, I would be surprised to hear someone tell me it did...

Then I went to see Maria Kirilenko who was hitting with James Blake's brother, it was the end of their practice, but she looked relaxed and ready to go, as she was first on. She is one of the players who always seems to like to hit less than an hour before her matches, I guess it's usually good, but not sure how it affects her in longer matches... then also saw some bits of Schnyder and the Bondarenko sisters before going to see the Kirilenko vs Bremond match...

It was actually not a great match after all because Bremond seemed to have pretty severe pain in her thigh from almost the start of the match, she did get a medical treatment on it but it still bothered her from the start, I don't think she could put her whole body into shots...During her medical time-outs I saw parts of the Rezai vs Safarova match, Lucie had tons of opportunities but she let her opponent (who is quite a fighter), get a way with it... Jankovic had no problems, she was in total control. And Vaidisova, well, it was strange, I'm not sure what happened there, when I went she was not playing well but I had no idea it would go 3 sets against Jidkova, she was mostly missing so many shots, just too many errors...

Then I went to see parts of the Mirza vs Schiavone match... it was as I had feared, Schiavone had gotten in Mirzas head with her numerous spins, off-pace game, and Sania was just nowhere near the right mental state...

Following that, the match between Anna Chakvetadze and Alona Bondarenko, it was a great fight, so many tough points, Bondarenko had perhaps a slight edge but she was up against a great fighter, both players were so in it... They finally got to a 1st set tie-break and Bondarenko was playing well and came up with a 6-2 lead! She was then shocked (weak word really) by Chakvetadze who stormed back, won 6 points the set, and got her opponent discouraged, crying and helpless... it was no surprise to see that Anna Chakvetadze then steamrolled her 6-0 in the 2nd set...

After seeing Bychkova vs Srebotnik (good fight by Ekaterina but in the end I think she didn't play calmly enough in big points), I saw Victoria Azarenka put on another great performance, it was actually a lot tighter than I expected, maybe not in the scoreline, but in the points themselves, Azarenka was struggling a bit to beat a very solid defensive game by Jamea Jackson, but she was fighting very hard and in the end came up with some great shots in front of a stunned crowd (who was confident of seeing Jackson take on the world #124). Vicka was very very happy of her performance as she moves on to the 3rd round, I maintain that she will win a few more matches, although the next one will be very tough, Chakvetadze is playing great tennis these days....

After that, Golovin vs Radwanska, Agnieszka seemed to be without any clue how to get to Golovin, she wasn't following a good match plan, simply trying to outplay Golovin, but Tatiana is pretty good at that and it showed... Finally, Ana Ivanovic against Aiko Nakamura, it was a good match, but once more Ana was not playing very well, she was making too many errors, not moving as well as she was in Montreal, she did come through thanks to some great shotmaking and some agressive returns but it was unconvicing....

All for now, I'm headed for day #5:)

# posted by Pierre : 5:04 AM  0 comments