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

Friday, June 27, 2008

Tennis at its best..

After 5 days of Wimbledon tennis, we had seen a little bit of everything; big upsets (Djokovic, Sharapova, etc), drama (Ivanovic saving match point), style talk (Sharapova), trash talk).. but the one thing we had not witnessed yet was a truly great tennis match, not just a close match, but one of great quality.

And today, on the Wimbledon centre court, a full stadium as well as millions around the world witnessed as good of a 3rd round as anyone could hope for. In fact, even a final with such quality would be welcome.

On one side, Croatia's Mario Ancic, the tall server, who plays short points, a fairly classic grass game, and being so tall makes him difficult to pass at the net.

His opponent, Spaniard David Ferrer, not known as a grass court specialist at all, actually posted an impressive win in the Wimbledon tune-up event giving him hope of making the 2nd week of Wimbledon.

The match started and Mario Ancic's serving gave him a very strong start, he jumped to a 2 set to love lead. But as the 3rd set continued, David Ferrer, was not giving up and was gaining some momentum. The crowd as well as the two favourites, knew that with each game that went on, it was more likely that Ancic, who has been injured and missed a lot of action in past months, would grow more vulnerable. And indeed, as the 3rd sset started, Mario Ancic who had not faced a single break point, was facing more and more of them.

But then, with darkness around the corner, Ancic had hope as the 4th set would be the last one played tonight and so he could give his all and recover overnight for the 5th set.

Through desperation, great volleys and great serving, Mario Ancic was able to force another tie-break and this time, through inspired play, he was able to close the deal and take out David Ferrer, a 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 win that now puts him in the Wimbledon 4th round, a great reward for one of the guys on tour who has struggled the most with injuries in past months... congrats Mario

"I've been spending hours in the gym dreaming of playing on Centre Court again so this is a big moment," Ancic told BBC Sport.

"I have great memories of Wimbledon and this was an incredible match, we were both fighting until the end. Ferrer showed what a great player he is."

# posted by Pierre : 3:29 PM  0 comments

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Sharapova's turn to exit...

Wow, another day has gone by, with 2 more big names dropping out of the Wimbledon Championships. The first and bigger shock of the 2 was the loss of #3 Maria Sharapova against Alla Kudryatseva, a little known Russian ranked #154 in the world. While Maria Sharapova has not been as solid in recent years, she had been rock solid in Australia earlier in the year and after tougher times on clay, Maria was expected to play much better in Wimbledon and was even the favourite according to bookmakers. With her strong groundstrokes and solid return game, Maria was fit to play well in Wimbledon. But then something happened. What exactly? Hard to say, because in fact it was nothing. Maria came out flat..

"I guess it wasn't my day. She just did everything better than I did. You know, she played much better. She hit the ball harder. She, uhm, you know, served and returned better."

Very disapointing for tennis fans all around the world who were hoping for a classic Venus Williams vs Sharapova match..! It won't happen.

And with Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic on the men's side already out, the tournament is looking a whole lot less unpredictable than initially believed...!!

# posted by Pierre : 8:39 PM  0 comments

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ana battles through leaving no doubt about "mental state"

Wow, few expected a close match today between Ana Ivanovic and Nathalie Dechy today. Just before the match, ESPN was mentionning how Ana was probably the favourite for the Wimbledon Championships and the debate was between Ana and Novak Djokovic (shocked today by Marat Safin) as to which Serbian would win Wimbledon the 1st time.

But a close match it was. the whole first set was very close and when Nathalie Dechy pulled ahead during the tie-break to take the opening set. But even then, bookmakers were setting Ana as the heavy favourite and as she advanced to an early lead in the 2nd set, she gave the impression she would roll through the next 2 sets... but Nathalie Dechy fought right back, came and made the 2nd set very very interesting. She even eventually got a match point which Ana was able to fight back with a bit of luck hitting the net.

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Q. When you hit that forehand down match point, what did you think was going to happen?

ANA IVANOVIC: I felt like time stopped for a moment because I thought I hit pretty good shot and I moved forward, so there was a momentum going forward.

Then ball hit the net and it was in air for a couple of seconds. It was moving away, so I thought maybe even it will go out. Just so many thoughts at same moment.

I just, you know, thought the match would be over. I felt like, you know, after that point ‑‑ you know, you have some situations through your career that you feel, you know, you lose the match, and afterwards you think, I should have done that differently.

So you really want to go out and play again the match. After that point, I felt like it was a new match for me and I had a new opportunity.

***************************************

So what do you think? Could this be the turning point for Ana or is this a warning that Ana is perhaps not playing her best tennis right now and might be exhausted? I'd personally vote for the 1st option. Over the past few months, it's happened quite a few times that Ana had an early struggle but then would fight back and play a lot better. So we'll keep our eyes open but I'm predicting a much better effort for Ana in her 3rd round match...

# posted by Pierre : 5:14 PM  0 comments

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Finally back on court

It's been tough for Daniela Hantuchova in the past few months as she's struggled with multiple injuries (mainly a stress fracture) that caused her to miss over 2 months of activity, but not just any months. With the whole clay court season, the French Open and the Wimbledon tune-up events out of the picture, Daniela was going to endure a severe hit to her ranking (currently #12) and perhaps even more important was Wimbledon.

Even if you discount that Daniela's natural game fits well with grass, it's difficult to imagine doing well with so little preparation (unless you are the Williams sisters of course but that's a whole other subject) and that is exactly what Daniela was up against in today's opening match as she faced Italian Sara Errani who in many ways was a good opponent for the match.

Daniela was up against the #57 ranked player who is not a grass specialist and who had enjoyed a few good wins on clay. But on grass, Daniela had a fair shot and so she took it.

Despite having a few ups and downs (understandable given how she'd been out for so long), Daniela was able to fight through it all and come up with a big 7-6, 6-4 win!! Again, her next match is a fairly good draw as she will face Alisa Kleybanova, who is beatable...! Daniela will need to play a bit better but you'd think even getting one win will help in so many ways!

Best of luck Daniela!!

# posted by Pierre : 7:54 PM  0 comments

Monday, June 23, 2008

Dancevic causes the upset of Day #1

Well, it is a big surprise, no doubt about it. The former Wimbledon finalist (in 2002) was up against Canadian Frank Dancevic. The Canadian had had some good moments last summer when he won the Indianapolis event defeating Andy Roddick and then a few weeks later as he defeated a few top players in the Montreal Masters Cup Series event.

But David Nalbandian had been very consistent in grand slams over the years and rarely lost to unknown players. But how unknown was Dancevic? Well consider that right now he is barely among the top 100 players in the world (sitting at #98), had won only 2 matches in his career in grand slams (despite being 23 years old) and as clearly out of shape after missing a few months because of injuries.

But the match went by very fast. With left-handed Dancevic serving great and hitting 16 aces to no double faults, David Nalbandian had much trouble getting anything going and wasn't able to put much pressure on the Canadian's serve, not winning event 40% of points on the 2nd serve.

The steady Dancevic was even more impressive is how he made David Nalbandian play for every point, making only 5 unforced errors in the whole match, a truly impressive statistic.

# posted by Pierre : 7:41 PM  0 comments

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Wimbledon Preview

Hello everyone, it has certainly been a long time since I've posted a blog entry, way too long no doubt about it. But instead of doing my picks on Todd's blog, I wanted to write an entry of my own this time because I intent on starting to write again and what better way to start than with my Wimbledon predictions. Now don't get me wrong, there'll be a whole lot of other issues to be discussed on the blog and I will shortly upgrade the blog software. But in the meantime, I'll get started and post my predictions for the 2008 Wimbledon Championships:

Ladies draw:

4th round:

Ivanovic(1) def Schiavone(20)
Schnyder(12) def Chakvetadze(8)
Kuznetsova(4) def A.Radwanska(14)
SWilliams(6) def Bartoli(11)
Safina(9) def Dementieva(5)
Sharapova(3) def Petrova(21)
VWilliams(7) def Sugiyama
Jankovic(2) def Zvonareva(13)

QF:

Ivanovic(1) def Schnyder(12)
SWilliams(6) def Kuznetsova(4)
Sharapova(3) def Safina(9)
VWilliams(7) def Jankovic(2)

SF:

Ivanovic(1) def SWilliams(6)
Sharapova(3) def VWilliams(7)

Final:

Ivanovic(1) def Sharapova(3)

Men's Singles:

Federer(1) def Hewitt(20)
Ancic def Berdych(11)
Djokovic(3) def Wawrinka(13)
Karlovic(18) def Nalbandian(7)
Roddick(6) def Blake(9)
Ljubicic(26) def Mathieu(14)
Murray(12) def Grosjean
Nadal(2) def Youzhny(17)

QF:

Federer(1) def Ancic
Djokovic(3) def Karlovic(18)
Roddick(6) def Ljubicic(26)
Nadal(2) def Murray(12)

SF:

Federer(1) def Djokovic(3)
Nadal(2) def Roddick(6)

Final:

Federer(1) def Nadal(2)

So yes, not being very original but i still think that Roger is still the world's best grass court player. I hesitated to put Rafa in the final but given his strong performance in Queen's, I felt I didn't have a choice...!

Best of luck to all, it should be a great Wimbledon!!!

# posted by Pierre : 5:59 PM  2 comments