It was almost scripted. After two epic five set matches in the previous slams (Australian Open and U.S. Open 2013), a third one was almost too good to be true. Yet, the tennis Gods smiles on us one more time and Djokovic and Wavrinka gave us another treat. This time it was Wavrinka’s turn to emerge victorious in a beautiful 2-6 6-2 6-4 3-6 9-7 display of tennis drama which gave him a place in the semi-finals vs Tomas Berdych (not an impossible opponent). That’s all I have for now. Looking forward to the other quarters: Federer vs Murray and …
wavrinka
It feels like a deserving duo in the Madrid Open final. Wavrinka has played amazing tennis of late, he won Portugal Open, beating Ferrer in the final and yesterday he came back from a break down in the final set to defeat Berdych 6-3 4-6 6-4. Nadal, well what can you say? He has played seven tournaments since his long injury time-out and he’s been in seven finals. A stunning record! Now he’s obviously the big-time favorite in the final. But no matter what happens in the final, still an impressive tournament performance by Wavrinka. He’s been knocking on the …
What a line-up we have at Madrid Open (formerly Madrid Masters) today. We have lots of top players in action, Nadal, Federer, Murray Ferrer, Berdych, Tsonga, to name a few. The most interesting match-ups in my mind is another battle of the double-handed backhanders (yesterday we had Tommy Robredo vs Tommy Haas in a well-played match) with young hot-shot Grigor Dimitrov taking on Stanislas Wavrinka, in-form Tommy Haas playing clay-demon David Ferrer and hard-hitters Verdasco and Tsonga pairing up in a heavyweight contest. Federer and Nadal are also playing of course, but as a heavy favorites. Murray and Simon will …
A lot of people are retiring during matches at the moment and it seems like we’re in some kind of injury period on the ATP Tour. Although clay can be more body-friendly to move on, the long rallies and matches (less reliance on the serve for example) really takes a toll for a lot of the players. But let’s not dwell on injuries and instead look at what happened in Rome yesterday. Little Italian man Fabio Fognini tired pretty much EVERYTHING to beat Wavrinka, but it didn’t work out for him. At least he got a set. Italian players seems …
I love the one-handed backhand. It is a beautiful stroke and great players can make it look effortless. Among the strongest on the tour are Gasquet, Justin-Henin (WTA, but who cares, it is spectacular), Olivier Rochus, Federer, Wavrinka, Ljubicic, Kohlschreiber and I probably forget someone. Sadly, I can’t hit it as well myself but today I could look forward to two backhand greats in Olivier Rochus and Richard Gasquet battle it out. Gasquet was once called Baby Federer because of his great all-court, all-shot game, but now he is just potential never unleashed and known for kissing a girl who …