Today is the first official day of the 2011 grass court season and it’s not a bad one. The two main warm up events for Wimbledon are as usual Queens and Halle. The big question is of course which stars will come to play after a long and testing French Open, Federer (Halle), Nadal (Queens) especially. But even if they don’t participate we should be in for quite a treat. The first day action offers: Nieminen vs Lu – Â Lu had an amazing Wimbledon last year, but we haven’t seen much good from either player of late. I would say …
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Ljubicic
Yes, today at Roland Garros it was pretty much business as usual. At least for five time champion and world number one Rafael Nadal who won his match against Antonio Veic, losing only four games. Djokovic vs Del Potro was resumed and Djokovic resumed business being the invincible man and won today’s two sets 6-3 6-2 against a seemingly frustrated Del Potro. It’s hard to see how anyone except for Nadal can stop Djokovic in this tournament. Soderling and Simon both won their matches in straights and looked pretty impressive, but although they are both in good form it’s hard …
Well, there’s not much excitement in predicting today’s matches. Troicki vs Ferrer Ferrer has played great tennis at the start of the year with a semi-final at Australian Open and a win at Heineken open. He is as usual in great shape and forces his opponents to come up with some pretty fantastic tennis to win a point. Troicki is a talented player that’s definitely on the rise, but I think he will have a hard time against “The Wall” and lose in straights. Federer vs Melzer Melzer was very impressive against Almagro yesterday, but Federer breezed through Cilic and …
Found this on erikzona.com: James Blake. One of the most exciting players on the ATP tour. Explosive power, great personality, sportsmanship, fantastic returns and a killer forehand. Always positive. Always going for the lines. He sure is exciting, James, but not so much anymore. Yesterday he played a miserable match against Denis Istomin and lost 3-6 0-6 after making tons of unforced errors. No wonder James has been talking about retirement. What goes through his head there when he tries to make a winner on every other shot? Why doesn’t he change his game plan? Just hit the ball in …
After a rain-filled yesterday, the matches today have been of extremely high class. Some highlights and thoughts: I am happy short Italian Fognini beat Monfils after that darkness debacle. They should have stopped at 4-4. You can’t play if you can’t see the ball. But Monfils got the crowd all wired up and they started booing at Fognini for every point he won. It was a weird match that ended with Fognini winning the 5th set 9-7 the next day. The Ukrainian junior Dolgopolov is a great talent and a very skilled clay court player. I am not that surprised …
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 …
