MVN - Most Valuable Network

What it’s all about…

So far, this year’s Master Series Miami is living up to the “Fifth Slam” hype.

Tennis Channel subscribers may be familiar with the little blurbs for some of their behind-the-scenes type programming, like the reality-show “No Strings”, each episode of which takes a look at the non-tennis “life” of a different ATP or WTA player. I haven’t sat through a whole episode, but I did get close with a similar special called “The Other Side - Lleyton Hewitt”, because he was trying so hard to seem cool that it came off way more funny than sad. At one point, he and his fitness coach get into a convertible, and as they speed off Lleyton looks at the camera, and says “This is what it’s all about!” A moment’s thought, and you realize the cameraman probably stayed behind just so Lleyton could deliver his big line while riding away (you know, for effect ). If it really was premeditated then the whole thing is both sadder and funnier than I at first thought.

I can mock him all I want, but Hewitt must have made an impact on me, because that expression was nowhere near my personal idiom before I saw that show last year, and now it’s the first thing that comes to mind after seeing a few days of high-quality and high-drama tennis. A cross-court forehand from Tipsarevich to close out the second set against Youzhny yesterday–at love–is what provoked it. But, I shouldn’t start there…

Rewind to the previous night, to Youzhny-Almagro on the grandstand court. Any Spanish-speaking player gets plenty of crowd support in Miami, and it was clearly getting on Youzhny’s nerves, along with Almagro’s highly angled shots, and his own errors. The Spaniard really will be a threat on the clay this year. Even back in 2005 it was clear he had the potential, but in the match against Youzhny, I saw a guy who moves the ball around the court about as well as anyone. The way he would calmly pick his spots and stick the ball wherever he wanted it to go was reminiscent of Nalbandian. He wasn’t quite driving through the backhand enough for the surface, and it cost him more than a few times against Youzhny’s own one-hander–which is an ideal hard-court weapon–but he was certainly moving the Russian every which way.

Almagro lost the first set in a breaker, but came back and took the second 6-3. Both players had trouble holding serve all night, getting drawn into a long rally seemingly every other point (the best of these, with Youzhny showing off his athleticism and touch at net, is up at the top of this post). By the time it got to be 4-4 in the third, the number of break-points both players had had was implausibe–twenty-one for Almagro, and fourteen for Youzhny–but both were converting only about 25% of those, and all those missed opportunities were weighing heavily on them. Youzhny was clearly sick of the heat and the endless rallying–sick of the match period–and going for his shots more, determined not to let the young Spaniard dictate to him on his own favorite surface. When he gave up the break on a series of forced and unforced errors, Almagro let out a “Come on!” that would have done Hewitt proud, and kept it going loudly for five or ten seconds. Youzhny skulked off the court in disgust and then started to harangue one of the ball-boys.

The next game would go to a couple of deuces, with Youzhny blowing his first break-point on a careless error. He began to berate himself in that manic, rich, gushing way that Safin always used to–and that, all night, had been reminding me how Russian is far-and-away the best language for self-torment–when he took it a step further and started hitting himself in the head with his racquet. I’m sure you guys have all seen the footage on YouTube by now (if not, I’ve embedded it below), the motion is familiar from countless players, except you can see that Youzhny’s putting more energy into than most. He also must have caught himself on the scalp with the frame, because a few seconds later a generous stream of blood is flowing down his face, and he actually has to go sit on the bench and get the bleeding to stop–now he really needs that towel he was bugging the ball-boys for a couple minutes ago. It seems to calm him down, though, at least. He comes back and rips a winner on the next point, manages to get the break, and ends up coming from 2-4 down in the tiebreaker to take the match, afterwards giving the crowd his customary four-ways salute, but adding a few expletives for the Hispanic cheering section. The new Marat (crossed with Rios?)…

Tipsarevich’s win over Johansson earlier in the day had, by contrast, been about as clinical as anything can be with the weirdo Serb. Having missed the Federer five-set epic in Australia (it was the middle of the night and Federer was playing Tipsarevich, why watch?…), I’d seen some flashes of quality from him in the past, but nothing like brilliance. He completely blanked out Johansson, though, hitting so cleanly you could tell just by the sound, which were his shots (Debra, if you happen to be reading, try to catch Tipsarevich’s match tomorrow night against Davydenko, and–from both sides of the court–you’re guaranteed to hear the ball struck very sweetly). I also liked that he sun-glassed his customary goggles for the Miami conditions, which gives his lingering, thoughtful pre-service motion a zoned Ray Charles-look. Had to feel good, too, for all the rabid Serbs in the crowd, who made the trip in a Djokovic-inspired rapture, and were unexpectedly getting the goods from Tipsarevich that he had failed to deliver.

Yesterday’s match with Youzhny was just one of many I wanted to see on the schedule, with Henin-Serena heading that list. But Serena brutalized her–it felt about as competitive as Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. the salamander. I’m not going to try to make an excuse for Henin, her own admission that her balls were landing too short but she didn’t have the “courage” to put more on them pretty much sums it up, as does the fact that Serena even played better defense than Justine. The world No. 1 did manage to win a point or two on her second serve, though…

So, with that disappointment out of the way, I was even more excited to see Janko continue his run–for some reason I didn’t even think of it as an “if”. Some work stuff prevented me from catching the first set, and I was fairly surprised to see Youzhny had won it. But the superhuman version of Tipsarevich came out in the second set, assaulting Youzhny from inside the baseline, behind the baseline, the net, everywhere, shaking him up enough to force a lot of errors, and capping the set with the best shot of all, a forehand winner to an open corner, hit with some deceptive combination of pace and spin that wasn’t at all apparent until it struck the court and the rocketed away–about twice as good as it needed to be seeing as Youzhny was nowhere near it.

There’s something especially convincing about winning a set or a match with an extraordinary shot, so, of course, Janko would immediately get into trouble as he served to start off the third set. But he fought his way out of it, and immediately started putting pressure back on Youzhny. Youzhny held tough, though, hitting out continually as he had done with the last impudent youngster, refusing to be bullied as he had in the second set. Tipsarevich wasn’t able to reassert himself to that degree, but he played well enough on a few big points to get the break, and, unlike Almagro, showed enough of the Wilander-approved essential tennis attributes to serve out the match.

Janko gets Davydenko tomorrow night, who seemingly went for the lines on every ball in his win against Ancic, but will have to miss a lot less if he wants to take out Tipsarevich. I don’t believe the kid is going to fold. Davydenko will have to beat him, and I don’t think he’ll be able to. The men’s quarterfinals are mostly pick ‘ems. I was all ready to pick Roddick over Federer, but he’s dropped a set each this week to Warburg and Benneteau (okay, maybe Benneteau was playing well; I didn’t see it), and I just don’t know what kind of form Federer’s in, but the fact that the match isn’t a foregone conclusion is already a moral victory for Andy. In Blake, Nadal also faces an opponent who’s largely owned him, but he was able to notch his first win against him at Indian Wells, and his motivation has to be even higher now than usual with Djokovic’s early exit amid all the drama at the top of the rankings. Still, Blake’s game matches up very well against his on hard courts, even slow ones. Tonight’s sleeper quarterfinal is Berdych-Andreev. Berdych has been devastating all tournament, only once giving up more than two games in a set, and he’s faced some respectable competition: Querrey, Ferrero, Tursunov. I won’t dare even suggest he might be ready to…No, I won’t. Instead I’ll worry that the Andreev match could be a big problem for him precisely because it should be no problem for him.

In the women’s quarters Jankovic has already passed through over an injured Dementieva. With all the hype–not to mention results–Ivanovic has been getting lately, now would be a good time for Jankovic to remind the tennis world that there are two Serbian women near the top of the game. She has to be salivating over her semi-final opponent. It will be either Zvonareva or Safina. Safina has dominated her fellow Muscovite in the past, but Zvonareva did get a win over her earlier in the year. Safina also took out Davenport, while Zvonareva hasn’t had any really notable wins so far this week. Safina will probably win it, but I’m writing Jankovic into the final against…Serena, where here own serve will be the liability.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am and is filed under Janko Tipsarevic, Marat Safin, James Blake, Tomas Berdych, Thomas Johansson, Mario Ancic, Nicolas Almagro, Dmitry Tursunov, Mikhail Youzhny, Roger Federer, AMS Miami, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Nikolay Davydenko, Australian Open. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.