Tennis Chatter

I have been reading a lot about the possible match fixing problem in tennis at present and it seems to be a very hot topic.

Andy Murray has claimed this week that there is a lot of corruption and match fixing in tennis at the top level today. The BBC has also quoted Tim Henman as saying he has heard other players in the game talking about match fixing but never been involved himself.

Roger Federer has said to Tennis.com that in Miami the ATP organised a presentation by ex-Mafia boss Michael Franzese to talk to the players about the dangers of becoming involved in gambling. Roger stated ” When I went into the meeting, I was kind of, ‘what the hell?’ What he said was interesting and scary at the same time.”

It is hard to think that match fixing is not in Tennis. The matches themselves are very tight and it is nearly impossible to tell if a player is making mistakes and tanking deliberately. It has always amazed me that when prizemoney is so low and there are a lot of players losing week in week out, but somehow being able to play all the tournament, fly their and stay in the top hotels! Its a bit suspicious.

What do you think about it all??

Hello. My name is Steven and I am the new editor of Tennis Chatter for 451Press. I thought I would write a little post introducing myself and what I do.

Away from Tennis, currently I am CEO of a new Media Group (Insomnia) that owns music studios and will be launching our first online service in the coming months, RouteNote. I also write my own weblog at Crenk, which showcases my online and offline life.

Now Tennis. I have been playing tennis since I was 12. I am from Australia where sport is a very influential part of our society and tennis was my passion for so many years. When I was 16 i was amongst the top players in my state in Australia and played the Australia junior circuit which included the Australian Open Juniors. When I was 18 i made the decision to stay in Australia and complete a uni degree instead of moving to the USA to play college tennis. Once completed I moved to France to play European club tennis, when i played over there for several years. I am very good friends with some of Australia’s best tennis players and know several people within Tennis Australia personally. Now I am 24 and have stopped playing tennis professionally and have settled into a role in the business world.

Im here to write about my thoughts on tennis and the players that are at the top of the game and hopefully show you all an insight into the world of professional tennis that you might have not heard or experienced. I hope you like my new weblog, Tennis Chatter.

Right after finishing with one of the most exciting tournaments in a recent memory (Montreal), it seems like, apart from Federer, almost everyone is too worn out to have a good showing in Cincinnati. Questions about Roddick’s form have reappeared after his failing to make quarterfinals and losing to Ferrer 7-6, 6-4. Roddick had three set points in the first set, and failed to capitalize on any of them. Apparently Jimmy Connors (his coach) was not happy. Roddick said:

“I talked to him; Jimmy’s not happy,”

“He goes, ‘I don’t care it you lose 0 (and) 0, but do it with what we’ve been working on and do it the right way.’ I couldn’t agree with him more. He’s right. I didn’t work on anything out there. I didn’t get any better in a loss, and that’s probably the most annoying part.”

Djokovic also fell out of the tournament early after his fantastic performance beating Roddick, Nadal, and Federer at Montreal. Djokovic lost his first round to Carlos Moya, 6-4, 6-1. Djokovic credited his loss to exhaustion, stating:

“I felt a bit tired and didn’t have enough time to prepare for this tournament,�?

A lot of questions have been raised about having two Masters Events played back to back. It was the same story with Indian Wells and Miami earlier this year. It seems to be having an effect on the players’ preparation and stamina, as Gasquet retired to Hewitt and Nadal (one of the fittest players on the tour) retired to J. Monaco.

With Berdych’s loss to Davydenko and Baghdatis’ loss to Federer this looks to be a tournament of veterans. Former slam champions and world numbers ones Moya and Hewitt met in quarters, with Hewitt emerging victorious 6-2, 6-4. He will probably (apart from an upset) meet Federer in semifinals.

On the other side of the bracket, there is an interesting quarterfinal match-up between two Americans, Sam Querrey and James Blake. James Blake has played well so far this tournament, beating former French Open champion Ferrero. Blake thought he served well against Ferrero saying:

“I think that’s two matches in a row (for me) without getting broken,”

“For me that’s a great thing since I don’t normally have an overpowering serve or a serve that gets me a ton of free points.”

He’s going to need his serve to beat 19 year old Querrey. The last time they played was at Indianapolis a few weeks ago, when Querrey upset Blake, hitting ten aces. Althoughth Querrey hasn’t establish himself as a legit contender like Nadal and Djokovic, Blake believes Querrey has a bright future ahead of him.

“I think he’s got tons still to improve, which is probably scary to a lot of the guys that are in the middle of their career and are planning on seeing him for a long time,” Blake said. “He’s a good kid and I think he’s got a lot of improving to do, even though he’s already top 60 in the world.

“I think it’s just going to keep rising. I don’t want to put too much pressure on him because that’s unnecessary. But in my opinion he’s got a great future.”

Querrey:

To see complete Cincinnati results click here.

Here are the current ATP US Open Series standings:

1. Andy Roddick (USA) 112
2. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 100
3. (T) Roger Federer (SUI) 95*
Radek Stepanek (CZE) 95
5. James Blake (USA) 72*
6. Frank Dancevic (CAN) 60
7. (T) Nikolay Davydenko (RUS) 50*
Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) 50*
Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) 50
10. Sam Querrey (USA) 47*

If Federer wins his quarterfinals match he will take the lead, with 20 additional points award for a semifinal appearance.

Finally, there is an interesting article here about Federer giving Nadal a ride in his private jet to Cincinnati. How nice.

In my post yesterday, I predicted that Federer, Stepanek, Djokovic, and Nadal would win their matches in the Rogers Cup quarterfinals. Guess what? Federer, Stepanek, Djokovic, and Nadal won their matches in the Rogers Cup quarterfinals (although my predictions were off on the set counts somewhat). The semifinal match ups are as follows: Federer vs. Stepanek and Nadal vs. Djokovic. Federer should win his match easily, however the Nadal vs. Djokovic match up is much more interesting. Both players are very young and are viewed to be the future of tennis.

This year Nadal and Djokovic have played each other five times. In those matches Nadal was 4-1. However if you remove clay from the picture, head to head this year Nadal leads 2-1. Two of those matches were on hard court (Indian Wells and Miami) and one of them on grass (Wimbledon). In fact I’d say you could remove the Wimbledon match, because Djokovic had to retire due exhaustion and injury after winning the first set. Clearly Nadal and Djokovic match up very well off of clay. Both of them are very strong off of the ground and can move forward to the net. I’d say Djokovic has a better serve and backhand (very close), while Nadal might edge Djokovic in the forehand category (although not by much, especially off of clay). Both are similar at the net, yet Nadal is undeniably better at passing shots. Finally Nadal has an advantage with his mentality. Despite this, I’m picking Djokovic to win this match, and I think he’ll hold a winning record against Nadal on hard courts throughout his career. Hard courts neutralize some of Nadal’s spin potential and they don’t offer the variability of natural surfaces that Nadal is so good at reacting to. Regardless of who wins, this should be a great match and preview many more to come.

Federer vs. Hewitt

Roger continues his solid form and his historical dominance of Hewitt (anyone remember 6-0, 7-6, 6-0 2004 US Open final?) to win in two sets.

Davydenko vs. Stepanek

Stepanek rides the momentum from his wins against Gonzalez (sixth seed) and Haas (12th seed) to upset Davydenko in three sets.

vs.
Roddick vs. Djokovic

Djokovic manages to return Roddick’s serve, and handily dominates Roddick in baseline rallies with his great ground game to move into semifinals. However, it takes three sets, as Roddick pushes one of the sets to a tiebreaker and wins the breaker.

Nadal vs. Dancevic

Nadal stops the Canadian’s run in two sets, utilizing his great defense to neutralize Dancevic’s game and dishing out amounts of top spin never seen before in Montreal.

Andy Roddick took a good step in regaining his confidence last Sunday when he defeated fellow American John Isner 6-4, 7-6 in the final of the Legg Mason Tournament. The match showcased great serving as Roddick hit 14 aces and Isner hit 12. Isner (ranked 416 in the world at the beginning of the tournament) had a great run at the tournament, defeating Becker, Haas, and Monfils on his way to finals. Isner is an American version of Ivo Karlovic, being 6′ 9″ tall and hitting 144 aces over the course of the tournament. However Roddick served great in finals, and won the points that mattered the most (namely in the first set tie break and managing to break Isner in the second set). This is Roddick’s third Legg Mason Classic title, and couldn’t have come at a better time. Hopefully he’ll be able to take some momentum from this win into the Rogers Cup Masters this week.

Here are the current US Opens Series standings:

1. Andy Roddick (USA) 72
2. (T) Radek Stepanek (CZE) 50
Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) 50
4. James Blake (USA) 47
5. Hyung-Taik Lee (KOR) 46
6. (T) Frank Dancevic (CAN) 35
John Isner (USA) 35
8. Marat Safin (RUS) 24
9. (T) Ivo Karlovic (CRO) 22
Nicolas Kiefer (GER) 22
Gael Monfils (FRA) 22
Sam Querrey 22

And here is the WTA US Open Series standings:

1. Maria Sharapova (RUS) 100
2. Anna Chakvetadze (RUS) 95
3. Patty Schnyder (SUI) 82
4. Sania Mirza (IND) 60
5. Elena Dementieva (RUS) 45
6. Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) 37
7. Katarina Srebotnik (SLO) 27
8. (T) Maria Kirilenko (RUS) 25
Nadia Petrova (RUS) 25
Venus Williams (USA) 25

Finally, if you have some free time you should check out this gallery. It’s a gallery of various ATP players on the catwalk at a fashion show hosted by the Rogers Cup. Some of the players pictured are Blake and Djokovic.

The WTA recently introduced a new statistic called the “Power Index.” The purpose of the statistic is to see how powerful the women’s game has become, and to compare the power of different players. According to AHN:

The stat is figured by combining a player’s fastest groundstroke (forehand or backhand), first and second serves, first and second serve returns and smash or volley into one score.

The statistic was first measured at the Acura Cup last week and showed Venus to be the most powerful women player with a 94.5 mph average of the measured strokes.

The top four players were as follows:

1. Venus Williams 94.5 mph
2. Maria Kirilenko 92.7 mph
3. Victoria Azarenka 92.3 mph
4. Maria Sharapova 90.5 mph

This morning when I was flipping through channels something caught my eye. On the Today Show, they featured Jan Silva, a five year old “tennis prodigy.” Jan is quickly becoming one of the most exciting (extremely young) tennis prospects in a while.His parents were fans of tennis and passed on their interest in the game to their son.

When it became clear that there son was very good at a young age (at four he competed with players several years older than him), the Silvas sold everything they owned and moved to France. They initially looked into sending their son to the well-known Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida; the academy of such stars as Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Maria Sharapova, and Jelena Jankovic. However the academy was wary of providing a scholarship to such a young player. Instead Jan is attending the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France. Inadvertently, I think the Silvas may have just made the best decision possible for their son. The Bollettieri Tennis Academy generally embraces a baseline bashing style of tennis opposed to the French, which traditionally embrace more of an all court style (just look at Gasquet). I believe learning tennis in France, will benefit Jan in the future to be successful on all courts. Americans recently haven’t had much success on clay, whereas in France, Jan will play on clay a lot, getting experience at a younger age. Plus a lot of tennis coaches say that if you can learn to hit winners on (slow) clay (like Gasquet, Federer, and Nadal), you can hit winners on any other (faster) surface. The all court style already shows, as Jan showed a very good onehanded backhand, along with good volleys on the Today Show. In fact, I thought his onehander looked like his best shot.

The other issue to consider is his young age. A lot of kids change their interests as they grow up or are just early bloomers. Perhaps Jan’s talent will be much less impressive in a few years, as other players catch up. And what if he decides he doesn’t like tennis? Five is an early age to already know what you want to do. Finally if the media starts picking up this story, pressure and expectations will build. There are hundreds of stories of young stars not living up to their hype (across all sports). His parents say they think he is well adjusted, but five is far too young of an age to determine that. If he makes it through all these obstacles Jan’s father thinks he has a great chance to go pro. His father said:

I think there’s a pretty good chance of him going all the way

If you want to read NBC’s story or view the video clip of him playing, click here.

The United States Open is the last grand slam tournament of the year. It is held on hard court, along with all the tournaments prior to it during the US Open series. Switching from grass to hard court is not as big of a transition as switching from clay to grass, but their are still some differences. “Traditionally” grass is considered a faster and more unpredictable surface that the hard courts at the US Open. However, some believe that Wimbledon has slowed down its courts recently. This may be true, but I still believe that it is faster surface than players will experience in Flushing Meadows, NY. Hard court provides a more predictable bounce, taking away some of the advantages of slicing on grass, but doesn’t allow the shoulder high top spin shots that clay does. It is kind of in between the two surfaces, allowing top spin or flat hitters to find success. Hard courts are often favorites of players with a lot of power and solid baseline games (Blake, Safin, Gonzalez etc). A players movement is usually different on hard courts, also. The final thing to note, is that the US Open is the second grand slam held on hard court (the Australian Open is the first). However, the US Open is considered a faster surface, than the Australian.

Contenders

Roger Federer

A favorite to win pretty much every tournament he enters, Federer looks set to win his fourth US Open. He has won the this tournament consecutively the last three years, and rarely been challenged. In addition he has eight masters titles on hard court. He can out play anyone from the baseline with his enormous forehand and very good backhand. His biggest threat is Nadal, however Nadal has never made it past the quarterfinal of the US Open.

Rafael Nadal

Right out of a Wimbledon final appearance, Nadal is looking to make a run at the US Open. Nadal has had his worst results at the US Open of the all grand slams so far during his career. He doesn’t move quite as well on hard courts as he does on natural courts, and his top spin forehand doesn’t bounce as high. As a result he can be overpowered by the many players who excel on hard courts.

Novak �?oković

Djokovic is a great pick to have success at the US Open. He had semifinal appearances at the French Open and Wimbledon, along with a quarterfinal appearance at the Australian Open. In addition he won his first masters event this year on hard court (Miami). He has an extremely solid ground game, with good power. He is adept all around the court, and I would probably pick him over Nadal if they were to meet.

Nikolay Davydenko

Davydenko has a semifinal appearance at the US Open (last year) and not much else. He is solid baseline player, who can take the ball on the rise. However, he is strongest on clay and slow hard courts and can be overpowered by bigger players. He could be a good pick for quarterfinals depending on his draw.

Andy Roddick

I don’t know what to expect from Roddick this year. He excels on hard courts, with four masters events and three quarterfinal appearance, a final appearance, and a championship at the US Open. However, he has been in a bit of a lull lately. He hasn’t been very mentally tough, was upset last week in Indianapolis. If he is on, he could beat any of the players I’ve mentioned so far, but Federer. If not, he could exit the tournament early.

Fernando González-Gonzalez has a great forehand and good power, however he hasn’t had very good results this year since his finals appearance at the Australian.

Richard Gasquet-As Roddick well knows, Gasquet is always a threat. He has a aggressive game, great backhand, and good court intelligence that can succeed on any surface. He threatened Federer at Toronto last year, however he has inconsistent results.

Tomáš Berdych-Berdych is very strong off the baseline and loves hard courts.

James Blake-Blake has appeared in the quarterfinals of the US Open the last two years. He moves well on hard courts and is very powerful. However, he hasn’t had great success lately.

Other players to watch out for:

Andy Murrary-semifinal appearances at Indian Wells and Miami
Marat Safin-won the US Open in 2000
Tommy Haas
Mikhail Youzhny
Marcos Baghdatis
Lleyton Hewitt

F. Dancevic (Canada) defeated A. Roddick today, 6-4, 7-6, in the semifinals of the Indianapolis Tennis Championships. Roddick only served 47% first serves and looked somewhat flat during his match. Afterwards he said:

“I didn’t have much to give out there,”

“I wish I had a reason for you. I don’t know why. I wasn’t feeling that well.”

This loss poses the question if Roddick has lost it. He hasn’t had great results so far this year, getting destroyed this year by Federer at the Australian Open, losing in the first round of the French Open, and losing to Gasquet in quarterfinals of Wimbledon after getting up 2 sets to none. Sure, he had a tight win over N. Mahut at Queens and made it to semifinals of the Australian, but he is far from winning the second grand slam he covets. And he isn’t getting any younger either. Roddick will be 25 this August and soon will have to start competing more with up and coming stars like Murray, Gasquet, Djokovic, Baghdatis, and (of course) Nadal. In addition Federer will always be around. I see this US Open Series as a crucial time for Roddick. Currently I think he has what it takes to best everyone but Federer on hard courts (when he’s not having terrible losses to unseeded Canadian players), but not for much longer. However, the question is: Is he mentally in it? This article suggests that Roddick is still brewing over his Wimbledon loss. What do you think? Do you think Roddick has what it takes to post good results at the US Open? I understand that he has little chance of beating Federer, but right now it looks like it’d be a practical walkover for Federer.

The United States Open series (at least the men’s side) kicked off last week with the Countrywide Classic tournament held in LA. The series is a six week long “hardcourt” season of tennis held prior to the US Open grand slam tournament. It was first organized in 2004 to promote tennis in the United States. This week features the Indianapolis Tennis Championships (men) and Bank of the West Classic (women). The full schedule can be found here. The series also features two ATP Masters Events (commonly known as Cincinnati Masters and Canada Masters) and two WTA Tier I Events (Acura Classic and Canada Masters). The US Open series is significant, because it is the warm-up season for the US Open and the winner of the series gets their prize money at the US Open doubled. In 2004, Lindsay Davenport became the first (and only) player to get her $1.1 million for winning the US Open doubled. The $2.2 million she received was the highest pay-out ever in women’s sports. Last year Andy Roddick won the series for the men, and Ana Ivanovic for the women.

The US Open Series gets more coverage than any other tennis season in America. According to its website, the series will get:

More than 100 hours of live, national TV coverage on ESPN2, NBC and CBS (see schedule, page 17), including back-to-back live tournament finals on Sunday. In addition, there will be more than 100 hours of additional US Open Series coverage on The Tennis Channel.

To read the entire US Open preview from its website, click here.

To see the television schedule, click here.

The current men’s standings are as follows: (no standings for the women yet)

1. Radek Stepanek (CZE) 50
2. James Blake (USA) 35
3. Nicolas Kiefer (GER) 22
Hyung-Taik Lee (KOR) 22
5. Michael Berrer (GER) 12
Zack Fleishman (USA) 12
Marat Safin (RUS) 12
Vincent Spadea (USA) 12

In the next few days expect more coverage of the US Open series, and some previews for both the ATP and WTA hard court season.

Nadal wins sixth title

Rafael Nadal won his sixth title of the year, taking down Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 7-5, in the Stuttgart Cup final. With this he is 93 out of 94 on clay since April 2005. His only loss came this year to Roger Federer at Hamburg.

Springfield Lasers attempt to go undefeated

With a win tonight over the Sacramento Capitals, the Springfield Lasers would be only the second WTT team to go undefeated for an entire season. They’ve had several tough matches, yet they’ve pulled through all of them thanks to great results by their female players (Tamarine Tanasugarn is the top ranked female player in the league), and some timely wins by their men’s singles player: Martin Verkerk.

Blake, Roddick drop in ATP rankings

Both James Blake and Andy Roddick dropped in ATP rankings this week. Roddick didn’t play last week, and Blake was upset in the Countrywide Classic final by Radek Stepanek 7-6, 5-7, 6-2. Here are this week’s top ten rankings:

1. (1) Roger Federer, Switzerland, 7,290 points;

2. (2) Rafael Nadal, Spain, 5,455;

3. (3) Novak Djokovic, Serbia, 3,245;

4. (5) Nikolay Davydenko, Russia, 3,175;

5. (4) Andy Roddick, United States, 3,130;

Click here!

6. (6) Fernando Gonzalez, Chile, 2,770;

7. (7) Tommy Robredo, Spain, 2,085;

8. (8) Richard Gasquet, France, 2,085;

9. (11) Tommy Haas, Germany, 2,035;

10. (9) James Blake, United States, 1,995. - Sapa-dpa

Countrywide Classic

James Blake is through to the semifinals of the Countrywide Classic in LA. His opponent is Hyung-Taik Lee. On the other side of the bracket is Radek Stepanek vs. Nicolas Kiefer. I look for Kiefer and Blake to win semifinals, and Blake to win in finals. Blake has had a little of an off year in 2007, but the Countrywide Classic is played on hardcourt, Blake’s best surface.

Mercedes Cup

Nadal looks poised to win another title this week at the Mercedes Open. He is in semifinals, set to play Feliciano Lopez. The Mercedes Open is played on clay, giving Nadal a huge advantage. On the other side of the draw is Juan Ignacio Chela vs. Stanislas Wawrinka. I don’t see either of them giving Nadal much trouble, should he beat Lopez and play one of them in finals.

On a side note, I’m not quite sure why Nadal is playing a clay court tournament. I would think he would be trying to play as many hardcourt tournaments as possible to prepare for the US Open (even though there is still plenty of time before the Open).

Emerson: “Federer not the G.O.A.T.”

Ok…maybe I am exaggerating a little bit with the title, but Roy Emerson came awfully close to saying that Federer can’t be considered the greatest of all time until he wins the French Open. Emerson, who has won 12 grand slams, expects the Swiss to overcome his record AND Pete Sampras’s (of 14) before he retires. Despite this, he said that Federer will always have lots of doubters, unless he bags the much eluded clay major before his career is over.

“I think there will be a lot of tennis purists who would say that unless Federer can win the French then he’s not a complete player, because he hasn’t won the one on clay yet,”

“Personally I thought his big chance of winning the French was this year, especially after he finally managed to beat Nadal on clay just before in Hamburg.”

“It’s clear though that Federer is awfully good,” Emerson added.

Does someone who has been as dominant as Federer deserve to simply known as “awfully good” whenever he retires? Of course not. I can see a simple way to fix this. Nadal-just let up a little bit next year. Try not to return EVERY ball. Let Federer have his piece of the French pie. Seriously though, wouldn’t everything become easier to decide if Federer just stepped up his game for one final, and took the title he covets so much? Then we could lay to rest this “G.O.A.T.” debate. At least until Nadal retires with 25 majors. All of them won in Paris.

Davenport prepares a comeback

Lindsay Davenport is prepared to return to professional tennis. She “unofficially” retired last December when she stated that she couldn’t imagine coming back to tennis after the birth of her child (born June 10). Despite this she announced yesterday that she planned to enter the Pilot Pen to play doubles with Lisa Raymond.

Rodionova disqualified from Cincinnati Open

Anastasia Rodionova defaulted her match Tuesday, when she hit a tennis ball at a group of fans. With her disqualification Angelique Kerber won the match 4-6, 6-4, 1-0. Rodionova was “shocked” at the chair umpire’s decision, stating that:

“I still don’t understand why they defaulted me. I’m really upset. I’ve never seen in my life anyone defaulted in this situation. I had no warning. I didn’t hit the ball at anybody. I didn’t swear at anybody. I didn’t throw my racket.”

She is only the second player ever on the WTA tour to default a match.

After their appearence in the Wimbledon final, R. Nadal and R. Federer were the first two players to qualify for the year end Masters Cup held in Shanghai. The Masters Cup is a end of the year tournament, comprised of the top eight players in the world. The players compete in a two section round robin form of a tournament. The top two players from each section then advance to play a player from the other section in semifinals. It is a way to directly compare all of the top eight players, as they will being facing off against other top eight players in three to five matches. Roger Federer should be a clear favorite heading into the tournament as it is on a faster hard court surface. In addition he won the event in 2003, 2004, and 2006. He was the runner-up to David Nalbanian in 2005.

With their Wimbledon finals appearence the Bryan Brothers qualified to the Masters Cup in doubles.