Czechmate

Tomas Berdych is a terminal underachiever, in my uneducated opinion. He's a fabulous player and he's really shot up the ATP rankings since the match that really made his career, which was when he defeated Federer in the second round of the Athens Olympics in 2004. He's got a great style and because he's so tall and lanky, he's got this huge wingspan at the net... and yet he hasn't quite realised his potential yet.

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Berdych is one of those players that is solid in the top twenty, but only ever fleetingly appears in the top ten. I think he has the talent to get into the top ten and stays there, but it just never seems to quite happen for him. In 2005, when Federer and Nadal took out eight out the nine Masters Series events, it was Berdych who took out the remaining one (AMS Paris), but he hasn't really lived up to this potential. You see him frequently in the round of sixteen at the Slams, but I don't think I can remember seeing him in the quarters, and that's really a bit sad. He's got all this talent, but something always seems to get in the way.

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Like today. The Czech Republic totally could have taken out the USA today, but Berdych was sick. Not that that's his fault or anything, but it was really sad. I'm disinclined to root for the USA after the whole Serena incident, and so it was really disappointing that Berdych had to pull out. I thought that his girlfriend, Lucie Safarova, played a great match against Serena (disastrous first set aside). Like Berdych, Safarova is rolling in potential. She halved her ranking last year, and I'd love to see her halve in again this year. She's ranked 23 at the moment. I think she can entrench herself pretty firmly in the top twenty by the end of 2008.

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But alas, the Czech Republic is now pretty much out of contention for the Hopman final. I hope the USA doesn't make it... I'm still in a snit about the Serena incident. Meanwhile, did anyone see what she was wearing today? Worst tennis outfit I have ever seen. Ever. And I've been watching for a while. Serena's pulled out some shockers before, but this one really took the cake. I don't know what she was thinking.

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Today's Results

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Hopman Cup (Perth)

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France def. Argentina, 2-1

Golovin/Clement def. Dulko/Chela, 6-3 6-2

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USA def. Czech Republic, 3-0

Serena Williams def. Lucie Safarova, 6-0 2-6 7-5

Mardy Fish def. Tomas Berdych, walkover

Williams/Fish def. Safarova/Berdych, 6-0 ret.

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Mondial Australian Women's Hardcourts (Gold Coast)

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Tathiana Garbin def. Nadia Petrova, 5-7 7-5 6-3

Patty Schnyder def. Alisa Kleybanova, 6-1 6-3

Yuliana Fedak def. Agnes Szavay, 3-6 7-5 6-2

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ASB Classic (Auckland)

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Katarina Srebotnik def. Anastasia Rodionova, 6-0 3-0 ret.

Anabel Medina Garrigues def. Nicole Pratt, 7-6 (7-3) 6-3

Tamira Paszek def. Yanina Wickmayer, 7-6 (9-7) 6-1

Ashley Harkleroad def. Emilie Loit, 6-4 6-1

Lindsay Davenport def. Laura Granville, 6-2 6-3

Klara Zakopalova def. Meilen Tu, 6-3 7-5

Yvonne Meusburger def. Akiko Morigami, 7-5 6-0

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Next Generation Adelaide International (Adelaide)

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Michael Llodra def. Gilles Simon, 7-6 (7-3) 6-3

Joseph Sirianni def. Radek Stepanek, 7-6 (7-3) 4-3 ret.

Michael Russell def. Juan Martin del Potro, 6-3 6-3

Sam Querrey def. Steve Darcis, 7-5 6-4

Benjamin Becker def. Robert Smeets, 3-6 6-4 6-2

Mischa Zverev def. Florian Mayer, 6-3 6-3

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PS. It's great to see the Adelaide International back as a proper knock out tournament this year. That round robin stuff they had last year was RUBBISH.

Power play

My righteous anger over the Serena Williams/Meghann Shaughnessy debacle has abated a little - a bit of research shows that Shaughnessy is off to play the tournament in the Gold Coast next week, and dropped in to cover for Serena as a favour. But still, I think it's extremely poor form of Serena. Mild illness... forgive me, but that's hardly an impressive excuse.
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I actually sat down and watched a match from beginning to end today - the first for the '08 season! Jelena Jankovic versus Hsieh Su-Wei... it was actually really interesting. I like Jankovic and I like the way she plays but I was gunning for Hsieh from the start - not because she's an underdog and I'm wired to go for her (like all good Australians are supposed to be) but because she had this really unusual game that I found really appealing.
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Jankovic is 3 in the world. Hsieh is 157. Hsieh had nothing to lose - and she was really going for it, especially in the first couple of games. She was actually up an early break in the first, but then it was like she got all nervous when she was ahead. I don't think she was the strongest player mentally, but she had some great shots. She went for the corners and created some beautiful angles. And she had a few Clijsters/Jankovic-esque splits moments as well... though I have to say that I always wince whenever I see players doing that. It's like you can almost hear the muscles tearing. Actually, Djokovic did a couple of times in his match and it made my skin crawl. I'm not Djokovic's biggest fan, but it'd be really sad if he were to injure himself and put himself out of the Australian Open.
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But back to Hsieh Su-Wei. She's a tiny person - the commentators were discussing how much bigger and heavier that her Jankovic was, and how it must make such a huge difference in terms of power - and her serve had nothing on it. But she still hung in there really well. It reminded me of a first round match Maria Sharapova played last year - it might have been at the Australian Open, actually. She was playing this tiny little Frenchwoman, Camille Pin, and got taken to something like 8-6 or 9-7 in the third, and it was so obvious that Pin would have won if she had anything even vaguely resembling a serve. If Hsieh had a bigger serve... Jankovic still would have won, I think, but Hsieh would have been able to put her under much more pressure. A great serve combined with that ability to scramble... and she clearly has a decent strategic mind as well. At set point in the first (I think) she was serving, and she just randomly pulled out this serve and volley. It was great - and it caught Jankovic totally off guard. She changed it up really well - she had really soft hands for the finesse shots... a bit of a strange playing style though. Effectively, she had no forehand - her 'forehand' was a really a left-handed backhand. Considering the forehand is generally one of the biggest shots in the arsenal, that's got to be crippling.
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But you don't need to have the most power to be a great tennis player. Look at Martina Hingis.
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I didn't watch the men's match as closely, but it was great to see Lu Yen-hsun take Djokovic to three sets. Good on Chinese Taipei - they did themselves proud. Meanwhile, is it just me, or is Djokovic always injuring himself? I don't think I've ever seen a match where he hasn't called a medical timeout. I wonder if he's a) a hypochondriac, b) accident prone or c) faking it... he wouldn't be the first to do it.
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Today's Results
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Australia def. Czech Republic 2-1

Tomas Berdych def. Peter Luczak, 7-6 (9-7) 6-4
Molik/Luczak def. Safarova/Berdych, 7-5 6-3
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Serbia def. Chinese Taipei 3-0
Jelena Jankovic def. Hsieh Su-wei, 6-4 6-4
Novak Djokovic def. Lu Yen-hsun, 7-5 2-6 6-3
Jankovic/Djokovic def. Hsieh/Lu, 3-6 6-2 7-6 (10-8)
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France vs. Argentina 1-1
Tatiana Golovin def. Gisela Dulko, 6-4 6-3
Juan Ignacio Chela def. Arnaud Clement, 6-3 6-1

The Hopman Cup begins

And so the 2008 tennis season begins... and it's still, technically, at least, 2007...

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Hopman Cup has a strange standing in tennis - or so it seems to me, anyway. It's a great idea - each country fields a man and a woman, and they play a singles rubber each and then mixed doubles, and then the winning countries from each pool face off in the final. It's pretty unique - and yet no one seems to care about it much.

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Last year's Hopman Cup was a blast - especially the mixed doubles match in the final. It was a dead rubber - the Russians had beaten the Spaniards in both singles matches - and so they just played a proset, and it was hysterical. The comic stylings of Dmitry Tursunov are severely underrated. I remember me and my housemate at the time staying up till two in the morning, caning ourselves laughing. (There was one bit where they all started imitating Maria Sharapova... God, it was funny.) It was great, because these four hardcore professionals - Dmitry Tursunov, Nadia Petrova, Tommy Robredo and Anabel Medina Garrigues - were just tooling round, having a good time.

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And yet, a couple of weeks later at the Australian Open, someone was talking to Tursunov and referred to the Open as his first tournament of the year. Hopman Cup doesn't count for rankings points on the ATP or WTA rankings listings - it's like the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup in that respect, but it seems to have much less cred than either of those two tournaments. Tennis is an unusual sport in that you're generally playing for yourself rather than for your country. Davis, Fed and Hopman Cup are the exception, but they're totally divorced from the everyday business of the sport. If it doesn't count for rankings points...

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I'm hoping the participation of Novak Djokovic in this year's Hopman Cup ups the profile of the event. I've never really warmed to Djokovic, I have to say - which is a bit strange, because I usually really dig the game's personalities (Tursunov being the obvious example) - but major kudos to him for playing this event. Serbia is playing Chinese Taipei tomorrow, and they've fielded a first rate team - Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic, I think. Serbian tennis is really on the up and up, what with those two and Ana Ivanovic - it really exploded in 2007 - and I hope some of that good mojo rubs off on the tournament, because I really think it's a great idea. The ATP tour and the WTA tour rarely cross paths outside the Grand Slams, and I think that's a cryin' shame.

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The real sour note of today - Day 1 - at the Hopman Cup was Serena Williams' failure to show. Yeah, I know she made her excuses, but it just doesn't seem good enough to me. This is her business, for heavens' sake! She can't just rearrange it to suit herself. It's indicative of the attitude that seems to surround the Hopman Cup - it's very rare that the top players from each country show up to play (which is why Djokovic and Jankovic are so commendable.) How can you just not turn up? And it seems very unfair to Meghann Shaughnessy as well, who filled in for her. If Williams is going to pull out, she should pull out for the whole tournament and let Shaughnessy play it. None of this, 'oh, I'll turn up in a couple of days,' stuff. What kind of rubbish is that? Shaughnessy did a great job today. Full cred to her for stepping in at the last minute. On another note, what if Williams had played? Would Shaughnessy have had to tool around on the sidelines doing nothing? Sort of a tennis understudy? I wonder if many countries bring along an emergency player... it seems sensible, but hardly fair... though, having been an understudy in the theatre, that's not exactly pleasant either, and yet it's still done... I guess fairness isn't really the concern.

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Today's Results

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USA def India 2 -1

Meghann Shaughnessy def. Sania Mirza, 6-3 4-6 6-3

Mardy Fish def. Rohan Bopanna, 6-2 6-4

Mirza/Bopanna def. Shaughnessy/Fish, 6-4 6-4

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Australia leads the Czech Republic 1-0

Alicia Molik def. Lucie Safarova, 7-5 6-2

Beneath the Surface

So Princess Lleyton Hewitt came out and said today that he endorses the new surface for the Australian Open. Considering he's done nothing for the last million years but whinge about it, this is, like, big news. Truth is, though, I'm not sure if I like it.
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My reasons for this are extremely superficial. I'm sure there's detailed criticism floating around about the new 'True Blue' surface that I should probably read, but I haven't as of writing this post. (I never said this was a well-informed blog.) No, my issue is with the colour.
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WHY did they have to make the court blue?
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Okay, so I sound childish. Hell, it's a childish reaction. But why oh why oh why did they have to make it blue? The Australian Open is played on green courts. Green! The US Open is played on those weird bluey-purple courts. So why do we have to be blue now too?
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Tantrum aside, I am actually interested in how the new surface will influence play. I don't actually know how different the new surface is from Rebound Ace, though I have heard that it plays slowly and that the bounce can be a bit uneven and unpredictable. I wonder why they thought it was necessary to change? Sure, there's been some debate and discussion of Rebound Ace in the past, but that's the challenge, yeah? The four Grand Slams are played on four different surfaces - clay, grass, cement and synthetic. I suppose synthetic can cover a myriad of things... under that label, they could probably switch to carpet if they wanted.
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I think what I'm trying to get at is that I really, REALLY hope they didn't change the court surface just because Princess Lleyton whinged long and hard enough. I've always thought it was vaguely ridiculous the way he always whinged about he could never win on Rebound Ace because it doesn't suit his playing style. From Tennis Australia's perspective, I'm sure it would be nice for an Australian to win the Open, but I hope that wasn't a factor in them changing the court surface, because that would just be STUPID.
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Not that it would matter. Federer can win on any surface. And versatility maketh the tennis player.

A few words on pretentiousness

I've decided I sound a bit pretentious in my last post. Since I can be a bit pretentious, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but I'll try and keep the affectations to a minimum. As much as I can, anyway.
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You hear people talk about arts wankers much more than you hear them talk about sports wankers - or at least I do. Maybe it's the circles I move in. I'm a bit of an arts wanker myself, I suppose. Do sports wankers exist? People that are so pretentious about their sport that it becomes a defining characteristic? And if so, does it manifest on the field as well as off?
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I'm sure there are pretentious tennis players out there, though I can't name one off the top of my head. Just something to look out for in the coming season. What elements of your personality come through in your tennis game? What elements don't?
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Is who you are on the court different to who you are off the court?
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It happens in theatre. I'm a totally different person onstage than I am offstage. It is, to put it simply, acting. Do tennis players act too? How much of the oncourt mentality is themselves and how much is a construct?

'You like sport? YOU?!'

I've always felt slightly guilty about loving sport. I suppose this is strange, since sport could possibly be considered the Australian religion,but I think it's more to do with my personality than anything else. I'm an arty, humanities type. I like writing. I like reading. I'm into theatre. I enjoy Shakespeare. Plus, I'm a girl. Thus, the stereotype dictates, I should not like sport.

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But I do. And I'm not alone. My friend Erin, who inspired me to write this blog, is exactly the same: an arty type, with a penchant for sport. Actually, let me clarify. Neither of us is particularly good at (or especially enjoys playing) sport. But we love to watch, and we love the personalities - something we discovered at age twelve. We met doing theatre, but we stayed friends because we loved sport (cricket, in this case.) When she moved to the USA, I sent her articles about Michael Bevan, her favourite cricket player.

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Erin and I fell out of touch after a while, but we found each other again about six months ago, after ten years apart, and the parallels have never been more pronounced. We both love to write - we've both got unpublished books we're working on editing - and we both still love sport. In fact, she's made a career out of it, working as a sports journalist. Mine is merely a quiet obsession. It's the sort of thing that when I bring it up in conversation ('actually, I love sport,') makes people look at me and say, 'oh, I never would have picked that one.'

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My particular passion is tennis. This is not, let me state to begin with, because I am any good at it. I am quite possibly the worst tennis player in the whole world. But there is something about the game I find extremely compelling. I'm not exactly sure, but I think what I really like about tennis is the one on one struggle. This is not to denigrate team sport (or, indeed, doubles tennis) in any way. But one of the things I love most about sport is the personality, and tennis, for me, anyway, is a sport where the player's personality is expressed via the game. Tennis is as much in the mind as on the court. A tennis player must have mental strength to really excel.

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(Though I could be completely wrong in saying this. I am, after all, not a tennis player. I am merely a keen observer.)

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Erin, my arty, sport-loving friend, is currently writing her own blog -backtothecouve.blogspot.com - where she is blogging about her trip to Vancouver. However, when we talked about it, she told me she wanted to turn the notion of the travel blog on in its head. Her blog is as much about her own relationship with Vancouver as it is about this particular trip. Now, I've never read a sports blog - though I assume they exist -but it seemed to me that this idea could be applied in the same way. This is a blog about the Australian tennis summer, sure, but not exclusively. This is a blog about my love affair with tennis and tennis players. All I know about tennis I have learned by watching, which clearly does not make me a qualified technical observer, but this is not a blog for detailed match analysis. This is a writer's experimentation, playing round in a new medium, and it is a celebration - because tennis, even though I rarely pick up a racquet, is an important part of my life.

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The Australian tennis summer doesn't start till the weekend with the Hopman Cup in Perth, but it isn't unintentional that I began this blog on Boxing Day. Boxing Day is one of the most important days of the year in the Australian sporting calendar. I'd venture to say that a lot of Australian households have spent the day flicking between the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and the Boxing Day test match. (Mine certainly has.) It's probably the closest day to a sporting public holiday in the calendar year, so it seemed like an auspicious day to begin a record of my love affair with tennis, even though the season hasn't yet begun.

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Till next time...