Auto-Update 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

Yeah, I know I said I'd be back again today, but I lied. Off you go. Go enjoy the world's greatest doubles tournament - I mean, Indian Wells. A very serious singles event. Oh yes.

(And spare a thought for Nico Mahut, who had a bunch of match points but couldn't quite pull it off against Amer Delic in Sarajevo. Sadface.)

The Return of Auto-Update

Off having a life today (read: visiting my family). Back with Indian Wells and Sarajevo and all kinds of cool stuff tomorrow.

(Nicolas Mahut is in the Sarajevo semis! If you're going to skip Indian Wells, Nico, skip it good.)

Tapping the Well in Indian Wells

Well, we've kept Nicolas Mahut (yay!) even though he has come down with some flu-y symptoms that led to him pulling out of doubles in Sarajevo. Here is hoping that he feels better, because if he's not going to play Indian Wells, I want him to win this whole damn tournament. He pulled out the win ove Roberto Batista-Agut today, and here's hoping he can do the same against Jan Hernych tomorrow.

This is especially because we've now lost the top two seeds, leaving Nico, at #3, the highest man standing. Dimitrov went out in the first round and then Kavcic followed him in the second, going down to Martin Fischer. Kavcic had a pretty big weekend of Davis Cup duty - he pretty much led Slovenia to victory - but then, Fischer wasn't exactly a slouch playing for Austria, so go figure. That is tennis. Sometimes you get weird results.

I really, really wish that Nico had gone to play Indian Wells qualies. I think he definitely would have had a great shot at qualifying. But it's all about points, points, points, and considering he dropped ten places last week, I guess I understand.

There are some familiar faces among the dudes that did qualify in Indian Wells, and three of them are Australian, which is a little bit awesome. Matt Ebden beat Izak van der Merwe to qualify, which is a good win, and he'll face Mischa Zverev in the first round, which is not the most unwinnable of matches. Ebden is 23, which seems a little late to be making a major breakthrough, but he has been playing better and better and better consistently over the last year or so. I think he can definitely break into the top hundred and results like these are good ways of getting there.

One dude who has been to the top hundred and is looking to get back is Chris Guccione, who also fought his way into the main draw. He beat a dude of whom I have never heard, but I wish I had, on account of he has an awesome name - Spain's Daniel Munoz-De La Nava (how is that not the name of a volcano or something like that? I love it.) Guccione hit 17 aces, which... wow. If he has that big lefty serve cranking, watch out world. He's drawn James Blake in the first round, which could be a very interesting match up indeed.

The last of the Aussie qualifiers, a man who has all the talent to be in the top hundred but sometimes not the consistency (but that's getting better), is Marinko Matosevic. He beat South African Raven Klaasen (another awesome name - this dude seems to be popping more and more in draws, so he must be on the improve), but has got arguably the toughest first round draw of the Aussie boys - he'll face Dr Ivo Karlovic, just a week after that record-breaking serve. If he can get a read on the serve, he has a chance, if not...

This is a great result for Australian tennis, having these three dudes go through. Also spare a thought for Greg Jones, who fell in the last round of qualies to Somdev Devvarman. None of these dudes are megastars, but they're good, quality players. Australian mens' tennis is not quite in the epic black hole everyone seems to think it is. The well is not as shallow as once it was.

Miss Sarajevo (go to Indian Wells instead)

Another quick one today! But it won't rhyme and I might actually say something of substance. More substantial than yesterday, at any rate. There really is precious little to write about at the moment, and it might remain that way until Indian Wells starts. But not long now!

Those who aren't trying their luck in Indian Well qualies are mostly in Sarajevo for a Challenger. (A Challenger without a scoreboard, which makes it fiendishly difficult to follow.) Among them is my main man Nicolas Mahut, who has dropped ten places in the rankings (sadface), but is still in the top hundred. He's seeded #3 and he beat Frederik Nielsen in straight sets in a rematch of their third round qualies match at the Australian Open. He's play Roberto Batista-Agut next, whom I clearly know a lot about. He is the next Bogomolov to me, just you wait.

Anyway. The reason Nico dropped those ten ranking places is because he failed to defend his Cherbourg title. (Though he did make the final, so ten places seems a little extreme... but that's just what the mobility level is like once you're out of the top thirty or so, I guess.) The guy that beat him, Grigor Dimitrov, had a typical first round comedown, losing to Karol Beck. This means he gets no points for the tournament as well as no chance to possibly make the main draw in Indian Wells, so I bet he's rueing that decision.

On the other hand, though, if he'd played Indian Wells, he would have had to play a match basically right after stumbling off an intercontinental flight, and that sounds like a pretty tall order. So maybe a week of rest will turn out for the best for Grigor.

If the seeds hold true, the match of the week will be in the semis, when Mahut means Kavcic. I've written a little about Kavcic before - I saw him play at the Australian Open and I was super impressed. I see a big future for him in this sport, and so this match could be an absolute cracker if Mahut brings it. Also lurking in the top half is Dmitry Tursunov, and if nothing else, he is always, always watchable.

The field in Sarajevo is quite good, and looking at Indian Wells, I think all four of these guys - Dimitrov, Kavcic, Mahut and Tursunov - would have had a great shot to qualify. I suppose it's an object lesson that you go where the points are, and you're probably more likely to pick up points by going deep in a Challenger than just making the first round of a Masters tournament, but still... I would have liked to see those dudes there. The top seed in Indian Wells is Daniel Brands, followed by Somdev Devvarman and (the already knocked out) Robert Kendrick. I think any of the top four seeds in Sarajevo would have had a field day with the draws here. Some of the guys through already are Tim Smyczek and Rik de Voest, and... really?

But it's a points game, I suppose. And that's what's going to get you into the main draw all on your lonesome.

(In other news, I've got another blog! Tennis is one of my passions, but theatre is another - you can read my reviews here.)

A Highly Educated Look At Things I Know A Lot About

There is not so much to report today. We're in that brief no man's land between the Davis Cup weekend and Indian Wells where fat nothing happens. So what I thought we might do is have a quick snappy look at the dudes who won Challengers over the weekend. Are you cool with that? You better be, because that's what I'm doing.

In Cherbourg, much to my chagrin, it was not defending champion Nicolas Mahut to took away the trophy, but young Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. As a result, Dimitrov leaps up the rankings ten spots while Mahut goes down ten (but he's still in the top hundred, fear not!) Dimitrov is the latest player, as we all know, to be touted as the second coming of Roger Federer... but while we have the first one I don't really see the necessity of a second. Dimitrov's strokes are so closely modelled on Roger's that it's uncanny. And if there's a model you want to take, Federer is not a bad one...

...but I heard Jim Courier say once that unless you develop your own style, there's not much out there for you. I'd like to see Dimitrov move in his own direction a little. Sure, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and his Federerness is clearly working for him, because hello, he just won Cherbourg, but I'd like to see something in the mix that is pure Grigor. And I think it'll come too - what's the attraction in being a carbon copy of another dude when you can be yourself? The Federer strokes will provide a great base for Dimitrov to build on, provided he's prepared to get his hands dirty and build a beautiful house. The house is a tennis player. This metaphor is bad.

In Dallas, the tournament where all the Australians thought it would be a good idea to go for some reason, we saw Alex Bogomolov Jr take away the title. Here is all the things I know about Alex Bogomolov Jr:

...

...

...

As you can see, I am supremely well informed about this young man and all his prospects. I'm going to stick with 'well done' - particularly as he beat Rainer Schuettler in the final, and Schuettler, while he might be past it now, has been to a Grand Slam final in his day - and give a big shout out to Matt Ebden, who made the semis, and lost to this Alex Bogomolov Jr character in three tight sets. It's only a matter of time before Ebden starts winning these tournaments, I think - he gets better and better every time I see him play.

And then in Salinas, Andres Moltini was the winner. You know how much I knew about Alex Bogomolov Jr (ie. his name and nothing else)? I know even less about Moltini. I'd never even heard of him before this week. But he's clearly doing something right, because he just won in Salinas. And he upset top seed Brian Dabul to do it, so well done Andres. May you continue Moltini-ing on for the rest of your days.

A F%^& YEAH Weekend

There are so many people I want to say F%^& YEAH about today, but first, I have to blow your mind with the last installment of my Cherbourg coverage. It was not good times today - my main man Mahut lost both in the singles final and in the doubles final. But let's take a moment and go, hey, actually, the fact that you were in both of these finals is pretty damn shiny! Then let's holler F^&* YEAH.

My loudest, unconditional and most heartfelt F^&* YEAH, however, has to go out to Jelena Dokic. Lady, you rocked my freaking socks today. How many players are there who can go for eight years without a title and still have the heart to come back? Dokic is a player who has had an awful lot of bad luck in her career - more, I think, than just about anyone else. But one thing she does not lack, especially in this post-Damir world, is heart. And she demonstrated this not just in winning the Kuala Lumpur final, but the way she won it - she was literally a few points from defeat in the second set breaker. She could have gone down tamely in straights, and everyone would have been like, oh well, well done Lucie, what a great week for Jelena.

But no. Jelena Dokic is not having any of that nonsense. She clawed her way out of that breaker and then she pounced. She was a total third set tiger and that got her the trophy. And I don't think it's controversial to say that Jelena has one of the best smiles in tennis. F^&* YEAH JELENA DOKIC!

And then there is Davis Cup.

The Indian boys weren't able to keep the momentum going - they went down 4-1 to Serbia in the end - but I think they deserve a F^&* YEAH anyway, because they have played awesomely this weekend. So too does Jeremy Chardy, who went from not winning a single ATP match all year to being France's Davis Cup hero. I'm not normally a massive Chardy fan, but that kind of heroism (especially from someone stuck so deep in such a big rut) deserves a F^&* YEAH.

But the biggest Davis Cup F^&* YEAH goes to Kazakhstan in general and Andrey Golubev in particular.

I haven't talked much about Andrey this year - largely because his results haven't been that great. (But don't worry, I haven't dumped him for Mahut. I can love them both.) But this match was a powerful reminder of why I love him so much. If he plays well, he is capable not just of beating anyone, but of freaking demolishing them. Doesn't matter where, doesn't matter when, doesn't matter who. If Andrey Golubev has his eye in, he will make you hurt.

Just ask Tomas Berdych.

The Czech crowd were totally stunned. Who was this surprise ranga beating their main man? Berdych was their guaranteed pointmaker for the weekend! He was supposed to win both his singles matches in a snap of his fingers, and just hope that one of the others could pick up another point somewhere. It was supposed to be easy.

But Andrey Golubev was not on board with this idea at all. And four sets later, Tomas Berdych limped off the court, pulverised and broken. And then Mikhail Kukushkin went out there and made history against Jan Hajek.

This was Kazakhstan's first ever appearance in the World Group. If they can continue turning in these kinds of performances, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with. And I, for one, think that deserves a F%^& YEAH.

Indian Summer

I suppose I should talk about Davis Cup today. But in another installment of my mindblowing Cherbourg coverage, can I get a F%^& YEAH NICOLAS MAHUT? He is in the final there, where he will meet top seed Grigor Dimitrov. Nico won this tournament last year, so for points purposes, I would really like him to win it again, but I am very happy that he's a finalist full stop. My man Nico is on fire, and don't you forget it.

Right. Davis Cup.

The most interesting tie - to my mind, anyway - is this one between Serbia and India. From the outset, you might think that this is the most boring of all the ties - I know I certainly did. But even though the Serbs are pretty much on top now, the Indian dudes have BROUGHT IT like whoa. And without Bhupathi and Paes, which is a massive handicap.

Let's recap. Day One singles, first rubber. Viktor 'vile' Troicki lines up against Rohan Bopanna, whom he is expected to beat easily. Troicki is not exactly the captain of the consistency bandwagon, but this looks like an easy one for him. Right?

WRONG.

Bopanna takes him to five. It all seems smooth sailing for the first two sets, but the worm, oh, how it turns! This match so, SO easily could have gone Bopanna's way. And we all know how I feel about Troicki, so I wish it did.

Oh well. It's only natural for a team to get the yips a little, n'est-ce pas? And Serbia came away with the point anyway, so surely we are headed right down 5-0 blowout lane from here. Right?

WRONG.

Janko Tipsarevic walks out on court against Somdev Devvarman. And walks off three sets later a defeated man.

Would that be 1-all? Why YES, it would be. And it so, so easily could have been 2-0 India. A few points Bopanna's way, and...

The Serbs pulled out the doubles on Saturday, but it was a tight, tight thing - 12-10 in the fourth set tiebreaker. And you really, really have to wonder what would have happened if Bhupathi and Paes had been there...

This is basically an object lesson in don't underestimate the underdog. I think the Serbians have been that underdog for so long that adjusting to being the top dudes might have messed with them again. And much as they love the home crowd, probably playing in Serbia - after what happened the last time they played in Serbia - was intense, intense pressure. Last time it was glory, and now the populace expects no less.

But let's be realistic. This one wasn't all on the Serbian racquet. The Indian dudes have played OUT OF THEIR FREAKING MINDS awesome. Bopanna and Devvarman have a lot to be proud of here. And you know what? It's not over yet. And I, for one, will be cheering for Team India all the way.

The other really intriguing tie going on is Croatia vs Germany, where Marin Cilic pulled out an absolute heartbreaker against Florian Mayer only to have Germany take the next two points. But Croatia, with their singles team of Cilic and Dodig, are more than capable of getting two points on the morrow by taking out Kohlschreiber and Mayer respectively... we shall see, we shall see. Oh, and Karlovic beat that fast serve record of Andy Roddick's. Well done, Dr Ivo.

Disappointment of the Davis Cup week is obviously Russia. What an awful performance. Kudos to him for pulling out the win, but no one should really be losing to Joachim Johansson right now. (Out of interest, why didn't Sweden field Nick Lindahl? I thought that was, like, the whole reason he defected.)

Oh, and before I go - MASSIVE shoutout to Jelena Dokic, who is in the final of Kuala Lumpur, where she will take on Lucie Safarova. This is a crazy-excellent result and I hope she is SUPER proud!

Remember Me, Your Old Friend Auto-Update?

No blog today, as I am hanging out in Melbourne with Dootsiez, the always-blogger, and PJ, the sometimes-blogger, from All I Need Is A Picket Fence. Catch you tomorrow.

PS. Mahut is in the Cherbourg semis! Is your mind blown yet?

Yes, He Killed Kenny

I do believe that I promised to (and I quote) 'blow your mind' with my Cherbourg coverage. So I better do that. And I think that involves me... talking about Cherbourg. So what can I make up - I mean, say - today!

Important things first - Nicolas Mahut is through to the next round. Yes, he may have scraped through by the skin of his teeth, but a win is a win and I'd rather he took a tight win than a tight loss. Or any kind of loss. A third set breaker is there to determine the winner and the loser and this time he was the winner.

And yes, he killed Kenny (de Schepper).

One thing that always astonishes me about Mahut is how consistent he can be on first serve. His percentage is, in general, really, really freaking high. There's a ton of players who would amputate a limb if it meant they could regularly serve at 71%... which doesn't seem that high, but it, you know, is. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising after the whole 'why yes, John Isner, I think I will hold serve 68 times in a row' incident that happened last year, but I'm still impressed. He won 79% of first serve points as well today, which is pretty bloody good.

...although he did get taken to a third set breaker, so maybe I shouldn't be extolling his wonderment in a match where he probably didn't play his best. Though I can't be sure, on account of how I didn't see it and I'm talking about something I know zero about. But still!

Nico's doubles partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin (how many vaseline jokes do you think he gets? per day, on average?) was not so lucky, going down to Karol Beck in straights. But Stephane Robert flew that French flag high, coming up with a W against 'my name is also' Stefan Seifert.

...yeah, you can see how much I know about those dudes. HEAPS.

And the French dude who won his way to my heart through stupid trickshots is also out. Benoit Paire just went down. Pout. I want good things to happen to him.

We're on track for a Dimitrov/Mahut final, which could be anyone's game... depending who turns up. Both these dudes are capable of going Ferd and pulling out performances so terrible they make you want to cry. But then they can both (definitely) go the other way as well, so we'll see.

And at some point, I hope to actually watch a match at Cherbourg. Imagine how mindblowing my coverage will be then!

Be Prepared (Trust Me, You Are Not)

Cherbourg! It's going to be a thing this week. Be prepared to have your world rocked by my Cherbourg coverage. Be prepared to have your mind blown and everything you thought you knew turned on its head.

...I should probably make sure I've watched some of the tournament before I start making large, grandiose, sweeping promises, but hey, I bet you kept reading till the second paragraph!

Cherbourg is a Challenger event, and it is a defending champion that we all know and love in Nicolas Mahut, he who should have been given a wildcard to the Australian Open but who qualified anyway and made it to the second round. (Yes, I'm still harping on that hobby horse.) And he played last night, this Mahut of whom I sing, and he won.

And yes, this makes me happy.

I didn't see the match, but I'm going to talk about like I know what I'm talking about, so be prepared. (I've seen the stats sheet. Surely this is enough!) Mahut played a nasty first set of badness and despair wherein his opponent - qualifier Matwe Middlekoop, if you are a) interested and b) know who that is - pretty much walked all over him. The stats show that Mahut wasn't playing that badly - they're not great stats but they're not awful either - but the real telling one is the return. Middlekoop clearly had that serve cranking and Mahut wasn't reading it, because his return percentage on both first and second serves was not a happy fun joyful return percentage of sunshine and rainbows, if you know what I mean.

So, yeah. Down went Mahut in that first set. Into her mouth went Jodi's heart (or it would have, had I been watching. I was busy doing this thing called 'being asleep'. People are determined to have their tennis tournaments at very inconvenient times of those of us here in the land of Oz). But then what light at yonder window breaks (broke)? Suddenly, Mahut returned much better! Middlekoop returned much worse! And this trend continued until Mahut was winning 89% of points on his first serve in the third set. And, oh yeah, he was serving at 82%, so Middlekoop didn't get much of a look in there.

It highlights a) what a big freaking deal serving and returning is; b) the way that players - even ones you might not usually think of as 'great' - can change gears in the middle of matches; and c) that Jodi is capable of rabbiting on like a crazy person about a match she hasn't seen. (If you are new to this blog, I do this a lot. Be prepared.)

Anyway, it wasn't Mahut's most gloriously stylish win ever, but he got the job done, and a win is a win - no matter what that craptacular study I was talking about yesterday would have you believe.

I'm pretty sure that Mahut faces 'OMG, you killed' Kenny de Schepper in his next match, who came through a tough three setter. I know nothing about de Schepper, so I might just stop here before I start predicting matches I probably won't end up seeing. I'll just say ALLEZ NICO and leave it at that.

Oh, and also - whatever happened to Josselin Ouanna? Remember when he was all Safin-beating third-round-making at Roland Garros? Now he's getting smacked down by Ivo Minar in the first round of Cherbourg. What happened there?

And Finally, In The 'Completely Stupid' Category...

It's Davis Cup week. Yawn. At least until Friday, there's going to be pretty much fat nothing to write about. Except the INEVITABLE GLORIOUS RUN of my main man Nicolas Mahut in Cherbourg (antijinx). He is the second seed in the singles (after Grigor Dimitrov) and the top seed in the doubles with Edouard Roger-Vasselin. And they just won their first round doubles match. So... yeah. Awesome.

But due to this very little 'actual tennis' thing I have to write about, I thought I would write about this. It's a study. Possibly one of the worst studies of all time. The formula it uses analyses and tallies up how many wins players had over other 'quality players', regardless of arena, and then churns out a Greatest of All Time.

The GOAT, according to this study of stupidness? Jimmy Connors.

We all know where I stand when it comes to GOATness. If one has to pick, I'm Team Federer forever. But even if this survey had come out and said that yes, Federer is the greatest of all time, their methodology is clearly more than a little specious. Did you know that Federer has only, according to this, won 39 quality matches in his career? So that's eight victories over Rafa, thirteen over Djokovic, six over Murray, eight over Agassi... that's 35. Oh! one over Sampras. Make that 36. Chuck in a few others, and hey presto! Roger Federer has never won anything else ever.

And that's not even starting on the Rafa stats. He's only won 21 matches of quality. Because that's how you win five Roland Garros titles, bitches.

Surely when results like this came out of the study - Connors at #1, followed by Lendl and McEnroe - they should have realised it was a bit, how shall we say it... not very good? I mean, those dudes were great, and they did great things, but the greatest? I think not. If they're the results you're getting, your scale is wrong, bro.

I don't know if it is possible to quantify a Greatest of All Time. But if it is, this is not the right way to go about it.

I wonder how the system decides what a 'quality win' is, as well. Does Federer's victory over Andy Roddick in Wimbledon in 2009 count as a quality win? Because it was pretty freaking spectacular. But Roddick has been his bunny for a while now, so I'm sure that twenty-odd wins against Roddick can't be counted in those 39 wins he's apparently had. There's no regard to situation either, so matches like Roger's AO win over Baghdatis probably doesn't count.

I hope this 'prestige ranking' thing doesn't catch on. Because I am telling you right now that I think it is stupid. And you should all listen to me. Just because.

Concentration Now Begins - Keep The Rhythm Going

So apparently it's news that Roger Federer is 'not Robocop' and that his mind wanders sometimes during matches. Anyone who has been a Federer fan for any amount of time will probably tell you of the unspeakable fear they experience in the moment (usually in the second set) when Roger seems to start wondering whether he left the oven on, so I have to admit that I laughed a little bit when reading this article.

But let's put our serious faces on here for a second. Of course tennis players' minds wander. They are, after all, not machinery - much as Rafa Nadal might try to convince you that he is, in fact, a cyborg. A tennis match can go for a really long time - ask Isner and Mahut. I just don't think it's physically possible to remain in that space of intense concentration for so long.

I am a university student (or will be again in a couple of months when I start my doctorate). I'm one of the lucky few that actually love what I study. But can I sit down for five hours (let alone eleven) and focus on it 100%? Absolutely not. Can I do it for one hour without my mind wandering? Not a chance. And that's without distractions like 'ow, my leg hurts', 'why did they play that song in the changeover?', 'why did that dude sitting behind the umpire decide to wear that horrible lime green shirt?', 'HawkEye is the devil', and 'I hope the twins aren't destroying anything'.

Some players are better at concentration than others. Rafa Nadal is the king of it. His mind is a steel trap. His 'not concentrating' probably looks like 'concentrating' for most players. But not even he can keep up 100% pure intense focus for five hours. No one can do that.

And then there's the added dimension that tennis is a tennis player's job. They might love the game, but it's still work. How many of us get through a workday with 100% concentration?

We've heard the term 'on autopilot', and there's a lot of people out there that claim that they or various other tennis players play better when they don't think. Concentration seems to be a function of thought, so maybe it's not the be-all and end-all. Muscle memory seems to have something to do with it - Federer talks in the article of serving down the T in his match today and barely being aware of doing it. When you hit as many tennis balls as these dudes do, then sometimes the auto switch is going to flick. And maybe that's better.

Though I would say that's more transcending concentration than not concentrating. But I am not a sports psychologist. This probably means you should disregard everything I've said in this post.

So, um, yeah, I think my point was that tennis players not only don't, but can't concentrate all the time. Like Roger said. Roger's on my side. Yep. When he's thinking about it, that is.

You Cannot Escape Auto-Update

Having a life still occurring. But Mahut and Clement are in the semis in doubles, so pretend I wrote something about how awesome that was and continue with your day.

Auto-Update Strikes Back

Still having a life. This university thing is a bit epic. Back tomorrow, I hope. But I would like to point out that while Nico Mahut may have lost to Robin Soderling in straight sets, he only lost one less point in the whole match. That is a bit awesome.

This Is What Happens When You Listen To Me

Hey, remember that thing called #wildcardformahut? I don't think I'll ever be letting anyone forget, so you better remember. Well, the Australian Open might have been cruel and coldhearted, but the Open 13 in Marseille was not. They gave my beloved Monsieur (Mademoiselle?) Mahut a wildcard. And it warmed the cockles of my heart to see that little W next to his name, let me tell you.

That is W both for wildcard and for win. Because that is exactly what he did.

A lot of wildcards are incredibly tokenistic, and end up with the recipient crashing out in flames in the first round. It's locals getting a go to play on the big stage, that kind of thing. And I guess Mahut was a local wildcard, being a Angevin French dude in Marseille, but he was the right kind of wildcard. The kind that really, really made good.

It's a special kind of wildcard - and, indeed, player - that can serve at 47% and still win 6-2 6-0. Welcome to the Nicolas Mahut bagel bakery.

Yes, it's one of those days. We're hosting a love-fest in the Nicolas Mahut bagel bakery today. Leave now if you don't want to gush.

I'm not a Mahuberfan because Nico wins. He's ranked #89 in the world, which sort of signals that major wins all the time are not his thing. But he is a damn stylish player, and when he's on, he's a freaking ninja. The percentage of second serve returns he won today was ridiculous. He saved all three break points he faced. He has that uniquely Gallic flair which can be disastrous when it's not his day but which is totally brilliant when it is.

And I'm glad that this victory was a little shorter than eleven hours. But you know if it had been eleven hours, he would have been able to deal with that. That's the way he rolls.

Up next is Soderling, who is a bit good. I've heard. You know. Just a bit. Rotterdam last week? I heard he won that. And he's, like, been to a couple of Roland Garros finals. And he won Bercy. Which seems to suggest he plays pretty well in France. And he sort of beat Mahut the one and only time they played. Which sort of suggests he might do it again...

...but you never count out Nico Mahut. And whatever he does, he does with style and aplomb. Sometimes in a dress. So while I don't mind if he loses, I will be cheering for him to win. Hard. Because when you give Nicolas Mahut a wildcard, he rocks that wildcard so hard.

(Please. Give Mahut a wildcard. I don't care what you're giving him a wildcard to, but give him one.)

There's Something About Milos

I didn't want to. I didn't want to be the person that jumps on every bandwagon I see. I was determined to be the one person in the world who wasn't screaming and shouting OMG MILOS RAONIC FOR EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE! I was going to be the lone dissenter, the annoying cynic in the corner, the one that was determined it was all a fluke. In my mind, Milos Raonic was the second coming of Casey Dellacqua.

And then he had to go and win San Jose. Beating a top ten player in the final. (I mean, sure, it was Fernando Verdasco, but still.) And now I have to get on the bandwagon or risk being left behind.

Raonic has a singularly spectacular serve. I think Verdasco described him as having the body of a 12-year old... and then still firing down serves at 240km/h plus. Which is, like, a bit fast and stuff. But there are plenty of players with massive serves and not much else. This is the category I was determined to pigeonhole Raonic in.

But it looks like he's a bit more than that.

Problem is, I can't quite put my finger on it.

I think I'm going to have to watch him play a bit more, because there's obviously a little bit of something something going on with Milos. You don't jump from #156 to #59 in the rankings just like that because you have an enormous serve. I mean, he's obviously had an enormous serve for a while now. He might have grown into a bit, but there's just not enough time for there to be such a massive difference between 2010 and 2011. The off-season isn't long enough. Something's clicked for Milos. Something's suddenly started going right. I just can't work out what it is.

Maybe it's not his game at all. Maybe it's in his mind. Looking at the San Jose final, it certainly seems like Milos has quite a bit going on upstairs. We can't all be blessed with the iron mind of Rafael Nadal, but when you rally from 6-2 down in a breaker to grab a set, you are strong in the head. That's just the way it is. Your opponent can really only make so many mistakes.

And then there's the fact that Milos only dropped serve once in four matches. No matter how good your serve is, it's hard to hold your serve that consistently. Like, mega hard. Ask Isner and Mahut.

But has something come together in his game? What's the magic ingredient that I'm missing? Because it looks to me like the dude was losing a lot and now he's winning a lot... and I can't work out why. I must know the why. Because there is clearly something about Milos.

Sorry. Couldn't resist the wordplay. No matter how bad it is.

The Way To My Heart Is Through Stupid Trick Shots

I've been adopting quite a few players from the satellite circuit as Favourites Beyond The Baseline lately. Challenger tennis is fun times. And sometimes these dudes go and play on the big stages. And sometimes, even when they lose, they are a little bit excellent.

I am talking, of course, about Benoit Paire. He ate a bagel in the first set against Ljubicic in Rotterdam today, and then he went down in the second pretty tamely too. It happens. Paire is young and Ljubicic is a class player.

But two points from defeat, he played a shot that made me love him forever.

It wasn't a sensible shot. He didn't even win the point. But come on, how am I not going to love who plays a dropshot from between his legs jumping a metre in the air while in a dead sprint?

It's just silly. And that's why I love it. I like a bit of silly in my tennis sometimes. And while I wouldn't have liked the shot if he didn't make it, he did make it. Sure, he got beaten the very next shot, but maybe if he hadn't fallen over...

Benoit Paire, you are going to have a little bit of love from me forever now. I love a man who can play a tweener.

Benoit Paire first came to my attention when he got the reciprocal wildcard from the French Federation into the Australian Open. I was angry because a) Mahut should have got it and b) I'd never heard of Paire, which meant Mahut should have got it even more. And while I still think Mahut deserved a goddamn wildcard, Paire was not a bad choice. He is young and talented and full of promise and he played a dropshot tweener from a metre in the air on the full stretch.

Benoit, there'll always be a line or two for you here beyond the baseline. You might not get Mahut-level coverage, but there's always going to be a little space for you. Because I think you're awesome.

Oh, and I saw him play in the first round of the Australian Open and I was all, like, impressed and stuff. You can go back and read the blog entry if you like. It is totally true. It isn't just because he played a stupid trick shot and I'm easily impressed by showy low percentage tennis.

...though yeah, that is a big part of it.

The Actuality of Six

It is time for celebration, for Amir 'The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword, But The Racquet Is Mightier Yet' Weintraub has won his first round match in Quimper in a tough three set match against Florian Reynet. And yes, there is definitely going to be a post called 'Not With A Bang But With A Quimper' sometime this week. Even if it is the awesomest tournament that ever awesomed.

By winning said match against said Florian Reynet, AW (which stands for both Amir Weintraub and Awesome Writer) will gain a very valuable six ranking points. This seems like fat nothing until you consider that you actually get fat nothing for losing, which I think is a little bit mean. You should get at least a point for making the cut.

But anyway, yes, six ranking points. This is a small amount, but when you are ranked #259 in the world and have only 181 points anyway, six is quite a respectable amount. If the rankings were to remain completely static apart from AW, this means he would jump close to ten ranking spots. Not bad at all. Especially when you consider that he has the chance to turn that six into fifteen by beating either Josselin Ouanna or Laurent Rochette in the next round...

But I digress. We're not talking about the possibility of fifteen. We're talking about the actuality of six. Which is a lot, if you're Amir Weintraub.

Which takes me back to a favourite subject of mine - Grand Slam wildcards.

For losing in first round qualies of the Australian Open, AW got eight ranking points. In case you are not good at maths, eight points is better than the six points he got for making the second round in the Quimper Challenger. Nicolas Mahut, who was cruelly denied a wildcard but qualified anyway and made the second round, got 45 points from his Australian Open campaign. I'm pretty sure you get 25 points for a first round loss.

Forgive me, ranking points system, if I am cruelly maligning you, but it seems to me like players from nations with a Slam are getting a bit of an advantage here. If I'm AW - and thus from Israel, a non-Slam country - my chances of getting a Slam wildcard into the main draw are pretty slim. But if I'm, say, Carsten Ball, I'm pretty much assured of a wildcard into the Australian Open every damn year. And I have a decent shot at the reciprocal wildcard into the US Open and/or Roland Garros. I get all those points just for being from a Slam country.

And also, if I'm AW, I don't even know if I'm going to get into qualies. I don't know if I've made the cut. But if I'm, say, Luke Saville... hello, eight points on a plate, even if I get totally drilled by the awesomeness of Nico Mahut in the first round.

Maybe I am totally wrong and there are different points for qualifiers and wildcards. In which case this blog entry is pretty much pointless. But I like to think that it is more ammunition on the bonfire of the Wildcard For Awesome (tm). Wildcards -whether into the main draw or the qualies - shouldn't just be for people from Slam-having countries. Awesomeness is international.

100% Top 100

ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

If you look at that string of crazy ALLEZs and assume that I am a little bit happy about something, then you would be right. My new best friend Nicolas Mahut has gone and won himself a Challenger title in Courmayeur in stunning style, and I am a little bit pleased about that. Just a little. Not a lot.

ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

Okay, so quite pleased.

This win will put him squarely back inside the top hundred - if my calculations are correct, he will jump nearly 30 places and land at about #90. How about that?! He said at the Hopman Cup earlier this year that his goal for this year was to get back inside the top hundred. In the past month, he's jumped about 50 spots to achieve this goal. That is 100% pure awesome.

The real battle, of course, will be staying in the top hundred. Breaking in is one thing, staying in is another. Amir Weintraub could probably write a lot more eloquently about the vagaries of ranking. However, just getting in at all is hard enough - Mahut's been out of it for about two years, what with injury and whatnot. And the fact that he's jumped back in at around #90 (as opposed to #99 or something) gives him a little cushion.

There is no rest for those hungry for ranking points, of course. Mahut's been given a wildcard (it feels oddly satisfying to say those words) to this week's Challenger in Quimper, where he will be the top seed. If he can pull a good result here, he can go even higher in the rankings. And according to a French article I read (or tried to read, given as I don't speak French) it seems likely that he'll be given a wildcard to the ATP tournament in Marseille.

Honestly, all these people jumping late onto the #wildcardformahut bandwagon... I thought of that WEEKS ago. It's raining wildcards!

Also playing in Quimper this week is Amir 'Awesome Writer' Weintraub, and I'm going to try and catch one of his matches if I can. I want to see if his game is mightier than his pen. (Also, Nicolas Mahut should seriously consider giving a column a try. I think he'd have lots of amusing things to say. He seems like that kind of guy.)

The fact that I'm already talking about Quimper shows (yet again) how the satellite tour never sleeps. You win one tournament and already you have to think about the next one. There is no sleep, no rest... just an all consuming quest for rankings points. It's brutal. It is 100% hard to the core.

But for now, let's just say ALLEZ! Nicolas Mahut has gone and won himself a Challenger. And I, for one, think that is pretty awesome indeed.

Not A F%^&ing Tourist

It is no secret that I am not exactly the biggest tennis patriot ever. However, I was/am genuinely interested in the Fed Cup tie between Australia and Italy going on in Hobart, and I am totally devo that they are only showing it on pay TV, which I do not have.

The live scoreboard is good, though. Why don't they use it at all the tournaments?

It's also no secret that I currently find men's tennis more interesting than women's tennis, but the Italy/Australia tie is as good a match up as you will ever hope to see and kicks the arse of a lot of Davis Cup ties. In the Italian corner, we have Francesca Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta. In the Aussie corner, we have Samantha Stosur and Jarmila Groth. Let the games begin.

It's one of those ties in which no result is surprising. I wouldn't have been surprised to find either team 2-0 up after the first day, and so 1-1 is, I guess, kind of an expression of that. And yet it was still surprising. The one point for Australia comes from Groth, who upset Schiavone. Stosur went down to Pennetta.

And yet, even though Stosur is ranked way higher than Pennetta at the mo, I am somehow not surprised. Because all four singles players playing this tie are 100% absolute quality.

I couldn't tell you how Stosur lost or why Pennetta won or anything like that, because of the whole not having TV problem. What I can say is this: this is one of the best results of Jarmila Groth's career. Beating a Grand Slam champion and defending Fed Cup champion... wow. That is something else.

Particularly after coming back from one set to love down as well. That is an awesome result. When I saw Groth play Wickmayer at the Aussie Open, my immediate impression was of a player with heaps of talent and all the shots, but who could go AWOL mentally at any second. She could light up (ie. second set) but also come crashing down to earth without any notice (third set).

What Jarka showed me here in Fed Cup was that she can grit her teeth and get it done. And if she keeps gritting her teeth and getting it done... well, I could see her definitely making top twenty. Because she is majorly talented. And she is, in her own words, not a fucking tourist.

Reverse singles today (and doubles), with Groth taking on Pennetta and Stosur taking on Schiavone. I'm going with another split result here - I say Groth and Schiavone coming out on top. I don't see Frankie losing two days in a row, and I think Jarka might be on a roll. So this fascinating tie could come down to the doubles...

This is the kind of tie Fed Cup needs. I often talk about how maligned Davis Cup is, but Fed Cup is worse. Probably also because it has such a boring name. But with awesomeness like the awesomeness in this tie... Fed Cup could be on its way up.

(Also, Nicolas Mahut is into the final in Courmayeur! He'll play Gilles Muller. And also, he and Gicquel won the doubles. And I think making the final will send him into the top hundred! Mahuberfans unite!)