PacLife CC/Scout Report - Day 10

By TW Contributing Editor, Andrew Burton

Morning, all.

In yesterday's CC comments thread, a poster called Tennis Fan took me to task for slighting the WTA in my reports and previews to date.  Fair enough, I thought, so I made a point of making a WTA marquee match one of the three I focussed on yesterday (small steps, Andrew - 33% is considerably higher than my earlier percentage).

Well, if you saw Hantuchova-Sharapova last night, you'll share my feelings.  What a contrast in styles - the variety of shot from Sharapova, who can put 15 different kinds of spin on the ball in the same rally.  The sparkling net play from Hantuchova, particularly the shoe-top volleys that are her trademark.  The two women indulged us in a feast of all court tennis, and if Sharapova eventually emerged the winner, 7-5 6-1, then Hantuchova could hold her head up high, knowing that she'd left it all on the court.

Just kidding.

But, dang, that's the kind of paragraph that I would love to write.  Instead, as you know if you watched it, it was groundies, groundies, groundies, with a sprinkling of groundstrokes and a groundstroke cherry on top.  Late in the second set, I checked the stats, and the two women had a combined net approach count of 10, winning 4 of the points.

If you look at the form guide for 95% of the top women players today, the first two lines are "penetrating groundstrokes, good defensive skills."  Or "good defensive skills, penetrating groundstrokes."  Um, that's it.  There are honorable exceptins - Justine Henin, Amelie Mauresmo, Patty Schnyder - but serve-and-volley be danged, just a few volleys would serve me well.

For me - and you have to understand, this is purely a personal statement - tennis is a three dimensinal game, and how you move the ball relative to your opponent in three dimensions helps to determine how high a quality player you are.  Even though a player like Rafael Nadal operates primarily from the baseline, he has two great additional qualities - the ability to use angle and dip on his passing shots, and the ability to generally outplay opponents in bouncing ball rallies at the net.  That's one reason his drop shots are so effective - they don't always end the point, but they put Nadal in a good position to win the point in a touch exchange at the net.

The Sharapova-Hantuchova match, in contrast, was essentially one dimensional tennis, literally - the two women ran parallel to the baseline for 95% of the match, hitting winners, forcing errors, and making errors.  They are both superb athletes, and hit groundstrokes with great skill, including returns.  But tennis which consists purely of groundstrokes and serves is about as exciting to me as the ATP serve and end the point Wimbledons of the 1990s.  You can enjoy the contest between two somewhat larger than life athletes, but at the end of the day, tennis can be more than this, IMV.

The pendulum will swing, of course - it always does.  The WTA singles of 2013 may feature outstanding all court play as the norm.  As I write this, Ivanovic is coming in behind some approach shots, and I saw her compatriot Jankovic warming up her volleys in preparation for her match later today with Davenport.  Hope springs eternal.

OK.  Rant mode off.

Here are Andrew Friedman's thoughts on the Blake-Nadal match this evening - from an angle you might not have expected....

Note: As some Tribe members know, I collaborated with James Blake on his book

Breaking Back*. So, when Pete and Andrew (Burton) asked me to participate in this exercise, I asked to take the Rafa side, so as not to inadvertently give away any privileged information from Team Blake. All of these comments are based on public knowledge gleaned from on-court observations and press conferences.* *

So, Rafael Nadal is going into his match against James Blake with a losing record. More specifically, Rafa has only taken one set off James in their three contests, and that was back in 2005.

When asked about his perfect record over the world number two in his press conference last night, James pointed out that Rafa has had the misfortune of playing him during some of his best-ever tournaments—the 2005 US Open when James was hot on the comeback trail and en route to his all-time classic against Andre Agassi in the quarters, the 2006 Pacific Life Open when James got to the final and lost to Roger Federer, and the 2006 Masters Cup, when James also made the final and also lost to Fed, but in the process upped his ranking to a career-high number four.

In other words, James isn’t taking this match for granted and the flip side of the coin is that Nadal probably isn’t assuming that he’ll lose, which Rafa never does anyway, even when he’s looking down the barrel of a 2-5 deficit in the final set as he was just yesterday. It’s also important to note that James and Rafa did not play at all in 2007, so they both come in as different players than they were last time they faced off.

The daunting news for Rafa is that James is on a nice run here: he efficiently dispatched Carlos Moya—a player he’s had trouble with, even when he ultimately triumphs—in the Round of 32, then notched his first-ever win over Richard Gasquet. Now he finds himself in the quarterfinals against a guy he’s never lost to in a tournament that’s he’s finaled in.

Add all that up and it’s safe to assume that James will be hauling a big mess o’ confidence on court along with his rackets tonight, and that’s bad news for Rafa.

So, with all of that as preamble, here are the five keys to Rafa beating James Blake for the first time:

I’ll return with my fellow Andrew after the match to see how our game plans matched up with the players’ strategies and their execution thereof. Enjoy the show – should be a good one.

So, as Andrew F wrote, he took the Nadal side.  For Blake, here's what you can expect to see if James is going to repeat his 2006 PacLife SF win:

So there you have it. Enjoy today's tennis!