Nice to see Joachim Johansson back on track after eight months. The Swedish Davis Cup team, who missed an injured Söderling, had no choice but risk him in the first match of the semifinal against US. Didn’t even think Pim Pim could twice force Roddick to the tie-break, in his debut after shoulder surgery last February.
Of course, memories went back to that US Open quarter final in 2004, when this young promise of world’s tennis was able to serve off the defending champion Roddick on his home soil in a wonderful night session.
Swedish supporters hoped that Davis Cup could give extra-motivation to a player whose career has been too many times obstructed by injuries. But maybe, after such a stop, Johansson is already happy to have ended the match without bad surprises. The Thailand Open, starting next week, is a better test to prove if Pim Pim can get back to high levels.
Tennis Hall of Fame announced that Michael Chang is in the nominees for 2008 induction. Well, I know that not everybody will agree with me, ’cause Chang had and still has thousands of fans all around the globe. But I really doubt that his tennis curriculum matches the eligibility criteria set by the Hall.
Ok, tennis is not only statistics and Chang enlarged the markets taking lots of Asians to the sport. But, if you look at the names of the former players elected in the last ten years, I don’t really think that Michael can cope with legends like Sampras, Courier, Edberg, Becker, Wilander, Lendl, McEnroe, Connors… The Hall should only be the place for the Greats of the greats.
And if a «distinguished record of competitive achievement» can be reduced to a quite fortuitous win of the French Open, well, then we’ve come to the point where even Thomas Johansson can be named among the tennis greats in a decade.
Roger Federer has put a spell on his opponents. No matter how good they are, no matter how experienced they are, they all come to a point when they start thinking they are playing in front of an unbeatable guy and they will never be able to win the match.
So did Novak Djokovic yesterday in the final of the US Open. He did everything right ’till the moment he had three set points in a row in the first set. Seeing him play you would say: «Look at this guy. He’s not scared». But then something happened also in this nice and easy-going Serbian’s mind.
He actually beat Federer last month in the final of the Canadian Open (not before giving his guts…) and has all the qualities to become a major winner and world n.1 in the future. But yesterday was not his night. Five set points missed in the first set, two in the second. The match could have easily gone the other way. How much can you blame it on Djokovic’s lack of experience and how much on Roger’s ability to get off of any situation?
The fact is that all those streaks of winning matches made Federer hate losing. When you start fighting against him, it becomes a mental struggle in which (for Roger) the fear of losing is even bigger than the desire of winning. You can see him never glancing at his opponent, always focused 100% on his shots and on his tactical choices, only keen to be the best once again at the end.
I’ve never seen a worse fifth set tie-breaker than the one played by James Blake against Tommy Haas in the fourth round of the US Open. Where did James think he was? He wasted a three hour job with a just crazy attitude, looking for the winner all the times, never waiting against a guy like Haas, who often misses when put under pressure.
Of course that outstanding point on the score of 3-3 made the difference, with Haas lobbing the American twice in the same rally. But Blake seemed to be already beaten before the whole thing even started. Maybe he’s not ready to inherit the responsibility of carrying the US flag in tennis and, at this point, I doubt that he will ever do it one day.
Could this be a turning point in Haas’ career? A player who has lost at the fifth set some of the most important opportunities in his career (an Australian Open semi agains Safin and an Olympic final against Kafelnikov) has already won two five set matches in this year’s Open. And now faces a much more relaxed Davydenko, that he beat in five sets in January in Australia.
Maybe the eternal promise of German tennis is finally becoming reality.
Now that the US Open draw is lined up to the fourth round, it’s maybe time to start wondering who this Ernests Gulbis is. 19 years old, from Latvia, he progressed to the last 16 without dropping a set and destroying n.8 seed Tommy Robredo.
Searching in his ATP profile I found out that he is not a complete unknown. In 2007 he is the winner of two challengers back-to-back in Besancon and Sarajevo. And he beat Tim Henman in straight sets at the French Open.
Here’s the last game of that match in a Youtube video
