Now the first clay TMS of the season is upon us in Monte Carlo, this out of the three TMS events on clay that has produced the most winners of Roland Garros in the same year. This is probably cause these are the closest playing conditions to what they have in Roland Garros, which is not surprising.
The tournament has been hit with many withdrawals, though for the most part it's American players not playing cause either they are scared of getting flogged, they want to spend more time at home and not worry about this part of the season, or they don't like Monte Carlo which is understandable.
This in a way is good for the tournament as there are still plenty of quality 1st round matches and there is a distinct lack of claycourt clowns and that's a good thing.
Ferrero vs Tursunov: Ferrero is returning to a place of former triumphs, but he is not the same player and hasn't added an extra dimension since the glory days of 2003. Mitya is a loose cannon and though this is not his best surface, he is hitting the ball very well at the moment and I would like to see him win this match, but we'll see.
Ljubo vs Andreev: An intriguing first round match to get Ljubo's clay season under way and not one I think he would like too much. He has no points to defend during this part of the season and should be able to hold his place in the top 10, but big Igor is not an easy opponent at all.
Ljubo will have to serve well for sure and I will be interested to see how his forehand holds up on this surface. He is no gimp on this surface, but a guy like Andreev can break him down from the baseline, though Igor's favourite shot is the off-forehand and that goes Ljubo's backhand which his strength. For Andreev to win, he will need to keep his length very deep and then wrongfoot Ljubo a lot and test out his movement.
Massu vs Ferrer: There will be plenty of running and grunting in this match between these two tough players. As Deivid said this week Froggy Ferrer had some back problems and hopefully he has healed from that and will be able to play well against the "Raccoon" Massu who has shown signs of life this season and has been injury free and is always prepared to play for a long time, though he does take 30 min in between points.
Interestingly enough these two have never played each other and Massu has had time to prepare after not playing a tournament straight after Davis Cup and if Ferrer is ailing then he could take advantage, especially as Ferrer has quite a few points to defend from this event.
Santoro vs Berdych: This is a case of brains versus brawn in this encounter. It has been said and that is Berdych is similar to Safin and in many ways he is in a tennis way. I hope for Berdych's sake he doesn't have a Safin-like disposition to playing Santoro. It could easily happen that the variety of spin, slice and junk could throw the Berdman off and get him extremely pissed off and end up losing focus, and if it's windy that will give another advantage to Santoro, but I am interested in this one for sure.
Gonzalez vs Moya : What a match and these guys will be testing the geometrical dimensions of the court to see how far they can hang in the backhand corner to hit forehands, this is an unpredictable match as both have been a bit down this year, but they have the potential to do very well.
Gaudio vs Henman: Gaston hasn't won a set in 3 matches against Henman and he needs to ready from the first point against this chip/charge rubbish from Henman. It has been a long time since they played. Henman has had injury problems, but can pull out a good performance still and Gaston is out of form, so I hope the trend can be reversed. Gaston ring the big Zabaleta, he will tell you how to beat Henman.
Acasuso vs Volandri : Chucho plays well against Volandri usually and he hasn't played at these TMS events for a long time and I hope Chucho blows him away like he has done previously, their games match up quite well and hope this trend continues.
Should be a good tournament and I get good TV coverage and I am happy about this.
17 comments:
Some nice first round match-ups and I'm looking forward to this. Gasquet and Baghdatis will be missed though.
I will just about forgive you for calling my fellow Brit's style of play "chip and charge" rubbish!!! At least it guarantees that I will see Gastón on TV here! This is the first year I have not been in MC for this tournaent for years - and it feels a bit strange - but we do get excellent TV coverage, though I am pretty busy next week and will miss a lot:-(( My favourite 1st round match up is Massu/Ferrer - I hope they play this on Easter Monday so I can be at home to watch it.
Yes, it's a shame about Gasquet and Marcos.
But there are plenty of good ones on today. Chucho is up first and I hope he gives Volandri a good hiding.
Gaston, Horna, Seppi, Monfils and if I was there I would have more than enough tennis to watch for sure.
Hopefully I can see some of this on TV. I saw a couple of Safin's matches in Valencia.
anonymous aphex :)
Chucho Acasuso showed who was the boss when he beat up on little Volandri. Pippo's backhand which is his best shot, didn't work for him at all and if that's the case, then he has no chance against Acasuso and this was the case. Chucho wanted to have a nap in the 1st set, but once he got that it wasn't in doubt.
Malisse and Nalle wasn't a great match, but Nalle did the job that he needed to and now plays "the Seppi" in next round. He is an AC Milan fan and I don't want them to win tonight, but want him to win tomorrow.
Djokovic and Federer was an entertaining match and Nole showed what he is capable of in that 2nd set and even though he lost. There will be plenty of encouragement to be taken from this performance. Tactically he played quite well and was returning well, just made some cheap errors on some of the big points.
Gaudio and Henman: I am happy with the result, but not necessarily the way that Gaston played in this match. Henman was pretty bad, though at times he did play some very good points and showed why he was able to handle Gaston so easily in their earlier meetings.
Gaston will need to improve against Chucho, but he managed to keep a very good length and that was able to take away the way Timbo could beat him.
Bring on Day 2.
In some sense day 2 is less interesting than day one, we get stellar blockbusters like Llondra-Kiefer and Vliegen-Hernych, not to mention the two Monegasques both making round 2. I am sure the crowd will make the experience for Nadal and Grosjean unforgettable, something like playing against Nacional or Penarol in Montevideo.
It is good to see Tomas winning against Santoro, a pity i could not watch it. He now plays his buddy Simon from the Australian Open. I hope he is healthy because he had to withdraw from singles.
Not the best coverage, but something is better than nothing.
Coria was solid and couldn't be tested at all, but he has the potential to get a big test in Mathieu.
PHM played well and was patient, when he needed to be and aggressive when the chance was there to punish the short ball. Safin seemed a bit flat, but he fought and good to see the racquet throwing skills hasn't been lost.
Berdych got over Santoro and hope his abdominal problem isn't too serious and he can take Simon.
Good wins by Ljubo and Ferrer. Too bad Chucho and Gaston are playing in Menton today.
Söderling beating both Davydenko and Starace. Now that is scary. They must've been injured.
maybe the match of the tournament has happened today with a great comeback from coria (or a great choke by paulo ;)). beating somebody from 1-6 1-5 down and playing like my grandmother without serve is quite a good effort. I'm also happy about gaudio and nalbandian - the argentine armada advances.
What a performance by my favourite Weasel. He was so far down, had no serve at all and was giving away so many gifts that the Union of Santa Clauses would have him banned for overworking.
But he just hung in there and tried his best and Paulo showed the egg shell nerves and couldn't get the job done when it counted, he had enough opportunities to do the job, but full kudos to Coria for hanging in and he knew that Paulo has a tendency to choke, he is probably still stunned that he got out of that one.
There is a reason where Mathieu is ranked where is and that match showed that.
The Seppi vs Nalle match was bizarre and comical in a lot of ways. Nalle comes out and is misfiring and Seppi isn't playing much better, but leads 5-2. He is serving for the 1st set and has a set point and then hits a double fault.
After that Seppi loses 9 games in a row and is down 0-4 in the 2nd set and then starts to play a bit more aggressively and is able to show what he is capable of and both are playing much better tennis.
Then Andy gets it to 5 all and then loses his serve, after Nalle was able to run down a smash, which Seppi lost in the sun and took it 7-5. There was a potential upset in this one, though I hope Nalle bitchslaps Boredo.
Berdych lost to Simon again, well it seems like his ab problem and the fact that Simon pisses him off helps.
It seems like the Gaston match was very close as they usually are between he and Chucho, though playing on an outback court wasn't beneficial to certain fanbases hehehe.
The Coria miracle came to a very crushing end as it seemed likely against Nadal.
All the problems with the serve and it's not technical, it's all in the mind, but that win against Kiefer was hilarious. Coria leads 5-1 in the 1st set and loses a breaker, then is down in the 2nd set by 2 breaks and wins, then Kiefer takes a 30min toilet break and Coria beats him up.
Gaudio has fallen through to the semis and now plays Rafa. For Gaston to win, he needs to do everything well and be patient and hit a lot of short
slice serves in the deuce court and then hit behindhim.
It will be interesting to see where Gaudio really is at. Time to start doing well against the better players.
I'm pretty satisfied about who's making the semis. Just sad that only 1 of the 2 semis will be showed, because of that f*****g Fed Cup!!! Sorry about the rant, but that makes me mad.
Well the Gaston and Nadal match wasn't too bad, especially the 1st set there were plenty of tough rallies there and initially Gaston was quite astute tactically, though he did hit too much to the open court.
There were some interesting moments and some outstanding points that highlighted the enjoyable features of claycourt tennis. Both guys knew what the other was trying to do and seeing how they combated it was fun to watch.
The 1st set well Gaston leads 3-1, then it gets after Rafa holds, then Gaston down 0-40 decides to hold serve after a huge battle and that gives him some confidence for the rest of the set. Some excellent volleys and backhands from Gaston, some quality defensive skills from Rafa and he showed it takes at least 4 or 5 more shots to win points against him.
Then the 2nd set starts and this where Gaston lost his concentration and that can't be done against Nadal especially on clay and he started to get lazy with the footwork and whereas the forehand wasn't at its best in the 1st set, he starts making errors on the backhand. Nadal was just being consistent and placing the ball deep and hitting some excellent drop shots at the right moment and steams through the 2dn set.
Gaston showed his racquet smashing skills, which aren't bad for a small guy and the incessant chats with Davin and Pantera, who have heard it all before and the running commentary.
The final turning point in this match was 1 all in the 3rd set and 30-0 on Gaston's serve. Well he decided to be Santa Claus and give up 4 unforced errors in a row to lose his serve and once this happened, in essence it was game over.
Nadal took advantage like a top player should and then Gaston was totally deflated mentally and was mauled into the ground as he should have been.
Gaston played well in parts and Nadal was his solid self and had some excellent gets and his mentality was the clear difference. He kept his concentration up for the whole match and he didn't panic after losing the 1st set, and mentally imposed himself on Gaudio.
Nadal is improving, though he will need to have a greater breakpoint conversion rate than he showed against Gaudio, who for once was better in this regard.
Thanks for that review of the match. I've followed it only through livescores. Now, I have a better idea.
Nadal defends his title from last year and played fairly well and got better as the tournament went on and that's a good thing.
Federer still has some tactical battles he needs to fight and find the best way to play for against Nadal on clay, as what he is doing now isn't good enough.
It wasn't a bad tournament overall and Gaudio's performance was an improvement and hope some of the other guys can lift in Barcelona and Casachallenger.
Congratulations to Rafa, the streak is still alive for now and I believe that he would rather win RG than care about a streak.
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