Monday, September 25, 2006

Ciao Palermo Clay, Exotic Spices in Mumbai and One Night in Bangkok

The last main level ATP event of the year lovely Palermo is upon us and this means in the meantime I will have to follow clay challengers and then wait for Viña del Mar, while the indoor idiots rule the way. Sicily at this time of year is pleasant as it's not as hot as it is in the summer, but still warm and pleasant enough and there have been some good winners of this event.

The last 2 defending champions Andreev and Berdych aren't here this time around. Igor is still injured and in the loving arms of Tursunov after the successful Russian win on the weekend and the Berdman has gone to Mumbai this time around. Volandri the guy who was beaten in the last 2 finals is the number 2 seed here and has been playing well recently a final in Bucharest and played very well in a losing effort against Spain in DC.

That is the problem with these events after the Davis Cup, it's very hard to predict as to who will do well, either cause they might be still drunk from the celebrations or only having just arrived at the venue after a long flight, but with this tournament it doesn't seem to be the case with long flights. It's an open event and nearly anyone can win this.

Jan Hajek the man who has been on a tear at Challenger level is playing against Ulihrach who has come back from nowhere and winning matches. Seppi a man who is in poor form at the moment is playing Simon and he was a semi finalist last year, hopefully the Sicilians get behind him as he needs a big performance soon to salvage his year which has not been good.

Zabaleta is playing Olivier "Have a Little" Patience and Mariano is struggling badly at the moment losing to Zib is an indication of that, but as long as he can remain fit and fight hard, then the results will come for him. Nico Lapentti the winner of the big challenger in Poland plays Mathieu, who had some ankle problems in Bucharest, but has had about 10 days off and should be ready to go now.

Blogger fave Oli Marach fresh from winning his first 2 DC matches is up against the Spanish 'Superstar' Almagro who has had some injury problems and hasn't played too much. Almagro should win this easily, but with him one can never tell. Then Lucho plays Montañes and vamos Lucho save your season with a good performance in this event.

The tournament from Ho Chi Minh has been moved to Mumbai this year and neither finalist is there this year. Björkman is still in Brazil with Davis Cup and Stepanek is still out with back problems. It seems Martina has been working Thunder Lips too hard in the bedroom and his back has suffered cause of it. It's good that they have bought some big players to India and Moya is back there and he loves it there, it must be the food.

Tursunov will have fun adjusting from clay to outdoor hardcourt, but he should win his first match at least and apart from that anything is a bonus. This event has to be good Berdych, Koubek and Monaco are there and besides this the big Greek Economidis is there and he is literally a big guy. At the start of the year he had to play qualies of the Burnie Challenger 25K event and won it and now he is making it directly into this field. Too bad del Potro didn't get the easiest first round match available.

One night in Bangkok with the huge appearance money kicks off the indoor season and this event has some of the big names Ljubo, Safin, Baghdatis, Blake are there. There has been a coup in Thailand, but it doesn't seem to have to have had too much impact. I mean they played the South African Open when it was the apartheid regime, so they will do what they can.

Got to say it's funny seeing Vicente and Massa in an indoor event as direct entries and they are there for the holiday in reality as they play Ljubo and Nieminen respectively and Marcos has to play Chicken Man for the thrid time this year and he is 0-2 and will want to get a win over him as soon as possible.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Davis Cup Dance

Well it's the Davis Cup semis and promotion ties for the World Group as well this weekend. I will try and cover as much as I can, though there are lot of other things going on at the moment.

The Hewitt sideshow is almost at an end, and the whole "will he or won't he" saga about playing in Argentina, seems to have been answered. Sure Hewitt is disliked in some sections of Argentina, but is the same in Australia and the fact that he is playing this time is a good thing and it creates some interest in a tie that in reality should not be close. Argentina with their strength in depth could easily use Guzman and Roitman and probably still win this tie.

From reports it seems Chucho will be playing the first day against Hewitt and this is a good test for him and though Hewitt might be the higher ranked player and he will use all the negative energy to fire him up. Hopefully Chucho doesn't shit himself, though he is lucky he has Mancini on the sideline. Basic facts that this match will decide whether it goes to the 3rd day, if Chucho wins the singles, then it's match over. I wonder how the crowd will react to little Lleyton. Chucho said allegedly "they must insult Hewitt, but moderately" hehehe.

Russia and the US, it seems the Yanks have been talking up their chances in this one. It would be to Argentina's advantage if they won the tie, but for some reason this is not likely to happen.
Safin plays Roddick first and Marat must be licking his chops to be able to play Roddick on his worst surface and should be able to get the right result. The Russian captain has also decided on using Youzhny against Blake and that is a commonsense decision under the circumstances that the PMK doesn't play well against these guys and they can rotate their players.

The playoffs well the Czechs have a new captain Tomas Berdych's coach Jaro Navratil who has a mullet and while they are away, they are playing on carpet and that will suit Berdych and they should make it back to the main group.

Austria and Mexico: Koubek asked to be left out of this tie to improve on his ranking at the moment and it will be good that Oli Marach, a blogger favourite to make his debut and Melzer who comes off his first ever title win on Bucharest will have a chance to improve on his very poor Davis Cup record, it's something he has struggled with for some reason.

Spain and Italy : Brazil were the last team to beat Spain at home and they had Guga playing for them and as much as I like Seppi, he is definitely no Guga and he got the job of playing Nadal, though it pains me to say this that it would be good if Volandri beat Boredo on Day 1, just to make it go to the 3rd day, but Spain will be back in the World Group.

Brazil and Sweden : I love Brazil, the parties, the beaches, the women and the like, but I will cheer for the Swedes in this one. It's great to see Vinciguerra back after all the injuries and he is the clearly the best Swedish player on clay when fit and it seems Brazil are having internal problems. Marcos Daniel hasn't been named and got the shits, Guga has come out of nowhere to play doubles and Saretta is in poor form.

Switzerland and Serbia : Federer decides to make a comeback that and Wawrinka is good enough to win a singles match, will mean that the Swiss will be back in the World Group again and it would be good to see Federer play in the 1st round for next years competition, though I wonder if he would go to Argentina say for example.

Go the Russians and the Argentines.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Guillermo Cañas back on the tennis circus

The Return of Guillermo Cañas

The tough Argentine Cañas is making his return to the ATP tour on Monday after getting his suspension for taking a masking agent reduced by the Court of Arbritration by 9 months. For those who have not read the verdict, there is a full PDF file on the case, but this is the short version on the ITF site about the case. At the same time the people who still think he is guilty, this proves below why the CAS chose to uphold his appeal. It's not in their interests to favour athletes for the sake of it. There were faults within some part of the process and if there wasn't, then the case would have been dismissed.

http://www.itftennis.com/antidoping...le.asp?id=16515


Cañas has been training very hard and obviously with the time out and having to deal with some negativity and it will obviously take him time to come back into the swing of things and he will have to be more vigilant when it comes to supplements and if he is feeling crap at any point, then declare on the forms that he is taking something and then he can cover his own arse. At the same time as much I am happy to see him back, he can't be stupid again when it comes to this sort of thing and there will be definitely an air of suspicion around the locker room, while he has received the support of many players especially fellow Argentines and others, but there will be dissenting voices as well.


Willy has a new coach the former doubles specialist Gaston Etlis, it is not surprising that he and Hernan Gumy split afterwards, it wouldn't surprise if it had something to do with the case, at the same time the coaching world is like a transit lounge, so many changes in a short time, though there are some exceptions to this. I wonder if Cañas has improved his backhand drive, cause that was something I noticed he wasn't hitting that as well, he has an outstanding backhand passing shot, but with the wrist problem it seems he doesn't hit it with enough penetration or spin and it ends up landing short and he can be punished on that side.


This experience will make Cañas even more determined than he was previously and I have many good memories of watching this matches and he has been in so many battles, some he has lost and others he has won. He and Hewitt had a couple of bruising matches at Roland Garros in 2001 and 2002 and they split them. In the first one Willy was leading 2 sets to 0 and had the match suspended at 2 sets all and then Hewitt came through and this was around the time he was ranked in the 80sand started making some big progress.


The 2002 match was very hard fought match these matches Hewitt was #1 in the world and the first 2 sets of this match were brutal, both were hitting the ball well and scrambling everything back and leaving nothing there on court. Hewitt won the first set TB easily 7-1 and then the big turning point was the 2nd set TB and whoever won that, was going to win the match and both players knew that and they were fighting like 2 rabid dogs with only one bone left and both were hitting to the corners of the court and jerking the other side to side. Cañas had the superior movement on the surface and Hewitt was at his strongest mentally then and neither was going to give in and saving set point after set point and then Willy took it 15-13 and then won the last 2 sets and that sums his up.

He can play on all surfaces and if he returns to form he will be a valuable asset for the Argentine Davis Cup team, as in my view he is the 2nd best all surface player in Argentina behind David Nalbandian, though if Coria returns to form that could be debated. Cañas loves the Davis Cup and would love to play again, but before that can happen, he has to battle through the Challenger events and it is fortunate that the Latin American section of the Challenger tour is active and that he can get some wildcards and be able to establish himself not far from home and away from the major epicentres of the tennis world.


If he is good enough to come through that and determined enough then he will able to make some noise on the main tour eventually, the question is now how well will he bounce back from this setback and he has been successful after having the wrist problems establishing himself, in theory the older he is, the harder it will be form to restablish himself in a sport that continues to evolve.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Bizarre Bucharest and no Nadal to defend the Chinese Clay championships

Bizarre Bucharest and no Nadal to defend the Chinese Clay championships

No, I have not gone mad with the subject title, well no worse than usual. Nadal won Beijing last year and some of the masses still can’t handle the fact that he has won events off clay and last year since Miami was meant to be the “new-clay” as in it’s almost as slow as clay and that is stupid in itself. So when he took the big appearance money and won a hardcourt event, it could not have been possible, it must have been a new surface called Chinese clay. As for charismatic when it comes to Nadal. I am not a huge fan of him and I don’t hate him, but somebody running up and down with the attack of the crabs in his pants doesn’t make someone to be charismatic.

Bizarre Bucharest, well this event is a bit of a Mickey Mouse event, and there are plenty of strange results that happen in here, it maybe the spectre of Vlad Tepes although he is in Transylvania that looms over this event. The example of some of the previous winners like Florent “Que sera” Serra last year coming out of nowhere and winning the title and beating players like Volandri, Mathieu, Pavel and then Igor Andreev in the final with no form to speak of and he doesn’t have much of a game either.

Among some of the fine winners of this event the great Tasmanian Richard Fromberg who was surprise surprise unseeded, but with the afro, he was always cool, even with a visor. The Catalan doubles man Joan Balcells who looks like the character “Monkey Magic” was another bolter to have won. In 2002 a certain young “Froggy” Ferrer won the event as well and yes, he was unseeded as well, then in 2004 the stoner smoking Jose Acasuso won this title thumping Andreev and there is a twist to this tale, in that he was unseeded. This is why the title of bizarre Bucharest, strange results, slightly mysterious place, Ion “Mafioso” Tiriac even though from Brasov, has his fingers involved in the pie and the ladies can be a big distraction as well.

As for the tournament there are some good names or ones that I like anyway. Big Chucho has more important duties ahead that he couldn’t afford a trip to Bucharest, but Yayo Massa is back and maybe he could be the winner of this tournament and I’d love that. He has been playing well in the Bundesliga and just hope he can get a good run. He is in a very good section of the draw, especially since Mathieu is sucking badly at the moment and Tursunov as a #1 seed for a clay event, then you know it’s open.

Zabaleta who has been struggling for form this time around plays against the wildly inconsistent Koubek and as for who I want to win. I can’t lose because at least one is in the 2nd round though with Mariano he is deep in the 300s and he needs the points more, though his fitness is more important. That section is interesting as well with Lucho and Moya playing and that is clearly the best 1st rounder of this event and a tough match for both. In this section the hometown boy Pavel is playing big Boris and should be too good for him and it would be great if he could win his hometown title.

The bottom half of the draw has Florent “Que sera” Serra and the Argentines Martin Vassallo “Che Guevara” Arguello and Roitman could easily make the quarters here, it’s a very open section with the “geeky German” Mayer, Potato Starace in there as well and no huge stand out and with Bucharest as has been shown from previous winners expect the unexpected. Too bad that Luczak decided to lose in the 1st round of qualies, then again the bizarre nature of the event can lead to these sorts of things happening.

Sidenote to finish, the Düsseldorf Challenger final between Korolev and Vinciguerra is something that I am more interested in than the US Open final, it would be great if Vinciguerra could win another challenger, but it will be tough against Korolev who is going places very quickly.