4th Round

Sunday

Federer vs. Baghdatis, well I felt for Marcos he was very nervous and he had won 6 matches already, so with his elbow problem and the fact that he was playing the # 1 in the world contributed to the horrible start he made. I was sincerely hoping that he wouldn't get bagelled and be able to show some of his talent to the masses at some point.

The first 2 sets I really can't say that much about them, Roger was doing what he needed to do and was playing within himself and Marcos had a few shots, but a few too many errors.
At least in the 3rd set Marcos started to relax and was able to move better and then showed some of his form and personality on the court. The Greek fans stood by him, even though they knew before the match that he didn't have much of a chance. With this he was able to take it to Federer and make Roger win it in a breaker, he has left a good impression here during his time and barring injuries he could do very well.

A tip to the local crowds, it was a bit late to start cheering Marcos when he is in a tiebreaker. The guy was a massive underdog and then they decide to cheer him when the match is over, it's not like Federer has a shortage of fans.

Hrbaty vs. Johansson. This match I thought Hrbaty would win quite handily before that, though this result wasn't the one I expected. The 1st set was competitive and there were plenty of hard and flat groundstrokes traded, but once Hrbaty got the 1st set it really wasn't much of a match as Johansson went for the trainer early in the 2nd set and then the build up of 5 setters with Luczak, Calleri and Kim started to effect him and then Hrbaty saw that and raised the game and just kept punishing him as he should have.

I was surprised that Kim and Luczak were able to make Tojo go 5 sets especially Kim since ordinary is the nicest thing I can say about him, though that is better than that fool Reynolds who somehow managed to make the 3rd round.

It was an easy run for Hrbaty in the last 2 sets and this has been a good tournament for him so far.

Monday was the day that really pissed me off results wise for obvious reasons.Cañas vs. Davydenko, well I had a good feeling when I saw this one and thought Cañas has the record on him and if he played to his capacity then he should get through. How wrong I was about that.
Fucking Davydenko I doubt whether he will play that well again he was on fire for the whole match. The pattern of the match was set early, by some very bad line calls in the 1st set when Cañas lost his serve at 30-30 there was a ridiculous out ball missed by the linesperson that led to 30-40 and then from there it began.

In the 1st set Kolya was serving well and attacking a lot and it was coming off, he didn't want to grind with Cañas, but he was hitting winners and then moving forward and hitting some great dropshots which fooled Cañas and was leaving him in not a good mood at all.
Seriously I couldn't believe the amount of shocking linecalls in this match they missed at least 5 against Cañas and 1 against Kolya. One or two can happen, but from what I remember on the line is in and these were at vital points when Cañas had 30-30 or 30-40 on Kolya's serve.
The attacking pattern continued and he was even hitting cold winners on his backhand side now and then, when I saw this Kolya "The poor mans Kafelnikov" was going to win and this would be his day.

Cañas didn't hit with enough length and also missed a few too many forehands and he wasn't in position to hit them very well, this plus "PMK's" good play with the volleys and the winners led to this result. The worst thing is that I believe that "PMK" will lose like 6-0, 6-1 6-1 to Duckboy and he allegedly has problems with breathing which can't help him at all.

Nadal vs. Hewitt. Well the kid you blew it that is the honest assessment of this match. It's funny that Hewitt is bitching about the surface, yet there are more fastcourt players in the finals than previous. The kid and Potato were going at it right away with the heavy forehand of Nadal troubling Hewitt and Hewitt's will to hang in there were all to see. Nadal played a sloppy game to lose the 1st set 7-5.

Nadal then afterwards he concentrated well and then was just dominant and didn't make that many unforced errors and Hewitt couldn't attack his shots as they had too much depth and was able to move him well out of position.

The 4th set this was tough and I thought if Nadal didn't win that, then I thought the Potato would be too strong in the 5th set. Nadal had enough chances to put him away, but lost the 4th, then he was wallowing in his missed chances that he lost 2 breaks against Hewitt, once he decided to fight on it was too late for him and the Potato showed his mental strength this plus experience is what got him through this match.