Montreal and Cincinnati Review

Montreal/Cincinnati review

Lovely Montreal the pride of Quebec and also saw an interesting result within the tennis sphere, but whether to say that it was a changing of the guard or just a blip on the radar is something that will be found out in a very short time.

Novak Djokovic the young cheeky but very ambitious Serbian won Montreal and he did the very rare achievement of defeating of defeating the top 3 seeds Roddick, Nadal and Federer in the event to win his second TMS title of 2007. It seems that while Nole is competent on all surfaces that his best one is a slow hardcourt and he is able to impose his game with more ease on this surface than on clay or grass for example.

Defeating Roddick these days in North America isn’t what it used to be, but still a good achievement nevertheless and best of all was that he didn’t have to play that well to do it and that is always a good sign of a player with a lot of confidence that is able to win and be nowhere near their best.

Once the Duck was taken care of, then it was onto his old foe Rafael “famooos ass” Nadal who had been vulnerable throughout the event and it was a testament to his will to win that he was able to make the semis despite playing a significantly lower level than usual. This was down to his will to win and also down to the fact that Paul-Henri Mathieu after a great comeback against Willy Cañas being a set and 4-0 down, then only lost 1 game for the match, was in a winning position against Nadal with a set and a multitude of break points in the 2nd set, but was unable to take them and deep down it’s doubtful as to whether he has the self-belief to defeat Nadal despite playing some good tennis against him and the 6-0 in the head to head statistics, pretty much indicates this.

Montreal was lit up by Frankie “goes to Montreal” Dancevic, who played very well in this event before losing to Nadal and he does remind of the young Federer in the way that he plays, though he is more reliant on his serve and he had been playing some quality tennis beforehand defeating del Potro, Odesnik and Verdasco who got all shitty when the crowd decided to support Frankie and that carried him to victory and Verdasco forgot his geographical lessons when he said about the Quebecois crowd “what country is this Africa”. He like Mathieu had chances against Nadal and played a blinder of a 1st set, but he wasn’t able to sustain that level, now hope he qualifies for the US Open.

Nole unlike the other guys was able to keep sustained pression ( cause it’s such a cool word) on Nadal and while the others lack belief they could win, this is something that Djokovic does not lack and he was able to serve well to keep the ass picker off balance and then able to punish the short balls that came his way and also when Djokovic came into the net, it wasn’t like “oh what the fuck am I doing here”, he came on his own terms and was able to make the volleys. The key in this match was the 5-5 in the 1st set, when he was down break points and then pression was on, he saved them with courageous play and some big serving and then broke Nadal to take the set. The second set continued on that path of Nole dominating and executing his game plan and it got him the win and ironically this was Nadal’s best match of the week.

The final between Federer and Djokovic, well it was not a classic at all, but the result was a very good one for tennis, but the question lies has it signalled a shift in the balance of the game, obviously it’s not going to happen in one event, but all shifts like this need a beginning and personally it would be good if that was it.

Federer has never been the most complimentary about Djokovic, this is probably due to the ham acting that Djokovic has been known to do in his matches with strategic timeouts at important times. Personally from the experiences I have had with him and seen him around the courts, he interacts well with people and has a personality unlike some robots, this is definitely a foul stain as a player he does not need these antics at all, the one in the Davis Cup when Nole did it to Wawrinka and then as he said in his own words, which was censored for some reason, that after the break that “he was running around like a rabbit”. Yes, he had breathing problems earlier in his career, but those have been sorted now.

Cincy

Once again it showed what a dumb move it is to play back to back Masters events and Federer won the event while playing poorly predictably overcoming James Blake who bends over for him when they play their matches and this was no different.

Not much more to say on this event.