Day 5 and 6 Kohli is the man

Not sure how this is going to read, it might be a bit over the place, funny how that can happen, at the same time Day 5 was one of conflicting emotions, gone from low to very high over a period of time. Funny usually with results it's like yeah it's pro sport these things happen, but we aren't robots. Enough of the monologue.


Koubek vs. Mathieu : Koubek came into this match as a big underdog and this was mainly because of the ranking and not reflective of how he has been playing recently and his 2 matches this week against Moya and Calleri were excellent.


Mathieu was average against Capdeville, he won in 4 tight sets and hit less winners than Capdeville and this included a 6-0 set. Not sure whether he is just being conservative or not.


This match was such a frustrating experience for these particular reasons and not in any order. The match went for 4 hours, the guy I wanted to win Koubek lost the match, which makes it worse, but the circumstances were.


1. He served more aces and Paulo has the bigger serve.

2. He hit more clean winners.

3. The unforced errors were very similar.

4. He had a break in every set and couldn't close the match.

5. He won more points overall.



The problem with the 5 things that were mentioned, it showed that Koubek didn't win the most important points of the match and he got passive when he had the lead and that is what got him to the front initially.

There was some good hitting in this match from both players. Koubek defending well and was very aggressive in using the angles and keeping Paulo on the run, taking him to places on a tennis court that don't get traffic. Used his serve well, but couldn't forclose the deal. It was a combination of Paulo fighting very hard and being 0-3 down in the 4th started swinging and it went in for him and that weight was freed from him.


Stef seemed to want Paulo to miss and not be aggressive on the bigger points, when that is what got him in the lead. 4th round of a Slam is a good achievement and some big points there, just hope he doesn't dwell on it for too long and perform at that level in Davis Cup.

Gasquet vs. Andreev : Andreev was very poor in the first 2 sets and he played like a drunken goose and at least his level was a lot higher than LaLo showed against Gasquet in the previous round.

Gasquet played the match the right way, he was able to park himself comfortably behind the baseline when he needed to and was able to be consistent and keep the ball in play for long enough and then Andreev would miss a forehand or play a woeful dropshot that would bounce before the net.

The 3rd set was better from Andreev, he was able to serve better and not make so many errors and Gasquet's level dropped a bit and Igor was able to take advantage.

Andreev couldn't build on the momentum and was in trouble on every service game he had in the set and Gasquet hitting some very good forehands and served well, was able to eventually break him. Andreev is clueless in the forecourt. He can't hit dropshots and his feel is like a slaughterman.

Berdych vs. Monaco : Once this was moved indoors this became a bigger advantage for the Berdman than it was already.

The overall standard wasn't bad, but it was a flat atmosphere as they were meant to play at 11am and they started at 8pm in a half empty arena. Thanks to the Berdych Army for creating some atmosphere it was appreciated.

Monaco has improved a lot on the surface and was hitting some very good length and made it hard for Berdych to attack him and he took advantage of a lazy game from Berdych to take the 1st set. Even then there was no feeling about that Berdych was going to lose this, then again he has lost to Roddick and Srichaphan on clay, so that takes skill.

Berdman starts to play a bit better and reduces his unforced error count and was able to dominate the rallies and then able to hit through Pico at times, but he was always in control and once he won the 3rd set tiebreaker, it was easy the 4th set and now he plays the great white Bengal Tiger Roger Federer.

Kohlschreiber taking out Roddick was a great result for the event. Roddick's serve is what is keeping him in the top 10 and Kohli's backhand was a work of art and hitting 103 winners in the match and he was playing tennis, while Roddick was just serving.

Roddick's antics in this match were pretty full on, mocking the umpire's accent, telling the German fans to shut up, then saying have a bit of a class, it's classy to do that, but at least Roddick isn't a Patron Saint like Agassi is meant to be. He is the guy who bullies the lower ranked players, but bends over for the top ones except Davydenko. Great to see him out of the event.