Nicolas Almagro: Sometimes talent isn't enough

It has been some time since I have wrote one of these types of articles, but that is not something that has meant to be happen. Deivid thanks a lot in advance for helping me with this piece.

Now the subject of this post is the Spaniard Nicolas Almagro. He is known as Mucho more commonly, but I like to refer to him as "el cabezon", which is a reference to size of his cranium to the rest of his body and not to his ego, which is definitely quite healthy as it normally is for a professional sportsman. At a time he was "the Superstar", because of the antics, but didn't have the results to back up the swagger, this has been partially rectified, though there are still question marks which will be addressed later.

Almagro turned pro in 2003 and won several Futures titles and he beat some names that have made it to the main tour Igor Andreev, Stani Wawrinka, Juan Monaco, Garcia-Lopez among the list. Then as a qualifer in Palermo, he came through and took finalist Mathieu to 3 sets, who made the final and had a huge choke against Massu.

"El cabezon", while he was known to Spanish tennis audiences, came known to international audiences when in a short space of a few weeks, he qualified for 2004 Hamburg and pushed Guillermo Coria to the brink losing 7-5 in the 3rd and this was the Coria who was on quite a long clay winning streak, who ended up losing to Federer in the final. Then he qualified for Roland Garros played Guga Kuerten lost the first two sets, came back won the next 2 and lost the last one 7-5. Though he lost those matches he made an impact with shotmaking, exuberance and the lack of fear when against two of the best claycourt players one in their prime and the other slightly faded.

After that, he lost his way in 2005 and didn't realise that he had to work hard to improve, within 2 seasons he was just outside the top 100. He pumped Safin in Rome in striaght sets, but did little else after that in the season. He won his first Valencia title as a qualifier in 2006, that then that lead him on a rich vein of form, losing to Nadal in Barcelona, then qualified for Rome and made the semi finals pushing Federer to the brink.

This is when the press and fans start getting on the Almagro bandwagon, that he is going to do some damage at Roland Garros, he is a dark horse and all the usual hype that happens after one or two good results. The hype ended up crashing pretty quickly when he lost to James Blake and this match highlighted many of 'el cabezon's" weaknesses. Blake plays the same style of game irrespective of surface, he belts the shit out of the ball, when not going well, he tries to hit it harder. Mucho wins the 1st set in a TB, then Blake's shots starts going in, but instead of Almagro using his greater experience and nous on clay, by stretching Blake wide or hitting some heavy topspin balls down the middle. He wants to be mucho macho and try and match Blake in the ballbashing stakes, as if to prove "I am the bigger man and I can hit harder than you", it's not rocket science, you don't try and play the game that your opponent loves, unless you are Federer at his best or Borg on clay.

Almagro has an outstanding single hand backhand down the line especially and can get very good angles on it and when in full flight it's a wonderful shot. His forehand while it's his weaker side, it's a very heavy shot and hard to attack, unless you get him moving. His serve is excellent, very hard to read with a quick and low ball toss and even with that low ball toss, he gets a lot of kick of the court, which opens the court up and then he can dominate from there.

El cabezon has an attitude problem as well.Yes, he has had some on court problems with his antics, well when he won Valencia in 2006. Marat Safin refused the handshake, then the famous incident with Daniel Koellerer in the Acapulco qualies, where they were giving each other shit and then Koellerer calls him "hijo de puta}, well he probably should have said it in German. In a way it's good that he is a bit controversial and shows what he feels on court.

More importantly, he has lazy footwork, not that he is slow per se, he just doesn't move that well, and that impacts on his defensive skills. "El cabezon" is the type that enjoys dictating the play, and can hit the big shots when he is set, but he finds it hard to defend very well, when stretched because of his average movement. This leads into some questionable shot selection, doesn't always know when to pull the trigger to unleash the powerful shots, could give the ball a bit more and use the advantage that he has heavy shots to get more short balls, that he can punish with his outstanding groundstrokes from either side.

He has now seemed to have found some consistency at the IS level and he played an excellent match in Acapulco against Nalbandian to win the title there. Almagro is due for some consistent performances in the major clay events, the main doubts are whether he has the will or the aptitude to work on the weaknesses like the movement, shot selection and defensive skills which will help him do better on the clay, as well as the hardcourts. Then again he might be content with just existing on his talents and existing between 20-50, with the occasional good performance.

As for the big breakthrough, well he is definitely good enough to win one of the big 4 clay events, but these aren't won, just by having great groundstrokes and looking good on court. He could do with a change of coach, to take him to the next level, as the saying goes you can lead the burro to the water, but you can't make him drink.