Drinks always taste better in the jacuzzi

This week will be focused mostly on the Challenger circuit again, for the very simple reason that fortunately I was able to attend the Caloundra event last week.

In Costa da Sauipe, El Cabezon Almagro took out this event again, he loves the IS (for those ignorants who started following tennis 2 years ago, not that this anyone who reads this blog) clay events. It's the 8th title he has won on the clay and the second one in Brazil. They really should move this event from the wasteland resort that is Costa da Sauipe. When the event was moved here, it was because the owners of the event were sponsors of Guga and played this in a rich mans resort where nobody visits. It's good for the players, the beach is there and it's quiet, but not like Båstad or Umag.

Alex Dolgopolov made his first final and still making postive steps forward to establishing himself on tour. He will do well on the clay, he has the movement and the game, though with him it will depend on what mood he is in and this is not a bad thing. Too bad this event is a 28 player draw, these events just suck and winning a title after winning 4 matches is piss weak, but hey the big stars love it and they rule the game.

The indoor nonsense was held at Rotterdam and San Jose. In the land of tulips, great footballers and high mountains Robin "the Toad" Söderling took out Rotterdam. The Toad wasn't necessarily playing great tennis only got to do enough on the day and he managed it throughout the week. Söderling is far from a technical masterpiece in terms of stroke production, but he is effective especially indoors where he doesn't have to worry about the wind getting his high ball toss and the sun on serve, in addition to the sledgehammer like forehands.

Milos Raonic the young Montenegrin born Canadian took out the San Jose crown. Could say this year has been a meteoric rise for him. Qualified for the Aussie Open made the 4th round and now wins an ATP title very early in his career. Galo Blanco has done excellent work with Raonic already, and he is very raw so as long as he doesn't break down too often, always a factor with big guys how they are managed physically.

Challengers

Blogger favourite "King of Kaltern" Andreas Seppi won his second Bergamo title and yes he is the best player in Kaltern now after the unfortunate problems that Karin Knapp has had. Even then Seppi was the best, just like the last time he won the event. In the final it was classic slow start Seppi against the luscious Luxembourger Gilles Müller who was serving very well and playing a lot of serve/volley taking the 1st set and up an early break in the 2nd.

Seppi then starting making more shots and was able to break Müller soon after he lost serve in the second. Once he levelled at 1 set all, the crowd were into it and Müller playing the attacking tennis against the precise groundies of Seppi made the last set enjoyable, then at 4-4 Müller loses serve a combination of poor play and some excellent shots from Seppi, who serves it out to 15.

The crowd were happy with the result, Seppi's girlfriend a down to earth and very natural looking lass was shown on the stream enjoying the result, the only bad thing was seeing Romano 'I'm blinder than Stevie Wonder" Grilloti in the crowd and on court in the presentations.

Caloundra

Decided on a whim to attend this event, should have done it earlier to get some better accomodation, however that ended up being one of the better things about the tournament.

Better to get all the shit out of the system now. This was the highest paying Challenger of the week, but there was no hospitality offered to the players, no internet acess, majority of the players had to walk to the site especially if they had early matches as there was no transport unlike the set up in Burnie. The main court didn't have good enough lights so they could have night matches, this would be a better investment for the club than building extra courts so they can get a combined event. It was very warm, humid and windy at times, if they had the option for night matches, then they could start a bit later and in the evenings it's warm but not so hot to play or watch tennis. You know a place is old, when I am one of the youngest people here.

The positives were the food was much better than in Burnie and there weren't any WTA players around. Ran into Robert Smeets the Dutch born Aussie who has retired and married one of John Millman's sisters, he has 4 of them. He is doing some coaching and also studying IT at uni. Pat Rafter was around, as he lives in Noosa, there was Woodbridge and Woodforde as well.

Cervanak was playing Udomchoke in the 1st round. Cervanak has the talent but struggles mentally, he doesn't mind going crazy on the court. He was playing very well hitting big shots and then moving to the net to put away the easy balls. He leads a 7-5 5-2 and then loses the match. Udomchoke then gets confidence and makes his way through to the semis. Unlike the big arenas, at the challengers you can see how pissed off Cervanak is long after the match is done.

Johnny Millman and Tomic played the best last set of the week easily. Millman started well and Tomic got some treatment on the foot, but more a strategy to change momentum loses 1st set easily. Then Millman can't find a serve and Tomic takes him to school wins the 2nd easily. The last set is very competitive, hard fought tennis. Tomic up an early break and Millman broke back. One hilariously bad call that was out by 15cm at least off a Tomic lob and it wasn't called out. At the same time Millman got a couple of letcords. Went down to the last set tiebreaker, which had a dodgy overrule at 3-3 on Tomic's 2nd serve and it was an ace. Excellent last set to make up for the up and down first 2 sets.

Millman will be going to play on the clay, he used his forehand more than he has in recent times and it was good to see, as he is going to need to improve it to push higher up the rankings. It's a safe shot, but got to be able to do more with the groundies than safe.

At least the tournament ended up with a good winner in the Slovenian number 2 Grega Zemlja taking out Tomic in the final. While he only lost 1 set all week, he wasn't playing outstanding tennis for a lot of the event. In the first 2 rounds he was comfortable against Duckworth, had a tough battle against Phil Bester winning in 2 tiebreakers. Bester was serving well this day and was not amused by some of the calling, though he is not Lukas Rosol who questions everything.

The quarter final against Ball was his best performance of the week, though this is relative as Ball has been in woeful form for a while. When you lose to Riba on a hardcourt in your home Slam with a massive serve as your weapon, then the signs aren't good. Zemlja wasn't missing much and playing aggressively this with Ball making a lot of errors.

Zemlja and Udomchoke match was very similar to the Millman/Tomic match. This was a rematch of last round qualies at the Aus Open which Zemlja took in 3 sets. Grega started very well dominating from the baseline and ripping Udomchoke's 2nd serve taking it easily 6-1, then his concentration lapses and starts playing like Kavcic from 5m behind the baseline but without the mobility. Udomchoke is ripping backhand down the line winners for fun and takes it 6-0.

The last set was a bit better quality, mostly fighting tennis as Zemlja is mixing in passive play with some errors and excellent shots. Udomchoke hit 4 lets in a row, where I'm from he buys the beers and dinner for that effort. Gets to the 3rd set buster and Zemlja fights his way through to the final. It was a similar story for Tomic who made the final, he wasn't playing his best tennis either apart from the 3rd set against Millman, he struggled with Polansky and Klec for 2 sets. The semi was easier against Ebden though.

Tomic was the crowd favourite, but Zemlja was aggressive and played a quality tie breaker to take the first set. Once he was able to do that, then the match became easier and shut the crowd out of it with a comfortable win in the final. Not a bad week for Tomic, he is off to the USA now for a few tournaments, after the US Open where he hardly played tournaments before Brisbane. He has become quite strong and that forehand which used to be a weakness, especially the high balls on that side are now dealt with contempt.

Marinko Matosevic isn't looking in great mental shape at the moment and it shows in his game. Ebden has improved a lot and it's clear to see, though how much improvement does he have is the question. One thing is that he does work hard and believe in himself. Fro him making the Davis Cup squad has furthered his development.

In the Klec/Tomic match in the 3rd set. Klec was 3m behind the baseline and didn't have much room to move, he was pissed off the linesperson didn't move so he could hit the ball. He almost ended up in the crowd and this woman said "come on" and Klec fired up and asked "who said come on". The woman said it was her and then Klec said "why you say come on, when she didn't get out of the way" . She mouthed him back and then Klec gives it back, some funny stuff.

Highlight of the week was the "Cockatoo" or the "Grothawk" the unit known as Sam Groth. He played Millman in the 1st round in a very tight match, where both guys haven't had great starts to the year. Deep in the 3rd set, they have a huge rally and Millman hits a big forehand pass and Groth fires up big time. At the end of the match which Millman wins 7-5 in the 3rd. Big Groth gets the shits throws his racquet over the fence, the wind picks it up and it ended up being at least a 60m throw onto the adjacent field. No, it didn't break.

David Lenar coach of Zemlja, my xbox victim from Burnie, former coach of Blaz Kavcic, the hititng partner of Patty Schnyder and hopefully Davis Cup captain one day summed it up perfectly. Zemlja has the strokes, the talent, but is a bit lazy with training and mentally not so strong and Kavcic is limited talent wise, but works very hard and fights for everything. Yet, both their personalities are the opposite to the style of game they play.

Paolo Lorenzi, Flavio Cipolla, Zemlja and Lenar shared an apartment in Caloundra. They drew cards as to see who would get each room in the place, one of them had a jacuzzi in the room and yes Zemlja was the man who drew the ace and got the jacuzzi. The drinks don't taste too bad in the jacuzzi. Now he is back in Slovenia skiing in a race against some other tennis friends.