Day 1: Smoke On The River The Aus Open Qualies Report

Yes, it’s that time of the year where I actually write about tennis. Well it has been an interesting start to the year with the ATP Cup which already has more credibility than the Pique Cup in spite of the huge disparity in ranking points and players who can count an additional event.

Now, let’s get on with the real stuff aka the Australian Open qualifiers. Today was an experience for sure. It was warm, humid and the air pollution was disgusting to the point of dangerous. Play was initially meant to be start at 10 am but it was suspended for an hour, whether this was a good thing or not, who knows.

Rosol vs. Lamasine

Naturally the day started at Court 22 aka the car park. The organisers have expanded seating capacity and provided more shade which is a good thing.


Skyline

As for the match itself it was played in awful conditions with the smoke haze. Rosol was class above Lamasine who had nothing at all to hurt him with. He wasn’t able to hit with enough depth and penetration to get Rosol on the move. That’s the thing even at his best Rosol was never the quickest, but he has a lost a step. The serve and the groundstrokes still have pop, but a lot more vulnerable these days.



Today, Rosol was very comfortable and never looked like losing. He was serving well and dominating with the forehand. He found it very difficult to breathe but apart from that, said it wasn’t too bad. He will need to improve to beat Lorenzi in the next round, but tennis is a funny sport.

Martinez vs. Lienz

Pedro Martinez is coached by Daniel Gimeno Traver who has not retired from tennis. He is currently injured with a knee problem. He will continue to work with Martinez while he is injured.

What can one say about a 6-0 6-1 score in around 45 minutes? Lienz was handing out the errors like Santa Claus on speed at Christmas, he probably should have gone to Lienz instead.


Pedro Martinez

On the other hand, Martinez played a very smart match with hardly any mistakes. In the rallies he was 2-3 metres behind the baseline, but he did move into the court when he had a short ball to put it away. At the same time based on what was seen Martinez he is a bit passive, but classic Spanish stubbornness, definitely needs a bit more stick on the groundstrokes though there is potential for improvement.

Kavcic vs. Clarke

This was definitely a unique match in many ways. They played last week in Noumea where Kavcic won in straight sets and was hoping for more of the same.

In the 1st set both guys were struggling in the conditions Kavicc couldn’t get into any rhythm on serve especially. He was serving so many faults into the net, just not getting enough leg drive. Clarke was playing a mixture of good shots and some tripe. They traded breaks, but neither player played well at the same time.


Kavcic

Clarke broke for 6-5 and was 40-0 up, but through a combination of tightness from Clarke and Kavcic playing the break points intelligently and managed to break to get to the tiebreaker. Kavcic plays an excellent tiebreaker to take it.

The match continues with the same pattern as the previous set. Kavcic lost serve again but this time Clarke was able to hold serve throughout to take the 2nd set. Nearly every time Kavcic had a break point Blue Jay Way was hitting the lines with the serves or a good forehand.

There was an unfortunate incident just behind the court. A ballkid has collapsed outside of the court. Both Kavcic & Clarke went over gave them drinks, checked on their welfare. The child has wet towels on them, they were able to walk away after about 10-15 minutes. They had assistance and people checking on her. There was a lot of heat and humidity with the lack of air didn’t help at all.



Kavcic loses serve at 2-1 but Clarke is gassed big time. He is cramping and had the physio out in the 2nd set. In the 4th game Clarke could not drive up on his serve was just using his arms and some underarm serves. Kavcic was able to break back and able to maintain his focus against a very fatigued opponent. The Slovenian did not lose another game in this match to win in 3 sets.

After the match Kavcic was debating with the umpire about the tine violations both players got during the match. He said you’d never do this to Nadal or any of the top players, well he is not wrong. If these conditions were for main draw, then they wouldn’t have played but since they are qualifiers they are too low on the totem pole of significance to worry about.

The Random stuff

Stakhovsky vs Rola : Stakhovsky has not served that well in 5 years, played well from the back but Rola really didn’t change his positioning on return to give a different look but well played Stakhovsky.

Spoke with 2 guys from Spain, one from Madrid and the other from Barcelona. The Barcelona man is an Espanyol fan, yes we spoke about La Liga for about 10 minutes thinking what a shady club Barca are and growing up an Espanyol fan in Barcelona was living on the edge.


View from the courts

Nicola Kuhn had some great shorts but he was swinging so hard and Viola just kept getting the ball back that Kuhn ended up retiring in the 3rd set.

Umpire Mo Layhani noted that he was feeling it in the voice with all the smoke. My shirt smells like smoke. On that note from a smoky Melbourne, until tomorrow and the show must go on.