Båstad and Stuttgart Tournament with fan reports from Choupi

The summer clay season is upon us starting this week from Båstad and Stuttgart. Luckily enough there will be fan reports from my special reporter Choupi in Stuttgart, as it's always better to get fan reports and I will cover Båstad. The reports will be in the comments of this post.

It's still disappointing that both of these are competing against each other, it was better when they were separate. Båstad only has 28 player draw, but that makes sense so they can spend more time at the beach and at Pepes Bodega in the evening. Lets say this is not the place to take your girlfriend.

Båstad


Onto Båstad itself, there are the usual suspects here Söderling who played shit all event last year, but ended up losing to Almagro in the final. These two characters are quite combative and their matches have some spice about them, needless to say both are a big chance of winning the title. Almagro loves an IS clay event and wouldn't be surprised if he has trained to peak for this event.

Nicolas Almagro 2010 Swedish Open Champ


Not that it always goes to seeding but Ferrer who looms in Almagro's section will be the big danger. He's on his way from Texas and with the bye shouldn't be required until Thursday enough time to adjust. Boredo two time champ coming back from injury will be moonballing, hooking and using all forms of gamesmanship.

Young Brazilian Swede Lindell plays arriba Riba, he has a very aggressive game, would like to see how he has developed since the last time I saw him vs. Nieminen in Båstad. Kavčič has a good chance to get back on track after a poor DC performance against Starace. The court isn't too fast, but can still get some good bounce on serve and shots.

Vinciguerra too bad he never could win this event. He has been injured for so long, hasn't retired as of yet but would be good if he won a match here.

As for who wins the event, doesn't matter too much as long as it's not Robredo.

Stuttgart (Choupi Reports)

Stuttgart the home of Mercedes and whoever wins the event gets a free Mercedes, though most of the players here could afford to buy one. The players who have played Davis Cup not exactly sure how their motivation is for the event. Monfils is the top seed and now he is coachless after splitting with Roger Rasheed.

Gimeno-Traver who has had an awful year so far but hasn't paid the price will do so now unless he can defend his semi final points from last season. Lacking confidence it's hard to get out of it, got to play through, losing becomes a habit as well. It will be tough for him against Kubot, but possible to win this match.

Seppi back on the clay, he has been playing some Bundesliga matches, he should have too much for Elvis Granollers, there are some good opportunities. Giraldo vs Melzer and Lurch vs. Monfils aren't bad first rounders at all.

Not sure who I think will win this, but they'll enjoy the car.

Great to see King Oscar Hernandez back playing again.

Looking forward to the fan reports

Davis Cup Quater Finals, Play off Review, Canada comes back from 0-2

Davis Cup QF and Playoffs

There weren't any magical Davis Cup results this weekend either in the World Group or playoffs. This was the time where the top players who don't give a shit about Davis Cup (Djokovic can be excused this time) turn up so they can get their Olympic qualifications for next year.

Sweden vs. Serbia

Ever since Robin Söderling withdrew from the tie any chance the Swedes had of winning the tie went out the window. Djokovic was included just to cover any moves by the Swedes, though Thomas Enqvist isn't that smart to pull something like this enough. Lindell isn't up to Davis Cup level yet, especially on indoor surfaces and Vinciguerra was on the way out.

Aspelin/Lindstedt won the doubles which was the best they could've hoped for not to lose 5-0. Very comfortable weekend for the Serbians, though Ryderstedt did as well as he could in singles. The Serbs had fun partying in Halmstad and Båstad, now they will play at home for the semis vs. Argentina.

Argentina vs. Kazakhstan

Russia A couldn't win in Argentina, let alone Russia B. Cool and heavy conditions on clay against a team where Golubev has been on a run of 14 straight losses in fact his last win was over Berdych in the 1st round of Davis Cup.

Hope Russia B enjoyed the fine women and steaks of Buenos Aires. Argentine fans are happy, cause at least this is one team that could win unlike their footballers at the moment.

USA vs. Spain

Spain showed their superior player depth in addition to the fact the surface wasn't as quick as they'd have liked and the bounce was too high. LaLo who is having an excellent year his work with Berasategui has produced some solid form, yes he is still a burro but got give him pops for the improvement. He was able to carry his Wimbledon form and fried the Fish in the 1st tie. Ferrer the warrior too solid for Roddick.

Bryan Bozos got the US on the board as per usual. Ferrer stepped up to the plate closed the deal against Fishy. Sure Mardy has a lot of weight, moves a whole better than he did, but the technical deficiencies of the forehand are still there when he plays the better players who can expose him on that side

Germany vs. France

This tie was set up from the first match where Flo Mayer was up 2 sets to 0, but had some issues with cramping or maybe a muscle strain which allowed Gasquet to come back taking the match. Once Gasquet took the lead, then the French continued their dominance over Germany in Davis Cup play, but they aren't getting it done vs. Spain.

Playoffs

Switzerland vs. Portugal

Federer should learn from Söderling if he doesn't want to do the Davis Cup thing. Söderling played the first tie and Sweden preserve their World Group status, but it's the same old stuff with him. He says he wants to win Davis Cup, but got to play the event before he can win it.

Rarely they played in the Swiss German part of the country, normally they play in Romandie. Bern is a pleasant place and indoors they were never losing this at all.

Portugal with Gil and Machado love Davis Cup, and Machado played above his level against Federer. Winning a set against Federer indoors for a guy who has played 3 indoor matches before the weekend was excellent, but Fed was just cruising through this.

Italy vs. Slovenia

Seppi was out for Italy, and there was a small chance for Slovenia to win this, but this was lost after day 1 when the chances were on offer that these weren't taken. It's not easy to win in Italy, but not mission impossible.

Žemlja took the first set against the Fog 6-1 with good aggressive play, which is how he has to play as his defensive skills are average at best, and this came back to haunt him. The Fog started to play better, but Žemlja started making too many mistakes and being defensive which is not the way he plays at his best, as his poor footwork get exposed which the Fog did.

This meant Kavčič had to step it up over Starace. Blaž started well, hitting good length and not letting Starace into the match. Then Kavčič dropped the level, got a bit passive and Starace took advantage serving better especially on the ad side. He was using the kicker to the backhand pushing Kavčič further back into the court, dominated the rallies and worked his excellent dropshot to full effect.

With Starace was playing well, the DC captain didn't offer any solutions at all. Kavčič needed to stand closer to the baseline on ad side, as Starace jumped to left on the kick serve, return the ball down the line taking advantage of the positioning. Forcing Starace to vary it up and taking away his drop shot.

Ecuador vs. Canada

canada were down 0-2 losing their best player Raonic to hip surgery before the tie didn't help them. It was good to see Vasek Pospisil and Phil Bester able to turn around their first day losses to seal the comeback win for Canada, would be good if they could make World Group, though that isn't happening with Raonic.

Too bad many of the top players believe they are bigger than the sport.

Tennis Nickname Reference List

Since there are many silly names that are used for some of the players. This post will highlight some of them, yes some are obvious and not very witty, but a few are a bit different. If anyone wants an explanation as to how they came about, then please ask in the comments section and these will be address how some of these came about.

We all know why Radek Stepanek is sexy and why Andy Roddick looks like Donald Duck when he whines like a baby.

Radek Stepanek



The bottom one goes across to see the extra names, enjoy or be confused by the listing.

Wimbledon Review :125 years of Wimbledon and the people making the schedule are the same age then the tournament

Some things change and other things don't this applies to Wimbledon. What didn't change was the moronic scheduling not the fact that Serena Williams was whining about being on court 2, suck it up princess. There is a baseline, a net and a set of lines you have to hit over and in between. The tournament finished on time, and the rain fucked up the doubles schedule. Yes, doubles is lower down the food chain, but there shouldn't be best of 5 doubles matches until the final. Phillip Petzschner summed it up perfectly "125 years of Wimbledon and the people making the schedule are the same age then the tournament! It’s a fucking joke". They hadn’t completed their first round match while others were in the third round.

There were the usual rumblings about how the grass played during the tournament, as has been stated many times they've changed the makeup of the grass using heavier balls which has changed the dynamics of Wimbledon. To the point where it's only Wimbledon in name, this has been reflected for years and only new people to the game or delusional would state otherwise.

Andy Murray once again came up short at Wimbledon which was unsurprising. Murray has an interesting relationship with the British press, they build him up for 2 weeks of Wimbledon where everyone becomes an instant expert on the sport. He has a very dry wit, but due to bad experiences with the press, apart from the usual he wins he's British, he loses he's Scottish. Not a surprise he made the semis and Nadal took him out. If he's going to win a Slam, then it will be either Aus Open or US Open.

Bernie Tomic

Bernard Tomic a young man who has divided quite a lot of people mainly cause of his attitude. Personally never had a problem with Tomic though can see why he would be annoying to others. This was his breakthrough event, the grass is perfect for his game. He can move on the surface, which is where he struggles badly on the clay. The funky forehand while not as funky as Florian Mayer's is more effective on this surface. Tomic has plenty of variety, mixes up it with some junk like Murray and Dolgopolov, this stuff works to bring the ballbashers out of rhythm, while Tomic will never be Usain Bolt and the serve needs to improve, he has a great understanding of how to play tennis, the stuff you can't teach. He was never beating Djokovic, but excellent showing against him.

Novak Djokovic became world number 1 when he defeated Tsonga in the semi finals. Whether people like him or not, yes he's cocky, can't perform fake humility well but he's been the man since the Masters at the end of 2010 to now and thoroughly deserves to be top of the tree. What has led to such improvement within this timeframe, there are a few factors. First of all, he has managed to almost get back his old service motion which was tinkered with by Todd Martin and contributed to stagnation at best and regression at worst. He changed his diet where gluten was eliminated, this has given him more energy, surprise surprise the time outs haven’t been a factor whereas before if he had dandruff he’d call for the trainer. Another important factor is the improved forehand, previously the forehand would break down or used as a rallying shot. He has improved the stroke to a level where he can hit it with more pace and penetration, while having a good safety margin.

For those who don’t understand yes the Grand Slams has 2000 points, but the Masters events which there are nine of them winning those events, players get 1000 for winning. Djokovic won the Aus Open and four of the Masters events plus the Masters Cup, therefore it’s logical he reached the top of the tree with the rolling 52 week rankings for when a player starts their career.

Rafael Nadal made the final which was a fine effort, considering he took faking to levels Sergio Busquets would have been proud of in the match against del Potro. Before the 1st set tiebreaker acting as if he tore ligaments in his foot, then after 9 minutes comes back on court, moves like there isn’t anything wrong with him. The timeout rules are a joke, have been since Shuzo Matsuoka went over with cramps at the US Open acting like he had been shot. The rules need to be changed, want to get treatment before a change of end then forfeit the game, naturally players will take advantage of loopholes. At the same time this was from the winner of the ATP Sportsmanship Award which has much credibility as a North Korean election, let’s see regularly going over time in between serves, constant delay of the game, faking injury timeouts (Petzschner at Wimbledon, Fed at Madrid). Yes, that’s the epitome of great sportsmanship.

Novak Djokovic

Djokovic was too good for Nadal as he has been 4 times this year. With Djokovic’s improved fitness and forehand plus having the confidence of defeating him in all of their matches this season. The second set from Djokovic was brilliant, defending very well when he had to and attacking the short balls that Nadal was feeding. He had a lapse in the 3rd set, but was able to retain enough focus despite some nerves to break for *5-3 and served it out for a deserved title. The match wasn’t brilliant at all, but Djokovic was at a much higher level and deserved to win the crown.

First time since 2002 there was a non Fedal winner of Wimbledon. Any doubts that were lingering about Djokovic reaching the number 1 spot in the world were crushed today. As for how long he’ll stay there, who knows and it’s not really relevant it doesn’t matter whether it’s 3 hours or 3 years reaching number 1 in the world is a fine achievement.

Previously I’ve called Djokovic the poor man’s Ivan Lendl and still hold this particular viewpoint. Both aren’t pretty to watch, ruthlessly efficient, very good at what they do and making the most of their abilities. Lendl would have loved these grass courts, but players can only exist in their era, no amount of tennis nerdishness is going to change this.

The tournament itself wasn’t interesting, the distinctive nature of Wimbledon has pretty gone in the way the game is played on grass. It’s at a point now where the game has been saved from all serving machines brutalising the sport, now they can quicken the surface up and use lighter balls.

Not even Fabio Fognini can save Wimbledon Preview

Onto the third Slam of the year, it's a mix of the traditional, annoying and hyperbolic. As much as they have homogonised the surface speeds and nuances required to play on the surfaces. It's still good that each Slam has its own characteristics.

There are a few things to rant about when it comes to Wimbledon. The grass itself is a lot different than it used to be, whether this is a good thing or not depends on your viewpoint. How it came about is very important, in the 80s it was serve/volley tennis the grass bounced low, the areas which received wear and tear was at the net and not the baseline. This started to change after Agassi's title which was his best ever Slam win, winning it from the baseline against massive servers and solid volleyers when it was fast. What happened with Sampras, Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Todd Martin these guys on the grass were just the serve players, that were no points being played at all, it was just serve tennis where they might as well have played tiebreakers. The contrast to this was the fact that watching guys who had no clue how to play on grass (aka grasscourt gimps) is as amusing as the claycourt clowns.

After these developments at Wimbledon, they changed the composition of the grass which made it more durable not a bad thing, but it changed the way the game was played on grass. It became a lot slower and less of a challenge to adjust to the surface than previously, lets say Ivan Lendl would have had a hardon seeing the grass as it is currently. Pretty much the only thing that can't be adjusted is the movement on surface which is something say Davydenko and del Potro will always struggle with. You know it has changed when Marat Safin was thankful for the organisers in slowing it down so he could make the semis there one year. Personally it's better from the horrible days of just serving bombs, but like anything fixing that problem by using heavier balls, changing the composition, it takes away in other areas. They could easily quicken it up a bit, though with the weather there's only so much that can be done

Weather forecast for London isn't looking very good, but this is England and summer so this is to be expected. Fortunately they have a roof, so some play will happen. This will provide plenty of mental challenges to the players and fans. Hopefully the weather is shit, so they can play on Sunday it's not the 10th century anymore. It's only for two weeks of the year that the locals have to put up with the tournament, they have another 50 weeks where it's not an issue.

Wimbledon will be the focus for most of the sporting world, nearly most functionally literate people whether they have an interest or not in the sport knows Wimbledon. Because of this we have the massive rise in comparison to Zimbabwean inflation rates of the instant experts. They only watch tennis for 2 weeks of the year, forget the rest of the tennis season exists and know everything about anything when it comes to the sport, these kinds of people exist everywhere just like idiots. This where the English press want to claim Andy Murray as British and the quality of articles surrounding him become even more banal than usual. I'd like Andy Murray to win a Slam, just not at Wimbledon, but we all know as soon as he loses he becomes Scottish.

Onto the tournament itself, it will be between the usual suspects. Which grass court gimp will win the most matches is of greater interest. Best thing about this draw is that Mikey Russell and Daniel Gimeno-Traver will be on TV. Perhaps Kavčič can win a match then play Murray in the 2nd round, he has never won on grass before and no time like the present. His countryman Žemlja plays Slovak pretty boy Lacko who qualified, not the easiest one. Bolelli once again lucked out as a Lucky Loser, only way he can make Slams these days, at least he is a good guy and has a pretty wife. Too bad there won't be streams to see Ramirez-Hidalgo on grass because that's something that needs to be seen.

Isner-Mahut again, hehehehehehe. Lucky I'm not a conspiracy theorist as this match came about again. There isn't a way that they'll equal the drama of 70-68 from last year, it will be interesting to see whether they put it on court 18 or not.

It won't take long for commentators to say Wimbledon is the title that all players want to win. Thomas Muster, Yannick Noah, Gaston Gaudio, Vilas they don't want to return their Slam titles just for a Wimbledon, sure maybe for Lendl this might be the case but doesn't cover the whole tennis world.

As for who will win the event, the FC Basel supporter with the Super Mario lookalike for a father. But there will be rain.

Just like Germans win penalty shootouts Rafael Nadal wins Roland Garros

Could really just have the heading as the blog post and it would say more than enough, but this forgets most of the highlights of this event didn't involve the winner of the crown, more on him later.

Looks like there is a reason that the French want to start a Slam on a Sunday, instead of thinking about installing floodlights at the venue. Now they can do this since the site has been secured for the tournament. They had "Stupid Sunday" so they didn't want the masses to see Roberto Kendrick and Yen-Hsun Lu. If they truly cared about the fans, then they'd put these fine examples of claycourt clowns on a bigger stage than the first Sunday when not many people are there. Yes, it was tragedy that the high preist of clay clowns Roddick wasn't there, but the crowd love him there.

Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo Mr.Moonball

Marin Cilic was the first upset losing to the "Doctor of Moonballing" Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo who was almost in the back fence hitting some giant moonballs. The serve is a work of art and the sleeve roll up is unique, he fell in the next round but that was a huge win for him.

Blaž Kavčič defended his points from last season with an excellent performance over Gulbis who was allegedly ill, though with him one wouldn't know whether he was literally ill or had a case of "Idon'tgiveafuckitis". Kavčič was outclassed in the second round to del Potro in straight sets, which wasn't a surprise. Didn't serve well enough and also doesn't have the pace of shot or variation to expose del Potro's weakness. One funny incident in that match, there was a very short ball del Potro hit and Kavčič gently hits at him to win the point. Then del Pussy starts acting all indignant as if to say "who are you to do this to me" and I'm thinking he's lucky it's not Thomas Muster, Ivan Lendl or Michael Stich or there'd be some major tatoo action with no apology.

Andreas Seppi

Andreas "South Tyrolean sex machine" Seppi played well against "Tsunami" Gabashvili, but he was awful against Thomasz 'the Ostrich" Bellucci for the first 2 sets especially, but was semi respectable in the last set.

Carlos "the Panther" Berlocq was too good for Aussie wildcard Bernand Tomic who really doesn't have a clue on the clay, it reflects very poorly on Rui Machado who managed to lose to him in Monte Carlo this year.

One thing that was even more noticeable than usual was the qualifiers doing well at this event. Qualifiers have the advantage of being used to the conditions at the event, given the right draw they can win a main draw or match, if in very good form win make a few rounds like Milos Raonic at the Aus Open. Nothing will beat the qualifying run in 1997 of Filip Dewulf (link article) where he made the semis losing to Guga Kuerten.

This year there was Stephane Robert who was getting smoked by Tomas Berdych in the first two sets, then closes his eyes starts swinging hoping for the best, they went in and won the match leaving Berdych bemused at what happened. The next round he got smashed up by Fabio "the Fog" Fognini who became the star of the event.

Qualifiers were running wild in the 3rd round. Stevie Darcis took down Michael Llodra and Petzschner before falling to Monfils. Lukas Rosol with the big tattoo on his leg was victorious over last years semi finalist Jürgen Melzer in 5 sets after beating Roger-Vasselin in the 1st round in 5 as well. Antonio Veic, very small Croatian player who fights very hard, didn't have much money defeating Davydenko in 5 sets before getting pummeled by Nadal. Leo "Aligator" Mayer made the third round as well defeating Dustin "Dreddy" Brown and Marcos Baghdatis before being outclassed by Robin Söderling, lets see if Mayer can build on this result after the back problems he suffered.

Alejandro Falla

Alejandro Falla was the best of the qualies making the 4th round losing to Chubby Chela, taking out Starace, Flo "gigolo" Mayer and "Polish" LaLo Kubot who made the 3rd round from qualies as well coming back from 2 sets down to beat "El Cabezon" Almagro and Berlocq. It would be rare that this many qualifiers have made the 3rd round of a Slam, perhaps Wimbledon 2002 which was a hilarious tournament.

Which leads to the superstar of this mens event, yes it was Fabio "the Fog" Fognini. The Fog was involved in the epic 2nd round match last season against Gael Monfils coming back from 2 sets down and a double break in the 4th set, playing in epic darkness where they needed mining helmets to see the ball. Came back the next day and won it. He was involved in another hilarious and incident filled match, which was the thrid best match of the tournament, behind Ferrer-Monfils and Federer-Djokovic, but so far ahead in terms of entertainment and shenanigans.

The "Fog" has been in fine form this year. With his "I don't care attitude" on the court, tanking sets and matches when he can't be bothered, then making big comebacks when he can be bothered like in 2010 with the aformentioned Monfils match, also did it against Mikey Russell from 2 sets down. In Santiago he and Robredo played an ill-tempered match with so much gamesmanship that Vince McMahon would have been proud. it ended with Boredo refusing to shake hands, which is hilarious after some of the stunts he has pulled. Needless to say the Fog wasn't impressed after Boredo said some stuff to him, then he came out the classic "'Hombre de mierda", not exactly correct Spanish but the meaning is very apt. Second funny Fog moment was at Casachallenger against Kavcic down 6-2 5-1, he comes back to win the match 2-6 7-5 7-5, full report of that match here The Fog's Comeback

Entertaining match from these smaller guys, this was the real RG final. Montañes usual steady self with solid strokes and the Fog at times was more pro active, hit some fine dropshots. Montañes served for it at *5-3 in the 5th but was tight as a drum. At 15-30 *6-7 Fog gets an injury timeout for cramps. They thought he was faking an injury, getting a massage during a service game will get some people off side and the crowd gave it to him after that, though mostly they were on his side during the match Getting double footfaulted only Gaudio, Echagarry and the Fog can do this. Fog saving match points with dropshots and clean FH winners with the typical blase attitude. He wins the match, gets a mix of cheers and boos, but he was diagonised with a muscle problem and withdrew from the quarter final vs. Djokovic.

Fabio "the Fog" Fognini

Ferrer-Monfils was a brilliant match and it's a mystery why Monfils normally plays so passively a lot of the time, when he can step into the court and attack the ball. Ferrer was his usual consistent and dogged self, but just lacks that killer blow, whereas Monfils is erratic though this time he decided to play tennis and limit the circus activities.

Which leads into the Federer-Djokovic match which was clearly the match of the tournament. Very high standard throughout the match. Federer played his best match on clay for a very long time, if not best ever. Djokovic was trying to make his first RG final and he played quite well overall, just wasn't able to create enough chances and take them. This was due partially Federer's great serving and he deserved to win. The problem with Federer winning this match was that it'd involve another final with Nadal, which it has been too many times.

For the so-called greatest rivalry ever in tennis Federer-Nadal matches overall generally stink the joint out. Their best ever match was Rome 2006 final, if anyone who hasn't seen it do yourself a favour and watch it. Federer was being aggressive and not totally paralysed by fear and Nadal was his usual relentless self. Why the matches suck in general is they don't bring the best out of each other especially on clay. Nadal hits the heavy forehand to break down Federer's backhand, then works him over as his confidence is lost in shot and then Fed's forehand isn't as effective.

Nadal winning his sixth Roland Garros wasn't really in doubt. He struggled with John Isner and didn't play anywhere near his best during the early stages very similar to the German national team before Jogi Low took over, ruthlessly efficient, effective and got the job done. Sure Federer had a set point in the 1st set, but once he failed to convert, it reverted back to the usual script we've seen before. Nadal not making mistakes, Federer making errors and groundies breaking down. It was apt that it ended on an unforced error.

All the stuff about the different conditions, the warm weather, the dry courts, the Babolat balls while it created a bit of drama beforehand. The ending of the script was exactly the same apart from 2009, as it has been from 2005. Just like the Germans don't lose penalty shootouts (last one 1976), Nadal wins at Roland Garros.

2011 Roland Garros Preview, Andy Roddick withdraws from denying the USA a claycourt champion

Roland Garros starts this Sunday, of course nothing but a money grab. though expecting major events to care about fans is the equivalent of transparency at FIFA.

Apart from the horrible news that one of the premier claycourt clowns Andy Roddick has withdrawn from event has made fans and gamblers alike very mad. Fans who can watch the movement of a constipated rhino on ice skates is a sight to behold and the bluff coming to net. Gamblers aren't happy cause they can get good odds on an early round loss for Rawdick.

This time around the lead up clay season has been different, it's usually Rafael Nadal playing at 5% capacity and thrashing his opponents. Well this has happened for the most part, but this time Novak Djokovic has been able to stand up to him and win Madrid and Rome without losing a set in the finals.

The questions which will be answered in 16 days are has Nadal lost a bit on clay while trying to improve on other surfaces. Will the gluten free diet of Djokovic be good enough to take him through to his first RG title. In reality he is still a poor mans Ivan Lendl with less humour, flair and a better backhand. Djokovic's forehand has improved significantly and at the moment isn't having problems with Nadal's groundies, defensively Djokovic has always been excellent but he is able to take the initative to put Nadal on the defensive when the chance arises. As Nadal gets pressured, he goes back into moonball or defensive mode as that's his comfort zone which isn't threatening "gluten free" at the moment. Best of 5 is a different beast when it comes to Nadal, but at least there is a bit of buzz around instead of tedious inevitability.

Some interesting 1st round matches

Nadal vs. Isner : Unless is steaming hot and Isner serves at 87% 1st serves, then big John isn't getting it done.

Federer vs. LaLo : LaLo almost got Fed last time they played, but even with Alberto Berasategui in LaLo's corner. It won't help him and Fed will continue on his way to make LaLo his turkey (10-0+ in H2H).

[Q]Gremelmayr v [28]Davydenko: Just not sure what kind of form the PMK is in at the moment. He's due to meet Nadal in the 3rd round if seedings go to plan, though this doesn't always happen. Davydenko won Munich more so because he was in less poor form than the others, at the same time if he gets to play Nadal he can lift, but don't see it happening.

Monaco v [16]Verdasco: For the good of tennis Monaco has to win this match up. Anyone that loses to the Grand Pubah of clay court clowns in Lu doesn't deserve to win anything. Pico has an excellent record against Verdasco, he makes enough balls back into court for Verdasco to make errors. As Querrey is the other seed in this section, it's a big chance for Monaco to make the 4th round.

Daniel Gimeno-Traver

Gimeno-Traver v Haase: DGT well I don't say he's truly on the way back, but has managed to win some matches of late. Haase is an explosive player with a big game, clay isn't his best surface but far from a goose on the surface. Not sure if a cooler day would help DGT in this match for him, it depends on how his backhand holds up to the flat shots of Haase. Either way the winner of this would be playing "Fisker med" Mardy Fish or Mello, which are almost dream matches for a 2nd round on clay, but that one match a time cliche is there for a reason.

Dustin Brown

[Q]L.Mayer v Brown : The Aligator and Dreddy, there will be plenty of huge serving in this match. Not the best qualifer for Dreddy Brown to have drawn, maybe he can use his sexy forehand slice winners and dropshots to get Mayer out of rhythm. The main thing for Brown is as always the shot selection and how erratic he is. Brown winning means more entertainment for the crowds and can see the Parisians really cheering him on.

[LL]Bolelli v [Q] Dancevic : Go the poor mans Federer in this one against the guy who can't return a phone call.

Berlocq v Tomic: Charly "the Panther" Berlocq got a great 1st round draw against Tomic, who is a shocking mover on clay at best. Bernardo doesn't really have any interest at the moment improving on clay, though his varied game could do well on the surface. The Panther will relish the chance to take down another young gun like he did to Donald Young in Miami 6-0 6-0, not sure it will be a triple bagel. But with Berlocq the mullet, the grunt will give Tomic a clay lesson.

[7]Ferrer v Nieminen : Jakke Nieminen must have pissed someone off to get this draw, when there are so many gimps that he could have drawn. Sure Ferrer doesn't have a great RG record mainly cause the amount of pression he puts on himself to do well here. Nieminen hasn't been near top form recently, hope he gets a better draw at Wimbledon.

Nishikori v Lu: Nishi should retire from tennis if you lose to Lu on this surface. The Taiwanese is one of the greatest clay court clowns to grace this sport. He can live off his result of beating Verdasco on clay. If Kei withdraws, then it would be a true lucky loser.

[Q] Schoorel v M.Gonzalez: The "Dutch Karlovic" has improved quite a lot in the past few months and it's not a surprise that he qualified for main draw. He has a very good chance against Machi Gonzalez, who fights very hard and is aggressive, came back well from long term injury. This one could be a very good match as Schoorel besides the serve is reasonable from the ground, being a leftie helps as he can break the weaker backhand side of Machhi. At the same time the big Dutchman is erratic.

Serra v Andreev: Both are in shocking form, if I back Andreev this means Serra wins. As Andreev has the better looking girlfiend Davai Igor.

Kendrick v [30]Garcia-Lopez: Bye for GGL against a quality clay court clown.

Gabashvili v Seppi: Interesting match up here for the South Tyrolean sex machine. Gabashvili has 4th round points to defend and can play some very inspired tennis at the same time he can be insipid. Seppi just coming back from injury, only played a few matches. He needs a lot of matches before he plays his best tennis. I hope Seppi gets up, but not too sure. Winner of this plays either Golubev or Bellucci in a ballbashing classic.

[25]Del Potro v Karlovic: del Potro is coming back from injury, not exactly sure how fit he is. Best of all he is going to be the shorter and quicker player in this match coming from someone who is 1.98m that's an impressive feat. Not sure how many engaging rallies there'll be in this match, it's not like this will be a match for delPo to get any rhythm. It would be good if Karlovic won, but can see him making a few too many mistakes where he gets broken or loses the busters.

Blaž Kavčič

Gulbis v Kavčič: Interesting match here mainly because it's not sure which Gulbis will turn up. The one that doesn't give a shit about anything and will put balls into the River Seine or the one that shows his ability.

It's well known what you'll get with Kavčič, plenty of fighting spirit, hard work, feisty attitude on court plus some poor serving at times. Kavčič has done well this season, unlike 2010 where he played so much, at one point it was 8 weeks in a row. He has been smarter with his schedule and it has paid off so far.

Kavčič has chances of course to win this match, but he has be prepared to handle the mix of ballbashing and dropshots. Sure it would be better if it was heavier, but got to take what you can with this game. At the same time Gulbis can make a lot of errors, so Kavčič needs to vigilant and take his chances.

As for who will win anyone outside the top 4, there needs to be a surprise winner of a Slam again.

Stefan "El Fashionista" Koubek retires from tennis

Stefan Koubek

It's never easy to write these entries but with anything there is a beginning and an end, the only thing that differs is the time in between these two points.

Last week Stefan "El Fashionista" Koubek retired from the tour, while he couldn't play Roland Garros or Wimbledon one last time he was able to retire on his terms. He refused a wildcard to Kitzbühel, but he will get the farewell he deserves at the event.

As for why Koubek was called "El Fashionista" this man wore bright clothes before it was cool to do so. Some people are imitators and others are innovators, Koubek was an innovator.

Koubek turned pro in 1994, it took him some time to establish himself on tour and won his first Challenger title in 1998 at Alpirsbach defeating Stanoytchev then losing to El Ayanoui.

In 1999 Koubek had the breakthrough year winning his first title as a qualifier on the green clay in Atlanta for the loss of 1 set smashing Seb Grosjean in the final.

Qualifying Rounds

32 Christophe ROCHUS (BEL) 6-0 7-6
16 Dirk DIER (FRG) 6-3 6-1
QF Xavier MALISSE (BEL) 6-2 5-7 6-1

Main Draw
32 Todd WOODBRIDGE (AUS) 6-2 7-6
16 Michael CHANG (USA) 6-1 6-4
QF Alberto MARTIN (ESP) 7-5 6-2
SF Magnus LARSSON (SWE) 5-7 6-4 6-1
FR Sebastien GROSJEAN (FRA)6-1 6-2

Later in that year he made his RG debut and achieved his best result there making the 4th round losing to Alex Corretja in straight sets. He took out Grosjean again in straight sets for the first 2 sets against Corretja he looked nervous then stepped it up in the last set but couldn't take his chances. Too bad he couldn't face Corretja in the next round who had a very bad allergic reaction and was fodder for Meligieni. He finished the year with 28 claycourt wins second behind Albert Costa for that season.

Koubek started off on tour with his best results on clay but over time evolved into a better slow hardcourt player than he was on clay, especially in the later years. He won his 2 other titles at Delray Beach 2000, this was the year where he reached his best ranking of 20, then Doha 2003 without losing a set. When he won the titles, they came out of nowhere, no real momentum coming in and not much after the wins. That was part of his charm.

At his best he was able to keep great length use his leftie groundies to open up the court with angles and defensively nothing would get past him. He also fought very hard and was involved in quite a few dogfights, he started out with an excellent 5 set record but he was still above average at the end of the career.

Like most Austrian players coming through Thomas Muster was an inspiration while both were left handed, blond and had feisty temperaments there weren't that many similarities. Muster had a reputation for being difficult with his peers (not that I have a problem with him). Koubek on the other hand was popular with peers well apart from Dani Koellerer, but that was a long simmering feud which could have came to blows if there weren't so many people around.



He was an excellent Davis Cup player for Austria even in his declining years he was available to play most of the time. Due to Jürgen Melzer's poor DC form, it was up to Koubek on many occasions to win singles rubbers to keep Austria competitive, though they never won a World Group match since the retirement of Muster and Skoff.

There were a few controversies in Koubek's career, where he got disqualified from Roland Garros 2000 playing Attila Savolt where he hit the ballboy with his racquet ( no it wasn't deliberate). In 2004 Koubek was suspended for 3 months for taking glucocorticosteroids at the 2004 French Open after receiving an injection for an injured wrist. There was no intention to dope, it was to come back from injury but failed to fill out the correct paperwork. Koubek was disqualified in Metz against Sébastien Grosjean while leading 5–7 7–6 4–2 after using abusive language to the tournament supervisor Thomas Karlberg while disputing a call. Koubek said he directed the "Fuck you" at the situation and not at Karlberg personally.

Koubek has been involved in some hilarious and memorable matches, not all of them in his favour. The two personal favourites at the 2002 Australian Open where there was a rain delay he was playing Cyril Saulnier on Court 12. There were hardly any people around, he was being coached by Joakim Nyström at the time. He was down 0-6 1-6 1-4 15-40 with myself and an Austrian friend cheering him on. He was able to come back to win the last 3 sets 7-6(6), 6-4, 8-6. He broke for the match after saving break points in the previous game. Then he came back from 2 sets to 0 down against the ballbasher James Blake in the next round. He was able to gain some confidence and reached his best ever GS result beating Fernando Gonzalez in an excellent 4 set match, then Jiri Novak was too solid for him as usual taking him out in the QFs.

Sadly the other hilarious match that I wasn't able to see was his match with Agustin Calleri in Sopot. Koubek came back from a 6–0 4–0 deficit to defeat Agustín Calleri 0–6 7–6 7–5, where Calleri served for the match three times, twice in the 2nd set and at *5-3 in the 3rd. He saved 5 match points in the process, which broke a streak 21 consecutive games lost after losing 6–4 6–0 to Daniel Köllerer in Kitzbühel the previous week. These matches are ones that have to be seen in person.

Wimbledon 2004 he and Ferrero played a brilliant match one of the best ones there easily, for sure it wasn't classical grasscourt tennis. It was in the early stages of the change of the grass composition. Both guys were hitting the ball well on the rise using the whole court, there was the odd volley done at the right time. Koubek had plenty of chances in this one, it was close but very entertaining albeit not as frustrating as the next and last one of the memorable matches.

The 2008 Aus Open Koubek played two high quality matches defeating Charly Moya and Calleri without the drama of their Sopot match which makes what happened next even more frustrating. He played Paul-Henri Mathieu and really should have won this match in straight sets but somehow managed to lose this in 5 sets despite winning more points, hitting more winners, less unforced errors, having a better break point conversion rate and winning more break points in addition to leading a break in every set. It was such a strange atmosphere for the match afterwards, it takes a special kind of skill to lose to Mathieu when all those things were in your favour.

Koubek had one more good run at the Aus Open after having surgery on his back to fix bulging discs, but the game moves forward and it's time for Stef to enjoy his life after tennis.

He will still play Austrian league tennis, look after his snakes spend more time with his wife. It's not about the titles, Koubek provided some fine entertainment and even better fashion combinations.

Best way to end this entry

Q: Stefan, what happened to the yellow shorts?

A: I wore them so much, they aren't yellow anymore and Nike stopped giving them out.

Monte Carlo Reports from Merton Chess Genius, located in the comments

Monte Carlo Masters is upon us. One of the best settings on tour, no lack of money in the principality. Yes, the place is tacky but the courts are beautiful. Jimmy's Bar isn't too bad a place to visit.

Murray taking a wildcard when he and Berdych should have committed, yes I mean committed to the tournament, not committed to a mental asylum.

Will Gimeno-Traver win a match this season, he plays Giraldo for the third time. Nieminen plays Benneteau, who struggled to take out Tomic in qualies, which leads me to Rui Machado. I don't mind MacHado but losing to Tomic on clay is unforgivable at the best of times.

Enjoy the tournament for the settings, and the matches Nadal isn't involved in and I will be getting fan reports which are always good from Merton.

Allez Monaco

Pablo Andujar wins first title in Casablanca and his football team win 5-0

Andujar wins Casablanca

Pablo Andujar with Casablanca title

The spring clay season kicked off with a couple of surprising title winners in Casablanca and Houston. While Andujar had the capabilities of winning a small clay title, the fact that the Bahamian Ryan Sweeting won Houston is bemusing at best, besides his immediate family and friends no one thought he’d win. It shows Houston has some special characteristics. In addition that if Sweeting can win an ATP title, it should be inspiration to other players.

Casachallenger was quite entertaining this year. Had some good weather which made the courts play fairly quickly. There is only so much clay one can lay down, water, sweeping in either direction before Mother Nature takes its course. Since the readers of this blog are educated, there was very little point to this paragraph.

Before moving to Andujar. There was a brilliant choke in the 2nd round in the match between Blaž Kavčič and Fabio “the Fog” Fognini. This probably should have had a separate entry and it may do so in the future. It’s hard to write about this as Kavčič is someone who I happen to like and “the Fog” is just the “the Fog”. He’d be top 10 in the world if it was down to strutting ability.

Kavčič takes the 1st set 6-1 and the only game Fog got was because he broke the Kavčič serve. Second set is going along the same path, a few breaks and Kavčič is up *5-2 has a chance to serve the match out, fails to do it at the first time of asking. Then in the Fog’s next service game he had 4 match points couldn’t convert any. After this Blaž loses the next 4 games and set 7-5.

Third set was a breakathon and Blaž had another chance to serve it out at *5-4, loses his serve and then drops the 12th game to love and the Fog sneaks out another win. It’s annoying yet hilarious at the same time on a personal level. This should have been livestreamed just for the entertainment value alone, at the same time as a Blaž fan watching this on a computer could have done bad things to my health and sanity. It doesn’t help I had a small wager on him before the match at good odds. Choking to the Fog isn’t nice and it’s the second time this player cost me financially.

All players have choked matches away at some point, but it’s how they recover from it. Voinea has done great work with Blaž so far and it’s been a problem for Blaž too many times he gets defensive and tight, where he is just pushing the ball instead of hitting it. Naturally when the arm is tighter the racquet head isn’t going to accelerate as quickly through the ball, hence the fodder and short stuff that can be exploited.

Señor Andujar started the week by taking out Florent “que sera” Serra he dropped a set, which is more due to a lack of concentration, once he got that back it was 6-2 in the 3rd. After that he played the captain of the French baseball team Jeremy Chardy who makes PHM look like Einstein, believes in the close your eyes and hit as hard you can theory. Too solid for Chardy and “Arriba” Pere Riba in the quarter finals.

Andujar lifted his game for the semi against Montañes. He was placing the serve well, using excellent angles on the forehand especially pushing Montañes further back and finish many points at the net with good volleys. It shows that volleying can be effective on any court surface.

The best was yet to come for Andujar in the final, it was his second final after Bucharest last year where he was so tired and offered token resistence to Chela. This time around he was fresher and his opponent Starace who was favourite for the final had a brutal match with Hanescu in the semi. Starace had chances to serve out the match in 2 sets, then ends up in a 3rd set buster.

Andujar had a confident opening and broke Starace early, while the Italian was serving at a high percentage it wasn’t doing much damage. Andujar on the ad side was taking away Starace’s favourite serve the kicker wide. He was stepping into the court and hitting backhands down the line, to keep him off balance. Andujar playing good all round clay court tennis and yes this includes volleys wins 6-1.

Starace who seemed a bit heavy legged and tired lifts his game to a higher level. Many of the service games are hard fought this time around, but Andujar had the answers. The forehand doing the damage, the backhand solid and came into the net on good stuff.
Once Andujar broke for the final time he was able to serve out the match and well deserved winner of his first title.

As for Sweeting, less said the better.

2011 Clay season, same old shit with different dates

The clay season has started, well on the main ATP tour anyway. This could be one of the shorter previews that I will do and this is not a bad thing. In fact I could just end it with Rafael Nadal as long as he is semi fit and yes this means even at half capacity, he should win everything on clay as he usually does. Yes, it's boring and has been boring since 2005, but that's not his fault that his level of competition are incapable of presenting anything resembling token resistence. You know it's bad when his toughest Roland Garros win was against Mariano "I failed a drug test twice" Puerta in 2005.

Houston and Casachallenger are on this week. Already there have been some hilarious things happen, the worst of all was the Sweeting and Querrey match. Only bad thing was that I missed it and it sounded it was so bad, it was good. Mikey Russell lost to Andreev in straight sets, sure Andreev hasn't been at his best for a long time but a tough draw for Russell after all there were a lot of wood ducks in this draw and he got one of the better players. Charly Berlocq did the good Samiritan thing and let James "I'm went to Harvard, but play elementary tennis" Blake off the hook in their match, this result was popular among the locals. If he made main draw at Roland Garros, people will be praying to draw him.

Casachallenger hopefully there'll be a new title winner at this prestigious event. Pere Riba and Andujar are in the quarter finals playing each other, definitely not the most talented guys around but Andujar is alright by me. He hangs out with Gimeno-Traver and even plays doubles with him, so Daniel can get a winners purse this season, plus he took out the ballbashing buffoon Chardy which is never a bad thing. DGT needs to play Chardy, so he could get a win this season. He is getting closer at least he has taken sets in his last 2 losses but his break point conversion against Lurch Hanescu was awful.

Match of the day involves Fabio "I lack self confdence" Fognini against the feisty Slovenian Blaž Kavčič. The organisers have made an error putting this on a non-tv court. The gestures here could be quite funny with the Fog strutting around like he owns the tour and not giving a shit. Kavčič getting pissed off about something usually happens within the match. He has good chances today if he can play to his level, not making mistakes and providing his ankle is fine. The Fog can play but he is very moody even for a diva.

Not exactly inspiring, unless you are a Nadal fanboy or fangirl. Watching him beat up the opposition on clay, only difference is the dates of these executions. Greater interest in who will win the tournaments he isn't playing or who can make the latter stages of the events he is in.

Amer Delić returns to the winners circle and Indian Wells/Miami goes for too long

Distractions in the real world had put me off writing last week, but enough of this. Davis Cup is still a great event despite what these top player prima donnas think about it. Yes, Chardy was labelled as a brainless ball basher who makes PHM look like Einstein, while this is true he managed to get France get over the line and Golubev managed the same feat for Kazakhstan. Jakke Nieminen tried his best and always plays Davis Cup for Finland, but he couldn't overcome Blaz and the boys in Ljubljana.

Yes, there is some TMS event called Indian Wells at the moment and can't be bothered writing too much about it. It's a wank of an event having a 96 player draw going over 10 days, yes Miami is in the same boat but they have the Latino crowd which can give it some good atmosphere. Ideally they'd be reduced to a 64 player draw and cut it down to a week for each event, yes it's a coast to coast flight but they can handle it. Seems to be Ok for the Americans to whine about being Europe for too long during the clay season, but if it goes the other way then they are crybabies. South Americans and Aussies don't get it so easy when it comes to travel on the global tennis circus.

We all love a story that has a good ending, well sometimes we do. This one one of these cases the comeback kid Amer Delić won the Sarajevo Challenger, the first player representing Bosnia to win a title, yes Cilic, Dodig and Ljubicic are from Bosnia but play their trade for Croatia. Delić is back now playing for Bosnia after several years playing for the USA. He explains it himself as to why he decided to switch allegiance, the lure of playing Davis Cup and the Olympics didn't hurt Amer Delic on playing for Bosnia

After being out of tennis for 14 months due to knee surgery, so many different thoughts would be going through Delić's mind, there are the hours upon hours of rehabilitation, the doubts about whether they can make it back on the tour, revaluation of goals. Another thing is well that happens in tough times in any field, you find out who your true friends are and the people that want to know, it's very easy to hang around, congratulate and be good to people when things are going well, as soon as it goes to shit be it through whatever circumstances many of these same people fade from the scene.

The Aus Open missed Delić this year, he loves Court 13 with the big battles he had out there. In 2008 where he qualified without losing a set, taking out Kendrick and then losing a 5 set thriller against Juan Monaco coming back from 2 sets to 0 down. The local Bosnians got behind him big time and for the most part were fine, sadly there were a few arse clowns who didn't realise that it wasn't football. Next year he came back as a LL in qualies, took out Dent in 5 sets and then he got the comeback this time against Paul Henri "Einstein" Mathieu and the atmosphere was rollicking this day.

Challengers after Davis Cup week are always interesting as surprising results are the norm, due to the travel factor and also celebrating the wins with their team mates takes a toll. Sarajevo is unusually for a tennis tournament these days played on a fast surface indoors, so it makes Delić's win the more rewarding. He came from Morocco playing on the clay and some flight issues, naturally he used the wildcard here instead of using protected ranking.

The fast, low bouncing surface suiting his game had a tough 1st rounder against improving Estonian Jurgen Zopp took him down in straight sets. Huge 2nd round match with Andi Beck where every set went to the buster and pulling through gave him the confidence taking out Martin Fischer only needed one tiebreaker in this one. The semi final against another attacking player and big server Nicolas Mahut, thought this one was going to go to 3 tie break sets only the last one went to the buster. Delic delighting the home crowd winning 7-6 (8), it would have been odds at about 1.05 that Mahut's hair would be still stylish with gel after this tough loss.
Next was Karol Beck who withdrew in the warm up with a back problem, it's not the best way to win a title on a walkover.

At the same time Delić deserves a bit of luck after batting through quite a tough draw, being out of the game for over a year with injury and adjusting from the clay to a fast low bouncing indoor surface. The crowd weren't too disappointed with the result and the hopefully Delic can use the momentum of this tournament victory to maximise his potential.

2011 Davis Cup World Group Preview. Bring back Rios and Zivojinovic

Davis Cup 2011

This time of the tennis calendar is contentious, no matter what seems to happen with Davis Cup, there is some form of whining albeit in different forms.

Lets start with the usual excuses, the top players don’t want to play, so lets make some changes because many of them are over pampered and putting their careers first, which is naturally their choice. These have included stuff like giving the players ranking points was a joke initially and still is a joke, just a way of getting them to play. The schedule is another excuse that prevents them playing, but the schedule has been shit for years and not going to change at any point soon.

2011 will be different in having a higher participation rate than usual, so they are eligible to play at the 2012 Olympics. As for other incentives been spoken about are moronic things like playing at one venue, which will further dilute the unique Davis Cup qualities but not surprising in the least in the world of homogenisation within the tennis sphere. So, how will the federations the smaller ones especially gain any revenue if they aren’t able to host Davis Cup ties in their own countries. Yes, there are definite problems about how the money filters through down to the tennis development level, if it doesn’t end up being pocketed by federation people who should be facilitating tennis development and not their bank balances.

The other one that gets trotted out a lot is to play it every 2 years, who does this benefit? It’s not like it’s going to make it any more prestigious winning the Davis Cup. The timing of the 1st round has changed, it used to be first week after the Australian Open and could see how this was problematic for the superstars, so they changed it and still it hasn’t changed the participation rate of these guys. Even better when it’s Roger “I care and love the history of the game” Federer, who routinely turns his back on committing properly to Switzerland in Davis Cup, considering Davis Cup is one of the most historical events in tennis, then this is misleading at best or hypocritical at worst.

One thing that could be done for the World Group is reduce it to 14 teams instead of 16. This would give the finalists a bye to the quarter finals and then they would play the 6 winners of the 1st round ties. Yes, it’s a reward for making the finals but the quarter finalists and first round losers in World Group would have to playoff for their spots in the World Group against the zonal winners as happens now.

Onto the ties, some of these won’t be very long to discuss.

Serbia vs. India

This should have been played this on clay, just to compound the beating that will take place. Then again if it was on clay, then Slobodan Zivojinovic could have come out of retirement in his 110kg frame and still win a match.

Paes/Bhupati will be the best chance for a victory to the Indians, who have done well to gain a place in the World Group. Djokovic loves playing for his country and the people of Novi Sad will be breaking out the rakija on Day 2.

Sweden vs. Russia

The Russians aren’t the force they were in recent times with the Colonel retiring from Davis Cup play and Davydenko in poor form. They have a team of Andreev who has been playing on the clay all season, not having great results, the tsunami Gabashvili where anything can and will happen with him. Kunitsyn who peaks for the Kremlin Cup and Tursunov, who has been improving after long term injury problems. It’s far from their strongest team but still a competitive unit.

As the great man Robert “Brad Pitt” Lindstedt said after his calf problem, things are desperate they need me to play Davis Cup. While he was joking, the facts are the Swedes need him, especially in absence of a reliable number 2 to Robin Söderling since Vinciguerra has virtually retired and Pim-PIm Johansson who is playing here, just don’t know how long he lasts before he breaks down.

This will be a very fast indoor court which the Russians won’t mind, but the Toad Söderling should win both his singles and the Swedes are better in the doubles, at least this tie has potential to be tight.

Czech Republic vs. Kazakhstan

The two man Czech team that was very common in the last 2 seasons of Berdych and sexy Stepanek won’t be on show here, as Thunder Lips Stepanek won’t be playing. So Jaro Navratil will have some juggling to do here with the second singles players. Normally it would be the :Prostejov King” Jan Hajek, who hasn’t been performing at all this season, well he has been performing tricks but that's another story, and Vesely is in the squad.

Russia 2 aka Kazakhstan Golubev, Korolev, Kukushkin and Schukin are all Russian. Apart from Schukin the other 3 don’t mind the ballbashing and this can work well indoors, but the Czechs should get home and finally Lukas “Dropshot” Dlouhy should be playing doubles with Berdych and this combo will get the cash for the Czechs and they will need the Sexy one back for the quarter finals.

Argentina vs. Romania

Not even close to the golden generation of Argentine tennis but this will be a comfortable win for them. Nalle and Monaco should play singles, maybe Chela and Schwank can play doubles or one of the reverse singles.

The Romanians will enjoy Buenos Aires it’s a great city, dulce de leche, great beef and fine women, because tennistically this won’t be too enjoyable. Andrei Pavel might as well play singles here.

Chile vs. USA

Too bad the big Chilean teddy bear as he was called once Fernando Gonzalez is out of the game for this one. With him perhaps he could have been inspired to win both singles and he could carry Massu in the doubles, where they always have the 2004 memories of winning doubles gold medals making a total of 0 volleys.

Marcelo Rios really should have been picked despite the back problem. As it stands Capdeville, Massu and Aguilar don’t have the goods to upset the Americans. In spite of Roddick moving like a constipated elephant on the clay, the best chance for the Chileans would be if one of the Bryans had to play singles. This scenario isn’t likely.

Belgium vs. Spain

Spain will win this fairly comfortably, the surface isn’t quick enough and the Belgians will have to maybe poison the Spaniards to win here. If Nadal has to play a live match on Day 3, then this is a success.

Croatia vs. Germany

Along with the Sweden/Russia tie, this has the best potential for a close result. Interesting they chose Zagreb where the crowd isn’t as volatile as they are in Split, and the conditions don’t favour any one team more than the other.

Cilic will start for Croatia and will be interesting to see how Dodig handles his Davis Cup debut. Two years ago, if someone said Dodig would be playing a live DC rubber then they’d ask you who their drug dealer was. I’m very happy for him for working so hard with limited ability. He won’t forget 2011 winning his first title in Zagreb and also playing a live Davis Cup tie. Karlovic should be playing the doubles.

Interesting or maybe not so interesting fact the whole German team are Bavarians and yes all of then Bayern Münich fans. Kohli, Florian “German Gigolo 2” Mayer, Picasso Petzschner and Kas. Picasso and Kas will more than likely play doubles, they have played quite a few times, leaving the other 2 to play singles.

Lots of possible interesting scenarios here, but Croatia should get it done, not that this is said with great confidence.

Austria vs. France

Two questions need to be raised here. Are there that many things going on in Vienna, that they have to play in the airport hangar. Yes, I was there and remember when they played a match in September at Prater Park. The hangar doesn’t quite have the same ring as the bullring in Nimes which the French once used, though better than the carpark that was used once by Spain.

Other question is whether Jürger Melzer will be Melzer or Melzclown which is something that has been too apparent in recent times when it comes to Davis Cup. He had his best year in 2010 and needs to build on that, especially since “El Fashionista” Koubek is on his last legs and Martin Fischer isn’t quite up to it.

As for France, they aren’t in the greatest shape got Simon who is allegedly injured he is almost as injured as Nadal. Llodra not at his best on clay, Benneteau who is still coming back from a long injury break and Jeremy Chardy who should be the captain of the French baseball or cricket team. Lucky this tie is indoors as Chardy would be hitting the aeroplanes trying to take off or land.

Melzer is the key to this tie, and he is comfortable in the doubles with Knowle. If he plays to his ability then Austria has great chances, if he shows his previous DC form then the French will be picking up ladies in the Viennese clubs and playing the reverse singles drunk.

Will add pictures later and there will be another Davis Cup entry tomorrow.

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.

Tommy Robredo the king of sportsmanship. Andre Ghem back on the tour and all fun in Challenger town

Here is an attempt to try and get this blog more active during the season, not exactly sure whether the balance will be right between quality and quantity.

This is a summary of the recent events after the Aussie Open and will be a mix of ATP and Challengers, as that would make the most sense plus I have been two recent challengers, one not bad the other one has a lot to improve upon.

Last week had 2 first time winners on the tour. Big Kevin Anderson won Jochallengersburg which was good for a local to win the event, also that he was the best player left in the draw, it would have been a crime against tennis if van der Merwe won an ATP IS event, but there was a tennis crime committed last week at another venue. Sadly, Jochallengersburg won't be on the calendar. It wasn't a bad idea per se to have an event in South Africa but why was it put there initially. Was it the fact that former CEO and all round incompetent Mr. Disney Etienne de Villiers is South African or that South African Airways a sponsor of the ATP.

The timing of Jo'burg was wrong coming after the Aus Open and it's quite a long trip. The altitude would be a factor, but personally more events at altitude wouldn't be too bad, not pissy altitude like Madrid, which they go on about being like Mt.Everest and K2 combined. If they were to have an event in South Africa, the first week of the year would be better and preferably at sea level. Congratulations to Anderson, he has improved quite a lot and Devvarman pushes more than an Amsterdam street dealer.

In Zagreb, it was a true bolter Ivan Dodig won the event over defending finalist the German he-man with the very soft voice Michael Berrer. Dodig is an example of hard working triumphing over natural talent. He has worked relentlessly on the serve and the forehand and while being far from the most talented player around, has managed to win a title very quickly in his career. He has lofty ambitions about where he'd like to be ranked, while he is limited anything can happen in this game. The funny part at the end where he threw his racquet in the crowd after he thought he won and needed it passed back to him, as he hadn't done the job.

Sadly for the game of tennis took a monumental beating when the talented yet fragile Santiago Giraldo served for the title against Tommy "I don't believe in sportsmanship" Robredo, but he shat himself when it came to the crunch and Boredo played a solid game to get the break back. Once it went to the tiebreaker, then the chance was gone for Giraldo to make it the first time that 3 people won their first title within a week.

Boredo fights hard and maximised his talents, that's the best thing I can say about him. Though I had to chuckle at his fight with Fabio "the Fog" Fognini. If they were playing Slams on strutting ability then the Fog would be a multi Slam winners. Plenty of needle in their match and Boredo doesn't shake his hand at the end of the match, he showed his true class. The Fog calling him "hombre de mierda" was priceless, this and the Stakhovsky incident this year has been good to Boredo.

Challengers

Burnie was quite fun and enjoyable this year, well not result wise as most of the players that I was cheering for lost early in the week. This doesn't mean there wasn't some fun to be had watching matches.

There was a lot of shit weather around, so there were some days where doubling up of matches happened. Cipolla carried on his excellent start to the year by winning the title, though he didn't play the final against the "Gooch" Chris Guccione who had to withdraw with an achilles problem.

It was great to see the sexy Guccione back on track, after the injury problems and the Green Card issues which meant he had to miss the Aus Open playoff. Best of all he took out Bernard 'the Golden Child " Tomic in a 3rd set buster. Interesting fact that the Gooch doesn't like night matches, as he can't pick the ball up very well. Of course he did in style, didn't even come close to losing serve and then serves for it at *5-4 in the 3rd and plays a lax game, but justice was done in the end.

There is good access to Challengers which is something I like and while Burnie is not the best place on the planet and very quiet, there were enough humourous moments during the week to make it worthwhile.

McDonalds in town the only place open after 9pm, this was the epicentre of the event. The ridiculous waiting times on the food sent Matosevic even crazier than usual. Ivo Klec in fine form with the ladies. The locals with some good mullet action looking bemused at these tennis people in there.

Rain delays were a feature in Burnie, but thankfully there was an Xbox there which got plenty of use. The highlight was big Sam "the Cockatoo" Groth, yes he is called the cockatoo after his hairstyle teaching me how to play Smackdown vs. Raw. After a few attempts, then playing David Lenar the former coach of the man Kavcic and now coaching the talented but lazy Grega Zemlja. It was a very tough battle that went for ages but the Undertaker (myself) managed to get over Shawn Michaels, which was almost as good as their Wrestlemania matches.

This week, I'm at Caloundra. This challenger has a good club as in facilities, but lacking in a lot of areas. There is no internet for the players, the courtesy cars show up randomly, there are no ballkids until Friday, these three are annoying. Worst of all, the website is a joke, there is no ATP livescoring at all, even little Burnie could do that. The lights on centre court aren't good enough to host night matches, they need to be a certain wattage and don't make the grade. This apart from the fact that in the wonderland of Queensland there is no daylight saving, so there is a window only of 8 hours of play from 10am to 6pm due to the lack of light.

To end on a more positive note the man Andre Ghem qualified for Costa da Sauipe, the place where he defeated Guga Kuerten. He has had a lot of injury problems and making a comeback. Won a Futures 2 weeks ago, then taking out Junqueira (aka Danny Devito) and then Navarro to make the main draw. Hope he can be inspired to beat Craplocq, but the Carlos has the power of the mullet.

Burnie Challenger Round 1 : Everybody Wang Chung Tonight

It’s already February and it’s the last event that I’m travelling to for the year, hope this will change in the future, but enough of that.

This comes from the throbbing metropolis known as Burnie located on the northwest coast of Tasmania. Too bad they don’t play the Fed Cup tie on King Island and move the men’s challenger to Hobart that would be a lot better for the fans, though it’s a good thing that I am not in charge of the tour.

The event has had a mix of everything weather wise. At the moment it’s raining and there could be some double duty days. Day 1 there was only one singles match completed, Tuesday got the first round completed in singles. The doubles are behind schedule, but that always takes a lesser precedence than singles.

Round 1

Lindner vs. Minar

Only got to see the last set of this match, as I arrived from a horrible bus ride in the afternoon. Lindner who is the son of Bob Lindner, a former Queensland and Australian rugby league player. He qualified for main draw, in most fields qualifiers have an advantage as they are used to the conditions.

Minar was playing in this very sexy hot pink number. There were fences so I couldn’t take pictures of this funky shirt. He came from Singapore and not exactly sure when he arrived, but he looked like he was drunk and not caring too much.

Lindner who is a tall guy with a good lefty serve was able to use this well and not too make too many mistakes from the ground. Minar was making quite a few errors and couldn’t make much headway into the Lindner serve, who took the match and his biggest scalp on tour.

Tuesday had everything weather wise. It started off boiling hot, then it got cloudy, very windy that the fence on centre court almost fell down. So, play was suspended on centre court until they got some maintenance people to fix the fence. The wind in the afternoon was so hilarious, it was gale like and just hitting the ball in the centre of the court and hoping for the best.

Polansky vs. Lojda

Both guys haven’t been in great form for a while. So it was far from surprising that it was a close match. Polansky started the better, he was trying to play close to the baseline whereas Lojda who seems to have copied his strokes from Jürgen Melzer, is mostly defending.

Polansky was slightly the better player in the 1st set making more things happen, whereas Lojda seemed quite heavy legged and just reacting. The 2nd set is a bit different Lojda starts being more offensive and playing further in the court and is able to push Polansky around the court, hitting some big off forehands and then finishing off with angled cross court backhands. In the process Polansky is dropping short balls and getting punished.

Lojda, a former US Open junior champ hasn’t really kicked on in the seniors. He has an early break in the 3rd and looks like he is going to run away with the match, but Polansky keeps fighting and Lojda starts to make more mistakes. Polansky breaks back and then Lojda is playing from almost the back fence, just running and trying to be Franco Squillari with the big off forehands, but not having the required heat. Polansky takes advantage and breaks twice for the win.

Cipolla vs. Millman

Very tough match for Millman here, one because Cips is in solid form this year and has a unique and difficult game to play against, second Millman only arrived on the Monday night. He and Klein were stuck in Singapore for various reasons, unlike the rich guys on the tour, sometimes finances are a hard thing to manage.

Cipolla started very well, the slice backhand was hitting the targets and keeping very low. The outside courts play a lot quicker than centre court. Millman was struggling with timing and this was due a lot to Cipolla’s play as his rally ball naturally comes in a bit lower than usual, plus Millman feeling a bit shit. Cipolla is not the guy you want to play when you aren’t on your game.

The pattern continued Cipolla wasn’t making errors, hitting good length on his shots, the forehand was reliable and the slice almost as sexy as Guccione’s, but not much is that hot. Cipolla comfortably takes the 1st set 6-3.

Second set is very similar to the first, whereas Millman is extending the rallies and Cipolla is defending well. Unfortunately for Millman, he could hardly hit a winner, as Cipolla was running, running and making shots from everywhere, which lead to some great comments from Millman. After one very long rally, side to side, forwards and backwards. Millman comes to the net hits his only decent volley of the day and Cipolla rips a running forehand past him. He says “ how the hell did you lose to Benoit Paire in straight sets at the Aus Open”. Cipolla stands at net just smiles.

Some other comments there was a donkey overrule on the far side, not from a clear mistake either. Millman tells the umpire using a Adam Feeney line “You are a liar”. The umpire fires up and says to Johnny, you call me whatever, but don’t call me that. Then after an overrule on a call a blind person would see, he came out with “well done you have reached a personal best”.

Cipolla was just too solid all around in an excellent performance. Millman tried to move to the net, but was volleying poorly for the most part and couldn’t get into the court to force Cipolla to hit topspin backhands.

Bester vs. Matosevic

The conditions changed in this one from burning hot to cloudy and fucking windy. No it wasn’t just breezy, it was very windy. Matosevic said as a joke, they should stop cause it’s too windy and then the referee came out and stopped it and Marinko wasn’t enjoying it at all.

Bester was playing quite well at the start, hitting some good length and Marinko was sluggish initially. In the 2nd set Matosevic picked it up, able to his backhand to better effect and was able to take it 6-4.

In theory Matosevic should have been able to take the last set, but the ball was moving around so much and he was getting pissed off with the wind that he couldn’t hit his shots and mentally he was too pissed off. Bester played the conditions as well as he could and didn’t whine about them too much, in the process knocking off the top seed and plays Cipolla for a place in the quarter finals.

Guccione vs. Klein

Gooch was in a huge serving mode and not missing many and Klein was jetlagged, so this was a battle between former champs. Klein even had some crowd support, plus he provided some comedy moments in the match.

Klein played one poor service game and lost the 1st set. Gooch the Stud with the wind at his back was kicking the ball over Klein’s head at ease, so he had try and get some action at the other end. Klein had a mid court forehand and swings to hit it, but hits his leg and the ball bounces twice before it goes in the net.

Another Klein classic, as he was getting humbled with the serve out wide. He decides to charge the serve, no chip just charge and ran past the thing, as he knew he had no chance of returning it.

It goes to the tiebreaker, which is quite hard fought. Klein manages to get to set point, he plays it well has a chance for a backhand pass which he rips down the line. It’s halfway between the ground and the net on the backhand side of the Gooch, who then gets a racquet on it and hits a drop volley with underspin to save set point.

On the match point Klein hits a decent serve and the Gooch doesn’t quite catch it, hits the top of the tape and dies, therefore winning the match on a dead netcord. Klein is just shaking his head and then after the match as I was watching it with Millman, who precedes do a Klein impression when he went down with cramps and it’s right on the money. The crowd that were still there weren’t quite sure what was going on.

Zemlja vs. Ebden

This had the potential to be an excellent match, but Zemlja unlike Kavcic isn’t going on with the good form from Australia. Here he looked heavy legged, didn’t give a shit about the match, this doesn’t help at all when playing Ebden, a guy who has been solid for some time, who likes windy conditions and does well in Australia.

The match worked out pretty much as expected with Zemlja just hitting the ball, not thinking about what to do with it, most noticeable was that he didn’t move his feet much at all. Whereas Ebden was playing the percentages hitting down the middle, letting the wind do the work a lot of the time.

Rain delay came at the right time for Zemlja, so he hoped it had, but while he was striking the ball better after the break. He played one lazy game, had game point but couldn’t convert, saved break points a few times, it was not meant to be his day and now Ebden plays the “Golden Child” Tomic next round.

In other notes Erik Chovka who qualified is a really cool guy and took out a very jetlagged Rosol. Chovka is a Czech-Canadian leftie who lives in Montreal, so speaks Czech, French and English. Had to ask him the important question, which is the secret of a good poutine? The cheese has to squeak, once it does then you have a fresh, high quality poutine.

Big Sammy Groth couldn’t take out “Golden Child”, he served 20 aces but still not enough, too many holes from the ground. He was fairly quiet with the commentary, usually you get some good stuff from Groth when it’s not working for him.

Paolo Lorenzi who took out the junior finalist from Aus Open Saville, he was just happy to get through, lets say the standard of pasta at the club isn’t quite like what he is used to in Italy. Matosevic loves giving to Cipolla and Lorenzi saying that it’s al dente and even better than you’d get in Italy.