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The more things change...

2011 had been the year of Novak Djokovic who came into Roland Garros having won 39 matches in a row including 4 finals victories over Nadal in masters 1000 tournaments, 2 on hard and 2 on clay. Federer was an afterthought; a distant third wheel to the Nadal Djokovic show. But at the end of this fortnight what we have learned is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Once again, it was Federer and Nadal in the final and once again Nadal was the victor.

Now or Never?

To me the match of the tourney on the women's side was the Jankovic vs. Schiavone match. This match was a huge opportunity given the decimated draw. With the top 3 seeds, Wozniacki, Clijsters and Zvonareva all losing, Jankovic and Schiavone would have to be favored due to their experience on the grandest stages. Schiavone is of course the defending champ here while Jankovic is a former number one and 3 times a semi-finalist at RG and a perennial top-10'er. In fact, Jankovic is the longest residing top 10 player having been there since Jan 2007. Losing this match would end that streak however as she is defending points from a SF at RG last year. The match started very late due to a 4 and a half hour men's match. In the first set Jankovic had so many break point chances and game points on her own serve, yet found herself 5-1 down. She didn't take her chances on the big points and despite getting a break back, went down 6-3. In the second, she was cracking the backhand inside out and down the line to put Schiavone off-balance. Schiavone also started leaking errors. The JJ serve was working really well for her too. And after a 6-2 second, we headed to a deciding third. It was a see-saw affair and JJ put herself in a winning position. At 4-4, she was serving and had multiple game points. If she could just hold on, all the pressure would be on Schiavone to stay in the match having been broken so many times already. Then the wheels came off. She could not buy a first serve at all. She threw in some doubles. Her backhand wasn't stinging anymore and although JJ has never been known for her forehand, she went into a shell almost and was barely putting anything on the FH. It was honestly worse than Wozniacki's... Despite all this, JJ still had opportunities to win the game but by playing passively and pushing on every shot, this allowed Schiavone the chance to dictate play, and to her credit, she took it. It's all about who takes their chances, and just as she did last year, Schiavone knows when an opportunity presents itself. After laying an egg in last years SF against Stosur (a golden opportunity to win that maiden slam), Jankovic comes up empty again. JJ has had her chances but instead of going after it, she has let these opportunities slip. You have to wonder if JJ has it in her but after today's performance, now or never is starting to look a lot like never.

Milos please take a break!

Milos Raonic is the hottest thing on tour right now, winning matches everywhere (and I mean everywhere) and his ranking is shooting up at lightning pace. Here's my concern: after reaching the 4th round at the Australian Open, he flew to Johannesburg, South Africa and played qualies and 2 main draw matches. Then he went to San Jose, California and won the thing, and this past week he played 5, 3 set matches in reaching the Memphis final. Now he's jetting off to Acapulco, Mexico to play on clay ahead of the Canada/Mexico Davis Cup Tie to be held in Mexico. He will most certainly be playing in the big Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami so there is no break in sight. But burnout is very possible and with the two masters events, that is a worrying proposition. He should also take some time off so that he re-fuels for the rest of a very long season. That's my 2 cents anyway. Winning San Jose or Memphis might be nice but you always want to peak at the big events.

Roddick: 50 Finals, 30 Titles

Congratulations to Andy Roddick are in order for winning in Memphis over Canadian upstart, Milos Raonic. He is now the 3rd active player to have 30 titles or more joining Roger and Rafa...but that's where the good news ends. If you take a closer look at his titles, almost 2 thirds of them (19/30) are at the 250 level, the lowest on the tour. All 5 of his 500 level events are in the US, 4 of them being in Memphis which certainly has one of the weakest draws year after year. So I'm really not that impressed.

TV coverage of Tennis in Canada

So for as long as I can remember, TSN has been the major tennis carrier in Canada. I remember a time when Rogers Sportsnet was CTV Sportsnet and carried "Sanex-WTA tour" events (poorly might I add). Being a tennis fan in Canada isn't easy that's for sure. I have had a lot of gripes with TSN's coverage over the years and clearly I am still bitter about it. 1) It urks me when TSN goes to taped coverage (a slam or masters 1000) when LIVE tennis is going on. They do this to make sure their time slot they have allotted to the matches isn't extended, because God forbid That's Hockey 10 in the middle of summer or whatever has to be pushed back (yeah I know this is a hockey nation and I don't know what follows the tennis coverage, I'm sure it varies but that was just an example). 2) Slicing and Dicing of QF, SF, and F matches to fit time slots. I'm sorry but these matches are the crown jewel of any tournament, and to splice these up and cut off trophy presentations (re-air of AO men's and women's final since they were played at 330 am et) is utterly ridiculous. 3) Non-flexible coverage. The Roger's cup has been plagued with rain over the years and TSN just gives up on covering it. One instance in particular bugs me. In the 2009 Rogers  Cup for the women, the comeback mom, on the eve of her second US Open title as it were, was to take on Jelena Jankovic in the QF. It rained, but the match was eventually played around 10 pm et. It was the best match that no one saw. I mean, what gives?! You have a second channel, TSN 2, as well as online streaming capabilities. 4) Horrible commentary. Tracy Austin and Mary Carillo are world-class commentators so I give props to TSN for bringing them on for the women's event. Brian Williams and Rod Black do not do their homework at all and are absolutely abysmal. ESPECIALLY Brian Williams. Wow I mean he truly offers nothing valuable to speak of for the viewer. All he does is repeat the score a billion times and then tell us what country the player is from as if they are playing for their country. No, this is not fed cup or davis cup or the olympics, on the tour, they pretty much are playing for THEMSELVES. Ugh. Rage. Peter Burwash is alright, I mean he's got opinions, I don't necessarily always agree but I can deal with that. Robert Bettauer, I feel like he knows the game but is seriously disconnected in that he doesn't follow the tours which is kind of a problem when you're interviewing the players and analyzing their matches.

This year is the first year that the men's and women's events will be played in the same week. I think that the PR people are spinning this as "virtually combined", when in reality they would have much rather kept the events on separate weeks because they will get more TV viewership/revenue and more fan revenue because let's face it, if you're a tennis fan in Canada, you're going to both if at all possible and having both events simultaneously played out makes this a much more challenging task. Also the media hoop-la of the first week gives a fantastic lead-in to the second week and that way all of Canada knows that the Rogers cup is happening. Now it's sort of like a one-shot deal so they've got to get their promotions right with no chance for error. But this was out of Tennis Canada's hands. The tours are moving towards combined men's and women's events because that really is tennis at its finest (see the grand slams). I suppose a bunch of mini-slams is the way of the future. There is something to be said for the men's or women's only events too though. In Canada, we have two great facilities and a rotation of event's is done. I can foresee a time in the future where one year, Toronto holds the combined event and the next year, Montreal holds the combined event. Obviously both grounds will need to be expanded and you are also left with a venue that doesn't get used every other year. There was talk of sort of having this happen in a very bizarre way. I believe there were talks of having one half of the men's draw and one half of the women's draw playing in each city, then flying out the QF's from Toronto to Montreal and vice-versa. It's an interesting concept but I mean logistically it just wasn't going to happen. They would be opening themselves up to so many issues: 1) un-fair rest for one player over the next (person flying out vs. person not flying out) 2) different court conditions (speed, bounce...) 3) Weather issues 4) Inconvenience for the players 5) All-around confusion for the casual fan...so ya, just a myriad of problems, which is why this was never going to fly. The positive in this whole she-bang is that Tennis Canada got the week they wanted, which is the first week of the major US Open Series events. Most players will make the Rogers Cup their first stop on the US Open Series which means good fields, and early arrivals. Early arrivals are great for fans to come by on qualies weekend and check out their favourite players. Also, being back to back events, there have been many instances where the women's Roger's Cup has been struck by withdrawals, most recently, Maria Sharapova, who went 3 sets in the final in Cincinnati and then pulled the rip cord on the Rogers Cup. She had also played the week before in Stanford. It's tough going back to back to back, yes but I feel like the players should support the biggest events on the tour instead of playing a premier event and a premier 5 when you know you committed to the next premier 5. She should have just played both premier 5's. Just sayin'.

The post-AO lull

The post-AO lull isn't impending anymore...it's here. There has been some Fed cup action and this week smaller events scattered across the globe. The event which I want to talk about is the lowly 250 event in San Jose, for 2 reasons, 1) Del Po, 2) Milos Raonic. Del Po has been trying to find his way back into form ever since returning in the fall circuit last year and up to now, it's been "no mas". But he's finally made some headway this week. In the QF, he laid a whooping on ol' Rusty, Lleyton Hewitt and then took on Mr. Hot Sauce himself, Fernando Verdasco (yeah that's what they call him on the tennis boards b/c I guess Verdasco sounds like Tobasco, he's also known as "Fiasco", anyway...I digress).

I watched this SF match, which Verdasco won, 4 and 4 and there were moments and glimpses of the astronomical power that Del Po used to blast Nadal off the court in the 09 US Open SF and then beat Roger in the final. He can certainly make it all the way back to the top of the men's game. At the moment I think he's just missing that match toughness. He just made a few errors at critical junctures (4-4 in the second on his serve) and that loose play ultimately cost him this match. I was watching the tournament stream and the commentators were talking about his future and said that he should be a force a wimbledon and "for obvious reasons, he will never win the French", or something along those lines...uhm what?? I think someone needs to do their research. To me, Del Po is very much like a Soderling in that he hits huge off both wings and he's got a big serve. They also both have relatively big take-backs and the clay allows them the time to really load up and then blast away. Yes, their movement will be limited on the clay but if they can do enough with the ball (which they can) and stay in control of the rallies, they won't need to defend as much. Also being so tall, they can really handle the top spin of players like Nadal or Verdasco. Both of these players have two-handers which also helps them reach up and generate enough power to deal with those high looping balls to their backhands which one-handers struggle with (...see Roger vs. Rafa and the classic equation: lefty super top spin + Roger's backhand = short ball for Rafa to rip a forehand winner with). Oh yeah, did I mention that Soderling is a 2-time Roland Garros runner-up with wins over Rafa and Roger there, and that Del Po reached the SF in 2009 losing to Roger in 5 tight sets? hmm, oh and what has he done at Wimbledon you might ask? In 3 visits, he has never made it past the second round. Grass really requires you to get low and being 6"6, it ain't easy. There are also a ton of quick adjustments you need to make because of the non-homogenous bounces you're bound to get. Del Po hasn't mastered these aspects of the surface yet. His net game needs improvement, and he also needs to be quick enough to get to net to finish off points. The ball is coming at you fast and low (with skidding) and his big take backs will hurt him there. Anyway, what I am saying is that the commentator is on crack.

Wow, this post is already super long. OK, quickly to Raonic. Raonic beat one of his fellow upstarts, Ricardas (Richard) Bernankis in the QF and then got a free pass to the final when Monfils withdrew from their SF. Raonic is showing that he's not just a flash in the pan after his AO QF. His ranking is going to move towards top 50 status real fast if he continues this standard of play. I would be weary of over-playing though. Right after Melbourne, he jetted off to Johnannesburg and is now in San Jose...that's a lot of jet lag. And next week he is playing again, in Memphis. For the final I'm going with Verdasco. Raonic is in with a shot, but similar to that 4th round encounter with Ferrer, Verdasco has got all the experience here. Here's hoping for a good showing from Milos in his first ATP World Tour Final!!

On a side note...how is Memphis a 500 tournament?! It gets a weak field every year and is basically just a tournament for Roddick to get easy points.