scoobsuk wrote:

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Yeah I have to say - like the press guy said to Roddick after the AO semi against Roger, he was better in the press-room than he was in the match.

His attitude does him credit, for sure.

I guess considering the super-consistent start to the season it was easy to forget there were still likely to be bumps in the road from time to time.

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Yup. It's probably his own fault to be honest. If he'd went out and got thrashed like this with one of the other top players then it wouldn't have raised as much attention and he would have learned to deal with it a bit easier. Of course because it was against a guy the same age as him it is bigger news.

Andy actually has a shocking record against the rest of the young guns.

 

0-2 against Wawrinka as well.

I don't really understand it to be honest. My guess would be that he has the least consistant game out the lot of them (with the possible exception of Gasquet) so it's maybe coincidence that he's lost a significant number of times to these guys early in his career. (He does seem to have a large number of losses to veteran journeymen as well) but it'll be interesting to see if it continues. The Djokovic match-up just doesn't seem to be a good one for him at the moment and it's going to take a lot of mental work for that to change in the neat future but I would fancy his chances against most of the other young guys. He's played three AMS semis and he's met Gasquet and Djokovic in the three of them and both of the guys have been in blistering form. He must be hoping that he'll draw a Federer or something the next semi he's due to make. ;)

The disturbing thing about this match was not that he lost to Djokovic, after all Novak is clearly a talented guy, on a hot streak, playing with massive confidence, but rather that the pressure of the situation was too much for Andy.
 
In some ways I think it is understandable because Andy's current level of play is not top 5. Andy knows the game. He knows where he stands. From what I've seen this season, he looks solid 7-10. We haven't seen much special tennis with the exception of the Nadal and Chela matches. Otherwise it has been safe, minimalist tennis with some courageous displays, most notably Haas and Mathieu. But top 5 quality? Not really. The winner of Miami will be making a statement, will be talked about as a potential top 3 player by the end of the year. I don't think Andy is ready for that at this point in time. Similarly, I think having beaten Roddick at Wimbledon he failed to turn up against Baghdatis. Again he just wanted to get off court as quickly as possible.

Players often feel out of their depth in pressure situations. Novak started nervously in the final in Indian Wells but he came to terms with the situation and took confidence from his display. Hopefully Andy can get himself into another Masters semi this year and perform to his natural level.

Is Novak really a bad match-up for Andy? How can you tell? After all we have had 3 matches in which 1) Andy had complete control of the match then imploded. 2) Andy's movement was so restricted he was unrecognisable and he was in two minds about whether he should even been on court. 3) Andy's nerves got to him to such an extent that he couldn't hit a fast serve in the box, couldn't hit an aggressive forehand, and most strikingly of all, couldn't hit a routine backhand in court. 5 double faults in 6 service games. Close to two unforced errors per game. Barely a winner all match. I thought Novak played well but really there was no opposition, nothing against which to judge his display.

The biggest disappointment of this season is that they have failed to build on the display against Nadal. That was a special performance even if it wasn't quite good enough to get the win. Andy talked about it as being a breakthrough, discovering things that he didn't know he could do. Since then he has gone back to playing minimalist tennis and although the results have been good, it's not surprising he felt out of his depth in a Masters semi.

Somehow they have to rediscover that energy, the courage that he displayed against Nadal to go on the attack. Before Roddick got injured it looked as though Andy was playing in a similar fashion. But come the start of the Djokovic match you could tell the nerves had got to him.

I'm quite pessimistic about the rest of the year. His fitness is still a huge weakness and although it is improving it is still likely to hurt him towards the end of tournaments. And now it's clear that the pressure of the situation is also going to be a factor.

He really needs to adopt the high energy style in big matches. Playing aggressive tennis is much easier than trying to play safe in these situations. Sure you make errors but you also get winners too. Novak was struggling with nerves trying to serve out the match against Nadal. He choked forehands, he barely managed a routine smash, yet he kept attacking, he kept trying to hit through Nadal and he got his reward. Contrast that with Andy against Ljubicic, Gasquet, Davydenko, Haas, Djokovic, playing safe, hoping for the error from his opponent.

Kumdalani - I really think you are being reading way too much into this loss to be honest. I don't believe that the start of the season Andy's have leads itself to a negative forcast for the rest of the year. Yes it was a disappointing match but I don't think his fitness is to blame - his 3 set match record is proof of this. Sure, nerves might be an issue but they will go once he has more experience - it's just taking him longer to come to terms with things. I 100% believe it will come eventually.

He is not going to change his style of play overnight, he is learning his game, he is working on things. When things get tough, when he gets nervous, when something isn't working he is going to instinctively go back to what he is comfortable with. It's easy for Djokovic to keep hitting out - that is his style of play. It would be like asking him to play conservatively when his attacking game wasn't working - it's easy to say, not so easy to implement.

At the end of the day - he's won one tournament, got to the final of another and had two AMS semi-finals in the first 3 months of the year. In that time he's had one horrible result - I honestly don't believe that one terrible performance erases the good things he's done this year or the strides he's made. There will be set-backs - his game isn't consistant enough for there not to be. Lets just hope this is the worst of them and we're looking back when he's at Shanghai thinking that this humiliating experience for him was a blessing in disguise.

-- Edited by aria81 at 23:21, 2007-03-31

RJA wrote:

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A sports presenter on my local radio always says that the measure of any defeat is how you respond to it. I think he is spot on and how Andy plays over the coming weeks will tell us more than this one result.

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the measure of this defeat and how it affects andy will not be shown in the next coming weeks but when he plays in his next big match where he is expected to win or has more than a half of a chance of winning i.e gasquet in the semis of toronto, baghdatis at wimbledon, davydenko at the us open or djokovic on friday.

if andy can come through these type of matches then we know that he has recovered and it has affected him in the positive way

-- Edited by murrays main man at 02:14, 2007-04-01

Andy will need to work extremely hard to miss out on a Shanghai spot now.