AM first serve % is 42...but has won 9/11 but only 8/15 second serves.

(Anne now on the SB...dont see two Brits at a big event on the same SB at the same time very often...unless its SW19)

Andy doing his best to lose the first set...*15-30...30-30...40-30...game..maybe he heard me !

TB...SB to serve

Won 7-6(9) 6-4

Serve dominated the tight first set. Just a single break point opportunity for each player; both saved by heavy first serves. Andy thought he had won the tiebreak 7-4 but his ace was judged to be narrowly wide and his ambitious second serve also failed to land inside the box. The server won the next 8 points until Bolelli could not handle Murray's deep return, giving Andy the set 11-9 in the tiebreak.

In the second set Murray found himself facing two break points with the score at 1-1 after Bolelli's cleanly struck return of a decent first serve. Andy came up with some impressive serving, initially creating the opening for an easy forehand winner then an ace, closing out the game with another ace. Bolelli carelessly let a 40-0 lead slip in the next game but Murray helped him to hold with a couple of desperate attempts to return second serves. Serving at 3-3 Andy again faced bp but despite missing his first serve he was aggressive with his opening forehand and was duly rewarded. Another ace as he continued to hold serve. 4-5 down Bolelli saved match point with an ace after Andy's deep forehand had put the pressure on. Two shocking forehands from the italian finishing a tight contest.

Andy played well when break point down. Served aggressively on first but only 49% of first serves in play. 2nd serve was so short you wondered why Bolelli didn't just take it on. Bolelli dominated most of the rallies in the first set but the respective first serve percentages must have contributed towards that. Into the second set more winners from Andy but still he was reluctant to take the game to Bolelli, wasting numerous opportunities to come to the net.

Drop shot was totally ineffective winning 1/7 points in which he used it. A few good double-handed backhands and a couple of brutal forehand winners. Returning second serve Andy didn't seem to know whether to move forward or sit back and neither strategy did much damage. Once again Andy's groundstrokes lacked penetration, regularly landing far too short, inviting Simone to apply the finishing touch.

Bolelli's forehand was the dominant shot of the match. When it was firing he looked in control but at key moments far too many crashed into the net, or landed long,  6 forehand unforced errors in the tiebreak and another two to finish the match.

Certainly an improvement on the Monaco match but hardly a display that will have top players worrying about Murray on this surface. The aggressive serving on first is a good sign and if he can improve his first serve percentage he may be tough to break. But his return game needs a lot more thought.



-- Edited by kundalini on Tuesday 12th of May 2009 09:10:25 PM

I really shouldn't have watched the match as I have exams next week and haven't even finished my revision notes completely, but I did anyway.

I thought the match was pretty entertaining, but frustrating to watch as a Murray fan. He was far from awful, but he was several levels below his best. In my opinion, he is making too many errors to try and play the waiting game from the baseline. If he wants to be successful at this he needs to keep his UE count low, not in the double digits, per set. Luckily, he was playing Bollelli today, and the italian was making even more errors. A tighter performance from Simone could have easily seen him win 7-6 6-4, instead.

But at least he won the match. Hopefully, he is (slightly) more aggressive from the baseline and/or more accurate.

Madeline wrote:

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Did the recording work, Steven?

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Up to a point. I managed to record most of the match (apart from a couple of periods where the stream froze while I was away from the computer) but the flash video format used for that stream doesn't lend itself nearly as well to recording as some other formats (despite using up more filespace per second!) and there are lots of places where the stream breaks up when I play it back.

I tried to upload the streams (about 300 MB altogether) last night, ending up having to leave them overnight, and by this morning they had all failed around halfway through.

I've just uploaded the shortest one on its own, which you can download here - if you try to play it and it won't open, you might need to get a flv player, e.g. http://download.cnet.com/FLV-Player/3000-13632_4-10467081.html (free, short download)

If you have a look at that and the quality isn't bad enough to stop you wanting to view the rest, just let me know and I'll find a way to make uploading the bigger files work.

 

Right, I have watched it now. As you say the picture keeps breaking up, I don't think I ever managed to see all the court at one time! Mind you, the breaking up creates many multi-coloured patterns, very psychedelic!

I don't think it is worth your bother to try to upload the rest, but again thank you very much for trying.