Week 17 - ATP Masters 1000 - Rome

Mikeduke · County player

RE: Week 17 - ATP Masters 1000 - Rome

LadyTigress · County player

Hmmm, 6-3 2-2 to Ferrer at the moment. I may have guessed my Pick'em prediction for Andy's run here just right...

LadyTigress · County player

Straight sets loss for Andy 3-6 4-6.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Andy was never the favourite against Ferrer on clay. However, he didn't do too badly, except (how many times have we said this!) for his first serve %. He won 76% of the points when he got his first serve in, but he only got 41% in. . . It was the problem in his early years, then in 08 he developed a magnificent first serve. Where has it gone?

philwrig · Hall of fame

Very encouraging effort from Andy here. Only a couple of percentage points away from making a real game of this. Was setting up the points beautifully but just missing the final shot on too many occasions. Ferrer was the proverbial brick wall and Andy's rustiness was just too much to overcome. All in all I think one can safely say that the old Andy is nearly back.

MiloTheCat · Lower Club Player

Much better and just a few key points from making it very interesting.

Serve % is still awful, serve return was poor by his standards.

Even though it was on clay vs Ferrer I felt Andy looked rusty in shot selection.

It looked like he needed more matches - and I'd like to see him play next week (doubt there's any chance he'd play the week before RG).

I'm not convinced about this peaking for the majors thing - but I'd love to be proved wrong by a QF or SF at RG.

indiana · Tennis legend

So much more encouraging from Andy this week smile

Ferrer is well capable of beating even a top form Andy on clay ( and is on good form ) and all the signs are, and from the reports that I have heard, that Andy is looking so much better.

Yes, the serve is a worry, but so it has been for much of his professional career and I have bemoaned his serve percentage and 2nd serve penetration on many an occasion, though as Mad said it has at times, particularly in 2008, looked much better. How much better for the future if he ever really got on top of that long term.

Interesting article in the Grauniad today telling of the recent regime he had in Barcelona. "He hit the weights, worked up a big sweat with repetitive drills, generally shook off the blues..."

Andy is also quoted saying :" I practised a lot last week. I hit a lot of balls and got myself into a rhythm in practice. It's just going to come in the matches. That's the first training week I've done since December."

That last sentence is fascinating given he has certainly had many weeks off this year. OK, he supposedly had a few niggles, but I do suspect there were other things going on there that we may never know or really need to know.

It does show how much hard work and practice can achieve, even if I'm slightly amazed how much difference it has made in such a short time. I guess "rhythm" was the key word from above.

I really do hope Andy in future achieves a decent balance between hard work, practice and playing matches. Emphasis on Grand Slams is one thing, but clearly rhythm and matches is very important to him too.

If Andy now has real appetite for the rest of the year, him in some ways almost having a few months out may yet not be unhelpful.

Reasons to be much more cheerful.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 29th of April 2010 07:17:00 PM

LadyTigress · County player

It's amazing how quickly you can feel out of condition as an athlete if you take just a short amount of time off. In comparison to Andy and those guys I know this is nothing, but back when I was doing 15 hours + per week of Tae Kwon Do, if I just missed one hour of that it just didn't sit right with me... I'd instantly feel like the edge had been slightly dulled and like I was already losing condition, and yeah, it would bother me until I could get back into my rhythm.

At least I managed to predict Andy's run spot on here, despite being very uncertain in the pick'em form.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Thursday 29th of April 2010 09:53:51 PM