'His one weakness is his inability to take chances. He had several chances to break and would have easily won the match had he done so, but on the big points, he made careless errors. This will undoubtly improve with experience.'
I hope so, but I think the tendency to lose concentration when nervous is a huge hurdle to overcome . Possiblly has more to do with maturity than experience on the tennis court. Of course the two can be linked but he does still seem like a big kid at the moment, to me.
-- Edited by Julia Carrot on Friday 11th of May 2012 08:22:43 PM
Having passed a fabulous 3 days at the Caja Magica (Magic Box) in Madrid, as promised to a couple of people, here is a brief summary of a couple of classic matches that I had the honour to witness.
Federer v Raonic
Federer eventually won this 4-6 7-5 7-6, but that only tells part of the story. All the reports of Raonic being an up and coming star were confirmed to me. I was also lucky enough to see him play against Ferrer in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago and that was another great performance.
His first serve is probably his most talked about shot and he is definitely in the Isner category for power and accuracy. But what impressed me, was the quality of his second serve. I have never seen a match with so many aces on 2nd serve.
However, his allround game is a class above Isner and he has a great touch when needed. Until 5-6 down in the 2nd set, he didn't concede a single break point (or even Deuce, if I remember correctly) and Roger couldn't get anywhere near him.
His one weakness is his inability to take chances. He had several chances to break and would have easily won the match had he done so, but on the big points, he made careless errors. This will undoubtly improve with experience.
As for Roger, well it was classic Federer. He did what Roanic couldn't and took his chances when they came along. That is what makes him a champion - his ability to raise his game at the big moments.
In conclusion, I would say that we will see Raonic in the O2 at the end of the season. He is more than just power and will cause a lot of trouble for the big names this year.
Verdasco v Nadal
What a turnaround. Again, I saw the drubbing Verdasco took from Nadal in Barcelona recently when he played as if there was no hope of winning and no point in trying.
This time, his camp had obviously wound him up as he came out swinging. It was a real "nothing to lose" attitude and made for some breathtaking winners - and some wild errors.
In the third set, the old Verdasco seemed to surface. The mental doubts and poor attitude saw him throw a full service game without really getting the ball in play. At 5-2 down, he was beaten - numerically and psycologically. How he came back from that, I will never know.
Suddenly that carefree approach came back and a couple of awesome winners, compounded by some uncharacteristic errors from Nadal and it was game on again. Five games in a row saw him take the third set 7-5 and then the floodgates opened - literally. He was sobbing uncontrolledly on the court. I guess after 14 defeats by Nadal, the victory was that much sweeter and many years of bottled up emotion came out. Good luck to the guy in my opinion. He is no Raonic, but he worked hard enough to earn his moment in the spotlight.
Funny Moment of the Tournament
During the 3rd set, between games, the court maintenance were raking the court and the head honcho was spraying water from the hose to water the court. In his attempt to avoid the rakes, he managed to tangle his legs in the hose pipe, stumble half way across the court before falling to the floor while still wrestling with the hose like it was an angry venemous snake and spraying everyone within a 10 metre radius.
Eventually someone managed to turn the water off and the guy ran off, shirt and shorts drenched, to the loudest cheer of the day.
You weren't by any chance that woman in the blue top on the big screen who won the sponsors prize for waving her "Soy de Roger" banners around during the interval were you ??
