Tennis Prose




Feb/12

27

Experience Rules The Final Day In Memphis


By Amanda H. LeMay

As I settled in to watch the men’s doubles final Sunday, I was thinking that it is really interesting to watch a seasoned doubles team on court. Top seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor were going for back to back titles here in Memphis against the unseeded team of Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo. As they started their campaign I couldn’t help but notice that these veteran teams really do speak their own language. They follow the same routines before and after points and even walk in tandem sometimes when getting ready to receive the serve. Often I wonder whether these true doubles specialists will be able to play with the big serving, big hitting singles players who sometimes team up for doubles. But the veterans were up to the task. After dropping the first set, they stayed calm, took the second and closed out the tiebreak to take home the trophy for the second year in a row. On court after the match Dodig and Melo were very gracious saying that there was “no way to beat the masters”. I guess that experience and teamwork is hard to overcome for any players coming against it. This marks the 77th doubles title for Nestor and the 43rd for Mirnyi.
In the singles final veteran Jurgen Melzer (age 30) was taking on young gun Milos Raonic (age 21). Incredibly, they came in with the same number of career titles (3). Milos seemed full of confidence as he ran through his draw this week, fresh off of winning the title at San Jose. Melzer had an excellent game plan, however, and from the beginning was moving the big guy all over the court, coming in and getting into position to win points. Perhaps it helped that he had already played huge server (and #1 seed) John Isner earlier in the week. Despite his broken toe, he was moving well and placing the ball perfectly in the court. His experience in making the proper adjustments and staying calm in the big moments really showed as he broke Raonic in the first and served it out to take it 7-5. Then in the second, Milos found a way to break Melzer and it seemed that we might be headed to three. Again, though, the veteran stayed tough and got the break back when Milos made a few unforced errors. When the camera crews inched to the edge of the court for the tiebreak you could just sense that Melzer was closing in on his first title since 2010. Sure enough, Milos was the one with the nerves and Melzer held on to take it. Later, in his press conference Melzer would admit that he recognized after a few games that he needed to step back further on Milos’ serves and try to keep him off balance by moving him around. By the same token, Milos admitted that he was unable to make the necessary adjustments needed to get himself in a winning position. According to Milos, Jurgen neutralized his serve better than anyone in the last two weeks. He said that he should have been more patient and found a way to win without getting so many free points. Exactly what Jurgen found a way to do. It was a good week to be a 30+ year old veteran tennis player in Memphis.

3 comments

  • Dan Markowitz · February 27, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    Thanks, Amanda, for the updates. I was surprised to see that Jurgen won, but he is a crafty veteran and perhaps, Milos either underestimated him or fell prey again–even though I didn’t see the match–to an opponent, like Hewitt DownUnder, moving him around and exploiting his one not-glaring but obvious weakness, his movement.

  • Amanda · February 27, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    Yes, Jurgen did an excellent job of moving him around but also had a smart game plan in place to get some serves back in play. Milos said that it was a real learning experience and that it gave him something to work on going forward. It was good to see Melzer get his first title in the US. He said he liked playing here and that everyone always treated him well – and that he was going out to celebrate last night. 🙂

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    He sure looked very happy to win the title, you could tell how much it meant to him. Handling arguably the two biggest servers in tennis on an indoor court is one of the underrated biggest feats of this ATP season. Handling some of those missiles, even some of the ones that were out by Raonic, how Melzer just popped them back deep with interest, had to be extremely disconcerting for the big Canuck. I wonder who Melzer thought had the better serve, Isner or Raonic?

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