Gasquet Impressively Eliminates Almagro in Miami, & Notes

Richard Gasquet dropped the first set in a tiebreak to Nico Almagro. Already down 3-1 in the career head to head, one might have expected Gasquet to fall again to the feisty Spaniard.

But Gasquet battled back to nick the second set and third in a tiebreak, 67 75 76 (7-3).

It was a back and forth match the whole way. Almagro up the early break but somehow Gasquet made a subtle adjustment and earned the break back but was edged in the breaker. The difference seemed to be Alamgro’s superior desire and hunger to win which he expressed more vocally and with more body language.

But Gasquet dug in and fought back, with Davis Cup captain Arnaud Clement and coach Sebastien Grosjean watching from the first point to the last.

Almagro double faulted on the first point of the third set tiebreak and Gasquet jumped out to a 4-0 lead. He was never threatened. I was seated behind Clement and Grosjean and noticed Gasquet’s ferocity, as several times he gritted his teeth like a wolf and made macho fist pumps after winning important points.

He finished the job 7-3 and will now move on to face Berdych.

Notes: I was told an interesting story about an American player and Nishikori by a Japanese reporter. When I asked if Kei, a very well liked and well mannered player, disliked personally any ATP players, she told me of an incident with the player and Kei which happened in San Jose shortly after Kei won his first title in Delray Beach.

The veteran American was at net and Kei hit a shot at him which was reflex volleyed for a winner. The American shouted and taunted Key to try that again. Kei lost the match but there was an incident in the locker room between the two players. The reporter told me when Kei came to the press conference it was clear he had been crying.

This story is similar to the time this same American threatened to beat up and verbally abused Novak Djokovic to the point that the Serbian was reduced and physically humilated of crying with tears down his cheeks, my source told me. This American’s verbal skills of abuse must be extremely intimidated as Kei was so flustered by it that weeks later he told the same journalist that the incident caused him to not be able to sleep for “three days.”

This American player is well known for his bullying tactics of intimidation and these two examples may be a sampling of many others.

I spoke with Dimitri Tursunov about his experiences with Federer for my Fed book and he gave me seven minutes of gold. Tursunov is without a doubt the funniest player in all of tennis. Want a sample? Okay…”I think if Roger showed up at the Corona Bar we’d have like 15 heart attacks in the Corona Bar. And people would just start praying and but, I think it’s part of the image and a lot of it is press and how you present yourself. I really can’t say any anecdotes because he’s not going to put himself in a position where he can be embarrassed in some way, he’s not going to fart in front of people…” Believe me, you will laugh out loud many times at the rest of his perspectives of Federer, who, by the way, he greatly respects.

With Querrey losing to Berdych, this is the first time in Sony Open history that there will be all Europeans in the quarters – which means no Americans. Q got crushed today by Berd. Both held serve easily to start the match, then Q was up 30-love on serve before, suddenly, he made four forehand errors in a row. It was a disaster for Sam the rest of the way. It actually looked like he was using the wrong racquet or a mis-strung racquet. His game was so off, especially the forehand. One of which landed at the bottom of the net off a routine Berd shot. Many flew well long of the baseline.

Sam was so irritated that he smashed his Babolat after the first set. An insider was actually telling me last week that Sam’s Babolat is not right for his game, it helps his serve but not his baseline shots, especially the forehand which he kind of slaps. Sam was a better player with Prince, this insider opined.

With Berdych’s girlfriend Esther on grandstand after the win vs. Querrey.

Kei cried?

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