Tennis Prose




Mar/15

28

Miami Open Saturday Report, Gulbis Needs Change

rfarah

I arrive at ten before eleven and Gulbis walks by me as I’m perusing the daily schedule, he’s on way to practice court, walking by himself carrying two Wilsons with a chubby guy about ten steps behind him. He takes a prolonged peek at Wawrinka hitting before he turns left. Kids ask for photos and he obliges. When he gets to the court a woman says to him jokingly, “I would like you to smash a racquet and give it to me after.” Gulbis gives his deadpan serious reply: “No smashing racquets today. Once you ask for it I can’t do it.”

The woman walks away thrilled by the friendly exchange with Ernests, but the struggling Latvian has a rough hitting session with his doubles partner Andre Begeman, a couple of hours before his match with Juan Monaco. Gulbis misses many shots from both wings and shanks one forehand to his right side over the fence. It’s a little windy but he looks like an unconfident player who has won one match since October.

Monaco wins in a raucous atmosphere 61 64.

Wawrinka is hitting with Tsonga. Berdych takes the court after and Tsonga says to watch him from the chair. Berdych’s mom and dad are at the practice too, they sit in the stands. Berd’s dad has skinnier legs than Simon. Not sure where T Berd got his tree trunks from.

Guga is in the house. He does a signing for Lacoste at 3:15, who he’s been endorses by since 2012. A Lacoste official tells me the line is the longest for Guga than any other signing held at the Lacoste store. Guga’s brother Rafael tells me Guga had a poster of John McEnroe on his wall, on his side of the room, Rafael had Borg. Greg Sharko told me that he got Guga four tickets to the Super Bowl. Guga was in Las Vegas that week on a junket and bought four tickets at $1500 a pop. Guga loved his first NFL game so much he now wants to go every year.

Maria from the ATP communications staff said Vasek Pospisil had exactly zero media requests before his match with Del Potro, then after the match everyone wanted to talk with him.

No Newport for Lleyton Hewitt this year. The defending Newport champ will play Davis Cup the following week in Australia on grass vs. Kazakhstan. Word is Hewitt made a last minute decision to play here in Miami, where he lost 46 in the third to Bellucci.

Forgot to say the other day Federico Delbonis, you know him, the lefty from Argentina who likes to pull up his shorts leg exposing his thigh…well he did the same thing coming out of his car the first day here in the parking lot. His shorts leg (left) was pulled up exposing his thing. On and off court, he does this ritual, just like, remember Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo used to roll up the sleeve to his right shoulder showing his gun. The quirks of tennis.

Paes and Klassen lost for the fourth time this year to Fognini and Bolelli, who both lost in singles today, to Sock and Troicki, respectively.

That Fog is a character. He looks at his strings on every return point, all the way till the server tosses. I think he does it as a distraction. To make the server aware of just when Fog is ready to play. He never really moves the strings he just touches them.

He also spits on the court and emotes an arrogant swagger. Once, when pushed back to the wall he swung a forehand that made the linesman duck. Another time he almost stepped on the microphone at the back wall during a point and seemed to blame it for him losing the point. Fog is definitely one of the most interesting players to watch.

Janowicz was routed last year by Agut but exacted revenge this year with a three set win, 6-3 in the third. JJ is looking really good. Lars Graff thinks he has big potential.

Dolgopolov played Robredo for the first time today. He lost the first set to the Spanish grinder but with new coach Francisco Clavet, earned the win in three sets. Pato Clavet was a top 30 lefty in the 90s.

Genie Bouchard looked lost losing to recent mom Tatjana Maria. It’s another awful loss for the golden girl who irked many by pulled out of Fed Cup after committing, then taking a wildcard instead in Milan. Canada really needed Genie for Fed Cup. Genie did the player fashion show and didn’t impress nearly as much as Petkovic who “worked it” according to my source. Perhaps, the Bouchard Express has put too much pressure on her with all the off court deals and ventures, a la Capriati.

Did a Biofile with Lukas Rosol. Talking with former WTA pro Nicole Pratt about Facing Serena. We were both watching Pliskova vs. Badosa Gibert, the seventeen year old Spanish girl who didn’t play juniors. New York City born Badosa, whose mom was a model. is ranked 419 in the world now and with two wins in the main draw this week as a wildcard, is one to watch. Pliskova won the first set 75.

Forget to mention Bojana Jovanovic’s weird grunting the other day. On every single hit of the ball from the baseline she seemed to say, “Dashah.” We now have double syllable grunts. I predict three is coming soon.

One more thing. Gilles Simon played the first match at 11, he beat Kukushkin in three sets. At 6:30, I was at the media shindig and saw Simon leaving to get his car outside the back of the stadium. A long day at the office for Gillou.

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7 comments

  • Andrew Miller · March 28, 2015 at 11:19 pm

    Gulbis is slumping.
    Bellucci must be hitting a big ball.

    As for Bouchard – huge, huge slumping. Maybe it’s dealing with the media, attention. She seems to have under-estimated what it is to play a Wimbledon final, then the ppoor performance in Canada, then a shaky US Open and an awful Fall and now a pretty bad year thus far.

    Maybe like Harrison some anonymity will do Bouchard well. Who knows. I think a reporter like Cronin usually gets the scoop here on what’s going on with a player. Bouchard seems to often be like a brick wall when answering questions – she answers them but the answers are a little too good. Not serving her so well for now.

  • Andrew Miller · March 28, 2015 at 11:21 pm

    As for Vince-Gulbis, who knows. I think a lot of players would benefit. Not sure if much happened with JJenkins – I had thought Dan called up Boland, asked about JJ. He would be good for Vince – quick tempo game, workaholic, clean strokes. Vince would impart the strategy, would be good.

  • Dan Markowitz · March 29, 2015 at 8:10 am

    I’m telling you, besides his ability to hit as well as any of these current pros, Vince’s genius if you will, is that he doesn’t suffer fools. He knows what he did wrong in his career, and it’s usually the so-so players, or the ones who were good but not great, Gilbert, Stefanki etc. who are the good coaches. The problem is, these players like Gulbis won’t think out of the box.

  • Harold · March 29, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    Gilbert was 4 in the world. Dont put him in the same sentence as Stefanki, or Spadea,as a player. That is just wrong

  • Andrew Miller · March 29, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    Berger was top ten but who cares. Didnt seem much able to motivate any charge. Coaching and playing are different bags. A player can be a great coach or a lousy one.

  • Andrew Miller · March 29, 2015 at 7:34 pm

    Botton line…Spadea has no coaching credential. He is an elite at prep but the coaching resume dne. Not that Navratilova had one before Radwanska but she has slams next to her name so players assume hey she is a great coach. Sadly Vince would need to audition as well. Didnt say it was fair…just is.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 29, 2015 at 10:33 pm

    Does Spadea really care about Gulbis? They will need to have some personal chemistry. Vince was known as an outsider who didn’t interact with other players. How can we expect him to interact and bond with Gulbis, they may have little in common. Spadea was a loner, Gulbis is an eccentric. Actually, I think the best match for Gulbis would be Safin. No disrespect to Vince.

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