Young vs Kozlov Analysis: Like Creed vs Balboa

Catherine I always forget about the cash. Kerber’s newly greedy agent can request more cash and all will be well in Kerberworld.

Angie needs to watch it though, her disappearing act is probably wearing on her enthusiastic sponsors.

Hard to tire of the big five. They have carried the tour for over thirteen years. They still may keep a lockbox on the slams. I don’t think they should step aside at all. Only that in order to dethrone these guys other players actually have to turn themselves into slam champs.

I’m nostalgic already. These four, five players have played with class. They led the tour appropriately.

Kayla Day plays a little like DY, both lefties similar looking strokes

Murguruza not impressive at all, I cannot see her winning any more grand slams. Her coach was telling her not to rush her strokes but her strokes just aren’t that good. The Clay may be more foregiving to her, even tho the Indian Wells courts are pretty slow ( I played there in December).

DY’s been playing well for over a month now. And Scoop’s right, barely escaping the jaws of Kozlov, escaping elimination, fired him up to beat Acapulco champion Querrey. Those near death experiences can wake a player up.

But what’s up with Querrey? He wins a big(ger) tournament and then goes down. DY has said before that he excels when he knows other players’ games, and he certainly would know QUerrey’s.

Johnson, another guy that Qball (?) vanquished last week I think, took out Kevin Anderson despite Johnson’s backhand woes. Goes to show that Johnson hasn’t taken losing to other champions recently lightly.

Fritz has also come back from the dead against CIlic, down 5-1 he has pulled to 5-4 in the first set.

Other notable wins:
Djokovic escapes Kyle Edmund, two close sets.
Lucas Pouille gets to the next round.
Jaziri as well.

Last but not least:
Timea Bacsinsky moves on in a thriller. I love Bacsinskys game. She had played a fine tournament in Australia until going out to Gavrilova. The Bacsinsky-Gavrilova match, after Federer-Nadal, may have been the match of the women’s tour or the 2nd best match of the tournament.

Hartt’s right, Popispil was playing out of this world. How did he handle Murray, he made Murray look like they had swapped rankings.

Assuming Sock finishes off the Swiss opponent, I can’t wait for the next round with Sock vs Dmitrov and Kyrgios vs A. Zverev.

Wow, Fritz upset Cilic. Fine match played by Fritz – you could tell he was more nervous, and Cilic was even more nervous. Cilic’s a lot worse without Ivanisevic!
Great win. Cilic didn’t seem to do his homework here and thought rallying was safe (it wasn’t).

Also –
After the match Simona talked about her grandfather’s death, a couple of days ago, and how it’s affected her, and how the pressure of expectations don’t help her performance which is fairly clear I think.

Photos show she’s built herself up over her break and Simona needs that power as well as speed. Maybe she did some Kerber-time in the gym.

Hope she and Angie meet here – usually play good matches. They seem to be wearing the same Adidas kit which I have to say is a great improvement over last year’s design efforts. Flattering.

Dan it’s unbelievable Britain has three top 40 players. And Edmund seemed to bully Djokovic. Djokovic seemed happy to get through.

Fritz didn’t do anything amazing to win his match, but bottom line he knocked off Cilic, who manhandled Fritz in first set. Great win, but I don’t think it spells much yet. I’ll say this, Cilic went after the Fritz backhand and it didn’t work. But the Fritz backhand DID stay composed. Even if I don’t like it as a shot in terms of how it’s struck 🙂

I only saw highlights of the Fritz v Cilic match but was impressed with the fighting spirit Fritz showed in the first set after being down so badly. Cilic is not the most consistent guy on the tour, so I was not totally surprised by the outcome. Don’t know if someone here said this, but I like the line that Cilic plays great tennis for a week or so every two years.

One important thing about the match is that I think we will see this more and more, a young player getting the upset over a top 10 player, especially early in a tourney before the top guys get settled in. The youngsters may not be ready to get several big wins in a row but they can play havoc with the draw with even 1 big win.

I like Day’s confidence/swagger, you can see it in how she carries herself that she thinks she can beat anyone.

Federer played his usual steady and dominating match, however the journeyman he played was pretty worthless.

I stayed up for the Sock and Fritz matches. Both very entertaining. Sock is getting on my last nerve with his line complaints that always end up being wrong. It is very odd that he chooses to do that when a match gets tough rather then get mad at himself/dig deep. The 2nd set was so bad it looked like he was trying to lose. He had so many forehand unforced errors into the net you had to wonder what’s going on with him mentally. Laaksonen played pretty well for a set and a half, so I have to credit Jack for getting focused in the nick of time in the 3rd set, otherwise he would have lost. I will say this, his antics are not winning him fans in the crowd at these matches.

Fritz was very impressive. I thought he had a chance to beat Cilic just because Cilic seems a bit overrated and beatable. Fritz was up 5-2 in the 3rd and then Cilic held and broke him and was a service game away from tying it at 5-5 but Fritz hung in there and broke Cilic to win the match. Great perseverance by the youngster.

That was my question! Pre 2016 Kerber or 2016 Melbourne Kerber? The Kerberizer or the Kerberized?

Sock’s gamesmanship is obvious and admittedly enjoyable. I saw him play Lajovic and Sock worked the crowd, worked the ump – things that actually don’t affect the score but can change the environment. The guy’s got tricks. When you play Sock you’re not just up against a big forehand, a huge serve, a solid volley, and a worthless backhand – you’re also up against someone who plays some great mind games out there, who’s tweaking the crowd and ump and ballpeople. And basically manipulating things.
So you don’t just beat Sock. You beat Sock and Sock’s tricks. And hopefully find a way to exploit the god awful backhand, assuming a player can thread that needle. Sock protects it pretty well.

As for Laaksonen he’s a harder out than he seems. He’s been making the finals of many challengers so it doesn’t surprise me he’s sneaking up on Sock, or anyone. When it comes to anyone’s list of best challenger players you’re going to have Dzuhmhur on that list and you’re going to have Fritz and you’re going to have Laaksonen.

Catherine, not impressed by Vekic. There’s no way Wawrinka loves her out of admiration for her game 🙂 Now Kuznetsova – sheesh. Kuznetsova is probably the most impressive player on tour in terms of her shotmaking! She’s a future hall of famer based alone on her talent.
Just that she loses the thread every match. Other than that small detail. I just find her talent extraordinary. I always have!

Further to our discussion here about how doubles can benefit a player’s singles game, Pospisil, who of course plays a lot of doubles, said that having done well at IW in doubles may have helped his confidence for his match against Murray. He and Jack Sock won the IW doubles in 2015 I think it was, and then were finalists the following year.

Vasek is still in the doubles at IW this year, in fact he and Johnson are scheduled to play their next match following Vashy’s singles.

Vasek is capable of playing excellent tennis. When he had his breakout tourney, the Rogers Cup in 2013, he shocked both Isner and Berdych by defeating them on his way to the SF, which he lost to Milos. He seemed to come out of nowhere.

Along with his back issues Vasek has problems with inconsistency, he does play well often enough. He said that one cause for his slump last year was personal problems, but he seems refreshed and motivated this season. I hope that means he will have a good year and get to a decent ranking.

Catherine, lol, nope, not a tennis masochist. If it were anyone except Fed I would have given up. But I figure he will only play a few tourneys this year and I know I will regret it if I don’t watch all his matches that I am able to see. And watching TV almost always puts me to sleep in any case.

Andrew
Oh no, I imagine Stan can be pretty charming and persuasive when he wants. So maybe he just suggested to the organisers what a good idea it would be…..

Of course all this accomplished was a pretty easy match for some lucky player.

Many wasted wildcards. For slams the USA has gotten better at distributing them, basically forcing players to earn their way to the wildcard, or simply wildcard players into the qualifying draw. It’s more fair than it was, which embraced favoritism only a few years back until they got so much heat for it they went more or less to a merit based approach.
I hate them but if you’re going to give them make it like survival of the fittest to get one. There’s one reserved for kalmazoo champ one for NCAA champ and one for the challenger winner and one foreign player or two like del potro. But it’s stingy for the us open.
Obviously Indian wells plays faster and looser with them. Terrible idea.

Sock is canny, he plays mind games. You think he’s out there mouthing off to the crowd whereas he’s burning off a little bit of anxiety, sharpening his focus, and getting ready to whip off an ace or go for a big return.

Fritz is good from behind, I’ve seen that. He’s more dangerous from a few games back than he is as a front runner, where his opponent’s strengthening plants some doubts that grow like weeds. He’s got to work that stuff out so he doesn’t burn the midnight oil out there. Especially if he’s on kitchen duty 😉

Scoop –
Yes Day might beat Kerber now – but Angie’s stuck out a bit of an epic over Parmentier, 3 sets. Really hung in there.