Just a quick update about something interesting that has nothing to do with Miami. As you can see Roger invited Dominic Thiem, who I have raved about and called the real ‘baby Fed’ of late, for a practice camp on clay leading up to Monte Carlo. I also posted a video of them practicing at Wimbledon a couple of posts ago so this won’t be the first time. It seems Roger has taken a liking to the kid which is not surprising to me. He is very respectful and hard working like Roger himself. They both have great attitudes toward the game. Thiem is also a player who hits with loads of top spin which makes him a good player to train with on clay for Roger who have historically struggled with Nadal’s huge topspin.

From Thiem’s viewpoint he is skipping the tournament he would have played in Casablanca to train with the GOAT. That shows you he has his priorities right. Even though there is points and prize money available in Casablanca it is clearly better in the long run to go on a training camp with the GOAT. The experience and advice Thiem will get from the training camp is invaluable. Who knows when Roger retires he may even coach Thiem. I wonder how Dimitrov feels about this development. He would probably give up Sharapova to have a one week training camp with the GOAT, which in itself would be the greatest thing he could do for his tennis. But Thiem is showing more promise and like I said his top spin shots makes him a better candidate for the clay.

The three(sportsmanship) musketeers

I am already looking very much forward to see how Roger and Dominic both fare in Monte Carlo, but of course today is the final in Miami. And as expected it will be another Djokoray final. It is not the most exciting match up in the world but I enjoyed the Australian Open final and I’m looking forward to the Miami final too. Djokovic has won their last six meetings so of course he is the favorite, but you can’t underestimate Murray who has beaten Djokovic in two slam finals. But first back to the semis where Djokovic schooled Isner 7-6(3), 6-2. The first set was close as the scoreline suggests but then Djokovic was basically toying with Isner in the second set. Isner was playing at a very high level in the first set but once Djokovic weathered the storm Isner couldn’t keep that level up.

Djokovic is still the best player in the world by quite a margin and should he win the title today against Murray he will have reached another big milestone by winning a record third Indian Wells/Miami double. He is already the best slow hard court player in history as far as I’m concerned but that would really lock it up. This week he has once again shown how unplayable he is on slow hard with the victories over Klizan, Dolgopolov, and Isner. Isner himself defeated a whole generation of top players in Dimitrov, Raonic, and Nishikori, but couldn’t take a set off Djokovic. Murray is a better player than anyone Djokovic faced so far but the level Dolgopolov and Isner showed may be better than anything Murray is capable of.

Anyone in particular?

Novak Djokovic for example. I’m a big fan of his game but I also found out he’s a really nice guy. I remember the first time I saw Djokovic, I was with my coach from the ITF Touring Team, and I just stood in my place, completely star-struck. And she was like ‘you have to get used to this, they are all over the place’.

I was in a queue to get food and Tomas Berdych came to get some pasta and the cook told him he had to go stand in the queue. And I couldn’t believe it, that’s Tomas Berdych and the guy won’t give him food because he’s not in the queue. I didn’t have the best experience with Roger Federer, in the players’ lounge, I asked him for a photo and he told me ‘no, sorry, go away’. I was a bit shocked. Maybe I caught him at a bad time. Djokovic however, was so nice when we took a picture and he asked me if I was playing and he wished me luck.

Hi, folks. I hope everyone has by now recovered from grand slam withdrawal and gotten back to their normal sleeping routines.

I don’t have any tour news for you yet because the current events don’t quite fall under ‘cutting edge men’s tennis’ but I have something else more interesting for you.

// Congrats to Federer on a much deserved seventh title in Cincinnati yesterday. I can easily say I told you so, that Federer had it coming after losing three big finals to Djokovic, or that it was inevitable with the Cincinnati court speed. I mean let’s face it, Federer keeps winning the matches on faster courts over the best of three sets. But I’d rather focus on the fact that Federer surprised Djokovic in my opinion.

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Hi folks. I hope you all had a relaxing weekend. What do you think about the outfit? I’m not particularly impressed simply because of the color. I don’t have a problem with the design. I bet you guys are really starting to miss Roger by now. Just one more week now but check out my new blog The Tennis Analyst if you are missing tennis too much. I have covered Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur and will cover Beijing and Tokyo in the coming week as well. Djokovic and Nadal are back in Beijing and it will be interesting to see how Djokovic responds after another tough loss to Nadal in the US Open final. Can he fight back or has Nadal broken him mentally? I think he may struggle to beat Nadal again at least until the end of the year. We will see. Nadal said today it will be very hard to overtake Djokovic in the rankings which is of course nonsense.

I’m pretty sure Nadal will end the year ranked #1. With Murray out for the rest of the year as well it is hard to see anyone beat him if he keeps playing the way he has of late. Berdych goes back to #5 in the rankings tomorrow which means of course that Roger is back to #6. I would have liked to see Roger play Beijing or Tokyo as well as Stockholm or Paris given how little he has played this year. But of course we don’t know what his situation is. The fact that Murray is out for the rest of the season is definitely helping him. Did Murray not pull out Roger would have been in a battle with Stan and Gasquet to qualify for the Masters Cup and he would probably have been forced to play Beijing or Tokyo. Roger has played so little this year it is almost like he is semi-retired. But it means he doesn’t have many points to defend next year and I’m sure he is just resting up for another big onslaught in 2014.

With Tsonga back Roger may have to add Stockholm or Paris to his schedule if he wants to be sure to qualify for London. I guess he is waiting to see what happens in Shanghai where he has a semi to defend. The fact that he is back to #6 in the rankings means he won’t be seeded in the top 4 in Shanghai and can play Nadal or Djokovic in the quarters. He also has a final to defend in Basel. We will see how things pan out. I’d like to see him add one event just so he can get some more confidence going in the indoor season which has always been a good hunting ground for him. He needs some kind of platform he can launch another big season in 2014 from. It would be nice if he can end the year ranked in the top 5 too. Well that’s a wrap from me. Like I said keep an eye on my other blog(s) in the right sidebar if you’re gonna follow tennis in the next week or have an interest in spirituality.

Let me know your thoughts.

16 Comments

I found some pictures at Mens Tennis Forum for you where Roger made a quick appearance at the players party, and he had a haircut as well. It’s quite short, which makes him look younger. Seems like the birds were also flocking to the man I’m not so sure about those big nosed portraits, but it looks pretty funny At the bottom you will see a pic of Roger on diaper duty

// Ps. Roger updated his Facebook profile http://www.facebook.com/Federer?ref=ts

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So Roger notched up his 200th career win on clay today with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Nieminen in the second round of the inaugural Istanbul Open. I watched and although it was not an awfully exciting match at least Roger got another win on clay under his belt after the Monte Carlo blunder. With a head-to-head of 14-0 between the two Nieminen was never gonna trouble Roger, but at least he put up better resistance in the second set and made Roger work a little harder.

Nieminen has about as many weapons as Wozniacki which means he provides Roger with a good practice hit basically. As far as Roger’s game goes he served well with 63% first serves and 9 aces, but he made too many unforced errors off the ground. Fortunately for him it was just Nieminen so he didn’t pay for it. Roger will play Gimeno-Traver in the quarterfinals who he has never played before and who is just about your standard Spanish dirt baller.

The Spaniard has never won an ATP title in his life and sits at #62 in the rankings. Roger’s draw is now even easier on paper than it was at the outset because Gimeno-Traver defeated the 6th seed Kukushkin with ease. It looks like Roger will stroll to the title here which he should do if he wants to become a factor in the clay court season. The most difficult opponent he can face is Dimitrov who has had a pretty pathetic season so far. I won’t even be surprised if he loses before the final.

As far as the youngsters go this week Alexander Zverev had a first round win over Becker but then lost to Kohschreiber. Kyrgios also won his first round in Estoril in the third set tie-break and just defeated his second round opponent too. Coric also won his first round in Estoril against 6th seed Chardy but plays his second round tomorrow. Finally, Thiem survived his first round in Munich by the skin of his teeth as he defeated Pospisil 9-7 in the third set tie-break. He plays Fognini tomorrow which should be very interesting.

I’m back guys. I missed a post this week when Roger played against De Bakker so I owe you one. But since I have some time and the subject of this post is an important one, I probably would have made this post regardless. Roger’s back. That’s right. Roger’s back is something that has bothered him for a long time now. In fact it may have always bothered him. I read somewhere that it has been a problem for him since he was a kid. That makes sense because it definitely is not an injury. It’s not an injury that he picked up somewhere that can be treated and healed. It is similar to Nadal’s knee issue. It’s a chronic problem. I used to have lower back problems when I was playing tennis too. It wasn’t something that I could ever get rid of. It was just something I had to live with and manage as well as I could.

I think this is the case for Roger too. I am not speaking from an expert point of view and I don’t have all the facts about Roger’s back, just for the record. But this is what seems to be the case judging from what I have seen from Roger over the years and from my own experience with back problems too. I don’t think this is something he will ever get rid of completely. He will just have to manage it as well as he can. Give it adequate rest and treatment and try to make the muscles stronger where there is a weakness. The back muscles is very important for a tennis player. There is a lot of twisting and turning and stretching going on. It is also important on the serve where Roger’s problem seems to be. This goes back to my last post where I just could not explain Roger’s performance against Benneteau until one of my readers left a comment.

The comment said that Annacone mentioned Roger had been struggling with his back throughout the week in Rotterdam. Also I read somewhere that Roger had not practiced for Rotterdam until last Sunday. On top of that he was playing with two shirts in Melbourne in his last two matches as far as I can remember. So I think it’s pretty safe to say he was having problems with his back against Benneteau. So yes my post was off base to a certain extent. But if you have been following my blog for a long time you will know that I am similar to Roger in many ways. First of all I am very honest, and like Roger I don’t ever look for excuses. Roger never mentioned anything about his back in his presser. I have a lot of respect for that. He was rather looking at where he went wrong and crediting his opponent, rather than blaming his back. This is the attitude of a true champion.

But there is no doubt in my mind now that his injury caused him to lose. When you are injured you can’t give 100%, and that would perfectly explain why Roger looked like he was lacking his usual passion. That injury is always in the back of your mind because you don’t want to make it worse. That would also explain Roger’s body language. He looked kind of nonchalant, like he was almost in exho mode. Come to think of it, my last post wasn’t really of base. Like Roger, my approach has always been to criticize myself first and then look for excuses. It may seem like I am being too harsh on myself or on Roger, but that is just the way I do things. Now that I know about the back problem it is obvious to me the fault is not with Roger, I am going to say it. I have total faith in Roger 3.0 and I know he is not going to put in a performance like this if there wasn’t a serious problem.

Roger with some fans in Rotterdam. Funny look on his face.