Monday, April 29, 2013

Lukáš Rosol - In the Name of the Father

This week the clay circus took us to Barcelona and Bucharest. There won’t be many references to Barcelona in this post mainly due to the fact that Rafael Nadal won it for the eighth time. Nadal winning a claycourt event is like wiping your backside after excreting. It’s just something you do and the excretion has more of a surprise factor.

Rosol vs. Nadal

In spite of this the above the man who won Bucharest Lukáš Rosol will always interlinked with Rafa Nadal whether he, his fans or people who can’t stand like it or not. For those who don’t follow the sport or lived in North Korea during Wimbledon last year Rosol defeated Nadal in 5 sets at Wimbledon. It was great to see a lower ranked player embrace the moment and show while Nadal is a great player. Rosol showed that Nadal just like him had 2 arms, 2 legs, a head and an arsehole. Yes, he wasn’t able to back up that win in the next round, even then it showed that there was potential there.

It’s interesting with all the increased technology today as it’s much easier than say the 90s to follow tennis where one needed a subscription to cable TV or go to the tournaments to find out what was happening. The dismissal;, lack of respect and basic research skills about tennis players is astonishing mostly within the mainstream tennis media. It was like Roisol just fell out of the sky, he didn’t exist before Wimbledon 2012 in any form.

As fans, there are different levels, yes there are some who don’t give a shit about the sport and its problems because they’re player fans. Then there are others who want to follow the up and coming players and different levels of the game who can get a bit defensive when the player they liked as an up and coming player gathers more bandwagon fans as he becomes more successful. Now, it’s easy to follow Challengers the next level down and regular ATP events, so for those who want to find out they can. The ATP are at fault as well for not promoting players outside the top 4 when there are interesting stories to tell and Rosol is one of these.


The pump

Since we live in the age of instant gratification where the majority of people don’t have patience and want the new sensation yesterday. This leads to such extreme reactions, a couple of good performances and the tendency to overhype runs wild. The flip side to this is when there are a few losses then they’re donkeys with no future. The classic no win situation in reality.

Development

Prague maybe the capital of the Czech Republic, but Moravia is the true tennis region of the Czech Republic and Prostějov a small city near Olomouc which is the tennis capital. For such a small place players like Tomáš Berdych, Karel Nováček, Jiří Novák were trained there and reached the top 10.

Rosol is from Brno and has always had confidence in his own ability. In broscience terms his game is ballbashing, to others it’s very aggressive big hitting from both sides especially the forehand using the big serve to set up the points where he dominates from the baseline.

Humans develop at different speeds and this is no different within tennis. As I have noted many times that the ATP really need to fix the ridiculous lack of prizemoney at Challenger level which hasn’t increased since the 80s. Rosol while having the weapons spent most of his time in the Challengers as he hadn’t found the best way to use his big strokes and the Challenger world is very difficult to navigate from as it should be. In Rosol’s case he is fortunate that he has some big weapons which in theory makes the transition from Challenger level to ATP level smoother once the mental side is sorted.

Turning Points

All careers have particular turning points and the key is how they are managed after those points. Yes, while the Nadal win was massive for Rosol. There are a couple of other ones that are notable for different reasons. One was his divorce from former wife and Czech 400m hurdler Denisa Rosolová. The other was his loss at the Australian Open 2012 to Philipp Petzschner 6-0 6-*0 6-2, he was down 4-0 in the 3rd set as well. Obviously, I don’t know what was said at the time, but having a loss like that against a player of similar standard then there needs to be serious questions asked.

\Rosol joined the Davis Cup squad last year while he only played dead rubbers last season. The fact being around a winning squad and under captain Jaro Navratil they are a real unit. He also discovered how excellent the meat is in Argentina when he was there last year for the semi final.


Can without Berdych and Radek

With Tomáš Berdych, and Radek Štěpánek both injured missing the Davis Cup quarter final against Kazakhstan away from home. This was the moment where Rosol had his chance to play a live singles rubber to help the Czech Republic into the Davis Cup semis. He had an epic Davis Cup moment already playing doubles with Berdych winning a doubles match that lasted over 7 hours.
While leading the Czech Republic to the Davis Cup semi finals with his victories over Golubev and Korolev, this was to prove to be a bittersweet moment. Emil Rosol Lukas’s dad was watching back home suffered a stroke which proved to be fatal. His father was his main sponsor early in his career which is very important in an expensive sport as tennis. Sadly, they had a falling out a few years ago and they were never able to sort it out before his death.

Bucharest

Bizarre Bucharest well when Ion Tiriac and Ile Nastase are behind an event then it’s safe to call it bizarre. At the same time Bucharest was one of the reasons why the ATP pays the players themselves and not the tournaments. Not sure if it was forgetfulness but a few winners in the old days never received their money.

This was Rosol’s first tournament after his fathers death and funeral. First victim of the week was Gilles Muller who at best can be a considered a claycouirt clown so that was a good way to start the event.

His toughest match of the week was against the handsome South Tyrolean Andreas Seppi and arguably the best performance of the week. The first set Rosol was firing on all cylinders and took blew “Slow Start” Seppi out of the way 6-1. Seppi is very solid and hard to beat, he started making some more balls into the court and Rosol made a few errors losing the 2nd set. Rosol then stormed to a 3-0 lead in the 3rd set, Seppi wins the next 3 games to level. Rosol doesn’t panic and continues his aggressive play and wins the last 3 games to take the match 6-3.

Viktor Troicki was no match at all in the quarter finals. This was a match where Rosol played well when he needed to and ran out a very comfortable winner. Reaching his first semi final on the ATP where he played “Mr. Bucharest” Gilles Simon who has won this event a few times. In theory this could have been a difficult match as Simon plays well in Romania and he loves using the pace of the big hitters which Rosol definitely is. Simon started poorly he was serving rubbish and Rosol treated those serves with total disdain. Once he established dominance from the rallies taking advantage of short balls from Simon. There were some nervous moments while serving it out, but got through.


Rosol with the Bucharest trophy

Guillermo Garcia Lopez was the opponent in the final. He was in the final of the Rome Challenger last week and now in Bucharest. He played 10 matches in 2 weeks, so it was a big chance for Rosol which he was able to take. After losing his opening serve to love, he broke back straight away. Unlike during the week it was a bit windy yesterday and it took a bit of time to adjust. Rosol broke at 5-3 in the first and was able to serve it out.

Once he won the first set, Rosol was able to play aggressively and well deservedly won his first ever ATP title at the young age of 27. It was a fantastic week for him and in a continuing trend of the game becoming more physical. It will take players longer to have their breakthrough as the sport continues to become more speed endurance based.

Rosol in tears

There was one man who couldn’t see this triumph Emil Rosol who had so much to do with Lukáš’s career. His winners’ speech was very emotional and under the circumstances handled it very well. “There was one person I wanted to congratulate who was very close to me and bought me into tennis, he was family”. Then he broke down in tears a poignant moment where the biggest tennis influence wasn’t able to see this moment.


Final Highlights & Rosol speech 12.47

No player forgets their first ever ATP title Federer doesn’t forget the Milan Indoor, Nadal in Sopot, Djokovic in Amersfoort but very few will be as emotional as Rosol’s and wherever Emil was watching he’d be very proud of his son.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Welcome Back Pablo Cuevas

It’s been a while since one of these articles has been done on the blog. The subject of this entry is Pablo Cuevas from the land of beef, football and depending on who you believe Carlos Gardel.


Pablo Cuevas

Uruguay has been looking for a successor to Marcelo Fillippini on the ATP tour who definitely made the most of his talent winning 5 titles. Then as a 31 year old he made the quarter finals of 1999 Roland Garros as qualifier without dropping a set before losing to Agassi. His Davis Cup team mate Diego Perez who shares the record of most Davis Cup wins for Uruguay with Fillippini and also won an ATP title.

Cuevas played his first Futures event in 2002 and turned pro in 2004. He lost to players like Monaco, Junqueira, Zeballos. In 2005 he made his Davis Cup debut vs. Cuba and won his first of two Futures titles beating Machi Gonzalez in the process. It wasn’t until 2007 that Cuevas made his Grand Slam debut losing to Andy Murray after qualifying at the US Open, he lost in the last round of qualies to Dusan Vemic at Roland Garros.

After consolidating his 2007 season with strong Challenger results 2008 was the year that got Cuevas noticed to a wider audience outside of Latin America for varying degrees. His singles breakthrough was at Viña del Mar where he had 2 match points against hometown hero Fernando Gonzalez but ended up losing 6-7 7-6 6-2, though in the 2nd set tiebreaker he hit one of the most famous winners, the clip says enough. The crowd and Gonzalez were really intimidating Cuevas, had Cuevas won the semi final, it would have been his first ATP title as Juan Monaco injured his ankle in a doubles match when he collided with the linesman’s chair and withdrew from the final.


Famous shot vs. Gonzalez at Viña del Mar

Instead of building on that fine performance Cuevas managed to lose a 15 year old Ryan Harrison at the Houston Grand Slam in straight sets, yes this was a poor performance and showed a mental frailty that has been with Cuevas throughout his career. It’s not like Cuevas was playing a prodigy like Wilander, Borg, Krickstein, Arias or Chang on a surface that he was unfamiliar with.

However this low point was pushed into the background with his greatest triumph winning the 2008 Roland Garros doubles title with Luis Horna. These were two talented singles players entering for some cash and having fun, yet they won the title which was refreshing and surprising. The great ride started when they played the French duo of Clement and Llodra in the first round, an excellent combo and competent at singles as well, so they definitely aren’t doubles specialists. They were handled with ease, then took out Nieminen and Lindstedt in the next round and after this they took out Dlouhy/Paes in the 3rd round. They made the quarter finals taking out 2 seeded combinations.


In the quarter finals the shenanigans with the Bryans began. The Bryans were huge favourites, but luckily the conditions were very heavy with the constant rain, making the court heavier which was better for the South Americans. The 3rd set tiebreaker was hilarious when Ceuvas jumped the net and it was clearly nowhere near the Bryans, but after the match when Lucho and Cuevas won, the Bryan bitches refused to shake Ceuvas’s hand. “He was really disrespectful,” Mike said. “He jumped the net right in our face. It’s classless.” But Cuevas’s response was class. “Maybe I celebrated a little too much. But it’s worth it,” he said. “It’s not every day you beat the No. 1 team.”



Horna/Cuevas vs. Bryans with the net jump

The semi final against another unseeded team Soares/Vemic was their most difficult match, as they got closer to the final, they blew match points, but managed to make it through to the final. Lucky the conditions were quite heavy and it suited Lucho and Cuevas for sure. They came out on fire slapping returns that the doubles specialists weren’t used to handling at all. Lucho ripping on the forehand side and Ceuvas with the single hander, these devastating shots were too much for Nestor/Ziki who looked all at sea out there under the onslaught. The first set was over quickly and the second was slightly more competitive, but the same pattern continued the South Americans won 6-2 6-3. One could see they couldn’t believe that they won and Cuevas said afterwards “we weren’t expecting to get that far”.


Horna and Cuevas RG Doubles

After the Roland Garros doubles triumph, in 2009 Cuevas finished the singles year at 141, had to play Challengers winning Montevideo. Qualifying for Viña del Mar where he made the semis, the event he peaks for, also qualifying for Hamburg. He managed to finish the year inside the top 50.


Cuevas having fun with Roddick

2010 was a consolidation season winning the Sczecin Challenger then in 2011 Cuevas had arguably his biggest win in Miami where he took out Andy Roddick in straight sets showing plenty of variety. Best of all about this win was the Miami crowd cheering for Cuevas though Miami is a Latino city. Sadly for Cuevas at Roland Garros is where the injury problems began he had to retire in the first round against Antonio Veic with knee problems and hasn’t played since.


Pablo Cuevas down and not out

Long term injury layoffs impact on players in different ways, some never come back to their previous level whereas others have improved with the time away from the game. As for Cuevas this will be a good thing as he has not rushed his comeback to tennis. Since the game has become more physical players are reaching their peak levels at a later age, which is only logical since tennis is a speed endurance sport.


Lucho Horna came out and said “if he recovers from injury, then Cuevas has the potential to be a top 20 player”. The statement isn’t outrageous as the potential is there. The main questions are has the break away from the game helped Cuevas focus mentally on what he wants out of the sport. This is what was holding him back previously and something like this can be used as a positive to focus on the goals at hand.

Cuevas has an outstanding kick serve especially for a smaller guy, gets very good angles with it to open up the court and the single hand backhand especially down the line is a class shot. The forehand is pretty good, but definitely could improve taking it on the rise. His transition game is solid, just needs to be selective when he comes into the net.

As to whether Cuevas will be a Fillppini or Diego Perez depends on a few factors. Besides the 5 titles, Fillippini managed to reach 30th in the world, so this is the challenge for Cuevas. Providing he improves mentally which has been the big weakness, at the elite level it isn’t so much the technique, it’s more mentally and there needs to be more work done on that side of things. Cuevas is coming into a good age for his career, improve the mental side then the confidence will come and improved results in the bigger clay events would be needed to reach the level of Fillippini.

In the long term the top 20 is a challenge but in the short term it’s important for Cuevas to get some match fitness playing Challengers, competing hard then maybe using his Protected Ranking for the bigger events. As long as he works hard on his game and mentally, then he can make a successful comeback to tour.