Tag: Pablo Cuevas

One of the best matches of the early rounds in the 2015 edition of Roland Garros took place on Court 3 between the veteran and the 21st seed Pablo Cuevas and the much-younger, yet fast rising, Dominic Thiem from Austria. Both players, enjoying the high points in their career in the recent months, showcased why they are among the best clay-court players in the world. Endurance, topspin, footwork, and patterns preceded big serves and flat winners. As a bonus, spectators got to enjoy two of the most stylish one-handed backhands in the game. More importantly, two highly intelligent players continued to modify their game plans to outwit the other, taking the spectators through a crescendo in each of the four sets, thus the score 7-6 7-5 6-7 7-5.

In this article, I will mostly focus on the first set, only because going through the whole match would take too long to write. But no worries! There was plenty happening in the first set alone. Furthermore, the first set largely determined the outcome of the matches for reasons to be explained later.

When the match started, it quickly became obvious that both players planned to begin the match with their respective plan A’s. On the one hand, Cuevas would stay back, keep the ball deep, move Thiem around with his forehand, and get aggressive only if the opportunity presented itself. On the other hand, Thiem would dictate the rallies with his big forehand, go for winners if the ball came short, and avoid high and loopy rallies. Although each player held to equalize at 2-2, it was evident that Cuevas was winning the long rallies, and Thiem was feeling more and more pressure to finish the point, or else. Cuevas was beginning to impose his game, keeping Thiem on the run just enough to let his forehand direct the traffic of the rally’s pattern.

Cuevas, exactly in the position he prefers in rallies..

If you are in Thiem’s position at that stage, the last thing you want is your first serve to take a vacation. You need it for a few free points, and to set the tone for the next shot in the rally. Yet, it is exactly what happened to Thiem at 2-2. He only made one first serve that game, and was forced into rallies. In fact, Thiem knew going into that game that it was just a matter of time before Cuevas breaks him unless he can keep coming up with big serves and shots. And if you can’t hit big serves, it puts that much more pressure on your groundstrokes. In Thiem’s case, it led to errors that looked like unforced errors, but are in fact errors that resulted from the Austrian player putting too much pressure on himself due to his opponent flawlessly dictating every extended baseline rally up to that point (if only there were a way to keep stats on such categories). Here are the first two points of the 2-2 game:

And just like that, it’s 0-30. Thiem does recover to 30-30 thanks to aggressive play, but then tries to go for too much too soon again:

On that break point, Thiem attacks again, this time on a ball that allows him to step inside the baseline. Moving all the way to the backhand doubles’ alley, he unleashes a forehand winner (who does not do that nowadays anyway?):

Having gotten back to deuce, now Thiem finds himself stuck exactly in the kind of point that he would like to avoid. Cuevas pushes him around the baseline, never giving him a chance to get a firm grip on the rally and get on the offensive.

This is precisely why Thiem has been unloading on those early shots in the rally that led to errors. If he does not go for them, this type of point happens over and over again. In the ensuing break point (2nd one of the game), Thiem once again steps in to hit a big “jump” backhand but does not quite pull the trigger. So what happens? Cuevas punishes Thiem’s half-way-passive-aggressive backhand by sticking a winner right back to the open corner:

Now, you would think that at this point, Cuevas has taken charge in the match. He would have, except that in the next game, he pulls out of his “error” bag one of his 3 double faults in the match, and follows it up with a forehand drop volley in the net that he would make nine out of ten times. It is an uncharacteristically generous game by the otherwise error-free Cuevas that brought Thiem back to life.

Thiem did indeed come alive. For example, until then, Cuevas was exclusively serving to his backhand to start the rally, including a high-kick serve to the ad side, making the Austrian hit above the shoulder and from the outside of the court. But now, all of a sudden, Thiem begins to step in and catch the ball on the rise, immediately putting Cuevas on the defensive. Check out his placement on the backhand returns during the 4-3 game:

He even got to run around the backhand to hit some direct forehand winners (this one at 4-3 up, and 40-30 down on Cuevas’ serve):

This led to Cuevas taking bigger cuts on his first serves, or using a strong outside kick as the first serve, in order not to allow Thiem to attack. This resulted in Thiem having to slice some of the backhand returns because he either had to stretch too far and/or too high to hit topspin, as is the case in this return below in the 6-5 game:

In other words, Cuevas adjusted and responded to Thiem’s increasingly intimidating game by tweaking his serve, just enough to hold his serve and carry the set to a tiebreaker. Thiem still had the momentum going into the tiebreaker, and definitely looked like he was on his way to a 1-0 lead in sets, when he went up 5-1 in the tiebreaker. Check out how Thiem punishes Cuevas for favoring his forehand too much and leaving too much court open on the deuce side at the 2-1 point in the tiebreaker:

Thiem gets a commanding 5-1 lead in the tiebreaker. Then, for one reason or another, he gets passive for the first time in the tiebreaker and lets up during the rally. Did he think that Cuevas lost hope at 1-5 and would hand the next two points to him? In any case, here is what happens that point:

Cuevas also wins the next point to get back to 3-5. Suddenly, it’s a different dynamic. Thiem feels the pressure, leading to this gag on the 5-3 point:

It is now 5-4 and what looked like a blow-out tiebreaker for Thiem has turned into a tight, tedious affair. It soon turns into a nightmare for him when this happens when he has set point on his racket at 6-5:

Yep! Thiem served his only double fault in the set (total of 3 in the match) on set point! The clip showed you Pablo’s subdued relief as if he were saying to himself “Wait! I saved a set point without ever having to hit a ball?”

At 6-6, the players change sides. Thiem, despite the disappointment, plays a solid, aggressive point, only to be passed by Cuevas. Pay particular attention to Thiem’s body language after the point before you read on:

From the end of that point until the beginning of the next, Thiem kept looking at his corner, talking and yelling to himself, seethed with anger over how he now finds himself a set point down after leading 5-1 in the tiebreaker and double-faulting on set point. Yet, here is when youthful enthusiasm can help you. You can mumble and whine for the full 20-to-30 seconds between two points, and still come up with the goods once the ball is in play. Watch how Thiem, still talking to himself few seconds before the point begins (continuous since the end of the last point above), plays his best point of the tiebreaker:

But it is not enough as Cuevas wins the next point to earn another set point at 8-7. This time, the veteran capitalizes on it when Thiem cracks on the very shot, the forehand from the backhand side of the middle, that has worked for him so well for the most part of the first set:

First set goes to Cuevas. How important was that? It was devastating enough for Thiem to temporarily lose focus and go down 0-3 in the second set. It forced him to play catch up the rest of the second set and the match. He did eventually get the break back, but still lost the second set 7-5. Thiem’s mental maturity is far ahead of his biological one. Most young players would have fallen apart after losing two sets like these against a seasoned, seeded player in a Major tournament. However, Thiem found a way to extend the match to a fourth set, playing a much smarter tiebreak in the third set (did go up early again, this time not letting up). Cuevas, unfazed by the length of the match, or the challenge from the talented Austrian, kept his cool and came up with the goods (which, in his case, means that he turned error free) in the latter stages of the fourth set to avoid a fifth one.

The match lasted 3 hours and 51 minutes. If the analysis above showed anything, Thiem and Cuevas do not just have plenty in the tank to survive long duels on clay, but also the I.Q. power to make them entertaining. The “chess” part of the first set was a fascinating “intangible spectacle” while the tangible ones such as stroke production and execution, tremendous agility and speed, and creative baseline tennis while maintaining consistency added the icing on the cake.

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ATP Istanbul Open Wrap-Up

May 4, 2015

Mertov

ATP Tactical Analysis 2 Comments

Part 1: Cuevas and Federer engage in a cerebral duel in the final

While the level of play never came close to the kind of spectacular tennis one would expect from the number 2 player in the world and one of the better clay-court specialists in the top 30, the spectators at the Garanti Koza Arena and others watching on TV witnessed a fantastic chess battle between the two players. At the end of the day Roger Federer prevailed with a 6-3 7-6 win, and lifted the winner’s trophy at the inaugural TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open.

Cuevas came out with a simple and expected plan. He would stay solid from the baseline, work Federer’s backhand, and win through consistency. However, Federer sent a firm message from the very first game that he was not going to submit to Cuevas’ plan A. Whenever Cuevas tried to engage in backhand cross-court rallies that have worked so well for him in his previous matches, including his upset of Grigor Dimitrov in the semi-final, Federer would either run around and accelerate his forehand, or switch the pattern with a down-the-line backhand or a drop shot. In his post-match press conference, Federer did say that hitting his backhand down-the-line was not part of his main game plan because he saw that “Grigor did it and it didn’t work for him.” Nevertheless, the fact that he avoided more than one or two cross-court backhand rallies (something from which he usually does not shy away), whether intentional or unintentional on his part, did negate a pattern that would have favored the Uruguayan player. Let’s remember that Cuevas hits a heavy topspin backhand and that pattern would have forced Federer into hitting several backhands in a row above the shoulder level. Federer also stepped inside the baseline often, rushing Cuevas into mistakes. Add to the mix a few surprise serve-and-volley attempts and the Swiss was already up a break at 3-0, before Cuevas could gain any footing in the set.

Seeing that his Plan A is getting him nowhere, Cuevas began to go for more on his forehands, step inside the baseline, and even attack the net when Federer’s shots landed short. The adjustment did work enough to level the play in the set, except that he was already down a break. He then faced a bigger issue: Federer was having his best serve day of the tournament and collecting two or three points per game just on his serves. Federer said after that he felt his serve was the one thing that worked well for him throughout the week, but added that he served best against Cuevas.

Second set picked up where the first ended. Cuevas continued to depend on his plan B, while Federer got more and more aggressive to push his opponent back and gain the upper hand once again. Both players won their serves until Federer drew first blood at 3-3 to break Cuevas’ serve. Most people thought the match was over when Federer jogged to his seat straight from having hit his volley winner and broken Pablo’s serve (see picture below).

JHFM~??uap©cq — Federer jogs to the bench after hitting the winning the volley to go up 4-3

Cuevas would not fold. At the 4-3 and 30-30, Cuevas won two points that probably corresponded closely to his original game plan. They were both fairly long rallies in which Federer looked to close the rally with risky shots to the corners, Cuevas running them down and making Federer hit the extra shot, and the Swiss finally making the mistake due to impatience. It was now 4-4 and back to being on serve. However, Cuevas stuck to playing aggressive for two reasons: first, it got him to level the play when he was initially being pushed around, and second, he was feeling some pain in his arm, enough to have it massaged earlier and to motivate him to keep the points shorter.

From 4-4 on, it was anybody’s set. Once the players arrived to the tiebreak, everyone thought the quality of tennis would reach a new plateau. It never happened. In fact, both players probably chalked that tiebreaker down in their notebooks as one to forget, quickly! From 4-3 to Cuevas in the tiebreaker to the end of it, it was mistakes galore for both players. At 4-4, Cuevas had an easy put away the service line, and shanked the forehand almost into the stands. At 6-4 and two match points, Federer made two direct unforced errors, and then again one at 7-6, in the third match point.

Cuevas had three set points himself, one of which was another forehand that he would have probably made in his sleep. In fact, the only spectacular point of the tiebreaker came on a backhand return winner that Federer hit on a set point for Cuevas, but one that he later called “lucky, because the ball bounced off the line.” Federer admitted that he reflexed the racket into the ball due to the awkward bounce and it somehow turned into a winner when it could have easily gone “to the stands.”

METADATA-START — “Lucky shot” – on the return winner on set point

At 11-11, Federer served and volleyed, hitting the most terrific “intentional” shot of the tiebreaker: a diving low backhand volley on Cuevas’ low return that landed deep in the opposite corner of the court, completely catching Cuevas off guard. He was moving forward, thinking Federer would either miss the volley or barely get it over the net. Instead he found himself sprinting backward and to the backhand corner to retrieve the ball. He did, and Federer won the point on the next, much easier shot. Federer finally closed the curtain on the next point on a Cuevas error. You could see the exhilaration on Roger’s face when he won the match point. He came to Istanbul with the goal of getting some miles on clay under his shoes, and he accomplished his goal while earning his 85th career singles title.

Part 2: Parting shots

Unfortunately the parting shot of the tournament for the spectators live at the tournament was the trophy presentation. Why unfortunately? Because a portable well was put up for the presentation, in front of which the ceremony took place, and in the back of which half of the stadium who paid the same amount of money for corresponding tickets as the other half of the stadium, were denied the trophy presentation. How did it look to those who happened to be on the “wrong” side? See the view below:

Next time, please find another way to show the sponsors’ names on TV. Many other tournaments have found ways to have the trophy presentation, showcase the sponsors names, and yet not put up a “wall of denial” basically disrespecting half of the spectators who came to the stadium, not knowing that they paid for the match only while others earned the right to see the match and the trophy presentation for the same price.

One small negative note goes to the spectators who pass as “tennis fans” but who are really no more than “I-want-to-simply-earn-the-right-to-say-I-saw-Federer” fans. There is something wrong when there is a tennis fan who would be happy to buy a ticket to watch every match, yet he/she can’t, because some person bought that ticket, came and watched a set and a half of Federer (probably because he couldn’t care less about the game of tennis that he half understands) and left, leaving the seat open. There is also something wrong when the organizers succeed in bringing an elite player, a star player, and a few great clay-court players, and yet Federer plays to an almost-filled stadium, while Dimitrov, half an hour later, plays to only half full arena (in the case of semifinals), or no more than 2000 people (in the case of quarterfinals). Next time, dear Turkish “tennis fans”, please treat the tournament as tennis fans and not a showcase event where one earns the title “cool” if he/she attends it.

Major kudos to Federer, a true professional who fulfilled his role as the main actor of the tournament, not only by reaching the finals and putting his name on the winners’ list for the future to come (I don’t even want to think what the attendance would have been if he got upset in the semis and the final match featured Cuevas vs. Schwartzman), but also by engaging in the scheduled activities with enthusiasm, running the kids’ clinic more efficiently by himself than anyone else I have ever seen, becoming basically the advertising face of Istanbul for several days through his facebook and press conferences, and doing everything he can to promote the tournament.

Despite all its problems this year (see previous posts this week), I remain hopeful that they will be addressed and that the necessary measures will be taken so that next year tennis can become the center of attention. I know there are capable people in position of authority who should manage to turn things around and avoid these errors in the future. But they must galvanize everyone around them to follow their lead. One cannot bank on a super star to come every year and carry the tournament on his shoulders: Federer and this 2015 edition was the exception from that standpoint, and not the rule.

I would like to thank readers for following MT-Desk throughout the TEB BNP Parisbas Istanbul Open. For now, it looks like the next live coverage will be the French Open, however stay tuned for regular blog posts on the tour at any time, and click here to follow MT-Desk on Twitter for continuous tweets from the tennis world.

Istanbul Open: New and Exciting, yet Problematic

April 27, 2015

Mertov

ATP 5 Comments

Part 1: Nicely done!

The first ever ATP Tour Event in Istanbul, Turkey, officially named TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open, not that anybody will ever bother using its full name, kicked off at Garanti Koza Arena on Saturday with qualifying round matches. The excitement created around this tournament is tremendous, mainly because of the appeal of one of the world’s most popular athletes, Roger Federer. If there are any studies centering on how a celebrity name can impact the attention drawn to an event, Istanbul Open should earn a chapter in that study all by itself. To illustrate, when tournament organizers announced, with wide smiles on their faces, few weeks ago that Federer would participate to the tournament, they had no idea that tickets for all sessions and seats would sell out in less than two hours. Federer’s arrival to the airport on Sunday was broadcast live on TV by one of the leading sports channels, as well as his first practice that afternoon (more on that below). His first press conference on Monday afternoon was held not at the tournament site, but at the plush Four Seasons Hotel, located a considerable distance from the tournament site.

The organizers did not stop there and they also convinced Grigor Dimitrov to come. For the inaugural session of an ATP 250 level event that is scheduled the week preceding two successive ATP 1000 Masters tournaments (Madrid, Rome), this is a tremendous achievement. Add clay-court specialists Pablo Cuevas (no.23), Santiago Giraldo (no.37), and Andreas Haider-Maurer (no.47) to the rest of the participants such as Mikhail Youzhny, Jarkko Nieminen, and local favorite Marsel Ilhan, and you have a very solid ATP 250 draw with one marquee name, one star player, and bunch of established top-50 names. Attracting high-level competitors was probably the area where the tournament organizers had the most success.

As a result, Turkish tennis fans are upbeat and those that came to watch the qualifying round matches yesterday (entrance was free!) were treated to a surprise. Federer and Dimitrov took the center court for a practice session during which hundreds of fans present applauded every good shot, laughed at every smile that they could garner from the players, and cheered them on every time they switched sides or got up their chairs to walk back to the court following a short water break.

Part 2: And Yet…

Unfortunately, the tournament’s day-to-day operational problems, and the inadequacy of the facilities do not live up to the excitement that the pre-tournament announcements had generated. Let’s first start by the arrival to the tournament. If you are driving, at most ATP and WTA Tour events, the signs pointing everyone in the right direction begin from miles away, sometimes at the first exit that you take from the nearest major highway. Here, not only are there NO SIGNS anywhere at all in traffic to guide you to the venue, but once you arrive to it, there are no signs indicating the location of the entrance, and furthermore, the entrance itself does not correspond one bit to the type of entrance that one would expect from a tour event. See the two pictures below and judge for yourself:

So, if you are driving and you arrive to the above so-called “gate”, it is likely that you will simply keep driving, thinking that the real entrance must be coming up elsewhere, except that it never does. You can’t turn around either because the road is a one-way traffic, thus you end up driving around another 10-15 minutes just to find your way back to the so-called entrance that resembles the back alley entrance of a wholesale store in small town USA. There is no transportation arranged to the tournament site from any of the major populated areas in Istanbul, and yes, considering that the tournament’s location is far outside Istanbul, that is a handicap. One can use public transportation to get close to the tournament, and then walk to it in about 10 to 20 minutes, but once again, there will be no signs indicating them where to turn, how to find the entrance, etc.

Once you walk in the venue, you are treated to the sounds of repair tools, and to stands and tents that are still in a state of construction. There is literally construction noise that you cannot avoid. Just to clarify, this is happening on the weekend of qualifying matches. Main draw matches begin Monday and some preparations are still not complete; one hears hammers and drilling at various spots. There is only one food provider and the prices on its menu basically scream “Yes! You are tennis fans, thus you have money by default, and yes, we are here to milk it with grossly overpriced menu items”!

The area surrounding the tournament venue, is full of construction, and quite frankly, ugly! How ugly? Look at the picture below.

What you also notice on the picture are three ball boys, with two of them standing on top of the stony and dusty hill, one climbing up toward to the two other, with a racket in his hand. Here is the back story: Nikola Mektic loses to Thanasi Kokkinakis and chucks his racket outside the court in frustration. He may not have realized that there was big construction drop right behind the court, but that is not the point. The racket flies down all the way to the bottom where there are literally iron bars sticking out. Obviously, someone in charge asked the ball boys to go and fetch the racket. While I was watching them from a distance, my heart was heavy because I could only imagine the danger if the ball boy lost his footing and started to fall down (see again, the picture above)! Then, I noticed Mektic watching them from the top of the building on the other side with one other person (his coach?) and literally smiling and chatting. I got somewhat mad; mad at Mektic for throwing his racket and not telling the ball boys to forget it when he realized how dangerous the area where his racket ended up was, and mad at the person, whomever it may be, who initially told the ball boys to go and fetch the racket. And the fact that Mektic and his friend/coach clapped the boys when they finally retrieved the racket did not ease my frustration with the whole scene. Very few people witnessed the sequence. I certainly hope that this write-up will bring awareness to it, and those who are in charge will do what is necessary to avoid this type of fiasco.

There are not many stands in the area where fans can stand and socialize outside the courts; moreover, there is hardly any covered space in case of rain! Beware those spectators who come without an umbrella. Also to the spectators who desire to watch a match on Court number 3: sorry folks! It’s simply not possible. You can’t believe it? Let me explain in clear words: there are NO spaces (yes you read correctly, none!) planned for the spectators to watch a match court. You don’t believe me? See this picture:

Your eyes are not deceiving you. There is actually an ATP Tour event that allocates matches to a court where there is literally NO possibility of it being seen by spectators. That couple that you see standing on the next court, and watching, happen to be the parents of one of the two players in action, thus an exception is made for them to stand on the side of the next court where there are other players practicing.

Courts 1 and 2 have stands indeed, but only one entrance each, through a small door on one side. There are no passages in the middle, no door on the other side. If you are a seasoned spectator at tournaments, you can imagine what mayhem that already caused in the qualifying rounds: spectators accumulating on the inside by the door to get out, while the ones waiting outside accumulate to get in! As one expects, there were many times where there was just enough time for the inside spectators to get out and not enough to let the outside ones in. Players had to wait after the game change while the referee kept yelling in vain “Time”, “Please sit down, players are ready to play,” or “Please don’t let anyone in.” At one time you even had the person responsible of lifting the chain (obviously with no clue how a tennis match works) at the door letting the outside people in, while the ones inside could not get out and accumulated right there. Players walked to the court to play the first point, referee kept yelling at the thirty or so people who couldn’t get out and at the thirty or so who just walked in, to sit down. One fan waiting to get out yelled back at the referee in English to make sure next time that the ones inside should get out first before letting the others walk in (which really should have been directed at the person lifting the chain who probably speaks no English). You get the picture…

Speaking of outside courts, one court suffered surface problems during a match, which caused the players to move to center court to resume their encounter on Saturday (originally, no matches were scheduled on center court on that day).

Let’s now move to the center court which should be the jewel of the tournament. Yes, it is the largest tennis arena in Turkey (see below):

But again, that should not stop anyone from pointing to its faults. The upper stands are extremely steep and the steps not large enough for safety. The bars at the bottom are not tall enough either (see the picture below).

Thus, if anyone were to tumble and fall at the top, they would surely end up falling all the way to the bottom which presents a safety issue. When the stadium is filled to capacity (8,000 people), you will have fans hurrying up and down those stairs during game changes, and I do not dare to think any further. The media room is set up at the lower level, with its entrance directly giving way to the stairs, only several meters from the court. In other words, the media people will be walking in and out while the players on center court are playing a match. Did nobody know that the main entrance to the media room should always be from the outside of the court not by the court itself? Imagine this possible scenario on Saturday: Dimitrov wins his semifinal match, and Federer begins his semifinal. At that time, Dimitrov comes to the media room to hold his after-match press conference. How will they keep the tranquility at the entrance of the media room with journalists running in and out of the room (rightfully so, to get to the press conference) and people perhaps wanting autographs from Dimitrov while Federer’s match is being played close by with the capacity 8,000 people watching?

I must point out that the organizers had good intentions. For example, they brought in from Roland Garros two clay-court specialists to prepare the courts and supervise them. They successfully attracted top names to the tournament. They successfully found sponsors. The tournament directors have experience. But it’s hard to avoid inefficiencies when you have generals with no army, and no coordination. I witnessed myself the French clay-court expert complain about the workers allocated to him, that they have never seen a tennis court in their lives (as he was saying this, the men were watering the backdrops and the advertisements, before he yelled at them that their job was to water the court and not what is around it!!). Unfortunately, the concept of “preparations done on time” was not on the radar. In this article, I talked about some major inadequacies, yet there were many minor ones too, such as the electronic scoreboard outside on the grounds to inform spectators of the scores and the match schedule not working (yet).

There is one excuse that everyone keeps hearing: “This is the first time an ATP event is organized so some problems should be expected”. No, sorry that does not wash my friends! The fact that an ATP event in Istanbul is a first, yes it’s correct; but that a tennis event of this magnitude is something new to Istanbul is utterly incorrect! Istanbul Cup, the WTA event, has been held since 2005, and last year’s edition was held precisely at this same venue. Istanbul hosted WTA year-end championships three years in a row with much success. Adequate measures should have been taken on time. “We could not foresee this (or that)” is simply not an acceptable sentence!

My upcoming articles this week will focus a lot more on the matches and on tennis. However, these problems must be pointed out to anyone who is open to criticism. Hopefully, when next year’s tournament takes place, I can write about how the organization has improved and what a treat the tournament has become for the fans due to its efficient management. For this year, Roger Federer’s appearance may have saved the day, but you can’t bring a Federer each year to save the day.

Starting tomorrow, it’s main draw time:

Live updates on Twitter: @MertovsTDesk

Tactical Analysis: Pablo Cuevas vs. Dominic Thiem, 2nd round Roland Garros 2015

ATP Istanbul Open Wrap-Up

Istanbul Open: New and Exciting, yet Problematic

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