Istanbul, the city that spans across two continents, is hosting its inaugural ATP Tour event next week (April 27 – May 3): TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open.
Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov will headline the tournament, joining clay-court specialists such as Pablo Cuevas, Santiago Giraldo, Juan Monaco, as well as Turkey’s Marsel Ilhan.
Mertov’s Tennis Desk will be on site throughout the week. Check here daily for pictures and reports throughout the week.
For up-to-the-minute live updates throughout the tournament, follow MT-Desk on Twitter: @MertovsTDesk
(Picture via Istanbul Open Official Facebook Page)
The crowd’s disappointment could be heard from miles away. Roger Federer had just double-faulted on break point at 2-3 down in the third set against Novak Djokovic in the men’s finals of the Indian Wells Masters 1000 tournament. Djokovic led 4-2, and during the next 10 minutes, if it lasted that long, he rolled through two relatively quick games to triumph over his rival 6-3 6-7 6-2, and win the prestigious “5th Major” of the year, as some like to call the tournament in the desert. It was one of the quietest two-game stretches at any final match of a tournament.
This is the kind of crowd response that Djokovic, one of the great champions of the modern era, has to face every time he takes the court against his two main rivals, Federer and Rafael Nadal. Who can forget the bitter clapping gesture that he made to the crowd at Philippe Chatrier when he lost the final match of Roland Garros against Nadal on a double fault last year? He dealt with a pro-Nadal crowd at that match too. He has a unique challenge, one with which no other great player in the modern times had to deal. He has been, is, and will remain to be, the “third best” of his times. The “has been” and “is” portions are guaranteed as he lacks titles and accolades to surpass either of them in the perennial “Greatest Player of All-Time” debate. The “will be” part is still up for debate.
However, the thirdness of Djokovic has nothing to do with the on-court accomplishments. It stems from the timing of his arrival to the scene, and the saturated market of fan base. He is the tennis world version of that third cola company that is desperately trying to garner customers who will embrace its brand over those of the long-existing and beloved PepsiCo and Coca-Cola companies.
It is the price that Djokovic has to pay every time he sets foot on a tennis court across the net from Nadal and Federer. The Spaniard and the Swiss are class acts, but so is the Serb. Anyone who follows the tour closely, media members, and other players, can attest to the fact that Djokovic treats everyone, including tennis fans, with the utmost respect, no more or no less than the two other great champions of his time.
However, Djokovic arrived to the top of the game at a time (late 2000s) when most tennis fans, if not all, have made their choices between Federer and Nadal. There was no room for a Serbian player with a rather vociferous team in the player’s box rooting for him. Everyone knows how harshly and subjectively die-hard Federer fans scrutinize every word that comes out of Nadal’s mouth, or every injury that he gets. The reverse is equally done with ardor by Nadal fanatics whenever Federer loses a match or makes a “twistable” comment. Now imagine both groups of fans combined to apply the same scrutiny on one single player… Djokovic is that player!
Why Djokovic?
Because not only is he the outsider in their eyes, but he also does a pretty darn effective job of challenging their beloved players…
Because he pushes them around quite efficiently on the court…
Because he frequently shakes their hands as the winner…
One could even rightfully make the case for Djokovic being the best player in the first half of the current decade. The numbers say so, his ranking says so, and will continue to say so for the rest of 2015 due to the large lead that he holds over his opponents.
How dare he? The answer matters less than the fact that he does dare, and thus becomes the target of millions of fans who do not want to see the domination that their duo enjoyed in the mid-to-late-2000s comes to an end.
Unfortunately for them, it seems to have come to a crushing end, at least on the court! Unfortunately for Djokovic, the chances of its end crystalizing in the imaginary “third” position of popularity will probably not arrive anytime soon.
The much more mature Djokovic of today understands that and deals with it accordingly. He praises his two main rivals and often talks about how much positive influence they had over him and his game. Never mind that if he were to put the racket down today and never pick it up again, he would still have a career comparable to, if not better than, the past great champions such as John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, and Stefan Edberg.
Yet, Djokovic has no intention of doing that. He continues along his path and aims for the two players that are considered the top two greatest players of all times by many. His chances of catching them in terms of tennis accomplishments: slim! In terms of popularity: none!
We can however speculate comfortably that he deals with a unique challenge, a singular place in history, with more courage and clarity than many other players would.
As you read the title, you may ask “Who is Marsel Ilhan?” He is a professional tennis player, currently ranked No. 104 in the ATP. He hails from Turkey, a country that neither had a male player ranked in the top 100, nor one that won a match in the Majors, until Ilhan.
Ilhan came into the pro scene in 2006 at the age of 19 and slowly began working his way up in the rankings, shattering record after record in his home country. In 2010, he finally became the first Turkish male player to earn a top-100 ranking. He did not stop there and went on to become the first Turkish male player to qualify for the main draw of majors. He even won a round in both the Australian Open and Wimbledon, breaking his own record for his country. In 2011, he reached a career-high ranking of 87. Since then, he has been out of the top 100 but continued competing in ATP events and challengers.
2014 was the year that marked his second surge. He qualified again for the main draw of Wimbledon and began recording quality wins and started making his climb back to top-100 ranking. In this year’s Australian Open, after qualifying for the main draw, he became the first Turkish player to face a top-five player in the majors when he drew Stan Wawrinka in the first round. The match was played in the Rod Laver Arena and Wawrinka won in straight sets. Ilhan admitted to having the jitters afterwards.
Ilhan practicing prior to Wimbledon 2014 with his coach Alberto Lopez Nunez standing behind
In this week’s ATP Dubai Open, Ilhan yet again made history. After going through the qualifying draw and defeating Alexandr Zverev in the first round of the main draw, he faced the world No. 13 Feliciano Lopez. After a thrilling match, he came back from a set down to defeat the Spaniard 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. To put things into perspective, Lopez is not just any top-20 player. He is one of the feared players on the circuit, left-handed and mostly a serve-and-volleyer with an arsenal of awkward baseline strokes. He is known as a competitor who knows how to win close matches. Just look at his recent run to the round of 16 in the Australian Open. After winning two matches from match points down, only Milos Raonic could stop him after a nail biter that went five set, in which Lopez also saved match points in the fourth to extend the match.
Ilhan’s win over Lopez marked the first time ever a male Turkish player defeated a top -15 player and the first time one reached the quarters of an ATP 500-level tournament. Later in the day, Ilhan connected via telephone with the Turkish television channel SportsTV. The excitement in his voice was bursting through the line. He said that he knew one day he was going to record a big win, but just did not know when and where. He then added “apparently, Dubai was it!” He was happy about the core group of Turkish tennis fans who support him wherever he goes: “Federer was playing at the same time, so there weren’t many spectators, but I had great support. I am serving well, too, so that helps.”
Next, he faced the world number one Novak Djokovic. Ilhan modestly said that playing Djokovic would be a great experience. After continuously making history for his home country, nothing could have topped a win over the best player in the world. It turned out to be a routine win for the latter, as most expected. Yet, it mattered little because the match was broadcast live on Turkish TV. Nothing motivates a younger generation of tennis players more than watching one of their own play against the best player in the world, especially if the country never produced a top-100 men’s player before, let alone one that took the court against high-profile names in the game. The broadcast also added to the interest that tennis has generated for the last decade in the country. Istanbul has hosted the year-ending WTA Tour Championships three years in a row and also hosts a yearly WTA International Tier Tour event in July. Furthermore, it will begin hosting the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open, an ATP 250 event, for the first time this year, featuring none other than Roger Federer.
As to Ilhan, he is already guaranteed to have his name on another category in the history of men’s tennis in his home country: that of the first Turkish male player to break the top-80 barrier when the new rankings come out next week. More importantly, the impact that he has already had, and continues to have, on Turkish tennis is not measurable in numbers.
This picture was retweeted endlessly by Turkish followers on the day Ilhan faced Djokovic (via @TennisTV)
As soon as the draws were announced at the Australian Open, it did not take long for the logical quarterfinals projections to be announced by the media members and tennis experts. The process is simple: you take the two highest seeds in each quarter and assume that they will beat their opponents to eventually face each other in that section of the draw for a berth in the semifinals. Thus, on the men’s draw the line up would be the following: Novak Djokovic (1) vs. Milos Raonic (8), Stan Wawrinka (4) vs. Kei Nishikori (5), Rafael Nadal (3) vs. Tomas Berdych (7), and Roger Federer (2) vs. Andy Murray (6). While those are dream match-ups for the second week and the tournament organizers, past experience tells us that the chances of this logical outcome coming to fruition is close to zero percent. Here are my takes on each quarter section, assuming that injuries play no part in the outcome:
Top quarter: Djokovic vs. Raonic
The chances of Djokovic getting upset early are close to none. He is a consistent performer in the Majors and it usually takes a monumental effort (Rafa at the French or Wawrinka 12 months ago in Melbourne are good examples) to eliminate Djokovic in a five-set battle. He rarely gets upset by lesser opponents. While I would be interested to see the talented Swede Elias Ymer do well, get past his first two rounds (tall order as it is, and not very likely), and take the stage against the number one player in the world, Djokovic is likely to get to the round of 16s without any complication. Then, he will have a more serious test, possibly against John Isner who has given him trouble in the past in two-out-of-three-sets matches. IIsner’s section, there are also couple of intriguing names, Dominic Thiem and Laurent Lokoli, who are looking for their first breakout Major tournaments. Throw in the dangerous Roberto Bautista-Agut and the in-form Gilles Muller, you have a fantastic early-round section with players battling to face Djokovic. Nevertheless, Djokovic should get to the quarters, possibly without even losing a set. Raonic’s path to the quarterfinals is a bit more complicated, but not until the third round. Once past his first two matches, he should face someone who will challenge him, such as Lleyton Hewitt or Julien Benneteau, who have wnough experience to trouble Raonic. If he gets past that, he will have to face either Feliciano Lopez who performs well in Majors and has the experience, or Gaël Monfils whom everyone fears except Nadal and Djokovic. Chances of Djokovic and Raonic meeting in the quarters: around 70%.
2nd quarter: Stan Wawrinka vs. Kei Nishikori
The big question here is “which Wawrinka will show up?” If it is the one from last year’s Australian Open or Wimbledon, look for him to steamroll his way to the quarterfinals. One player floating dangerously that nobody has heard of: Marius Copil. If he faces Wawrinka in the second round, it should be entertaining, providing that Copil does not melt under the “my-first-Major-appearance” syndrome. I do not see how Fognini, Dolgopolov, or anyone else in the third round, including Guillermo Garcia-Lopez who beat him in Paris, can stop Wawrinka. At first glance, Nishikori’s draw looks tough, but it could turn out to be a cakewalk. Nicolas Almagro would be one of the last players any seeded player cares to play in the first round, except that Almagro has not played an ATP match since Wimbledon due to a foot injury. I personally like Santiago Giraldo and Steve Johnson but I believe they are good match-up for Nishikori who can do everything they do, but a bit better. In the round of 16s, he will face the usually dangerous David Ferrer or Gilles Simon. I use the word “usually” seriously because in 2014, Ferrer was not the Ferrer that we are used to seeing for the last eight years, and Gilles Simon has battled injuries lately. I am looking for Nishikori to make it to the quarters easier than expected. Chances of Wawrinka and Nishikori meeting in the quarters: around 85%.
3rd quarter: Nadal vs. Berdych
Considering that he is not coming into the tournament on a high note, Nadal could not have asked for a better draw. Unlike Federer and Wawrinka, Nadal (like Djokovic) has the ability start a tournament on third gear, and eventually pull it to the fifth gear by the time the second week comes around. And all the names that could have given the Spaniard trouble in the early rounds are dispersed elsewhere. Don’t be fooled by some crazy upset pickers, his first round opponent Mikhail Youzhny is a shadow of his former self. The one name that stands out in his potential early-round opponents is Lukas Rosol. But this is not grass; it’s rather a slow version of hard courts. Does either Richard Gasquet or Kevin Anderson have a chance against Nadal if they play in the round of 16s? Anderson, small chance… Gasquet, none! In contrast to Nadal, Berdych has one of the hardest roads to travel in orderto reach the quarterfinals. Jurgen Melzer, his possible second-round opponent, has too much game and experience to be intimidated by neither Berdych nor a Major tournament atmosphere. Then, he will face Leonardo Mayer, Jiri Vesely, or Viktor Troicki, who are all able to cause an upset, and hungry for victories in the big stage. Even if he makes it through the first three rounds, Berdych will then have to take on a solid player such as Philipp Kohlschreiber (the last guy to get intimidated when playing a seeded player), Sam Groth (dangerous serve-and-volleyer who keeps improving steadily), or Ernest Gulbis (maybe the biggest loose cannon in the draw who can beat anybody depending on which side of the bed he wakes up that morning). Chances of Nadal and Berdych meeting in the quarters: around 60%.
4th quarter: Federer vs. Murray
Federer’s potential early-round opponents are composed of some solid names on the tour, but none good enough to cause a remarkable upset in a Major. Jeremy Chardy, Simone Bolelli, Borna Coric, Juan Monaco, Andres Seppi, Denis Istomin, can all beat a higher seeded player in any other ATP tournament (and have), or even take a set of a top player in a Major, but do not stand a chance to topple a top four seed here. Ivo Karlovic could be a dangerous fourth round opponent, but Federer seems to know how to deal with big servers, and Tommy Robredo (another potential fourth round opponent) defeating Federer in a Major will only happen once (2013 US Open). I can see Federer playing a few tiebreakers, or even losing a set (or sets) but do not see him losing prior to the quarterfinals. Andy Murray’s side has a couple of loose cannons in Marinko Matosevis and Martin Klizan who can be nightmares on the court. And yet, this is precisely what Murray needs, in order to be ready to face either Grigor Dimitrov, or David Goffin, or Dustin Brown (speaking of loose cannons), or Marcos Baghdatis, or Teymuraz Gabashvili in the fourth round. Yes, any of those can make it to the fourth round; this is by far the most contested section of the men’s draw. Again, Murray needs these tests to have a chance against Federer in the quarters, because he, like Djokovic and Nadal, can play himself into form as the tournament progresses. Chances of Federer and Murray meeting each other in the quarters: around 75%.
And now, it’s time to enjoy the first Major of 2015!
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Recently, the issue of “tennis parenting,” a term used loosely to represent everything that involves the dynamics of how parents handle their relationship with their kid who chooses to play competitive tennis, has resurfaced within the last month. During an ITF tournament in Israel, witnesses by the court side saw sixteen-year-old player Andrada Surdeanu crying with blood streaming down her nose after her father Lucian slapped her following a loss in the quarterfinals. As if that was not disturbing enough, both Surdeanu and her mother Ioana came to the father’s defense. Andrada said that it was normal for her father to punish her and that she “deserved” it. Ioana claimed that Lucian was unjustly mistreated by the Israeli police following the incident, while barely recognizing her husband’s excessive act.
Meanwhile, in France the film 40-Love (Terre Battue in French which actually means ‘Clay Court’) was released across theaters two weeks ago, inspired from the real-life story of a father, back in the early 2000s, who would secretly add a drug causing drowsiness into the water of his children’s opponents in order to give his children an advantage against their opponents. When one of the opponents ended up dying as the result of one such attempt, the scheme was uncovered and the father headed to jail.
On a different note, Roger Federer spoke to BBC few days ago about the ins and outs of parenting children who play competitive tennis, and vowed that he would never be a “pushy” parent if his kids decided to play competitive tennis. Federer emphasized that youngsters need space from their parents, and spend time alone with their coaches whether in practice or in tournaments. His insight was valuable in that he underlined the distinction between supportive and pushy parents, certainly drawing from his experience with his own parents.
I agree with Federer – and my own experience back in my times as a young tennis player confirms this – that parents need not necessarily travel to every tournament and constantly be around the coach and the kid. At the same time, I must add that this is ideal only if the parents do not have a tennis background and do not therefore understand the game as well as the coach, or even the kid. On the one hand, many parents in this category do a wonderful job of being there for their kid when needed, but know that their role is to provide emotional support and not to get excessively involved in tennis-related discussions that should be left to the coach. On the other hand, a number of parents also suffer from a variation of the “Dunning-Kruger effect” and turn the experience of competition into a miserable one for their kid.
It is important to pinpoint one area that I feel is not adequately represented in the discussions involving tennis parents. Parents that suffer from this problem (often without realizing that they do) need to be told in plain and simple words that for the duration of a practice session, or a match, they are not the parents in the traditional role. Let’s detail why parents are unable to resist the temptation of sticking their nose where it does not belong.
Take for example the parents of an 11-year-old kid who is playing competitive tennis. Throughout their kid’s life up to that point, parents have made every single decision for their kid, when to eat, what to eat, when to study, when to go to sleep, when to go to the movies, etc. They have gotten addicted to that control, and the kid has gotten addicted to the comfort of knowing that, without both realizing that they have gotten used to that pattern. Now, comes the abrupt intrusion of an hour-long practice session, or of a match, and shatters that pattern and its related world of addiction.
As a result, the parents feel an unexpected loss of power. They can’t quite get their hands on the matter (the game of tennis), and yet, they watch their kids emotionally suffer or get upset during a period of bad play. Imagine the frustration of the inability to reconcile their unknowingly over-developed ‘control-freak side’ when it comes to every detail concerning their child, with the helplessness that they feel at not being able to do anything about it when their kid is experiencing problems. They have been able to “make it go away” in the past for 11 years, and now all of a sudden, they can’t perform what they perceive to be their usual duty.
That is the shifting point where the dynamics between tennis parents and their kid’s tennis experience can go sour in a hurry. They can understand and accept their limitations, consider that shifting point as their own “growing pain,” and deal with the change properly. Or, they can give in to their addiction, their control freak side that has furtively been reinforced over the years, and begin to cause friction by imposing their own unwelcomed intrusion into their kid’s tennis-related domain. Unfortunately, parents are not sufficiently made aware of the inevitable arrival of this specific moment that I referred to as the “shifting point” above. Believe it or not, what may seem crystal clear to the person who reads this, remains a mystery to most tennis parents who do not have a tennis background. My advice to the coach, or to anyone who is a close friend of such tennis parents, is that they make the parents aware of the tension that this shift will cause at arrival. Explain the process in detail, moment by moment! Believe me, they will need to hear it, probably more than once! Your explanation must be so clear that they must be able to immediately recognize that moment when it rears its head, and they begin to sense the feeling of frustration as a result, announcing the eminent arrival of the shifting point.
It is worthy to note that this moment will occur with every tennis parent, whether they are good ones or bad ones. Parents take care of their kids, help them in any way they can, and guide them in every aspect of their lives as they grow into their teenage years. The inner conflict created by the shifting point does not define their parenthood, nor does it label them as good or bad parents. However, the way they deal with that temporary loss of control that they previously took for granted, will in turn have an impact on their children’s tennis experience, and possibly leave long-term traces on their future perception of the sport. Also keep in mind that this article focused on parents that do not have a tennis background and do not have extensive knowledge of the game at a competitive level. As to what happens if they did, it is for another article in the future.
The big “Salad Bowl” sitting pretty in Biel, SwitzerlandFor a few days, following the French’s devastating (at least from their perspective) defeat at the hands of the Swiss team in the finals of the Davis Cup campaign, Arnaud Clément, the captain of the French team, experienced what most losing Davis Cup captains go through in such periods: suffer the wrath of retrospectively enlightened critics who seem to know better, the angry fans who are looking for a victim to blame, and anyone (and everyone) who claims that they would have known what to do, had they been in his shoes. While the irresistible art of “armchairing” gripped those who believed – in the after-math of course – that Clément made the wrong decisions, anyone with a rational approach to the ins and outs of the developments leading up to, and through, the final weekend, should be able to see that his choices were not the wrong at the time that he had to make them.
The first challenge that faced Clément was to nominate four players that were to represent the French team against the Swiss. He had an accomplished doubles team composed of Julien Benneteau and Édouard Roger-Vasselin, the winners of the 2014 Roland Garros title. Had he picked them, he would have had to leave out two of the following players out of the team: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gilles Simon, Gaël Monfils, and Richard Gasquet. Furthermore, his head would have been hanging at the Place de la Concorde even before the weekend was over, had one of the two singles players that he picked got injured on Friday, and was substituted by one of the doubles players on Sunday, leading to an almost-guaranteed loss. He did what any reasonable coach would do. Unless you have an extraordinary doubles team, such as the Bryan brothers of the U.S.A., you go with your strong singles players who could collect four out of the five points that you need to win the tie, and hope that two of them can combine to provide a solid doubles effort.
Out of the four strong singles players mentioned above, two of them could also play doubles: Gasquet and Tsonga. In fact, they won a crucial doubles match against a formidable Tomas Berdych – Radek Stepanek in Davis Cup when they played the Czech team, and did reach the quarterfinals of the Toronto Masters 1000 having beaten a respectable Laender Paes – Stepanek team, only to withdraw in the quarterfinals. In contrast, Simon and Monfils are singles players. Clément wanted one doubles specialist on the team and he took Benneteau, a sensible choice. It is also reasonable that he picked the two singles players that could also play doubles, and chose only one out of the two other players who could play singles. Calm down Simon fans (and I happen to be one myself), but on clay, Clément’s choice to pick Monfils over your guy was completely understandable and justified.
Friday ended with a 1-1 tie, and displayed a version of Federer that represented a level situated somewhere between “terrible” and “mediocre” compared to his real one. None of the after-the-fact armchair experts could have predicted that Federer’s level would rise in the following 48 hours faster than the Enterprise accelerated from ¼ impulse drive to Warp Speed nine. Most believed that Tsonga and Gasquet would triumph over Wawrinka and Federer, and that is, if Federer played doubles in his limited condition.
However, on Friday two things happened that were completely outside the control of either captain. First, Tsonga injured his wrist which caused him to withdraw, by his own request, from the doubles. Second, Federer played through his match against Monfils with no pain in his back, and although he got crushed by the Frenchman, he was unusually upbeat about the rest of the weekend. Clément once again made the only reasonable decision: replace Tsonga with Benneteau, and thus, put his two best doubles players on the court. Gasquet and Benneteau did not play bad, but Wawrinka and Federer played the kind of sensational doubles that they have not played since their run to the gold metal back in 2008 Olympic Games. Three sets later, Switzerland took a 2-1 lead in the tie, and everything went from bad to worst on Sunday when Federer put up one of his better clay-court performances in the last few years, running Gasquet around and finishing the points with remarkable shot-making skills.
Just like that, the Swiss won the Davis Cup, and the Statlers and Waldorfs of the world came out in numbers, ready to guillotine Clément. Yet, once again, Clément’s choices were not only the most reasonable ones to make, but as seen above, the only ones he could make in certain cases. It was one of the most unfortunate weekends for a Davis Cup captain that I have ever witnessed, because it contained every twist needed to transform it into the “festival of blame” that followed the next few days in the French tennis circles.
Unfortunately for Clément, if someone wanted to write a script to make him look bad at the end of the day, they could not have done a better job. First, the controversy surrounding the Swiss team, involving the Wawrinka-Mirka malaise on the preceding weekend in London, followed by the unexpected injury of Federer that caused him to withdraw from the finals against Novak Djokovic, made the Swiss team look beatable and demoralized, thus giving the impression that the French had the psychological upper hand. Second, the fact that the French had two weeks of preparation on clay, versus the less-than-a-week preparation time for the Swiss, not to mention that Federer had a total of one hour and twenty minutes of total practice time before Friday’s first match, added to the impression that the French had all the necessary elements tilted to their advantage. Last, the aura of having a team composed of Monfils, Tsonga, and Gasquet, that has never lost at home, firmly put the French in the favorite category in the perceptions of many, although reality was the opposite, at least on paper. These factors combined to create a firm belief by the French that losing to Switzerland on that particular weekend in Lille would be considered nothing less than a debacle. Clément ended up in the position of a captain who would either be doing only what was expected had France won, or face the prospect of being profiled as a failure in the case of a loss. Unfortunately for him, the latter took place.
Fortunately for him, however, the French Tennis Federation recently consulted the players, and they stood tall behind Clément, ensuring that he retains his captaincy. Today, The French Tennis Federation confirmed that Clément will continue to serve as the captain, for at least two more years. It must be a relief to the ex-Australian Open finalist, knowing that over the weekend, Yannick Noah expressed his disappointment over the loss and explicitly verbalized his interest to become the captain if given the opportunity. Clement did not take that lightly and struck back at Noah with criticism of his own, saying that he takes the 1983 Roland Garros champion’s words as an attack against him, and that things in reality are not the same as they may have appeared to Noah on the TV screen. Personally, I am a big fan of Yannick Noah, and he has already proven to be an astute Davis Cup captain in the past (remember 1991 and his decision to play Henri Leconte in singles). Yet, I can’t help but agree with the players in Clément’s case, and disagree with the members of the “armchair crew,” including Noah, who have the luxury to speak in retrospect unlike the captain.
Clément did carry them to the finals and the French need to understand that for one weekend in November, they faced a Swiss team that had superior skills and better level of quality in their tennis than they did. Donned with the number two and four players in the world, and one of the most underrated coaches in tennis (Severin Lüthi), the Swiss lived up to their potential under very difficult circumstances. Considering Wawrinka’s form and Federer’s quick recovery, followed by his excellent level of play on Saturday and Sunday, I am not sure if Clément would have coached his team to victory, even under the best of circumstances. Davis Cup captains sometimes do commit mistakes and fail, and even deserve to be fired in extreme circumstances. But the loss against Switzerland two weekends ago was not one of those cases. Clément should rightfully remain in his position and deservedly get another chance to lead his team in 2015.
Little did Federer & Wawrinka know on May 23rd, during this early morning practice on Philippe Chatrier court, that exactly six months from that day, they would be lifting the Davis Cup trophy together!
(Picture via Istanbul Open Official Facebook Page)
