Roland Garros 2011: Men's Semifinals Preview

by Mad Professah, contributing writer

Here are my predictions for the men's semifinals at Roland Garros for 2011. This year, I correctly predicted 1 of 2 women's semifinals, 3 of 4 women's quarterfinals and 2 of 3 men's quarterfinals. Last year I was correct in 2 of 2 2010 French Open men's semifinal predictions.

Rafael Nadal ESP (1) vs. Andy Murray GBR (4). The 5-time defending champion played his best tennis of the tournament against the only man who has ever beaten him at Roland Garros, Robin Soderling, in the quarterfinals, dismissing the Swede in straight sets 6-4 6-1 7-6(3). Nadal now has a 43-1 lifetime record on the clay courts in Paris, an astonishing 97.7% winning percentage. For that reason alone, one must consider him the favorite in his semifinal with Andy Murray. Murray looked good in his 7-6(2) 7-5 6-2 against Juan Ignacio Chela in the quarterfinals after surviving a near-death experience in his 5-set tussle with Viktor Troicki in the Round of 16. Head-to-head Nadal leads Murray 10-4 in the career matches, 3-2 in majors, and 3-0 on clay. Murray won a set when they played in Monaco this year and served for the match against Novak Djokovic in the Rome semifinals so his clay bona fides are legitimate. All that being said, Murray has almost no chance to win this match on Friday unless he plays the match of his life (which he has found it difficult to do on the big stage of the 3 major finals he's been in to date as well as the 2010 Wimbledon semifinal) and Nadal plays some of his worst tennis. Nadal is playing to reach his 6th final at Roland Garros in order to try and match Bjorn Borg's all-time record, and Murray is trying to reach his 1st final in Paris. The difference is clear. PREDICTION: Nadal.

Roger Federer SUI (3) vs. Novak Djokovic SRB (2). "The best player of today against the best player in history," says World #1 Rafael Nadal. This will be the most mouth-wateringly epic major semifinal since the last mouth-wateringly epic major semifinal these two played at the 2011Australian Open and the one before that at the 2010 US Open where Federer had two match points and lost. There's no question that there is a lot of history on the line, but this time it is mostly on the shoulders of the 24-year-old, not the 29-year-old holder of 16-major singles titles. First, there's the amazing winning streak of 41 matches won in a row in 2011 (I think counting the two Davis Cup matches he won at the end of the year when you don't get prize money or ranking points for those wins is simply silly). If Djokovic wins on Friday he will equal John McEnroe's open era record of the best ever start to a tennis season. Second, the World #1 ranking is in play and for the first time since 2004 someone other than Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer could reach the top spot. Becoming #1 is always a momentous point in any great player's career, and this achievement would be one he has had to wait for, for a long, long time. Third, Djokovic is trying to reach his first ever non-hard court major final, to prove that he is really an all-surfaces player. Djokovic reached this point through a walkover when handsome trickster Fabio Fognini withdrew. Federer reached his record 26th major semifinal in the last 7 years by dismissing a still-improving Gael Monfils in front of a rowdy Parisian crowd 6-4 6-3 7-6(3). Federer is in the unusual position of trying to be the spoiler, but he appears to be relishing the challenge. Federer has a 13-9 career head-to-head edge over Djokovic, including 2-1 on clay but a scant 4-3 in majors. However, the Swiss Great is playing some of his best tennis this year and has not dropped a set. He is also the last person to have beaten Novak Djokovic in an ATP Tour match, on Saturday November 27, 2010, exactly 188 days ago. That streak will last a little longer. PREDICTION: Djokovic.

US Open 2009 Men's Quarterfinals Preview

In the order they will be contested:


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Fernando Verdasco could probably beat Novak Djokovic, but he won't because he's too erratic. Djoke seems to be playing within himself and Todd Martin has him attacking the net at almost every opportunity. Then again, Jesse Witten took a set off Djoke, and was up a break in another, so why can't Verdasco win a few sets if not the match? I guess I've talked myself into this being a toss up. But I've got to pick, no? Djoke in 5.


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Roger Federer won't be troubled under the lights much at all by Robin Söderling because Soderling is going to do what he always does when he plays The Name. Maybe he'll take a set, but I've got my doubts. RF in straights.


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Juan Martín del Potro may be breathing a sigh of relief that Marin Cilic brutalized Andy Murray in the upset of the tournament. Haven't heard it called that by the propagandists, though. Maybe I just wasn't listening. What I heard from John McEnroe is that Murray "overtrained". Pitiful. Wasn't it none other than St. Andre himself who picked Murray to win the whole thing this year? I've never trusted Murray in Slams and he's strengthening that mistrust in each Slam he plays. The Croatian can play tennis, but he won't be beating the Argentinean. Del Potro in straights.


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Fernando Gonzalez will pummel Rafael Nadal with his power, but it won't be enough to keep Rafa down. Rafa's nursing an injury, but it won't be enough to keep Rafa down. The Spaniard is hungry. Rafa in 4.

The Privilege Of Pressure

by MMT

Billie Jean King once said that pressure is a privilege.

Aside from reading like a catchy psychological reversal, intended to make players embrace pressure, rather than wilt under it, there may be a whole lot more truth to this.In light of the fact that Roger Federer has, in the span of two weeks accomplished everything in 2009 that seemed so far from his grasp in 2008, the question becomes two questions: will he play the remainder of his career without pressure, and more importantly, is that necessarily a good thing?

When he won his maiden French Open, Federer was quoted as saying that he could play the remainder of his career pressure free because nobody would be able to say that he never won the French Open. I had my doubts – I thought he could play the French Open pressure free… maybe... but until he reached that magical number 15, the one that ends his obligation to anyone who was withholding his place in tennis history, I felt there would always be huge pressure on him to go 7 and 0 over a fornight just one more time. The plot thickened when his nemesis, exited stage left before the curtain raised – after all, if Darth Federer couldn’t dominate the tennis galaxy when his personal Luke Skywalker was off in the Dagova system, then when would he?

Pressure indeed.

But what happens to a great champion when the pressure is off – when the peaks have been scaled, the quiet questions answered loudly, and his face on Mt. Rush-the-net-More sculpted. On this question, history is a dark and murky water way of let downs.

When Pete Sampras won his 13th Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 2000, he appeared to collapse emotionally under the weight of expectations and the knowledge of the struggle and sacrifice his success required. For the first time that I can remember until then, Sampras cried at the victory ceremony. For a man who scarcely showed his emotions (and when he did, seemed to do so begrudgingly) it seemed the last finger in the dyke just couldn’t resist, and when it broke there was no turning back. It would be another 2 years before Sampras won his 14th – along the way he showed some flashes of his former self – that 2001 US Open quarterfinal with Andre Agassi comes to mind, only to then lose rather tamely to Lleyton Hewitt in the final. When he finally got to number 14, there had been questions for 2 years of whether he still had the game, but more tellingly, it had to be asked whether he still had the heart. He had both, apparently, because he won – so what was the difference?

That damn record, that’s what.

With his white whale slaughtered, Ahab ceased to exist as he had. Sampras made no secret of his love for the history of the game, and never shied away from number 13. Having achieved it, he seemed less than enthusiastic about the daily slog that is the ATP tour, and with a wife and baby on the way, who could blame him. But most importantly – every question had been answered, and but for one moment of defiance when the press began to target his wife with their cynicism, Sampras had little to prove, and very little pressure and his results showed it. Interestingly, 2002 was the first year that the US Open went to 32 seeds, and as a result the 17th ranked player in the world happened to be Sampras. Had seeds been capped at their traditional 16, he may have faced Hewitt in the first round, rather than Albert Portas. Maybe he would have won anyway, but it's interesting to ponder.



John McEnroe went 74-2 in 1984. He reached 3 Grand Slam finals, including his only final in Paris, obliterated Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon, and then ran through the field at the US Open. With the exception of a late-night semifinal, also against Connors, that ended Sunday morning, his path to the final was fraught with potentials for Herculean collapses. In the end, he returned promptly dispatched Ivan Lendl in the final, the only player who had beaten him that year, who himself had struggled to a 5-set win over Pat Cash on the last truly Super Saturday, and was in worse shape than McEnroe. He held the No. 1 ranking for another year until he lost the US Open final in 1985 (also to Lendl, starting a string of 3 victories in a row at Flushing) but that would be his last Grand Slam final – afterwards family put the pressure of a tennis match in its proper perspective and lo and behold, McEnroe was never the same mentally. He didn’t turn 30 until 1989, and his run in the Australian Open in 1990 made it clear that he was still capable of brilliance, but when the pressure of expectation disappeared, so too did his results.



Mats Wilander reached the No. 1 ranking in 1988 by winning 3 out of 4 slams that year – the only crown missing from his cabinet was Wimbledon – an irony probably not lost on him given that he won 2 Australian Opens on grass. But after reaching the end of the rainbow that year, with his beacon obscured by the haze of success, his accomplishments did more than dwindle – he never won another tournament, let alone a Slam, and only briefly ever moonlighted in the top 10.

There is a huge psychological component to tennis – and players talk a lot about dealing with the pressure. It’s fascinating because of all the factors involved in a tennis match, pressure is the only one that it totally intangible, and as such, only exists in the mind if the player allows it to. What’s even more fascinating is that pressure appears to be an essential element to keeping a player sufficiently sharp and motivated to succeed, and yet, it is most often cited as a reason a player fails.

In the Wimbledon final this year, it was clear that in a couple of key moments in the match Andy Roddick succumbed to the pressure – namely that backhand volley that floated wide at set point in the 2nd set tie-break. Both players would have been forgiven for feeling the pressure at the moment, and apparently Federer handled it better. It would seem to follow logically that a player playing without pressure would play more freely and presumably achieve more success.

But ask yourself this – when you’re playing tennis are you sharper and more accurate when you’re just hitting, or when you start keeping score? Sure you'll hit a couple of bombs that you wouldn't hit in a match, but you're probably just that little bit more precise when it counts - and it only counts in your head unless you're a pro, so imagine what they're feeling.

I certainly hope that Federer will prove me wrong – perhaps he will prove the anomaly that the absence of pressure makes a great champion even greater, but somehow it doesn’t seem intuitive to me. Now that he has his 15th grand slam, he will be without the privilege of pressure, but will he succeed?

It seems BJK, in this and many other ways, is onto something.



Postscript: Speaking of BJK, if you have a chance, take a look at the Tennis Channel's broadcast of the 1971 US Open semi-final between her and Chris Evert - aside from being a political pioneer, she was one hell of a tennis player.

Scammed

A sign of the times?

Former tennis champion John McEnroe was duped along with investment firms, art dealers and the Bank of America in a sophisticated $88 million art investment scam revealed in New York on Thursday.

Art dealer Lawrence Salander, 59, was arrested at his New York home on Thursday after he was indicted on 100 counts, including grand larceny and securities fraud, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told a news conference.

Victims of Salander's fraudulent scheme included McEnroe, who invested $2 million for a half share of two paintings, Arshile Gorky's "Pirate I and II," but never recouped the money, authorities said.

Morgenthau said Salander was an art dealer and the former owner of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries. The scheme, which lasted from 1994 to 2007, included luring investors who paid cash in exchange for shares of ownership of works of art.

"He sold artwork not owned by him and kept the money, and lured investment money in fraudulent investment opportunities," Morgenthau said.

Unsolicited Advice

I wonder how this was received.

"I would love to give him some advice and help. I wouldn’t do all the traveling, but I would love to help him," said McEnroe, who consoled Federer moments after the five-time Wimbledon winner lost his Wimbledon crown, saying "Come here, give me a hug."

The Closer

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There can be no doubt how much Davis Cup means to Andy Roddick. He has never failed to close out a tie on his racquet. I believe he's now 11-0 when in this position. With his 31st vcitory today, a straight set romp all over Stanislas Wawrinka, Andy moves into second place behind John McEnroe for all time singles victories in U.S. Davis Cup history.

Off to clay in Croatia after Wimbledon.

McCurse?

I don't know if Andy Murray should be too excited that John McEnroe has tapped him to win a Slam in 2009. After all, he predicted Novak Djokovic would become the next No. 1 after Roger Federer. That didn't work out too well.

Meanwhile, Marcos Baghdatis (remember him?) has pegged Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as the next first-time Slam champion.

I hope the player on the verge of dropping out of the Top 100 is more prescient than the multi-Slam winning tennis legend.

Exhibitionists

John McEnroe of USA and Bjorn Borg (R) congratulate each other after an exhibition match against Bjorn Borg in Kuala Lumpur on November 18, 2008. John McEnroe won the battle of the old timers when he beat former arch-rival Bjorn Borg 7-6. SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images