Niesamowite -  najpierw w 4 gemie df przy bp potem Djokovicia, w 5 ta sama historia tylko, że przytrafiło się to Rogerowi.
3*/2 Djokovic.

Roger, puknij Ty się w łeb.

Djoko 5-2, spotkanie ma się ku końcowi.

Ale i tak Fed się przełamał po 11 przegranych piłkach z rzędu, wygrając 2 akcje.

Dawno nie było wtop 2-6 w deciderze. Akurat w przerwie między setami Robert podsunął takie rozwiązanie.

Novakowi życzę powodzenia w jutrzejszym finale singla, Rogerowi zaś powodzenia w finale turnieju deblowego.

To drugie spotkanie półfinałowe wynagrodziło nam przeciętne widowisko z pierwszego dzisiejszego pojedynku. Obaj Panowie wznosili się chwilami na szczyt swoich umiejętności, dzięki czemu było na co popatrzeć. Poprzeczka została zawieszona dosyć wysoko jutrzejszemu finałowi, a zwycięzca turnieju odzyska niegdyś już zdobyty w IW tytuł.

Debla przegraliśmy.

Dolgopolov/Malisse Complete Giant-Killing Run



The first-time pairing of Alexandr Dolgopolov and Xavier Malisse completed their giant-killing run at the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Olympic gold medalists Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 6-7(5) 10-7 in the doubles final at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.

Więcej: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis … e-Win.aspx

A Thought and a Step Ahead



INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—When you’ve watched and written about a player long enough, sometimes you can tell that he’s playing well, and is probably going to play well, even if he might not be so sure himself, and even if the scoreline would suggest the opposite. Such was the case when I saw how Rafael Nadal opened his semifinal with Juan Martin del Potro here on Saturday.

I’d seen Nadal practice a few times this week. Practice for him consists primarily of belting every ball on the rise as hard as he can and not missing all that often. That’s what you get when you take an all-time great and remove all the pressure from his strokes. The biggest difference between his practice play and his match play is that in the former, he hits a lot more on-the-rise backhands than he does in the latter. So it was notable to me that he came out  attacking his backhand in the first game today. He attacked well enough to earn a break point in that game, but lost it when he hit a backhand—an on-the-rise backhand—into the net. Still, I thought Nadal had “good energy,” as they say in the NBA. He was bouncy and playing at an unusually fast pace—he even came out on changeovers before the chair umpire called time. Always concerned about setting the tempo of a match, he set a brisk one today.

It took awhile for Nadal’s game to catch up. He was off with his forehand. He hit it, as he had been hitting it earlier in the week, over the baseline. At the same time, del Potro was sharp. His forehand was heavy and deep and moving through the court, and he counterpunched well with his backhand, handling Nadal’s topspin, as he handled it the last three times they played, and sending it back flatter and faster than it came it in. When del Potro went up 4-1, I started to wonder whether we’d found Nadal’s kryptonite. It seems like every top player has to create their own version of it. Borg begat McEnroe; Agassi begat Sampras; Federer begat Nadal—had Nadal conjured up his own killer in the form of the towering two-handed backhand of del Potro?

Fortunately for Nadal, he wasn’t thinking along these lines. He was finding a way out of the del Potro trap. He said that his early errors from the forehand side were “not usual,” and may have been the result of his lingering poor form and bad rhythm from earlier in the week. So he made an exceedingly simple but effective change. “I started to put more balls inside [the court]," he said, "play higher to his backhand and try to get the right rhythm, no? I think I did well.”

He did well at a number of things, beyond just hitting high balls to del Potro’s backhand. I had said before the match that it would be a matter of Nadal trying to move the ball side at the same time that del Potro would be trying to move it straight ahead. From 1-4 down, Nadal started to get the upper hand in that battle. He stretched del Potro wide with his serve in the ad court, and he looked to construct points so that he could have a look at a forehand in the deuce court. Once he was in that position, he could pull del Potro back and forth along the baseline at will.

But Nadal’s backhand remained the difference-maker. Del Potro countered him by trying to work the rallies so that he could hit a forehand wide crosscourt  and force Nadal into a backhand slice. With Nadal serving for the first set at 5-4, del Potro was able to do that successfully and go up 0-30. But two points later, at 30-30, Nadal came over a backhand down the line and followed it to the net for a volley winner. On the next point, he hit an ace for the set.

It was Nadal’s backhand again that proved the difference in the second set, when he broke at 2-2 with a pass from that side.

“How many people would get to that ball?” del Potro was asked afterward.

“Not many,” he said with a smile, “not many. But for him I think it’s normal. I made my best forehand, but he made a better passing shot.”

From there, Nadal, keeping up the brisk pace, put the clamps down with his traditional weapon, his forehand, and by hitting a variety of targets with his serve. “It was the best match I played at Indian Wells,” Nadal said.

I’d say it was the best match I’ve seen from him in 2011. Or maybe it was the most vintage and characteristic Nadal performance of the year. There were the surprises he likes to spring; this time it was the backhand attack and the speedier pace of play. There was the tactical adjustment, to hit high to del Potro’s backhand. And there was the consummate closing ability. Besides the ace at set point in the first, Nadal came up with a superb wrong-foot forehand in the final game of the match, going back down the line when del Potro was sure he was going crosscourt.

“When you are not playing well,” Nadal said in his usual broken, wise English, “the important thing is keep winning.” That’s what Nadal did earlier in the week. Now he’s doing something even better. He’s playing well.

***



“Oh my God, what is he doing?”

I knew right then that I had sat down in front of a Roger Federer fan. This seems to be their rallying cry at the moment. What Federer was doing was missing an easy forehand long. And it is true, you do wonder how he can miss certain highly makeable shots. As effortless as Federer can make hitting a winner look, that’s just how effortless he can make committing a heinous error appear, so effortless he can seem not to be trying.

We’ve come too far in the Federer-Novak Djokovic rivalry to continue to lay all the blame for Federer's losses at his own feet. Djokovic has won their last three matches and has passed him in the rankings. As of today, the Serb is a definitive No. 2, and he’s earned it—“the crown for my achievements this year,” he said today.

This third installment of 2011 unfolded in much the same way the previous two had. Federer went after Djokovic early, the way he said he would, and Djokovic again had the answers. With his baseline defense, he forced Federer to hit more than one great shot to get ahead in a rally—by the middle of the first set, Federer was trying to force too much action too early. Djokovic also used the court extremely well himself, moving Federer off of it with sharp forehand and backhand crosscourts. And, most important, his found his serve exactly when he needed it.

But, two straight wins or not, Federer is still Federer, that name is still that name, and Djokovic still recognizes what it means to beat that name. As well as he played in Melbourne, he still suffered a second-set letdown before pulling himself back out of it. Sometimes a first set can loom so large in a player’s mind that, once they win it, they stop driving forward and begin to hope that the other player will hand the second one to them—there’s so much emphasis before a match on getting off to a good start and winning the first set that it can begin to seem like the equivalent to an entire match. I thought this was what happened to Djokovic early in the second set. Like a runner, once he had a lead, he was out in front all by himself, with only the finish line ahead. There may be nothing in your way, but it's tough to focus on something that's still so far in the distance.

It was at this point, at 1-1 in the second, when Federer very briefy found the key to unlocking Djokovic’s game. At 15-30 on Djokovic’s serve, he floated a backhand slice that Djokovic dumped timidly into the net. Was this the play? Was it better to junk the Djoker than try to take it to him, after all? Federer tried the same play on the next point. This time Djokovic got down and hit a very good forehand and won the point: 30-40. In the next rally, Federer hit yet another backhand slice into the Djokovic forehand. Djokovic returned a normal rally ball. Federer drilled it for an emphatic forehand winner for the break. The crowd, exceptionally pro-Federer, went crazy. Backed by strong serving, he ran out the set.

There, in that break point at 1-1, was Federer’s solution, and his problem, when playing Djokovic. He mixed it up and he took it to Djokovic. Four years ago, he might have sustained that delicate balancing act for two sets. This time he faltered in the third. Djokovic, having relinquished the lead, could fight again. At the same time, one sprayed ball for Federer led to another, as it had in Dubai. Djokovic won 11 straight points when it counted most, to get from 2-2 to 5-2.

“It was a very close match,” a relieved and quietly proud Djokovic said afterward. “A lot of emotions. You could feel the intensity and the pressure with both of us.”

I thought the afternoon, and the current Djokovic-Federer matchup, was summed in one point at the start of the third set. Up a break at 1-0, Djokovic went on the attack and got to the net. Federer scrambled, and he appeared to have found a way out when he hit a perfect dipping backhand pass. For a second the point seemed to be his, and the crowd began to cheer in anticipation of a huge moment for him. But Djokovic was there to spoil it. Out of nowhere, on the run, and improvising, he came up with an even more perfect two-handed half-volley push shot that went right past a crestfallen Federer.

Federer has scrambled his way out of hundreds of points just like that over the years. This time his younger opponent was one step ahead of him.

http://blogs.tennis.com/thewrap/2011/03 … ahead.html

Któż to dziś wygra? Myślę, że triumf odniesie Doković. Może nie prezentuję się olśniewająco, ale na trapioną febrą (słabszą formą) czołówkę szwajcarsko-hiszpańską powinno wystarczyć. Nadal mnie nie przekonuje, wpadł w dołek po US Open i nie może z niego do tej pory wyjść.

Nie wierzę w Djokovicia. Niby Nadal nic szczególnego nie pokazuje, ale znając życie w finale pokaże akurat tyle, ile na Serba potrzeba. Nie bez znaczenia pozostaje fakt, że Nole po pierwsze nigdy nie ograł Hiszpana w finale jakiegokolwiek turnieju, po wtóre nie zanotował również wygranej w meczu o prawdziwą stawkę, nawet w formule best of 3( vide IO 2008).

Z bólem stwierdzam, że Nadal sięgnie po trzeci już(!) tytuł na kortach w Kalifornii.

Znów Fed na własne życzenie przegrywa tak ważny mecz. Oczywiście poz. nr. 2 stracona, co było do przewidzenia po takiej formie Serba. Szybko 2  nie odzyska przy takim Novaku. Rekord Samprasa coraz dalej. Achh Roger Roger.