2007/03/15

Teenage Takeover at Indian Wells


Hey everyone welcome back to TennisCast. Maurizio here back at ya' with all the results. You know we got all of them for yesterdays four fourth round matches. Teens were the big rulers of the court yesterday pulling off impressive wins each. Enough intro...ing lets just get right into it.

In the biggest upset of the day, yet not the biggest surprise, was the defeat of #4 seed Davydenko by the hands of #13 seed Andy Murray. The Scotman (who today is playing doubles with other English Patriot Tim Henman) dished out a hard fought 7-6(3), 6-4 win over the hard working Russian. Both players were able to break twice in the first set which led to the tie break. In the second set though the key difference was in Murray being able to withstand pressure from Davydenko and hold his serve and protect his own break to steal the match. As much as Gilbert bothers people as a coach, and even more as an ESPN commentator, he seems to be doing a magnificent job with Murray. I remember watching last year's French Open (best major by far in my humble opinion) where the young Scot was battling French hopeful Monfils...and I must say it was the worst match of the tournament and probably the worst match I had seen in a long time on the ATP. It was not proffesional level tennis and both players seemed to behave like little kids on the court, walking with their heads down slowly after losing a point and showing no energy, no enthusiasm to win. Rallies were amateur in length and my grandfather who is 84 could run faster than those two that day. Murray has come a long way and this year is truly displaying the talent everyone was raving about. Murray will now face Tommy Haas who is also on a hot streak after taking down his 2007 nemesis Gonzo in another fourth round match yesterday. Haas broke three times in the match and allowed zero break points to fulfill his revenge on the Australian Open runner up. He ended the match in just over an hour and will carry that energy with him to the quarters. The two have never played against each other before. We'll see how Gilbert can squeeze the most out of Andy and we'll see if Haas can go without quitting on himself.

The rest of the top half saw the continued dominance of Novak Djokovic. He threw Benneteau out of the tournament with a very convincing 6-3, 6-1 display, also avenging a previous loss to the Frenchman back in Djokovic's Indian Wells debut in 2006...sweet sweet revenge. Djokovic broke five times and was broken once in the second set. The key was saving break point chances as the young Djokovic was able to save 10 of 11 chances, the majority coming in the first set where his serve was a little sloppier. Djokovic won't have an easy time anymore as he now faces Ferrer who came out on top in the third all Spaniard match of the tournament beating out TennisCast hero Carlos Moya. It took the #14 seed almost two hours to dispose of the hearty veteran and it took him a well fought three sets. Carlos Moya took the first set convincingly 6-1, converting on two break points and not allowing any on his serve. Things changed drastically in the second set where the momentum shifted. The tables had turned. Ferrer broke twice while he defended his serve and saved four break points to take the second set 6-2. In the third and final set Ferrer finished it off by taking the only break in the set and finishing it off 6-3. The match was a lot closer than the score reflects. Out of the 164 points...each won 82, it was when and where each point was won that made all the difference. Djokovic and Ferrer played once back in 2004 and in clay. This will be a good addition to their head to head records. Djokovic is in a groove this tournament and seems to be the one with the advantage although Ferrer always creeps around his way deep into tournaments so we'll find out soon who pulls through and into the semis.

Tonight we have Nadal vs Chela and Ljubicic vs Roddick. Make sure to catch the Ljubicic vs Roddick match on ESPN2 starting at 10:00 pm eastern time...if you can't catch the tube at that time make sure to log on to ATP Master Series TV to catch all the live streaming action straight on your PC. Alright guys i'm off to watching the Nadal vs Chela match so see ya soon! Check back later for all the results of tonight's quarterfinal action.

MauriZio

1 comment:

Coraline said...

Thank you for the update, it was awesome :)