Miaimi Open, ATP 1000

[jimlosaltos]

I admit it. I'm developing a fondness for "Lucky Losers" after Djokovic lost to a Double L for the second, consecutive year in Indian Wells.

Today in Miami LL Adam Walton took out Wild Card Wong, who had dissected Ben Shelton's serve hitting some outright winner returns.

That puts an LL in a quarterfinal. Gotta' love it.

Watson is a 25 yo Aussie ranked 89.

[jimlosaltos]

Meanwhile, a pair of US Open winners, Coco and Naomi, both went out today.

Paolini ousted Coco, and Linette same with Naomi.

The Italian's third win a row was drive by "saving a remarkable 12 of 15 break points, while converting three of five."

Linette got a lot of help from her opponent, "Linette broke Gauff (who had 12 double faults) four times". Too early to say that "grip change" didn't fix Coco's second?

[jimlosaltos]

Watching De Minaur dismantle Fonseca reminded me of prime Nikolay Davydenko.

Taking the ball early, redirecting. Tremendous execution. Shades of when Davy steamrolled Rafa, DelPo and Fed to win ... ATP Tour Final, I believe it was.

Delpo said, ~"We're playing tennis, he's playing pong."

[stroke]

Demon is great, I think that is good insight, he is a bit like Davydenko, but to me, other than movement, he does not do anything quite as well.

[stotty]

The umpire uses the clock to penalise Novak...quite right. The commentator, an American, says the umpire can use his discretion and the clock should play second fiddle. I'm with the umpire. Use the clock to run the show, to the very second, no matter the situation, no leeway or discretion. Roger never once had a problem with the clock, never needed it.

[jimlosaltos]

19 yo Alexandra Eala is giving Iga Swiatek all she can handle (or not handle).

Iga was serving to even the match at a set apiece and the teen broke back. Now up 30-15 at 6-5 Iga serving.

Miami is a good event for Rafa's tennis facility with breakouts by two students, Eala and by Wong, 20 yo that beat Ben Shelton {with some returns that ate up Ben's big serve).

UPDATE: Eala just beat Iga in straight sets. Held Iga to 46% won on Iga's first serve. The Philippine teen has now beaten Keys, the reigning Aussie Open champ, Iga world number two, (walk over Badosa), and Ostapenko, the 25th seed. That's three consecutive wins over 'Slam winners for the 19 yo.

Haven't watched her yet but you can get I will now.

Update: If you haven't seen Eala play yet, here's a highlight video that might be worth checking out. Look at that DTL forehand off, well most anything Iga could hit. 5:08 min YT

[seano]

I watched the Eala/Swiatek match in person. Eala was fearless, she held up really well. I was able to film half of a set of her.

[jeffreycounts]

Update: If you haven't seen Eala play yet, here's a highlight video that might be worth checking out. Look at that DTL forehand off, well most anything Iga could hit. 5:08 min YT

Thanks for the YouTube link. That was really fun to watch. She hits so much bigger and more aggressively than I was expecting. That lefty forehand is something. I would love to see her beat Pegula, and I think she can do it.

[stotty]

Novak looked the best I've seen him in a while against Dimitrov. He served great and was hitting a great length. He's still a significant threat.

[jeffreycounts]

Instead of playing Sinner in the final, he gets to play a 19 year old ranked 45 in the world. Assuming Novak wins this will be a a huge confidence booster. And it's nice to see him competing for a title again.

[stroke]

Novak of course a strong favorite to win vs Mensik with an implied probability of winning at 79%. A win would be number 41 Masters 1000 titles.

[stotty]

I didn't see the final but will watch the replay. Mensik must have played well because Novak was starting to look pretty good by the end of the tournament.

[glacierguy]

Excellent performance from young Mensik. He has great athleticism, ironically similar to Djokovic, hitting open stance at full stretch from both corners, and a strong serve. Crucially he is also mentally strong, which sounds obvious since he won two tie-breaks against one of the greatest tie-break players, but Djokovic had a couple of very strong pushes for a break in the second set and Mensik resisted. Also, at times in the second set, Mensik's forehand was making quite a few errors, but he kept plugging away and didn't get flustered. The difference, I feel, was purely physical. Djokovic was clearly bothered by a stye in his right eye, which had caused swelling and most likely some visual impairment (although to his credit he made no fuss and did not mention it in his runner-up's speech). The real determining factor though was lack of fitness relative to Mensik, exacerbated by high humidity. Djokovic ran out of gas. It was tough to watch.

[jimlosaltos]

The hype coming in was that it would be Mensik's "un-returnable serve" was Djokovic's return and rock solid baseline play. Result was quite different IMHO.

Coming in to the final, a majority of Mensik's first serves didn't come back. But when they do ...

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Mensik's average forehand and big guy movement often let him down. Mensik isn't the usual "Big Guy, Big Serve and Forehand", in fact his weaknesses are 1) Second serve is quite slow and he is below average at winning points behind it 2) His forehand is below average speed for a top players. BUT he has a really strong backhand, and is effective at going down the line.

Then Sunday. Djokovic, as he'd done all fortnite, served lights out and actually won more points on first serve than the big Czech. It's his ground game that let Djoko down as Mensik, surprisingly, won more points behind his own second serve than Djoko, and Mensik was the one that clamped down in the tiebreaks. {Announcer Jim Courier said Djokovic had a sty that might have affected his vision. Cue Andy Roddick, "It's a cold, a headache, SARS, the plague ... " )

Bottom line for Mensik: First player ever to have his first ATP title come at a Masters 1000, and I believe he's one of the four youngest to win an M1K. Also, I believe Mensik has 8 wins & 5 losses vs top 10 players. Looking at the ATP site I see that number but I heard something different from Courier during the broadcast.


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[stotty]

I believe the average speed of Mensik's first serve is around 130mph while his average second serve speed is 95mph. That's a huge difference in serve speed for a tour level player, which is strange for a player with such a good serve. He's a wonderful player and will take a lot of confidence from the win. I mean, it's not as if Novak his playing badly. His last two matches in the run up to the final were superb. I tend to agree that Novak has become an amazing spot server and it's a major factor in keeping him up there with the youngsters. Looking forward to getting Sinner back and an interesting ahead...

Tend to agree with GG that Mensik is a great mover and shows signs of becoming a great match player.