Saturday Update:
My latest match report/analysis of Anett Kontaveit’s 7-6 7-6 upset win over Petra Kvitova is now posted on Tennis with an Accent —> Kontaveit Conquers Kvitova in a Hodgepodge Galore
Note: You can also follow Tennis with an Accent for great coverage of Roland Garros. I am delighted to be contributing to their efforts this week.
My match recap/analysis of Mihaela Buzarnescu’s straight-set upset win over 4th-seeded Elina Svitolina on Friday will appear on Tennis with an Accent website. Once it is posted, I will add the link here.
UPDATE: My piece is now posted at Tennis with an Accent —> Click here to read: “Delayed by a Dozen Years”
Note: You can also follow Tennis with an Accent for great coverage of Roland Garros. I am delighted to be contributing to their efforts this week.
I have written plenty about Grigor Dimitrov before in my articles and talked about him during my guest appearances in the media and on Tennis with an Accent podcasts. I always felt – and still do – that although he has the potential to join the elites of our sport, he needed to settle on a direction for an A game plan and succeed on a specific surface before moving on to conquer all surfaces. During the 2014-16 period, he was stuck playing an ‘in-between’ game style where he would try to play consistent and outlast his opponents on slow courts, while adopting an attacking style on fast courts. Grigor’s talent level certainly permits him to play at a high level on all surfaces, using different tactics. But was it enough for him to catapult his status into the next level?
Starting with 2017, I felt that he began to indeed have a clearer vision of his target (his coaching-team changes may have had something to do with that). He seemed to have decided to take an aggressive approach in his style, which was the right move in my opinion. Because, when you make such a decision, you can begin to meticulously work on every detail of the specific pursuit without having to spread your attention on different strategies. Thus, his success in the latter portions of the 2017 campaign, culminating in his triumph at the Nitto ATP Finals in London and in a career-high number three ranking.
In 2018, another problem popped up. Having entered the year with extremely high expectations, Dimitrov had disappointing outings in the down-under swing (losing in the quarterfinals to Kyle Edmund in Melbourne and never really playing at a high level in the previous rounds), followed by more dismay in Indian Wells and Miami. I can’t evidently be 100% sure about what goes on in a player’s head but observing Grigor’s match play during February, March, and April, I am fairly certain that doubt has crept – and settled – into his mind, leading to some confidence-related damage.
The good news for Dimitrov fans is that he still believes in his game and feels that he can get back to his end-of-2017 level of play. Another good piece of news, at least from my perspective, is that he is not willing to go back to the game-searching phase of 2014-16. His match against the American Jared Donaldson is a good example of why I believe that, and his words in the post-match press conference confirm that: “I was very clear on how I wanted to play my match.” Before I unpack that statement and the rest of what he said, let me remind readers the sequence of the match to which he was referring at that moment in the press conference.
He was answering a question that touched on the last game of the third set when he was serving at 4-5, and it all fell apart for him in a matter of three points, allowing Donaldson to get the break and go up two sets to one.
Until that moment, both players were handily winning their serves. At 15-15, Grigor had a routine forehand inside the court that he had put away many times up to that point. It was a low but a short ball which allowed him to move inside the court and guide the forehand topspin to the open backhand side of Donaldson. Grigor gagged it wide and tilted his head tilted to one side in deep disappointment.
You could almost tell that doubt crept into his mind in those few seconds. In the next point, his feet seemed to get heavy (typical response by an apprehensive mind). He hit three shots off his backfoot in that rally and framed one, before finally missing in the net a sharp cross-court counter-punch forehand that had worked for him wonderfully in that set, up to that point. It was as if his elbow blew up to the size of a basketball and he could not freely swing anymore. All of a sudden, he was faced with two set points. Donaldson would only need one before Grigor would add in another unforced error, straight on the second shot after the serve.
It was a disastrous ending to an otherwise solid set on his part. He let Donaldson literally steal that third set.
Now back to more of what Grigor said pertaining to the consequences of that sequence. It had to do with him not losing his clarity despite that horrible ending to that set. He was not going to change his game plan just because of one game. For someone who has had a spring season filled with disappointments, it would be tempting to do so after making three straight unexpected errors to lose a crucial game against an underdog, and finding yourself one set away from another early exit from a Major.
Dimitrov did not fall into that trap: “I wanted to play my game the way I wanted to play my game with that margin of, you know, missing or making a winner. And I think for me that is important,” he said. It was the right decision, hats off to Grigor.
He won the fourth set in the same manner that he lost the third one, seizing on a bad sequence by Donaldson in one of the American’s serving games. Dimitrov expressed how important it was that he does not lose his game-plan clarity because of a few misses: “Okay, I missed. I missed. There’s still one set to be played and anything can happen. And it did happen, obviously, in the fourth set. I had a look. I seized that opportunity.”
In the fifth set, he found himself in the same position as he did in the third, not once, not twice, but three times, serving at 4-5, 5-6, and 6-7, to remain alive in the match. He held firm on all three occasions, hitting quality first and second serves. He was not going to let Donaldson sneak in another break, one that would have abruptly ended the match.
Then, Dimitrov had his own chance to wrap-up the Court-18 party when he broke his opponent’s serve at 7-7.
At that point, Donaldson’s physical condition was clearly diminished due to a cramping problem that reared its ugly head as early as the fourth set. It progressively got worse to the point where he could neither push off his left leg to serve nor run at 100% after balls in the extended moments of the final set.
Then, that 8-7 game made everyone ask “what?”
Donaldson went free-wheeling on his ground strokes, going for warp-speed on every shot, hitting one winner and forcing Dimitrov into three errors, to break back, out of nowhere. Grigor fans surely could not believe it. Never mind though. Their man had this, and his opponent was spent. Grigor broke serve again and finished the epic match in his next service game
It was epic and dramatically tight.
The point count ended at 176 to 170 for Dimitrov. At 8-8, it was at 169 for Donaldson, 168 for Dimitrov (Grigor won the last eight points of the match). That is how close the 4-hour-19-minute-long match was.
Donaldson performed at a high level for most of the match, really going after Dimitrov’s second serves on returns right off the gate. You could see a clear difference between how he prepared to return a first serve vs the second (see the photos below). Not only would he move up to the baseline to show Dimitrov his intention to attack, but he would also take two or three steps forward once the Bulgarian tossed the ball, aiming to fire the return.
It worked many times, not only to win that point in question, but to also cause havoc in Dimitrov’s mind, the next time he had to serve a second serve. If you are solely mad at Grigor for having served seven double faults in the first set, you are probably taking some credit away from Donaldson’s brilliant return tactics early in the match.
You may have also missed how effectively Dimitrov adjusted to circumvent that problem after the first set. He took pace off on some second serves (but added more spin) and he varied the target spots in the box. Donaldson was especially fond of catching the return at shoulder level on his backhand and pounding away, as in the third photo above. So, Dimitrov placed more serves in the “T” on the ad side or wide on the deuce side to make Donaldson stretch for some forehand returns (see below).
The point is, Dimitrov successfully responded to a challenge that was presented to him by a determined opponent. And that was after the catastrophic first-set tiebreaker (2-7) in which he made five errors – three of them unforced by my count**. His double fault count went from seven in the first set to a total of two for the next four sets. The positive news for Dimitrov are indeed in the details.
** In the name of avoiding repetition, see my previous Roland Garros match recaps – for example, this one – for an explanation on how I approach the unforced error count, and why I do so (I basically do my own count).
None of the above should be understood as an attempt on my part to argue that Dimitrov is in good form. I believe everyone, including Grigor himself, is aware of the fact that he has struggled not only this year, but in this particular match. The endings to the first and third sets were regrettable, and his backhand let him down at some crucial moments in the match. But it is not all full of gloom and doom as some people would have you believe, and the reason why is the central point that I tried to unpack in the above analysis.
I have mainly talked about Dimitrov, but make no mistake, Donaldson’s tactics and his performance deserve praise. I have already talked about his return plan above. He also worked Dimitrov’s backhand relentlessly, often winning the extended rallies. Don’t get me wrong. Deciding to work Grigor’s backhand is not an ingenious idea by itself. Every player is aware of his backhand being the weaker side from the baseline. What was well-planned was the way that Donaldson worked it.
He did not just feed the ball to the ad corner and make Dimitrov hit a bunch of backhands. For example, he would flatten the ball with his own backhand to Grigor’s, change pace and send one back high and deep, and add more topspin on the next shot. He would often accelerate to Grigor’s deuce corner, opening up the ad side, then hit the ball to the open ad-side on the next shot, get Dimitrov stretched to slice his backhand back, and use that opportunity to sneak up to the net and catch some of those floaters in the air for winners.
Granted, he missed some of those volleys (see the first point of the 3-2 game in the opening set), but that type of tactic is not designed for success on one or two points here and there. It is meant to make your opponent think twice every time he is stretched to hit a defensive backhand. Dimitrov did indeed miss some of those backhands, trying to keep the ball low over the net, expecting Donaldson to sneak in (see the 40-0 point at 3-3, opening point set).
For Donaldson, the match first took a downturn when, after stealing that third set on a bad game by Dimitrov, he turned around and served a dismal game of his own at 1-1 in the fourth set. He made five errors, three of them unforced, allowing Dimitrov to get ahead by a break and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Then, when his physical condition began to deteriorate, his options for tactics got diminished (thus, the reason for which he went for rocket winners in the extended portions of the fifth set). He still fought valiantly and probably hoped for a steal – à-la third set, tenth game – in one of Dimitrov’s serving games in the late stages.
It did not happen because Dimitrov was no longer the Dimitrov of the late first or third sets. In fact, his body language in the last 30 minutes was exceptional. Being in good shape played a major role in his victory as he confirmed it himself, although not in those exact words: “when it really got down to the crucial moments, we played good tennis. But in the same time, I felt more fresh.”
Dimitrov’s next opponent is the always-dangerous Fernando Verdasco. It will be interesting to see how a high-IQ player like Dimitrov will tackle a situation in which the outcome may depend more on what version of his opponent will step on the court than what Grigor can do himself.
Mihaela Buzarnescu is one ‘heckuva’ player. She has dazzling shot-making skills that she is able to showcase thanks to her terrific footwork which allows her to get into the right position for every shot. She has the confidence to do well on any stage at this point, thanks to her impressive results over the last several months.
She has reached the only two WTA finals of her career this year (Hobart on hard courts, Prague on clay) and rapidly climbed up the WTA rankings from no.377 a year ago to number 33 currently. She is a crafty left-handed player who likes to control rallies and keep them short if possible. Thus, she will not shy away from using drops shots, taking a floating ball in the air for a put-away swing-volley, or coming to the net on any short balls that she manages to squeeze out of her opponent.
She took on Rebecca Peterson who can strike an impressive forehand and, if allowed, make her opponent chase one ball after another. The 97th-ranked Swede was playing her fifth match in one week, having come through qualifying rounds. In other words, Buzarnescu was facing against a player who, like her, preferred to take charge of rallies by powering up her ground strokes.
The good news for Buzarnescu was that, in just about every facet of the game, her skills to put that game plan to use were more developed than those of her opponent. This is precisely the type of match-up that often creates lop-sided numbers on the scoreboard, one in which both players build their A game plan on the same notion, but one party does everything a bit better than the other. Consequently, the better party negates the other’s strengths because the latter rarely ever gets a chance to use them.
Thus, the 6-1 6-2 victory for the Romanian player that lasted barely over an hour.
For example, Peterson did not get to control many rallies with her forehand, because she often found herself on defense, scrambling to retrieve Buzarnescu’s penetrating shots. She did not get to build the point on a solid first serve because Mihaela would fire the returns back, even if she missed one or two in the process – that partially explains why Peterson won less than half of the points started on her serve.
To Peterson’s credit, she recognized her opponent’s superiority in those areas in her post-match talk, but could not seem to do much about it: “It’s tough when someone is playing so solid as she did today. It’s tough to feel the rhythm to come in the match, to get the chance and the opportunities, I mean, I got no excuses, she played well.”
Believe it or not, there was an early moment in the match where Peterson had Buzarnescu in some trouble. She held her serve to start the match and went up 15-40 on Buzarnescu’s serve. The Romanian played her first dominant point of the match (Peterson dominated the early few rallies) and saved the first break point with a winning volley. On the 30-40 point, Peterson committed her only unforced backhand of the set. Who knew at that moment that it would be lights out for Peterson from that point forward?
It was indeed like if Buzarnescu suddenly shifted gears. She struck a forehand winner on the deuce point and followed it up with an exquisite 1-2-punch point to hold serve. The winners just kept coming. Buzarnescu hit 13 of them to win six games in a row and pocket the first set 6-1.
The same pattern continued until 2-0 in the second set. In that third game (and if you have watched Buzarnescu regularly, this will not come as a surprise), over what appeared to be a minor error in the grand scheme of things, Buzarnescu lost it.
Remember how Simona Halep was leading Jelena Ostapenko 3-0 in the final set of the 2017 Roland Garros final and got mad over one simple mistake? One from which she could not mentally recover quickly, and how that was partially responsible for why she let Ostapenko get back in the match on that day? Well, Buzarnescu pulled a Halep, except in much smaller scale, when she missed a forehand at 2-0, 15-0 in the second. It was neither a break point, nor a crucial one at that stage of the match. It was a mistake that allowed Peterson to get to 15-15 at a time in the match when Buzarnescu was on cruise control to win with ease.
Nothing less, nothing more.
Buzarnescu did not take it that way though.
She got mad and complained to herself for a good 10 seconds. If you did not know the score, you would have thought that the mistake cost her a break point in the late stages of a match. There was absolutely no need to have that kind of overblown reaction.
The first consequence of that kind of negativity coming out of nowhere is that it can carry over to the next point and take you out of cruise control. Well, it did…
She made another mistake at 15-15 and started to slam her racket to the ground out of anger but held back at the last second. She verbally complained some more. Two points later, Buzarnescu committed her third unforced error in four points to lose her serve. It was the only time she lost her serve, a game in which she committed almost half of her total number of unforced errors for the match. Bizarre, to say the least.
The second consequence of such an outburst is that the other player discovers hope where she thought there were none. Peterson, with renewed hope, followed that break with her best game of the match, holding serve on a forehand winner to get to 2-2.
Again, I ask: why? Why go berserk on an error at 6-1, 2-0, 15-0 when everything seems to be clicking on all cylinders? I am sure that is a question that Buzarnescu and her team have tackled. It does not change the fact that the glitch created by that one-error-related outburst took two full games to repair.
Fortunately for her – or, unfortunately for Peterson – Buzarnescu calmed down and she was able to buckle her belt and stick the landing. And the difference was so obvious! As soon as she focused back on business, she only lost five points from 2-2 to 6-2.
Buzarnescu’s next-round opponent is the fourth seed, and a possible candidate for the title, Elina Svitolina. No glitches or outbursts allowed!
Alex De Minaur, no.105 in the ATP rankings and the recipient of a Wild Card at Roland Garros (thankfully so, he would have missed direct entry by one spot in the rankings), entered Court no.3 earlier today as the clear underdog, at least on paper. His opponent was the 16th-seeded Kyle Edmund, the man who replaced the injured Andy Murray as the highest-ranked British player in men’s tennis earlier this year. There was also the fact that Edmund got the best of De Minaur just a month earlier on the clay courts of the Estoril ATP 250 event in straight sets, 6-2 7-5.
If you asked Edmund this morning, however, I am sure he would have had a much different expectation of the match than “the tale on paper.”
He was certainly aware that De Minaur had a phenomenal debut to his 2018 season, getting to the semifinals of the Brisbane ATP event, then topping that result with an appearance in the final round in Sydney. The 19-year-old Australian further galvanized his fans when he threw everything but the kitchen sink at Alexander Zverev in their Davis Cup duel at the end of January, only to come up short in the tiebreaker of the fifth set, in one of the most thrilling men’s matches so far this year.
Edmund is enjoying a terrific 2018 campaign himself, having reached the semifinals in the Australian Open and earned a top-20 ranking for the first time in his career. He also built some clay-court confidence by getting to the finals of the Marrakesh ATP 250 event, defeating Malek Jaziri and Richard Gasquet on the way.
Then, there are the contrasting styles. Edmund is a straight-forward shooter with a dangerous first serve and a robust forehand that poses as a threat on any surface. His backhand down-the-line acceleration – one of his underrated skills – adds an additional dimension to his overall aggressive game. Although he does not have a flashy style, he can go on productive streaks in the course of a match that can leave opponents – and spectators – bewildered.
De Minaur, on the other hand, relies heavily on his footwork, consistency, and tenacity. His arsenal is not donned with as many weapons as Edmund’s is – although he can direct rallies well with his forehand when positioned on the baseline or inside – but he can counter-punch the heck out of some shots that may have looked spectacular when the ball left the racket of the adversary. He would naturally look to respond to Edmund’s shot-making with some of his own high-octane send-backs.
Except that he rarely got the chance to do that…
Edmund started the match at a stellar-level and relentlessly pushed De Minaur around. If it were not for a few glitches that his well-oiled machine encountered at about midway in the second set, this one may have turned out to be one of the more lop-sided matches of the first round.
The 6-2 6-4 6-3 victory by Edmund showed not only why he should be a force to be reckoned with, but also what De Minaur lacks in his game in order to become one himself in the future. In every area that De Minaur struggled – more details on that a bit later – Edmund excelled. For every ball from the middle of the court that De Minaur struck hard, but could not put away, Edmund fired a winner from the same position. For every break point that De Minaur earned, Edmund responded by raising his game to save them.
Edmund came out bludgeoning the ball. He hit a backhand down-the-line winner to go up 0-15. He then followed that up with a rally that featured three rocket shots in a row struck by him. De Minaur got them back somehow, but in his scramble to do so, he had no choice but leave too much open-court space to avoid Kyle’s backhand winner on the fourth strike. De Minaur managed to get back to 30-30, but Edmund nailed a return that he could not get back in the court and found himself in danger of losing his serve, five points into the match.
That break point at 30-40 encapsulated what awaited Alex for the rest of the afternoon. The two players engaged in a long rally, one in which De Minaur got to run around and hit forehands, heavily testing Edmund’s backhand. He even got to turn up the heat on a couple of those that he got to hit from the top of the baseline. But Edmund’s backhand passed the test, he sustained the rally. Eventually, De Minaur accelerated one more time with his forehand, this time changing direction, to the deuce side of Edmund. It sailed deep and De Minaur lost his serve from the gates.
It was ironically a good example of the type of point that De Minaur would like to play against Edmund, one in which he controls the rally from the middle of the court, working his opponent’s weaker side. Yet, he lost the point, because he was simply not able to unleash his forehands on Edmund the way Edmund was able to unleash them on him when he got similar opportunities – or, I should add, the way highly ranked players do when they get similar opportunities. De Minaur hit them hard, but not hard enough to produce a winner or force Edmund into an error.
To Alex’s credit, he recognized his shortcomings with remarkable clarity.
When I asked him about this specific contrast after the match, he acknowledged it immediately as something on which he needs work: “Yes, that was the difference. He’s got a little more power than I do. You know, obviously, it’s such a powerful game, short ball or middle of the court ball, he manages to put away. At this stage in my career, on clay, I don’t have the same sort of power, so I probably got to keep getting stronger. I will look at this match, you know, I have already talked about it [with his team].” He added that this type of shortcoming shows more on clay because “you gotta generate a lot more power [on] slower courts.” He affirmed more than once that he needs to keep working to get better at it.
The stark difference between the number of winners hit by each player serves to confirm the contrast. Edmund finished with 26 winners, De Minaur with 12**. More importantly, Edmund finished with 16 forehand winners, ten more than De Minaur hit with his forehand. Those are precisely the type of forehands that De Minaur was not able to put away (like in that break point in the first game), and that Edmund did.
** I do not include aces in the “winner” column. Hitting an ace is a whole different notion – and requires a completely different set of skills – than producing a winner off one’s ground strokes once the ball is in play. It’s a shame that official stats do not adhere to that standard.
In this day of advanced technology, many readers may have access to replays of matches. If you have one for this match, and you want to see what Edmund did in that same situation – when he had a chance to take charge with his forehand – see the break point that Edmund saved at 30-40, 0-1 in the second set**. In his very first opportunity to accelerate his forehand, he landed the hard forehand to the corner of the court, pushing De Minaur three meters behind the baseline. Alex was able to send the ball back and had to quickly recover to guard the open court. Kyle unloaded another forehand to the same corner, catching Alex on his backfoot, for a clean winner.
**For more examples of this, see also the two points in succession at 3-2, 15-15, and the 15-0 point at 5-4, all in the second set. Keep in mind, these are only few of the many.
In short, What De Minaur could not do in several forehands in that first break point of the match (see above), Edmund was able to do in two forehands.
This pattern also led to an odd statistic. It would seem like Edmund, being the risk taker, would end up with more unforced errors than his opponent who, as I noted in the introduction, relied more on his tenacity and footwork. Yet, when this pattern occurs, the less powerful player feels forced to step outside of his comfort zone, in terms of his “A” plan, to have a chance to win. Consequently, his error count climbs quickly. Edmund, who generally plays with lesser margins for error than his opponent does, ended up with 16 unforced errors, whereas De Minaur ended up 22**.
** That is by my count, of course. See my previous post for an explanation of why I keep my own count of unforced errors. The official count today for both players stood at 30 for Edmund and 32 for De Minaur. I wondered at one point if the stat person was not simply chalking it up to a player’s unforced-error count anytime he missed a shot from the baseline. You want to see an example of why I do not trust that count? See the 30-30 point at 1-1 in the second set. De Minaur hits a sharp cross-court forehand that puts Edmund on the full stretch (his legs were literally wide apart and sliding to get to the ball) and the Brit misses it in the net. That counted as an unforced error! Excuse me? And that is one of several – see also the forehand miss at the 5-1, 15-15 point in the first set. That also went into the records as an unforced error. Oh-kay…
The superior skills Edmund possessed in finishing the points was not the only reason for which he was able to win so convincingly though. If I claimed that, I would be undermining how clutch Kyle was on the few occasions that a glimmer of hope appeared to his opponent.
But before I get into that second major contrast, let me clarify for the record that serves did not play a major role in this match (two aces for Edmund, three for De Minaur). If anything at all, double faults were the source of the temporary glitch the Edmund machine experienced in the second set. All of his seven double faults for the match came in the that set, two of them playing a part in the only service break De Minaur managed to get.
But right after breaking Edmund’s serve and equalizing at 4-4, the Australian turned around and played his worst serving game of the match, one that featured three backhand errors and a double fault (one of his four for the match). He had a chance to get a late lead in the game count for the first time since the match had begun, and in less than two minutes, it slipped away from his hands.
Let’s compare that to how clutch Edmund was whenever he faced a difficult moment in the match (other than the break point that I noted above at 0-1 in the second set).
Moment 1:
After going up a break in the first set, Edmund faced a break point himself, serving a second serve at 2-1. He landed it so deep in the box that De Minaur (who was way inside the baseline in the hopes of unleashing his return on Edmund) had to hit an off-balance backhand that sailed wide. Edmund would hold serve two points later with an ace.
Moment 2:
In the second set, De Minaur led 2-1 and had a break-point opportunity on Edmund’s serve at 30-40. Kyle came up with three monster forehands in a row, running De Minaur from one corner to the other on the first two, leaving him helplessly as the third one flew by for a winner.
Time after time, Edmund remained clutch on important points. These are the types of differences that produce clear-cut, straight-set victories. You may look at the final score and be tricked into thinking that it was a boring match, but in fact, the quality of tennis on display was quite high. It is just that, as noted above, De Minaur needs more time to develop the type of skills that his opponent already possesses. The good news for Alex is that he had two chances to learn that lesson in a matter of thirty days – he said “the same thing happened” in their Estoril encounter. He should be able to identify what he needs to work on and tackle those challenges with alacrity.
As for Edmund, I am surprised that he does not get more recognition than what he has gotten so far. Players that have accomplished less than him in 2018 – and behind him in the rankings – are receiving more accolades than him. I am just curious to see on what court his second-round match vs Marton Fucsovics will get scheduled. I would not be surprised if it is not scheduled on one of the main courts (today’s match was on Court no.3).
The reality is, Edmund played a rock-solid match to begin his Roland Garros campaign.
Forehand winners? He profusely produced them.
Successful backhand down-the-line accelerations? More than usual.
1-2 punch winning points? Plenty.
Clutch? You bet.
Fucsovics will have his hands full in the second round.
Until next time…
This was billed by most as a one-sided affair for valid reasons. Although Kei Nishikori was to play his first match in a Major – due to injuries – since Wimbledon of last year, he has lately shown signs of elevating his level of play, reaching the final in Monte-Carlo and the quarterfinal in Rome. Squeezed in between those, was a retirement in the first round in Barcelona, after going down a set vs. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, citing a wrist injury resulting from fatigue from the previous week in Monte-Carlo. He did suffer two losses to Novak Djokovic in Madrid and Rome, so it is hard to claim that he has returned to the high form that marked his top-5 ranking back in 2015.
Facing him, nevertheless, was the wild-card recipient Maxime Janvier – ranked 304 – who had yet to play a main-draw match at the ATP events or in the Majors. He had mostly been playing Challengers, with one title under his belt (Casablanca, 2016).
The final score was an expected straight-set victory for Kei, but an unexpectedly tedious one. The Japanese player quickly admitted after the match that it was a hard-fought battle and that he felt “lucky to finish in three sets.” That was because Janvier had a plan for this match, and it was one that fit his long-term goals perfectly (more on that shortly).
Nishikori began the match serving, and Janvier began unloading. He would look to move well inside the baseline and go for direct winners whenever he could on returns. On Nishikori’s first serves that came into his strike zone, he would nail the ball, and if Kei’s serve was well placed, he would get the return back deep and accelerate on the second shot. On second-serve returns, there would be no hesitation at all. He would attempt winners on most, if not all, of them.
This plan was naturally going to also result in more errors, but that was understood. He would control the points and decide his own fate. Janvier confirmed himself after the match that it was precisely his plan because he and his coach had decided that, in general, if he were going to be successful later in his career, he needed to find “regularity in his aggressiveness.” In other words, his goal is to put out this high-octane shot production more consistently: “I’d like my game to pay off one day. I’m very aggressive, and I’m proud because I’m doing my job.”
In his first ever ATP-level main draw match, he came up just short of that goal, and under the parameters of this match, it is understandable. But he made life very hard for Nishikori for 2 hours and 19 minutes. He relentlessly put Kei on the run from the beginning of rallies. He did not stop either when he erred. For example, at 1-2 and serving, he made a forehand unforced error, then a backhand one, to go down 15-30. You would think that a player with zero experience at this level may get apprehensive and play more conservatively. Not Monsieur Janvier. He attacked again with his forehand to get to 30-30, served and volleyed successfully to go up 40-30, and held serve in the next point.
His big chance came in the fifth game. He hit two winners on the way earning three break points at 0-40 on Nishikori’s serve. Yet, as noted above, this type of tactic also carries its hazards. They appear in the form of errors. First break point was eradicated when he missed winner attempt on the return. Then, came a drop-shot attempt in the net. Finally, another forehand return in the net, and just like that, it was back to deuce.
He got a fourth opportunity to break when Nishikori, under pressure again, missed a passing shot at deuce. Maxime had a look at a backhand down-the-line winner and sailed it deep. Kei, feeling some high heat on his second serves, double-faulted to give the Frenchman a fifth chance to break. Nishikori came up with a sharp, wide serve to level at deuce again. There would not be a sixth opportunity.
Five of those for Janvier, four squandered on his errors…
First game-point opportunity for Kei, he held…
That is how it goes when you have two players on the extreme ends of the experience barometer. One with 70 wins and a final to his name in the Majors, the other with the number zero in the “matches played” column in those categories…
In fact, Janvier would end up 0/10 on break -point opportunities for the match.
In fairness to him, he played those break points in the same way that helped him reach them. His awareness of that fact manifested itself in his post-match press conference. He affirmed that he had no regrets and that he needed to press on. He understands that it may not work out for him at the end. Again, he reiterated that in the long term, this is what he needed to improve; the ability to attack consistently. He has a point. Tennis skills are not texts to be studied. You must actually learn by doing, stumble a few times, get better at it, before finally – and hopefully – reaching a higher plateau of success.
To Janvier’s credit, there were also cases where that vision worked to his advantage. At 3-4 down and serving, Janvier faced three break points himself at 0-40. Guess how he saved them? A backhand winner at 0-40, a well-hit wide serve that forced a stretched Nishikori to miss the return at 15-40, and a forehand inside-out winner completing a 1-2 punch at 30-40. He also closed the game at ad-in with a volley winner after serving and volleying.
Three errors at 0-40 up on his opponent’s serve earlier, three winners at 0-40 down on his own serve later. You win some, you lose some, and that is how you learn.
It’s too bad that Janvier was on the losing end of an easy put-away opportunity on his forehand at 5-5, 30-30, on Nishikori’s serve. That cost him a crucial break-point opportunity to go up 6-5 and serve for the set.
It’s also too bad for Maxime that the tiebreak turned into a disaster. He lost it 7-0, losing six out of seven points on his backhand errors, four of them unforced. He finished the set with 19 unforced errors**, 12 of them on the backhand. Meanwhile Nishikori committed only four errors, two on each side.
**Disclaimer on my unforced error numbers: After observing five days of qualifying matches, and few matches earlier today, and seeing the way the stat people judge and record the unforced errors, I have decided to keep my own count of them for my match analyses. An easy passing shot missed from the middle of the court is counted as an unforced error. A shot where the player’s feet are set, yet simply missed, counts as an unforced error in my book even if they are three or four meters behind the baseline. A second-serve return where the player misses it going for a winner, because they were able to balance their body to go for one, also counts as an unforced error, even if the serve had a kick on it. In general terms, if the player misses a shot that they should make the large majority of the time, that is an unforced error in my book.
Another key moment came in the beginning of the second set. You could tell by Nishikori’s body language, when he won the last point of the first set, that a deep relief had invaded him. He came out liberated to return Janvier’s serve in the first game of the second set. You could also tell that he made a decision: he was going to start taking some risks of his own on returns and not let Janvier push him around on the second shot, like he had done in the first set.
When I asked Nishikori after the match if the shift to more aggressive returns at that point in the match was a “conscious decision” on his part, he confirmed it: “Yeah, well, that was the most toughest part. I was struggling. First set I wasn’t returning well, and I tried to be little more aggressive, stepping in, and change my position.”
It worked. He hit two direct forehand return winners to go up 15-40 and finished the game on a backhand one at 30-40. It also helped that Janvier hit only two first serves out of the six total points played in that game (the Frenchman was 0/4 on second-serve points). That was all that Nishikori needed to wrap up the second set. He carried that single break all the way to 6-4.
It was, nevertheless, another high-quality set played by the Frenchman, despite not taking advantage of the only two break-point opportunities he had. Yet, the problem was not his errors this time (he only made a total of nine in this set). Nishikori stepped up on his returns for one game and got sufficient leverage with that break to pocket the two-set lead.
Down two sets, Janvier would still not fade away. In fact, at 3-2 up and Nishikori serving, he put himself in a position once again to get a decisive break. He had three different looks at break-point opportunities. Nishikori got the upper hand in the rally on the first one and saved it with a forehand winner. On the second one, Janvier went for a rocket backhand down-the-line and missed it in the net.
On the third, he actually had a clean look at a winner, inside the court, on a sitter. He had produced numerous winners with that same attempt, up to that point in the match. He lined up (see the photo below) and swung at it.
He framed it! The ball did not even land in the court!
When asked about that miss, Janvier said that he started that point with the same type of aggressive return that got him to the break-point opportunity – it’s true, Janvier’s return was phenomenal and Nishikori struggled to get those back throughout the match. But Kei was able to return that one in the court. Janvier praised Nishikori for making him come up with the big shots on important points and even said at one point that he wants to be consistent at a high level like him: “For me, I would like to be like Nishikori, of course.”
With that miss, disappeared Janvier’s last chance to extend the match. Nishikori held serve first, then broke Janvier’s serve to go up a break. Janvier must have framed at least four more shots in the last three games, but it was influenced by deception rather than a loss of concentration. He did not stop fighting until the last point.
Janvier ended up with 39 unforced errors to Nishikori’s 14. Kei did not play his best by any means and will need to raise his level to continue further. He also struggled with Janvier’s serves throughout the match, although that may have had more to do with Maxime’s ability to produce a wide variety of serves to keep him off balance.
In any case, what matters for Nishikori the most is that this match was precisely the type of first-round encounter that a player of his caliber needed. He was challenged by an eager adversary against whom his experience ultimately made the difference. On the road to accomplishing that, he kept his game at a solid level, without any substantial ebbs and flows to his performance.
Kei’s mental state also appears to be in a good place. When asked about how he feels about his form and fitness, he did not hesitate: “I’m feeling almost perfect. I think I had a good preparation, and I had a good couple matches before coming here. So, I’m feeling, yeah, great body-wise, and also tennis-wise, too.” He also added later that he had been “playing pretty good last couple weeks.”
His next opponent will be the winner of the match between Benoit Paire and Roberto Carballes Baena.