Rogers Cup Tennis Update Page

Rogers Cup Final Results

(also available on official blog)

Andy Murray overcame a very determined Juan Martin Del Potro 6-7, 7-6, 6-1 today to become the first British player to win the Canadian Open, now known as the Rogers Cup. It was another hot day in Montreal with the temperature above 30 C and nearly no breeze. Del Potro has been visibly tired this week and even late last week and has openly admitted it to the press and other players. Today it finally caught up with him. Del Potro kept fighting to the end but once Murray won the 2nd set you knew the match was basically over. Even for the last half of the second set Del Potro was clearly trying to end points as quickly as possible and attacked everytime the ball sat up at all. I was a bit surprised Murray get off of his inital gameplan of moving the ball around a lot and just trying to keep it low so that Del Potro couldn't hit through the ball but that's not the easiest task when your opponent is hitting the ball very cleanly and is on the offence from the beginning of each point. Roddick faced the same challange in the semifinals and left too many balls sitting up for Del Potro to end points quickly on. In the final Murray did well by hanging in there and not allowing his frustration to effect his game too much even though he was visibly upset everytime he hit a topspin forehand to the middle of the court, most of which came back as a winner by Del Potro. It was a good effort by both players and we could see a rematch this week in Cincinnatti if Del Porto can somehow get the energy to get through Verdasco. Congragulations Murray, look forward to seeing you defend the title next summer in Toronto.

Rogers Cup Semifinal Results

There were two pretty good matches in Montreal today. First up was Murray against Tsonga. Tsonga put up a really good fight and tried to stay aggressive the whole match, going to the net whenever he got the opportunity. In the end it was the favorite Murray who got through but the match was quite a lot closer than we had expected and very nearly went to three sets if not for some clutch play by Murray in the 2nd set tiebreak. Another good showing by Tsonga after beating Federer in the previous round but our pick to take the title this week moves on the to final.

The second semifinal featured Andy Roddick against Juan Martin Del Potro. With how tired Del Potro has looked this week and even for the last half of last week I wasn't giving him much of a shot against Roddick. He also hasn't been serving very well so far in the hardcourt season so I was expecting Roddick to get a lot of looks at second serves and really make use of a low slice to Del Potro's backhand. And after the first set Del Potro looked like he was about to pass out. But in the second set Del Potro started really laying into the ball, hitting a lot of winners and ending points early. He also served great in the set and jumped out quickly to a 4-0 lead. Del Potro did a good job of reading Roddick's serve and hit everything deep, which kept pushing Roddick back and caused him to hit the ball too short. It also looked like Roddick's topspin was really sitting up right into Del Potro's strikezone and allowed him to just keep leaning into the ball. I was surprised Roddick didn't try to really carve the ball to keep it low very often and when he sliced it looked like it was more to change pace than to make the ball tough for Del Potro to hit down on. A lot of the slice shots didn't really bite and ended up just sitting up giving Del Potro plenty of time to wait for it to go into his hitting zone and often gave him time to run around his backhand and lean into a crosscourt forehand. Seemed like Andy was hitting really down in the ball when he tried this instead of down and through to make it skid low off the court. Easier said than done against a guy hitting the ball as hard and deep as Del Potro was. With the win Del Potro goes to a perfect 3-0 against Roddick. Impressive match by Juan Martin. I still think the fatigue will catch up with him but it is his first Masters Series final so he should give it everything he's got.

In the final tomorrow I don't see Del Potro pulling it out. Murray can carve the ball pretty well and won't let Del Potro get into much or a rhythm. The short turnaround between the second semi and the final could also hurt Del Potro's chances even more. Hopefully Del Potro has enough energy to be able to put in a good effort against Murray. But I am concerned about how much he'll have left in the tank for the US Open. Check back tomorrow for a recap of the final. I'm picking Murray to take it.

Rogers Cup Tennis Montreal Update 15-Aug-09

(also available on official blog)

Semifinals of the Rogers Cup are today and things are still looking good for Murray to take the title. Today he will be facing off against Tsonga in his semi-final. I wasn't expecting Federer to win the title but thought he'd likely get through Tsonga, and when he took control of the match and got up 5-1 in the third set I don't think anyone was expecting Tsonga to be able to get back into the match. But Federer started missing a lot of shots and Tsonga started hitting the ball a bit better and the whole thing turned around. Two breaks of serve it was tied at 5-5, then 6-5 Tsonga, then 0-40 on Federer's serve. Roger did well to fight back and win his last service game to take it to a tiebreak but that won't make him feel much better after blowing a huge lead. Good work by Tsonga to not give up on the match even when it looked like he was finished for sure.

Murray took on Davydenko in his quarter yesterday and after a bit of a slow start with Davydenko really controlling play the first couple of games, Murray picked it up and pretty much walked away with this one. Davydenko was missing a lot of shots for the last half of the first set and looked like he was trying to go for too much. Andy was playing good defensive tennis and threw in some nice winners as well. He's looking good this week and with Federer out of the way it should be his title. Tsonga should be pretty fired up after coming back to win against Roger and he has enough power in his game to push back Murray when it gets into a rally but he still isn't playing that great of the ground in this tournament and will probably try to come in a lot rather than get into extended exchanges. I don't see him giving Murray too much trouble. Probably straight sets for Andy.

On the other side of the draw the other Andy had a good evening against Djokovic. Against his toughest opponent of the week Roddick looked looked really solid. He was serving pretty well, playing well off the ground, hit some nice volleys, made some nice passes. Djokovic didn't look like he was in top form but definitely didn't play a poor game. He lost points at the wrong time and Roddick made the best of chances. Roddick should be able to make through his match today to get to the finals.

The other match in this side of the draw features Nadal against Del Potro. Not too big a shock that Del Potro won but when I saw how tired Del Potro was and how poorly he was able to move and get down to low balls it looked like Nadal might get into the semifinals. When we were looking into how Del Potro would likely beat Nadal if it was to happen, we expected it would be Nadal hitting the ball too short and Del Potro attacking all the time, similar to Nadal's loss to Soderling. But Del Potro wasn't playing well enough or moving close to well enough to be able to do that even if the ball was coming back short. And when Nadal got up 5-2 in the the tiebreak things were looking pretty good for him. Del Potro didn't look like he would be able to play three sets. He actually didn't look like he would be able to play two sets. After coming back in the tiebreak and winning the first set, Del Potro really took over the match and rolled through the second set taking it 6-1.

In the semifinal Roddick should have little trouble against Del Potro. Sure, Del Potro beat him last week, but he is absolutely worn out. Roddick looks pretty fresh and this probably won't be a very high quality match. Del Potro is probably better off if he loses because the guy needs to take a couple days off. I don't like his chances to go more than a couple of rounds in the US Open if he can't find time to recover physically. Going deep in the warmups could just wear him down at the wrong time. He's gone far in a lot more tournaments this year than he has in his career so it's not surprising to see him getting tired out. He will probably be a bit more used to it by this time next season and will need to work on his conditioning to give himself a shot in tournaments this late in the year. Expect Roddick to come through and face off against Murray on Sunday.

In the first few couple of days of the Rogers Cup main draw we've seen the return of Nadal, Federer's first match since winning Wimbledon, a couple of unfortunate injuries, and a lot of players working on getting their game back. I still like how Murray's looked so far but he's got a tough challenge today. Let's start things off with the top quarter in the draw.

Federer's Quarter:

Roger Federer faced Canadian veteran Frederic Niemeyer in his first match back after winning Wimbledon. Niemeyer is retiring after this so it was a great stage for him to go out on. He served well, made some nice shots, and gave the crowd a good show. Federer looked a bit rusty as expected but came up with some brilliant shots at times and was never really troubled in the match. He will be facing off against Stanislas Wawrinka tonight, which will be a much tougher test. Wawrinka's had two pretty routine victories over Kiefer and Golubev and if his backhand is on tonight Federer will need to shake off the rest of the rust pretty quickly to get through. The other match in the quarter is between Simon and Tsonga. Simon got through the qualifier Falla after dropping the first set, and Tsonga beat Schuettler, who has been surprisingly good lately, in three sets. Tsonga should be happy to at least have won a match in Montreal after losing to Isner last week and still isn't playing at as high a level as expected. Against Simon he might be able to get into more of a rhythm in rallies and play a bit better. I'd normally expect Tsonga to take this one without much trouble because his attack can normally beat Simon's defense, but it's tough to call with how he's been playing so far. It could go either way. Both matches in this quarter should be entertaining.

Murray's Quarter:

I've said that I think Murray is looking good to win this week but he'll have a really tough test today against Ferrero. Ferrero has been playing really good this summer and has a game that can really hurt Murray. He's hitting really hard off the ground and showed against Mofils yesterday that he can play a lot of long rallies without making an error. Murray can do a lot more things than Ferrero and will need to do much more than play the defensive style of getting the ball back and waiting for errors that he is known for to get through today. Otherwise Juan Carlos could do what Gonzalez did to Murray at the French. Andy can't play passive here or he'll get pushed back off the court and it won't be pretty. Murray can definitely get through if he comes in with the right gameplan. Or if Ferrero is tired after a difficult match against Monfils. On the other side of the quarter is a great matchup in Gonzalez vs Davydenko. They are both playing well and we should see a lot of good baseline exchanges here. An unfortunate blister problem to Tommy Haas cut short what could have been a great match against Gonzalez in the previous round. At least it isn't a typical long-term Haas injury. I'll pick Fernando to take this because I'd like to see him play Murray in the quarters. But Davydenko's playing good tennis so it could go either way.

Roddick/Djokivic's Quarter:

Again I'm not giving Djokovic complete ownership of this section of the draw. Roddick's been the better player lately, and has been better in this tournament so far. But he also played on hardcourt last week so it's not surprising he's shaken more rust off. Today Roddick is facing Fernando Verdasco in what I'm picking to be the match of the day. Verdasco has the potential to do a lot of damage to Roddick and he's won the last three sets he played 6-1. He absolutely stomped Mayer. This should be Roddick's most difficult test since Wimbledon. I think Verdasco is playing much better so far this week than Del Potro played in the final against Roddick last week so this should be a real test for Andy. Verdasco plays a strong hardcourt game, hits the ball with a ton of power off the baseline, and has a great serve. Roddick will need to play better than he has so far to win. I won't get a chance to watch it live but have a PVR set so I hope they show most of it. The other match is between Youzhny and Djokovic. Djokovic was pretty rusty against Polansky in his first match and Youzhny is a much tougher player. In this one I expect Novak to get a bit more rhythm and not have too much trouble. He should play better today and even if his game isn't all there I don't see Youzhny giving him too much difficulty. You never know in the early rounds after a break so there could be an upset. But not too likely.

Nadal's Quarter:

I'll start with the top of this section and get to Nadal's return after. Del Potro had a pretty easy time in his first round and shouldn't have much trouble against Henescu. Expect Del Potro to be waiting for possibly Nadal in the quarter. Now, onto Nadal's match. Great to see him back playing but it wasn't a pretty thing to watch. As expected he'll need some time to get his game back but between his play and Ferrer not really being able to move after a few games there weren't many quality points. I don't think the match went long enough, before Ferrer needed to quit with his injury, for Nadal to really get into the match and as it went on his play may have improved. Otherwise it would have been an early exit against a healthy Ferrer. There really wasn't much confidence in his game, not nearly enough depth or angle on the ball, and his serve was really ineffective. But he got through and should have some confidence after getting back on the court in a real match. Today he has a difficult match coming up against Petzschner who took out both Querrey and Robredo in straight sets. He won't be hobbled like Ferrer was and Nadal will need to play far better to have a chance. I expect him to play better today, now that the stress of testing his knee for the first time in competition is over. Whether he can get enough of his game back to make it through to the quarters is yet to be seen. But at least for his confidence it's a positive that he got this far. A first match loss against Ferrer wouldn't have been easy to taken even in his tournament and against a high quality player. I'd like to see him get to play Del Potro in the quarters and am looking forward to the match today.

That's all the updates for now. Check back tomorrow to see how things went and for quarterfinal previews.

(also available on official blog)

There were a couple of good matches in the round of 16. The most exciting was Verdasco and Roddick. I don't recall the last time that the top 8 seeds were all in the quarterfinals of a tournament. Here's a quick recap of yesterday's results and today's quarterfinal matches.

Federer's Quarter:

Roger played Wawrinka last night in a pretty low energy affair. They know each other's games really well so there was potential for a well thoughtout strategic battle, but this match never really got going. Even when Wawrinka got up a break in the 2nd set you never really felt he had much going for him and even if it would have gone to a third set there probably wouldn't have been much more energy in the place. Neither player was playing all that good, not many good rallies or great shotmaking from either side. The occational one but not enough for anyone to get fired up. Federer never looked very troubled, Wawrinka didn't play that great, and that's about all there is to say about it. Federer will be up against Tsonga after he beat Simon pretty routinely in straight sets. Simon was doing well in a lot of the rallies in this match but Tsonga's strong serving really helped him save break chances and hold the whole match while Simon didn't have the best serving outing. Simon was all over Tsonga when he missed the first serve, but a 77% first serve percentage in a match will make anyone really tough to break. Tsonga still isn't playing as good off the ground as I'd expect but if he keeps serving like this he will be a tough man to break. Against Roger he will need to keep the serve percentage high to have a chance unless he can pick up his ground game. Expect Roger to come through unless Tsonga steps it up a level. Federer's still not playing great so a well motivated Tsonga could give him problems, just not based on what we've seen him do so far.

Murray's Quarter:

Great match by Murray. I'm still sticking with him to have a great shot this week. He was all over Ferrero from start to finish. Broke Ferrero's serve 4 times, had 14 chances, and didn't face a single break point on his own serve. I thought Ferrero had a chance to give Murray more trouble than he did. He is a pretty one-dimensional player but has been hitting the ball really well this summer. But no trouble for Andy on this day and it was over in under an hour and a half. Next up for Murray is Davydenko. I'm looking forward to this match. Davydenko beat Gonzalez in two close sets and won a very high percentage of points on both his first and second serves. Gonzalez is always good when he gets the first serve in and can line up his forehand, but Davydenko really did well once a really was underway. He's been on a bit of a streak lately. For a long time we were used to seeing him ranked 4th in every tournament and could get to probably the quarters almost all the time but his ranking was based more on the number of tournaments he played than on him being able to consistently do well against the top players. Now that his ranking has dropped a bit I think he's playing better than ever and is a lot more dangerous to the top guys than he used to be. They have played 8 times before, the last in Monaco this year where Murray won in two tight sets. They have 4 wins each in their series, Davydenko took the last two meetings on hardcourt and two of their 3 meetings last season. Murray has the advantage going into this one but if Davydenko can serve well it could be a really interesting match. Nikolay is definitely capable of beating Murray with how we's been playing and this one should be close in every set. My pick as match of the day.

Roddick/Djokovic's Quarter:

Novak is starting to pick his game up so I was almost inclined to give him ownership of the quarter this time around. But not quite. In yesterday's match Youzhny put up a pretty good fight but he's really no match for Djokovic, even when he's still trying to find his A game. The match was on pretty early and I missed it so there's not a whole lot I can really say about it. It would have been a shock if Youzhny had come through but there were no shockers yesterday. The other match in the quarter (Roddick/Verdasco) was my pick as yesterday's match of the day and it didn't disappoint. I didn't watch it live but set a PRV to make sure I didn't miss any of it. Verdasco is a great attacking player and can hit winners from pretty much anywhere. I think the announcers calling the match have missed his play over the past year because they spoke a lot about his very streaky play, which hasn't really been a factor this season. It used to be, but he is far more consistent this year than he was in the past and it's shown in his results. In this match there was really nothing Roddick could do other than try to keep serving well and hang in there to try and win some tiebreaks. The match looked like it was going to be Verdasco's when he broke Roddick at 5-6 to take it into a tiebreak and got out to an early lead in the tiebreak. Credit Roddick for hanging in there and not getting too frustrated by Verdasco's constant stream of winners. The funny thing about this match is I thought Verdasco played a lot better in the first set but lost it, then he didn't play that great a second set until breaking Roddick in the final game. Then late in the 3rd he had a brutal serving game at 5-5 and was broken, took control again with Roddick serving for the match and had all the momentum going into the tiebreak, then missed a couple of easy ones in the tiebreak when Roddick was out of position and Roddick didn't make a mistake when he had a chance to take it. The match between Roddick and Djokovic should be pretty entertaining. They have had some pretty good confrontations in the past so we could see some good high quality tennis. I think Roddick will need to have a more effective serve against Djokovic and won't be able to play as tentative in rallies if he's going to get to the semis. He didn't have a ground winner until really late in the 1st set yesterday. Should be good.

Nadal's Quarter:

Del Potro got through Henescu in three sets yesterday in what was a closer match than I was expecting. Del Potro still doesn't have his timing on his serve down and once again got out to a pretty slow start but picked it up as the match went on. In his tournament win last week he didn't play all that great and still seems to be trying to get back into form. But he keeps winning so I won't fault him too much. He has also been getting pretty far in a lot of tournaments this season and could be starting to tire a bit. The groundstrokes are still there but I don't think his energy is quite where it shoult be and me may be getting a bit lazy on the serve which is causing him to miss more. When Del Potro's first serve goes in he should win the vast majority of points against anyone. Even with Nadal not back in top form I don't know if he can afford to serve in the 40's for a set and expect to win it. But I'll get into that matchup after going over Nadal's result. Nadal played much better against Petzchner than he did against a hobling Ferrer. It looks like just getting back on the court, even if the match was cut short due to injury, really helped him feel more confident about his physical condition as he looked like he was moving far better this match and did some sliding that a guy who's not pretty confident in his knee wouldn't attempt. On the other side of the net Petzschner played a poor match. From the start lots of easy misses and really didn't do a whole lot of anything good once a rally got going. Nadal was playing better than he did the previous match, but he wasn't playing that well. After beating Robredo I was expecting a better effort from Petzchner. Maybe he was either too intimidated by playing Nadal, or just didn't feel he was able to hurt Nadal in any way so he was trying shots outside of his comfort zone. Good work by Nadal to take control and get through this in just over an hour but he wasn't pushed close to as much as expected. The match between Nadal and Del Potro will be very interesting. As I've said, Del Potro hasn't been great so far on hardcourt this summer but keeps coming through in the end. If he serves at a high percentage he can give Nadal big problems. Even if Del Potro's not at the top of his game it will be a good test for Nadal's confidence. When Nadal isn't playing with confidence he hits the ball too short. Against a tall guy like Del Potro that will make the ball situp in his strikezone and he can crush it back. That's really all Soderling did at the French. Nadal was hitting too short so the ball sat up right where Soderling liked it and he just pushed Nadal off the court. And the high kicking serve isn't as effective against a guy like Del Potro so Nadal may need to win a lot of tough rallies to get through. It should be a really good test and will give us a good idea of how ready he is to compete against the top players. There's a good chance Del Potro will take this one and if he doesn't have an off day I think he will. You can never really count Nadal out, but he will either need more depth on his shots, or will need Del Potro to miss a lot to get through.

Check back tomorrow for results and the semifinal preview.

2009 Rogers Cup Tennis Montreal Update: 13-Aug-09