First and foremost, congrats to Davydenko for finally winning a big title. His combination of serves, speed and accuracy was too much for Del Potro. This tournament turned out to be a fantastic one with exciting matches all the way through. So many 3-setters, both groups getting close at the end, and sensational upsets. Here are my impressions of the players in this tourney.
Davydenko: Fantastic performance. We’ve always known how good he can be. When he is healthy and in form, most players find him very difficult to handle. In the finals, he showed how to play a guy like Del Potro, who was probably a bit tired after the long semi-finals. Davydenko’s out-maneuvered the big guy with sudden changes in direction, hitting deep shots mostly to Delpo’s backhand and also hugging the baseline and taking the ball early. The combination of best-of-three and indoor courts played to his strengths. He will always struggle in most Grand Slam tournaments because of best-of-five format and the varying surfaces. Australian and US Opens are probably his best bet.
del Potro: He can hold his head high knowing what a wonderful year he has had. When I first saw him play 3 years ago, he was a scrawny teenager who appeared to be totally out of sorts and was blown away in 3 sets by Djokovic at the US Open. Since then, he has bulked up a lot, fine-tuned his primary weapon, the forehand – the biggest shot in men’s tennis, has become extremely mobile for a big guy, and has gotten a hair-cut! del Potro’s going to be here for a while and he is going to make big strides in men’s tennis. He has been at the late stages of most tournaments he has played, especially the slams. His big problem is going to be at Wimbledon where he has done pretty badly. In the other 3 slams, he is going to be a contender and probably a winner.
Federer: Two things are seemingly happening. One, for far too long, other players avoided going to his forehand. Now, they know his biggest weakness is his movement wide to his forehand. For years Federer was comfortable parking himself on his backhand corner knowing that opponents would try to get to his “weaker” side. Now he finds himself completely challenged as he scrambles for shots to his forehand corner, always a half step slower, frequently resorting to his squash shot. Coupled with this weakness is his well-known unreliable backhand, particularly against the high bouncing shots that go wide (Nadal?). And then, his other problem is the lack of general reliability in his shots. With Federer, you are always expecting an unforced error – long and/or wide, a shank (should we call him “shankopotamus”??), or dumped into the net. You don’t get the feeling he is secure with any of his shots. And he is clearly nursing his back by the distinct lack of bend-and-snap in his service motion. That leaves him fairly defanged against the top players.
Soderling: Had the best year of his career in 2009. With a bit of luck and some extra energy, he could have beaten del Potrol and advanced to the finals. He played a fairly poor 3rd set and, conversely, del Potrol played a great one. But Soderling had the measure of his opponents throughout the tournament, his only other loss being to that man Davydenko. Not bad for a guy who had to step in for Roddick and might have been sitting home He will be a threat to all players in 2010 but his poor mobility is going to be exposed more often than not. He starts going for broke when he is down which can occasionally work but is not a reliable strategy. But he has tremendous weapons (serve, backhand, forehand) and is always a tough match-up. Hopefully, he can be injury-free in order to sustain his performance. And, by the way, Nadal is totally his bunny now!
Murray: Very tough that he had to be the odd one out for a semi-final spot. If not for his very poor performance against Federer, he would have made it. He had a fine year and truly became a contender for the top 2 spots, briefly reaching #2. I think he is going to have to become a more attacking player and also needs to improve his concentration. He seems to be coasting to wins and then suddenly loses. Too many sudden losses, the pressure of expectations in all tournaments he enters, and his own mental lapses are causing him not to get the results he deserves. He has some the best service return among the top players, fantastic defensive skills, and has a tremendous variety of shots when he chooses to use them. He needs to stop being a contender and start being a winner. Also needs to be injury free. Come on, with such a huge entourage of coaches and trainers, I’m sure he can do better.
Djokovic: Needs to plan his year slightly better. Although he played well in this tournament, his loss to Soderling was a tough one to swallow. His only solace is that he was the one guy who beat the eventual champion. If he had more gas left in the tank, he would probably have won this tournament. He showed enough guts and ability to win the Paris Masters and before that, bearded the lion in his den by beating Federer in Basel. Both were pressure situations, playing a big final against a huge home-town favorite. I think Djokovic showed enough of his mental strength to prove he is a worthy top-ranked player. Whether he can improve on the results in the last few months of this year is what he has to be thinking of right now. The Oz open looms large in another 6-8 weeks and he needs to play very well to regain his 2008 title. There are too many contenders for the title now, but Djokovic has the ability to be a winner.
Verdasco: He had to fight to get a place in the top 8 and qualify for this tournament. I think he got over-awed by the situation in all his matches. For a guy that has such major strengths, he lost all 3 matches mainly because he lost his nerve against tougher opponents. But he clearly was no passenger in this tournament and might well have made it to the semis if luck had gone his way and he had won at least one match and if Federer had beaten delPo. He needs to get his big serve blasting rather than hitting sliders/slices as was pointed out by Jimmy Arias. In order to that, he needs to beef up his second serve which fails him quite often and results in him spinning his first serve in. After a fantastic start to the year, he was always in the mix at the later stages of most tournaments he entered.
Nadal: Whither Nadal? What happened to the Rafa we knew earlier in the year? What we saw was an impostor, someone with the same name and looks, but a totally different game. Nadal has lost a lot of confidence in his game and yet is a major threat in all tournaments. But not in this one. He lost all 3 of his matches and all of them in straight sets. Something is seriously wrong with what’s going on inside his head. He needs to get his mojo back and stop beating down on himself. I’ve never seen Rafa show so much negative emotions as he did in this tournament. Maybe he needs to go back to sleeveless shirts! Jokes apart, Nadal’s performance did not warrant him a place in this tournament. Perhaps a Tsonga would have been more of a threat. Plus, indoors is not Nadal’s strength and he has done poorly almost every year he has played at the year-end championships. Hopefully, he will regroup and be ready for the Davis Cup finals as well as for next year. A major tennis tournament without Rafa at his best is no fun.