The Del Potro incident

I held off writing my most recent post until today (as opposed to last night) – and boy am I glad that I did.

I’m sure you’ve been able to detect my disdain for the ATP’s round robin experiment by now – extensive commentary on my part and links to like-minded tennis pundits should have given you some clue. But as much as I hated the idea of the format, I never suspected that the doomsday scenario would have occurred so early in the season. After seeing what transpired in Las Vegas, the ATP should not only rid the schedule of the format for 2007, but they should scrap the remainder of round robin tournaments this year.

Here’s what happened – James Blake went into his round robin tie with Juan Martin Del Potro needing to win the match in straight sets, and, without losing more than five total games. When the telecast of the match started, Tennis Channel commentator Jimmy Arias brought up a fine point that I hadn’t even considered about the format – that while it is obvious that James Blake needed to come out gunning on all cylinders, Del Potro just had to come out and win six games. Not win the match – win six games. So, even though fans might think that the fervor from Blake will make the match more exciting, what happens if Del Potro wins his six games, and the match is still going on ? What’s to play for? And, what’s to say that the players, knowing full well about the scenarios in play, keep up their level of play? All in all, it seems like a recipe for disaster. Still, up to this point, the round robin format hadn’t completely embarrassed itself on the world stage.

Back to the match, which was a pretty appealing one on paper. Blake did indeed come out swinging, winning the first set 6-1. Going into the second, he needed to win 6-4 or better, and he was through to the second round instead of Evgeny Korolev, who soundly defeated Blake earlier in the week. (It’s rather odd that Blake even has the chance to advance, despite the whipping given to him by his opponent.)

The second set featured much of the same – Del Potro was unable to hold serve once in the match, and Blake was soon up 3-1. But earlier in the set, when Del Potro sat down on a changeover, he called the trainer. My first thought was about the round robin system, and how it favours the percentage of sets and games won as tiebreakers. What if the Argentine were to retire? Does that impact the scenarios in some other way? No less than a minute later, Arias picked up on the same possibility, and confirmed that if del Potro was to retire, Blake in fact would not advance to the next round, even if he conceded less than six games at that point.

After a lengthy visit from the trainer, del Potro continued for a couple games, but at 3-1, he hung in the towel. Blake, likely not knowing his fate, shook the hand of his opponent, and spoke to the crowd via the mike on the on-court interview. But when the interview concluded, a shadow approached him (almost certainly someone from the ATP), to inform him of his terrible misfortune. Korolev would advance.

It’s quite ironic that when I first touched upon the subject of round robin play, the picture that I used featured James Blake (click here for the article). I titled the post “The dark side of round robin”, and since then, I’ve gotten a few comments on the picture that I used. I would like to make it clear that that was not a racist remark or joke, despite the fact that James is African-American. Instead, I chose the picture because of the shadow that James cast on the court – the “dark side” if you will. Maybe I should have been a bit clearer.

Regardless, I’d like to close discussion on round robin for a while. You know my feelings on it, and from what I am gathering from the majority of other tennis fans, I’m not alone (see this post for some further ammunition). After this latest incident, I would seriously hope that not only will the ATP will admit their mistake and not continue using the round robin format next year, but I hope they take it one step further and can it effective immediately.

Like I said, I was going to post yesterday, and primarily talk about the Las Vegas event for another reason – because I have watched so many matches of it so far. Being that it’s The Tennis Channel Open, it would only be fitting that the channel itself has week long coverage of its own event. I don’t think American tennis fans have ever seen a first round doubles tie on the ATP Tour, but if that’s your cup of tea, the Tennis Channel Open might be your new favourite tournament.

So far, I’ve watched six matches, including both of Blake’s. He amazingly got quashed by Korolev in the opener, and paid the price, albeit in cruel fashion, days later when the permutations were crunched. But besides Blake, I’ve taken a notice of two other players’ performances so far: Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Querrey.

I watched Hewitt defeat Vince Spadea in three sets, and the finalist from last year looks to have rebounded well from his pullout in Rotterdam. Hewitt surprised me last year with a pretty solid second half (winning Queens and advancing far at the U.S. Open), which also followed an injury. Featuring one of the more consistent shots in the draw, if he defeats Thomas Johansson, he’ll play Feliciano Lopez in the quarters. If that arrangement falls into place, another deep run in Las Vegas shouldn’t be out of the question for Hewitt.

Querrey is the most interesting character I’ve watched. He’s 3-0 in the event, defeating Alex Bogdanovic in the play-in round, and then taking out Julien Benneteau and Paul Goldstein in the round robin. Even though I’ve talked about Querrey on a few occasions, the Bogdanovic and Benneteau matches were the first extensive live action I’ve seen from the young American. I should emphasize ‘young’ – he’s only 19, and he acts like a kid out there sometimes. His idol is Andy Roddick, and you can see it in the attitude/body language on court, but you can also see it in the serve and forehand – both of which are killer. Even though he can get rattled and throw in a string of errors, his ability to simply crush the ball off the serve and off his forehand make him a true contender at this event. I’m very interested to see him play against a top-level opponent. He would have played Blake in the quarters, and what a match that could have been...instead, it’s Korolev. Querrey should dispatch of him and continue on. Even without Blake in the last eight, the Las Vegas tournament staff could make amends with a Querrey/Safin or a Querrey/Hewitt final.

Oh, and did I mention there’s been some windy conditions in Las Vegas? High comedy; I’ve ever suggested to ESPN.com’s Page 2 Uni Watch that they research the history of long-sleeved tennis players (see here for just one example). Let’s see if they listen.

I never thought that Las Vegas would have dominated the discussion during a week where there was such an impressive draw in Dubai, but indeed it has, in part of course to the television access I have to it. Saying that, we’ll get back to Dubai, but in notes form:

- Tomas Berdych lost to Mikhail Youzhny in round two in straight sets. Despite the fact that Youzhny is in the semis, this is certainly an upset – although not completely unexpected. I did say that Berdych’s ability to play down to his competition is going to plague him this year; I didn’t expect it to already start surfacing.

- Youzhny will play Robin Soderling in one semifinal. Both have defeated some pretty impressive players along the way, but I think both are really just playing for second place. I’ll give the nod to the Russian, who has been on a tear in 2007, keeping the momentum alive from his 2006 U.S. Open semifinal run.

- Rafael Nadal lost to the aforesaid Youzhny, but not without some controversy (as if the day needed more). According to Nadal:

"The mark of the ball was still on court and it was outside but in the challenge it was in, so that's unbelievable," said Nadal. "Put Hawkeye on clay this year and we will see. You will see what's happening with Hawkeye sometimes."

Now check out what Youzhny said:

"I saw the mark, but I just took the challenge because it was a very important point. When it showed it was good I was a little bit shocked."

I look forward to seeing this contested shot on video.

- Roger Federer and Tommy Haas square off in a more star-studded semifinal then the Youzhny/Soderling affair. It’s quite interesting that both champions from last week (Youzhny and Haas) are still in the event, despite late travel and more matches under their belt. I would go with Roger regardless, but I’ll still mention this because I feel that that all of the play has to catch up with Haas at some point. Federer hasn’t been flawless, however – he dropped a set in the opening round to Kristian Pless, giving a scare to many of his fans, and then also needed three sets to defeat Novak Djokovic in the quarters.

- There’s many reasons why Federer will reach the finals even after a tremendous absence from tour level play. Add this one to the list.