Round 2: vs Baghdatis

Doesn't the title make it clear??? I just lack the vocabulary!

During the 90s, when Wimbledon was taken over by Henmania, I just couldn't see the point of those rides that Henman took his supporters on. Today, I empathize with them. I get the sneaking suspicion that I feel more exhausted than Andre does.

Ever so often, at the end of a match, any match, those key moments have emotions written all over them. Typically, it is anger, lack of heart or confidence. This one though, was different. At the end of it, it wasn't a key moment, just turned out to be one of those sublime Andre moments.
As he sat in his chair at the end of the 4th set and through the first game of the 5th, you could see it all over his face. Johny Mac made a mention of it too. You sensed that the energy he was deriving off the crowd, was getting to him. He knew it right there. He recognized it right there. He didn't feel that this could be his last set. He knew it!


Typically, I am loath to letting anyone share the spotlight with AA. Today, after what we witnessed, an exception just had to be made. Marcos, you lost the match, but you won atleast a million hearts. Bravo buddy! (shame on you New Yorkers to boo this man when he cramped up)


Finally, I don't ask for the show to go on, I just ask for the back to hold up! The rest will take care of itself....

Sighter #3 - THAT backhand

Agreed that I was on knife's edge at first set, 0-0, 30-15 Andre Agassi serving, but when that high kicking serve, sent out wide on the ad court, was met above shoulder by an immaculate backhand, I knew (as opposed to suspected) that someone was playing a cruel joke at AA's expense.

Last year, in the finals, AA traded backhands with Roger and came off best on most occasions. This time around, the tactic was similar. Not because, Pavel's backhand was expected to breakdown, but to open up the forehand side. Within a few games, it sure seemed like suicide to hit a single ball to the backhand of Pavel, let alone use it as a tactic.

Typically, the AA of this decade avoids taking huge cuts on the ball. Yesterday, when he realised that the spin he generated on his backhand, wasn't even close to getting Pavel to scamper, he visibly increased his backswing, flattened his backhand and let it rip. Except, the ball was coming back and it came back deeper and quicker. Added to that, Pavel did not appear to be the least bit stretched by the effort.

He scampered like a Hewitt/Chang (Nadal remains out of reach), but whenever a topspin was feasible, the fluidity of the stroke, the spin on it and angles he generated were breathtaking. A couple of on the run backhands were simply out of the world, at which point, I wished that Agassi was up against a Gasquet backhand rather than the Pavel backhand! On the run or on the rise or making contact well above shoulder to sending it screaming down the line appeared to be run of the mill stuff.

Playing Pavel could be Nadal's worst nightmare! Enough said...

When words won't come out...

....pictures will have to do.


That's right, this was a party with 23, 736 visitors. What an OPEN this has turned out to be!

PS: When locations don't work out, pictures of the TV screen will have to do!

Picking the positives from the mire at the Oval

First, a couple of thoughts on the incident. Hair penalising Pakistan for ball tampering without warning or talking to the captain and then refusing to show him the ball reeks of officiousness. Pakistan had the right to protest, but their form of protest was plain silly, which is surprising consdering that they had Bob Woolmer in their dressing room (I have an extremely poor opinion of Inzi's acumen and so does Osman Samiuddin). They could have made the call to forfeit the game during tea, or continued to play under some other form of protest. By delaying play by 50 mins and expecting the umpires and the English players to oblige, they forced the umpires to make the hard call, which they did (correctly, IMO). To my dismay, some authors have condemned this decision based on 'the show must go on' idea. If sports is all about the show, leading to the rules being bent every time there is a controversy, then we might as well get the Hollywood stars to run the show. We all know that they are better at it!

Now, unlikely as it might seem, there are positives to come out of this scrap...

1) Darrell Hair: Yes, DARRELL HAIR! For a moment, let's put aside the common Asian consensus that he is biased against the Asian nations. Agreed that that is a whole lot to put aside, considering his track record, but on the other hand, he has been a member of the ICC's elite umpires panel through the reign of the Indian and Pakistani ICC presidents. Plus, he is an Australian involved in cricket. If that is not a valid argument for quality, nothing is!

Like I said earlier, calling off the match was the correct decision. It was a sad day for cricket....YES! It would disillusion some people....YES! But a clear message has been sent across that if a team does not turn up to play, it will be defaulted. At this point, the ICC can debate the merits of the current rule and can advise its umpires the way it sees fit, but at the point of occurence of the incident, the rule was clear and it needed Darrell Hair to implement it.

Now, lets get back to Hair and the contentious decision of penalising Pak for ball tampering without witnessing anyone in particular meddling with it. I am of the opinion that he would have had an inkling of the mess he would be getting himself into by making that call. Yet, he chose to make it. His act of calling it as he sees it is rare and deserves recognition outside of Aus also. It could be a case of foolish stubbornness, but to quote him "if anything comes out at the inquiry that proves me incorrect I would accept that too". Nothing more can/should be asked of any person.

Hair's previous record of calling Muralitharan for chucking is often brought up as a negative. Over the years, it has been clear that he is not the only one that holds that opinion. Quite a few eminent personalities (I am not referring to Bishen Singh Bedi here) in the game have raised similar concerns. Even after all the testing, not everyone is convinced (not that that should matter to Murali). Venkat, Shepherd, Bucknor have all umpired Murali at different points. They chose to endorse his action. Whether that is something they believed or did to avoid controversy, we will never know. But what Hair thinks, we all know!

2) Pakistani solidarity: Yes, Pakistani's are showing solidarity and the opponents are NOT the Indians. It helps a lot that there aren't any former captains in his squad (this statement is open to be corrected. Hard to keep track of Pakistani cricket captains), but the voice emanating from the Pak dressing room indicated clearly that if Inzi is banned, the ODI series would be called off.

Now, let me put aside my hatred for Inzi and get if off my chest by saying that this man has brought together a Pak cricket team that is loyal to its leader (DISCLAIMER: He might be sacked and replaced by .......say, Moin Khan, at the end of the tour by a player revolt). As mentioned earlier, his tactical nous is at best, open to questioning. However, whatever it is, there is something to him that has ensured loyalty from his players. Samiuddin, in this case, attributes it to the role religion has come to play in this team. But for sure, Inzamam's genial demeanour has aided the process greatly.

Inzamam has spoken out forcefully that the ball tampering allegation without proof is a slur on team and nation. When I read that, instinctively, I felt that those were words carefully chosen to gain the backing of his country. My thoughts on that remain the same, now, however, I see where it came from. Mention ball tampering and there is only one country that comes to mind. Former bowlers from various countries have admitted that they have played around with the seam of the cricket ball all through their careers. However, the stigma is almost solely associated with Pakistan. On that note, the manner in which the British media (and hence the public) embraced reverse swing last year during the Ashes was in sharp contrast to the way it was seen when Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis deployed it to deadly effect back in 1992. So, accepting the accusation of ball tampering (worse, when playing against England) would have been perfect fodder for a lot of stereotypes to gain strength.

If he honestly believed that his team did not do anything wrong, then, he was right to take on the umpires in protest. He has his team's backing on that one!

3) Ball tampering: Woolmer has already spoken out that tampering the ball with objects found naturally within the field should be made legal. And this is not a new idea either. When allegations of ball tampering came out during the 90s, several former bowlers suggested that if made legal, ball tampering would enhance the skills in the game (of course, if/when made legal, we need to find a different term for it).

Seeing the number of batter's paradises masquerading as test match cricket pitches, this is something that should be given a lot of thought. As is well acknowledged, the bowler-batsman battle is skewed more and more in the batsman's favour. Being allowed to 'work on the ball' would add considerably to a bowler's arsenal and a lot of these batathons would cease to exist.

However, considering that ball tampering is a much misunderstood concept, legalising it might be taking in more than the game can swallow. So, it would require a committee to debate the merits and de-merits of the same before a decision is made. I can foresee a slowing down of run rates if the ball does something through the innings. Whether this would results in more draws or test matches that do not last the distance, only experimentation with the rule can say.


Quite a few revelations have been made since I drafted this post. Woolmer spoke about retirement thoughts (which leads me to believe that he wasn't happy with the decision of his team) and more sensationally, Hair has sent out an email to the ICC asking for money in return for his retirement (to me, this does not indicate that he made a wrong call in the game, but just that the pressure was getting to him). Anyway, the shocks are set to continue through the coming days....

Toronto has been interesting, bloody interesting....

Thanks to the way a tennis tournament works, building up through the week and climaxing over the weekend and no less thanks to my extended hours at work these days, I hardly caught any live action during the early rounds. But the matchups definitely caught my attention.

Nadal falling to Berdych was noteworthy. I was courtside when they played each other at the first round of Cincy'05 and the result was the same back then. Similarly, Nadal has a two match losing streak against Blake (US Open'05 and Indian Wells'06). Not being of the opinion that Nadal lets up on opponents not named Federer, comprehending the latter's troubles against the former has proved to be difficult. Lefty forehand topspin rising high to the backhand is the theory floating around and having seen Nadal and Federer play, there is no question that that is a major factor. Logically, the same issue should lead to Blake and Berdych's downfall, considering that neither of these two are acknowledged to have a better backhand than Federer. So, what is it then? Not a clue at the moment, but happily, there are very many years ahead to figure that out.

Saturday was special. Murray taking on Gasquet! To me, Federer vs Gonzalez was a side story when the day dawned.

There was a lot of talk of Gasquet's backhand being a tutorial on how a backhand should be played. While it did not make my jaw drop the way Henin's does, one could see where all the talk is coming from. It was quite easy to notice that irrespective of his position on court, he sends it back 'heavy' with total nonchalance. He doesn't hit too many winners, but that backhand comes loaded!

Murray's play was revealing too. Something that I did not notice when I first saw him playing Roddick at Wimbledon, was how unnatural a stroke his forehand was. Maybe that was due to the unnatural backhand that was in action across the net on that day. Personally, was quite disappointed to note that. However, as the match went on, Murray proved that he could let loose on that side if he chose to. With tactical supremo Gilbert on his side, Murray's career might be set for a quick rise to the top 10.

What an entertainer Gonzalez turned out to be. He has gone around with the reputation of being the biggest hitter on tour. Yesterday, it was all big hitting and it was all falling in. Caught the end of the second and third sets and thorougly enjoyed the quality on display.

Gasquet's had a good week, beating Blake, Berdych and Murray and playing a high quality three setter with Federer. What was more stunning was that he had a 48% success rate at breaking his opponent's serve prior to the final. That is AGASSIesque, damnit!!! Which leads me to something very significant....

Out of the four semifinalists, Federer, Gasquet and Gonzalez, have extremely effective serves, which they use quite well. However, at no point during the three matches did I witness my pet hate on display....serve domination...in other words, the bane of tennis! Instead, there were quality returns, phenomenal rallies and some adroit netplay. The tennis was beautiful!

Now, with all the Murray, Gonzalez and Gasquet talk, Federer has been conspicuous by his absence. That's down to an attempt to avoid repetition. I mean, I could say that he hit the most incredible angled forehand cross court winner from the baseline at the end of a gruelling rally in the third set against Gasquet. But if memory serves me right, he did that twice against Gonzalez and going with the odds, I would have to assume that he did that ten times prior to that this week. So, the easier option appears to be to just sit back, admire it, forget about it and watch the repeat, that is bound to come soon enough.

Tennis is coming up on some interesting times, not the least of which is the farewell to a legend who reached out beyond the sport itself. The US Open should be a lot of fun.

PostScript: After a breathtaking on the run, full stretch, cross court sliced forehand winner by Gasquet, one of the commentator goes "Ohh ohhh ohhhhhhhhhh, How are we going to pick Progressive Auto Insurance's shot of the day?" That STANK! That really STANK the place up!!!