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!!!