Heavy Topspin

On Friday, I saw parts of eleven matches, including many of the men who ended up qualifying for the main draw.  Since I’ve already written about many of these players (Tuesday notebook; Wednesday notebook), I’ll keep this brief.

Joao Souza vs David Goffin

Souza, a 23-year-old Brazilian, is a big guy with a big game.  He plays as explosively as anyone I’ve ever seen in qualifying, reminding me of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his ability to impose his will on a match.  Goffin is a steady counterpuncher and was holding his own until Souza just exploded near the end the first set, hitting untouchable serves and forehands to seal the set.  Judging from his track record so far, Souza doesn’t reliably play at that level, but there’s no doubt the talent is there.

Goffin is a very different player.  I saw parts of his second and third-round matches yesterday, and was impressed both times.  He has a very slight build and is only 20, suggesting that more power is on the way.  Now, he looks like Gilles Simon’s 12-year-old brother, and plays quite a bit like Simon, moving very well around the court and hitting solid groundstrokes off of both wings.  The 7-5 7-5 loss to Souza notwithstanding, he seemed mentally strong, holding his own against physically superior players.

Sergei Bubka vs Rogerio Dutra da Silva

I’m afraid I can’t explain Bubka’s superiority here, since I only saw the second set, which Dutra da Silva won 6-4.  The Brazilian is skinny but hits like a big man, finding impressive angles to crush forehand winners.  Like Souza, he has the talent to simply bowl someone over, and Bubka didn’t have the defensive skills to stop him.  But this time, Dutra da Silva didn’t maintain that level.

I wish I had more to say about Bubka, but he didn’t do much to impress.  He hits hard and is reasonably steady, which was apparently enough against the mercurial Brazilian.

Augustin Gensse vs Laurynas Grigelis

I wrote about Grigelis on Wednesday.  He crushed Adam Kellner, though he let up a bit near the end the first set.   It would appear that his mind is holding him back; he sputtered to a 6-1 7-6 win over a weak 2nd-round opponent in Bastian Knittel.  In two tight sets on Friday against Gensse, he couldn’t close it out.

Gensse is a typical qualifying journeyman, hitting reasonably big shots without quite the consistency necessary to reach the next level.  I also saw the end of his 2nd-round victory over Joao Sousa (not Souza, mentioned above), and held on while Sousa’s game simply collapsed.

Grigelis may have more potential than any other player in this year’s qualifying tournament, so it’s a shame to see him fail to convert on the opportunity to make his first US Open main draw.

Louk Sorenson vs Gastao Elias

I saw the Irishman in his 2nd-rounder, which started bright and early at 10am.  When I arrived, Elias was dictating play, forcing Sorenson to play clay-court tennis.  Elias looked good, with steady topspin groundstrokes and the ability to recover from defensive positions.  Sorenson was too erratic to do anything with that.

But near the end of the first set, everything changed, and I’m not sure how.  Elias started missing, Sorenson’s forehand came alive, and Louk was up a break in the second set before Elias knew what had happened.  Elias–still only 20–has the brighter future of the two–especially on clay–but Sorenson came through when it mattered.  He came back later in the day to beat Martin Fischer in straight sets and qualify for the main draw.

Vasek Pospisil vs Charles-Antoine Brezac

This was another second-rounder.  I wrote about both players earlier this week, and was excited to see Pospisil take on a stronger opponent.  The second set lived up to my expectations, with one deuce game after another before the Canadian finally broke for a 6-1 7-5 victory.

20 years old and about 6’4″, it’s no surprise that Pospisil isn’t yet in full control of his strokes.  He wasn’t as consistent as the veteran Brezac, but there’s no questioning his vast potential.  The serve is huge, and his awareness of the court is far beyond his years.  He didn’t come in as often as he could have, but neither did Brezac, so he got away with it.  Pospisil came back out to beat another journeyman, Grega Zemlja, to qualify for the main draw.

Malek Jaziri vs Guillaume Rufin

Rufin retired two games after I arrived, so I suspect anything I observed about him isn’t very accurate.  Jaziri got lucky with that outcome, even though he was up a set at the time.  The Tunisian is a clay-courter, and he didn’t make any concession to the hard surface in yesterday’s match.  He had the loopiest groundstrokes I saw all week, and I’m not sure I saw him hit a single winner.  He drew Thiemo de Bakker in the first round, one of the few possibilities that might get him a main draw win.

Conor Niland vs Matwe Middelkoop

Niland was a mess in the first set, losing 6-2 on the “strength” of a backhand that went everywhere but inside the lines.  Throughout the match, he displayed one of the least consistent two-handed backhands I’ve ever seen, hitting flat, topspin, and extreme topspin shots with more or less the same motion.

After a bathroom break between sets, Niland came back out a different man.  The backhand didn’t win him points, but it stopped losing them, and got him in position for several inside-out forehand winners.  Middelkoop got lulled into passivity by winning the first set, and didn’t recover before Niland took control of the match.  Unfortunately for Conor, his backhand will be exposed about two games into his first-rounder with Novak Djokovic.

Romain Jouan vs Denis Kudla

Kudla was simply overmatched.  (I also wrote about his win on Tuesday.)  At this stage in his young career, the young American is basically a counterpuncher, occasionally going on offense with an exceptional backhand.  From the beginning of the match, Jouan looked erratic, but he was consistent enough to overpower Kudla again and again.  As was the case earlier this week, Kudla didn’t display the best tactics, going for down-the-line backhands from defensive positions.  Jouan put him on defense all the time, and it was clear that the American didn’t have an answer for it.

Like Souza, Jouan is a powerful, imposing player.  Against a better opponent, it’s questionable whether he can maintain that level, and he’ll likely be demolished by Tomas Berdych next week.

A few more notes on qualifying winners:

I’ve seen Michael Yani several times, and written about him here and here.  Same with Marsel Ilhan: here.  Jesse Huta Galung is a very stylish, smooth player who has never gotten the results I think he deserves–I don’t think he consistently serves and volleys, but he has the talent to do so.  I wrote about Go Soeda earlier this week.  When I saw Robert Farah a few years ago, he was an electrifying, inconsistent player, with an odd mix of flat, hard groundstrokes and clay-court tactics.

Today was the second half of the first round at U.S. Open qualifying.  For my notes on several Tuesday matches, click here.

In ten hours and almost as many matches, I covered a lot of ground today–I’ll have to be brief in much of the following.

Thomas Schoorel vs Stefano Galvani

The young Schoorel has had a breakthrough year, reaching a few main draws and consistently going deep in challengers.  It’s no secret why: He booms a massive lefty serve and couples it with an equally devastating forehand.  His slice backhand can also be a weapon.  All of that was on display today, but it wasn’t enough.

He looks like a sulky teenager, slumped down as if he’d rather not be so tall.  Even his assets (serve, forehand) were erratic, and his one-handed backhand was embarrassing–I wouldn’t be surprised if half of his non-slice backhands were errors.  Someone with Schoorel’s weaponry shouldn’t lose many points on serve, and he was challenged in nearly every service game.

Some of the credit for that must go to the veteran Stefano Galvani.  Galvani is a classic counterpuncher, compact and steady, with good control over his serve.  He learned early on that Schoorel would fall apart by the fifth or sixth shot of the rally (if he made it that far), and that earned him the straight-set win.

Gianluca Naso vs Thomas Fabbiano

What a contrast this one was.  I only saw the first several games, but it was enough to get a feel for the match.  Naso is tall, well-built, and Italian to the core.  His game is nothing like Fabio Fognini’s, but his way of handling himself on court is very similar: He’ll hit great shots and look good–if he needs to go off balance or hit a weak reply, he often doesn’t bother.  It’s not a great strategy to reach the next level, but it’s fun to watch.

I saw Naso a few years ago in qualifying; he’s better now, with the same asset, a huge forehand that he’s willing to hit anywhere, no matter how far he has to run around it.  Like the Fognini-esque style, it’s a little silly, but it’s beautiful to watch.

Naso’s younger compatriot, Thomas Fabbiano, is more like Galvani.  Smaller, compact, and (theoretically) consistent, he’ll hit defensive shots and look less stylish smashing two-handed backhands.  In the short time I watched, I didn’t see many positives in his game, except for an unusual fluency mixing up a good slice and a strong two-hander.

Cedrik-Marcel Stebe vs Igor Sijsling

Stebe has rocketed up the rankings this year.  While most of his success has come on clay (including a couple of recent wins over Davydenko), he did beat Ryan Harrison in a tough five-setter to qualify at Wimbledon.  Whatever worked for him on grass wasn’t on show today.  I wanted to fall in love with Stebe’s game, but Stebe’s game was in love with unforced errors.

Sijsling is someone I’ve seen before–the typical veteran of challengers and qualifying rounds, with a few big weapons but without the consistency to win tour-level matches.  He didn’t do anything particularly well–all I have in my notes is that he kept Stebe deep, which is probably what the German wanted anyway.

I looked hard for what has made Stebe so successful.  It’s the backhand–he can hit a two-hander from anywhere, to anywhere.  For a left-hander, that creates some interesting angles.  His forehand is solid as well, but both shots landed behind the baseline way too much to make today’s match interesting.

Facundo Bagnis vs Marius Copil

I was drawn to this one to see Bagnis, a 21-year-old Argentine who has had success on clay this season, but it was Copil who was worth sticking around for.  This was probably the best match I saw all day, getting to 5-5 in the third set before Bagnis handed his opponent the match.

Copil has a big game, especially for someone so young (he turns 21 in October), highlighted (of course) by the serve.  Both offerings pushed Bagnis well behind the baseline, and the topspin second serve was the best I’ve seen so far this week.  He hasn’t yet learned how to follow up the serve and big groundstrokes–he was awkward on the rare occasions he came forward–but against a laid-back opponent like Bagnis, that was ok.

Bagnis is another lefty, but doesn’t seem to take advantage of that in any way, especially on the serve.  The best skill he showed today was return of serve, and against Copil, that’s saying something.  Bagnis frequently had to return second serves above his head, and usually pushed them back deep.  As long as he was reasonably comfortable, he could hit solid groundstrokes all day long, but he isn’t quite steady enough (yet) to succeed with that kind of passive game at the ATP level.

Mischa Zverev vs Bastian Knittel

The less said about this one, the better.  I only watched it because there was little else on offer.  Zverev was a joke.  He has so much talent, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone look so apathetic in US Open qualies.  I think he was looking past this match (and possibly the rest of the season) and forgot that he needed to occasionally land the ball inside the court to advance to the next round.

Knittel was more spirited and aggressive, but the older player showed little evidence of belonging anywhere near the top 100.  His groundstrokes on both wings were oddly jerky, suggesting that against a more aggressive opponent, he won’t be able to keep up.

Laurynas Grigelis vs Adam Kellner

The Lithuanian Grigelis is the youngest non-American (and youngest direct entry) player in the qualifying draw, but there’s no doubt he belongs.  He comprehensively outplayed Kellner from just about every angle except for noise and girth.  The first word in my notebook concerning Kellner is “ouch.”

Kellner hits with a lot of power and little control.  His first serve percentage was well below half for the set-plus I saw today, and any groundstroke he tried to put near a line had about the same chance of going in.  Like Zverev and Stebe, he did more to lose the match than his opponent did to win it.

All that isn’t meant to detract from Grigelis.  The Lithuanian’s groundstrokes are fantastic, especially a backhand that he likes to direct up the line.  He still has some physical development coming, and once the serve catches up to the rest of his game, he could give Richard Bernakis a challenge for the top-ranked player from Lithuania–and I think highly of Bernakis as well.  I hope to see Grigelis against a stronger opponent this week to get a better sense of his current level.

Charles-Antoine Brezac vs Daniel Kosakowski

I wasn’t expecting much from the American wild card Kosakowski, but especially after he played his way into the match, he showed that he belongs at this level.  He lost the match 6-2 6-4, which understates how tight the second set was.

One remarkable thing about Kosakowski is that he almost never hit a slice.  Maybe five in a set and a half.  Instead, he hit one-handers from everywhere, including defensive positions that would push almost everyone else to the slice.  Yet he got those shots back.  His groundstrokes are nothing like Denis Kudla’s, but the overall game plan is the same–put a mediocre serve in the box, then slug away.  In the second set, that often worked.

Brezac is a challenger-tour warrior, and proved too steady and too smart for the American today.  He was equally prepared to slug it out from the baseline–if anything, he made a mistake by playing Kosakowski’s style.  On the rare occasions he moved forward, he looked very good, with some of the prettiest touch volleys I’ve seen this week.  While the focus was on the young American, Brezac played like someone who could spend a couple of years in the top 100, though he has yet to crack the top 200.

Vasek Pospisil vs Chris Guccione

This was something of a disappointment.  I had never seen Guccione before, and for whatever reason, expected something more than Karlovic-lite.  Gooch hit his share of aces and volley winners, but lost enough points on serve that I’m shocked he was only broken once.  For a tall lefty known for his serve, I don’t see what the fuss is about.

Pospisil is nearly as tall, and his serve is as good.  He made a good impression a couple of weeks ago by beating Chela and playing Federer well in Montreal, and while Guccione didn’t bring out that level of play, he showed a much more well-rounded game than his opponent.  As was the case with Grigelis, I hope I can see Pospisil play someone more interesting.

James Ward vs Michael Yani

Ward was on my radar because, according to my hard-court ranking system, he’s the best player in the qualifying draw.  According to how he played today, I’m wrong.  The Brit beat Wawrinka and Querrey at Queen’s club, and reached the final in the last two challengers he played.  Clearly there was another level he didn’t bring out on court today.

In this match, Ward looked hopelessly one-dimensional, hitting big (but erratic) serves, thinking about moving forward but unsure how to do so, slicing way more than he had to (including several forehands!) and shanking more forehands than the wind could explain.  As I did with Stebe, I looked hard for what has worked for Ward, and I couldn’t figure it out.

All Yani had to do was play steady, and that’s his forte.  (I wrote about him two years ago, as well.)  He has no weapons to speak of, but he fights hard and mixes things up.  That’s often enough to qualify, as it was for Yani in 2009.

The first round of U.S. Open qualifying is always something of a mixed bag.  Plenty of great players, including both up-and-comers and vets who just missed the cut, but just as many guys who may never crack the top 200.  I try to see everyone at least once, but with 128 men in the draw, that’s no easy task!

Here’s what I was able to see today.

Go Soeda [9] vs Tim Smyczek

Smyczek has been on my radar all year.  He’s a bit like the pre-suspension Wayne Odesnik: Not really one of the official young stars on the US scene, but young, American, and winning some matches.  He’s qualified for a few ATP events this year, and in addition to a win over Kei Nishikori, he has pushed both Phillip Kohlschreiber and Grigor Dimitrov to third-set tiebreaks.

In a set and a half, it was hard to see how he did any of those things.  Smyczek is a little guy, listed at 5’9″, and his first serve might easily be mistaken for a spin-less second offering.  He moves well and his groundstrokes are solid, but his game doesn’t feature a single shot one might call a weapon.  He didn’t move forward with much confidence or handle himself very well when he got there.

I kept waiting for signs of the fighting spirit that got him to those tiebreaks earlier in the year.  No dice.  Soeda is a veteran–also without any major weapons on show–and he simply outclassed the American.  While Soeda has the game to keep himself on the fringes of the top 100, it would take a major breakthrough for Smyczek to accomplish the same.

Adrian Menendez-Maceiras vs Alexander Waske

No prospects here–after tiring of Smyczek-Soeda, I wanted to see how 36-year-old Alexander Waske looked.  The good news: Better than Thomas Muster.  The bad news: Not much better than Muster.

Waske is a big server of a generation ago, back when a big serve could get you into the top 100 all by itself.  The German’s game plan seemed to involve going for lots of aces, and then hitting defensive slices on nearly every other shot.  He came up with incredible power on the serve, which is about all you can say for him.

Menendez didn’t have much more to offer.  He managed to lose the first set before I arrived–how he got broken is tough to imagine–but came back to win a second-set tiebreak and the match.  He’s ranked well outside the top 200, and that seems about right–a real threat in qualifying would’ve dismissed Waske is half the time.

Amer Delic vs Evgeny Donskoy [24]

The 20-year-old Donskoy was my top priority on today’s slate.  He’s a clay court specialist, while Delic has much more match experience and a more hard-court friendly game (and height!).  When I made it over from the Waske match, Donskoy was falling behind in the second set after losing a first-set tiebreak.  He wasn’t hitting anything very hard, and something about the surface or the balls seemed to be giving him trouble–groundstroke after groundstroke landed a few inches deep.

He didn’t need to change his game plan–just find the range.  A few games into the second set, he did so, and once that happened, he lived up to billing as a rising clay-court star.  Even on a fast surface, he was too much for Delic, pounding flat groundstrokes off of both wings, including some particularly impressive down-the-line shots.  Like many young players from Eastern Europe, he relentlessly targets the backmost few inches of the court.

Once Donskoy won the second set, Delic just went away.  He dumped a few easy sitters into the net, got frustrated, and even managed to lose a point on a code violation while serving 0-30.  By that point, Donskoy didn’t need the help and won the final set 6-2.

Andrea Arnaboldi vs Denis Kudla

Kudla’s backhands can be a sight to see.  Like Donskoy, he can pound his opponent’s baseline, and does so with impressively flat shots.  Unfortunately, that leaves him with little margin for error, especially on down-the-line shots, which he kept going for today.  Combine that with a middling serve, and Kudla’s current game isn’t making it easy for him to win matches at this level.

But today, he came out on top, needing a third-set tiebreak to do so.  Arnaboldi was all over the place mentally, especially in the third set when a series of line calls didn’t go his way.  In better moments, he used his left-handedness to great effect, generating interesting angles around the court, and forcing Kudla to go for lower percentage shots.

I hope Kudla can improve his serve and develop a better tactical tennis mind.  His groundstrokes would be a great addition to the ATP tour, but it will take more time before he’s much of a threat at the next level.

Richard Berankis [12] vs Guillermo Alcaide

Seeding and ranking aside, Berankis is probably the best player is the qualifying draw, and he appears to be healthy.  He played a nearly flawless match, beating Alcaide 6-2 6-2.

It’s all the more impressive because of the demands Alcaide made on the Lithuanian’s return game–Alcaide has a downright huge serve.  He hits it effortlessly, but the sound it makes off the racket makes you think it’s 130mph, easy.  Sadly, that’s about all that I can say about his game.  Berankis, on the other hand, belongs in the main draw, and it’s a shame he has to spend all week proving it.

Bradley Klahn vs Tennys Sandgren

As college players, these two guys don’t have ATP rankings that represent their true skill levels.  Were they to go full-time on the pro tour, it’s tough to imagine either of them outside of the top 250.  This might have been the highest-quality tennis I saw all day.

Both put some serious firepower on display–Sandgren on the serve, Klahn with an unorthodox lefty forehand.  Klahn’s forehand motion is similar to Jeremy Chardy, starting with a very closed racket face, then whipping through the ball to create a relatively flat topspin trajectory.  Marsel Ilhan is another guy who hits it like that, and Klahn was more consistent with his forehand than I’ve seen from either Ilhan or Chardy.

It seemed like both players could dominate, given the power on their shots.  But while Klahn ended up winning the 2nd and 3rd sets at 6-2 apiece, it never felt like a blowout–Sandgren was in most games, including some return games, and hit his share of impressive shots.  The difference, oddly enough for a matchup between young Americans, was in Klahn’s movement and touch around the net.  Both men came in (and coaxed the other in) with some frequency, and Klahn occasionally approached the net behind an iffy approach shot.  The aggression generally paid off.

Both of these guys have bright futures, and Klahn has a real chance of finding himself in the main draw a week from now.

Tomorrow, 128 men will begin battling for the last 16 spots in the US Open main draw.  (Technically, given withdrawals, it’ll probably be more like 18 or 19 spots, but as of now, it’s 16.)

It’s my favorite time of year, and if you live near New York, it should be yours as well.  But unless you’re an extreme tennis nut, most of the names aren’t very familiar.

Click here for a quick “guide” to the 128 contenders, including their seed, country of origin, birthday, current ATP ranking, and current hard-court “jrank”–that is, their standing in my ranking system.  (The table is too wide to display well on this site.)

If you want to play with the guide, feel free to download it in CSV format.