The Coachella Valley – A Whole Lot of Spurting Going On!

Written by: Tennischiro on 19th March 2012

The Coachella Valley - A Whole Lot of Spurting Going On!

epa03151086 Roger Federer of Switzerland celebrates after defeating John Isner of the USA in their men's final match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, USA, 18 March 2012. Federer won 7-6(7) and 6-3. EPA/MIKE NELSON |

Well, Indian Wells’ BNP Paribas Open is history for 2012. I had hoped to have a few more comments about my trip back to the tournament for the first time in three year, but I got hit by what I’m calling “the Curse of the Coachella Valley” on Friday morning at about 5:00 AM and have been totally out of commission since. As wonderful as Federer played, it is all the more amazing that he was able to deal with his wife and twin girls having this virus while he was playing the tournament. It was really a nasty one.

I will get some more comments up about the tournament in a couple of days, but I thought some of you might enjoy seeing the charts of the finals matches showing the speeds of the first and second serves. I also try to mark approximate placement of the serves with a dot in the 1st or 2nd serve box. I didn’t get the speeds for the ladies final, but there is some information there too. Primarily, that neither woman, certainly not Sharapova, was doing enough with her first serve. For these two big hitters, the serve really wasn’t much of a weapon; just a way to start the point. And these two are the number one and number two players in the world!

Federer was doing a lot of “spurting” this weekend. Needless to say, there was a lot of spurting going on in the Coachella Valley the last two weeks with a nasty intestinal virus going around and the people who were doing it will probably not forgive me the pun. (Just know that among the many players that pulled out or played significantly below their customary level, Vania King said she spent one of the worst nights of her life before pulling out in the third round after a couple of great wins and there were at least a half dozen other retirements or defaults in the various draws, not to mention a lot of weakened competitors).

Anyway, Federer won the first three games of his match with Rafa, then Rafa broke back and won three and then Roger won 6 of the next 7 games. He managed to get to 5-2 in the second set before Rafa got it back to 5-4 and then Roger closed the door. It was an excellent match in terrible conditions. They were really lucky to get the match in at all. The rain was on and off all afternoon and they started more than three hours late.

Then today, they had minor delays, but the match went off basically on schedule. Isner continued his solid play and didn’t allow Roger a break point until the 10th point of the 12th game. John had had 3 break points in the third game of the match, but had been unable to convert as Roger made all his first serves and drew a couple of backhand errors plus an easy overhead to negate those opportunities. John came up with the big 129 MPH service winner on the T to negate that first break point and they soon were in the tie-breaker.

Again, more spurts: Both players held serve the first four points. Then both players lost their service points the next four points. A lot of forehands were being missed. Then they both held service for 2 points: 5-5 in the TB. Finally, Fed got another set point with an Isner backhand error, but gave the edge back with a backhand error of his own. At 6-6, Fed made a 121 mph service winner up the T only to make another forehand error on the next point: 7-7. Fed returned a 138 MPH serve and then managed to float a backhand lob winner over the 6′ 9″ Isner for set point. This time Isner missed the backhand return to give Federer the set. But it was by no means a decisive statement by Federer. Isner had been right there through the whole set.

Isner started serving the second set and dropped just 3 points in his first three service games. However, Federer dropped none. In fact, he dropped just one point on serve in the second set. He went off on another spurt at 2-3. breaking Isner at 15 and 30 despite the fact that the big American made 10 of 11 first serves in those games. This after being unable to break Isner’s service games for 9 straight holds. Isner simply did not serve as well as he did against Djokovic on Saturday. Fatigue and the conditions may have had something to do with that, but you have to give credit to Federer for spurting to the finish line when the opportunity presented itself, coming up with the necessary returns on those big first serves. At the same time, this was a great coming of age party for John Isner, joining the top 10 for the first time. If Mardy Fish doesn’t start to win some matches soon, John will be the new number one American. He’s shown a lot of growth and maturity and appears to be on a great learning curve right now. Look for more good things from John as the year goes on.

It’s a great start for the ATP1000s and creates a great buzz going into Miami. But the women need to get someone to step up and challenge Azarenka. She is winning so easily, it is almost boring. My pick is Kvitova and seeing her in person last week, I’m even more convinced she has the necessary physical gifts and technical skills to play at a higher level than any of the other women. However, it remains to be seen whether or not she has the intestinal fortitude and emotional toughness to realize her potential.

Here are the links for my charts of the men’s and women’s finals if you want to check them out:

Federer/Isner, first set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/99/federerisneriw2012set1.jpg/

Federer/Isner, second set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/federerisneriw2012set2.jpg/

Azarenka/Sharapova, first set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/vikamariaiw2012set1.jpg/

Azarenka/Sharapova, second set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/vikamariaiw2012set2.jpg/

to see other articles by 10sChiro, go to
https://archive.10sballs.com/category/columnists/dr-chiro/
or
https://archive.10sballs.com/author/don/

Topics: John Isner, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer