Roger run out of the Semifinals as USC Storms Into Them

Written by: Tennischiro on 20th May 2012

Roger run out of the Semifinals as USC Storms Into Them

epa03226030 Swiss tennis player Roger Federer serves the ball to Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic during their semi final match at the Italian Open Tennis Tournament (ATP World Tour), in the Central Stadium, at the Foro Italico in Rome, Italy, 19 May 2012. EPA/CLAUDIO ONORATI |

Two of the top three players in the world had great days at the office today. David Ferrer put forward another great effort in the first set of their Rome semifinal to get to 6-6 in the first set tie-breaker, but when Nadal ran down a drop volley and passed him for the set point Rafa would immediately convert, the air came out of Ferrer’s balloon. Rafa won the next six games, but it was more Nadal playing well than Ferrer playing poorly.

Federer didn’t get off to as good a start making just 9 of 23 first serves in the first set. It wasn’t much better in the second set, but Roger staged a nice comeback at the end of the set, winning three games in a row to get to 5-6. Indeed, he was within 2 points of the second set at 30-30 and the crowd was going wild. But Djokovic maintained his composure, held serve and got right off to a 0-3 lead with a minibreak on the first point of the breaker. That would be all he would need on Federer’s serve as both players won the rest of their points on serve until Djokovic took the tiebreaker 7-4.

Djokovic was almost clinical in his dismantling of the Swiss despite the apparent desire of almost the entire Foro Italico that the match be extended to a third set. I charted the Federer/Djokovic match and those charts are available here:

Djokovic/Federer 1st set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/rogernovakset2roma20120.jpg/

Djokovic/Federer 2nd set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/rogernovakset1roma20120.jpg/

I got most of the match down on the charts, but I was seriously distracted by the Women’s USC/Stanford quarterfinal team match at the NCAA championships. The NCAA is live streaming the matches from the University of Georgia. If you weren’t aware of it, you are missing out on some great tennis and even better entertainment. The level may not be as high as that seen in Rome, but the commitment and emotion could not be higher. You can link from the live scoreboards to the live streaming of the matches. Here are the links to the match schedules and live scoreboards.

Live Video Schedule of NCAA Championship matches
http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule

Match Schedule leading to live Scoreboards
http://www.georgiadogs.com/sports/m-tennis/spec-rel/ncaa-2012-schedule.html

The USC Men’s team plays their quarterfinal match agains Duke at noon tomorrow in Athens. The UCLA Bruins play Ohio State at the same time.

But back to why I got so distracted by this little college match as I was watching the number one and two players in the world vie for a spot in the Rome finals. Two of the members of the USC women’s team are my former students and I had watched the other three players who won points for SC today for a number of years. Danielle Lao probably spent over 200 hours with me when she was 15 and 16. Danielle is a junior at USC and plays 2nd singles and 3rd doubles with Allison Ramos. A couple of years before I met Danielle, I spent a few hours with Sabrina Santamaria, a freshman, who plays 3rd singles and 1st doubles with Kaitlyn Christian . I really didn’t have much to do with her development, but she grew up playing at Griffith Park and I have followed her growth since she was just 10 years old. When Danielle was still working with me she won her first National Open event and she beat USC’s current number five player, Gabriella DeSimone in the final. And I had seen Danielle play matches against Ramos and Christian, so I was really familiar with the members of the team.

I point this out to you because you should know how much more fun it is to pull for a team in a match when you know the players just a little bit. The drama that built as the momentum swung back and forth and from court to court was tremendous. And you can follow all the action on line. If you read the breakdown I’ve linked to down below, you’ll see that this was a really important match for these players. They were up, they were down, they pulled even and then they stiffened their resolve and refused to go down to Stanford. Finally, in a matter of literally less than 20 seconds, they went from being on the verge of losing the match to clinching both Danielle and Sabrina’s matches and the team victory and all these young ladies were in a pile on the court. Even in Davis Cup the swings of emotion are not that fast or that great.

And this was all happening as Federer and Djokovic were progressing through their tie-breaker; so I may have mis-charted a couple of points.

For a full breakdown of the match and a post-match interview with Danielle Lao and Steve Johnson, go to:
http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/w-tennis/recaps/051912aab.html

Sunday’s final in Rome should be a much better match with Djokovic showing signs of his 2011 form and Rafa looking like the red clay dominator of old. Fortunately for me, the Rome final is on live at 7AM here in LA on TennisTV and the NCAA match between the USC men and Duke doesn’t start until noon in Georgia. (I’m even closer to the USC men’s team.)

The tennis will be better in Rome. The athleticism and skill will be hard to match anywhere. But if you get the chance to look in on the NCAA’s and you can find a reason to cheer for one of the team’s even if it is not your alma mater, I can guarantee you a great return on the investment of that time. The tennis is pretty good, but the emotion is raw and uninhibited. The drama is multi-faceted coming at any moment from any one of six courts. If you get a chance to attend one of these matches, you really should do it.

10sChiro

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

If you want more information about lessons with TennisChiro or his videotaping and analysis service, contact him atdonbrosseau@earthlink.net. This summer he will be the Head Pro at the Buckskill Tennis Club in Easthampton, NY. (buckskilltennis.com)

Topics: 10sballs.com, 10sChiro, David Ferrer, Italian tennis news, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Rome Tennis news, Sports, UCLA Bruins play Ohio State, USC Men's team tennis