The State of the Game – Part II Fish, Federer, Tsonga, Del Potro and Youhzny

Written by: Tennischiro on 29th February 2012

The State of the Game - Part II Fish, Federer, Tsonga, Del Potro and Youhzny

epa00611759 Mikhail Youhzny from Russia returns to Tim Henman from Great Britain during an exhibition match at the Kooyong Classic Tennis Tournament in Melbourne, Thursday 12 January 2006. Youhzny won the match 6-4, 6-3 as players prepare for the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of 2006 commencing 16 January. EPA/JULIAN SMITH AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT |

The level of the examination being administered in Dubai this week goes up significantly tomorrow. Mardy Fish was the only seed not to make the quarterfinals, losing to Mikhail Youhzny. Fish has to either get better on winning second serve points or get a much higher percentage of first serves in. He dropped to 50% 1st serves in this match and paid the price. I didn’t have much to say about Mardy in the last piece. It’s been disappointing to see him miss so many opportunities to push his ranking a little higher. Now he will start to face the pressure of hanging on with 360 points to defend in Miami. I hope he finds the form he was displaying so masterfully last summer before he falls out of the top 10.

Youhzny has won just 3 sets in 11 meetings with Federer including losing to him in straights 3 times in Dubai. He is a more complete player than either Llodra or Lopez whom Roger dispatched in the first two rounds and he has to be considered dangerous, especially since he isn’t expected to challenge here, but a loss would be a big disappointment for Federer. However, in the next round, Fed will face the winner of a Del Potro/Tsonga quarterfinal. They split the two matches they played the last 4 months, but Del Potro seems to be on the ascendancy beating Jo-Wilfred last week in 3 sets in the semis of Marseille which Del Potro won. At the same time, Tsonga would seem to me to be a very hard man to beat two weeks in a row, even though Del Potro has won 4 of their 5 career meetings. Whoever wins that match, the match with Federer will be a signal for whether Roger is really ready to challenge Djokovic, Murray and Nadal. Murray and Djokovic are on the other side of the draw. The nature of the field makes this more than a warmup for Indian Wells and Miami. Federer is playing well and he likes it here. He just has to step up and get a shot at whoever makes it to the final from the other side. Of course, Youhzny, Tsonga and Del Potro may have something to say about that!

I’ll have more about the top half later, but right now I’m running out the door to go watch the USC/UCLA match!

later,

10sChiro

to see the first part of this “State of the Game”, go to

https://archive.10sballs.com/2012/02/28/the-state-of-the-game-in-the-second-season-of-2012-djokovic-nadal-federer-murray-and-who-else/

to see other articles by 10sChiro, go to

https://archive.10sballs.com/author/don/

Topics: Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Juan Martin Del Potro, Mardy Fish, Mikhail Youhzny, Roger Federer