Article

  • TMS Miami - day 2 round up - second quarter

    3/28/08 1:42 PM | David Cox
    - The big shock on day 2 was Mardy Fish’s first round exit, he went down 6-3, 6-3 to Arnaud Clement. Afterwards Fish said it had been tough to refocus after last week’s results and come down from such a high for a round 1 match. He still had a number of chances on the Clement serve but the Frenchman seemed totally at ease with whatever Fish could throw at him.

    Clement likes the ball coming with pace, particularly on the backhand. He’s quite a compact player from the back, short swings, takes everything really early and gets so many balls back and that frustrated Fish who struggled to hit him off the court and wasn’t able to make the shots at key times to grind it out. At set point down in the first he missed a fairly routine pass, a shot which went in every single time last week but as Fish said, its tough to readjust and find your best tennis again with only a few days between the tournaments.

    Reflecting on the match Fish said “Looking back at the match right now, I would have maybe liked to attack his second serve a little bit more. Maybe I was just thinking too much about groundstrokes. It's one of those matches where I missed a few break points and then I lost one break here and one break there and it's over.” Clement now goes on to play 24th seed Almagro while Fish will be heading to Houston in a fortnight’s time for the opening clay event of the year

    Mario Ancic set up a blockbuster round 2 showdown with Andy Murray after putting out Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-3. Ancic returned better and that was the key in the end, he had twice as many chances (14 break points). After a poor second set tiebreak, the Croat took control at the start of the decider to snuff out any hopes Simon may have had of completing his fightback

    Filippo Volandri’s hard court struggles continued with a 6-3, 6-2 drubbing at the hands of American qualifier Ryan Sweeting. He also went out at the opening hurdle to Bjorkman in Indian Wells and has won just 1 match on outdoor hard in the past year. Volandri paid for converting only 1/6 break points

    Ernest Gulbis produced some fine serving to overcome the experienced Dominik Hrbaty 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. As has been mentioned on here in the past, when Gulbis hits form he is the complete package - capable of hitting big off both wings, good touch at the net and a monster serve. After losing the second, he came out swinging in the decider, taking on the Hrbaty serve and forcing the play. The Slovak had no answers and if he continues in that vein, 4th seed Davydenko won’t be relishing their round 2 match

Tell a friend »

Comments


Write comment

You have to be logged in to comment. If you do not have an account, click here to register. It only takes a minute and you'll be redirected back to this page.
Username:

Password: