tsonga's serving in 9/10 games in the 2nd and 3rd was the most brutal i have ever seen. söderling was also mighty impressed. but then that one game sloppy and the match was all over. this outcome of course also emphasizes the step söderling has taken recently to be a solid top 5 player...

söderling said in the post match interview. thanks to my team. we have the best team in the world. i think he really means that. he looks more confident at the net, in movement and with slices this year. he has much room for improvement, and seems to be working on it well with his new team.

the trainer claudio pistoleti may be in fact the guy to take söderling further. it's probably another very good match of personalities. norman did a very great before, he could do it again with murray!

Why Murray? I thought Norman doesn't want to travel and he's having his own academy, so I don't think he'll be coach of Murray.

Hey, maybe Andy should travel to him, luckystar!

luckystar, that was just following up some other threads. murray needs someone to work with his mentality so he can grow like söderling did under murray.
you are right, norman doesn't want to travel. but if murray asked him, i imagine he would reconsider...

like söderling did under magnus norman, i meant.

Interesting coach with player pairing and results. I see Fed improves after taking in Anacone; Stan improves after going together with Lunglen; Sod having good results with Pistolesi; even Kohl becomes more dangerous after teaming up with Miles Mcglegan. I wonder who can help Murray. I also wonder is Bob Brett right for Cilic? It seems Cilic's game has stalled and may be even moving backwards! No such worry for Rafa and Nole, it seems both of them are doing fine with their long term coach. I also like Delpo's coach Franco Davin (not sure about the spelling), he has coached Delpo to a slam title, though I don't know whether he should pay more attention about the way Delpo hits the ball. I also like Javier Piles, Ferrer's coach and Eric Winograski (spelling?), Tsonga's coach. These two are with their charge for a long long time, like father and son, never give up on their charge, very touching stories about Ferrer and Tsonga with their respective coach.

luckystar, what do you think about monfils with roger rasheed (hewitt's former coach)? many feel that rasheed destroyed hewitt's game after cahill left and hweitt promoted his trainer (rasheed) to be his coach. under cahill, hewitt had better serve palcement, better reading of the game, etc. rasheed has stated very clearly that he trains a player to go into a game with a set plan and to never change the game plan - even if not working, rasheed insists his charge keeps at the game plan because he says it'll pay off eventually. i would have thought that you teach the charge to read the game so if the plan isn't working, you change a few things about your game (provided you can) rather stay stagnant while the opponent pummels you.

homos, I don't know much about Hewitt and Rasheed. I find Monfils being like a wild horse, very difficult to tame. Rasheed really needs lots of patience with him. Sometimes while watching Monfils match, I find it entertaining just looking at Rasheed and watch all his facial expressions! Sometimes he just shakes his head. Kudos to him, for being so patient with Monfils. Monfils did improve under his charge, especially last year when Monfils became one of France's Davis Cup hero, and Monfils won his second ATP title, and reached the Toyko Open final.

Regarding sticking to a game plan, I guess it depends on the player. Fed himself mentioned he prefers to stick to his game plan. Of course a player of Fed's caliber would be able to stick with his game plan with minor adjustments here and there and still being able to beat most players. I'm not sure Monfils is able to change up when things don't go as planned, is he versatile enough to change mid way during a match? Maybe Rasheed is confident that the game plan thought out for Monfils should be good enough for Monfils to deal with his opponent if Monfils execute it properly. Knowing Monfils, if there is no specific game plan, he'll play even more wildly and accordingly to his own whims and fancies, pleasing the crowd more than pleasing his coach and his supporters.

luckystar, rasheed has commentated many times at matches and so often he has said that players should stick to a game plan, even when he's commentating womens' matches. i just think that's strange. other commentators who are with him like courier, newcombe, fitzgerald often disagree with him. rasheed makes some very strange comments at times and you can tell the othe former players are bewildered by soem of his remarks. he's not actually a coach too. he was always a trainer until hewitt promoted him. but agree with you, telling someone like fed to stick to a game plan is not the same as tellng most players because they don't have fed's capabilities and talent. i watched hewitt quite closely under those two coaches and his game changed dramatically under rasheed he basically went backwards from there until roche came along but it was way too late for hewitt by then.

homos doesn't make sense to me! Someone loses and comes off and says to Rasheed "I stuck to my game plan boss." And Rasheed says "Oh in that case well played my lad, I don't want you doing anything that might help you win." Yeah, right ;)
lucky,I watch his face when Monfils is playing too and it usually has a WTF look :)

Yeah strange thinking by Rasheed indeed. Maybe he's more suitable as a trainer than a coach. Anyway, Monfils seems happy with him and he still has the patience to stay with Monfils. Hopefully as Monfils grows older and becomes more mature, he'll be less wild and realizes his full potential.