Roddick X-Its Memphis, Roanic Stays Hots; Del Potro, Davydenko Meet In Marseille

After Roddick’s loss, the new power broker in men’s tennis, Milos Raonic, once again didn’t dissapoint.
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Power broker. What exactly is that? Any one from North America who can play decent tennis(for those in America, who are usually very poor in geography, it is US+Canada)?

February 23rd, 2012 at 11:26 am

Reading about Soderling and his failed attempt once again to return to the court, I think about the mononucleosis that Federer had allegedly compared the Swedish and that Ancic withdrew from the circuit. It is a scam by supporting Federer. Yes, the Swiss has much more talent than the other two, but winning a major championship, three Final Four semifinals, with mono?. He arrived the second time in his career at the Wimbledon final without dropping a set and would have been the winner of the tournament against a less Nadal. You believe that if he had suffered the same as Ancic and Soderling, have achieved so far this year to reach the final stages of the majors. are stupid like us to believe?
As there are degrees of infidelity, I guess that also mono, this ill retired Croatian and Swedish is thinking about it. It is not all that fake story Federer and mononucleosis. Well he must have suffered somewhat in Australia as seen against Tipsarevic, but then to have the same Ancic and Soderling is a huge distance.

February 23rd, 2012 at 12:43 pm

The Elf plays the Playstation..Old meets new.

February 23rd, 2012 at 2:46 pm

Steve 27, I tried hard but I really could not understand what you are talking about.

February 23rd, 2012 at 2:59 pm

Wow, Raonic wins 6-2 7-6 (for the millionth consecutive time he needs a tiebreak to win the match)….and declares that he played better at the end than the beginning? What?

February 23rd, 2012 at 4:03 pm

Well, who, except those actually there, would really know what Raonic meant by playing better at the end because there were NO streams and it wasn’t on TV! Maybe Gulbis played better, which made Raonic have to raise his level?

I am home for lunch and streaming Fish v Olivetti (who?) and watching the 20 yr. old maybe knock out Mardy. Fish is down a set and trailing a break in the 2nd.

Old ‘Playstation’ lost to del Potro and my personal GOAT/Dog lost to Llodra.

The young Frenchie, Olivetti, has a nice serve, it’s 3-1 to Albano. Fish might be leaving Marseille soon if he can’t break back.

oh no, youngster choked there. ah, the double fault. He handed Mardy back the break and I have to think Fish will pull through. But maybe Albano Olivetti is a name to remember?

February 23rd, 2012 at 4:30 pm

Steve don’t be obtuse. Federer never said, “I had the same or worse strain of mono as Future Soderling will have.”
The same disease can have different results. Lance Armstrong came back after cancer. Other people die of it. That doesn’t make Armstrong a fraud. Don’t be a moron.

February 23rd, 2012 at 4:37 pm

wow. this is some riveting tennis in the decider. Fish has dug himself another hole.

Olivetti is sort of charming. Allez Albano! hold your nerve and your serve, buddy!? He looks like a younger Victor Troiki. I can’t help cheering for him to win – 21 aces for him! He leads Fish 5-2 in the decider.

lol, this is good.

February 23rd, 2012 at 5:15 pm

Steve27: Federer’s mononucleosis happened in 2008, the Olympics year, so of course Dr. Walter Frey, the renown chief medical/sports doctor of Switzerland’s entire Olympics team was involved in Federer’s health. After all, Federer was expected to be a medal prospect.

It was confirmed that Federer played the 2008 Australian Open (1) while suffering mononucleosis during the tournament and (2) after he suffered stomach flu / food poisoning just before the tournament (Fed was hospitalized for a day or so). According to the Swiss newspaper, the consequences could have been fatal as playing a grand slam while sick with mono can be more dangerous than playing with influenza. Experienced Dr Frey said that in retrospect it was probably a mistake for Federer to have played the Australian while sick with mono as it would probably extend his healing process by several months. Moreover, tests after the Australian Open detected that Federer’s spleen was swollen (one of the side effects of physical exertion while having mono), there was danger of his spleen rupturing — which is potentially fatal.
http://sc.tagesanzeiger.ch/dyn/news/tennis/849256.html

As Tennis Vagabond said, two persons can have the same illness but are affected by it differently and/or respond to and deal with it differently. You and your buddy get a flu with 100 degree fever — you jump into bed to sleep while your buddy drags himself to work.

Just because Federer has high tolerance for pain and does not whine or sensationalize his pain, sickness and injuries as much as other top players… does not mean he did not quietly suffer greatly. Only Federer’s renown trainer Pierre Paganini has revealed a little bit of what Federer went through in trying to recover his game during 2008, while always being 2 to 3% less and having weeks of training and practice go down the drain.

February 23rd, 2012 at 5:24 pm

OMG. There will be some unhappy tennis betters! Olivetti over Fish 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

I can’t find any information on Olivetti but standing at the net shaking Mardy’s hand, I’d say he’s about Troiki’s height/size but better looking. Hope to see more of him. That was fun.

February 23rd, 2012 at 5:28 pm

Wow Carlo. Fish’s F U to the Morgan Keegan tournament didn’t turn out to well. Olivetti is ranked 388.

February 23rd, 2012 at 5:48 pm

nalbandian vs monaco is good too.

what happened to davy, the results shows he is injured.

February 23rd, 2012 at 6:35 pm

@Humble Rafa – not so humble yourself. Once WADA catchup with the literally bankrupt Spanish nation, tennis gets cleaned up just in time for the North American asskicking comeback to world class tennis. I await your reply here or @martennis. Bring it.

February 23rd, 2012 at 6:41 pm

‘Just because Federer has high tolerance for pain and does not whine or sensationalize his pain, sickness and injuries as much as other top players’

you truly are delusional, sir.

name one surgery federer has needed in his whole career.

then go through the majority of his peers and try and find more than a handful who haven’t needed at least one surgery and often multiple.
don’t even compare federer’s fitness ‘struggle’ with other players. apply roddick’s quote to federer’s situation and then some.

do you even understand what surgery is? do you understand what it takes to rehab from surgery? no you clearly don’t.

do you even follow the sport outside of drooling over your hero? because if so you’d notice how many players of federer’s age have either bowed out or are on the brink because of serious mechanical failure. clue: another one is biting the dust after miami.

it seems you’re both delusional and ignorant.

February 23rd, 2012 at 7:47 pm

malher, sorry about Anderson losing to Querrey. That result did surprise me. Querrey does well in Memphis though and is fighting his way back from injury, I think.

Isner warming up.

El Flaco – thanks. I went looking for info on Olivetti after that match. He has a nice website, plenty of info there (in French). He’s taller than Troiki – more like over 2 m – 6’7.5″ ! Big serving; 23 aces taking out Fish.
http://albano-olivetti.com/infos-perso.html

His favotite GS – US Open. ;)

February 23rd, 2012 at 8:56 pm

Vamos Nalbandian, Kimmi!

Didn’t get to see that match but the one I hope to catch tomorrow – Wawrinka v Nishikori ( new clay court specialist, Kei ;)

February 23rd, 2012 at 9:07 pm

Breaking news – “Mardy Fish defeated by a typewriter”.

February 23rd, 2012 at 9:13 pm

new clay court specialist, ha ha. Go nishikori or nalbi! But I think almagro will win buenos aires as well.

February 23rd, 2012 at 9:37 pm

Really? Almagro? Did you forget about Ferrer, Kimmi?

February 23rd, 2012 at 10:45 pm

Roy, Are you a health care provider? And that venom against Federer, must be eating you alive. I hope, if you are a health care provider you can heal yourself.

On the other hand I am a health care provider, been doing it for 30 yrs. And, on top of that I have had mono myself. My spleen was fine, but it took me three yrs to truly recover. ANd I only called in sick one day. I dragged my ass to work every day, took care of my family. Some of my patients on the other hand, some had fever,some had tonsills that were so swollen that I had to prescribe prednisone for them, and some had enlarged spleen, not one of them recovered at the same rate. Some pts had to quit work or school, others recovered sooner. Same with pts who had the same kind of surgery, I have some that are still recovering very slowly.Others are running marathons.

So, Roy, IF the Dr. said ROger had mono with swollen spleen, then thats what he had. He used everything he had to get through that yr and probably the yr after. Unless, you are an MD and had personally examined ROger, you have no grounds to make such venomous statements that are truly moronic and idiotic.

February 23rd, 2012 at 11:15 pm

You made me look that up, Colin. At first I thought, “What’s Colin smoking?” and then looked up olivetti again and ‘olivetti typewriter’ came up! lol

February 23rd, 2012 at 11:16 pm

Milos won again.

Speaking of typewriters, did you know that Woody Allen still types his screenplays on the same typewriter that he’s owned for the past 50 years?! Something about that is kind of cool. Or “neat”, as Annie Hall would say.

February 24th, 2012 at 12:11 am

Allezfed says,

“Roy, Are you a health care provider? ”

That was so Classic. Rack that quote in the Tennis X archives.

On a more serious note, thanks for sharin your expertise here, learn something new up here sometimes ;). Hope you are fully recovered.

jane,

Milos!
Re; typewriter… That is friggin amazin, didn’t know that. Can you imagine typin on one of those now? No room for mistakes, hehe….wait…pass the whiteout!

February 24th, 2012 at 1:02 am

Jane,
a professor (about 70 years old, I think) at my alma has never used a computer and writes all his publications longhand. (He used to own a typewriter, but it broke, so he went back to pen.) I wonder how many pads of paper an academic monograph takes up, written out longhand…

February 24th, 2012 at 1:15 am

(Totally irrelevant, possibly entertaining…)

February 24th, 2012 at 1:41 am

Roy, let me make it simple for you yourself to understand the concepts of monumentally “delusional” and “ignorant”.

I quoted Dr. Walter Otto Frey in my last post. Dr. Frey is the CEO and Medical Director of the Swiss Olympic Medical Center. He is not just any chief physician and sports medicine doctor, he has deep experience in all sports as Switzerland’s chief Olympics doctor and is renown for his expertise. Besides his medical degrees, he also has a Phd in physical medicine and rehab and his dissertation was on extreme endurance performance at Alpine marathons. He is even the sports physician of the Swiss Army, holding the rank of colonel.
http://www.movemed.ch/
http://www.movemed.ch/pages/pdf/ueberuns/cv_walter_o_frey.pdf

In other words, Dr Frey knows what he is talking about.

Now tell us what are your qualifications in this area? What drives you to believe you know more than Dr Frey does?

I’ll give an example of what I mean by “Federer has high tolerance for pain and does not whine or sensationalize his pain, sickness and injuries as much as other top players”

In 2005 Federer had three injury breaks that led to him missing four Masters 1000 events (Rome, Canada, Madrid indoor hardcourts, Paris). His third injury break was due to a torn right ankle ligaments in mid-October that forced him to miss Basel and two Masters 1000 tourneys.

“In October 11, Federer was in Allschwil, Switzerland training with countryman Michael Lammer… At the same facility where he suffered a muscle tear the previous year, Federer injured his right ankle. He felt a searing pain and fell to the court and could not get back up. “At first I thought I had broken something,”… Federer tore ligaments in his ankle and while surgery was not required, it forced him to withdraw from the events in Madrid, Basel and Paris. It was debatable if there was enough time for him to recover to play in the year-end Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai in a month’s time… Federer’s foot was in a cast and he was on crutches for two weeks. He did everything he could to accelerate the therapy to enable him to play in Shanghai. He underwent ultrasound, lymph drainage, massages, elevated the legs, special exercises—everything… Federer’s injury was definitely the most serious of his career to date. While he was healthy enough to play in the tournament, his expectations were low. He did not properly prepare for the event and did not rule out the possibility of losing all three of his round-robin matches.”
http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/3511

Ankle ligament tears are more severe than just tendinitis/strain. Most players would call it a year to fully recuperate. Not Federer. He flew all the way from Switzerland to Shanghai for the Tennis Masters Cup (World Tour Finals) in mid-November, even though he did not know whether he would be able to play until two days before it started.

Federer made it all the way to the Masters Cup final on a gimpy leg, where he played an epic 386 point match over 4.5 hours against his nemesis David Nalbandian (Nadal-Djokovic played 369 points at a much slower pace). Watch Federer at 5:30 of this clip — he is down 0-4 in the fifth set, his movement is clearly affected by his right ankle injury, yet he did not give up or call for the trainer. You think he is feeling no pain?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm_wClDQoa0

In 2009, Pierre Paganini (Federer’s renown conditioning coach) offered his insight into the effort Federer puts in:
Q: “In 2008 (Federer) was set back by glandular fever. In your view, when did he recover from this, athletically?”
Paganini: “Last year, he lacked always two or three percent. Glandular fever is a really hard thing. And then the back pain came in the fall, that did not help either. I would say that from 2009 he was again his old self. But it was sensational, the way he fought through everything in 2008, even though he was limited. That limitation makes a big difference at this high level, and challenged him mentally to the extreme. 2008 was from the mental side one of his best years.”
Q: “What sets him apart?”
Paganini: “He is nimble, persistent and highly coordinated, even after several hours and in 70, 80 matches per year. And for the last ten years. This is not just talent, but the result of hard work and willingness to repeat something again and again. In this way, Roger is strong. He works a lot more then people can imagine – because he usually trains when nobody sees him. He had to submit his whole life to a philosophy of work.”
http://gototennis.com/2009/10/27/pierre-paganini-on-roger-federer-as-long-as-he-plays-he-will-be-strong/

You presume having a surgery and its rehab automatically qualify as the most severe handkicap possible for an athlete. Duh, in most cases the surgeries and rehab are relatively routine — the doctor and physio know from experience the rehab program (phases, time and activities) the athlete will have to go through in order to likely recover 100%. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Not everyone recovers perfectly from any surgery of course, but the recovery is more predictable, especially for athletes. Sports doctors know that athletes tend to recover from surgeries, strains and tendinitis faster than non-athletes. Of course some injuries are so severe that no surgery can fix the problem — then the question to ask is what caused the injury, was it voluntarily self-inflicted, and was the athlete warned

On the other hand, with an illness such mononucleosis the outcome is more uncertain and the doctor and athlete have less control. What Allezfed wrote is true. A full recovery from mono and an enlarged spleen may take weeks, months, years or in some cases residual effects continue or the mono returns in some form. After all, mono is believed to be caused by a herpes-type virus that tends to remain in the body.

February 24th, 2012 at 6:15 am

When I made that typewriter joke I did wonder if the Olivetti was restricted to Europe.
When office computers were a pretty new thing, there was a cartoon in a British magazine, where two guys are watching another and saying “I don’t think old Smithers has got the hang of these computers yet”. Smithers is dabbing correcting fluid on the computer screen!
I left office work just as computers were coming in. I imagine it must have been murder before the mouse was invented, and all the data storage was on tape.

February 24th, 2012 at 7:07 am

Eric, it’s a sobering thought that all those huge fat 19th Century novels were written by hand. Furthermore, imagine how it was for the publisher if the author’s handwriting was illegible.

February 24th, 2012 at 7:11 am

Allezfed Says: “…Roy, Are you a health care provider?…”

I read Roy’s post. I believe he checked out infectious mononucleosis in Wikipedia, read one paragraph and then suddenly became a doctor. So Roy, if you are going to talk about anything, make sure you some thorough research first. Hearsay and personal anecdotes don’t count in medicine.

February 24th, 2012 at 7:17 am

Only a healthcare provider would use the term “healthcare provider”
Haha
Worlds collide on tennis x! Thanks for clearing that up, Roy, for ppl who just can’t seem to get over that fed was index sick.
Don’t know why- it happened and uh, three years ago!

February 24th, 2012 at 11:04 am

Wow, Eric. Longhand? That’s really old school. As Colin says, one hopes the writing is legible. I empathize, having to mark hundreds of in-class essays, some almost unreadable (for various reasons, including penmanship, or penpersonship), per term.

February 24th, 2012 at 11:16 am

Roy, if you intend to enter your rebuttal to Dave’s response, make sure it is as properly supported by facts and authenticated as Dave’s. Your credibility is at stake.

February 24th, 2012 at 11:22 am

I mean allezfed for the clarification!

February 24th, 2012 at 11:25 am

RE: the mono discussion. I’ve had a couple of friends who had mono. One had a sore throat for a couple of months and was a little tired, but otherwise was fine, up and on her feet, still going about her business. The other had to drop out of college for a semester because he was much too fatigued to go to class, do homework, etc. So clearly there are different strains and different reactions to mono. Fed was lucky to have a mild strain, whereas Soda and Ancic weren’t as fortunate.

February 24th, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Wozniacki and Julia G are locked in tight it seems!
No tennis viewing tone this week, but checking scores… Eod needs some good fortune these days so I am kinda rooting for her though I like Julia G game better

February 24th, 2012 at 12:22 pm

Whoops looks like Julia broke
Serving for match

February 24th, 2012 at 12:22 pm

Watched some tennis over lunch.
Delpo was all over yhe place, especially with the setve but managed to come back and win that set after set points down.
Looking for that grit from him going forward. Gasquet maybe that is easier to get away with than others, but i’ll take it!

February 24th, 2012 at 1:44 pm

Del Potro is showing again and again that he will be a fixture in the top 8. For a guy with the high-end potential he has on his best days to run with the Big Three, that ability to constantly get in a position to compete with them means he will remain a legit slam threat, or at least a threat to make the finals. You look at guys like Tsonga, Soderling, berdych, they don’t get in the semifinal position often enough to get lucky. Well, ok, they did, but only once or twice!

February 24th, 2012 at 1:57 pm

Delpo is performing admirably considering this is his second consecutive week of tennis and the mental pressure of playing a string of good players: Troicki-Berdych-Federer-Davydenko-Gasquet-Tsonga, etc. Delpo may have lost to Federer recently, but Federer’s not going to be the long term threat. Delpo’s priority should be to train to beat the generation of djokovic, nadal, murray as well as younger players. Delpo is going to feel it in Dubai next week, playing three weeks in a row.

February 24th, 2012 at 3:25 pm

Polo: “Your credibility is at stake.”

I’m not an evil vampire, sucking up a person’s credibility dry :). A well reasoned argument will do.

RZ: We don’t know if Federer had a “mild strain” of mono (it’s not clear whether there are different ‘strains’ of the virus that believed to cause mono or even exactly how mono is caused — there are various medical theories). We don’t even know how sick Fed was at his worst — before the 2008 Australian Open a few Australian newspapers reported Fed looked very sickly in practice and that he was hospitalized at a local hospital for food poisoning.

There is also the issue of how each individual’s body and mind reacts and responds to pathogens as well as illness. Eg., in 2004, Federer got the flu shortly after wininng Indian Wells. It was reported he was so sick that he had to change his flght plans to rest in an LA airport hotel. However, instead of cancelling his sponsorship commitments, he firar flew to Seattle for a Nike event. Then flew to Miami for the Masters tourney. Federer was considering withdrawing because it was too short a time to recover from flu. But a rain delay gave Federer an extra day’s rest so he played Miami. His first opponent was nikolay davydenko, who made the weak federer run for three tight sets. Softened by davydenlo, Federer was easy pickings in straight sets for young Rafa Nadal in the next round, boosting the confidence and fame of the 17-year old Spaniard. In retrospect, it was a dumb decision by Federer as it started a pattern that has continued to haunt him. But instead of staying in bed Fed chose to fulfill his commitments. Was it because he keeps getting a mild strain of flu? Unlikely.

For some people, it is mind over matter sometimes while other times they cant do anything to overcome it — i can show you examples of doctors sick wirh immune deficiency syndromes who choose to continue to work because that purpose in life motivated them and helped them heal.

It’s safe to presume that Federer does get sick and injured — more or less — like any other human being, even though he takes pteventive steps. That we hear so little of his ailments over thr course of 1,000 matches suggests he is likely not making a big deal of it — just like Sampras did not reveal an illness he had. Most of Fed’s generation did not whine or sensationalize their ailments as well.

February 24th, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Dave, true, we don’t know if Fed had a mild strain or his body held up better against mono than others. My overall point is that there are different strains of mono and different reactions to it (as evidenced by my 2 friends who had vastly different reactions to mono) and that people shouldn’t assume Fed was lying just because he was still playing and reaching semis (if not finals) while ill, whereas others who get the same illness had to sit out part of the season.

February 24th, 2012 at 5:05 pm

i am so sorry. i have now seen the error in my ways. please accept my most humble apologies.

February 25th, 2012 at 8:43 am

Psychic Predictions for 2012:

AO: Djokovic(duh)

FO: Nadal

Wimbledon: Murray

Olympics: Federer

USO: Djokovic

March 1st, 2012 at 8:27 pm

Tennis X staff,

Can we please get a little moderation on the jamie prediction posts please?

Do they have to spew it out over every topic there is? Sorry, just so repetitive, and whatever your sellin dell it somewhere else.

paaaahlllease!!!!!

March 1st, 2012 at 10:27 pm