ATP 500: Beijing & Tokyo

Asian swing gathering some momentum in its second week, moving from 250 to more weighty 500 series tournaments in Beijing and Tokyo, attracting some of very top players.

Shanghai comes back to back with these two tournaments and starts o the 8th of October.

2012 has been an unusaly busy year schedule-wise not only because of the additional Olympic Games tournament in the middle of summer, but also because of the compressed scheduling which is now seeing WTF pushed back to the beginning, rather than the end of November, giving the players the long demanded and moaned about and extended off-season.

As a result, we have 4 weeks of almost back to back tournaments ahead of us which, unlike most of other previous seasons, has a bit of a twist in the plot this year: the hotting up race for year end number one spot, theoretically available even to Andy Murray.


CHINA OPEN 500 (outdoor hard)

The Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Center, purpose-built for the 2008 Olympic Games, is the venue for the China Open. In 2011, the venue expanded to an 11-court stadia as it boasted a new 15,000-seat Stadium with a retractable roof, named the Diamond Court due to its likeness.

Novak Djokovic heads the field in Beijing, hoping to close the gap on Federer, esp as he missed the entire Asian swing last autumn, due to his muscle-tear back injury aggravated in his Davis Cup match against Del Potro.

Djokovic, Ferrer, Tsonga, Cilic, Gasquet, Dolgopolov, Haas, Verdasco, Davydenko, Harrison, Lopez

The Draw:
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/747/mds.pdf

Order of Play (updated daily):
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/747/op.pdf

Interesting qualifying match tomorrow between Brian Baked & Donald The Losing Streak Young


JAPAN OPEN (outdoor hard)

The Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships is the longest-running ATP World Tour tennis tournament in Asia, first held in 1972. The ATP World Tour 500 tournament is played at Ariake Colosseum, an expansive tennis centre comprising 48 tennis courts and a stadium with one of the first retractable roofs in tennis.

The field looking a lot more interesting than in Beijing: Murray, Berdych, Tipsarevic, Monaco, Almagro, Raonic, Simon, Nishikori, Paire, Monfils, Wawrinka, Klizan, Stepanek, Haase, tomic, Baghdatis.

The Draw:
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/329/mds.pdf

Order of Play (updated daily)
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/329/op.pdf

Some very interesting first round matches:
Murray - Monfils , Berdych - Paire

Also tomorrow, fighting for place in the first round : Karlovic, Dimitrov and Strakhovski in action.

Good work NITB.

How come both are ATP500 when one offers $1.2M and the other $2.2M?

noleisthebest wrote:
2012 has been an unusaly busy year schedule-wise not only because of the additional Olympic Games tournament in the middle of summer, but also because of the compressed scheduling which is now seeing WTF pushed back to the beginning, rather than the end of November, giving the players the long demanded and moaned about and extended off-season.

I'm not liking this compressed schedule. The evenly distributed but a bit longer one was far better. This extra time is now utilized for more and extended exhibition matches and commercial shoot-outs. Players resting, relaxing? I'm not sure on that.

noleisthebest wrote:As a result, we have 4 weeks of almost back to back tournaments ahead of us which, unlike most of other previous seasons, has a bit of a twist in the plot this year: the hotting up race for year end number one spot, theoretically available even to Andy Murray.

Murray scheduled to play Basel too . Now that makes 5 weeks of continuous tennis with only 1 week gap in between. Is this what he wanted and was moaning about? Ferrer again is playing truck loads of tournaments.
He just played Malaysia, now Beijing, next shanghai, then Valencia then Paris then WTF.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:
I'm not liking this compressed schedule. The evenly distributed but a bit longer one was far better. This extra time is now utilized for more and extended exhibition matches and commercial shoot-outs. Players resting, relaxing? I'm not sure on that.

I have just seen THIS!!!!

No, I don't think those exos make them even sweat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-li8ILW6xbo#!

and if you haven't had enough....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QA7cupOBZ8Y

Long travels, many autograph signing sessions, many photo shoots. It may not be very relaxing in my opinion.

Tenez wrote:Good work NITB.

How come both are ATP500 when one offers $1.2M and the other $2.2M?

I thought it was Japan Open that was offering more before checking....sign of times...

Finding scores in Beijing and Tokyo is a major adventure this morning. ATP website still having last week's tournament as current, and Bejing website is exclusively IN CHINESE !!!!

Still, sadly managed to find out that Paire lost to Berdych 6:1 7:6
Wawrinka, Troicki and Lacko also through.

I've just realised that Beijing is a mixed event....I can see where the cash incentive is heading....they are gunning for another 1000 event status, despite having no decent players (among men) scarily I can see it happening.
I also think there has been a push for the 5ht slam and I bet that's where the wind's blowing from.

I suppose if Tiriac can use Madrid as his playground, nothing stopping Chinese tycoons buying their way into "history"

Order of play out for tomorrow:

Haas-Youzhny (one for the old-school connoisseurs) about 5.30 AM Melzer-Anduhar (starts at the same time on another court)
Tsonga-Istomin (after a woman's match that also starts at 5.30 AM UK time) Davydenko-Bogomolov , Sepppi- Benneteau
Djokovic-Berrer, following Tsonga's match, great accompaniment to my first coffee
Gasquet-Ebden
Haas-Youzhny (one for the old-school connoisseurs)
Harrison-Lopez
Lu-Ferrer (that should be the grind to end all grinds)




The matches are scattered randomly over a number of courts, and if you look at the order of play PDF, it appears like there are a lot more women than men there at the moment.

In Tokyo, also some good matches (play starts at 4 am BST ) :

Stepanek-Raonic Nieminen-Robredo
Nishikori-Soeda Chardy-Sugita

and then come breakfast time for us

Murray-Monfils Tomic-Tursunov
Almagro-Ito Baghdatis-Strakhovski Falla-Bellucci
Klizan-Chiudinelli

This compressed schedule is ridiculous indeed. What was wrong with the previous one as Fed often said. It was changed a few years back and seemed good to me and most players. Nadal and co. started complaining and got their wish of a shorter "year" of tennis, but does it really help anyone? Maybe we should start a thread on that and how an optimal tennis calendar should look like...

sphairistike wrote:This compressed schedule is ridiculous indeed. What was wrong with the previous one as Fed often said. It was changed a few years back and seemed good to me and most players.

Exactly. Then you have those physical players killing themselves on the court not wanting anyone else to organise and play tournaments while they can rest (or cycle down).

Tenez wrote:

sphairistike wrote:This compressed schedule is ridiculous indeed. What was wrong with the previous one as Fed often said. It was changed a few years back and seemed good to me and most players.

Exactly. Then you have those physical players killing themselves on the court not wanting anyone else to organise and play tournaments while they can rest (or cycle down).

How long does cycling down usually last?
So far, I've only noticed Nadal having significantly weaker autumn seasons (compared to the rest of the year) from other players.

The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

Well Nadal got a set against him in the final. Better than what Djokovic could do in the semi (0 sets).
But yes, in general indoor hard isn't a surface that suits Nadal well at all. He has never beaten Federer in the 4 matches they have played on indoor hard (a complete contrast to Nadal's winning H2H on outdoor hard).

In Beijing: Dolgopolov (trounced GGLopez in 2), Berlocq, Copil (the new Rosol), Mayer (bt Fognini), Anderson (beat Baker in 3), Querrey (bt Verdasco in 3) through.

GGLopez really is in crap form.
Last week he got crushed by Tomic.

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

Well Nadal got a set against him in the final. Better than what Djokovic could do in the semi (0 sets).
But yes, in general indoor hard isn't a surface that suits Nadal well at all. He has never beaten Federer in the 4 matches they have played on indoor hard (a complete contrast to Nadal's winning H2H on outdoor hard).

If AO was played on indoor hard, do you think Nadal would have won it?

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

Well Nadal got a set against him in the final. Better than what Djokovic could do in the semi (0 sets).
But yes, in general indoor hard isn't a surface that suits Nadal well at all. He has never beaten Federer in the 4 matches they have played on indoor hard (a complete contrast to Nadal's winning H2H on outdoor hard).

If AO was played on indoor hard, do you think Nadal would have won it?

The bounce normally is quite low on indoor hard, so probably not.
Mind you in BO5, he's probably have a good chance of getting to the latter stages, but then he'd have to be very lucky, or his main rivals would have all had to been upset (very unlikely).

Conversely if AO was played on clay, rather than HC (USO is already HC ) then Nadal could have picked up 7-8 AO titles.

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

Well Nadal got a set against him in the final. Better than what Djokovic could do in the semi (0 sets).
But yes, in general indoor hard isn't a surface that suits Nadal well at all. He has never beaten Federer in the 4 matches they have played on indoor hard (a complete contrast to Nadal's winning H2H on outdoor hard).

If AO was played on indoor hard, do you think Nadal would have won it?

The bounce normally is quite low on indoor hard, so probably not.
Mind you in BO5, he's probably have a good chance of getting to the latter stages, but then he'd have to be very lucky, or his main rivals would have all had to been upset (very unlikely).

Why does he have such trouble with low bounce?

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:The autumn season is played on indoor hard.
This is his weakest surface, for many reasons, mainly that the ball bounce is very low.

In 2009 WTF, he lost every single match he played indoors. A week later he crushed Tomas Berdych on clay for the loss of 7 games in 3 sets. (Also won his other fixture comfortably without dropping a set- on clay).

In 2011 WTF he lost every match he played bar one, one of those losses was a crushing by Roger Federer, who went on to win the tournament. This was on indoor hard. A week later he crushed Juan Monaco with the loss of just 4 games on clay. He also went on to beat Del Potro in 4 sets.

He had no trouble reaching the WTF final in 2010. Fed crushed him, though.

Well Nadal got a set against him in the final. Better than what Djokovic could do in the semi (0 sets).
But yes, in general indoor hard isn't a surface that suits Nadal well at all. He has never beaten Federer in the 4 matches they have played on indoor hard (a complete contrast to Nadal's winning H2H on outdoor hard).

If AO was played on indoor hard, do you think Nadal would have won it?

The bounce normally is quite low on indoor hard, so probably not.
Mind you in BO5, he's probably have a good chance of getting to the latter stages, but then he'd have to be very lucky, or his main rivals would have all had to been upset (very unlikely).

Why does he have such trouble with low bounce?

Long story
Perhaps you can create another thread on this, wouldn't want to head too off topic would we

A good day of tennis at both tournaments today.

In Tokyo:
Murray def Karlovic (I don't know how he ended up playing Karlovic, OOP showed Monfils)
Also through:
Chardy, Chiudinelli (bt in-form Klilzan), raonic (bt Stepanek in straights.
Surprise win from the local boy Ito who defeated Almagro in two tie-breaks.
Tursunov bt tomic, Bahgdatis bt Strakhovski, Nishikori wins local battle by knocking out Soeda, Robredo bt Nieminen and Falla bt Bellucci

In China,
Djokovic labours past Berrer in 3
Melzer bt Andujar,
Gasquet bt Ebden, Youzhny bt Haas in 3, Davydenko bt Bogomolov, Tsonga squeezes past Istomin in 3rd set tie-break, Seppi bt Bennereau (retired), Lopez b Harrison and Ferrer, the king of grind gives up the ghost and retires against his grind-king successor Lu.


I managed to see only a small part of Nole Berrer match as it was quite frustrating, due to Novak being quite rusty form.
I enjoyed the tie-break in which Berrer played some fantastic tennis and really took it to Nole at the net.
I couldn't believe my eyes I was seeing someone winning by classic S&V, in fact.
Nole sorted himself fast and closed the match with ease, finding his groove.

Monfils withdrew due to injury, Karlovic was LL.

Djokovic was very rusty, he'll take a few days to get back to normal.

Tomorrow some nice matches:

Tokyo:
Dimitrov vs Monaco
Tipsarevic vs Simon
Chardy vs Wawrinka
Murray vs Lacko

In Beijing:
Djokovic vs Berlocq
Melzer vs Dolgopolov
Copil (the new Rosol) vs F. Mayer

In Tokyo, Monaco routs Dimitrov, and Tipsarevic gets his revenge on Simon in 3.
Wawrinka squeezes past Chardy in 3 very tight sets.
Murray Lacko about to start.

In Beijing a see-saw match between Melzer and Dolgopolov. Melzer through in 3.

Murray demolishes Lacko 6:1 6:2.

Thanks for the updates NITB

Stupid outdated IE7 I have at work!! Like the dark ages!!

legendkillar wrote:Thanks for the updates NITB

Stupid outdated IE7 I have at work!! Like the dark ages!!

no probs

Nole time 4:1 already. Rust seems to have disappeared pretty quickly.

I must say I am impressed with China Open, they may be a new tennis nation and trying to buy their way into it, but at least they are doing their best:unlike USO who use Z-list umpires paying them $100 a day, Beijing have lashed out on Layani & co.

Nole takes the firs set 6:1. Poor Berlocq looks like a WTA sparring partner in this match.

It's interesting to observe how Berlocq would rather utterly hopelessly rally from the baseline and lose every time, rather than try and go forward.
As if you lose face more if you get passed at the net than net a ball from the base-line.
Another example of lack of guts.

Wow! What a volley from Nole: feather soft and as he was rotating in a pirouette , not joking!

Layani loving his star status in Beijing, being more showmanlike than ever

Berlocq is awful. Watched him against Berdych in the DC and he was dreadful. Couldn't muster a fight despite favouring conditions.

legendkillar wrote:Berlocq is awful. Watched him against Berdych in the DC and he was dreadful. Couldn't muster a fight despite favouring conditions.

And not just awful but thick too. After a foot long out, he goes and argues the point with Layani. Not using Hawkeye.
Layani sporting a Tin-Tin haircut.

Nole pressure-free playing some lovely tennis.

Murray is the thickest when it comes to Hawkeye. Can never get one right!!

Nole makes a right hash of closing the match, eventually getting the job done at 6:3.

In Tokyo tomorrow:

Tipsarevic-Chiudinelli
Falla-Berdych
Baghdatis-Monaco
Nishikori-Robredo
Ito-Tursunov
Troicki-Raonic

In Beijing:

Zhang-Gasquet
Lopez-Lu
Youzhny-Anderson
Querrey-Seppi

In Beijing so far, Youzhny beats Anderson in straights and Gasquet a set down and a break up against Zheng.

In Tokyo, Troicki retires agains Raonic after three games, Berd finishes off Falla in straights, Baghdatis beats Monaco in 3, Boredo Nishikori about to start.

Wow! this Zheng guy wearing cap back to front, big earring in each ear, thick chain around his neck.....haven't times changed
Tennis wise, big serve and lots of power behind the ground strokes.
Gasquet serving for the second set, third should be interesting.

I take it noone is watching the match.....Zheng breaks back in the third 2 all. Crowd behind him big time, even DURING the points

If it's of any worth mentioning , Zheng sweating like crazy
Gasquet bone dry.

Gasquet's downfall will be his passive play. He needs to discipline himself when to relax and when not in a match.
Mind you, he did start the third with a break, so you can't blame him for taking a breather, still....
He is now having to chase the score by serving from behind and Zheng all fired up being far more than a basher.

He should win this match, but I wouldn't be surprised if he manages to stuff it up either.

Zhang playing really well for someone who apparently only played 20 ATP matches and managed to win 5 of those.
Richie serving to stay in the match.

c'mon Richie, we want to see you at the WTF!

And Zheng earns his first match point

And he takes it with some titanium shots!!!
Oh Richie.....

Watching highlights of Youzhny Anderson, Dr Misha's backhand seems to be on fire, will be worth watching him tomorrow!
He is playing the winner of Davydenko Tsonga, whose match strangely I am not able to see in today's schedule