On a day of mixed results in Hamburg, Nikolay Davydenko has continued to work his way back into form after being off the tour for some weeks with a fractured wrist. Nikolay, the defending champion, needed just 58 minutes to defeat Florent Serra in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.
Juan Carlos Ferrero also secured a straight sets win in his match over Jan Hajek after recovering from a early service break in the first set. Ferrero will have to play Jarkko Nieminen in the next round. Read more
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Novak Djokovic has moved through to the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters defeating Florent Serra 6-2, 6-3. Djokovic played a few sloppy games throughout the match but was still too strong for Serra. Djokovic, back to his old service motion, was more effective on serve than he has been recently.
Nvak looked fairly sharp in the first set but stumbled after getting an early break in the second. When serving to go ahead 3-0 in the second Djokovic played a horrendous service game and proceeded to display some fairly negative body language for about 2 games before pulling it together, losing the rust, and getting the job done on serve.
Novak’s served 62% of first serves in with 4 double faults. Under pressure his serve was a little shaky but generally he looked to be moving in the right direction after a disasterous showing in Miami. He certainly doesn’t look as sharp as he did this time last year but I’m sure he’ll pick up some speed.
Todd Martin today spoke of his separation from Djokovic’s team of coach saying , “My time with Novak was interesting and constructive. Our work together was successful based on his progress in achieving a career high ranking of No. 2. I was committed to a process to help Novak reach his potential, but in the end we had different thoughts on that process and how to achieve this goal. I appreciate the opportunity that was given to me and wish Novak success moving forward.”
Posted in Florent Serra, Monte Carlo, Novak Djokovic, Todd Martin
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Today Federer defeated Florent Serra today in two tie break sets. It should have been an easy victory for the world number one but instead his quality of play fluctuated, with him finally pulling it together in the tie break. Federer had a break and was serving for the first set at 5-3 when Serra broke him and got back, getting back into the the match and forcing a tie break. Again in the second set Federer was leading 4-1 before being broken. He was then broken again when he was serving for the match at 5-4.
It wasn’t his finest performance but, as Fed often doesn’t, he did just enough to win, stepping it up when he needed to.
“Sure, I still have to tidy up my game a bit, having had one break up in the first and two breaks up in the second; it’s normally something that doesn’t get away from me. But I thought he came up with some good stuff, and that made it difficult for me to close it out… I don’t think I gave it to him. I think he went to get it, which is a big difference. The most important (thing) is to come through the rounds. So I don’t have a preference how it’s done. I always like to come out with confidence, that’s for sure. So it’s nice to having won two breakers, because that doesn’t happen every match you play.”
Federer will now play Tomas Berdych. Hopefully Berdych wont choke again like he did at the Australian Open 2009.
Posted in Florent Serra, Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych
