Arsenal and Chelsea (and everyone should watch men's tennis!)

This weekend I was never home and my sporting viewing experience suffered somewhat because of it.
Some things that could have been watched on tv had to be watched online and some things that was watched online could have been watched in better quality!
Oh well it wasn't that bad but a nice reminder of why as a devoted sports addict I should always try and stay at home even moreso than I do already!

Between lots of football, Usain Bolt's insane running and a relative unknown Korean besting Tiger Woods one on one in a major golf championship, what I enjoyed the most this weekend was probably the tennis from the Montreal Masters.
Various players are just playing great tennis at an exceptional high level right now and watching them battle throughout this whole week was great.
Murray, Tsonga, Roddick and Del Potro were all awesome and Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Wawrinka and Verdasco not far behind.
It was just one great match after another and that it set a very deserved crowd record for this particular tournament is a good sign I think.
Men's tennis is where it's at right now and if people can stay injury free, the U.S Open should be spectacular.

On to the football and once again Ancelotti and Chelsea in what was somewhat of a deja vu, even if the opponent Hull, was far from the quality of their Charity Shield one.
Again things started of slow with too much short passing going through Mikel resulting in nothing positive except for Hull that is.
I do think Mikel is a good player who when the first few times I saw him thought would become an excellent one. Of that I'm not so sure anymore. But he is very strong and can do the simple things and play an effective holding midfielder role.
What he just isn't though is any kind of effective distributor in what is clearly meant to be an attacking possession game. He won't make that very good pass to people making runs in front of him and won't make a quick first touch pass to a Bosingwa coming forward. Or be part of a nice one-two or triangle with his colleagues in the diamond.

That was his role however so he did look to do those things but the result was turnovers and/or momentum for Hull. He was never comfortable and either took too long on the ball, lost it or both.
Resulting in 1-0 for Hull and Mikel getting substituted at halftime.

Following that Chelsea then naturally improved forward. Like in the Charity Shield game play became more direct and while Drogba was beasting upfront the likes of Malouda, Lampard and Anelka were making effective runs around him.
But overall it's kinda hard to be positive about this because the chances that Hull in the first half was getting because of poor Chelsea possession they were now getting because Chelsea's team defending wasn't very effective. While the diamond now certainly was able to attack well it wasn't able to defend very good and like in the Charity Shield game it looks vulnerable to width and there is just a general imbalance to the Chelsea defending. Something that's been rare for many years now with this team build by Mourinho.

So will Ancelotti next week just scrap the "Mikel "playmaker" experiment" and settle for the powerful direct attack that the diamond at least including Ballack can produce. Even with its defensive vulnerabilities or does he skip this raw diamond altogether and try something more Chelsea proven?

Based on his comments focusing quite a lot on complimenting the 2nd half direct play, I'm guessing the first one and that will be enough to beat a lot of teams. Actually, potentially all teams. That's how good these players are but over time unless the balance improves I don't see this team reaching the level it did playing basically optimal under Hiddink and again, like I wrote last week, it could mean a great opportunity for a league title lost.

And it's still very early days of course. Lots of things can happen and I'm sure they will.

For Arsenal however everything pretty much did happen. And all of it positive. Slaughtering a normaly very solid Everton team away is a great result.
Tactically the big news has been that Arsene Wenger is dumping the 4-4-2 in favour of a more flexible 4-3-3.
In retrospect this should probably already have happened a season ago but afterall the 4-4-2 has brought him and the club a lot of success and at least in theory should be a system where the not so good defensive Arsenal players will have a better chance of handling themselves.

"No other formation is as efficient in covering space" is one of Wenger's quotes but with the right players of course any non 4-4-2 system can be turned into one when defending.
Does Arsenal have the players to do this consistently right now?
I would say no but they definitely have a lot of players a lot better in 4-3-3 like systems than in a 4-4-2.
Their young talented central midfielders, Denilson, Song, Diaby or for that matter, world class for years now, Fabregas haven't really been able to handle themselves well enough defensively in a 4-4-2 central midfield. And on the wings neither have players like Nasri, Walcott, Van Persie, Arsharvin or Rosicky. They're just not good enough physically.
Not good enough without the ball. At least not when you're considering at least 3 rivals to the title are among the very strongest teams in the world.
The biggest counter against that without the ball weakness has of course been to keep the ball an overwhelming majority of the time. With Fabregas they have one of only a handfull of uniquely taltented players who can take a possession game to a high enough level to consistently win against tough competition.

Especially with Adebayor now gone there just isn't much justification left to try and achieve that in a 4-4-2.
All the versatile wide players would be better in three-forward lines and all the central type of midfielders much more effective with two players with them instead of just one.
One main strenght genereally of all the Arsenal players right now is also great movement.
Moving a lot both attacking-wise and defensively.
Not being solid defensive strongholds battling their zone in a 4-4-2, but they should at least be able to cover ground and perhaps, and I'm guessing this is Wenger's secret hope, be able to emulate the ball pressure that Barcelona does in their similar system immediatly after possession is over.
Not always winning the ball. That's a bonus! But at least doing enough to prevent an effective counter attack from the opponent.
Something Barcelona was very vulnerable to in Rijkaard's final season yet amazingly largely eliminated under Guardiola.
So while Arsenal's team defending still likely won't be great there is at least hope for improvement. More than in a 4-4-2 arguably,
And some successfull ball pressure and one or two of the wide forwards consistently making it back to defend a wing, could do wonders.

One of those wide forwards looks like it will be everyone's favorite player (to hate!) Nicklas Bendtner!
Even if I'm possibly one of the least patriotic people in the world I could be accused of being biased as a dane when it comes to definitely not hating Bendtner.
Instead it's quite the opposite and I think he is an extremely talented player who has that size/ability combination that can be of such great value to a team.
I'm not saying that particular combination is on the Zlatan Ibrahimovic scale but for a big strong guy Bendtner does have good technique and does have good movement.
If he didn't he could never try and play this position we're seein him in now in the first place.
Certainly a great coach like Wenger would never put him there.
Still common sense would suggest it should be the other way around between Van Persie, playing center forward and Bendtner a right-forward role.
From watching the game it wasn't even my impression that they switched around all that much.
Something I had expected when first hearing about this.

One factor is that Van Persie has improved as a striker. He has started to do these striker kind of things like more actively seeking the run in between the defenders.
And while I think that Bendtner arguably is more effective in the box itself, Van Persie certainly is still better complementing a Fabregas or Asharvin coming from behind.
He is also needless to say more reliable when it comes to the actual business of putting good scoring chances away.
It's pretty banal but has a nice logic to it: It's better for Van Persie to get most of the final touches on the very good chances our great attack creates than it is Bendtner.

But make no mistake about it. This is about Bendtner's strenghts too. While he moves well enough with the ball to not exactly be an easy matchup for most fullbacks, his strenght and size advantage over I would think almost all of them, makes him a really tough matchup and it definitely created a lot of trouble for Everton dealing with it.
Playing the deeper higher ball to somewhere with a mismatch to their advantage was a very nice addition to the Arsenal arsenal and the results were great.
In the beginning he quite easily won headers resulting in dangerous situations and when Everton consequently later felt forced to foul him, the dead ball and huge defensive fail, resulted in goals.

Of the Liverpool-Tottenham and United-Birmingham games I really only watched parts and in less than desired quality but I may post some about them later.

I did watch all of Manchester City-Blackburn but forgot to write anything about it! Mainly thoughts on City.

So actually I'm pretty sure I'll do somekind of other football entry in one of the next few days so stay tuned.

After the Wimbledon final

It was yet another epic Wimbledon final and Andy Roddick was closer than ever to victory.

He started of by serving great and apart from little dips in first serve percentage here and there he managed to do so throughout.
And even when his first serve percentage at times dropped he still survived and despite putting him to the test numerous times Federer just was not able to break.

Just tremendous credit to Roddick for holding his own.

But of course he did much more than that. In the first set he hardly made any errors. Something highly unusual against Federer but it was in some ways similar to what he did so well in his win over Murray.
He was just moving better and was in great position for his shots the majority of the time.

Again something he has really struggled with in the past against Federer.
This was something that made even his backhand a very effective shot in this match, despite Federer, like Murray in the last round, again and again putting it to the test.

I've seen and heard some commentators at least flirting with criticizing Federer for playing too defensive. Not taking enough chances.
Suggesting that was the deciding factor in making the match as close as it was.

I think that's too easy.

Federer over a 20 match sample size was 18-2 against Roddick.
Why would he change a gameplan that's enabled him to dominate this opponent, a world class opponent, to such an overwhelming extent?

Again and again in their meetings Federer has blocked the Roddick serve and then patiently moved him around the court "waiting" for either an opening to hit a high percentage winner of his own (he still hit many more than any non aggressive player would) or Roddick not being able to hang with him so to speak, sooner or later commiting the error.

Roddick (and Stefanki) deserves all the credit in the world for with better movement preventing those openings and making fewer errors.

With another almost absurd high first serve percentage, if I remember correctly consistently +75 percent in the first two sets, and that newly found very solid all-court game, Roddick edged out the first set and incredibly then found himself in excellent position in the second set tiebreak to go up two sets to love!

He was leading 6-2!

This wasn't just Ivanisevic with a couple of set points to go up two sets to love against Sampras in 1998, it was four mini matchpoints against the best player ever, who pretty much every single time they'd played had owned his very soul!

Safe to say I think, a real once in a lifetime opportunity, and what of course happened?

He blew it!

Too harsh? I'm not sure.
This is what happend and I've included a video so judge for yourself:

Federer started by hitting one of his trademark improbable right off the bounce impossibly angled backhand winners.

And in retrospect I think that was the first body blow, because I'm sure, even if just for one short second in that rally, Roddick could actually taste victory, only to have it instantly taken away from him with the kind of play that in the past again and again had left him totally defenseless.

Doubts MUST have crept in there.

Predictably Federer followed that up with two effective serves and suddenly it was 6-5 and suddenly the pressure was intense. As well as probably even more doubts creeping in!

Next his attempt at a first serve was almost as close to the backline as it was being being in...

Federer's second serve return was short, Roddick then makes a great decision running around and hitting an excellent approach forehand deep into Federer territory.

He is at the net plenty in time to deal with whatever Fed can come up with.
There is not much angle for an effective passing shot, so Federer just hits it really hard.
It's a bit high. Maybe mistimed?
But definitely a makeable backhand volley for Roddick. If not for a winner. Then certainly something in! But he completely fails to control it and it sails out...

6-6 and as if there were ever any doubt whatsoever Federer grabs momentum, quickly closes things out and wins it 8-6.

The video is decent/not great quality but there are such highlights as Becker's OMG at around 7.37 as well as a little later, not for the last time in this match when cameras were zooming in, money exchanging hands between Borg and Nastase up there in the royal box. Degenerates clearly!

Huge credit to Federer for never giving in, he wouldn't the whole match, and credit for Nastase for betting Federer would still go on to win the set!



But again probably most credit once again to Roddick for taking this huge blow square faced on the chin and refusing to get knocked out like most would after seeing an astronomical chance like that go down the drain.

That really set the tone for all the epicness that would follow and thank you very much Andy Roddick for that!

I also hope as I'm writing this that unlike Ivanisevic following 1998 he isn't on suicide watch.
I know I would be, but with Roddick's personality and of course wife Brooklyn Decker

I wouldn't be suprised if he sooner than most people is back to enjoying life!

I'm also calling it, right here right now, that he in fact will do "a Ivanisevic" and come back and win Wimbledon, very unexpected, probably from a low rank, maybe even as a wild card, say in... THREE YEARS!

You heard it here first.

The rest of the match basically was a huge battle.
Federer served well enough, with Roddick's returns still being below average enough, to win the majority of his service games comfortably.
As well as serving up an impressive 50 aces along the way to Roddick's only 27.

But Roddick played well enough. Served a high percentage enough. Very needed because despite popular opinion, Federer WAS more effective on the Roddick serve than Roddick was on his.
To just keep hanging on and time again time again come up with the goods when most needed.

Federer just could not break him while Roddick, the one time really where Federer's own first serve percentage dropped, took advantage, broke his serve and held on to take the fourth.

The fifth needless to say was just an epic battle.

It's hard to say this was a better final than last year where overall quality was absurd but this on the other hand was a classic old school grass court battle in many ways boiling down to serving and returning.
The kind that's more rare these days and to have it in a final and to have it reach this level... On Wimbledon it just doesn't get any better than that.

In the end of course it was Federer who came out on top.

Whether it was Roddick finally tiring. His movement was off in that final game, not getting in the usual great position for his shots.
Or to what extent it was whatever added pressure of having to serve not to lose time and time again, or if it simply was the, for a while somewhat inevitable, catching up to him, of Federer simply winning his service games very comfotably in the fifth, putting on a superb serving clinic, while Roddick moreso really had to dig deep in order to survive.

And at an unbelievable 15-14 in the fifth there would be no more surviving and the greatest animal of them all would win his 15th grand slam title

breaking Pete Sampras grandslam record.

Sampras like he had promised Federer was indeed present, for the first time actually at Wimbledon since his playing days.
Unfortunately for whatever reason it wasn't him presenting the trophy.
Maybe at Wimbledon it just HAS to be the Duke or something...

I'm sure had it been at the US Open it would indeed have been Sampras handing it directly to Federer, and that really would have been a great moment, but at least, he was there, which was in itself great and also resulted in nice photos such as this one, of probably the four greatest tennis players ever together:



That's also a pretty nice finish on this blog to this years verson of Wimbledon which I think was absolutely great.

Not sure exactly when again there will be tennis on here?
I don't really follow the ATP tour that closely anymore but I'm definitely looking forward to the US Open already, and I can't rule out watching, and maybe blogging about, some of the Master tournaments that takes places before that.

Before the Wimbledon final: Goran, Roddick, lots of rambling!

One of my all time favorite moments in sport was Goran Ivanisevic's amazing Wimbledon victory in 2001.


It was his fourth final and at least twice he had been desperately close.

In 1992 where he beat both Edberg and Sampras along the way, he succumbed in a very close 5 setter to Andre Agassi in the final.

With his huge serve and a game seemingly made for this era's game on grass I think most people thought that him winning Wimbledon was only a matter of time. Including probably himself.

In the following years at Wimbledon Ivanisevic did everything from badly underperforming to being the best player on grass not named Pete Sampras.

He was erratic but of course never boring and he was someone you always wanted to watch just to see what would happen.
From probably the most explosive serves ever, his all or nothing service returns, to his epic temper tantrums.

Most famously in a match against Hyung-Taik Lee where he smashed every racket in his bag and as a result had to default!

At that low-point he had slipped far down the rankings and the time where people seriously thought him winning Wimbledon was only a matter of time was far gone.

He was now seen as someone who had missed his chances.

In the 1994 final against Sampras he dropped the first two sets in tiebreaks, then fell completely apart and was humiliated 6-0 in the third.
At this point it was definitely becoming clear who the mentally stronger player was and it wasn't Goran.

Next year Sampras again was the nemesis edging out Goran in the semis in what was a great five set match.

In 1996, the year of the upsets, with both Becker and Agassi going out early and even Sampras losing in the quarters, he could maybe have had a great chance but was upset too, by Jason Stoltenberg of all people, also in the quarters.

Instead it was Richard Krajicek who brilliantly (especially when blowing out Sampras) grabbed the chance and with his powerful grass game beat Malivai Washington, of all people, in the final to win his only grand slam title.

A final probably best remembered for this moment:


The following year once more it was far less happy times for Ivanisivic.

He had been playing great and collecting ATP titles consistently for a while now.
Was the 2nd seed coming in, that was his highest ever, only to be knocked out already in the 2nd round, in an epic match against Magnus Norman. Losing 14-12 in the fifth!

By 1998 he was starting to slip down the rankings.
Wimbledon really seemed to be the only thing he truly cared about at this point, and from the 14th seed spot this time, he was able to reach yet another final.
His 15-13 five set win over Krajicek in the semis was extraordinary and this must have seemed like destiny to Goran.

Against Sampras (who else) in the final he started well and took the first set.
The second was very close and in the tiebreak Ivanisevic had a couple of set points to go up two sets to none.
Sampras being Sampras of course came back and took it 11-9 and eventually the whole match in five, for his, at that point, fifth Wimbledon title.

I remember feeling pretty bad for Ivanisevic after the match.
This was also the period were I was still always rooting against Sampras. Later there would be a dramatic turnaround. And I wasn't sure if I'd ever seen anyone so devastated following a tennis match.
He really looked like someone on suicide watch and I guess this old SI article, I found just now, from back then confirms it:

Ivanisevic, who possesses both a quick wit and a quick temper, was neither funny nor mad afterward.

He was devastated.

"It feels bad," the 6-foot-4 Croatian said. "I cannot describe it. It's the worst moment in my life.

"I've had some bad moments, you know, when you are sick or when somebody dies, but for me this is the worst thing ever. Nobody died yet, but it's tough."

Even the mention of Croatia's World Cup victory Saturday over Germany failed to brighten his mood.

"I cannot cheer anybody now," he said. "I can only kill myself."

OUCH.

It was probably at this point actually that I started seriously rooting for Ivanisevic but in the following years he kept slipping and was almost constantly struggling with finding form or with various nagging injuries.

What then happened at Wimbledon 2001 is of course legendary.
He needed a wild card to even play and when he ended up winning he was the first wild card entry to ever do so.

Generally my impression of him that year was that he wasn't the player he used to be.

His movement clearly was worse which of course is huge, but the touch was there and of course that incredible serve.
And I don't know if it's even correct but I remember my thinking at the time was that he was also going for his 2nd serve a lot more than he had in the past.
Out of need almost.
Recognizing that other parts of his game weren't what they used to be and now he had to maximize his one dominating strenght. The serve.
At times he was serving two first serves!
That's how I remember it anyway.

He beat both Roddick and Safin along the way. I don't really remember that much from those matches other than him serving incredible and coming up with those powerful service returns, just enough times in order to win.

The semi-final against Henman is of course now remembered as Henman's big lost opportunity and how rain interrupted when it seemed Henman had turned a very back and forth match into his favour.
Their shared nemesis now 7 time champion Sampras had of course already been knocked out by future Wimbledon ruler Roger Federer, who had then lost to Henman in the quarters.
So this was no doubt both men's golden opportunity and tremendous credit to Ivanisevic for being the one to take it, come back when the match once again was restarted, play great and turn everything around.

This time it definitely felt like destiny.

From another article from back then:

Goran Ivanisevic has crushed Tim Henman's dream of a place in the Wimbledon final by battling back from two sets to one down to win in five sets.

Henman had appeared on the brink of the final on Friday when he came from a set down to lead with some dazzling tennis.

But the rain delays which caused the semi-final to be played over the course of three days broke Henman's rhythm and worked to Ivanisevic's advantage.

After his win, Ivanisevic said: "This is destiny.

"God wanted me to win this game - he sent the rains."

And it was Ivanisevic's patience which was rewarded as he secured a fairytale fourth Wimbledon final appearance.

"I don't want to lose again - that would kill me," said Ivanisevic.

"Tomorrow's the biggest day of my life, I don't want to get that plate for a fourth time."

Asked about his opponent in the final, the Croat said: "He's a great friend and a great player - it's going to be tough."

I actually caught a replay of the final the other day and predictably ended up sitting through the whole thing and it was still very intense as well as still very moving in the end.

Both before he won, when he was struggling so immensely with his emotions and how much this meant to him clearly was there for all the world to see, as well as the pure joy in the end when he finally had done the seemingly impossible and achieved his lifelong dream.

The last game alone was incredible drama and throughout really, helped by the best atmosphere ever, cause it was monday and everyone could get tickets, the match was so close and so back and forth that you were nonstop at the edge of your seat.

After Goran, Rafter was probably the player I most wanted to see win Wimbledon and he was severely missed when he reitred, but for this one I was solely on the Ivanisevic side of things and him ending all the suffering and doing it from the most unlikely stage, rock bottom, of his career was just too great of a story not to root for.




Enter Andy Roddick:



Now I'm not saying it's the same. The stories are very different.

But even though I love Federer and I think he is the best ever, tomorrow I'll be rooting for the great upset. The "better" story.

Roddick has never been down and out like Ivanisevic was. He already has a major, even if that win seems like forever ago at this point.
But like I talked about in the Roddick-Murray post a few days ago, he is certainly someone who has been counted out. He has been much maligned and made fun of.
Been called the worst good player and stuff like that.
He will also probably, if he doesn't win another grand slam, be seen as a great underachiever.
Yet with him being surpassed by other more talented players in recent years, no one expected him to even reach finals anymore.

With his 2 wins out of 20 record against the best player ever, he will be a monumental underdog but he will also be the greater story and to win would without a doubt mean the the world to him.

Federer he just confirmed his all time greatness by winning the French.
He doesn't NEED this. If anything he needs to beat Nadal at Wimbledon not poor Roddick one more time!

He very likely will of course, and I'll be left with some degree of disappointment.

What would help that though would be, and the rumours are flying, if Sampras shows up and presents Federer the trophy.
Actually him showing up and then ending up presenting it to Roddick wouldn't be too bad of a moment either...

But he has said in the past that he would like to be there whenever Federer would break his record, and THAT would certainly be a great moment.



Even greater than that!