Talking Point: Petchey's punts

tennishead sat down with Sky Sports pundit Mark Petchey hours before he jets off to New York ahead of the US Open, which starts on August 31.

The former British No.1, ambassador for the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals being held at London’s O2 Arena from November 22-29, talked predictions, tactics, training, and rugrats as he gave us his view of the men’s draw at the year’s last major.

tennishead: Federer, Nadal, Murray and Djokovic reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati last week – do you expect them to be at the sharp end in New York, and who else should we be looking out for?

Mark Petchey: The most likely scenario right now is that the four of them will get through, that’s why they are there at the moment and have been there consistently.

I think Roger’s set the benchmark once again going into the Open, showing just how good he is when he’s playing well. I think Rafa made some nice moves as well to show everybody that he’ll be hitting the ground running in New York.

After that, you’ve got the likes of Juan Martin del Potro and Andy Roddick, who have both got the potential to cause a few upsets along the way.

Then you’ve got a third tier, a whole group of players that could suddenly spring a few surprises. Fernando Verdasco had a disappointing time in Cincinnati, but I think that he’s proven often already this year that he’s ready to make another run at a big tournament. Then you’ve got Fernando Gonzalez, who’s obviously got a big game and a big personality, which you need – can’t rule him out. Marin Cilic has had a rough summer, but I still feel that he’s somebody on the up, and if it all clicks for him then he’s another one who is going to be dangerous. Then there’s Robin Soderling – perhaps last week was a bit too early after his elbow injury, but again he’s somebody that I wouldn’t totally discount potentially being around.

th: Who would you feel will be happiest with their preparation ahead of the Open?

MP: At the end of the day it comes back to winning, and winning in a way that you feel comfortable you’re dictating the match and the outcome – and I think that Federer will probably look at it and say “I feel the best.”

He said he practiced hard while his wife was giving birth to the twins and obviously that’s been a bit of a change – though to be honest, maybe the change will only come a year down the road once the twins start moving and become a bit more of a hassle!

At the moment it seems like everything’s working perfectly, and physically he looked great in Cincinnati as well. The manner in which he won Cincinnati means he’ll be feeling the most confident going into it.

But I think Andy Murray’s also had a tremendous build-up – he’s done a lot of good work in Miami. Over five sets, you’ve got to feel that if it goes the distance he’ll be able to match whoever he’s playing on the day, ands given his style of play that’s obviously a key factor.

I think those guys will be very happy.

But don’t discount Djokovic – he showed how well he can play against Nadal, and has had another solid season. He may not have hit the heights in the majors that he would like to have done this year, but there’s one left. I’m sure, going into the US Open, that he’s got extra motivation to make a point to everybody.

th: Is Nadal in the mix, or do you think it is a Grand Slam too soon?

MP: No I don’t – I was very impressed with how he played in Cincinnati against Berdych, I thought that was the best match that he’d played since coming back. Whether coming back from injury or not, Berdych is going to be a tough match-up for him at times, but I think the manner in which he dispatched Berdych was very impressive.

He’ll work his way into the draw, and probably won’t be massively impressive early on – though I think he’d like to play well early for his own peace of mind, to know that that tennis is there. He’s too good to go out early, unless it’s a big-serving John Isner or somebody that maybe throws one in there to upset the apple-cart a bit.

Physically he looked good in Cincinnati – I didn’t think his knees were giving him any problems, he was moving great, and came up with a few of his trademark passing shots on the run out wide. To do it in practice is one thing but to reintroduce it to the matches is something he’ll have been pretty satisfied with when he left.

I think if he gets through the first seven days in New York we’ll be seeing Rafa playing somewhere near his best.

th: Have you seen evidence of a change in approach from Rafa since his injury break?

MP: I think it’s been an ongoing process for him. I mean, he’s not suddenly going to become an out-and-out serve and volleyer but I think he will come in more.

His slice backhand has improved a lot, on his forehand he’s trying to get himself as close to the baseline as he can, and he’s certainly flattened out his backhand a lot since he came onto the tour.

But to go completely away from what’s made him so successful would be a pretty foolish policy. He is who he is because he’s incredibly tough to beat, and coming in against him is difficult – he likes people coming in, he likes having a target. For him to suddenly change that entirely would make him a less effective player.

He’s just got to manage his schedule well, not play too much, and then the training side of things becomes of paramount importance. Trying to get as much out of his career, that’s the challenge facing the team around him, to make sure that he’s being smart off the court as well as on.

th: On the subject of scheduling: we don’t see as much burn-out in a major as we do during two back-to-back events – take del Potro’s absence in Cincinnati, or the sounds from the Murray camp that he would be conserving energy following eight wins, rather than chasing a consecutive Masters title. Is that something the tour still needs to address?

MP: This period in the States is the only time that we have back-to-back Masters Series – between Indian Wells and Miami you have a break in between so it’s not strictly back-to-back. The tour is well aware of the issues of back-to-back tournaments.

The problem arises because the top European players don’t want to go over a week earlier, and then have to spend a week off waiting for the next one. That’s something the tour can’t do anything about. The overwhelming majority of players wanted it to stay as it was, and the organisers have done everything in their power to make it happen – they have a draw with a bye for the top players, so they go play.

There is an intensity there. At the majors you get a day off between matches, so there’s not quite the intensity of knowing that every day you’ve got to play a match, and it’s brutally hot – Cincinnati in particular.

It’s a difficult balancing act for everybody, and players never know how they’re going to do. Not everybody is one of the top four players and know that they’re going to play four matches in a week. So you enter a warm-up tournament in Washington because you want to get a feel for the surface, and before you know it you’ve had an incredibly successful time and suddenly you are a little bit fatigued.

It’s the nature of the beast, and there is no perfect scenario for everybody.

th: What are your thoughts on Andy Murray – a former protégé of yours. Is he reaching his potential, or do you still see areas for improvement?

MP: I still think there are areas in his game that he’ll be trying to improve. His development has been pretty much as I thought it would be.

It was always going to take time. It’s easy from the outside looking in, but Andy went through a very serious knee injury for nine months that almost stopped him from playing the game that he loved. When you’ve seen that and been around that then you know how crucial it was for him to manage his career in a way that he felt was going to get him to the top.

He was impatient to get up there rankings-wise, but physically he was very patient, biding his time to make sure that everything was done in the way that was going to maximise his time on the tour, and I think we’ve seen that come to fruition since Wimbledon last year.

It’s a combination of things – the experience that he had against Gasquet on Centre Court, coming back from two sets to love down, then the not-so-nice experience of getting beaten by Rafa in the next round pretty convincingly made him realise that certain things had to change.

And he’s done it. The extra strength that he’s built into his legs has helped his serve – one of the by-products of the training that he’s done, and we’ve seen great evidence of that over the past six months.

All you can do is keep putting yourself in the position of contender for the tournament coming up, and ahead of the US Open he’s probably joint-second-favourite with Rafa to win it. From that point of view, things are good.

th: Are there areas of his game that he could improve? There are many people out there who believe he has no weaknesses.

MP: He doesn’t have any weaknesses – that’s why he’s so consistent. If you’ve got weaknesses you don’t produce the sort of results that Andy does. That’s the same with all the great players – they don’t have early-round losses because the lower-ranked players just don’t have the tennis to beat them on their bad days.

I still feel that his second serve at times could be better – it’s not a technical issue, it’s just what he wants to do with it. Against some players, when they’re hot, it gives them an opportunity to have a swing, and on those days you need to be able to keep them quiet on their return.

He’s an outstanding volleyer, one of the best on tour if not the best – although Federer was pretty impressive in Cincinnati. He could serve and volley a little bit more, just to make himself even more difficult to read.

They’re the two areas where he’s still got room to improve.

th: Andy says the US Open is his favourite event, and obviously he won’t be under the same sort of media scrutiny in New York as he was at Wimbledon. Will that have any bearing on the tournament?

MP: I don’t think it will have any impact. I don’t think the hype affected his performance at Wimbledon adversely – Tim [Henman] dealt with it incredibly well, and actually revelled in it. That’s why these guys play – they want to be there on Centre Court, they want to get to the back end of big tournaments, trying to win it.

Andy puts enough pressure on himself to achieve, and the pressure will only be relieved from his perspective when he wins a major.

But he does love New York, and he believes in himself 100% on a hard court – that’s probably more crucial than anything else.

th: Straight up – prediction for the US Open men’s title?

MP: If he plays like he did over the past week then Federer’s going to win it. He played phenomenally well in Cincinnati, and it will be six in a row based on that performance.

That’s a tough thing to achieve, to be able to maintain his level from here all the way through to New York, but he’s obviously done it for a number of years now so you’d have to back him to do it.