Tennishead on Tour: The Slazenger Open

Ivo Karlovic at the 2008 Hamburg Masters

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The City of Nottingham Tennis Centre has long prided itself on holding far more than just a tournament the week before Wimbledon. Players from the second echelons of the ATP Tour have flocked to Nottingham’s enviable facilities for the past 14 years, primarily to gain some last-minute grass court practice before Wimbledon, but also to benefit from Nottingham’s unique festival atmosphere. With the ATP tournament set to move to Eastbourne from next year, the organisers of this year’s Slazenger Open were clearly determined to go out with a bang.

At 6ft 9ins, I barely reached Isner’s belly button. Maybe I should contact Nicolas Sarkozy for tips about being stretched

As we parked the Tennishead mobile in the pristine car park (completely bog-free and not a car-removing tractor in sight), and having grabbed my essentials for a day of roving reporting, I strolled through the Centre’s white pillars to behold court upon court piled full of children. Hundreds of children, all indulging in various fun and games. One of the eager participants on court was none other than Jamie Baker, who makes his return to the tour here at his training base after a few months recovering from a life-threatening disease. The kids were lined up around the block to have a hit with the British No.2, kitted out in the luminous orange of Boris Becker’s brand new clothing line. Along with those hitting hard on court, there were bouncy castles, a service speed area, and lots of other Mini Tennis gizmos and gadgets. The enthusiasm of all the children was contagious, and I headed towards the media centre with a spring in my step, despite the promise of the inevitably terrible coffee.

The first singles match out on Centre Court was a re-run from the second round at Queen’s last week: Paul-Henri Mathieu, the No.2 seed at Nottingham, against rising star Marin Cilic. It was the pair’s fourth meeting since playing for the first time in Miami in March, with Mathieu having won all previous encounters. Ranked 16th to Cilic’s 55, Mathieu looked like he would romp to a fourth victory, breaking Cilic in his first service game, and building a 3-0 lead. The compact and powerful Frenchman demonstrated perfectly the art of bending low to the ground on grass, and dominated the groundstroke exchanges to brush the Croatian aside 6-1 in the first set. Cilic looked very out of sorts, muttering to himself at the beginning of the second set, but held onto his serve, and kept with Mathieu much more closely in the rallies. The errors were still there, but he was stepping up to the ball and going for some monster forehands of his own. And, as is always the case, when one player gets into his groove, the other falls off, and Mathieu threw away the second set with two double faults, gifting Cilic a set point which he converted to win it 6-4. From then on the 19-year-old Croatian, who was the second youngest player to finish in the top 100 last year, took firm control, breaking Mathieu early in the third set, and hanging on to maintain the break, and win the final set 6-3. It was a fantastic victory for such a hot young prospect, whose dream is to emulate Goran Ivanisevic’s Wimbledon victory. Watch this space… Cilic is a Tennishead tip to make it big.

My next stop was to take a stroll to find out if Australian Open doubles champions Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich had managed to hold off the challenge of Aussie duo Paul Hanley and Todd Perry. On my way, I walked past John Isner, the big American with an even bigger serve. At 6ft 9ins, I was horrified to note that I barely reached his belly button. Maybe I should contact Nicolas Sarkozy for tips about being stretched.

Seeing that Hanley and Perry had triumphed, along with France’s Julien Benneteau over Simone Bolelli, and Italy’s Andreas Seppi over Dudi Sela, I headed back over to Centre Court to catch a glimpse of the gigantic Ivo Karlovic, so narrowly defeated by Nadal at Queen’s, against Jonas Bjorkman, one of my favourite grass court players. Bjorkman, whose accolades would fill a Wimbledon annual, is faced with the dispiriting fact that his career is drawing to a close, but he continues to amaze, and is always capable of a surprise. Karlovic, the defending champion at Nottingham, was not prepared to give the 36-year-old Swede the fairytale victory he so wanted, taking the first set 6-3, and the second 6-4. Bjorkman was understandably despondent, but said sagely, “It is always disappointing when you can’t get the result you want, but that’s tennis.” So ends the Swede’s long relationship with the tournament, and he will be missed by all when he retires.

Meanwhile, over on Court 1, American Bobby Reynolds pulled off a shock win over Nicolas Mahut, finalist at Queen’s last year. Ranked 99 places lower than the Frenchman, no one could have been more surprised than Reynolds, who won 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. He is joined in the second round by Dmitry Tursunov, the 6th seed, who had a little trouble against Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu, but eventually prevailed 7-5, 6-4.

My final target for the day was another of the Young Americans, Sam Querrey, who was competing against Lucky Loser Alejandro Falla, the 24-year-old from Colombia. Twenty-year-old Querrey, who shot to fame when he won his first ATP title at the Tennis Channel Open is Las Vegas earlier this year, stands at 6ft 6ins tall, and has his own brand of monster serve. The short and stocky figure of Falla looked overwhelmed by Querrey’s lean and lanky frame, and the American raced to a 5-2 lead in the first set. But the Colombian persisted, grinding away with tenacity at the baseline, whilst Querrey threw an arsenal of shots at him, taking the set eventually 6-3. Luckily, neither player seemed to notice when the ball boy in charge of the scoring got the score-cards stuck in the grid. Having struggled for nearly two games, the red-faced youngster eventually got them in, only for the set to end, forcing him to start all over again. Patience is a virtue, they say.

Querrey took command again in the second set, breaking Falla to 15 after a double fault, and securing his own serve to love. The rest of the set went with serve, and the left-handed Falla never looked like making any inroads on the American’s serve. Querrey, who admits he has little experience on grass, seemed to enjoy banging down a few aces, and also demonstrated some impeccable groundstrokes, in particular an Agassi-esque forehand. With two match points at 40-15 on his own serve, Querrey sealed the deal, and incidentally his first grass court win in England. He rushed off to watch fellow Yanks Scott Lipsky and David Martin win through against Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana, the Thai twins who hit the headlines when they rescued a player’s wife and child from a hotel fire in Marseille. But I did manage to catch up with Querrey afterwards, where he divulged that he practices occasionally with none other than Pete Sampras. We at Tennishead Towers expect much more from this fired-up youngster, who is another one to watch.

As I meandered back to the car, I reflected that it had been a very successful start to what could be Nottingham’s final ATP tournament. The rain stayed away, to the relief of players and pundits alike, and at times the grounds were heaving with crocodiles of school children ambling from one area to another. Although the stands were far from full, the mood was not a quiet one, so if you get a chance, jump on the train to Nottingham for what is a very jolly day out.