Men’s Game

Monte Carlo

Rafael Nadal won an incredible 8th Monte Carlo Masters Title, defeating world number 1 Novak Djokovic in the finals 6-1 6-3.

Have A Look At Some Of The Highlights

Djokovic definitely wasn’t at his best in this match but Nadal also made a significant change to his strategy. He served a lot to Djokovic’s forehand with his first serves and he hit a lot more into the Djokovic forehand during rallies.

This is a much better strategy for him in my opinion than trying to open up the court by hitting angles to Djokovic’s backhand, which is what he did a lot in previous matches!

Madrid

The Madrid masters event was played on a blue clay court this year, which caused a lot of controversy. The players were not too happy about this change and it also turned out that the court was way too slippery, which really upset players like Nadal and Djokovic.

Roger Federer mastered the conditions better than the other guys and played some incredible Tennis in Madrid. He beat the hard-hitting Tomaz Berdych 3-6 7-5 7-5 and with this victory equaled Nadal’s record of 20 masters titles.

Roger has won 7 out of the last 10 tournaments entered at this point and is playing incredible Tennis. Nadal and Djokovic did not perform well in Madrid but that cannot be taken too seriously in my opinion since both players were very unhappy with the surface in Madrid. I am sure all three guys will show up in very strong form at the French Open and it will be an exciting tournament!

Women’s Game

Stuttgart

Maria Sharapova won the first premier level event on clay in Stuttgart this year. She played extremely well in the finals and beat Victoria Azarenka 6-1 6-4.

I watched the match and saw some significant improvements in Sharapova’s game compared to the two previous losses that she suffered against Azarenka this year. She served better and also played a little bit smarter with more spin at the right times!

Madrid

Serena Williams surprised a lot of people with her dominant finals victory against world number 1 Victoria Azarenka in Madrid. Serena won 6-1 6-3 and played phenomenal Tennis. She also beat Maria Sharapova with the exact same score in an earlier round

The conditions did favor her game and it will be very interesting to see how well she plays at the French Open!

It appears like Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, and Maria Sharapova are the players with the best chances going into the French Open right now!

Today I want to talk to you guys about becoming a more well-rounded athlete, which will help you increase physical intensity and play better Tennis. Even more importantly it will help you stay injury free and enjoy this great game for a long time!

Becoming A Well-Rounded Athlete

Way too many recreational players make the mistake of playing Tennis 3-5 times a week and not doing any other sports. This is certainly not the best way to improve your Tennis, but even more importantly this is a sure path to injuries at some point of your tennis career!

The Main Reason For Becoming A Well-Rounded Athlete Is Injury Prevention!

As a rule of thumb I usually recommend to do at least as many exercise sessions away from Tennis as you do tennis sessions. So assuming that you play Tennis 3 times a week, I would recommend you to do some sort of physical exercise program 3 times a week to make sure your body stays healthy and you become a well-rounded athlet!

Now you might be asking yourself what you should work on in this regard. In recent years the functional fitness movement has gained in popularity and I recommend to all my students to study and get involved with functional training! 

With functional fitness you exercise with complex movements that train the entire body in a more natural way, instead of focusing on individual muscles. Functional fitness is well-suited for everybody. You can get an idea of what it is all about in the following video:

Have A Look At This Video On Functional Fitness

I don’t know the guy that made this video but I thought it gives a good impression of what functional fitness is all about.

Tennis has become more and more of a strength sport even at the recreational level. Your success is in a large part dependent on how well you can cover the court and that depends a lot on your leg strength!

Physical Intensity In High Level Tennis

Most people don’t realize how important athleticism has become at the highest levels of the game. Lots of high level junior players spend 4-5 hours on the court every day and only do about 1 hour of physical exercise, which is a big mistake in my opinion.

The professional players have of course realized the importance of strength and fitness training and these guys spend a ton of time exercising off the court!

These days I recommend my students to have a 50:50 ratio in regards to on court practice time and physical preparation time!

CrossFit

CrossFit is another fitness movement that is gaining in popularity and is a great option for the ambitious amateur tennis player. I have been sending my high-performance students to some Crossfit classes recently and they seem to get a lot out of it.

Crossfit focuses on functional fitness in a fun group training environment. This is pretty hardcore training though and if you are not used to exercising regularly this type of training might take a while to get used to!

Check Out What Crossfit Is All About

The great thing about Crossfit and functional fitness in general is that the focus is on strength, mobility and everything that makes you a well-rounded athlete and a healthy individual!

Allright. So much on physical intensity and becoming a better athlete. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

What Do I Mean With Physical Intensity ?

If you ever watched some professional players practice, then you have a good idea of what physical intensity is. These guys are constantly finding ways to challenge themselves physically while doing the same drills.

Let’s assume you are practicing and you are simply hitting cross-court forehands and/or backhands. Many times I see recreational players do this sort of drill and not break a sweat while doing it. That basically tells me right away that they are not practicing with enough physical intensity!

Maria Sharapova is a great example for a player that practices with high physical intensity and I believe doing this for so many years is one of the keys for her great success!

Maria Sharapova Practicing With High Physical Intensity

If you do a simple drill like hitting cross-court correctly, you can be completely exhausted after a few minutes of hitting. The difference is in the details. Are you moving back to the middle after every shot ? Are you making enough small adjustment steps before hitting similar to the way Maria is doing it in the above video ?

When To Focus On Technique And When On Physical Intensity

If your strokes are not very good, there is no way around improving them if you want to play high level Tennis. Technique to me is the basis for great Tennis. Nevertheless, there comes a point where you want to play tournaments and compete and at this point you should not focus on technique anymore.

In a competitive phase you want to focus on physical intensity and tactics and not on technique!

Given your technical abilities you will play your best Tennis when you are not thinking about your strokes and when you are totally focused on movement and tactics.

How To Practice Physical Intensity On The Court

There are many ways to increase physical intensity either inside your current practice sessions or with new drills. The main goal is to challenge yourself to work harder from a physical standpoint; to train with more intensity, to move your feet better and develop better tennis specific muscles!

Here are a few ways to practice with more intensity:

1. Extremely tough basket feeding

I do a lot of this. Basically I feed my students balls at a faster pace than what they are used to at their current level. This forces them to work as hard as they possibly can in order to still hit the ball well. Very effective and something not many coaches and players do as far as I know
2. Practice with better players

If you practice with someone that hits harder than you do and with more consistency then that will automatically challenge your physical intensity

3. Tweak Your Drills For More Intensity

When hitting cross-court you could mark a spot close to the middle of the court that you want to retract to after every shot for example. You could also focus on the amount of steps you take between shots and try to get it up higher for example

These are just some ideas. If you do it right you can make pretty much any drill physically challenging!

But what exactly is confidence and more importantly where does it come from and what does that mean for your tennis game ? Let’s take a look at these questions and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about confidence.

What Confidence Is

Researching this online I found a few different definitions for the term confidence. Here are a few that seem to make sense in our context:

Definitions Of Confidence:

- Belief in oneself and one’s power or abilities (dictionary.com)
– A feeling of assurance; especially self-assurance (thefreedictionary.com)
– The state or quality of being certain (answers.com)

To me confidence really comes down to trust in your own abilities. I am sure all of you have experienced that feeling of walking on the court knowing deep down that you are playing well at the moment and therefore you are very confident that you will win the match!

It is a great feeling and one of the reasons we play Tennis. It simply makes us feel good to master a difficult skill and apply it in competition.

Where Confidence Comes From

There is only one real source for confidence in Tennis and that is winning!

Once you start winning a lot of matches on a regular basis you will become very confident. The more you win the more trust you will develop in your own abilities to solve problems which we saw earlier is the definition of confidence. You can only be really confident if you have proven to yourself that you win matches!

Now you might be thinking how the hell does that help me ? I can’t just start winning more matches to get more confidence.

In order to win a lot of matches you need one other thing and that is skills. Skills are the key to getting more confidence and fortunately everybody can work on improving their tennis skills!

So Basically Confidence Works Like This:

Better Skills = More Wins = More Confidence

Djokovic And Azarenka

So where does all that confidence come from for these two players ? These two players have developed phenomenal tennis skills over the years which allowed them to win so many matches and gain such high confidence.

Azarenka and Djokovic both have great technical skills, great athleticism, they are strong mentally and they both play smart high-percentage aggressive Tennis!

The combination of how strong you are in all these areas is what will determine how much confidence you have in your Tennis game in the long run because these skills will determine how many matches you win!

If You Have Low Confidence

What if you don’t have confidence at the moment and you are not playing well ? A lack of confidence can feel really bad and it is definitely something you need to watch out for as a tennis player.

Players in that situation often hear advice like: Just try to be more confident and things will get better. In most cases this advice does not help though and players can go into a downward spiral.

Contrary to popular belief low confidence in and of itself is usually not the problem. In most cases there is a lack of certain skills that is the problem and that has led to this situation of low confidence!

About 6 months ago I started working with a 16-year old girl that is ranked inside the Top5 in her age group in Germany. When she came to me her confidence was at an all-time low and previous coaches believed that her bad results were simply a result of low confidence.

The situation turned out to be quite different though. This girl had a very weak backhand and until recently was always able to hide that weakness by simply looping the ball back high to the baseline with her backhand and running around to hit as many forehands as possible.

The reason she was struggling so much at the moment was that her opponents were now older and hitting the ball harder. As a result she could not run around her backhand as much anymore and opponents were also punishing those loopy shots a lot more and even taking them out of the air. It was only a matter of time until her lack of skills caused this situation of low confidence!

So what we did was take her out of tournaments and start working on improving the necessary skills. After working on a better backhand she started winning more and more matches and now her confidence is back.

What This Means For Your Game

There are no shortcuts in Tennis. You need to work hard on your skills if you want to start winning and always keep this equation in mind:

Better Skills = More Wins = More Confidence

Sometimes it takes a while but if you develop the right skills you will eventually start winning and then you will get some true confidence!

People usually make one of two mistakes with their tennis practice:

1. They Generally Practice Without A Purpose (Low Practice Quality)
2. They Practice For Too Long And With Low Intensity/Quality

These mistakes apply on a broader level as well as on a micro-level. What do I mean by that ?

On a broader level: Two quality tennis practice sessions per week will usually lead to more improvement than four tennis practice sessions that lack intensity and quality!

On a smaller level: Practicing for one hour with a clear purpose and very good focus on what you are trying to accomplish is much more effective than practicing for two hours when you are not 100% focused.

1. Practicing Without A Purpose

This is extremely common and something that I have talked about quite a bit previously as well. If you want to improve you should have a very clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish in any given practice session and you need to take yourself out of the comfort zone. (For more on the right challenge and taking yourself out of the comfort zone see this article: Tennis Improvement)

A lot of times people don’t even know that their practice is not very focused because they have never practiced in a different manner. This is common among all levels of Tennis!

2. Practicing For Too Long And With Low Intensity/Quality

This is something that is especially common with ambitious tennis players that think more practice equals getting better. These players stay out on the court for hours and hours hitting balls.

What they often don’t realize is that the longer you practice, the more difficult it gets to stay focused on quality for the entire session!

Usually these players would improve much more if they would go from 3 hour practice sessions to 1 hour sessions where they are extremely focused on what they want to work on!

Therefore, I usually recommend my students to practice only the amount of time that they can stay really focused and then slowly but surely build up that time!

One thing to keep in mind is that even most professional players practice only 1.5 hours or 2 hours maximum at a time!

A Common Example

A very common example is practicing your serve. This is an area where most players are way too focused on quantity and not on quality. Players will hit 100 serves in a really short time period, oftentimes even holding way too many balls in their hand and stuffing their pockets with even more balls!

Does this sound familiar ? Do you put way too many balls in your hand and your pockets when practicing your serve ? If so I would suggest that you quickly change that habit!

Hitting 20 serves with a real purpose and focus is much more effective than hitting 100 serves without a clear purpose and focus!

Take-Aways For You

I would suggest that all of you reading this spend some time evaluating your practice routines. Most likely you have been doing the same routines for many years but who says that these are the best possible routines for improving your tennis game ?

How many times per week do you practice ? How long do you practice ? How focused are you during those practice sessions and what exercises challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and improve your game ?

I constantly think about the effectiveness of my practice sessions for my students. I want them to be challenged during the sessions and if not I think about how I can create a new challenge that will help them get better.

Think about how you can restructure your sessions so that you have a better chance to improve your game!

Possibly the biggest tennis myth that I hear over and over in tennis circles is that Tennis is 90% mental!

For the average tennis player nothing could be further from the truth and in this blog post I want to explain to you guys why that is the case and what the consequences are!

Where It Comes From

Now I can’t be 100% certain with this but my guess is that it comes from people listening to professional tennis players and commentators on TV talk about the fact that it was all mental out there. Oftentimes when there is a close match on TV the commentator will talk a lot about how the match was decided on the mental side only.

Additionally the players when interviewed often talk about the fact that for them the mental part plays a huge role in getting better. And you know what ? That is 100% true!

For a professional player the game oftentimes becomes 90% mental because they often completely stop working on their technique and then the mental side becomes the area that they focus on!

What people don’t understand is that these players already have great technique and great footwork so what’s left to focus on for them is the mental aspect of the game.

The situation for recreational players is usually quite different. For most recreational players bad technique is the number 1 thing holding them back!

What This Means For You

You need to stop listening to this nonsense and evaluate your technique. You can only improve your strokes if you consciously focus on them. In fact there is a 4 stage learning process that you have to go through when learning a skill like a tennis stroke. Let’s have a quick look at this process:

The 4 Stages Of Learning

Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence

In this stage you have a bad forehand for example but you don’t even know that you have a bad forehand because you don’t know what a good forehand looks like yet and you have not compared yourself enough to other players.

Usually beginners are in this stage and they can actually have a lot of fun playing this way since there is no pressure

Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence

Once you have played for a while though you will realize that your forehand is bad because you start comparing yourself to others and you start looking at good forehands on TV etc.

At this point people usually make the decision to start working on that bad forehand. Unfortunately way too many players remain in this stage because of many factors like bad information/advice or a lack of structured practice. If you stay in this phase for too long you can end up really frustrated and develop a strong belief that your forehand is no good!

Stage 3: Conscious Competence

After you worked on your forehand you will then hopefully get to this stage where you can hit a good forehand for the first time but only if you really focus on what you are doing. Reaching this stage is what motivates people to continue working on the shot!

If on the other hand you never reach this stage where you can at least hit a good forehand under controlled circumstances then you will get frustrated and probably stop working on the shot.

Stage 4: Unconscious Competence

Now this is where everybody wants to be. In this stage you can hit a great forehand without even thinking about it. You could get up in the middle of the night and that forehand is just there.

This is a great feeling but what most people forget is that the players that have this feeling usually worked really hard for it for a long period of time!

There are a few exceptions of course with super talented players that sort of just picked up a great forehand by accident. This is extremely rare though.

Conclusion

Since you are reading this post I assume that you are not a super talent and things don’t just come natural to you. So forget about these nonsense comments from commentators that the game is 90% mental and get to work on your weak strokes!

If you focus in on your strokes with the right information and drills and work in a disciplined manner then eventually you can have turn that weak forehand into a strong forehand for good and enjoy the state of unconscious incompetence!

Men’s Tour Update

Davis Cup

The first round of Davis Cup was played shortly after the Australian Open and there was one big surprise that is certainly worth mentioning. The USA beat Switzerland with a 5:0 score. The big surprise of course was John Isner’s victory over Roger Federer on a clay court!

Isner played phenomenal Tennis and Roger again missed quite a few easy shots when it mattered most. I am afraid this is really become more and more of a pattern for Federer!

Highlights Of Isner Federer In Davis Cup

Federer Wins Rotterdam

Fortunately for Roger he bounced back from two disappointing losses in Australia and in the Davis Cup with a victory last week at the tournament in Rotterdam. In Rotterdam he beat Davydenko in the semis and Del Potro in the finals with a great performance.

One thing to keep in mind though is that Rotterdam is played on an indoor hard court, which is most likely Federer’s overall best surface.

Federer Beats Del Potro For The Title In Rotterdam

Raonic wins San Jose

Milos Raonic won the tournament in San Jose for the second time in a row with a very impressive serving performance. He lost only 4 points on his serve in the entire final against Dennis Istomin that he won 7:6 6:2. If he stays healthy his future looks very bright with that kind of a serve!

Raonic Serving A 155 mph Ace in San Jose

Women’s Tour Update

Azarenka Still Unbeaten

Victoria Azarenka continued her 2012 winning streak with a victory at the Qatar Open in Doha. She didn’t drop a set in the tournament and in the finals she beat Sam Stosur handily with a 6:1 6:2 score.

This puts her at a 17 match winning streak this year and some experts are already drawing comparisons to Novak Djokovic’s dominance

Azarenka definitely surprised me with this winning streak and how well she is playing. She has matured somewhat and her serve has improved. It will be interesting to see how she continues this year.

Azarenka Beat Radwanska Easily In The Semis

Kerber Wins First Big Title

German Angelique Kerber won her first premiere level event in Paris. She beat Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals and Marion Bartoli in the finals with a 7:6 5:7 6:3 score.

She plays powerful consistent baseline Tennis and manages to stay out of trouble with her rather weak serve. Being a left-handed player certainly helps her in this regard. She is ranked number 20 in the world right now but at some point I believe she will hit a plateau unless she improves her service motion!

Photo by Getty Images

Djokovic was clearly the better player throughout this match, but Nadal ended up almost winning the match anyways because of his incredible mental toughness and fighting spirit!

Rafa is clearly the greatest fighter I have ever seen on the tennis court! Djokovic dominated most of the rallies and Nadal was way behind the baseline for most of the match. Nevertheless, Rafa did not get frustrated and kept fighting back, hitting incredible winners from defensive positions!

Nadal has now lost the last 7 matches against Djokovic and it is obvious that Novak is the better player at this point.

The only way for Nadal to beat Djokovic is to stay in closer to the baseline and play more aggressive! Rafa knows this but has not been able to put a more aggressive game plan into action!

So why can’t he manage to play more aggressive and beat Novak Djokovic ?

The 2 Reasons Why Nadal Loses To Djokovic

1. Nadal’s backhand is too weak on average

Nadal has been struggling with his two-handed backhand and this is in my opinion the main reason why he hasn’t been able to play more aggressive and beat Novak Djokovic!

His backhand lands short a majority of the time and as a result he started slicing a lot. His slice is not very good either though and this just puts Djokovic in the driver’s seat!

2. Nadal is too used to playing far behind the baseline

Rafael Nadal has spend his entire tennis career playing pretty far behind the baseline and he has been very successful with this approach. This makes it extremely difficult for him to stand closer to the baseline, which is what he needs to do against Djokovic.

Many players that were successful in their junior years playing a rather defensive game are not able to change this approach later in their career even though they know they should be playing more aggressive. Nadal has won a lot of matches by getting a lot of balls back and playing percentage Tennis. His tendency will always be to stick with this approach and only with a very conscious effort can he overcome that.

Watch The Highlights Of Nadal Djokovic

Watching the match you get the feeling that Djokovic is dominating a large percentage of the points and Nadal is trying to defend most of the time. This is not the way Nadal is going to start beating Djokovic!

Nevertheless, Nadal has proven many times in his matches against Djokovic that he can stay in closer and play aggressive!

He seems to be able to do so only for short periods of time though!

So what could Nadal do to turn things around ?

In order to turn things around Nadal needs to develop some real confidence in his backhand. He needs to get comfortable hitting through the shot again and really going for it. In order to achieve something like that you have to create drills and situations that force you to do practice the right things!

Here are a few drills that could help him:

1. Play practice sets where he is not allowed to run around the backhand and also where he is not allowed to slice the backhand. I do this a lot with my students that need to improve their backhands. Basically the idea is to create drills or situations where you are forced to hit topspin backhands and develop some real confidence in the shot!

2. Play practice sets where he is not allowed to retreat way behind the baseline. Oftentimes I will put a line maybe 5 to 6 feet behind the baseline and tell my students they are not allowed to go behind it. This forces them to stay closer to the line and play more aggressive!

For more detailed information on the rivalry between these two players see my article: Djokovic Nadal Rivalry

Federer was not able to make first serves in decisive situations and he missed a lot of routine forehands as well!

Photo By Rick Rycroft

The same forehand that he seemingly has not missed a single shot with since last October and that was completely on fire in all of his previous matches in this tournament! In my opinion Roger played some of the best Tennis of his career in the rounds before the semi-finals and that is why I thought he would win this match.

At this point of their rivalry Roger has a massive mental problem against Nadal and I believe tactical changes alone cannot help him beat Nadal!

I am actually quite surprised why so-called experts almost always seem to talk about the tactical side of this rivalry and only very few people talk about the mental side of things. The tactical side of course plays a role but I honestly believe that no matter what tactics he uses, Roger will get tight when it matters most and therefore he will continue to lose against Nadal!

Let’s have a look at a few of the tactical considerations before I talk about what I believe Federer could do to actually turn things around!

Tactical Considerations

Everyone talks about Nadal’s high topspin shots to Roger’s one-handed backhand and of course that is a big part of what makes Nadal such a difficult opponent for Roger. Nevertheless, Federer has proven on many occasions that he can hit his backhand well against Nadal’s high topspin forehands.

Even on the high-bouncing clay in the 2011 French Open finals have I seen Roger hit great backhands against Nadal’s heavy topspin. He seems to manage to do that only at the beginning of sets or in general before the match gets really close!

I have said many times before that from a tactical standpoint Federer needs to hit his backhand aggressive and take a lot of balls early with conviction against Nadal. My guess is that Roger understands this and he did hit his backhand mostly with topspin in the Australian Open semi-finals.

Federer really didn’t play bad at all. As a matter of fact he was doing a lot the right things! In addition to hitting more topspin backhands and less slice, he also used surprise serve-and-volley tactics and net attacks in general. I have not seen the statistics but I believe Roger was very successful with his serve-and-volley and net rushing tactics.

Playing against Nadal there is a fine line for Federer when it comes to attacking the net. As long as he keeps surprising Nadal with his net rushing and serve-and-volleying it is usually extremely effective. Once he does too much of it though, Nadal will adjust and when he is prepared for Roger coming to the net he is usually too good at passing and defending!

Nadal Hit Some Unbelievable Defensive Shots In This Match!

Photo By MARK BLINCH/Reuters

What Can Federer Do ?

Ok. So now that we have talked about why Federer keeps losing to Nadal, it is of course time to think about what Roger could do to reverse things and start winning some of the important matches against Nadal!

Unfortunately for Roger, working on a mental problem like this is most certainly the most difficult area for a tennis player to improve in! The thoughts and beliefs that hold him back are deeply engrained in his subconscious at this point!

Nadal is a true warrior on the court and he has been raised and trained that way throughout his entire tennis career. This has led him to a point where he knows that he can play his best Tennis when it matters most. Deep down Nadal believes that he will come out on top if there is any chance for him.

Federer on the other hand has never been one of the mentally toughest guys on tour. Years ago when he dominated the tour he had the belief deep down that he was better than the other guys but it was more because of superior strokes and athleticism and not because he was mentally tougher!

So What Are Some Things That He Could Do ?

The easiest thing to work on would be body language. When I see Federer and Nadal on the court, Nadal almost always looks like the more confident guy out there. There is a strong relationship between how you present yourself on the court and how you feel on the inside.

If Federer would consciously work on better body language he might start feeling a little better on the inside when he plays against Nadal!

Most likely this alone would not help him win against Nadal though!

I believe what he really needs in order to get out of this choking habit against Nadal is a true expert/mentor to work with him on mental toughness!

There are of course many different approaches towards working with an athlete in that kind of a situation. Some athletes consult sports psychologists, others work with hypnosis for example. The possibilities are endless.

All I can say is that Roger needs to look into the mental area and get some help if he wants to start beating Rafael Nadal again. He definitely has the game and the capabilities to do so!

This of course is a tough thing to realize and act upon, especially if you are the greatest player of all-time. Therefore, I think it is unlikely and in the end I think it is unlikely that Roger will get tougher mentally!

Men’s Draw

In the men’s draw the Top4 still seem ahead of the rest of the field with Nadal and Federer already set to play the semi-finals against each other. Djokovic and Murray still have their quarterfinals matches ahead of them today.

Let’s have a quick look at the upcoming match-ups and how well I think everyone is playing.

Quarterfinals:
Djokovic vs. Ferrer

Novak has lost only one set so far this year and he seems to be playing just as well as last year. He moves extremely well, he is serving big and hitting huge forehands and backhands. Even though David Ferrer is playing well I don’t think he can really challenge Djokovic here.

Djokovic vs. Hewitt: Djokovic Is Playing Great Tennis!

In this form Novak Djokovic remains my favourite to win the tournament!

Quarterfinals:
Murray vs. Nishikori

Andy Murray is also playing quite well and so far has had a pretty easy tournament. It even appears as if he is standing a little closer to the baseline these days, trying to put more pressure on his opponents, which I believe is exactly what he needs to do to take his game to the next level.

Nishikori surprised me by taking out Tsonga in the last round. He has a lot of potential though and it appears that working with Brad Gilbert throughout the last year has taken him to another level with his game.

For those of you that haven’t seen Nishikori play too much, here you can watch some highlights of him playing Djokovic last year in Basel:

Nishikori is obviously playing well at the moment but I believe that Murray is too confident at the moment though and this challenge will be a little too big for Nishikori!

Nevertheless, I don’t think Murray has improved enough to beat Djokovic in a  possible Grand Slam semi-final!

Semi-Finals:
Nadal vs. Federer

The stage is set once again for another epic battle between these two great rivals! Federer beat Del Potro 6:4 6:3 6:2 in convincing fashion. Federer seems to be in very good form and his forehand was on fire against Del Potro!

Nadal had a tougher match against Tomas Berdych. Berdych was up a set and had set point in the second but Nadal once again showed his great fighting spirit and turned the match around to win it in 4 sets.

Nadal did not play well at all in the first two sets. His forehands were not going through the court, he was hitting a lot of balls short and was on defense most of the time. It will be interesting to see whether or not he can find a more offensive game against Federer because that is what he will need for sure.

Picking a winner in this upcoming match is very difficult. Nadal has obviously dominated the rivalry between these two. For more information check out my article on it: Federer Nadal Rivalry

Usually I would always pick Nadal over Federer because he has a huge mental edge in this rivalry. Nevertheless, Federer seems to be playing amazing Tennis and Nadal does not appear to be in his best form. Therefore, I expect Roger to win this one!

Women’s Draw

There have not been that many surprises to me in the women’s draw so far. Serena Williams was knocked out in the Round of 16 by Ekaterina Makarova, which surprised me a little bit but it is almost impossible to have a good idea of what form Serena is in before such a tournament, since she doesn’t usually play much before the big tournaments.

Clijsters, Sharapova, and Kvitova are the other women that I favoured to win the tournament and they are all still in the draw. Clijsters beat Wozniacki in straight sets to end Wozniacki’s hope of winning a Grand Slam once again. There are still too many weaknesses in Caroline’s game at this point.

Here You Can Watch The 2nd Set Tiebreak Between Clijsters And Wozniacki

Let’s have a look at the upcoming matches:

Semi-finals:
Clijsters vs. Azarenka

The semi-final match-up is set in the top half of the draw and Kim Clijsters will take on world number 3, Victoria Azarenka. Many experts see Azarenka as one of the tournament favourites but I remain a bit sceptical. She didn’t look that convincing in her win against Radwanska and I believe that if Clijsters is still fit and healthy she will beat Azarenka.

Quarterfinals:
Makarova vs. Sharapova

Sharapova played a good match against Sabine Lisicki in the last round and I think she is playing really well from the baseline at this point. If she can continue to serve with decent consistency then she definitely has a chance to win another Grand Slam title here!

Check Out Maria In Her Win Against Lisicki!

Makarova is an upcoming player with some serious game. She hits a phenomenal backhand and I believe she will rise up in the rankings in the near future. I expect her to play well against Sharapova but in the end I think Maria’s offensive game and experience will be too much to handle!

Quarterfinals:
Kvitova vs. Errani

Many experts see Petra Kvitova as the favourite to win the title at this tournament and generally I agree with that. Her game is simply phenomenal and on a good day she can dominate even against some of the best players in the world. Nevertheless, it remains unsure whether or not she has the mental toughness necessary to win many Grand Slam titles.

I definitely expect her to be too strong for Errani but the possible semi-finals match-up with Maria Sharpaova is a 50:50 kind of match for me!

Allright. So much for my update on the Australian Open. As always let me know your comments below this post and I hope you enjoy watching the tournament as much as I do!