Federer to return to his throne?

I think Roger Federer could be in with a great chance to pick up his first title of the season. The Swiss number one seems to be back on form and has been cruising through the rounds at the Sony Ericsson Open. He looks much sharper in matches now compared with his loss to Murray when he had not played since the Australian Open and wasn’t fit. Providing he beats Roddick, which will not be easy, I cannot see Tipsarevic or Davydenko providing much of a problem on route to the final. In the final I feel he will meet one of my players to watch in the tournament, James Blake or the in-form Tomas Berdych.

I mentioned two other players who I thought could advance a few rounds pre-tournament but unfortunately they did not live up to my expectations. Philipp Kohlschrieber put in a disappointing display against Simone Bolleli, who then showed some quality in the next round against Davydenko taking the first set. Kohlschrieber is capable of more and has not replicated his early season form in which he won Auckland and beat Andy Roddick in an epic five setter in the Australian Open. He is an extremely talented player and I am sure he will return to form soon and start delving deeper into tournaments again.  Fernando Gonzalez did not make the most of his draw losing in two tight sets to Canas so I will be kept waiting for the Chilean to hit the form in which he is virtually an unstoppable force and it just a matter of time before he gets back into the top ten.

My tip Kevin Anderson overcame Novak Djokovic in three sets however it could have been very different as Djokovic went 2-0 up in the third set. But as I thought, the Serbian tired as the match progressed into the latter stages and I think fatigue got the better of him here. Tribute must also be paid to a solid performance from a future star in Anderson. The tip can be seen here. A theory I read on another site of why Djokovic lost is because of a time warning from bouncing the ball too many time when serving. This is a ridiculous suggestion. If Djokovic lost a match every time he recieved a time warning or reacted badly to any other distraction he would not be the number three player in the world.

I also wrote my opinions on the MVN.com tennis diary regarding The Sony Ericsson Open. Here are my comments and also a response from someone…

 I said: “People forget although his (Djokovic’) playing standard and mentality are at levels way above his years, his body is still that of a skinny 20 year old and does not allow him to play at the level he can week after week without enough rest…”

 Response from Patricia Davis: “Mark, do you really think Djoko’s body needs that much rest? I thought 20-year-olds ran forever(!) Fish mentioned after he lost about keeping it going mentally, so maybe that was more of Novak’s problem. This 60plus body needs to believe that 20 year olds have it really good(!)”

I said: “Patricia, yes I do think Djoko’s body needs a fair amount of rest after winning a tournament.

The conditioning of a 20 year old is far different from say a 26 year old who is in physical prime and his muscles and joints are far from the finished article. Playing 6 matches in a week at world class level takes its toll on anyone. Imagine he had a week off before playing that match, it would without a doubt been a standard straight sets day at the office.

‘Well, I tried to recover, but obviously I was a little bit tired from the start. But it was okay, you know.’

Basically Djoko is saying he wasnt fit for the match but played anyway.

As for the time warning, I think it is wrong to suggest he lost the match because of this. This is the number three player in the world we are talking about and he did not get there by being put off by umpires.”

Read the discussion in full…

Here are the other results from my other tips in the round of 64.

D Tursunov d R Gasquet 63 67(2) 76(5) – Correct

F Santoro d I Ljubicic 76(4) 26 63 – Correct

F Lopez d J Del Potro 64 62 - Correct

For a full set of results click here.