From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Tennis on tv
Reply-To: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 03:17:36 GMT


   Augh, I miss all those tennis results post!  Oh well.

   Today there was a double does of tennis on today.  There
are two tournaments being held this week and almost every major
player is playing one or the other (I think Agassi is not
playing this week though).  The two tournaments are the
Volvo International, which had problems (Wednesday, I think)
when play was called for the entire day when the main stadium
court had water damage due to previous days' rain.   This
is being held at New Haven on the Yale University campus.
The other tournament is the US Hardcourt Championships (sponsored
by RCA).  At New Haven, Lendl, Edberg, Forget, Chang, Ivanisevic,
and Korda are playing.   At Indianoplis, Becker, Sampras, and
Courier had been playing.

   The first match I caught was between Lendl and Chang.  Lendl
has been playing well recently reaching the finals of the
Canadian Open (losing to Agassi) and the ATP Championships
(I think -- he lost to Sampras) played last week.  In this
tournament, he had faced Chang, beating him something like
6-2, 6-3 which was easier than had been anticipated.  It
was only the second official time that Lendl and Chang
had met, though they had met in the Grand Slam Cup where
Chang won in another two sets to none comeback.

   Lendl seems to be striking the ball pretty well.  He still
misses a bit, but hits enough these days to win.  They were
pretty even until around 4-all when Lendl contested a call
(a serve I think).  This complaining led to a delay of game
warning.  The funny thing was that this seemed to affect
Chang more than Lendl, and he made quite a few unforced errors
and gave up some 8 or so consecutive points.  Lendl won the
first set 6-4, and I think he either won the second in a tiebreak
or 7-5, but I didn't catch the end of this.   Chang basically
went for his hard hitting ground strokes and actually was volleying
pretty decently.  However, Lendl took a few more chances and
Chang made some uncharacteristic errors, and lost.

   They, then, showed another quarterfinal match (Lendl, Chang
was also a quarterfinal match, which was too bad for Chang since
he was number 3 seed and had to face number 5 seed, which is
about the closest two seeds can meet in a quarterfinal match.
It is possible for the number 4 and 5 seed to meet in the
quarters however) between Edberg and Forget.   This was a
close match, going 6-3, 6-7, 6-4.  Somewhere in the fourth
set, I think Edberg went down 15-40, but managed to win the
game, break and serve out the set.  He said in the interview
afterwards that he had, for once, played some good points when
he was down (I think he may have hit back to back aces).
Edberg was volleying quite well near the end, and that
was nice to see.

    It seems that Edberg is a lot more relaxed an interviewer
then he used to be and has more opinions that just the
usual I played well or not so well which used to characterize
Edberg.   He made a very interesting observation about
Forget saying that while Forget has a better forehand,
his backhand pass was more consistent, and so he played
more to the Forget forehand.  He was asked if he tries
to ignore the board that displays the speed of the serve
since Forget hits his serve about ten miles an hour faster
than Edberg (Edberg serves in the 100 mile per hour range
while Forget can serve in the 110's).  He said that you
have to look at it, and if you try to ignore it, you still
end up looking at it at some point.

   A side note about racquets.  It seems that Forget uses
a Lacoste racquet (I am guessing this by the printed insignia
on the strings which shows an alligator -- oops, a crocodile).
The neat feature is that along the sides of this racquet
(where the PWS system is on Wilson racquets) the racquet
inverts (convex or concave), so that it bulges in at that
section.  Bizarre idea.  Neat looking, though.  Edberg
is using the newer Pro Classic 95 (as opposed to Sampras
and Courier who use the old Pro Classic), and probably
has been for a while.   

   ESPN covered the Volvo International while Prime Network
covered the US Hardcourts.   In the first match, (which was
the same time that the Lendl-Edberg played),  Becker fans
will again mourn the loss to Sampras in three sets, 6-7,
6-2, 7-6.  I didn't catch the first set, but in the second
Sampras seemed to start hitting well, while Becker started
making errors, spraying shots long, especially on the forehand.
The third set got a bit tighter.  At one point, Becker lost
serve, and Sampras was about to serve for the match.  Considering
he was serving pretty well up til then, it seemed like he might
close it out.  However, some poor serving, and some good shots
by Becker, got him the break back.  However, Sampras played
a good tie-breaker (I think -- too many matches to remember)
to win the match.

    In the other semifinals,  Courier faced unseeded Todd Martin.
Todd is a rather tall player (6 foot 6 inches?), who is
a practice partner for Courier.   For a tall person, you
would think he would play serve and volley.  Well, he
does, but he played roughly half the points from the
backcourt, and actually has very good groundstrokes.
His better shot is his two-handed backhand which he can
hit for winners.  Courier, as mentioned by the announcers,
wasn't playing so well, and was sometimes having problems
dealing with Martin's groundies.  The first set was won by
Courier 7-6, and they went to 5-all in the second before
the match cut away.  One aspect I hadn't seen of Courier's
game was his drop shot, which looks pretty nice.  He used it
twice, both times Martin was way behind the baseline, and
even though Courier was dropping off a reasonably deep ball,
he caught Martin flat-footed.

   So, the final will be Sampras against the winner of
Martin-Courier.  I think I would probably favor Sampras
who recently won a tournament.  It's been said that he
has been training quite hard lately, which may explain
his good results though he has played well during
US Open time.  Courier will have to play better if he
wants to beat Sampras.  The only advantage Courier might
have is the heat.  It seems quite hot in Indianapolis
(as evidenced by Courier looking totally soaked within
the first few games).

    Sorry for any score inaccuracies!  Wish I had something
like USA Today to get current scores.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu