Nasdaq-100 - Russians and Roger

The men’s and women’s finals at the Nasdaq-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Florida were relatively routine victories for Roger Federer and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Of course for Kuznetsova, winning a title of this magnitude is far from routine business as she’s only won one title since her 2004 US Open victory.

She admitted this week that perhaps that first Grand Slam title came too early in her career and she was unprepared for life as a Slam holder. The Nasdaq victory just might be her signal to the rest of the tour that she’s ready to challenge for the big titles, and from the form she demonstrated over the last week, few will dispute it. She took control of the final versus Maria Sharapova quickly by playing aggressively off the forehand side and attacking that wing of Sharapova’s game. Kuznetsova did have a couple of shaky moments in the first set, particularly when she tried to serve out the set at 5-3. While she lost that game she managed to come right back and break Sharapova to take the set 6-4.

Maria appeared to be a little flat from the start and there was some speculation from CBS commentator Mary Carillo that she could be feeling the after effects of the booing she received from the crowd during her semi-final with Tatiana Golovin. Sharapova certainly deserved the derision of the crowd on Thursday evening, but I don’t think that affected her performance on Saturday. If there is one thing that Papa Yuri has cemented into his daughter, it’s mental focus. In fact, her singular focus is probably what came across as so unsporting in her semi with Golovin and may be why she claims not to know what she did wrong.

Regardless of the reason for Sharapova’s flat start, Kuznetsova soon became Maria’s biggest problem as she was getting pushed all over the court by penetrating ground strokes. Sharapova is not at her best on the run and playing defense; she needs to dictate play in order to be successful. When Sharapova did attempt to go on the offense, she found her forehand had gone AWOL and she was hemorrhaging errors off that side. Kuznetsova, like a shark in the water, smelled the blood and kept pounding balls into that side and was duly rewarded. Maria’s forehand is a powerful weapon, but it’s mechanically unsound and can go astray. In yesterday’s final, Sharapova appeared to lose so much confidence in her forehand stroke that it affected her overall confidence in her game, but she continued to fight. If Kuznetsova had let up in any way in the second set, Sharapova might have been able to force a third. Instead, Sveta’s confidence began to soar as she started smacking powerful forehand winners and closed out the match comfortably.

A return to form by Kuznetsova is a good thing for the WTA Tour going into the European clay court season. I was most impressed by her forehand yesterday, and if she can manage to keep hitting that shot so well, she’s going to be a force for the rest of the season.

In the Men’s final, Roger Federer won in 3 tough tie-break sets versus Ivan Ljubicic. After his loss to Federer at Indian Wells, Ljubicic stated that he felt he was playing top 5 tennis, but that didn’t mean he could challenge Roger. As I watched today’s final, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ljubicic’s statements regarding Federer are a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the first 2 tie-breakers, Ljubicic made silly errors that doomed him in both. His collapse in the second set tie-breaker was particularly egregious as he let a 4-1 advantage slip away with two quick errors, and then saw The Mighty Fed romp to a 7-4 breaker win.

If you don’t believe you can beat someone, chances are that you won’t. Ljubicic hasn’t demonstrated that he can perform in pressure situations and today was no different. At the Australian Open this past January, I had predicted that he would reach the final, but Ljubicic couldn’t get out of his quarterfinal match with Marcos Baghdatis when his forehand went into the tank after overcoming a 2 set to love deficit. It was kind of sad to watch the Croat choke that opportunity away with poor forehand errors. Like Sharapova, Ljubo has a powerful forehand, but the mechanics are subject to failure.

Coming into today’s final, no one really expected Federer to lose as he took his 2006 record to 28-1 with the victory. For the second year in a row, Roger captured the back-to-back Masters Series titles at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne. His current form should hold him in good stead as the clay court season begins soon and the specialists of that surface will start coming out of the woodwork. At this moment in time, The Mighty Fed has to be the favorite to win his first French Open title.