New Balls Please? Roddick Joins Ljubicic as Rare Masters 1000 Champ

PETE ZIEBRON

Nadal, Rest of the Big 4 Struggle Mightily in First Two 2010 Masters 1000’s 

 Rafael Nadal has gone nearly a year without a title. (Pete Ziebron Images)

With all due respect to Ivan Ljubicic, Andy Roddick, Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych, what has happened to the “Big 4” of tennis at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne?

 

• The top four (Federer, Djokovic, Murray & Nadal) who have won 22 of the last 25 Masters 1000 tournaments in 2007-2009 have all but disappeared to begin the Masters 1000 campaign in 2010. 

 

Ivan Ljubicic won in Indian Wells and Andy Roddick defeated Tomas Berdych 7-5 6-4 to claim the Masters 1000 in Key Biscayne on Sunday and win his first Masters 1000 tourney since Cincinnati in August, 2006.

 

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray all failed to play high caliber tennis and only #4 Rafael Nadal managed to make the semifinals of the Masters 1000 tournaments this March in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne.  Nadal lost both semifinals, extending a title drought dating back to early May 2009.  The last time the world has seen Nadal bite into a Championship trophy was at last year’s Masters 1000 tournament in Rome.

 

Watching Roger Federer throw away 3 Match Points and missing forehands by a large margin v. Marcos Baghdatis in Indian Wells was a shock.  Clawing his way back and failing to convert yet another Match Point in the 4^th round in Key Biscayne against Tomas Berdych was yet another surprise. 

 

World number 2 Novak Djokovic first started to reveal signs of doubt in his 5 set Davis Cup win against American John Isner last month in Belgrade.  Isner, who was playing 13 sets of tennis in 3 days, nearly prevailed against Djokovic, whose serve was in the early stages of failing him.

 

Djokovic wilted in the California desert heat in Indian Wells and combined with the strong serving of Ivan Ljubicic, bowed out in California in the 4^th round.  Djokovic then crashed in his first match in Key Biscayne against world #59 Olivier Rochus.

 

Defending Key Biscayne Champion Andy Murray failed to defend his title when he fell to Mardy Fish in his first match of the tournament.  Murray claimed that he may need to work on the mental part of his game going forward.  In Indian Wells, Murray was fortunate to serve his way out of trouble against scrappy American Michael Russell in the 3^rd round.  It appeared that Murray may have tweaked a heavily taped ankle in the match and appeared to glance at the ankle several times in his quarterfinal loss to Robin Soderling.

 

The recent failure of the Big 4 to advance deep into tournaments is allowing a redistribution of valuable Masters 1000 points to be scooped up by the likes of Roddick, Ljubicic, Berdych and Soderling.  Meanwhile, the rest of the field will begin to believe that they have a chance to beat the Top 4 going forward.

 

• Federer has only 2 wins in his last 24 Masters 1000 tournaments (Cincinnati 2009 & Madrid 2009). Nadal had won 5 of 7 tournaments, including the Australian Open and 3 Masters 1000 crowns prior to losing to Federer in Madrid and Soderling at Roland Garros last year.

 

Since the Soderling loss, Nadal has not won a tournament in his last 12 attempts, a drought of 336 days. However Nadal’s clay court campaign will get underway in 7 days at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters 1000 when he will attempt to win the tournament for the 6^th consecutive time.