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Are Murray, Li and Davenport for real?

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Mal Taam/MALTphoto
Li Na won her second career title, while Andy Murray notched No. 4.	Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com

Unless I am already dug in deep by attending tournaments, like I tend to be during the US Open Series tournaments, from the Aussie Open through Miami, or after Roland Garros going into Wimbledon, I have a hard time gauging which players are truly threats going into a Slam. Results do matter a good deal, but not a great deal at times, unless you can sense a player hitting a higher level and see that player’s main competitors levels dropping a bit.

For example, last summer prior the US Open, I saw a lot of Anna Chakvetadze and I knew that if she played at the same level in New York, that she was a Top-5 contender. I didn’t anticipate her horror show in the USO semis against Svetlana Kuznetsova, because I thought that mentally she had taken a big leap and, technically, I really believed she was playing better than Sveta was. But her fear of the big stage got the best of her and, since then, she has largely fallen back to the pack.

I saw enough of James Blake, too, to be convinced that despite the tipsy, frat boy yells of the J-Block in NYC, that his level and mentality were not sound enough to go very far. That belief was supported in his fifth-set meltdown against Tommy Haas.
Today, sitting in my dining room watching a severe Northern California rainstorm overpower the storm drains and consequently flood my driveway, I cannot be as convicted as I was then, but can offer some growing feelings while watching the Aussie Open warm-ups as closely as I can. Do the title runs of Andy Murray in Doha, Na Li on the Gold Coast and Lindsay Davenport in Auckland have any special significance? Maybe, maybe not. Once I touch down in Melbourne, I may have a better idea, but it takes being around the contenders a bit to get a sense of their self belief. As I’ve written so many times over the years, that’s crucial in being able to forecast what is to come, because even if you are watching a ton of matches on TV, the personal connection is missing and you simply cannot pick up on the proper body language and mental cues.

But that won’t stop me from producing the not-so-radical thoughts I had last night while I was bailing a good 300 gallons or so of water off the driveway and on to the hillside. I grew bored (and sore) after a while, so in order to distract myself, I thought about Li, who I have never been a big fan of, but who had perked my interest after her 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Belarusian teenager Victoria Azarenka, who brings a lot to the table. For a few years now, I’ve been a Peng Shuai guy, meaning that if I was asked who the most talented of the Chinese women were, that’s whom I would have tabbed. I liked Peng’s go-for-broke attitude, feel for the ball and rebellious streak. I believed that because she was comfortable fighting authorities in her country against difficult odds, that she would be a perfect fit for the highly individualistic world of tennis. I’ve been wrong about Peng, because either some bitter authority poisoned her a few years ago, or she simply is too lazy and does not know how to take care of her body, because she retires just about every other match. I no longer believe she has Top-10 stuff. If Michael Chang – who is a very easy-going guy – can’t coax a few more big wins out of her, than no one can, especially because she doesn’t respond well to authority in the first place.

Li is another story. She has put up the most impressive singles results of anyone in her nation and if you take a hard look at her body, you can see someone who can run through a brick wall. With that said, she’s had bad luck with injuries during the past two years or so, especially last year, when she was out six months with a rib injury. With her husband/coach in tow, she’s smiling more now and certainly has a Top-10 game if she's clicking on all cylinders. She’s fast, hits with depth and power and doesn’t appear to fear the big moment. At the Gold Coast, she also took out Sybille Bammer, Nicole Vaidisova and Patty Schnyder. Those are all fine wins and now she’ll go into the Aussie Open seeded somewhere around No. 24, which certainly gives her a shot at the second week, and maybe her first Slams semi. Then we will see whether all that time and energy the Chinese Tennis Federation has spent nurturing her will pay off because really, by the time August rolls around and Beijing unleashes it color and crass on the world via the Olympics, Li, in good health, has to be given at least an outside shot at a medal. That’s when the huge pressure will come and her performance leading up to the games will be a good indication of her ability to cope. I’m not convinced she can yet, but her run at the Gold Coast gave me room for pause. I’ll hit “Play” with her at the AO.

MURRAY CONTINUES TO IMPRESS
I’ve been impressed by Andy Murray’s repertoire since I first saw him and have said before and will say again that he has Top-5 stuff. But like Li, his body has failed him continuously and this is a step-up year for the Scot. He took a nice bound by besting Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to win Qatar. Murray must have had a decent off season, because he continued the fine form he showed during the fall. Now he becomes once again an outside contender at the AO, because as we all know, he has played Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal ad Novak Djokovic very tough. With his variety and occasional meanness of spirit, he has the look of potential No. 4. Wouldn’t that be great for the game in 2008 – Fed challenged by three young 20-somethings who know each other from the juniors?

What Murray needs now is to compete at a Slam with no excuses and reach a semi. His dismissal of his coach, Brad Gilbert, last fall, still leaves a sour note in my stomach, because even though Gilbert is a big talker, a lot of what he says has value. I don’t think that Murray, and his mom, Judy, gave Gilbert enough time to work his magic and even though Brad won ugly, he’s coached pretty. Andy is very much his own man but he needs to grow up and see the bigger picture, which means being more tolerant of elder males. Not to be too forward (oh, what the hell, I will, because my back is starting to ache again and I’m going to have to start bailing water in an hour or so again), but Andy – who can be be very likeable – can at times display a prickly persona which no doubt has something to do with his parent’s divorce and some bitterness toward his dad. From what I've seen, he’s much more respectful toward older women. But he’ll hammer older men (no, it hasn’t happened to me – yet) at the drop of a service toss.

I was more than impressed that Rafael Nadal and his close friend and mentor, Carlos Moya, were willing to contest a nearly four-hour semifinal in Chennai. Rafa saved four match points and won 6-7(3), 7-6(8) 7-6(1). The 31-year-old Moya is 10 years older than Rafa but still stood strong throughout the match. Don't count Charlie out of another Slam quarter, even at the AO. "It was one of the most emotional matches of my career," Nadal said. "It was unbelievable." Rafa will face Mikhail Youzhny in the final, whom he has beaten three straight times and owns a 6-3 record against. You might ask why are Nadal and Moya playing Chennai? Because Moya’s agent, Fernando Soler, is the TD there and he’s also close with the Nadal camp.

In the next few days, I’ll go deep into my thoughts as to whether I think that Lindsay Davenport can be a contender at the AO and even though she has faced few terrific players since she returned in September, prop her for winning three titles, including a 6-2, 6-2 title win over Aravane Rezai in the final of the ASB Classic in Auckland. Until I see her come up against the Top 6, I can’t say either way for sure, but her patterns in the three tournaments have been much the same as to when she was in No. 1 – stomping the non Top-10ers. That’s very good sign, at least for a Slam semi.

Mal Taam/MALTphoto

Martina Hingis get a two-year suspension even though she's retired.

HINGIS IS SUSPENDED …
IN RETIREMENT
I read through much of the ITF”s decision in the Martina Hingis case yesterday in hopes that it would reveal something of value, but it didn’t, as the retired Hingis has been suspended for two years. Either Martina hired the worst defense team on the planet or she gave them nothing to work with, because their avenues of defense looked worse than her second serve against Azarenka at the US Open. It was all a bunch of hogwash that ITF easily defended – the "someone snuck into the room, opened the bottle and contaminated the sample" kind of prevent defense. In order to reduce the suspension, the ITF appeared to have wanted one thing – an explanation of how the cocaine got into Hingis' system – and she offered nothing. I’m going to guess that had Hingis offered some kind of defense that she might have gotten off with a lesser sentence. Why she didn’t offer some reality, I have no idea, other than she thinks that had she done so, she’d be condemned to hell. But that’s doubtful, given that so few people consider cocaine to be a performance-enhancing drug in the first place. Couldn’t she have at least said something like, "I was out at a club before Wimbledon, someone at my table was inhaling lines, my drink spilled into it, I picked it up the glass and thought I had cleaned the cocaine off, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job. Here’s the waiter’s phone number to verify that I was at the club and people there sometimes use recreational drugs."

The ITF might not have bought the story, but they didn’t buy her “I’ve never used cocaine” line either. Here’s what her stepfather, Mario Widmer had to say. "Since Martina has retired from competitive sports, it makes no sense for her to challenge the judgment. She just isn't going to play any more." That sounds more like a Mario statement than a Martina one and I’ll wager that she’ll have a lot more to say in the future – retired, of course.