Tony Roche's comment on Gonzo's bh slice

[Hewittfan22]

Tony Roche made a comment right before the final that his backhand slice is not penetrating and i totally agree with that. I know that people have been giving him a lot of credit for mixing it up with lot of slice and off pace shots on his backhand side but it just didnt seem like he had enough depth on his backhand slice. It always looked short to me i dont know if he was doing that purposely to bring federer to the net or not. If that was gonzo's strategy to bring federer to the net with his short slice then its not the smartest think of coach stefanki. Federer is a as good of volleyer as Henman and Rafter in my opinion, and Gonzo is not a natural passer like Hewitt, Nadal or murray and federer of course haha. That's why Federer crushed Gonzo at the net everytime he was trying to pass him. Also his topspin backhand was so inconsistent, if gonzo improves his backhand side he will be a big threat for french and US open this year.

 

[35ft6]

I thought it was pretty floaty, too. In the Nadal match, I thought it worked to his advantage because Rafa seemed a bit mentally out of sorts in that match, so the extra time he had to hit the ball back probably gave him space to confuse himself. But his win against Haas is really impressive. I didn't see the match but if he somehow managed to use his slice to get that impressive score, than that's pretty amazing because guys with good slice backhands don't get rattled by slice backhands, and Haas has one of the best in the game.

 

[The tennis guy]

Tony Roche made a comment right before the final that his backhand slice is not penetrating and i totally agree with that. I know that people have been giving him a lot of credit for mixing it up with lot of slice and off pace shots on his backhand side but it just didnt seem like he had enough depth on his backhand slice. It always looked short to me i dont know if he was doing that purposely to bring federer to the net or not. If that was gonzo's strategy to bring federer to the net with his short slice then its not the smartest think of coach stefanki. Federer is a as good of volleyer as Henman and Rafter in my opinion, and Gonzo is not a natural passer like Hewitt, Nadal or murray and federer of course haha. That's why Federer crushed Gonzo at the net everytime he was trying to pass him. Also his topspin backhand was so inconsistent, if gonzo improves his backhand side he will be a big threat for french and US open this year.

He changed his slice against Federer. He hit floating slice against Blake and Nadal but kept them deep. Against Federer, he tried to hit with more bite, also Federer came to net a lot, that had kept Gonzalez guessing, thus made those slices even shorter (effective against someone coming in).

 

[FitzRoy]

Tony Roche made a comment right before the final that his backhand slice is not penetrating and i totally agree with that. I know that people have been giving him a lot of credit for mixing it up with lot of slice and off pace shots on his backhand side but it just didnt seem like he had enough depth on his backhand slice. It always looked short to me i dont know if he was doing that purposely to bring federer to the net or not. If that was gonzo's strategy to bring federer to the net with his short slice then its not the smartest think of coach stefanki. Federer is a as good of volleyer as Henman and Rafter in my opinion, and Gonzo is not a natural passer like Hewitt, Nadal or murray and federer of course haha. That's why Federer crushed Gonzo at the net everytime he was trying to pass him. Also his topspin backhand was so inconsistent, if gonzo improves his backhand side he will be a big threat for french and US open this year.

He's also going to have to improve on returning serve - it went completely unnoticed by me until the final, because he didn't really play any big servers. Federer's second serve was strong enough to neutralize Gonzo's return game; Gonzo returned it defensively for the entire match and that allowed Fed to get control of the points on his second serve immediately.

When Gonzalez played Blake (who has a terrible second serve), he ate the second serve up. But he just wasn't able to get into good enough offensive positions during points on Fed's serve, and I think that could be a problem for him against players like Roddick, Ljubicic, Ancic, etc., at a major like the US Open.

I agree about the backhand. The slice is enough to throw off the rhythm of many players, but Federer was able to hit it all day. The match was actually relatively close (Gonzo was only broken 3 times, which is a fairly strong performance against Federer at this point), but it could have been so much closer if Gonzo was able to find a comfort zone on his topspin backhand. If he wants to beat him, he'll have to be able to use the backhand to put Federer in poor court position, the way Federer used his own backhand against Gonzalez.

 

[The tennis guy]

But his win against Haas is really impressive. I didn't see the match but if he somehow managed to use his slice to get that impressive score, than that's pretty amazing because guys with good slice backhands don't get rattled by slice backhands, and Haas has one of the best in the game.

He didn't use his slice that much against Haas. He was in total domination, he hit a lot more topspin back hand in that match.

 

[ChiefAce]

I thought it was pretty floaty, too. In the Nadal match, I thought it worked to his advantage because Rafa seemed a bit mentally out of sorts in that match, so the extra time he had to hit the ball back probably gave him space to confuse himself. But his win against Haas is really impressive. I didn't see the match but if he somehow managed to use his slice to get that impressive score, than that's pretty amazing because guys with good slice backhands don't get rattled by slice backhands, and Haas has one of the best in the game.

Haas hit very few slice backhands in the Gonzo match, the was using topspin off that side the entire match. I don't really recall Haas hitting many backhand slices ever really. Maybe off the return of serve or running defense.

 

[lordmanji]

gonzo's gameplan was to draw fed up to net with the short slice and pass him. it didn't work cuz fed's too good at putting the short ball away. on the deep slices, those kept fed from attacking and worked as intended for much of the match.

 

[alienhamster]

Floaty isn't always bad. It's often the right shot against players who can get thrown off their rhythm or have trouble creating pace.

The bite ones are better against folks who can't do much with low balls.

Gonzo didn't do too bad with the slice BH to Fed's BH side, IMO. The floaty and the biting ones seemed to work fairly well, keeping him in the rally until he could get create a forehand.

 

[Mr Topspin]

I think the tactic employed actually worked. Fed could only hit topspin bh back to gonzalez and then would hit to the gonzo fh but would quickly cover his fh side. If Gonzo had nailed a few fh dtl against fed he might have actually won a set or two. Gonzo's tactics have been the best i have seen an attcking player bring to Fed for quite awhile.

 

[TennisMD]

Hard to be critical. Against other opponents it appeared to be a very steady, rally stroke allowing him ot set up the big forehand. Federer is a notch above, but it was still a steady rally stroke for Gonzalez. Federer's vollies were effective on several occasions as a result of carefully orchastrated combos of pulling Gonzo wide to his forehand and it appeared that every one of Gonzo returns would be cross court and Fed would expect this and cut it off with a winning volley. I noticed this as I have the same tendency if pulled wide to my forehand instead of going up the line I hit cross court

 

[Zverev]

Gonzo wasn't mixing it up IMO, he chose BH slice way too often, and that is sure sign that he wasn't confident in his BH drive.
Fed too often returned Gonzo's slices back to him with a pressure.

 

[Sagittar]

Tony Roche made a comment right before the final that his backhand slice is not penetrating and i totally agree with that. I know that people have been giving him a lot of credit for mixing it up with lot of slice and off pace shots on his backhand side but it just didnt seem like he had enough depth on his backhand slice. It always looked short to me i dont know if he was doing that purposely to bring federer to the net or not. If that was gonzo's strategy to bring federer to the net with his short slice then its not the smartest think of coach stefanki. Federer is a as good of volleyer as Henman and Rafter in my opinion, and Gonzo is not a natural passer like Hewitt, Nadal or murray and federer of course haha. That's why Federer crushed Gonzo at the net everytime he was trying to pass him. Also his topspin backhand was so inconsistent, if gonzo improves his backhand side he will be a big threat for french and US open this year.

well i agree with for the most part , except that federer is as a good volleyer as henman or rafter , because he's sure not .. he's an overall superior player to them but not when it comes to the net ..

 

[Sadyv]

From this match though, I think someone with a good backhand, particularly the slice, who commits to slicing deep and consistently and then going down the line with the drive wil give Federer lots of trouble.

Gonzo doesn't have the skill off that wing to do it, and I can't think of any off hand that do in today's homogenous men's talent.

Gasquet might, but he seems to like standing 15 feet behind the baseline too much.

 

[Techniques]

He didn't use his slice that much against Haas. He was in total domination, he hit a lot more topspin back hand in that match.

Hmmm.. I disagree. He hit a lot of slices to Haas's backhand and just kept the rally going. He then waited for a ball to pop up and he stepped in on that ball and smashed it dtl.

 

[ShcMad]

Credit to Gonzo for mixing up his game and playing percentage tennis. However, he has got to improve his topspin backhand. If he wants to stay at the top and have a chance to beat Federer in the future, he needs a consistent topspin backhand. The slice backhand can only get him so far.

It seems like during the Federer match, whenever Gonzo would hit a slice to Fed's backhand side, Fed would run around it and hit a powerful forehand either sharply crosscourt or down-the-line. Slices almost always have less pace than topspin shots, so Fed had plenty of time to run around and crush forehands.

 

[bagung]

gonzo played and planned well against blake, nadal, haas, but against federer, all his plan didn't work out for him... federer has all the answers to gonzo's plan... we all have to admit federer is really the master

 

[Brad Smith]

That slice is the reason why he got to the finals and to three finals in a row at the end of 2006. His topspin backhand will break down and in the past that was the book on beating him. Now he's able to slice it back all day and night, and he's fast enough to hang out in that corner and dare you to hit to his forehand.

Just because something doesn't work against Federer doesn't mean it won't work against the rest of the field...

 

[grizzly4life]

i think if you look at the scores, that gonzalez strategy did work... and i think the slices will give other players something new for potential strategy vs. federer.... somewhat pick your poison, but i think it's much better than going topspin/drive backhand mano-a-mano with federer

 

[GRANITECHIEF]

Unless the Gonzo slice had good bite and was in the corner, Fed had time to hit his FH, at which point he was immediately in control of the point. This happened over and over and there were certain times when Gonzo needed to play with some risk and spank the BH and at least attempt to be in control of the point.

 

[The Gorilla]

it was weird because against nadal his backhand held up so well and he was hitting 33% slice, 33% drive and 33% loopy topspin backhands, but in the final he was like a crap tim henman off that wing, I think he just choked like fed did against nadal in rg '06.

 

[West Coast Ace]

but in the final he was like a crap tim henman off that wing,

LOL! Great line - but you should probably stay out of the UK for a while...

Don't agree with the choke assessment - Nadal, until proven otherwise is The Man on clay - and Fed is The Man everywhere else. No shame in losing to either. Fed needs to beat Nadal in one of the TMS clay events before RG - or hope someone else knocks Rafa off for him in Paris.

 

[yuttchan]

I watched most of this year's AO with Jimmy Arias commentating on ESPN (Latin America only?). Arias repeated many times before the final that he didn't think Gonzo's short slice bh would work against Federer because, unlike Fed's slice bh, Gonzo's floats a little bit and Arias thought it would sit for Fed's running around fh kills. I guess Arias is just as good a tennis analyst as Roche.

 

[paulfreda]

No doubt Gonzo has work to do if he is ever going to beat Fed. But I agree with the poster who said that slice is the very reason he was in the final at all. It gives him great consistency on that side and as long as he keeps it deep which he did for the most part, it allows him to wait for a chance to use his powerful FH.
The reason Fed can easily beat Gonzo is that Fed takes the net often and gets easy points that way while Gonzo does not. And Fed's serve is much more of a weapon than Gonzo's serve.
JMHO