Malisse is currently going through somewhat of a renaissance in his career. Approaching his 30th birthday, he has surely not got much time left to have a good grand slam run and should be ciewing this as one of his last chances. He never really pushed on from his semi final effort here in 2002, where he was beat in five sets in a titanic struggle by nalbandian.
The fact he never went higher than 19 (which he achieved shortly after that performance) highlights the underachievement and some of his performances in following years highlight that he perhaps didn't get over that dissappointment. The defeat the following year at wimbledon in rd 1 to saulnier in straight sets and great britains arvind parmer at nott the following year highlight how great he fell. In the last year he has found some of that grass form and has found confidence which comes from winning games. He is 8-2 this year on grass this year, reaching the qf at queens (losing to querrey) and sf in holland.
Today malisse faces querrey, the champion of Queens and the player who ended his good run there. However, despite this victory, i believe the bookies have went a little overboard with their prices, as he did not have to beat a player ranked under 70 in the rankings, showing the ease of his draw. Also, despite his size, decent serve and some decent grass performances of late, i am not convinced on him on grass as his movement on it is still very suspect and his net game still needs attention. The more games he plays the better he should get, but with only 28 games on lawns he is still relatively inexperienced.
Further, he has commented on troubles with the the transition form queens to wimbledon as the courts are playing slightly differently, with different bounces and speeds. All this could be seen in his stuttering defeat of the limited dodig, and if he hadn't choked in the 4th set tb we would have seen a five setter in a game querrey really should have romped.
Lastly, queerey has not got the best record at grand slams with a 44% record overall, and his lone last 16 appearance at US 2008 his best performance to date. He has suffered some poor defeats, few worse than this year in the first rd as a seed in both aus and french to schuettler and genepri repectively. Further, he has lost his two five setters to date and all this shows that he is vulnerable over 5 set games and his inexperience going the distance may tell. Malisse on the other hand is over 60% at GS level witha 10-11 record on games that go the distance of five sets. This better record and greater experience will hopefully see him over the line in a tight match, much tighter than odds may suggest.
Potential Profit £100
Any comments or reasoning greatly appreciated!
No comments:
Post a Comment