Ferrero pounds lacklustre Verkerk
By Georges Homsi
Sunday, June 8, 2003
Patrice Hagelauer, the French Davis Cup coach who has been at Roland-Garros
every day for the last fortnight, couldn't help but be a little disappointed
at Martin Verkerk's lacklustre showing today in the men's final against Juan
Carlos Ferrero, who gets better every year.
"Verkerk played out of his skin for a fortnight and then obviously woke up
this morning and suddenly realised he was in the Roland-Garros final. Right
from the first few games it was obvious he wasn't firing on all cylinders,
specially his forehand. He made a lot of unforced errors; 56, which is huge.
He got to the final by tempting the devil, unleashing booming forehands,
backhands and of course his serve coming in at all angles at uncontrollable
speed. My impression was that when he saw he was making errors he played safe,
which put his whole game out of kilter. No doubt it was playing on his mind
that all these people had come to cheer him on and he wasn't hitting the ball
well at all.
Just for a moment, when he broke Ferrero in the second, I thought he might
come back into things, but it just didn't happen. His lack of experience
showed I felt. When the pressure mounts you need to fall back on your
technique and I think Verkerk still has some ways to go in this respect.
Ferrero never fell behind
Ferrero on the other hand is a worthy champion. To reach two semis and finish
runner up in Paris is already quite an achievement. This year he settled old
scores with certain opponents like Costa who beat him in last year's final and
Gonzales who beat him in 1998 when they were both juniors. Juan Carlos isn't
at home against the Chilean's power game so beating him will be a big shot in
the arm.
Today he was clicking right from the first game which lasted ten minutes and
in which he made some superb returns of service. He hit the ground running as
it were. He never fell behind. In the second set when he dropped his serve he
broke back right away.
Ferrero's serve has also come on recently. His first serve now smokes. All his
strokes have more punch in fact. He's quick around the court but that's not a
new feature in his game. He does a lot more than make you play a lot of shots,
he directs play too. He worked Verkerk on his weaker forehand side and then,
wham, he hits an unstoppable down-the-line winner. He's overall a more
powerful player now. Juan Carlos is going to win a lot more tournaments".
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