Farming for title? Stay away from clay![US版]

作者: kour (Stinky Sox) 看板: US_YoungGuns 標題: Farming for title? Stay away from clay! 時間: Tue Apr 19 07:52:20 2005 Farming for title? Stay away from clay U.S. drought on France's favorite surface leaves many top men digging for answers By DALE ROBERTSON Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle 這篇報導稍微整理了ㄧ下這ㄧ代美國男子選手在紅土的窘境, 這禮拜大家都會出現在Houston, (當然地,大家都放棄獎金更多,積分更高的Barcelona), 不提Mardy,Robby,James,說說領頭牌的Andy, 他生涯大多數在紅土上的勝利都來自Houston(尤其是03-04), 其他人幾乎是winless... 唯一有紅土實績的是老ㄧ輩的Agassi, 對其他US Youngguns來說, Wimbledon的準備已經開始,Roland Garros則已經結束了! 對美國球迷來說? 這大概是ATP球季裡最無聊而漫長的兩個月吧... 原文出處網址 <http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3129931> The South American/Mexican clay-court season came and went in February without American participation, and the two European kickoff events last week in Spain and Morocco were completely bereft of Yanks as well. In the first 2005 Masters Series tournament on red clay in Monte Carlo, which began Monday, only Vince Spadea was there to wave Old Glory. But he's already out, having lost the first official American clay-court set of the year 6-0 to Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic. At least some face was saved in the 7-5 second set. If you sense a trend here, you're on to something. <Little to hope for> The top Americans are all scheduled to play in the French Open, and they will grudgingly prepare for it the best they can. But the next two months on the ATP calendar remain the longest, hardest, least-rewarding slog for the U.S. contingent on the Tour. The top six Americans have little to show for their efforts to conquer clay over the last four seasons, and there's no reason to expect anything to change soon among the men. "It's just not our surface," concedes James Blake, whose finest moments on the stuff have come at the River Oaks International, a non-ATP-sanctioned event he won for the second time on Sunday. "None of us grew up on it, and none of us practice on it that much." So until the French Open is behind them and preparations for Wimbledon begin, the Americans figure to be mostly stuck in the mud on dirt. But because none of the top clay-court stars will be leaving Europe to visit Houston for the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships starting Monday ? there's a bigger prize-money tournament in Barcelona opposite the one at Westside Tennis Club ? at least the Americans stand a fighting chance of holding their own on the home turf. Not counting Blake's River Oaks dominance, only Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi among the Americans have won, or even come remotely close to winning, clay-court titles anywhere in the world since 2001, when the U.S. championships moved to Houston from Disney World. And three of their combined six victories have been at Westside, where Roddick has also been runner-up the last two years. Eighteen of his 41 match wins on clay since he became a fixture on the ATP Tour in 2001 have come in Houston ? including eight of his 11 in 2003-04. He has withdrawn from the Monte Carlo festivities each of the last two years, no doubt sensing futility. "But I'm a long way from giving up on clay," Roddick said. "I still think I can learn to play effectively on it if I can improve my movement, and that's what I'm emphasizing." <Agassi's regimen> Agassi hasn't entered Monte Carlo since 1998, when he lost in the second round to Pete Sampras. In fact, his preparation for the French Open in 2004 consisted of only the Austrian stop, where he stumbled in the first round. He also succumbed straightaway in Paris, ending a run of three consecutive quarterfinal appearances. This year, he'll play Houston and Rome (May 2-8), then see how he's holding up physically before deciding on a tuneup in Germany or Austria. "The work on clay will do me good," Agassi said recently from Las Vegas, conceding his extra-light schedule of a year ago didn't serve him well. "It will help prepare me for the (grass and hard-court) seasons. Then when I get on those surfaces, where I'll obviously have a better chance to win, I'll be in better match condition." Agassi, who turns 35 at the end of the month, is the only American to conquer the French Open (1999) since his new doubles partner Jim Courier's back-to-back triumphs in 1991-92. None of Sampras' record 14 Grand Slams were won in Paris, and Roddick has made it past the second round but once. As for the other second-tier Americans ? Blake, Vince Spadea, Taylor Dent, Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri ? they are a combined 7-10 on French clay, with only Spadea boasting a winning record (5-3). Fish, Dent and Ginepri are all winless at Roland Garros. <Coria beaten in better days> No American has a victory over an elite clay-courter anywhere in the last four years, save for Roddick's beating Guillermo Coria in three sets at Westside in 2002. But Coria, the French Open runner-up in 2004, ranked just 109th in the world at the time. When Roddick won in St. Poelten, Austria, in 2003, he defeated Russia's Nikolay Davydenko in the final. Only recently, though, has Davydenko cracked the top 20. Among the Yanks, Agassi possesses the lone clay-court Masters title of the new millenium, having defeating Tommy Haas in the Rome final in 2002. Agassi, of course, beat Roddick in Houston for his other title on dirt, and his conspicuous oh-fer of a year ago notwithstanding, he has still won 27 of 37 matches on clay dating to 2001. <[email protected]> -- ▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ kour 的文章 __ □ ╳ ▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆ ◢╦︽╮◣ ▁▁▁▁ ▁▁▁▁ ╠═╯ 這篇文章為 kour發表的ꨠ▏確定▉ ▏取消▉ ◥╠╬╬◤ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇ -- ◆ From: 220.139.43.206 -- ◆ From: 203.70.71.42
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