When his father was playing on the ATP Tour, little Alexandr Dolgopolov made a nuisance of himself asking big players such as Thomas Muster and Marc Rosset to hit with him. But Dolgopolov, now 22, was a much bigger nuisance in the fourth round of the Australian Open on Monday when he scored a stunning upset over No. 4 seed Robin Soderling, winning 1-6, 6-3, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.
It was an extraordinary match, highlighted by the swift and totally unexpected turnaround that occurred when Soderling was leading 2-1 with the break at the start of the second set. Suddenly, the Ukrainian made a couple of good returns, the Swede hit a couple of forehands out and it was a different match. In the end, the fact that Soderling got back into the match by winning the fourth set was almost irrelevant.
Dolgopolov, unfussed and seemingly nerveless, just picked up again in the fifth set from where he had left off in the third, moving smoothly to everything Soderling threw at him; covering well on his forehand and hitting some beautiful backhand winners from some unlikely parts of the court.
His first serve had been practically nonexistent in the first set when he was serving at a paltry 23 percent, but that improved to 45 percent in the second set and five aces came with it. So did 15 winners just in that set; the transformation was astounding.
Soderling, who insisted afterward that he had not been feeling good about his game right from the start, continued to make far too many errors on the forehand. When Dolgopolov started reading his big serve, the Swede seemed helpless.
"Well, I struggled the whole match," Soderling said afterward. "I won the first set, yeah, but I didn't win it because I played well. He wasn't on it at the start. Then he started to play much better, which I didn't. He has a great backhand, and he's moving very well. He's a great counter-puncher and has a good chance to do really well, I think."
One of the aspects of the Ukrainian's game that may help him most is his temperament. He practically redefines "laid back."
"I started pretty bad today, but I can't say it was nerves or something," he said. "I just was not in the match. My body was not listening to me. Sometimes you have nerves, like on the match points (he missed three) but that is normal, I think. I played relaxed. I enjoy the tennis. I don't get tight too much. I play really freely and sometimes it pays off."
It certainly did today, and this terrific performance makes Dolgopolov the first player from the Ukraine to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam since Andrei Medvedev, the 1999 French Open finalist, who was coached for a time by Dolgopolov's father. Dolgopolov himself now has an Australian coach, Jack Reader, after deciding the father-coach relationship wasn't working.
"My father coached me until I was 19," he explained. "But we got a bit tired of each other. It's a pretty tough relationship, father and coach. So everybody's happy now."
Soderling was asked if he was about to fire his new coach, the Italian Claudio Pistolesi, who only started working with him in December after Magnus Norman decided he didn't want to travel so much anymore. "No, definitely not," Soderling said. "He's a great coach. We had the best start ever (Soderling won the ATP title in Brisbane two weeks ago) and it's not going to be perfect in a couple of weeks. It will take some time. But I think we are both pretty confident that I am going to improve."
Dolgopolov now will play Andy Murray, whom he met in a Davis Cup match when they were both teenagers. Murray, seemingly invincible at the moment, cruised through his fourth-round match in straight sets, beating Austrian left-hander Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-1, 6-1, winning 90 points to 52. The margin between them was that big, and you would never have known that Melzer had just enjoyed his best year on the tour, moving up from No. 28 to No. 11 in the world by December.
Nadal moves on
It took a while — the first set lasted 56 minutes — but there was never much doubt as to the winner of the evening session’s first match under the lights. Marin Cilic had beaten Rafael Nadal in their only previous meeting in Beijing in 2009 — and beaten him badly —- but there was never going to be a repeat here.
In the end, Nadal prevailed 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 over the 6-foot-6 Croat who was a semi-finalist here last year. Cilic did his best to get in and attack whenever he could but it was often not enough and Nadal, free at last of the lingering virus he picked up in the Middle East, ran the usual marathon along his baseline, retrieving much of what Cilic was able to throw at him.
Cilic had two break points, but could not convert as Nadal's improved and partially re-modeled serve did its job. Nadal, in fact, referred back to the US Open while chatting to Jim Courier on court, making special mention of how the improved delivery helped him win for the first time at Flushing Meadows.
“On these hard surfaces it is important to serve well because the guys return so well,” said Nadal. “At the US Open I didn’t lose serve once before the quarterfinal and this was very important for me.”
Nadal has now set up an all Spanish quarterfinal at the top of the draw just as there will be an all Swiss quarter final at the bottom between Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka. Nadal will face David Ferrer, who won the ATP title in Auckland earlier in the month and maintained his unbeaten record for 2011 by beating the new sensation from Canada, 20-year-old Milos Raonic 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.
It said much for Raonic that he was able to win the first set against a player who made only one unforced error. It is the huge serve, the big forehand and his amazing composure that has enabled Raonic to do so well these past few days. He seems to be such an intelligent young man that should rise quickly up the rankings.
“There’s a whole lot to learn from the whole two week experience,” said Raonic. “Biggest thing is that I am not far away from this level on a week-to-week basis. So this is a great motivational thing for the work I’ve done, paying off and everything. The next step is just see what needs to be done.”
Inevitably, physical conditioning will be one of those things because, even though he is already a tall, strapping athlete, Raonic needs to build on his stamina.
“In the second set, my mind was ready to fight for every point but the legs weren’t following as much, neither was the arm.”
But they will and then there should be little that this talented newcomer cannot accomplish.
