Bally's rallying cry

Elena Baltacha put to bed her Wimbledon demons by powerfully dispatching Petra Martic 6-2, 6-2 in the first round on Monday.

The victory was made sweeter by the fact that this was the opponent the Scot had her dreams crushed by three months earlier when she lost to the Croat under the watchful gaze of the British public in the first round at Wimbledon.

That defeat came with it a wave of negativity towards her as it added to what was a thoroughly depressing day for British tennis, with all apart from Andy Murray losing in the opening round.

There is no nicer way of saying it but Baltacha did well and truly bottle it that day, having been two points away from winning before collapsing with nerves. It has to be said she wasn’t the only Brit to suffer with Anne Keothavong also going down when in a winning position.

However awash all this the British No.1 showed true grit to take down the opponent and reverse the memories which she stated had taken her a while to get over.

“I took that loss quite hard and there were a lot of things to get over after that match but it was one of those things that would make me or break me, admitted the Scot, "I always try to think things happen for a reason, however hurtful, and after Wimbledon really tested me mentally and emotionally. There were a couple of demons there and after today I think I've flicked the demons off my shoulder.”

Baltacha, who is currently ranked 57 in the world and is on the fridges of getting into the top 50 for the first time, has been in fine form all year and a strong performance here will demonstrate her rapid progression.

The 27-year-old has reached the second round of the competition last year, when she showed tremendous fight to come through qualifying to even reach the main draw. Now with the satisfaction of her ranking guaranteeing her a place it is now all about stamping her authority.

If she is to better her previous best at Flushing Meadows she will have to produce a similar performance to defeat this year’s Wimbledon semi finalist Petra Kvitova in the next round.

And if Baltacha wins that then she could send not just a message back to Britain but to the world if she was takes down the reigning US Open champion Kim Clijsters in the third round.

All wrong for Keothavong

Meanwhile, the British No.3 Keothavong could not summon the type of performance her fellow Brit produced as she was defeated 2-6, 6-1, 6-1 to China’s Yung-Jan Chan yesterday.

She admitted that she has been struggling not just mentally but physically at the moment after falling from inside the top world’s 50 to 142 largely down to a bizarre knee injury suffered at the end of last year.

The 26 year old speaking after the loss said: “Who knows what's going to happen after this? I'm going to need time to reassess and decide what I want to do.”

Keothavong has also suffered a number of mental breakdowns especially at Wimbledon and with her confidence now at a significant low point a break not necessarily retirement might be a good option for her.

Roger Federer produces the unbelievable once again

On the way to defeating Brian Dabul in straight sets the great man, with his back to the net, produced a moment of breathtaking magic, which has unerring similarities of his 'tweener' against Novak Djokovic in last years semi final.

Sky Sports News highlights LTA problem...at last!

Finally Britain’s largest sports network news channel Sky Sports News spoke out yesterday about the woeful state of British tennis.

In a series of their Monday night in depth sport features they focused on the issue which has in fact been rumbling for years but it is only now that the numbers are really beginning to stack up against the Lawn Tennis Association as Britain continues to fail.

Watch this!

http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0,26691,12611_6349428,00.html

The problem for me though is why now? This type of feature should have been broadcasted shortly before or during Wimbledon, when the British public become ten times more interested in the sport.

Now, when the programme has controversially switched from freeview to the paid digital customer is the issue being highlighted.

Despite that it was a thoroughly interesting 22 minute feature, where presenter Clare Tomlinson was accompanied by Andy Murray’s former coach Miles Maclagan and former Davis Cup captain David Lloyd.

The feature focused on many areas including the next generation, local clubs, a look at a LTA funded centre and also provided us with interesting sound bites from a number of faces within the game, some more opinionated than others.

The two that obviously stood out for me were David Lloyd and Mark Petchey, both of whom for a long time have been the true voices of the game.

Hard hitting but factual, their views brought to light what has been wrong with the countries game for so many years.

As Petchey pointed out the LTA has used up 42% of its annual budget of £60 million on the elite of the game and with only Andy Murray at the top with the rest hovering between 200 and 500 in the world, it has been money well and truly wasted.

Lloyd backs this up by suggesting that the LTA should not monopolies tennis talent and nurture them into their type of player and instead the talent should be picked out and put into independent squads.

The decreasing number of public courts was also pointed out, which again has been down to the governing bodies inadequacies with funding.

Miles Maclagan also offered some interesting points and tried to take the attention away from the LTA by saying it is a more of a countrywide problem. He suggests that the councils need to be doing a lot more to maintain the conditioning of courts because even in poorer Eastern European counties they still manage to have access to thousands of clean courts.

Murray’s former coach also indicated that the country needs to build a base of good professional, players ranked from 30 to 80 in the world and not focus on making ‘special’ players like Andy Murray’s. He suggests this is down to coaches looking too technical too early and not allowing them to have fun and play.

This is what Lloyd, who is an owner of a business of sport and leisure centres which are spread throughout the county, believes is the root of the problem. He believes there needs to be separate youth programmes away from the LTA’s rigid system and fundamentally better quality coaches within the game.

The resounding result to come out of the special programme is the failings of the LTA, specifically the terrible reign of Chief Executive Roger Draper, a man who came in with big plans and in the end has not reached any of them and has in fact made things worse.

Petchey and Lloyd are 100 per cent adamant the he and a number of his colleagues should hold their hands up and leave.

The former Davis Cup captain said: “If you run a business and you are in the job for four and a half years, miss targets, miss budgets, nothing seems to be improving, he has had his chance and I think he has to go.”

One thing I did notice and hopefully the rest of you noticed was the lack of appearance of Draper to stand up and pledge his case.

I am sure when the Sky Sports reporter Geraint Jones went down to the National Tennis Centre he was around to speak to but obviously he prefers to stay quiet, which in my eyes is a sign of a guilt-ridden man.

Murray out to be the boss

Andy Murray’s performances prior to this year’s US Open have underlined why Flushing Meadows may well be the location where the Scot finally comes away with that elusive major.

I know this has been uttered plenty of times before when the British No.1 has entered a Grand Slam but this time there seems to be a feeling that he wants it more than ever.

And when Murray wants something he usually gets it.

Before the Rogers Cup all the talk was that with Murray making the radical decision to drop his coach Miles Maclagan he will be at risk of slipping down the rankings especially with the news of an extremely tough draw ahead of his title defence in Toronto.

However the Scot seemed completely unnerved by this and banished all those negative questions by producing a run of sublime positive tennis to defeat an inform David Nalbandian, World No.1 Rafael Nadal and then Roger Federer in the final.

The performances especially against Nalbandian and Nadal showed that Murray has altered his approach and is now out to take his game to his opponents rather than allowing them to dictate him.

This has been one of the most frustrating things about watching the Scot. Too often does he fail to step up, throw coercion to the wind and tear through his opponents, which we all know he is capable of. Instead he tends to sit back, wear down the baseline and let the player on the other side of the net bully him.

Although this approach works by frustrating his opponent into submission an attacking natured Scot looks far more assured and imposing figure.

This is noted in today’s Times newspaper where Nalbandian commented on Murray’s highly impressive performance against him in Toronto. He said: “Andy played a more offensive style that day and I like it, said the Argentine, “I don’t like it when he plays too defensively. He played much with an attitude of offensive play in Toronto and won the tournament; he was more defensive in Cincinnati and did not win. There is your answer."

Federer is another to criticise the Scot for his defensive, counter punching style.

Now and unfortunately for the Swiss Murray is beginning to listen, as he defeated the 16 time major winner in the final in a swashbuckling manner proving to Murray that this is by far the best way to topple the World No.2, who is himself coming back into form winning in Cincinnati.

The path to another Murray-Federer final looks odds on with both of them finding themselves in very kind sections of the draw. Despite landing his Roland Garros conqueror Tomas Berdych in the quarters final, with Stanislas Warwinka and Sam Querrey also in the way in the third and fourth round respectively the inform Brit should make a straight forward journey through to the semi final.

World No.1 Nadal may well be his challenge in the last four but as shown in Toronto and the Australian Open quarter final, on hard court Murray is the boss with this being the Spaniard’s least favoured surface and slam.

This then leaves Federer, on the Arthur Ashe Court, a place the great man has dominated for half a decade but after being out lasted by Juan Martin Del Potro in last year’s final it has demonstrated that he can be shunned and Murray needs to believe that.

Serve well, take it early, put his opponent on the back foot as early as possible, step in and win the point this should be the mentallity Murray utillises to ruthlessly take his first Grand Slam title back home.

Welcome to Fine Line Tennis!

With the US Open just a day away this blog will report on the upcoming action, specifically tracking the progress of British No.1 Andy Murray, and pick out and discuss the main talking points over the fortnight.

Following that Fine Line will carry on through the hard court season up till the curtain closers in London and Doha. After the off season, where the players have their well earned rests the blog will hopefully carrying on through 2011 and beyond...

I obviously welcome comments and hopefully I can offer a different perspective on the world of tennis and will try, where possible, to bring up any British news as this is something I am deeply concerned with.

Enjoy!