Farmers Classic/UCLA - Tuesday, 26 July

It wasn't my plan to attend the event other than to see Del Potro. But the line-up yesterday had Ryan Harrison v. Richard Berankes and later Haas v. Dimitrov. Too many interesting players to miss any of it.

These smaller events are pure gold. I always find coaches at the outer courts who are more than willing to talk about all things tennis and I hit pay dirt yesterday. The coach I found kn0ws Berankes well. He also knows Ryan Harrison. He's coached a number of juniors – mostly from Eastern European countries - including Grigor Dimitrov so he's been around the world attending events from the slams to the bowls and everything else in between. It’s an excellent way to get the skinny on players, how they think, their strengths and uncover some bonehead moves. Well worth the effort.

Richard Berankes

He's been out of circulation due to a back injury and he's really terrific. The guy has one of the cleanest games I've seen. No wasted movement. His second serve is fantastic and he uses solid point structure to set up at the net where he hits a sweet volley. I suspect it was his lack of match play post-injury that caused the mental fatique in the third set where, up a break on Harrison, he lost serve twice in a row. I like Berankes' on court demeanor. No foolishness, no wasted emotion or inane challenges to buy time to catch his breath. He does his very best from start to finish. I understand why Roger has practiced with him in the past. He’s a refreshing player. No weapons other than his quickness about the court. He's not tall but he's got heart, he's a thinker and he respects the sport.

Ryan Harrison

This kid has the kind of personality that gives Americans a bad rap. He’s got a big serve and had absolutely no game plan to back it up against Berankes yesterday. All Berankes had to do was wait for a second serve to get the ball into play and it drove Harrison into several melt downs. Racket throwing, swearing, spitting, accusing Berankes of winning a game without hitting a clean shot. All the while the chair umpire, Mohamed Lahyani, didn’t issue any warnings. Lahyani is one of my favorite umpires and it was disappointing to see him give the punk a pass. Meanwhile, Berankes had a bit of a laugh at Harrison’s on court antics. The coach I sat next to pointed out how Harrison was behaving, badly, in front of a bunch of children who were looking at him as their next tennis idol. What a mess.

James Blake

He played beautiful tennis last night. Everything was fluid and it was a joy to see him hit immaculate ground strokes at this late stage of his career. He looked great against Michael Berrer last night but I expect he’s going to have a heap of trouble against del Potro tonight.

Grigor Dimitrov

He looked fantastic on the practice court and a tad wobbly in his first set against Tommy Haas. He seemed startled by his increasing power. As though he was thinking “I can hit the ball that hard!” and then not have his feet planted under his body to support his developing strength. Awkward. You see the same adjustment challenges with shot selection on big points. Some sloppy work on groundies – hitting bigger forehands than necessary – when all he needed to do was pull it back to 80% to win the point. And then he goes and hits a running BH DTL winner to take the first set. He’s got game and he’s working with the right coach now. Lundgren messed him up by putting him in the big events, against the better players too soon. McNamara is taking him through the lower events so he can win a few rounds and develop confidence. It’s fun watching him sort it out and pull his all court game together. The one cause for concern is that Dimitrov hasn’t taken any kind of a break this summer and the hard court season is only getting started. His serve reminds me a lot of Roger’s.

One sweet note from the Dimitrov/Haas match. The coach I mentioned came into the stadium with 5 or 6 of his junior players and marched them all down to the front row for an unobstructed view of Dimitrov. That was nice.

Players’ Wives

Next to coaches, these are the next best people to sit next to at events. They tell much different stories than the coaches and the one I spoke with last night should seriously consider stand up comedy. Her husband’s played Nadal twice at Wimbledon and she told me how Uncle Toni cheats. At one point during a match at Wimbledon, she had to remove herself from the players’ box to avoid attacking Uncle Toni. ROFLMAO! Throughout all the matches, Uncle Toni is telling Nadal what to do. More slice VAMOS! Backhand VAMOS! He issues the instructions and ends the comment with VAMOS so it sounds like all he’s doing is encouraging Nadal, which he’s entitled to do. The chair umpires don’t challenge this because the tournament directors need Nadal in the event to continue to sell tickets. But watching this woman imitate how Uncle Toni calls out to Nadal was priceless.