Grand Slam success may end up eluding Berdych forever

In his autobiography titled “The open”, former World No.1 Andre Agassi hand-picked Tomas Berdych as one of the brightest prospects for the future. Well, that book was released quite some time back in 2009 and contrary to the great American’s expectations, the Czech tennis star still remains only a prospect. The Czech is now 27 and apart from the 2005 Paris Masters, he has not won any big tournament till date. With the sort of game and talent that he has in his repertoire, he should have won at least a couple of Grand Slam titles plus a few more Masters 1000 events. If anything, beating Federer regularly is all that he has learned to do in the last couple of years. And considering the fact that the Swiss Maestro is not as invincible now as he once was, even those victories should not be taken very seriously.

In any case, defeating Federer alone does not guarantee any one a Grand Slam title because gone are those days when he used to feature in almost all the finals. Now, it is imperative for a tennis player to go through the baseline tortures of the Djokovics and Nadals before even dreaming of acquiring a championship title. The current World No.6 Czech tennis player himself had to undergo this ordeal frequently. On one hand, he finds it difficult to go through the initial stages of Grand Slam majors and on the other hand, whenever he succeeds in doing it, he gets to square off against baseline greats like Nadals, Djokovic and Murray, much to his dismay. The only time he came close to tasting Grand Slam success was during the 2010 Wimbledon when he beat an off-colour Federer in the quarter final and scored a thumping victory over Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.

Till today, that remains to be the only Grand Slam final appearance of his career, where he succumbed to Rafael Nadal in straight sets. So, just like any other player, his game tumbles once he sees either Djoker or Nadal on the other side of the net. Just for the record, his recent victory over the world no.1. Serb in the Rome Masters quarterfinals was only the second of his career, the first of which came in the semifinals of Wimbledon 2010, like I said before. And his head to head with Nadal was even worse. His last success against the Spaniard came as early as in 2006 after which he has really struggled to cope up with the latter’s grinding game. Besides, he had his losses in the first round of majors many a time, the most recent one being his defeat at the hands of the capricious Frenchman Gael Monfils a couple of days ago in the French open. At least the Frenchman was, not long ago, a top ten ranked player, and so losing to him should not really be perceived as an upset. But his inexplicable losses against many lower ranked individuals have been the worrying factor for the Czech.

Is he so bad a player that he keeps on facing disaster day in and day out in big tournaments? This is the question which really needs to be answered. Well, to be fair to him, he is one of the most gifted tennis stars, blessed with immense power, duly aided by towering persona. He has one of the best forehands in the business plus his back hand is not ordinary either. He has a very powerful flat serve with which he can really hurt his opponent. The combination of rollicking serves and powerful ground strokes should make any tennis player a contender for big titles, leave alone Berdych. However, the 27-year-old has not been able to live up to his potential and has often choked playing in bigger matches.

The first match that comes to my mind where he lost despite being in a very strong position was during the fourth round of the Australian Open 2009 in which he was up against Roger Federer. He had everything going for him in the first two sets and was very much in control in the third set too. It was then out of nowhere that the Swiss Maestro came out of his shell and pocketed the next three sets to win the match. While Federer can be hailed for the way he fought back from the brink, it has to be said that the man who played the longest doubles match in history just recently, saw his game fading away from him suddenly, which was the most important reason behind his loss. His booming first serves chose to elude him and his ground strokes deserted him just when he required them the most.

Same way, when the “Bird man” vanquished the world No.1 Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinal at Rome a couple of weeks ago after having found himself trailing 2-5 in the second set, the commentators were seen applauding him for the fight back. They showered encomiums on him, saying he had beaten the best player on the planet by staging a spirited come back. The Czech was impressive that day as he gave no chance for the Serb to come back once he got the early break at the beginning of the third set. He was firing aces and un-returnable serves at his opponent consistently and deservedly reached the semifinal. Though it would require nothing short of a herculean task for anyone to prevail over Nadal on clay, the least we expected from the 6ft 5 inch tall ATP professional was a respectable show. But nothing great happened that day as the world no.6 Czech merely surrendered to the clay court game of the Spaniard. His game came a cropper against his semifinal opponent and he just could not do anything right on that day. If only he had served as well as he did against Novak the other day, he would have at least won a set. But, sadly he became yet another victim to the clay court artistry of Rafael Nadal, losing the match in straight sets 6-3 6-4.

His failures in quarters and semis may well be attributed to his consistent absence from big matches, resulted mainly due to so many early exits, especially in Grand Slams. Though his game has always been very solid when it comes to performing on the big stage, his inexperience has often let him down against multiple slam winners. There was a time when he had scored three back to back victories over Rafael Nadal and that happened around seven years ago. Now, though, the Spaniard has turned into an immovable object, holding the best winning percentage in men’s tennis today. To succeed in tennis, you need to constantly improve your game which is something what Rafa has done so well till date and which is something what Berdych has failed to do.

That takes us to the next question – Will he ever win a grand slam at all? For now though it looks all the more unlikely. However, if anything can inspire the Czech then it has to be the career of Goran Ivanisevic, the former Croatian tennis star who finally managed to hold on to a Wimbledon trophy after having struggled for ten long years since his first loss in the final of All England Lawn Tennis Club in 1992 against Andre Agassi. Let us hope that he gets one under his belt in a couple of years or so at least, before age gets the better of him.