By David McPherson November 12, 2005
A lot has been expected of 20-year-old Czech Tomas Berdych since his upset of world No. 1 Roger Federer at the 2004 Olympics. And on Sunday in Paris, he finally delivered.
Displaying a game that's a mixture of Richard Krajicek, Marat Safin and Tommy Haas, Berdych outlasted Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4 to win the Paris Masters and declare himself as a major threat for next season.
He's like Safin because of his athleticism and movement for a guy his size and his tendency to drive through - not flick up on - his two-handed backhand. Interestingly enough, according to the ATPTennis.com Web site, Berdych measures 6'4 and 196 lbs., exactly the same height as the Russian and just one pound heavier. He seems to be following the same development pattern as Safin, as well, coming into his own shortly after his 20th birthday.
But Berdych is like Krajicek because his forehand is a carbon copy of the Dutchman's, producing the same driving topspin with machine-like efficiency.
Of course, it would be nice for Berdych to also have Krajicek's serve, but his slower delivery on the stroke more resembles Haas. And, based on Sunday's match, Berdych's probably more of a 3-5 ace per set player, not a 6-10 ace per set server like Krajicek.
That's not to say the Czech's service game isn't very good. Even when he wasn't hitting aces - for example the first two sets - Berdych for the most part easily controlled his service games by backing up the serve with an equally potent forehand.
His serve also got better as the match went on, with the Czech finishing the match with 18 aces after hitting just three in the first two sets.
Berdych's biggest weaknesses at the moment are his net game and his inconsistency. Against the players he thinks he can compete with - Federer and Rafael Nadal - he could help his cause a lot more by sharping up his volleys and cutting out a lot of the sloppy unforced errors. Case in point was the second game of the third set. Serving up two sets to love and down 0-1 in the third, Berdych made a swing volley error and another forehand volley mistake on break point to drop the game.
Suddenly, an easy straight-set victory turned into a dogfight when Ljubicic started really finding the range on his first serve.
Then after Berdych sprayed a pair of backhands and a couple of forehands when serving at 2-2 in the fourth set, the match was soon heading for a fifth set.
But, while the match certainly could have gone either way, I feel satisfied that the better player won in the end.
Berdych clearly had the superior forehand and better return of serve. And when it came down to crunch time in the final game of the fifth set and it was more difficult for Ljubicic to come up with aces, Berdych put a lot of returns in play and did a better job of scrambling and going from defense to offense.
Hopefully, we'll be seeing a lot more of Berdych in big matches next season. Of course, only time will tell if he'll be able to duplicate the success of Safin, Krajicek or Haas, or perhaps achieve much more.