Posts Tagged ‘2004’

from scotsman.com by Moira Gordon
23 May 2004
WHEN Juan Carlos Ferrero won at the French Open at Roland Garros 12 months ago, he honoured a bet to take a pair of clippers and shear the locks off his backroom staff. A year on, just making it into the second week of the event could prove to be a closer shave.
Such is the strength in depth of the men’s game as they embark on the second Grand Slam of the year that any one of well over half a dozen players could be considered genuine title contenders on the Paris clay as the tournament gets underway again this week.
Which is bad news for the Spaniard. With the challenge from his rivals looking stronger than ever, the 23-year-old is struggling to find the mettle and the stamina needed to succeed in rudimentary competition, let alone a two-week Grand Slam slog, with four and five-set battles more likely than not. He pushed himself to the limits in 2003 and, granting himself little respite before the new campaign got underway, when he chose to represent his country rather than take a much needed breather, the player, who only just lost out to Andy Roddick in the Champions Race, is weaker, mentally and physically than he would like as he goes into his favoured slam.
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from Tennis Week by Richard Pagliaro
22 May 2004
The Mosquito’s baseline bite helped him soar to supremacy in Paris last year. But illness, injury and inadequate preparation have set a fly-trap that may well sap the sting from defending champion Juan Carlos Ferrero in his efforts to raise the Roland Garros title trophy again.
Roland Garros begins on Monday. The draws for the clay-court drama were released today and present challenging pictures for three of the primary contenders: top-seeded Roger Federer, third-seeded Guillermo Coria and Ferrero.
In the past, the tournament has served as a clay-court canvas for skilled clay-court players to produce a Parisian paradise with their signature strokes. Ferrero crafted his first Grand Slam championship on the red clay last year, but the man affectionately nicknamed “The Mosquito” must face a series of adversaries — wrist and rib injuries that have limited him to one light practice session this week — before he even gets to his experienced opening-round opponent, former No. 2 Tommy Haas. The fourth-seeded Ferrero is 2-0 against Haas, with both wins coming on clay, but the unseeded German claimed his first career clay-court championship in Houston last month beating defending Andy Roddick in the final.
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from ATP Tennis
22 May 2004
* THE DEFENDING CHAMPION — Juan Carlos Ferrero is trying to become the first player to repeat as champion at Roland Garros since Gustavo Kuerten in 2000-2001. But the Spaniard is trying to regain his form from last year when he came into Paris with a 21-2 clay court match record and winner of two clay court titles. This year he has been hampered by illness and injury and he enters Paris with a 5-2 clay court mark without a title. In March, Ferrero missed one month of action after contracting chicken pox. He returned in April for a quarterfinal Davis Cup against the Netherlands (winning both matches) and then followed with a semifinal showing in Valencia and first round exit in Monte Carlo on Apr. 20, his last match. He was not ready to come back until Hamburg but he injured his right wrist and ribs when he fell while practicing in Valencia on May 8 just two days before the start of the tournament.
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from Tennis Week by Richard Pagliaro
21 May 2004

Defending Roland Garros champion Juan Carlos Ferrero faces a tough first-round opponent in Tommy Haas, but reaching the opening round may be even tougher. The fourth-ranked Spaniard is suffering from wrist and rib injuries that could hamper his hopes of defending his Roland Garros championship.

The season’s second Grand Slam begins on Monday and Ferrero’s injuries prevented him from practicing on Tuesday and Wednesday though he did participate in a light practice yesterday.

The injuries are the latest setback for the former No. 1, who contracted the chicken pox at Indian Wells in March and sat out the entire month. Ferrero has been limited to just five ATP Tour clay-court matches this year and has not played since suffering a 6-2, 6-3 setback to compatriot Alex Corretja in the opening round of the Tennis Masters Series-Monte Carlo last month.

Ferrero’s coach, Antonio Martinez Cascales, said he was “optimistic” Ferrero will play Roland Garros though his injuries — and lack of recent match play — is clearly a concern.

from Tennis Week by Douglas Robson
12 May 2004
There are two things you can say about Juan Carlos Ferrero without hesitation. First, he is the greatest clay court player of his generation and arguably the best since Bjorn Borg a quarter-century ago. Second, almost nobody on this side of the Atlantic seems to care.
Not since Czechoslovakian chainsaw Ivan Lendl mowed down opponents with metronomic precision has a player been so successful — and so unappreciated.
“He doesn’t seem to inspire excitement,” says TV commentator Cliff Drysdale, “and I’m not sure it’s just the American public.”
Call it the Spanish Paradox — of which Ferrero is the current incarnation. Somehow Latin flair doesn’t translate well inside the 27-by-78 dimensions of a tennis court. To be sure, the U.S. public has always been slow to embrace outsiders. Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Steffi Graf were not instant stars in America. But Spaniards, for whatever reason, have been particularly hardpressed to gain major star status stateside. Even if Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer are not yet household names on these shores, these under-24 foreign stars with credentials similar to Ferrero — at least one major and a No. 1 ranking — would almost certainly score higher Q ratings than their Spanish contemporary.
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from the official Roland Garros website by Eric Salliot
29 April 2004
Juan Carlos Ferrero will soon return to the site of the sweetest success of his career. Since winning at Roland Garros last year, El Mosquito has soared to unprecedented heights, but there are signs that he is starting to fall back down to Earth just at the wrong time. Will the reigning champion be able to recover and hang on to his title?
If Juan Carlos Ferrero seemed to coast to victory in last year’s French Open Final, it was perhaps because he had already played that match many times before in his dreams – lifting the Musketeer’s Cup had always been his greatest ambition, and inexperienced Dutchman Martin Verkerk could do little to stop the Spaniard claiming it in straight sets (6-1, 6-3, 6-2).
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