The talented young Frenchman is still only 21, but it feels like he's been around for longer. He's already been in the top 10, and has won a few titles, but until now has never reached a slam singles quarter-final. Back in 2005, his win over Federer at Monte Carlo acted as a big breakthrough. However, since then, although he's had some decent achievements, playing well in Davis Cup and winning titles on different surfaces, I feel his career has lacked that all important big match win during a slam...

Well, what better opportunity to get a milestone win during a slam than today's match against Roddick. Gasquet's been looking good at Wimbledon this year so far, serving well, mixing it up nicely, sound volley technique, great passing shots, and his forehand finally looking a potent weapon in its own right. Roddick's in good form though, but this match is a real good test for Gasquet. He has the talent and shots to beat Roddick, but has he got the right choke-free mentality to do it?

My other concern about Gasquet is that he stands a bit far back when he's on the baseline - even further back than Nadal at times!

Good article Mr.I, just one mistake, Gasquet's highest ranking is #11....


As for today's match, I think it'll be a good'un but I'm rooting for Andy :ok:


Gasquet as has been said many times has incredible flair and variety, but Djokovic and Murray have also shown varieyt and these two are stronger mentally and have more power. Richard needs to do the physical training like Djoko and Andy did over the off season.


Just being a brilliant tennis player is, sadly, not enough

On the plus side for the young Frenchman, Gasquet is serving really well this week. I'm not sure about his defensive skills in retrieving Roddick's big shots though.

Gasquet is capable of beating Roddick today, but I feel the tighter the match, the more Roddick is likely to win it. Gasquet's best chance is by taking the match by the scruff of the neck and running away with the lead - Gasquet needs to go to the net a lot, and avoid being too passive in the rallies.

Gasquet looked on great form yesterday, some of his shots were amazing :ok: Big up to Tsonga though, I will be looking out for him again in the future.

Gasquet is the better player but he is the more nervous too so As MrI said, unless he has a good start, I can't se him win.

For some reasons, Gasquet would play his best against Federer because he knows that against Federer he is the outsider with all to win. With Roddick, he knows it is his to lose.

I was so looking forward to seeing this match. Instead I've had 6 going on at the saem time and now nothing as it's raining. :(

I think many are underrating Gasquet's chances. Let's nto forget that Roddick can have abysmal patches, and that if he's faced with too much vairety he does not know what to do. He has no plan B, and even though he's playing well this week he has not added to his game, his A game is just on that's all. Gasquet has been a surprise so far, I think he has not dropped a set yet and he's played some very good players. He is inconsistent and often loses it mentally but I think he's having a great streak here, and when on a roll he is tough to beat. He's on one at the moment, maybe this is his breakthrough slam? I hope so, it's about time and I'd love to see his brilliance and variety overcome brute force one dimensionality - as I often prefer! :D

I wonder how the weather will play a part? Lots of interruptions could change the momentum like a swining pendulum. I'm sure the disruptions will affect both players but maybe Gasquet will be more likely to blow hot and cold if the match keeps stopping and starting?

Mayeb he'll just go for it because it's his big breakthrough chance at a slam. I hope so. I want to see Richard progress further. Roddick's had his chances, he is most unlikley to beat Federer so give Richard a chance.

Id like to see him win :)

May the tennis gods listen to you. :pray:

i think richard has been helped by the fact that he's played 3 frenchmen at wimbledon.

granted he's played very well but i think at some level his compatriots acknowledge him as the annointed one with the best chance to progress. not that i'm suggesting they lay down for him or anything but i believe it does give him an edge in their matches. i think i'm right in saying that he's never lost to a frenchman at a grand slam.

the other thing i've noticed is that he tends to drop serve early in matches. even against tsonga the other day where it was a relatively east straight sets win, he was down a break twice in the opening set. and it's not an isolated occurrence. if he pulls that against roddick, he'll get eaten alive. he can't give himself a mountain to climb right out of the blocks against andy.

I agree with you there Flame but it is more down to Gasquet not fearing his compatriots than them looking up to him. If Gasquet had no fear, he woudl beat Roddick as easily. Unfortunately , he tends to put too much pressure on himself when he sees "rank number 3".

I still think he has a good chance.

Agreed :) He needs to ignore the rank. It's nto Federer we are talking about here but Roddick. He's hardly shown himself to be invincible over the last couple of years or so. H emight have Connors a sa mentor but Connors isn't on the court.

I wish Gasquet was playing Connors instead though! :P

Yeah! roflmao

It's wierd seeing Connors on the sidelines all the time. When I was a kid I used to see him playing on court.

True - I prefer him now that he has mellowed. McEnore and him yesterday were talking about their rivalry incluying an incident between them before the 82 final I believe and Connors was begging for Mc to shut up and ....gracefully Mc did not reveal the details. From what I understood it was a nasty piece of gamesmanship in the locker room but unfortunately have no details about it.

Never heard about that one :huh: , but there was the other incident before the ''77 Semifinal in the locker room where Connors refused to speak to McEnroe who tried to introduce himself.

But JC has mellowed with age . You'd think butter wouldnt melt in his mouth now. I was a pretty big fan of his at one time, but probably out of sympathy after he got beat so many times at Wimbledon and I did enjoy his aggressive style and fighting spirit , not because I liked him as a person. :unsure:

"Time for Gasquet to Step Up?"

So, no pressure being put on Gasquet then.

And he's one of those players who is prone to be affected by pressure. Hope the French media aren't doing the same.. :rolleyes:

Like it or not, Roddick will be a tough test for him. It won't be a failure for him is he loses. He might feel "a little bit sad", but shouldn't feel that he should have "stepped up"

Oh, is that "step up" as in "step up to the plate"?

Hope not, as that's baseball, and rapidly becoming a sporting cliche, sadly.


Anyway, here's hoping that Gasquet plays without being shackled by expectation.. ;)

Should be a great match :)

Well actually I think it is about time Gasquet started to win these big matches. Like I said previously he's made good progress, but since the win over Federer at Monte Carlo in 2005, hasn't really had a 'big win' in a big tournament.

If he wants to be up there with the big boys then he needs to be winning these sorts of matches. Its never easy against Roddick on grass (how many have beaten A-Rod on the surface in recent years: Federer, Murray, Hewitt - is that it?) but I really want to see Gasquet show some fight in this match.

If Gasquet loses the match against A-Rod its not the end of the world...but its how he plays on the clutch points that matters.

I agree.

On the one hand he could suffer from over expectation, but he has been on the scene a while and is one of those players that is hugely talented and hasn't quite fulfilled his potential yet So people are right to be expectant - not in the way that he should be thrashing Roddick as such BUT in that he should play a good match and that he should start owkrign up towards winning at this level. Lots of players suffer the shackles fo expectation, I think they have to live with ti and rise above it though.

I really don't think Gasquet suffers from pressure at Wimbledon, the French press is quite far removed, as Amelie Mauresmo can attest to. Perhaps he may have been nervous in this semi, but he just needs to play better on the big occasions.

As MrI said he's been around for a while now, and it is high time he wins a BIG match.

Well, he's playing very well now. If he wins this one Fed may wonder about the SF?

Well, well this is intruiging, both are playing exceptionally, what great matches we've had today :bow:

Gasquet :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:

What a performance, I knew he could do it! :D All ye of little faith. And quids in for George with hsi 3-2 Gasquet bet! :yahoo:

Absolutely SB :ok: What a great match for him :)

I hope he can play that well against Fed, we could be in for a classic :D

Yes I hope so! Shame he isn't playing him in the final. Much rather havethat than Nadal in it.

What a great performance from Gasquet, one of the best comebacks Ive ever seen. :D Jimmy Connors must be gutted, his boy really played well and still lost.
And I wish he was playing Nadal instead of Federer. Total contrast of styles. Gasquet/Fed is almost too much natural flair on court at one time ;)
So well done Gasquet, you really did step up there :ok:

Gasquet really impressed me today with his nerves of steel and his backhand.Fed's going to be in for a tough match tomorrow.Poor Roddick that match really proved that his grand slam days are over.Gasquet you were fantastic!! :bow: :bow: :bow: :yahoo:

Ah Richard...finally :wub: :D

He played amazingly the last 2 1/2 sets. I would pretend to feel sorry for Andy if I actually liked him, but I don't so I won't :P

I loved John Lloyd's sensatinalising at the end "the best match of the tournament" ...how many times have were heard Lloydy say that now? :rolleyes: :D

I don't think it proves his Grand Slam days are over FR. In fact only two people in the world would have beaten him today. Fed and Gasquet.

Roddick will be a threat for the Wimbledon title as long as he continues to serve like that.

Sorry,but feel Roddick is no longer a threat at Wimbledon now or in the future...

Yeah I was disappointed that Roddick in such great form was going to play Federer in the Semis. Id like to have seen him play Nadal. Very interesting matchup that would have been.

On what basis exactly? He played brilliantly today.

People said he was no threat anymore after Wimbledon last year, when he played a lot worse than today, and look what happened.

True Roddick, Nadal is always a very interesting match up....

Just checked their H2H on the ATP site, 2-1 Nadal but they havent met on a grass court before ..

Basically Roddick played his best today,but was still beaten and has lost to Fed both times they met in the final.In today's match Roddick started to look as second rate compared to Gasquet as he does against Fed.

No disrespect, but who are we really to judge?

Players develop at different rates, especially on the men's side. And when you take into account the mental side of the game, that often does take time.

Some burn out early, some get better as they get to their mid-to-late-20s.

So to say that Gasquet "ought" to be winning these matches by now isn't particularly fair. ought to by whose standards? Nadal's? Federer's? They developed at different rates too. When Federer beat Sampras in 2001 it was at least another 1-2 years before he hit his stride. Also, he wasn't doing it with many major obstacles in his way to be honest (compared to those for gasquet right now, at least).

So.. I still think that your thread header should have a question mark at the end of it.

He showed great mental resilience today. Good to see that from him. He's been in great nick all tournament. Bodes well for the future. Whether he has broken through a few barriers psychologically, well, We shall just have to wait and see how things pan out.

I agree. I think Roddick is godo at what he does but what we saw today was all he has to offer. It's a lot of course but that was it. When he finds a B game I will conisder him a possible GS champ again. Until then I will se ehim as vulnerable in every GS round he plays.

I love this term B-game.To me it means purely self belief.Your A-game is all your weapons firing at one time.
B-game implies that something isn't working.In the case of Federer,that means his forehand has gone AWOL,and he's in trouble.
With Gasquet it's his backhand.

Basically developing a B-game is finding a way to win when parts of your game don't work.If you believe in yourself then you can still win.I think that's all Gasquet needs now.

As you say Superbrat,if he can find his B-game,which really is between his ears,then he could be quite a player.

a truely inspiring performance from gasquet today. he deserves it. :clap: :clap: :clap:

i saw him play fed last year in the toronto masters final and he was smokin. big serve and big off the ground. glad to see a great result for him at a slam. and although he's troubled fed in the past, i do not think federer will be in any mood to allow him to take ahold of tomorrow's match.