Oliver, Rino, Potito and his backhand

During his career, Rino Tommasi, the most influencial Italian sport journalist, has proved many times to be right.

Yesterday he said in his site: “for sure, Starace has to improve his backhand, if he wants to reach a significant improvement (in the ATP ranking). Playing with competitors who are able to attack him in that side, he would have huge problems.” I am not sure that Olivier Rochus had had the chance of reading this quote before his game with Potito. However, he implicitly applied this technique all over the 5 sets with Mr. Starace yesterday at the Court 10 of the US open. I am just wondering what Mr. Tommasi is going to comment about that match.

To be honest, the Italian press suggested other reasons for the defeat with Olivier Rochus (6-1, 4-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3): Potito's low experience on the 5-set games (by the way, Olivier has got the same experience, as pointed out by the Belgian press), as well as his dwindling mental concentration has created a competitive advantage for the Belgian player. In 2000, Rochus, the shorter player in the ATP tour (165 cm) was able to beat, along with his brother Christophe, the Italian team in a historical match during the Davis Cup.
Looking at the game statistics, I have also noticed that Starace was really irregular during the game and he made 36 unforced errors (111% more than his competitor Rochus, and 123% more than he did in the first round with Popp).

Next week, the Organizers of the Genoa challenger ($25k, Clay) are planning to give to Potito a Wild Card for playing there. I wish however that Potito can spend more time in the US, playing fewer Tournaments, but with higher price money and prestige. The ability to reach the top 50 in the next 30 weeks and to stop playing Qualifications at the Grand Slam tournaments is crucially more dependent on his planning than on the progress on his backhand play.

Potito at the Grand Slam in 2004

While Potito is struggling in the 5th set with Rochus, I am publishing a visual analysis of what he did in the Grand Slam Tournament in 2004:

New Potito website

By Googling, I have just noticed that the number of fans of Mr. Potito Starace, the new Italian tennis sensation, has increased in the last few months. After the official website, a new site has been built up from somebody in the San Marino Republic.

So, the real question is: how many?

Potito won the first round at the US Open

I was in Turin in the last few days, so that I haven't had the opportunity to update my blog.


However, I had the opportunity to see Mr. Starace playing with Alexander Popp in the first round at the US Open (thanks to Eurosport). He did well: after 30 minutes of troubles where he lost 1-6 the first set, Potito won 6-3 6-4 6-3. If he plays in a similar way, he could win with Oliver Rochus. The belgian player reached in the second round, after the match with the young Croatian Mario Ancic, who was in the semifinal at Wimbledon.

Volandri, Italian n°1, and Seppi (with Shuettler Silver Medalist at the Olympics Games in Athens, see the blog of the match) also reached the second round.