Can Rosol maintain his form after coming of age?

Sports Writer

Saturday 30 June 2012

IT is the morning after the night before and the world's tennis media are scrabbling around to fill the vacuum in their knowledge about Lukas Rosol, this startling new upstart force in the sport.

Lukas Rosol: man of the moment at SW19 . . .

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Stewart Fisher

Fortunately, there was no shortage of diverting details to be fleshed out about the 26-year-old world No.100 who resides in Prerov in the Czech Republic. Perhaps the best place to start, however, was with the man who had just been vanquished, Rafael Nadal. Asked whether his conqueror would now become a threat in this tournament and beyond, his answer was simplicity itself. "What age is he? . . . well, he didn't in the past. You never know what is going on in the future."

The question of where exactly this big-serving young man has been all our lives certainly is an intriguing one. His nerveless five-set victory over Nadal, which concluded under the Centre Court roof on Thursday night, took him to the third round of a grand slam for the first time in his career, and came after five previous visits to SW19 which have lasted no further than the first round of qualifying.An expert witness on our unlikely hero's wilderness years is Slava Dosedel, the former world No.20 player, who is now in his second stint as the player's coach. Dosedel, who shares a home town with Rosol and has worked with the player since the age of 18, picked up where he left off in January as his full-time travelling companion, after a couple of years where the player was working with Hynek Froml. He also deserves his share of the credit, having provided his player with a list containing 15-20 bullet points of how to beat Nadal. So complete was his tactical triumph that said dossier was presumably under lock and key last night.But it is fair to say that everything between the pair hasn't always been plain sailing. After a 6-0, 6-0, 6-2 defeat by Philipp Petschzner in the first round at the Australian Open this year, their first major tournament back together, a demoralised Rosol was left bemoaning his tiredness and threatening to give up on tennis. There has been a fair share of rows in practice, as Dosedel has persuaded his charge to focus less on fast cars and more on his future."It has been very difficult to talk with him and make him more concentrated on his tennis," Dosedel told Herald Sport. "Sometimes in practice I was screaming at him, and Lukas is quite hard headed so he was screaming back. It could get quite nasty. But now he completely accepts what I am trying to say and realises it is a good way."Rosol wouldn't be the only Czech player to mature in his mid-to-late 20s. Tomas Berdych and Ivan Lendl are just two examples of players who were beyond the first flush of youth by the time they started playing their best tennis. "I think he can be a top-20 player," said Dosedel. "The way he played in the fifth set is not something you can teach, it is something you must have inside you."Rosol was back on doubles duty yesterday – he had actually warmed up for his big moment with a five-set defeat of Scotland's Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins with his partner Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazhakstan – but today he faces Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany. Whether his journey ends there and then is anybody's guess, but greats of the modern game last night were lining up to throw garlands at his feet. "He looked like he had come out of a video game as he hit each shot harder and harder," said Goran Ivanisevic, the 2001 champion. "I liked the determination to stick with his game plan," said Mats Wilander, the seven time grand slam champion. "It really bothered Rafa that he didn't waver at the end."

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Can Rosol maintain his form after coming of age?

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