Rajeev Ram was two points away from his biggest Grand Slam victory, and it was time to make something happen.
Ram led by 5-4 in the fifth set of his second-round United States Open match against Marcel Granollers on Friday, with his opponent serving at 30-30 and a second serve on offer to be attacked. For Ram, there should be no turning back from attacking in any way possible.
Granollers had not served out wide to Ram's forehand once on a second serve in the deuce court, so under such pressure, surely the backhand was coming. Three points earlier, at 15-0, Ram had ripped a flat backhand return deep off a second serve and then immediately approached on the next shot and finished with a forehand volley winner. It was time to hit the repeat button.
Instead, Ram sliced Granollers's second serve back short inside the service line, allowing Granollers to run around and hit a forehand approach to Ram's backhand. Ram's on-the-run defensive lob then floated long.
The match featured 272 points over 3 hours 21 minutes, and none demanded that Ram attack more than on this solitary point. Ram could have advanced to the third round of a Grand slam for the first time, but he lost, 3-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5, after getting broken in the next game.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Ram won the first two sets with excellent attacking play, but he ran out of physical and mental steam in the heat, dropping five straight games to open the third set. That sequence let Granollers back, mentally, into the match.
Having a solid backhand return is everything in this sport, as the server will almost always go there on big points. If the returner can be aggressive instead of defensive with the backhand return, then the balance of power immediately shifts. Granollers served 26 times to Ram's backhand return in the deuce court on first serves compared with 11 out wide and 10 in the body, and he did not mix wide to the forehand at all on second serves in either court. Over all, Ram hit 56 backhand returns and only 31 forehand returns.
This is the information players need to keep track of so that when the big points develop, players can wait to attack, turning the moment into an ambush rather than a reaction. On match point, it was again Ram's backhand return that hurt him the most. He had a second serve to attack, but instead he landed it short in the service box, and again Granollers ran around and dictated with a forehand, forcing a forehand error from Ram into the net. The best players put the server on the back foot in these situations; they don't let him approach wherever he wants.
Ram won a high 80.6 percent (29/36) of his serve-and-volley points in the five sets, but he did not serve and volley as much in the last two sets (12) as he did in the second set alone (14). Ram also went backward with net points, winning 27 in the opening two sets and only 15 in last two sets.
The longer a point went, the less chance Ram had to win it. He won 50.6 percent (89/176) of rallies from zero to four shots, 39.7 percent (27/68) of rallies from five to eight shots and 39.3 percent (11/28) of points lasting nine shots or more. Baseline rallies were a tough position that he needed to avoid at all costs. Granollers won 53 percent of his baseline points, while Ram was only able to win 36 percent of his opportunities. Granollers finished with 29 total winners from the baseline (15 forehand, 14 backhand), while Ram could manage only 11 (6 forehand, 5 backhand).
Ram is ranked 128 after starting the year at 132, and he had won only three of his last 12 matches heading into the Open. He should leave encouraged from two good showings, beating the No. 16 seed Fabio Fognini in the opening round, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, but he will despair at the opportunity missed. Granollers moves on to a third-round matchup against the American wild card Tim Smyczek, ranked 109.
Time spent honing Ram's backhand return so it turns up on big points remains the difference between a career spent struggling around 100 and a far more enjoyable one around 50.
Craig O'Shannessy directs a tennis strategy analysis company called the Brain Game and runs the Brain Game Tennis Academy at the Polo Tennis Club in Austin, Tex. He can be followed on Twitter at @braingametennis.
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