Composure under fire - Jarkko Nieminen sees off Kohlschreiber and enters Australian Open last eight

German opponent thwarted on countless break opportunities

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By William Moore
     
      Jarkko Nieminen, seeded 24th at the Australian Open in Melbourne, has now progressed into the last eight of the tournament, with a very gritty four-set win against Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-3.
      Kohlschreiber, the 29th seed, had earlier knocked out Andy Roddick of the United States, but in blustery conditions and with even a brief interruption for rain he was out-thought and eventually outplayed by the Finnish left-hander, who deservedly goes through to a quarter-final meeting with world No.2 Rafael Nadal.
     
Although Nieminen is slightly higher in the world rankings than his opponent, and although he held a 4-2 advantage over the German on their previous meetings, he went into the match as the slight outsider, largely on the strength of Kohlschreiber’s electric start to the 2008 season and his phenomenal victory over Roddick in the 3rd round.
      The opening set seemed to confirm this assessment, as Kohlschreiber - whilst struggling with his first service and not reaching the heights of the previous round - managed to close out the set 6-3 in 37 minutes.
     
Even at this stage, however, it was apparent that the player on court who was more ruffled was Kohlschreiber, as he failed to deliver the stunning backhand winners that had demolished Roddick.
      Nieminen by contrast looked for all the world like a player with total confidence in himself, who was prepared to dig in for the long haul and grind down his opponent with sheer consistency.
      In the second set, the long haul looked ominously imminent as Kohlschreiber - whose game was strewn with fine shots and just as many bizarre errors - put himself into a position where he had three set points at 5-4.
     
Nieminen picked them off one by one, and then a fourth, and then two more at 6-5.
      The match ground on into the tiebreak, and yet another set-point went west for the 24-year-old German as Nieminen fought back from 7-6 down to take it 9-7 and level matters.
      Already by this stage the pattern was clear: Kohlschreiber was scoring winners (30-25 so far), but was also being spendthrift with unforced errors (24 to Nieminen’s 13 in the second set).
      And Nieminen was playing all the big points with great determination and aplomb. Even at one set all, Kohlschreiber had actually outscored Nieminen in points.
     
And this odd imbalance continued into the third set, where Nieminen took it 11-9 on the tiebreak despite Kohlschreiber’s scoring 53 points to Nieminen’s 49 all told.
      The points that counted were almost without exception going the Finn’s way.
      The set-point heroics of the second set were repeated. Kohlschreiber had two at 5-4 and another two in the tiebreak before Nieminen wrapped it up after just over an hour.
     
The Eurosport TV commentator, displaying an ample amount of Finnish patriotism, was utterly convinced that Nieminen would triumph, even at the moment when he seemed doomed to go two sets to love down.
      To be fair, the body-language of the two players really did speak volumes: Nieminen seemed as happy as a pig in fertiliser out there, while his opponent was clearly distressed at not being able to deliver when it counted.
     
In the past, partly because of his poor record against Top Ten opposition, even in matches that he seemed to have in the bag, Jarkko Nieminen has picked up a bit of a reputation for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but this was a very different customer out there.
      He had stared down every attempt by the German to put him away, and at the beginning of the fourth set he broke immediately to lead 2-0.
      It looked to be all over bar the fist-pumping.
     
Unfortunately this was a false dawn, since both players then found it incredibly hard to hold service.
      Nieminen was not helped much by a brief stoppage for rain, as he was 40-30 up on his own service, but managed to be broken immediately after play restarted.
      After Nieminen held service in the first game and then broke Kohlschreiber, four straight games went against service, and the score nudged forwards to 4-2.
      Kohlschreiber had points to break Nieminen again in the seventh game, but the Finn eventually held for 5-2.
     
Now it was Nieminen’s turn to feel the discomfort of not being able to deliver the coup de grace.
      He raced to 40-0 on his own service at 5-3, but saw three match points vanish into thin air before he took it with the fourth as Kohlschreiber netted his return.
     
When the dust had settled and the numbers were examined, it turned out that both players scored precisely the same 162 points in the match, that Kohlschreiber hit a very creditable 67 winners (to Nieminen’s 42), but that the German was guilty of 76 unforced errors, particularly on his forehand, which Nieminen shrewdly pushed to the limit and beyond.
      Equally, Kohlschreiber amassed a staggering 22 break-points (and eleven of them were also set-points), but could win only seven of them.
      Despite being the match-winner, Nieminen only had 14 break opportunities and he converted half of them.
      Kohlschreiber won a greater percentage of the points when his first service was firing on all cylinders, but unfortunately for him this was not often enough, and Nieminen’s first-service percentage was appreciably higher (61% to 53%), especially in the final set.
      Kohlschreiber could only produce nine aces during the match, a far cry from the 32 he inflicted on Andy Roddick. Nieminen, never the world's biggest server, managed four.
     
All in all, this was a very impressive performance from Nieminen in every respect, and most particularly between the ears: in the space of three hours and thirty-two minutes he tamed Kohlschreiber’s backhand, practically demolished his forehand, sowed nagging doubts in his opponent’s mind that he would never be able to crack him when things got tough, and stuck to his game-plan throughout.
      As for Kohlschreiber, his 2008 winning streak of eight matches had to come to an end sooner or later, but he will perhaps now be rueing the fact that he did not play Andy Roddick and Jarkko Nieminen in the reverse order - at times his game had the look of a man who is coming down badly from an enormous endorphin rush.
      The four hours against Roddick and countless post-match interviews took a heavy toll, and playing against an opponent who was less easy to shake - albeit without the thunderous Roddick service arsenal - was always going to be problematic. The German will nevertheless be one to watch in 2008.
     
Nieminen’s reward for his tenacious display, apart from the ATP points and the quarter-finalists’ prize money of USD 160,000, is a match against 2nd seed Rafael Nadal of Spain.
      Nadal won against 23rd seed Paul-Henri Mathieu of France in an encounter that was cut short by his opponent’s retirement.
      Mathieu was swamped by an almost flawless first set from Nadal, who took it 6-4. The Spaniard then charged into a 3-0 lead, at which point Mathieu, who had already received treatment for a calf injury, decided to throw in the towel and shake hands.
     
The fact that Nieminen will be playing the world No.2 and one of the tournament favourites guarantees that this next game will be given a high show-court profile, and may inspire the media to take a closer look at the rather unheralded "Jarkko Nieminen (FIN)".
      For a player who has been in the Top 30 in the world for some years, he receives very little international coverage (Finnish coverage is quite another thing).
      The reason may be that he is not among those flamboyant ATP pros who can beat anyone and lose to anyone at will: great victories and spectacular defeats to unknown qualifiers produce good copy.
      Nieminen is more often a solid all-round performer who does not willingly defeat himself, but contrastingly this does not make for banner headlines or adoring fans, even if it does win matches like that on Sunday.
     
However, if he should happen to upset the odds and topple Rafael Nadal...
     
     
Note: Nieminen can concentrate his full attention on the men's singles. He and his partner Robert Lindstedt of Sweden were beaten in the second round of the men's doubles on Sunday. In all, Nieminen spent a daunting five hours and 34 minutes on court during the day. He will sorely need a day off to recuperate before Tuesday's game against Nadal.

More on this subject:
 Jarkko Nieminen through to last sixteen in Australian Open

Links:
  Australian Open: Jarkko Nieminen

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