47 posts categorized "September 2010"
by Pete Bodo
It's funny how some gifted players destined to make a mark on the pro tour advance in relative obscurity, especially when compared to more well-known if ultimately less successful peers. Some of this can be explained by the "right place-right time" theory, as in the case of Melanie Oudin. Her persona certainly would be very different from what it is today had she not experienced that remarkable quarterfinal run at the 2009 U.S. Open.
Oudin has had to pay for that moment of glory in the ensuing year-plus, although I doubt she'd trade the experience for, say, the continuing obscurity that would have been her lot had she lost in the first round of the Open. No player knows what fate is going to throw his or her way in the early stages of a career; one can only hope that whatever it is ends up helping them in a fruitful way. The truth always comes out in tennis, which is why even in the event that Oudin never exceeds the success she enjoyed at that Open, the experience will always be a net plus. Besides, nobody can take back your memories—or your achievements. There's no point getting all negative about it. Some fine players will never taste the ambrosia that was Oudin's in 2009.
It's an interesting idea to bat around, now that Coco Vandeweghe has recorded such an impressive run this week in Tokyo at the Toray Pan Pacific Open. Vandeweghe, ranked No. 172 when the event started, slashed her way through five consecutive Top 100 opponents (beginning with two qualifying matches): No. 82 Tathiana Garbin, No. 41 Jarmila Groth, No. 37 Klara Zakopalova, No. 18 Aravane Rezai (who's making a nice living being someone's "good win" every week), and No. 42 Julia Georges. But No. 11 proved too big a number for Vandeweghe to overcome today; she lost to Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-1.
We've had ample reason to pay attention to Vandeweghe, but I don't think we've done her justice. After all, her mother Tauna was an Olympic medalist in both swimming and volleyball, and her uncle Kiki was a blue-chip NBA player. But we all know that even the more gifted of families occasionally produces someone best qualified to be the village idiot, so Vandeweghe's bloodlines are by no means a bankable predictor. But some other elements on her resume bode well for her future. She's just 18, for one thing, and she stands 6-1, making the most of it with her dangerous serve. Her record as a junior is relatively modest (her junior career high ranking was No. 18), but taking advantage of a wild card entry into the 2008 U.S. Open junior girls event, she won the whole danged thing—without dropping a set.
That's significant. Perhaps it was the run of a lifetime—her mini-Oudin moment. But anyone capable of making that kind of statement bears watching.
Vandeweghe has been a pro since April 2008, but she's had trouble getting traction on the tour. Some of her losses were by downright ghastly scores (she was hammered, 6-1, 6-0, by Sabine Lisicki—a comparably tall, powerful girl—in the first round of the U.S. Open this year). She clearly has consistency issues, but if all those pieces that don't quite work in concert most of the time suddenly click into place on a regular, or at least greater basis, watch out.
Vandeweghe reminds me a little bit of Lindsay Davenport. She doesn't hit nearly as clean a ball as did Davenport, seemingly from the cradle on, nor did Vandeweghe accumulate anything like Davenport's junior record. But while Davenport's record as a prodigy was unsurpassed, she was somehow easily overlooked, or under-appreciated. She was the thoroughbred that nobody quite believed in, and didn't help her own cause with the low self-esteem and a kind of self-consciousness that can be poisonous for someone who practices her trade in front of countless thousands. Everyone kind of knew that Davenport was, potentially, the next big thing, but nobody talked much about it. And that was long before Davenport won her first major, or revealed her outstanding shortcoming, the failure to elevate her game and desire at the most important moments.
Given her disappointing and even puzzling losses, it's also been easy to overlook Vandeweghe. But let's remember that she rode a 10-match winning streak this spring to her first two titles as a pro (both USTA Pro Circuit events), and that she got to the quarterfinals in San Diego, taking out Vera Zvonareva along the way.
It may all come together for Vandeweghe yet; she's certainly young enough, and her height probably will be more of an advantage as time goes on and she gets more comfortable in her large frame. She's powerful and explosive. She doesn't need to be a model of consistency, she just needs to hit it big—preferably at the right times and in the right places.
Sometimes, it's easier to work your way into the limelight gradually, instead of being hurled into it.
by Pete Bodo
Howdy, everyone. This is a good day to celebrate. First of all, Kimiko Date Krumm marked her 40th birthday today with a win over Daniela Hantuchova in Tokyo, a day after beating former No. 1 Maria Shaparova. And Juan Martin Del Potro returned to the ATP tour—although his day ended rather less festively, with a loss to a player who stands a full foot shorter than the 6-6 Delpo, Oliver Rochus.
Delpo, the No. 5 seed in the PTT Thailand Open, played his first official match since he lost to Marin Cilic in the fourth round of the Australian Open way back in January. But it seems like his right wrist is back in perfect working order. Given that he rained down 16 aces in a 6-7, 4-6 loss, I'd add, "Amen!"
It's good to have the big lug back, isn't it?
A few housekeeping notes: To those of you who saw and pointed out that I misidentified Novak Djokovic as the man Roger Federer said he hoped would win the U.S. Open (Federer meant Rafael Nadal), I can only say, "Sorry." I knew Federer was talking about Nadal, I was in the room when he made his remarks, I reviewed the transcript, my brain said he was talking about Nadal. . . and my fingers typed "Djokovic."
Some of you will undoubtedly see some kind of Freudian slip there, but the reality is that this kind of thing happens quite often—at least it does to me, and others like me, who have to produce a lot of work, day-in, day-out, often on a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise. Sometimes it's tough to write as clean as I'd like, and you've all noticed typos and misspellings in posts now and then. Those of you who have struggled to write something—anything—and know the feeling of looking at your words so long and hard that you can't see some things that will be obvious to a fresh reader's eyes, will know what I mean.
And let me clarify something. I don't blame The Mighty Fed for being a bit of a sourpuss after his loss to Djokovic. Almost all the great players, and plenty of so-so ones, claim they rarely watch tennis. (They also say they never read what's written about them. But heaven forbid you write something critical, and particularly something inaccurate or unfair; they must absorb those words telepathically because they certainly know what you wrote and often let you know about it...) I just found it refreshing when Nadal, under different and certainly more pleasant circumstances, talked about how eager he was to get back to the hotel, put his feet up, and watch the night session on Arthur Ashe stadium. Independent of anything else, it underscored for me the "regular guy" aspect of Nadal's character. And that's something very difficult to hold onto when you're anything but.
Also, as Mariej noted in the Comments on yesterday's post, I had the year that Federer completed his career Grand Slam wrong—it was in 2007, not, as I originally wrote, in 2008.
Okay, so I'm screwing around with you...Federer won at Roland Garros in 2009. Now get out of the Comments box and put away the exclamation point and the expletives. It was 2009. I knew it then, I knew it yesterday, I know it now. Clerical error, but at least it didn't cost me dozens of millions of dollars, the way it did the New Jersey school system when they made a similar boo-boo on their application for a federal grant.
BTW, the bane of my ife is trying to figure out how old this or that player is, working with just the published date of birth. Twenty-five, 30 years I've been doing this, and I still spend 10 minutes scratching my head, wondering, "So if he was born on June 11, 1985, does that make him 25?" I wear out my fingers counting on them, over and over, trying to make sure I got it right.
All of which is to offer a hearty "thanks" to the ATP tour for listing the actual age (as opposed to date of birth) of each player in his profile. I shudder to think how many minutes of my life this has saved. Anyway, I'm working up a Ryan Harrison profile for the mothership, TENNIS and Smash magazine, so that will be it for today.
-- Pete
 by Pete Bodo
Roger Federer has earned the right to feel awfully good about himself. He’s had a great career and, with the exception of a few relatively minor injury issues, a remarkably smooth one. He frolics in the deep end of the pool, but he wasn’t flung into it helter-skelter. Federer played 16 Grand Slam events before he won his first—an apprenticeship that introduced him to the perils of life at the top gently, and it probably made the rewards it brings taste that much sweeter when he finally began to accrue them.
Nobody can accuse The Mighty Fed of missing out on the joys of drinking a fine wine because he grew accustomed to the harsh taste of a young one. A player like Pete Sampras or Boris Becker had so much to defend at such a young age that, in the famous construction Ion Tiriac used to describe his protégé, Becker, “He was both formed and deformed by early fame.” Federer’s surprisingly long breaking-in period has probably played a larger role in the development of his amenable character and persona than is generally acknowledged. And it has certainly helped him navigate the obstacles met by every top player.
In writing a marvelous book about Bill Bradley, the former New York Knicks forward and, later, U.S. Senator, author John McPhee chose a terrific title that was also highly relevant to just what made Bradley, a slump-shouldered victim of white man’s disease (he couldn’t jump), such an effective ballplayer. The book is called “A Sense of Where You Are.”
Federer has been a Bradley-esque figure in tennis, both on and off the court. He’s almost always had that “sense of where you are” on the court, which is one reason his style is so effortless and his game so fluid. More than any other player, he’s been blissfully free from having to develop a game plan, because he has the talent and ability to play what you might call aggressive-reactive tennis. It travels under the more familiar and now-fashionable concept of the “transition” game—how to turn a defensive position into an offensive one. The strategy let him down on only a few occasions, but more about that later.
About the worst thing you can say about Federer is that he’s been such a solid, mainstream, uncontroversial role model that he can bring out the cynic in anyone pre-disposed to skepticism. One of the words that repeatedly pops into my mind when I think of him is “inoffensive,” a quality that always strikes some as, if not exactly offensive, then at least highly suspect.
What’s not to like, after all? Federer apparently is a devoted husband and father; he has no in-your-face taste for flashy cars or high-stakes poker. He has great hair. And he’s always tried to maneuver those glimmerings of a prickly streak in a reasonable if not submissive tone and manner. So his life is good, so good that we can only look upon it with admiration or something like envy.
But like the rest of us, there are a few things Federer cannot escape, like death and taxes. Only in TMF’s case you can add, “Rafael Nadal.” And this additional inevitability looms like a storm cloud on his horizon. It’s appropriate to contemplate the gravity of the situation now that Nadal has won his ninth major, completed his career Grand Slam, and conquered the last territory formerly held exclusively by Federer, the United States (as represented by the U.S. Open).
Federer, whose domination of tennis was both grand and generally free of stress and conflict for six years beginning in 2004, is now on the horns of a dilemma. He’s said that he’ll continue to play while it’s still fun and challenging. But is he really prepared to do that if it’s going to have an impact on his legacy vis a vis his rivalry with Nadal? Or put it this way: Will Federer, whose pride is of the mellow sort but pride nonetheless, retain his appetite for tennis if he’s overshadowed, particularly if it’s by a single player?
Other players have faced a similar conundrum, but never one that seems so sharply and simply defined. Andre Agassi was often there to keep Pete Sampras on his toes, but Sampras remained in control of that rivalry, beginning to end. Besides, Agassi spent enough time undermining himself, and disappeared from the big stage frequently enough, to keep Sampras from feeling overly—or effectively—challenged.
Jimmy Connors thought he ruled the world defined by the tramlines until Bjorn Borg blew in like a chill wind from Sweden to challenge his sovereignty. The insult was so severe that at one point Connors swore to follow Borg “to the ends of the earth” in order to prevent him from winning a calendar year Grand Slam, although what he really meant was that he would hunt Borg until he won back what Connors thought was rightfully his own. Turns out all Connors would have needed to do is follow the Long Island Expressway to John McEnroe’s home and knock on the door. McEnroe showed himself more than capable of taking care of Borg, even to the benefit of his arch-enemy, Connors.
By the time Ivan Lendl became part of that conversation, it was pretty clear that nobody of that era was going to do much dominating of anyone else. The men basically each settled for a slice of the glory pie, canceled out each other out, and realized that none of them owned the planet. They all just rented space.
But the Federer vs.Nadal rivalry is different. For starters, long before he won his 16th major in Australia this year, Federer was hailed as the anointed one. This Greatest of All Time conversation, once started, was impossible to dismiss or ignore. And as Federer added to his resume, his status continued to swell until it matured fully when Federer completed the last leg of his own career Grand Slam in Paris in 2009.
That Federer scaled that final summit at a time when Nadal’s career appeared to hang in the balance only strengthened Federer’s case. And while Nadal’s subsequent resurgence—aided by a few missteps by his rival—was persuasive, the difficulties Nadal traditionally had at the last major of the year put a dampener on any valid comparison of the two players. Just as Federer had no pre-emptive claim on the GOAT label before he won the French Open, so Nadal could not be considered Federer’s equal—or better—until he bagged that U.S. Open title.
Of course, that didn’t stop diehard fans of either player from shouting their man’s praises from the rooftops. Now the most lavish claims on behalf of either man are supportable. Federer has 16 majors—almost twice as many as Nadal. He’s by far the most successful player of the Open era. But that isn’t the same as saying he’s the best one, and that 14-7 head-to-head advantage enjoyed by Nadal undermines any claim of dominion made on behalf of Federer. Like it or not, you can argue each man’s case pretty persuasively. The discussion is less about who’s the GOAT, something that can’t be definitively determined anyway, than about which guy is better, period.
And that’s just why Federer is in such a tight spot. Personally, I have no doubt that his game is in decline. Without wishing to take anything away from Novak Djokovic, that was the major takeaway for me from their semifinal clash at the U.S. Open. I don’t believe it’s an irreversible decline, or even necessarily a physical one. In fact, TMF’s critical weaknesses in that Djokovic match seemed entirely of the mental kind, and less related to any threat he felt from his rival, or the occasion (as if that could bamboozle Federer), than to the hours he’s logged on his competitive clock. For the lives of tennis players, like farm equipment, are best measured in hours of service rather than accumulated miles.
Federer’s dilemma is obvious. He can certainly enjoy the late stages of his career without duplicating his previous success rate. But can he afford to lose more matches than he wins against Nadal, especially if Nadal goes on to add to his Grand Slam title count? The real question is not whether Federer can tolerate the implicit disappointment, but whether tennis will continue to remain as enjoyable to him, month-in, month-out, if Nadal were clearly in command. Those who really believe that Federer is a better player than Nadal can always hope that TMF will re-assert his superiority. I find it hard to imagine that happening, simply because Federer is at an age disadvantage.
I wasn't encouraged on Federer's behalf at the U.S. Open, when he volunteered that he hoped Nadal would win the final, and made a point to say that he won't watch it. A curious soul asked him, "Why," and his answer bordered on the snappish: "Look, I've been around tennis for weeks and weeks and weeks right now. Last thing I want to do is watch another tennis match where I'm not a part of it. I will spend some time with my kids and take it easy, maybe go shopping. I don't know if shops are open here in New York on Sundays, but I'm sure something is open. We'll see."
I couldn't help but think how Nadal, just a few days earlier, admitted to the press that he was going back to the hotel to watch tennis, that he enjoyed watching tennis. And the way he said it, he might have started his answer with, "Duh!. . ."
In all fairness, Federer made his remarks on the heels of a bitter, perhaps devastating loss. You couldn't blame him for wanting to have as little to do with tennis as humanly possible at that moment. Still, the contrast in the attitudes of the two men was memorable. TMF appears to be one tired, Fed up warrior.
In some ways, we may be on the verge of seeing which thing TMF loves more—winning or playing. At one time, they were synonymous, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, and that's always when things get difficult.
 Sorry, I just couldn't resist echoing that headline from the other day, despite its questionable relevance to the story about Kazakhstan appearing in the Davis Cup World Group draw for the first time. But it's a modest workday for me and this Bulgarian boy, 19-year-old Grigor Dimitrov, is really lighting it up on the Challeger circuit, having just won the third successive event he's played.
Dimitrov's streak goes back to Geneva, in August, and includes two recent wins—Bangkok 1 and Bangkok 2—in Thailand. I guess you can call Dimitrov's feat a Thai Challenger Mini Slam. And why not add two more Challenger segments, so you could could create the Thai Challenger Grand Slam? I'd change the names, though: "Bangkok 1, 2, 3 and 4" just doesn't have the same ring as "Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and U.S. Open."
Seriously though, I assume that Thai officials have enough dough to create two tournaments instead of one high-paying one, and in some ways doing so is a better deal for everyone except the guy collecting the winner's check—as counter-intuitive as it may seem in an enterprise where the size of the purse is one of the major selling points for the event and all those interested in it.
Offering two opportunities to earn ATP points is a better incentive to lure up-and-coming players to what is still, relatively speaking, a far-flung outpost of the game. And if you look at the Challenger schedule, you'll see that it's organized in segments that slightly eases the pain (cost of travel) for players who are usually just scraping by, or even going into hock to earn a shot at stardom. I also wouldn't be surprised if they had to come up with Bangkok 1 and 2 in order to earn the ATP sanction, and the tournaments are obviously linked to the ATP 250 event coming up there. BTW, if you want to poke around in these esoteric regions to investigate these issues, Core Tennis (unfortunately, the site doesn't load for me today) and Steve G Tennis are great places to start.
In any event, On May 19th of 2008, Dimitrov (who was ranked as high as No. 3 among world juniors) was ranked outside the world Top 1,000. He has a lot of up-side. His ranking has climbed to No. 146. So he's coming up on ATP and Grand Slam direct acceptance territory, and quick. Watch out world!
Meanwhile, Pablo Andujar, a journeyman experiencing a dream week, is set to play Juan Ignacio Chela, the No. 3 seed, for the title in Bucharest, and Mischa Zverev of Germany is in his first-ever ATP final. He'll play eighth-seeded Gilles Simon for the title in Metz.
So, while the U.S. Open is long over, the Grand Slam year has ended, and fall weather in the northern hemisphere is dampening tennis enthusiasm among all but the most dedicated of fans, the dream lives on. . . an on. All around the world. Is this a great sport, or what?
- Pete
by Jackie Roe, TW Social Director
Evening, TWibe! So I'll be honest: I haven't watched a second of tennis since the U.S. Open ended. Aside from scoreboarding a few matches and checking results at the end of the day (so I know that Gasquet is performing well in Metz, hence the photo selection), I've completely ignored all that's gone on. I even missed Davis Cup! I'm not proud of it—and it's made me feel a little out of sorts, actually—but at the same time, it's a relief to know that I can still function normally without tennis. I've been more productive, too.
Or have I? Let's be real; even without tennis, I still have a million other diversions that prevent me from making a dent in my to-do list or going to bed at a reasonable hour. I started thinking about where I waste the most time, and the answer was obvious—on the Internet.
I assume I'm not alone in this, especially among this group, which seems pretty Internet-savvy. And yet I'd be surprised if any two of us spent our time on the Net in the same way. I asked folks around me about their biggest time-wasters online (I like empirical research, what can I say) and heard everything from "artsy/design blogs" to "eBay" to "FAIL Blog" to "a Transformers message board." (A resounding "yes" to FAIL Blog. Our own Jenni introduced me to that one and I don't know whether to thank or curse her for it. As for the Transformers one, I wanted to high five my friend when he said that, not because I know a thing about Transformers but because it’s so wonderfully quirky.)
As for me, the majority of my online time is actually spent communicating with others, whether via e-mail, instant messaging, or Skype. I often condemn technology for bastardizing communication—whatever happened to face-to-face contact ... or calling people?!—but it's proved to be a godsend for connecting with friends and family living in different states. Countries, even.
And then there are the social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter (and TW to an extent, no?), where I also spend a fair amount of time keeping in touch with people. They might be more useful as stalking tools, though; come on, you know you do it.
Another obvious one is YouTube. I find tunes there, look up tennis clips, numb my brain watching genius creations like this. Which reminds me, we should do another installment of our YouTube series. If you have suggestions for topics, let me know. (So far we've done the TW Music Festival, TW Dance Party, favorite tennis videos, tennis players' theme songs. I think that's it? We're long overdue for another one!)
You get the gist. Share with us now the websites you spend all your time on, the ones you check obsessively and can't do without. I actually think this will tell us quite a bit about each other. It may also result in greater productivity losses as we'll have plenty of new sites to explore, but we won't focus on that ...
Enjoy, and have a good weekend!
[If Pete's CC post gets too jammed with comments, feel free to move match calls over here.]
by Pete Bodo
The last time we experienced a multi-surface, year-round, all-hands-present-all-the-time rivalry comparable to the ongoing one between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, it ended in tears. Actually, far worse than tears. It ended up with a sobbing Monica Seles crumpled on the clay in Hamburg, Germany, the victim of a knife attack by a deranged fan of her great rival, Steffi Graf.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since the question, “Who’s the greater player, Federer or Nadal?” achieved maturity when Nadal completed his career Grand Slam and won his ninth major—a landmark surpassed by only four men in the Open era: Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras and Federer (is it mere coincidence that “nine” seems to be the magic number that separates these competitors from the merely great players?).
In the spring of 1993, up to the time that Seles was attacked, her rivalry with Graf had grown as white-hot as our present rivalry between the top two men. And the parallels are interesting. Granted, the stylistic contrast between those two dominant female pros wasn’t as pronounced as the vivid difference between the games of Federer and Nadal. Graf was never as smooth and quick as Federer (although she was comparably swift, in relative terms), and she lacked the overflowing toolbox that leaves Federer in a dead heat with Laver when it comes to versatility. But she bucked the conventional wisdom with that one-handed, predominantly slice backhand, much like Federer does in this era of power two-handers. And the source of their genius is similar.
The Mighty Fed’s style is so appealing and, in Pete Sampras’s famous formulation, so “easy on the eyes” that it obscures the role basic athleticism plays in his game. It’s all well and good to be able to flick the cross-court, one-handed backhand pass at a severe angle, but you need the wheels to get you there, and the elastic limbs to make all those moving parts work in unison to produce the desired result.
Graf’s success was much more conspicuously linked to her athleticism, an impression heightened by the Do-It-Yourself nature of actual game. That hiccup with which she began her serve, the height of her toss; that forehand hit off her right hip, that backhand taken in close, with Graf hunched over the ball like some bird of prey—those mechanics no pro would teach. Federer wins partly because of his seamless style; Graf won in spite of her rough edges.
The comparison is less subtle on the other side of the draw. Seles, like Nadal, played a brand of tennis rarely seen before—both technically and conceptually. Her two-fisted shots off both wings were as novel as Rafa's violent, bolo forehand. And her go-for-broke sensibility, while more risky than Nadal’s version (because she hit flatter, more penetrating balls) was perhaps even bolder. Until Nadal began to flesh out his game with a slice backhand, he shared Seles' talent for simplifying the game. Hit the ball hard enough, steadily enough, and into the right places on the court, and the rest will take care of itself.
Seles was not in the same league as Nadal, athleticism-wise (who is?). But her zest for competition was no less visible and convincing. And that’s just what most perturbed their rivals. Both Graf and Federer must have asked themselves, “Who does this kid think he/she is?” when Seles and Nadal arrived on the scene to challenge.
The arc of these four careers bears comparison. Graf is three-and-a-half years older than Seles—that’s almost half a career, tennis-wise. Federer is almost five years older than Nadal, and the head-start he enjoyed must be repaid at the back end of his career. This process has already started, and it may play an increasing role in the longevity to which Federer aspires. It’s all well and good to say you want to play as long as you enjoy the game, but what if doing so entails seeing your legacy evaporate before your very eyes? Would that still be enjoyable?
Seles won her first major at Roland Garros in 1990, by which time Graf already had nine majors (there’s that number again). Rafa won his first Grand Slam event in 2005, by which time TMF had four majors in hand. But it’s become clear that Federer was a relatively late starter, so the difference isn’t as critical as it may appear. Graf and Federer were cast from day one as the hunted, while Seles and Nadal flourished as the hunters. The latter role is always easier and perhaps more comfortable, which helps explains how quickly they established themselves as equals.
At the time Seles was stabbed, she was on a faster track to glory than the one Graf had followed. Seles won her first major in the fourth Grand Slam event she played—Graf played 11 before she won Roland Garros in 1987. Seles won eight of the 14 majors she played up to the time she was stabbed, in a span of almost exactly four years. It took Graf six-and-a-half years of Grand Slam play to bag eight.
Nadal won a major in his sixth attempt, while Federer didn’t hoist the silver until his 17th Grand Slam outing. Nadal won nine majors in just over five years; it took Federer almost seven years to get to No. 9. These comparisons are handy but not entirely reliable, because of the other circumstances that shape tennis history as well as individual statistics. For instance, Graf had to contend with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova when she came onto the tour; like Federer, who overlapped with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, she was kept from fully blossoming by the strength of the field she faced. And there’s no doubt that both Nadal and Seles benefitted enormously if subtly from having the bar set high by the very players they were determined to unseat. There's no doubt in my mind that Federer made Nadal a better player, just as Graf did for Seles.
The head-to-head department is where the comparison gets shaky, although it's impossible to say what the final H2H between Graf and Seles might have become were it not for the stabbing incident. Graf holds the career H2H advantage, 10-5. Seles won just one of four meetings with Graf after her rehabilitation and return to the tour, although she never was quite the same player after the trauma. Here the roles are reversed, as Nadal (the challenger) leads Federer (the champ) by 14-7. The argument that so many of Nadal's wins were crafted on clay is less convincing now that Nadal has shown his proficiency on grass and hard courts.
Next week, I'll take a closer look at what the future might hold in store for the Federer vs. Nadal rivalry, and publish some thoughts on the relative strengths and weaknesses of each man's record. Meanwhile, have a good weekend, everyone. Use this as your Crisis Center post for Saturday.
 Mornin'. Before we leave Davis Cup until the championship round, let's monkey around with a few final thoughts. Some of you followed the World Group draw yesterday, and I'm sure you noticed the newest entrant: Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs hosted and swept Switzerland (where is Roger Federer when you really need him?) in the playoff round, and will now play their first-ever World Group tie, against the Czech Republic. It's the first meeting between the nations, which means choice of ground will be decided by the proverbial coin flip.
Until 1992, Kazakhs were obliged to play for the former Soviet Union, which explains why their history goes back only 18 years. I wonder if any Kazakhs ever played under the hammer and sickle flag. The record tells us nothing about that; it just lists the names and records of the players who represented the budding empire called the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1991. Who knows which satellite states those men came from, although someone who can distinguish ethicity by the peculiarities of name and spelling can probably work some of it out. In any event, Davis Cup history and record-keeping are vivid testaments to how quickly the geo-politics of the world can change—and how utterly and imperiously history wipes out nations, leaving hardly a trace. Who ever thinks of "Yugoslavia" anymore? But it wasn't so long ago that Yugoslavia was a Davis Cup nation, and there was neither a Serbia nor a Croatia. Now, we have Kazakhstan in the World Group.
And we have Mikhail Kukushkin, the Kazakh Davis Cup demon.
Last week, Kukushkin beat recent Top 10er Stan Wawrinka (Kukushkin's second match, against Marco Chiudinelli, was a best-of-three dead rubber, but he won it anyway). That brought Kukushkin's Davis Cup record to 9-1 (all in singles), and it threw Switzerland into the morass of zonal play for 2011. What are the chances that Federer will lace them up on behalf of Switzerland in a tie with, say, Andorra, or the Outer Hebrides? (And before you fire off those angry emails, I know the OH is not a nation nor even a television show set somewhere in California. Trust me on that.)
Sure, Kukushkin has beaten mostly obscure players from China, Taipei, and Korea. But you can only beat the guys you play, right?
The bad news for Kazakhstan? The Czech Republic is coming off a semifinal finish in 2010.
The good news? Tomas Berdych is the No. 1 Czech player, so who knows?
The two most compelling match-ups of the 2011 first round (March 4-6) are the U.S. at Chile, and Russia at Sweden. This is a pretty tough draw for the Americans. A lot will depend on whether or not Fernando Gonzalez is healthy and feeling it; if he is, he could make life very difficult for the relatively young U.S. squad, though it's likely that the veteran Mardy Fish will opt to build on his Davis Cup reputation.Although he's 29, Fish has become the epitome of dedication in the past year. He could make the squad his team, in the same way that it was Andy Roddick's team for most of the decade.
Speaking of Roddick, Pat McEnroe isn't at all sure that Andy is done with Davis Cup. But does he want to go to Chile in March, to play on red clay? This will be the fifth away tie for the U.S. in the last six matches, which is coincidental, but still painful for the nation's fans. The situation brings new meaning to the phrase, "luck of the draw."
In the other intriguing match-up, the Russians will have to find a way to work around Robin Soderling, who's capable of winning three matches (one as a partner in doubles) to secure the tie, much like Fish did in Colombia. I don't see very many other World Group matches that fire the imagination.
One last thing before we say good-bye to Davis Cup.
I don't understand why Hawkeye electronic line-calling isn't obligatory, at least at all World Group ties, even if the ITF has to foot the bill. Davis Cup cries out for Hawkeye. Although the officiating hanky-panky that threatened the integrity of many ties in the past is no longer an issue (thanks to the mandate that the chair umpire be from a neutral nation), the conditions for line judges are still awfully tough and invite error.
A Davis Cup home crowd can be intimidating (they were flinging seat cushions at Fish a few days ago, remember?), and when it comes to the "family of nations," even chair umpires probably harbor personal grudges or prejudices against certain nationalilties. That can keep a hand from flying out to overrule a bad call, or make an "out" ball appear to have landed inside the lines.
Furthermore, only one court is used in Davis Cup, and all the matches are played on it. It's hard to imagine that the cost of using Hawkeye would be onerous. And lastly, the broadcasters of Davis Cup ties all have instant replay. Does the ITF really want to risk having crucial, match or even tie-decided by a mistake—one that everyone but the fans, players and on-site officials can subsequently witness, while picking at his flesh and tearing at his hair, over and over?
So let's forget about re-structuring the Davis Cup for now. Why don't we just start by employing Hawkeye technology at all World Group ties?
We'll get back into the flow of the tournament calendar next week. I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day, so have a good one.
-- Pete
 By Pete Bodo
On the whole, Patrick McEnroe would have preferred to end his decade-long stint as the U.S. Davis Cup team captain in, say, San Diego, with his side hosting, oh, Belgium. It would have given him the opportunity to smell the roses while sitting in the captain's chair as a Mardy Fish or John Isner thumped his overmatched opponent before an enthusiastic home crowd.
Instead he found himself tiptoeing through a typical Davis Cup minefield in his final tie as captain, in Bogota, Colombia, last week. For the U.S. squad had its back to the wall, facing exile from the elite 16-nation World Group in the event of a loss.
The tie was played in a bullring, at 8,000-plus feet, with stone-like pressureless balls. A heavy police escort accompanied the team wherever it went, and never by the same route twice. Sam Querrey, playing singles, couldn't find the court. The players had a tent instead of a locker room. The effects of the altitude were so intense that Mardy Fish walked around dizzy for his entire first day on site, and nobody slept well. Only two members of the U.S.-based "netheads" fan club found their way to Bogota.
And on top of all that, this obscure Colombian player, Santiago Giraldo, came up pretty big—almost as big, it turned out, as Mardy Fish, the American who won all three matches in which he was involved to secure a narrow win for the U.S..
"It would have been best of all to go out with another win in the Davis Cup final," McEnroe said, laughing, over breakfast today, "But my only real regret is that I didn't get to go out with our fans present. I regret that I didn't get the chance to wave good-bye to them."
It was an emotional swan song for McEnroe, and he found himself welling up with emotion from time to time in Bogota. "I did tear up a few times there," he admitted. "I was thinking about all the experiences and situations we'd been through, and savoring that feeling of what it's like to walk out there in a jacket that said USA on the back."
But it seems like every time something like that happened, reality intruded. Mardy Fish would come over on the change-of-ends, plop down, and hiss: "I hit that last backhand as well as I possibly can, and it went into the net. The bottom of the net."
And in classic Davis Cup and typically McEnrovian fashion, the captain would just say: "You've got to get in this (Giraldo) guy's kitchen. This guy doesn't want to think, he wants to just roll through these points, forcing the error because he knows how to play these conditions to the hilt. But this guy does just one thing. He does it well, but he can't hurt you with it. Don't get sucked into playing his game, and at his pace. Use all the stuff you've got, mix it up."
For ten years now, McEnroe has said things like that to a wide variety of players, ranging from Jared Palmer to Sam Querrey. And now it's over.
It was fitting that Fish emerged as the titan of this tie. He's been a loyal Davis Cup volunteer since the beginning of his career. But because of the other available talent, he was never handed the ball and told, "Go win this thing for us." Sometimes, he wasn't even handed the ball, and he endured the sometimes grating task of sitting on the bench, cracking his knuckles, without discontent.
This time, McEnroe handed him the ball and spoke those words that every player longs to hear, and Fish did not disappoint his captain. After Fish won a tense five-setter to launch the tie, Querrey, the No. 2 singles player for the Americans, was bushwhacked by the wily Girlado. Querrey could barely find the court in the second singles, and played right into Girlado's hands by alternately going for too much or too little.
Querrey lost in straights, and McEnroe knew it was unlikely that his No. 2 man would regain his confidence in the event he was impelled to play a decisive fifth rubber. Consulting with Fish, McEnroe decided to shoot the moon. "Let's go for the win tomorrow with you and John (Isner) in doubles. And if you empty the bucket in doubles we can always have John (Isner) play the reverse singles."
As it turned out, Fish and Isner had a comfortable doubles win, setting Fish up for his hero moment in the fourth rubber, a meeting of the two No. 1s. Fish beat Girlado 8-6 in the fifth.
The win was emblematic of McEnroe's tenure and attitude as captain. He's always put an enormous emphasis on the ability of any given player to compete—to forget all the negatives and unexpected or unusual conditions and. . . fight. It was one of the reasons McEnroe developed such a close, enduring relationship with Andy Roddick.
"I told Mardy, after he won, 'This is huge for the U.S., but what I’m really proud of is how well you handled everything.' Five, six, years ago, Mardy would have been a basket case in those circumstances. But even though the crowd was whistling and yelling between Mardy's serves, he was like, 'This crowd's not that bad . . .' That's the thing with Mardy, he's really become a professional.
"Mardy was serving great last week, but he would miss three serves in a row by just inches and he’d say, 'I would have bet my life that serve was in. . .' It was all because of the conditions. Sure he got pissed and frustrated, but it never affected what he was trying to do, or how he competed. It may not have looked like he was playing well, but trust me—the conditions were brutal. Girlado was the only guy who really understood how to use those conditions to his advantage.
"Girlado started that match without missing a ball. The first set was over in like 18 minutes. Mardy was struggling. But then he had a tough hold to even it at 1-all in the second, and he just looked over at Girlado and yelled, 'Come on!' He just stared him down. And I felt it then—alright, this is going to be a a match. This is going to be a war. And that’s when Girlado started missing some shots.
"Mardy was bringing it all in, the way Giraldo was playing, and figuring it out and accepting it. He didn't lose his cool. There was none of this whining, 'This guy is BS, this isn't real tennis, these conditions suck. I can't play like this. . .' There's a million excuses, really. But Mardy is so professional now. And you saw the results. It was one of the great efforts in U.S. Davis Cup history."
I keep thinking that this was somehow a legacy match for McEnroe. No, the U.S. didn't win the Davis Cup in a blaze of glory in his final tie as captain, over a glamorous squad before a riveted global audience. The Americans won a World Group playoff tie, against a relative have-not, far off the radar screen of big-time tennis. On paper, the match held little to suck in most fans. If it were a job instead of a Davis Cup tie, it might have been repairing a water-main break on a frigid January day. Nasty. Cold. In some ways thankless but also critical, and demanding full attention and care. Something that had to be done, with a lot more at risk than there was to gain.
McEnroe went about the captaincy with comparable diligence through his entire 10-year tenure and often teased comparably inspired performances out of his players. Given the decline of the U.S. as a tennis power, and the high Davis Cup standard it set back in the glory days, every tie McEnroe captained somehow seemed critical; every round called for the wise, informed delegation of limited resources. The U.S. was stretched pretty thin through his captaincy, and it remains so. But McEnroe grew accustomed to working within those parameters, and doing so made him a masterful tactician and an outstanding motivator of men. There are no records kept for team spirit, but if there were, McEnroe's record as captain would be even better.
I'm glad that Patrick and the go-to guys who were so loyal to him got to taste the nectar when they won the championship in 2007, over Russia, in Portland, Ore. McEnroe never had a "dream team." He merely had dreams, and he was able to make his players dream along with him, win or lose.
Somebody has a tough act to follow.
by Pete Bodo
Howdy. I'm hoping to talk with a very jet-lagged Patrick McEnroe sometime later today, regarding this weekend's U.S. at Colombia tie in which Mardy Fish became the first American since Pete Sampras to win three rubbers for his team. Pistol Pete did it in 1995, in Moscow, on clay, and the quality of his opposition certainly was higher. He had to beat Yevgeny Kafelnikov, a Grand Slam champion and Top 5 player, as well as Andrei Chesnakov, a Top 10 player and very tough clay-court combatant.
Nevertheless, Fish's performance was inspired. He played two five-set matches on red clay, with a four-set doubles sandwiched in there, in three days. He clinched the tie for the U.S. with an 8-6 in the fifth win in the fourth rubber. And he did it under the burden of significant pressure—playing to keep the U.S. up in the elite World Group of Davis Cup. Had the U.S. lost to Colombia, it would have been thrown into the murky pond of the qualifying rounds, with no chance to actually vie for the championship for at least a year.
Fish's heroics constitute a high-water mark for U.S. Davis Cup tennis (let's remember, the tie was played at altitude in Bogota, using weird pressure-less Tretorn balls, on red clay—a surface generally as toxic to Fish as copper mine tailings are to his finny namesakes). But the events that transpired in Belgrade, where the Serbs pulled out a come-from-behind win over the Czech Republic in the World Group semifinals, certainly resonated more volubly across the world stage.
Thus, Janko Tipsarevic joined Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador and a host of comparably unusual suspects as a legitmate Davis Cup hero. Tipsy won both his singles matches, including the critical, decisive fifth rubber of the tie, taking out a pair of players who have been more highly ranked: recent Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, and Radek Stepanek, whose career-high rank of No. 8 is more than 20 places higher than Tipsarevic's best, No. 33. That latter stat is subject to change, given that Tipsarevic is presently No. 34 and playing perhaps the best tennis of his life.
How can you not love a format that allows someone like Tipsarevic to become a household name, at least in his own nation, on the strength of two matches? He gets to the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, or a Wimbledon semi, and he raises eyebrows. But he secures a tie the way he did on Sunday and they rise champagne glasses to him and never forget his name. It's an earned honor with no caveats ("Too bad he lost in the final, or, he didn't beat a guy ranked above him to win the title).
But let's not forget the set-up man, Novak Djokovic. How many hero moments can one guy expect to produce within a span of less than two weeks? A week ago today, Djokovic played a magnificent final at the U.S. Open, only to lose to Rafael Nadal (see above). Yesterday on an indoor hard court in Belgrade, he overcame a host of potential obstacles, including physical and emotional fatigue and the pressure implicitly put on his angular shoulders by an adoring home crowd, to earn Serbia a chance to host the final against France (which swept Argentina in the other semifinal).
It would have been understandable if Djokovic succumbed to Berdych in the fourth match, especially after Djokovic was unable to lift doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic to a win in what appeared to be the critical doubles rubber. Granted, Berdych has faded with the summer, but leading up to the U.S. Open, he was a more dangerous and successful player than Djokovic (at least on the year). Let's face it, the next best thing to being king is being kingmaker, whch is precisely the role Djokovic enacted. That role calls for a certain amount of selflessness; Djokovic had to know that coming on the heels of his U.S. Open effort, most of the blame for a poor showing in Davis Cup would have been blamed on timing and the nature of the Davis Cup competition, not Djokovic.
Instead, Djokovic sucked it up, absorbed the blows, and fell back on his courage and determination. It wasn't pretty, but it was successful as well as praiseworthy. That Tipsarevic was able to make it all worthwhile had to make Djokovic feel good. He owes Janko now, big-time, and I'm expecting that he'll offer payback when the final rolls around. Serbia is now well-positioned to join the elite group of Davis Cup-winning nations.
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Ouch!
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09/19/2010 - 1:25 AM
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 by Pete Bodo
Serbia took it on the chin in doubles in the semifinals of the Davis Cup yesterday, meaning that Novak Djokovic will be playing for his squad's competitive life when he meets Czech No. 1 Tomas Berdych in the first of the reverse singles today. You know the old saying about hindsight being 20-20, but you still can't help but wonder, how wise was it to put Novak Djokovic in as a doubles player?
For one thing, it appeared that playing in yoke with the world No. 2 player, a lionized runner-up in the U.S. Open final less than a week ago, really spooked Nenad Zimonjic. Forget Zimonjic's world ranking of No. 3 in doubles; it's an entirely different game, and even the best of doubles players tend to be highly deferential toward the top singles players. It's as if they know, down deep, that doubles is what you do when you can't cut it in singles. That they're playing softball, while the top singles players are hardball guys. That many of them are making a living mainly because the top singles players in recent years have eschewed doubles.
It doesn't matter that the truth is almost certainly more complicated than that. Doubles is a great game in its own right. Just ask John McEnroe, whose deep and abiding love of doubles remains one of the great testaments to his simple love and understanding of the game. But doubles will forever be tainted by the existence, and pre-eminence, of singles. The best you an do is deal with it and move on, laughing all the way to the bank, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in the manner of the Bryan brothers.
So a dedicated doubles player like Zimonjic is apt to have certain psychic vulnerabilities, and nothing preys upon those quite like Davis Cup. And once again, we saw that no matter what you say about the home-crowd advantage, the home team in any Davis Cup tie is the one most likely to feel most or all of the pressure. You're supposed to win at home. The spectre of letting down your home fans is more terrifying than winning for them is uplifting. Like many great players will tell you, they hate losing more than they love winning. It's an oft-told tale.
So pity poor Zimonjic, expected by virtue of his impeccable credentials to pull his share of the load alongside Djokovic. That has to create an additional strain. It appears to have been too much for Zimonjic. At a time when he might have played above his head just to make a point about doubles guys, he found himself in over his head. It's not like Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek are a gimme, for anyone. It's more like Zimonjic found himself out of his league—something he would have been unlikely to experience if only he had more prior exposure to such a situation—or if he were in a comfort zone, playing with another player who's a more regular fixture in matches when the doubles alley is fair territory.
Worse yet, the Czechs often went after Djokovic, probably thinking that making his life difficult yesterday would pay benefits today when he goes up against Berdych. It was a sound if cruel strategy, and it paid off—at one point, Djokovic was so frustrated that he incurred a warning and fine for smashing a racket. This wasn't exactly what he had in mind when it comes to triumphant homecomings. And with Boris Tadjic, the President of his nation, looking on, no less.
Ouch.
How could a tie that looked so promising after Janko Tipsarevic upset Tomas Berdych to keep the Serbian hopes alive going into the doubles go downhill so quickly? The only answer I can come up with is, Hey, it's Davis Cup. . . strange things happen. Now Djokovic is more apt to feel the after-effects of his U.S. Open performance in today's match. He isn't playing to win it, he's playing to keep alive hopes that the Serbs can somehow pull it out. If Serbia is going to win, the hero will have to be Tipsarevic.
 Or that's how it would seem. But only two ranking places separate Tipsarevic and his opponent in a potentially decisive fifth rubber, Stepanek. So as fine as an achievment as it would be for Tipsarevic to win, the heavy lilfting will have to be done by Djokovic. His match with Berdych is a must-win, and even if the Czech No. 1 is playing badly, the events of the last few weeks, especially yesterday, suggest that a dispirited Djokovic has to dig very deep to keep Serbian hopes alive.
In another critical doubles match, the gamble taken by U.S. captain Patrick McEnroe paid off, and keeps alive his desire to win the last tie at which he's the US captain—and keeps the U.S. in the World Group for next year. He left the reliable Bryan brothers at home, in order to give him more options in singles. When Mardy Fish and John Isner paired up to win the doubles rubber over Robert Farah and Carlos Salamanca at Colombia, they provided a cushion but also invited a question that can't be answered as I post this: Who will play singles for the U.S., Fish (who's already played two matches), Querrey (who had a lot of trouble in losing his singles match on Friday), or Isner, who's fresh and coming off a good performance in the doubles?
My gut feeling is that Fish will play. He's the veteran on the squad, he's won a singles and a doubles, and he's fit. PMac is a loyal guy, and sentiment will tug at his heart strings. Fish spent a lot of time sitting on the U.S. bench the past few years, without uttering a word of complaint. He's now in a rare position to do what few players from any nation have: collect three Ws in a Davis Cup tie. But I can see McEnroe sending Isner out to sub for Querrey, especially after seeing this quote from the Colombian doubles player, Farah: "I was surprised at how by how hard John Isner served. I mean, there were some balls that I just didn't even see."
And you know what that old baseball player once said: You can't hit what you can't see.
PS—'Grats to France, which swept Argentina, 3-0, by winning the doubles yesterday.
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