excellent article

first

"—By about the five-minute mark, I start to get tired watching Karlovic. I wonder whether hitting this many aces wears out the server while keeping the returner fresh? Stepanek played three sets of tennis without having to exert any energy at all."

Interesting point. However on the flip side, if he can't serve three sets worth of aces, he would end up losing in three sets anyway!

Wow, I've never read an article this soon after you've posted. So, I've never left a comment because nobody would ever see it.

Good article. Unfortunately, I missed the match, but 78 aces!!! Over three sets of aces and still loses a best three out of five set match! Great point, Steve.

I think I might take a ladder to the courts sometime and see what it's like to see the court from 7 feet up and to hit the ball when it's 12 feet up. Must be nice.

Notice how Karlovic doesn't toss the ball much higher than is impact point? No rainbows for him - makes his motion appear much more compact and simple. Do we know any women players (or famous Florida instructors) that should take notes?

what about second serves only in tie-breaks? Get rid also of the "let" on serve, it's just a gentlemen's thing from two ceturies ago, and frankly I wouldn't mind to finally get rid of those frequently boring games at the beginning of each set, so it would be OK with me if the tie-break would be played at "4 all" instead of "6 all". If you try it out with your friends you will see that you start playing "big points" right from the start, on TV there would be more suspence and almost every match would be interesting this way, particularly if play would be really continuous like the rules originally stated. Perhaps it wouldn't make much sense for the Davis Cup since there is always a home corwd and it's just 5 matches in total over the course of 3 days. By getting rid of the second serve but saving it for the tie-break the big first serves would not die out but an ace would be a spectacular point again, also because acesw would show up only on big points since that's what tie-breaks conjure. Also there would be much less wasting of time, since the pauses between first and second serve are gone for most part of a match. I think it would be more spectacular, while still be real tennis, I don't like the no-ad thing though.

Steve-

Here's a youtube video of the 50 aces Federer hit against Roddick in the Wimbledon final...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6EWua-TSyY&feature=PlayList&p=0FCD9F104DC1CDC7

I wouldn't bring up heartbreaking davis cup matches in a public place. Paul-Henri Mathieu might start hyper-ventilating.

Besides Roger's aces at Wimbledon, Roger was 4 for 4 in aces in the 2nd set TB against Robin in the final at French Open

Why say "it would be nice if guys like Roger Federer played Davis Cup"? He just has played, when he was sore and hurting too. He has played more than most players over the years - check his record- but it's pretty tough to do it all the time, when you have to play three days in a row, after regularly coming off major finals.

Davis Cup is always scheduled very badly for the top players. I'm surprised they play as much as they do. The Agassi and Sampras no show days are long over.

I love Karlovic's service motion. It is very traditional, and he gets a great lean into the court, obviously helped by his stature. Still, something we can all emulate.

Regarding Gorgon Forbes observation....

My 9-year-old son, who has watched many a pro match with me (or parts of many), stopped me short a couple of nights ago as I watched a tennis channel rewind match, featuring chrissie evert and billie jean king--my shift key suddenly stopped working--in thier 1971 u.s. open semifinal. my son turned to nme and said flatly, 'they stink.'

i had a difficult time defending the players with anythign akin to gusto. i blamed it on the racquet technology. after all, biullie jean did have one very efficient and graceful move to the net. her second serve did sort of stink though. lol

Speaking of Davis Cup... how about the Fed Cup? It seems to me (though I don't have the data to support me, just my sporadic observations) that the top women participate EVEN LESS in the FC that the top men do in thr DC.

Hey... my 'Shift' key is working again! Woo-hoo!

1. to lose match after 78 aces is more than making 78 aces.
2. who cares for Davis cup?
3. How much money is there? This answers all.
4. why rog doesn't play DC? Look at the Q#3.

Excellent.....

Solid. I just wonder what was meant by 'tennis is better off w Karlovic as the loser.' not that i'm in disagreement, just wonder what this means.

"I just wonder what was meant by 'tennis is better off w Karlovic as the loser.'"

It means that Steve (along with many other people, including me) thinks that the game of tennis is better off if players with all court skills (Federer, Nadal, even Stepanek) regularly beat players who are heavily serve reliant even when they're serving at their best (premier example of this, Karlovic). Even having being the best at possibly the most important stroke in the game isn't enough.

Great article...yes tennis was better off with Karlovic as the loser that particular time, but let's acknowledge that it is also Ivo's ridiculous height that doesn't allow him to be a better all around player. It has been phenomenal for him to have gone so far just with his serve, and there are other giants like 6ft9 Isner and 6ft8 Norman whose serves are nowhere near Karlovic's caliber.

Karlovic is actually a self-taught Croatian club player, not a clone from a national federation or private academy, and tennis is also better off with journeymen like him who can push and beat the best players at anytime...

Great article.

We should give Karlovic credit for something else: anyone who's watched him over the last 3 years or so has seen that he's clearly worked on the rest of his game. 3 or 4 years ago, no backhand. Today, a limited backhand that he knows how to make the most of. His movement has improved, too.

Generally he's a more complete player. That's still a relative statement, but full marks to him for putting in the effort. He won half a million dollars in 2008. Without working on his game he might have banked $300k. A lot of guys would have been happy with that. I say, good for him.

Skip1515,
Good point about Dr. Ivo and his improvements. His improvements are a reason why he moved up the rankings in the past few years.

It is unfortunate that clips such as this one, like the popular ESPN Sportscenter aces-only clips of Sampras of a previous time, allow casual fans to focus on Karlovic's ace-making skills and deprive him of the credit he deserves for the other aspects of his game.

Even though he did not win or play as well as he can in his match that I watched at this year's USO, I was and I remain less impressed by seeing Ivo bomb aces than I was by watching the big guy move smoothly to the net, bend and unbend that long body of his, and hit some quite beautiful shots. I wish that more fans could appreciate those parts of his game as well.

Thanks for the clarification re karlovic comments. You would expect him to be more successful in tiebreaks since he plays them seemingly every match and thus should have significantly more comfort with their unique format than the average player.

Another thing we might consider regarding the Karlovic v. Stepanek match...

Stepanek is not even a top ten player. He's currently ranked #17, which may be a carrer high or very near it.

Ergo, this match could serve as a text-book illustration demonstrating that tennis will never be ruled by giants who do nothing more than serve huge. One must also return serve, and be proficient from the baseline, and volley, and hit overheads and half-volleys, and most importantly, hit the ball well on the run.

If the past 10 to 15 years have shown us anything, it is that the game has by and large become much more of a defensive game than it was in the halcyon days of contests with wooden sticks on manicured lawns in whites.

Sure, the cream mof the crop have all been masterful offensive players--McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Sampras, Federer--but standing right alongside them and dotting the landscape are defensive geniuses--led by Borg, Change, Courier, Agassi, Nadal.

Where is my literary sense! I should have written, "...contests on manicured lawns between gentleman donned in white wielding small wooden sticks."

Azhdaja

"Who cares about DC?"

Well, maybe YOU don't care about DC dependently where are you from, but DC is a great and thrilling event for the ones that we have great tennis players in our country

I(and many other Czech fans) have to give Karlovic(and rest of Croat team) credit for one other thing-their behaviour after this match and at saturday night,when Czechs were celebrating victory.They came to Czech party,were maximally friendly to Czech team and fans,danced and so...Absolute opposite of French team for example...
Isn't this what should sport be about?Maybe Karlovic's tennis is sometimes more bizzare than beautiful,maybe he will not chase any other records...but he's real sportsman and that also one of reasons why this match will remain in my memory at least till i'll meet Mr.Alzheimer.
If i label him as "training cannon" it's really not respectless.

Funny to see my boring vid here,btw:)Made short version too for smaller tennis masochists too:)

Magnificat83, that's really cool that the Croats came to the Czech celebration party.

Slice 'n Dice, Stepanek has been in the top 10.

I forgot one important thing about Karlovic and his service.U surely know about situation in former Yugoslavia at 90s.Especially during war he could hardly get to any court.And he had no couch or even buddie to train with...So he served...for hours...and hours...He simply couldn't train whole court tennis much.
He's not sport academy prefabricated kid who's biggest deal in whole life was how to cope the eternal cycle of various surfaces during the year.
And i think u can see it on his behaviour.

i got really bored at 1:40, looked away, got a second wind at around 4:30, and then saw it through to the bitter end.

sort of like that uncontrollable urge to rubber-neck at a bad auto accident.

first time i felt sorry for karlovic.

"Funny to see my boring vid here,btw:)Made short version too for smaller tennis masochists too:)" lol.

Hello , Iam from egypt I love tennis very much i have 13 years old my tall is 170cm can you send to me some of good tennis coach E-mail

crazyone,
Stepanek may have been in the top ten briefly, perhaps. But he's no top ten player, I think most here would agree, not when you have the likes of these guys around (i8n no particular order, except as they came to mind):

Federer
Nadal
Djokovic
Murray
Del Potro
Tsonga
Roddick
Gonzalez
Davydenko
Verdasco
Simon
Soderling
Monfils
Cilic
Robredo

Besides, it has very little bearing on my argument.

Ivo is somewhat of a tragic figure to me, he's making his money playing in front of a crowd who want him to lose because of what he brings to the table.

No one, unless he's playing DC at home, ever root for him.

I can't imagine it's a great feeling.

Poor Ivo. I'm a HUGE Goran fan and Ivo is like a more extreme version of Goran. (Go Croatia! By the way, I'm not Croatian) I.e. Goran's serve was brilliant but although his other strokes were decent, the total package was not enough to get him to "truly great" level. Ivo's serve is even more untouchable but his height and past training issues (wartime, hours of serving only, I'd read that before) mean he doesn't have much else (compared to his peers at pro level).

But that serving is spectacular and it brings something special to the game... A bit like watching 100m dash or something. An extreme feat of ability/skill. Sure, it would be boring if everyone played like that. But the game is balanced enough that the serve alone cannot dominate. Until, of course, Ivo get's so good at serving such that ALL his serves are unreturnable (haha then it really will be technically impossible to beat him).

I haven't seen him live and only watched him on TV/youtube. Sad to hear that he doesn't get any support from the fans.

Which does bring up a chicken-or-egg type of question. Are people with such good serves ordinary with the remainder of their strokes because it would be unreal to possess it all ? Or is that - since the serve doesn't come back often enough, they tend to not develop ... until it's too late ?!

From the bigger serve point of view : I owned a fairly big serve (with the added benefit of the lefty spins) and I feel it has stifled my tennis over the years. I was always competitive with my peers, but unless I was in one of those "zone-days" I didn't win much.
And overall, whoever I played over the course of a season, I could hardly break .500

A few years ago (sensing I wouldn't be able to keep up my big serving indefinately > 30 years)
-> I went back to the drawing board, and took a hard look at what was required to play for fun AND win.
1) fitness / speed : I took up jogging and lost weight.
2) solid groundies with no noticeable weaknesses (I had been all about serve-volleying previously ... and had watched a LOT of balls whiz by me as I rushed to the net : split-step anyone ?!).
3) Learning how to build points and corner and opponent into going for too much, hitting strokes he doesn't like or yanking him around until he cannot reach the ball.
=>> All seems pretty obvious - but I have only achieved this in the last 2-3 years ... and am 43 now !
This season in official league play I have been 8-2-1 (two losses to the last year's finalist and champ).

So back to Ivo ... the scary part is he just seems to be starting to learn how to play ... imagine if he can start nailing forehands like Del_Potro or even Marin Cilic (against A. Murray) ... his opponents must be praying this never happens.
-> However at 30 times is getting short (no pun intended).

Serve 'em up !

SP.

There is entirely too much emphasis on big serves. The top players in the game generally have little problem returning enough serves to win a match against a player whose overall game is inferior, regardless of how big his serve is.

I have for years encouraged people, and especially girls, who cannot put any heat on a serve, to use variations in there serve to keep an opponent from getting in a rhythm on the return. Change the type and amount of spin and the placement to keep the opponent guessing. I've often wondered why the professional women's coaches do not emphasize this more. They could be so much more effective with their serves if they hit two second serves, but each one being unpredictable to the returner.

I have an excellent example of this technique now, as that is exactly what Del Portro did to Federer at the U.S. Open. Del Potro hit between about 80 and 130 mph. Federer never got into a rhythm like he did against Roddick at Wimbledon. Roddick should take notes.