Vampire Weekend	10/29/2010 - 4:14 PM

Reading the Readers: Global Edition	10/28/2010 - 12:20 PM

As I write this, Sam Stosur is back out there firing away in Doha. If she can turn it around that quickly after her win over the WTA's No. 1 on Wednesday, what excuse do I have?

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"as well as Dementieva, who she beat for the title in Tokyo."

No! It should be "whom," not "who."

Professional writers should use proper grammar.—John Culhane

I thought about putting “whom” there, I really did. But it seemed too formal for the occasion. Grammarians throw fits, but “whom” has gotten a little stuffy for regular use, IMHO. Especially in a place where IMHO is acceptable.

***.

I have a question for all. Is there a time, let's say even a 3 month period, in which Jankovic has not been expressing that she's injured, ill or less-than-full healthy in some way or the other ?—pov

The answer is likely no. But after a few dozen or so JJ pressers, you just kind of learn to enjoy the ride, or ignore it completely. She’ll say pretty much anything at anytime. It’s comical for a while, but not something to let bother you. Life's too short. She is, as much as anyone on tour, what she is.

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Steve I am in awe of your professionalism. But please restore my faith in humanity and tell you are also secretly thinking "Who TF CARES who wins Doha" 
I bow to nobody in my love of women's tennis. I am a women's tennis nerd. But seriously.—Mark

Very funny, and pondering the line-up last week I did find myself thinking of Doha as half a joke. But then the tournament started and I sort of automatically got hooked into it. Not like it’s Wimbledon or anything, but as an event goes on, I can usually take what’s there and get interested. Tournaments are self-contained worlds in that way. You, or at least I, temporarily forget what’s outside of them, and who's not there.

I guess faith in humanity will need to be restored elsewhere, Mark. I'm sorry I couldn't help.

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"Steve - I am writing from Italy. Like you fairly mentioned in your article, your point of view is completely American. Nobody ever cared for the WTA Championship in Italy, even sports' fans wouldn't usually follow it, except maybe for the final. This week the Championship is all over the Italian news (like in Denmark, I suppose) and most likely the two million viewers who watched the French Open final will be watching Francesca's matches, especially when she's scheduled to play the third match of the day (it would be prime time in Italy, around 8pm). And believe me, 90% of those people watching don't even know or care about the big Sisters' absence. This is the first time in 30 years that we have a player - male or female - competing in a top-8 world championship. It might not be the WTA season-ender you (Americans) wanted, but definitely it is the one that we (Italians) wanted and dreamed about."—Lorenzo

This is great to hear. It makes me think again that tennis is too big for anyone to get their head around at once. The sport can’t be united or “global” in a pure sense; at any one time, there are too many points of view on the game from too many different places. America’s loss is Italy’s gain. Which isn't so bad: It means that there’s generally an upside somewhere.

Tennis: the global game that accidentally proves that a global worldview is impossible?

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Steve:
What is the Hewitt lawn-mower?—Sam

The Lawnmower is the charming maneuver in which, after winning a key point, Rusty drops down to one knee, puts his racquet in his left hand, and begins to simulate punching the court—or, perhaps, punching his opponent in the face—with his right hand. When he pulls his arm up after a punch, it looks sort of like he’s pulling the cord on a lawnmower. It’s way over the top, but I’ve always liked it.

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Muster is an impressive specimen, always unbalanced in the Connors sort of way, which was his secret along with tremendous dedication. I remember watching Muster in person once, my first trip to IW. He had just made #1 and lost a two setter to the stylish Voinea from Rumania. He really did look like an animal, a very hairy guy who looked like he would rip out his opponent's heart if it might help him win. This was the only player I've ever seen who could match Connors, Chang or Chris Evert for pure will.—Larry in the Silicon

The Moo Man didn’t mess around. Tennis with absolutely no frills, from his strokes to his look to his manner. There was a moment later, though, when he decided to lighten up a little bit. At the Open one year, Muster ran around the net and pretended to chase Tim Henman with his racquet. The Oscar went to Henman, though, for immediately playing along and running off the court. The clip of that moment is now part of one of the Tennis Channel’s "Top 5s." I was watching TC with a friend when an ad for that episode came on. Seeing Muster, racquet held above his head, chasing down Henman, my friend sat up and said, “Jesus, what happened there?” It did look like a moment of insanity, if you didn’t know it was a joke.

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Speaking of "old," it struck me last night to hear that Shaq is 38.—Colette

By this I think you mean to note how much more quickly tennis players fall from the top of their sport than other athletes. Very true, and always kind of amazing to remember. It seems virtually impossible for Muster at 43 even to walk on a court with a guy 20 years younger, yet a basketball team can cover for much of Shaq’s inevitable physical decline. Soccer players, even though they run miles, also seem to last longer and peak later. It shows you what a test tennis is—of your first step, primarily, but also of your eyesight and your hand-eye, the explosiveness in your arm, and your ability to concentrate on a little yellow ball for hours at a time. With, most crucially, no teammates to pick up the slack.

Why does anyone play this sport, anyway?

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Now that we are at a couple of "tennis generations" down the road with players who always played with 1990+ model rackets, I don't see the game changing much, if at all.
The biggest single change is that the modern equipment allows most players to easily put away a reasonably short forehand. Top juniors can do it with no problem starting at about age 14.—Dunlop Maxply

There’s the equipment, and there’s also the mindset. As a kid, I saw Borg loop rally shots and McEnroe volley. I never saw anyone, other than Connors on occasion, take balls at the baseline and routinely belt them past their opponent. If you’re a kid now, you have a different conception of what tennis is. The first thing you saw was Roger Federer sending a forehand past a helpless opponent as soon as he could.

Which, thinking historically, makes me believe that Agassi represented the great evolutionary leap from then to now. He was the first guy I can remember seeing play the game with the modern mindset that allows you to consider going for winners from just about anywhere (though he worked his rallies, of course). Even Lendl didn't do that. Agassi was also one of the first of the Prince generation, the kids who used oversize racquets as juniors.

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In my mind, the fact that tennis players are (were) not allowed to talk to their coaches during a match greatly contributes to the epic of the game. Tennis is the one sport in which players can go on for five hours, maybe more, while not being allowed to speak to anyone. Although I agree with you in that a pep talk during a changeover might not do much of anything, it might help a player to express his/her frustrations out loud and to some extent vent off. And that, at least in my case, sometimes makes a difference.—Cortomaltes

This is definitely true, and it would be lost if coaches were allowed on court with the players. The WTA’s system isn’t bad, in my opinion. Have a coach come out once or twice a set and then go away, and don’t allow coaching from the stands. You would retain the lone-gunman feel of the sport, at least. I know there are a lot of things that make Davis Cup different from the normal tour, but coaching is one of them. Tom Gorman, former U.S. captain, felt that coaching in DC contributed to the number of extremely competitive matches that you see there (it’s not the only reason, obviously).

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london: That's why I disagree with Steve when he says Caro reminds him of Rafa. She's more like Murray IMO.—Wilson75

Oy, I’ll say it one more time. I wasn’t comparing Caro and Rafa’s styles of play. I was saying that each of them does a lot of subtle things well that you don’t notice at first.

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Great post, Steve.—crazycaro21

Great comment. Very well put.

Thinking and Seeing Doha	10/27/2010 - 6:56 PM

The WTA Championships does represent a lost opportunity. Its stands aren’t full and its players aren’t the ones we would ideally like to see. A few of them, namely Jelena Jankovic and Elena Dementieva, don’t even seem to want to be there themselves. But maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m a sucker for marketing design, but when I see the purple and green set-up with the usual logos around the court in Doha, I’m hooked.

I’ve kept my eye on that purple and green in the corner of my computer screen for much of the last two days. You have to: Blink and you’d have missed three or four of the matches entirely. But whatever the results or the quality of competition or the motivation of the players, the variety of points and plays and people in a tennis match will always give you something to think about, or, better, to see. Here are few of the things that I’ve thought about and seen this week.

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Caroline Wozniacki lost to Sam Stosur Wednesday. Maybe it was rust on Wozniacki's part, but it seemed more like great hitting from the Aussie—as much as we love to see craft in tennis, it’s pretty much helpless in the face of power. If you can only learn one, go with the latter.

Still, Wozniacki is proving to be a player—like, yeah, you know who, the ATP’s current No. 1—who bears repeated viewing. You see things in her game that you didn’t notice the first or second or third time around. Today, for me, it was her method of retrieving a drop shot. To run forward as fast as you can, get the ball over the net and down into the court, and avoid having it smacked back in your face by your opponent is an athletic maneuver of the first order. Wozniacki solved the problem on her forehand side by simply and smoothly rolling over the ball, the same way she does with all of her forehands. This brings the ball up and down and gives it a little forward-kicking spin in the process. Like everything else she does, it also has the virtue of being easily repeatable and not very risky (yes, that’s a virtue, not a vice). Looked at in the right way, the relaxed, automatic quality of Wozniacki’s game begins to seem  hypnotic rather than dull.

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Jelena Jankovic made a bad error today when she had a break point against Kim Clijsters. The match was hardly over, but Jankovic and her mother looked at each other and started to laugh. JJ seems to have come to Doha to pick up a check and little else, but the fact doesn't have to be made quite that obvious.

Jelena made up for some of it, at least in my mind, a game or so later, when she lofted up a forehand moonball that landed near the sideline and just past the service line. Maybe it was because it was a change from a normal rally shot. Maybe it was because it was a night match and you could imagine the ball against the dark sky. Maybe seeing a ball make a long, high arc just appeals to something in us—watching them is one of the great appeals of golf. Whatever the reason, it was a beautiful thing to see. I have no idea whether she won the point.

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Most of the commenters here seem to be anti-coaching. You’re purists, I suppose. Like you, I appreciate how resourceful tennis forces a player to be. But I'm also in favor of coaching. I think it could make more matches more competitive. And, as someone who has been coached on a court and still lost, I also know that the purity of the game wouldn't be compromised as much as you might think: You still have to go out and do it yourself. Ask Victoria Azarenka. After getting a pep talk at 4-5 in the second set of her match with Vera Zvonareva Wednesday, she won the first point with a forceful backhand. She looked reenergized. Then she missed an easy forehand. She looked utterly deflated. Azarenka, who lost the game, had swung between these two poles for the whole match, and her coach—who, by the way, is already allowed to give her advice every minute of the day that she’s not playing a match—couldn’t help her with it.

I’ve read recently that seeing coaches run out to give the players advice on the changeovers makes the women look weak, especially since the coaches are almost always men. All I can say is that the thought never crossed my mind. Athletes have coaches.

One more thing on Azarenka: I confess that I smiled when I saw her try to slap herself in the face after an error today. Not because I want to see her beat herself up or emote, but just because in doing it she appeared to be acting out the words we all think so often—how could I do that?

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The old-timers, like myself, mourn lost arts like the lob and the slice, but I don’t hear much talk about how, in the last 20 years, we’ve gained the swing volley, especially on the women’s side. The shot is usually couched in negative terms—“no one knows how to hit a real volley anymore, so they just swing at it.” There’s some truth there, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the fantastic athleticism and timing that’s needed to run forward, get your body set and balanced, take the ball out of the air and above shoulder-height with a full cut, and drill it for a blatant and opponent-demoralizing winner. Have you ever tried to hit a swing volley? When I try, I’m not even sure how to begin.

***

I caught Sam Stosur live in Paris this spring when she was at the height of her powers. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone make hitting a winning shot look more rudimentary, as if there was absolutely nothing to it. She didn’t even bother hitting the ball close to the lines. There’s been a little of that forcefulness in her two wins in Doha. What I liked most, though, was seeing her face go from being clouded with confusion during the first four games against Schiavone, to clear and purposeful—she was almost high-stepping around the court to collect the balls from the ball kids—by the end of her win over Wozniacki. Stosur's sunglass-less eyes said it all: Sometimes good things do happen.

Say Moo	10/26/2010 - 5:06 PM

Today, Thomas Muster showed us just how far the men’s tour has evolved in the years since he departed it. It’s so true: The fist-pump really has come a long way. A decade after the Austrian hard-head announced that he was going on a “holiday” and never returned, we’ve seen the advent of the Nadal leg kick, the Djokovic heart-attack, the Hewitt lawn-mower, the Murray Bowser-bicep point, and the Insane Cheerleader, brought to you by Gael Monfils. Even Muster’s countryman Jurgen Melzer has learned to hold his clenched fingers in front of his face long enough to show everyone that he means some sort of business. The Moo Man, by contrast, when he finally did get to celebrate something in his opening-round loss in Vienna today, hopped up and down and shook his arms spasmodically, as if he wasn’t sure exactly where they should end up. If the former No. 1’s comeback is going to continue, and he says it is, he might want to consider a fist-pump refresher course down at ATP U.

Of course, it was nice to see a 43-year-old get a chance to celebrate anything in an ATP match. Muster, who has been in and out and in and out of shape over the last decade—doing things by halves never was the man’s style—has been dabbling in the Challenger circuit lately, but this was the first main-tour, main-draw match since his return. It came against fellow Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer, who is 20 years his junior. Haider-Maurer won 6-2, 7-6 (5).

Muster was thoroughly out-hit—and out-served and out-run—in the first set, but from a physical standpoint he didn’t look bad. He's more leathery, and seemingly more gaunt, and he has less hair—you know, he's older—but he also looked leaner and fitter than anyone his age on the senior tour. Not that it made any difference in the first set. Haider-Maurer, ranked No. 157 and a lucky loser, quickly gave Muster and everyone else watching an idea of how the game has changed in the last 15 years.

Putting aside their ages for a minute, there were two notable, not to say glaring, differences in their games. First and most obvious was the serve. Muster’s wasn’t all that shabby. He hit five aces, and his motion actually looked smoother than I remember it. There was something Nadal-esque about his body turn and the way he got himself well into the court before making contact. A relatively effective lefty delivery overall, and not a giant drop from the serve he had 15 years ago. But it didn’t win him half as many free points as his opponent’s. When Haider-Maurer faced any sort of trouble today, he reared back like every other ball-bashing whippersnapper and belted an almost-guaranteed service winner into Muster’s backhand side. The 1995 French Open champion had trouble keeping those returns within 20 feet of the court.

That brings us to the second notable/glaring difference between the games of then and now, the backhand. Muster hits his with one hand. That’s not disqualifying today—Federer does, too, as we know—but it does make life harder if you want to go toe to toe from the baseline, something pretty much everyone needs to be able to do just to survive in 2010. Especially if, like Muster and unlike Federer, you’re not a connoisseur of the slice. The advantage of one hand is that you get more variety and more reach, and it’s a natural stroke for approach shots. But Muster is a born mudballer who loves topspin more than anything else; he won 40 of his 44 career titles on clay. He never really needed approach shots. The result today was that Muster’s topspin backhand, without the power of two hands, hung in the middle of the court, begging for the whippersnapper to bash it. Which he did. When Muster tried to take control of a rally, he invariably overhit.

In the second set, Muster worked out his nerves and began to hold his own in rallies. He also began to use the slice approach, and it worked. He moved forward more often than in the old days, and near the end of the set he held serve with two deft drop volleys. Then he pumped his fist. But Haider-Maurer, throwing bombs when he needed them, never dropped serve, and he held on through a couple of nervous points to win the tiebreaker 7-5. Muster had gotten much better through the match, but his opponent never appeared to be challenged.

Otherwise, Muster was the same as always. The same martial, machine-like walk, with the same overt, forward-charging determination. If he doesn’t celebrate like Nadal, he does bring a similar ceaseless intensity, in a less flamboyant form. I was never a huge Muster fan, but any chance to see a legend, even if wasn’t your legend, makes the memories fonder. Even the guys you didn’t love, if they were good enough or original enough, added something to the game that can't be recovered. Tennis is a composite off all of its individual’s personalities, and no individual can be repeated or even simulated—there really can never be a "modern-day Laver" or "the Borg of this generation." Seeing Muster today reminded me of my favorite match-up of his, with Michael Chang. When they went head to head, it was a clash of two immovable wills; in the French final of ’95, Muster was the more immovable. As with another match-up from that time period, Ivan Lendl and Mats Wilander, the tennis wasn’t necessarily beautiful, but it didn’t have to be. Seeing Muster today made me happy that the sport has gotten, on the whole, more beautiful in the last 10 years.

Muster’s only “lead” came when he was up 3-2 in the tiebreaker, with his opponent to serve. Haider-Maurer missed his first one this time, and spun in a second down the middle. Here was Muster’s chance, if he was ever going to have a chance. He moved to his right to hit a forehand, but he was too far back in the court, and he whipped up on it too quickly. The ball landed lamely in the net and Muster let out an angry yell. He’d fought all the way back, playing loose and inspired tennis to reach the tiebreaker. Then, the moment he was ahead, he got tight.

Some things change in tennis. Others stay exactly the same.

Climbing the Big Tree	10/25/2010 - 10:55 AM

Let’s start by stating the obvious and getting it out of the way: This isn’t the WTA season-ender we wanted. With no Serena or Venus or Justine, the traditional top tier has been decimated and the brand names, at least from an American fan’s perspective, have been reduced to one: Kim Clijsters. Without a ruling class of players, or any kind of hierarchy whatsoever, this has the feel of an utter free-for-all. In that sense, it's a fitting end to a WTA year in which, from Serena Williams’ strange second half to Caroline Wozniacki’s ascension to No. 1 to the triumphs and travails of Clijsters, we’ve learned just to sit back and expect the unexpected. And hopefully enjoy what comes our way.

Eight women are in Doha—"the big tree" in English. Who will fall first, who will climb highest? The best way to approach this potential roller-coaster week may be to ask a few questions and see if a few plausible insights into the future present themselves. And then sit back watch the opposite happen.

1. With the various the ups and downs these players have endured this season, does anyone come in having built up the kind of momentum that can carry them through the week?

Caroline Wozniacki is the obvious candidate here. Since the U.S. Open, she’s won in Tokyo and Beijing, taken over the No. 1 ranking, and beat the woman who beat her at Flushing, Vera Zvonareva. And then she got some rest. In that time, she has been steadier mentally than ever, surviving a few three-setters that she appeared due to lose. That kind of consistency will serve her well in a round-robin event based on cumulative performance. She also has to be favored in her group, where she’ll see Schiavone and Stosur, as well as Dementieva, who she beat for the title in Tokyo.

On the other side, two women come in with two different types of momentum. Victoria Azarenka, jump-started by a chance to take the last spot in this event, won in Moscow this past weekend. This may not be a long-term confidence-builder, and Azarenka has had mirages of quality play through the season—Melbourne, Stanford—that were never made concrete. But it’s a start.

Zvonareva, on the other hand, has built a year’s worth of confidence, as unlikely as that may sound for someone who has traditionally been so volatile. She made the finals of  Wimbledon and the Open, as we know, but she followed it up with a strong fall as well, reached the final in Beijing, and rose to No. 2, a career-high. Zvonareva is in the tougher group of the two, if only because the woman who ran her off the court in the Open final, Clijsters, is there with her. This tournament is an opportunity for the Russian. She’s been to her share of big finals, including Doha in 2008. Will she ever go farther?

2. Who could surprise us?

Or, should I say: Who do we want to surprise us? Samantha Stosur teased us with perhaps the best first half of anyone in 2010, and showed off a game with force and variety from serve to forehand to volley. Then, after a disappointing—crushing, surely—upset loss in the French Open final, she struggled to put that game back together on a regular basis again. Even a good U.S. Open run didn’t set her straight. She began the fall with two opening-round losses before reaching the quarters at the HP in Japan. Granted, she lost to 40-year-old Date Krumm there, but it was something positive anyway. You never know exactly which Stosur will show up, but her group gives her a shot if the right version makes a couple of appearances. She can beat Schiavone, despite what we saw in Paris, and she has a 2-2 record against Wozniacki; three of those matches have gone the distance. I guess I’d be surprised if she made the semis, but it would be a pleasant one.

3. Can anyone beat Kim Clijsters?

The U.S. Open champ is the, well, she’s not the 10-ton gorilla, exactly, but you know what I’m talking about. Clijsters has lopsided winning records against all seven of her prospective opponents here. And she has the most experience at this type of event, as evidenced by the fact that she won it way back in 2002 and ’03. Since her comeback, Clijsters has been sporadically unbeatable, most notably at the Open, but hasn’t extended that into any kind of dominant run. Partly that’s because she doesn’t play an all-out schedule; more recently it’s because she cut her foot and has missed the fall season thus far.

Despite the rust, Clijsters must be the favorite on paper. After two losses to her, she took the top seed in her group, Zvonareva, apart in the Flushing final, and she did the same to this tournament’s No. 1 seed, Wozniacki, the year before. But dominant performances have been followed by surprising defeats over the last 14 months. Clijsters beat Henin in three sets in Brisbane, then went out dismally to Petrova in Melbourne. She beat Henin again in three at Wimbledon, and then went out to Zvonareva in the next round. Sense a pattern? Fortunately for Kim, she hasn’t beaten Justine lately.

4. For those of us with no particular rooting interests, what should we watch for from Doha?

Stosur’s kick serve wide, the strongest this side of Serena’s, with a vicious but exemplary shoulder rotation. The two sides of Schiavone: Her understatedly carved slice backhand in transition, and her roundhouse, open-stance, feet-off-the-court topspin forehand when she has time to hit it from the baseline. Wozniacki’s discretion with her down-the-line backhand; she has a knack for finding the right time to go for it, and the right spot to hit it to. Azarenka’s hop-step footwork; it’s almost more than necessary, but the wasted energy is fun to watch. Zvonareva’s emotional state; generally calm and thoughtful off the court, can she continue to overcome her long-standing reputation for being anything but on it?

5. Who is going to win?

I’ll take Kim Clijsters. You?

Reading the Readers: Lots Left to Prove	10/21/2010 - 4:31 PM

Federer has won. Azarenka is in. Jankovic is tired. New Haven is now women’s only. Forstmann is, among other things, a pretty hilarious interview. Now that we know the latest, it seems like a good time to look back and amplify a few discussions that took place in the commentary box here over the past week.

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Steve. I hate to pile on...but a post like this is exactly why I can't stand Michael Silver--he picks the easiest, craziest, most moronic readers to respond to. Please, just don't start nit-picking at people's grammar. That's the worst.

Maybe you just needed to get this out of your system. You're too good a writer to bother with crazy fans. Just keep doing your thing.

Sigh...all hail the democracy of the internet message board!—Ryan

No, I won't be turning into Michael Silver or Howard Stern. But at the same time, it’s easier said than done to ignore nasty comments when they’re directed at you, no matter how random or irrelevant they are. The main thing is I that wanted the tone to improve here. My job at the magazine/website has changed a little, and I have more time to read and respond to comments, so I’d like it if I, as well as everyone else, got as much out of them as possible.

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The problem now with Murray is that the UK media only have him as a tennis hope and it has been like that since about the beginning of his professional career, as, then, both Henman and Rusedski were too near retirement to be any serious prospect for a GS anymore. So they jumped on Murray, who, even then, showed he should have what it takes to go all the way (after all, he won the US Open Junior event just the fall before).—crazycaro21

Murray handles the pressure at the Slams pretty well. He does a good job of detaching himself from it, but it gets to him eventually. It did at Wimbledon each of the last two years, and it did in the Aussie final. He wouldn’t be human if it didn’t. As someone who has seen the kind of cartoonish scrutiny he’s under during Wimbledon in the U.K., I’m amazed he handles it as well as he does. Once he gets close enough to the title so that it begins to seem like a real possibility, that’s when it hits.

There was some talk after Murray’s title in Shanghai that winning there would only hurt his chances at the Aussie Open next year, because the expectations would grow. I’m not sure about that. There are reporters from the major British papers following Murray everywhere, like the President of the United States, no matter how well he does. There will be stories about him virtually every day whether he wins tournaments or loses in the early rounds. The hopes and expectations and recriminations are automatic for him Even losing can't save him.

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What's wrong with saying fed has nothing to prove?

it's true. i think it's a statement that indicates that he has achieved so much, and stands as one of the best ever, that there is indeed nothing left to do to vindicate that position. it has already been established. no need for proof. it's not a rationalisation for losses, imo

this observation doesn't conflict with the continued desire to see him play and play well, and adjust to the new circumstances.—Susan

And I say that the fact that these "nothing left to prove" comments (just saw one from a Rafa fan about Rafa the other day) tend to come -- no, ALWAYS come -- right after a loss by Roger is very revealing. When this topic was discussed recently on another forum, someone described such comments (nothing to prove, gravy, icing on the cake etc) as "self-comforting" for fans after a loss by their fave. Totally unnecessary, I think.

Also, I repeat...Federer's words (see his first presser on returning to the Tour about how he can beat these guys) and his actions (see his hiring of Annacone and his trying new things) show that he thinks that he has a lot more to do and to prove, if not to SOME of his happy and satisfied fans, then to himself. I admire this attitude, the attitude of a real champion.—Ruth

This was a mini-dialogue earlier in the week between two smart posters, Susan and Ruth. The argument is over the appropriateness of fans downplaying their favorite player’s loss by saying that he’s done so much already that “he has nothing left to prove.”

Susan’s point is that it’s true that, say, Federer and Nadal have nothing more to prove, because each of them has won all four majors and established themselves as all-time greats. Ruth’s is that it’s a protective cushion, a way of inoculating player and fan from the ramifications of any defeat. “OK, Federer lost to Nadal again, but everything is gravy after the French 2009 anyway.” “OK, Nadal isn’t the master of hard courts, but he’s still won all the majors.”

I side with Ruth on this one. Federer and Nadal have proven themselves, that part is true. But if they had nothing left to prove, they would retire. Nadal wants to prove he can stay at No. 1, he wants to make a run up the major title ladder. Imagine what he would feel like if he could surpass Borg in French Open titles; I’m sure it has started to cross his mind, and I’m sure he knows it would be an incredible achievement. Federer wants to get back to No. 1, and I’m sure he wants to change the head to head trend against Nadal. Not that he’s thinking, “I have to get it to 11-15 before I retire," but the natural competitor in him still believes that he’s good enough to beat Nadal anytime they meet. You know deep down Federer still believes he's the man. He wouldn't bother playing if he didn't want to show that to the world.

I mentioned “pre-cuses” last week, where you downplay your favorite player’s chances before a tournament. “Nothing left to prove” sounds like a post-cuse—from now on, no loss matters. Michael Jordan, the Federer/Nadal of basketball, said that no matter many titles he won, he went into every game trying to prove himself—to the crowd, to his opponents, to the world, to himself—all over again. He didn’t even have to think about it. Once he started playing, the competitive juices came over him again just like the first time he’d played. That’s why these kinds of guys—the self-motivated guys—keep going. That's why they love to do it even when they’ve already won it all. Because they always have something to prove, and all of their wins and losses matter.

***

I've never thought of it this way before, but I wonder how much the spectator fatigue during the seemingly 2nd tier fall season is due to....too much tennis on television.

Amidst all the hoo-ing and hah-ing over how poorly tennis is served by the cool medium (see: Wertheim today), virtually all of which I agree with, it's worth noting that before Tennis Channel, ESPN and online streams tennis fans rarely got to watch tennis live and could barely keep up with players' wins and losses. For most of the tennis world, most of the time, getting tennis news was a matter of scouring the box scores in a newspaper. Even that wasn't consistent; there were times we'd be able to follow the first few rounds of a tourney and then not know anything until it was over!

I wonder if, as a consequence of that, tournaments like the Stockholm Open weren't better attended. After all, it was the only opportunity for Stockholmians to see live professional tennis. Today they might not only be able to watch their hometown tournament on Swedish television, but they've been able to watch tennis all year long to a degree that far outstrips what was available when Mac beat Borg.
Is too much of a good thing is killing the fall season?—Skip1515

Too much tennis on TV—I don’t know. I could see it working both ways. You see a lot of Federer on the tube, and that makes you want to see him in person. Or you see him so often already, you’re less likely to make a special trip to a city to see him one more time, even if it is live. There must be theories of publicity that address this—how much is too much exposure for a celebrity or athlete or politician? One thing that’s interesting to me is how the Internet will affect viewing. Being able to watch virtually every professional match anywhere on my computer almost makes waiting for the weekend to see the semis on the Tennis Channel feel ridiculously dated and  limited, the equivalent of watching the Wimbledon men’s final chopped to pieces on tape delay at 4:00 in the afternoon (yes, that happened). Maybe we’ll reach a time when there will be no bleachers at all; we’ll all be watching at home or at work.

Fan interest grows in an area when there’s a local star to cheer, and then fades when the star fades. Borg, and the next generation, in Sweden; Becker and Graf in Germany; Connors and Mac in America. No accident that Ion Tiriac took his tournament in Stuttgart and hauled it to Madrid a few years ago.

***

The number of Tier II players (and Tier III players), on the other hand, has been very strong. These would include Ivanovic and Jankovic, Dementieva, Azarenka, Kuznetsova, Safina and more recently Stosur. Wozniacki must be included in this group given her record, or lack thereof, against top 10 and top Tier competition. These players are all fine, talented, even very interesting and exciting players who share a common trait of great athleticism. But they have proved themselves undependable, and have excelled only in the absence of more accomplished players. Dementieva, Ivanovic and Jankovic have at least shown themselves capable of knocking off the big name players with signature wins, but all have faltered when they had big chances to win.—Northern Boy

I’ve written about the lack of top tier women to debut this decade, but the flipside, as you say here NorthernBoy, is true as well. The second tier is pretty strong, with a lot of players theoretically capable of winning majors. I don’t know if anyone has an answer for why the tour has begun to develop this way. The opening of the Eastern bloc has changed the dynamic at training academies and led to a flood of new players and talent, but as this list shows, this generation has mostly landed in the second tier. Is there a difference in mentality or motivation among today’s young players that doesn’t allow them to dominate, or win with as much consistency as Navratilova, Seles (two Eastern European players gone west), Evert, or Graf? Or are they just not as good as the Williamses and the Belgians? Either way, the women’s sport has shifted east in the last 30 years, and the results of that shift seem to still be playing out. We may see another Navratilova someday, but this feels like a transition period to . . . ???

"Are You Ready, Mr. Ashe?"	10/20/2010 - 1:50 PM

Certain tournaments appear to be ghosts of their former selves. Watching the current L.A. Open, which is played in July in front of not-exactly-jammed bleachers on the UCLA campus, it’s hard to believe that that city once hosted the glamorous Pacific Southwest Championships, the second-most-prestigious event in the country after the U.S. Open. Ditto for the now-defunct Indianapolis tournament, which was once the U.S. Clay Courts, but has now had to start from scratch again in Atlanta. And we all know about Hamburg. Once the highly dignified German Open, it has been reduced to trying to sue the ATP in the U.S. Supreme Court over its downgraded status.

The current edition of the Stockholm Open—brought to you by If, a Swedish insurance company—is a fine event, made finer this year by the presence of Roger Federer. The dark-blue court looks good, and there have been crowds for the early rounds so far. But it’s also a little ghostly. The tournament, like the Pacific Southwest, was once a signature late-season event. There was a reason for this, of course, a reason that no longer exists: Bjorn Borg played it. That meant Swedish people, including Swedish royalty, came to watch it.

Borg experienced a few milestones at his home tournament. In 1973, as a 17-year-old, he turned tennis in that country on its ear with a string of upsets, the last of which was a semifinal win over 21-year-old Jimmy Connors in their first meeting. Five years later, however, the tables were turned on Borg when he faced another left-handed American for the first time. John McEnroe, 19, stunned the then-22-year-old Borg in the semifinals, 6-3, 6-4, in front of the King of Sweden. It was the first time Borg had lost to a younger player. (That upset has always reminded me of Rafael Nadal’s first win over Roger Federer in Key Biscayne, by similar 6-3, 6-3 scores, in 2004. Both were ambushes to a degree, and each set a tone: The younger players, Nadal and McEnroe, were immediately able to believe that they could hold their own with the living legends.)

Two years later, Borg and McEnroe met again in Stockholm, in a much-anticipated final; they’d split classic five-setters at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open earlier that year. But this one wasn’t as memorable, for anyone other than Borg. He won in straights. More interesting was what happened after the match. For the first time during that tournament, Borg spoke to the press. He’d racked up $2,000 in fines by skipping his press conferences until then. Borg and McEnroe had recently been offered an exorbitant sum to play an exhibition in apartheid South Africa. McEnroe, after talking to his Davis Cup captain, Arthur Ashe, had declined, passing up $800,000. Borg, the money machine, had initially decided to accept. The Swedish media, of whom Borg had never been fond, wanted to grill him.

Just as Borg’s fate varied in Stockholm, so did McEnroe’s. Four years later, he put on one of the most notorious displays of his notorious career while playing Anders Jarryd there. McEnroe hit a ball into the stands, lost 15 points in a row, smashed a drink tray, and shouted his second-most-famous four-word outburst: “Answer the question, jerk!” The jerk in question, the chair umpire, hit him with a game penalty, but it appears in this video of the event that McEnroe thought he should have been defaulted. Instead he came back and won in three. 1984 was McEnroe's finest year, but it’s hard to see it in Stockholm. He looks miserable and exhausted. Something about Mac and being the undisputed world No. 1 didn’t mix.

But the best of all Stockholm stories belongs to, as you may have guessed, Ilie Nastase. The Masters (now the WTF) was held there at the end of 1975. Nastase was playing Ashe in a round-robin match and was down 1-4, 15-40 in the third set. A fan began to heckle him, so Nastase began to heckle back. Finally he served, but Ashe caught the ball; he’d seen another ball rolling on Nasty’s side of the court. Nastase later said, “for some reason, I thought I would slow up play.” He bounced the ball and said, teasingly, “Are you ready, Mr. Ashe?” He bounced the ball and asked the question again. And again. And again. “I don’t know how many times I did it, but it must have been quite a few.” Finally, Ashe, a picture of calm rationality on all other occasions, snapped. He walked toward the net screaming, “That’s it. I’ve had enough!” He kept walking, right off the court, and defaulted the match. He kept ranting, too, in the locker room, as tournament officials tried to decide what to do. The umpire claimed that he’d been on the verge of defaulting Nastase anyway. In a round-robin format, a default wouldn’t have meant the end of the tournament for either player. The first solution was to disqualify both of them, but when Ashe heard that idea, he went nuts again. So they decided just to default Nastase, who was always the bad guy anyway. He was OK with it.

The next day Nastase went to a florist in Stockholm. He bought a large bouquet of red, white, and yellow roses. He took them to the dining room of the player hotel and, according to him, “crept nervously up to the man they were intended for, trying to hide behind the huge bouquet. When I got to his table, he turned around, saw the flowers, saw me, smiled, and then laughed. I was forgiven.” He handed the flowers to Ashe.

Nastase went on to play some of the finest tennis of his career over the next few says. Despite the default, he reached the final, and there humbled the hometown boy, Borg, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

Nasty and nice, horrible and fabulous, Stockholm was all Nastase’s in ’75. Whatever happens at the tournament this week, I’m guessing it won’t be quite like that.

The Bridges to Doha	10/19/2010 - 11:33 AM

This is admittedly an odd week for a follower of the WTA. The deluge of season shutdowns is over—you know the long list of names who have pulled the plug on 2010 by now—but the year-ender itself, in Doha, has yet to begin. And we don’t even have Caroline Wozniacki to kick around or pull for, as the case may be; she’s giving herself a rare week off. For now, the rest of the women are taking their last shots in Moscow and Luxembourg. What should we look for in these interim days?

The biggest news from the women’s side last week, of course, came out of Linz, where former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic won her first tournament in two years. She has moved on to Luxembourg for the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open (see the draw here). How long is it before all tennis tournaments are a version of the BNP Paribas Open, anyway? The matches have begun there, and Ivanovic, the fourth seed, has a fairly clear path to the semis. She opens with Johanna Larsson, and the highest other seed in her quarter is Julia Georges. You don’t have to be an Ivanovic fanatic to be happy for this resurgence, even if it happened in Linz rather than at Wimbledon. By all appearances she’s worked extremely hard and persisted through a lot of dispiriting moments. But when elements as fragile as confidence and nerves are involved, even hard work and a positive attitude is no guarantee of anything. I think this an important event for Ivanovic. After all that’s happened to her on court, she needs to consolidate last week’s success so it doesn’t end up seeming like a mirage. I would hate to see her narrative continue to be one that only ranges between struggle and mortification, à la Anna K in her later years. Ana I really is too good a player for that.

If Ivanovic were to reach the semis, she’d likely face top seed Elena Dementieva. The Russian will look to tune herself up for Doha; she’s the final qualifier. The second seed, somewhat to my surprise, is Aravane Rezai, and other names of note are Yanina Wickmayer, who plays Patty Schnyder in the first round, and Daniela Hantuchova, who won today. A quiet event for a quiet week.

***

The women, like the men, are also in Moscow for the Kremlin Cup (see the draw here). Jelena Jankovic, who is already set for Doha, is the top seed. But the story of the early rounds will come from the second seed, Victoria Azarenka. She and Li Na are neck and neck for the first alternate spot in Doha, a spot that will likely lead to their entrance into the draw if and when Serena Williams pulls out. Li has already lost to Anna Chakvetadze, but Azarenka doesn’t have an easy match herself. She’ll have to get past No. 32 Andrea Petkovic to qualify; the two have never faced each other, but a Petkovic win would not be a shocker.

Beyond the top two, the draw is suitably Russified, with nine of the 28 entrants hailing from the home country. One of them, Elena Vesnina, has already eliminated the fifth seed, Flavia Pennetta—ah well, another Flav-less week for this fan. Vesnina is another case entirely; like Kournikova, when you see her on a doubles court, where she can be a dominating player, you wonder where she’s been hiding in the singles draws. Singles and doubles—they can seem like two different sports entirely.

Otherwise, watch for Dominika Cibulkova, who beat another Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (my fingers are starting to hurt) 6-0 in the third today. Also here are Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, with wonderful touch; Tsvetana Pironkova, with a rare slice forehand, who I haven’t seen since she reached the Wimbledon semis; and Maria Kirilenko, a compactly stylish player who, like Pennetta, unfortunately always seems to fall just off my viewing radar screen.

Moscow and Lux should, if nothing else, give us a chance to see a few players we don't get to see enough of. Not a bad way to bridge the days to Doha, after all.

Globetrotters	10/18/2010 - 5:21 PM

It's tough for a tennis immortal to know where to go at this time of year. Rafael Nadal had bailed on Bangkok the last couple of seasons, so this time he felt compelled to cross the earth to pick up whatever hefty appearance fee awaited him in Thailand. He seemed to enjoy himself there, despite losing in the semifinals. And the match play he got in helped tune him up for the following week’s Tokyo event, which he won. But a third stop was one too many, and Nadal’s heavy Asian scheduling caught up with him at the most important event on the continent, the Shanghai Masters. Nadal, who looked a little weary in the third set, was hit off the court by Jurgen Melzer, who had never taken a set from him before. Rafa didn’t seem quite as happy after that one. Back to the fall drawing board for 2011.

This week it’s Roger Federer’s turn to do the obligation thing. After losing Sunday in Shanghai, Federer now must hightail it all the way to Sweden for the If Stockholm Open, a 250-point event, on Wednesday. He had briefly put the tournament on his schedule in 2008 only to scratch, and he feels like he owes it to the event and its director Jonas Bjorkman to show up this time. Whether or not he’ll know what hemisphere he’s in when he takes the court is another question. Unlike Nadal, though, Federer has a little scheduling cushion. After Stockholm, he’ll have a week off before his next event, in his hometown of Basel. Still, even in the slow season, there’s no rest for the bankable.

Federer isn’t the only one making the global circuit for this tournament. The second seed is native son Robin Soderling, whom Federer just shellacked in Shanghai. What are the chances these two will meet yet again, in the final of this 32-draw event? Federer’s opener might come against Taylor Dent, and the other seed in his quarter is Stan Wawrinka. If all goes as planned, he'd get a look at Ljubicic or Robredo—or Rochus or Clement, I suppose—in the semis. On the whole, it’s an old-timer’s half, and it appears manageable for Federer, even factoring in the jet lag. Though facing his countryman is always tricky.

In Soderling’s way on the other side is Tomas Berdych, though he hasn’t been much of an obstacle for anyone lately. Also here is wild-carded former Stockholm champ James Blake, sometimes troublesome left-hander Feliciano Lopez, and not quite as troublesome lefties Jarkko Nieminen, Michael Berrer, and Thomaz Bellucci. Call this the sinister half of the draw.

More intriguing than the ultimate result may be any further evidence we can gather on Federer’s development with Paul Annacone. There's been talk of more aggressive returns and more down-the-line backhands, though I feel like we’ve heard about the latter a few times in the past. We’ll see. It can’t be easy to know exactly how to fine tune a playing machine like Federer’s, which still runs smoothly the majority of the time. Is more attacking the only tactical answer in tennis? It's been the general rule through the years, and Annacone in particular is a big proponent of the first strike. But Andy Murray beat Federer with proactive defense on Sunday, and Federer is already a pretty go-for-broke player as it is, at least from the forehand side. Is it too late for him to get better at the net? Like I said, finding out what Federer can and can't change may be the most significant thing that happens the rest of this season.

***

Maybe it’s the extra $400,000 in prize dough, but, Federer aside, the Kremlin Cup draw has a livelier look to it than Stockholm. Davydenko, Tsonga, Tipsarevic, Baghdatis, Youzhny are the bold-faced names. And I’ve been coming around to 7th-seeded Sergiy Stakhovsky as a player and personality of late. He saved match points in a win over Michael Russell today.

This is a rare chance for the home-country boys, Davydenko and Youzhny, to take center stage. They’re the top two seeds, but they seem to be moving in different directions at the moment. Davydenko is still finding his form after missing much of the season with a wrist injury, while Youzhny, a weekly tour warrior, might be slowing down. He was beaten early in Shanghai. Tsonga is fresh, and Tipsarevic has had a nice run this year. Look for two guys from the neighborhood, Dolgopolov and Golubev, to potentially make some noise. What about Baghdatis, the fourth seed? You never know, do you? He could win it or go out in the opening round. Still, the man to watch is Davydenko. If he can get something going here, he may start to build the kind of momentum he had last fall. It took him all the way to the title in London.

***

I’ll look at the week ahead on the WTA side tomorrow.

Muzz Buzz	10/17/2010 - 2:48 PM

There was a moment in the middle of the first set that made me think Andy Murray might be in good shape. He was up a break at 4-3, but down break point at 30-40. He had just double-faulted. The match seemed poised to turn, maybe decisively, in his opponent Roger Federer’s direction. Federer had started poorly, nearly shanking his way to a love-3 start, but Murray had allowed him to hang around and stay within one break of serve. Now it appeared that Federer, as he has done so many times in the past, would be able to ride out a bad patch of play unscathed. Once he does that, we know what’s next: full-flight Federer time, and nobody wants to be on the other side of the net when that starts.

Certainly not Murray, who, while earning an early lead, wasn't yet fully confident in what he was doing. He’d been playing even more passively than usual, and he'd been lucky to escape with a hold at 3-1 when Federer dumped an easy drop shot into the net at break point. Now Murray faced another break point at 4-3. This time he took a little extra time setting up. He reached back a little farther than normal with his backswing. He went right for his favorite spot, out wide in the ad court, and painted the sideline for an ace. Murray turned around and muttered a few possibly profane words to himself. We’re used to seeing him do this when he’s angry or frustrated, and we’re used to seeing him do it in the direction of his player box. But this time he was muttering to himself, and he was doing it with an edge of determination rather than anger. For the ever-dour Scot, this is called pumping yourself up. Murray held. Then he broke for the set with two running forehand passes. Announcer Robbie Koenig called the first one “miraculous.” The second one was even better. He’d reached full confidence.

But just as in the first set, Murray won the second with the kind of big-point grit and resolve that we didn’t see from him at the U.S. Open last month. He went down 15-40 in each of his first two service games. In the first, he hit a big forehand to save one break point, and in the second he came up with a backhand winner up the line to save another. In both games, he again reached back and hit aces when he needed them. Saving those break points loosened Murray up even as squandering them left Federer increasingly testy. Rightfully so: Down a break point at 1-2, Federer thought he’d won a point with an easy overhead, only to hear that the base linesman had incorrectly called his previous shot out. The point was replayed, Federer sailed a forehand wide, and a couple of minutes later Murray was up 4-1 and the match was all but over. Bad break. What made it worse was that Federer had already given that linesman a glare for missing an out call a few games earlier. Now there was nothing Federer could do but glare harder.

Afterward he said, “missing so many important shots, over and over, took a lot of my confidence away.” Federer was missing them right from the beginning. His first shanked forehand came at 40-30 in the opening game. The second one came on the next point. By the time he was down 0-2, Federer was shadow-stroking his forehand to try to smooth it out, even as the shanks started to spread to his backhand side, and even to his overhead—he sent a sitter off the throat of his racquet and over the baseline at 2-4. While Federer steadied himself eventually, he did, like he said, commit some surprising errors on important points. The most surprising and important of them was a hanging forehand that he sent 5-feet long for no apparent reason. Federer put his hands on his hips and stared in disbelief. It was that kind of day. He ended it with twice as many errors as winners. He was zero for six on break points. For anyone who thought he should have gotten in more, that wasn’t going to work, either—Federer won just 13 of the 24 points when he made his way forward. Most stunning of all, he had a 27-percent success rate on second-serve points.

Shanghai was a mixed signal from Federer. He reasserted his authority of Novak Djokovic in the semis; it’s clear to me that Djokovic must play above his norm, the way he did at the Open, to beat Federer. Otherwise, he winds up playing the lion’s share of the rallies on his heels. Federer also reclaimed the No. 2 ranking and began his fall campaign with a lot of good tennis. And while no big changes have been made to his game, he has presumably begun to settle in with Paul Annacone. At the same time, Federer lost his second straight Masters final of 2010 to Murray, and, while this one was closer than the score indicated, it wasn’t exactly close. As we’ve known for a while, the long victory streaks are over, and the occasional days of unexplained shanks are here to stay. None of this is new for Federer; all Murray has done is to make their match at a major that much more intriguing and pressure-filled. A showdown between them in London next month is a potential highlight of that event, and like their match there in 2009, which Federer won, it could set the stage for another encounter at the Australian Open.

Murray won’t worry about the future today. Once he relaxed in the middle of the first set, he played a masterful match in all ways, and he did it without “getting more aggressive,” which is what everyone, myself included, has been telling him to do for weeks, months, years. It’s not going to happen anytime soon. Murray’s going to live and die with his counter-puncher’s game. It’s the way he plays, the mindset he has, the speed and strokes he uses. Today it all worked. More than that, though, if we stop to watch Murray’s game closely and stop worrying about what he’s not doing, it only gets more interesting.

Murray is, as I said, a counter-puncher, an anti-authority type. He uses his opponent’s game rather than dictating play. His return, rather than his serve, has always been his signature shot. But unlike a counter-puncher such as Jimmy Connors, who took the pace of his opponents and flung it back in their faces with a grunt, Murray works in subtler ways. Federer said after the match that, “the target seemed to get smaller and smaller and that’s a credit to him.” What makes Murray unique is that while he plays from a defensive position and uses his speed as a weapon, he’s not a grinder. He doesn’t hit the ball with heavy topspin and put it in the same place every time. He changes speeds with his shots almost unthinkingly. He can rally with moderate pace from the middle of the court, but if he’s forced to run to his right, he’ll suddenly smack the ball back with considerably more oomph. Just when you think you have him is exactly when you don’t have him, and that’s a tough thing for an opponent to work around. Likewise, on the backhand side, Murray will be satisfied to chip the ball or loop it back a dozen straight times, but he also possesses a flatter version of the shot, almost a two-handed forehand, and he caught Federer off guard with it a number of times today.

Murray’s 2010 has seemed like 10 years in one, and it’s not even over. He was up in Melbourne, then way down until Wimbledon. He reached another peak in Toronto, then tumbled again at the Open. But he's never been higher than he was today at the end of the first set. With Murray off the court, Federer hit what he had to think was a winning volley. With his long strides, Murray raced from off camera toward the ball, but you never actually thought he was going to reach it until you saw it come off his strings and slide crosscourt, past Federer, and dive inside the sideline. Koenig went berserk, yelling something unintelligible. I had one of those automatic, I-can’t-help-myself spectator moments, blurting out “Oh my God!” and snapping my head up at the ceiling. Whatever disappointments have come in the past, whatever may come in the future, whatever flaws he may have in his game, all of it could be forgotten today. Whether he was reaching back for a serve, muttering a curse of determination, or hitting a miraculous pass, it was a good day to watch Andy Murray play tennis.