April 20, 2012

Sodden Balls, A Tin Sky

Monte Carlo Masters, Third Round

Haase d. Bellucci, 6/2 6/3

Last week in Casablanca, Robin Haase, not the latest great hope of Dutch tennis but still arguably the best, lost to Lamine Ouahab, ranked No.752. It was another low point in a career that too seldom ventures out of the basement. He has now climbed to the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Masters, the first time he has risen so high at so august a tournament. Philip Kohlschreiber did not write the book on streakiness (it’s written in French); he is merely its latest custodian. But there is good reason to think he permits Haase to borrow it from time to time. I picture the Dutchman poring over that oft-handled tome late into the night, studiously absorbing its nuances by furtive torchlight.

Haase’s form is typically defined by whether his lustily-produced groundstrokes find the court or not. As with, say, James Blake or Andrei Golubev, one assumed he knows no other way to play. Today was thus a surprise. It was decidedly cool in Monte Carlo this afternoon, and damp when it wasn’t flat out sodden. Soggy balls, a tin sky, and mud – it’s difficult to imagine conditions that suit Haase less. They demand patience, thoughtfulness, a willingness to run, and sufficient grunt to impart work onto a leaden ball. (For all that Rafael Nadal professes to prefer a faster, bouncier surface, he certainly has the skills to excel on a day like today, as poor Mikhail Kukushkin discovered). Haase has the grunt, but it was a wonder to see him unleash those other qualities – cerebral and aerobic – in seeing off Tomaz Bellucci.

Bellucci, it must be said, did not read the conditions well, maintaining a quixotic determination to hit through the court until the very end. Nor did he reproduce yesterday’s form, which allowed him to stretcher off a wounded David Ferrer. The result was 40 unforced errors, and several hundred wasted break points. Too often Bellucci would attempt an audacious winner while pushed wide or deep, but Haase was laudable in his commitment to shoving the Brazilian back and across. On a day when only two players truly excelled in bleak conditions, Haase’s sustained focus counts as a minor miracle. He’s back in the top fifty.

Wawrinka d. (8) Almagro, 6/3 6/3

Aside from Nadal, whose victory was so complete that even his hardcore fans must profess themselves satisfied – though some remain concerned his workout lacked sufficient intensity – the most imposing player today was Stan Wawrinka, who trounced Nicolas Almagro. Some had high hopes for Almagro this clay season, based on no clear evidence whatsoever. True, he performed well in South America, but he long ago proved that this hardly heralds success in Europe once the big boys show up. Some suggested that he would pose the greatest threat to Nadal’s inexorable progress to the final, an assertion based, again, on no evidence whatsoever, except perhaps an uneasy concern that a man who’d lost seven times in a row was due for a win.

They needn’t have worried. Wawrinka today looked like the more accomplished clay-courter, and while Almagro’s groundstrokes are very impressive, the superior weight the Swiss brings on both the forehand and backhand was obvious, and telling. Almagro looked blunted by the conditions, and Wawrinka did not – his backhand reared off the dull court. Wawrinka was also willing to close on the net, and finish points with touch. The only hiccough came at the end, with a flurry of wasted match points. He had a right to be nervous. He’ll face Nadal in the quarterfinals.

(4) Tsonga d. (13) Verdasco, 7/6 6/2

(6) Berdych d. (12) Nishikori, 2/6 6/2 6/4

Nerves might have explained Fernando Verdasco’s stricken capitulation to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, if not for the fact that the Spaniard has been in that position so often before, and succumbed in basically the same way every time. He held two set points in the first set tiebreak, and grew timid. On both Tsonga justified his lofty ranking. The second, which the Frenchman took with an audacious dropshot-volley combo, brought down the house. From there he took the set, and soared to a double break in the second. Kei Nishikori and Tomas Berdych breezily split a couple of sets, before getting down to brass tacks in the third. Nishikori gained a break point at 4/4, constructed a fine point, but took his eye off the ball on the crucial inside-out forehand. Berdych held then broke then started shouting at the sky. Nishikori knew he’d blown it on that forehand.

(9) Simon d. (7) Tipsarevic, 6/0 4/6 6/1

(3) Murray d. Benneteau, 6/5 ret.

Janko Tipsarevic blew it on every stroke, especially in the first set, in which he served at an abysmal 37%, and won only 14% of those that went in. All six games went to deuce, and his opponent, Gilles Simon, won all of them. Both players took a break from this pattern in the second, but reprised it fairly succinctly in the third. We could, I suppose, concede that Tipsarevic isn’t a clay-courter. But nor is Simon. Julien Benneteau played out of his skin for ten games against Andy Murray, but was brought back to corporeality soon enough, crashing heavily to the court several times, and buggering first his ankle, then his elbow. Injury, as ever, proved a sure method of miring a soul threatening to take flight. Murray afterwards suggested there are issues with the courts. Juan Monaco, who is out for a month, doubtless concurs.

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April 18, 2012

Streaks and Bagels

Monte Carlo Masters, First and Second Rounds

(4) Tsonga d. Kohlschreiber, 6/2 6/4

(3) Murray d. Troicki, 6/0 6/3

There is a persistent belief, and one that I share in spite of my better judgement, that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is a fundamentally streaky player. This is unfair, and inaccurate. Even in an era in which the top four monopolise the available points, it is difficult to ascend to No.5 in the world without achieving consistent results. There might still be hot streaks, but those sudden skyward forays require a sturdy launch pad. (The question of how high a truly streaky player might rise is debatable. If surface is no issue, it is defined by Tomas Berdych. If surface and geographical location are limiting factors, there is Mardy Fish.) There was a time – it is even within living memory for all but toddlers and YouTube commenters – when the tendency periodically to lose to players ranked below you was not called streakiness. It was just called tennis. Of late, the top three have taught us differently, by rarely losing to anyone but each other. It has been a tough lesson for Andy Murray, who remains atavistically committed to losing matches to anyone, sometimes.

Last year at Roland Garros, Murray seemed committed to losing to Viktor Troicki, and was late, though not too late, in reconsidering. He hobbled through, painfully, keeping his perfect record against the Serb intact. Today Troicki demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction that last year’s French Open will remain his best chance at beating Murray. Through the first set he never looked like getting a game; he was broken three times, and without apparently difficulty. There was plenty of variety in the points – patient exchanges, scrambling all-court flurries, sudden attacks – and Murray won them all, however he wanted to. The second set was closer, but this is only a relative term. Troicki wasn’t close to winning it.

Nick Lester and Chris Wilkinson on the TennisTV feed lapsed immediately in smug complacency, the way English pundits do when the Scot is well on top. The best example of this was in last year’s US Open, when Murray won ten straight games and looked to be cruising against Robin Haase, before a violent resurgence by the Dutchman had the commentators eating crow. Today, of course, Troicki mounted no such counter-surge, which afforded Lester and Wilkinson ample space in which to extol Murray’s virtues, with devastating loquacity. One of them insisted that there is no top player better at making world-class opponents look average, apparently forgetting that Murray himself is pretty world-class, and has been made to look decidedly average by all three of his peers. The long-smothered question of whether Murray is the most talented player out of the top four was duly resuscitated. An awkward ramble on the nature of talent eventually yielded the generous concession that Federer might equal Murray in this regard.

Murray’s rapid dismissal of Troicki brought Tsonga and Philip Kohlschreiber on to court in short order, for which I was grateful. Lester and Wilkinson, orgasmically spent, went off for a lie down, and Peter Fleming took over. Seasoned professional that he is, he wasted only a few games before essaying the contractually-required comparison between Tsonga and Muhammad Ali (by way of Joe Frazier). The experienced commentators come prepared with a crib sheet, and get an early start on ticking off each item. Unfortunately, he’d apparently brought the wrong notes for Kohlschreiber, several times suggesting that the German was ‘a real pro’, who ‘knew how to get it done’ when the key moments come around. In fact, no definition of streaky would be complete without a portrait of Kohlschreiber to set it off.

My pre-tournament pick was that the German might streak through this open quarter, all the way to the semifinals, and there lose heroically to Rafael Nadal. Clearly, my judgement had been clouded by the superannuated view of Tsonga as a mercurial headcase, reinforced by the awareness that he was at his worst on clay. By no means was Tsonga terrific today, but it’s only the second round of a Masters, and he didn’t need to be. He was typically aggressive, but he was also sufficiently solid, and his risks were always reserved for prudent moments and makeable shots. Kohlschreiber, however, would typically save his wildest flights for 0-15 or 0-30. Even if he was a seasoned campaigner who knew how to play the big points, he allowed those big points to come around far too often. In the first set, the big points were break points on his own serve. This isn’t to say he didn’t have plenty of chances on Tsonga’s serve, especially in the second set. A streaky player is not a bad player, and there was plenty of hot stuff to go with the cold. He gained six break points against the Frenchman in the second set, but converted none of them. A poor last service game ended it, capped by a final rally in which Tsonga sparred patiently, and Kohlschreiber thrust another backhand into the net.

Haase d. (11) Monaco, 7/5 0/6 2/3 ret.

It is well known that the Nice tournament, played the week before the French Open, is cursed, that the champion on the Cote d’Azur is destined to fall in the first round the following week. The last two years they’ve blown a two set lead. Why top players continue to show up in Nice at all is beyond me. A similar question might be made of Juan Monaco’s determination to be crowned US Men’s Clay Court Champion in Houston last week, the week before the somewhat more illustrious Monte Carlo Masters, thereby depriving an American of this coveted accolade. It didn’t help that he saw off Michael Russell (a Houston resident) and John Isner in the final two rounds. Neither the gods nor the Department of Homeland Security were likely to let this matter slide. Today, up a break in the final set against Robin Haase, Monaco rolled his ankle viciously, and two points later was forced to retire. No news has emerged as to the seriousness of the injury. It’s worth pointing out that Monaco blew a 4/2 lead in the first set, and so shouldn’t have been in a deciding set at all. There was also a lengthy rain delay. It’s also worth pointing out that the last time the Argentine ascended to No.14 in the world was in 2007, whereupon he rolled his ankle badly. Think about it. If it’s not the work of capricious gods or humourless men in suits, then what is it?

Appalling luck, that’s what it is. And a damned shame.

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April 16, 2012

Used Dishwater

Houston, Final

(4) Monaco d. (2) Isner, 6/2 3/6 6/3

Juan Monaco today earned himself a career-high ranking of No.14, the right to call himself the US Men’s Clay Court Champion (ladies), and a potentially decisive bone-weariness as he decamps for Monte Carlo, where it will be compounded by jet-lag. Thus debilitated, he will face Robin Haase almost immediately, and can therefore feel confident that either a win or a loss will come quickly. There is a very real possibility that he will be out of the tournament before I overcome my annual, facile delight that Monaco is playing in Monaco, nearly.

Come what may in Monaco (the principality), Monaco (the player) proved unbeatable on Houston’s drab clay – apparently it is hosed down with used dishwater each morning – cracking open the hitherto impenetrable serve of John Isner three times. Both players bore the indelible marks of yesterday’s semifinals. In the case of Isner, the excruciating win over Feliciano Lopez expressed itself in a surplus of lactic acid, which lent the American’s characteristic air of pedestrian exhaustion a certain authenticity, at least through the opening set. (To be fair, none of us emerged from that semifinal psychically intact, but at least our physical recovery was brief.) In Monaco’s case, he was typically spry, and doubtless buoyed by the knowledge that, come what may, the final could not be as lethally dull as his win over Michael Russell had been. What followed was a modestly engaging yet ultimately forgettable final, in which Isner served poorly and Monaco ran lots. Monaco afterwards celebrated by submerging himself in the dishwater tank, which, as health risks go, still ranks somewhere below the Yarra.

With the Championships completed for another year, this will be the last we see of the US Men for a while, unless you live in the United States, where they are still permitted to roam free. By reaching the final, Isner has supplanted Mardy Fish as the highest ranked US Man, the twelfth chap to be so honoured. (With that pressure lifted from his shoulders, there is surely hope for a change in Fish’s fortunes. He probably won’t win much more, but at least his failures will generate less commentary.) Tennis.com, typically, contrived to spin Isner’s achievement into a lament for American tennis:

‘The first four men to hold the top U.S. ranking—Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Andre Agassi—combined for 25 Grand Slam singles titles. The middle four of Michael Chang, Brad Gilbert, Jim Courier and Pete Sampras combined for 19 major titles, while the last four—Andy Roddick, James Blake, Fish and Isner—own just one Slam in singles, Roddick’s victory at the 2003 U.S. Open. Neither Blake, Fish nore [sic] Isner has reached the semifinals of a major.’

I’m not sure precisely who they’re angry at here. Perhaps it is merely a generalised fury that their recent top players chose their era so unwisely.

Monte Carlo Masters, First Round

Dodig d. Ljubicic, 6/0 6/3

Play has already commenced in Monte Carlo, although in line with official policy only those actually attending are permitted to see the early rounds. There is, apparently, a real risk that players outside the top twenty will gain dangerous exposure if televised, leading to civil unrest. As with Miami, when no one saw Fernando Gonzalez’ last match, this issue has become particularly pressing in Monte Carlo, where no one saw Ivan Ljubicic’s. The Croatian today lost in the first round to compatriot Ivan Dodig. The ATP released a commemorative video. There was a presentation on court afterwards, which was, by all accounts, rather moving.

It was also rather short, since the event needed the court urgently. There’s been rain aplenty in Monte Carlo over the weekend – literally tumbling from the sky – and the qualifying schedule is sodden and rent. Most players were on court twice today, assuming they won their first match, which precisely half of them didn’t. Grigor Dimitrov did win his first, but lost his second to Mikhail Kukushkin. Arnaud Clement, who is older even than Ljubicic, lost his first. How does he keep going? The day’s remaining first round matches saw the necessary losses of the two local wildcards, Jeremy Chardy and Benjamin Balleret. They were valuable wildcards that could have been better spent. I wonder if Dimitrov feels aggrieved he didn’t receive one. I’m not suggesting he deserved it.

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April 15, 2012

Luck of the Draw: Monte Carlo 2012

Depending on who you talk to, the outcome of the Monte Carlo Masters will have ramifications for the rest of the clay court season extending all the way from the profound up to the negligible. If Nadal wins, he’ll win Paris. If Djokovic wins, he’ll win everything. If someone else wins . . . well, no one really knows what that will mean. The last time something like that happened the Mediterranean rose up, and swallowed Atlantis.

I confess that I am no great advocate of the Monte Carlo tournament, although my apathy towards it stems entirely from scheduling, as opposed to any fault I can find with the event itself. Few could cavil at the location; call me a sucker for a links court, but on the tour only Umag and (perhaps) Båstad can rival it for picturesqueness, and neither can match its cachet. But Monte Carlo is contested so far out from Roland Garros that it frankly feels disconnected from it, for all that many pundits talk up the similarities of the surface, and parade the fact that the Monte Carlo champion so often wins in Paris, although in recent years there’s been a pretty good reason for that.

If ever there was an idée fixe unlikely to come unstuck, it is the rusted-on assumption that Rafael Nadal will go on winning Monte Carlo until both his knees grow so unstable they are declared a security risk. Seven of Nadal’s record 19 Masters titles have come in Monte Carlo, and he hasn’t lost there since 2003, when he was eight years old, and forced to face three opponents simultaneously – Coria, Moya, and Kuerten – wielding only a badminton racquet, strung with natural (sparrow) gut. If he wins it again this year, he will join Guillermo Vilas as the only man to have won the same title eight times in the Open era. Given Nadal’s history at this venue, and his prowess on this surface, there is no way he can actually have a tough draw, since he cannot face Novak Djokovic before the final. But there’s easy, and then there’s easy. Nadal’s draw this year is unquestionably of the latter variety. If its easiness were any more italicised the letters would be horizontal.

Of course, Nadal, if pressed, will go to extravagant lengths to refute his favouritism, up to and including an impromptu deconstruction of favouritism as a concept. It’s just one of those things, although it’s one of the things I have little time for. (The best clay courter in history doesn’t necessarily have to anoint himself the greatest, but he can at least concede he’s better than, say Jarkko Nieminen. To say so wouldn’t be to insult Nieminen, and to pretend otherwise is just weird.) As luck would have it, Nadal will face either Nieminen or Radek Stepanek following his first round bye. I’m calling him the favourite for that one, and convention be damned.

He’ll probably find Nicolas Almagro in the quarterfinals, against whom he is 7-0, although this should be qualified: in one of those matches Nadal almost nearly lost. His semifinal opponent could be anyone, although not anyone of concern. Had Federer played, it would have been his quarter. But it isn’t, so it’s Tsonga’s, the new No.5. The Frenchman isn’t much chop on dirt, though, so there’s no good reason to think he’ll reach the final four. If compelled to pick, I’d pick Philip Kohlschreiber, just because he’s thrilling to watch when he’s winning. Raonic, Tipsarevic and Verdasco are in there as well. Really any of them could scrape and claw their way to the semifinals, and there be torn to shreds by Nadal. The only issue will be those geriatric knees, now held together with depleted uranium pins. He’s had his treatment, and appears to be moving fine in practice. But at least his more fanatical fans can now say that even getting to the final will be ‘almost impossible’.

The pertinent question, amply asked already, will be what might happen if he discovers Novak Djokovic lurking there. The more pressing question, however, will be whether Djokovic gets there at all. His draw is not easy. Arguably, the world No.1 is no more likely to lose before the quarterfinals than Nadal – some combination of Seppi, Tomic, Istomin and Dolgopolov – but once there it’ll be tough. David Ferrer waits in the last eight (assuming the Spaniard makes it past Juan Monaco, who will himself be wearied from a pointless week in Houston). Ferrer on slow clay is different from Ferrer on a slow hardcourt. Djokovic should win, but not in a hurry.

After that the Serb will face the winner of Andy Murray’s quarter, which will probably be Andy Murray, who has celebrated his union with Ivan Lendl by adopting the latter’s barber, the ne plus ultra of respect. Murray is of course sufficiently talented that he can lose to anyone at any moment for any reason – even Viktor Troicki in the second round – but he should reach the quarterfinals, and he should beat Tomas Berdych when he gets there. I’m confident Djokovic will endure Ferrer and Murray’s ministrations, but he won’t be unscarred. Nonetheless, if he and Nadal do face off in the final, Djokovic will doubtless be installed as the favourite by the bookmakers, and all the fans other than his own.

Consistent with the event’s mostly ill-defined function, there have been a number of notable no-shows, most of whom did not bother to invent an injury. Del Potro is saving himself for Estoril. Federer is toiling away in Dubai. Isner has his heart set on becoming the US Men’s Clay Court Champion. Fish and Roddick are American, and therefore don’t play Monte Carlo. Gasquet and Monfils actually are injured. Otherwise, the most notable attendee is Ivan Ljubicic. Monte Carlo will be his last professional tennis tournament. He is in Tsonga’s quarter. Perhaps he will make the semifinal.

The full draw can be found here.

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April 13, 2012

The High Point of the Season

The Monte Carlo draw isn’t out until tomorrow, but, alone among tournaments, this offers no reason not to analyse it. The two salient features are already known: Rafael Nadal will play, and so will Novak Djokovic. Just this once, we can permit ourselves to pre-tape the weather report, so to speak. Anyway, what’s the alternative? To talk about Houston, and the bombastically titled US Men’s Clay Court Championship (named with typical restraint; this is a nation that calls its baseball competition the World Series. Don’t get me started on Miss Universe)? The draw is admittedly more cosmopolitan than, say, Atlanta’s, although there is still a preponderance of locals. This is their right, of course, since they’re US Men, and this is their championships.

Endless threnodies on the shortage of American clay court prowess are not unmerited. Formally, they’re all passacaglias on the same theme, and it’s a theme that rings true. The reigning US Men’s Clay Court champion is Ryan Sweeting. It’s debatable which surface Sweeting is a specialist on, but I’ll hazard that this isn’t it. He’s through to the quarterfinals, having beaten Bobby Reynolds, who despite knowing better, I usually picture as Richie Cunningham. Michael Russell, who once led the mighty Gustavo Kuerten by two sets at Roland Garros, has finally earned the upset we believed was in him, by seeing off Mardy Fish. Fish was the top seed, but he isn’t well. Most reports are citing fatigue. Some are insisting that it’s chronic, and a syndrome. Fish is still ranked No.9, but in the 2012 race he’s a lowly No.37, one spot below the illustrious Bjorn Phau. Nadal’s yearned-for two year ranking system would delay Fish’s departure from the top ten by months, which is surely a pretty succinct argument against it.

The match of the tournament so far was Kevin Anderson’s three set win over Sam Querrey today. Querrey’s coach Brad Gilbert appeared on Twitter remarking that his charge won more points and games, and yet still lost, apparently having just discovered this is possible. Hopefully, empowered with this new knowledge, Gilbert can teach Querrey that some points are more important than others, and that the very important ones habitually congregate in the third set tiebreaker. Lose those, and little else matters. Still more people are treating this as an upset, despite Anderson being ranked 70 places higher. Querrey remains stranded at No.103 (ten spots below the illustrious Bjorn Bhau). Where do these expectations come from? Phau, incidentally and illustriously, lost 6/1 6/0 to Carlos Berloq. Bummer.

The unfortunate fact is that only John Isner has displayed much aptitude for dirt lately (don’t imagine that as an Australian I feel at all superior about this). The decision to play Houston was thus baffling – one assumes the appearance fee played as definitive a role as the ‘love’ he professes to feel – especially since it has resulted in the predictable and foolish decision to pull out of Monte Carlo next week, despite his Davis Cup heroics just last week. I’ll always be the last one to say that Monte Carlo matters, but it should matter more than Houston, even if the latter is a National Championship. As I write, Isner has just seen off Horacio Zeballos in three sets. Ryan Harrison is also through to the quarterfinals, having defeated a ‘pair’ of Russians in Alex Bogomolov and Igor Kunitsyn. Harrison was also in Monte Carlo last weekend, and is not going back.

This aversion to European dirt merely reinforces a tendency that has lately hardened into a policy among US men. In the six years since 2005, only once has an American entered the main draw for Monte Carlo (Querrey in 2008). For all that Monte Carlo is the only Masters tournament that isn’t mandatory, and although its value as preparation for Roland Garros is questionable, this statistic still reveals the extent to which American players have largely given up on clay. They subsequently turn up in Europe by ones and twos during Madrid and Rome, but even then they don’t seem to take it very seriously. Of course, they’re unlikely to win these events, especially Monte Carlo, but there’s such a thing as playing to improve, and mastering all aspects of the sport. There’s a great deal to be said for professionalism. As a consequence, the top American players – Roddick, Fish, previously Blake – never look adequately prepared for Paris. The year’s second major seems merely to be something to be endured before Wimbledon. From that perspective, Houston’s status as the US Men’s Clay Court Championship is not overstated at all. For the US men, it really is the high point of their clay court season.

Anyway, back to the Monte Carlo draw . . . Oh, we’re out of time.

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April 11, 2012

Empty, Blissful and Still

The Next Point Enterprises, in conjunction with Hallmark and the South Australian Board of Agriculture, is proud to announce the release of a truly inspirational gift, just in time for Mother’s Day.

The Roger Rasheed 2012 Desk Calendar collects, for the first time, all of Roger’s greatest tweets, presented daily (which clinical research has proven is the ideal frequency at which to be drip-fed pure inspiration). South Australia’s favourite son shares with the North Korean military junta and the self-help section of your airport bookstore an unwavering belief that a positive message will carry the day; that no problem is so great that it cannot be solved by throwing metaphors at it. Here’s a sample:

  • You can’t buy effort, mental day to day strength and hunger for the competition, YOU TRAIN IT and BELIEVE in it. Game set match Nadal.#Miami
  • Persistence,with that you will create opportunities,with the effort & education you have gathered along the way success will come.#journey
  • Opportunities will be put infront of you in life,business & sport,take them & watch the different pathways they present you with.#bluesky
  • The only challenge in life is to challenge yourself- you will be greatly rewarded and develop into a quality person through the process.

If Tony Robbins was to become a serial killer, these are the notes he would leave on his victims. For that personal touch, most messages are then topped with a saccharine hashtag, like a glaced cherry from the depths of grandma’s pantry. But it isn’t all sweet. Roger doesn’t pull his punches:

  • Novak v Baghdatis 6/46/4,if Baggy had the right strong matured people around him post his Oz Open r/up his career would have been different.

Sadly for Baghdatis, he opted for strong matured cheese, instead. If only this calendar had appeared sooner! But it’s not all sport:

  • If you have kids starting school this year take the time to hang with them before the bell rings,they love you taking an interest.#goldtime

And if your boss is curious why you’re always late each morning, just show him this. Perhaps make Goldtime! your personal motto. Have a t-shirt made up. Compose a theme song.

So there you have it: the perfect gift, for only $12.95 + postage & handling. Each individual message is also available as an inspirational fridge magnet. Order today!*

Review: *****

For all that Rasheed’s tweets are creepy and kitsch, and therefore consistent with his television commentary, there is no reason to think his advice is wrong. He presumably knows what it takes to excel at all levels of sport, from the juniors – where his foundation is active – to the elite, where he found fame coaching Lleyton Hewitt and Gael Monfils. The depressing thing is not that his advice is poor; it’s that it is good. A keen sense of reality, of the world’s true nature, is the last thing an elite athlete needs.

I have always wondered to what extent a kind of willed obtuseness is necessary for a top athlete to flourish, at least for those to whom obtuseness doesn’t come naturally. For example, it has always seemed to me that Andy Murray is too clever for his own good, too aware of the execrable texture of life; everything is made of shit. Like all born ironists, he finds it difficult to look past this and, fundamentally, he probably believes that to do so is to betray something more important than a mere tennis career.

Robin Soderling seems to be cut from similar cloth, and that sardonic smirk appears for all the world to be his ironic defence against a brainlessly macho environment that he finds otherwise intolerable. I suspect his tendency to remain apart from the other players is related to this. Even though the tour is more fragmented than it was a decade ago, especially to hear Marat Safin tell it, Soderling still never seemed interested in being one of the boys. His sudden rise three years ago owed as much to Magnus Norman simplifying his approach to the sport, rather than any profound technical adjustments. He stopped thinking so much. The cliché is that 99 per cent of sport is between the ears, but the real trick is to leave that space empty, so that it can be filled with nothing but instinct, talent and (mostly) training.

Janko Tipsarevic is the latest exemplar of this, achieving the necessary mental clarity with savage efficiency, virtually lobotomising himself in order to drown out the polyphony of human concern. He recently remarked in an interview that he is now ‘trying to make my life in a way that 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 adds up to eight. I am not trying to divide or multiply anything.’ This seems clear proof, despite Tipsarevic’s recent success, that simplified thinking can go too far, leading back to complexity, via idiocy. I’m not sure how the interviewer kept a straight face at this point, but he could have at least pointed out that 4 x 2 will get you to 8 even quicker: a little multiplication goes a long way. Had Rasheed been the interviewer, however, I can imagine him nodding knowingly, as though Tipsarevic had uttered something searingly useful, and not just blindingly commonplace. At the very least, it would have merited a retweet.

Again, this is not to suggest that Rasheed would be wrong. Indeed, given Tipsarevic’s undeniable success of late – ignoring last weekend’s Davis Cup – I’d suggest Rasheed is overwhelmingly right. There are so many things wrong in the world that in order to function at all we must edit almost all of them out. I can only write this column in the awareness that there are far more productive things I could be doing in order to improve the lot of strangers. Irony is not the only way of coping, or necessarily even the best, but it’s better than going mad. However, in order to win tennis matches at the elite level, even the awareness of what you’re shutting out is a crippling intrusion. There is simply no space in which to consider anything but what you are doing, with a little heed payed to whatever motivational kitsch you happen to subscribe to. To become distracted in a competitive match is to lose. Monfils, previously in the care of Rasheed, too often concerns himself with the crowd’s enjoyment, with dire results. When he remains single-minded, he is imposing indeed. (Mark Waugh, in a different sport, frequently fell prey to a similar vice. Despite all the skill and grace in the world, he would grow distracted by the urge to entertain, and he’d trudge skilfully and gracefully back to the pavilion soon after.)

This is not to privilege sport unduly, although we shouldn’t pretend that sport is not privileged. Concert pianists – virtual shorthand for privilege – practice a discipline in which concentration cannot lapse for half an hour at a time, if not longer; no moment between points, and no sit down at the change of ends. Any cock-up spells disaster. For trauma surgeons, it can mean catastrophe. Again, there is no corollary that the top tennis players are therefore dim-witted off the court – they clearly aren’t – although I do wonder to what extent it would matter if they were. What really matters is that they can deploy a savant-like focus on cue, and that whatever they might personally feel about the day’s news or even the match so far is not permitted to hamper the tens of thousands of hours they’ve spent preparing for that moment. For the duration of each point, at their best, they are empty, blissful, perfect, narrow and still.

*Women undergoing pregnancy should consult their physician.

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April 9, 2012

The Thing About Assumptions

Davis Cup, Quarterfinals, Day Three

Czech Rep. d. Serbia, 4-1

Berdych d. Tipsarevic, 7/6 7/6 7/6

In twenty years’ time, someone poring over old tennis scores might chance upon today’s Davis Cup results, and might make certain assumptions – entirely erroneous – as to how the matches played out. (Positing this theoretical future ‘historian’ entails a simultaneously bleak and optimistic view of the future, in which poor lonely bastards are permitted to pursue their pointless whimsies freely, and aren’t simply harvested for their organs. This suggests that at some point in the next two decades the west might enjoy a break in conservative governance. But I digress.)

Of course, a score line of 7/6 7/6 7/6 is an easy one to draw the wrong conclusions from. Being straight sets, one might assume it was straight forward. With every set ascending to a tiebreak, one might also, as with the famous US Open quarterfinal between Sampras and Agassi, assume it was tight. But you know what they say about assumptions: ‘they have an established tendency to make you and I look foolish.’ (They don’t say what happens in the case of pre-existing idiots, but assumptions probably don’t help.) Janko Tipsarevic, however, doesn’t need to assume anything in order to look foolish. He just needs a tennis ball in his hand, and the opportunity to serve for a set.

Tipsarevic served for both the first and second sets, and both times he was broken back by Tomas Berdych without achieving set point (although he did find one in the second set tiebreak, and promptly discarded it). However, the most telling moment came at 5/3 in the first set tiebreak, as Tipsarevic left a ball that landed in, a moment that told us that in lieu of genuine belief, he had only haggard, desperate hope.

Having established his credentials for gagging a lead, Tipsarevic essayed a different approach in the third set. Figuring that serving for a set was a doomed enterprise, he instead saved his big push for the inevitable breaker, although not before blowing a couple more set points on Berdych’s serve at 6/5. The Serb established a commanding lead in the tiebreak, and at 6/3 held three set points. Belief might have won him one, but, as I say, he had none. Berdych saved them all, and took the set, and the match, and the tie. The Czech Republic moves through to the Davis Cup semifinals.

It would be foolish to suggest this match was ever going to be a simple affair. Keen disciples of The Tipsarevic will recall his urgent, and painful, loss to Berdych in the Tour Finals last year, when the Serb wasted a match point in the second set tiebreaker. Or how about two weeks earlier, at the Paris Indoors, where Tipsarevic led 5/1 in the first set, only to lose it 5/7, and 4/2 in the second, only to go down 6/4? The point is he has form.

But nor should we pretend that Berdych has been amazing of late. He hasn’t. This is only his second top-ten victory of 2012, the other being the infamously feisty win over Almagro at the Australian Open, in which we discovered that while the Tin Man may not have a heart, he does have a certain flair for melodrama, as he collapsed as though pole-axed upon sustaining a ball to the arm. Nevertheless, Berdych clinched all three wins this weekend (he paired with Stepanek in the doubles), and there is some hope that recent upgrades will see him prove competitive through the clay and grass seasons to come.

USA d. France, 3-2

Isner d. Tsonga, 6/3 7/6 5/7 6/4

Comical scenes in Prague had earlier taken over from emotional ones in Monte Carlo, where the USA had completed a strong victory over France. Guy Forget announced his retirement from the captaincy on court afterwards, thereby reducing the French players to open weeping. Llodra and Benneteau took it particularly hard, perhaps because their doubles loss yesterday proved instrumental in accelerating Forget’s departure. For Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, this news merely compounded his disappointment at losing the decisive rubber to John Isner.

He was right to feel disappointment, but he’d be fooling himself to feel shame. Tsonga played well under immense pressure to keep the tie alive, but few men could have withstood Isner today, who is now clearly the No.1 American player in all but ranking, and who wears the responsibility lightly and calmly. Tsonga is a categorically better player than Gilles Simon, but Isner handled him comprehensively, remaining crushingly assertive on all but one of the key points, and only rarely allowing the Frenchman to set his feet. There is always a constricting pressure when facing a titanic server, even one like Ivo Karlovic who doesn’t exceed mere adequacy in any other of the game’s facets. However, Isner has fashioned himself into an imposing all-court figure. The forehand is notorious, but today it was outrageous. He seemed to go whole sets without missing one, which was particularly impressive given the demands he was imposing on it. I can barely recall a forehand that was played safely, and every time he lashed one, Tsonga began running. He was solid on backhand, reckless on passing shots, and imposing at the net, winning 37/49.

Before Forget took the microphone, there was a wonderfully genial moment as Isner went over to the opposition bench and shook hands or embraced each member of the French team. The local crowd applauded warmly. Time will of course tell, but there is a real sense that a weekend such as this might be the making of Isner. If he can go on to achieve a result commensurate with his frame and his game – such as winning a major – he is sufficiently charming that he might achieve a truly trans-national popularity, of the type that Fish lacks, and that Roddick is systematically eroding. Speaking of which, it was heartening to see Novak Djokovic out supporting the Davis Cup players, even if he wasn’t playing, and even if the players weren’t his compatriots (who were hundreds of miles away proving they simply cannot do without him).

The Americans have now won consecutive ties away from home, on European clay; in a gloomy barn in Fribourg, and at the most picturesque tennis club in the world; on stodgy Catholic dirt and hedonistic Mediterranean silt. The choice of surface when facing the USA has been a no-brainer for years. Assuming your players are at least half-decent on it, you always go with clay. Now, with the US flourishing under Jim Courier’s captaincy and spearheaded by Isner, the decision has become rather more fraught. Unless, of course, you’re Spain. As coincidence would have it, it will be Spain, in Spain. Almost certainly, it will be clay. Without question, it will be interesting.

Argentina d. Croatia, 4-1

Del Potro d. Cilic, 6/1 6/2 6/1

Our future lonely historian will look back at this one, and will feel sure that this was not a particularly close match. He or she will be entirely correct, and can be permitted their smug glow of satisfaction, since they probably don’t have much else going on. Juan Martin del Potro won 95 points to Marin Cilic’s 52, although Cilic if pressed could point to some impressive numbers of his own: before today’s match he had already spent over ten hours on court this weekend. On clay, in Argentina, there was sadly no way this one was going to be competitive. It was just baseline slugging – del Potro won 0/0 points at the net – scored to wildly catchy patriotic chanting, mostly between points. For del Potro, his elation contrasted nicely with the desolation following last year’s final.

Still, it provided interest in that it sustained one of the key themes of the weekend, which was that the doubles rubber is pivotal in close ties. Spain, whose tie wasn’t close, is the exception, and has appeared content to sacrifice the middle Saturday for a while now, without discernible impact on their overwhelming success. But hard-fought victories in the doubles provided clear momentum for the Czechs, Americans and Argentineans, and they all wrapped up their respective ties in the first of the reverse singles.

Argentina will play the Czech Republic in the semifinals.

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April 7, 2012

That’s Davis Cup For You

Davis Cup, Quarterfinals, Day One

The first day of the 2012 Davis Cup World Group quarterfinals has concluded, and three of the four ties are balanced intriguingly at a rubber each. The other tie, involving Spain at home, has hardly intrigued at all, although Alex Corretja’s remarks afterwards – essentially: ‘Well, that went even easier than we thought it would’ – were refreshingly frank.

Of the other six matches, two were ostensibly upsets, although one of these – Isner d. Simon – was largely just a failure of the bookmaker’s art. The other upset – Cilic d. Nalbandian – was a soul-lacerating carnival of suck played out in an atmosphere of rambunctious and virulent machismo, prompting one to wonder just how poor a crowd has to behave before it no longer merits an indulgent chuckle: ‘Well, that’s Davis Cup for you . . .’

Serbia v Czech Rep., Prague, 1-1

Berdych d. Troicki, 6/2 6/1 6/2

Tipsarevic d. Stepanek, 5/7 6/4 6/4 4/6 9/7

The centrepiece of today’s spread was undoubtedly the second match between Serbia and the Czech Republic, an improbably sustained, highly dramatic and technically uninspiring dust-up between Janko Tipsarevic and Radek Stepanek, which concluded in a flurry of ill-will, and almost a flurry of blows. Being controversial, this is the moment destined to survive.

Tipsarevic had battled the partisan crowd and, periodically, the umpire on his way to a five hour victory, saving three match points along the way. I had seen nothing untoward between him and his opponent, and there had been at least one example of good sportsmanship. (There was by some accounts an issue with a disputed double-bounce in the second set, though I confess I did not see it.) Tipsarevic claimed the match with a final backhand pass up the line, whereupon he commenced the required sequence of bellows at his support bench. Stepanek marched sourly to the net, and offered the Serb a weak handshake, and they exchanged some words. Tipsarevic paused, visibly gob smacked, and began to remonstrate furiously at Stepanek’s back, and was restrained by both the Serbian and Czech captains. It wasn’t immediately clear what had happened. Interviewed afterwards, Tipsarevic revealed that Stepanek had in fact given him the finger during the handshake, and had summarily pronounced him to be a stinking vagina, or words to that effect. His comments were in Serbian, and every effort at translating them via Google has turned out to be a) contradictory, and b) hilarious (‘He told me I was smelling something like a natural woman’). Nevertheless, it was clear from his tone that giving someone the finger and comparing them to malodorous genitalia is no more complimentary in Eastern Europe than here in Australia, where it is frowned upon.

Inevitably, the incident has received plenty of airtime, and unfortunately overshadowed Stepanek’s greater transgression, which was the public unveiling of a t-shirt that was eye-wrenchingly foul even by his lofty standards. It appears to be some variety of obese leonine creature, over which is draped the Czech coat of arms. Tomas Berdych, whose otherwise similar outfit mercifully lacked mutant lions, had earlier thrashed the hapless Viktor Troicki. The doubles tomorrow should be fun, and the reverse singles even funner.

Argentina v Croatia, Buenos Aires, 1-1

Cilic d. Nalbandian, 5/7 6/4 4/6 7/6 6/3

Del Potro d. Karlovic, 6/2 7/6 6/1

Meanwhile David Nalbandian, if not Argentina’s greatest Davis Cup player then certainly its most famously committed, lost to Marin Cilic in a staggeringly uneven five set match. At the extremes of quality, statistics usually tell the story, and this match bears that out. The two men produced a combined 241 unforced errors (128 to Nalbandian). Both players served under 50%, and attained an aggregate 10/40 on break points conversion. What the stats don’t tell you is how it actually felt to endure the match. As a viewer I certainly had a better time of it than the participants, since the miasma of hopeless ennui dissipated quite quickly, whereas each player must also overcome physical exhaustion. Their wealth and fame probably helps to make up the difference, though.

The issue was raised in last year’s Davis Cup final of why Nalbandian wasn’t selected to play singles on the opening day, instead of either Juan Martin del Potro or Juan Monaco. The issue now, apparently, is why Monaco wasn’t playing in place of Nalbandian. The lesson, presumably, is how when you lose the strategy was always the wrong one. Del Potro then demolished Ivo Karlovic, who might have taken the second set had he played smarter on any of his four set points, but never looked much like winning the match.

USA v France, Monte Carlo, 1-1

Tsonga d. Harrison, 7/5 6/2 2/6 6/2

Isner d. Simon, 6/3 6/2 7/5

John Isner recorded his second ‘upset’ on clay in as many matches, although beating Gilles Simon is not quite comparable to beating Federer. Nonetheless, it was a masterpiece of sustained aggression from Isner, which is hardly surprising, since he seems physically and temperamentally incapable of playing any other way. These two met several weeks ago in Indian Wells, with Isner narrowly prevailing on his way to the final. Grit, luck and crowd support got him through that one. None of those factors proved relevant today, because he was playing in France, and because performances this complete never require one to display their true mettle.

I suggested a few days ago that Isner needs to learn how to win quickly, although I didn’t have Simon in mind, against whom even Federer prevails only gradually, if at all. In all, it was a masterful performance from the giant American, who suggested earlier in the week that he wasn’t just a serve and a forehand. By his standards, he wasn’t even a serve today, but his forehand was potent enough to achieve the twin miracles of cutting through the Monte Carlo surface and of getting past Simon, time and again.

Speaking of sustained aggression, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga earlier defeated Ryan Harrison in fine style but for a third set let-down, smacking winners all over the place. As expected, the Frenchman moves up to No.5 in the world, supplanting David Ferrer. There was also a cockerel, signifying, er . . . Well, that’s Davis Cup for you.

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April 5, 2012

Hardcourt Retrospective 2012 (Part Two)

This is Part Two of my look back at some of the players for whom the hardcourt season proved definitive, for better or for worse. The selection of players discussed might seem odd, although this is hopefully only because it is necessarily incomplete. A summary with everyone in it wouldn’t live at all, even assuming I had the wherewithal to try it. I don’t.

It is rare for any player’s ranking to plummet suddenly for no reason, and the reason is usually injury. Somdev Devvarman’s shoulder hasn’t played tennis since last October, and its ranking has fallen to No.185. Ricardas Berankis and his herniated groin are thereabouts, as well, as is Lleyton Hewitt’s big toe. Robin Soderling’s ongoing tussle with glandular fever has had profound repercussions on the upper reaches of the men’s game. In all the Swede has shed 3,115 points. To lend this flat number some depth: this is more points than the world No.9 (Tipsarevic) has in total. Added to this, the top four have between them shed almost 1,000 points over the hardcourt season. That is a lot of extra points knocking around near the top of the game, providing plenty of nourishment for sufficiently hungry and suitably opportunistic players to gorge themselves on. Soderling was still ranked No.5 when the hardcourt season commenced. He is now No.30, and still yet to attain terminal velocity. In another three months he’ll be a respectable crater, and he won’t be ranked at all. There is, tragically, talk that he won’t return.

Andy Roddick’s fall is less readily ascribed to injury, although, being American, it is more amply discussed. There have, of course, been physical issues, but it mostly seems that the game was always fated one day to catch up with him, and that one day it suddenly did. It is to his credit that he outpaced it for so long, and to our lasting wonder that he did so by playing slower. And then he goes and beats Roger Federer. Doing so has dragged his ranking back inside the top 30. He began the hardcourt season ranked No.10.

Like Janko Tipsarevic, whose stated goal of a top twenty finish in 2011 proved excessively modest, Kei Nishikori’s overshot his erstwhile ambition of achieving Project 45 by a long way. (Project 45, you may recall, was the goal whereby Nishikori would become the highest ranked Japanese male tennis player of all time.) He is now at No.17, and has thus set his successor a hell of a task. Still, it’s worth remembering that before he made it past No.45 at the Shanghai Masters, he was comically close for an agonisingly long time. But if Shanghai was his breakthrough, it was his win over Novak Djokovic in the Basel semifinal – the first time a Japanese man had defeated a reigning world No.1 – that proved to be the high point. He began the hardcourt season ranked No.52.*

I was courtside at Melbourne Park when Julien Benneteau defeated his more-lauded but painfully underfed compatriot Gilles Simon in five sets, although I mercifully only saw the last of them. (Guillermo Coria is the only tennis player I’ve ever truly disliked, but I would still rather watch him play than Simon, whose game is basically a dramatisation of a test pattern.) I’ve always held Benneteau in high regard, an opinion entirely out of proportion to how often I’d actually bothered to watch him play. It owes everything to his atypical lack of flair and deep reserves of grit, reliably vitiated by dependable gift for crumbling in the biggest moments, all the while remaining utterly French. This afternoon in Melbourne, Benneteau was slightly magnificent and a touch deranged in running down Simon in the fifth.

When the hardcourt season began he was just another ageing journeyman ranked beyond the top hundred, outrun by the race, who’d come close but had never claimed that maiden title. He has since risen 78 places, and augmented his collection with another two runner-up plates. I remarked after the first of these, in Winston-Salem, that he looked like a man who was now 0-5 in career finals, and suspects there won’t be a sixth. Well, the sixth came in Sydney in January, where he was cursed to face Jarkko Nieminen, a man who has forgotten more about losing finals than even Benneteau will ever learn. Now ranked No.31 and aged thirty, Benneteau has become the highest ranked player without a title. That’s progress.

Matthew Ebden began the hardcourt season ranked No.139, and finished it at No.75. I first saw Ebden play in Brisbane in 2011, when he shocked everyone by defeating Denis Istomin. Interviewed afterwards, Ebden was wracked by residual tremors, visibly shaken by the magnitude of the upset. It had certainly looked like an upset, with the Australian appearing woefully over-matched by the Uzbek journeyman, who had nonetheless contrived to string together enough errors to secure the loss (over 16,000 from memory). Ebden earned a wildcard into the Australian Open on the back of this, and sufficient exposure that those Australians who only attend the event in order to wave flags at obscure compatriots – which is most of them – included him in their meticulously wrought itineraries. He lost to Michael Russell in the first round.

I cannot recall seeing him again until Tokyo in October, when as a qualifier he toiled through to the round of 16, and there took a set from David Ferrer. The following week in Shanghai, again obliged to qualify, he attained the quarterfinals, knocking out Ryan Harrison and Gilles Simon en route. I have no idea what he had been doing in the meantime, but from my time-lapsed perspective he was suddenly a different player: faster, calmer and smarter.

Comparisons to Ferrer are appropriate. Like the Spaniard, Ebden has not allowed a lack of brawn to curtail a fundamentally attacking impulse – those who regard Ferrer as an exclusively defensive player have got it very wrong – and boasts a similar capacity when on his game to punch well above his weight. Buttressing these tendencies is a fairly assured all-court game, good mobility and an impressive calmness at key moments. Of course, he is not as fast as Ferrer, nor as technically assured, and he may well never breach the top fifty. Nevertheless, his exploits in Asia last year earned him a year in the top 100 – and the luxury of regular direct entry into ATP events – and so far he seems to be doing enough to stay there. Perhaps ironically, his best result came at Indian Wells a few weeks ago, when he was again compelled to qualify, before straight-setting Mardy Fish on the way to the fourth round.

*I should register an important qualification here. The period in question – July 2011 to April 2012 – includes a number of results from non-hardcourt events, most notably the Golden Swing and the Davis Cup. These results are of particular importance to players such as David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro, but also to Nishikori.

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April 4, 2012

Hardcourt Retrospective 2012 (Part One)

The ATP calendar has never made a great deal of sense, which is no great issue, since nowhere is it written that sporting schedules need to be sensible. In the case of tennis, a global concern with a vast delta of revenue streams, it mainly has to be consistent. While there are certainly issues with the current 52 week entry system, it more or less flows smoothly based on the fact that the same tournaments are mostly played at the same time each year. Olympic years, in which an additional premier event is plonked down midstream in September, thus always throw the calendar out of whack. Lesser tournaments are pushed to the banks, and the lower ranked players, for whom merely staying afloat is an admirable goal, bob and submerge fitfully.

This year, the Davis Cup quarterfinals have been hauled forward from their accustomed position after Wimbledon (when broad public interest in tennis has begun precipitously to wane), to the week after Miami (when it has barely started to wax). Those players whose nationalistic fervour demands immediate expression have already scattered to the various ties across the globe. Others, their patriotism on a slower burn, are holding out for the Olympics, and have retreated in the meantime to their pleasure barges. Davis Cup weeks always dam the season’s lurching flow, though in this case it has yielded a valuable moment to regroup, before the annual invasion of Southern Europe begins anew, launching from its traditional staging points in North Africa and, um, Houston.

With space in which to do so, it seems appropriate to look back on the hardcourt season that has just concluded, which began in Atlanta last July, and concluded in Miami a few days ago. This period incorporates the US Summer, the Asian swing, the European indoors, Australia, and the disparate events in February that culminate in the US Spring Masters, and therefore includes two majors, six Masters 1000, the World Tour Finals, and a multitude of 250 and 500 events. As I’ve said before, it’s a worthwhile way to look at the season, as a hardcourt marathon interrupted by those too-brief months on the dirt and turf of Europe. A longer perspective is always a useful thing to maintain.

Hardcourt Rankings

This list ranks players by their accumulated points across the hardcourt season.* Their actual current ranking is in brackets.

  1. (1) Novak Djokovic – 7,700
  2. (3) Roger Federer – 6,845
  3. (4) Andy Murray – 5,540
  4. (2) Rafael Nadal – 3,990
  5. (6) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – 3,780
  6. (7) Tomas Berdych – 2,995
  7. (5) David Ferrer – 2,645
  8. (8) Janko Tipsarevic – 2,550
  9. (11) John Isner – 2,270
  10. (9) Mardy Fish – 2,135

That Novak Djokovic’s hardcourt ranking matches his overall ranking suggests that his exemplary hardcourt performances were matched by brilliance on the natural surfaces, yet another example of a statistic miraculously revealing information we already knew. His accumulated point haul includes victories at the US Open and Australian Open, as well as Masters titles in Montreal and Miami. Owing to exhaustion and injury, his results fell away after the US Open, and so far he has not quite reproduced last year’s post-Melbourne level, although he isn’t far shy. In all Djokovic claimed four titles, and achieved an overall match record of 42-6 (.875).

Roger Federer’s hardcourt ranking is higher than his overall ranking, which is hardly surprising when we consider that his hardcourt points account for about 76% of his total points. This reflects lustreless results on clay and grass – the French Open being the brightest spot – mixed with blinding hardcourt performances in the European indoors and throughout February and March of this year. In all Federer won six tournaments, including a record sixth World Tour Finals, the Paris Indoors (for the first time) and Indian Wells. He failed to pass the semifinals at either of the majors. His overall match record was 46-5 (.902), the best on the tour.

Andy Murray won Masters events in Cincinnati and Shanghai, and like Federer reached the semifinals at each of the majors. Despite a weak loss at Indian Wells, he seems to have eschewed his habitual post-Melbourne failure-bender, which has only helped his ranking. He also cleaned up the entire Asian swing last September, thereby impressing everyone except Federer, whose vaguely dismissive comments inspired rancour among those Murray fans who are inclined toward defensiveness, which is to say most of them. The highlight was his third set masterpiece in the Tokyo final, in which he allowed Nadal just four points. In all Murray claimed five hardcourt titles, and compiled a record of 42-8 (.840).

Rafael Nadal’s hardcourt season was arguably the most disappointing of his career, insofar as he failed to win a single tournament, and therefore sustained the amazing streak of having never defended a hardcourt title. At the same time, he reached three finals, including at the US Open and the Australian Open, where he unhappily discovered Djokovic. His hardcourt efforts were punctuated by several self-enforced sabbaticals, following the Shanghai Masters, and after the Australian Open. Nadal’s hardcourt season ended with a withdrawal from the Miami semifinals last weekend, citing knee tendinitis. There is a fervent hope that his recovery will be swift, given Monte Carlo’s traditional role in kick-starting his year, and his ranking’s overwhelming reliance on clay and grass results. His overall hardcourt record was 31-10 (.756).

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s hardcourt campaign began auspiciously in Montreal, where he recorded his second straight victory over Federer, although he would go on to lose to the Swiss four times before the end of the year. Tsonga’s strongest results came in the European indoors, reaching the finals at Bercy and the Tour Finals, and taking the title in Vienna. His strong performances have as ever been offset by bafflingly poor ones, such as the fourth round loss to Nishikori in Melbourne. However, a sustained period without grievous injury has finally allowed Tsonga to demonstrate something of his abilities, and he will likely take over the No.5 ranking in the coming weeks. Overall through the hardcourt season he won two titles, and put together a record of 43-14 (.754).

When John Isner reached the final of Indian Wells a few weeks ago, there was mild shock among casual fans not only at his defeat of Djokovic, but at the idea that he could come so far. But it’s worth remembering that he’d only been a point away from making the previous Masters final, in Bercy. His tendency to become embroiled in draining epics has probably enhanced his reputation, but it has ultimately cost him success. Even when he wins, he can rarely muster much resistance in subsequent rounds. This cost him at the Australian Open, where an electrifying five set win over Nalbandian left little in reserve for the eminently beatable Lopez in the next round. For a guy with his weaponry, Isner must learn to win with greater efficiency. Through the hardcourt season, he won one title, and achieved a record of 33-14 (.702).

Tomorrow, Part Two will look at those players ranked beyond the top ten.

* These figures do not include Davis Cup matches played on hardcourt.

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