February 13, 2012

That Hackneyed Show-Tune

Davis Cup, First Round

Croatia d. Japan 3-2

Karlovic d. Soeda, 7/6 6/1 6/4

It wasn’t the only story to emerge from the first Davis Cup weekend of the year, but the big story was of big men playing big man tennis. The steady, throbbing thud of monstered first serves striking canvas backstops was like an ostinato for the weekend, although the variations that unfolded above it were of considerable variety and surprising invention.

John Isner’s four set victory over Roger Federer on Friday in Fribourg proved to be merely the most rousing elaboration of a theme that had already been established by Ivo Karlovic in Hyogo, at the poetically-named and gastronomically-irresistible Bourbon Beans Dome. Milos Raonic later chimed in, in Vancouver. The most feared servers in the sport – many contend that a serve is all they have – were winning matches comfortably, with barely any recourse to tiebreaks. Unless they had somehow discovered how to break their opponent’s serve using their own, this meant they were actually makign returns, as many as four per game. As fantastical as this sounds, various eyewitness reports have borne it out. It turns out the more derisive pundits knew less than they thought they did, which the rest of us knew anyway.

To my regret, I have occasionally numbered among them. I once joked that Karlovic should embroider ‘7/6’ on his shirts, in much the same way other (unnamed) players do with ‘RF’ or ‘Nole’. In my defence, Karlovic is a sufficiently sardonic guy that I could see him going for it. And yet, throughout a heroic weekend in Japan – the details of which I am gradually coming to – he only once had recourse to a breaker. He outplayed Kei Nishikori from the ground, on Decoturf, at the fabled Bourbon Beans Dome. This proved merely a prelude to beating everyone else. He won all three points in Croatia’s victory, although he might conceivably have had a partner in the doubles. Indeed, we can blame that partner – the perpetually rumpled Ivan Dodig – for a single dropped set, marring Karlovic’s otherwise perfect record.

Sadly, since he doesn’t play for the United States or Spain or France, Karlovic’s performance in Japan will go largely overlooked. This is unfortunate, since on those special occasions when he can find the court, his ground game is a delight. Beyond that, the act of leading his nation in the absence of Ljubicic or Cilic was a colossal achievement for a veteran nearing 33, still making his way back from injury.

And he did it almost unaided. Dodig can usually be relied upon for maniacal commitment if not transcendent ability, yet his efforts in both singles rubbers lacked his characteristic grit. Against Nishikori, this can be forgiven readily, since Nishikori outranks him handily, and will periodically grow unplayable. Against Go Soeda, however, forgiveness was more provisional, carefully withheld until Karlovic had casually claimed the fifth and deciding rubber. Last year, in the midst of an especially disastrous personal effort, Janko Tipsarevic remarked that it was nice to have teammates to cover for him: ‘Even when you feel and play like crap, your team mates are there to fix the problem. 2:1 Serbia … Idemoooo!;)’ He was not wrong. It is nice, especially when the teammate is either Novak Djokovic, or Viktor Troicki (for whom Djokovic will blithely substitute himself given the chance). Who could have imagined that Dodig might feel that same security in Karlovic?

The best thing about these weekends is that there is always at least one performance to inspire a bellowed rendition of that hackneyed show-tune This Is What Davis Cup Is All About. The worst thing is that there is so often only one. This last weekend, there were plenty, and Ivo Karlovic had us singing the loudest of all.

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February 11, 2012

Tactics and Execution

Davis Cup, First Round

Day One

Fish d. Wawrinka, 6/2 4/6 4/6 6/1 9/7

Isner d. Federer, 4/6 6/3 7/6 6/2

Last year’s Davis Cup first round was as crushingly dull as it was predictable, or crushingly dull because it was predictable, or crushingly, well . . . Even thinking about it envelops my brain in a dense miasma of indifference. The good news is that this year’s instalment has been refreshingly different – an enervating and crisp zephyr to clear the fog away. Of course, plenty of the results have still gone as predicted.

The French, cunningly opting to field almost none of their top players, have had a tough time of it in Vancouver. Even without Djokovic, Serbia has somehow fought its way to a 2-0 lead against the Swedish dream-team of Ryderstedt and Prpic, ranked 348 and 1426 respectively. There was much made of Nadal’s decision not to play Davis Cup in order to rest a wounded shoulder (presumably it isn’t either of the shoulders he used in the Australian Open, which seemed fine). Characteristically, Ferrer’s withdrawal elicited less fevered analysis. In any case, Ferrero and Almagro got the job done against Kazakhstan, eventually.

The talk, once the wreckage of the weekend has been hauled away, will be about the surfaces. Australia’s choice of ‘real’ grass was a no-brainer. The modest Chinese team has barely threatened for a set at a time. The slick and low Geelong court is one that rewards variety – tailored for Tomic and Hewitt – and the Chinese players aren’t terribly imposing even in the one dimension they have. As I write, they’re emphatically losing the doubles rubber from the back of the court. Conversely, Germany stuffed up royally by laying down a clay court for the Argentinians, like a 78 foot welcome mat. Nalbandian and Monaco duly made themselves at home. Mayer professes to prefer the dirt, but his patented funk should translate readily to grass. Even if it doesn’t, Petzschner and Haas are proven adepts on the green stuff.

The most searching questions, however, will be asked of Switzerland, and their choice of high-altitude indoor clay for the home tie against the USA. Being Switzerland, they had little say in the matter of altitude – unless they annexed part of Eastern France for the weekend – and on the face of it the choice of red dirt seemed obvious when faced with Mardy Fish, whose three worst surfaces are European, indoor and clay. The Swiss now find themselves 2-0 down, so the question begged is whether the obvious choice was the right one.

I suspect it was, and I also suspect that those pundits contending otherwise are going too far in seeking to justify Federer’s disturbing loss to Isner, or, more accurately, Isner’s stirring win over Federer. Isner afterwards insisted that as a big [read slow] man, he rather enjoys slower courts, since it gives him time to set his feet and wind up his strokes. That mighty five set loss to Nadal in last year’s French Open has been paraded as a clear precedent. What was Switzerland, or the tiny part of it involved in its Davis Cup campaign, thinking? They were thinking, quite correctly that clay is Wawrinka’s preferred medium, and that while it may not be Federer’s, he remains the second most accomplished performer on it this century. To the reasonable contention that neither man had set foot on it since Roland Garros, one could reasonably respond that neither had the Americans. In other words, the decision to inflict clay on the visitors was a tactical one, and it was the right one. The true problem lay in the execution, as it so often does.

Fish remarked during the week that the temporary Fribourg surface was of especially poor quality, that no two balls bounced even remotely the same. He was quick to quell any accusations of carping by pointing out that this helped the United States more than Switzerland, since these particular Americans are stylistically inclined to hit only one good shot per rally, and hopefully no more. If it happens to be a first serve, all the better. It turns out Fish was astute in his analysis. The quality of the surface made all the difference, and it is to the Jim Courier’s credit that he noted this, and planned accordingly. He instructed Isner to unload whenever he had a shot he liked the look of, and to make it count. Isner was to treat that hacked-up clay court like a strange grass court, one that conferred the further benefits of allowing him to position himself, and of encouraging his second serve – the most monstrous in the sport – to rear over his opponent’s shoulders.

Federer erred in not figuring this out, and by not conducting an old-school grass court match himself, up to and including serve-volleying. To the bitter end he confined himself to clay tactics, including the desperate ploy towards the death of receiving serve near the back-stop. Severin Luthi, from his court-side vantage, should have noted the issue once the match was underway. That he was reduced by the end to hoping Isner started missing spoke volumes about how wrong the Swiss team had gotten it, and of how much they rely on Federer’s brilliance to make up the difference. Perhaps they can be forgiven, since the equation of Federer + Clay = Win had been endorsed by every betting agency in the world.

Nevertheless, as with the choice of surface, nailing the tactics means little if you cannot execute them. The biggest issue for the Swiss was that Isner was magnificent. Courier knew that his No.2 had precisely one shot at beating Federer, which was to play imposing first-strike tennis, and to never let up. He and Isner displayed absolute single-mindedness is honing the American’s game for this purpose. Nothing extraneous to it was even practiced. ‘This is how I should play all the time,’ remarked Isner afterwards. Indeed he should.

The Swiss remained typically sanguine afterwards, notwithstanding that they must now win all three remaining rubbers if they are to secure a tie they were yesterday certain to win. There is every chance that Federer and Wawrinka will return for the doubles, where the reigning Olympic champions will be encouraged by Bob Bryan’s absence. Were they to win that, Team Suisse would surely fancy Federer’s chances against Fish in the first of the reverse singles, which would force a deciding rubber between the potentially fatigued Wawrinka and the certainly lethal Isner. They may not fancy their chances in that one, but it’s the only chance they have.

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February 10, 2012

Remembering Gonzo

Fernando Gonzalez – not quite Chile’s most successful player, but arguably its most admired – today announced his retirement from professional tennis, effective following the Miami Masters in April. His last few seasons have been heavily abbreviated by injuries, and he conceded that he no longer has the energy to compete at the highest level. Age, inevitably, has wearied him. He leaves the sport with 11 career titles, and an overall match record – so far – of 368-199 (.649).

I first watched Gonzalez play live at the 2002 Australian Open, when as a Qualifier he took out Tommy Robredo in straight sets. My initial impressions have barely been altered upon many subsequent viewings. They are, in no definitive order: that his clothes seem unnaturally clean; that the ball makes a slightly different sound as it strikes his racquet than it does for most other players; that the trajectory of his backhand drives is unlike any other, and from close range feels like the lowest-percentage ground stroke in the sport; that he appears taller than the listed six feet; and that he is likely to erupt at any moment, from the coin-toss onwards. Aside from the first point – seriously, he is like a detergent ad – these seem to be the same impressions just about everyone has.

As with the personal impressions, I won’t pretend my favourite moments from Gonzalez’ career differ markedly from those of everyone else. It would be mere posturing to pretend that his most famous moments were not also his greatest, and would entail peddling the false idea that obscurity holds inherent value, when so often the inverse is true. Mining the Chilean’s record reveals that he won Vina del Mar four times. It’s possible he was majestic on each occasion, and especially the first, but I’d be lying to insist upon it. Alas, I did not witness that triumph, or the other three. However, I do know for a fact that the best match Gonzalez ever played was in the semifinal of the 2007 Australian Open, when he demolished Tommy Haas so completely that the German barely had time to abuse his coach, even if he was afterwards generous in blaming Gonzalez.

This match, which Gonzalez won 6/1 6/3 6/1 in 91 minutes, was the highest point in a high week, as he scaled a draw that was roughly analogous to the north face of the Eiger, although upon attaining the summit he discovered the most merciless Swiss peak of them all. Federer cleaned him up in straight sets, but it’s important to remember that Gonzalez served for the first set. Had he served for it better, things might have been different. He’d already taken out Nadal in straight sets in the quarterfinals, and the way he’d gone about it was profoundly revealing.

The standard word on Gonzalez is that he has one of the biggest forehands in tennis. Gael Monfils may hold the speed record (at something like 190 km/h), but Gonzalez is not far behind, and gets up there consistently. Searching Youtube for ‘Gonzalez forehand’ yields no shortage of results, with this clip being about the most comprehensive:

I’m not a very big fan of highlights clips, since among their panoply of distortions they tend to buttress the lazy assumption that great matches are merely the sum of their best shots. But in this case it’s not important. What’s important is that thunderous, murderous forehand, although even here it’s wise to remind ourselves that even so a mighty a shot should not be unhooked from its role, its purpose. It’s a signature shot, but a signature without context is useless – it’s just an autograph. Watching such a highlights clip, it’s forgivable to ask how Gonzalez ever lost a match, even as we remind ourselves that he never won a tournament that really mattered. The series of savage blows with which he knocks down Federer in Shanghai 2007 – beginning at 2:22 – may have won him the match, but Federer won the event. I suppose what I’m saying is that if you’re inclined to appreciate a ground stroke in isolation purely on its aesthetic merits – and if you are so inclined then this clip should move you to tears – then you could do worse than Gonzalez’ forehand. But we’re doing him a disservice if we suggest a forehand is all he has. Gonzalez always had plenty more going for him than that.

Indeed, all the talk as he tore through the Melbourne draw in January 2007 was of his backhand, and not the streaky, top spun version. The forehand was, naturally, decisive, but it was the Chilean’s willingness to extend points with the sliced backhand, rather than end them with extreme prejudice, that provided the talking point. Under the presiding gaze of Larry Stefanki, the view gained currency that Gonzalez had finally gotten the balance right, tempering his volatility with patience, committing to defence as though it was actually a part of the sport. Nadal found him impenetrable, and lethal on anything short.

For whatever reason, it didn’t last. He followed up his run to the Australian Open 2007 final with a season that we might generously term middling, although given his lofty top-eight ranking it was frankly worse than that. He failed to win a match in the North American summer. The measured patience of that Melbourne turned out to be the strangest of anomalies – a lack of flash in the pan – and it would rarely, if ever, be seen again.

Which isn’t to say he never again posted great results, but they were achieved by sprinting along a tightrope, which for flair is hard to top. But it meant that a misstep was disastrous. Everyone remembers his 2009 French Open semifinal against Soderling for the disputed line call in the fourth set, which culminated in Gonzalez clearing the mark with his bum. What is generally forgotten is how favoured the Chilean was for this match; higher ranked, a bone fide clay courter riding a four match winning streak against an opponent appearing in his first major semifinal. Gonzalez led 4/2 in the fifth. But he lost. It was tremendously entertaining, but he lost.

Sometimes, of course, he won, as with the utterly uncompromising 12-10 fifth set victory over Gasquet in Melbourne a few years ago. It was electrifying, and all of us who saw it came away wondering why tennis can’t always be played like this. The fact is, tennis can be played like this, but not for long, because the guys become harder to hit through in the later rounds. Gonzalez’ solution to this has invariably been to hit harder. If ultimately it never proved effective on the most prestigious stages, it was never less than exhilarating. Tennis will lose one of its great personalities in April, but even now I cannot shake the belief that we could have been losing one of our great players.

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February 8, 2012

The Outward Display of Prestige

In the scheme of things, awards ceremonies mean little. That Novak Djokovic won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award tells us nothing about his 2011 season that we didn’t already know, although I suppose more people might now know it. If nothing else, it has provided a handy pretext for everyone associated with tennis to stridently assert the primacy of the sport. It’s a hard point to refute, given that a tennis player has won the award six times in the past eight years. (The other two awards went to Usain Bolt, twice, a decision that was difficult to fault.) I should add that those six awards remain the only times a tennis player has taken out the male category. One may wonder why, say, Rod Laver never won it. The answer is that he chose to begin his tennis career about four decades too early.

The Laureus Awards have only been around for 12 years, although from the outset it has set out to confound, or at least circumvent, the maxim that from little things big things grow. It started out big, and strove mightily to make up for a lack of tradition with displays of prestige’s outward trimmings – the winner’s statuettes are Cartier confections – in the justified hope that ostentation will tide things over until real prestige, which only comes with time, arrives. It is small the way the Nuremberg Rally was, and as carefully stage-managed. One imagines Albert Speer would have approved. This year’s awards were staged in London, and hosted by the astoundingly charming Clive Owen – full disclosure: my wife has a thing for him – who has taken over from Kevin Spacey.

Nonetheless, while the ceremony itself is glamorous twaddle, the processes by which the nominees and the eventual winner are decided are reassuringly rigorous. The initial nominations are determined by leading members of the world’s sporting media, in a sufficiently broad cross-section that nationalistic and disciplinary biases are subsumed. The actual winner is decided by a secret vote – overseen by PricewaterhouseCoopers – of the 47 member committee, comprising a selection of the greatest sportspeople the world has known, including the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tony Hawk and Steve Waugh. These, again, represent a wide range of sports and nations. Including the chairman (Edwin Moses), athletics sees the best representation, with nine members. Tennis is well-represented, with five. The United States, unsurprisingly, has the most representatives of any nation, both among the media and the committee. Despite this, and despite the fact that Americans generally perform well across the various categories – Kelly Slater has won the ‘Action’ category four times – Laureus remains largely unreported in the States, even though the USA as a nation seems to value awards ceremonies more than most. This fatal lack of interest presumably owes to the Laureus’ inclusion of sportspeople from the benighted parts of the globe – i.e. everywhere else – and because the award could never go to a university basketball coach. Elsewhere in the world it goes unreported because it’s an annual awards ceremony that isn’t the Oscars. This seems to be the way of things. I am a writer, yet I cannot tell you who won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. But I know without checking that Colin Firth won Best Actor.

Roger Federer famously won the Laureus award four times in a row between 2005 and 2008, while Rafael Nadal took it in 2010. Now Novak Djokovic has it. The question has been raised – most succinctly by Ivan Ljubicic – of precisely what the powers that be are doing to capitalise on this, to translate global respect into the wholesale betterment of the sport. Awards ceremonies admittedly don’t mean much, but they could mean more if those powers were not so content merely to be. The top three male tennis players are among the most recognised sportspeople on the planet. Andy Murray, being British and therefore lauded and excoriated daily on some of the world’s most visited websites, isn’t far behind. Whatever their other shortcomings, none of these guys are stingy with their media commitments, and Djokovic’s determination to embrace publicity exceeds even Federer’s.

Nevertheless, it shouldn’t only be about the top four, just as it shouldn’t only be about the four majors. That’s arguably the real problem, the way global interest in tennis only stirs fitfully for the grand slams, and then only centres on the very top guys. Sometimes I question whether there is actually a mechanism by which all this accumulated prestige can trickle down, or whether tennis is too individualistic and too post-national to ever inspire frenzied adulation in general fans for other players. Is this level of support intrinsic to the tribal conceit of team-based league sports, or to international contests?

In other words, is a re-formatted Davis Cup really tennis’s best shot at the truly big time? A question for another time. For now, congratulations to Novak Djokovic.

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February 6, 2012

Jelly Bean Platters

Montpellier, Final

(1) Berdych d. (3) Monfils, 6/2 4/6 6/3

Discounting Queens – which makes green hay the week after Roland Garros, owing to a perfect storm of prestige and a cruelly short grass season – no tournament placed directly after a major deserves a final as good as the one played in Montpellier today, between Tomas Berdych and Gael Monfils. Zagreb was closer to the usual mark, where a vastly more experienced and bearded Mikhail Youzhny saw off an overwhelmed first time finalist. However, regardless of location, being European indoor tournaments there was only one possible outcome: beaming figures hoisting trophies that resemble low-budget set-dressing, awash in the kind of light that makes winter tennis possible but deprives human skin of its essential flesh-tones. This was frankly a blow for Berdych, whose creators are justifiably proud of their pioneering work in epidermal synthesis.

I have already outlined how Montpellier contrived to assemble so impressive a draw, despite commencing just hours after the Australian Open wrapped up. Favourable geography enabled a strong French contingent, and in Tsonga’s absence Gael Monfils proved to be the strongest of those.  Meanwhile, a near-run quarterfinal loss in Melbourne secured Berdych’s appearance. Thus rested and repaired, he was untouchable in taking down his half of the draw, including a semifinal victory over Philip Kohlschreiber in with the Czech failed to drop a point on first serve. By contrast, Monfils barely scraped through, saving a match point in beating Gilles Simon. On form alone, Berdych was today’s heavy favourite. Notwithstanding that both players boasted losing records in finals, few can realistically match Monfils in this department. He is infinitely virtuosic when it comes to blowing title matches. Balanced against this was the putative home-court advantage, although this sometimes only inspires Monfils to attain more ecstatic heights of showmanship.

Initially, it didn’t inspire him to much at all. Camped on the slick pink paddock beyond the baseline, and faced with an aggressive and experienced top ten player, Monfils wisely opted for a restrained and enervated approach, which enabled him to fall behind immediately. This brilliant tactic also worked to take the crowd out of the mix, which further emboldened Berdych, who set about smashing the ball into the corners unimpeded. With the atmosphere drained from the complex, the top seed went about his task with devastating and silent efficiency. A doggedly upbeat soundtrack at the sit-downs – featuring Black Betty and Blur’s Song No.2 – did little to enliven proceedings. Berdych broke again to take the set. Monfils had managed to win just 20% on second serves. The belief, cherished in some quarters, that fast surfaces unduly favour the server seemed shot, although we must bear in mind that conventional wisdom counts for little with Monfils.

There was no good reason to believe Berdych wouldn’t be able to sustain his imposing level, since he had all week. Monfils’ fighting hold at the beginning of the second set was thus vital, if not pivotal. He was still holding on, but less grimly. Somehow Monfils broke Berdych, exploiting the Czech’s poorest service game in a week and a half, and served out the second. The Frenchman seemed to be gaining strength, defying history, form, statistics, expectations and intuition. That’s a lot of defiance to maintain, and it turned out to be too much. He double-faulted to gift away the crucial break. In the end, I suppose character really is destiny. You don’t achieve a 4-13 record in final by transcending type.

The upside, if he chooses to see it, is that Monfils now has the complete set of Montpellier trophies, which might conceivably create storage issues. I suppose they could double as jelly bean platters at a pinch. They’ve also been overhauled since the tournament was last staged in 2010. The latest iterations look like the old ones have been messily devouring a test-pattern. You can’t buy that kind of workmanship, at least not without frequenting high-school craft fairs.

Zagreb, Final

(3) Youzhny d. Lacko, 6/2 6/3

Last November, Mikhail Youzhny earned his PhD from the University of Moscow. The Colonel is now a doctor. Since graduating he has clearly devoted considerable effort to cultivating a student beard of lush and special magnificence. There is some kind of irony here, although it probably doesn’t exceed the bounds of a classic Yakov Smirnoff formulation. Nevertheless, said facial hair proved unstoppable in today’s Zagreb final, even for the comically-named but otherwise dashing Lukas Lacko.

En route to the final – his first at tour level – Lacko had taken down enough seeds that it could technically be termed a ‘spree’, although admittedly unlike Montpellier the Zagreb field was not strong. Sadly, he had no answer for Youzhny today. Lacko insisted he hadn’t been nervous, which was commendable of him, if not particularly convincing. He’d certainly looked nervous, and it is wholly understandable that he would be. It cannot have been calming seeing that bristling growth on his opponent’s face. He was a boy facing a man.

Youzhny, however, looked like a former top ten player rediscovering some of his best form, which as a fan was enormously heartening to see. This is his eighth career title, and first since October 2010. He also teamed up with Marcos Baghdatis to claim his ninth doubles title. It was a good day to be bearded.

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February 3, 2012

In Praise of Certainty

One year ago, Kevin Anderson’s most pressing concern was to avoid goring himself on his maiden trophy at the SA Tennis Open, a trophy that bore a suspicious resemblance to a pair of gold-inlaid impala horns attached to a hunk of wood, with a golden tennis ball suspended between them. Upon surviving the presentation, he donated a portion of his prize money to assisting orphaned rhinos, presumably making good on an earlier rash promise to God. The SA Tennis Open has since been excised from the Tour, and yesterday Anderson lost a toenail in one of those freak shower door mishaps you read about in the papers. All of this is true. Think about it.

The SA Tennis Open, or Jo’burg as it was affectionately known among its six or seven fans, was this year replaced by the Open Sud de France in Montpellier. Presuming you aren’t Anderson, an unemployed Jo’burg organiser, or the aforementioned fans, you would have to say the substitution has been a successful one. Montpellier’s field is strong for a 250 level event, and particularly so for an event huddled in the lee of the year’s first major. (This was always prominent among Jo’burg’s shortcomings; it proved impossible to entice marquee names to South Africa the day after the Australian Open wrapped up.) There are several reasons for this, some more obvious than others.

Firstly, it is much easier for a player to commit to a tournament that takes place near his home, and for many in the Montpellier draw, home is very near indeed. It’s crawling with Frenchmen – there was at least one in every second round match. Zagreb, also underway, is similarly replete with locals (and bona fide Russians), while Viña del Mar boasts its share of South Americans (and lesser Spaniards). This has hardly gone unremarked.

Being a tournament director is probably a stressful job at the best of times. Directing an event occurring immediately after (or before) a major must inspire stomach-wall to stomach-wall ulcers. Recall Halle last year, when Roger Federer pulled out on the first Monday, citing a groin strain he’d sustained in the Roland Garros final. Halle’s director, Ralf Weber, famously dropped his bundle at hearing the news, since Federer’s presence had for a year been the centrepiece of the tournament’s entire promotional campaign. Weber insisted he was ‘stunned’, though its hard to imagine he hadn’t seen the writing on the wall as the French Open final ground into its fourth hour. It was a perfect example of loading far too many eggs into one basket, even if that basket was a five time former champion with a lifetime contract. The tournament has since vigorously and successfully pursued Rafael Nadal for 2012. In terms of advertising, it’s good to see they’ve learned their lesson.

The lesson, really, is that uncertainty is a bummer when you’re trying to plan and market a substantial event around the presence of star athletes with recalcitrant bodies. Imagine how much easier it would be if you knew in advance which players would be playing on the final weekend of a major, and would thus be unserviceable the week after. Knowing who the semifinalists would be, one could thus feel safe in securing the services of everyone else. The players themselves could make better plans, certain in the knowledge that they would not be inconveniently exhausted from a chance run to a slam final.

There are any number of downsides to having the same four players contest the semifinals at every single major in perpetuity until the heat-death of the sun. But we would be remiss not to acknowledge the advantages, as well. This calibre of certainty might kill off fan interest in the long-term, but in the short-term, it’s precisely the thing investors love, and procuring the services of a top ten player is an investment. The Montpellier organisers could rest assured that, come what may, top seed Tomas Berdych would front up, hale and polished. Their hearts may have skipped a beat as he struck that volley to move up two sets to love against Nadal in last week’s Australian Open quarterfinal, but I’m sure they had faith. More importantly, they had certainty, and the volley landed wide.

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February 2, 2012

The Next Point Annual 2011

With the Australian Open dispensed with, Davis Cup a week away, and the Golden Spray already dousing the courts of South America, the timing seems appropriate, or at least convenient, to release The Next Point Annual 2011.

Completely free to download, this (somewhat hefty) volume includes just about all of my articles covering the 2011 season, starting from the Hopman Cup, and, fittingly, with Novak Djokovic. I have re-edited them, but only to correct the more glaring grammatical errors, and even then only when these grew so outrageous that the intended meaning was subverted. The factual errors and the errors of judgement have been left intact. This was not an exercise in retrospective omniscience, which would be pointless anyway, given that the original pieces are all still available on this site, warts and all.

Many readers have, kindly, pointed out that my tennis writing is not like most other tennis writing. Partially this was a matter of temperament, since I’m inclined to write in a way that some might consider old-fashioned, or at least in a way that resists the innate ephemerality of the internet. Consequently, I tend not to include very many links, and I only very rarely embed video. My personal view, as a writer, is that words should be sufficient, and that if they aren’t, that it is my shortcoming. It means that compiling my various pieces into this Annual was not an especially arduous task, since they were mostly written with something like this in mind. So, aside from being a matter of temperament, it was a matter of design.

The reason I do it at all, however, is largely a matter of personal satisfaction, which is fortunate, since so far no one is paying me, and it takes up plenty of my time. Whatever the shortcomings in these various pieces – and having now re-read many of them, I can attest that the shortcomings are legion – I am confident they aren’t the products of complacency. This is hardly a revelation, for it has been a labour of love. I hope you enjoy the Annual, and thank you sincerely for all the support.

The Next Point Annual 2011 can be downloaded here.

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January 31, 2012

Moments in the Box

At the risk of courting controversy, and in the full awareness that sunstroke may finally have bested my wits, I contend that the coverage of this year’s Australian Open was better than it has been in years. For all that I quite like Mats Wilander, his terrible accident on the eve of the tournament saved Eurosport from growing too tiring in the first week. Mats can grow wearing when consumed immoderately. Barbara Schett can grow wearing in about six seconds flat, but I avoided her. ESPN was no cheesier than usual, as ever festooned with onscreen clutter and a cloying earnestness all its own. The continued absence of John Alexander did Channel 7 no harm (he is now a member of the Australian federal parliament). Joanna Griggs was caught charmingly with her guard down, Jim Courier seemed unusually preoccupied, and Bruce McAveney was oddly diffident. AO Radio was as ever the pick of the lot, especially when that impish raconteur Craig Willis was on air.

Channel 7’s best moment, through being its least mediated, came during the semifinal between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, when they crossed to their temporary man in the stands, Patrick Rafter. It was the position usually occupied by Todd Woodbridge or Roger Rasheed. It proved to be a nice change to have Rafter’s comments, although, despite emanating from a former world No.1, two-time major champion, and current Australian Davis Cup captain, the comments were anything but expert. By his own sheepish admission, Rafter doesn’t actually watch much tennis, and he had never before sat court side while Federer and Nadal went at it. It has been eleven years since Rafter retired at the top of the game – he contested the 2001 Masters Cup – and the wonder in his voice made it clear just how far tennis has come. He sounded boyishly shocked, in genuine awe at the quality of the hitting, the fleetness across the surface, at the intensity. Back in the bunker, Courier consoled Hewitt that he still had to plays these guys, and joked that he and Rafter had retired at the right time. The light-heartedness of Rafter’s agreement was tempered by emphatic sincerity. He sounded genuinely relieved.

Darren Cahill, ESPN’s colour man for the match, was ensconced beside Rafter in the camera-pit. It was at this point that he leaned over and remarked that Nadal’s backhand was close to breaking down. Rafter dutifully relayed this to the Australian viewers, his only expert comment of the night, although he would have done better to relay it to Federer. (Presumably Paul Annacone had spotted the issue as well, but sadly the only way for him to get a message on to court was via Uncle Toni. I submit that Federer’s coach tried, but the instructions were sabotaged en route. This explains why Federer kept approaching to the wrong wing.)

The honour for the strangest commentary moment must go to AO Radio, and in particular Richard Evans. Being an online service, AO Radio boasts the dubious advantage of a tighter integration with social media than traditional broadcasters, although Channel 7 ran it close via its digital lobotomy service ‘Fango’. AO Radio listeners were encouraged to send in questions via the iPhone app, which were then answered by the commentators. The rest of us were thus afforded the pleasure of hearing expert tennis broadcasters fielding questions whose answers could be easily found on the internet in a fraction of the time, such as ‘How old is Fernando Verdasco?’. It was rather like asking Jamie Oliver round to whip your kid up a jam sandwich. Mostly the questions were the ne plus ultra of inanity, but occasionally they transcended even that.

I think it may have been during Serena Williams’ upset to Ekaterina Makarova that a blind listener contacted them, although how a blind person might navigate the app was not explored. In spite of his or her visual impairment – which I gathered was total – this listener emphatically declared their love for tennis. Furthermore, in order to share that love, they were undertaking to create a tennis game, in order to accurately simulate the experience of tennis for other blind people. My first, uncharitable, thought was that a blind person’s experience of tennis surely consists of a lot of air swings and the occasional ball to the head. It was not revealed whether the game would involve cards, or computers, or glass beads. Whatever the medium, the project was well underway, apparently, but there were a few details to be worked out, and could the AO Radio announcers please help out. A global listenership was then treated to Richard Evans – a war, political and sports journalist with half a century’s experience – explaining a range of different tennis strokes to someone who will never see them, so that they might integrate them into a game for other people who will never see them, either. I can’t shake the feeling that it was a set up.

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January 30, 2012

A Matter of Time

The headline-generating topic of the 2012 Australian Open has been noise, specifically the concern that rather too much of it periodically emanates from the shapely throats of several women players. The controversy reached a fevered pitch when two of the worst offenders progressed to the final, whereupon the taller one came to a screeching halt. Despite the earnest efforts of those eager to stir up controversy, the sound and fury achieved little beyond incensing a few talk-back callers, who duly said their piece. In any case, it hardly constitutes a serious issue. I suspect committed tennis fans have long since learned to block the shrieks out. I know I have. Of far greater concern, though far less discussion, was the speed of play in the men’s event, which as the draw pared down grew increasingly glacial. While the rallies were furious and fascinating, the space around each one became excessively vast, as though each frenzied exchange required adequate time before and after for genuine contemplation, or a quick nap.

The statistic flashed up after the second set of last night’s men’s final that Novak Djokovic was averaging 30 seconds between each point; Rafael Nadal 33 seconds. Pascal Maria, the chair umpire, bestowed an unofficial warning upon both players, a tactic apparently designed to make no difference whatsoever. By that measure, it worked. If the goal was that they actually get on with it, however, why not just deliver an official time violation warning? That’s why it is a warning – it doesn’t cost idling players anything, but simply cautions them that further transgressions will result in a point penalty. Stale talk of an on-court shot-clock was once again brought out for an airing, and duly beaten with a stick. Chris Bowers was opposed to it on the grounds of its inflexibility: some points are so gruelling that the allotted 20 seconds is insufficient time to recover. Pat Cash favours it, because watching athletes gather tennis balls, towel off, and extract their underwear is even less exciting than it sounds.

The upshot is that Djokovic and Nadal, who number among the slowest players on tour, will always have an innate advantage when it comes to posting time-based records. Last night’s final was the longest final in grand slam history, and the longest match ever played at the Australian Open. They already hold the record for the longest best-of-three match in history, which they achieved in Madrid in 2009, a four and a half hour grind featuring endless sojourns behind the baseline and a number of medical timeouts, and which only came alive in its final minutes. Tonight’s match clocked in at 5hrs 53mins – Djokovic posed next to the clock with the trophy afterwards – though I suspect this number includes the 10-15 minute delay while the roof was closed in the fourth set. Whether it does or not, I’d be curious to know how much time was spent actually playing tennis (as compared with, say, Djokovic’s semifinal against Murray), although nowhere near curious enough to find out for myself. Notwithstanding that such records are not particularly meaningful, a better way to measure them would be to record only the time while the ball is in play.

In lieu of some dull hours with a stopwatch, I can hazard an educated guess. There were 369 points played in last night’s final. Of those points, 56 occurred at the end of a game or set (as well as one during the changeover in the fourth set tiebreaker). Assuredly, there is scope in those situations to further retard play, but for now I’ll ignore those points. That leaves 313 points. For the sake of argument, let’s say Djokovic and Nadal averaged about 30 seconds between points, which is ten seconds more than the allotted limit as set out in the rules. In reality, they justifiably availed themselves of ever-longer breathers as that fifth set wore down, but I’ll leave it at a conservative 30 seconds. Simple maths tells us that 313 x 10 = 3,130 seconds, or a touch over 52 minutes. In other words, in last night’s final, there were at least 52 minutes when the players weren’t playing, but according to the rules should have been. That’s a lot of extra time spent watching very fit men not play tennis.

To the contention that sufficiently dramatic tennis renders this issue null, I am happy to concede. I didn’t notice the time between points at all in the fifth set, when it was stretched farthest. But the first two sets took two and half hours, with neither extending to a tiebreak. You may be sure that fewer people witnessed the electrifying fourth and fifth sets than might have been the case had the lightning struck sooner.

It seems undeniable to me that in this case there is a disjunction between many players’ actions and the rule intended to govern those actions, not helped by a level of official enforcement that oscillates from toothlessness to woeful inconsistency, without ever going beyond either. Now it may be that the rule is wrong, and that 20 seconds is on average not enough time to recover from today’s increasingly demanding points, and the extended rallies encouraged by universally slow courts. (Fans of Federer should be careful when parading his name at this point, just because he plays quickly. Those who exalt him for being unique cannot therefore hold him up as being typical, and he would be the first to insist that rules should not reflect any single player.) If the rule is wrong, then it needs to be changed. If it isn’t then it needs to be enforced. If a ‘shot-clock’ is the best way, then so be it. I have no doubt it can be made to work, given adequate will.

None of this is intended to diminish the monumental achievements of either player, nor the outstanding match they collaborated on in the Australian Open final. Talk of where it rates among the greatest matches of all time has been premature. Djokovic was eager to insist it was the greatest match he has ever contested, and I cannot disagree with him. It is unquestionably the finest match he has ever played against Nadal, which may sound backhanded, but shouldn’t considering they had met 29 times before last night. It was a great match, but its greatness owed to the skill, endurance, sportsmanship, and determination of its protagonists, and the drama, context, and shape of its unfolding. There are many things a great match must have – and this one had it all – but a big number on the match clock isn’t one of them.

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January 29, 2012

This is Tennis

Australian Open, Final

(1) Djokovic d. (2) Nadal, 5/7 6/4 6/2 6/7 7/5

Insofar as the longest major final in history can have just one defining moment, that moment in tonight’s final arrived with Rafael Nadal serving at 3/4 in the fourth set. Novak Djokovic, whose potency on return had been under rapid development for an hour, suddenly launched a furious assault on the Spaniard’s serve, earning 0-40: three break points, and virtually match points, given the inexorability of the match’s flow. It had been a fine final, entirely worthy of a fine event, and slotting encouragingly into the existing narrative of the rivalry: Djokovic is in Nadal’s head, the match-up favours the world No.1, you know how it goes.

Despite commencing with precisely the aggressive mindset he had advised to Andy Murray to employ – dictate with the forehand, and ride the baseline – Nadal had thereafter spent the better part of two sets retreating and scurrying, often lurking in Monfils-country adjacent to the back hoardings. The feeling of having his back to the wall had therefore grown wearily familiar. From 0-40 Nadal characteristically forced the imminence of his defeat to one side, and set about lashing a series of furious winners from both wings and on serve to hold. The inevitability of the world No.1’s victory abated. The heavens, shocked, began gently to weep, speckling the court, and the players fled as the monstrous roof over Rod Laver Arena ground gradually shut. It only needed another fireworks display to really ram the momentum change home. This moment proved to be the pivot around which the entire match swung, and although it did not determine the winner – since Nadal still lost – it did enable this final to evolve into one of the most dramatic, exacting, aggravating, painful and brilliant matches in the sport’s history.

There is a sense in which the winner is irrelevant following matches such as these, although it is glib to say so, and misleading to overstate it. Winning still matters, and given the choice Nadal would surely trade his starring role in a classic final for the trophy itself. Nevertheless, both players afterwards spoke movingly and genuinely of their pride at having produced so monumental a spectacle. Nadal suggested that this is why they play tennis. Djokovic, clutching the Norman Brooks Challenge Cup, knew the real reason, but he too was effusive and generous in his praise. Both knew they’d given almost everything, and that none could fault them for effort.

Perhaps we cannot fault Nadal’s industry, but his tactics deserve some examination, or, more specifically, his unwillingness to stick with the approach that had delivered him a taut, nervous and frankly low-quality opening set. Having thus established his lead, Nadal, for no discernible reason, retreated, abandoning the baseline and with it any hope of imposing himself on the match. The Spaniard’s winner count plummeted in sets two and three, as Djokovic obligingly stepped in and increased his pace, hustling his opponent from the court. The rout was on. For the first time that I can recall, Nadal looked forlorn and impotent, a young man still, but one whom the race was over-running.

But we perhaps pay too much attention to such considerations. We deride Nadal’s retreat, but he was close to winning the match, and it wasn’t an overly defensive mindset that made him miss that crucial backhand pass late in the fifth. (The same may be said for Federer: widely condemned for his recklessly unstructured semifinal, he was still inches away from serving for the fourth set.) The fact is, Nadal proved mighty, and mightily competitive, doing what he knows best. It has delivered him ten majors, although I should add it has delivered him three consecutive runner-ups as well. Jim Courier, well into the fifth, began to rant once more about Nadal’s lamentable court-positioning (with good reason), but stopped himself with a chuckle: ‘Man, this stuff is easy from in here.’ After nearly 350 minutes on court, nothing was easy for either player anymore, and thinking clearly was the last thing anyone should have expected of them.

At the end, addled, it was Djokovic who buried a final forehand winner and collapsed to the court with unimaginably weary triumph, before lurching up to embrace Nadal, and then tear the shirt from his body, much like Andrew Ilie did when he didn’t win the Australian Open. Nadal, in the dark place beyond disappointment, removed his shirt more carefully, since his team has strict rules about respecting equipment, and probably because he didn’t feel in the mood. The crowd were going bananas. Channel 7’s patented and pointless Crowd Meter registered 116dB, which I gather meant the crowd was loud, although this was pretty clear from the noise coming through my speakers. Blissfully, it was the only noise coming through, the commentators having fallen hushed. On AO Radio, the heroic duration and wretched hour were wrecking voices and scrambling minds. Even the cliches wouldn’t come: ‘Really, it’s a shame someone has to win,’ intoned the announcer, before correcting himself. Everyone knew they had witnessed something special, a true epic, and arguably the greatest final the Australian Open has known.

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