January 6, 2011

Ponderous Levity

Hopman Cup

Murray d. Mahut 7/6 7/6

Lleyton Hewitt was back in the commentary booth last night, and so was ‘tremendous ball striking’. But that wasn’t the strangest thing he said. Invited to analyse his loss to Novak Djokovic – in which he went down 6/2 6/4 – Hewitt waxed earnest on how extremely well he’d struck the ball, how extremely well he’d moved, how extremely well he’d competed. (‘Extremely well’ is clearly a verbal tic for Hewitt, a catch-all suffix whose relentless use nonetheless reflects his determination to have nothing but kind things to say, even about himself. Murray was ‘moving extremely well’. Mahut was ‘competing extremely well’. Both of them were ‘striking the ball extremely well’. Sadly, ‘extremely well’ precludes the use of ‘tremendous’.) This is despite the fact that Hewitt won exactly half as many games as Djokovic, and that despite earning a fistful of break points, it wasn’t especially close. If he’d made his comments before the match, then been cleaned up 2 and 4, the irony might have been poignant. Coming afterwards, it was just a little deluded. Hewitt, a veteran whom the race has outrun, is coming to seem less Learesque in his impotence, and more like Don Quixote, or Eddie the Eagle.

This unintended irony persisted even after Hewitt left. There’s an affliction known as the Commentator’s Curse, whereby complimenting a player on an aspect of their game will inspire an immediate if temporary drop in execution. For example, pointing out that someone is serving well might produce a double fault. Following Hewitt’s example, Paul McNamee and Josh Eagle set out to confound this specious causality. A Murray double fault provoked the (non-ironic) statement that he was serving well. A 27 stroke rally that Murray concluded by meekly dumping a sliced backhand into the net inspired Eagle to remark on how much variety Murray brought to the game, how effective he was at changing paces. Even McNamee found this confusing, although not as confusing as his subsequent remark: ‘Yes, 27 shot rally. He’s world No.4.’

Otherwise, the commentary was about what you’d expect. A mishit winner from Mahut produced a perfunctory apology from the Frenchman, which in turn inspired the standard ponderous levity from the commentators (Hewitt included): ‘He’s apologising, but I’ll bet he’ll take it. Ho ho ho.’ Hewitt might have pointed out that when players do this they aren’t apologising, but conceding to their opponent that they won the point through good fortune. A clutch Murray serve to save break point was ‘quality’, while a Mahut forehand was ‘class’. The missing word in both cases was ‘high’. Applied to the commentary, however, the missing word was ‘low’. One of Murray’s backhands was struck ‘extremely well’ and with ‘tremendous direction’.

The match itself was very good, and highly entertaining. Mahut can be up and down, a tendency French players apparently acquire at their mother’s teat. He was only ever up until he had break points, or set points, but when he was up he was typically engaging. He backspun one drop volley so sharply that it nearly returned to his side of the court. Josh Eagle was correct in highlighting just how impressive it was. Twice Mahut ended up on Murray’s side of the court. The second time he nearly took the Scotsman out, but it was all in good fun. Murray tried a tweener like the one Federer hit in Doha the other night, but found the tape.

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January 4, 2011

Diverting Grotesqueries

Brisbane International

Stepanek d. Kamke, 5/7 6/1 6/4

Becker d. Verdasco, 6/1 6/7 6/4

If one were to compile a crib sheet on Radek Stepanek – who today saw off the sporadically promising Tobias Kamke in three sets – there are three important things to know:

  1. He is unorthodox and aggressive, with strangely effective strokes, capable volleys and excellent court sense.
  2. He was once engaged to Martina Hingis and is now married to Nicole Vaidisova, despite being the least fetching male tennis player since Petr Korda. Now that is punching above your weight.
  3. Like Korda, he embodies a rich tradition in Czech tennis of wearing disturbingly horrible t-shirts, a tradition that stretches back at least to Ivan Lendl. 2010 saw Stepanek in some humdingers, surpassed only by Srdjan Djokovic at the US Open.

Quite aside from an entertaining tennis match, I was curious to see what new sartorial travesty Stepanek might unleash in Brisbane. I was hoping for something memorably hideous, so you can imagine my disappointment at discovering the match would not be televised. Instead, the featured encounter saw Fernando Verdasco facing Benjamin Becker. Frustratingly, it was looking very much like I’d have to write about actual tennis. But then the players appeared on court, and I saw what was on Verdasco’s head.

Verdasco’s monumental semifinal against Rafael Nadal at the 2009 Australian Open was astonishing for any number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that even after five hours of solid exertion and litres of sweat, not a hair of his ‘faux-mo’ had broken formation. Undoubtedly Verdasco took a lot from this match besides confidence in his choice of hair product. However, despite oscillating form over the past 24 months, his hair style has been the one constant: his hair-helmet has been his rock, his armour. It wasn’t broke – clearly it’s unbreakable – so why try to fix it? For whatever reason, try he did. Gone is the rigid, glistening faux-mo. In its place is an actual mo, and not a good one. There’s doubtless a Samson metaphor lurking somewhere in the mix. After Verdasco’s erratic loss today, it would not be inappropriate.

I sometimes wonder whether tennis commentators really do have a crib sheet before them, listing all the essential points they must cover during the call; three or four fun facts about each player, an explanation of how tie-breaks work, that a ball landing on the very outside of the line is still in, that players cannot sit down after the first game of a set, the challenge system, why players synchronise their racquet changes with the ball changes and Ivan Lendl’s role in instigating this practice. I’m genuinely amazed by their patience. Surely saying it for the thousandth time is even less fun than hearing it. How does, say, Robbie Koenig not claw his eyes out as Jason Goodall asks yet again whether he thinks Federer hiring Paul Annacone was a good move? I think I’ve deduced what’s on their crib sheet for Benjamin Becker:

  1. He is not related to Boris Becker. Apparently that can’t be stressed enough.
  2. He was the guy up the other end in Andre’s Agassi’s final tennis match.

Beating Fernando Verdasco is not a sufficiently monumental achievement to merit inclusion in this list. It was a fine win, to be sure, but mohawk or not, Verdasco just isn’t that big a scalp these days.

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January 2, 2011

Tremendous Ball Striking

Hopman Cup

Djokovic d. Golubev, 4/6 6/3 6/1

Anthony Hudson began his post-match interview with Serbia’s sweat-slicked Ana Ivanovic by declaring ‘You’re looking pretty hot’, and it only grew more awkward from there. Positively radiant from exertion, victory and genetics – although not in that order – she is doubtless well-used to strong men developing gallant stammers when they gain proximity. For my wife’s sake I lambasted Hudson’s effort as roundly as she, but privately I conceded that I would probably fare no better.

Her beauty is not of the haunting variety, which isn’t to say that it doesn’t stay with you. The lingering effects might explain why her compatriot Novak Djokovic began his match so distractedly, pushing and prodding while his opponent Andrey Golubev carved and blasted. For the first set we were treated to the commentary stylings of Lleyton Hewitt, who was determined to point out whenever he could that Golubev is a ‘tremendous striker of the ball’. I can’t say for certain if Hewitt was more impressed by Golubev’s skills, or the phrase itself. Down a set, Djokovic picked it up a few notches and began to strike some tremendous balls of his own, clearing out whatever cobwebs had accrued in the scant weeks since the Davis Cup final. By the third set Golubev wasn’t striking the ball very tremendously at all, and Hewitt had long since fled the premises. Djokovic romped home 6/1.

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December 29, 2010

El guerrero imparable

Only 24 years of age, Rafael Nadal has for some years been marching inexorably towards greatness, and in 2010 his march gained pace. He is ranked No.1 in the world, and will remain there until at least the middle of next year, and probably for a lot longer than that. This year he won seven tournaments, including three majors and three Masters. He became only the fourth man in the Open Era to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the first man in history to complete the clay court sweep. It was the career year in a career that has known no other kind. Why, then, didn’t it feel more exciting?

In the evolution of men’s tennis, Roger Federer was inevitable. Given time, the sport would one day turn out a player with his gifts. An improved version will doubtless come along eventually, five or a hundred years from now, perhaps left-handed, with a bigger serve. Nadal, on the other hand, was not inevitable. He didn’t exist, and needed to be created. He does not represent a natural evolution of the sport, so much as a human inclination to tinker with evolution, to get ahead of the game. Part of the wonder is that Uncle Toni’s engineering produced so impressive a tennis player. The greater wonder still is that the result is such a fine young man, effortlessly grounded and empathetic despite his ferocious will and phenomenal early success. He was not inevitable, although the argument can be made that he was necessary. Tennis is undeniably richer for having him play it.

Necessary or not, he is inexorable, in much the same way gravity is, and in a way that Federer is not. This quality forms the cornerstone of his entire game. No one can fight gravity forever, and only the most gifted or inspired tennis players can resist Nadal for long. Of course, that’s not the whole story, and for casual fans it isn’t the story at all. Nadal may win most of his matches like that, but not his most famous ones. Relentlessness may be the thing to know about him, but it’s not the thing about him that everyone knows.

The enduring and popular image of Nadal is of the unstoppable warrior – el guerrero imparable – marshalling depleted reserves to gain desperate triumphs deep in final sets. If Federer plays tennis as the gods might, Nadal is the mortal who would storm heaven and throw down the gods themselves. His struggles are human struggles, and never more so than when the effort is superhuman. The 2009 Australian Open and the 2006 Rome final are my favourite examples, although everyone surely has their own. His zealous fans may disagree – fans like that are often happy to see their favourites progress via walkover – but for the general tennis fan, moments such as these form the essence of Nadal’s popularity. No one expects it every time he steps out on court, but we do hope for it at least a few times in a year in which he claims three majors. As it happened, it happened only once, in beating Murray at the Tour Finals, in what was for me the match of the year. Otherwise, when Nadal was challenged this year, he lost. Think of Roddick in Miami, or Melzer in Shanghai.

If 2010 has demonstrated nothing else, it is that watching Nadal cruise to certain victory is no more interesting than watching Agassi do it. Despite shapely buttocks, Nadal is less attractive going away. He is best viewed from front on, with his back against the wall. Tennis players as supremely skilled as he can of course make any opponent look like a duffer, but for the most part, he didn’t need to. When it mattered most, at the sharpest ends of the Grand Slam draws, his opponents were willing to do it themselves. The Berdych who swept past Federer and Djokovic was absent for the Wimbledon final. Soderling, in his second straight Roland Garros final, managed to look almost as overwhelmed as he had against Federer the year before. Only Djokovic in the US Open final stepped up, although the energy he’d harnessed in his supercharged encounter with Federer had mostly dissipated.  Nadal was superb in patches, but only as superb as he needed to be. For the most part, being like gravity was enough.

It’s probably an unpopular view, and not likely to endear me to the most rampant of Nadal’s fans. (Lest those irksome Federer zealots grow smug, I should point out that Federer benefited in precisely the same way in this year’s Australian Open. He played exquisitely, to be sure, but he probably would have won playing worse.) The long term view is that Nadal is a stupendous tennis player, destined to retire as one of the greatest, and that there will be times when it comes easier than others. We certainly cannot begrudge him that. When you have toiled this mightily, the odd gimme is deserved.

But it’s not exciting. I’m being selfish of course, but I hope 2011 brings sterner challenges.

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December 24, 2010

Incomparable

Paul Annacone now coaches Roger Federer, who is 29 years old. Annacone originally coached Pete Sampras, who at one point was also 29. The parallel is uncanny, irrefutable, yet when Annacone is invited to compare Federer with Sampras – and he often is – he has the gall to insist there is no comparison to be made. Despite numbering among the world’s foremost experts on 29-year-old tennis legends, few in the media buy his response, which is why they persist with the question. Presumably this will go on until Annacone eventually cracks, and admits whatever it is he’s supposed to admit.

By Annacone’s reckoning, Sampras at 29 was running on fumes. More than half a decade of near-complete dominance has clearly worn more gently on Federer than on Pistol Pete, and according to his new coach he remains as fresh and committed as ever. I see no reason to doubt this assessment, and Federer’s results in the season’s second half bear it out. The Wall St Journal summed it up nicely:

‘Nearly the entire second half of the season is spent on hardcourts, and during that span this year, Federer arguably was as good as Nadal. Though it was Nadal who lifted the U.S. Open trophy, Federer won four titles and went 34-4 after Wimbledon, reaching the semifinals or better in all eight tournaments he entered. He held multiple match points in two of his losses. And, most impressively, he wasn’t playing an easy schedule during that span. He won 13 of 16 matches against players ranked in the top 10, including nine victories against fellow top-five players Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Robin Soderling. In less than five months, Federer had more wins over top-10 players than Nadal had all year, and the same number he and Nadal had last year.’

It is customary to gain a significant ‘bounce’ upon hiring a new coach (Roddick structures his coach-acquisitions accordingly), but I’m surprised Federer’s game responded so favourably. Initially, there was much chatter of Annacone bringing a ‘new’ aggression to Federer’s immaculate game. For a long time, I couldn’t see it. I saw plenty of the old aggression, but there was nothing I hadn’t seen before. Federer is pretty attacking even at the worst of times. Then, after nearly 18 months in which they’d sparred only once, Federer finally came face to face with Rafael Nadal, in the final match of the ATP season.

Nadal, like Andre Agassi, structures his game around several extraordinarily effective patterns of play, patterns that aim gradually to compromise the opponent’s court position (or in Agassi-parlance, gain ‘progress’). Agassi’s uncanny hand-eye coordination and compact technique enabled him to camp in the middle of the baseline and jerk the opponent left to right until he could put the ball away, or until he earned an error. To quote Sampras, once the pattern was established it was ‘time to lace up the runners’. Nadal’s unusual lefty forehand, with its ferocious topspin, enables him to loop the ball ever wider and deeper to the right-hander’s backhand, until he is gifted a juicy ball he can run around and drill into the open court, his exhausted opponent nowhere in sight. During the World Tour Finals Robbie Koenig related an astute piece of analysis from Manolo Santana, who suggests that whenever Nadal gets to hit three forehands in a row, it is game over for his opponent. The concept of the three-forehand sequence succinctly captures how Nadal’s game is designed as a basic real estate battle.

When Sampras played Agassi, at his best, he flat out refused to submit. The moment a rally looked like bending to Agassi’s will, Sampras would pull the trigger, no matter where he was. He might not hit a winner, but the point was back on his terms, and his superior athleticism allowed him to win a more fractured, all-court rally. Nadal’s set play is at once more one-dimensional and more effective than Agassi’s, since the only reliable way to counteract it is to have a truly world class two-handed backhand. Murray, Nalbandian and Djokovic aren’t in the least intimidated by his cross-court forehand, and Nadal must consequently play with considerably more variation. Federer has a truly world-class one-hander, but it is notoriously not up to the task. Their rivalry has been analysed exhaustively, and this is the basic mechanic that everyone returns to. His losing record against Nadal is testament to his ultimate failure to overcome Nadal’s set play. Even on Federer’s preferred hardcourts, he is only even with the Spaniard.

The World Tour Final was different. This was Federer in Sampras-mode, flatly refusing to be drawn into extended rallies, to submit to Nadal’s terms. His backhand was superb, and he was not shy about launching it up the line, even from very awkward positions. Nadal could almost never get set, and begin that three-forehand sequence. Although the tennis was brilliant, there were relatively few extended rallies (although the few they did have were even more brilliant). The look on Nadal’s face said it all. He didn’t look defeated during the first or third sets – he never does – but he did look perplexed. Coupled with Federer’s near-impenetrability on serve, Federer’s refusal to play properly saw Nadal’s game grow less structured as the match wore on.* It is hard to avoid that conclusion that this was the patented new aggression that Annacone was inspiring in Federer’s game. The similarity to Sampras’ style was not a coincidence. It was, in fact, fundamental. It seems there is a comparison to be made after all.

* Federer’s serving deserves a seperate analysis. How supreme was the wide one to the first court? It was almost comically relentless, with just enough of his preferred deliveries up the middle to keep Nadal from camping the slider.

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December 20, 2010

The Comet from Laputa

There comes a time in the life of even the most brilliant extended metaphor when you run into trouble. In my last entry, I compared Novak Djokovic to Gulliver in Lilliput, which led me to the useful idea that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are Brobdingnagians. So far, so good. When it came time to start this entry about Andy Murray, I was naturally drawn to the idea of Laputa. After all, like the citizens of Jonathan Swift’s bizarre floating island, Andy Murray seems often to be overcome by the attraction of applying overly sophisticated methods to achieve mundane results, such as designing clothes or winning tennis matches. It was a decent enough fit, until it occurred to me that Swift’s searing wit extended even to the name: La puta is Spanish for ‘the whore’. It is unlikely the author was unaware of this, although the significance is a trifle murky. (Presumably he was impugning the contemporary Whig government’s integrity.) In any case, I’m aware of it, and given Murray’s heartbreaking semifinal losses to Nadal at both Wimbledon and the World Tour Finals this year, it’s a probably not appropriate.

Comparing a contemporary Scottish tennis pro with a renowned literary satire from the early 18th century was always going to get awkward. Metaphors are by nature ambiguous, and Borges reminds us that ambiguity is richness. Still, implying that Murray is Nadal’s whore is a bit too rich. Empson helpfully demonstrated that ambiguity can be broken down into various categories. In case you’re wondering which category this is, it’s the one that inspires Andy Murray to punch me in the face. So, for the record, I unambiguously declare that Andy Murray does not hail from Laputa.

Regardless of where he hails from, his current position within the reasonably static model of the tennis cosmos – in which all bodies orbit the binary pulsar of Nadal-Federer – is problematic. Djokovic, as I suggested the other day, occupies the innermost orbit, and most other players are placed outward from there. Occasionally some of the orbiting bodies will veer off course (and perhaps stuff their wrists), but mostly the cosmos is close to immutable. Apart from Murray. He’s more like a comet on a bizarre irregular path that sometimes sweeps in and wrecks up the joint. Seemingly from nowhere, he might hurtle into the pulsar and smash it to pieces, and yet often his progress is diverted by a gentle gravitational nudge from a tiny outer satellite. So eccentric is this body that past behaviour provides no reliable guide as to what might happen next, perplexing and infuriating tennis fans and astrophysicists alike.

Given the failure of science in this matter, predicting whether Andy Murray will win a major in 2011 has flourished into a vital sub-field of wild prophecy. Sadly, this too has yielded nothing. Even Nostradamus, not known for reticence (or specificity), was silent on the issue. Even he knew when to leave well enough alone. While there is every reason to think Murray will break through at some point in the next twelve months, there was every reason to think that 12, 24 and even 36 months ago. Anyone who claims they know what Andy Murray will do next is a liar.

To reiterate, he is not from Laputa.

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December 17, 2010

Gulliver in Lilliput

If beating compatriot Victor Troicki at the US Open was on par with sleeping with his girlfriend, one can only imagine the pleasure Novak Djokovic felt as he watched Troicki trounce Michael Llodra to clinch the Davis Cup. Still dozily basking in the afterglow of that triumph, it will probably be a tough sell convincing him he’s really had a pretty poor year.

Let’s consider it. What if Troicki had fallen to Llodra in the year’s final match? How would Djokovic’s 2010 look then? He spent almost exactly half the year at No.2, but that was achieved primarily by Nadal then Federer hemorrhaging large point-hauls. They’ve since staunched themselves, and Djokovic finds himself 3,000 points adrift at No.3. Leaving the US Open aside for the moment, his results were unsatisfactory when it mattered; at the Slams, and at the Masters where he is usually so intimidating. He has claimed only two titles – 500 events in Dubai and Beijing – his lowest return since 2006.

Still, if it has been a bad year, it’s at least been trending encouragingly upward. The second half – starting from Wimbledon but excluding that fan-crushingly weak semifinal – has witnessed vast improvements. He has progressed from regular losses to solid second-tier players (Tsonga, Youzhny) and the odd shocker (Malisse, Olivier Rochus), to falling almost exclusively to top shelf opposition. It is progress, to be sure, but it’s illustrated just how far he still has to go. Of the seven losses he has suffered since Wimbledon, four have been to Federer and one to Nadal. In none of the matches were the stakes negligible, and in few of them did he look especially dangerous. So while Djokovic in a Fedal-free draw evokes Gulliver in Lilliput, that’s never going to be the case in the big events, where the top two have mastered the art of showing up, and have made it synonymous with winning.

The US Open semifinal is of course the towering exception. But it was a strange encounter, and did little to refute Federer’s putatively arrogant assertion that these matches are always more or less on his racquet. (For parts it followed a regular script between these two, in which Djokovic appears to be the slightly better player, only to crumble at the death of each set. It is fascinating how often Federer claims their sets 7/5.) It was a famous win for the Serb, almost worthy of his wide-eyed histrionics after match-point, but Nadal lurked in wait. As with Murray in Melbourne, Soderling in Paris, and Berdych in London, in order to claim a major title Djokovic needed to beat Federer and Nadal. Only one man has ever done that (del Potro), which goes a long way towards explaining why the Big Two – the Brobdingnagians – own 25 of the last 30 Slams.

Against lesser opposition Djokovic can look almost invincible. The Davis Cup final showcased this perfectly. Djokovic was like a juggernaut, and the French team’s entire strategy was little short of a tacit admission that they wouldn’t be taking any matches from him. It was containment, pure and simple. Llodra was protected from him, Simon was sacrificed to him, and Monfils, um, well I don’t quite know what the plan was there.

I’ve previously anointed Robin Soderling as the ‘best of the rest’, but that view depends on where you begin your definition of ‘the rest’. There is a lot to be said for beginning ‘the rest’ with Djokovic. The ATP website is running a puff piece posing the seaching question of whether the Serb will be the man to finally break the Federer-Nadal duopoly. It predictably adds little to the discussion, and in lieu of a conclusion opts for some threadbare stuff on how hard Djokovic is working and how badly he wants it. Ho-hum. There is of course no answer – this is sport – and the question was barely worth asking. The only answer is that Djokovic’s hard work and burning desire have pushed him to a glass ceiling. Breaking through it will require something extra, something transcendent, even paroxymal. Something orgasmic. If he wins the Australian Open, his girlfriend will have her work cut out topping that.

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December 14, 2010

With a Bullet

More statistical shenanigans today. Here are the players who have gained the most points in the last twelve months. The usual caveat applies: tennis stats and socialising don’t mix.

  1. Rafael Nadal     -3245 pts
  2. Tomas Berdych    -2300 pts
  3. Robin Soderling    -2170 pts
  4. David Ferrer    -1865 pts
  5. Jurgen Melzer    -1525 pts
  6. Mikhail Youzhny    -1230 pts
  7. Mardy Fish    -1201 pts
  8. Ernests Gulbis    -950 pts
  9. Michael Llodra    -926 pts
  10. Nicolas Almagro    -855 pts

On the face of it, this list should tell us who is most sharply on the up-and-up. However, the dull miracle of sporting cliché reminds us that even a week is a long time. A year is 52 times as long as that, which puts it somewhere close to an eternity, or an evening watching Two and a Half Men. Realistically, this list – which doesn’t actually stop at 10 – tells us both who is up-and-coming (Gulbis), who is merely recovering from a sub-par 2009 (Ferrer), and who is finally getting their shit together (Fish, Melzer). There’s also Rafael Nadal, but only one person gets to be him. There’s a theoretical ceiling on how many ranking points a player can actually accrue, although if the world No.1 takes the Australian Open he’ll be closer to making it more actual than theoretical.

Tomas Berdych
This time last year Tomas Berdych was perched at No.20 in the world. It was a ranking that belied his obvious talent (let’s call being 6’5’’ a talent), but was generous regarding his notable shortcomings. In other words, it felt about right.

Prior to Miami in late March, Berdych had amassed a grand total of 1,760 points, having achieved little of note in the year to date. Fortuitously, he had also achieved very little in the year before, either, meaning he had precious few points to defend. He then embarked upon a bit of a tear, reaching the final in Miami – defeating Federer en route – before putting together the kind of clay season that an accomplished journeyman might not be ashamed of. He arrived in Paris with an 8-3 record, and then came within a whisker of earning the privilege of being thrashed by Rafael Nadal in the Roland Garros final. Scant weeks later he did progress to the final of Wimbledon, whereupon he was thrashed by Nadal. This was apparently a life-goal of some kind, because, having attained it, he barely won anything else for the rest of the year. Since Michael Llodra bundled him out of the US Open in the first round, he’s gone 4-11. He may be ranked No.6, but he is certainly not the sixth best player in the world. Twentieth feels about right.

Berdych’s ascent is nothing if not a testament to the relative dearth of points in the 20-30 range. Marcos Baghdatis currently sits at No.20, with 1,785 points. In 2006 – his breakout year – the burly Cypriot made it to both a major final (Australian Open) and a semifinal (Wimbledon). If he repeats that next year, he’ll doubtless find himself in the top 8, cannon fodder in London come November. For the record, I am predicting that won’t occur.

Mikhail Youzhny
Had Novak Djokovic pulled out of a match at this year’s US Open, he would have completed the rare achievement of the Career Default Grand Slam. For all I know, he might have been the first. He has a reputation – warranted, if now dated – for soft defaults, with the wimpiest examples being blisters at Wimbledon and heat at the Australian Open, when he was defending champion. This year Mikhail Youzhny has demonstrated – to my satisfaction, at least – that Djokovic’s real error has been to default at the pointier end of majors, when everyone is watching. The trick is to do it at the little tournaments, or in an early round. Youzhny has defaulted from three events this year, and withdrawn on the eve of a fourth at which he was defending champion. The first couple were at the beginning of the year (Australian Open and Rotterdam), while the others were in the last few events of the year (Moscow and Bercy). To my lasting outrage, no one seems to care, including Novak Djokovic.

In between all this quitting, Youzhny managed to put together a season that was notable for its consistency, with the highlights being titles in Munich and Kuala Lumpur, running-up in Rotterdam, Dubai and St Petersburg, and a run to the semifinal of the US Open (whereupon he was thrashed by Nadal). He spent some moments back in the top 8, and has looked consistently threatening. Indeed, for a guy without conspicuous weapons, he is a dangerous and entertaining player. Sometimes, it true, his main danger is to himself, although that too can be morbidly entertaining. It’s good to see The Colonel return to the top ten.

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December 11, 2010

Increasingly Global

Isn’t morning television wonderful? I’m especially fond of those variety-type breakfast shows: the forced badinerie, the practiced solecisms, the brutally jolly weather segments. Their commitment to safeguarding the English language is especially commendable. One story this morning featured the delightful phrases: ‘In an increasingly global world . . .’ and ‘this has angered some members of the female community’. I assume the first phrase refers to the continuing effects of erosion in forming our planet into a more perfect sphere. The latter I suspect means ‘some women are pissed off’. It’s mind-bending stuff, almost enough to make this member of the human community see an increasingly scarlet shade of red.

Anyway, I bring this up because I’ve been rising early for some time now, courtesy of my four-year-old daughter, who has outgrown the capacity to sleep past 6.30 am. Until last week it wasn’t an issue. Until last week, you see, there was nearly always tennis on.

It’s one of the peculiarities of being Australian – in this increasingly global world – that you’re always aware of just how much stuff is going on elsewhere, and that it mostly goes on in the middle of the night. My life as a hardcore fan began with Boris Becker’s successful Wimbledon defence in 1986, and exhaustion and elation have been intrinsic to the tennis experience ever since. If nothing else, it helps make the whole thing more visceral. If you thought the 2008 Wimbledon final was a thrill-ride, try watching it at 4am, knowing you have to be at work in five hours. You feel each interminable rain delay in your soul: you’re up in the middle of the night in the middle of winter with nothing to do, and there’s no reason to think it will end. As twilight envelops Centre Court, a frosty sun rises outside your window, and you look and feel unimaginably haggard, like a refugee forced to endure one border-check too many. Then the kids get up. All the same, many of my fondest tennis memories have taken place at bizarre murky hours: Cash’s 1987 Wimbledon, Sampras’ 2002 US Open, Federer’s 2009 French Open.

Lately, it’s all been much better, entirely thanks to the European indoor season and vastly improved internet streaming. The night sessions at the World Tour Finals began at 7am in Melbourne. Watching Roger Federer imperiously dispatch all-comers, it turns out, is a pretty civilised way to enjoy breakfast. My daughter certainly enjoys it, and it’s been a real bonding experience for us. She still prefers the cute blonde girls in tiny bright dresses – her favourites are Maria Kirilenko and Alona Bondarenko, fine specimens – but the drama and adventure of the Rafa and Roger show is not lost on her. She even drew me a picture, of her watching them play. They’re playing on grass under a streaming, low-angled sun. It can only be the Wimbledon final of 2007 – the year the stands went topless – some time in the fifth set. I praised her for choosing such a fine moment to commemorate. She looked at me blankly, patiently. Just Dad talking crap again.

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December 8, 2010

A Tale of Two Wrists

Tennis matches are elegant affairs of graceful geometry, but tennis rankings are blunt things of low arithmetic. A guy wins more stuff, he get more points, his ranking goes up. The concept isn’t taxing, although the ramifications and the subtleties are numerous, as is inevitable for any system with this many moving parts. If you’re a certain kind of fan it’s all pretty enthralling, although it’s not the kind of expertise you can successfully unleash at parties, even tennis parties. Believe me.

That said, here’s a list of the players who’ve lost the most points in the last calendar year. Do not recite at parties:

  1. Juan Martin del Potro (ARG)    -6605 pts
  2. Nikolay Davydenko (RUS)    -3275 pts
  3. Novak Djokovic (SRB)    -2275 pts
  4. Fernando Gonzalez (CHI)    -2150 pts
  5. Radek Stepanek (CZE)    -1830 pts
  6. Tommy Haas (USA)    -1745 pts
  7. Roger Federer (SUI)    -1405 pts
  8. Andy Murray (GBR)    -1270 pts
  9. Gilles Simon (FRA)    -1270 pts
  10. Tommy Robredo (ESP)    -1260 pts

There’s plenty of fascinating information here – three of the Big Four are there; will Haas or Gonzalez return? – but it’s the first two I’ll focus on for the moment. These are the two who finished 2009 at the top of the heap, form-wise, slugging it out in final of the Year End Championships. Heading into 2010, the signs were ominous for their peers . . .

Juan Martin del Potro

Now that the giant Argentine has buggered his wrist, there is no shortage of commentators keen to point to his forehand, with its deft little flourish on the backswing, and insist that a breakdown was inevitable. Funny thing is, I don’t recall anyone saying anything before he injured it. No one was shy in foretelling doom for Nadal’s knees before they imploded. The way the Spaniard moves, the fierce endeavour in every point; it was merely a matter of when. del Potro’s wrist, though? Not so much. It must be a conspiracy of silence, since everyone just knew it was going to break down, and no one uttered a word. 20/20 hindsight and all of that.

Regardless, it was mortal blow for a gentle young guy storming his way into the elite. del Potro’s absence has been tennis’s loss, and contributed in no small way to perpetuating the Fedal duopoly. We’ve been assured he’ll return for the Australian Open (he has accepted a wildcard for Sydney). I don’t doubt he will be, but the lingering question will be whether his wrist, like Kuerten’s hip, will ever fully recover. He is now ranked 257.

Nikolay Davydenko

When Davydenko won in Doha back in January, overcoming both Federer and Nadal for the second straight tournament, there was a strong argument to be made that he was the best tennis player in the world, at least over three sets. He’d won his last five matches against the two greatest players of the era, and his performance in winning the World Tour Finals the previous December had been so complete that del Potro had complained it was like playing against a Playstation 3 on hard mode. Davydenko was installed – correctly, I thought – as one of the favourites in Melbourne.

Roger Federer knew better. He knew that in Grand Slam play, character is destiny. They collided in the quarterfinals, in one of the more bizarre encounters in a year replete with them. Davydenko came out firing, taking the ball earlier and crisper than seemed technically possible. He flat out murdered Federer in that first set, and Federer wasn’t playing badly. Somehow, enduring this onslaught, the Swiss looked unruffled. He knew something we didn’t. Up a break in the second, it happened: Davydenko collapsed. Federer took the next 13 games, and that was the match.

The following month in Rotterdam, Davydenko fell heavily on his left wrist. Although he continued to play through it for another month, an MRI scan at Indian Wells revealed a fracture, and he was effectively out until Halle, where he played despite doctor’s orders. In no way has he been the same player since. Post US Open, usually his time to shine and earn, he has compiled a 7-7 record, and has departed the top 20. At 29, he hardly has age on his side, although his self-professed love of the money will doubtless see him push on until he can push no longer.

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