Articles by Peter Bodo

The Rally: 2013 French Open

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:58:00 -0400

With the French Open just days away, senior writers Peter Bodo and Steve Tignor are here to give their thoughts on the tournament, in a back-and-forth exchange not dissimilar to the rallies you'll see in Paris. Check back throughout the day for updates; editor Ed McGrogan leads off the conversation.

MCGROGAN: I'm not sure if either of you realize it, but we're about halfway through the tennis calendar and at the midpoint of two very symmetrical seasons. In January, Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka, two relatively new entrants into their tours' uppermost echelons, rode their two-handed backhands to title defenses Down Under. But neither picked up another hard-court title in Indian Wells or Miami, and by the end of March, three of the four top men and the three top women each had a big tournament win under their belt. Then clay came, and one player from each tour has won pretty much everything in sight—I'm of course talking about Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. They are both massive favorites to cap off their dirt runs with a title on the terre battue.

Of course, many people think the season truly begins now, with three Grand Slam events to be contested in roughly the next three months. I think there's some merit to that, but regardless, who do you think needs a title at Roland Garros the most, across the sport? Will Nadal's comeback, amazing thus far, look different to you if he doesn't win the ultimate prize? Will the pressure begin to bubble over for Djokovic, who needs just a French Open to complete the career Slam, if he fails to back up another clay Masters win over Rafa in Paris? What about Serena, who inexplicably went out in round one last year? There's certainly pressure on her to perform. Is it someone like Azarenka or Maria Sharapova, needing to escape Serena's shadow, or an outsider like David Ferrer, who's playing at his peak? Or Roger Federer, just to shut everyone up about his demise?

BODO: That’s an interesting analysis, Eddie, and the way Djokovic and Azarenka were caught and then surpassed in recent weeks shows just how much parity there is in today’s game. I want to get back to that and pose a question to Steve on the subject, but let me answer your direct question first.

The player who most needs this title is Sharapova—far and away. And that’s especially true if form holds and she faces Serena in the final. You just know what pundits and astute fans will say if Serena crushes Maria in yet another big match, running her winning streak to 13 matches, dating back to 2004.

It may already too late to revise the judgment that the Russian was a placeholder number one and Grand Slam champion, as incapable of beating Williams as the WTA journeywomen are of beating Sharapova. It’s truly bizarre that there’s such a huge gap between Sharapova and Williams. Their matches haven’t even been competitive.

On the men’s side, the guy who needs this most is a Frenchman—any Frenchman—while the guy who could most use the title (there’s a big difference there) is Federer. Let’s focus on the French for a moment. They’ve established themselves as perhaps the most diverse—and diversely talented—national block of players. They’ve had numerous Top 10-level players in recent years, going way back to the Cedric Pioline/Sebastian Grosjean era. Yet none of them have even had a whiff of their native title. Imagine if England had produced a dozen Tim Henmans instead of just one, and they had comparable lack of success at Wimbledon (where Henman played above his head consistently). It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

Now let me pose my question for Steve: Don’t you find it interesting that despite the growing similarity in the playing properties of the surfaces, players seem to be carving out fiefdoms based on surfaces (e.g. Nadal on clay, Djokovic on hard courts)? Does that tell us something about the surfaces, or is it that we’re entering an era in which tennis has grown so popular and remunerative that we’ll regularly have four or five players—both WTA and ATP—content to divvy up the spoils, feeling no real pressure to dominate on a 10-month basis? And is that good for the game?

TIGNOR: Hey Pete, let me take a crack at Ed's original question in this back and forth before I get to yours about surface fiefdoms. I think the player who "needs" this French Open the most is Serena Williams—I put that word in quotes because it's hard to say anyone needs any Grand Slam title when there's another one coming two weeks later. But Serena would suffer if she didn't win this one. She was the favorite last year and went out in the first round; she's an even bigger favorite this year, and you have to think that if she just plays at 80 percent of her best throughout she'll still win the tournament. All of which means that there will be sky-high expectations—from the outside, from all of us who have called her a virtual shoe-in, and from the inside as well. Last year Serena came to Roland Garros on a similar roll, but she got tight in the first round in Paris when she suddenly didn't find herself playing as well as she had been. Serena has always had a reputation as the ultimate competitor, someone who doesn't succumb to the doubts that the rest of us do. If she loses here again, after crushing Maria and Vika the last two weeks, it will look as if the pressure got to her.

Pete, you mention that the surfaces have been divvied up, at least on the men's side. It's true that, going by this season, Novak is at his best on hard courts and Rafa is still the king of clay. But if you take the long view, to me this is still an all-surface era on the men's side compared to the past. Federer and Nadal are two of only four men since 1968 to own career Grand Slams, and Djokovic is threatening to become the fifth. Nadal just lost to Djokovic in Monte Carlo, and Federer made the final in Rome. And while Federer has been second-fiddle to Nadal on clay over the years, he's also reached five French Open finals, compared to zero by Pete Sampras.

Do you think the players could become content to divvy up the spoils and carve out their own niches? I can't say that I see that—Djokovic, Serena, and Maria have all made intensive efforts to win at Roland Garros, on their least-favorite surface. It may be true of Rafa and Federer out of necessity. Each will have to do what they need to do, schedule-wise, to stay healthy and play their best at the big tournaments—Rafa because of his knees, Federer because of his age.

But back to this year's French for a minute; I know you're getting ready to head over there, Pete. I think we can agree that, as the tournament begins, Nadal is the favorite to win the event on the men's side. But if he were to play Djokovic in the semis or the final, who do you think would be the favorite in that match? I don't think Rafa is the overwhelming choice then. Do you?

BODO: Steve, I think Rafa is actually in the boat that you put Serena in above, and let me first explain why I don’t think she belongs there. At this stage of her career, I think Serena is bulletproof. She’s 31, and by consensus on the short-list for greatest female player of all time.

In some ways, Serena is the WTA version of Lew Hoad—the Aussie icon who doesn’t have quite the same record as some of his rivals (partly because he was forced to retire prematurely because of a bad back). Legions who saw him play, including that ultimate chorus of his countrymen and peers, say that at his best, Hoad’s power was such that he was well-nigh unbeatable (those who don’t share that opinion tend to say the same of Pancho Gonzalez). That’s said of Serena too, and she’s been far more prolific than Hoad—and is still at it. She may not catch the five women who have more than her number of Grand Slam titles (15), but the testimony of her generation counts.

The long and short of it, though, is that to me Serena is already beyond judgment—as is Roger Federer. It’s all gravy now. And a part of me wishes that they just stopped keeping records when players pass 30, because apart from the chance that they’ll do something spectacular and unexpected, they get mostly punished for having the devotion, game, and physical gifts for extending their careers to the maximum. I mean, does anyone really think that the results between Rafa and Roger going forward will be as meaningful as they were back when both men were at their physical peak?

As for Rafa, he’s just about to turn 27. He’s coming off a long layoff, which presumably had benefits other than those that applied strictly to his knees. He’s demonstrated that those knees are working just fine—at least for the moment. Which brings Rafa right back to where we left off last July at Wimbledon, where he was still trying to solve his nasty Djokovic problem. That could mean big trouble at Roland Garros.

Djokovic simply isn’t as intimidated as others by Rafa, and he’s not dragged nearly as far out of his comfort zone when they play. And some elements in Djokovic’s game reinforce and justify the psychological comfort he seems to feel. His superb backhand tends to neutralize the advantage Nadal has over most players simply by virtue of being left-handed and, frankly, Rafa’s good-but-not-great serve is less of a threat to Djokovic than to most because of the Serb’s returning skill. It just seems that there are special playing-field levelers at play in the match-up—just as there are a number in Rafa’s favor in his mastery of Federer.

On top of that, the pressure certainly will be on Rafa. I mean, just look at the degree to which he’s dominating the early discussions and handicapping! There were some very shaky moments from both men when they met in last year’s final at Roland Garros, and my gut tells me that Rafa may have more trouble dealing with them this year. So let me ask you, do you think these “mental” or “emotional” factors are over-estimated in our coverage of these games and players?

TIGNOR: You mean, do we overplay the pressure that a player might feel? Or do we overplay the idea that another player might be someone's head? Or both?

I'm not sure the mental aspect of tennis can be overplayed—even the greatest champions, after all they've achieved, get nervous and choke. But we can definitely misinterpret, overestimate, or underestimate how much of an effect it has on a player on a given day. Players can tighten up or melt down when you least expect it, and confidence can wax and wane from one set to the next against anyone. Take for example Djokovic vs. Berdych last week in Rome. When Novak was up a set and 5-2, who would have thought that it was remotely possible that he would let that lead go, against a guy he was 13-1 against in his career?

And I do think—and know, from experience both good and bad—that players can get in other players' heads. Nadal admitted it as much about Djokovic last year. Coming into the French final, Rafa had been utterly dominant for two weeks, and he had won his two matches against Djokovic on clay that spring. Yet he still struggled to get past him in the championship round that mattered. Losing four straight Slam finals to the same guy, including one where you were up 4-2 in the fifth set in Melbourne, will do that to you.

How about if they play this year? I think you're right to say that Djokovic presents a special case and special problem for Rafa, both from a technical and a psychological point of view. Nadal exorcised the Djokovic demon in 2012, but it reappeared in Monte Carlo this spring. In the final there, when Djokovic came out firing early, Rafa seemed to lose belief, even on clay—it felt like 2011 all over again. This year, instead of coming to Paris 2-0 on clay against Djokovic, Nadal comes in 0-1. If the two of them played the Roland Garros final today, I would make Nadal the favorite, but not a huge favorite, and a Djokovic win wouldn't surprise me.

They'll play five or six matches before they would meet in Paris, and a lot can happen in that time as far as expectations go. I think back to Wimbledon in 2011, when Nadal had just won the French, and Djokovic had suffered that deflating defeat to Federer in the semis in Paris. It seemed to many of us, including me, that Nadal had the momentum going into the final, but Djokovic stopped him in his tracks. I know this is clay, not grass, but Djokovic has the best game for Rafa on any surface.

As for Serena, there's no question she's going to go down as a legend and a warrior and an all-time champion no matter what happens at the French Open; like I said, there's another major, her favorite, coming right up, and she can make us forget about Paris in a hurry with a win at Wimbledon. But I also think Serena believes she should end her career with more than just one title at Roland Garros. She said she was crushed by last year's loss here to Virginie Razzano, which came after she had experienced a clay renaissance in the spring. A win this time would put that Razzano defeat behind her, to some degree. A loss—and, let's say, for a kicker, another title run by Sharapova—would hurt.

With regards to Federer, I understand that as champions age, their head-to-heads with rivals can get precipitously, and meaninglessly, worse. Jimmy Connors lost his last 17 matches to Ivan Lendl, but that doesn't mean he was a lesser player than Lendl overall. And after Rome, it does seem like the chances of Federer even competing with Nadal on clay again are slim. But I don't think we can start to downgrade his losses to Rafa just yet. Federer beat Nadal in straights at Indian Wells last year, he's the defending Wimbledon champ, he was a set from the Aussie Open final this year, and he finished 2012 at No. 2 in the world. If, later this year, Nadal shreds him on an indoor hard court the same way he did in Rome, then things might begin to look different to me.

Thinking of the draw now, Pete, could things work in Federer's favor in Paris? Andy Murray has withdrawn, which means that the top four seeds will be Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, and Ferrer. It's possible that Djokovic could play Rafa in one semi, and Federer could play Ferrer in the other. That's not a bad set-up for Rog, who has never lost to Ferrer.

We know who won the last time Nadal lost in Paris.

BODO: That’s a great question Steve, regarding Murray’s withdrawal in Paris. My feeling is that it’s a real shame he’s out of action; this is a real playing-field “unleveler” as far as the four seeds go. As much as I admire Ferrer for his doggedness, his inability to really take it up a notch, probably mentally more than physically, somewhat dampens my enthusiasm. It’s easy to respect the workmanlike but difficult to love.

But in all fairness, let’s look at this as a potentially great opportunity not for Federer, who’s not exactly the first person who pops to mind when you list people who can use a leg up, but for. . . Ferrer. I mean, which of the top three guys would you want to face in the semis if you were Ferrer? And should a Federer vs. Ferrer semi be in the offing, the motivation for Ferrer ought to be off the charts. Let’s remember, he’s 31; time is running out. He’s terrific on clay. He’s never been in a Grand Slam final. This is a career moment waiting to happen, and while I don’t much like his chances against Nadal (good picadors all know who the matador is), I think the lapses Djokovic has shown now and then throughout the clay season can be exploited by a guy as steady as Ferrer.

I freely admit that this scenario—a Ferrer win at Roland Garros—may seem implausible, but that’s only because we’ve been so conditioned in recent years by the dominant nature of the three top players. A part of me feels that the dam has to break at some point, the forces and stresses just continue to build, and let’s face it, nobody is rolling into Roland Garros with clear superiority over his rivals.

For Djokovic, I think his recent lapses, and perhaps even his state of fitness (ankle) could become an issue. For Nadal, I sometimes think the dramatic way he’s approached and spoken of his comeback almost makes him a little vulnerable emotionally.

Rafa will face a lot of pressure in his drive to win a mind-boggling eighth title, and nothing, not even his facility on clay, lasts forever. At some point, this attitude he projects—that he can’t believe he’s that much better than everyone else—could come back and haunt him. And then there’s Federer—we’ll see if his decision to cut back on his tournaments and more or less focus on the majors leaves him well-prepared to face all the eventualities.

In some ways, the climate is very different from the conditions over on the WTA side, so let me ask you this: Do you think there’s a greater chance that the top three men will survive to make semis than there is that their WTA counterparts—Williams, Sharapova, and Azarenka—will pull that off? And are we more likely to see headline-generating upsets on the WTA or ATP side? I have a gut feeling that this will be a more exciting tournament than it has been in years past, but that’s just a feeling, not a well-thought out conviction.

TIGNOR: The Picador: Do I hear a new nickname for David Ferrer being born as we speak? I like it; beats Little Beast, anyway. Though I'm not sure Ferru himself would cotton to it.

You're right, though, if Ferrer goes into Federer's half, that's an opportunity for the Spaniard. Still, it would be even nicer for Ferrer if someone else knocked Federer off for him. Federer is 14-0 in their head-to-head, and he has dropped just three sets in those 14 matches; he's also 5-0 on clay. Maybe Ferrer should hope he lands in Djokovic's half instead. He has beaten Nole in the past, and if Djokovic is shaky, he could be the man to grind him down and send him around the bend. Either way, I'm hoping, for logic's sake, that Djokovic and Nadal avoid each other in the semifinals. If they face off, it should for the title.

To answer your question, as strong as the Top 3 women have been over the last year and a half, I would still bet on more of the Top 3 men reaching the semifinals. Nadal is the King of Paris, Djokovic hasn't lost before the semis of a Grand Slam since 2010, and Federer, whatever his recent struggles, is still a regular in the late rounds at majors. On the women's side, I think that if Serena is going to lose, it will be earlier rather than later; she hasn't made a semi in Paris in a decade. Azarenka, based on past results here, is even less of a lock—she's been to the quarters at Roland Garros twice, but no farther. That said, I'll probably pick all six of them to survive until the semis.

I'll finish with what I think are the two most important questions coming to Paris, one for each draw:

Djokovic has suffered upsets in his last two clay tournaments, and he has had ankle issues this spring. But will those struggles carry over to Roland Garros? Recent history says no. As I just wrote, whatever else has happened to Djokovic over the last two-and-a-half years, he has put it aside and reached the semis or better at the last 11 Grand Slams. If that continues, and he's still around on the second Friday in Paris, Djokovic will have a very good shot at winning this tournament, because we know he can beat Nadal on clay.

On the women's side, I don't see Serena losing in the semifinals or the final, or to Sharapova or Azarenka. She has crushed those two this spring. But she hasn't been at her best in every match, either. In the semis in Madrid, Serena was listless enough to nearly lose to Anabel Medina Garrigues. I don't think we'll see that kind of performance from her, exactly, but she's had her bad days in the middle of majors before, for no apparent reason—in fact, it's something of a tradition with Serena, in particular at Roland Garros. We know she can put a beat down on anyone, but can Serena win seven straight matches at Roland Garros? She hasn't won five in a row there since 2003.

I know Paris isn't your favorite city, Pete, but I hope the tournament is a good one for you. Like you said, we have two big favorites, but there's also reason to believe that we could be in for a few surprises.

Have a question of your own? Ask Steve on Thursday at 11 am EST, and Pete at 4 pm EST.

Tennis Talk with Peter Bodo

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

On Thursday, May 23 at 4 pm EST, TENNIS.com senior writer Peter Bodo will take your questions about the upcoming French Open and anything else tennis.

Tennis Talk with Peter Bodo

They Said What? Coach Hingis

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:05:00 -0400

“She plays like the ones I didn’t like to play so much, like Serena, or Lindsay Davenport.”—Martina Hingis, 2013 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee and rookie coach, on her protégé, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

We’re accustomed to coaches pumping up their players, but when that coach was No. 1 at age 16 on the strength of the three Grand Slam singles titles she earned in 1997, it adds a heavy dose of credibility to her comments—even if Hingis does have her work cut out with the spectacularly talented but sometimes mortifyingly inconsistent Pavlyuchenkova.

I’m not sure that the comparison with Serena Williams extends much beyond the fact that both players have a surfeit of power. Pavlyuchenkova is just 21, but she hasn’t approached her career-high singles ranking of No. 13 earned in July 2011. At a comparable age, Williams was already a Grand Slam champ (she won the U.S. Open at a Hingis-like 17 years of age), while Pavlyuchenkova’s best result at a major thus far has been a pair of quarterfinals in 2011.

The Davenport comparison is more convincing, not just because Pavlyuchenkova has a comparable platform. She’s thickly built, and while she’s four inches shorter than Davenport, she’s still well on the tall side at 5’10”. Pavlyuchenkova hits a very clean ball, but seems to have some flaws in her competitive make-up. While Davenport had enormous, consistent success, she often disappointed her most devout fans with surprisingly ineffective performances in Grand Slam events. She was the year-end No. 1 four different times, but won “only” three Grand Slam titles, plus an Olympic gold medal in singles.

Hingis also said that coaching Pavlyuchenkova has been a pleasure because the Russian is “a good listener,” and that too is reminiscent of Davenport, an intelligent, perceptive player and commentator who’s gone on to be a valuable asset in the Tennis Channel commentary booth. Still, given the extent to which Pavlyuchenkova has been spinning her wheels for almost two years now, you have to wonder if she’s ever going to justify the strong praise heaped on her by Hingis.

The upcoming French Open may give us some clues. Pavlyuchenkova began working with Hingis this year, and she’s steadily climbed from No. 36 to her present ranking of No. 19. She’s been in three finals already—Brisbane (where she lost to Serena), Monterrey, and Oeiras—the latter two victories, both on the same red clay she’ll find underfoot at Roland Garros next week.

But be warned—Pavlyuchenkova has taken some losses that are truly head-scratchers, less because of the opponent than how poorly she competed. In Rome last week, she lost to No. 44 Romina Oprandi, 6-2, 6-0. At Kuala Lumpur she fell to No. 197 Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 6-4, 6-1. And in her next event, Indian Wells, she dropped a 7-5, 6-1 decision to No. 69 Johanna Larsson.

After losing to Serena in Brisbane, she told the champ: “I don’t know how to play tennis when I play against you.”

Unfortunately for Pavlyuchenkova, she can make that same statement against other players at unexpected times. Hingis’ main challenge will be ironing out the peaks and valleys, and showing her protégé how to be a competitor as well as a huge talent.

Podcast: Rome Reaction

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:37:00 -0400

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: May 20

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:00 -0400

Okay, so the men’s final in Rome was an avert-your-eyes blowout in which Rafael Nadal razed the game of Roger Federer. I’m still giving them a joint thumbs up because these two just don’t seem to quit, and no matter how often Nadal knocks out Federer (since 2008, the Spaniard leads 12-4), the Swiss all-time Grand Slam champion just keeps on getting up and coming back for more. Meanwhile, contenders and pretenders come and go, full of grand ambitions, good intentions, slick moves and—ultimately—excuses.

Starting in 2015, ESPN will be taking tennis into a world that was idle fantasy as recently as 1998, the year Federer won the Orange Bowl junior title. That is, an environment where the sport is presented on multiple platforms (broadcast and digital), a promised land so long sought by fans in this remarkably diverse, global game—a place where you, Mr. or Ms. Fan, will be able to watch any singles match that takes place at the U.S. Open, live.

This deal is a milestone not just for tennis, but mega-sporting events (e.g., the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, the Daytona 500) in general. And it doesn’t hurt that with a financial commitment of $770 million for an 11-year deal, the annual broadcast-rights income of the U.S. Open will basically double over the present payout.

Ernests Gulbis is at it again. The wacky Latvian blew a big lead over Nadal in the quarterfinals of Rome, eventually losing, 6-4 in the third. Afterward, he once again uttered what is becoming a familiar lament: “I thought I was the better player in the match, and also in the second and third sets (which Nadal won). . . He is solid and he didn’t do anything special and I made mistakes so he won.”

Nadal took the high road, as he usually does in such matters, although he did get it in a pretty good line without actually criticizing Gulbis: “If you hit as hard as you can, and hit every ball at 216 (kilometers per hour) or 220 and then that means being the best player then perhaps he was the best player.”

Ernie: If you make mistakes, dude, the other guy wins. And that means he was the better player. Get it?

The Ohio State Buckeyes men’s tennis team, which will play top-ranked UCLA today in the NCAA tournament. On Saturday, the Buckeyes shocked four-time defending champion USC—a reign that began when the Trojans beat the Buckeyes in the 2009 final.

The hero on Saturday was Peter Kobelt, who clinched for OSU after having lost the decisive match in similar situations twice in the past. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the Buckeyes rushed onto court to swarm Koblet when he clinched, so excited that doubles player Devin ran out of his shoes—literally. I’m going to have to see if we have that on video. . .

Serena Williams seems hellbent on dousing all this talk about Maria Sharapova having become the “Queen of Clay.” Last week she beat Sharapova 6-1, 6-4 in the final in Madrid, with the No. 1 ranking as well as the title on the line. This week she beat world No. 3 Victoria Azarenka—her immediate predecessor at No. 1—6-1, 6-3 in the final in Rome. Wasn’t it mere weeks ago that everyone was taking pains to point out that Serena hadn’t won a title on red clay since Roland Garros in 2002?

What difference does it make? Serena has been producing Nadal-like scores, while not exactly playing a Nadal-esque game. And that spells trouble for her rivals starting next week at the second Grand Slam of the year. Serena rides a 24-match win streak into Paris, and she’s 33-1 on clay since the start of last year—that one loss a shocking first-round upset inflicted on her at the French Open. “Last year I was feeling excellent on clay but didn't do that great at Roland Garros," she said. "This year I'm cautious and I want to work hard and stay focused and win every point I play, and not slack at all."

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga isn’t giving his French countrymen much to feel positive about going into Roland Garros. Tsonga, who had match points against top-seeded Novak Djokovic in the French Open quarterfinals last year, lost in the fourth round of Madrid (while playing just three matches, thanks to a bye) to Stanislas Wawrinka, and then in the second round of Rome—his first match—to Jerzy Janowicz. Tsonga came nowhere near fulfilling his seeding (No. 8) at either event. The best you can say for him is that he won’t go into Roland Garros over-tennised.

Benoit Paire has leaped ahead in the four-way Headcase Derby also featuring Gulbis, Grigor Dimitrov, and Fabio Fognini. Paire reached a Masters 1000 semi for the first time in Rome with an astonishing 57-minute beatdown of a pretty solid clay-court player in Marcel Granollers.

That, after Paire had sent No. 7 seed Juan Martin del Potro packing in the third round. This will be a guy to watch in Paris. He’s crazy and he don’t care about nothin’, so I can see him becoming the first Frenchman to win at Roland Garros since Yannick Noah in 1983.

Caroline Wozniacki and Nicolas Almagro easily qualify for contestants on the game show, “Who Had the Worst Three Weeks?” Wozniacki was seeded No. 10 at the two big Premier events, but lost in straight sets to Yaroslava Shvedova in the first round of Madrid, and was also beaten in her opener in Rome by Bojana Jovanovski. Furthermore, neither of the women who beat Wozniacki did very much after knocking the Dane out; Jovanovski lost her next match, while Shvedova survived just one more round.

Almagro was equally disappointing. Seeded No. 12 in both events, he was knocked out by Mikhail Youzhny in the second round of Madrid; in Rome, he lost in the first round to Julien Benneteau in two uninspired sets. Neither of the men who beat Almagro did any more thereafter than the women who eliminated Wozniacki. Yikes!

It’s always nice to see a wild card player justify their selection. Pablo Andujar, a wild-card “homer” in Madrid (the native of Cuenca was ranked No. 113 when entries closed) panned out for the tournament committee by battling his way to the semis with a truly admirable run that included wins over No. 11 Marin Cilic, No. 16 Kei Nishikori, and No. 21 John Isner.

The mean ranking of the guys Andujar beat was No. 25, which is excellent work by anyone, at any event. Andujar, who’s 27, ran out of gas against Nadal in the semis. I didn’t see him in the qualifying for Rome—could it be that he’s resting up and planning to avenge himself upon his countryman Nadal in Paris?

Why not? He seems to have about as good a chance as anyone, given the way Nadal is playing.

Rome: Berdych d. Djokovic

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:17:00 -0400

If Tomas Berdych has any sense of humor, he’ll stroll into his press conference after posting an astonishing, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 win over top-seeded Novak Djokovic in Rome and paraphrase the line once uttered by the late, great Vitas Gerulaitis.

Before the first question is fired at him, he’ll deadpan: “Nobody beats Tomas Berdych 12 times in a row.”

Yes, tennis fans, Djokovic entered this quarterfinal having won the last 11 matches between the two men, and for about an hour and-a-half it looked like he would routinely pocket No. 12. Despite serving at a most respectable 75-percent conversion rate, Berdych won barely half of his first-serve points—52 percent—a comment less on how ineffective he was than on how well Djokovic was returning, and how crisply the world No. 1 was hitting the ball and taking charge of every point at the earliest opportunity.

Djokovic rolled to a double-break, 6-2 win in the first set in just 32 minutes and a 3-2 lead in the second set. Keeping his foot on the gas, Djokovic hit a let-cord winner at break point in the next game to take a 4-2 lead, and it appeared that Berdych was doomed.

Djokovic built his lead to 5-2, after which Berdych produced a solid hold—and then unexpectedly broke the Serb’s serve. It was an inopportune time for Djokovic to begin complaining about an significant, irreparable divot that had appeared at one baseline, but he allowed the landscaping flaw get to him. From 30-all in that game, he responded to a Berdych approach shot with a passing shot error, and then stood by, helpless, when the Czech ended a long and intense rally with a backhand down-the-line winner.

Okay, Djokovic almost certainly must have thought, “No big deal.” But the break would put a gale-force wind at Berdych’s back, and he began clubbing exemplary rally shots, atomic serves and returns, and ground-stroke winners like a man possessed. He held the next game with an ace for 5-all, broke Djokovic for the second time running thanks to a backhand error, and won the set, 7-5, with a forehand that he ripped cross-court for a winner. It was the 16th point Berdych won out of the previous 21.

Occasionally you get a match in which there’s a single, distinct turning point, one that you could graph with a simple inverted “V.” This was one of those, although even a distracted and disgruntled Djokovic can give any player enough to worry about to make every game competitive.

As the match wore on, Djokovic grew visibly frustrated by the conditions. In addition to that baseline gopher hole, a swirling wind continually kicked up to blow crushed brick into the eyes of everyone on the court. Ouch! But Berdych kept his cool, and suddenly that dangerous first serve of his became much more effective. Not only did Djokovic’s return game drop, Berdych began to find greater angles each time he tossed and whacked the ball.

The first man to crack in the third set was Djokovic, who fell behind 15-40 in the third game. Berdych failed to capitalize on his first break point, but forced Djokovic to make a backhand error to end another long rally and record the crucial break for 2-1. The next game produced four deuces, with Berdych struggling to get his first serve in the box. But he found his range in time and followed an excellent serve with a forehand winner to hang onto his break-of-serve lead, 3-1.

Berdych would face two more crises as he matched Djokovic forehand for forehand, serve for serve. In the eighth game, serving at 4-3, he built a 40-15 lead. But he failed to get his next first serve in, and paid when Djokovic nailed a forehand volley winner behind an excellent approach. Then Berdych whacked a double-fault.

Suddenly it was deuce, and all Berdych believers groaned.

But he escaped with the hold, and rushed through Djokovic’s next game to reach his moment of reckoning. Berdych responded with some spectacular serving and reached triple match point (40-love) in no time. Then things got a little hairy.

Djokovic smacked an unreturnable service return off a second serve—40-15. Berdych dropped a ball before he served and had to chase it onto the court, then hit a near ace but was caught out of position, admiring it, and lost the point—40-30. A skittish Berdych missed the kind of inside-out forehand that had brought him to this juncture—Deuce.

Getting hold of himself before a monumental collapse of his own, Berdych hit a service winner to the forehand side at deuce, then cracked an ace (his ninth of the day) to finally end the match, after two hours and 22 minutes of often excellent big-boy tennis.

Stat of the Match: In the third set, Berdych converted a mediocre 56 percent of his first serves—but he won 23 of those 25 points (92 percent).

Rome: Sharapova d. Stephens

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:01:00 -0400

All kinds of bad things happen when you’re in a slump, not all of them obvious, like double-faults or errors that spin out their miserable lives in the net. There’s also a tendency, among other things, to watch rather than participate, to pull up or back out of a shot at a critical moment, to toss the service ball too low, and to rely too much on retrieving, thereby allowing your opponent to dictate.

Sloane Stephens was plagued by many of those shortcomings in her third-round match with Maria Sharapova today, and the net result was a dispiriting, one-hour and 20-minute, 6-2, 6-1 loss.

Stephens looked like the reluctant competitor as the first set began, and surrendered a break in the second game. She showed signs of wanting to get right back into it though, picking up two break points in the very next game. But Sharapova, doing what she does best—which is, go for it—fended them off with a service winner followed by what is becoming her (and everyone else’s) go-to shot, the inside-out forehand winner.

Stephens won her next game for 1-3, and continued to press Sharapova. At 30-40, the women played an intense, crisp rally that ended with a Sharapova backhand error. Stephens had broken back, but her general lack of confidence these days wasn’t easily dismissed, and it probably contributed to the fact that she was unable to keep the pace. Hitting with more power and unwavering focus, Sharapova took advantage of Stephens’ increasingly defensive posture in the next game and broke again with a backhand down-the-line winner off a slice backhand. Sharapova now led 4-2.

Although Stephens was playing reactive rather than proactive, aggressive tennis—some of which had to do with her opponent’s customary belligerence—she still managed to retrieve and rally her way to another break point with Sharapova in the next game. Stephens hit a short angle cross-court, almost a drop shot, that looked a winner, but Sharapova raced forward to make an unexpected get and dumped the reply deep enough to force an error. She went on to hold for 5-2, and broke Stephens to seal the set.

Stephens’ coach, David Nankin, trotted out to speak to his protégé, and told her that instead of 6-2, the women might still be going at it, tied at four-all. It was true, but Stephens seemed in no mood to be inspired. She complained gently about how Sharapova was finding so many lines and angles, to which Nankin provided the intelligent response: “If she can hit those, it’s just too good. Don’t worry about it.”

Sharapova opened the second set with a routine hold, after which she pressed Stephens in the ensuing game. By this time, Stephens was really counting on her retrieving ability, but the slice return of pressing, flat or topspin shots is just begging for trouble—and Sharapova is always willing to provide it.

Sharapova worked her way to deuce in that second game, but Stephens hung in there, as she would through three more deuces. After the fifth deuce, Sharapova achieved her second break point of the long game in classy fashion. Stephens tried to end a lively rally with a lovely drop shot to Sharapova’s backhand side—only to watch, helpless, as the Russian sprinted up, reached the ball with her racquet outstretched and scraping the red dirt, and dumped it parallel to the net all the way across to the far sideline.

The shot seemed to break Stephens’ spirit. Sharapova returned her next serve, and Stephens made a sloppy cross-court backhand error to surrender the break.

With the 2-0 lead, Sharapova continued to press her advantage. Her confidence, already high, continued to swell and produce stinging, deep, offensive shots that rendered even Stephens’ considerable retrieving skills moot. It was becoming ugly, but Stephens managed a face-saving hold in the sixth game before she gave up the ghost.

Stat of the Match: Sharapova won 11 of her 15 forays to the forecourt. I presume her useful retrievals of a number of Stephens’ drop shots count in that tally, as do her drive volleys. The stat is a tribute to one of the greatest areas of improvement in Sharapova’s game.

They Said What? Cable Ready

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:13:00 -0400

“When it opened up and we thought about it, ESPN is the strongest brand in sports. It puts the U.S. Open at the center of American sports culture like never before. It really gives us access to the multiple platforms that ESPN has. It's the way our fans are going to demand to see the Open in the future. We think it opens up all kinds of great possibilities.”—Gordon Smith, USTA Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer

One of the most rapidly evolving stories in today’s hyper-energized media world is growing parity between cable television—once the domain of the unwatched and unwatchable in a severely limited number of households—and the iconic blue-chip networks, like CBS, NBC and ABC, that in simpler times dominated the airwaves.

Today, with the announcement that ESPN is replacing CBS as the exclusive broadcast partner of the USTA/U.S. Open come 2015, that evolution has maxed out, at least when it comes to tennis. For nearly half a century, and since the dawn of Open tennis, traditional broadcast giant CBS was the tournament’s main partner. The network shepherded the game through the Open era, and deserves much credit for opening tennis up to an enormous audience—mostly through its substantial and generally excellent coverage of the U.S. Open.

CBS’ contract expires after next year’s tournament at Flushing Meadows, and it seems that the network was unwilling to meet the USTA’s asking price for renewal. ESPN, which over recent years had quietly acquired the U.S. rights to the other three Grand Slam events, jumped into the fray and snatched the biggest plum off the American tennis tree. The Sports Business Journal is reporting that the 11-year deal is worth as much as $770 million—or an average of about $70 million per year, which is almost double the amount ESPN and CBS currently pay ($40 million, combined).

The move, unthinkable as little as a decade ago, takes yet another chunk out of empire once built by the traditional broadcast networks, and is proof of just how large the cable and satellite-dish audience has grown.

Now for the interesting bits, as far as fans rather than financial wizards are concerned:

Starting in 2014, Super Saturday will be nothing but a distant memory. The USTA will revert to the familiar, alternate-day Grand Slam formula. The women’s semis will be played on Thursday and the final on Saturday. The men’s semis will be broadcast partly in prime time on Friday, and in the familiar 4:00 PM time slot on Sunday.

All that is made possible partly by the fact that, unlike CBS, ESPN has multiple broadcast and digital platforms—the cable-based network can bring you both NCAA football and the U.S. Open women’s final on the last weekend—as well as streaming content throughout the two weeks of the tournament on the cable giant’s sophisticated digital platforms.

This is a great win for tennis. Among other things, ESPN has bundled its U.S. Open commitment with an agreement to also broadcast the U.S. Open Series that leads to the grand finale in New York. All told, ESPN will broadcast about 200 hours over a span of about six weeks (roughly 140 of those hours will be at the U.S. Open).

And perhaps best of all for tennis diehards: ESPN wants to stream every single competitive main-draw singles match of the tournament, from the minute the first ball of the 2015 U.S. Open is hit.

This is a watershed event for tennis—and probably for sports broadcasting in general.

Rafatigue

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:49:00 -0400

Okay, allow me to invite an avalanche of criticism by saying something heretical, but also something many people are thinking: I’m getting tired of Rafael Nadal and his whole clay-court shtick. It’s all becoming a little bit like that movie in which the protagonist lives the same day, over and over: “Groundhog Day.”

During this time of the tennis year, Groundhog Day—although “week” might be a more accurate period—goes something like this: First, Rafa disavows that he’s well-nigh unbeatable on red clay. Then he goes out and demonstrates that he’s virtually unbeatable on red clay, bites the winner's trophy, and he goes to the next tournament where he does the same thing.

Rafa has lost to exactly three men in red-clay finals: all-time Grand Slam singles champion Roger Federer, six-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, and Horacio Zeballos—the latter just a few months ago, in Nadal’s first event back from an eight-month layoff to rest and rehab his troubled knees. When Rafa returned, he showed that he was, to borrow the phrase once associated with disgraced U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, “Tan, rested and ready to run.”

Some people may take umbrage to Nadal’s name appearing so close to that of Nixon’s, but they share a common drift toward paranoia. Nadal professes not to believe in the invincibility that is so obvious to most of us; he seems to feel that all his success can come crashing down, at any moment, and he’s got the knees to prove it!

You want to know paranoid? Think back to the start of the Madrid Masters. There was Nadal, 39-6 in clay-court finals and 21-2 in this “comeback” year—with three titles already in his game pouch—coming off his win in Barcelona, declaring: “I don't see myself as winner. Not me really. . .I just feel myself to be competitive and I just want to give myself the opportunity to be able to fight and to be in a good position to fight until the final rounds.”

Once I stopped laughing hysterically after reading that, I thought a little bit about the role such pronouncements play in Nadal’s seemingly sincere humility and my clearly worsening case of Rafatigue. I somehow had expected that humility to have evolved and matured into something a little bit different over the past few years—something a little less inclined to make me merely nod my head approvingly and paternalistically remark, “Yes, that Rafa is truly a good, humble boy.”

I would gladly trade a few ounces of humility and focus for the same measure of growth and change, for very little seems to have changed thus far in Rafa’s life, or at least in that portion that we witness on a daily basis, and that seems a little sad. He’s more like he’s always been than any other elite player, and I wonder sometimes if the machine isn’t in control of the man, instead of the other way around.

Roger Federer, for example, went from being happy-go-lucky in a “life, what’s not to like?” kind of way to a wonderful champion and an ambassadorial presence in the game (granted, he’s a good half-decade older than Rafa). And Novak Djokovic morphed from a brash youngster who made cringe-worthy declarations about himself into an adult who carries the burden of his accomplishments and role in tennis with dignity and class.

The biggest change in Nadal, though, is that at some point a few years ago, his pants got shorter and his sleeves got longer. Sure, he’s been in some steamy underwear ads and a make-out music video, but apart from that we’ve seen precious little growth. He did take part in the ATP’s political life, along with Federer and Djokovic, but notably walked away from it when things didn’t go his way.

The only real signs of change and growth have been in the masquerade of crises—those periodic episodes of introspective fatalism, and something like real fear, that accompanied Rafa’s struggles with injury. Even those experiences now seem less like game changers in any substantial way (meaning, a way that led to increased self-knowledge or awareness) than temporary, volcanic eruptions that are stilled when times are good again—meaning when Rafa is once again peerless. We’re in that period again; following his win in Madrid, Rafa told us: “My drive is working again at the highest level.”

There’s something terribly one-dimensional in how all this has played out, and more than once now. I suppose that’s my beef. Rafa is an absolute genius—by my lights, the greatest clay-court player in the history of the game. But that only means so much. And it most doesn’t mean that I can’t get tired of him. I love the Cormac McCarthy book, Blood Meridian. But I wouldn’t want to read it a dozen times a year. If I watched my favorite movie as often as I’ve watched Rafa play on clay, my wife would suggest therapy (not that she hasn’t, albeit for other reasons).

And let’s face it, movies and books have plots, while the vast majority of Rafa’s matches on clay have nothing even resembling a plot; they’re mere demonstrations of his superiority.

Of course, the great reason we watch tennis matches while we don’t desire to re-experience certain books or movies is because we already know what happened in the book or movie after our first reading; it will never change. Tennis is a live experience, and anything can happen on any given day. But that doesn’t really apply to Rafa’s matches on clay, does it? At least it doesn’t nearly often enough to justify watching 36 Nadal blowouts on the off-chance that, just this one time, he might lose. I don’t know about you, but I don’t watch tennis to see if someone will lose. Thus a Nadal match on clay is already a losing proposition for me.

Oddly, Rafa’s extraordinary degree of excellence on clay is slightly dimmed by his disproportionate degree of success on that surface. It’s like you want to concede this part of the year to him and get on with the interesting bits. Eight titles in Monte Carlo. Six, and counting, in Rome. Seven—7!—Grand Slam titles at the French Open. It’s preposterous, and nothing in tennis history has prepared us for it. Whatever your response to his record, you can’t say there’s an “appropriate” one because really in unfamiliar territory here.

This intersection in Nadal between a seemingly borderline-OCD personality and the charismatic tennis genius has some dimensions that aren’t especially helpful to the “charismatic” side of the equation. Certainly, tennis is a game based on the successful repetition of certain actions (strokes) under physical and mental duress. But repetition can become a deadly dull thing, so the very predicate of success in tennis is also the element that can undermine it, make it seem more pedestrian, lead us to experience that one unforgivable sensation—boredom.

Nadal has come up with something like a clay-court endgame, and whether or not it’s pretty doesn’t really matter. What does, though, is whether or not it’s interesting. My own answer to that implied question is, “Not unless he’s losing more than he does.” That may not seem terribly fair to Nadal, but there it is.

Rafa probably could help his own cause if he ventured off-script now and then, the way you’re supposed to, or can’t help doing, as time goes by. I’m not saying he ought to show up and swan around Wimbledon with a man-purse slung over his shoulder, as his pal Federer has done. But the signature trophy biting has become a little tedious. So has the sprint to the baseline following the coin toss. And also the uppercut and Radio City Music Hall leg-kick that goes with it.

It’s a little weird to think that Rafa may go on, just like he is now, until the end of his career. But it’s possible. After all, he’s almost 27. His capacity for doing the same thing on clay, over and over, as if it were the very first time, is astonishing. He seems to be getting exactly what he wants out of the game—and it’s a lot—so who am I to ask for more of him? I’ve always felt that there’s something about the idiot-savant in the great tennis player—who else could so enthusiastically do the same relatively simple thing, over and over?—and in that regard, there’s no player greater than Rafael Nadal on clay.

Madrid: Nadal d. Wawrinka

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:57:00 -0400

We’ve all seen that certain points, at not obviously crucial times, can have an outsized impact on the outcome of a match. We had one such point in today’s final in Madrid, in which a spectacularly determined and focused Rafael Nadal collected his fifth win in seven finals this year—this one his 23rd Masters title—with a convincing 6-3, 6-4, one-hour and 11-minute demolition of a game Stanislas Wawrinka.

We’ll get to that certain point later, because at the start of the match it seemed unlikely that there would be anything even remotely like an intriguing, never mind critical, juncture in this one. By the time the first game ended, Nadal had savored six break points—six more than Wawrinka would see on this day—and owned a 1-0 lead. And when he went out and held the next game and love and broke again, it looked like we were in for a replay of the WTA final of a few hours earlier. In some ways, we were—even though that match was a few minutes longer than this one.

Give Wawrinka credit, though—even in that rough early going, he stepped in and took his cuts. He seemed fully aware that to rally with Nadal and wait for opportunities was the equivalent of suicide. And while Wawrinka isn’t a nimble fellow, he’s got great power and a kind of heft, a bigness of game, that makes him a pleasure to watch. Time and again, he pulled the trigger on that roundhouse backhand; often, he threw his significant body weight into the inside-out forehand.

Errors? Sure, he made them. So what? It sure beat allowing yourself to get shot to tiny pieces by Nadal’s relentless consistency.

We also have to remember that Wawrinka had very little left in his tank, emotionally or physically. This was his ninth match in 10 days—he won the title on Oeiras last week, and survived demanding three-setters yesterday and the day before. But despite the long odds of vanquishing Nadal on his beloved clay in front of his adoring home crowd, Wawrinka made more of a match of it than the score suggests.

After a good hold for 4-1 in the first set, Wawrinka held his own—not least because he refused to play Nadal’s patient game, until Rafa served out the set.

That “certain point” I mentioned above played out in the fourth game of the second set, with Wawrinka showing a surprising ability to catch a second, third, and even fourth wind, despite everything. He had played an extremely strong hold game for 2-1 in the second set. Nadal then jumped to a 40-love lead with an ace—the 15th first-serve point he’d won in 16 tries—but he couldn’t keep Wawrinka from clawing his way back to deuce.

During the ensuing point, Nadal was drawn in to the net where Wawrinka, stationed right at the center of the court, fired three consecutive bullets right at Rafa’s face. The second of them was hit so hard that all Nadal could do in reaction was duck below the net while holding his racquet above it. Surprisingly, the ball caromed back, and Wawrinka drove his next passing shot attempt way long.

There followed the familiar sight of Nadal bellowing “Vamos,” and throwing the triumphal uppercut while he kicks up his knee like a Las Vegas showgirl. He returned to the baseline and promptly fired an ace to win the game. When he bolted to a love-40 lead against Wawrinka's serve in the next game, it seemed like things would end ugly. Yet Wawrinka found a way to blast his way out of trouble and won the next five points running, taking the game with a prodigious inside-out forehand winner.

Nadal held the next game at love, after which Wawrinka finally yielded to fate. At 15-all, he made a backhand error, then hit back-to-back double faults to surrender the critical break for 3-4. From there, Nadal bulled his way through his next two service games with the loss of but one point, and ended the match when he forced Wawrinka into making a running backhand error.

So that “certain point” turned out not to have a significant immediate impact; while it was a tribute to Wawrinka’s doggedness and determination, it served only to delay the inevitable.

Stat of the Match: Wawrinka never had a break point.

Madrid: S. Williams d. Sharapova

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:46:00 -0400

It’s quite clear that Serena Williams loves to play—er, make that beat on—Maria Sharapova. What’s most striking is that she does it in such a cold, merciless, tight-lipped fashion. You can almost feel the scorn dripping from Serena’s mind as she squints and stares across the net at Sharapova, as if she were some kind of bug.

There’s some poetic justice in this: It’s hard not to notice that this is very much like the treatment Sharapova inflicts on every WTA player but her nemesis, Serena. All of that makes Williams’ mastery of Sharapova that much more striking. How can someone who relies so much on intimidation be intimidated as easily as Sharapova?

We witnessed another classic example of the dynamic today in Madrid, as the younger and deadlier of the Williams sisters laid yet another contemptuous beating on Sharapova, dominating her in an hour and 18 minutes, 6-1, 6-4.

If you think I’m overstating the case here, just roll back the tape and check the post-match ritual handshake/air-kiss. Had Sharapova needed further motivation, keep in mind that she had worked her way close enough to Williams in the rankings to ensure that today’s winner would own the top spot tomorrow.

Right from the get-go, it was clear—yet again—that Williams was not only willing to hit the cover off the ball each time it came her way, but that she would hit it with particular relish when it was a service return. The combination of Sharapova’s often dodgy, double-fault prone serve and Williams’ untrammeled service return is deadly, and it really scripted the first set of this match.

Sharapova served first, won the first point, and promptly delivered an ominous double fault. Williams won the next two points as well, bang-banging out unreturnable returns that underscored perhaps the most striking of Sharapova’s vulnerabilities—after that somewhat erratic serve: She simply couldn’t react fast enough on a consistent basis to Serena’s sharp returns, partly because Sharapova has a slow first step, and partly because of the quality of those returns.

Thus, Sharapova found herself down two break points in the very first game. She saved one thanks to a Williams service-return error, but she was broken when she failed to stay in a brief rally and drove a forehand into the net. The rout was underway. In the blink of an eye, it was 4-0. Sharapova had won all of six points in the match.

The long fifth game was like the entire match-up between these two women compressed into single game, but for the most important detail—Sharapova managed to win the game. It featured game-saving aces, game-wasting double faults, and groundstroke errors by Sharapova, and bold service returns and placements by Williams. But after five deuces and a handful of perilous escapes, Sharapova finally got on the scoreboard, 1-4.

But the tough hold did little to improve her overall fortunes. After a lightning-fast Williams hold, Sharapova swiftly fell behind 15-40 and lost the game—and set—on a Williams forehand service return winner.

The second set began with an odd and telling twist. Sharapova came out, fresh and invigorated, and looked like nothing less than a different woman. She broke Williams swiftly and held her one serve with ease. After another Williams hold, Sharapova won a four-point service game. Then, in the fifth game, Sharapova threatened to add a second break that would virtually guarantee her the set—and us a match.

Williams, serving at 30-15, answered a Sharapova service return right down the middle with a desultory backhand into the net. Suddenly it was 30-all: Would Sharapova find a way to break, add to her confidence, and force a third set?

Not so fast, Williams seemed to say. The game went to deuce, and Williams managed the hold and stay within shouting distance when she won the longest—and finest—rally of the match with a down-the-line forehand winner. Failing to capitalize on that opportunity disproportionately disappointed Sharapova, it seemed, and that “new woman” disappeared as quickly as she’d popped up, replaced by the familiar woe-is-me Maria. She grimaced and struggled in the next game and broke herself with a double fault for 3-all.

Dead even, Williams wasted no time holding serve for 4-3. Playing from behind once again, Sharapova then survived a break point to hold, but Williams’ next service game flew by, and there was Sharapova, suddenly staring down the barrel again. A pair of wretched errors—one a double fault, natch—left Sharapova down 0-40, and she drove the last nail into her own coffin with a rally-ending, match-point error.

Stat of the Match: Sharapova won just 19 of the 36 first-serve points she dished up, a dismal 52 percent conversion rate for a woman whose serve is a major weapon despite her tendency to double fault.

Madrid: Wawrinka d. Berdych

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:37:00 -0400

They should throw a semifinal and not invite Andy Murray, Roger Federer, or Novak Djokovic more often, given the dramatic nature and pleasantly unpredictable outcome of today’s clash in Madrid between Tomas Berdych and Stan Wawrinka.

One moment, Wawrinka looked spent—for good reason, this having been his ninth match in 10 days—and ready to give up the ghost after losing his early grip on the match and falling behind in the third set, 2-4, 15-40. The next, Wawrinka had run off 16 of the final 20 points to walk off the winner in just under two hours, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Wawrinka was playing not just for a place in the final, but a return to the ATP Top 10—which is now guaranteed, no matter tomorrow’s outcome vs. Rafael Nadal. He won last week’s event in Oeiras, Portugal, and is playing as well as he was when he hit No. 9 in 2008. Ranked No. 15, Wawrinka was still nine notches down the rankings rung from Berdych, but then the tall Czech shares a unique if not particularly happy distinction with ATP No. 2 Roger Federer: They are the only two men in the Top 10 who haven’t won a tournament this year.

I’m not sure anyone was looking for that to change this week—not with the way Nadal has been playing. And at the outset today, it looked as if Berdych wouldn’t even scoop up the honor of being Nadal’s next victim. He served poorly and played listlessly from the start, and was broken in the very first game via a nifty cross-court forehand volley. Wawrinka made the break stick and he was spared the task of serving out the set when Berdych double-faulted at 3-5, ad-out.

Wawrinka had finished his barnburner of a semifinal with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at 1:45 a.m. this morning, and didn’t fall asleep until half-past three. Then he was up at 10 a.m., preparing for this match. The main question after the first set was, would Wawrinka keep up his energy and resolve? The men made it an interesting one, as Berdych began to mount a stirring comeback.

While Wawrinka had to work some to avoid trouble in his service games, Berdych suddenly developed a live arm and fresh legs at the start of the second set. He began to hold with ease, putting that much more pressure on Wawrinka’s serve. Wawrinka staved off the challenge for a while, partly with some terrific if erratic serving of his own. But he finally yielded to the onslaught in the ninth game of the second set when he punched a forehand into the net on Berdych’s second break point. Berdych served out the set, winning 15 of the last 20 points.

The real key to Berdych’s revivial was a combination of two statistics: He had gone from winning just 33 percent of Wawrinka’s second serve points (first set) to an impressive 59 percent. To make matters worse for Wawrinka, Berdych upped his success rate on his own first serve from 78 to a whopping 95 percent.

Wawrinka bounced back to stay level with Berdych for the first four games, but then he appeared to hit a wall. He fell behind love-40 in the fifth game, and blasted a wild forehand out after a brief rally to surrender the break. Emboldened, Berdych held the next game at 15 with three service winners and an ace. It was 4-2. When Wawrinka fell behind 15-40 on serve in the next game, he appeared doomed. Then we witnessed something like a tennis miracle.

Serving at 4-3, Berdych began to litter the court with errors, backhand as well as forehand. Wawrinka, who hadn’t seen a break point since the first set, now had two—and he made the second one count when he goaded Berdych into making a forehand error. We were back level at 4-all.

Three Berdych errors and a service winner to his opponents’ backhand allowed Wawrinka to hold the next game with ease, and suddenly all the pressure was on his clearly discombobulated opponent.

Berdych started that 4-5 game with a ghastly inside-out forehand error, smacked an ace, then blew a forehand approach and a rally forehand to give Wawrinka two match points. Berdych hit a service winner to eliminate one of them, but he had one more forehand error to donate to Wawrinka’s drive to get back into the Top 10 and magnanimously offered it up. It was an awful ending to one of the more surprising matches of the year.

Stat of the Match: What first serves Wawrinka put in the box were extremely hard to handle, but he undermined his cause by making just 52 percent of his first serves.

Fool Me Twice

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:08:00 -0400

I have a funny feeling that I know just what Thomas Hogstedt is not wanting to think, but thinking nonetheless, right now: “Okay, we’ve got her right where we want her!”

The “we” would be coach Hogstedt and his protégé, Maria Sharapova.

The “her” would be Serena Williams, who will play Sharapova in tomorrow’s women’s final in Madrid—with the No. 1 ranking on the line.

Hogstedt has good reason to feel cautiously optimistic, or to allow himself some wishful thinking. It wasn’t so long ago that Sharapova described herself as a “cow on ice” trying to play on the red clay. But over the past year-plus, Sharapova underwent a remarkable transformation. She’s taken disparate and once ill-fitting parts and cobbled together a clay-court game that is not merely serviceable (all she hoped for at one time) but nearly unbeatable. Including her 6-4, 6-3 win in the semis of Madrid today over Ana Ivanovic, Sharapova has won 17 straight matches on clay, and she’s 23 of 24 in her last two dozen.

But Willliams fans are already shouting from the rooftops, “So what? Serena is 12-2 against Maria. She’s clearly in Maria’s head. You have to blow the dust off the cover of the history book to find the last of those two measly Sharapova wins (it was in 2004).”

All true. And the only real retort to that may be that while Sharapova has been learning to master the dirt, Serena has been struggling to stay off the ice. True, she won Madrid last year—but that was on the experimental “Smurf clay,” the slippery, hard, blue stuff that caused such an outcry on the ATP side of the yard. Madrid is back on the slower red clay now and, believe it or not, it’s Williams’ first red-clay final since 2002—and just the fourth of her career.

Moreover, while Sharapova won the French Open last year on this same surface, Williams’ trip to Paris turned into a nightmare. She suffered the worst loss of her career, a first-round upset inflicted by French journeywoman Virginie Razzano. Williams has one French Open title to her name, the same number as Sharapova, but she hasn’t been past the quarterfinals in Paris since 2003.

Rome and Madrid are the two most prestigious clay-court tournaments after Roland Garros in the women’s game. Sharapova is trying for a three-peat in the Eternal City this year, and she hasn’t lost before the semis since her first try, in 2004. By contrast, Williams gave Li Na a walkover in last year’s Rome semis and lost at the same stage in 2010 to Jelena Jankovic. She’s never cleared the bar she set when she toppled red-clay icon Justine Henin in the 2002 final.

Suttgart? Where Sharapova won last weekend? The last time Williams even played it was in 2008, when she lost to Li in the second round. Her record in the German city is 4-4.

And the kicker: Sharapova is 26, Serena is 31.

Now, if you know anything at all about Serena Williams, or this rivalry, you can throw that record book and all these tale-of-the-tape facts right into the trash bin. After all, Williams knocked Sharapova silly on the blue Madrid clay last year (6-1, 6-3) and laid an even more painful beating on her at the London Olympics not much later, giving up a mere game. The bottom line is that Sharapova has looked like a real threat to Williams on various occasions (Stanford, 2011, anyone?) and various surfaces over the past few years—and each time the result was her humiliation. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. . .

But you know how it is in tennis; Every day is a new day, and some day David Ferrer is going to beat Rafael Nadal, just like one day Andy Roddick beat Roger Federer. Can that day for Sharapova be tomorrow?

The evidence offered in the semifinals was not convincing either way. Sharapova had the easier match, with No. 14 seed Ana Ivanovic. The diligent and earnest Serbian lass was really no match for the tough and icy WTA No. 2. Among all the players who have won a major or been ranked No. 1, Ivanovic is—by far—the “softest.”

She showed that again today, despite going into the match playing some of her best tennis in recent years. When Sharapova, up a break, closed on winning the first set, Ivanovic was visibly disappointed. She’s susceptible to self-pity, and that’s one thing of which you can’t ever accuse Sharapova. In fact, on the changeover at 4-6, before Sharapova served for the match, Ivanovic’s coach Nigel Sears felt obliged to give his charge a pep talk, encouraging her to fight off her frustration.

Ivanovic, it turned out, wasn’t able to do that any more effectively than she was able to keep her generally useful forehand in the court. Sharapova won going away, but you couldn’t really describe it as a tour de force. For one thing, she was broken for 0-2 in the second set thanks to one of her six double faults. That kind of a goof against a player like Williams can be suicidal.

Sharapova’s winner-to-error ratio was an acceptable +4 (23 to 19) and her performance on break points was excellent; she converted five of the six she faced. The most accurate word to describe her match is “solid.”

Williams, by contrast, had the tougher semifinal opponent—Sharapova’s victim in last year’s Roland Garros final, Sara Errani. And that assignment was on the heels of a narrow escape against Anabel Medina Garrigues the previous day, when Williams lost the second set at love and was down 2-4 in the third. Williams later described her showing as “solid.”

So whose “solid” is more solid?

I’d have to go with Williams. A narrow escape against a legitimate clay-court threat like Garrigues followed by a relatively straightforward, 7-5, 6-2 triumph over one of the toughest clay-courters in the WTA is pretty good preparation for Sharapova. And should Williams need additional incentive, this match will be for the No. 1 ranking—Williams will have to hand it over to Sharapova should she lose the match.

“I look forward to it,” Williams said. “I feel like this whole tournament I’ve only played clay-court players from my first round to now, and everyone was also smaller than me. So I think tomorrow will be a really good match—a different game, more power obviously, but still a lot of the consistency. So I’m looking forward to it.”

Hogstedt and Sharapova may have Williams right where they want her but, as we’ve seen time again, that can turn out to be the worst place on earth.

Madrid: Ivanovic d. Kerber

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:24:00 -0400

When you’ve struggled as long and hard as former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic, working with diligence, patience, and—above all—faith, good things are bound to happen. That was the case today in Madrid, as Ivanovic looked trim, swift, confident, and near perfect in an artful, 56-minute deconstruction of the lefty game of world No. 6 Angelique Kerber, 6-3, 6-1.

If there’s a caveat to issue, it’s that Kerber went into a swoon early in this match and, looking pale, drawn, and at times downright disinterested, she put up little resistance to the flurry of Ivanovic first serves and pinpoint forehands that did the most damage for the No. 14 seed. (Often used in the classic one-two combination of wide serve in the deuce court, followed by the inside-out forehand to the opposite side.)

Both women were coming off exhausting three-setters in the third round. Kerber won hers, over Svetlana Kuznetsova, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5; Ivanovic went her one better by squeaking past Laura Robson in a decisive tiebreaker. Theoretically, the women ought to have been comparably fatigued, but Ivanovic looked fresh as a daisy throughout this match. Her footwork was especially impressive, while Kerber appeared sluggish and slow, and often more inclined to spectate rather than participate. A few times she gingerly touched the right side of her abdomen, as if she were suffering from cramps.

The more ominous cramps, though, were in Kerber's left arm when she was serving. She hit six double faults—not a huge number, but most of them were after Ivanovic had built a 5-2 lead and Kerber needed to up her game to stay in contention. And throughout most of the first and all of the second set, Kerber clearly was engaged in a game of chase-the-toss. Ironically, comparable service woes have been one of the major obstacles Ivanovic has had to overcome in her effort to remain a contender at major tournaments. She experienced no such difficulties today.

Ivanovic soon closed out the first set after a Kerber hold. The German wouldn’t win another game until her back was up against an 0-5 wall. She managed to break Ivanovic to avoid a total whitewash, but it was an unconvincing revival. Playing much like someone suffering from cramps, she just smacked at balls, moving as little as possible, and was lucky that they went in.

Ivanovic, though, was in no mood to add even a slightly bitter aftertaste to the win. Kerber double-faulted to start the next game, and Ivanovic's forehand down-the-line winner and a delightful cross-court drop shot in response to a dropper brought her to match point at 15-40. She wrapped it up with a forehand cross-court service return that Kerber didn’t even start for.

It’s been a year of wide swings for both women. Ivanovic continues to struggle with her confidence, and sometimes the toss with which she begins her otherwise surprisingly powerful serve. Kerber has absorbed some puzzling losses, but she made the semis at Indian Wells and a final recently in Monterrey. How both of them will fare in the coming weeks is an intriguing question; what we do know is that Ivanovic has to be feeling a lot better about her game than does Kerber after this one.

Stat of the Match: Kerber won just 16 percent of her second serve points (three of 19), which gives you a good indication of two things: How little confidence she had in her serve—half the time, she seemed surprised when it went in—and how aggressively and successfully Ivanovic attacked that vulnerable second delivery.

They Said What? Singapore Sling

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:51:00 -0400

“At the heart of the WTA are the ideals of inclusiveness; expanding women’s roles in sport and society; inspiration and connection to the community through sporting heroes; creating role models for youth and energizing the growth of the game through world class events. We believe this event will inspire our athletes at home and those in the region, as well as engage the community-at-large at our new Sports Hub.”—Lim Teck Yin, Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Sports Council.

There. That ought to explain things to those of you who wonder why the WTA decided move its year-end championships to Singapore for five years, beginning in 2014, after the event’s current sojourn in Istanbul ends. Clearly, the WTA passed on places where there’s less opportunity to flex those noble instincts, such as London’s O2 Arena (where those un-inclusionary ATP fellas hold their World Tour Finals) or, say, Madison Square Garden in New York.

Of course, economic factors, like the financial package put together by the SSC, might have a little something to do with this decision—but who wants to be crass and talk about money when you can talk about promoting diversity? Connecting with communities (It Takes a Village, and all that)? Creating role models?

But let me stop right here with a question. Singapore is the island country at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula. It’s a parliamentary republic dominated by the People’s Action Party and known for it’s no-nonsense approach to civic order and discipline—symbolized by the nation’s continuing use of that form of corporal punishment known as “caning.” Also, in Singapore, you can be fined—but not caned—for importing or using chewing gum.

So my question is: What if these highly disciplined, generally reserved, neat-nik Singaporeans are as appalled as so many other sports fans worldwide by the shrieking and screaming of certain WTA stars?

The WTA Championships will be held in the 7,500 seat Singapore Indoor Stadium, which is currently promoting an upcoming basketball game between the Singapore Slingers vs. the Indonesian Warriors, and upcoming concerts by singer/composer Jay Chou and Taiwanese rock band MayDay—with LED light sticks to be distributed.

Actually, the seating sounds ideal for a tennis match, at least as far as ticket-buyers go; it’s just half the capacity of a court famous for the “intimate” mood it creates, Wimbledon’s Centre Court. It will be interesting to see if Singapore can outdo Istanbul, where (presumably) the WTA’s same noble efforts at global brand awareness, along with a little incidental profit-taking, led to good crowds and a much more vibrant and credible event than some skeptics predicted.

Incidentally, if you’re contemplating attending the Championships but are concerned about the authoritarian streak that runs through Singaporean society, keep in mind that Singapore has the third highest per capita income on the planet, it’s the fourth leading financial center, and it’s known as one of the least corrupt nations on earth. To someone from scandal-plagued New York, that sounds almost like paradise.

Madrid: Nishikori d. Federer

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:39:00 -0400

Up until today, Kei Nishikori had beaten exactly one Top 40 player on clay. That was Mardy Fish—who was never accused of being a clay-court expert by anyone—whom Nishikori eliminated in Houston way back in 2011.

But today Nishikori earned some street cred in the dirtballing crowd by taking out a clay-court player of a higher order—defending champion and four-time French Open runner-up Roger Federer. The score of this third-round match was 6-4, 1-6, 6-2, and it will be memorable mostly to those amateur historians who set out to chart the gradual but inevitable demise of the 31-year-old all-time Grand Slam singles titlist.

This is the first time Federer has failed to make the quarterfinals or better in Madrid—in his entire career.

Nishikori is a gritty, tough, emotionally stable player who likes to grind but also counter-punch on hard courts. His problem on clay is that his serve is more vulnerable, and the relatively slow pace of play enables his opponents to stay in points longer and (often) exert their superior strength. Clay takes away the counter-puncher’s element of surprise and quick-strike capability, and that’s a lot to have to give up.

Today, though, Federer started sluggish and, despite a mid-match revival, finished slow—classic symptoms of an aging player who no longer wants to win in his heart, just in his mind; thus, he has to force himself to want to want to win. But credit Nishikori for taking advantage of the opportunity, for many ATP pros would still have been too star-struck to do so, especially after the way Federer came roaring back in the second set.

One of the first signs that Nishikori was up to the job offered him was the way he took immediate advantage of the first break point that either man saw, with Federer serving at 2-2 in the first set. After a brief rally, Nishikori smacked one of his many inside-out forehand placements to secure the break. It would be the only point of crisis until Nishikori reached set point in 10th game with another inside-out, unreturnable forehand. He won the set when Federer hit one of the numerous shanked backhands that characterized his day.

Nishikori had taken a big step, but watching him for a reaction, you wouldn’t have known it. There was no fist pump, no shout of “Come on!” or a similar exultation. But there was resolve, and Nishikori would need it.

Federer popped to life in the second set. Where earlier it appeared that he was just going through the motions—reluctant to attack, disinclined to grind, ignoring some of the most useful items in his toolbox—in the next set he began to pepper Nishikori’s side of the court with shots of varying pace and depth, including a flurry of drop shots and passing shots (after he’d lured Nishikori to the net).

Nishikori survived two break points to level at 1-1 in the second set, but after a quick Federer hold, the No. 14 seed lost concentration. He made three puzzling unforced errors, but then pulled himself together to sweep away the three break points, mostly through good serving. But at deuce, Federer delivered an unreturnable drop shot and secured his first break (on his sixth break point of the match) thanks to a Nishikori error.

For a while after that, we had glimpses of the “full-flight Federer” of yore as he closed out the set in 32 minutes.

Federer got off to a good start in the final set, too, hitting a pair of aces to level at 1-all. In the next game, he went up 30-love with a down-the-line backhand placement—and then his wheels fell off. Nishikori hit three consecutive serves to Federer’s forehand and never saw the ball come back in bounds. A forehand error lifted Federer to deuce, but a bang-bang service winner and backhand service-return error saved the game for Nishikori. It was one in which Federer was unable to return five of Nishikori’s generally returnable serves.

In the very next game, Federer sandwiched three errors around a service winner to face double-break point. He survived the first one with a service winner to the backhand, but then clubbed a forehand out off Nishikori’s service return to surrender a break. It was Federer’s fourth unforced error of the game that finally and irrevocably turned the tide.

After that brace of shocking games, the end seemed foreordained. The major question was whether Nishikori would choke, not an impossible scenario given the struggles he’s had on clay. But while Federer continued to spray balls all over the place, Nishikori kept his cool and ultimately secured the match—getting one last forehand error out of an oddly muted Federer at match point.

Stat of the Match: Federer won all seven points he played at the net. Why he didn’t attack more often, especially in light of his struggles off the ground, is a mystery.

Cracking the Shell

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:58:00 -0400

We may be in the process of something special, something we get to see in tennis once or twice in a generation—if we’re that lucky. We may be witnessing the emergence of one of “the Chosen,” that select group of players who are not just destined to eclipse their peers, but who have, almost from the get-go, seemed somehow different, somehow privileged and specially favored by destiny or genetics, with that always inexplicable dose of good luck thrown in for good measure.

I’m talking about the emergence—although “coming of age” might be the better term—of Grigor Dimitrov. Tracking him these past few weeks has been like watching the beak of a chick break through an eggshell from the inside. . . tap, tap, tap.

Yesterday, Dimitrov survived a long and, literally, bloody battle with world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to stun the Madrid crowd, and tennis fans worldwide, with a 7-6 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-3 upset. Once again, Dimitrov demonstrated what Djokovic showed us in 2011, and what Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer proved years ago: That if you hit the ball hard enough, close enough to the line, and with sufficient confidence and determination, you can beat anyone. And you can vindicate all those who had suspected that you were among the Chosen.

Dimitrov, who will be 22 in a week, was in serious danger of being written off as a Chosen player as recently as a few weeks ago. There’s a “use by” date on prodigies, and Dimitrov was beginning to push the limit. Although many liked to call him “Baby Federer,” it seemed like “Baby Safin” might end up being the more accurate monicker—the difference being that while Marat Safin earned the No. 1 ranking and won two Grand Slam events, he’s primarily remembered as a charming underachiever.

Dimitrov was barely inside the Top 50 at the start of the year (No. 48), and after he re-kindled hopes among the believers by reaching the Brisbane final (losing to Andy Murray) right off the bat, he appeared to crap out. He stumbled out in the first round of the next three tournaments he played: in Sydney (to Fabio Fognini), the Australian Open (to Julien Benneteau), and Zagreb (to No. 130 Ivo Karlovic).

Worse yet, among those who pay attention, was that Dimitrov was getting less press for his mediocre tennis than for his romance with Maria Sharapova.

But things took a dramatic, upward turn starting at the Rotterdam indoor event, where Dimitrov posted three quality wins before losing in the semifinals to Juan Martin del Potro. Dimitrov then put a first-set scare into Djokovic in the third round of Indian Wells before he bowed out, and he lost again in the third round of Miami, this time to Murray. But two of those three men won the tournament in question, and each one is a Grand Slam champ. Dimitrov was beginning to show a Chosen player’s requisite consistency.

Moving to clay, Dimitrov pushed Nadal to the limit in the quarterfinals of Monte Carlo before he succumbed, 6-4 in the third. By then, he was saying all the right things: “I think the toughest expectations are definitely from me. I don't have that pressure from the people around me or what everybody is saying, all this, all that. I think the most important thing is to have a good composure throughout all the weeks.”

Although Dimitrov lost to resurgent Tommy Robredo in the first round of Barcelona last week, he seems to have re-gained his momentum with this upset of Djokovic. The tantalizing question is, where does it go from here? Keep in mind, Federer himself was a slow learner, who didn’t win his first Grand Slam event until he was almost 22—which is right where Dimitrov is now.

It’s been quite some time since a young player embarked on a Grand Slam title quest with significant momentum, with his name on everyone’s lips. That’s always a special moment in tennis, and it’s exactly the type of electric event that’s been missing for a long time now, thanks mainly to the quality of the very top players.

All young players ought to pay heed to what Dimitrov is doing, because there’s another useful takeaway in his recent history. These glimpses and tastes of success seem to be making him more rather than less determined, more eager to play, rather than more likely to wilt under pressure. Something in this young man seems to have clicked, and the call and promise of greatness no longer seems intimidating, or perhaps illusory. It’s inviting, something he seems eager to embrace, as if the champion in him is crying out, “Let’s just get this done!”

In order to punch through in Madrid, Dimitrov may have to beat Murray, but he won’t need to take out both Federer and Nadal, as they’re both in the other, bottom half of the draw. But lest we get too far ahead of ourselves, keep in mind that there have been persistent doubts about Dimitrov’s dedication, if not his talent. His work ethic, if not his athletic ability. His temperament, if not his temper—he’s already been suspended once, years ago, for shoving an official.

Less than a month ago, Ivan Lendl made some remarks that now sound downright prophetic. It was on the heels of matches in which Dimitrov has really pushed higher-ranked players, including Lendl’s protégé, Murray. Lendl said, “If you train for five-hour matches, it gives you a lot of confidence. Take Grigor Dimitrov, who has played some great tennis against Andy and against Novak Djokovic this year. That guy comes out so hot, but we know, and so does Novak, he can’t sustain it. If he could he would be No. 1 in the world.”

Yesterday, Dimitrov cleared the Lendl bar. He demonstrated that he can “sustain it,” and against the individual who is, by definition, the standard against which all other players are measured. All that remains to be seen is if he is, indeed, one of the Chosen.

Madrid: Federer d. Stepanek

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:00:00 -0400

By the time it was over, one of Roger Federer’s twin girls was so bored that she was crawling all over her mother Mirka’s arms and lap, while the other was reading a book. I presume it was Brad Gilbert’s tome, Winning Ugly, because that’s not the kind of stuff she’s going to learn at the family hearth.

This match was a clash of two compromised men, Federer by lack of match play—it was almost exactly two months since he’d last fired a forehand—and Stepanek by the ongoing struggle to find his A-game. The Czech was sidelined for roughly 10 weeks after his third-round loss at the Australian Open, following neck problems that required surgery.

Federer had an 11-2 edge in their head-to-head, and a No. 2 to No. 48 advantage in present ATP ranking. But perhaps the more important numbers were 31 and 34, their ages. Federer is three years younger than Stepanek, and that edge ultimately seemed to play a significant role in Federer’s 6-3, 6-3 win.

Federer quickly showed that he hadn’t forgotten how to play tennis during all that time off, recording a break at his first opportunity in the fourth game of the first set. The break point produced a fairly long rally ending with a Stepanek forehand error.

Consolidating a break can be a challenge for all but the most dialed in and comfortable of players, and Federer ran into a little trouble on that score in the next game. But he needed to survive two break points, holding with the combination of a Stepanek forehand error and a game-ending service winner: 4-1 Federer.

Federer threatened to break again in the next game when, at 30-all, he tracked a Stepanek drop shot and fired off a cross-court backhand flick-pass just out of his opponent’s desperate reach. It was signature Federer racquet work, but Stepanek swept away the ensuing break point with a smash and went on to hold. Two holds later, Federer calmly served out the set.

The pattern was to repeat in the second set. Stepanek surrendered another early break at 1-1 despite building a 40-15 lead. Federer won four points running from that point, three of them on Stepanek errors set up by some aggressive probing by the Swiss star.

Often, sets that feature early breaks become somewhat tedious exercises. The energy level of the players appears to drop, as if inwardly they’re both thinking, Come on, who’s kidding who? This set is probably over. It’s even worse when the players in question, like these two, are seasoned veterans.

The pro forma nature of the game was only enhanced by the sense that Stepanek was running out of steam. He made more and more errors and attacked both prematurely and sloppily. Federer didn’t look particularly eager to get thing over with quickly, though, and his somewhat lackadaisical play almost allowed Stepanek to sneak back into the hunt.

The men held to 2-4, at which point Federer struck quickly and ably to bag an insurance break. But his ensuing match game, by far the longest and most competitive of the match, proved as slippery as an eel. Federer worked his way to match point three times, only to be denied on each occasion. For his part, Stepanek squandered three break points before he parlayed a botched forehand passing shot and rally backhand error into a break that kept his hopes alive at 3-5.

But Stepanek was gassed. He started the next game with a double fault. He tried to serve-and-volley on the next point, only to watch a forehand pass go whistling past. Now Stepanek was increasingly gasping for air. Then Federer drilled a backhand pass down-the-line to go up 0-40. Stepanek continued his reckless attack, dismissing two of those three match points, but he then converted Federer’s sixth match point for him, thanks to a silly inside-out forehand error.

While nobody would call the match an artistic success, it was good to see Federer back in action, and also to take what might be one of our last good looks at a guy who’s perhaps spent too much time in the shop and accumulated too many miles on the odometer to ever challenge the elite players again.

Stat of the match: Federer converted just four of 10 break points in an easy win. He needs to shake out the cobwebs, but the world No. 2 certainly had no trouble getting into Stepanek’s service games.

Gut, Grass, and Graphite

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:05:00 -0400

The major celebration of tennis in Spain is well underway now, and the relatively new clay-court Madrid Masters—can you even believe that for many years, Madrid was an indoor, hard-court event?—is a fitting tribute to all that the Iberian nation has come to mean to the sport, as well as an ideal showcase for the particular strengths of the fleet of players that one generation ago was dubbed “the Spanish Armada.”

Yet the intriguing question lurking beneath the surface these days is, “Is the Spanish era coming to a close?” David Ferrer and Rafael Nadal certainly are holding their own, respectively ranked Nos. 4 and 5. But Nicolas Almagro has slipped a bit (though still a highly respectable No. 12), and beyond that the fall-off is conspicuous. The next highest ranked player from Spain is—can you guess?—Marcel Granollers, followed by a resurgent Tommy Robredo.

Fernando Verdasco (career-high No. 7) and Feliciano Lopez (career-high No. 15), two pros in what undoubtedly will be known as the “Nadal generation,” are fading, quickly. Lopez is now No. 45, with Verdasco one notch below. So that’s seven players in the Top 50, but there’s a caveat. Three of those men are over 30 (Ferrer, Lopez, and Robredo), and Verdasco is just months shy of that benchmark age.

Nadal will turn 27 in just a few weeks, and he’s struggled with career-threatening injuries. Almagro is well on his way to 28 and Granollers, the baby in the bunch, is 27. Spain has 12 men in the Top 100, but not one of them is under 25, and players destined to contend for Grand Slam singles titles are usually identified by then.

So you have to wonder, is the sun setting on the dynasty Spain created over the course of two overlapping generations? (The earlier one featured Sergi Bruguera, Carlos Moya, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Albert Costa, Alberto Berasetegui and Alex Corretja—all Grand Slam champions or finalists.) Spain seems to be going the way of Pete Sampras’ USA and Bjorn Borg’s Sweden. That raises interesting questions about the nature of dynasty.

Many of you are familiar with the landmark work by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel. This interdisciplinary study of why societies rise and fall is breathtaking in scope and filled with marvelous insights. Alas, there’s no such work—Gut, Grass, and Graphite?—to help us understand why the tennis fortunes of nations mysteriously rise and fall as well.

Dynasties in tennis (and perhaps most sports) accomplish exactly the opposite of what they would appear to be doing at their height. Instead of creating a tradition that continues to build upon itself, champion begetting champion, new fans geometrically creating new fans, new infrastructure encouraging more new infrastructure, tennis dynasties often leave a scorched earth. Theories are advanced for why that happens, but none of them can be proved, and none of them can be applied successfully from one case to another.

It’s been said that the Swedish dynasty, created by Borg and advanced by Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Anders Jarryd, and Joachim Nystrom (all were ranked in the top 10 at one time) failed because the cool Swedish climate just didn’t allow for enough gifted young players to develop adequate games in a rapidly evolving and newly professional environment.

Some say that U.S. tennis advocates were unable to recruit enough hungry, great young athletes to follow in the spectacular footsteps of Sampras, Andre Agassi, and Jim Courier—owing mostly to the lingering perception that tennis is a niche sport, and still too full of snobbish connotations. So how do you explain that the sport did, in fact, lure those three?

The Argentines, rabid sporting nationalists, are hampered by too little team spirit. In fairness, the charge was also leveled at the generation of Guillermo Vilas, Jose Luis Clerc, and Martin Jaite—a group that may not even qualify as a proper dynasty, but certainly made enough noise to help launch one.

The truth may be that there’s nothing wrong with Swedish tennis, nor with the collective game of any nation. The very idea that dynasty can be sustained over multiple generations is probably a fiction created by the staggering success of the three Anglo nations that really took to tennis and laid the foundations of the modern game: the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. Those nations dominated tennis through most of its history, and that’s no surprise (the era ended abruptly, after nearly a century, with the advent of “Open” tennis in 1968). For one thing, those nations were the first to create a broad tennis infrastructure of courts and clubs, which ultimately found peak expression in the major tournaments. Right off the bat, domestic players in those nations enjoyed greater playing opportunities and something like an inbred sense of superiority and security, while visitors were often just glad to be part of the festivities.

More important, three of the four Grand Slams well into Open tennis were grass-court events in which players familiar with the surface enjoyed a distinct advantage. Although the British gradually dropped out of the elite triumvirate, the Aussies and Americans milked their advantage to the hilt. And they had the populations, favorable climate, and available space to do it.

The U.S. and Australia enjoyed one other enormous advantage that has been wiped out by the tides of history. They were well-developed and relatively prosperous democracies, free societies where the pursuit of individual excellence—even under the kind of collective mentality promoted by legendary Australian coach Harry Hopman—was not just possible, but encouraged. But Open tennis, with its promise of riches and fame, was a game-changer—especially in Europe. And so was the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Ilie Nastase joined Borg as the Open era’s European superstars. Nastase had the good fortune to be the son not of a lawyer but of a groundskeeper at Bucharest’s elite tennis club, Progresul. How could he not be exposed to and learn tennis? The surface throughout most of Europe is red clay, and tennis can thank France for helping to open up the game by resisting any temptation to abandon the surface. The fact that the French Open was the fourth major gave the clay game great credibility, and that offered a pipeline of sorts into the pro game for players raised on the surface.

Since Open tennis, the fortunes of every nation have waxed and waned. Dynasties or near-dynasties rise, and they fall. That appears to be the natural order of things, at least where you have anything like a level playing field, and adequate access to the game.

My own feeling is that there’s also something like “excellence fatigue,” and everyone is susceptible to it. Dynasties have a lifespan in the public imagination as well as the standings and results tables. Nations whose dynasties have crumbled needn’t look for complicated theories for why this is so—for every nation that rues the lack of a government-funded development program, there’s one with such a program that isn’t really achieving the desired result. For every nation that wonders where all the great players went, there’s another starting to churn them out.

Enjoy it while you still can, Spain. And don’t beat yourself up if and when it comes to an end.

The Rally: The life and legacy of Brad Drewett

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:45:00 -0400

In this special edition of The Rally, senior writers Steve Tignor and Peter Bodo remember the ATP's Brad Drewett, who passed away late last week at 54 after battling motor neurone disease.

Pete,

Brad Drewett's death at 54 has to be one of the cruelest twists of fate imaginable. He spends his life playing and working for the ATP, an organization that by all accounts he loved; he gets the top job and has immediate, and frankly surprising, success there improving the financial lives of his players; and he's cut down after one year, when it looked as if he was just getting started. The whole merciless saga has left a lot of people in the game stunned.

I also feel a little guilty. I was at Drewett's first, introductory press conference, at the Australian Open last year, and like a lot of people there I wasn't too impressed. It's hard to remember now, but there had been some disappointment when he was named. On the surface, Drewett looked a safe hire, a company man, somebody who might lack the vision needed to lead the ATP at that moment. At the time, many players were so fed up with the way the game was run, and the lack of revenue that was coming back to them, that they talked openly of boycotting events and starting their own union.

I can remember watching Andy Roddick at the 2011 U.S. Open talk about how hard it was to get the players together on any topic, how each of them had his own individual interest to consider. Roddick's words were dire enough to make me think there would never be any real change for the better in tennis, that the sport was just too divided and chaotic. When Drewett made his first, rather hesitant speech as the new ATP CEO in Melbourne, I had even less hope. I was looking for a slick salesman who would lead the tour in a new direction, and Brad, as well as he knew the game, didn't seem to fit that role. It turned out I was looking for the wrong thing.

Some insiders who knew Brad better than I did said to give him time, that he would surprise us, and boy were they right. The fact that he was a former player and ATP lifer turned to be just what the tour needed. Drewett quickly realized the opportunity he had with today's top players, that the Big 4 wielded unique power and leverage, and that they were willing to use that leverage to help the rest of the tour. And that's what happened in the series of pay raises that Drewett and the players negotiated with the Grand Slams over the last year. I think Brad trusted the players and helped give them a voice, and the combination worked. Sometimes being a company man helps, because you know your company better than anyone.

What did you think of Brad Drewett, Pete? Does his success tell us anything about what might work in tennis in the future? You probably knew him better than I did, though I do have one instructive story that I can share about a conversation I had with him a few years ago, well before he was in line for the top job.

*****

Steve,

Well, now you have me really intrigued by your reference to an "instructive" moment with Brad. You're probably one of the few people, certainly among journalists, to experience something like that—not least because of some of those hidden virtues of Brad's that you referred to above.

As you suggest, it was extremely easy to underestimate Brad. I did it myself, but for somewhat different reasons. It pains me somewhat to admit it, and it's a difficult thing to say at the moment when the loss of this very solid man is still so fresh, but I doubted that Brad had intellectual horsepower or the persuasive personality to head an organization as large and complex as the ATP. I say complex less because of the nature and structure of the organization than because of the position it's in vis a vis the Grand Slam tournaments—as both partner and competitor—and the inevitable tensions within the ATP constituency, mainly the difference between the needs of the top players and the rank-and-file.

My doubts about Brad were planted, significantly enough, by impressions I formed during his career as a player. Brad was a very quiet and unassuming guy—both a "true-blue Aussie" and a man who didn't invite or draw attention to himself, even in the wake of some of his greatest highs as a player. He wasn't a great quote or a guy who jousted or joked around with the media. That he was a hard-working, diligent pro was obvious, but you know what gets you in the media sweepstakes—a label as a boring guy. It may sound a little crazy, but I think the real key to Brad's personality, or the part of it that has had such a broad, positive and powerful impact during his short tenure at the helm of the ATP, was his playing style.

Brad was a big, thickly-built guy, with quads like propane tanks. He wasn't a particularly good mover, but he played a serve-and-volley game in which finesse played an enormous role. True to his Aussie roots, he had a wonderful volley distinguished by gentle touch. So I had to smile when I read Roger Federer's quote this morning: "He (Brad) was always very nice to work with. Very honest. Very nice. Gentle. I've really enjoyed every step of the way working with him."

You know, one thing that struck me in the official statements that the movers and shakers issued right after Brad died was how many of them were, first and foremost, personal in nature—comments on the man and his nature, not his accomplishments. WTA CEO Stacy Allaster referred to him as a devoted family man in the very first line of her statement. Speaking in Madrid earlier today, Novak Djokovic said: "We remember him as a very calm, composed and intelligent man, who loved this sport with all his heart, while he was playing, coaching and then as the president of ATP. So I wish his family all the best and to be strong in this sad moment."

Clearly, that gentle touch wasn't confined to his work at the net.

As the comments about Brad suggest, he was a man who humanized the office he held, and that quality shouldn't be underestimated. I believe it was absolutely central to the way that Brad teamed up with the top players over the past year to present the Grand Slams with a united front. I know what you mean when you mention having qualms about Brad because he seemed too much the "company man." But it's easy to forget that for all the changes in the game in the past few years, one thing that still seems to be true is that so much of the game, at every level, is relationship-based. This is something often forgotten in the rush to grow the sport, but before I get into that, tell me about that experience you had with Brad.

*****

Pete,

Thanks for the description of Brad as a player. I never saw him play or knew much about his game, but you can usually tell something about a person from how they approach the sport. It sounds like he made the most of what he had, which is all an Aussie audience has ever asked.

My "instructive moment" with Brad came when he was head of the ATP's Asian wing. The tour had decided to designate Shanghai as its fall Masters event on that continent, continuing its long, slow push into China. Watching the tournament that year, which came right after the smaller ATP event in Japan, I wondered whether choosing China hadn't been too blatantly motivated by sponsor dollars. Yes, there was Rolex and Heineken signage in Shanghai, but there were also far fewer fans than there were in Tokyo. Japan is still, as they say, a more "mature" tennis market. I got in touch with Brad to ask him whether this was a concern—would China ever pay off?

The first thing to note was that he called me back, from Shanghai. I hadn't really expected the personal call from over there; whatever I wrote, it wasn't going to be on the front page of the New York Times. The second, and more important thing, to note was that Brad listened to what I had to say and answered without annoyance or aggression, and in something other than corporate-speak. He knew what I was saying, but he felt like China was the future, even if it was a long-distance future, and that the ATP's ultimate hope was to have a men's version of Li Na someday. Drewett came across as down to earth, but not afraid to think big, and think long-term. I'm not sure I came away 100 percent sold on the idea, but I felt a lot about who was in charge of implementing it. And as the years have gone by, Shanghai has begun to develop its own personality as a tournament. You can't deny the enthusiasm of the fans who do show up.

As you said, Pete, there was reason to wonder if Drewett has the "intellectual horsepower" to run a global organization. Maybe he was a pioneer in his own quiet way, proof that an ex-jock could hold his own at the highest executive level. And you're right, the remembrances of him were strikingly personal and emotional, and overwhelmingly positive. It makes me wish I'd had a chance to get to know him better.

*****

Steve,

I think your anecdote about Brad highlights a very important component in his success and personality—he was a very patient man. That's one of the unsung qualities that often underpin success, perhaps increasingly so in this driven, fast-moving, Twitter-and-text world we now inhabit. One of the major challenges for any former pro who would succeed in business is cultivating the kind of patience Brad possessed. You more than most know just how much tennis is a game of immediate rewards and punishments, of morphing from hero into goat from one day to the next. But somehow patience seemed part of Brad's DNA, and he exploited it fully.

Not much has been said or written about Brad's experience in what we commonly think of as "small business." It wasn't a sexy line-item on the résumé he ultimately developed, nor as glamorous as his status as a former Top 40 ATP pro and junior Australian Open champion. But Brad developed and managed a number of health and fitness-related businesses and, frankly, I wish I knew more about that. It seems to me that the hands-on experience he gained before he moved into the world of tennis politics must have been good preparation for the challenges he would face as he moved up in the ranks of ATP management. Those of us who aren't primarily in business often don't understand how challenging—and, frankly, scary—it can be to start and develop a business, how much risk is involved. Among other things, it's also a quick study in human nature, your own as well as that of your partners and or employees.

This points toward an interesting and ongoing issue in tennis management. For almost all of their histories, the ATP (as well as the WTA) has been torn about where to recruit its leadership—do you recruit from outside the sport, or develop your leadership from the inside (as in the case of Brad)? The "outsiders" have almost always come out on top. Somehow, the pro leadership just can't seem to resist going for the former CEO "looking for a new challenge," or the marketing whiz who's got the spreadsheets and flow charts to show that he or she increased cat litter revenues by 18 percent in the critical southeast Asian market. These Harvard Business School types can be very persuasive—as well as very good at what they do. But what they often are not good at is connecting with and winning over players, and understanding the key role relationships have always played in tennis. If you really want Rafael Nadal to work with you on a prize-money structure that benefits the entire tour, it's a good idea to understand Rafa's needs and desires, to make him comfortable with you, and to win his trust and confidence. That, too, can take patience.

Admittedly, "insiders" like Brad aren't a dime a dozen. But I'm hoping that one takeaway from Brad's tragically early demise is the realization that if you want to do a lot for the game of tennis, get someone who knows, loves, and cares about the game of tennis. Someone like Brad Drewett. He'll be missed, Steve, and just think of all the great work that he might have gotten done.