The Way of the Dodo

There is an element of the game that seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird. I'm thinking, of course, of the serve-and-volley tactic. It wasn't that long ago when nearly every player on the men's professional circuit, and a fair number on the women's side, practiced this dying art with skill and alacrity. Even players who were not tall with a long reach, or who did not have a huge serve, such as Rod Laver, folowed their serves into the forecourt, where they used their anticipatory skills, agility, and "soft hands" to win points quickly, as if with a parry and a thrust.

It made the game seem more "manly" in many respects. Practitioners of the s&v tactic were risk-takers; they were players who preferred to be in control of their own destiny; who would rather look silly stabbing at thin air than let the point turn into a war of attrition.

This philosophy extended beyond the mere s&v, as players looked for any opportunity to shorten the court, and point. Short ball? Good enough for me, I'm going in! Second serve? You bet I'll be chipping and charging! So what happened to have caused these effective tactics to be placed on the endangered list? In a word (no, better make that four), racquets, strings, technique and surface.

The advances in racquet design and technology have had enormous impact on the game, particularly among the professional ranks. The racquet speed that players generate today demands a racquet that not only can withstand off-center hits, but can deliver a solid, accurate placement on them. In the days of the Dunlop Maxply Fort or the Wilson Pro Staff, off-center hits generally resulted in a weak shot or an error. Racquet-head speed could be your friend and your enemy, on the same day. So most players opted for a swing style and speed that allowed them to maintain a high standard of ball control.

Remember, serving speeds have not risen dramatically, at least not when measuring the game's biggest servers, oveer the past three decades. Roscoe Tanner had a big bomb, as did little Colin Dibley, whose serve was clocked in the 140s. But ground strokes, and particularly returns of serve, have gotten dramatically more powerful. But watch clips of a match featuring today's players side-by-side with a match from the 1960s or 1970s, just as racquet technology was beginning to be explored, and you'd think the latter players were in slow motion.

This means that any foray into the net will not yield as deep a penetration into the forecourt as is desired to make a forceful volley. The opponent's reply will simply arrive too soon to get in optimum volleying position. This is one of the reasons the swinging volley has gained in popularity. Hit from the service line or farther back, it can penetrate through the opponent's defensives more quickly than the traditional "punch" or "catch" volley.

String technology has also left an indelible mark on the game, to the detriment of s&v. It has often been said that the Luxilon and other polyester strings, as well as the so-called "blends, in which a natural gut string is mixed with a synthetic is like playing with the banned "spaghetti racquet." Consequently, players are able to apply spins that result in revolutions per minute that were practically unimaginable 30 years ago. The passing shots now dip below the net more quickly and at a shorter distance from the net, making it less likely that a volleyer will get a ball above the netcord to work with.

Advances in stroke technique have also worked against the s&v. Open-stanced forehands and two-handed backhands essentially allow players to face the net to strike the ball, their hips parallel with the net, as they generate power from their back, or anchor, legs--pushing off the ground the way a baseball pitcher usd the mound rubber. This results in tremendous force being applied to the shots. In addition, it allows players to get a better "look" at the net-rusher and to disguise their passing shot. Furthermore, the open stances allow players to get back toward the center of the court, or to "bisect the angle" more rapidky, as the position of their feet and the distribution of their weight are more optimally suited for changing direction and getting a good "jump" on the ball.

It's no accident that plyometric training has been applied to the tennis stroke much more frequently and effectively since the general acceptance and practice of open-stanced stroke production. Explosiveness is built into the open stance approach, and professional players are maximizing this element in today's game, to the harm of the net rusher, who finds it more difficult to gain good positioning at the net, more difficult to "read" opponent's intentions, and more difficult to get to balls which are now hit with amazing power and accuracy.

Finally, court surface changes, from a macro perspective, have made the s&v tactic less effective than it once had been. In 1969, when Rod Laver achieved the Grand Slam for the second and last time in his career--winning the singles titles at each of the four major events, or Slams--three of the four Slams were vied for on grass courts. Today, two of those--the Australian Open and U.S. Open, have switched to hard courts. Despite the lack of solid evidence that the pro tour has abandoned all but hard courts, there is no question that the game's most prized titles have an effect beyond the lure of fame and fortune, and ranking points.

[NOTE: I'm off to catch some Zs. I will return to finish this tomorrow.]

The New World Order

I’ve always been a bit skeptical of putting tennis in the Olympic Games. My reasons mainly pivot on a bias toward maintaining (or should I say returning to) the traditionally amateur nature of Olympic competition, which sadly has given way to professionals like the U.S. basketball squads—the so-called “Dream” and “Redeem” teams.

But something happened this year to give me pause. Spain’s Rafael Nadal, the impending world #1, and world #3 Novak Djokovic of Serbia met in the semifinals.

Djokovic took the year’s first Grand Slam title in January at the Australian Open in Melbourne, where he beat then-world #1 Roger Federer in the semifinals. That win added to previous hard-court wins at Key Biscayne and Montreal, and final showings at Indian Wells and the 2007 U.S. Open, where he lost to Federer. These results, and his successive conquests of then-world #3 Andy Roddick, then-#2 Nadal, and then-#1 Federer in the 2007 Rogers Cup Masters Series event in Montreal, have made Djokovic the new hard-court favorite.

Nadal, who has always struggled more on the hard courts, lost in the year’s first Grand Slam to the fiery Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in the semifinals. Since then, of course, Nadal has had a career year, winning eight titles already, including the French Open, his fourth straight, and Wimbledon. Both wins came at the expense of Federer, Roland Garros in convincing fashion and Wimbledon in what may be considered the greatest Slam final in history. Nadal’s win in this year’s Rogers Cup Masters Series event in Toronto began to dispel the doubts about his ability to win on hard courts.

As if to make it clear he has earned bragging rights, Nadal defeated Djokovic in three tough sets in Beijing to move on to play Fernando Gonzalez for the gold medal. Nadal won the final in convincing fashion—as he is prone to do with so much at stake—to add Olympic gold to his Roland Garros and Wimbledon crowns.

The day after, August 18, will be remembered as the day the new world order was ushered in. It’s been a long time coming, and finally arrived two full weeks after Rafael Nadal had earned enough tournament points to overtake Roger Federer for the number one spot in the computer rankings.

But the computer isn’t finished, the shuffling of the deck not yet complete. With Djokovic the most likely candidate to give Nadal a run for his money on the sports grandest stages, we may very well see Roger Federer, who held the top rank for 237 consecutive weeks, slip to the third-place spot before next year’s Wimbledon. What’s more, if Federer were to fail in his defense of his U.S. Open title or the Masters Cup Year-End Championships, and Djokovic were to win the U.S. Open, the Masters Cup or the 2009 Australian Open in January, Federer could fall to world #3 by February.

What I especially like about Djokovic is his ability to first withstand the barrage of viciously heavy topspin forehands from Nadal to the backhand. With his uncluttered, technically sound two-handed stroke, Djokovic not only absorbs those blows from Nadal, he can turn them on their head. He does this by taking the ball early, on the rise, and powering through the hitting zone to drive the ball either with precision up the line or cross court flat and deep to Nadal’s forehand corner, where Nadal has shown some vulnerability. This vulnerability, which has been exploited expertly by players such as countryman Juan Carlos Ferrero and Andy Murray of Great Britain, is due mainly to his preference for open-stance forehands and his inability to generate as much pace or rotation when he is forced to hit his forehand from behind the baseline on the dead run with a cross-over step and the ball moving quickly away from him.

And by using his two-handed backhand instead of stepping around that wing to crack an inside-out forehand, Djokovic does not leave open to attack his forehand court. He takes away what would be a vulnerability created by a one-handed player making a risky move.

Federer’s struggles against Nadal boil down to his inability to construct a solid answer to Nadal’s cross-court forehands and wide-slicing serves into the advantage service box, both of which reveal the one chink in Federer’s armor—a one-handed backhand that can be exploited through powerful, high-bouncing balls and serves stretching him wide and opening the court.

Andy Murray can challenge both Nadal and Djokovic when healthy and running on a full tank. Others who will soon be in the mix are Juan Del Potro, recent winner of four straight tour events, and Ernests Gulbis, Gilles Simon and Marin Cilic. Of course, I’d love to see a healthy Tsonga trading shots with the top dogs every week, but his body seems as frail as it is impressive.

Any way you look at it, the game is evolving as the players with big wingspans and two-handed weapons are making the court wider and longer and the service boxes narrower. In the new world order, only the supremely fast and fit can survive.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This material is copyrighted and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the express written or verbal consent of the author. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sideshows and circus acts: why pro tennis should say no to on-court coaching

Now that the Hawk-Eye instant reply has been deemed a rousing success by promoters, players and fans alike, tennis has turned its attention to the prospect of on-court coaching. In the January/February 2007 issue of TENNIS Magazine, Brad Gilbert, former coach of Andre Agassi and current mentor to rising British star Andy Murray, gives three reasons why coaching should become a regular part of the pro game. Gilbert argues that coaching will (1) put an end to cheating, (2) give players their money’s worth, and (3) enhance the “show” by letting fans listen-in on what coaches are saying to their charges.

I believe that coach Gilbert’s and others’ arguments put forth in favor of on-court coaching are misguided and, should they be adopted, may lead the pro game down a slippery slope toward traveling theater.

Let me address Gilbert’s first point, that on-court coaching will put an end to cheating. Should coaching be limited to a once-per-set conference, as he proposes, that will merely allow the coach to transmit verbally what he or she might otherwise share via gestures and other non-verbal signals. Why would the covert tactics disappear, simply because the coach is given an opportunity to talk with his player face to face once a set? The monitoring of coaches would still be necessary, as the temptation to “cheat” would still exist. To truly eliminate the cheating Gilbert suggests is rampant and that goes unpunished today, coaches would need to be relegated to viewing matches on a monitor from a room outside the court.

Gilbert’s second point, that allowing coaching will finally let players get their money’s worth, is interesting. Presumably, this follows logically because players will receive their coach’s help when it is most needed and most valuable — during the match. While this argument seems logical on the surface, it completely overlooks a simple economic reality. The most successful players also have the largest bank accounts, and would therefore be able to afford the most astute coaches, while those struggling to make it on the tour or to climb up the ranks would be facing not only a higher-ranked opponent but also one who has the best help money can buy. Talk about stacking the deck! This basic inequity all but guarantees that the highest ranked players will receive the best coaching. It is easy to see how the advent of on-court coaching might have the effect of promoting the status quo and widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.

The last of Gilbert’s arguments, that on-court coaching will make the game more compelling and entertaining, is certainly partly true. One cannot deny the entertainment value of hearing a coach tell a player to stop going wide to the forehand and start using his head for something other than a hat rack. Who wouldn’t want to hear the advice Jimmy Connors is giving to Andy Roddick as Roger Federer is taking him apart? It would certainly be entertaining. It would be even more entertaining if we were privy to the on-court “coachings” of John McEnroe, as his charge went head to head against Roddick and old rival, Connors. But would it be compelling or a mere novelty? Personally, I would rather the players figure out on their own how to turn their fortunes around.

Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that — Gilbert’s once-per-set conference notwithstanding — pro tennis might soon give in to the market forces that would demand the co-branding of big-name former pros? We could easily see the rise of “personalities” assuming the on-court duties to maximize tennis’ entertainment value while the day-to-day coaching is handled by someone of lesser or more modest celebrity, but greater substance. Think of the possibilities: Guillermo Vilas “coaching” Rafael Nadal. McEnroe and Roger Federer. And what could be better than an Ilie Nastase–Marat Safin on-court partnership? Except perhaps Goran Ivanisevic–Safin! Could professionally choreographed matches be too far off? Are we ready to let tennis devolve into a sideshow, a circus act?

Unless on-court conferences are severely restricted, as Gilbert proposes, the bulk of the “coaching” would be missed by television viewers due to those ubiquitous and vital sponsor ads at every change-over. Only folks sitting in the stadium seats would benefit from this new form of entertainment. The real reason for the interest in on-court coaching is to bolster the entertainment value of the pro game for paying fans. It’s simply another opportunity to brand one more product.

Yes, play would likely improve, and some matches might become more competitive, swinging on a pendulum as each player’s coach devises a counter-plan or tweaks tactics. But let’s not fool ourselves into believing that blowouts will become a thing of the past. No amount of coaching will keep the Federer Express from flattening 90 percent of the men’s field. And no amount of on-court coaching will fix Elena Dementieva’s service woes during her match. That’s something that can only be accomplished on the practice court.

In addition, whatever happens on the pro level would likely make its way onto the junior circuit, where more harm than good can be done. Coaches already sit on the court during college matches; high school and junior matches will likely be next. As it stands, we've got far too many coaches lined up on the edges of city parks watching like hawks over their charges, with far too few linesmen, umpires and roving judges to stop the numerous rule and code violations. Cheating in the juniors is rampant; it’s the elephant in the corner that no one dares acknowledge. When coaches and parent-coaches are tasked with producing winners, abuses regularly occur. Overzealous coaching leads to cheating as well as verbal, physical and emotional abuse. Instead of acting as guides in a young player's development, too often parents and coaches step over the line. Allowing on-court coaching would simply feed this pathology.

Tennis should be in the business of promoting self-reliance, the development of problem-solving skills, and taking responsibility for on-court behaviors. Coaches need to stay on the sidelines, not become a sideshow.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This material is copyrighted and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the express written or verbal consent of the author. Thank you for your cooperation.

Groin pulls, pullouts and other tennis' ailments

Less than five days from the start of the first leg of tennis' Grand Slam, the Australian Open, we're already down two marquee players with the likelihood of others announcing early withdrawal. For starters, last year's finalist, Justine Henin-Hardenne, has withdrawn from this year's contest for personal reasons. Then there's Venus Williams, out due to a recurring wrist injury. And Rafael Nadal looks either hopeful or doubtful, depending on whether you're a glass half-full or half-empty sort. Also, Nikolay Davydenko might yet withdraw with a foot injury, as might Anastasia Myskina.

Rafa pulled up lame in his lead-up event, citing a groin pull, which started the tennis community talking. Was he really injured? Or is he saving himself for the Slam? No matter how you slice it, it doesn't bode well for tennis, in general. Too many name players injured or claiming injury, withdrawing from Slams or retiring in the middle of lead-up events to save themselves for the Slams. The latter is preferable, of course, because it at least demonstrates a desire on the part of players to be in top form for the Slams.

But there's an underlying problem that is not being sufficiently dealt with, and it's complicated. First, you have the schedule of events and the length of the season. Holding a Grand Slam tournament in the third and fourth week of the new season is ludicrous. It's akin to Major League Baseball scheduling the American and National League Championship Series games in April, at the conclusion of the preseason exhibitions. No one in their right mind would ever consider proposing that. Add in the sheer length of the season, some 42-46 weeks for the world's best players — longer for those in the "minor leagues" — and you've got a recipe for disaster. All elite athletes need time to rest and repair their broken-down bodies, regroup their efforts and get back into their training routine, and retool their arsenal and add to their games. Rest. Repair. Regroup. Retool.

Were some miracle to occur, were the stars to align and a Commissioner of Tennis be appointed who had the power to makeover the schedule, much of tennis' troubles would persist. Why? Two words: appearance money. Call it promotional fees, if you will. Tournament directors around the globe and throughout the schedule vie for the best players, and many offer appearance money, what is often referred to as "guarantee" money. These appearance fees are often larger than the winner's purse, which creates one obvious problem right off; namely, incentive kill. If a top player can use his or her market value to obtain an appearance fee of $100,000 to commit to an event that will only pay out $25,000 to the victor, where is the incentive to give 100 percent effort? It is left to the ranking points to carry the burden.

So, if Nadal pulls out due to a suspicious groin pull, because he wants to save himself for the Slam the next week, can anyone blame him? Particularly if he has copped a cool hundred grand or more in appearance money to show up and sell tickets? After all, that's what the appearance fee is all about — selling tickets to the show. That's why I think we should call it what it really is: a promotional fee. What the tournament directors are really paying is a fee for the use of the player's name and image in advertising and on programs, billboards and other signage promoting the event. If the player never shows, the marketing has still worked to sell a certain number of seats, so he or she has done their part. It's how promotional marketing works, and today's top players are commodities for the tennis industry in the same way that Tyra Banks or Kate Moss is a commodity for the fashion industry. That they should command top dollar for their "services" should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with how using celebrity star power in advertising creates demand for a product.

The answer, of course, is to first adjust the schedule so that there are four Grand Slam Series — one leading up to the Australian Open, one leading up to Roland Garros, one to Wimbledon, and one to the U.S. Open. Then, each of the Series "owners" or stakeholders would sign players to contracts. For example, Federer might sign a commitment to play no fewer than three events in the Series leading up to the Australian Open, three events leading up to Roland Garros, three events leading up to Wimbledon, and three events leading to the U.S. Open. He'd sign four different contracts. That would account for 12 of his 18 or so events on the year. The contract would stipulate the right of the Series "owners" to use his name and image in all marketing for any or all events within the Series. So, in signing onto the U.S. Open Series, Roger would in effect be committing to play three of the events leading up to the U.S. Open in New York, and in doing so would be granting the Series "owners" the right to use his name and image in all promotional materials for any and/or all the events in the U.S. Open Series. Should Roger choose not to play the Washington event, for example, his name and image might well grace the materials (except for the final drawsheet and on-site player promos) used by the tournament director to sell seats for that event. Roger could enter the event at his discretion, provided a spot in the draw was available. If, however, he chose not to enter the event, he would need to find three other events within the U.S. Open Series to enter, or run the risk of breaking his contract. A breach of contract would carry a stiff monetary penalty, perhaps equal to the appearance or promotional fee he'd been guaranteed for signing on and granting permission to the Series "owners" to use his name and image.

In this way, the Series "owners" could better control the use of appearance/promotional fees, and assure their constituents (i.e., fans) of the actual appearance of their marquee players in some, if not all, of the events within their product. The only other way to go would be to eliminate appearance fees completely, which would merely bring back the "black market" fees that once got Guillermo Vilas in trouble in the 1970s. The fees wouldn't disappear, they'd just go underground, and we'd lose all visibility and accountability.

Retiring with injury may be the only card a player can play legally if he needs to save himself for the big event with the big prize. Tanking, for most pros, is out of the question, as it may scar one's reputation and hurt one's chances of obtaining an appearance fee next time around. The verdict is still out on Nadal; we'll have to wait and see how he holds up in Melbourne. As for Henin-Hardenne's retirement to Amelie Mauresmo in last year's Aussie Open final, either her physical pain must have been real, or she couldn't bear the psychological and emotional pain of a convincing defeat. The truth we may never know.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This material is copyrighted and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the express written or verbal consent of the author. Thank you for your cooperation.