Nadal Gives Federer the Finger

Monte Carlo Masters Cup final result: Nadal defeats Federer in 4 (although two of the sets went to tiebreaks, and Fed won one of them). Controversy from the match: Immediately after Fed breaks Nadal to go up 1-0 in the third set (after losing the first and winning the second in the breaker), Nadal calls for the trainer to, get this, have his finger retaped. HIS FINGER RETAPED! It was a naked display of gamesmanship and Fed did well to endure it with dignity. Obviously, Nadal was hanging in there with the old tape job, waiting until the momentum fully swung Fed's way before calling for the trainer.

That said, Federer still would have lost the match. He's not exactly sharp on the red clay yet, although he seems to be slowly warming to the tactical challenge. Nadal was playing exceptionally well. On clay, he tends to go for quite a lot against Federer, combing the discomfort level of forcing Fed to deal with brutally spun crosscourt forehands to his backhand with aggressive, go-for-the-lines winners. This combo, which was firing on all eight for Nadal, kept Fed massively out of sorts the entire match. He was missing shots all over the place, generally failing to create the beautiful pace that he has become so famous for. Another one of those Fed-Nadal matchup where it seemed right from the get-go that Fed would be very, very unlikely to win.

From Fed's POV, he has to be glad he managed the two tiebreaks. I maintain that his campaign this year is to capture the French Open, and he at least started well, getting the final in Monte Carlo, in impressive fashion, and facing his likely final opponent at Roland Garros. You can see the adjustments: easing back on serve, attempting to work the angles with spin, throwing in the odd drop shot here and there.

Meanwhile, Nadal looks to be in nearly peak form for red clay. His game is flowing. On several occasions at Monte Carlo, he caught Fed completely flat-footed with droppers from the backcourt. Nobody except Nadal can consistently catch Fed flat-footed.

What Federer needs to do now is ponder the defeat and adjust further. He needs to tighten up and make fewer errors (namely: stop framing backhands). He also needs to transition from backcourt to net more effectively. He will get passed, but keeping Nadal under constant pressure will ultimately cause the Spaniard's backhand to break down. A win against Nadal would be a five-setter on clay, but it would still be a win. Fed can do it. He's the best chance for a player of his type to adapt to clay—best chance since Lendl. Better, really. He knows that his ball gets "softer" on the clay, lacks the heaviness of some of the other clay-court guys, so for his the key is fitness, patience, and careful shot selection. For example, in the MC final, when he constructed point and finished them off at the net, he did well. When he just hung back and tried to move Nadal around, he struggled. Nadal is a great clay-courter, but he still can't utilize the entire court. Fed can.

Two things Fed needs to do more of: drop shot; and lob. Most know that he detests both shots. He feels that destroy the purity of the rally. But on clay, both are essential. When he dropped Nadal, he created the opportunity to win points. Lobbing, however, was abysmal. I saw him attempt one, off the backhand. It was terrible. He should note that when McEnroe nearly won the French back the ’80s, he utilized both drop shot and lob very effectively.

Nadal? What can you say? He's the favorite going into the French. Not often that you would rank Fed, number one in the world, as the underdog, but there you have it.

And Monte Carlo? Incredibly beautiful, but once again, because of the way it's televised, nearly impossible to see the ball. There must be a way to rectify this. It's really strange to see the players swing and have to imagine where the ball is.

The Restoration of Poly

For all the talk of racquet innovation since I started playing tennis in the late '70s, I honestly think the really significant change has come in apparel and strings.

Clothes first. Up until the late '90s, cotton, all-cotton, ruled the day. Obviously, cotton clothing, especially all-white cotton clothing, is the most traditional attire for tennis. I'm sure everyone can remember either seeing or wearing a pair of fairly short pleated white cotton shorts and a snug white polo shirt. This was pretty much the Australian uniform in the '60s, the choice of Hoad, Laver, Rosewall et al. As I recall, the big drawback to the shorts was pocket functionality: it was hard to comfortably stuff an extra ball in your pocket when serving. Hence the habit, shared by myself and many others, of holding two balls to serve. Obviously, when the bigger, baggier shorts became the vogue, this problem went away.

Unfortunately, cotton shorts—and even cotton-polyester-blend shorts—and cotton shirts become incredibly weighed down with sweat. I noticed this big time when I began working out with a pro every week in 1999. I needed to change shirts twice in an hour. At about this time, all-polyester clothing was becoming more common. It was lightweight, sleek, colorful, and under brand names such as CoolMax, it could really keep you feeling dry and light over the course of a sweaty match or workout. Now, it has completely taken over. You rarely see a professional wearing anything else. If they switch to a cotton short, it's usually after they've played or practiced.

I bought three very cheap poly shirts at The AthletesFoot in NYC back in '99 and I still wear them today. They're lightweight, the wick moisture nicely, they cost about $5 apiece (I should have bought a dozen), and they sport the AF's logo, a discrete winged foot, a la Mercury, messenger of the gods. I still generally wear cotton shorts, but I do have one pair that are poly (Fila), and I like them.

Along with vastly better shoes, this poly revolution has made tennis a much more comfortable game to play. Of course, traditionalists recoil, but I think it's fairly easy to simulate a classic look with poly threads. And besides, brands such as Lacoste offer poly game-day duds, in classic styles.

Poly's influence isn't just limited to clothing. A big story, largely unreported except in niche publications and on websites, is the almost total shift of top players from gut and synthetic-gut strings to poly-composite strings. As male pros in particular strive to hit the ball harder, they require a string that delivers increased control, and poly delivers, The big name is Luxilon, a Belgian manufacturer whose Big Banger ALU string is used by virtually every top male pro and. Both James Blake and Andre Agassi maintain that it revolutionizedied their games.

I've actually been using a Head version of this string—Ultra Tour 16-gauge—in my Ti.Fire TEs for the past six months. The string does have some amazing properties. For one thing, the strings don't move around, at all. I've never played a string that could reduce string movement to zero, and as I play a frame with an "open" pattern, this is important to me (string movement means string straightened and eventually breakage as the strings "saw" against each other). Also, you can hit the ball harder with more control, and the string seems to generate good bite on the ball, even in 16-gauge.

I'm not sure that poly strings are actually the best news for a classical-type game, however. You do need to take a fair cut at the ball to get the most out of them. When I bunt or chip the ball, it seems to come off very dead. If I were using a synthetic multifilament string, such as Technifibre, or natural gut, I'd get more response. And overall feel is a bit reduced. Some complain that poly strings are stiff, but I find the Ultra Tour 16 I've been using to pretty comfortable.

At any rate, who would have though, as we decried polyester in the '80s, that it would stage such a comprehensive comeback today? In tennis it seems that natural fibers are the way of the past.

Fed, Lubie, and the Restoration of the Beautiful Game

Nasdaq-100 final, Federer beats Ivan Ljubicic (that's "Ljubicic" with a "j") in three straight—but all three went to tiebreakers. First off, it has to be demoralizing to lose three tiebreakers in a row. Heck, the statistics must militate against such an outcome. Still, Ljubicic—or "Lubie," as the Key Biscayne crowd monikered the competitive Croat—lost the match. Which, I think, reinforces a point I've made earlier: Federer is playing whole tournaments in a lower gear, preparing for the French Open, the second leg of a potential 2006 Grand Slam, rather than trying to blow through opponents.

Taking nothing away from Lubie, of course, who is a lovely player and a solid competitor. In fact, as I watched the final (delayed, because I'm finally beginning to get the hang of TiVO), I noticed a heartening trend: Ljubicic and Fed represent a new breed, the super-athletic player who disdains sheer power in favor of...well, a lovelier game. Lubie is really just a slower, somewhat less utterly dominant version of Fed, an all-courter who can hit a lot of shots and play more than competently in a variety of styles, from baselining to transition to serve-and-volley. Roddick should take note, because there is a generation of this type of player emerging, players who actually don't hit the ball as hard as possible on every single cut, players who are actually following Fed's lead and are restoring some of the beauty of tactics to the sport. They can do this because they are phenomenally fit and can create time for themselves with efficient movement. Quickness is becoming extremely important in this latest iteration of the game. In fact, it was quickness to the ball that allowed Fed to beat Lubie. When Fed needs to, he can upshift and create more space and time in which to play. Why doesn't he do this all the time? Because at the pro level, it's extremely demanding. And Fed is nothing if not aware of his need to preserve his resources over the course of a long year that includes four best-of-five-in-every-match Slams.

The talented Americans have not figured this essential lesson out yet, which is why their results aren't as good and they give the impression, when coming up against Fed especially, that they are behind the curve. Roddick is trying, but his game is so troubled by elaborate technical flaws that he's struggling to move to the next level (he's just not very fluid). Blake is better, but unlike a Ljubicic, he can't create space by varying his pace, spin, etc. He more or less has to move the ball around a little before he can use his speed to generate an opportunity to go for broke with a forehand. Often effective, and dangerous, but rapidly being outmoded. The trend involves what Fed, Ljubicic, and, say, Richard Gasquet are doing. Brute force (Roddick) and blazing speed (Blake) are fine, but hardly innovative. Brutal ball-striking excellence, of the sort evinced by Marat Safin, and mad-wicked topspin, aka the Rafael Nadal approach, are better alternatives to what I'm charaterizing as they new "beautiful" game. Safin because he can push the Federer-ists back off the baseline; and Nadal because he can get the ball up nice and high off the ground, out of the Federer-ists' comfotrable strike zones.

The TV commentators are starting to figure this out—begining to notice that something post-Sampras/Agassi, a sort of restoration of what tennis is supposed to be, is afoot.

Let's wait and see how it develops. Salient point remains, however: Fed is obviously taking a page from the Tiger Woods playbook and preparing for the Slams by appropriately modulating his victories in lead-up tournaments.