Gladwrong

Malcolm Gladwell has produced another his his maddening synthetic, wafer-thin analysis of pop and Big Brain theory for this week's New Yorker. He's writing about how we can quantify greatness in sports--itself a silly idea--and early on makes a distinction between teams sports like basketball and baseball and individual sports, such as tennis and golf. He asserts that you can identify the best more easily in tennis and golf, because those sports are played week and week under similar conditions. He then goes on to maintain that no one would dispute that Roger Federer is the best tennis player on earth.

First off, tennis and golf are played under wildly differing conditions week after week. Even during, say, the clay-court tennis season, the clay will be fast one week, and even one day, then slow the next. Balls vary. So does the weather. Ditto golf. Every course is different, and it could always rain, or be very hot and humid, or the wind could blow 40mph.

Secondly, Federer is not necessarily the best tennis player on earth. He is certainly the most successful professional tennis player on earth at the moment, but he is not the best tennis player on clay (Rafael Nadal is), and has only in the past few years become the best tennis player on a hard court. Federer has become very good at playing and winning tennis tournaments worldwide at the professional level. This is not the same thing as being the best player.

For example, Yannick Noah, in his day, was a very good professional tennis player, but he was not interested in winning tournaments all over the world and in becoming widely regarded as "the best." He just wanted to win his national tournament, the French Open, once. This he accomplished in 1983. Afterwards, he concentrated on being a beloved figure to his countrymen and on exploring his talents as a reggae musician. Could he have won more? Of course. He has a beautiful serve and a fluid, graceful game. Wimbledon was within his reach. But he had different desires.

My point is that this happens all the time. The best or the potentially best choose not to compete. This is of zero interest to this odious new breed of sports statistician, for who the evaluation of talent, through performances metrics, has an obvious financial motive. Various ratios and computations can purport to tell an owner or investor whether a star hoopster is worth millions each year. A lot of coaches can tell you that just by watching the guy in practice for 20 minutes.

Take Buddy Marucci. A fortysomething Pennsylvania businessman at the time, he took Tiger Woods to the limit in the championship match of the 1995 US Amateur (Woods won). A longtime amateur of superb pedigree, Marucci decided after a successful college career to pursue business instead of golf, as he figured he was be more succesful and happier off the PGA Tour. He was. Still, he remained a wonderful golfer, one who was more than able to give the soon-to-be-greatest-golfer-in-the-world a run for his...well, not yet his money, but you know what I mean.

In some respects, does this not make Marucci a "better" golfer than the professional who grinds along on tour, practicing constantly but rarely winning? Personally, I have much greater respect for the athlete whose abilities are harder to quantify, but whose talent is real nonetheless.

Gladwell fails to take this into account, Moreover, he needlessly complicates athletic execution in the service of his thesis. which is drawn from his usual glib refashioning of some quasi-academic research that might be of use to money people. Sometimes, the best are the best because they choose not to compete.

Feet of Clay

I was surprised to see James Blake lose his match to Mario Ancic at the Hamburg Masters (caught it on The Tennis Channel, so I have no idea when it actually took place). Blake had it on his racquet twice and just couldn't close the deal, in either the second or third set. What's interesting here is that Blake has a decent, if unorthodox, game for clay. I guess he adds a touch more spin, but otherwise he looks to hammer forehands, the sluggish red surface be damned. This actually screws up the rhythm of the dedicated dirtballers, who are far more accustomed to seeing a lot of topspin. Unfortunately, I think the clay exposes a weakness in his game that's less evident on, say, a hard court: he doesn't have the best first serve in the world. For whatever reason, because his backhand has gotten so much better and because his forehand is explosive, his serve is overlooked. Honestly, a guy like Blake ought to be able to bang out enough good serves when a match is on the line to yank out a win. But no.

That said, I impressed as hell with the guy on clay. He could conceivable do something at the French, if he makes some adjustments. Obviously, this might screw him up for Wimbledon and the US Open, but so what? In a weird way, he has a better shot on clay than he does on grass, given that he is in essence a power-baseliner variation. Plus, you gotta root for JB, after all he's gone through, to come back and crack the top ten.

JB and A-Rod need to put their heads together and try to figure out why each of them is currently coming up short. Frankly, I think A-Rod could learn some stuff from Blake. However, A-Rod is going to defy his critics at Wimbledon. For whatever reason, when he's on grass, his serve just gets bigger and bigger, and the bang-bang nature of the return game masks his flaky backhand.

Ancic, meanwhile, is playing nicely. No chance to win the French, but I look for his to make some noise at Wimbledon. He has that huge serve, and now quite a lot of variety and touch to back it up.

Floaters v. Lungers

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but to my eye tennis looks as if it has become much more a game of exertion than it used to. For example, you now routinely hear commentators and players talk about how a player plays "defense," by which they mean how he or she employs speed and athleticism to stay in a point. I don't remember being told to play defense when I took up the game; I was taught how to stay in a point, but if the other guy hit a really good shot, more often than not it was winnersville. You clapped and moved on.

That was then. Now, with bigger, stronger players, tennis on hard and clay courts has begun to resemble squash, with players stretching and lunging for shots all over the place. Think of Federer's aptly named "squash" shots, where he kind of flips at wide ball and hits them back floaty, with underspin. The velocity is high, some of the recoveries incredible, and the points, especially on clay, can go on for a long time. In short, it's like softball squash, where the quality of play is gauged by length of rallies, in many cases.

One thing this style of play has led to, I think, is the need to be in very, very good physical shape. The demands of play are just so much greater than they used to be. Still, injuries are rife. A guy like Agassi, who still possesses plenty of game, has to give up clay-court tennis because it's simply too hard on his body.

Like squash, movement in tennis for this style of play is explosive. James Blake is another good example. The guy can flat-out fly, exploding off the mark and then exploding into the ball. Nadal is another one, who plays with explosive, lunging intensity.

What's less common is the graceful, floating style that was prevalent when I learned to play, back in the '70s. The idea was that you...well, floated to the ball with measured, graceful steps, then little mincing steps before pausing to strike the ball. You were constantly in motion, and you never exploded off the mark. This approach led to fewer injuries, I think, and also made it possible for hardcourt American players to adapt more easily to clay. It also led to fewer unforced errors, because shots didn't have to stretch the other guy so far out of court. Points could be more deftly constructed. (Watch some old Davis Cup footage and you'll see what I'm talking about.)

I'm not lamenting the older style of play, except in an aesthetic sense. The way they do it now is more lively to watch. However, it has shortened careers, due to the sheer physical demands. It's also unclear whether it can survive on hard courts, as even the fittest players on tour are having a tough time maintaining the level of conditioning necessary to hang in there.

Building, building, building...

Fascinating, damn near enrapturing Italian Open final. Nadal wins in five, breaker in the fifth, but Federer made his point, and it has to have gotten into Rafa's head.

I will elucidate:

1. In previous meetings on clay, notably the Monte Carlo final, Nadal has exploited a perceived weakness in Fed's game, the high backhand, by hitting heavily topspun forehands to Fed's "weaker" side. This has allowed Nadal to control the tempo of the matches with his forehand. Federer, however, has now developed a deeper, more powerful, more penetrating topspin backhand reply. It works. He's able to use it to return Nadal's topped crosscourt forehands into Nadal's backhand. Extremely tough to take a crosscourt forehand like Nadal's and redirect it, deep, to his backhand.

2. Federer is taking a page from the Tiger Woods playbook. When Tiger prepares for majors, he "plays" the major venue on regular PGA Tour courses. He works on the shots he will need to win the major. Fed is clearly preparing to play Nadal, in finals, in clay. This is why he's struggling a bit in the early rounds: He's playing Nadal, not his opponent of the moment.

3. So far, at Monte Carlo and in Rome, Fed has inched closer and closer to beating the best clay court player in the world. The Italian could have gone either way. In fact, it all boiled down to a couple of missed Federer forehands in the final set.

4. Tony Roche and Fed are aiming to capture the French Open. Such a victory will not happen overnight. But at least they now know that the tactics they have developed to beat Nadal, the likely opponent, can succeed.

5. Fed is now the second best player in the world on clay, and the first best player in the world on every other surface. This hasn't happened in so long that folks should take note. Let's not forget: Federer won the Australian. Exactly one more forehand winner in Paris, if the Rome final replays, and he's two legs toward the Grand Slam, with his best surfaces—grass and the open hard courts—upcoming. Phenomenal. If he pulls it off, and I believe he will, he will put some real teeth in the notion that he's the best ever.

6. If I'm Nadal, I'm feeling supercool, but I'm also very, very worried about the French. Federer has come up with a brutally effective red clay strategy, created entirely to beat me. This evolution of his game means, in a best-of-five format, lots of quick matches for Fed, over two weeks. I'm going to have to grind it out, however, trading punches with a lot of grinder red-clay specialists. My game simply isn't based on attack they way Fed's natural game is—it's based on trace-like overhitting, to surprisingly accurate effect, at the opportune moment. So if all goes according to the seedings, I'm seeing a fresh Fed at the end of fortnight, while I'm worn down.

7. Federer will win the French, beating Nadal in four. He will then go on (depending on seeding) to beat Andy Roddick again at Wimbledon, and probably either Nadal or Nalbandian (depending on seeing) at the US Open. That's right, I'm calling the Grand Slam. This will immediately change the terms of the debate about who's the Best Ever, putting Fed past Sampras and placiing him in the running against the current Best Ever, Rod Laver.

And what about Nadal? At 19, having surpassed Vilas' clay-court record, he has to be considered an artist of rare ability on the surface. He's not as lovely as Gustavo Kuerten on the dirt, but he is ferocious. However, up to this point, he has relied on his forehand. It's his version of the Andy Roddick problem: He has one huge technical weapon to go along with his fierce competitiveness and will to win. However, to become great on other surfaces, he will need to develop a better serve. And serving is by far the most difficult skill to advance at the pro level. Guga, let's not forget, had a great serve. Borg had a pretty good one. By comparison, Nadal's is weak, especially on second balls.

I'm not skeptical about Nadal's talent. But I do believe that Fed is preparing to peak at this year's French, and at Monte Carlo and in Rome, we are witnessing the groundwork.

Marat at the Foro Italico

Always jarring to watch Italian Open matches staged at "marble stadium" at the Foro Italica in Rome, which of course was Mussolini's monument to his fascist ideal. Anyone who has seen Peter Greenaways interesting, artsy movie "In the Belly of an Architect" will recognize the location as the site that the nefarious Italian neo-fascist Caspasian is attempting to restore with money embezzled from a show of the work of Etienne-Louis Boulee. Weird place to see a tennis match, what with all the glistening marble, the simple bench seating, the statuary ringing the venue. Tennis is such an anti-fascist sport, so cosmopolitan, so dependent on the spirit of a enlightened, sporting, aristocratically inflected democracy that it's hard to see it played in the context of the Foro. It used to be said that all contemporary Italians must struggle with the legacy of fascism in their own way—this is a large theme in the films of Bertolucci and Pasolini—and I guess that continues to ring true, even if the format of the struggle is a mere Masters Cup tennis event.

At any rate, I watched Safin get knocked out in the second round by an unheralded Spanish qualifier. Haven't seen Marat play for some time, and it does appear that his assorted injuries and layoffs have messed up his game. The messed-up-ness is especially apparent on red clay, where his normally relentless and punishing power off the ground can't yield as many weak replies from opponents. A fading, out-of-shape Safin on red clay is the tennis equivalent of a bear wounded immediately after waking up from hibernation: grouchy, in pain, rarin' to fight but still groggy from the long winter's sleep. Not a pretty match, and exasperating for Safin-philes (count me as one), who had to watch their (our) man blow a 6-0, 4-1 lead to lose the last two sets in tie-breakers. As an aside, the red clay in Rome seems about as slow as a surface could be and not be made of molasses.

Of all the national tournaments, the Italian Open had often struck me as the strangest. There's a vague, displaced aspect to it. It's a big-deal event—both Nadal and Federer are in the draw, suggesting a rematch of Monte Carlo and yet another preview of the French Open final—but it "reads" small.

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