David Foster Wallace, the novelist, has written a long appreciation of Roger Federer for the New York Times' sports supplement, Play:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/sports/playmagazine/?8dpc
It's a weird article, not least in that (1) DFW barely quotes Fed on Fed at all, except from press conferences (I had thought, when I heard that this piece was in the works, that DFW would have gotten sort of exclusive NYT access to the man); and (2) many aspects of the story are a rehash of an essay on tennis that was included in DFW's collection
A So Called Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, considered by many to be the best piece of tennis writing since John McPhee's
Levels of the Game.DFW's basic point is twofold: Fed is a godlike talent; and Fed has introduced a neo-classical element into the pro game, a style of play made possible by heavy spin. Now, Fed may be a godlike talent, and he does play with a lot of spin, but just about everybody plays with a lot of spin these days (except James Blake). From my point of view, I think DFW has missed what's important about Fed: Yes, he uses a lot of spin, but he also uses an astonishing
variety of spin. Most of the other guys use two kinds of spin: heavy topspin, and some slice, mixed in with flatter stuff. Fed, who of course took a while to develop into the great player that he now is, can employ half a dozen different grades of spin on both sides, and on his serve. As James Blake once said, He's so strong that when he gets to the ball, he has more choices.
So DFW kind of gets lost in a deep reading of Fed's game.
This blinds him to the obvious difference between Fed's use of "wicked topspin" and many other players' use of constant topspin. Federer actually uses a kind of hard, "exploding" top that causes the ball to dip precipitously when that's called for, and to explode off the court when he wants to back somebody up. He doesn't use the monster top of, say, a Nadal. He uses top for what it's good for. He doesn't allow it dominate his game. Obviously, if he did, he wouldn't have his Wimbledon record.
DFW also makes a glaring error, which I will attempt to correct.
Here he is for example, making a point:
"Kinesthetic virtuoso or no, Roger Federer is now dominating the largest, strongest, fittest, best-trained and -coached field of male pros who’ve ever existed, with everyone using a kind of nuclear racket that’s said to have made the finer calibrations of kinesthetic sense irrelevant, like trying to whistle Mozart during a Metallica concert."
Let's forget for a minute that every single player in the men's top, oh... 300 possesses a poetic kinesthetic sense. Like many commentators, even those who still play tennis (DFW played in college, and I assume still competes), DFW gives too much credit to racquet technology. He argues that lighter, bigger composite racquets have enabled Fed's game. This simply isn't true. Federer is essentially using the same racquet that Stefan Edberg did in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Wilson ProStaff 6.0, a graphite-kevlar composite, heavy, fairly stiff, with a 90 square-inch head (the original version, used by Pete Sampras, had an 85 square-inch head--Fed's is a custom job). In fact, Fed's game would be impossible with a newer, bigger, lighter frame. For one thing, he wouldn't be able to hit his heavy slice--heavy slice demands a heavy racquet. There is a variety of other stuff he wouldn't be able to do, either. His control and precision would suffer. He would not be able to string at the low-ish tensions he uses (in the 50s).
The guys who are benefitting from the new sticks, and who have introduced a true transformation, are the likes of Roddick, Nadal, and Gasquet, each of whom is playing a stiff, lightweight racquet that, in A-Rod's case, allows for a quicker service motion and 140-mph serves, and in Nadal's and Gasquet's case, super-heavy topspin.
DFW completely overlooks the appearance of the new polyester strings (such as Luxilon), which has created a whole new level of spin and power-hitting, based on their unique properties (they allow both for harder hitting and more "bite" on the ball--Fed uses a hybrid of poly and nautral gut in his frames). DFW also fails to note that almost all the top male pros are now using smaller grip-sizes than they did ten years ago. This enables a faster wrist, which promote spin.
But back to the racquets for a sec.
Right now, there are three basic racquet types in pro tennis:
-Wilson ProStaff variations (stiff, thin beam, small head, open string pattern, used by shotmakers and netrushers) NB, for all practical purposes, this design is a wood racquet, just using different materials that enable a much stiffer response without losing feel, something that old-school wood players were always looking for
-Head Prestige varations (flexible, thin beam, small head, tight string pattern, used by heavy-hitting baseliners who want to swing away without worrying about the ball flying out) NB, these sticks are favored by many of the currently dominant clay courters, as well as by steady retrievers, such as Hewitt and Nalbandian
-Babolat Pure Drive variations (stiff or relatively stiff, medium beam, larger head, tight or open pattern depending on player preferences, used by the really big topspinners and, increasingly, the huge servers) NB, these racquets have largely been adopted by a generation that was introduced to them as juniors, when Babolat was trying to establish itself as an alternative to Wilson and Head--the juniors who picked them up, notably Roddick, then developed pro games that took advantage of the fact that these sticks' light weight could be used to generate tremendous racquet-head speed
And that's it. Two of the three are old school as hell--the basic design have been around since the mid-1980s. The last is leading a change in the sport, a change in technique among big hitters and baseliners alike.
Salient issue: Technique is really what's making the difference. Federer is the first player to bring the more extreme Euro grips into the all-court, attacking game. Sampras was more classical, closer to eastern on both sides, going straight through the ball. Fed is more "behind" the ball, with his grips turned more to full westerns on both forehand and backhand. Fed is in far better overall physical shape than Sampras ever was. Sampras liked quick points. Fed likes to construct longer, more elegant points, but ironically points that are enormously physical in nature. Fed played some squash in his youth, and it shows--he gets off on hanging in there with a point, prolonging it in order to drain his opponent. Thus far, this has worked very well against everyone except the physically precocious Nadal.
In the story, DFW also claims that a player like McEnroe could never make the transition to the new composite frames in the 1980s, unlike Lendl, but of course this is dead wrong. McEnroe had his best year ever, in 1984, when he went 82-3 using the Dunlop Max 200G, a early composite (also used by Steffi Graf). Previously, he has been using a custom, conventional-sized wood racquet, the Dunlop Maxply McEnroe. From what I understand, he didn't lose confidence in the woodie, but made the switch sort of arbitrarily and so liked the results that he stuck with the new frame. Fans will remember that soon after he made the switch, he snapped a long losing streak against Lendl. This was probably a confidence thing more than anything else, as McEnroe, who had been trying to play Lendl from the baseline, went back to being a attacking player when he switch to the new stick. Nowadays, McEnroe has become perhaps the finest senior player ever, using a medium-weight graphite-composite racquet.
Finally, I want to point out that the previous godlike player, Sampras, used a racquet that resembled nothing so much as the hulking chunk of lumber that Don Budge employed 50 years ago. Sampras ProStaff probably weighed more than a pound, was head-weighted, and strung with natural gut at very high tension. The whole affair was designed to generate as little power as possible. It was intended to enable massive spin on all serves, extreme control on volleys, and to allow Sampras to hit forehand winners with no concern about knocking the ball out. Physically, Sampras at the end of his career was significantly stronger than Ferderer, and a more pure striker of the ball. His game, accordingly, was very basic--the most basic attacking game tennis has ever seen. Fed has a lot more shots than Sampras did, really a response to wanting to play like Sampras, but determining that Sampras' style of play was, ultimately, not for him.
Federer is a stunning player in every respect, something truly special, but I think that if another guy like Sampras comes along, Fed will have a hard time against him, at least at Wimbledon, where he would have to hit too many spectacular shots to win.
DFW does make one useful observation, which is that a whole new generation of juniors has decided to emulate Fed and play the "beautiful" game. This is heartening, but if I were coaching a junior, I would certainly encourage him to go for a simpler approach. A clean game, based on attack, is the one thing that could cause Fed constant trouble right now, on his favorite surfaces.
