Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Wimbledon Top 10

Trying a new gambit with this storied tournament, 2007 edition: a list.

So...

10. Roger Federer channels the memory of Trey Waltke, circa 1983, who donned classic white Fred Perry-era trousers--don't call 'em "pants"--and won a match at the AEC (All England Club for reference later in this list). Personally, I DIG this move by RF and Nike, flickin' back ta tha OLD SKOOL with their stylings for Sir Roger. Wanna top last year's blazer? Um, we can just do that.

Um, who was that dude back in the '80s?

9. Pam Shriver. Hilarious.

8. USA. Perhaps the best sports network period, because they get these opportunities to handle the early rounds on the big tourneys, Wimbly and the US Open, and they play it fast and loose and put on a great show for those of us watching, Right up there with the Gary McCord/David Feherty show on CBS golf broadcasts. Say it with me: u-s-a...U-S-A...YOU!!! ESS!!! AYYY!!!

7. Carlos Moya has a nice serve. He should pass this wisdom along to his young charge, Senor Nadal.

6. Isn't it fun to watch a bunch of thoroughly pale white people bundled up in scarves and overcoats watch a tennis match at the end of June?

5. Tim Henmann is just ridiculous. How old is he now? 46? Let's all gather on Henmann Hill and watch the old goat still try to play serve-and-volley. Bloody amusing!

4. That said, as the final set in Tim's match with Moya wore on, it became increasingly apparent that we were not watching a professional sporting contest, but in fact a study in character, will, and determination, which of course is why the Victorians invented sporting competition in the age of Disraeli. Bravo to the AEC for making these skilled chaps play it out in the fifth, so we can see what they've really made of. I'm not sure the tournament can top that match with what they have left.

3. That bastard Tim Henmann! I mean, for the love of Queen and Country, throw it in, Lucy is going to go into premature labor!

2. Moya's double fault at the end of the match. Sad. But sometimes you just know it's time to go home.

1. The older I get, the more I love watching Wimbledon.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Schleppin' Racquets


Just before the final at Roland Garros, commentary from the booth fixated on Roger Federer's large racquet bag and complemetary sport duffle, which was equally large. The NBC team seemed to think that Fed needed a lot of stuff to spend the afternoon banging groudies with Nadal.

I was reminded of the manner in which arriving on court with one's stuff has changed over the years. These days, I usually walk on court with my modest shoulder bag (Head Pro Team triple, about...eight or nine years old), in which I currently have three racquets, extra grip tape, a towel, some sunscreen, wristbands, a hat, a sweater vest, warmup pants and some backup shirts. I have taken to wearing a Levi's denim jacket because the pockets come in handy and it makes me feel like McEnroe circa 1984. There seem to be two or three dominant ways of takling to the court with one's gear:

•Stroll on with a single racquet, with or without cover, and get a-hittin'

•Bring a racquet and some sort of duffle or backpack, with extra gear

•Do the pro or semi-pro thing and carry a full-blown racquet bag (often, one of the new kinds that have backpack-style straps)

When I was coming up in tennis, the thing to do--to appear fashionably with it--was to have at least two racquets. This was for competition at the junior level up through high school. Sometimes, a kid would have an extra shirt, and maybe a water jug. Later, the sport duffles came into the picture (Pete Sampras carried a big hulking one for his entire career). Then, racquet bags, which were shaped to hold 3-6 frames.

I always sort of regretted that I missed the period when chaps--and what else could you call them?--would saunter onto court, usually a grass or clay court, carrying half a dozen wood racquets in their arms. They would generally be wearing white cotton tennis attire and some sort of blazer, a la Federer's look at last year's Wimbly.

I recall a hilarious documentary on Pancho Gonzales that showed him traveling to Las Vegas for a tournament toward the end of his career, in the early 1970s. He had six or so metal frames, which he taped together before getting on a plane. One at the tourament site. he graciously accepted some kind of swag racquet bag, labeled with the event name, and proceeded to use that to tote his racquets around to his matches.

It's interesting, because nowadays, the pros carry a bunch of racquets on court so they can switch based on tension issues during match. Their racquets are often carefully prepped and customized by specialists, then sealed in plastic. In the old days, a player would typically have a favorite racquet, and he or she would prefer that one for an entire match, switching only if they broke a string or damaged the racquet itself. Of course, there were exceptions. Arthur Ashe reportedly used to go through a racquet (wood) every few weeks, and, when he was playing Wilsons, asked the factory to send him the stiffest racquets they had in the model he preferred, because he would hit the ball so hard he would eventually make the racquet go "whippy." However, in Levels of the Game, John McFee's great book, Ashe says he wasn't as obsessed with racquets as other players of his era. Probably because he went through his too fast to get attached!

Somehow, the pros' connection with their equipment seems a lot less intimate now. Sampras, with his insistence on using only the Pro Staffs that were produced in Wilson's St. Vincent's factory, comes off as the last fetishist. He was also preoccupied with one particular model of shoe...

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Is Roddick the Man to Beat?

I didn't know this, but it seems that Andy Roddick has been in England for around two weeks now, after existing the French Open early. To me, this is highly sensible for a guy who ought to structure his whole year around the two events where he has enjoyed the most success, Wimbledon and the US Open. Honestly, I don't ever see A-Rod contending for a title at Roland Garros, so why not parachute into the UK a month or two before Wimbly and get down to business? Clearly, his main competition, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, are going to be beat down after the French, and furthermore have to adjust to the different surface. As they both get older, this gets tougher. Personally, I think this gives Roddick a big advantage, even if Fed does tend to "resurge" once he returns "home" to his favorite tournament.

Anyway, I'm picking Roddick as the man to beat this year. Really, he's among the men to beat every year. But how many more years does he realistically have? If he wants to rack up his share of Slams, I say start the year officially at the All England Club.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Nadal's Third


Having watched yesterday's Roland Garros final, I think I can shore up some of the technical speculation I engaged in yesterday.

•Nadal is a more devastating, if less elegant, champion on clay than Kuerten, the last guy to win three French Opens in a row. Kuerten was, as has been copiously noted, all samba and sinuous movement; Nadal is a brutalist, the highest expression so far of the Gilbertian "Winning Ugly" strategy. Of course, Nadal is also pretty smart. Take, for example...

•...his restrained serving performance. Whether he planned this beforehand, or simply reacted to Federer's poor serving, is up for debate, but he definitely recognized that a high first-serve percentage on his side, versus a low one on Fed's side, would help him to, as it were, stay ahead in the count. This established a framework in which he could play patiently, albeit very physically, and force Federer to take too many chances.

•Federer seems to be caught between serving philosophies, in addition to perhaps suffering from technical flaws (see below). My own theory is that, having lost to Kuerten in a previous year, failing to make the French final, he has patterned his big-time clay court game after the supple, but now sadly departed, Brazilian's. Kuerten's shots lacked Fed's "crispness," but he did manage his play on the dirt in a similar fashion. But interestingly, Kuerten, in his French victories, served bigger than Federer and rarely missed a chance to end a point at net. So maybe Fed needs to review the tapes...

•Hitting a winner on clay, especially slow red clay, is difficult. This might explain why Federer whacked so many seemingly easy balls into the tape, off his forehand side. Normally, he gives himself more margin for error on winners than anyone I've ever seen. However, all those missed forehands in the first set could likely be chalked up to overhitting in a vain effort to flatten out the hit and strike decisive winners, rather than merely great shots that would demand another swing when Nadal tracked them down and hit them back, as he is wont to do.

•Nadal is currently the only Nike player wearing the clamdiggers, no? I suppose it's a look...

•As stated above, Nadal has a hideously effective game. I think this annoys Federer, who is a purist and an esthete. Has anyone ever looked more regal on court than the stately Swiss? The French, which rewards filthy play, quite literally, compounds Roger's disgust. No wonder he so much prefers beautiful, royalist Wimbledon. He's just the kind of aristocratic dude who would have been forced to flee Paris during the revolutionary Terror, but now cannot flee Paris during his own annual terror on the terre battue. Note, however, that the ugly game, pace Nadal and Roddick, is on the absolute rise; you can count on less than one hand the number of dominant, truly "beautiful" players who have come along in the past 20 years. Right now, only Lubie and Mikhail Youzhny come to mind as exemplars of the style. The rest of the ATP is thuggishly unpleasant to watch in action. Simple reason for all this: If you play pretty, you'd better have some enormous talent to draw on. Otherwise, brutally effective is the way to go. Let's hear it for Brad Gilbert, by far the most influential tennis tactician of all time.

•I don't see Federer's backhand as a significant weakness, on clay, anymore. As was pointed out by a poster on the Tennis Warehouse discussion board, it "never looked better" than in the final. I agree. At one point, McEnroe commented from the NBC booth that Fed wasn't hitting many slice backhands, which was true (and he probably should have been hitting more), but he was striking the topped backhand so dang well that, even in defeat, he seemed to make the decision to stick with it. Of course, He wasn't getting depth and penetration off it, particularly (it was hitting around the service line most of the time), but the stroke wasn't breaking down; it was his serve and forehand that were causing trouble.

•People are overestimating the opportunity that Fed has to attack Nadal by approaching the net. It's worth noting that both Fed and Raffa hit an "exploding" ball, loaded with so much nasty spin that it's extremely difficult to get on top of it and execute a decent controlled approach shot. I think this is why players like Tim Henmann and James Blake have a rough time attacking Federer by coming into net: Their feeble set-up shots give him too many passing-shot options, and his passing shots are outstanding. Turn the tables, and examine Nadal's viciously spun strokes. If Fed wouldn't approach on himself, why would he approach on Nadal?

•In two French finals against Nadal, Fed has won two sets. Nadal has won, obviously, six. At the professional level, that's a walk in the park. Federer is practically spotting Nadal a set every time. So as of 2007, the Number One hasn't seriously threatened the Number Two on this surface, in this venue. Upshot: Fed is going to have to work much, much harder to win a French Open as long as Nadal is around. Doing so, as time marches on, will imperil Fed's chances at Wimbledon, which over the long haul is his only shot at breaking Sampras' Slams record (just as Wimbledon was Pete's only chance at breaking Emerson's record--Wimbledon is just so much easier for a Fed or Pete to win). Maybe Roger looks at tennis history and figures racking up Slams won't have as distinctive and enduring an imapct as capturing a calendar-year Grand Slam, which hasn't been done on the men's side since Laver in 1969. If so, he only has another year or two to pull it off, as I don't think he will be able to hang in there physically for an entire year at age 27 or 28.

•FInally, it was a great victory for Nadal. He genuinely never looked, during the entire tournament, as if he intended to lose, no matter who he came up against. Everyone will remember 2007 as yet another year when the the "Best Player of All Time" didn't win, but what they should remember is that Nadal completely dominated the fortnight and pretty well ruled the likelihood of a Fed victory out from the very first ball he struck.

•That said, I don't expect to see Nadal make the Wimbledon final again. In fact, I think a well-rested Andy Roddick finally has a great shot at his second Slam. Both Fed and Nadal have to fairly weary at this point, and Fed in particular is struggling with some serving issues.

Classic Kicks

Frequent Racquetmaster vistitors (I guess there are maybe one or two) know that I like to post reviews from time to time. While I'm digesting the Roland Garros men's final, I thought I'd go ahead and roll out a review with a twist: An assessment of the realm of classic tennis footwear. (All images found at classicsportshoes.com, which has all these kicks for sale.)

First up...

The Legendary, Irrepressible Adidas Stan Smith



Introduced in the early '70s, "Stans," as they are known, have achieved perhaps the greatest following of any sports shoe outside Nike Air Jordans and Converse Chuck Taylors, both of which were--and are--of course basketball shoes, and therefore disqualified from this analysis. Apart from being a high-quality shoe to this day, with a simple design realized in basic materials (leather, rubber), Stans carry a certain snob appeal that I believe derives from their origins as a shoe symbolic of an upper-crusty, country-club sport, rather than an urban street game (hoops). A classic-tennis fetishist, complete with Old Skool shorts and a wooden racquet, could still manage gracefully in these kicks. They are still available, in three colors--green, all-white, and blue--as well as a "vintage" edition, but the basic green still sets the standard. Off the court, the ideal uniform for wearing with: no socks, faded Levi's 501s, Lacoste polo or Brooks Brothers oxford-cloth button down shirt. Persoanally, I would take a pass on the Stan Smith moustache.

Verdict: Utterly timeless, simplicity defined, will still be in style when players can levitate and trade ground strokes using lasers.

Next...

The Idiosyncratic, Innovative Adidas Rob Laver



Really, this one is a tie, in terms over overall, absolute classic-ness. Both Stans and "Lavers" are from Adidas, a company that can truly lay claim to having developed the templates against which all future tennis footwear will be judged. However, it's probably true that you are either a "Stans" person or a "Lavers" person. My impression, anecdotally developed, is that Stans have slightly more snob appeal than Lavers. Stan Smith was, of course, an American, while Laver was an Australian, so the patrician patriot nod goes to the Stans. There's also something about the use of more natural materials, notably leather, in the Stans that places them close to "real" shoes, and thereby allows them to pass in more formal settings, like next to the bar at some preppy hangout on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Lavers are constructed of mesh, rubber, and suede, and like the Stans have nice, thick laces. Again, available in a blue variation, like the Stans, but the classic green really says "tennis." Overall, I find Lavers to be a better functional shoe than the Stans: I can still play tennis, using other modern eeuipment and clothes, while wearing Lavers, but not while wearing Stans. The mesh construction makes sense in summertime. To me, these qualities ironically limit the classic appeal of Lavers, as I could never imagine taking to the courts nowadays with Stans. Plus, the sole of the Lavers seems to deliver more traction and provide more support than the sole of the Stans, and the shoe ultimately feels better for activities such as...oh, I don't know, walking. Evidently--according to Wikipedia, anyway--the contemporary sporting usefulness of the shoe has been confirmed by hackysackers. I don't know why. Maybe because the mesh weave "grabs" the sack? A good shoe to wear sockless with khaki shorts and a vintage t-shirt--and overall, a bit more "punk" than Stans.

Verdict: Very nearly almost just as utterly classic as Stans, but not quite, although it must be noted that a shoe introduced in 1970 that one can still play tennis in today is one hell of a shoe. If Stans are the "style" classic, then Lavers are the engineering miracle. Bravo, Adidas.

Now...

The Clubby, Comfy Tretorn Gullwing Nylite



Working our way through the hierarchy of materials--and the hierarchy of snob appeal--we arrive at the Treton Gullwing Nylite, a canvas plimsole lined with terry cloth that is utterly useless as a sporting shoe but eminently qualified to bolster your East Coast, wannabe Ivy League cred. These shoes have never gained a nickname, as they were not designed for use by a pro tennis player, and as a result they are generally know only as "Tretorns" (I've never even heard anyone call them "Gulls"). Wildly popular among the prepsters when I was in college in the '80s. Sorority girls often had several pairs, some with plaid "wings." Their main advantage in the battle of the classic tennis kicks is in their astounding barefoot comfort: because they are lined with terry cloth, they effectively come with their own sock. The absolute classic would be the all-white version, but I've always been partial to the ones with blue wings, even though they break--perhaps willfully--from the tradition of tennis sneakers with green detailing. Perfect with: Chinos, no socks, a white Lacoste, a madras jacket, ribbon belt, Ray-Ban Aviators, a gin & tonic, a house in Southampton, and an entitled sneer.

Verdict: Slipper-comfortable and untainted by any proletarian affection, but perhaps too demographically charged for most.

And finally...

The Magnificent, No-Nonsense, Indestructible Converse Jack Purcell



"Jacks" are completely unpretentious, more-or-less useless for contemporary tennis (they lack anything that even vaguely resembles lateral support), and of course were originally designed for a badminton player. They have been around since the 1930s. Based on rumors promulgated by the reviewers on Zappos.com, they were redesigned by Nike, after Nike purchased Converse several years back. They are currently going through their second wave of wild popularity; the first occurred in the '80s, when some genius doing print ads for Converse found an old shot of James Dean wearing a pair. Whamo! Instant classic. Jacks are a nice, solid classic canvas show with a nice, solid rubber sole (Heavy!) and a signature "smile" across the toe. They seem to appeal equally to women and men, and are available in many different colors and styles but look best in basic white. They have better class credentials than Chuck Taylors, and are generally associated in my mind with a tweedy, Woody Allen kind of NYU intellectual vibe. I believe they are the sort of canvas sneaker an elderly fellow with panache should wear. In the classic Converse shoe-verse, they hold up the best, in the sense that they can continue to look absolutely wonderful even after they have been essentially destroyed. Destroyed Chucks take on a seedy, heroin-addict, street-urchin, Basketball Diaries appearance when worn out; Jack's just look as if they belong to a frugal-professor type who wants to seem more threadbare than polished. One nice thing about them is that you could conceivably have no other tennis gear, save racquet and ball, on hand, but if you're wearing Jacks and you stumble across a court, you could enjoy a leisurely game (emphasis on leisurely). So they encourage spontaneous tennis. I find they feel best with socks--argyle socks--as they have far less "cushiness" than other classic tennis shoes.

Verdict: For earnest types who value a high-caliber Midwestern education and aren't too crazy about crowds, New York City, or associating with the highest tax bracket, even if they're in it.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Little Did I Know...

...that Pat Cash had speculated on Federer's serving problems a few months ago--obviously, a while before I created my post below.

But I'm glad that I at least caught on.

It's worth noting of course that I in no way consider myself capable to judge any professional tennis or squash player's game. However, I do sometimes notice little things. And I like to talk shop, because execution is higly interesting to me, certainly more than personalities. I suppose it's possible that Fed is "over-bending" his arm, to follow Cash's analysis, because he wants to gain a few more mph on his serve and win some more cheap points. I have no stats to back it up, but during the early rounds at Roland Garros, it did looks as if Fed was trying to serve more aggressively.

If this is the case, it just demonstrates what a perfect biomechanical miracle Sampras' serving action was.

Here's the Cash article from the London Sunday Times:

May 27, 2007

Federer's faulty delivery requires full service

As he prepares for Paris, the world No 1’s key stroke is malfunctioning badly
Pat Cash

Once they have congratulated or commiserated with their player at the end of a match, the first thing most top-flight coaches do is head for the ATP computer that logs match facts. Statistics don’t lie, and any analytical breakdown of a match is beneficial to plan for the future.

So Roger Federer’s service stats make alarming reading.

Of course we are talking about a player whose normal game may be as close to perfection as we have seen in the history of the sport - and far be it from me to criticise somebody who has won six of the past seven Grand Slam tournaments.

But a year ago, on the eve of the French Open, he ranked third in the table of break points saved. Now he sits way down the list in 47th place. And these statistics include his supreme performance at January’s Australian Open, where he did not drop a set on his way to the title.

The number of first serves he gets into play is also vastly inferior to this time last year.

Even in his superb victory over Rafael Nadal in last week’s final in Hamburg he managed to put only fractionally more than half of his first serves into play — very different from the 69% he logged against the Spaniard in the 2006 Wimbledon final.

Federer’s game has always been based on the consistency of his serve. He can vary his delivery, add kick or spin and throw in more than his fair share of aces. But he has always known that it was a facet of his game on which he could rely. In the past few months that appears to have changed.

Many people still find it hard to believe that in that horrendous third-round match against Filippo Volandri in Rome a couple of weeks ago, his first-serve percentage dropped to a lamentable 44% and he was broken four times in two sets.

Add the 44 unforced errors, and the only way to describe it was shocking - Federer’s choice of word rather than mine.

The fallout from that match was the end of his coaching relationship with Tony Roche.

Federer has opted to go into the French Open and Wimbledon without a named coach, although the Swiss Davis Cup captain, Severin Luthi, is on hand at Roland Garros to offer observations if required. I hope that Luthi has spotted something in the Federer serve that could explain the recent problems.

Looking at his service action, it’s clear to me that he is bending his elbow much more than he needs to do at the beginning of his action when he prepares to throw his racket at the ball. When his serve was supremely consistent, the bend was never any more than 90 degrees; now it’s nudging up to the 110-degree mark.

That is not a good sign. It would result in a drop in accuracy, which would affect his consistency and ultimately his confidence. Not wishing to be a harbinger of doom, but it could also result in injury, because an unwitting change in an action introduces an element of physical risk.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Federer’s dominance is that he never seems to get hurt. Much of the reason for that is the way his serving technique has been perfectly grooved.

There have been players who use a lot of elbow bend in their service action. Goran Ivanisevic, for instance, seemed to get an extra six inches of height and more velocity on the ball.

But he was plagued by shoulder problems during his later years on the Tour.

When you are the player, it’s difficult to spot this sort of thing. It is a big part of the coach’s responsibility to do so, and only Rochey will know whether it’s something of which he was aware, or even something he suggested in an attempt to tinker with Federer’s game to improve his chances of beating Nadal on clay.

You cannot argue with what Roche has done in the game, and the experience he brings is superior to most.

However, he is very “old school” when it comes to coaching technique.

He was Ivan Lendl’s main adviser when the big Czech faced me in the Wimbledon final - and that was 20 years ago.

More recently, I can remember Pat Rafter talking to me about problems he was having with his forehand and saying that Rochey did not know how to fix things.

It would be wrong if Federer went for too long without a proper coach.

I am aware that he won three majors out of four playing solo after the parting of the ways with Peter Lundgren at the end of 2003, but that was before his top position was threatened by a player as talented and forceful as Nadal. Many people maintain that my former Davis Cup teammate Darren Cahill is the best-qualified man for the job; I would not argue with that assessment.

“Killer” has an exemplary coaching CV after his spells with Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi. He would be sufficiently aware to nip this potential service problem in the bud before it becomes a serious issue.

Reactivate

The time has come to blog again.

It's throughly appalling to admit, but I have TiVOed the French Open final and will watch it in my own damn good time later. Of course, Nadal wins in four sets, extending his run at Roland Garros to three, matching Kuerten, edging up on Borg.

I'm going to do a serious watch and try to figure out just exactly why Federer can't seem to crack Nadal's game. I suspect, strongly, that it has to do with serving. My theory is that there has been a slow erosion of Fed's serving prowess over the past five seasons, barely perceptible against other opponents, but exploited, almost organically, by Nadal on clay.

I noticed something similar last year. It seems strange that Fed's serving is his Achilles tendon, but it seems that it's a little like driving for Tiger Woods: If Tiger drives the ball well, he's hard to beat; if Federer serves very well, likewise. In the case of both players, the most "dramatic" aspects of their wildly versatile repsective games are strengths that can abruptly turn into big problems.

In today's final, Federer served extremely poorly in the first set. On clay, he almost has to win the first set against Nadal to have a chance. So in a sense, it wasn't his forehand that let him down--as was repeatedly pointed out during the NBC broadcast--it was his serving. Unsure of his own ability to hold serve, his was less able to take chances when, on numerous occasions, he had the chance to break Nadal.

Could it be that Federer actually has a fundamental, albeit extremely subtle, flaw in his game? If you take a look at how his game has developed since he was a junior, you can see a definite change in his approach to serving. Also, if you look at his motion, it has become less of a serve-and-volley or serve-and-attack action, and more of a extremely varied setup shot for his preposterously elegant ground game.

There were hints from the early rounds that Federer was planning to lean on his serve more this year, but it looks like Nadal prepared for that and successfully blunted the play by the time the final rolled around.

Upshot: Federer is still the man to beat at Wimbledon, but I sense vulnerability at the US Open. Here's a thought, however: Maybe currently coachless Roger should connect with restless Pete Sampras?