Stan the Man showed us all that the 1-handed backhand still can...beat a 2-hander that is. Every time somebody new with a one-handed backhand succeeds in the modern game, it always seems to inspire a rush of questions about just what killed the 1-handed backhand anyway. To this day, the history of tennis is replete with players with one-handed backhands who have won far more majors than players with 2-handed backhands. As a matter of fact, even if you restrict your research to major winners since the first great 2-handed champions emerged from the primordial ooze of modern professional tennis (Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg in 1974) one could argue that the two-handed backhand is nothing more than an historical anomaly that will be blown apart and scattered to the winds of history, when the game gets its collective head out of its collective arse.
Let the record show that of the four majors, 2-handers have won more than 1-handers only at Roland Garros. This is a little ironic since the place you tend to see the most 1-handed backhands is on slow red clay, where even the smallest and weakest of tennis ingenues can hone this stroke through the imposed patience of the rustic surface. At 26 to 14 titles, 2-handed backhands have had considerably more success in the last 40 years than 1-handers in Paris, but in Australia, the trend is reversed at 23 to 18, 24 to 16 at the US Open, and the trend is most lopsided at Wimbledon where the record is 27 to 13. In total, 1-handers have it over 2-handers at the majors 88 to 73.
And just taking a look at the draw for Rotterdam next week I was curious to see how many of the 32 players in a rich field of players, for this 40 year old ATP 500, had let go of the second hand and, despite the presumed death sentence to their careers, have managed to make it in the game. Of the 32 players in the draw, fully 11 or almost 1/3rd of the draw play with a 1-handed backhand. Of course, 40 years ago, you'd expect the reverse, but not so today, and this begs the question: why?
Well, in truth, we all start out with a 2-handed backhand, particularly those of us who got an early start in the game, and the biggest problem a child faces on the tennis court, besides seeing over the net, is the challenge of maintaining racquet head stability. In the abstract, any good tennis pro will tell you that no matter how weak/strong you are, the best solution to this problem is the quality of your technique - if you do everything right technically before, during and after your stroke, you'll never need that second arm on either side. But there's the rub: you can't make any mistakes technically - not in your footwork, court positioning, your stroke production or your follow through, because if you do it's nearly impossible to hit a 1-handed backhand properly. The same cannot be said for the 2-hander.
The second hand gives the added racquet head stability you need when you haven't quite hit your mark in court positioning or footwork. It allows for that smooth delivery of strings to ball that is essential for a shot even rarer in tennis than the 1-handed backhand - a flat ground stroke. Freed from the need to sacrifice power for control, a 2-handed backhand is more likely to be delivered flat and straight as an arrow - just the sort of thing a modern player approaching the net could take advantage of, but hardly anyone consistently rushes the net anyway, so this advantage is lost on this generation.
So what killed the 1-handed backhand anyway? Was it Bjorn Borg and his Viking-God flowing blonde locks and purple and green pin stripes? Was it Andre Agassi and his rock and roll, gut-busting, gate-crashing brand of Bollitieri bash-ball? Perhaps Jimmy Connors and his crotch grabbing, every-cuss-in-the-book uttering, "this is what they want" extolling, histrionics laden game? No, it was none of these things.
It was the money.
Because there's so much money in the game, and so much of it is committed earlier and earlier in a player's career, the puppeteers have less patience with their marionettes developing the necessary technique to master a stroke as precise, and potentially fruitful, as the 1-handed backhand. If the money's there, just do the minimum technically with a 2-handed backhand, and you'll be up and running in no time. Why bother taking the time (and eschewing the money) to develop a 1-hander?
As such, typically that stroke is reserved for only the most talented of tennis players who are able to make up for what they lack in technique, with pure god-given hand/eye coordination, until that technique is where it needs to be to cease being a liability. That's not to say that the only talented tennis players are those with 1-handed backhands - to the contrary some of the nicest 1-handed backhands I've ever seen have come from players who hit a 2-hander by trade, either in training or in between points, or on the rare occasion where it is technically preferable to do so.
But when entire families hang on every result, and armies of masseuses, and physios, and cooks, and coaches, and fathers and WAGS (and whoever else can successfully impose themselves on the career of a promising young professional) amplify the risk of missing out on the big early paycheck, the future begins to look dark as dusk if you can't fight above your weight class. Thus the 1-handed backhand goes the way of the stick-shift: impressive when you see it, aesthetically far more enjoyable if you can do it, but an unnecessary risk when it's so much easier and safer to simply put it in gear and press "go".
But I have a feeling that this may not be a permanent thing. I think the future of tennis will not change nearly as much as we think. There certainly seems to be a lot of gentle giants out there, that we all predicted would dominate the game, but ironically the optimal size for a tennis champion has remained for the better part of 100 years between 5'11" and 6'3" with very rare exception.
Why?
Because the court is still 27 x 78 feet, you still have to break serve to win sets, and you can't play the game from inside your head or the sofa in your living room. And because of all of these things, I don't think conditions will persist such that a premium on racquet head stability from a very early age forces the game to continue to evolve towards the 2-handed backhand. And when everyone is doing the same thing and hoping for a different result, something's gotta give.
If the ball goes faster and with more spin on it, then the quality of the athlete will have to improve, and as that happens, the physical side of tennis will require tennis players to be in it for the long-haul, rather than the quick buck (because whether they play with one or two hands, no 17-year old in the world will have what it takes physically to win in what is increasingly becoming a man's game). Therefore results at at 13 and 14 should become less important than results at 18 and 19, and by then physically most will have had enough time to develop their ultimate game, rather than the most expedient one.
One way or another, I believe the game will once again belong to the ancient masters of the 1-handed backhand.
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Showing posts with label Connors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Connors. Show all posts
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
MICHAEL PORTER'S TENNIS
Michael Porter is an economist whose theories altered the way the competitive environment in business is analyzed. One of his theories is that, at its core, every business must identify one of only two generic strategies to compete in their industry, and align all of their skills and operations with that generic strategy. Those two generic strategies are either to compete on cost leadership or differentiation, and while the entire skill set of a business pursuing one strategy may (out of necessity) overlap with those of a business pursuing the other strategy, at its core the business must choose.
I've often wondered if this can be applied to any form of competition, including sports, and what then would be the application of these theories to a particular sport like tennis. Within this framework, I think there are two generic strategies in tennis, and they stem essentially from the two basic ways to win a point: you either (1) apply pressure or (2) absorb pressure. The player who applies pressure is more apt to win points through winners and forced errors, while the player who absorbs pressure is more likely to win points through the unforced errors of their opponents.
However, it should not be interpreted that a player who gears his game around one generic strategy or the other cannot develop the skills and employ the tactics of the other - indeed it could be argued that the player who best mixes the two skill sets will be most successful. It should not either be assumed that one strategy is superior to another - just as in business where the ultimate objective is total profits, which can be pursued either through a cost leadership strategy (like Walmart) or a differentiation strategy (like Apple), the same could be argued in tennis. There are examples of great players who have employed either strategy, even through the use of a different set of tactics (and associated skills). But at their core, the best players in the the game have had the most success when their games are aligned with the generic strategy they choose to pursue.
The most obvious example of this is the serve and volleyer, who applies enormous pressure on his opponent by serving effectively to set up his volleys which he would hit for winners or to elicit a weak response that is then put away. There is a laundry list of great serve and volleyers who would fall into this category, but an interesting analysis shows that while the strategic objective is the same, there are a number of ways to achieve it.
Boris Becker and Pete Sampras were serve and volleyers who employed huge sums of power both on the serve and on their ground strokes to essentially beat their opponents into submission. Their games were similar, but whereas Becker's tactics (which was more of a mix of serve and volley and play from the baseline) resulted in 6 majors, Ion Tiriac argued with him for years that he lacked the requisite associated skills to maximize his potential success through anything other than exclusive serve and volley - a tactic that Becker often eschewed in his career to a fault. Becker lost a US Open semi-final to Miroslav Mecir dueling from the baseline with a player who's strategic objective was the diametric opposite of Becker's, and after beating Agassi in their 1989 Davis Cup encounter in Germany, went another 6 years and 8 matches before beating him at Wimbledon in 1995 - all the while trying to beat Agassi at his own game.
Sampras on the other hand, was far more adept in the areas of defense to stay with Agassi as needed, until the opportunity presented itself to go on the attack. By all accounts his movement, footwork, and ground strokes themselves were superior to Becker's, and thus against Agassi and others, who sought to play from the baseline, found it difficult to do either against him. Interestingly enough, players with a similar generic strategic objective had the most success against Sampras, expressly because they were able to put him under pressure, by virtue of their own (huge) serve and volley game, and essentially neutralize his adept ability to meld the skills required to both defend and attack. Stefan Edberg for his career was 6-8 against Sampras, but it is interesting to note that he won 5 of their first 7 meetings and the decline of his career coincided with the ascendance of Sampras'. Once Sampras' game was able to effectively absorb or counteract the pressure from Edberg, he proceeded to win 6 of the next 7 matches.
Michael Stich held a 4-3 advantage over Sampras, and Richard Krajicek was 6-4 over the course of his career. These two statistical anomalies of players with 1 major to their name (not coincidentally Wimbledon titles in 1991 and 1996 respectively) were the result of each player being able to impose their generic strategies over Sampras, and neutralize Sampras' ability to effectively meld the skill sets of both applying and absorbing pressure. In fact, one could argue that while Krajicek and Stich were not nearly the player that Becker was, Becker's record against Sampras was much worse precisely because he failed to stick to a single generic strategy against him, the way his less impressive contemporaries probably felt they had to in order to have any chance to beat him.
It is interesting to note that while Agassi played primarily from the baseline, he was in fact a player who pursued the strategic objective of applying pressure. Like Jimmy Connors and Jim Courier, Agassi applied his pressure primarily from the baseline - but when faced with a player who had sufficient defensive skills to neutralize his advantage in this area - someone like Sampras - he often found it difficult to impose his strategy. As a matter of fact, one could argue that while earlier in his career Agassi was prone to try to hit winners from the baseline, as he became stronger, fitter and more technical, he realized that the equilibrium between attack and defense, particularly from the baseline, meant that he was better off forcing errors than hitting outright winners. But either way, his game was about applying pressure, not absorbing it.
Jimmy Connors is another example of an aggressive baseliner who obviously had the necessary movement and footwork to get in position to ply his trade from his preferred position, but one shouldn't confuse Connors with a player like Bjorn Borg, Rafael Nadal, or Rene Lacoste, who were masters of absorbing pressure. Connors was adept at coming to net and finishing points off, as part of his strategy to apply pressure to his opponents, and had his most successful seasons (eight years apart in 1974 and 1982) when the mix of those two tactical hemispheres was at its peak. Connors may have made his living at the baseline, but he was never so effective at winning majors as he was when he transitioned from bludgeoning attacking opponents with his ground strokes and passing shots, to picking apart those players who made their living absorbing pressure (like the early incarnations of Ivan Lendl).
Over the course of his career, Connors had the most problems with players who effectively absorbed pressure and elicited errors from him. The most telling examples of this comes from Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl, both of whom enjoyed lopsided career head to heads against Connors, but initially found it difficult to cope with his aggressive baseline game.
The modern game is more homogeneous in terms of the skill set of players, but generic strategies are essentially split 50/50. Federer and Djokovic are clear examples of two players who apply pressure to their opponents, but do it in very different ways. The important thing to note is that while both players apply pressure, what separates them from other players who employ a similar generic strategy is their ability to defend just enough to get in position to apply pressure. Furthermore, that tipping point differs from player to player within generic strategies, as well as across generic strategies. Federer, if he has to go beyond 15 strokes in a rally, he is unlikely to win the point, whereas with Djokovic, that number is much higher.
Nadal and Murray would fall in the category of players who generically absorb pressure, but that should not be misinterpreted as saying they're pushers. To the contrary a pusher could never get the results they have. Nadal's ability to transition from defense to attack is superior to Murray's in that when he makes his transition he has more power and spin at his disposal to finish the point. But they essentially play the game very similarly, and both are happy to stretch points well beyond the 20 stroke level to wait for that opportunity. In fact one could argue that the longer the point goes, the more likely they are to win it.
This brings us to why Djokovic is currently so effective. Because modern courts are slower, and the balls take more spin and the games of his opponents are more generic than in previous periods in history, Djokovic's superior fire power to both Nadal and Murray put him in a position to finish points in a way that they cannot - however, his level of defense is on par with them and thus he really has both of his bases covered. In fact, his defense is so good, and his points so often so long, that one might be tempted to put him in the category of one who absorbs pressure. But watching him play Federer will dispel this notion.
Fedjoker matches are characterized by both players trying desperately to take control of the point as soon as possible in order to finish it as soon as possible, and it is only the quality of each's defense that stretches the points out. But generally speaking, it is rare for rallies in their matches to go beyond 20 strokes. And Djokovic's footwork, court positioning and stroke production are now so well synchronized that he rarely requires that much effort to beat anyone else.
I think Michael Porter must be a tennis player.
I've often wondered if this can be applied to any form of competition, including sports, and what then would be the application of these theories to a particular sport like tennis. Within this framework, I think there are two generic strategies in tennis, and they stem essentially from the two basic ways to win a point: you either (1) apply pressure or (2) absorb pressure. The player who applies pressure is more apt to win points through winners and forced errors, while the player who absorbs pressure is more likely to win points through the unforced errors of their opponents.
However, it should not be interpreted that a player who gears his game around one generic strategy or the other cannot develop the skills and employ the tactics of the other - indeed it could be argued that the player who best mixes the two skill sets will be most successful. It should not either be assumed that one strategy is superior to another - just as in business where the ultimate objective is total profits, which can be pursued either through a cost leadership strategy (like Walmart) or a differentiation strategy (like Apple), the same could be argued in tennis. There are examples of great players who have employed either strategy, even through the use of a different set of tactics (and associated skills). But at their core, the best players in the the game have had the most success when their games are aligned with the generic strategy they choose to pursue.
The most obvious example of this is the serve and volleyer, who applies enormous pressure on his opponent by serving effectively to set up his volleys which he would hit for winners or to elicit a weak response that is then put away. There is a laundry list of great serve and volleyers who would fall into this category, but an interesting analysis shows that while the strategic objective is the same, there are a number of ways to achieve it.
Boris Becker and Pete Sampras were serve and volleyers who employed huge sums of power both on the serve and on their ground strokes to essentially beat their opponents into submission. Their games were similar, but whereas Becker's tactics (which was more of a mix of serve and volley and play from the baseline) resulted in 6 majors, Ion Tiriac argued with him for years that he lacked the requisite associated skills to maximize his potential success through anything other than exclusive serve and volley - a tactic that Becker often eschewed in his career to a fault. Becker lost a US Open semi-final to Miroslav Mecir dueling from the baseline with a player who's strategic objective was the diametric opposite of Becker's, and after beating Agassi in their 1989 Davis Cup encounter in Germany, went another 6 years and 8 matches before beating him at Wimbledon in 1995 - all the while trying to beat Agassi at his own game.
Sampras on the other hand, was far more adept in the areas of defense to stay with Agassi as needed, until the opportunity presented itself to go on the attack. By all accounts his movement, footwork, and ground strokes themselves were superior to Becker's, and thus against Agassi and others, who sought to play from the baseline, found it difficult to do either against him. Interestingly enough, players with a similar generic strategic objective had the most success against Sampras, expressly because they were able to put him under pressure, by virtue of their own (huge) serve and volley game, and essentially neutralize his adept ability to meld the skills required to both defend and attack. Stefan Edberg for his career was 6-8 against Sampras, but it is interesting to note that he won 5 of their first 7 meetings and the decline of his career coincided with the ascendance of Sampras'. Once Sampras' game was able to effectively absorb or counteract the pressure from Edberg, he proceeded to win 6 of the next 7 matches.
Michael Stich held a 4-3 advantage over Sampras, and Richard Krajicek was 6-4 over the course of his career. These two statistical anomalies of players with 1 major to their name (not coincidentally Wimbledon titles in 1991 and 1996 respectively) were the result of each player being able to impose their generic strategies over Sampras, and neutralize Sampras' ability to effectively meld the skill sets of both applying and absorbing pressure. In fact, one could argue that while Krajicek and Stich were not nearly the player that Becker was, Becker's record against Sampras was much worse precisely because he failed to stick to a single generic strategy against him, the way his less impressive contemporaries probably felt they had to in order to have any chance to beat him.
It is interesting to note that while Agassi played primarily from the baseline, he was in fact a player who pursued the strategic objective of applying pressure. Like Jimmy Connors and Jim Courier, Agassi applied his pressure primarily from the baseline - but when faced with a player who had sufficient defensive skills to neutralize his advantage in this area - someone like Sampras - he often found it difficult to impose his strategy. As a matter of fact, one could argue that while earlier in his career Agassi was prone to try to hit winners from the baseline, as he became stronger, fitter and more technical, he realized that the equilibrium between attack and defense, particularly from the baseline, meant that he was better off forcing errors than hitting outright winners. But either way, his game was about applying pressure, not absorbing it.
Jimmy Connors is another example of an aggressive baseliner who obviously had the necessary movement and footwork to get in position to ply his trade from his preferred position, but one shouldn't confuse Connors with a player like Bjorn Borg, Rafael Nadal, or Rene Lacoste, who were masters of absorbing pressure. Connors was adept at coming to net and finishing points off, as part of his strategy to apply pressure to his opponents, and had his most successful seasons (eight years apart in 1974 and 1982) when the mix of those two tactical hemispheres was at its peak. Connors may have made his living at the baseline, but he was never so effective at winning majors as he was when he transitioned from bludgeoning attacking opponents with his ground strokes and passing shots, to picking apart those players who made their living absorbing pressure (like the early incarnations of Ivan Lendl).
Over the course of his career, Connors had the most problems with players who effectively absorbed pressure and elicited errors from him. The most telling examples of this comes from Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl, both of whom enjoyed lopsided career head to heads against Connors, but initially found it difficult to cope with his aggressive baseline game.
The modern game is more homogeneous in terms of the skill set of players, but generic strategies are essentially split 50/50. Federer and Djokovic are clear examples of two players who apply pressure to their opponents, but do it in very different ways. The important thing to note is that while both players apply pressure, what separates them from other players who employ a similar generic strategy is their ability to defend just enough to get in position to apply pressure. Furthermore, that tipping point differs from player to player within generic strategies, as well as across generic strategies. Federer, if he has to go beyond 15 strokes in a rally, he is unlikely to win the point, whereas with Djokovic, that number is much higher.
Nadal and Murray would fall in the category of players who generically absorb pressure, but that should not be misinterpreted as saying they're pushers. To the contrary a pusher could never get the results they have. Nadal's ability to transition from defense to attack is superior to Murray's in that when he makes his transition he has more power and spin at his disposal to finish the point. But they essentially play the game very similarly, and both are happy to stretch points well beyond the 20 stroke level to wait for that opportunity. In fact one could argue that the longer the point goes, the more likely they are to win it.
This brings us to why Djokovic is currently so effective. Because modern courts are slower, and the balls take more spin and the games of his opponents are more generic than in previous periods in history, Djokovic's superior fire power to both Nadal and Murray put him in a position to finish points in a way that they cannot - however, his level of defense is on par with them and thus he really has both of his bases covered. In fact, his defense is so good, and his points so often so long, that one might be tempted to put him in the category of one who absorbs pressure. But watching him play Federer will dispel this notion.
Fedjoker matches are characterized by both players trying desperately to take control of the point as soon as possible in order to finish it as soon as possible, and it is only the quality of each's defense that stretches the points out. But generally speaking, it is rare for rallies in their matches to go beyond 20 strokes. And Djokovic's footwork, court positioning and stroke production are now so well synchronized that he rarely requires that much effort to beat anyone else.
I think Michael Porter must be a tennis player.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
THE DECLINE OF THE MASTERS
Nope, I'm not writing a column about golf's version of Wimbledon - I'm talking about the year-end championships that used to have all the cachet of a major, and had the one thing that the modern incarnation does not - interest outside of tennis.
The year-end championships of tennis have gone through so many iterations over the years, it's hard, even for the most ardent fan, to keep track of what it has been and become over the years. So imagine the difficulty of getting space "above the fold" in major sports media today, which is the surest measure of the popularity of the game outside the game.
The ATP World Tour Finals, one of the most idiotically named championships in the history of tennis, is the current version of what used to be known as "The Masters", and until 1990, it was magically more than just a tennis tournament - it was an event that the sports world followed almost as closely as the crowned jewels of the game (the four majors). And in a rare moment of agreement with John McEnroe, I think the move away from Madison Square Garden was the beginning of the end for the luster that once accompanied the event.
Of course, in his native-New Yorker narcissism, he thinks the answer is to move it back to the Garden, and while I think he's on the right track (and wouldn't necessarily disagree with such a move), I think the event is missing something that the other majors have in abundance - an identity. And it is by finding its identity that I think this once great sporting event can return to the pantheon of great sporting events, where it belongs.
In 1970, two years following the advent of open tennis, Grand Prix tennis had been initiated with the help of Jack Kramer, as an answer to the disparate hodge-podge of semi-professional circuits controlled by anyone with enough money to cobble together what passed as a tour. It competed with the WCT championships held in Dallas, which was based on results from the WCT tour, a tour run by Lamar Hunt as an answer to the open invitation to Grand Prix tennis which was controlled by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF - the ancestor of the modern ITF).
The first year-end championships were held in Tokyo, which happened to be the highest bidder, and in their never ending, insatiable appetite for a bigger payday, the event moved six times in six years, to tennis hotbeds such as Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne and Houston - where it promptly had a problem.
Nobody outside of tennis particularly cared about the event because the rules for qualification, the format of the tournament itself, and the players that participated, were about as reliable as predictions of the weather. In the end, the perceived value of the tournament, outside of tennis, suffered badly, and so too did the event.
Then in 1977, somebody came up with a brilliant idea - bring the mountain to Moses. For the first time in a string of 13 glorious years, the Masters was played at Madison Square Garden - then the mecca of sports entertainment - and with it came all the cachet the tournament could hope for. Sure, along the way there were questions about the format, the rules of qualification, and of course the quality of the tennis. As a matter of fact, very often the tournament was played in the year after the year for which qualification was determined - so late it was in the tennis calendar. And complaints about injuries and fatigue were seen as just a subterfuge for players to tank some matches in favor of bigger fish to fry.
Nevertheless it was an event that people outside of tennis covered with almost as much gusto as the majors. And why wouldn't they - initially the popularity of Connors, Borg and Vilas, would give way to the triumvirate of Connors, Borg and McEnroe, and then Connors, McEnroe and Lendl. In all three cases, the differences in personalities and the personal conflicts between some or all the heads of the tennis families provided the base, spine and glitter to make it a great event. But as the top players got old, retired, or lost their personal animus towards one another, the event petered. And as playing at Madison Square Garden had less and less of a cachet, the brilliant minds at the newly anointed emperors of tennis (the ATP tour) decided to chase the money and move the event in 1990 to, where else...Frankfurt.
Huh?
That's right, given that the game's dominant players were becoming predominantly European, and given the money they offered to host the tournament, Germany became the new mecca of tennis. First it was Frankfurt from 1990 to 1995, then that other internationally known metropolis, Hanover, hosted the event for a stretch from 1995 to 1999. And as you might expect, despite the star power of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and everyone else, the tournament slowly lost its identify, and as a result (in my opinion) its luster outside of tennis.
Along the way, it just so happened that when the ITF was frozen out of control of everything but the majors and Davis Cup, they decided (quite rightly) there was a gaping hole that they could fill, and promptly initiated a competing year-end championship called the Grand Slam Cup. And because one thing the ITF is very good at is hiding behind its tradition, they at least had the good sense to keep it in Munich for nine years from 1990 to 1999 as well (although they couldn't resist locating the tournament in Germany - where the money obviously was at the time). The other thing they're good at is hiding in front of prize money, but this time, they smartened up and put up an astronomical $3M payday to the winner of the Grand Slam Cup if they also happened to win a slam that same year. At the time, this was an astronomical sum of money - more than any of the majors, and way more than the ATP Tour World Championships.
As the ATP's year end championships slowly but surely caught up with the prize money of the Grand Slam Cup (money problems caused them to reduce their prize money to make it closer to the ATP's season finale), the latter suffered, and had to change when the event was held, as well as include a women's championship for two years 1998 and 1999 (both not surprisingly won by Venus Williams and Serena Williams respectively), in an effort to remain relevant. It didn't, and eventually was subsumed by the Tennis Masters Cup in 2000 - itself an homage to both year-end championships. They all figured half of a big pot of money is better than all of a small one, so they did the only sensible thing and merged.
But once the Masters moved from MSG, and the Grand Slam Cup lost its purely capitalist appeal, what was left was an event that served as nothing more than a book-end to the ATP tour's nine flagship events, and an anti-climactic denouement to the year's major quadrilogy. This interested nobody beyond the game. Within the game, it can be argued that the importance of the tournament was not only maintained, but improved. After all, points started to count towards ranking and the money was hard to ignore. But something was missing...an identity.
So here's my solution.
If this tournament is really all about (dare I say it) the money, then don't be ashamed of it - embrace it! Put the prize money at $10M for the winner if he is both a grand slam champion and finishes the year ranked #1 - you could clip off $2M for each of the two conditional compensations, and simply call the winner, if it happens to be someone like Nikolay Davydenko (instead of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic), the $6 million dollar man...I'm only half joking, by the way.
Also, they should put it at the same venue and leave it there for at least 10 years (in fact if they had a brain, would build a venue that they could keep it there forever). That way, the event and the venue would both benefit from the cachet of the other, and would help to perpetuate the other's viability. This business of chasing the money by changing the location every time someone shows up with a bigger check is the very reason that the women are now furtively begging to join the men at the O2. Although the venue is new, it has sufficient razamatazz to be an event in and of itself. The problem is that, at the moment, it's carrying the tennis. They should each do their own share of the heavy lifting and that's where the last component would come in.
Put the points to the champion on par with winning a major and make the final a 5-set match. Then the money and the points won't seem to have been capriciously handed out to someone who got hot for 8 sets. Making the final a 5-set match, and putting major-level points on the table would be the final piece to the puzzle making this tournament everything it should be both inside and outside of tennis.
So, $10M to the winner, major-level points, a consistent venue and a 5-set final. Now who could ignore that?
The year-end championships of tennis have gone through so many iterations over the years, it's hard, even for the most ardent fan, to keep track of what it has been and become over the years. So imagine the difficulty of getting space "above the fold" in major sports media today, which is the surest measure of the popularity of the game outside the game.
The ATP World Tour Finals, one of the most idiotically named championships in the history of tennis, is the current version of what used to be known as "The Masters", and until 1990, it was magically more than just a tennis tournament - it was an event that the sports world followed almost as closely as the crowned jewels of the game (the four majors). And in a rare moment of agreement with John McEnroe, I think the move away from Madison Square Garden was the beginning of the end for the luster that once accompanied the event.
Of course, in his native-New Yorker narcissism, he thinks the answer is to move it back to the Garden, and while I think he's on the right track (and wouldn't necessarily disagree with such a move), I think the event is missing something that the other majors have in abundance - an identity. And it is by finding its identity that I think this once great sporting event can return to the pantheon of great sporting events, where it belongs.
In 1970, two years following the advent of open tennis, Grand Prix tennis had been initiated with the help of Jack Kramer, as an answer to the disparate hodge-podge of semi-professional circuits controlled by anyone with enough money to cobble together what passed as a tour. It competed with the WCT championships held in Dallas, which was based on results from the WCT tour, a tour run by Lamar Hunt as an answer to the open invitation to Grand Prix tennis which was controlled by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF - the ancestor of the modern ITF).
The first year-end championships were held in Tokyo, which happened to be the highest bidder, and in their never ending, insatiable appetite for a bigger payday, the event moved six times in six years, to tennis hotbeds such as Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne and Houston - where it promptly had a problem.
Nobody outside of tennis particularly cared about the event because the rules for qualification, the format of the tournament itself, and the players that participated, were about as reliable as predictions of the weather. In the end, the perceived value of the tournament, outside of tennis, suffered badly, and so too did the event.
Then in 1977, somebody came up with a brilliant idea - bring the mountain to Moses. For the first time in a string of 13 glorious years, the Masters was played at Madison Square Garden - then the mecca of sports entertainment - and with it came all the cachet the tournament could hope for. Sure, along the way there were questions about the format, the rules of qualification, and of course the quality of the tennis. As a matter of fact, very often the tournament was played in the year after the year for which qualification was determined - so late it was in the tennis calendar. And complaints about injuries and fatigue were seen as just a subterfuge for players to tank some matches in favor of bigger fish to fry.
Nevertheless it was an event that people outside of tennis covered with almost as much gusto as the majors. And why wouldn't they - initially the popularity of Connors, Borg and Vilas, would give way to the triumvirate of Connors, Borg and McEnroe, and then Connors, McEnroe and Lendl. In all three cases, the differences in personalities and the personal conflicts between some or all the heads of the tennis families provided the base, spine and glitter to make it a great event. But as the top players got old, retired, or lost their personal animus towards one another, the event petered. And as playing at Madison Square Garden had less and less of a cachet, the brilliant minds at the newly anointed emperors of tennis (the ATP tour) decided to chase the money and move the event in 1990 to, where else...Frankfurt.
Huh?
That's right, given that the game's dominant players were becoming predominantly European, and given the money they offered to host the tournament, Germany became the new mecca of tennis. First it was Frankfurt from 1990 to 1995, then that other internationally known metropolis, Hanover, hosted the event for a stretch from 1995 to 1999. And as you might expect, despite the star power of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and everyone else, the tournament slowly lost its identify, and as a result (in my opinion) its luster outside of tennis.
Along the way, it just so happened that when the ITF was frozen out of control of everything but the majors and Davis Cup, they decided (quite rightly) there was a gaping hole that they could fill, and promptly initiated a competing year-end championship called the Grand Slam Cup. And because one thing the ITF is very good at is hiding behind its tradition, they at least had the good sense to keep it in Munich for nine years from 1990 to 1999 as well (although they couldn't resist locating the tournament in Germany - where the money obviously was at the time). The other thing they're good at is hiding in front of prize money, but this time, they smartened up and put up an astronomical $3M payday to the winner of the Grand Slam Cup if they also happened to win a slam that same year. At the time, this was an astronomical sum of money - more than any of the majors, and way more than the ATP Tour World Championships.
As the ATP's year end championships slowly but surely caught up with the prize money of the Grand Slam Cup (money problems caused them to reduce their prize money to make it closer to the ATP's season finale), the latter suffered, and had to change when the event was held, as well as include a women's championship for two years 1998 and 1999 (both not surprisingly won by Venus Williams and Serena Williams respectively), in an effort to remain relevant. It didn't, and eventually was subsumed by the Tennis Masters Cup in 2000 - itself an homage to both year-end championships. They all figured half of a big pot of money is better than all of a small one, so they did the only sensible thing and merged.
But once the Masters moved from MSG, and the Grand Slam Cup lost its purely capitalist appeal, what was left was an event that served as nothing more than a book-end to the ATP tour's nine flagship events, and an anti-climactic denouement to the year's major quadrilogy. This interested nobody beyond the game. Within the game, it can be argued that the importance of the tournament was not only maintained, but improved. After all, points started to count towards ranking and the money was hard to ignore. But something was missing...an identity.
So here's my solution.
If this tournament is really all about (dare I say it) the money, then don't be ashamed of it - embrace it! Put the prize money at $10M for the winner if he is both a grand slam champion and finishes the year ranked #1 - you could clip off $2M for each of the two conditional compensations, and simply call the winner, if it happens to be someone like Nikolay Davydenko (instead of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic), the $6 million dollar man...I'm only half joking, by the way.
Also, they should put it at the same venue and leave it there for at least 10 years (in fact if they had a brain, would build a venue that they could keep it there forever). That way, the event and the venue would both benefit from the cachet of the other, and would help to perpetuate the other's viability. This business of chasing the money by changing the location every time someone shows up with a bigger check is the very reason that the women are now furtively begging to join the men at the O2. Although the venue is new, it has sufficient razamatazz to be an event in and of itself. The problem is that, at the moment, it's carrying the tennis. They should each do their own share of the heavy lifting and that's where the last component would come in.
Put the points to the champion on par with winning a major and make the final a 5-set match. Then the money and the points won't seem to have been capriciously handed out to someone who got hot for 8 sets. Making the final a 5-set match, and putting major-level points on the table would be the final piece to the puzzle making this tournament everything it should be both inside and outside of tennis.
So, $10M to the winner, major-level points, a consistent venue and a 5-set final. Now who could ignore that?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
GRUNT MUCH?
A lot's been made of the issue of grunting, so here's a little something I found humorous in that vain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161g-HYTalo&feature=related
Enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161g-HYTalo&feature=related
Enjoy it.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
WHY IS EVERYONE SO AFRAID OF GOATS?
It seems to me there’s been a awful lot of fear of the GOAT debate running around, and for the life of me, I can't understand why. After all, this is sports, and we do keep records: who won a match, who won a tournament and who won a slam. All of these elements are important to fans because it is this very context that gives meaning to sports that separates it from the arts. I may love dancing as much as the man standing next to me, but aside from a few technical arguments on the proper form of this step or that, we really have no context for discussing which particular dancer is better than another.
But that’s not the case with sports.
In sports, and in particular in tennis, it is precisely the context of determining who is the better player in a point, game, set, match, tournament, year and era, that makes it compelling for those who follow the game. After all, you can prefer the tenacity of Nadal over the artistry of Federer, over the pure power of Djokovic; but at the end of the day all those elements are merely means to an end of determining who is the better player by something that is indisputable – results.
Yet somehow results have become the least important element in the GOAT debate, and it appears to have become fashionable to invent new and improved ways to look past the obvious (i.e. results) to something else that is the truest measure of greatness. But in my opinion, and as they say in the south, this is a bit like reaching around your ass to scratch your elbow. Today, the GOAT debate, and more importantly, the fear thereof, has been rekindled by the exploits of one Roger Federer.
As often as the fearful argue against the concept of the GOAT, detractors today typically argue more specifically against Federer as the GOAT. Mostly, they don’t debate his results, although some try to (rather convolutedly I might add), but rather offer variations on the problems with the GOAT argument itself. There are so many variations on arguments against his results as the truest measure of greatness that it is difficult to address them all in a single post, but here are some of the more common ones that are currently a la mode.
THE GAME HAS CHANGED
The argument goes like this: tennis is played very differently in 2009 than it was in say 1929 or 1959 or even 1989, and as such it is not reasonable to compare a player in 2009 to a player from 1929 to determine who was the better player. I suppose if you’re asking if say, Bill Tilden went into a time warp and played Rafa Nadal today, who would win, I think the answer is obviously Nadal. After all, Tilden couldn’t hit 100+ mph winners from behind the baseline, or 140mph serves up the T. Enveloped in this argument is that equipment has changed the game fundamentally – and this is very true. Tilden’s shots probably spun, at the most, 500 times a minute, whereas Nadal’s do so at 3200 rpm on average, and peaks at 5000 rpm. And these changes certainly would make it difficult for Tilden to beat Nadal.
But what about the alternate argument: what if Nadal were transported to 1929 without his modern equipment? I would argue that Rafa would at the very least have to completely regenerate his game to play in full pants on grass (almost all the time) with a racquet half the size, twice as heavy and with strings that impart almost no unnatural spin on the ball at all. I'm sure in time he would figure out a way to beat Tilden...or would he? What about Tilden? If you transported him from say, 1925, and gave him modern equipment, nutrition and accoutrements for 5 years, I'm sure he'd still never figure out a way to beat Nadal...or would he?
The point - this is what makes this argument entirely moot - because who would beat whom is not the question the GOAT debate is trying to answer.
The GOAT debate is trying to determine, given their circumstances who more often emerged as the best player at the most important competitions in their respective careers. In that context, if (God forbid) Rafa’s career ended tomorrow you could hardly say his was better than Tilden’s – after all, the pinnacle of both their eras was winning slams and 10 slams is more the 6. But then again, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow and for all we know we have either already witnessed Rafa’s last slam, or the 6th of 20 to come, which in either case, the case would be closed.
So what matters is not whether Rafa could use a slice forehand effectively, or if Tilden ever came over his backhand. It doesn’t matter that Rafa takes 35 seconds between points, but Tilden only played 50 times a year. What matters is that when it mattered the most (namely at the slams) Tilden emerged the best player more often than Rafa, although I am pretty confident that in 5 years, that will no longer be the case. It is, in fact, a macrocosm of determining a tournament champion – we don’t care that my first round was easier than yours, or that I played with wind on one day while you played under the roof. What we care about is who won – and we would no sooner name Ivo Karlovic the Wimbledon champion because he hit more aces than Nadal, than we would consider Rafa the greater champion because he hits harder than Tilden.
At the end of the day, what the players do either in technique or in tactics, is a means to an end - to win as many of the most coveted titles they can, and it is that measure that makes different careers perfectly comparable by this measure, regardless of the fact that the manner in which they achieved that aim has changed.
WEAK COMPETITION
This one is most often cited when comparing Sampras to Federer – the argument is that Sampras' era was full of grand slam winners, and as such, he had more of them to overcome than Federer did, and as such, while they have the same number of slams, Sampras’ slams were harder (due to the competition), and thus he was the greater champion. On the face of it, this seems to be the most damning argument against Federer. After all, very few of his contemporaries have won slams so it seems to make sense that his era was weaker – of course there is a very big problem with this logic.
First, the measure you’re using is not abstract – tennis is a zero sum game – someone wins and someone loses every single unit of competition in the game – there are absolutely no ties in tennis. And when it comes to the measure that we use the most to evaluate players and their place in history, the number of slams won, it is even moreso a zero sum game (if that's logically possible) – because in this case one person wins a slam, and 127 other players who contended lose - hundreds more who didn't don't even show up on the books. And of course there are only 4 slams a year, so if you win 3 of them, your competition necessarily appears weaker because you’ve won more of them. But does this really speak to the quality of the contemporaries or that of the one who won more often?
Is Federer less of a champion because he won more?
His competitors necessarily won less often and by this logic qualify only as weaker competition? I would ask you this – which do you think Sampras would have preferred – to win 3 slams a year 3 times or 2 slams a year 4 times – I’m quite certain he’d prefer the former. Why? Not to sound condescending, but because in sports more winning is better. In the latter he'd have 8 slams, whereas in the former he'd have 9 - but his competition would be considered stronger in the latter because he, in fact, won less often.
That just doesn't add up.
There’s also another problem – using slams to measure the competition of a dominant player, but setting aside that same measure when evaluating the dominant player himself, creates two separate systems of valuation that are inconsistent, not to mention contrary to the idea of sports and competition. Furthermore, it assigns more value to a player for something that he didn’t do – in other words Sampras gets credit for Agassi winning more slams when he was a contemporary of Sampras. But isn’t there something Sampras could have done that he didn’t, (that Federer did) that would have made this argument moot? Of course there is; Sampras could have won the very slams that Agassi did; then he’d have more slams overall and Federer wouldn’t even be in the conversation.
At the end of the day, the competition is as strong as you let it be – never mind that Sampras never beat Edberg in a slam or Davis Cup, Edberg is still used to prop up the strength of Sampras’ competition. Another variation of this argument is that although Federer beat Agassi in slams, Agassi was older and weaker when Federer beat him than when Sampras beat him. So by this logic, was Edberg in 1995 better than Edberg in 1992 or 1990 for that matter? Was Becker in his prime in 1995 or in 1989? So why does Sampras’ competition get better, as they age, than Federer’s? For that you’ll have to ask those who support this argument - because I have no idea...well, I have an idea.
There are all kinds of variables on the competition even within a tournament – the Soderling that beat Nadal at Roland Garros was obviously not the same as the one who lost to Federer – but I give two arguments to the contrary – did Federer have anything to do with the quality of Soderling’s play in the final? Of course he did. And can anyone tell me honestly they think Acasuso, Haas or del Potro could have done in their first grand slam final what they did in the 3rd round, quarterfinal and semi-final? Probably not.
Wrapped up in this weak era argument is a microcosm thereof – Federer’s draws have been easier than his contemporaries. Because Federer always seems to wind up playing someone he’s beaten 10 times, you start to think that his draws are easy. But the rebuttal of this is so obvious that it’s easy to miss – if Federer’s draw is easy because he’s playing someone he’s beaten 10 times, doesn’t that speak to Federer’s greatness because he’s beaten so many players 10 times?
Is it a sensical criticism that you win too often to be considered that good?
It's more logical to say his draw is easy because he’s made it look easy, by beating his opponents over and over again in the past, and getting through the current one. At the end of the day, the draw is as easy as you make it look. Nobody thought Soderling would put up much of a defense against Nadal in Paris this year because Nadal had just beaten him in Rome 6-1, 6-0, and had lost to him 3 times. But suddenly his draw was harder in Paris – why? Because he lost. So in the aggregate, by winning more, your draw looks easier, and thus you’re not as good as you appear? But does that make sense?
Doesn't winning more often make you a better player?
The range of variation from stroke to stroke versus from era to era is immeasurable. What remains the same is this – whoever Sampras played in his grand slam final victories, whether it was Andre Agassi or Cedric Pioline, they won 6 matches in a row, but couldn’t win the 7th. And whoever Federer played in his grand slam finals, whether it was Marcos Baghdatis or Rafael Nadal, they won 6 matches in a row, but couldn’t win the 7th. After all, isn’t 7 wins in a row what everyone was trying to do all along? Does the rest of it really matter?
THE #1 RANK
There is no doubt that earning the #1 ranking is a measure of consistency over the period of time the rankings are calculated. Therefore, how many years you’ve finished #1 seems to be a good measure of greatness. I wouldn't entirely disagree with that and would use that as a tie breaker between two players on equal terms in majors won. But give any great player a choice between being #1 or winning slams and they’ll all choose slams. That’s because there are so many variations from one tournament to the next, in terms of effort, tours, commitment, etc., that the #1 ranking has a lot of holes in it in determining greatness. Slams, on the other hand, are the only pure competitive pursuits in the game of tennis - everyone covets them equally, and everyone comes to play. But there are other problems with the #1 ranking as compared to slams.
First off all, you can be ranked #1 without winning a slam – the list of players who have been ranked #1 without winning a slam is short, but damning nonetheless - Ivan Lendl in 1983, Carlos Moya in 1997, Marcelo Rios in 1998. Lendl and Moya eventually justified their ranking, but have the rankings always reflected accurately the relative value placed on various titles? If so, then how could the non-slam winning #1 be possible? At best, even though it often convenes with winning slams, the #1 ranking is a calculated reflection that has only existed since 1973, and has always been heavily weighted in favor of ATP events - even to this day (you could win the calendar slam, but if another player wins 6 Masters 1000s and 4 500s, by the ATP ranking you're on equal terms - that doesn't make sense).
Before the ATP rankings, rankings were arbitrarily determined by various individuals based on a myriad of considerations that included foremost the number of the most important tournaments won but also included factors that changed as the game changed - namely before the game was unified under the single umbrella of the ATP organized tour in 1990.
Even so, there have been cases of players who have won fewer slams than their nearest rival, but still somehow finished the year ranked #1: Jimmy Connors in 1978 won the US Open – it was his only slam that year – Bjorn Borg, on the other hand won Wimbledon and the French Open – guess who finished the year ranked #1.
And on January 3rd, 1983 John McEnroe, who hadn’t won any slams for more than 12 months, somehow usurped Jimmy Connors to the #1 ranking despite Connors having won Wimbledon and the US Open in the previous year. Nobody considers the anomalies as problematic because the second best player at the time and since retained considerable gravitas – but the rankings made little sense then and as such, are not a reliable measure of greatness in the aggregate, because the ranking system has been so clearly flawed and more importantly inconsistent. The same cannot be said of the majors.
HEAD TO HEAD AGAINST HIS GREATEST RIVALS
This one goes like this: at the end of his career, Sampras had winning records against all of his major contemporaries, whereas Federer appears to have a losing record to many of his major contemporaries – so how can you be the greatest of all time when you’re not even the greatest of your own era?
To this I give two names – Richard Krajicek and Michael Stich. Both players had winning records against Sampras over the course of their careers, and both played him often enough for those records to “matter” in the abstract (10 and 7 times respectively). So who was the better player Sampras or Krajicek? Sampras or Stich? Nobody in their right mind would argue the latter in either case and the reason is because they both won 13 fewer slams than Sampras did. In other words, when it comes to Krajicek and Stick, although their head to heads against Sampras were considerably better, clearly the measure of greatness was slams. But when it comes to Federer, somehow the measure of greatness turns to head to head versus Nadal, and Murray (of all people). So why use slam totals to propel Sampras past those whom he lost to more often than he beat, and not do the same for Federer?
In the case of Murray there is no good explanation. In the case of Nadal there are only two good ones – first Nadal has 6 majors himself, and thus is considered an all-time great. But Federer has 8 more majors than Nadal, and if he were the better player in this era, shouldn't he have more majors? That brings us to the other argument: that Nadal will eventually surpass Federer. Well, then when Nadal surpasses Federer, he will necessarily be the GOAT – until then SPECIFICALLY AS COMPARED TO THE CAREER OF FEDERER he’s just like Krajicek and Stich to Sampras - he just happens to have a few more slams to his name.
The funny thing is, the one player who loses out in this discussion despite years of dominance that exceeds just about any other player in history, is Pancho Gonzales – whereas slam totals is the basis for Sampras’ and Federer’s GOAT candidacy, it is entirely head to head competition that is the basis of Pancho Gonzales’. But that doesn’t do anything for Sampras, who is most often cited as a more worthy claimant to being the GOAT than Gonzales. In fact you won’t get any argument from me if you suggest that Gonzales was greater than Federer – but you will if you say Sampras was – for now they are even, and if Federer gets #15, that’s one more than Sampras and in my view that makes him greater...by 1 slam.
NOT EVERYBODY PLAYED ALL THE SLAMS
It is historically ironic that the championship of the country that has produced more great champions in the history of the game than probably any other (with the exception of the United States) was for so long considered the red-headed step-sister of the slams. There are a lot of reasons for this that are not germane to the GOAT question, so I'll leave that to another post. What is germane is whether this matters to the GOAT argument.
Basically it goes like this - if all the greats always played the Australian Open, they would have won more slams and thus would look better historically. Ironically, one of the other legitimate GOAT candidates, Laver, played every Australian Open he could, so that argument is not necessarily applicable to him (more on that later). But what about Connors, Borg and McEnroe - since they won so many slams on grass, they would surely have won the Australian Open more often, right?
Well, if that's the case, then Sampras and Federer should have won 5 Australian Opens, since they've both won 5 US Opens - oops...they've only won 2 and 3 respectively. In fact, Connors won 3 slams in 1974, and then proceeded to reach the final in 1975 of each slam he won in 1974 - the result - he lost all 3 finals all to players that he had easily beaten the year before, and generaly bettered in his career.
The point? There are no guarantees in tennis, so you can't argue that a player who won Wimbledon 5 times would have won the Australian 5 times, just because the surface was the same - why did Laver go 4, 3 and 2 in Wimbledons, Aussie's and US Opens? They were all on the same surface when he played, so he should have gone 4, 4 and 4 for that argument to hold.
There's another side to this argument - all the slams that were not available to professionals would have added to their career totals. This is mostly an argument to pad the accomplishments of those that suffered the most during the schism between amateur and professional tennis before the open era began. The most common example given is usually Laver, who finished his career with 11 slams, but supposedly would have had a lot more if he had been able to play as a professional. But there's a problem with this argument - if Laver had been able to play majors after turning professional, so too would Hoad, Rosewall, Gonzales, Trabert, etc. Thus they would all have been in a position to add to their totals as well, and more importantly prevent Laver from winning more. At the very least, we must discount Laver's total of 11 by the 6 he won as an amateur and start from there in this hypothetical slam total. He may very well have won 10 more majors, but it would have to be added to the 5 he won as a professional, rather than the 11 people normally use as the jumping point to arrive at his hypothetical total of 20+.
In fact even if he won half the majors from which he was banned from 1963 to 1967 he goes from 5 to 15. Speaking of which, Laver won 9 out of 15 of the 3 biggest professional tournaments he entered during that period (those tournaments considered the professional slams), which takes his total from 5 to 14.
We measure who is the best player on a surface by how often they win the biggest titles on that surface. Vilas may have a better record on clay, but few consider him greater than Borg because of their starkly contrasting records at the French Open. We measure who is the best player in a year by how often they win the biggest titles in a year – Connors may have amassed more arbitrarily assigned points in 1978 than Borg, but would anyone say he was the better player that year? No. Why? Because of Borg’s results in slams – 2 wins and a final, versus 1 win and 1 final for Connors. We measure who is the best player in an era by how often they’ve won the biggest tournaments in the game – so nobody considers Connors a better player than Borg even though he won 30 more titles – why? Because many of those were rinky-dink titles contested by rinky-dink opponents. But when everyone equally pursued the same title, Borg won more – namely 3 more.
So the question is – why are so many afraid to anoint the player who wins the most slams ever as the greatest player ever? One thing is for certain – it has nothing to do with results. And isn’t that more than mildly ironic when it comes to sports?
But that’s not the case with sports.
In sports, and in particular in tennis, it is precisely the context of determining who is the better player in a point, game, set, match, tournament, year and era, that makes it compelling for those who follow the game. After all, you can prefer the tenacity of Nadal over the artistry of Federer, over the pure power of Djokovic; but at the end of the day all those elements are merely means to an end of determining who is the better player by something that is indisputable – results.
Yet somehow results have become the least important element in the GOAT debate, and it appears to have become fashionable to invent new and improved ways to look past the obvious (i.e. results) to something else that is the truest measure of greatness. But in my opinion, and as they say in the south, this is a bit like reaching around your ass to scratch your elbow. Today, the GOAT debate, and more importantly, the fear thereof, has been rekindled by the exploits of one Roger Federer.
As often as the fearful argue against the concept of the GOAT, detractors today typically argue more specifically against Federer as the GOAT. Mostly, they don’t debate his results, although some try to (rather convolutedly I might add), but rather offer variations on the problems with the GOAT argument itself. There are so many variations on arguments against his results as the truest measure of greatness that it is difficult to address them all in a single post, but here are some of the more common ones that are currently a la mode.
THE GAME HAS CHANGED
The argument goes like this: tennis is played very differently in 2009 than it was in say 1929 or 1959 or even 1989, and as such it is not reasonable to compare a player in 2009 to a player from 1929 to determine who was the better player. I suppose if you’re asking if say, Bill Tilden went into a time warp and played Rafa Nadal today, who would win, I think the answer is obviously Nadal. After all, Tilden couldn’t hit 100+ mph winners from behind the baseline, or 140mph serves up the T. Enveloped in this argument is that equipment has changed the game fundamentally – and this is very true. Tilden’s shots probably spun, at the most, 500 times a minute, whereas Nadal’s do so at 3200 rpm on average, and peaks at 5000 rpm. And these changes certainly would make it difficult for Tilden to beat Nadal.
But what about the alternate argument: what if Nadal were transported to 1929 without his modern equipment? I would argue that Rafa would at the very least have to completely regenerate his game to play in full pants on grass (almost all the time) with a racquet half the size, twice as heavy and with strings that impart almost no unnatural spin on the ball at all. I'm sure in time he would figure out a way to beat Tilden...or would he? What about Tilden? If you transported him from say, 1925, and gave him modern equipment, nutrition and accoutrements for 5 years, I'm sure he'd still never figure out a way to beat Nadal...or would he?
The point - this is what makes this argument entirely moot - because who would beat whom is not the question the GOAT debate is trying to answer.
The GOAT debate is trying to determine, given their circumstances who more often emerged as the best player at the most important competitions in their respective careers. In that context, if (God forbid) Rafa’s career ended tomorrow you could hardly say his was better than Tilden’s – after all, the pinnacle of both their eras was winning slams and 10 slams is more the 6. But then again, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow and for all we know we have either already witnessed Rafa’s last slam, or the 6th of 20 to come, which in either case, the case would be closed.
So what matters is not whether Rafa could use a slice forehand effectively, or if Tilden ever came over his backhand. It doesn’t matter that Rafa takes 35 seconds between points, but Tilden only played 50 times a year. What matters is that when it mattered the most (namely at the slams) Tilden emerged the best player more often than Rafa, although I am pretty confident that in 5 years, that will no longer be the case. It is, in fact, a macrocosm of determining a tournament champion – we don’t care that my first round was easier than yours, or that I played with wind on one day while you played under the roof. What we care about is who won – and we would no sooner name Ivo Karlovic the Wimbledon champion because he hit more aces than Nadal, than we would consider Rafa the greater champion because he hits harder than Tilden.
At the end of the day, what the players do either in technique or in tactics, is a means to an end - to win as many of the most coveted titles they can, and it is that measure that makes different careers perfectly comparable by this measure, regardless of the fact that the manner in which they achieved that aim has changed.
WEAK COMPETITION
This one is most often cited when comparing Sampras to Federer – the argument is that Sampras' era was full of grand slam winners, and as such, he had more of them to overcome than Federer did, and as such, while they have the same number of slams, Sampras’ slams were harder (due to the competition), and thus he was the greater champion. On the face of it, this seems to be the most damning argument against Federer. After all, very few of his contemporaries have won slams so it seems to make sense that his era was weaker – of course there is a very big problem with this logic.
First, the measure you’re using is not abstract – tennis is a zero sum game – someone wins and someone loses every single unit of competition in the game – there are absolutely no ties in tennis. And when it comes to the measure that we use the most to evaluate players and their place in history, the number of slams won, it is even moreso a zero sum game (if that's logically possible) – because in this case one person wins a slam, and 127 other players who contended lose - hundreds more who didn't don't even show up on the books. And of course there are only 4 slams a year, so if you win 3 of them, your competition necessarily appears weaker because you’ve won more of them. But does this really speak to the quality of the contemporaries or that of the one who won more often?
Is Federer less of a champion because he won more?
His competitors necessarily won less often and by this logic qualify only as weaker competition? I would ask you this – which do you think Sampras would have preferred – to win 3 slams a year 3 times or 2 slams a year 4 times – I’m quite certain he’d prefer the former. Why? Not to sound condescending, but because in sports more winning is better. In the latter he'd have 8 slams, whereas in the former he'd have 9 - but his competition would be considered stronger in the latter because he, in fact, won less often.
That just doesn't add up.
There’s also another problem – using slams to measure the competition of a dominant player, but setting aside that same measure when evaluating the dominant player himself, creates two separate systems of valuation that are inconsistent, not to mention contrary to the idea of sports and competition. Furthermore, it assigns more value to a player for something that he didn’t do – in other words Sampras gets credit for Agassi winning more slams when he was a contemporary of Sampras. But isn’t there something Sampras could have done that he didn’t, (that Federer did) that would have made this argument moot? Of course there is; Sampras could have won the very slams that Agassi did; then he’d have more slams overall and Federer wouldn’t even be in the conversation.
At the end of the day, the competition is as strong as you let it be – never mind that Sampras never beat Edberg in a slam or Davis Cup, Edberg is still used to prop up the strength of Sampras’ competition. Another variation of this argument is that although Federer beat Agassi in slams, Agassi was older and weaker when Federer beat him than when Sampras beat him. So by this logic, was Edberg in 1995 better than Edberg in 1992 or 1990 for that matter? Was Becker in his prime in 1995 or in 1989? So why does Sampras’ competition get better, as they age, than Federer’s? For that you’ll have to ask those who support this argument - because I have no idea...well, I have an idea.
There are all kinds of variables on the competition even within a tournament – the Soderling that beat Nadal at Roland Garros was obviously not the same as the one who lost to Federer – but I give two arguments to the contrary – did Federer have anything to do with the quality of Soderling’s play in the final? Of course he did. And can anyone tell me honestly they think Acasuso, Haas or del Potro could have done in their first grand slam final what they did in the 3rd round, quarterfinal and semi-final? Probably not.
Wrapped up in this weak era argument is a microcosm thereof – Federer’s draws have been easier than his contemporaries. Because Federer always seems to wind up playing someone he’s beaten 10 times, you start to think that his draws are easy. But the rebuttal of this is so obvious that it’s easy to miss – if Federer’s draw is easy because he’s playing someone he’s beaten 10 times, doesn’t that speak to Federer’s greatness because he’s beaten so many players 10 times?
Is it a sensical criticism that you win too often to be considered that good?
It's more logical to say his draw is easy because he’s made it look easy, by beating his opponents over and over again in the past, and getting through the current one. At the end of the day, the draw is as easy as you make it look. Nobody thought Soderling would put up much of a defense against Nadal in Paris this year because Nadal had just beaten him in Rome 6-1, 6-0, and had lost to him 3 times. But suddenly his draw was harder in Paris – why? Because he lost. So in the aggregate, by winning more, your draw looks easier, and thus you’re not as good as you appear? But does that make sense?
Doesn't winning more often make you a better player?
The range of variation from stroke to stroke versus from era to era is immeasurable. What remains the same is this – whoever Sampras played in his grand slam final victories, whether it was Andre Agassi or Cedric Pioline, they won 6 matches in a row, but couldn’t win the 7th. And whoever Federer played in his grand slam finals, whether it was Marcos Baghdatis or Rafael Nadal, they won 6 matches in a row, but couldn’t win the 7th. After all, isn’t 7 wins in a row what everyone was trying to do all along? Does the rest of it really matter?
THE #1 RANK
There is no doubt that earning the #1 ranking is a measure of consistency over the period of time the rankings are calculated. Therefore, how many years you’ve finished #1 seems to be a good measure of greatness. I wouldn't entirely disagree with that and would use that as a tie breaker between two players on equal terms in majors won. But give any great player a choice between being #1 or winning slams and they’ll all choose slams. That’s because there are so many variations from one tournament to the next, in terms of effort, tours, commitment, etc., that the #1 ranking has a lot of holes in it in determining greatness. Slams, on the other hand, are the only pure competitive pursuits in the game of tennis - everyone covets them equally, and everyone comes to play. But there are other problems with the #1 ranking as compared to slams.
First off all, you can be ranked #1 without winning a slam – the list of players who have been ranked #1 without winning a slam is short, but damning nonetheless - Ivan Lendl in 1983, Carlos Moya in 1997, Marcelo Rios in 1998. Lendl and Moya eventually justified their ranking, but have the rankings always reflected accurately the relative value placed on various titles? If so, then how could the non-slam winning #1 be possible? At best, even though it often convenes with winning slams, the #1 ranking is a calculated reflection that has only existed since 1973, and has always been heavily weighted in favor of ATP events - even to this day (you could win the calendar slam, but if another player wins 6 Masters 1000s and 4 500s, by the ATP ranking you're on equal terms - that doesn't make sense).
Before the ATP rankings, rankings were arbitrarily determined by various individuals based on a myriad of considerations that included foremost the number of the most important tournaments won but also included factors that changed as the game changed - namely before the game was unified under the single umbrella of the ATP organized tour in 1990.
Even so, there have been cases of players who have won fewer slams than their nearest rival, but still somehow finished the year ranked #1: Jimmy Connors in 1978 won the US Open – it was his only slam that year – Bjorn Borg, on the other hand won Wimbledon and the French Open – guess who finished the year ranked #1.
And on January 3rd, 1983 John McEnroe, who hadn’t won any slams for more than 12 months, somehow usurped Jimmy Connors to the #1 ranking despite Connors having won Wimbledon and the US Open in the previous year. Nobody considers the anomalies as problematic because the second best player at the time and since retained considerable gravitas – but the rankings made little sense then and as such, are not a reliable measure of greatness in the aggregate, because the ranking system has been so clearly flawed and more importantly inconsistent. The same cannot be said of the majors.
HEAD TO HEAD AGAINST HIS GREATEST RIVALS
This one goes like this: at the end of his career, Sampras had winning records against all of his major contemporaries, whereas Federer appears to have a losing record to many of his major contemporaries – so how can you be the greatest of all time when you’re not even the greatest of your own era?
To this I give two names – Richard Krajicek and Michael Stich. Both players had winning records against Sampras over the course of their careers, and both played him often enough for those records to “matter” in the abstract (10 and 7 times respectively). So who was the better player Sampras or Krajicek? Sampras or Stich? Nobody in their right mind would argue the latter in either case and the reason is because they both won 13 fewer slams than Sampras did. In other words, when it comes to Krajicek and Stick, although their head to heads against Sampras were considerably better, clearly the measure of greatness was slams. But when it comes to Federer, somehow the measure of greatness turns to head to head versus Nadal, and Murray (of all people). So why use slam totals to propel Sampras past those whom he lost to more often than he beat, and not do the same for Federer?
In the case of Murray there is no good explanation. In the case of Nadal there are only two good ones – first Nadal has 6 majors himself, and thus is considered an all-time great. But Federer has 8 more majors than Nadal, and if he were the better player in this era, shouldn't he have more majors? That brings us to the other argument: that Nadal will eventually surpass Federer. Well, then when Nadal surpasses Federer, he will necessarily be the GOAT – until then SPECIFICALLY AS COMPARED TO THE CAREER OF FEDERER he’s just like Krajicek and Stich to Sampras - he just happens to have a few more slams to his name.
The funny thing is, the one player who loses out in this discussion despite years of dominance that exceeds just about any other player in history, is Pancho Gonzales – whereas slam totals is the basis for Sampras’ and Federer’s GOAT candidacy, it is entirely head to head competition that is the basis of Pancho Gonzales’. But that doesn’t do anything for Sampras, who is most often cited as a more worthy claimant to being the GOAT than Gonzales. In fact you won’t get any argument from me if you suggest that Gonzales was greater than Federer – but you will if you say Sampras was – for now they are even, and if Federer gets #15, that’s one more than Sampras and in my view that makes him greater...by 1 slam.
NOT EVERYBODY PLAYED ALL THE SLAMS
It is historically ironic that the championship of the country that has produced more great champions in the history of the game than probably any other (with the exception of the United States) was for so long considered the red-headed step-sister of the slams. There are a lot of reasons for this that are not germane to the GOAT question, so I'll leave that to another post. What is germane is whether this matters to the GOAT argument.
Basically it goes like this - if all the greats always played the Australian Open, they would have won more slams and thus would look better historically. Ironically, one of the other legitimate GOAT candidates, Laver, played every Australian Open he could, so that argument is not necessarily applicable to him (more on that later). But what about Connors, Borg and McEnroe - since they won so many slams on grass, they would surely have won the Australian Open more often, right?
Well, if that's the case, then Sampras and Federer should have won 5 Australian Opens, since they've both won 5 US Opens - oops...they've only won 2 and 3 respectively. In fact, Connors won 3 slams in 1974, and then proceeded to reach the final in 1975 of each slam he won in 1974 - the result - he lost all 3 finals all to players that he had easily beaten the year before, and generaly bettered in his career.
The point? There are no guarantees in tennis, so you can't argue that a player who won Wimbledon 5 times would have won the Australian 5 times, just because the surface was the same - why did Laver go 4, 3 and 2 in Wimbledons, Aussie's and US Opens? They were all on the same surface when he played, so he should have gone 4, 4 and 4 for that argument to hold.
There's another side to this argument - all the slams that were not available to professionals would have added to their career totals. This is mostly an argument to pad the accomplishments of those that suffered the most during the schism between amateur and professional tennis before the open era began. The most common example given is usually Laver, who finished his career with 11 slams, but supposedly would have had a lot more if he had been able to play as a professional. But there's a problem with this argument - if Laver had been able to play majors after turning professional, so too would Hoad, Rosewall, Gonzales, Trabert, etc. Thus they would all have been in a position to add to their totals as well, and more importantly prevent Laver from winning more. At the very least, we must discount Laver's total of 11 by the 6 he won as an amateur and start from there in this hypothetical slam total. He may very well have won 10 more majors, but it would have to be added to the 5 he won as a professional, rather than the 11 people normally use as the jumping point to arrive at his hypothetical total of 20+.
In fact even if he won half the majors from which he was banned from 1963 to 1967 he goes from 5 to 15. Speaking of which, Laver won 9 out of 15 of the 3 biggest professional tournaments he entered during that period (those tournaments considered the professional slams), which takes his total from 5 to 14.
So by this analysis, the best you could extrapolate from Laver's banishment is a total of 14 majors. Remember that the first US Open was in 1968 and the final was contested by 2 amateurs (Arthur Ashe and Tom Okker), even though professionals played that tournament (Laver lost in the round of 16), so there's no guarantee of how many he "would" have won had professionals played. But the best you can assume is that he is on par with Federer...for now.
CONCLUSIONWe measure who is the best player on a surface by how often they win the biggest titles on that surface. Vilas may have a better record on clay, but few consider him greater than Borg because of their starkly contrasting records at the French Open. We measure who is the best player in a year by how often they win the biggest titles in a year – Connors may have amassed more arbitrarily assigned points in 1978 than Borg, but would anyone say he was the better player that year? No. Why? Because of Borg’s results in slams – 2 wins and a final, versus 1 win and 1 final for Connors. We measure who is the best player in an era by how often they’ve won the biggest tournaments in the game – so nobody considers Connors a better player than Borg even though he won 30 more titles – why? Because many of those were rinky-dink titles contested by rinky-dink opponents. But when everyone equally pursued the same title, Borg won more – namely 3 more.
So the question is – why are so many afraid to anoint the player who wins the most slams ever as the greatest player ever? One thing is for certain – it has nothing to do with results. And isn’t that more than mildly ironic when it comes to sports?
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