2016 CITI OPEN DAY 4: THE QUIET AMERICAN

Last year I generously extolled the virtues of the Mesomorph, Sam Groth - a man with a rocket launcher of a serve and the physique of a man meant to protect a king.  His tournament came to an end yesterday against the best player in his quarter, when he fell tamely in the first round.  Groth's might be the most famous of all his flamethrower serving contemporaries due to his infamous 163mph record salvo, so the temptation to watch him play is a strong as it ever was.  I watched a gaggle of expertly prepared and generously whetted, middle-aged women move from side to side on the north end of Grandstand 2, to get a feel of what the biggest serve looks like coming at your face.  I guess size really does matter when you may know little about the intricacies of the game, but you can definitely read a radar gun...and boy was it buzzing today.

Unfortunately for Groth, the serve is only one half of the first shot qualities required of a top player.  Whereas he specializes on giving, Nishikori, Djokovic and Murray have shown over and over again, that it is the fine art of receiving that is altogether most likely to distinguish a professional tennis player in his chosen field of endeavor.  That's why the true tennis enthusiast, whether a connoisseur or a novice, should take note of the subtle, almost indiscernible skills of Brian Baker, which you can't tell at first glance, but like the still waters of the Potomac, run very, very deep.

His story is one of Herculean heights and troughs before he returned to take his rightful place at the table of professional tennis.  In 2003, Baker was as one the best juniors in the world, losing in the final at Roland Garros to one Stan (the Man) Wawrinka.  And with victories over his now more illustrious contemporaries like Marcos Baghdatis, Gael Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, one could have been forgiven for heaping untold American hopes and aspirations on his narrow shoulders.  But injury plagued him for years to the point where he nearly gave up the game, until 2011 when, while coaching at Belmont University in Tennessee, he entered an ITF future event in Pittsburgh as an unseeded - in fact he was unranked - qualifier.

And won the tournament...without dropping a set.  

That remarkable debut (anew) culminated in a career high ranking of #52 on the back of a victory at Basel over Radek Stepanek and a loss to eventual champion Juan Martin del Potro two years later.  Desperate injuries at the Australian Open of 2013 and just before the same tournament in 2015 genuinely threatened to destroy his prodigal return, and cost him almost the entirety of 2014 & 2015, but the tennis Gods, (who must be crazy) have given him one more bite at the apple, and we're all the better for it.

Baker has the ability to do two things that are essential for any top tennis player:  he can blunt his opponent's greatest weapon, and he can provoke them into destroying themselves.  If his rival likes to hit with a lot of top spin, he can cut a slice that's as flat and straight as a rock thrown side-arm, lightly bouncing off the surface of a lake.  If the guy wants to come to net, he can hit running top spin lobs off of both wings, to go with passing shots that find their way through the scantest of openings like a bodkin.  And if his opponent has an elaborate wind up to his ground strokes, Baker stays on top of the baseline and whips his forehand inside in and out, with equal efficacy, making it very difficult to find your feet, settle in and rip it.  

In fact, I would argue that Baker's greatest weapon is that chameleon quality he has to shift his shape to whatever is required.  He's not John Rambo, loudly blowing shit up in the quiet concrete jungles of the US summer hard court season.  He's not John McClane, yapping on the radio all day and night, and jumping off a burning building shouting "yippee-kayayy, motherfucker!"  

Brian Baker is the quiet American, who will gut you like a fish as he smiles, shakes your hand, and removes your wallet.  He'll disabuse you of any notion of how good you are by forcing you to do exactly what you do worst, if you want to beat him.  He doesn't appear to be physically imposing until you're standing next to him, when you realize you're looking up at a pair of glaring eyes just under the brim of a hat dripping with sweat.  You hit a serve wide in the deuce court that registers 120mph and as the return zips by your chest missing the opposite sideline by 3 inches, you look over at Baker who is furtively excoriating himself for missing a shot you thought had no business reaching, let alone making.  

That's when you realize that you're in for a long day at the office.

It suddenly dawned on me having watched Grigor Dimitrov struggle through yet another early and unexpected loss (to Daniel Evans) in this his second season on the mend, and Donald Young snipe and gripe his way past Ernesto Escobedo in the unforgiving heat and humidity of an afternoon in July in Washington, DC, and Sloane Stephens disappearing into the night, performing a kind of seppuku of unforced errors against a resilient, but underwhelming Risa Ozaki.  

What exactly is competitiveness? 

Is it the ability to conjure up the energy to run down every drop shot, stretch for every volley, reach for every return?  Is it the ability to raise one's game, and hit that essential passing shot or lob when the moment demands it, and all others would wilt under the pressure?  Or is it just a steel will, at once unbreakable and irresistible, the assassin's tool and the protector's aegis, wielded upon request at the very moment is most desired?  

The truth is that it could be one, none or all three of those things.  But Brian Baker makes one thing clear as his competitiveness muscles its way past one more who would deign to block his path.  It's not fist pumping, or shouting, "Come On!" after you've (finally) done something right.  It's not yelling at that pitiable coterie of supplicants that's still following you around the world as the clock winds down on your window of opportunity. It's not that crumpled mangled mess of carbon fiber and cured animal intestines that used to vaguely resemble a racquet, before it was sacrificed to the God of misplaced anger and bitterness.

Whatever it is not, one thing is certain:  it's quiet...just like Brian Baker.

CITI OPEN: NO REST FOR THE WEARY

The cruel irony of Ryan Harrison's first round (of the main draw) match against James Duckworth of Australia, is that he shouldn't have been there...for a lot of reasons.  First of all, he is, by most accounts (and with all due respect), a better player than James Duckworth - his strokes are more modern (tightly produced with better racquet head acceleration) and of the two of the, he should have gained direct entry into the main draw.  But two years of profligacy and fighting injuries has forced him to the path of greatest resistance, and since this is the toughest draw in the history of this tournament, direct entry into the main draw would have given him more of a fighting chance.

And for another thing, who could blame him for feeling hard done by a schedule that had him play 3 matches in 3 days, with the #2 seed sadistically waiting for him if he made it through this travail on the fourth day.  God rested more his first week.  It would have been one thing had he breezed through the matches along the way to his first main draw, but all three matches were taxing physically, particularly the first, and the second match, which nearly got away from him in the second (just like the first) was a test of concentration and will which he passed, but apparently not with flying colors.

The great thing about the Citi Open being a 500 on the ATP tour, is that there are a lot of points on the table, to say nothing of the money, and as such, they come from far and wide for their slice of the pie.  And because only one of the big 4 have made their way to DC this year, there are quite a few players in the second tier, who would fancy their chances as maximizing their results this year, and giving themselves the best opportunity to improve their seeding at the US Open.  The combination of the two conditions have produced a brilliant star on the DC horizon - it burns bright, but dims quickly as a number of players with a built in following in DC are sacrificed at the altar of the game's praetorian guard.

Take the case of Donald Young - a semi-finalist a year ago, in 2015 he gained directly entry into the main draw (no small feat) but his reward was playing one of the purest ball-strikers, and most versatile and athletic players, in Tommy Haas.  In that test, he receiving a passing grade, using spin and improved depth off of both wings (but particularly the forehand) to bully his older rival into a number of unforced errors, and playing further behind the baseline than his optimal court positioning would dictate.  There was much improvement in his concentration as well - after breaking Haas's serve at the first time of asking, he gave he break right back.  But the expected lapse in focus was nowhere to be found, as Young broke back a second time, and then consolidated with solid play.

Haas raised the level of his game in the second, threatening to break Young with an elongated game or multiple deuces - for several deuce points, Haas attacked with an inside out forehand hit relatively flat into the backhand, a great tactical option against a player who is technically asymmetrical.  But Young responded in the ad court by pushing Haas further and further into his backhand corner, first with a well angled wide serve (struck from the middle of the baseline and giving him a better angle).  If the serve was returned (which it wasn't a number of times) he continued to push Haas wide in the point until an error was elicited.

But Haas is resilient, and though he failed to get the job done in his first return game, he was able to do it in the second, after holding, cosolidated the hold, and looked to be on his way to pushing the match into a third.  The plaintive wailing, and audible stream of consciousness which normally accompanies Young's dips in performance were there, but unlike on other occasions, they were replaced with a renewed commitment to pushing Haas with the one combination that was to his advantage - his forehand to Haas's backhand.  And despite a couple of occasions where Young's forehand landed short in the court, but carried to the baseline (the perfect combination for a player who hits as flat as Haas) Young was able to win 5 games in a row and take the second set 6-4.

But the Citi Open waits for no man, and Young was forced to return to the court the next day, this time against the easy power, and gliding Canadian, Vasek Pospisil.  Pospisil is, in many ways, very similar to his younger, better known compatriot, Milos Raonic.  Having reached the final here last year, it would actually come as a surprise if he did the same here this year.  But against Young, having overcome a strong challenge from Haas the night before, it was too much to ask of him to do the same with less than 24 hours rest, and in the hottest part of the day.  Young can assume some measure of progress by winning his first tour level main draw match in 9 tournaments.  That's the kind of streak that if it isn't snapped before long, he'll wind up in the qualifiers again shortly.

Of the two erstwhile Americans, I would argue that Harrison had the better week.  Young's loss in his second match may have had some measure of fatigue involved, but in Harrison's case, I have no doubt that had his schedule been more forgiving, he would have been less generous to James Duckworth (with all due respect to the Australian).  There have always been questions about the temperment of these two, of whom so much has been expected for so long, but I would argue that the technical tool kit of Harrison is superior to Young's and as such, despite his lower ranking, I would guess he will have the better summer.

Young has done much to improve his fitness and physique - the grotesque asymmetry of his left tricep is a testament to the work he has put in to be able to compete physically with and ever increasing athletic requirement in the game.  But both Young and Harrison have holes to fill in their technique - namely, I feel both would do well to improve the depth and flatten the trajectory of more forehands, as both have a tendency to leave their's too short on rally shots that don't quite hit the sweet spot.  Haas, for example, when he mishits, tends to have more length on them, but when Young and Harrison do the same, they are rife for the taking.  I also feel that Young does a better job of getting to his optimal mix of forehands and backhands - against Haas the distribution was 65% forehands to 35% backhands, and for his game, I believe that it optimal.  Harrison would do well to find a way to tip the balance in favor of his best shot, even though his is the better backhand.

Either way, both at the Citi Open, and on the ATP tour, there is no rest for the weary...they both have a little time to work on those things, but they'll have to do it quickly before the Rogers Cup.