WIMBLEDON 2016 - HISTORY BECKONS

The Championships at Wimbledon 2016, has the potential to be one of the most historic we've ever seen.  Novak Djokovic, and even Roger Federer, have the chance to extend their achievements beyond the wildest dreams of the kid who's just picked up a racquet and gapes to be the heir of these titans of tennis history.  While the curiosity surrounding their pursuits will most certainly overwhelm the entirety of this fortnight's media coverage, there may be a lot more interesting things at stake at SW19.

RETURN OF THE KING

Novak Djokovic has redefined the notion of the team concept in tennis:  while the depth of his support structure has altered significantly since his undeniable ascension to the top of the tennis pyramid, the breadth and depth of it continues to boggle the mind.  His parents have (with notable exception) receded into their proper place - that of the doting parents marveling at the exploits of their prodigious progeny from afar.  But in addition to his ever-growing dwindling list of celebrity sycophants, he has added a son and another 3-time champion Boris Becker, who at some point looked the more likely to equal or surpass the dominance of his similarly alliteratively named hero Bjorn Borg.  Though some (including this author) doubted the wisdom of that choice, Becker's ingenious re-engineering of his first serve placement, more obvious (but no less insightful and far more difficult) improvements in the second serve and his net play, have launched him into the stratosphere of just 6 other men with double digit major tallies (Federer, Sampras, Nadal, Borg, Laver and Emerson).

As such, the Serbian hero is poised to bring to fruition the notion of 4 separate but equally impressive historical achievements in just two weeks time.  First, he can become only the 4th man to three-peat at the All-England club in the Open era, following in the footsteps of Messrs Borg, Sampras and Federer.  Furthermore, by winning his 4th Wimbledon overall, he would separate himself from Roy Emerson as a 13-time major winner, one short of his former nemesis Rafael Nadal.  He would also, quietly, join Sampras, Federer and Borg as the only players to win at least 4 titles at two separate majors, and his would be a unique combination of Wimbledon and the Australian Open (where he has already joined Emerson as the only six-time champion, although his coming at a time when nobody skipped it).

But the real humdinger would be winning 5 major titles in a row, a feat which has never been accomplished in the Open era, and only once by another (oft forgotten) claimant to the GOAT accolade, the American Don Budge, who, in fact, won 6 in a row from Wimbledon 1937 to the same title in 1938.  Budge too, was halfway to a calendar slam, in 1938 when he repeated his Wimbledon triumph, as if Djokovic needed any additional motivation.  The pressure on him will be enormous on the day, if it comes to it, but for the moment, the only thing anyone seems to be concerned with is whether he can do the deed at Wimbledon.

If pressure is indeed a privilege, the smart money is the Djoker to kill about 5 historical birds with one almighty stone.

RETURN OF THE TITAN

While the prospect is altogether less likely, Roger Federer also has the chance to, once again, distinguish himself from all others who've deigned to whack fuzz as impressively as he has lo these many years.  An unprecedented 8th title would drive him past his historical nemesis, Sampras, into territory that has not only never been achieved in the open era, but wasn't accomplished even when the defending champion needed only one match to add to his tally of titles.  Since William Renshaw racked up 6 of his 7 titles by way of this...shortcut, the Challenge Round has been removed from the pages of Wimbledon history since 1922.  This conveniently predated the opening of French championships to international competition by 3 years, and is one of the many reasons why (de facto) professional tennis can only be considered to be 90 years old at the oldest.  Either way, 8 titles would be the most any man has achieved at the game's oldest and most coveted venue.

18 majors in total would extend the target which Nadal coveted, but in all likelihood (despite hasty proclamations to the contrary) will never achieve, but would still be pursued by Djokovic.  One more major doesn't sound like a lot, but just ask Nadal or Sampras, for that matter, if they would have liked one more to add to their totals...when Federer had 14, that is.  And at the other end of the spectrum, if Federer were to face Djokovic in the final, he would want to win also to avoid being the only player in the history of the game to lose the same major final 3 times in succession to the same player.  He already has a trifecta of futility to Nadal at Roland Garros from 2006 to 2008, and would want to avoid the same fate befalling him vis a vis Djokovic at Wimbledon from 2014 to 2016.

RETURN OF THE UNION JACK

Never in the history of the tennis, and possibly the world, has a Scotsman been so universally beloved and supported by so many Englishmen, as was Andy Murray when he won here in 2013 over the, now invincible but then uncertain, Novak Djokovic.  Back when the Djoker was just really good everywhere, Murray managed to beat him for the second time running at the All-England Club...of course, the first time he was wearing that lamentable

Union Jack inspired monstrosity of an outfit under the British flag at the London Olympics, but why quibble.  The point is, on-grass at least, he has repeatedly vanquished  MacBethovic, and appeared to have his number in general.  Murray had lost the Australian Open final in 2013 to the Djoker, and never figured to be a factor at Roland Garros, but putting together his US Open title in 2012, with his victory in the Olympics, the 2013 victory at SW19 had many outside the bubble of British sports hype believing that the light at the end of the tennis tunnel shone brightly for His Irascibleness.

If Murray could find a way to use the success he's experienced this year over his own personal Serbian storm cloud, who's never more than a moment away from ruining any of his major final days, he would be the first British player to win 2 singles titles at Wimbledon since 1936.  He'd still have one more title to match the inimitable Fred Perry, but the signs are good for Murray in this regard:  he has dropped the deadweight of Amelie Mauresmo from his entourage, a coach who did almost nothing for his game since she was hired, suspended, unsuspended, and finally fired, (ironically) just prior to his (ironic) run to the final at Roland Garros.  He has rejoined his personal sensei, Ivan Lendl, the man who was almost single-handedly responsible for making the necessary alterations to his game to win (both) the major (and sort of major) titles he did manage to win.  And once England are eliminated from the 2016 Euros (I mean...let's be honest), the focus of the nation will once again fall on his shoulders.

But unlike his (truly and pseudo British) compatriots before him, Murray will not only need all the attention he gets, it is my assumption that he will, under the circumstances, thrive with it.

RETURN OF THE REST

Nick Kyrigos would be the first Australian winner at Wimbledon in 15 years, Milos Raonic would be the first Canadian winner ever, Grigor Dimitrov (yes, Grigor Dimitrov) would be the first major winner born in the last decade of the previous millenium, Kei Nishikori the first Japanese major winner ever, and Alexander Zverev the first German (by way of Russia) teenager to win for 20 years since some giraffe-eye-lashed, red-headed, Bavaria albino named Boris...whoever that is.  Now, it is a tall order, and because the odds would (and should) be so remote, it may be worth plunking 10'er on Jack Sock becoming the first American to win Wimbledon since...wait for it...2001!  Aside from one shining moment of lunacy in 2003, when Andy Roddick bazooka'd his way through the draw at Flushing Meadow, Sock would also be the first American to win any majors in 13 years.

Of the modern Mousquetaires, Tsonga, Gasquet, Simon or (the altogether unlikely) Monfils would be the first French major winner since 1983 and the first winner at Wimbledon since (not any of original Mouquetaires, but the unheralded and forgotten) Yvon Patra.  A Frenchman, born in the colony of Vietnam, Patra was a prisoner of war before winning 3 french national titles in succession (played at Roland Garros, but apparently with only European francophiles in the field) after his release, before becoming, in 1946, the last man to win at Wimbledon in long trousers (the warm-ups don't count, Roger).

So if either Sock, Kyrigos or one of the 4 horsemen of the French tennis apocalypse can figure out a way to overcome their historical burdens, perhaps the biggest return to major glory would be for three of the four countries that host majors, but seem to have forgotten how to produce major champions.

CAN THE DJOKER CARRY TENNIS?

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.", 

- Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare (Act III, Scene I)

First, it was the big story that wasn't - Serena Williams, poised to win her record tying 22nd major and the calendar slam, suffered a collosal case of nerves and lost a match that nobody thought she could.  ESPN did their best to turn the 2015 US Open into the Serena Show, but somebody forgot to tell Roberta Vinci, and instead of her coronation, we got a whole lot of very disappointed celebrities.

Then the Australian Open came with an attachment:  a story on BuzzFeed about the continuing problem of match-fixing and the (intentionally) dormant effort on the part of tennis authorities to address it.  There was no specific evidence, other than ill-defined, poorly explained statistical analysis that points to the likelihood of match-fixing, or compromised betting patterns.  But the stain is not easily removed, and in many ways, we're all still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Next Serena Williams lost the Australian Open final, and the Indian Wells finals - two tournaments that you probably couldn't have placed a bet on her losing if you wanted to.  One title lost to Angelique Kerber, who has since collapsed under the weight of expectation, and the other to Victoria Azarenka, who seems to have shed some of the excess baggage she'd picked up since winning the Australian Open in 2013.  Suddenly Serena doesn't seem so invincible, and the running story that isn't a story, makes another appearance at Roland Garros before genuine questions will start to be asked, which at the moment, everyone is too afraid to ask:  what's wrong with Serena?

Then Maria Sharapova, the most marketable female athlete in the world, a woman who is reviled and admired the world over, in equal measures, for looking like a prom queen who happens to play tennis, failed a drugs test?  There had been, for years, unjustified suspicion of Serena Williams, because...well..she looks like Serena Williams.  After all, it was Andy Roddick who joked that she was benching small dump trucks at age 11, so it shouldn't really come as any surprise that she looks like this today.  That's why it was all the more shocking that of these two racquet toting divas, the one snared in a drugs fiasco was Her Siberianess.  What the penalty will be for her failed drugs test, which she has neither disputed, nor satisfactorily explained to any and all, is as yet unknown.  But that has been a story that is just waiting in the wings to come back and haunt the game.  

Mark this space...

Rafa Nadal continues to struggle, despite making some progress in Indian Wells before losing tamely to his nemesis.  He has no titles in 2016, his last title was on clay in Hamburg after Wimbledon, and his spring clay court career victory lap around South America has elicited no silverware to bite, and little confidence on the part of his admirers around the world.  Most assume that his best bet to win his last another major will be at Roland Garros this year, but few would count on that given that somebody out there appears to be the best player in the world on the surface, and incredibly he is not from Spain.  If you're holding your breath for Nadal to add to his tally of 14 of the crowned jewels in the kingdom of tennis heaven, I would suggest you grab a canister of oxygen until you can find someone else to support.

Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka are still in the mix; two-time winners at the two majors that the other has not won (together they make an "other slam"...as in someone other than the real big 3).  But neither of them has exactly been burning down the house lately.  To be fair to Wawrinka, he is still the holder of the title at Roland Garros, but we see how heavy was the crown in Australia last year when the third installment of his Aussie trilogy went the way of God's chosen one.  Does anyone get the feeling that Wawrinka's best chance to win a major is to surprise everyone - not the least of whom, himself - lest he crumble under the immeasurable pressure to prove himself anew to the history of the game?  Don't look now, but Murray hasn't won a major in almost 3 years - it doesn't sound like much, until you remember that the likes of John McEnroe, Mats Wilander didn't win any majors after the calendar ticked off it's 365th day from their last.  Lendl and Edberg, by far greater champions than His Irascibleness, didn't go more than 2 years before adding to their major tallies, once they'd figured out how to win a big one...any big one.

Finally, after doing his best Serbian disappearing act 4 times on the trot, Roger Federer, who hasn't won a major in 4 years (that's four years), just had...wait for it...surgery on his knee (cue the melodramatic gasp and clutching of the chest).  Now that doesn't seem like much to shake a stick at, but I can tell you that one of the reasons the tennis world has continued to delude itself into believing that what passes itself off as a rivalry still walks like a duck, is that we are yet to be convinced that what we're witnessing is anything other than the dominance of one at the expense of the other.  We've done so because the unique combination of Federer's athletic prowess appears to persist, but for one glaring exception.  Not so much anymore, following a surgery that for a younger man would be difficult to recover from - let alone a man old enough to be his drunk uncle who just doesn't know when to quit.

When Ray Moore fell on his sword (in more ways than one) I was of the opinion that his comment was not directed at women playing professional tennis, so much as it was a diatribe against the leadership (or the lack thereof) at the WTA.  And when he said that the women ought to be down on their knees thanking God that "Fedal" are still making a nuisance of themselves, I tended to agree with him, or at least accept the proposition as a disconcerting one.  But something just occurred to me that ought to be way more disconcerting for the whole game of tennis, let alone the WTA:  exactly who will be minding the store when the Roger & Rafa show takes a permanent hiatus?

That's where the really scary question comes:  can Novak Djokovic carry tennis?  

It's not a scary proposition because of anything he has done...well, not exactly.  But it's not as if the man isn't playing tennis at the highest level it's ever been played.  He has, after all, contested 5 major finals in a row, won 4 of them - actually he has gone around the world and basically won everything he's entered since January of 2015.  He still makes jokes, he's still the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet, the kind of guy that would help you change a tire in the snow...literally.  He'll do any talk show you can think of, in any language you can imagine, including a couple that you can't.  He's a young, handsome 28 year old newlywed father, his parents (with fleeting exceptions) have largely removed the target from his back, his coach has shockingly done a job that I didn't think he had in him, and there are even jokes being made about the inevitability of his victories on that bloody 36 by 72 foot rectangle with the funny lines?

So why can't he carry tennis?

Is it a conspiracy against him?  Are the grey men of tennis looking down their noses at him, like the jury on Krypton, passing judgment on General Zod?  Has the (not yet) dominant PR machine of Roger Federer, Tony Godsick and Team8 laid the groundwork for his denial from the kingdom of Mount Rush(the net)more?  Does his messianic father still get under people's skin with one idiotic proclamation after another - causing even his own son to distance himself from the craziest of the crazy things he says?  Does he himself put his foot in his mouth, when a more nuanced, more diplomatic, more neutral and...dare I say...more Swiss approach would serve him better? 

My theory is this:  no single star can carry tennis.  It has never been the case that one single player can carry the game of tennis to greater heights, nor bear the weight of the tennis world on his shoulders like a racquet wielding Atlas.  

Big Bill Tilden had little Bill Johnston, Budge had von Cramm, Gonzales had Hoad, Laver had Rosewall, Billie Jean had Margaret Court, Chrissie had Martina, Connors had Borg, Borg had McEnroe, Becker had Edberg, Agassi had Sampras, Federer had Nadal.

But who gapes for the crown of Novak Djokovic?  Competitively, he has in the past been the chaser, and he has had rivalries that are currently diluted where an unjust escape and one competitive set in two played constitutes a good week, but can he alone carry the sport as it appears he may have to?  There is a myth out there that pencil pushers, marketing mavens and sporting bureaucrats can steward the game to success.  That there's some magic formula out there of sex, jokes, celebrity friends and fireworks that can make the game something that it isn't in spite of what it is.  But I have my doubts...I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a little like the way the real star of the Star Trek franchise isn't James T. Kirk, or Jean-Luc Picard, or Kathryn Janeway...the real star is the Starship Enterprise.  

It survived years of going where no man has gone before, several captains, battles with Klingons and the Borg, and everything in between, and even in another space/time continuum, it survives.  And the guys Ray Moore and the rest of us are looking for to steer the ship are a bit like the passengers on the Enterprise - they may know where all the buttons are, but their fate is really in her hands.

Well, the rivalries, not the players, are the enterprise.  Try as we may to heap all the credit and responsibility on those at the head of the table, it's the ones at the foot of the table that make the ship sail.  And as it stands today, Novak Djokovic is alone at the top of the pyramid competitively, and may also find himself alone figuratively as well.  The throne is an enchantress for the boy who would be king, but as the saying goes:  be careful what you wish for.  There is an old Czech joke about an old man chasing a beautiful and seductive young woman being like a dog chasing a mail truck - even if he catches it, he doesn't have the first damn clue how to drive.  

And with Djokovic's missteps at Indian Wells taking over the news cycle, and subsequent apology and brief PR campaign tour to make up for it, there have to be more than a few people in the halls of tennis' bureaucracy that are wondering if Ray Moore's comments about the WTA could just as well apply to the ATP?  The truth is, they are no more responsible for the success of the game than he is, but the welcome perception, and indeed the unjust expectation, that Novak Djokovic will be, now that he is by far the best player on the planet (male or female), could prove a crown too heavy for his head.

THE KEY TO WIMBLEDON? NEWSFLASH: IT'S NOT THE SERVE

Is there a key success factor on grass, and if so, what is it?  I say everyone's serve is better on grass, so that's not the key success factor - that's a myth.

It's the return.

Recently Rafael Nadal opined that "If your serve is good, you can win on grass even without playing your best."  The missing context is that he was clearly explaining how he had won his first tournament on grass without much preparation and without much of a good run of form to speak of leading into the tournament.  But not surprisingly it kicked off an extended debate in the blogosphere about the validity of results on grass, because of the influence of the serve.

I think what Nadal implied (without really meaning to) is that you can lose a match - any match - on grass to a player who serves exceptionally well on the day, and he's right.  That's one of the reasons why Wimbledon is so hard to win:  because you can so easily lose any single match if you have a bad day and your opponent (no matter who he is) serves his socks off.  But unlike what was immediately interpreted as a dig at grass court tennis (something that Nadal, who has always professed his love of Wimbledon and grass court tennis, would never do), you really can't win Wimbledon with just a big serve.

That is just a myth.

The universe of players who have won Wimbledon is much smaller than other majors, and it does not necessarily reflect players with the biggest serve. Serving well (and not necessarily big) like Federer and Sampras helps a great deal, but you have to serve well, not just big.  In fact, I think the reason why Federer and Sampras have won so many Wimbledons, and why the universe of champions at Wimbledon is smaller than the other majors, is precisely because the serve is not the deciding factor in whether you can win it.  Take the following statistics:

# of different FO champions in the open era = 26
# of different Wimbledon champions in the open era = 20

# of different FO champions in the last 20 years = 12
# of different Wimbledon champions in the last 20 years = 8

I don't mean to denigrate Roland Garros, but just as the universe of players who have won 250's is greater than those who have won 500's which is greater than those who have won 1000's which is greater than those who have won majors, the derived conclusion is that the harder it is to win the tournament, the smaller the universe of players who actually do it.  So, by this logic, that the universe of players who have won the FO is greater than the universe of players who have won Wimbledon would suggest that Wimbledon is harder to win.  If you doubt this conclusion, you must accept the opposite:  that the 250's are the hardest to win, and that just doesn't fly.

The reason the 500s are harder than 250s is that the field is typically stronger, because there are more points at stake, and they are more coveted. That is precisely the point of the comparison, and transitively the comparison carries through to each level of more and more coveted titles, including comparing the majors.  Again, no denigration of the the tournaments that lose out in the comparison, but merely a logical conclusion from the evidence of the universe of players who've won the title.

Now, because Federer and Sampras have such great serves, the assumption is that the better your serve, the more likely you are to win Wimbledon.  As such, when sizing up a player's chances, or predicting the result of a particular match, the serves are frequently compared to determine who has the advantage.  But I am of the opinion that comparing serves is actually off the mark.  You are mixing and matching two things - one doesn't compare serves - that is irrelevant because only one player at a time serves. One compares the serve of one to the return of the other. A player with a big serve can escape losses to other players with big serves if they return well.  It is rare that players with really big serves return well, and also why players with just big serves (and little else to their game) rarely win Wimbledon.

Goran Ivanisevic is a perfect example - that man had the biggest and best serve in the history of tennis, but he won Wimbledon exactly once almost by accident.  In his best chance (on paper anyway), in 1992 he lost to Andre Agassi, a player with a relatively weak serve but a relatively oustanding return (who happened to beat Boris Becker and John McEnroe along the way - not exactly slouches in the serve department).  Ivanisevic's other Wimbledon final losses were to another player with a great serve - Pete Sampras.  So what distinguished the two?

The return - Sampras' was a better (as well as the rest of his game - but I digress).

So a big serve gets you a chance to win a match or two here or there - but if you want to win Wimbledon, you need more than a big serve. You need the whole package including a good serve.  But only the best of the best have the whole package, and as such, relatively few players have won Wimbledon as compared to say, the French Open, where a lot of players that did not have the full package, have won relatively more titles than have done so at a Wimbledon.

The logic and the stats on the universe of players who have won Wimbledon versus Roland Garros is very underrated, but it is not a matter of opinion.  As for the effect of the serve on grass, it is inversely overrated - Nadal has 2 Wimbledons, Djokovic 2, Murray 1, even Federer at 7 titles...not one of them could be said to have one of the biggest serves on tour, earning a lot of "cheap" points. Roddick had a huge serve, but consistently lost to players who returned better than him (after all, so few serve better than him they must have had better returns). Ivanisevic had the biggest serve ever and he won once, each time he lost to a player, not with a better serve, but a better return.

To win at Wimbledon you need a good serve among many things, but it is not the deciding factor - the return is.  Of course, even a good return (alone) isn't enough - you need the full package. You have to be able to attack and defend, you need decent volleys, but most importantly you need a good serve, because everybody gets a little help on the serve on grass. That the serve is the deciding factor to winning Wimbledon is a myth of grass court tennis that has persisted for years since the late 40's when serve and volley tennis became a full time tactical approach. There have been a lot of players with great serves who have not won Wimbledon, but almost none with bad returns, and certainly no multiple champions with a poor return of serve.

An example of this is Ivan Lendl - his biggest problem on grass wasn't his serve (which was excellent) it was his return, which he was never able to master on grass, despite years of trying. Lendl just wasn't that talented, and as a result he needed time and a certain bounce to return well, which he would get on clay or hard courts, and won many majors on those surfaces - what foiled him on grass was the return.  Lendl's talent limited his return against the best players with the best serves - this is not an on/off proposition as in "either you're talented enough or not" - it does depend on the guy across the net. He had as good a serve as the players he lost to, with perhaps the exception of Becker, but he lost to a lot more players than Becker, his problem against those players he lost to was that he couldn't make any headway in his returns.  His own serve was excellent.  Just because your return isn't good enough against Edberg, Becker and Pat Cash, doesn't mean it won't be good enough against Jeff Tarango or Brad Gilbert.

Go down the list of players with the biggest serves on tour over the last 40 years and remove those players with good returns (Colin Dibley, Ivan Ljubicic, Steven Denton, Mark Phillipousis, Kevin Curren, Bobo Zivojinovic, Greg Rusedski, Ivo Karlovic, Roscoe Tanner, Andy Roddick) and you'll have a very long list of players with big serves who have never won Wimbledon.  Now, do the reverse - list the players with the best returns in the game, remove those with great serves and you'll still have a list of players who have won Wimbledon (Agassi, Borg, Connors, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, etc.).  That's just good analysis that dispels the myth that the deciding factor in winning Wimbledon is the serve.  Remember that on grass everybody's serve is a little more effective because of the surface, therefore getting an edge over the field would necessarily come from being able to neutralize that phenomenon, not from benefitting from it, which everyone does and which does not give you an edge.

Whether the return is harder to master or acquire is not relevant - it is whether having an outstanding return or an outstanding serve is the deciding factor in whether you will win Wimbledon.  Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, even Federer to some extent, rarely lead the ATP in aces, 1st percentage won or even service games won - and if they do, it isn't because they get a lot of free points on the serves like the Karlovic's, Isners, Lopez's, Tsonga's, Almagro's and Raonics of the world. They may use their serve better than this lot, but that's because they're better tennis players that are able to do more with less (on the serve). What they all do better than that lot is return of serve, and they've all won Wimbledon in the last 10 years - 3 of them more than once.

Counter-intuitive, I know, but true.

In fact, I'll go you one better - I don't even think it's even critical to have a great serve, to win Wimbledon, because there a lot of players who had just good serves and still won - therefore the serve cannot be the deciding factor in whether you will win Wimbledon.  What Nadal referred to with the big serves is really a reference to the risk a great player runs of being dumped out of the tournament by a guy serving his socks off for one day, but without much of an overall game. That kind of player can be a spoiler, and there are a lot of spoilers at Wimbledon, and from that I conclude (along with the universe of players argument) that that's one big reason why Wimbledon is harder to win than the other majors.  Particularly on grass, where everyone's serve is helped by the surface, there is a greater risk that a spoiler that can serve you off the court in one match.

That doesn't happen as often on other surfaces because the serve doesn't have as big effect - and that is the reason why at Wimbledon a great return is more important than a great serve.  Because if you can't efficiently take advantage of the few opportunities you get to break serve (attack second serves, attack poorly placed first serves, or just get your racquet on the ball a lot), you will eventually run into someone who serves you off the court. The truly great players (among other things) have great returns, so they survive the serving mine field that is grass court tennis better than the other (numerous) players with great serves, but a minimal/weak return game - hence the cream really rises to the top at Wimbledon.

Sampras rarely served above 125mph, even at his best - there were always players on tour with bigger serves, but none with better serves - he used his to great effect. And it helps to use a great serve to great effect if you have the game to back it up, which Rusedski, Roddick, Ljubicic, Phillipousis, Ivanisevic and oh so many other big serving contemporaries did not have - and a big part of that overall game to back up whatever serve you may possess (good to great) is the return of serve.  Federer also rarely serves big (130+), but his placement is outstanding, and nobody uses the serve to set up their game better than Federer - of course it helps that his game is outstanding, but the point is that it's not all down to the serve.

Riddle me this - why is it that Federer was so frequently able to out ace Roddick at Wimbledon when they played?  Because his return was better, not because his serve was.  And if I'm not mistaken, McEnroe never hit a serve over 120mph in his career, not so of the Roscoe Tanners and Kevin Curren's of his era - their serves were huge even by modern standards. But his overall game (including the return) was superior to both of those players, and as such he had more success at Wimbledon.

In fact, two of the biggest modern servers gave us an example in 2010 that put this distinction in relief:  that absurd farce of a match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut where the 5th set had 138 games in it, where it took Isner 69 games to break Mahut's serves.

Does anyone think that any of the players who've won Wimbledon in the last 10 years would take 69 games to break anyone's serve, let alone Nicolas Mahut's? Neither Isner nor Mahut have much of a return game to speak of, and not coincidentally neither has ever done anything significant at Wimbledon other than that match. They may win matches and/or smaller tournaments with depleted fields, but when the best of the best are all there, they just can't serve their way to glory - eventually their inability to return well catches up to them. That's not the case with the best players in the world. That's why only the best players in history win Wimbledon. And that's why Wimbledon is the hardest tournament to win.

And what of poor old Andy Roddick - the argument is that had it not been for Federer, he would have won 4 Wimbledons, right?  I'm not so sure about that - after all, he lost to a lot more players at Wimbledon than just Roger Federer, and that Federer is a better player is a general statement which provides no insight - the better player doesn't always win (if that were the case, the trophy could be handed out at the draw).  On grass, Federer bested Roddick as frequently as he did because he neutralized his serve with a great return of serve, which Roddick could never do.  That was the deciding factor between them, not either of their serves which were both outstanding.


That's not to say that Federer's serve isn't really good - just not the equal of Roddick's - better game, obviously (especially the return) - but not the serve.  But let's set that debatable example aside...can the serve possibly explain his losses to Murray (2006), Gasquet (2007), Randy Lu (2010), Tipsarevic (2008), Lopez (2011), Ferrer (2012)?  Maybe Ivanisevic (2001), but that entire tournament was the outlier - he also lost to Rusedski in 2002, but in both matches to equally dominant serving players, the telling factor was the return - Rusedski broke Roddick 3 times 2002 and Ivanisevic twice in 2001...but he never broke either of them. And equally telling of Rusedski - he lost in the very next round....to Xavier Malisse. Now I can tell you that there were about 25 things Malisse did better than Rusedski, but the serve wasn't one of them - and if there were every a place where Rusedski should have put his serve to use against Malisse (if it were key) it would have been at Wimbledon.  But surprise, surprise, Malisse broke Rusedski 3 times to 2.

To be honest, I watched Roddick play tennis for 10 years, and I can't ever remember him serving poorly - he may have, but it would have been exceedingly rare.  It was the one part of his game that never broke down.  But I have seen a lot of guys get a beat on his serve in one game and the rest of his game fell apart.  He himself rarely broke serve on grass, precisely because it is so hard to do.

I should also point out something that is a logical extension of the "it's the return, stupid" argument:  the better players have better returns of serve precisely because it requires more talent to consistently respond well to the easiest shot in the game to produce - i.e. the serve. For a good return you need particularly good hand-eye coordination, anticipation, consistent strike zone, balance, quickness, footwork, etc.). So a relative donkey, like Lukas Rosol can beat a great player from his serve, here and there, but win the tournament, no chance - not without a great return. There are a lot more players out there with great serves than players with great returns of serve - and it's no coincidence that they tend to do most of the winning. That's because it's harder to do than serve well, and as such it is a more telling factor in who wins the tournament - particularly on grass where the serve is helped so much by the surface, and everyone looks like a world beater with their serve - by the same token, only the best of the best appear to have even decent returns on grass.

My point here is that I'm trying to dispel the myth that the serve is the key/critical/deciding success factor on grass - it's not at all, it's the return. Some would limit their agreement if (and only if ) the serves are equal, but the serves are rarely equal and frequently the player with the better serve loses to the player with the better return. Therefore, it's pretty clear that the return is the key success factor and not the serve - of course your return has to be pretty good to beat a player with a great serve, especially on grass...but that's more to my point of why so few players have what it takes to win Wimbledon.

We've all fallen prey to the blurring of the lines defining the quality of the serve - if there is such a thing as a good serve, there must logically be great serves and below average serves - let's not lump everyone into sufficient/good/great serving category, cite Wimbledon champions (none of whom have a poor serve) and then claim that the key factor is something that they share in common with 90% of professional tennis players.

A key success factor is something that distinguishes players who've had success from those who have not. To point to the serve, which a large portion of players who have not won Wimbledon, and likely will never win, isn't informative. The return, however, is very probative. I happen to think that while the serve is the easiest stroke in tennis, because it's ball in hand, the return might be the hardest (because you must use a broad range of skills to respond to the easiest stroke in the game to hit at you), and by this logic, I am of the belief that the return, particularly at Wimbledon, where even the worst serves in tennis get a lot of help, is the most important stroke to winning the tournament.

WHAT KILLED THE ONE-HANDED BACKHAND?

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.

FEDERER'S HIGH ONE-HANDED BACKHAND PROBLEM

This is the story of two Swiss players - each with a 1-handed backhand who played the same player at the same tournament with two very different results.  Considering their all-time pedigree, a casual (and ill-informed) initial assessment would conclude that Federer's backhand ought to have less trouble than Wawrinka's, with the high bouncing, left pulling, heavy spinning forehand of Rafael Nadal.

In fact, the opposite is the case.

While Federer continues to have problems dictating points because of this idiosyncrasy, Wawrinka seems not to have the same, and this is not merely manifested by the results of the 2014 Australian Open.  Despite never previously taking a set off of Nadal, Wawrinka has really never had a backhand problem with Nadal - he has other problems, and one could argue that so does Federer...but it's useful to analyze the backhand, as this is clearly problematic for one, but not the other.

Now, I should point out that as often as the high 1-handed backhand problem is cited as a problem for Federer, the two-handed backhand is proposed as the solution, and as a result, the assumption is made that because Federer is the foremost exponent of the 1-handed backhand in the history of the game, its future is necessarily as dead as his recent record against Nadal.  After all, who would want to expose themselves to this seemingly insurmountable obstacle?  

But an analysis of the fundamentals of a backhand would do much to identify why Wawrinka's backhand is superior to Federer's and may very well be the best backhand in the world.  First the fundamentals:  a good backhand starts with:

1. A closed shoulder on take back
2. A point of contact in front and at waist level
3. A strong but controlled step into the court upon contact
4. A smooth and controlled shoulder turn through the point of contact
5. A racquet head that starts below the ball, but flows through it on contact
6. A finish out in front, where the body weight is balanced neither leaning too far forward or back (and just like after a good serve, the player should be able to immediately address the next shot).

Now if you have a 2-handed backhand, items #1, #3, #4 and #6 are taken care of without much extra required - it's almost impossible to not to close the shoulders on take back, and because your reach is shorter it's rare that reach for the ball with just your arms.  The shoulder turn is controlled because both shoulders are necessarily involved in the stroke production and with two hands the finish is almost never above the head.

And you can get away with being a little fuzzy with your point of contact because that primarily goes to racquet head stability, which is the whole point of the second hand on the racquet.  Most 2-handed backhands are flatter (think David Ferrer and Andy Murray) because the second hand allows you to stabilize the racquet head and still hit through the ball, so you don't have to sacrifice any pace for spin by brushing up against the back of the ball.

Now, as far as the fundamentals are concerned, the 1-handed backhand has little to no margin.  Both Federer and Wawrinka turn the shoulders well on the take back; most professionals do.  You see this more with club players who reach across their chest on the take back. The exception is when a 1-handed player is stretched, they often switch to a slice or are forced to flick the racquet head through the point of contact. With the flick, because everything is accelerated, the hand-eye coordination required to get the timing right is typically reserved for the most talented players.  Think Federer and Dimitrov flicking running backhands down the line.  It as beautiful to behold as it is rare.

But the first place Federer and Wawrinka differ is making their point of contact at waist level - primarily from a high looping shot that moves through their strike zone.  With Nadal's forehand, for example, as the ball arrives, rather than being at the apex of its arch in the strike zone (thus in a kind of mid-air suspension, like the top of the serve toss) it is, in fact, still moving in three dimensions - (1) up into your chest, (2) towards you and (3) to the left.

We have already discussed how the timing has to be very precise on the 1-hander because your racquet head stability is limited to what you can create with one hand, but with movement in three dimensions, the premium on timing is almost insurmountable. Taller players like Dimitrov or Daniel Brands, whose waists are considerably higher than even slightly shorter players (because most of one's height is in the legs) struggle less because the ball stays closer to their optimal strike zone.  Also, most players concede the baseline and play yards behind it, unlike what Federer tried to do, and like what Wawrinka successfully did, against Nadal.

So average height, aggressive players like Federer and Wawrinka must adjust, and they basically have three options in how to handle this corkscrew of a shot.

The first alternative is just try to hit the backhand at shoulder height.  This forces them to finish the stroke above the head, which is a problem when you need spin to control that shot (and Federer really does).  Spin is generated by going from low to high before and after the point of contact, and it's easy to get low on a high backhand, but very hard to finish high. Furthermore, if you finish too high, you lose forward momentum, pace and control. Often the player looks like he's performing a pantomime of a backhand, with the finish high above and even behind his head.  And doesn't that sound exactly like what Federer's backhand looks like against Nadal?

But what about Wawrinka? 

His natural backhand finishes further out in front of him than Federer's does, so if he takes the backhand high, whereas Federer's naturally high finish is hard to duplicate, Wawrinka's backhand can finish going through the point of contact even on a high backhand.  This is why he is able to generate more pace than his more illustrious countryman, because his fundamentals are better - I know, it's hard to believe that a backhand as aesthetically appealing as Federer's is fundamentally flawed, but in this particular regard, it is.

The second alternative to handle the high backhand is to step back and wait for the ball to fall into the strike zone, but this is problematic for 3 reasons:

First, by moving back you concede the forecourt which makes it more difficult to control and finish the point with subsequent shots.  This is a problem Federer has particularly on clay, compounded by his own looping backhand, which lacks the flat trajectory of Wawrinka's and by the time his ball reaches Nadal it now has even less power because it was hit from further behind the baseline.

Second, to be able to come forward through the stroke you have to move back beyond the point of contact, and step into it. This is easier if you set up a little further behind the baseline, like Wawrinka, or even further for most clay court specialists with one-handed backhands (e.g. Carlos Berlocq).  They often set up shop 8-10 feet beyond the baseline as their default court positioning.  But with this approach, you'll have to defend better...much better...like "Nadal" better.  

Good luck with that.

If you don't like to concede the baseline you'll typically move only as far back as the point of contact, but then all your momentum is moving backwards when you hit the ball, and this is a problem Federer has on all surfaces against Nadal, but particularly on hard courts, where he is even more reticent to conceded the baseline.

And third, waiting for the ball to drop into the strike zone does nothing to mitigate the problem of the ball moving in two dimensions - only this time the ball is moving down and towards you rather than up and towards you. Most good 1-handed backhanders would prefer this to the ball coming up, towards them, but it's still harder than a ball that apexes right in the strike zone and stays there just waiting to get belted.  1-handers just love that.

The third alternative to handling the high 1-hander is the most effective solution, it is ironically technically the easiest to do, but by far it is the most difficult tactically.  To hit your most natural 1-handed backhand on a heavy spinning ball you can step into the court and catch it on the rise.  Doing so will keep the ball in your strike zone, thereby maximizing your racquet head stability - after all, just try keeping the racquet above your shoulder or at your waist for 3 minutes straight and you'll see which is easiest.

The second advantage to taking it on the rise is that, with very little effort, you use the pace of the ball coming to you most efficiently when it has the most energy on the way up - like a drop kick in football - and thus you can keep your shot deep with spin, without much risk.  

Of course the risk increases exponentially the harder you try to hit the ball, because everything is accelerated, and the timing has to be just right - so typically only the most talented of players, with the best hand-eye coordination, can do this consistently.  But technically it is easier to do this than hit the shot at shoulder height, or move back and wait for it.  Also, because you're already moving forward to take it on the rise, you are already moving forward through the stroke, which is always good for power and direction.

Now Federer is extremely talented - moreso than Wawrinka - and he has very consistent technique - he rarely improvises if he doesn't have to, and when he does he makes it look easy.  And because tactically he doesn't like to concede the baseline/forecourt, this would seem to be his optimal solution - we've all marveled at how easy he makes it look.

So why the bloody hell doesn't he do this all the time?  Well, in the words of Hamlet, "...there's the rub."

Nadal's ball is different than anyone else's ball in tennis. Nadal employs the reverse forehand more often, and puts more spin on his shots on average, than any player in the history of tennis.  Measured  years ago when he was still using natural gut strings (he has since switched to one of the "poly-est" of polyester strings) his RPM averaged 3200 (vs 2400 for Federer and 1800 for the rest of the field) and maxed out at a whopping 5400 - I mean that's just absurd.

Because of this, Nadal is not only able to hit harder, but he is also able to hit shorter in the court, and as a result, to take the ball on the rise, you'd have to be literally 2-3 feet inside the baseline to make this work on every backhand you hit.  And it follows that'd you have to be 2-3 feet inside the baseline on the forehand as well, because moving back, forward, left and right between every shot is impossible even for a player who moves as efficiently as Federer, and especially against Nadal.

But Wawrinka has options that Federer does not.  If he takes the backhand on the rise, because his natural stroke is flatter and more relaxed, he is better able to handle the pace and coincidentally hit with more pace and depth himself.  As a result, the ball coming to Nadal pushes him further and further back, reducing his ability to impose his will on his next shot, causing his next shots to land shorter and shorter.  Then Wawrinka's next backhand is more likely to be in his optimal strike zone and he can really belt it - either safely cross court, or tactically more risky (but because he's into the court and moving forward technically less risky) backhand up the line.

That too is a thing of beauty if you've ever seen his.

This forces Nadal to hit deeper, which ironically makes it easier for Wawrinka to half-volley it safely back - in fact this is, in some ways, an easier shot. It's only on clay that you'll ever see Wawrinka consistently back up to hit his backhand, and obviously his results against Nadal, while generally very bad, are even worse on clay because of this (this despite winning Roland Garros Juniors in 2003, BTW).  Furthermore, Nadal has always had problems with hard flat shots into his forehand - this is probably due to being a natural right hander, and manifests in his (over)use of the reverse forehand, and only exacerbated by the hardest flattest shots into that side. Cue the Wawrinka backhand, but as for Federer's?

Fuhgedabouddit!

So if he doesn't have this high 1-handed backhand problem, why has Wawrinka had so much trouble against Nadal in the past?  Aside from the obvious - that he's no Roger Federer - there are some other changes he's made which has helped him more now than in the past.

First, he changed racquets, facilitating improvements in his forehand, which always suffered from an imbalance of power and spin - in the past, too much spin. These days, his forehand is almost as good as his backhand. Second, he's fitter which facilitates his movement, allowing him to position himself better on all shots. Third, his volleys, while they've never been great, are better now than they have been - and this allows him to take fewer cuts at his (still at times) shaky forehand. Now he can come forward to the net more and finish his points earlier.

But Federer's backhand doesn't allow him to impact Nadal the way Wawrinka's does, and thus in this particular match up, it is more difficult for him to get into position to control, set up and kill points...and remind us of just how good he really is.  In fact, against Nadal, the closer he gets to 20 strokes in the rally, and the more often he does so, the worse it is for him. Not necessarily the case with Djokovic and Murray who defend better than Federer, and can more easily take the backhand on the rise, with that second hand.

Now I'm not saying that Wawrinka is all of a sudden going to dominate Nadal - to the contrary, I don't think that will happen at all, because there's a lot more to Nadal than just a high looping forehand.  But if you're looking for a solution to Federer's high 1-handed backhand problem against Nadal, you need look no further than his Davis Cup teammate. 

Whether he can or will, at this point in his career, make the necessary adjustments, is an altogether different proposition.

ADDENDUM:

I found an excellent instructional clip here that goes into very specific detail about what Wawrinka does differently from other players on the one-handed backhand, and why his is consistently hit with more power and spin than any of his contemporaries.   There are segments of the blogosphere that resist the notion that any player on earth could have a 1-handed backhand that is superior to Roger Federer's.  But this clip is an objective analysis showing that the hip/core rotation (which you can accomplish by a pronounced step into the court, with the lead foot pointing towards the target, rather than directly across the body) is more pronounced than anyone.

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.