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.
The draw for the Citi Open of 2016 is out, and the match ups that will initiate the gentleman's hand to hand combat in this "jeu de paume" are an inspiring mixture of intrigue, sporting curiosity and personal drama. Having moved the date of the tournament up on the calendar to accommodate the many players who will go to the Rio Olympics, the tournament has already suffered the consequences of a glut of competitions that have had to be adjusted for the quadrennial event. Juan Martin del Potro and the Bryan Brothers have already withdrawn, and the effects on the American duo of John Isner and Jack Sock, who suffered a shock defeat at the hands of the Croatians, remains to be seen.
Top seed John Isner (mercifully) benefits from a definite 1st round bye, and likely preferable scheduling, before taking on the winner of a match up of scrappers who will vie for the opportunity to dethrone the presumptive king. James Duckworth, the Australian grinder who unceremoniously dismissed a fatigued Ryan Harrison last year, will have another American to deal with, the altogether (overly) generous Tim Smycek, who famously offered to replay a critical point in Australia against Rafael Nadal, for no (good) reason. Smycek has excellent hands, moves like a lynx, and is (typically for an American) uber-competitive. If he can find his way past Duckworth, he will have Kei Nishikori's model of victory in last year's final to emulate, if he is to do the unthinkable and advance to the 3rd round.
Everybody's favorite Cypriot, 15th seed Marcos Baghdatis, will also have a first round bye, with a chance to face John Millman or (the current version of Paul Goldstein - a really local favorite), Denis Kudla, who hails from across the river in Arlington, and as a junior made the daily Holden Caufield subway trek to the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland, on his way to place at the table of professional tennis. Although not as fantastical as that of Leon Vessels, Kudla's journey to the Citi Open is no less inspiring. He immigrated from the Ukraine as a baby and was featured in a 2010 Documentary Who's Next. In it, it was revealed the extent of his obsession with tennis. As an 11-year old, with arguable assistance from his from his architect father, designed his very own tennis center. Kudla's parents spoke no English when they escaped the the dissolution of the USSR on Denis' first birthday in 1993 - quite an enduring gift.
If Ryan Harrison can conjure up the same grit and firepower that saw him through the qualifiers into the main draw last year, he will have his hands full with Stephan Robert, a Frenchman known more for his prowess in doubles than singles. Harrison doesn't suffer fools when it comes to competitiveness, and whereas in the past he has succumbed to both the light and dark sides of that trait, but he is still (relatively) young, still has a missile launcher for a right arm, and has quite a good head to head record against many of the players in the draw. The past is not necessarily prologue, and Harrison will both take solace and caution in that truism, for if he is to become the player so many have hoped and expected him to be, there is no time better than the present. My guess is Robert will have his hands full. Either one of them will have a grinder of the first order awaiting them in the second round, in Victor Troicki. If he has recovered his vocal cords following his unseemly (albeit "technically" justified) diatribe against Damiano Torella (for which he was duly fined $10,000 for unsporting conduct), he will want to save his breath for Harrison who is unlikely to go quietly himself, into the night.
In one of the most fascinating first round encounters, one of this author's favorite players on tour, (the Emperor H)Adrian Mannarino will take his well educated hands, and nimble footwork, into battle against one of the most powerful young guns in world, Francis Tiafoe. Another DC native who also plied his trade at the JTCC, Tiafoe's opportunity came from his own immigrant father who worked there as a maintenance man. He debuted here in 2014, where he lost to Evgeny Donskoy, but anyone watching that match would have been left in no doubt as to the potential of this human power unit, who burned 100mph+ forehands so frequently that the feat began to lose its luster by the end of the match.
Assuming he has addressed his serve, some dubious shot selection and his footwork, there is hope in the nation's capital that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the game. The winner of this match, mercilessly faces Steve Johnson, an American gaining such a reputation as a bare-knuckle brawling competitor, that he is seeded 5th, and my darkhorse to make his first ATP final in his homeland. He is coming off his first ATP title, an unexpected, but not inexplicable victory on the plushy grass courts of the English midlands (Birmingham) over Pablo Cuevas, a 2nd round loser here last year.
With any luck, the Real Bernard Tomic will appear to make good on his opportunity lost here last year, as he smiled and joked his way to a 3rd round loss to the aforementioned (Trojan) dark horse. You never know what you're going to get in the way of competitiveness and drive from Tomic, such is the burden placed on a (still very) young man from a country with a (still very) deep tradition of tennis nobility. But I would recommend setting a reminder on your calendar to witness for yourself some of the best hands in tennis, his second round match up against the winner of the yankee doodle duel between Donald Young and 20-year old Ernesto Escobedo. Rumor has it, Escobedo's two-handed backhand is every bit as deadly as the left-handed swing of his (no relation...probably because that Ernesto Escobedo was a figment of Tom Clancy's imagination) namesake in "Clear and Present Danger". Having come through the crucible of expectations for American teenagers in the dog-eat-anything world of professional tennis, I'm sure Donald will have some wise words of advice for his opponent...after the match, that is.
(Dr.) Ivo Karlovic, the esteemed professor in the art of "making it rain", fresh off his draining victory of Gilles Mueller in Newport, will get a first round bye, no doubt sharpening the blade of his sword as he awaits the winner of the Mesomorph, Sam Groth, and the drumbeat of (Mr.) Brian Baker. Groth's mammoth recorded 163mph delivery, will serve him well, even if he winds up on the recently repainted Court 1 where last year, he hit a serve that hit the tape...and was still record at 156mph. The fencing is kind of old, so I would not recommend standing behind Baker as he attempts to return that howitzer of a serve. Having said that, Baker's return of serve is one of the strength's of his game, and gives him a fighting chance to blunt the path of one behemoth to another. Baker's most enduring and endearing quality to a tennis amateur (in the classical sense of the word) is his resourcefulness, his tennis IQ and his hands. The combination of the three make him just the kind of player others would prefer to avoid, but I'm not going to miss that encounter.
Grigor Dimitrov is seeded and will receive a bye into the second round, although he's been hard at work here on his game, including a one-hour practice session Friday against a possible second round opponent in Daniel Evans. That would be a treat for those who just can't get enough of the 1-handed backhand, and spontaneous injections of pace into otherwise cagey rallies. Of course, Evans would have to make it past Benjamin Becker, the last man to defeat Andre Agassi on the ATP tour, himself a cagey veteran who made his way through the qualifiers, and replaces Tommy Haas who, for years, was typically the oldest German(/American) in the draw. If Dimitrov can navigate his way through to the 3rd round, he may encounter a dejected Jack Sock, who will have to summon reserves of competitiveness to atone for his Davis Cup debacle against Borna Coric. Fresh and fit, Sock would have been a co-dark horse with Johnson, but as it is now, I would credit him with a herculean effort if he were to simply justify his seed.
Alexander (the Great) Zverev, who sports a hellenic flock of sea gulls under (and over) what comes across as a wreath (but is actually just a head band) is a good bet to go deep in this tournament. I'm always suspicious of last minute entrants, but he too has been here since at least Friday, practicing on that day on the stadium court with Monfils, and seems motivated to do well. Zverev would face the winner of a 1st round tete-a-tete between Dudi Sela and Taylor Fritz. While I enjoy the (altogether necessary for his survival) ingenuity and improvisation of Sela's game, I would relish a chance to see these young starlets compete for a place in the 3rd round. Fritz could overpower Sela, but would find it difficult to do the same in the next round. My money would be on Zverev who seems to have Fritz's number dating back to their junior careers.
Another potential match up, that might qualify for the circus or an NBA game, is between Kevin Anderson, the man who nearly did last year at Wimbledon, what Sam Querrey managed to do this year, and the winner of the match between Reilly Opelka and Malik Jaiziri. Assuming Opelka is able to bludgeon his way through the wily Tunisian (who had never trained with weights until this year - a testament to his immense talent, which has hopefully not been wasted in its entirety) the 2nd round encounter might be the tallest in the history of the Citi Open. Opelka, who is listed at 7'0" (which is frankly just ridiculous) won the Wimbledon Junior title last year (which was very nearly a part of an American grand slam), would actually tower over Anderson, who at 6'8" would make the total height on display 164 inches. That's a hell of a lot of leverage.
Luxembourg hero Gilles Mueller, smarting from his loss to Karlovic in the Newport Final, is rewarded for his renewal with a seeding and a bye to the 2nd round, where he will face the winner of Nishioka Yoshihito and Ivan Dodig, the doe-eyed doubles specialist who initiated the stunning reversal of fortune in the Davis Cup tie against the US in Portland, by partnering Cilic in the defeat of the Bryan Brothers. Mueller, a purveyor of one of the best lefty slice serves, which curiously appears to be most effective when placed up the "T", was the guy who stole Roddick's mojo in 2005. That same year, he also defeated Rafa Nadal in the 2nd round at Wimbledon. This should have come as no surprise to Citi Open historians, who would note that he defeated Agassi in the semi final in 2004, before ruining the marquee match up with Lleyton Hewitt in the final (who prevailed in straight sets for his one and only Citi Open title).
Benoit Paire awaits the winner of Jared Donaldson and his compatriot Vincent Millot, who may very well have the most extreme forehand grip in the world, one that would make Alberto Berasategui proud. It's so far over on the grip, one wonders if he'd be better off rotating the racquet in the same direction for both the forehand and the backhand...it'd be a shorter trip. Donaldson, yet another American teenager in the draw, has not received the kind of attention that Fritz has, but in the long run, I like his fundamentals more. His footwork is reminiscent of Steffi Graf, his backhand is compact and effective, if not aesthetically appealing, and while I would recommend a smaller take back on the forehand, and a diminished reliance on the reverse forehand from the center of the court, the way he throws his body into that stroke reminds me of Jimmy Connors at his ball-busting best. He appears to be on the verge of throwing his racquet across the net with every desperate lunge into that stroke. Having impressed many with his entertaining (for all the right reasons) encounter against Monfils at the US Open in 2014, Donaldson is yet another reason that the light at the end of the American tennis tunnel, could indeed be an approaching train of supplicants to the throne.
The aforementioned Djokovic slayer, Sam Querrey, calmly awaits another American, the result of the curious (if not unfortunate) pairing of Alex Kuznetsov and Bjorn Fratangelo. Although he is not related to Mike Fratangelo (the form coach of the Atlanta Hawks), Bjorn is only slight taller, which has made it difficult for him to make good on the potential he showed by beating Dominic Thiem for the Junior title at Roland Garros in 2011. Fortunately for him, his opponent, Kuznetsov, equally vertically challenged, may very well be even more spindly. I may pop over to see that second round match with Querrey, if nothing else, to see if Querrey could drop 10 aces in a row all over again.
(The other) Alexander (the Great) Dolgopolov awaits the winner of Victor Estrella Bourgos and Jordan Thompson. The latter is an Australian who bravely stood in the canon's mouth for 4 & 1/2 hours attempting to return the serve of Ivo Karlovic at Roland Garros this year - making the most of a wildcard earned mostly on the back of his best year to date that included his first tour level ATP match win and a Challenger title in China. He lost to Karlovic 12-10 in the fifth, but the effort was both brave and impressive - the only inches he gave to his gargantuan opponent that day were the 10 inches in height. His opponent, is a crafty Dominican who typically brings a large contingent of supporters with him, and has one of the bigger forehands on tour. However, like Ken Rosewall before him, Burgos has never seen a backhand that he didn't want to slice, and may need to figure out a way to come over one or two if he is to improve on his second round loss to the towering inferno of John Isner's flame throwing serve.
Dolgopolov, the 2012 champion (the last Olympic year) took full advantage of that depleted field, and won the biggest title of his career over a resurgent Tommy Haas (who is sadly no longer with us...at this tournament that is, he's still alive!). I've always enjoyed the sheer maniacal physicality of Dolgopolov's game, and since I don't think the long-term prospects of being able to do what he does are good (if you've seen his serve and forehand, you'll know what I mean) it's good to see him bounding about the grounds here like a Roe-Deer in the Ukraine.
Borna Coric will impress me very much if he can recover from an emotional weekend in Oregon, and justify his seeding by overcoming the winner of Sugita Yuichi and Vasek Pospisil. Pospisil was the 2014 finalist here, this despite being less known for his singles exploits than his illustrious doubles partner. 2016 has not been kind to this kind Canadian who glides about the baseline as easily as a man his size can, and this would be a nice way to start a recovery of the remainder of his season. But he'll have to get through an exceptionally competitive Yuichi, who's coming off a grass court victory over Taylor Fritz, to do it, and the popular teen ager from Croatia who will have no American fans (old enough to drink) on his side, given what he heroically did in Oregon to one Mr. Sock.
The final places in the draw go to Gael Monfils, the flamboyant Frenchman left off the Davis Cup team that went to the Czech Republic and kept the dream alive of another night in Lyon, seeded 2nd and shorn of his infamous ungainly mane of locks. With any luck, he will also be shorn of any desire to entertain at the expense of competing, and hopefully he will also do his on court interviews in English. He awaits the winner of Randy Liu, who won a Challenger title on grass in England before Wimbledon this year, is probably the 3rd most famous player in the draw to beat Andy Roddick at a major (Wimbledon in 2010), and is in all likelihood the most famous athlete outside of Chinese Taipei from Chinese Taipei, and yet another American, Austin Krajicek. It may surprise you that he plays for the Stars and Stripes, given that he is a distant cousin of 1996 Wimbledon Champion Richard Krajicek and an even more distant cousin of Michaella Krajicek (Richard's half-sister). My money's on Lu in the first round, and Monfils in the second...an inspired pick, I know.
Well, that's probably everything you'd want to know (and then some) about the Men's Draw at the Citi Open this year!
King Kei slew the Australian Goliath today, in the first quarterfinal of the Citi Open at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. The match pitted one of the best biggest serves in the game, against one of the best returns in the game. And like the key in most matches on grass, where the serve is universally assumed to be the deciding factor, it was the player (ostensibly) bringing the least to the table in this regard, that prevailed.
Finding himself in a spot of trouble in his third service game of the first set, with an outstanding backhand return winner up the line from Nishikori, Groth bore down and served an ace. Then in a neutral rally in the next point, after getting pushed wide, Groth hit his best backhand of the match: a crosscourt backhand winner that left Nishikori flailing. To win the game at 40-15, he hit a comfortable 117mph wide serve in the deuce court, before finishing the point with an inside out forehand volley off of a heavy cross court return from Nishikori. After winning both of his first service games without a hint of his improved overall game, Groth sent a message to Nishikori that, even without an ace from him, it wasn't going to all the rising sun warrior's way.
Standing 6 inches shorter than his gargantuan opponent, it was impressive to me the way Nishikori's technique on nearly every shot was, not only superior to Groth's in its production, but in effect. Whereas Groth may have had the liberty of biding his time against his previous three opponents, before bludgeoning his way to net, that was not the case today. The irony of that condition is that, in many ways, the fewer decisions Groth has to make in the point, the better he does, and would it were not for the significant gap in quality between the two, the directive to shorten the points as quickly as possible, may have served the behemoth better than it in fact did.
In his fourth service game, after two solid returns, and three errors from Groth, he hit two aces, then off of a second serve, Nishikori chubbed the return, which Groth handled with an inside out forehand volley, eliciting an error. A few points, and some beautiful first volleys later, Groth faced a fifth break point in the proverbial 7th game, and after double-faulting in the deuce court, Nishikori promptly jumped on the opportunity with an outstanding return off a poorly placed first serve up the T, and eventually ran away with the set.
There are always questions about the extent to which a player with an enormous serve can benefit from it in the modern game, because the string and racquet technology frequently allow the returner, if they are sufficiently gifted in hand eye coordination, to put the ball back at the server's feet before he's reached his optimal court position to defend the net. Today, as soon as Nishikori got a beat on Groth's first serve, anything less than a perfectly placed bomb was returned with interest, and Groth was ironically unable to handle the pace of his own serve. Despite being up 0-30 in the game following his break, Groth was unable to get to net quickly enough, either in the rally, off of his approach shots, or off of his serve, to do what he does best - devour the net with his broad wing span, and massive upper body and lower body strength. Again and again, the quickest hands in tennis were a blur as he burnished a trail of felt whizzing by Groth's ear whenever he got a good look at a pass.
Along the way, Groth amazed us with several 145+ serves up the T, as well as the slider in the ad court that, if his opponent wants to hit it he'll have to make a trip into the deuce court to find it. Groth actually hit a serve 145mph out wide in the ad court, meaning it was in all likelihood 10mph faster up the T. But generally speaking the match, and it's result, never really appeared to be anywhere but on the strings of the #2 seed. Had Groth been able to consult with his coach, he most likely would have counseled him to stop hitting inaccurate flat serves in either court, and concentrate on creating as much movement after the bounce on his serve as possible, with any combination of topspin and slice that he could muster. The fact that Nishikori was more effective on his serve doing just that, makes one wonder how the biggest serve in tennis would fare at 25% less it's top speed, but 25% more spin. It would also have the added benefit of giving him more time to close the net. As it were he had neither, and it cost him a chance at the biggest win of his career and a chance to enter the top 50 for the first time.
For that he'll have to qualify for Montreal - either way, Nishikori won't have that problem.
The second set started in a similar vein, with Groth feeling the pressure of Nishikori's return, by now consistently more effective than in the first, being forced into a number of highly pressured second serves. Early on he was up to the task, holding his serve in the first game after several deuces, but as the match wore on, it felt like a matter of time before the result proceeded to its most natural conclusion. It wasn't until the 5th game of the set (Groth's third service game of the set) that Nishikori actually bothered to hit a lob - the first a topspin offering off the backhand that won him the first point, and a forehand defensive lob, that had enough height to clear row Z, which elongated the point and forced Groth into a tentative half court groundstroke that Nishikori desperately chased down and dropped 12 inches from the Groth's side of the net. Groth should have handled it easily, but the wind got a hold of it, pushed the ball within 6 inches of the on court camera, and disrupted him sufficiently to send the ball long into the open court.
It was at that moment that the match was won, because despite being up one more break point in the set, Groth never really looked like he was in with a chance to break Nishikori - ironic given the disparity in their serves, but fairly obvious given the equally patent disparity in their returns.
It turns out that was the most important, and deciding factor in the match, as it always is in men's tennis.
There aren't too many countries where tennis is king - maybe France during Roland Garros - but the pervasiveness of the game belies the white underbelly of that persistent question that just won't go away...how good of an athlete is a tennis player anyway? I'm not talking about your weekend warrior, but the real McCoy. Few would question the innate gifts, and athletic prowess of the so-called big 4, but they would not likely (and perhaps unjustly) be considered for anyone's list of the 10 most athletic people on the planet, would they? I've often wondered why. After all, most tennis players have played other sports growing up, and many had to make a choice of which sport to play professionally - Nadal, Federer and Murray all had legitimate shots at playing professional soccer, and at 6'9" John Isner could have taken a basketball scholarship, which would have surprised nobody in his native North Carolina.
But they didn't, and therein lies the rub, in my opinion. You see, in other sports, like football, you have Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders and to a lesser extent John Elway, prove without a shadow of a doubt their qualities as a professional in baseball, and the supreme athleticism of basketball players who've switched to football (like Tony Gonzales), leaves little doubt that this is a viable transition. Hell, even Michael Jordan hit .250 in the minor leagues, and he hadn't played baseball since he was a kid! Now, I have serious doubts as to whether any of these guys could ever pick up a tennis racquet with any hope of turning athletic prowess in their chosen sport, into a fighting chance in tennis - in fact, I don't think a single one of them could.
But it seems that we have, in the broad-shouldered, tatoo-sporting, super-serving, Australian behemoth Sam Groth, an answer to the question of whether tennis players could play other sports professionally, and through him, we could start to have an appreciation for the raw athleticism of tennis players. 50 long years after Ion Tiriac completed, what would today be considered, the altogether unimaginable transition from the 1964 Olympic ice-hockey team of Romania, to the 1969 Davis Cup finalist Romanian team in 1969, we have Groth.
He was a strong junior player - with his partner Andrew Kennaugh of Great Britain, he finished runner up in the 2005 Boy's doubles final to Jessie Levine and Michael Shabaz. A shoulder surgery, failed marriage and an extremely brief stint as an on court coach to his wife Jarmila Gajdosova (who famously told him that day in 2011 at Brisbane not to "...talk to me like a f---ing tourist") saw him burn out from the game and take up Australian Rules football with local second tier power house Vermont Football Club on the outskirts of Melbourne. For those of you who've never seen Australian Rules Football, it's a cross between rugby, and ultimate frisbee, played with a familiarly oblong ball, by athletes that all look like they could either win a slam dunk contest, or at the very least handle themselves if it got messy on the wrong side of town.
Physically, Groth fits in with that crowd just fine.
Upon returning to the game in 2013, he seemed to be uninformed of the changes in the game, that said serve and volley was as dead as the wood racquet, and proceeded to work his way through the challenger and ITF circuits (along the way hitting an ATP record 163 mph serve) until he made his way back into the hallowed territory of the top 100. Last year, he bludgeoned his way into the main draw at the Australian Open, just missed out on the show at Roland Garros, lost a tough 3-setter to Alexander Dolgopolov (a former champion at the Citi Open in 2012) at Wimbledon, and proceeded to make news at the US Open where he lost gallantly to Roger Federer in the second round. Along the way he captured the scalp of his compatriot Marinko Matosevic (himself a full-bodied exponent of the power game) before losing by one break in all three straight sets to the greatest player in the history of the game.
This year, his claim to fame is an unlikely and heroic performance in a Davis Cup cause that appeared entirely lost to the hugely proud and patriotic Australians, when the hopes of the nation, riding on the narrow shoulders of Thanassi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrigos, were revived by an inspiring doubles performance from Groth, who manifests physiclally, all the grit and determination that is the hallmark of his illustrious, and retiring partner, Lleyton Hewitt. Having obliterated their unfancied rivals from Kazakhstan in the doubles, the pair were so convincing in their performance and temperament, that they usurped their younger teammates in the singles the next day and proceeded to perform a one two-combination that would have made (the Australian) Tommy Burns proud.
This year at the Citi Open, Groth took on and beat Victor Troicki in two tough sets, surprising those who observed the match from the mesh fence behind Court 1 with the frequency with which his serves in the ad court had his Serbian opponent chasing shadows looking for the point of contact in the deuce court, such was the power and spin he imposed on the ball. With deft touch at net, and good skills of anticipation, time and again he defended the net as well as most modern players defend the baseline. He served and volleyed his way to the end result he sought - to neutralize his presumed technical inferiority from the baseline with an unknown dexterity and ease with contortion at net. Along the way he showed off a forehand that at any given moment can put his opponent out of his misery with power and spin, and a backhand which, although frequently hit off the back foot, works just fine when he hits it hard enough to push his opponent behind the baseline...just where he wants him.
It is this unusual combination of girth and nimbleness, reminding this observer of the special skills and talents of a strawberry blonde wunderkind from Leimen, so frequently absent from men of considerable size and strength, that makes it unlikely that even the fittest of the fit in other sports, would necessary translate into an irresistible force in tennis. There are specific skills and capabilities that are necessary in the game, making it as unlikely that someone over 6'4" will win the games most coveted titles, as someone that same size to possess all the skills necessary to play the game the old fashioned way. Groth has many of them, but not all of them...at least not yet.
I observed Groth working mercilessly on a Spanish footwork drill, where the coach with a ball in hand, directs the player up and back, left and right in a series of movements that, if traced on the court, would have the shape of an inverted 5-point star. Never lifting himself above or beyond the crouch position of a lightweight sumo, the burning in his thighs is as painful as it is productive, and the resulting pop (or should I say "boom") in his serve is as much due to the power in his legs as it is the rotation of those coat-hanger shoulders that spread as wide as a Texas bull.
Sam Groth may not win the Citi Open, but his impact will be felt by his opponents, line judges, ball boys any ill-advised spectators who take their eye off the court when he's serving. But through his exploits, wherever they may lead, tennis may just have in Groth its athlete that creates the appreciation for the raw athletic prerequisites assumed away in other sports.
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