LOOKING FOR THE LAST CHAMPION

We do it in all sports, but especially in tennis.  We're always looking for the last champion - a reboot of the last generation's greatest, just in a younger, better-looking package.  And we do this without taking into account changes in the game, and the very real prospect that the way to beat the best at one style of play, is to employ a different style of play.  

Those who have enjoyed Federer's reign as the greatest player in history, have pinned the latest hopes on Grigor Dimitrov, who reminds them of, and seeks to be, what they so loved about his predecessor, and what we all assumed would be the way forward.  And who among us have not assumed that because Serena Williams, when she is dominant, is so dominant that the only solution to her oppressive regime is to find a younger, stronger, faster version of herself (cue the clip of Sloane Stevens, Madison Keys et. al).  And not dissimilar to great military powers that are always fighting the last war, it is not uncommon for parents, coaches, players and pundits alike to be looking for Serena 2.0.

But has that ever been the case in the history of tennis?  Have the great champions been usurped by younger version of themselves?  Is Federer the modern version Sampras?  Aside from sharing a one-handed backhand, Federer couldn't have been more different than Sampras. Sure when Federer first came on tour he served and volleyed his way to his first Wimbledon, but never really since, and while Sampras' game was as much about raw athleticism and power, as it was about technique, Federer's game is about precision and ball control, and setting up winners with guile, rather than executing them with power.  

The courts got slower, the balls got fluffier, and suddenly the prospect of another dominant server and volleyer went the way of the do-do, and the name of the game was spin, transition from defense to offense, athleticism and stamina. Federer may have mastered this art first, but the development of the top 3 players of today, in Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, who have collectively passed him by, shows that the recipe for a successful coup is not in out-doing the best at his best, but rather to attack his technical flanks, and make the key to success something that you do better than him.

After all, did McEnroe bludgeon monotonously from the baseline to beat Borg, or did he kill him with a thousand cuts - a wide serve here, a drop volley there, and everything in between? Because Borg was so adept at moving from side to side and positioning himself so far behind the baseline, McEnroe's solution had the added advantage of using Borg's strengths against him.  When Borg ran out of solutions, he also ran out of the game. Coincidence?  Maybe.

Come to think of it, did Borg and Connors serve and volley their way past the archetypal big games of Stan Smith, John Newcombe and Arthur Ashe? Hardly.  In fact they exposed the big game for the untenable reliance on immediate domination and control of the points - so when it came time for them to build the points slowly but surely, they were hardly up to the standards of those disrespectful upstarts who simply refused to rush the net until they were good and ready.

Now, in watching the Fed Cup matches between Italy and the US this past weekend, I was surprised (but not really surprised) at how easily Madison Keys was beaten by the Argentinian (masquerading as an Italian) Camila Giorgi.  You've certainly heard of Madison Keys, tipped by many as the next best thing.  In fact Brad Gilbert went so far last year at the Australian Open as to say that she, more than any of the others, had #1 potential.  His reasoning?

1. A big first serve
2. A big forehand
3. An athletic presence
4. A steely focus

Sound familiar?  In fact, if you close your eyes and say that list three times, Serena Williams will pop into your mind like the Wicked Witch of the West.  But isn't that just fighting the last war? After all, in the last 10 years, which players have successfully challenged Serena?  Those who gape to be her heir, in every way possible, and in many ways impossible?  Or those who would attack her technical flanks and offer a different solution to the problem that so many of her paltry-by-comparison clones would present?

Justine Henin didn't attack the Williams sisters head on.  When pushed wide, she hit deep slice.  When served hard and heavy, she stepped in and took it on the rise, before the full force of their most potent stroke could do their damage.  And whereas they sought to beat her into oblivion from the baseline, she took anything short and attacked, forcing them to hit deeper, and subsequently either make more errors, or take something off of their most potent strokes, giving her just the opening she needed to put them under - again and again.

And lo and behold, we discovered that from time to time, the defense of Serena (and Venus) is not nearly as effective as their offense - good but, not great.  Of course it didn't always work - she may have lost as often as she won...maybe even more, but she managed to win 7 majors at a time when these two were seen as the two-headed dragons of tennis that would never be felled.

Now I'm not saying Camila Giorgi is necessarily the next Justine Henin - in fact Henin had far superior hand-eye coordination, more athletic ability, and greater tactical acumen than anything Giorgi has shown in her career.  But this spindly, sinewy little woman, surprisingly taller than she seems and fully adept at taking the ball early and belting the living daylights out of it, showed something this weekend that Keys has not yet in her young career.  Her sense of court positioning, whether innate (or as I suspect in her case) learned, shows us that one need not kamikaze one's way into yet another ass-whuppin' like so many of Serena's contemporaries do when faced with the quintessential big babe. There are tactical flanks to attack, without exposing one's own weaknesses.

In short, there is another way.

And this way, which I suspect is the way of the future, also exposed Madison Keys for the one thing that she currently lacks, which the Williams sisters have rarely had to, or been able to, fall back on:  a plan "B".  You see, it's all well and good to hit the ball like a ton of bricks, and as long as the only question being asked is, "How hard can you hit it", if the answer is, "harder" and harder works, you're gold.

But Keys didn't have the answer - not this weekend.  Keys is all about the power and depth of shot, and the fact that she was spinning first serve in was merely an alternate execution to the tactical directive to put her opponent under from the off.  Only Giorgi, by stepping in and taking the mickey out of the serve before it could take it out of her, asked a different question:  "What are you going to do when you can't over power me from the get-go?" Unfortunately Key's answer was to try to hit harder, and it didn't work. In fact it failed miserably. Some may put it down to a bad day - but bad days have a way of coalescing around players that challenge you technically.

Now lest you think that another player who defends better, would have easily handled Giorgi's oppressive aggression, I would remind you that she did nearly the same thing to a one-dimensional Caroline Wozniacki at the US Open last year.  Only Wozniacki's one dimension is not applying, but rather absorbing, pressure.  Her modus operandus is not to overpower you, but to let you overpower yourself, and in doing so, she also exposed the unanimity of so many big babe aspirants to the crown of biggest babe of all.  Lest we forget, with a tame first serve, and very little independent power, Wozniacki did manage to reach a major final and the #1 ranking - not too shabby. 

And do you know who happened to beat Giorgi in the next round? That's right, Roberta Vinci. Not some big babe ball bashing bafoon, but a real crafty veteran who, like Ken Rosewall, never saw a backhand she didn't want to slice, and a forehand that relies more on spin and placement than brute force. With guile, and movement, and tactics and a brain, she did to Giorgi what her younger more one-dimensional (albeit more talented) Danish forerunner could not.

Now, I don't want to get carried away, because it's just one match, and Keys presumably has a lot of miles left in the tank to get the balance right, but she does need balance.  And being one dimensional is hardly a solution when your one-dimension is the same one-dimension as every other girl on tour. It may have worked for Venus and Serena, Sharapova and Azarenka to some extent.  But if you're Madison Keys and your way forward is to be a technical and tactical clone of the Queens of this Comedy, you may also wind up joining the rest of us in looking for the next champion.

Instead of being it.

NEW MONEY, SAME OLD PROBLEM

Recently Jelena Jankovic hit back at stinging criticism from Roger Federer on the state of rankings at the WTA. In essence, he repeated what most have said about Jankovic’s stint as the #1 player in the world – that it made no sense.

Jankovic was none too pleased, but a quick look at the distribution of points across categories of tournaments on both the WTA and the ATP tours demonstrates some very strange possibilities. Federer would do well to consider this the next time he chats with the ATP President, as he himself could wind up in the unenviable position of looking a bit silly for his ranking as well.

There are nine 1000 Series events, excluding the year end championships, on the ATP Tour, each of which is worth 1000 points to the winner. Each grand slam is worth 2000 points – 9000 vs. 8000 points – which means that a player could win the calendar slam, another could win every 1000 series event, and the winner of the calendar slam would have to find another 1000 points (all other things equal) to obtain the #1 ranking?

Huh?

That’s right – a guy could win 28 grand slam matches in a row, and still come out the wrong end of the rankings. What a nightmare that would be. Fair enough, the 1000 series sweep is an altogether less likely scenario than the calendar slam, but it reveals that the rankings are weighted towards the events that the ATP controls, and as such if the stars so aligned, we could see such a ridiculous scenario played out. You could argue that a player who wins all 9 MS events deserves to be #1, but would you feel that way if another player won the calendar slam?

Well, that's an unlikely scenario, so let's take it piece by piece – imagine a player wins two slams – 4000 points looks pretty good – but to overcome that (again all other things equal) you'd just have to win 3 1000 series titles (one more than did Djokovic and Murray last year) and two 500 series events (say Rotterdam and Indianapolis) and you'd have the exact same number of points as a winner of Wimbledon AND the US Open in the same year.

Now which record would you want for your favorite player?

You see, the tennis gods look favorably on the calendar slam – even half of it. Why? Because there’s continuity of purpose in the slams, and as such, you can gauge a player against the greats of the game a hell of a lot easier with slam results than a mish-mash of tournaments, the collection of which seems to change with the each year. The top 8 players don’t even play the same number of matches as the rest of the field in 1000 or 500 series tournaments, and although you’ve got more time to rest in between matches at slams, anyone who’s played a 5 set match will tell you that it’s always harder to come back from that than your average 3-setter.

Consider this other possibility – a player winning four 500 series tournaments (say, Rotterdam, Doha, Indianapolis and Barcelona) is adjudged the equal of the champion at Wimbledon – in ATP points that is. Any player with his head not on backwards would choose Wimbledon over the other events, so why don't the rankings reflect that.

Now let’s look at the women’s side.

The Wimbledon champion on the women’s side would earn fewer points than another player winning 3 non-mandatory Premier 5 tournaments (2000 vs. 2400 points) say, Beijing, Stuttgart and Moscow. So you don’t even have to win any tournaments where all the best players are required to participate, and you can earn the same number of points as one of the Williams sisters.

This is probably the area where Federer has a good point. It is altogether unlikely that a player who is capable of winning more than three 1000 series shields in a season doesn’t win at least on slam, but win 2 of them, and you’re on par with the US Open champion. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it has only happened because the slam winners tend to win 1000 series tournaments along the way. That’s a convenient coincidence, but a glaring anomaly in the making nonetheless.

Ivan Lendl was ranked #1 in 1983; he only reached two grand slam finals but racked up enough victories in tennis hotbeds like North Conway, New Hampshire and Naples, Italy to hold the top spot come Christmas. In his favor that year was that 4 different men won grand slams (Noah at the French, McEnroe at Wimbledon, Connors at the US Open and Wilander at the Australian). So the argument then with Lendl was the same as it is today with Jankovic; how can a guy/gal who can’t win a slam to save his/her life, be considered the best player in the world? It didn’t help that in 1983 he lost 4 out of 5 to McEnroe, 2 out of 4 to Wilander, 2 out of 4 to Connors and his one and only match to Noah - a collective 5 of 14 against the slam champions.

Fast forward, nip and tuck to the women's side, and we have our example in Jelena (Lendlova) Jankovic – last year she won Rome, Beijing, Stuttgart and Moscow (sound familiar?), had consistently (barely) above average results everywhere else, and so was ranked #1. But nobody – not even Jankovic, I suspect – sincerely believed she was the best player in the world – maybe the most consistent, but certainly not the best. Well, thankfully Serena has put that question off for a bit.

Jankovic won more points for any 3 of those tournaments than Sharapova did for winning in Melbourne, Ivanovic did for conquering Paris, Venus did for winning her fifth at the All England Club, and Serena Williams did for exorcising her small town blues at Flushing. Jankovic lost her only match to "I'm So Pretty", went 1-2 against Verdasco's ex-girlfriend, split 1-1 with the Fly Trap, and 1-2 to Serena, for a whopping 3 for 8 against the slam winners - ironically she lost in 3 of the 4 slams to the eventual champion, but still topped the table at the end of the season - this after losing in the semi-final of the year end championships.

The point distributions do not represent the historical or even current significance of tournaments. In order to encourage high profile players to play events that are essentially money-makers for the tour, they have to put a point value on them that will draw marquee players. But as soon as they do this the advantage goes to those who play more often, but not necessarily better, and that’s when the rankings begin to make little to no sense at all. So why do they want to draw players to these events? – I told you, that’s where the money is; new sponsors, new venues and a whole lot of NEW MONEY (in Beijing and Moscow, anyway).

The only solution is for the ATP and the WTA to admit that tradition counts in tennis and the only thing that everyone cares about equally is the slams. They could eat into the gravitas of the slams by keeping a more consistent year to year schedule and attaching some historical value to smaller events, but as long as money changes hands globally, new venues have cash to burn, and players have entourages to support, there’s little hope for a calendar or ranking system that make sense on both sides of the aisle any time soon.

Well, at least Jelena can always take Roger for a ride in the Porsche she won in Stuttgart – you can’t drive a ranking anyway.

ODE TO JUSTINE

Here are some new lyrics to the song, "Yesterday" by McCartney and Lennon, written as an ode to Justine Henin, the last all-court player in women's tennis who has chosen to retire from the game:

Yesterday,

I just used to love the way you play
Now it seems that there’s another way
To play, but not like yesterday

Suddenly,

Sharapova’s not so cute to me
I wouldn’t watch Serena play for free
Big babe tennis came suddenly.

Why she,
Had to shriek I don't know, she wouldn't say.
I said,
Close your mouth and play the way they used to plaaaaayy…

Yesterday,
Tennis was a lovely game to play
Now I need a juice and tanqueray
To watch the way they play today

Why she
Had to quit I don't know, she wouldn't say.

I said,
Nothing’s wrong, with the games of yesterdaaaay.

Yesterday,
Big babe tennis was so strange to say
Now it seems as though it's here to stay,
Oh how I long for yesterday

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmmmm....

LABOR DAY HAS PASSED, BUT NO CLASS AT FLUSHING MEADOW

It's hard to put into words my disappointment at the atrocious behavior of Serena Williams at her post-match press conference on Tuesday night after being handled rather easily by world #1 Justine Henin. The Williams sisters are very popular among younger sports fans, particularly those recently interested in tennis, but within the tennis world, there is little support for these two, particularly when they show little to no grace or respect towards their opponents when they lose.

It's one thing to be competitive and confident, and it's another to insult your opponent by suggesting that she made lucky shots and that this, and every match, for that matter, is yours to either win or lose. You may have this mentality before the match to put yourself in the right mindset, but what's done is done, and once you've been served like yesterday's lunch, the right thing to do is take a big bite of humble pie and live to fight another day.

Years ago I used to fully support Richard Williams in his complaint that Americans didn't seem to take to the Williams sisters the way they did to other American tennis players, particularly cute little blonde ones - in fact, it wouldn't have been a stretch to say that even cute blonde Russian players were more popular with Americans than the Williams sisters. Underlying this statement is, and always has been, the question of race -  are American sports fans ready to go ga-ga for a couple of black tennis stars? But it turns out that this lukewarm reception to the sisters from Compton may have less to do with their race, than with their attitude.

It's all well and good to stand on your tippy-toes and wave kisses to the crowd, like Mary Lou Retton at the '84 Olympics, when you win. And since kids don't tend to watch press conferences, or read interview transcripts (or much of anything these days, for that matter) they don't see the other side of Serena that has everyone who actually follows tennis so up in arms.

Does she honestly believe that Justine Henin was making "lucky" shots Tuesday night? Were these the same lucky shots she made at the French Open and Wimbledon, where she also handily beat Serena? And by the way, what's all this talk about luck? Are we talking about some journeyman who was given a wildcard into the main draw, or the deservedly #1 ranked tennis player in the world? Perhaps what really has Serena behaving so petulantly today is that there is no excuse for her failure this time around:

1. She can't claim Henin cheated (as she did at the French Open 4 years ago)
2. She can't claim she was injured (as she did at Wimbledon)
3. She can't claim it's not her best surface (as she does at the French Open)
4. She can't claim lack of preparation (since she won the Australian with a similar run-up)

The bottom line is this: she lost to a better player. Maybe not always a better player, but definitely Tuesday night. And that's all anyone expects her to say when she loses to a better player. Not that she lost due to her own mistakes, when in fact she was clearly outclassed. And not that her opponent made lucky shots, when in fact Henin raised her game, and Serena couldn't.

There is one thing tennis players hate, and that's when big name players think they're entitled to victories and titles because they have a big pedigree. Years ago, Pat Rafter got into it with Pete Sampras because each time he won something big, or beat Sampras, Sampras had some injury excuse. Sampras went so far as to say that it was "annoying" to see Rafter lift the US Open trophy in 1997, because he felt it was rightfully his.

Excuse me?

It's hard to give a great champion like Sampras a hard time, because he generally had a lot of class, and perhaps the comment was taken out of context. (BTW if you want to see the context of Serena's comments, here they are). But in sports, nothing rightfully belongs to anyone - the reason we play the game is to determine who deserves to win, otherwise we can hand out the trophy and prize money at the same time they do the draw.

And even if injuries are a factor, we don't know what the winning player is experiencing, and anyone who's played highly competitive sports will tell you that they're always carrying some kind of knock or discomfort or injury that presents a challenge. That's part of sports, and not an excuse for losing. If you're fit enough to be on the court, then you're fit enough to win. End of story.

Serena should take a lesson from Sharapova in this regard - even though we know that this woman is completely in love with herself, she at least has the good sense to FEIGN humility when she loses, and even when she wins. Yes, I get tired of her phony, "all this for little ol' me?" routine, but to be fair when she loses, she doesn't sound off like a spoiled child who thinks she deserves to win every match regardless of how well her opponent plays. She congratulates her opponent and moves on.

And one last thing...she should not, as some have suggested, have skipped the press conference. She should have just been a little more gracious and honest, because that's what is expected of anyone in any disappointing situation, and not just big tennis stars.

Good riddance to you, young lady. Come back next year when you've learned some manners.