2016 CITI OPEN: WRAP UP AND TENNISFILES PODCAST

So long, 2016 Citi Open:  you came and went too soon, but it was well worth the wait.  Here's episode 26 of Tennis Files podcast, by Mehrbad Iranshad.  It's always a pleasure talking tennis with him, and I hope you enjoy it too.


If you haven't already, and you play (or just love) tennis , I really encourage you to have a look at Tennis Files by Mehrban Iranshad  The information in it is really comprehensive:  from technique, to tactics, to fitness, to game planning:  you name it, he's got it, and he doesn't rest on his laurels - there's always something to go back for and have another look.

The topics and guests on his podcasts are fantastic:  from juniors hoping to make the jump, to professionals who ply their trade, to former gladiators reminiscing about their days on tour.  And there's the stuff about improving your game, from picking the right strings, to the right coach, to the top 7 reasons you lose a tennis match...like I said, it's comprehensive.

Well, once again thanks to everyone at the Citi Open for a great year, to my colleagues who were once again great to be around, to the players for making the spectacle, and (my fellow) fans for making it possible.

See you in 2017!

2016 CITI OPEN DAY 4: THE QUIET AMERICAN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What exactly is competitiveness? 

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

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

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

2016 CITI OPEN DAY 3: STILL SAMANTHA

The first story from Day 3 at the 2016 Citi Open was the one story that nobody can get ahead of or control the narrative:  the weather.  Mother nature decided the DC area needed a cooling off period absolutely dumped buckets of water on the William H. Fitzgerald tennis center for about 90 minutes.  

Sam Stosur and Yannina Wickmayer, a favorite and a dark horse for the title, were done and dusted before the rains came, with Stosur dispatching of a resurgent Alla Kudryavtseva in straights sets in less than an hour (including a second set bagel), while the Belgian took longer to do the job over American Madison Brengle, who will be disappointed that she wasn't able to break her opponents shaky serve more frequently.  Wickmayer saved 2 of the 4 break points she faced, but Brengle was broken 7 times on 11 break points, which turned out to be the difference in the match.

Stosur, on the other hand, started slowly, but finished strongly.  After finding her feet and her forehand late in the set, she proceeded to break Kudryavtseva one critical time in the first set, before obliterating her in the second - needing just one break point to do the job three times on the trot.  Stosur, the top seed this year, looked relaxed and comfortable from the end of the first set, to the moment she entered the press conference tent.  That is until the rains came, preceded by what felt like gale force winds, appeared to make her more nervous than her opponent. Skittishly glancing around her as questions were drowned out by the sounds of the atmospheric pressure dropping precipitously, Stosur seemed in as much of a hurry in the press conference, as she did in the second set.

I asked Stosur about her forehand, which is a modern forehand more typical of the ATP than the WTA, and hit with the kind of spin and depth that has made some opponents attempt to pay her a compliment by suggesting that she played like a man.  My curiosity surrounded whether there was an evolution to that stroke production or was it something that she and her coach decided, and her answer confirmed my expectation with a twist.  She said she had always had a compact take back on the forehand, but that it had been a very wristy and spinny shot that often landed short, rife for abuse by her opponents.  The revolution began 8 years ago, when she couldn't hit a decent forehand at Wimbledon to save her life, and her coach at the time (presumably David Taylor) convinced her that she needed to make changes to flatten the stroke to finish her opponents off in the rallies, particularly on short balls.  So there was indeed a revolution to her forehand, but it was to make the shot flatter and more penetrating than it had been, which is the opposite of what her forehand is known for.

Next up on the merry-go-round was Alexander Zverev who, despite being very polite, and very poised in his responses, did come across as being every so slightly less patient with his time than he had been the year before.  To be fair, Zverev had just finished a practice set with Steve Johnson, one where the pace and penetration of his forehand was as impressive as it had been during his practice with Monfils on Friday, and in all likelihood had a very necessary dinner and evening with the physio waiting for him.  His answers were to the point, without much elaboration, and though affable, he was very serious, and dare I say, substantially more self-assured than last year.  

For example, he was asked about the upcoming Olympics, initially he responded with enthusiasm and elaborated on the honor and rarity of the event.  But the second question concerning the same subject, appeared to irritate him mildly.  Born of Russian immigrants to Germany, in the context of the Olympics, the question was asked whether he felt more Russian or German.  He began his response by bemoaning (in the general direction of the moderator for some reason) that he felt like this question was asked in every press conference.  After getting that off his chest, he explained that he is 100% German, as German as it gets, and that the only thing that Russian about him is his parents.  

I asked him whether he sets goals for himself in terms of his career progression, and if his performance and accomplishments had so far met his expectations.  He initially responded by saying that he didn't really set goals for himself, then proceeded to say he targeted getting in and staying in the top 40, that he is pleased with career progression, being seeded a majors and such, but that he is still ambitious and expects more of himself.  When asked which of the crop of his American contemporaries impressed him, he mentioned that he had grown accustomed to playing his former junior rivals (like the lurking Taylor Fritz), and that he was most impressed by Francis Tiafoe, who plays very aggressively and goes for his shots.  Incredibly, he bookended that assessment with the perfectly logical, but altogether unexpected qualifier (from a 20 year old, anyway) that "...he's still young and has more to learn."  

From the mouths of babes.

Speaking of Taylor Fritz, the newlywed took the court in the penultimate match on the stadium against Dudi Sela, and managed to break the Israeli veteran in his second service game, the third game of the match, and after only 7 minutes.  It was a straight set victory, but he didn't have it all his own way - Fritz had to show some steel, and that grenade launcher that doubles as a serve did him well as he saved 7 break points to seal the victory.

Daniel Evans booked his place in the second round with an impressive dismantling of Benjamin Becker, who probably suffered some measure of fatigue playing for the 3rd day in a row.  Evans was the better player in the two key departments of the serve and return, and after his initial break of Becker's serve never looked back.  Becker hit 4 aces which which could have been a pivotal statistic, had he not negated the value thereof with 4 double faults.  Evans only made half his first serves, but won 85% of those points, whereas Becker was more like to miss, and less likely to win his first serve points (46% and 65% respectively) which resulted in getting losing 4 of the 8 break points he faced.  Where Evans really made the difference was his second serve points, winning an impressive 65% of them, and not facing a single break point in 8 service games.

That ironically sets up a tricky encounter in the second round against Grigor Dimitrov, whom he practiced with on Friday (and would have met at Wimbledon had he found his way past some Swiss fellow, and if Dimitrov had overcome Johnson).  At that time, he seemed to struggle for rhythm and consistency for the better part of an hour.  But if you just love the 1-handed backhand, that match will do much to satisfy your aesthetic preferences.

Denis Kudla continued an unfortunate record of profligacy at his home tournament - he has played 7 matches at the Citi Open (in singles and doubles) and lost all 7.  He started the match strongly, with deep penetrating rallies where both he and Millman seemed to be testing the resolve of the other.  But Millman prevailed in the end with the wind at his back in the second after breaking twice in the first.  

All results from day 1 are at this link...

THANK YOU CITI OPEN: JOHN HARRIS

I picked up my press pass at the Citi Open yesterday, and as always, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to get a sneak preview of the players that will make this the place to be for any self-respecting tennis enthusiast in the Washington, DC area over the next 10 days.  The joy of coming to this tournament, for me, is as much in watching the players practice, as it is watching the matches, which can go so quickly if one of the two combattants fails to play his part.  Sure enough, having ambled over to the Grandstand court, I encountered Caroline Wozniacki working out with her father, who like Richard Williams before him, has overcome the paucity of any true tennis pedigree of his own, to turn his daughter into one of the best players in the world.  Among other things, he had her working on pattern play, service return and first strike shot placement, and the old "hit the can" with your serve routine - only the can this time was a white towel (she hit it once, by the way).  Kind of makes you wonder what the "professional" coaches are doing, but I digress.

Following their workout, the court was taken over by Daniel Evans, his coach, and the coach-less Grigor Dimitrov.  Now this was fun to watch:  as an admirer and exponent of the 1-handed backhand, here I had two of the most aesthetically appealing in the game to watch.  Evans, having just come off being manhandled by one Roger Federer at Wimbledon in the 3rd round, actually appeared to be a little off his game, by my count committing about 3 times as many unforced errors as his partner for the day.  What struck me about their hit, which became fairly intense within the first 10 minutes, was the difference between talent and technique, and what the combination of the two allows a player to do that is beyond one who clearly has one but is relatively lacking in the other.

Evans has, by all accounts, exceptional hand-eye coordination and very good hands - he's very talented.  He can do things with a racquet that is beyond your average hacker...including professional hackers.  And from time to time, he can go nuclear with that forehand of his, in a way that makes the racquet look more like a frying pan as his hands come through the point of contact.  But it comes at a cost, when the timing required to pull this off escapes him, he is as likely to hit the back fence as the baseline.  More often than not, if you train your eye on his follow through, rather than the ball, you can see that he's hitting off his back foot.  Dimitrov, on the other hand, hits every forehand in front of his body with good weight transfer from the back foot to the front.  He stays down on the stroke, which allows him to hit with more spin, net clearance, and depth - hence the relatively low frequency of unforced errors.  They went through the standard warm-up cycle, and finished playing a 7-point tie break that Dimitrov won ironically hitting two aces wide in the ad court, after missing that serve in the warm up about 7 times in a row.  I guess practice really does make perfect.

It's worth mentioning that while Evans exited stage left with his coach after an hour, Dimitrov played another hour with another player (whose name escapes me and Leon Vessels) who does not appear to be in the tournament, but seems to be a popular hitting partner at this venue.  Last year I saw him hitting with a number of players, men and women, and this year, after sparring with Dimitrov, he moved to the stadium to hit with a WTA player, and ironically was asked by observing children for autographs, while they ignored his ignominious partner.  Dimitrov, toiling in anonymity, seemed to enjoy himself, as he always does when on the court, belied the presumed depression one might expect from a player whose star has fallen so far in the last couple of years. After a meteoric rise to the top 10 in 2014, coming within a rat's ass of making the O2, and playing a Wimbledon semi-final, this year he found himself unseeded and vanquished in the 3rd round by 2-time NCAA champion American Steve Johnson.  I find Dimitrov's committment and pure joy at being on the court to be a good sign that my prediction, that he will win a major at some point in his career, to still be well within his reach.

During the practice with Evans, Dimitrov noted that the kick serve in the North end of the Grandstand court bites a hell of a lot more than the other courts, and according to him, did him no favors last year when he lost to Johnson following two rain delays and two court changes.  The high American('s) twist serve to the single handed backhand was more than he could handle, and if he meets the Trojan man this year, on that court, he will have to figure out a way to neutralize that serve as a weapon, lest he meet the same fate.

I also had a chance to watch Alexander Zverev hit with Gael Monfils on the stadium court, where I was really impressed by the liquid power of the spindly German (by way of Russia) - a last minute wild-card entrant into the field after being dumped out of a home tournament in Hamburg.  There's just no substitute for being able to inject pace into the rally at any given moment, and I observed the rhythm in their rallies to be decidedly in his favor by something like a 2-3 margin (two counts for his shot to reach Monfils, 3 counts for those of the Frenchman to reach him).  Monfils was more frequently the player hitting late in their exchanges, which will do nothing to turnaround what has been a less than inspiring 2016 for him.

As usual, it's impossible to know whether he will be more focused on thrilling the crowd than winning, but I plan to make a special visit to his first match.  However, if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Zverev to go further in the tournament and/or win it all, if he can overcome the fatigue he must be feeling having played two warm up tournaments before Wimbledon, making the quarterfinal before getting it handed to him by absent the number 1 seed here at the Citi Open Thomas Berdych and then a warm-down event in his native Germany on clay.

Finally, I watched a practice with Irina Falconi, her second in succession, having been (wo)manhandled in a practice set by Francoise Abanda (the Canadian siren with gams like a daddy-long legs, who's been given a wild-card into the qualifying tournament) against American Christina McHale.  McHale, the New Jersey native who waddles around the court like a long-legged penguin, but hits one of the easiest and cleanest forehands in the women's tour, is a dark-horse to go deep here as well.  Her modern forehand, produced with the racquet head remaining on the right side of her profile, generating torque and deceptive acceleration as it catches up with her hands at the point of contact, is not the best athlete in the draw, but following her very competitive encounter with Serena Williams at SW19, appears to be playing well, fit as a fiddle and ready to win her first WTA title just as her compatriot Sloane Stephens did here last year.

As I watched these two going through their paces, an older gentleman quietly ambled over in my direction and asked, as though soliciting a secret, if McHale was the woman who did so well against Serena Williams at Wimbledon this year.  I confirmed as much, and this initiated a conversation about tennis in general that surprised me in so more ways that one.  He noted that a girl on the far court looked about 12 years old, and remarked how young the players were able to start today, and how different it was versus past eras, because of the equipment.  He asked me how long I'd been coming to the tournament, and I proudly told him 30+ years, to which he replied that he'd been there since the beginning.

Since the beginning?  The 1969 beginning?

It turned out the gentleman was none other than the John Harris, who co-founded the tournament with Donald Dell (and Steve Potts) all those years ago.  Honestly, my knees buckled.  I couldn't help myself, and asked him a series of questions that he patiently answered.  The best match he'd ever seen?  The consolation match in 1971 between a 19-year old Jimmy Connors and a 20-year old Eddie Dibbs, which he said almost nobody saw, but was better than the final between Ken Rosewall and Marty Riessen.  Rosewall, at the time of his victory in 1971, was the reigning US Open champion, having defeated Tony Roche at Forest Hills the year before. But he didn't defend his title due to the growing conflict between the WCT and the ILTF, which centered around the struggle for control over the conditions of who entered the tournament and who didn't.  Despite the Cold War at the dawn of the open era, he was free to take the title in DC, rather routinely, over his veteran American opponent.

All this was news to me.

And to the question of why the surface of clay was chosen for this tournament, preceding the US Open (which at the time was played on grass) Harris explained that in those days, the summer US circuit consisted of actually two sub-circuits. The clay court series in places like Cincinnatti, Indianapolis and Chicago, that they wanted to be a part of to facilitate a better field of players.  Once the summer US clay court season had concluded, the focus moved on to grass, with tournaments in Newport, Boston and finally culimnating at Forest Hills.  In fact, the brief interlude of the US Open switching to clay from 1975 to 1977 had essentially spelled the deathknell of the summer US grass court season, which had been in place for some 85 years, before all the tournaments in the US transitioned to hard courts.

He said that he had been a collegiate and amateur player himself, but that he had never been able to effectively compete against Donald Dell, who was himself a 3-time all American at Yale, and NCAA finalist in 1959.  He said that as good as Dell was, Arthur Ashe was on another level as a player, something that is frequently forgotten about the man...a testament to the exceptional human being that he was, and humanitarian that he became.  

Speaking further about Ashe, who along with Harris and Dell had years before cooked up the notion of an integrated tournament in the nation's Capitol, Harris sat on the Men's Professional Tennis Council representing the US tournaments, alongside him as he represented the players, when he first heard of the Williams sisters.  Harris, with great humility, admitted to me that he didn't think the girls had a chance, not because of their ability (which was obvious) but because their father had prevented them from playing the standard US junior tennis circuit.  After proclaiming as much to Ashe, Ashe himself (who died 6 years before Serena won the US Open in 1999) predicted that both of them would be world champions and would be the first of many from the black American community if the USTA played their cards right.  Sadly it hasn't, which Harris admitted had never been the intention of the WTEF, which owns and operates the Citi Open, and donates nearly every penny to local education, and not necessarily the development of tennis champions.

Speaking of the Williams sisters, Harris told me a story of how he had stayed down the hall from the same hotel as the Williams sisters in 1998 in Australia.  He knew then that the Williams' parents were special because the mother, Oracene, would get up at 7:00am every morning to do the laundry. Why?  Because Venus didn't have any sponsors that would provide her with new clothes to wear before every match; so the depth of humility and commitment was evident. One can understand their persistent skepticism of the tennis establishment, given that in 1998 they still couldn't find a single clothing sponsor that could be bothered to throw some free clothes in the direction of a 17-year old girl who had already reached #22 in the world and had made the final at Sydney a week before one of the 4 biggest tournaments in the world.

How things have changed since.

It was an honor and a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a man who, unwittingly, is one of the reasons that I fell in love with tennis.  This tournament was the first time I'd seen tennis played in person by professionals, and ever since has been my Mecca for 33 years, the place I come to fall in love with the game all over again, and will continue to as long as air fills my lungs.

For this, and for so much more I say, thank you John Harris.

ADDENDUM:  Dimitrov's hitting partner, and the man whose autograph had been sought by those kids watching hit in the stadium court was Leon Vessels, whose history with the Citi Open is as curious as it is inspiring.  

CITI OPEN: READY OR NOT, STEVE JOHNSON'S COMING FOR YOU

Let's be honest - his is not the most aesthetically appealing game in tennis.  Not many will watch him play and wonder how he does it because it is as obvious as his game.  An outstanding first and second serve that serves him well whether or not he's under duress, a heavy forehand that clears the net with plenty of margin, but still pushes his opponent behind the baseline, and the option to hit a two-handed backhand for penetration, or a slice for defense, gives Johnson a lot of options to compete.  And competing is what the man does best.  Just ask Bernard Tomic, Grigor Dimitrov and Jack Sock - three celebrated and talented opponents this week at the Citi Open whose heads rolled off the block of his guillotine.

You might not know it from watching him play, but Johnson, is a two-time NCAA singles champion from USC.  In 2011 he took care of the much heralded Rhyne Williams of the University of Tennessee, and in 2012, Eric Quigley of the University of Kentucky.  Both of his opponents play a style which is more in line with what one might associate with an ATP tour-ready game - and neither has been heard from since.  That's because neither of them has the one element in their game that Johnson has in spades - 100% pure American steel.

If Johnson struggles coming over the backhand, he can slice it deep pushing the ball through the court and force his opponent to generate all his own pace while retreating.  This is a skill that few players possess, even in the professional ranks, and it has been the one element of his game that has taken Johnson further up the international ladder in the last two years, than any of his more illustrious contemporaries.  The serve is by far the strongest part of his game, if not for the pure pace of it, then certainly from the spin, accuracy and reliability.  Aside from the occasional blip, like the double fault that cost him the first set against Australia's Bernard Tomic, Johnson's serve is as difficult to attack as any in the game.  Hit with an exceptional amount of spin, giving him the option to attack from the baseline, or follow it to net, it is laboriously constructed, but it is a labor of love.  The options available to him with the serve mean that even if a player gets a beat on one delivery, there are three or four other reliable ones that he can go to to keep the returner honest.

But most significantly in his arsenal, Johnson doesn't suffer fools when it comes to competing - unlike some players who seem to find solace in putting in a good effort, he's not here to play the straight man to someone else's punchline.  The number next to his name in the draw is a meaningless to Johnson as it is deceptive to his opponents.  A talented European who thinks that he might have an easy time of it with Johnson's gripping an groaning with every shot, will find himself on the wrong end of a junkyard dog's bite.  And while others may prefer the streamlined grace of a greyhound, gliding about the court looking for space between the rain drops to place their shots, Johnson would just as readily put a hole in your chest, as the back fence...either way, as long as he wins the point.  And boy, is he winning a lot of points lately.

An oddity of his career is that he is currently coached by a player with whom he might have teamed at USC, had they been born two years closer to each other.  In the brief period that Peter Lucassen has worked directly with him, Johnson appears to have come to terms with the likelihood that success as a professional will depend less on his ability to dominate his opponents, than his ability not to be dominated.  "Go ahead and try", he says, "it ain't gonna happen - not today, not tomorrow...not ever."  And in a game driven towards homeostasis, Johnson's margin, athleticism, and dogged determination not to concede even the least significant of points, gives him the edge over the litany of pampered former junior phenoms who are learning the hard way that talent will only get you so far.  Johnson does not appear to suffer from such delusions, and it is the strength of that acceptance, and the game he has constructed to make the most of it, that has left him one of two Americans left standing at the Citi Open.

I was struck by Johnson's match with Bernard Tomic the other day - though most were there to catch a glimpse of l'Enfant Terrible of Australian tennis, Johnson won the majority of the crowd over, not just because he is American, but because he plays with such American values:  nobody cares how you get to the top, as long as you get there.  With support from the crowd irrelevant to him, we probably felt better for giving him support than he did for receiving it - such is the depth of his concentration.  Time and again, as Tomic tried to engage the funny bone of the intimate audience of Grandstand 1, and even on occasion his opponent, Johnson responded the only way he knows how - with a glare that would make Josie Wales do a double take, and a ferocity of resistance that might have saved Cassidy and Sundance.

The loose fitting clothes, the ever present baseball cap, and the simultaneously stiff and languid gait, belies a physical force to his game that leaves audiences and his opponents shaking their head in admiration.  What drives someone to fight, scratch and struggle as he does?  He doesn't appear to enjoy it.  His is a frosty disposition, which seems to have no patience for even a single point lost, and if you didn't know any better, Johnson's resolute competitiveness almost appears masochistic.  The truth is something more pleasantly sinister - he is, in fact, a sadist, prepared to put his opponent through the most miserable two hours of his life, if he wants to prevail.  In doing so, he may find himself with nothing left in the next round, and if the roles are reversed, and Johnson wins, he'll do it all again to the next sucker who takes him for granted.

Perhaps two years of winning the NCAA championships has prepared Johnson in a way that breezing through the junior circuit, and earning the easy money that comes to so many of the Bolletieri brethren who show promise and turn professional before their fruits have ripened, has not.  Perhaps, the education he received in college, including the commitment to learn from those who know more than him, the sense of independence that living on your own with nobody to tell you to go here and there or eat this and that, and the physical strength to break his body down every day, and build it back up the next (just a little bit better-stronger-faster each time), is exactly the kind of education that all of his contemporaries who eschewed the pursuit of knowledge for the pursuit of early glory, are missing out on.

I don't know how good Steve Johnson will be - he may win some tournaments, he may reach the top 20, and he may be a part of the hallowed US Davis Cup team.  But one thing is for certain about Steve Johnson - the most admirable thing about him - if there's a stone unturned, he'll find it...and fire it right between your eyes.

CITI OPEN: DAY 5 SUMMARY

Who the hell is Louisa Chirico?  Well, for starters she's a woman who's had two victories over top 50 players in the first two rounds of the Citi Open, and finds herself in the quarterfinal of the event.  That wouldn't be so impressive if she herself had a pedigree to speak of - she doesn't.  She's a 19-year old wild card entrant who herself is ranked 128, and has never won a tournament at the WTA tour level.  Her main claim to fame was winning the French Open wild card tournament, and proclaiming that she would have liked to play Serena Williams as a reward - a bit like winning the lottery and then looking forward to paying all the taxes and fees.  But Chirico is fearless and one gets the feeling that competing with the best players in the world brings a kind of satisfaction of vanity that is required for precocious success in tennis.  And her prospects of doing so are greatly assisted by the paucity of tactical acumen required by her style of play - if she were a man you'd say she wins based on balls and braun - a very Spanish style of play.  For a woman, I call it big babe tennis, and Chirico is definitely a big babe.  Whether she can continue today against Sloan Stephens (another big babe) in the same vain, is anybody's guess.  But the way she's playing, and the fact that Sloan Stephens does not have the most cerebral game in the world, I'd say her chances are 50/50.

Lleyton Hewitt said good-bye to the tournament he won in 2004 - honored as a former champion, never called to task for his racial outburst in 2001, and well received by the tennis audience with probably the most black people he'll see in an audience of US tennis fans, Hewitt returned to the Citi Open over and over again.  Accustomed to the hot conditions, he would have taken advantage of the quick surface that does much to facilitate the penetration of his strokes, which have always had the deceptive quality of being deep without giving his opponent much pace to speak of to work with.  This quality in the early stages of his career, before all the issues with his hip restricted his movement, allowed him to consistently pull off a kind of tennis jujitsu, where you use the power of the bigger, stronger player against himself, until he looks like a giant buffoon power lifter, tearing his own arms off as he tries to clean and jerk a new world record.  And if Hewitt weren't such a reprehensible personality when on the court, with the celebrating of his opponents errors, the confrontations with his opponents, the periodic abuse of officials, one might find more beauty in the Gilbertian quality of his tactical acumen.  As it stands, I'm less than enamored of either his coming or going.  Thanks to Feliciano Lopez, he's going.

Speaking of going, Bernard Tomic is going just as he came - shrouded in cynicism.  I watched him practice Tuesday morning, and he looked very loose and relaxed, laughing and joking with James Duckworth who had a match later (that he lost to Kei Nishikori).  I found it refreshing that after all he'd been through at Wimbledon with his Tennis Australia comments,  then in Miami Beach with his Dade County police comments, that he seemed to enjoy himself a thousand miles away from all that misery visited upon him(self).  Perhaps the purity of his time on the court was precisely the tonic needed to resolve some of the tension that must surely have built up over the last couple of difficult months.

Then I watched his match with Steve Johnson.  

Now, to say that a player isn't giving his best effort is a serious accusation, one that I myself was reluctant to sign on to.  After all, to be inside a player's mind and body is impossible, and without such an invasion, knowledge is inevitably subjugated to perception, and perception leaves us only with speculation.  But not all speculation is equally tenuous, and the case of Bernard Tomic against Steve Johnson, is hardly tenuous.  First, I noted that throughout the match, any time Tomic went down by two points on Johnson's serve, he made almost no movements at all towards the return of serve - and on the (frequent) occasion that the serve was hit within his wingspan Tomic's effort to return was as enthusiastic as it was succesful.  I note also that frequently when he had sitters from Johnson's outstretched racquet, he would hardly move his feet at all as he blew through the shot for a winner - in fact at some point he hit an overhead drop shot, such was his level of comfort, not exactly the kind of shot one would expect from an uber competitive player.

In my opinion, Tomic is the better tennis player than Steve Johnson - he uses the ball to do his bidding, whereas Johnson appears to be fighting it with every stroke. Tomic easily switches from heavy spin to short slice, to deep flat, sometimes even side-spin - Johnson hits with heavy topspin whether or not it's in his interest to do so, and frequently it isn't. Nevertheless, one other important thing Johnson always does is chase the ball - every ball - regardless of whether he had a chance to reach it.  Tomic frequently watched balls go by him from a safe distance - at first it looked like he was hoping the ball would go out, but at some point I started to get the feeling that he wanted the opposite, and commensurately to be put out of his misery.  One particular game in the third set that went to something like 7 deuces, Johnson hit winners up the line of 3 ad court second serve returns in a row.  Tomic watched each of them with a smile.  Later in the game, Johnson figured, if he was making so little effort on the second serve, why not do the same on the first.  As a matter of act, Tomic went wide in the deuce court so frequently, I started to wonder why Johnson wasn't keying on that and blowing a hole through the back fence. He almost did just that for another 2 points in a row.  And Tomic smiled at every one of them, like a kid in his driveway, oddly smiling at perfect strangers as they drive by.

There were moments in the match where Tomic tried to engage Johnson in one or two of his running jokes - at some point Johnson's attempted pass hit the tape and then jumped up into Tomic's chest.  Tomic looked over his shoulder in search of a smile or an apology - Johnson gave him neither.  Before serving the next point he gave a gallic shrug and plaintively asked, "Why mate, why?" as in, "Why did you have to do that to little old me [Mr. Beauregard]".  Johnson stared back blankly - his lack of facial expression a Nishikorian indication of his irritation.  Later in the match, Johnson hit a forehand close to the baseline that was called out, which Tomic disagreed, and softly pleaded with the umpire that he wanted to concede the point.  The umpire shook his head, insisting that the call was right. Tomic then asked to challenge the ball, which the umpire again refused (on what grounds, I don't know, but he refused nonetheless).  Not satisfied, Tomic insisted, loud enough for anyone in the stands or walking behind the court to hear, that Johnson challenge the call.  "Challenge Steve, challenge!" he said, feet spread eagle still unmoved from the end of the point, another gallic shrug, and palms pointed to the sky.  The crowd laughed at his insistence, as did the umpire, but Johnson, who had initially turned his back and ignored him, turned to face him and responded again with another blank stare.  Was he on to Tomic's ruse, or just wary of it?

I found the exchange entirely Freudian - it seemed to me Tomic really did want the call challenged, not because he thought it was out, but because (like so many who incorrectly challenged) hoped it was in - only here I think he wanted the ball to be in so that he could be one step closer to ending the match.  In fact, the very next service game Tomic burned one up the T, Johnson hit a very short reply, Tomic charged the net, feigned a drop shot, then in the style of Federer hit a slice forehand deep - the ultimate tomfoolery that makes an opponent appear to be a puppet made to humiliate himself on the end of a string.  Only Tomic promptly hit the slice forehand 6 feet out and humiliated himself - well he would have been humiliated if one assumes that he gave a shit.

It went on like this mercilessly, and towards the end of the match, in one of the longer deuce games, which conveniently persisted the illusion of effort, one had the feeling that Tomic grew irritated with Johnson that he was so profligate in all the opportunities he was giving him to finish him off.  Tomic didn't appear to have any trouble controlling points when he wanted to, and although Johnson was making all the right moves, like a rhythmless enthusiast, desperately learning the moves to a Michael Jackson video, it was all there but horrific to behold nonetheless.  Johnson is a committed professional, and will almost certainly maximize his results - he's serious and leaves no stone unturned...he just doesn't have a lot of stones.  That match took an hour longer than it should have, although he prevailed in the end.  If Tomic had tried as hard to win that match, as he tried to make it look like he was trying, the match would have been done an hour earlier as well - only the result reversed.

Speaking of a match that took longer than it should have, Grigor Dimitrov won his 2nd round encounter with Guido Pella 6-4, 6-1 7-6, 6-4.  He should have won the match in less than an hour, but his old junior nemesis from Argentina held firm in the first and broke him precisely when the Bulgarian should have mercilessly closed out the first set. In fact, down a break at 5-4, Guido Pella proceeded to break, hold and break again, and had the set in his hands.  But the South American lefty's convoluted and thoroughly concocted forehand broke down at the absolute worst times, and he wound up losing tamely in a tie-break.  The second was a repeat of the first, with Dimitrov up 5-1, with two breaks.  Then Pella held, broke and held, to bring himself within one break of equalling his feat in the first.  In his interview after the match, Dimitrov intimated he was experimenting with going for his shots, almost as if he wanted to test the limit of how precise he could be if it was necessary.  Well, it wasn't necessary, and he found out what the other side of the limit was last night, almost to his own detriment.  Fortunately for him, he's come a long way since the juniors, and he was able to reel it in when he needed to.  We'll see if he was experimenting or merely missing the mark, because I have a feeling that Johnson will not give him the gifts that Guido Pella did.  Although on the basis of his performance against Bernard Tomic, I may live to regret that assertion.  I was impressed (as I have been since I first saw him play in 2011) with his game, but unimpressed with this result for Dimitrov.  I have a feeling Johnson will also be underwhelmed, in which case Dimitrov better figure out the right side of that limit, right quick.

Speaking of right quick, boy was that a quick and terrible journey for Andy Murray, who was eliminated from both the doubles and singles in the first round from the home tournament of his clothing sponsor, Under Armour.  A bit like Lewis Hamilton going out of the race on the first lap of the German Grand Prix...if there were a German Grand Prix this year (but I digress).  I have to say, Murray made an effort of it - he just came up against that terrible condition that all the top players fear.  A guy who has a lot of tools in his kit, but is consistently inconsistent, just happens to put together the entirety of his arsenal...just for you.  Gabashvili was hitting first serves consistently at or just below the 130 mark, which is unusual for him.  Combined with a mammoth forehand, and a backhand that easily switched from cross-court to up the line, he presented the kind of problems that are normally reserved for only the best opponents Murray will face.  

After going down an early break in the first, Murray found his way back to 4-4, then proceed to get broken for the set after some profligate serving and unforced errors trying to do the exact opposite of what got him back in the set.  Namely, rather than daring the Georgian to see who would outlast whom in the cross court rallies, he attempted twice to change direction on the backhand up the line, which he's normally good at, but not off of the depth of Gabashvili's offerings last night.  In the second, Murray settled down and did what he does best, hit harder and deeper to the same spots until he elicits a soft reply.  In the ultimate game, Gabashvili was still the aggressor, and looked like he was getting exactly what he wanted down set point with long points shortened by his power up the line, eliciting a high defensive lob.  Now I happened to watch Gabashvili practice overheads for about 15 minutes in his pre-match hit with Vasek Pospisil.  So he would have been beside himself when he dumped his overhead 3 feet wide of the ad court sideline - he was, because before the score was called he had slammed his racquet in to the ground in disgust.

The third set was tense and the quality of tennis high.  Although Gabashvili was resolute despite a calf-injury that appeared to be tempered by adrenaline, Murray was in control and served for it at 5-4.  But after a couple of uncharacteristic (even for this match) unforced errors, Murray sent a backhand long and they traded holds until the tie-break.  Murray went up 4-3, but wouldn't win another point after that.  He again reminded anyone who would listen that it was his first hard court tournament since March, but that doesn't explain the loss, which was the result of Gabashvili playing exceptionally well for an exceptionally long time. Murray, who was his usual steady self, never really raised the level of his game, and it cost him the match.  Here in DC, where only his reputation is at stake (and an extra 500 points is nothing to shake a stick at) it will be seen as an anomaly, but I found his entire stay here in DC to be subdued, from his interviews to his training sessions to his matches.  In my mind I always found an excuse, it was hot in the presser, it was hot on court, it was a doubles match, and finally he hadn't played on hard courts since March...

Time will tell, but I have a feeling that Murray is displeased with something in his camp that hasn't come out yet.  Frequently in the match, he looked over at his camp, and his answer to my question about using hawkeye data in practice in Miami this year, leads me to believe that something is amiss, of which his disappointing performance is a symptom.  If it isn't resolved, like most immune responses, left untreated, will eventually kill his him - or at least his chances at the US Open.

WIMBLEDON 2015 - CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

So, what did we learn from the final this year?  Not much, to be honest.  Actually, the result this year, is really the result we should have had last year, where Federer was down a break and (miraculously) found a way to tie the match at two sets a piece.  But this year there was no respite from either Djokovic's improved serve and his ever-present return, which neutralized his opponent's greatest strength yet again.  There's been a little talk this year in the blogosphere about what is the key to success on grass, and I've always been of the opinion that the return is far more important.

If you needed any more evidence of that, just take a look at the way Djokovic broke the serve of Federer as frequently as he needed to, and how much trouble Federer had doing the same.  Both of them have been strong in the serve throughout the tournament, Federer even longer, losing one service game out of the previous 96, before the final, and then proceeded to be broken 4 times today.  So while it may seem that the serve is the key success factor, it was clear that with all of the failed break point opportunities on one side, and the successful ones on the other, and who wound up winning the title, it's clear that the key was the return.

The interesting thing is that while Federer appears to continue to be the best player in the world on grass (with one glaring exception) it is Djokovic's viability that I begin to question - after all, how long can he expect to remain as nimble and pliable as he is now?  How long can we expect lightning quick responses with impeccable hand-eye coordination, the stretching out of points over and over again, and the impenetrable wall of defense that he's putting up these days?  With the exception of his outlier Wimbledon title in 2012, Federer hasn't really won a major for 5 years, and before that he held three at a time and had made the last 7 major finals in a row - that was after making 10 finals in a row before that.  Nadal was at the peak of his powers in 2010 and again in 2013, after taking 6 months off - since then, he's won a single major and hasn't made it past the quarterfinal round in his last 3.

So we come to Djokovic, and he appears to be at the peak of his powers, having made 14 major finals in the last 5 years, winning 8 of them, it would appear he is well on his way to the end of the rainbow, but it remains to be seen if there is a pot of gold, or leprechaun waiting for him.  The end comes quickly, for those who choose it, and those who do not, and it's hard to imagine him doing much better than he's doing now, but not hard to imagine him doing much, much worse.

On the women's side, Wimbledon has confirmed the one thing that we've all known - Serena Williams is far and away, the best player in the world, and it remains to be seen if she will anoint herself the greatest player in the history of the game.  But there is something that hasn't been brought to light, out of either deference or political correctness, that bears discussion:  is the state of the women's game the equal of the men's game?  And if not, does the palpable absence of reverence for her accomplishments result from one of the "isms" she is wont to claim, or simply an acknowledgement of the paucity of quality that surrounds her?

Gone are the great competitors, with games that had the capacity to challenge her on a regular basis (including her sister's) and left behind is a litany of weak clones with all the aesthetic appeal of her game, and absolutely none of her capacity.  I don't usually subscribe to the weak era argument, but watching one paltry substitute after another play exactly the same way, only much much worse, for the last 3 years, has begun to make me wonder.  In a quote often ascribed to Albert Einstein that, "...madness is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result."  If so, women's professional tennis is a mad, mad world, indeed.

But on the men's side, the result of the final, was exactly what we should have expected from last year - with only the first and second set results reversed.  According to Chris Evert, Federer did what he did last year with a bad back, and as such, with his ruthless dismissal of Andy Murray, there was an expectation that he would be able to get a different result this year.  But as it turned out, the one who played better than last year was Djokovic, and the result was equally more in line with where they are in their match up.

Federer still depends heavily on the quality of his serve, and although it had been firing on all cylinders for the past 12 matches, in this one, the quality of Djokovic's return forced him just beyond his comfort zone, and whereas he was broken just once in 12 matches, he was broken 4 times in this one.  One can question whether it was the chicken or the egg (did his serve falter or was it caused to falter by the quality of the return), but these are largely academic questions.  As it stands, without his serve affording him 1-2 free points per game, the remainder of his arsenal is insufficient to trouble the best player in the world on his worst surface, where he now has 3 Wimbledon titles to his name, and has never lost a final.

This tournament had the potential to mean a lot of things to a lot of people - Nishikori petered out early with an injury, Dimitrov lost to an inspired Gasquet (with the loss looking better and better as he progressed through the draw), Raonic looked right at home on what should the best surface for his serve, and then promptly lost to the first person who could return it with any level of consistency.  Gasquet looked like he would finally fulfill the potential of his talents, lauded on the covers of French magazines since he was 9 years old, but he too ran into the juggernaut that his Djokovic and was largely ineffective.  His last victim, Stan Wawrinka, was on the verge of entering the pantheon of great players in world tennis, but he, perhaps prophetically, confirmed before the fact, that he is not at the level of those that precede him in prestige and success.

Murray was playing some of the best tennis of his career at Queens and then at Wimbledon, but even the totality of British support for him couldn't overturn the advantage that Federer has over him when it counts.  It wasn't to be for him, nor his conqueror.  And finally, Nick Kyrigos impressed us with the breadth of his personality, and the shallowness of his game, but in the end, he failed to leave much more of an impression than that of a petulant manchild with more bark than bite.  Only time will tell if he can become something more than an Australian Monfils, and finally deliver to that country the major champion it so desperately seeks.

Tangentially, the one area that did surprise me was the extent to which ESPN took advantage of the considerable knowledge and analytical skills of Jason Goodall, who along with Robbie Koenig, is part of the internet's most insightful analyst team in the game, and has been for the last 10 years.  But with the advent of hawkeye technology and statistics, to supplement his propensity to analyze the only thing that matters in tennis - the technical - Goodall put to shame the perfunctory pseudo-psychological drivel that normally passes for analysis in the studio.  All the talk about pressure and confidence and belief sounds more like the expression of their own perceptions of what they felt as players, but brings us no closer to the answers to the question that we all (should) want to know:  how the hell do they do it?  It could be that Goodall's long overdue inclusion at the table, and his clear prowess at it, was the only surprise this year.

So in the end, the Championships at Wimbledon 2015 had the potential to make an impression on the tennis world, but once again failed to do so, and as such we learned little from this tournament that we didn't already know.  Will the US Open do the same?

I have a feeling that just like the last 5 years of that tournament, the last major of the year will turn out the last surprise of the year as well - because this one sure didn't.

PLEASE STEP ASIDE MISS SHARAPOVA

Since he won the reinvented ATP 500 event in Acapulco just a couple weeks ago, there's been a lot of talk about Grigor Dimitrov and whether he is in pole position to usurp the four horsemen of the tennis world.  And while there is a lot to like about this kid with seemingly unlimited potential, the next match of his beloved Maria Sharapova may elicit an altogether a more interesting question:  what does the future hold in the game on the other side of the gender gap?  The stark contrast between the stroke production of the ambassador of "Big Babe" tennis, and that of her precocious and spindly opponent in the third round of the BNP Parisbas at Indian Wells, brings that question into relief.

I first saw Camila Giorgi play two years ago at Wimbledon 2012, as she confronted another proponent of the ball bashing brigade, Nadia Petrova.  And while Petrova stood 2-4 inches taller than her (the gentleman in me will not reveal their weight difference), it was this sinewy little Argentine (moonlighting as an Italian) Giorgi who bludgeoned her way not only to victory, but to the beginning of a voyage that has brought her to the cusp of a regular seat at the table of the privileged.  She fell at the subsequent hurdle against the wily Aga Radwanska, on her way to the final, but for me it was Giorgi who really impressed.

And this has been the pattern in Giorgi's career since.  Later that summer, after justifying her wildcard into Cincinnati by defeating her aging compatriot, Francesca Schiavone in two blistering sets, she succumbed to Sloane Stephens in the next round.  The next year, after muscling her way through the qualifying draw at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina, and handling Luxembourg's Mandy Minella in straight sets, she lost tamely to Serena Williams. She then stunned the tennis world with a straight sets, first round victory over Marion Bartoli at Strasbourg, just two months before the French courtesan's victory at Wimbledon, before losing desperately in straight sets to Genie Bouchard.  And that loss included a bagel in the second set!  At Wimbledon, after blowing out the 22nd seeded Sorana Cirstea (another little babe with a big game, and inversely proportional tactics) she fell to Bartoli at Wimbledon in the 4th round.

But her career seemed to take a turn for the better at the US Open.  There she defeated Caroline Wozniacki in three brutal, bone-crushing sets under the lights in Arthur Ashe, endearing herself to the commentators and fans alike with the win.  In this match Wozniacki's exceptional defense allowed Giorgi to display the full force of her modern forehand, with technique which distinguishes her from the vast majority of women in the WTA.  She showed a compact and explosive forehand where you can always see her racquet head, a refusal to conceded the baseline, and the refreshing willingness to come forward, despite a shaky net game.  With footwork reminiscent of Steffi Graf, and a forehand punch more penetrating than Justine Henin v2.0, Giorgi appeared to have found her sweet spot technically and tactically at just the right time.

Then it all came apart at the first sign of "difficoltà".  

In the next round she faced another wily compatriot, Roberta Vinci, who exposed her limited tactical acumen by feeding her a steady diet of short slice backhands and deep topspin forehands pushing her forwards, backwards, left and right, and straight into a humiliating straight sets loss. The variation was enough to disrupt the momentum she had gained in the previous round.  Two steps forward, one step back, was the order for her still burgeoning career.  

But something happened in the Fed Cup this year.  Once again facing a clone from the big babe mold, Madison Keys, she befuddled her with a steady diet of flat power and wrong-footing, hitting aggressively to conservatives spots for one incredible hour.  The result:  she so comprehensively overwhelmed her more celebrated (for all the wrong reasons) adversary, that Captain Mary Jo Fernandez removed Keys from the line-up the next day, in a desperate attempt to salvage the tie.  In this match Giorgi demonstrated the same relentless first strike tennis that poses the biggest threat to the hegemony of the bodacious bruisers of women's tennis.  It's a style of play that has turned the women's game into an uninspiring monotony of essentially pared down versions of the Williams sisters...but Giorgi's style may just be the tonic.

In Dubai she dismantled Marta Domachowska (the not-so-curious recipient of a wild card) in the first round of qualifying, then demolished Andrea "Petkorazzi" Petkovic in the first of two victories this year over her popular German opponent.  The second came here at Indian Wells - this one a determined come back from a set down.  But the interesting thing about this match up is that it pits two players who've broken through the phalanx of brainless ball bashing, with modern technique and aggressive point control from the baseline.  That's a style more reminiscent of the men's game and diametrically opposed to the cast-iron replicas of...well, everyone else.  And as long as they're still around, nobody will never do that better than the Williams sisters.

Foremost of that mold is Maria Sharapova - a less mobile, less powerful, less resourceful version of the Queens of tennis.  And her steady diet of flat pace should be the perfect pilot light to ignite the full throttle, first strike repertoire that is the not so obvious answer to doldrums of the big game.  Sharapova's record against Serena Williams over the last 10 years, and the entirely invented rivalry the media have been begging for, demonstrates the fallacy of fighting fire with fire.

If ever there were a time for Camila Giorgi to make a move in her career and possibly shake up the women's game, it's today against Miss Sharapova.  If she does, she (and not one of these other big babe clones) may accidentally become the new "it" girl for which the WTA is always on the lookout.