RETURN OF THE A-ROD?

Following a seemingly meaningless victory in San Jose, and having just lost to journeyman Robin Soderling (probably more famous for his antagonizing antics against Nadal at Wimbledon in 2007 than for his own game) in Memphis, Andy Roddick appears to have found his mojo.

With two convincing straight set victories over Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in succession, marking the first time in his career he has beaten the #’s 2 and #3 players in the same tournament, Roddick’s supporters are awash with optimism that seems destined to resemble so many other false hopes that he might regain what many view as his rightful place in the acropolis of the tennis. And with hordes of tenniserati questioning his insistence on getting in a tournament in Tennessee before flying off to Dubai, it seems he knows something more about his own preparation than outside observers.

In a star-studded draw that included 8 of the top 10 players on tour, and despite being on the other side of the draw from his usual nemesis, Roger Federer, few would have put their money on the boy from Omaha coming through to the final. Fewer still would have bet on him winning in any case, since Federer’s path to his own redemption appeared ready made with the exception of an intriguing first round match up against that other frustrating Andy - Andy Murray. Murray took care of that bogey for him, and then promptly bottled his quarterfinal with Davydenko – another of Federer’s favorite whipping boys who stood in the way of what would have been a fascinating final.

This week, Roddick announced his separation from his current guide and mentor, Jimmy Connors. When the partnership began, it was hard for me to imagine it lasting very long. Never known to think of much more than himself, the manifestation of Connors helping Roddick break through the glass menagerie would have likely led to a conflict of credit for the success, and not a strengthening of the marriage, as it would most coach/player relationships. When Roddick reached the US Open final in 2006, it seemed their union was all the rage in tennis. Even Connors couldn’t resist the temptation to suggest that some of what made him “great” could rub off on Roddick, and with that the die was cast for this terrible idea to take hold.

A year later, at the 2008 Australian Open, Roddick openly complained about the paucity of quality time with his sen-sai, and although he never mentioned it, few would blame him for resenting the suggestion that Connors greatest asset, his unending selfishness masqueraded as competitiveness, would be the key facet of this gem of a pairing. As if Roddick’s problem was that he wasn’t competitive enough. Nobody on tour shows how much he hates losing, as much as Roddick – maybe Federer in his own way – but certainly not with the unbridled petulance, presented as a fiery belly, that Roddick always seems to display, even when he plays well and loses (as he did in the 2007 US Open).

To be fair, the biggest problem in Roddicks’ game is, and always has been, one of technique. With the heaviest serve in the history of tennis, Roddick’s arsenal looked more like that of an aircraft carrier – plenty of power for collateral damage, but when the mission required the precision of an attack submarine, a girlish backhand, and a suddenly spinny forehand too often abandoned ship on their captain and the results were almost too painful to bear, even for those with little love for former SNL host. If you watch slow-motion video of Roddick hitting his forehand, there are so many technical problems with it (delayed racquet head acceleration, a point of contact parallel to his body, and a tendency to watch the result of the shot before he’s hit it) and compare it to any of his main rivals, you’ll see why the basics of his game so often abandon him.

But this week, something strange happened to Andy Roddick. Despite all his technical weaknesses, and inability to maximize his game vis a vis those of his best contemporairies, he won. He didn’t just win - he competed ferociously in the first set and handed out real beat downs in the second in both of his star-studded quarter-final and semi-final match-ups.

More than the results, I was impressed with the extent of his disbelief at winning both matches. You could almost see a trail of monkey feces running down his back as he shook hands as the victor, first with Nadal, then with Djokovic. Never shy of displaying his emotions, you couldn’t help but be mildly surprised, even for all his hall of fame pedigree of winning the US Open, winning the Davis Cup, and having been ranked (albeit many moons ago) #1 in the world, at the obvious impact all the talk of shrinking to the occasion has had on his psyche.

Apparently Federer wasn’t the only one cloaked in the dark cloth of mystique, and when the last ball was struck against his swarthy opponent from Mallorca, the genuine smile, absent from his game for so long, reappeared like that of a natural beauty we all knew in high school who finally put her make-up on again. Who knows what would have happened had he met Federer in the final, instead of Feliciano Lopez, but on the strength of his recent form, and Roger’s, it’s not hard to imagine that this could have been his moment against him too.

There’s a lot of talk about Andy losing 15 in a row to Federer, when in fact, that streak was interrupted briefly in 2007 at Kooyong. Cynics would tell you that Federer was experimenting, or that it was just an exhibition, but Federer did reach the final, and nobody likes to hold aloft a lovely crystal plate, when there’s a brilliant gold cup being handed to your opponent, so my guess is the result was legitimate.

But Roddick’s problem never really was lack of belief. As a matter of fact, belief in his pedigree seemed to deepen his frustration at underachieving when it counted – even when it didn’t (such as in the last round-robin match of the YEC in Shanghai). At the end of the day, A-Rod seemed to put too much pressure on himself to get results, and the technical failings in the rest of his game couldn’t match up to the technical perfection of his serve.

At Wimbledon he gave away a 2-set lead to Richard Gasquet, and as anyone who knows the French will tell you, they are not known for their iron-will. That gallic shrug that is so familiar to francophones the world over is as much a metaphor for their perspective on life, which makes them well-rounded people, but generally underachieving athletes. Throughout their titanic encounter, it was on full display that day, even as the French version of Roddick was engineering his historic comeback, so something was going wrong for him in that match, and it wasn’t his will to win.

With Roddick there is this an ever-present tension that seems to belie an underlying knowledge that the limitations of his game mean his best bet to win anything important is to get on a wave, usually started by his serve, and ride it until the white foam comes crashing down on match point. The restlessness so evident in his demeanor seems to stem, in my view, from the knowledge that at any moment, the curtain will be drawn on the Emperor’s changing room, and we all (that includes his opponent) will realize that aside from a big serve, he comes onto that court as naked as the day he was born.

The look on his face when Gasquet or Federer or Djokovic so easily handle his serve reminds me of the look on Agassi’s face when he would realize that Sampras’ serve was on, and the rest of his game didn’t have too many holes in it.

That was a look we never saw this week, because Roddick wasn’t broken a single time in the entire tournament.

So for those who think they’ve just seen the return of the A-Rod of 2003 – the trash talking, big serving, forehand drilling phenom turned dominator that ran through the US Open like the wind – think again. It just takes one bad day on his serve to return Roddick to his under-achieving worst, and fortunately for him, he didn’t have one this week. But I have a feeling that if he meets up with either of the two he demolished this week, they’ll be focused on one thing and one thing only.

That would be getting a beat on his serve.

With most players you’d say that just getting the return back in play gives them about 25% chance of winning the point, but with Roddick that number’s probably well above 50%. And as Agassi opined in Roddick's match against Federer last year at Flushing Meadow, each successive stroke Roddick hits seems to reduce the likelihood that he’ll win the point. The biggest bang for the buck is just getting the return in play because with him, it’s more than half the battle.

I didn’t see enough out of his game this week to tell me that he was ready to return to the pinnacle of tennis, even if it’s just for a 2-week period. He’ll have to serve like he did for 4 matches for 7 if he wants to be in with any chance of winning Wimbledon or the US Open this year – let’s not even mention the French. Frankly, I don’t see that happening when everyone is as geared up as he obviously was for this tournament.

The best sign this week is the removal of Jimmy Connors from his camp. Connors was an aggressive baseliner, and some would put Roddick in the same category, only armed with a Howitzer serve – but then why is it that he hasn’t won anything worth winning (aside from the Davis Cup) in 5 years?

Connors, for alls his prowess from behind the baseline, spent very little time there. He wasn’t a serve and volleyer, but even in those days, he wasn’t dumb enough to think he could beat everyone exclusively with his ground strokes. An unnatural volleyer who actually used a western grip on the forehand side even at the net, Connors was sufficiently serviceable inside the service line to cut points off against bigger, stronger and harder-hitting opponents well into the period in his career when he suddenly became everyone’s favorite guy to root for. He made his living pounding from the baseline, but he won his titles at the net.

It was in this area that Roddick seemed to be taking his cues from Connors, and it was in this area that the paucity of his overall tennis ability was revealed. In convincing Roddick that he had to make his life easier by approaching the net and finishing off the points, he failed to translate that strategy into the tactics of how and when to approach. Instead, an unyielding barrage of kamikaze forays into the net against some of the more precise players on tour – precisely the type of players who still understand the art of the passing shot – probably cost Roddick a shot at winning on his own terms or at all, for that matter.

No matter how badly we want to credit coaches (the Henin Rodriguez partnership comes to mind) at the end of the day, the player has to have the innate sense of when to attack, when to defend, and when to throw the kitchen sink. Let me be clear: I’m 100% against on court coaching. But even a purist like me has to admit that you could tell a baboon to reach Chaucer, and he’d probably eat the text instead.

The truth is there’s no substitute for knowing what you’re doing, and clearly, in Connors playing philosophy he did, and Andy doesn’t. I’ve never seen someone get passed so often who tried so hard to come to net. I applaud his openness to the tactic, but that doesn’t mean he can execute. Basically it looked to me like Andy was trying to employ the tactics that Connors did, rather than discussing a strategic objective and figuring out ways to execute his own tactics to achieve it. It seems Roddick found a way to employ the strategy of putting pressure on your opponent, but he is not (as Connors often did) doing it by approaching the net. A-Rod in 2003 rarely did, and this week it was more of the same. In that sense, Andy seems to have found himself gain. It remains to be seen if his self is enogh for a victory. I’d flatten out the forehand, take off a little bit of pace, and approach only on short balls, or well struck shots in the rally.

This week it appeared he didn’t do too much of that, and it’s a good news/bad news sort of deal:

The good news is Andy Roddick is doing it his way.
The bad news is it hasn’t worked in 5 years.

Call me a cynic, but I still think it’s way too early to be heralding the return of the A-Rod just yet.

NICO ALMAGRO - THE BEST PLAYER YOU'VE NEVER SEEN

The attention of the tennis world will certainly be on Dubai this week. With so many top 10 players in this tournament, Andy Murray (ranked 11th) couldn’t get so much as a seed, and as such had to win his first match against none other than world champion Roger Federer. But I have to say I watched a wonderful little event in Acapulco, Mexico on ESPN Deportes this week and discovered a player who has really impressed me with his game.

You may have heard of Nicolas Almagro, one of many Spanish players playing second fiddle to Rafael Nadal, but if you haven’t seen him play (and it's likely that you haven't), and you get a chance, particularly during the clay-court season, I would recommend you tune in.

Almagro is a swashbuckler – no doubt about it. That racquet looks more like a sword in his hand, and even on clay he’s not afraid to unload off of both sides – and boy can he ever unload. Add to this a curiosity amongst Spanish players – a killer serve – and suddenly you’ve got a player who, if he can perform consistently, clearly has the game to do well on larger stages.

In his titanic semi-final encounter with Chu-Cho Acasuso of Argentina, Almagro so entertained the Mexican crowd that they honored him with one of the rarest displays of collective public affection in sports. As he stood in the center of the court, sending kisses to his contingent of supporters, Almagro was showered with seat cushions thrown onto the court. It's an interesting cross between honoring an undersized winner in sumo wrestling, and exalting a matador in bullfighting. I suppose there's a little bit of both in Almagro.

I’m sure his opponents are not impressed with some of his histrionics – two years ago, in a match he won against Marat Safin in Valencia, although Safin had spent many of his formative years in that very region of Spain, it was the man from Murcia who garnered the crowd’s affection with a dazzling display of shot-making, defense, and pure guile. In response, Safin walked off the court and actively refused to shake hands with the victor who had spent more than a generous amount of time after match point gesticulating while laying supine on the rust colored surface.

One of the most appealing aspects of his game is his backhand. For an average sized player technique is his savior, and the consistency and power he generates off his single-handed reverse is impressive. Typically he runs around it to finish off points, and his forehand is definitely his better side - but if it's a weakness, we should all be so lucky to have one like his. There will be more than one opponent who will wonder just how he managed to smoke so many shots up the line, while also finding magically acute angles on his cross court offerings on the same side.

Ultimately, in the final against Nalbandian, the telling factor was his serve. It got him out of trouble on more than one occasion, and in the first set put so much pressure on Nalbandian to produce on the second serve return, that the Armenian-Argentine often over-hit and gifted Almagro points that he really needed to win. Compact and cultured by overwhelming spin, Almagro shows us that there is no substitute for form and follow through on all strokes including the serve. At the end of the day, most of the motion prior to the point of contact is ironically a waste, whereas the strike zone and the follow through seem to fuel his mammoth stroke production.

We’re still about 3 months away from the French Open, and Almagro has disappointed at Roland Garros in the past. After playing well in the 2006 European clay court season, he lost in the first round in Paris. There’s a distinct possibility, as is always the case in tennis, that his performance in Mexico, on top of his win in Brazil two weeks earlier, will put pressure on him that his emotive and loose limbed game cannot bear. For players who rely more on touch, feel and technique than brute force, the mental approach to the game is paramount to their success in a way that makes high expectations their kryptonite.

However there is a possibility that at age 22 – around about the age that both Federer and Sampras emerged from two years of faltering under the weight of expectation – this could be his time.  In the blogosphere you often hear complaints that tennis has become too predictable and boring.  I have never been one to hold it against a player because he is dominant – it’s not his responsibility to make it easier for his opponents to beat him – but I have always found it curious of Federer’s detractors (who are almost as often Nadal’s fanatics) that the dominance they deride when displayed by Federer on most surfaces is somehow more appreciated when displayed by Nadal on clay. You would think that if boredom with the game is the source of their crusade against Federer they’d be equally antagonistic towards Nadal (and his opponents, for that matter) on clay. Typically they are not.

Here, we just may have someone with the game and the attitude to do in Paris what Djokovic did in Melbourne – show the tennis world (especially Federer's detractors) that the beauty of tennis is that on any given day, anyone can beat anyone. In doing so, Djokovic should have reminded them of just how good Federer has been over the last 3-4 years, in avoiding defeat so often. If Almagro can do the unthinkable and win on clay in Paris, perhaps they'll appreciate Nadal’s dominance on that surface, as lustily as they laud the end of Federer’s dominance on every other.

WHAT A DISGRACE!

I'm quite certain I'm not the only one who feels this way, but Novak Djokervic's retirement from a Davis Cup tie for Serbia against Russia, has to be the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen in tennis. This event is nothing if it is not honorable, and if its participants are not going to take it seriously, then why should anybody else.

To be fair, this isn't the first time he's run from a fight, and I'm guessing it won't be the last, but in the past the impact has only been to himself. Now, a country newly proud of their tennis pedigree (and rightfully so) has to live with the shame of its prodigal son returning to the colors of their flag, and turning them bright yellow.

I know there are few top players who take Davis Cup seriously. Federer, Nadal, and now Djokervic, have all thrown in the towel when it comes to this hallowed competition, which seems more important now to tennis nation minnows, than it does to the players who earn (for everyone) the big bucks. But with the exception of the Americans, who are so committed to playing for their country that they've had the same line-up for almsot 2 years straight, no tennis country can seem to muster up the best players with any consistency, and those of us who revere Davis Cup for what it stands, and what it can be if we put some mustard on it, are quite fed up.

But here, with the Djoker, there's one glaring difference. This kid actually quit in the middle of a match, because of a fever...a fever!  And in a melodramatic show of either petulance, or feigned emergency, Djokervic walked off the court without bothering to even collect his belongings. I'm sure one or two Russians had more than a mild chuckle at the sight of a Serbian turning tail and running from a fight on Russian soil. I'm sure they're wondering how they ever lost the Soviet empire. And the ghosts of Serbians past, who most certainly can't stand Russians, are probably rolling in their graves at the sight of this slinking weasel, scuttering off the court in shame.

And his mother, shaking her head all along for the cameras, pretending that he's doing something that isn't to be expected of him (i.e. take off his skirt and finish a match for his country if it kills him) is just a side-show to the continuing parade of disgraceful images and actions with which this whole family have sullied the beautiful game of tennis.

At least Jimmy Connors didn't bother to play Davis Cup for 14 years rather than disgracing himself on this stage. Fair enough - he was going through some family issues in 1984, and didn't give his best when he bagged it against Sweden in the final that should have been ours, but at least the man had enough self-respect to finish the match.

In my opinion, there's only one way to finish a Davis Cup match, and it is as the Romans told their soldiers before coming back from a fight:

With your shield or on it.

NO MATTER HOW YOU CUT IT, THE ERA HAS ENDED

That's right - the best player in the world, 12-time grand slam champion Roger Federer, choked away the first set, and his best chance to retain the Australian Open title he has held for the last 2 years.

It happens.

That is not to take away from the outstanding performance of Novak Djokovic, who's play throughout the tournament has been nearly flawless, didn't choke, and was able to come up with the goods when it counted. There are a lot of people who couldn't believe it would happen until the moment it did, and even held out hope during the 3rd set tie-break that if Federer could have mustered a way to win it, he would have found a way to make a stunning comeback.

But at the end of the day, when Fed had to be at his best he wasn't, and when Djokovic had to be at his best he was. No matter how you cut it, this is indicative of a change in men's tennis. Because for four years, we have come to expect nothing but the best from Federer, particularly at later stages in the tournament, and it hasn't been since the same tournament in 2005 that Federer has exited in the penultimate round of the tournament. But with this victory, Djokovic has shown that not only is Federer beatable on a surface other than clay, but that he is beatable at a stage when he was, for so long, unflappable.

This is the second victory for Djokovic over Federer, and many observing the US Open final of 2007 felt that today's result is one that could have occurred at Flushing Meadow had Djokovic held his nerve. As it were, it took another six months before the Serbian with confidence and personality was finally able to over come the fear of losing when he damn well knows he should win.

It will be interesting to see how Federer responds to this, given that he has no coach, and certainly had designs on winning the grand slam in 2008. Now he will have to wait until Roland Garros to restore his pedigree, and in the mean time will need to find answers to some questions that have been raised by his failure in Australia.

First, his consistency. Looking at the statistics, Federer had only slightly less than twice the number of errors as winners, and his serve seemed to be a telling factor. In truth, his serve saved him at Wimbledon last year against Nadal, where his 30 aces seemed to come at the most opportune times. But in Australia, unable to come up with the serves to hold when he needed to, the rest of his game was left to bear the burden of the moment, and it was not up to the task.

Tactically, Federer's game has always been one that is based on control of the points from the baseline, with a willful search for opportunities to approach. And where he had trouble in 2007 was against players who were able to take control of the points from the back, pin him behind the baseline, and assert their own designs on the rallies. In this context, Federer, like any other player, struggled to win critical points from the baseline. The winners coming from his heavily targeted backhand were few and far between. And his forehand, once the most dominating weapon in men's tennis, was too often astray at crucial moments.

At the end of 2007 in Shanghai, it seemed Federer had made an important tactical adjustment that allowed him to romp to his second straight YEC. Following his surprising defeat to Fernando Gonzalez, an anomaly that he wouldn't repeat for the remainder of the tournament, he began taking every opportunity presented to him to approach the net. Federer attacked his opponents, and mitigated his inability to control the points from the back court. Rather than try to find a way to step inside the baseline and dictate, he rushed the net to devastating effect, and his path to the final left the remaining top 8 players in the world in his wake.

In Australia, the speed of the court prevented him from rushing as early and opportunistically as in Shanghai, and as such, puts a big question mark next to his chances of winning the French Open. Until somebody goes out and beats Nadal for the first time at Roland Garros, he will remain the favorite to win that title, but what of the other grand slams? Wimbledon would seem to present him with the best chance to return to the formula that won him Shanghai, but Nadal is fast improving at this venue, and Djokovic will have taken heart from his victory in Australia.

And when the hard court season begins in summer, will these problems resurface?

For sure, Federer lost to the better player today - Djokovic is yet to lose a set, and unless Tsonga turns in a similar performance to his demolition of Nadal in the other semi-final, it's hard to imagine any image other than that of Djokovic raising the Australian trophy. To be fair, although Djokovic is the younger player, Tsonga has less experience on these grand occasions and recent history does not look favorably on upstart finalists in this situation.

But either way, somebody other than Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will lift a grand slam trophy for first time since January of 2005 - nearly 3 years, and as such, it certainly is the end of an era.

WHAT TO TAKE FROM TIPSY

The biggest thing to take a way from Tipsarevic's near upset of Federer is not that you have to play your best to beat him, but that you only have to play better than him on the day. You see, one of the advantages of being the best in the world for 4 years is that your opponents tend to feel they have to beat your legacy, and to do that, unless you've got a legacy of your own, you have to "play your best."

Truth is, Roger committed 64 unforced errors in 5 sets, which is a pretty high number of errors, and as such, a good player with a pedigree like Berdych or Blake probably doesn't have to play his absolute best to beat him on a day like that. In fact, if you just play solid tennis, and put him under some pressure by attacking the net, flattening your strokes, and pinning him behind the baseline, you may get an even better result than Tipsarevic.

But take a look at a couple of quotes from James Blake, AFTER Fed's encounter with Tipsy:

"Every time I've stepped out on the court with him I've felt IF I PLAY MY BEST, I give myself A SHOT with anyone in the world."

"Just Janko taking him to 10-8 in the fifth shows that it doesn't matter who you are, YOU CAN PLAY YOUR BEST AND TAKE HIM TO THE LIMIT. You know, a couple breaks here and there, that obviously could have been Janko's match."

Now, here are Tipsy's comments:

"...he's not giving too many chances in the match...and if you don't have this complete positive attitude that you've earned this chance and then you're going to take it, there's a huge percentage that you're going to choke or [over-hit]".

"...with him, and with Rafa, I felt that the game is really point after point."

"Tactially I was prepared, talked to Novak before the match and with my coach, had an idea, had a game plan..."

Nothing in that quote about having to play your best, and having "a shot". Furthermore, Tipsarevic had a game plan, which means he had an idea of how he was going to win the match beyond, playing his best, which nobody can ever guarantee.

The idea here is that:

1. You have to have an idea of how you're going to win beyond just playing your socks off
2. Your game plan has to include a way to bring out the worst in your opponent, no matter who he is
3. You have to stick to the game plan if it works and/or change it if doesn't

We all know what happens when Blake thinks he has to play his best - he panics and over hits... a lot.  But really, all Blake has to do is play better than Federer on the day. If he starts playing Fed's pedigree instead of the match, I think it's lights out for Blakey...again.

GOOD-BYE TO THE BLOGOSPHERE

I'm tempted to say good-bye to the tennis blogosphere, and I'll tell you why.  Just take a look at this post at "All Court Game Tennis Forum".

At issue here is whether Roger Federer is genuinely a nice guy, or whether he's just being nice to these ball kids in case he has to play them one day.

That's right - he's looking for an edge his game doesn't give him by being (fake) nice to ball-boys.

It's hard to take this medium seriously when you see comments like this, but this is merely the tip of the iceberg. I can take it if someone doesn't like Federer - a lot of champions have been considered to be contrived or pre-meditated in their antics, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that Federer's antics, while cloaked in niceties, is in part intended to make him everybody's the nice guy on tour.

My point:  big deal.

The last time I checked, unless we're talking about figure skating, you don't get points for personality in sports. There's a Nancy Kerrigan-esque phenomenon at play here, because a lot of athletes paint themselves to be more likeable than they really are.

But you still have to hit straight. You still have to have game. And you can't fake it for 4 years. You can get a few victories here and there, but you can't dominate one of the most competitive sports in the world by cheating/cajoling/faking your way to 12 grand slam titles. It just doesn't happen. Eventually, somebody better than you, who just doesn't give a rat's ass about your image, comes along and beats you. And typically sooner, rather than later.

I think the most interesting thing going on here is the common traits of all the Fed-haters out there:

1. Invariably their favorite player is either Sampras, Agassi or Roddick, and they are motivated either by a disdain for the quickness with which their idol has been replaced in the tennis world as best/favorite player on tour or the iron grip Federer has over their preferred combatant.
2. Invariably they seek to point out all of Federer's supposed faults - that he's arrogant, selfish, manipulative, etc., in order to (continue to) convince themselves that someone else is a more worthy champion. As if the above three "other" favorites were angels.
3. This is the kicker: if you don't agree with them whole heartedly, then you're a sap who's been played by the tennis media and the Federer PR machine - they are, in fact, the only keepers of the truth!

I don't think it's an exaggeration to suggest, particularly based on item # 3 above, that this is really a cult. The idea, that only they know the truth, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either a gullible stooge, or a part of the conspiracy, laughable at best and paranoid delusional at worst. It's exactly like, thinking that your local minister is Jesus Christ, and anyone trying to convince you otherwise is trying to destroy you and your faith, or are yet to bask in the glorious truth of your knowledge.

Mass suicides have been committed this way.

It's not hard to imagine that these people are little more than mentally imbalanced losers, who have nothing better to do than to commiserate with like-minded losers. But then again, I am knee-deep in the blogosphere myself...so that just can't be right!

But I know enough to know that no matter how you cut it, no matter what excuse you come up with, Federer is an extraordinary tennis player, and has been for 4 years. I've always wondered why athletes are always saying, "...they can't take that away from me." Now I know - when you win something, the only thing they can't say about you is that you didn't win - but they can say a hell of a lot more - good and bad - and if you get too caught up in the good, one day, the bad will replace it, and in a sense they've "taken away" the good things they used to say about you.

But if you win, you win, and they can't take that away from you no matter how hard they try. But boy are they trying hard to take it away from Federer.

I like Roger Federer as a tennis player - I learn a lot from watching him play, from his shot making to his shot selection to his movement and versatility. I think he's a great player. And for saying this, I'm castigated in the lunatic fringe of the anti-Federer blogosphere because to appreciate these qualities in Federer is to have been duped by the Federer religion.

I came to the blogosphere to see if I could find intelligent discussion on tennis topics, but it turns out that you have to look carefully, because sometimes what you'll find, in the dark recesses of the internet, where most dare not go, is a collection of anti-Federer enthusiasts, with misplaced energy, and a pathetic dedication to reveling in their own sorry, and deranged view of the tennis world.

I, for one, am done with them.

WHY NOT COUNT DAVIS CUP IN THE RANKINGS?

Despite my joy at the US victory in the Davis Cup, I have to admit it doesn't mean what it used to. There's too much money in tennis, and that money is distributed based on ranking and star power. Too often, the best players in the world avoid Davis Cup, because playing would be at the expense of their own careers. Basically, if they have to choose between their country or their own careers, they choose their own careers.

The fact is that fewer and fewer of the top players have played Davis Cup in the last 25-30 years. The reason most often cited is schedule and the need for rest, yet players continue to play exhibitions for money, so clearly this is not a complete answer. Furthermore, since Davis Cup has no bearing on points, a player is forced to choose between on the one hand:

1. Earning a better living
2. Saving themselves for tournaments that count towards ranking
3. Playing Davis Cup.

Often Davis Cup loses out. Davis Cup is still a compelling competition, but has been diluted over the years as a result. I think it's a shame that the abstract concept of playing for one's country isn't so important to many of the top players, but I think the competition could be improved if there was a way to get players to consider Davis Cup as a chance to do both - represent your country and earn some ATP tour points.

For this reason I suggest counting Davis Cup results in the entry ranking system - just like they consider results in the "official" head to head records. It's not like taking points for something arbitrary - these are tennis matches played in earnest by professional players.

The intent is to ensure more participation in Davis Cup from top players, by eliminating the need to sacrifice tour points by playing Davis Cup.  I would do so by awarding tour points for victories in a Davis Cup tie. The problem is that players not able to play Davis Cup cannot access those points, and thus would be at a disadvantage to those who can/do play Davis Cup.

To rectify that, I suggest ATP sanctioned tournaments scheduled on Davis Cup weekends, for players who cannot play in Davis Cup (either because they haven't been selected, or because their countries don't/aren't participating).  Because in Davis Cup a player might lose one match and still earn points in another - not possible in single elimination tournament play - I suggest a round robin format giving players not playing Davis Cup the same opportunity to lose one match but still have a chance at tour points.

So in the end you have the following:

1. Points awarded for victories in Davis Cup
2. Additional points for winning a match in a Davis Cup tie away from home (mitigating the home court advantage)
3. Points awarded in round robin competitions outside of Davis Cup
4. These competitions are scheduled on Davis Cup weekends (no scheduling advantage)
5. Any player (Davis Cup player, or not) can earn points on that weekend (no ATP points disadvantage)
6. Players can skip those tournaments and rest, but sacrifice the points (just as they would any tournament they skip)

Thoughts?

THE GREAT SAMPRAS/FEDERER DEBATE

A strange thing is happening in the tennis blogosphere: a brewing war in tennis heaven between the supporters of Federer and Sampras over who is the fairest champion of them all. In case you haven't heard it, the debate goes something like this:

Sampras is the king of tennis history with more grand slams than any other male player in history, but even if Federer surpasses his record, Sampras will still be the greatest because he did it against better players, for longer, and he did it quietly without the paparazzi or IMG.

Fed-heads counter that, Sampras may have more, but 1) not for long and 2) he's so much better than the competition he's doing it even better than Sampras did.

Along the way there are a few silly arguments about whether their single match in 2001 is an indicator of who was the better player, but I beg to differ. One match does not really give a basis for who was the better player. Sampr-assers will argue that Pete was not in his prime, but Fed-heads will counter that neither was Roger. Both points have merit, the only time head to head comes into play is as a tie breaker when the two players in question played in the same era, against the same pool of opponents with similar results. At that point we can start to ask how they fared against each other, but until then there are far more representative measures of superiority.

For me the most important is the number of grand slams they've won. Sampras has 14 and Federer has 12 - as far as I'm concerned the argument ends there. Of course, if Federer scores another trifecta in 2008, I can't say the debate doesn't reopen - and why shouldn't it? Years at #1 are a factor, but to me, less so than grand slams because even Marcelo Rios was ranked #1 at some point and he never won anything even remotely important.  For that matter Nadal is, for me, a much better player historically, and he's never been ranked #1.

So if Federer can overhaul Sampras, I'd give him the edge.

Interestingly, the debate is almost as much about how they've gone about amassing their grand slams as how many they have. A lot of people have referred to Sampras' battles, and the pedigree of players he overcame to win his titles, like Chang, Courier, Agassi, Becker, Kafelnikov, Kuerten, etc. For me, this is a strange argument - because in a round about way it sounds a little bit like this:

Federer wins all the time, so he's the best, but it's not that impressive because he wins all the time.  Implicit in this is a couple of things that call into question Federer's pedigree against that of Sampras:

1. It's harder to win close matches than it is not to drop a set for 2 weeks
2. It shows more character to win in the fifth, than it does to win in straight sets

On the face of it, it seems to make sense - if a boxer never got punched hard by anyone and retired undefeated, would we say he was better than a guy who got pounded, got up off the canvas several times and still never lost a fight? Probably not. We'd be more impressed with the latter, because that's obviously harder. And it's true that while Sampras lost a few grand slam finals in Australia and at the US Open, along the way, Federer's losses have only come at the French Open (a final Sampras never reached), and has only been pushed to 5 sets once in all those finals he's won.

This strikes me as something of a cynical argument, however, because in order for Federer to be adjudged the equal of Sampras, he'd actually have to do worse against his contemporaries than he has (thus improving their collective pedigree). So in order to be considered the greatest, he has to have lost to some of his contemporaries along the way. That sounds counter intuitive to me, and as such I cannot endorse it as a good measure of Sampras' superiority - I think Sampras' record is enough for that, and if you throw in the number of years he's been #1, and his longevity, (the time between his first and last grand slam was 12 years) a good case can be made that he's the greatest, even if Roger gets to 15 or 16 in 2008.

Another knock against the both of them is that they've never won the French. Of the two, I think Roger has the best chance because he's been in 2 finals already, and many have questioned his tactics at the French. Perhaps if he can employ a more attacking version of his game on clay, he just may find the way to break his duck at Roland Garros.

Ultimately these questions are primarily aesthetic. Whether you prefer the one or the other, it's pretty clear that objectively Sampras is the greater champion...for now.

PLEASE GO AWAY, MS. SHARAPOVA

First of all, don't call me a hater - not only do I hate being called a hater, but also I think it's the stupidest term on the planet. Some kind of rogue amalgamation of a verb and an adjective to describe someone consumed by the green-eyed monster of envy.

That Maria Sharapova is the most annoying person in tennis is debatable (Lleyton Hewitt is still playing - albeit less boisterously - and I believe Marcelo Rios still plays on the Champions tour), but I'm pretty sure if you took a poll at any tennis court in Moscow, you'd find her name at the top of the list. There are so many reasons to be fed up with this woman, it's hard to choose just one. But let's just delve into this Fed Cup debacle for a moment, and you'll see what I mean.

But first some background.

She may have a russian name, and she may have been born in Siberia, of all places, but she's about as Russian as she is a damn monkey. Her unbearable father, Yuri, is Belarussian, and moved from Homel to Siberia following the nearby Chernobyl nuclear accident. At age 7, her father moved her (without her mother) to train at the Bollettieri academy in Bradenton, Florida...big surprise there. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, she has retained her passport, but that, and some american accented Russian, is about the run of it.

So what about this Fed Cup business? Well she was scheduled to play against Spain in April, but had a shoulder injury. Then she was supposed to play against the US in July, but this mysterious shoulder injury recurred, and she skipped out again. Finally, she indicated that the shoulder was still giving her problems after the US open, and pulled out of the Fed Cup final in September, but somehow managed to offer herself as a practice partner and supporter of the team.

So imagine how it felt for Anna Chakvatadze and Svetlana Kuznetzova to bust their humps selflessly, after longer and more arduous efforts than Maria's at the US Open, to win the Fed Cup for Russia, only to have this woman steal their limelight without even lifting a racquet. Not only did she have the temerity to galavant around the court in a lap of honor normally reserved for those who actually won the Fed Cup, but she has added to this a blatant, and rather hollow attempt to disguise her desire to play in the Olympics.

Keep in mind that she's never played Fed Cup for Russia - she's probably the only Russian woman in the top 100 who hasn't. It's amazing because you would think someone with this grand desire to play in the Olympics would want to represent their country in other competitions, like, oh...I don't know...say, the Fed Cup! But that assumes Sharapova has any interest in anything other than herself. Why she wants to play in the Olympics is probably a two-pronged motivation. 

First, there's a lot of money in it for her if she wins, assuming there's someone out there that has not already been bombarded with her unbearable image plastered everywhere the sun shines (and some places it doesn't). And because the IOC defers to the ITF, just so the ITF will pressure top professionals to play in the Olympics, rules stipulate that if you want to be considered for an Olympic tournament, you have to have made yourself available for Fed Cup. Sharapova being Sharapova, has done no such thing. Thus the soulless publicity stunt flurry of showing up at the final, and running around waving the Russian flag, etc. If she loves Russia so much then why hasn't she played Fed Cup - ever?

And why the Olympics?

Well, that's the other:  you see, in tennis the Olympics is the one place where a tennis player can engage in the illusion of patriotism while still playing and winning for him/her self a gold medal. Nothing would make her happier than being able to say she's won a gold medal, because the value of that financially is tremendous, and it only comes along every four years - and who knows if she'll still be playing when the Olympics go to London in 2012. If she does win the gold, then every time the Olympics roll around, for the rest of her life, someone will be there to hand her a load of cash to take a picture with her medal and some loser product that would otherwise be sold at a steep discount at WalMart.

I suppose it's also possible that through some rather free flowing osmosis, because her father is Belarusian, he has infused in her an admiration for the Olympics. Nobody loves the Olympics more than Russians. Needless to say, the shameless Chinese, and the insatiable commercial appetite of the IOC are likely all in favor of her "so pretty" face doubling billboard advertising rates all across Beijing in 2008. This is the perfect storm for another in a long line of so many galling acts of self mutilation the WTA and professional tennis promoters have conducted in deference to Ms. Sharapova (e.g. the absurd experiment with on-court coaching in the US Open Series following Yuri and Maria's 2-week homage to Marcel Marceau at Flushing Meadow in 2006.)

Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look at these comments from the ITF:

"Her presence in Moscow certainly didn't hurt. She was injured and couldn't play, but by being here she clearly demonstrated her commitment to the Fed Cup and that will certainly enhance her chances (of playing at next year's Olympics). It's a big plus for her."

I can just hear the accounting calculator buzzing away in the coffers of oh so many unnamed charlatans at the IOC and in Beijing. What was it that Mark Felt told Woodward and Bernstein? (or was it just Woodward?)

"Follow the money."

I hate to be a cynic, but everything about her little act stinks to high heaven, and the comments of her "teammates", if you consider her a member of the "team", clearly concur. World number two Svetlana Kuznetsova said:

"Personally, I don't know why she came; I mean, she said she wanted to be our practice partner but if you can't play how then can you practice?"

Good point. And Chakvetadze had this to say:

"If you haven't played Fed Cup all year, it wouldn't be fair to just show up for the final. It's not fair to all the other girls who committed themselves to the team's cause."

You think?

Clearly they resented her presence, and weren't shy about saying it - one thing these Russian girls are good for, besides abnormally loud grunts and 4-foot pony tails, is catty comments about each other. They don't pull punches when it comes to other Russians, and certainly not when it comes to the most unbearable (sort-of) Russian in tennis today.

I'm sure they'd join me in asking for the granting of a single wish: that Miss Sharapova would just go away. But as long as lap dogs buy the crap she's selling, there'll be no end of her, or her atrocious father, in sight.

DJO-KER-VIC ENTOURAGE

Personally, I have had just about enough of Novak Djokovic's cheering section and shamless pandering to the media. I know that he's trying to make a career for himself, and the US media is so predictably hungry for a "star" to replace its wayward obsession with Andy Roddick, who is clearly not the real deal, that it's easy to see why he and his "team" have been so successful in capturing the (absence of) imagination.

At the US Open it began with their incessant camera-begging gesticulations each and every time their little boy did something right on court. They're well aware that US television cannot resist the opportunity to invent the drama of on-looking family and friends, and with this crew, have taken it to a whole new level (I'm not going to say if it's high or low....let's just leave it at a whole new level). With the father leaning against the "ropes" screaming like he's winning the points himself, and the mother, biting her nails to a nub (wouldn't surprise me if her nail-polish were flavored, just to make the charade more tolerable) and a gushing Dick Enberg going on and on about the family, is it any surprise that they got almost as much air-time during the tournament as his opponents?

Then the disgraceful Serbian flag color stunt they pulled in the semi-final. Such shameless pandering, just so everyone knows they come from a war-torn country and had to dodge US bombs to fulfill their sons dreams, etc. But for me, the topper was their uniform in the final. All wearing Djo-ker-vic's Adidas costume, like over-zealous parents at an 8-year old's youth soccer tournament. Add on top of that the shameless shit-stirring stunt of "inviting" Sharapova to his box (which she eagerly obliged...I wonder why...) and the invitation of De Niro and his tennis-loving wife. That was truly the coup de grace, and disappointed as I was that he accepted the invitation, I can't help but chuckle at the equally conspicuous absence of the actor at the conclusion of the match. I'm glad he chose to get out of Dodge before the circus left town. Of course by then the damage had already been done.

I like Djokovic as a player - he's one of the few that I enjoy watching these days. He's got a good range of shots, has a lot of power, is mobile and has a good serve. He also displays good touch and feel with is drop shots and volleys although his power volleys could probably use some improvement...well, nobody's perfect. At the end of the day, I think he's as good as his results show, and it wouldn't surprise me to find him on the winning end of the Australian Open final in 2008.

But frankly I wouldn't mind if the camera spent more time on him and his opponents than it did on his posse.