FEDERER'S MENTAL BLOCK WITH NADAL

It's got to be mental - he has all the shots, and he's always cool as a cucumber, so if he has a problem with Nadal, it has to be a mental block. Right?

Wrong.

What exactly constitutes a mental block with someone on the tennis court? As it is described by the tennis punditry it is evidenced by one of two things - for some reason a player can no longer execute shots that he normally does against everyone else, or he tries shots against that player that he doesn't try against anyone else, usually because the guy is in his head and he's second guessing himself. But I would argue that these are both really just symptoms of the same problem, and it has nothing to do with psychology.

Federer's technique, like all players, is tied to his tactical patterns and vice versa. And against 999,999 out of a million possible opponents, that confluence of technique and tactics work perfectly. But if you try to change your tactics without commensurate changes to your technique, or change your technique without commensurate changes to your tactics, the two will fall out of sync, and suddenly everything your normally do easily and so well, are the exact things that get you beat. Thus the solution is a proper change to both technique and tactics that create a new paradigm, one that your bete noire does not have an answer to.

As evidence, I offer the third set tiebreak of their Australian Open semi-final this year because in this game, a full display Federer's inability to win critical points with errors that appear to be the result of some mental block vis a vis Nadal, lie the secrets - the lack of technical and tactical synchronization - to this mystery. Tennis is not chess, it is a physical endeavor that requires a set of skills consistently executed to near perfection, in order to maximize your tactics, compete and achieve at the highest level. If there was a God of tennis, it would definitely be in the details - the technical and tactical details.

So let’s take this game point by point:

0-0: That missed backhand volley was the result of coming in off a HIGH backhand up the line (a shot which he ALWAYS lands short) and having to cover the cross court pass, thus he was too deep to finish the point with his first volley and was dead long before he got to net. Had he flattened it out he may have had a chance, but I don’t know anyone who can take a shoulder height backhand approach shot and hit it deep, flat and up the line. 

Had he sliced it deep up the line, which is historically the conventional backhand approach, he'd have more time to close the angles on passing shots, Nadal would have to hit his passing shot from a low height, and somehow get it up and down quickly enough to get past a simple put away volley. The last alternative would be a lob, but again, from a low slice, an offensive lob is difficult to execute, and Federer has a great overhead. As it were, Federer's short topspin approach didn't give him enough time to close the angle on the pass, and because it gets to Nadal quickly, so too does Nadal's passing shot arrive at Federer before he has a chance to reach the optimal position to put away his volley - hence the error.

0-1: Federer goes inside/in on the forehand (not nearly as effective as his inside/out forehand which is flatter and hit at a better angle) and it also lands very short - another common mistake he gets away with against most players because they lack the running cross-court reply on that side. It just so happens that Nadal’s cross-court backhand is one of the best in the game, and Federer’s short reply to it is rife for the drop shot, which Nadal hits well from inside the baseline. But it's important to note that when Federer goes cross court on the forehand from inside or at the baseline, he always puts a lot of top spin on the shot, and it always lands short - this is not something that is reserved for Nadal.

To be effective he also needs a better angle, but at this point he's not doing anything different against Nadal than what he does against everyone. It just so happens that against Nadal it is a high risk play because of his ability to hit passing shots on the run off both wings. So the tactic of taking the short forehand and approaching is correct, but the execution isn't there because Federer isn't accustomed to having to play that shot as close to the line as he would have to in order to be effective against Nadal, who moves and hits on the run better than anyone on tour.

1-2: Federer hits a solid backhand return, but his next two backhands land short (as usual) to Nadal’s forehand, which he easily pulls wider and wider with his next two successive shots. Federer tries to go up the line on the 3rd backhand to break the pattern, but he has problems with his backhand at shoulder height, and it’s even harder to hit up the line. Djokovic, for example, eats that for lunch because he takes that backhand higher, hits it flatter and changes direction a lot better than Federer.

Thus, the issue here is Federer's backhand - aesthetically appealing as it is, it is not as effective against that one shot from Nadal that pulls him to the left and stays up at his shoulders at his preferred court positioning. He could change his positioning and move further back, but that is not a shot a lot of players have - a deep flat backhand up the line with pace that puts Nadal in a defensive position (think Nicolas Almagro or Richard Gasquet). And if he did move back, it would expose him to an inside out forehand, a drop shot or even another cross court forehand pulling him further and further out of position. So the combination of Federer's preferred court positioning, and the technical inability to hit anything but a weak cross court backhand reply costs him this point.

1-3: From a high backhand (not even a forehand) up the line from Nadal, which lands short, Federer still has trouble stepping into the court, even though this time he's going to his preferred cross court backhand. Here the problem is again, that his best backhands are struck at waist level - it's just the way that his shot is produced. And against 99 out of 100 players, he can take that shot on the rise and at waist level at his preferred court position to the baseline and hit a solid cross court shot. But here against Nadal, at that distance from the baseline, the ball remains up around his shoulder - at the same height as the previous backhand…which he also shanked - although not as badly as this one. 

Again, Federer could move back and wait for the ball to come into his optimal strike zone, but that alters his positioning and leaves him vulnerable to a lot of things. He could also step further into the court and hit more of a half-volley, but that's one of the hardest shots in tennis, and even the great Federer would have difficulty picking up the right point of contact and still hit it with pace and direction. Particularly difficult against a player who has been recorded as putting the most spin on the ball in the history of the game (according to this tennisplayer.net presentation ). Those numbers alone ought to dispel the myth that the problem is mental - it is clearly a physical challenge, and one that most players have against Nadal, not just Federer.

1-4: Federer is passed off a shallow cross court forehand - it’s important to note that unlike his forehand approach up the line which he hits flat, this one he comes over to keep it in the court, but is easily passed with Nadal’s crosscourt backhand, which I’ve already indicated is one of the best in the game. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Federer hit a flat forehand crosscourt - particularly as an approach - it's just a shot that he doesn't have. Complicating this shot is that the return from Nadal is a mishit that bounces on the center service line - either of which is very hard to deal with, and together nearly impossible to hit an optimal shot. Finally, the previous approach to the backhand elicited a backhand up the line - which you can see Federer lean towards slightly to cover, but Nadal trips him up and goes cross court.

The real question is tactically why Federer chooses to approach on this at all? The answer is that it's part of the patterns of play that he executes almost by rote. Most all-court players taking a forehand inside the baseline will approach the net no matter what - even if it's not optimal to do so - it just doesn't work out here for Federer, but this decision to approach is not unusual. In fact the problem with this decision is that it is too "usual". Despite the opponent and/or the special conditions of this particular shot coming at him, he doesn't alter his playing pattern. Because he doesn't do anything differently (not because he does - as you would expect if the problem was that his opponent is "in his head"), he gets burned.

1-5: Federer’s wide serve in the deuce is too deep and here you can say he choked a little, because he normally spots that serve much further up in the service court.  But in this case, it's too deep and Nadal hits a solid return - deep and with pace - pushing him well beyond where he optimally likes to hit that forehand up the line. On grass or on a faster surface, that same serve may be effective, and the natural sequence is to approach on the next shot. But on a slow hard court, or a clay court, the serve sits up. Then from Nadal's well struck return, the change of positioning should force Federer to clear the net at a higher level than he normally does, but he doesn't alter his technique and he pays the price with a ball in the net.

This is normally his best approach shot because he’s usually hitting at a right hander’s backhand, typically takes it closer to the middle of the court (because the spotting of the serve is better), and doesn't have to clear the net at as high a point on the approach - if he were two feet to his left, that exact same shot would have easily cleared the net. But since he doesn't alter his technique here, the exact same tactic that he would employ in this situation requires a technique that he doesn't adjust to, and thus the error.

1-6: Federer hits a solid deep return which pushes Nadal back. From this Nadal hits a slow cross court forehand which lands at the service line, and although the point of contact is high, Nadal’s shot is so short and slow Federer can easily step in and go cross court (his best backhand by far), over the lowest part of the net, for a winner. It’s important to note here that the quality of Federer’s return forces Nadal back and elicits a weak reply, versus in a neutral rally where Nadal can step into the forehand, pull him wide and force a weak reply, as he did at 1-2, and generally always does against Federer.

But in this case, a change of tactics (to be more aggressive with the backhand return), with a commensurate change in technique (by coming over the backhand thereby hitting it with more pace and pushing Nadal back) elicits a return that he can easily hit for a winner. Against most players in the past, Federer would simply chip this backhand return and wait for a short reply, either from a player who can't handle a short slice, or at some point later in the natural course of a rally. But against Nadal, he must tactically force himself into control of the point, and alter his technique to do so, to excellent effect in this point. In other words, the winner got an assist from a tactical and technical change in his return of serve.

2-6: Off a short backhand up the line from Nadal, Federer easily hits his backhand at waist height with power and depth, eliciting an error from Nadal. But the key is Nadal’s shot before the approach. It is so short and weak that Federer appears to have no problems with a backhand approach up the line. Not immune to the pressure, Nadal is timid with his shot, and by playing a different shot to Federer's backhand, (and not Federer playing differently than he normally does) Nadal allows Federer to play the way we all expect him to. There is no change in either his tactic of approaching to Nadal's backhand, or the execution thereof, which he is able to do at waist height which is his optimal point of contact. The result - the same as it is against everyone else on tour - a forced error.

3-6: Federer hits (almost) the same shallow cross court forehand as at 1-4, off a backhand return from Nadal. This one Nadal hits flush on the strings, no where near a service line, but even shorter inside the service court. Federer could probably hit this shot with his eyes closed, and it doesn't matter who’s on the other side of the net because the return is short, weak and has a straight trajectory. But again, I reiterate that it is the change in Nadal's execution that elicits the shot from Federer that we see him hit easily with (almost) all other players, and not a change in Federer's tactics or execution.

5-6: This is a great (and classic) one-two combination from Nadal - a solid wide serve in the ad court (which is his favorite) and since Federer’s backhand return is not naturally aggressive (as Djokovic’s for example) he does little to prevent Nadal running around his own backhand and hitting a fairly standard inside out forehand winner. Nothing new from Federer and thus nothing new from Nadal. And while Federer has improved his backhand return, it’s still just an improvement over his chip return, and not nearly the weapon that it would have to be to consistently counter that particular serve from Nadal. Djokovic, on the other hand, devours this return because tactically he is almost always aggressive on the return, and he has the quickness and the racquet head control to execute. Federer clearly does not.

It's a long analysis, but at the end of the day, the elements of Federer's game that Nadal exposes, and exposes in general when they play, are problems with a high backhand, both as an approach shot or a shot in a neutral rally (resulting from an inability to step back and wait for the ball to come into his optimal point of contact, or step in and take it on the rise), a cross court or inside/in forehand which lands too short and/or has too much spin to be effective as an approach, and finally a wide serve in the deuce court that wasn't spotted particularly well for this surface. A few small things, but they made the difference in this game, set and ultimately in the match.

The most important thing to note from this tiebreak is that if Federer's problems with Nadal were strictly mental, you would expect him to do things differently against Nadal than he does against everyone else. Strange drop shots, ill-advised attempted winners from difficult positions, or strange serves that he normally doesn't spot well. As you can see from this game, he did none of those things. Patrick McEnroe goes to great length to point out that Nadal isn't doing anything differently in this tiebreak, but he fails to recognize the obvious - neither does Federer, and that is precisely why he loses it. As matter of fact, if Federer makes no tactical or technical changes against Nadal, why would Nadal, if his results have been so much better in the rivalry? Federer's patterns don't change against Nadal, and as a result, neither do his results - because Nadal is his bête noire. Everything Federer normally does well, Nadal has an answer for it. And everything Nadal does well, Federer has very few.

Not mental, but technical and tactical.

I think putting things down to Nadal being “in his head” is taking the easy way out, to be honest. In a round about way it’s saying, “Federer has the game to consistently beat Nadal, but because of his mental block he can’t execute”. But that, in my opinion, doesn’t do much in the way of analysis. If I were Federer, and a coach started delving into the psychology of beating Nadal, I’d fire him immediately, because there are shots he doesn’t have, that he needs, to consistently beat Nadal. Strangely, the psychology of beating Nadal is all anyone seems to want to talk about in the broadcast booth. There is some tactical analysis from McEnroe and Cahill (why does he approach the forehand, why isn't he more aggressive on the return), but a surprising dearth of technical analysis of why he can't make those changes.

It is also possible that Federer realizes the tactical changes he needs to make, and doesn’t want to re-engineer his strokes just for Nadal. For example he could take the racquet head back further away from his body on his backhand and force him to bring it forward through the point of contact (like Almagro and Haas) as opposed to across his body which causes a weak reply and inconsistent point of contact resulting in errors. He could also take a step further behind the baseline and really belt it (like Gasquet, who certainly has a better topspin backhand than Federer), but that would mean a big change in his court positioning that would make his forehand less effective.  Also, he many not have the quickness to cover drop shots and short angles from further behind the baseline. And given that he may, or may not even have to face Nadal in a major (which he hasn't had to in any of his major wins since 2007), he could be tinkering with what works against almost everyone, in exchange for what may or may not work against Nadal, and could ironically cost him against everyone else along the way.

But I believe that if he doesn't make both technical and tactical adjustments he’ll always have the same problems against him, and unless Nadal's game changes significantly, will likely continue to get the same results.

BARRY MACKAY - A SWELL GUY

Recently the tennis world lost one of the good guys - I'm sure there's some fellow out there that might have a bad thing to say about Barry Mackay, but I'm just as certain that he has long since forgiven him, such was the kindness and generosity that became as much his hallmark as that endearingly long face, booming voice, and broad shoulders that stood tall for years at tennis courts around the world.  

I won't belabor a semi-official biography about him - you can get that from Wikipedia or the various halls of fame where he has been, and will almost certainly be, inducted, after a long career that included an NCAA singles championship in 1957 (along with the one and only team championship that same year for the University of Michigan), a Davis Cup title for the United States in 1958, defeating the seemingly indomitable Australians in the the final, and a long career as an amateur, then as a ronin touring professional for Jack Kramer, then fully into the daylight of open tennis (although by then his best years were long behind him).

To be honest, I think what made Barry Mackay a really special person was the kind of thing that he did when I had the pleasure of meeting him in 1990 at what was then called the Sovran Bank Tennis Classic (previously the DC National Bank Tennis Classic, later the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, and what will be for the first time this year called the Citi Open).  I was a ball boy for the first time, and I had been wanting to be a ball boy ever since I first came to the tournament with my family in 1981, but circumstances had conspired to prevent it for 9 long years.  

When I finally did my first match, it was in the qualifying tournament, and I remember seeing Barry around the courts from time to time, saying hello to volunteers, shaking hands, and generally treating everyone like he had all the time in the world, even though he really didn't.  I had listened to his commentary on television over the years, and he seemed like a nice guy, but I never bothered to introduce myself, even though he seemed to know some of the other ball kids.

One night, I was scheduled to work a doubles match that was supposed to start at about 11:00pm.  All the match crew were tired after starting the day at 11:00am, and back then they didn't bother to feed us - for that we were on our own.  Our only respite from the hot sun and tiring work was water, occasionally Gatorade if the players happened not the use up their allotment for a practice, and a tent near what is now the hospitality and concession area today, that stunk so horribly from ever present puddles of standing water that you could probably stand-on with all of the gunk it had in it.

But we couldn't have cared less - we were so excited to be going onto the stadium court that we could hardly contain ourselves, because it was the first night session of the tournament and none other than my childhood idol Yannick Noah was entered in the doubles.  By then Noah was at the end of the best part of his career and the next year he would lead France to it's first Davis Cup title for 50 years, over a United States team that included Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and the doubles tandem of Ken Flach and Robert Seguso.  But Noah was still fit as a fiddle and could do amazing things on a tennis court - especially in doubles.  As we waited for the players to arrive at the tunnel, staring out at the entrance like those kids at the end of the second Indiana Jones film, I heard that familiar booming voice over my shoulder.

Barry: "Hey kids!  How's it going!"
Us: "Good!"

Barry: "Boy this outta be a good one yeah? Yannick Noah - any of you ever seem him play before?"
Us: "No!"

Barry: "Oh, you're gonna enjoy it - he's a lot of fun. But hey, don't let him pull the ol' hot ball trick with you - you keep an eye out for that one!"
Us: silence and blank stares

Barry: "You don't know about the hot ball?"
Us: quizzical looks and more blank stares

Barry: "You ever notice how when a player's about to serve with new balls he always shows it to his opponent?  Well that's to keep from givin' em the ol' hot ball.  What you do is when you get a new can of balls opened up, you take one of 'em and push it way down deep in your pocket, and always keep another ball on top of it. Then when you're up against a break point or you've got a set point, you pull that bad boy out and 'BOOM'!
Us: uproarious laughter

Barry: "Okay kids - have fun out there!"
Us: "Thank you!"

I couldn't believe it!  It was hilarious, but could it be true?  Was he just telling us a story, or did he really do it?  Who knows...and who cares.  If he wanted us to not be nervous and enjoy ourselves, he really sent us on our way.  And I have to say that even though I was so tired I could have curled up and gone to sleep right behind the umpire's chair, I don't believe I've ever had so much fun on a tennis court before or after that wonderful moment.

And to me, that's what made Barry MacKay so special, and why I'm so sorry to have heard of his passing.  Because there are a lot of people in tennis pretending to be nice guys - there's always a camera around when they're signing autographs or attending a charity, and it's all well and good if it helps their image.

But how many of those guys do you think would bother telling a great story like that to a ball kids crew at 11:00pm on a Monday night in Washington, DC - 3,000 miles from his own home in California and what may as well have been a million miles away from a camera?  All that just to make us feel good before we went on court.

Rest in peace, Mr. MacKay...and thank you.

AGAIN WITH THE HINDRANCE RULE?

Yes, all over again. Ironically, another American (Mardy Fish) with a penchant for petulance (like Serena), against another Australian (Matthew Ebden), long considered an under-achiever (like Sam Stosur)...okay, maybe not that second part. But incredible that both the hinderer and the hindered were from the same natinoalities...AGAIN...but I digress.

Mardy Fish (just like Serena) should review the rules before jumping to incorrect conclusions about whether a let should be played. The ATP rulebook (http://www.atpworldtour.com/Corporate/Rulebook.aspx) governs here, but it just so happens tha the ATP hindrance rule (unlike the WTA hindrance rule) says the same thing as the  ITF/USTA rules of tennis. And it is clearly stated in Chapter VII (Competition), Section 22 (On-Court Procedures and Requirements), Part F - "Hindrance", Line 2b "Inadvertant or Deliberate Act" that:

"Any distraction caused by a player may be ruled deliberate and result in the loss of a point (intentional or unintentional). Deliberate is defined as the player meant to do what it was that caused the hindrance or distraction."

Emphasis on meaning to do what caused the hindrance, not the hindrance itself - in other words, you don't have to be a poor sport to hinder your opponent. Here the umpire did not necessarily rule that the hindrance was deliberate, but the act CAUSING the hindrance was (i.e. the act of shouting, "Come on!" was deliberate, even though the hindrance caused by that shout was not), therefore the point was correctly awarded to the Ebden.

In fact, the exact situation that occurred with Fish, is referred to in the description of hindrance cases, "Opponent Makes Noise", where it states:

"Case: During play, a player thinking he has hit a winner, shouts “vamos”, “come on”, “yes”, etc. as his opponent is in the act of hitting the ball..

Decision: If the chair umpire rules that a hindrance has occurred then, as the sound or exclamation that caused the hindrance was deliberate, the point shall be awarded."

Therefore the only area of interpretation is if the umpire determines that the shout caused a hindrance. If the players is on the deuce court, and the shot before the shout lands on the ad court sideline, it would have to be interpreted that there was no hindrance, but anything in between is down to the determination of the umpire, and he can consider how close he is to the ball, how fast the player was moving towards it, how fast the ball was going, the angle, etc.

I'll update this post with any footage from the incident, but the point is that once it is determined that a deliberate hindrance has occurred, there is NO OPTION TO PLAY A LET.

UPDATE:

Here is the point in question, and Felix Torralba makes a ruling that is 100% correct - Fish attempts to create a couple of non-existent standards for a replay, for which there is nothing in the rules to support. First he claims the hindrance didn't cause him to miss, which is irrelevant, and secondly that because the hindrance wasn't really a hindrance, he should get a let, which not only doesn't make any sense (why would you play a let if there is no hindrance) and is also not supported, because once a deliberate hindrance is ruled (defined by whether the act that caused the hindrance was intentional), there is no option to play a let.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcSv3oEcCJc&feature=player_detailpage#t=2858s

THE MENTAL GAME IS TOTALLY OVERRATED

I have a theory:  the mental game is overrated...vastly overrated. I don't say it isn't important, and I don't say that if you lose to a player 10 times in a row, they're not going to be "in your head", so to speak. But I think if you lose to the same player over and over again, your problem with that player is technical, and any mental hang up that may result from that is a result, and not the cause. Essentially all problems in tennis, along with all solutions, are technical, and the mental side of things is merely a side-effect.

Now, if you say that to people who follow tennis, just sit back and enjoy the myriad of ways they will tell you how naive you are. "Mental strength is key", they say. "The difference between the top players and the rest is in the head and in the heart", they insist. And because most modern tennis fans are ardent supporters of one particular player (either because they like their game, or they're a compatriot, or because they're contrarian) facing the prospect that the reason their beloved isn't the best player in the world has nothing to do with psychology, and everything to do with technique, is very disconcerting.  Thus the mental game theory prevails among fans. As in, "[ENTER OF OF THE BIG 4 HERE] has the game to beat [ENTER ONE OF THE BIG 4 HERE], he just doesn't 'believe it'; he just lacks a little bit of 'confidence' - but he's just as good as [ENTER ONE OF THE BIG 4 HERE]."

And tennis fans aren't the only ones who suffer from this delusion - tennis reporters espouse this theory as if it were brought down on a tablet from Mt. Olympus by Mercury himself. And anyway, what would be the value of a sports writer if all they did was tell you why, from a technical perspective, Federer has so much trouble beating Nadal, or Djokovic seems to be so dominant of Nadal lately. 

That's obvious to anyone who watches, and you wouldn't get all of that ancient greek mythology and archetype gibberish about the rise, the fall and the return of the prodigal son, facing his fears, and the power of the mind, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If the only thing a sports writer can tell you about is what you yourself can plainly see, then why bother reading what they write, or buying what they're selling? They've got to tell you something else that you can't see - and what a wonderful and invisible world of speculation and storytelling the mental game is. 

Thus, the mental game theory prevails here too.

And what about the players and coaches - don't they all concur? You'll see a player thumping his chest, suggesting he just won the point because he's so brave and so tough, all the while simultaneously suggesting his opponent lacks the same courage, or sufficient courage (this is an unfortunate side-effect of tennis being a zero-sum game). Look carefully, and you'll see their (vastly) overpaid coaches doing the same thing in the box - the fist-pumping and the chest thumping. As if to say:

"Yes, it is true that not only have I, your sensai, given you all the tools you need to beat anyone, but I have also opened your eyes to the metaphysical world of sports psychology, where by repeating a couple of mantras, even in the absence of any real technical changes, you can have the keys to your own personal valhala of victory."

I mean, just imagine the choice for your average professional:  one coach tells you that your game isn't good enough to beat the top players, but that with some work and sacrificing of your ranking while you develop and master the changes, you can develop the tools that, over time, may allow you to beat them in the future.  Meanwhile another coach tells you you've already got all the tools and it's all in your head, like a light switch that just needs to be turned on - which of course I'm going to turn on.  Now which one are you going to roll with? The latter coach needs just one or two fluky and fleeting victories to sustain his theory, so it's a no brainer - as in only someone with no brain would buy it. 

Thus the mental game theory prevails even within the sport.

Recently, on another blog, I got engaged in a dispute with another poster who wholeheartedly believes the mental game is as important, if not more important, than the technical. 

Really? 

As evidence he pointed to the 7th game of the 5th set of the Australian Open final this year, as the moment when the "fact" that Djokovic is in Nadal's head, revealed itself, and caused him to collapse - ah-ha! The mental game theory laid bare to convert all the non-believers!

As a tennis player, I've never heard anything so absurd in the abstract - that I could be hypnotized into believing I'm better than Roger Federer, because it's all in my head! The truth is, if he played left handed with a ping pong paddle, he'd still beat me - and I'm only half joking. Because mental strength (and its ugly twin sister, 'belief') would only get me so far. 

But what about the pros? Somehow, when it comes to two professionals who presumably have all the skills needed to beat anyone in the world, we're more than ready to suspend our disbelief of this ridiculous theory that the difference between the two players, any two players, is merely in the mind.

My question is why? For this theory to hold water, the top players would have to be truly technically omnipotent - that is to say they have all the shots and capacity at their disposal, and are capable of doing anything equally well on a tennis court. After all, if a top player didn't have all the shots, why wouldn't everyone expose that limitation equally and render him no longer a top player?

Let's take one simple example - the case of Rafael Nadal. And let's distill it down even further to one facet of Nadal's game - his serve. If you watched the Australian Open final, you know that Nadal had trouble holding serve throughout the match. And that has been the case since Djokovic started beating him like a drum last spring. In this match, the case was no different, but in the 5th set, up until the 7th game (Nadal's 4th service game) everything seemed to be going hunky-dory. So what happened? How did Djokovic, all of a sudden, break Nadal when everything seemed to be going Rafa's way in that all important 7th game? 

Well, a technical and tactical analysis starts with an analysis of each point. Here's a link to the 5th set for your reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRHhlWMUeBo&feature=related

1st point: Nadal goes wide in the deuce court on first serve, but misses (which was a blessing because it was a terrible serve that Djokovic would have crushed). With the second serve he goes back to his more comfortable serve closer to the T.  After defending well with high looping groundstrokes, he eventually pounces on a short and shallow forehand up the line and wins the point with a precise and gutsy inside out forehand.

At 15-0 Nadal tries to burn one up the T and misses. That’s the second first serve to the forehand he’s missed. The second serve is his more comfortable serve wide with a combination of top and slice to the backhand, but because he takes a lot of pace off of it to make sure he doesn't make a double-fault, Djokovic eats it for breakfast.

15-15 Nadal burns a first serve up the T to Djokovic’s backhand. It slices away from him with pace, and he dumps the return in the net - easy peasy. Thus far Nadal has missed two first serves to the forehand and got a service winner on his only first serve to the backhand. Both second serves were to the backhand.

30-15 Nadal goes wide to the backhand on his first serve and doesn't miss, and this one has more depth and pace but Djokovic can hits a solid deep return. Although on the defensive, Nadal stays in the point but makes an error to lose it - a backhand pass moving forward - it’s one of the few shots in his arsenal he doesn't hit well.

30-30 In a carbon copy of the first point, again Nadal goes wide to the forehand on his first serve and misses...again.  That’s the third first serve to the forehand, and third miss. Second serve is in the exact same spot as in the first point, but the return is more firm, and Djokovic is in control from the beginning of the point and earns a break point.

Now, at break point, remembering that Nadal has MISSED 3 out of 3 first serves to the forehand, Djokovic knows that if Nadal goes to his forehand again, he’ll probably miss it again, so what does he do? He straddles the sideline and basically dares Nadal to go up the T, then when Nadal is in his service motion, takes a slight hop step to his forehand, in anticipation of the ruse working, which it does. Nadal promptly misses his first serve into the net…AGAIN. That’s 4 out of 4 (first) serves to the forehand that have missed.

Now unless Djokovic has a mid-match lobotomy, he's got to know the second serve his going to his backhand, because Nadal has shown that he can’t hit a first serve to his forehand, let alone a second serve, so he again straddles the sideline, but this time as Nadal goes into his service motion he stays put: why? Because he knows Nadal cannot effectively serve to the forehand on a second serve.  Even if Nadal goes up the T on a second serve in the ad court, he could stand in the doubles alley and probably still get to it, because Nadal's got to take pace off of it to avoid a double fault. In other words Nadal has a technical limitation on his first and second serve which Djokovic has thought about, exposed and exploited - expertly.

In the end, as if by script, Rafa goes wide with the second serve, which the Djoker belts hard into Rafa’s forehand (another shot that Rafa has had problems with, according to Federer anyway) and Rafa makes an error and loses the point.

A very long explanation, I know, but the point is Nadal, one of the best players in the history of the game, has a technical limitation on his serve that Djokovic has identified, exposed by monkeying around on his return positioning, and exploited by executing 3 outstanding backhand returns. So, while it's expedient (and by the way, completely useless) to suggest that Nadal's problem in this game was in his head, the analysis shows clearly that it is a technical limitation that cost him that game, and logically it would be a technical solution that would have saved him.

If Nadal had a more solid serve to the forehand in either court, he probably wins that game at 40-15 and is up 5-2 in the final set, instead of back on serve. Can Nadal make that change to his serve again – a technical change? I don't see why not. 

At the US Open in 2010 his serve was outstanding. Unfortunately, since then, Nadal's motion has reverted to a serve that gives him neither the accuracy nor the pop he needs to reliably hold serve against Djokovic - he will have his share of holds because he's a complete player.  And against another opponent who lacks the technical capacity to expose this weakness (read Roger Federer) it’s no problem.  But tennis is all about match ups, and against this player, who has the tactical understanding and the technique to take advantage of it, it was a big problem - and more importantly will continue to be.

So even if that match up problem is in his head, the solution is to develop a reliable first and second serve up the T in the ad court and out wide in the deuce court, and then all the “mental stuff”, which appears to be so debilitating on face value, disappears instantly - like unruly behavior on “The Dog Whisperer”.  He would be totally wasting his time concerning himself with a lot of pseudo-psychological drivel about "believing" he'll win and, having the "confidence" to close it out, which won’t help him one iota in the match.

It's easy to ascribe results in tennis to the mental side of the game - it's one player, and you can assign to him whatever mental state you want. And if the mismatch is resolved, it's more dramatic and interesting to imagine that the hero has conquered his demons, than a simple solution like lower your toss, or bring the racquet head up earlier - after all, where is the heroism in that?  So, that's what generally gets discussed when analyzing a player and a match up that looks unexpectedly one-sided.

But it's no closer to the actual underlying issue, or more importantly, the potential solution.

ADDENDUM:  IT SEEMS RAFA AGREES WITH ME - listen to his answer to the question of why he gives "confidence" or "belief" to his opponents by admitting to the periodic frailty of his game.

....as I live and breathe, my friends...as I live and breathe.

THE DECLINE OF THE MASTERS

Nope, I'm not writing a column about golf's version of Wimbledon - I'm talking about the year-end championships that used to have all the cachet of a major, and had the one thing that the modern incarnation does not - interest outside of tennis.

The year-end championships of tennis have gone through so many iterations over the years, it's hard, even for the most ardent fan, to keep track of what it has been and become over the years. So imagine the difficulty of getting space "above the fold" in major sports media today, which is the surest measure of the popularity of the game outside the game.

The ATP World Tour Finals, one of the most idiotically named championships in the history of tennis, is the current version of what used to be known as "The Masters", and until 1990, it was magically more than just a tennis tournament - it was an event that the sports world followed almost as closely as the crowned jewels of the game (the four majors). And in a rare moment of agreement with John McEnroe, I think the move away from Madison Square Garden was the beginning of the end for the luster that once accompanied the event.

Of course, in his native-New Yorker narcissism, he thinks the answer is to move it back to the Garden, and while I think he's on the right track (and wouldn't necessarily disagree with such a move), I think the event is missing something that the other majors have in abundance - an identity. And it is by finding its identity that I think this once great sporting event can return to the pantheon of great sporting events, where it belongs.

In 1970, two years following the advent of open tennis, Grand Prix tennis had been initiated with the help of Jack Kramer, as an answer to the disparate hodge-podge of semi-professional circuits controlled by anyone with enough money to cobble together what passed as a tour. It competed with the WCT championships held in Dallas, which was based on results from the WCT tour, a tour run by Lamar Hunt as an answer to the open invitation to Grand Prix tennis which was controlled by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF - the ancestor of the modern ITF).

The first year-end championships were held in Tokyo, which happened to be the highest bidder, and in their never ending, insatiable appetite for a bigger payday, the event moved six times in six years, to tennis hotbeds such as Paris, Barcelona, Boston, Melbourne and Houston - where it promptly had a problem.

Nobody outside of tennis particularly cared about the event because the rules for qualification, the format of the tournament itself, and the players that participated, were about as reliable as predictions of the weather. In the end, the perceived value of the tournament, outside of tennis, suffered badly, and so too did the event.

Then in 1977, somebody came up with a brilliant idea - bring the mountain to Moses. For the first time in a string of 13 glorious years, the Masters was played at Madison Square Garden - then the mecca of sports entertainment - and with it came all the cachet the tournament could hope for. Sure, along the way there were questions about the format, the rules of qualification, and of course the quality of the tennis. As a matter of fact, very often the tournament was played in the year after the year for which qualification was determined - so late it was in the tennis calendar. And complaints about injuries and fatigue were seen as just a subterfuge for players to tank some matches in favor of bigger fish to fry.

Nevertheless it was an event that people outside of tennis covered with almost as much gusto as the majors. And why wouldn't they - initially the popularity of Connors, Borg and Vilas, would give way to the triumvirate of Connors, Borg and McEnroe, and then Connors, McEnroe and Lendl. In all three cases, the differences in personalities and the personal conflicts between some or all the heads of the tennis families provided the base, spine and glitter to make it a great event. But as the top players got old, retired, or lost their personal animus towards one another, the event petered. And as playing at Madison Square Garden had less and less of a cachet, the brilliant minds at the newly anointed emperors of tennis (the ATP tour) decided to chase the money and move the event in 1990 to, where else...Frankfurt.

Huh?

That's right, given that the game's dominant players were becoming predominantly European, and given the money they offered to host the tournament, Germany became the new mecca of tennis. First it was Frankfurt from 1990 to 1995, then that other internationally known metropolis, Hanover, hosted the event for a stretch from 1995 to 1999. And as you might expect, despite the star power of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and everyone else, the tournament slowly lost its identify, and as a result (in my opinion) its luster outside of tennis.

Along the way, it just so happened that when the ITF was frozen out of control of everything but the majors and Davis Cup, they decided (quite rightly) there was a gaping hole that they could fill, and promptly initiated a competing year-end championship called the Grand Slam Cup. And because one thing the ITF is very good at is hiding behind its tradition, they at least had the good sense to keep it in Munich for nine years from 1990 to 1999 as well (although they couldn't resist locating the tournament in Germany - where the money obviously was at the time). The other thing they're good at is hiding in front of prize money, but this time, they smartened up and put up an astronomical $3M payday to the winner of the Grand Slam Cup if they also happened to win a slam that same year. At the time, this was an astronomical sum of money - more than any of the majors, and way more than the ATP Tour World Championships.

As the ATP's year end championships slowly but surely caught up with the prize money of the Grand Slam Cup (money problems caused them to reduce their prize money to make it closer to the ATP's season finale), the latter suffered, and had to change when the event was held, as well as include a women's championship for two years 1998 and 1999 (both not surprisingly won by Venus Williams and Serena Williams respectively), in an effort to remain relevant. It didn't, and eventually was subsumed by the Tennis Masters Cup in 2000 - itself an homage to both year-end championships. They all figured half of a big pot of money is better than all of a small one, so they did the only sensible thing and merged.

But once the Masters moved from MSG, and the Grand Slam Cup lost its purely capitalist appeal, what was left was an event that served as nothing more than a book-end to the ATP tour's nine flagship events, and an anti-climactic denouement to the year's major quadrilogy. This interested nobody beyond the game. Within the game, it can be argued that the importance of the tournament was not only maintained, but improved. After all, points started to count towards ranking and the money was hard to ignore. But something was missing...an identity.

So here's my solution.

If this tournament is really all about (dare I say it) the money, then don't be ashamed of it - embrace it! Put the prize money at $10M for the winner if he is both a grand slam champion and finishes the year ranked #1 - you could clip off $2M for each of the two conditional compensations, and simply call the winner, if it happens to be someone like Nikolay Davydenko (instead of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic), the $6 million dollar man...I'm only half joking, by the way.

Also, they should put it at the same venue and leave it there for at least 10 years (in fact if they had a brain, would build a venue that they could keep it there forever). That way, the event and the venue would both benefit from the cachet of the other, and would help to perpetuate the other's viability. This business of chasing the money by changing the location every time someone shows up with a bigger check is the very reason that the women are now furtively begging to join the men at the O2. Although the venue is new, it has sufficient razamatazz to be an event in and of itself. The problem is that, at the moment, it's carrying the tennis. They should each do their own share of the heavy lifting and that's where the last component would come in.

Put the points to the champion on par with winning a major and make the final a 5-set match. Then the money and the points won't seem to have been capriciously handed out to someone who got hot for 8 sets. Making the final a 5-set match, and putting major-level points on the table would be the final piece to the puzzle making this tournament everything it should be both inside and outside of tennis.

So, $10M to the winner, major-level points, a consistent venue and a 5-set final. Now who could ignore that?

GRUNT MUCH?

A lot's been made of the issue of grunting, so here's a little something I found humorous in that vain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161g-HYTalo&feature=related

Enjoy it.

THE HINDRANCE RULE

There's been a lot of discussion about the hindrance rule, and how it was applied in the US Open final Sunday, between Sam Stosur and Serena Williams. Here is the rule as it is written in the USTA rules of tennis which govern this match:

"Rule 26. HINDRANCE

If a player is hindered in playing the point by a deliberate act of the opponent(s), the player shall win the point.

However, the point shall be replayed if a player is hindered in playing the point by either an unintentional act of the opponent(s), or something outside the player’s own control (not including a permanent fixture)."

Now let's take a look at the point in question:

So, there are two parts of the hindrance rule: (1) was it a hindrance? and (2) was the act that caused the hindrance deliberate?

In this case it's fair to say that Serena called out before Stosur got her racquet on the ball, so it was a hindrance. The second question is whether the act that caused the hindrance was intentional, and since Serena fully intended to shout, "Come on!", both parts of the rule apply, and the point was duly awarded to Stosur.

All other discussion about it is pontification, because the rule is clear and so too are the conditions of this point. The umpire had no choice but to call a hindrance, and she did her job. It would have been easier to ignore it and hide behind the crowd and the moment, but she did her job properly and should be commended.

But this has happened to Serena before - with the same umpire. No, not the incident from 2009, that was a different umpire (a young blonde European umpire, yes, but not the same one). Take a look at this.

Here too, Serena yells out, "Come on!" before the point is over, but the umpire calls a let. The same umpire! So what gives?

Well, first, we must read the rule that governs this match, which is the WTA year end championships, and is thus governed by the WTA rules. There, the hindrance rule is written slightly differently:

"H. HINDRANCE RULE

If a player hinders her opponent, it can be ruled as either involuntary or
deliberate.

1. Involuntary Hindrance

A let should be called the first time a player has created an involuntary
hindrance (e.g., ball falling out of pocket, hat falling off, etc.), and the
player should be told that any such hindrance thereafter will be ruled
deliberate.

2. Deliberate Hindrance

Any hindrance caused by a player that is ruled deliberate will result in
the loss of a point."

Here, the hindrance rule doesn't specify that the ACT causing the hindrance need be voluntary, but the hindrance itself. Unfortunately it cites an example of two hindrances that are clear-cut involuntary. But clearly Serena did not intend for the shout to hinder Kuznetsova (even though the shout itself was intentional) and thus the hindrance is involuntary and merits a let the first time it occurs.

I don't know why the WTA feels the need to have a different set of rules from the ITF - the USTA rules are exactly the same as the ITF with the exception of the 5th set tiebreak rule, but that's a different story.

BELIEF: THE NEW RELIGION IN TENNIS

Belief. That's it. That is it!

That's all you ever hear about these days when tennis analysts try to come up with the reason why a player suddenly is able to get results that heretofore seemed beyond their grasp. Chris Fowler of ESPN is the patron saint of the belief religion in tennis - traveling the world espousing the kind of pseudo-psychological drivel that drives genuine students of the game mad. Sure it sounds succinct, and seems plausible - how do you win a match that you don't believe you're going to win? It's impossible, right?

Not really. 

In fact not at all. Of all the things you need to win a tennis match, at the very bottom of the list is belief. At the top of the list is tactical acumen and technical execution. From those two, you develop belief, yes, but by then, you already have everything you need to win a tennis match - any tennis match - and not a damn thing more.

Instead of delving into how/why Sam Stosur beat the hell out of Serena Williams for the US Open title, I'd like to present the case of Novak Djokovic, and in particular against Roger Federer. Anybody watching that 2011 US Open semi-final could see that Djokovic was not at his best in those first two sets - far from the player who had come to dominate the tour. And no player on tour has preached the virtues of belief more than Djokovic - it's all you ever hear him talking about, so it has to be true. To win a tennis match, you have to believe you're going to win.

I beg to differ.

Djokovic was down two sets to love, and playing poorly for reasons only known to him - in fact, I would venture to guess that he had no idea why he was losing. That Gallic shrug that we see so often from our francophone favorites on tour, was omnipresent with Djokovic those first two sets. The "woe is me" plaintive gazes at the faceless crowd that never seem to be on his side, despite how hard he has worked at being likeable (all over again).

So what happened in the 3rd set? Well for starters, Djokovic stopped making unforced errors (12 in the first, and 8 in the second, versus 5 and 2 in the third and fourth) respectively. Now the false prophets of belief would have you believe that in the third set, Djokovic suddenly started to believe he was going to win the match, even though he was down two sets to love and playing like a bag of dirt - as in, "I got this SOB right where I want him!" But that's laughable. The truth is that unbeknownst to the Chris Fowler's of the world, Djokovic's coach identified major problems he had when matches got tight in the past, and worked (not so) innovatively to correct it. And the very things they worked on earned Djokovic his victory Saturday, and dare I say his overall improvement this year, and ascension to #1.

Martin Vajda, a coach who I had thought very little of, given Djokovic's stagnation as a player since 2008, realized that Djokovic was making a very rudimentary technical error when the chips were down - something that most club players do without even thinking about it, and apparently so was Djokovic. The natural tendency when you're on the verge of winning is to try not to lose - in other words, keep the ball in play, and don't give the match away with an unforced error. To do that, most players subconsciously rely on racquet head deceleration, and Djokovic was no different. So when the going got tough, he would make childish unforced errors because he lacked the racquet head speed to control his shots with pace and spin.

Ironically, the only way to consistently control direction and spin is to accelerate the racquet head through the point of contact. Knowing this, Vajda decided that the only way to achieve this would be to practice forcing Djokovic to maintain racquet head speed - and the best way to do that is to practice hitting deep hard shots with pace and spin from the ball in hand - like you do with kids when they first learn to play. To hit a solid shot from a ball in hand (or a slow slice, or loopy deep topspin) you have to generate more racquet head speed than you do from a normal shot, because you have no pace to work with coming at you. And this forced racquet head acceleration translates very well in tight points, because your opponent is as likely as you are to take pace out of their shots to make sure they "keep it in". From that training, Djokovic developed a massive cross-court forehand that has a obliterated his opponents (especially Nadal, whose typical response is a slice backhand, which used to trip him up, but now sets him up to pummel with a cross court backhand or forehand up the line, both of which were already a great shots).

Against Federer, that shot, struck consistently for the first time with venom in the third set had the opposite effect on Federer's game - whereas Djokovic was able to reduce his unforced errors, Federer's error increased (9, 12, 12 and 13 in sets 2 through 5 respectively) because of the pressure he was under. Whereas in the past he has been able to hide behind a deep slice or heavy topspin backhands rolled deep into the corner (reducing his errors, but keeping his opponents under pressure) yesterday, he couldn't. And, unable to step in on Djokovic's cross court forehand, push it up the line to Djokovic's backhand and approach the net, he was left to try to duke it out from the back and mishit after mishit ensued. So Djokovic's increased power against Federer's off-pace offerings in the third and fourth sets had the added benefit of keeping Federer away from the net - advantage Djoker.

Finally, Djokovic's serve, the bane of his existence for the 18 months before the Australian Open this year, in the 3rd was at 54% first serves, but he won a whopping 92% of those points and 73% of second serves. He also had 80% first serves in the fourth set (90% and 54% first and second serve points won). Basically he was unbreakable. And as anyone will tell you, being unbreakable puts a hell of a lot of pressure on your opponent's serve, and guess what happened to Federer's serve in the 3rd and 4th sets? The first serve percentage and points won on first and second servers dropped dramatically, and he was broken 3 times in two sets - while he himself earned no break points at all in those two sets.

So the two things that have made the biggest difference in Djokovic's game this year, the suddenly dominant and reliable cross-court forehand (even in the face of off-pace offerings), and a much better serve, finally appeared in the third set and carried him through to the fourth. This was at a time when he had to realize it was more likely that he would lose than win, so what does the religion of belief have to say about that?

Nothing. Because it's complete BS.

But it doesn't stop there - by the end of the fourth set, he had to believe he was going to win that match - anyone would, given the way he destroyed Federer in the third and fourth. So just when it seems that belief should be on his side, what happened - he got tight again and very nearly blew his chance at an historic comeback. In fact, he was down 2 match points. Now if you think he believed he would win the match down a break at 5-4, with Federer serving at 40-15, I've got some oceanfront property in Nebraska I'd like to sell you. In fact, last year, facing match point, similarly on his way out, he admitted he just closed his eyes and knocked the piss out of the ball. And a funny thing happens when you say to yourself, "F--- it; if I'm going to lose, I'm going down swinging!"

You tend to take a pretty good cut at the ball - i.e. racquet head speed.

And surprise, surprise - after not getting a sniff of Federer's serve for the almost the entire 5th set, he belts a winner on the first match point return, to put huge pressure on Federer to close it out at 40-30, to which Federer promptly got tight and hit the top of the tape on the next point.

And one last thing - for years there were a lot of questions about Djokovic's fitness - constantly retiring, and breathing heavy anytime the match went long and/or tight. Bjorn Borg once said the following about playing 5-set matches:

"I never got tired in a tennis match, so I never panicked when I had to go to 5 sets." 

And what happens when you panic in a tennis match? You bail out of a point trying to hit a stupid winner, when you should live to hit another shot. And you abandon sensible tactics because you're tired, and don't think you can leg it out. I mean, we've all seen the Djoker scramble frantically chasing down shots in the past, but I always had the feeling that he was just trying to keep the ball in the play - now he only scrambles when he has to, otherwise, he's tactically aggressive and sound. And when he does scramble, he's almost as dangerous as he is when he's in control of the point.

Now, a lot of people would have you believe that Djokovic suddenly "believed" he was a better player this year, and that's why he's winning. But nothing could be further from the truth. He identified weaknesses in his game (his serve, his forehand and his tactical decisions), the causes of those weaknesses (a hitch in the stroke production, racquet head deceleration and poor fitness) rectified them (altered his serve motion, practiced with ball in hand, and improved his diet) and suddenly, the causes of his inconsistency were mitigated, a whole new set of tactical options are available to him, and he could execute under duress.

I'm not saying Djokovic's belief hasn't increased during this run - to the contrary I know it has. But his belief has come as a result of addressing technical, tactical and physical problems with his game, getting results and having a blue-print for success. This belief did not come from some idiotic pseudo-psychological exercise in hypnotizing yourself into believing that even though your game hasn't changed one lick, you're suddenly going to win more consistently. That's doing the same thing over and over again and "believing" you'll get a different result - and that's just idiotic.

The belief comes from results, and the results come from making changes - technical changes. To every problem in tennis there is a technical solution, and if you can't execute technically, how on earth are you to "believe" you can win? Your mind follows what your body and game can and cannot do, not the other way around. And wasting your time wondering why you don't "believe" you can win, is likely to elicit a whole host of psychological issues, when the obvious solution is just to put in the hard yards and improve technically.

Rankings in tennis are like the opposite of the Richter scale - going from #2 to #1 is just one ranking, but the order of magnitude in improvements required are much bigger than going from #20 to #10, or #10 to #5, and of all the things that help you make those improvements, belief is less than the least of your problems - it is in fact a distraction.

There's only one kind of person that signs on to the new religion of belief in tennis - and that's the person who neither has the courage, nor the wherewithal to make actual technical and commensurate tactical changes to their game. You get comfortable at #3 or #10 or #20, and you figure, why risk losing your ranking by going out of our comfort zone when you can just believe you're going to win and do everything exactly the same way.

If you look at all the players who have stagnated and have made no headway in improving their results, you'll see they're all kool-aid drinking sheep in the belief congregation...and their results are equally distinctive.

ADDENDUM:  IT SEEMS RAFA AGREES WITH ME - listen to his answer to the question of why he gives "confidence" or "belief" to his opponents by admitting to the periodic frailty of his game.

...as I live and breathe my friends...as I live and breathe.

THE STATE OF WOMEN'S TENNIS

At the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, the powers that be may have been delighted at the prostpect of a brand new blonde-haired, blue-eyed, girl next door champion of women's tennis - even if you'd have to be familiar the cyrillic alphabet to read her name on the mailbox. There were no less than four "ova's" in the quarterfinals, six Eastern Europeans, and suprisingly there was just one Russian amongst them, and ironically she happens to be about as Russian as she is a damn monkey, but who's counting. They're all European, and just one of them had a major title to her name, and that was three years ago in Australia, so statitically, we had an 87.5% chance of a new champion. That normally incites a lot of rumination about the state of the game, and I, of course, have my opinion.

First, the return of the Williams sisters at Wimbledon brought so much energy and anticipation - all the more reason it's so disappointing that Venus will have to take a hiatus from the game. It has obviously been a tumultuous 9-12 months for both of them, never more revealed than through the tears of Serena after her first round victory over Aravane Rezai at Wimbledon and the shocking withdrawal of Venus at the US Open. Who could blame them, after facing death and retirement so recently. And for some, the air may have gone out of the Championships when the siblings succumbed to the Slavic invasion (well, Bartoli is french, but I couldn't resist the alliteration). But John McEnroe could have hit the nail on the head when he contended that it's actually good for women's tennis that they didn't come back and win Wimbledon after being away from the game for so long. As good as Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are, I can't imagine them leaving the game for 6 months and winning a major, let alone 12. The same could be said for Stosur's victory at the US Open - unwittingly, she just may have salvaged the reputation of women's tennis.

Having said that, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to all the good will towards Serena at Wimbledon. I mean, on ESPN it was an aboslute love fest, with piano ballads in the background, and black and white slow motion clips of her wiping her brow, and every commentator remarking on how "emotional" it was for her. It was a bit like the film "Quiz Show", hearing one Senator after another commending Charles van Doren for his "soul-searching" testimony - if they hadn't all fallen over themselves to praise her simultaneously, I might have found it more genuine. She promptly let the air out of that balloon by doing two things - (1) making the women's game look like it hasn't evolved one iota, with her domination of the US Open series (and very nearly the US Open itself) and (2) her sense of entitlement and bad demeanor on court in the final, but more on that later.

But even at Wimbledon, when she was getting pounded by Marion Bartoli in their 4th round match, Dick Enberg was forced to admit that the English audience were squarely behind the quirky frenchwoman. In other words, they were rooting against a woman who was just returned from death's door 6 months ago. I think it suprised both Enberg and Mary Joe Fernandez, although only she was willing to confront it. Enberg, rather transparently, tried to attribute it to Bartoli being the underdog. But there was something else about it...something more practical, maybe. Perhaps they too felt it would have made a mockery of the game if yet another opponent failed to beat a woefully out of practice Serena. For, who could take the game seriously if the best player turned out to be someone who hadn't played in a year?

But I digress.

Speaking of Bartoli - has there ever been a player on tour who more epitomizes everything that sticks in the craw of old school tennis?  To begin with, her father successfully circumvented the French tennis federation, which in and of itself is not such a bad thing (after all, the Williams sisters circumvented the USTA, and look how that turned out). But Bartholi's game is so bizarre that those of us who enjoy the aesthetics of a well produced one-handed backhand, face the dark epiphany that maybe, just maybe, our concept of the game is well and truly passe.  Everything about Bartholi's game smacks of gimmicks; from hitting with two hands on both wings, to the extra long racquet, to the irritating dress rehearal between points.  The coup de grace for those of us who long for brave and solitary combattants who rely on their own intrinsic committment and determination, is this irritating habit of looking at her box and shouting "Allez!" after every...single...point.

I mean, give me a break, already.

There's something about the "team" concept in tennis that is just plain irritating. Is it the obvious exploitation and suckling at the teet of talent by the entourage? And what of this concept of coaching? If coaching were so crucial and so critical, you would expect something other than the monotonous big babe ball bashing we see sullying our beautiful game with all the subtelty of a cream pie in the face. Instead, every coach seems to give the same awful advice, "Hit it hard and cross-court, don't change the pace, direction, or spin, don't take any chances and whatever you do, don't EVER come to net." That, and the, "Just play YOUR game," speech is about as helpful as handing them an anvil to carry with them on the court. They'd all be better off coachless - at least they'd have more money to take home. I mean, at the very least, you'd think one of these coaches, who are obviously way over-paid, would bother to teach one of these ladies to serve properly.

But I digress.

Unfortunately for Bartoli she represents all of this to those of us who consider ourselves, or would be considered by others to be, old school. And so perhaps there is a kind of sick satisfaction with her ultimate demise - if only it were at the hands of a player who wasn't merely less irritating, but no less monolithic than Sabine Lisicki. At the end of the day, women's tennis today is a game that is beset by worthless hangers on, including parents and coaches who do worse than prey on the insecurities of these young women - they in fact encourage them - the better to make onself indispensible.

And thus the team concept in tennis lives on.

I feel this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and commentators blithely glossing over this phenomenon does not help. Unfortunately many of the commentators are current and former coaches, and as such would be very brave to strike so near to their own livelihoods. Most of these coaches should do the honorable thing and fall on their swords (quit) when they have so woefully under performed in their stewardly duties. Frankly, I'm surprised that the greats of tennis' past have been silent on this issue, but they're so busy promoting the game to its own detriment, they either haven't noticed, or haven't the fortitude.

I firmly believe that women's tennis would be better off if players couldn't play professionally until they were at least 18 years old; that would give them more time to develop complete games, and they wouldn't start playing professionally until they were in the burgeoning stages of their own adulthoods, rather than the throes of a their parents' mid-life crises, dreams and aspirations. This would give them the independence to drop some of their entourage if they sought genuine improvement, including parents or coaches. As it is now, they are children when they turn professional, they develop the habit of dependence on their "teams" that continues long into adulthood, and this doesn't do anyone any good.

But then we get to the case of Sam Stosur...ah, Sam Stosur. Those of us who observed her new physique and viciously produced forehand, following her 2 year hiatus recovering from lyme disease, wondered if we were witnessing the advent of a brand new kind of women's tennis. One more akin to the men's game (which is developing it's own brand of monotony, by the way - but that's for another post). Her movement can be graceful, particularly when setting up the inside-out forehand. And her serve is a real novelty - above average consistency AND above average power - and spin that's simply off the charts. I thought her breakthrough was there for the taking at Roland Garros last year, where she beat Justine, Serena and Jankovic...but then that pluckly little Italian threw a monkey wrench in the machine. And it seems she had some trouble coping with that loss. (Speaking of Schiavone, what a breath of fresh air she is as well - but that too is for another post).

But she slowly and surely progressed this year. Her results were awful - failing to reach the quarterfinal in any tournament for the first six months of the year (with the exception of Dubai). But, she was adding a little more net play and a slice to her game that she hadn't really mastered until the US Open. That slice won her the final. She'd played Serena in Toronto and hadn't really mastered it. And her forehand, played too far behind the baseline, sat up right into Serena's wheelhouse, and boy did she ever make it look ordinary. Fred Stolle commented at the Hopman Cup in January that he felt her backhand was her albatross, and in that assessment I believe he was correct, but he offered no advice on what to do about it. It is a painfully manufactured stroke, much like her forehand, but lacks the bite, disguise or consistency.

But in the US Open final, rather than coming over her backhand, she consistently sliced, forcing Serena to hit up on both her forehand and her backhand, which she promptly dumped in the net time after time due to her lack of topsin. To compensate, Serena started taking pace off those shots, and left the ball short and in the middle of the court, which Stosur promptly belted inside-out and inside-in on the forehand side. So adding an effective slice to her backhand repetoire actually helped her forehand. And as anyone who's played against someone who mixes slice with topspin can tell you, it's very hard to maintain your rhythm and play your best.

Hmm...a slice backhand with a purpose - what a novel idea.

I've always wondered why it is nobody tries to do anything different against Serena - and after reviewing the players at the "top" of the game, the reason is obvious - nobody can. They all play the exact same way, all have the exact same problems, and all of their weaknesses play right into Serena's strengths. No variety, nothing to throw her off her rhythm, and no serve; so, it's no surprise that she has had no problem dealing with them one by one. And all this idiotic talk about being intimidated by her - what do they think? That she's going to reach across the net and beat them up? What are they so afraid of? Losing? They're doing it every week anyway, so what difference does it make if they lose to Serena? You may as well try something different against her - that is, if you have something different to try - which of course none of them do.

And I don't feel sorry for Caroline Wozniacki (Who? oh, yeah - the #1 player in the world). She's made almost no effort to go beyond being a backboard, and until she does, she will not only not win a major, but she'll continue to symbolize much of that's wrong with the WTA. Take a look at this clip of a match between Martina Navratilova and Hana Mandlikova in 1985 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMqaJz510E4&feature=related). The athleticism and shot-making was phenomenal, and I suspect a relic in the history of the game that we'll only come across when sifting through the archives, like archaeologists discovering a new method of firing pottery in the stone age. Fascinating, but never more.

I sure hope I'm wrong.

Finally, I have never been particularly impressed with Serena's attitude on court - some excuse it by saying it's her personality and that gives her her edge. I think that's nonsense - plenty of women were just as determined and committed (if not more so) and exhibited very little of the entitlement and paranoia, that always seems to eek out at the most inopportuned times with Serena. In her defense, I believe her general behavior throughout the tournament was excellent - better than most of her contemporaries. No tantrums, no crying on court, and no desperate yelps of tension masquerading as the side-effects of exertion (i.e. no 3-note grunts). She was all business and I loved it - until...

The littany of bad-behavior all elicited by a correctly applied hindrance rule was almost as comical as it was ugly. First, she demonstrated her ignorance of the rule. That's not so bad - I'm sure most players on tour barely know the hindrance rule. Not that it would have made a difference - she didn't shout, "Come on!" before the point ended because she thought she'd get a let!

But then she proceeded to accuse the umpire of being the same one who screwed her over in 2009 against Clijsters (she was not) or (as McEnroe suggested) in 2004 against Capriati (wrong again), and thus concluded that the umpire had it in for her. When she was properly assessed a code violation warning for verbal abuse, she then went on a tirade telling the umpire to walk the other way if she sees her in the locker room, which could be constured as threatening, that she truly despised her, and that she's ugly...on the inside. Because after insulting her, and calling her a cheat, the last thing you want to do is tell her she ugly too - at least on the outside.

Just like in 2009, the umpire was just doing her job (and doing it correctly, by the way). I don't think Serena deserves a ban for her behavior, it was just ugly - at least she learned not to let loose with the kind of foul language and physical threats that got her in trouble the last time around.

At the end of the day, Sam Stosur did women's tennis a big favor by winning that match the way she did. If Serena had won, after unjustly lambasting the umpire, it's all anyone would have discussed, and the victory would have been hollow to all but her most ardent supporters. Never mind the fact that there wouldn't/couldn't have been more salient evidence that the women's game hasn't evolved at all in 12 months, and that doesn't do anybody any good. If Stosur can sustain her level of performance, it may force some of her contemporaries to do more than close their eyes and hit it as hard as they can.

Well, at least we may see one or two more slice backhands.