Vienna:
Sky Sports report
Montpellier:
ATP
St Petersburg:
Tennis.com
Remember to use the links on the right hand side for live scores.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Official i-Phone app for live scores
Allelujah!!!!
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The ATP and WTA announced today the launch of a first of its kind “Pro Tennis Live” iPhone application featuring live scores from both the ATP World Tour & WTA.
The new and official live scoring mobile application is available for free from the App Store and allows fans to follow their favourite professional tennis players, including the likes of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams, in real time competing around the globe across 115 events in 43 countries throughout the season.
“Mobile technology continues to play an increasingly critical role in the way people consume sports and we’re happy to offer fans another convenient way to follow the latest official live tennis scores wherever they are,” said John Phillips, ATP senior vice president of digital marketing.
“Pro Tennis Live will provide enhanced value and entertainment to fans of tennis around the globe, and I am very pleased that the WTA and ATP have been able to come together to make this exciting application a reality,” said Henning Lindblad, WTA vice president of digital marketing.
“Pro Tennis Live”, available for download in 17 languages, showcases the following features:
• Live Scores
• Real-Time Match Statistics
• Completed Matches
• Player Head-to-Head Statistics & Past Results
“Pro Tennis Live” is available as a free download for tennis fans all over the world to follow every point, every match, and every ATP World Tour and WTA tournament throughout the season.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ATP and WTA announced today the launch of a first of its kind “Pro Tennis Live” iPhone application featuring live scores from both the ATP World Tour & WTA.
The new and official live scoring mobile application is available for free from the App Store and allows fans to follow their favourite professional tennis players, including the likes of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams, in real time competing around the globe across 115 events in 43 countries throughout the season.
“Mobile technology continues to play an increasingly critical role in the way people consume sports and we’re happy to offer fans another convenient way to follow the latest official live tennis scores wherever they are,” said John Phillips, ATP senior vice president of digital marketing.
“Pro Tennis Live will provide enhanced value and entertainment to fans of tennis around the globe, and I am very pleased that the WTA and ATP have been able to come together to make this exciting application a reality,” said Henning Lindblad, WTA vice president of digital marketing.
“Pro Tennis Live”, available for download in 17 languages, showcases the following features:
• Live Scores
• Real-Time Match Statistics
• Completed Matches
• Player Head-to-Head Statistics & Past Results
“Pro Tennis Live” is available as a free download for tennis fans all over the world to follow every point, every match, and every ATP World Tour and WTA tournament throughout the season.
Is Roger in his prime?
Is Roger Federer in his prime? Any fan of the superstar will tell you that he is not. There is a simple test that can be applied. Is he winning three Grand Slam titles a year? If the answer is no, then he is not in his prime. Federer won three GS titles a year in 2004, 2006 and 2007. We cannot include 2004 in his prime years, for then how would you explain 2005 when he did not satisfy the Fed test? Prime years are supposed to be continuous and we cannot have declines in between. So his playing years are classified as:
2003: Pre-prime; 2004 and 2005: Rise; 2006 and 2007: Prime; 2008 and thereafter: Decline.
This is neat and not only explains Federer's achievements but also explains why Nadal, Djokovic and Delpotro succeeded in winning titles at Wimbledon, Australian Open and US Open.
But while it is neat, my objection to it at first was that it took into account only Federer's level and not the level of the competition. For instance, Federer could have won three titles a year in 2006 and 2007 because of the absence of tough competition. His rate of title collection could have gone down in 2008 and thereafter because of the rise of other players. But my objections were met with shock and ridicule. Rivals, what rivals ?
As a tennis fan explained to me, Fed is a Chuck Norris kind of character and so there are Federer Facts. One of them is: Roger Federer can lose only to Roger Federer. In the light of this immutable truth, any talk of the rise of rivals capable of beating him is blasphemous and totally irrelevant.
Ok, granted the Fed test helps in determining his prime. But clearly we cannot apply this to other players. Most of them probably will not win even three GS titles in their whole career, let alone in one year. But obviously, though they are lesser mortals, they also have prime playing years.
So how do we find their best years? In general, for identifying prime of athletes, age is an important determinant.
Tennis is an individual sport. So unlike team sports where managers/owners are concerned about replacing aging superstars in time, in tennis it is generally only the player's concern. So while there are many studies of prime of athletes in team sports, there is not an abundance of literature specifically devoted to exploring a tennis player's prime.
However, by putting together some facts from studies of humans and athletes in general and also some articles about prime of players in other sports, I have gleaned the following:
Although improvement in nutrition, training methods, technology, etc have increased the level of peak performance and perhaps even lengthened the prime, the age at which an athlete peaks has remained virtually unchanged over the years.
Schulz and Curnow in their study of super athletes have placed the peak of a tennis player at 24.
Muscle mass peaks around age 25. This could therefore put an athlete's physical peak around that age.
Forensic study of bones for age determination reveals that ossification and fusion of growth plates takes place even up to age 30 in some cases, but usually most of the process is complete by age 21. As we may expect the bones of athletes to have the structural strength of mature adult bones by this age, 21 may be taken as the lower end of prime.
Speed, quickness, strength and power are critical attributes for tennis superstars and another sport where these are critical is football. It is significant that Nadal had to choose between the two. In this connection, one may refer to an interesting study of performance of running backs by Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN.com. It revealed a big drop in performance between 28-29 and 30. The critical attributes for a running back are specifically speed, quickness and power. This study may therefore be of relevance for tennis superstars too and we may take 29 as the upper end of prime.
Conclusion:
The peak of a tennis player is around 24 or 25.
The prime extends a few years on both sides of the peak.
The prime years of a tennis superstar are likely to be between 21 and 29 with the peak around 24 or 25.
( I will present more on prime of tennis superstars in Part 2 ).
Some of the references for the conclusion above are listed below.
References:
Peak performance and Age among Super Athletes : Track and Field, Swimming, Baseball, Tennis and Golf by Richard Schulz and Christine Curnow.
Science and Practice of strength training by Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, William J. Kraemer
The demand in Forensic Medicine to assess the Age of Adolescents and Young Adults : Crime Procedures ( A contribution of the German Academy of Forensic Odonto-Stomatology)
Ageing and Human Muscle: Observations from Sweden:( Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology,vol 18(1), pp2-18,1993)
The Jock V. The Clock by Claudia Kalb (Newsweek, May 24,1999)
When does a footballer get old? - The Sport Digest
Breaking down thirty-year-old running backs by T. Cockcroft
Courtesy: Bleacher Report
2003: Pre-prime; 2004 and 2005: Rise; 2006 and 2007: Prime; 2008 and thereafter: Decline.
This is neat and not only explains Federer's achievements but also explains why Nadal, Djokovic and Delpotro succeeded in winning titles at Wimbledon, Australian Open and US Open.
But while it is neat, my objection to it at first was that it took into account only Federer's level and not the level of the competition. For instance, Federer could have won three titles a year in 2006 and 2007 because of the absence of tough competition. His rate of title collection could have gone down in 2008 and thereafter because of the rise of other players. But my objections were met with shock and ridicule. Rivals, what rivals ?
As a tennis fan explained to me, Fed is a Chuck Norris kind of character and so there are Federer Facts. One of them is: Roger Federer can lose only to Roger Federer. In the light of this immutable truth, any talk of the rise of rivals capable of beating him is blasphemous and totally irrelevant.
Ok, granted the Fed test helps in determining his prime. But clearly we cannot apply this to other players. Most of them probably will not win even three GS titles in their whole career, let alone in one year. But obviously, though they are lesser mortals, they also have prime playing years.
So how do we find their best years? In general, for identifying prime of athletes, age is an important determinant.
Tennis is an individual sport. So unlike team sports where managers/owners are concerned about replacing aging superstars in time, in tennis it is generally only the player's concern. So while there are many studies of prime of athletes in team sports, there is not an abundance of literature specifically devoted to exploring a tennis player's prime.
However, by putting together some facts from studies of humans and athletes in general and also some articles about prime of players in other sports, I have gleaned the following:
Although improvement in nutrition, training methods, technology, etc have increased the level of peak performance and perhaps even lengthened the prime, the age at which an athlete peaks has remained virtually unchanged over the years.
Schulz and Curnow in their study of super athletes have placed the peak of a tennis player at 24.
Muscle mass peaks around age 25. This could therefore put an athlete's physical peak around that age.
Forensic study of bones for age determination reveals that ossification and fusion of growth plates takes place even up to age 30 in some cases, but usually most of the process is complete by age 21. As we may expect the bones of athletes to have the structural strength of mature adult bones by this age, 21 may be taken as the lower end of prime.
Speed, quickness, strength and power are critical attributes for tennis superstars and another sport where these are critical is football. It is significant that Nadal had to choose between the two. In this connection, one may refer to an interesting study of performance of running backs by Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN.com. It revealed a big drop in performance between 28-29 and 30. The critical attributes for a running back are specifically speed, quickness and power. This study may therefore be of relevance for tennis superstars too and we may take 29 as the upper end of prime.
Conclusion:
The peak of a tennis player is around 24 or 25.
The prime extends a few years on both sides of the peak.
The prime years of a tennis superstar are likely to be between 21 and 29 with the peak around 24 or 25.
( I will present more on prime of tennis superstars in Part 2 ).
Some of the references for the conclusion above are listed below.
References:
Peak performance and Age among Super Athletes : Track and Field, Swimming, Baseball, Tennis and Golf by Richard Schulz and Christine Curnow.
Science and Practice of strength training by Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, William J. Kraemer
The demand in Forensic Medicine to assess the Age of Adolescents and Young Adults : Crime Procedures ( A contribution of the German Academy of Forensic Odonto-Stomatology)
Ageing and Human Muscle: Observations from Sweden:( Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology,vol 18(1), pp2-18,1993)
The Jock V. The Clock by Claudia Kalb (Newsweek, May 24,1999)
When does a footballer get old? - The Sport Digest
Breaking down thirty-year-old running backs by T. Cockcroft
Courtesy: Bleacher Report
Pay to know the name
Seems a rather bizarre idea to me. Is there anything left that someone will not try to make money out of?
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Fans of Australian tennis star Lleyton Hewitt can pay to be the first to learn the name of his newborn daughter through a text message service featuring top athletes, its director said Tuesday.
An "elated" Hewitt announced the birth of his third child on the family's website over the weekend but held back on her name, telling fans it would be "sent through Text A Star later in the week".
The Text A Star mobile service charges subscribers two dollars (two US) per text to receive messages from their favourite sports stars, promising "real messages from real stars in real time".
It primarily features Australian Rules footballers, but Hewitt is also on the company's books, sending his fans two messages a week and allowing them to respond.
Melbourne-based Text A Star said Hewitt would release the name on his website "soon after" subscribers received the message.
"Lleyton feels strongly about using this medium to communicate directly with his loyal fans, to give them an insight into his world before it gets disseminated by the mass media," director Peter Mann told AFP.
It is unclear how much former world No.1 Hewitt will profit from the venture, but Text A Star said most of its earnings went to telecommunications providers, not the service or its clients.
Hewitt, 29, a former US Open and Wimbledon champion now ranked 54th in the world, has two children with wife Bec -- Mia, four, and 22-month-old son Cruz.
Courtesy: Yahoo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fans of Australian tennis star Lleyton Hewitt can pay to be the first to learn the name of his newborn daughter through a text message service featuring top athletes, its director said Tuesday.
An "elated" Hewitt announced the birth of his third child on the family's website over the weekend but held back on her name, telling fans it would be "sent through Text A Star later in the week".
The Text A Star mobile service charges subscribers two dollars (two US) per text to receive messages from their favourite sports stars, promising "real messages from real stars in real time".
It primarily features Australian Rules footballers, but Hewitt is also on the company's books, sending his fans two messages a week and allowing them to respond.
Melbourne-based Text A Star said Hewitt would release the name on his website "soon after" subscribers received the message.
"Lleyton feels strongly about using this medium to communicate directly with his loyal fans, to give them an insight into his world before it gets disseminated by the mass media," director Peter Mann told AFP.
It is unclear how much former world No.1 Hewitt will profit from the venture, but Text A Star said most of its earnings went to telecommunications providers, not the service or its clients.
Hewitt, 29, a former US Open and Wimbledon champion now ranked 54th in the world, has two children with wife Bec -- Mia, four, and 22-month-old son Cruz.
Courtesy: Yahoo
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 6
Sure, ‘movement’ may not fall under the definition of a tennis ‘shot’ by any standard. But that doesn’t make it any less important to the sport, does it? This series goes by the name ‘the best shots in tennis’, but that’s only because ‘best shots’ sounds a whole lot more attractive than ‘most effective components’. You can have a spectacular serve, a ripper of a return of serve, a ferocious forehand and a bludgeoning backhand, but none of it will matter if you can’t scamper across the court well enough to actually make use of those shots. Positioning is everything in tennis, and the only way you can position yourself in the right place and at the right time to smack that glorious winner is through deft footwork, impeccable balance and blistering foot speed. Today we examine the best movers on a tennis court in the world.
Men – The Contenders: David Ferrer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko, Gael Monfils, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Nalbandian
When you talk of movement in tennis, there are so many different elements to consider that it becomes insanely difficult to decide which particular constituent contributes to truly effective court coverage. Players like Lleyton Hewitt and Gael Monfils have incredible, otherworldly foot-speed, but they lack the footwork to position themselves to go on the offense. A player like David Nalbandian, on the other hand, may not be the quickest sprinter around the court – one look at his girth and you know he cannot possibly come anywhere close to the word ‘nimble’ – but the numerous adjustments he makes before setting himself up into perfect position to crack that fearsome two-handed backhand or efficient flat forehand enable him to stay in a point longer than most players on the tour. Then there is the type of player whose movement differs from one surface to another – the 2003 Juan Carlos Ferrero and the pre-2010 Rafael Nadal moved exceptionally well on clay; so exceptionally, that it seemed impossible to win a single stinking rally against either of them on the dirt. But grass, and in Nadal’s case, hardcourts, seemed to be an altogether different animal. The inability, or unwillingness, of these two players to go side-to-side as comfortably on the baseline as they did so effortlessly 10 feet behind it was a game-changer. You can’t slide on a hardcourt, as many a knee injury would testify.
Nikolay Davydenko seems to have the best of both worlds – he’s remarkably swift around the court and has amazing footwork too; it’s not for nothing that Juan Martin del Potro commented last year that Davydenko plays tennis like a ‘playstation player’. But like just about everything that Davydenko does, his movement is right up there with the very best, but isn’t quite the best. Novak Djokovic has terrific lateral movement – this same movement helped him play some astonishing defense during his dark days starting somewhere around late 2008 and ending sometime in August 2010 when he seemed to have forgotten the meaning of the word ‘attack’. But his footwork when moving forward falls just short of the lofty standards that certain other players have set recently. David Ferrer’s movement is something of a cross between that of Ferrero, Djokovic and Davydenko – extraordinary on clay, pretty darned good on all other surfaces, not so good moving forward, and not quite the best in the business overall.
That leaves us with 3 players who I believe are so good and so evenly matched at moving around a tennis court that it is almost impossible to separate them. Andy Murray has always had spiffy wheels to boast of along with his bulging biceps (the word ‘bulging’ here has only been used out of respect for Andy’s dramatic and somewhat creepy habit of flexing his muscles after his matches to prove his improved fitness levels), but his fantastic anticipation adds more than a few miles per hour to his court coverage. Much has already been written about Roger Federer’s ‘gliding’, ‘floating’, ‘flying’ and ‘waltzing’ on the tennis court; the way Federer moves, whether laterally, towards the net or back to the baseline really does seem like a magician’s trick. One moment he’s completely out of the picture, and the next moment he’s right there, waiting to blast that forehand for an outrageous winner. He almost never seems off-balance, and although his foot-speed may have come down a notch or two over the years, it’s still up there with the best. So that’s 2 out of the top 3, and I’ve already exhausted my shortlist of players, have I? You’re forgetting that I’d only mentioned ‘pre-2010 Nadal’ earlier. The Nadal of 2010 is a different player to the Nadal of old. He moves (and always has moved) sensationally on clay, his grasscourt movement has been among the best in the world since about 2007, and the one thing missing from his arsenal before this year – hardcourt prowess – has been duly and diligently bumped off the checklist. There’s absolutely nothing that the present-day Nadal can’t do on a tennis court, be it explosively hugging the baseline on a hardcourt or rushing forward to the net with immaculate precision. Perhaps they should start using the Olympics motto to describe Nadal – he really is higher, stronger and FASTER than every other player in the world.
Winner: Rafael Nadal
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Men – The Contenders: David Ferrer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko, Gael Monfils, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Nalbandian
When you talk of movement in tennis, there are so many different elements to consider that it becomes insanely difficult to decide which particular constituent contributes to truly effective court coverage. Players like Lleyton Hewitt and Gael Monfils have incredible, otherworldly foot-speed, but they lack the footwork to position themselves to go on the offense. A player like David Nalbandian, on the other hand, may not be the quickest sprinter around the court – one look at his girth and you know he cannot possibly come anywhere close to the word ‘nimble’ – but the numerous adjustments he makes before setting himself up into perfect position to crack that fearsome two-handed backhand or efficient flat forehand enable him to stay in a point longer than most players on the tour. Then there is the type of player whose movement differs from one surface to another – the 2003 Juan Carlos Ferrero and the pre-2010 Rafael Nadal moved exceptionally well on clay; so exceptionally, that it seemed impossible to win a single stinking rally against either of them on the dirt. But grass, and in Nadal’s case, hardcourts, seemed to be an altogether different animal. The inability, or unwillingness, of these two players to go side-to-side as comfortably on the baseline as they did so effortlessly 10 feet behind it was a game-changer. You can’t slide on a hardcourt, as many a knee injury would testify.
Nikolay Davydenko seems to have the best of both worlds – he’s remarkably swift around the court and has amazing footwork too; it’s not for nothing that Juan Martin del Potro commented last year that Davydenko plays tennis like a ‘playstation player’. But like just about everything that Davydenko does, his movement is right up there with the very best, but isn’t quite the best. Novak Djokovic has terrific lateral movement – this same movement helped him play some astonishing defense during his dark days starting somewhere around late 2008 and ending sometime in August 2010 when he seemed to have forgotten the meaning of the word ‘attack’. But his footwork when moving forward falls just short of the lofty standards that certain other players have set recently. David Ferrer’s movement is something of a cross between that of Ferrero, Djokovic and Davydenko – extraordinary on clay, pretty darned good on all other surfaces, not so good moving forward, and not quite the best in the business overall.
That leaves us with 3 players who I believe are so good and so evenly matched at moving around a tennis court that it is almost impossible to separate them. Andy Murray has always had spiffy wheels to boast of along with his bulging biceps (the word ‘bulging’ here has only been used out of respect for Andy’s dramatic and somewhat creepy habit of flexing his muscles after his matches to prove his improved fitness levels), but his fantastic anticipation adds more than a few miles per hour to his court coverage. Much has already been written about Roger Federer’s ‘gliding’, ‘floating’, ‘flying’ and ‘waltzing’ on the tennis court; the way Federer moves, whether laterally, towards the net or back to the baseline really does seem like a magician’s trick. One moment he’s completely out of the picture, and the next moment he’s right there, waiting to blast that forehand for an outrageous winner. He almost never seems off-balance, and although his foot-speed may have come down a notch or two over the years, it’s still up there with the best. So that’s 2 out of the top 3, and I’ve already exhausted my shortlist of players, have I? You’re forgetting that I’d only mentioned ‘pre-2010 Nadal’ earlier. The Nadal of 2010 is a different player to the Nadal of old. He moves (and always has moved) sensationally on clay, his grasscourt movement has been among the best in the world since about 2007, and the one thing missing from his arsenal before this year – hardcourt prowess – has been duly and diligently bumped off the checklist. There’s absolutely nothing that the present-day Nadal can’t do on a tennis court, be it explosively hugging the baseline on a hardcourt or rushing forward to the net with immaculate precision. Perhaps they should start using the Olympics motto to describe Nadal – he really is higher, stronger and FASTER than every other player in the world.
Winner: Rafael Nadal
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 5
If there’s one shot that’s earned the wrath of the purists so often that we’ve actually become convinced that using it amounts to moral bankruptcy, it is the dropshot. That little artful piece of trickery, that deceitful sleight of hand employed only by the crooked of mind – surely no honorable player should stoop so low as to try and cheat his opponent out of a point by forcing him to sprint to the net? Unfortunately for the traditionalists, the players of this generation didn’t get the memo detailing all the evils of the dropshot, so they’ve pretty much gone in the opposite direction – it’s come to a stage where no young player can rest in peace unless he uses the dropshot at least, oh, a hundred times every match. And who can blame them if the strategy proves effective? It’s all about the percentages – if you can make the shot work more often than not, it’s worth taking the risk, right? Continuing with our series on the best shots in tennis today, we take a look at the dropshot.
Men – The Contenders: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Jurgen Melzer, Ernests Gulbis, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet
You know the dropshot is spreading its ultra-modern tentacles and firmly establishing itself in the psyche of tennis players all over the world when that classicist of classicists, Roger Federer, actually hires a coach just to learn this one shot. The rumors were never confirmed, but there were more than a few whispers when Federer signed on Jose Higueras to be his coach back in 2008 that the assignment came with a set of clear instructions, foremost among which was – teach me the forehand dropshot. Federer hadn’t yet conquered Roland Garros back then, if you remember, and the dropshot is as good a way as any to make a breakthrough on clay; the farther behind the baseline a player retreats, the more effective a dropshot can be. If you’re wondering why Federer went 10 whole years on the pro circuit before even attempting to learn what has come to be one of the most important shots of the modern game, I should remind you of Federer’s stubborn sense of traditionalism – he actually thought playing a dropshot was a dishonorable way of trying to win a point. Thankfully he’s rid himself of that kind of archaic thinking, and today his forehand dropshot can rival his backhand dropshot (which has always been very good) for its quality and disguise. Still, Federer doesn’t always choose the best moment to use the dropshot; moreover, when the opponent manages to get the ball back, Federer’s follow-up shot can sometimes leave a lot to be desired.
Jurgen Melzer has been using the dropshot, and using it effectively, for close to a decade now, and his recent run of success has brought this highly underrated weapon into the limelight. Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils bring a certain flair to the dropshot that only a Frenchman can, while Ernests Gulbis can legitimately rank the dropshot as one of the very few shots he doesn’t routinely send ten feet long or tamely into the net. Novak Djokovic can make you drop your jaw in awe when he carves up a perfectly disguised dropshot that leaves his opponent completely flummoxed, but he can also make you tear your hair in frustration when he resorts to the dropshot as a cop-out and ends up sending it to the bottom of the net. That leaves us with Andy Murray, who not only has the uncanny ability to choose exactly the right moment to hit a dropshot, but can also follow up the dropper with the highest quality lob or the most pinpoint passing shot that makes viewers feel that he’s actually toying with his opponent. Of course, that satisfied smirk that sometimes crosses Murray’s face after one of his successful attempts at outfoxing the opponent through his deadly dropshot-lob combination only adds to the whole ‘I-can-run-rings-around-your-game-with-my-court-smarts’ impression that he seems to want to bring to the court.
Winner: Andy Murray
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Men – The Contenders: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Jurgen Melzer, Ernests Gulbis, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet
You know the dropshot is spreading its ultra-modern tentacles and firmly establishing itself in the psyche of tennis players all over the world when that classicist of classicists, Roger Federer, actually hires a coach just to learn this one shot. The rumors were never confirmed, but there were more than a few whispers when Federer signed on Jose Higueras to be his coach back in 2008 that the assignment came with a set of clear instructions, foremost among which was – teach me the forehand dropshot. Federer hadn’t yet conquered Roland Garros back then, if you remember, and the dropshot is as good a way as any to make a breakthrough on clay; the farther behind the baseline a player retreats, the more effective a dropshot can be. If you’re wondering why Federer went 10 whole years on the pro circuit before even attempting to learn what has come to be one of the most important shots of the modern game, I should remind you of Federer’s stubborn sense of traditionalism – he actually thought playing a dropshot was a dishonorable way of trying to win a point. Thankfully he’s rid himself of that kind of archaic thinking, and today his forehand dropshot can rival his backhand dropshot (which has always been very good) for its quality and disguise. Still, Federer doesn’t always choose the best moment to use the dropshot; moreover, when the opponent manages to get the ball back, Federer’s follow-up shot can sometimes leave a lot to be desired.
Jurgen Melzer has been using the dropshot, and using it effectively, for close to a decade now, and his recent run of success has brought this highly underrated weapon into the limelight. Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils bring a certain flair to the dropshot that only a Frenchman can, while Ernests Gulbis can legitimately rank the dropshot as one of the very few shots he doesn’t routinely send ten feet long or tamely into the net. Novak Djokovic can make you drop your jaw in awe when he carves up a perfectly disguised dropshot that leaves his opponent completely flummoxed, but he can also make you tear your hair in frustration when he resorts to the dropshot as a cop-out and ends up sending it to the bottom of the net. That leaves us with Andy Murray, who not only has the uncanny ability to choose exactly the right moment to hit a dropshot, but can also follow up the dropper with the highest quality lob or the most pinpoint passing shot that makes viewers feel that he’s actually toying with his opponent. Of course, that satisfied smirk that sometimes crosses Murray’s face after one of his successful attempts at outfoxing the opponent through his deadly dropshot-lob combination only adds to the whole ‘I-can-run-rings-around-your-game-with-my-court-smarts’ impression that he seems to want to bring to the court.
Winner: Andy Murray
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 4
The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they hear the word ‘volley’ is – ‘In this day and age? Are you kidding me?’ It’s true that volleying may no longer be as important to tennis as it has been all through the history of the sport. The reason for that is not exactly rocket science – improved racquet and string technology have made it so much easier for the players to swing with abandon that hitting passing shots is pretty much bread-and-butter stuff now. But rest assured, the art of volleying is far from a dead relic. There are still a few players who are, every now and then, brave enough (or foolish enough?) to venture to the net and attempt that incredibly risky business of finishing a point without trying to absolutely pulverize the ball. In part 4 of our series dealing with the best shots in tennis among active players, we look at the best volleyers in the world.
Men – The Contenders: Mardy Fish, Michael Llodra, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Feliciano Lopez, Richard Gasquet
Did we watch the last of the great volleyers pass us by when Pete Sampras announced his retirement from the game? Many who watched the Sampras-Federer classic at Wimbledon back in 2001 were convinced that there was hope still for the net-play aficionados – Federer made so many forays to the net during that match that it was hard to imagine him ever giving up on that attacking, net-rushing style. And yet, here we are, having been witness to a 5-year Federer reign atop the tennis world, and we still can’t seem to hush the legions of traditionalists bemoaning the demise of the serve-and-volley.
There is, however, a fairly obvious flip side to the decline of the volley. Most players these days are so content to stand back at the baseline and repeatedly bash the ball that they seem incapable of finishing off a point without letting it turn into a marathon rally. Sometimes it actually seems as though the players are literally afraid of getting anywhere close to the net – something within them seems to freeze when they are put in a position to hit a volley, which perhaps explains the abundance of stoned putaways that we see on the tour today. Another thing that the volleyers have going for them is that the majority of the ATP players today have little to no experience of playing a net-rusher; the novelty of the task alone is enough to turn any player into a jittery mass of nerves and botched returns of serve.
Michael Llodra, the aging Frenchman, can hit such crisp volleys off the backhand side that after watching a few of them it becomes a little easier to comprehend how a 30-year-old journeyman can upset the 7th-seeded player at a Grand Slam with so little fanfare (I’m talking about Llodra’s victory over Tomas Berdych in this year’s US Open, of course). Mardy Fish, who’s been on something of a late-career surge lately, has always been a first-class volleyer – if anything, his biggest problem in the past seemed to be his inability to get into position to hit more volleys. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stunned the world with his dreamlike volleying against Rafael Nadal in the 2008 Australian Open semis – some of the volleys that he produced during that match actually drew comparisons with John McEnroe. Admittedly, Tsonga has never been as successful with relatively easier putaways as he is with the much more difficult stab volleys, but he’s still one of the more comfortable players at the net today.
Feliciano Lopez redefined the Spanish player’s game by showing that not all Spaniards were baseline grinders who had an intense dislike of approaching the net. Rafael Nadal has built on Lopez’s success, refining his volleys to such an extent that he can now boast of a net game that can rival that of the best net-rushers in the business – an extraordinary feat for a player who learnt to play tennis on the dust-bowls of Mallorca. Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet both have excellent hands and superb touch at the net, but neither of them comes forward nearly enough to actually make effective use of those rare attributes. That leaves us with the man who, despite all the contradictory analyses (He should come to net more often! He should stay as far away from the net as possible! Why doesn’t he just retire from the game already?), still has the best volleys in the world – Roger Federer. Sure he may not come to the net now as frequently as he did at the start of his career, but when he does press forward, it is accompanied by a singular killer instinct and a cutthroat conviction that are usually enough to throw the opponent off-balance. It helps, of course, that Federer has the most silken, exquisite touch on the tour today – the same touch that has made the world go ga-ga over his ornate brand of tennis.
Winner: Roger Federer
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Men – The Contenders: Mardy Fish, Michael Llodra, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Feliciano Lopez, Richard Gasquet
Did we watch the last of the great volleyers pass us by when Pete Sampras announced his retirement from the game? Many who watched the Sampras-Federer classic at Wimbledon back in 2001 were convinced that there was hope still for the net-play aficionados – Federer made so many forays to the net during that match that it was hard to imagine him ever giving up on that attacking, net-rushing style. And yet, here we are, having been witness to a 5-year Federer reign atop the tennis world, and we still can’t seem to hush the legions of traditionalists bemoaning the demise of the serve-and-volley.
There is, however, a fairly obvious flip side to the decline of the volley. Most players these days are so content to stand back at the baseline and repeatedly bash the ball that they seem incapable of finishing off a point without letting it turn into a marathon rally. Sometimes it actually seems as though the players are literally afraid of getting anywhere close to the net – something within them seems to freeze when they are put in a position to hit a volley, which perhaps explains the abundance of stoned putaways that we see on the tour today. Another thing that the volleyers have going for them is that the majority of the ATP players today have little to no experience of playing a net-rusher; the novelty of the task alone is enough to turn any player into a jittery mass of nerves and botched returns of serve.
Michael Llodra, the aging Frenchman, can hit such crisp volleys off the backhand side that after watching a few of them it becomes a little easier to comprehend how a 30-year-old journeyman can upset the 7th-seeded player at a Grand Slam with so little fanfare (I’m talking about Llodra’s victory over Tomas Berdych in this year’s US Open, of course). Mardy Fish, who’s been on something of a late-career surge lately, has always been a first-class volleyer – if anything, his biggest problem in the past seemed to be his inability to get into position to hit more volleys. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stunned the world with his dreamlike volleying against Rafael Nadal in the 2008 Australian Open semis – some of the volleys that he produced during that match actually drew comparisons with John McEnroe. Admittedly, Tsonga has never been as successful with relatively easier putaways as he is with the much more difficult stab volleys, but he’s still one of the more comfortable players at the net today.
Winner: Roger Federer
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 3
The overwhelming importance of the serve in the game of tennis has been well-documented. But make no mistake – mastering the numerous intricacies of the complex phenomenon that is the service motion is not everyone’s cup of tea, which is why you see the physically gifted (read: tall) players having a clear and inherent advantage over their peers in this department. So what do you do when you give up considerable ground to your opponent on the one shot that is best-equipped to win a point? Why the next best thing of course: use the return of serve as your primary offensive weapon. Continuing with our series on the best shots in tennis among current players, we take a look at the best returners in the game.
Men – The Contenders: Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, David Ferrer, Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin Del Potro
If there’s one stroke in tennis that has undergone a complete revolution in the last 20 years or so, it is the return of serve. Superior racquet technology has liberated the players’ shot-making to such an extent that they now take full swings at serves delivered in excess of 135mph, often sending the ball back for a scorching winner faster than it left the server’s racquet. There was perhaps no greater pioneer of the aggressive service return than Andre Agassi, who used his superior anticipation to offset the power serving of his rivals (the chief among whom was that GOAT candidate with the canon-fire serve himself, Pete Sampras).
The key component of any effective return of serve is anticipation. If you can guess which direction the serve is coming, that’s half the job done. Roger Federer is so good at reading his opponent’s serve that he’s made a habit of taking a step or two to his right or left and getting even the fastest and most sharply-angled bombs back in play with nonchalant ease. Just ask Andy Roddick. Where Federer comes up short is in the second serve return – he’s been known to send more than his fair share of puffball serves tamely into the net, especially on the backhand side. Before Federer started dominating the scene, Lleyton Hewitt was busy making a career for himself, compensating for a lack of a world-class serve by hitting punishing returns that were vividly reminiscent of Agassi’s glory days. Then there’s David Nalbandian, whose attacking returns are in a league of their own – when Nalbandian gets hold of your serve, your best hope is to just get a racquet on the ball.
Rafael Nadal can unfailingly get into a neutral position in a rally by sending almost every serve back into play, while Del Potro uses his long limbs and tremendous reach to great effect, making sure he hits deep returns more often than not. Nikolay Davydenko and Novak Djokovic regularly use the return as a means to make amends for their serving woes , breaking their opponents’ serves just as often as they themselves get broken. David Ferrer can really blast the ball off the return too; one service return he made in the 5th set tiebreaker of his match against Fernando Verdasco in the just-concluded US Open moved Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim to call it ‘one of the top five returns you’ll ever see’. But no one on the planet today can combine offense, defense, consistency and accuracy on the return of serve better than that grumpy Brit, Andy Murray. Murray’s return, often hit from a foot or two inside the baseline, can be used in a coaching manual for its textbook correctness and, of course, its lethal effectiveness, revolving as it does on the trademark trait of his game – anticipation.
Winner: Andy Murray
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Men – The Contenders: Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, David Ferrer, Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin Del Potro
If there’s one stroke in tennis that has undergone a complete revolution in the last 20 years or so, it is the return of serve. Superior racquet technology has liberated the players’ shot-making to such an extent that they now take full swings at serves delivered in excess of 135mph, often sending the ball back for a scorching winner faster than it left the server’s racquet. There was perhaps no greater pioneer of the aggressive service return than Andre Agassi, who used his superior anticipation to offset the power serving of his rivals (the chief among whom was that GOAT candidate with the canon-fire serve himself, Pete Sampras).
The key component of any effective return of serve is anticipation. If you can guess which direction the serve is coming, that’s half the job done. Roger Federer is so good at reading his opponent’s serve that he’s made a habit of taking a step or two to his right or left and getting even the fastest and most sharply-angled bombs back in play with nonchalant ease. Just ask Andy Roddick. Where Federer comes up short is in the second serve return – he’s been known to send more than his fair share of puffball serves tamely into the net, especially on the backhand side. Before Federer started dominating the scene, Lleyton Hewitt was busy making a career for himself, compensating for a lack of a world-class serve by hitting punishing returns that were vividly reminiscent of Agassi’s glory days. Then there’s David Nalbandian, whose attacking returns are in a league of their own – when Nalbandian gets hold of your serve, your best hope is to just get a racquet on the ball.
Winner: Andy Murray
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 2
You have never won a French Open, even though you could have won the title multiple times in any other era. The same player has vanquished you for the last four years, each year more convincingly than the previous. This year, that same person bows out in the early rounds, and all the pressure is on you to win the title. Yet, you find yourself two sets down, 3-4 down and a break point down on your serve. It is a virtual match point given that the opponent was not broken since the start.
What do you do? You hit a massive inside-out forehand wide from the ad court, which barely catches the line on the opposite side of the court for a scorching winner. You save the break point, save your serve, save the match, and go on to win the only Major that had eluded you so far. Greatness. Rather, GOATness.
In the 90s, the dynamics of the faster courts, inferior string technologies, and relatively poor levels of returns made the big serve-first volley crucial to a Major success (think Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg). The dynamics have now changed to the big-serve, big-forehand combination. In fact, forehand has become the single most important stroke in tennis (even more than the serve—think Rafael Nadal) given the way the game has advanced.
Players can virtually control the game only using their forehand, be it with a cross court punch for a winner, a down the line forehand following it up to the net, or pushing the opponent out of the court with a massive inside out heave. And in the worst case, they can hit a running forehand cross-court to leave their opponent at the net staring in disbelief. Winners out of the forehand wing far outweigh the winners from any other stroke in tennis, be it serve, backhand, or volleys (duh!). In fact, the biggest reason why Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have not won more Majors despite great all round games is because of the lack of a big forehand.
And the size and build of modern players has given the game some of the biggest forehands we have ever seen in Tennis. Be it the ugliness in the massive, huge heave of Robin Soderling, the effectiveness of Tomas Berdych, or the explosiveness of Andy Roddick (that is, before he converted into a grinder) or Jo Wilfried Tsonga, big forehands have become a norm. However, the massiveness of the forehands also come with their weakness. Soderling cannot hit them in windy conditions or when made to run because of his huge backswing, Berdych inevitably breaks down under pressure, and Roddick, well he does not hit them with that explosiveness anymore.
This leaves us with three contenders.
Juan Martin del Potro won the U. S. Open ’09 with the biggest and flattest forehand ever seen in the tennis history. In the final, he outplayed Federer by hitting 37 forehand winners as opposed to only 20 by Federer. What makes his forehand so effective is not only the flatness and the speed, but the minimal backswing that he requires to unleash this stroke, which makes it ideal for all conditions and situations.
If Del Potro has the flattest forehand we have ever seen, Nadal has the loopiest one. It is not amazing is not that he can generate incredible amounts of topspin on all surfaces. What is amazing is how can do it time after time in the most pressure situations given the extremely unorthodox technique he has. Even more amazing is the variety and evolution of the forehand, be it the adjustment to make it flatter on hard courts and grass (he has four Majors on these surfaces now) or the ridiculously curving banana swing forehand on the run. Of course, you know the point is about to end once he shapes up to fly in the air and hit that inside out forehand.
But even Rafa’s forehand has its limitations, and even now he sometimes struggles to return fast, deep balls. But there is one person against whom it will be hard to find any such weakness. He hss the best of both the worlds—he can hit it flat and almost any desired angle, hit with huge topspin second only behind Rafa, hit it on the run or create winners from center of the baseline.
This clip of his Australian Open matchup against Tommy Haas demonstrates that what this man can do with his forehand borders on the realm of the impossible.
The main reason why his forehand (or for that matter, any shot) is so effective is because of his great footwork. During the days, when he was THE Roger Federer, and not FedError or Shankerer (as his fans lovingly call him), he had such control and confidence on this shot that the ball seemed to wait an extra fraction of second just before it hit his racket. Jason Goodall further describes the Federer forehand.
In fact, the Federer forehand is not only the best among the contemporaries, but is possibly the best forehand of all times. That his forehand is as eye pleasing as it can ever get only makes his case stronger.
Winner: Roger Federer
Close Seconds: Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin del Potro
Honorable Mentions: Tomas Berdych, Robin Soderling, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
In the 90s, the dynamics of the faster courts, inferior string technologies, and relatively poor levels of returns made the big serve-first volley crucial to a Major success (think Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg). The dynamics have now changed to the big-serve, big-forehand combination. In fact, forehand has become the single most important stroke in tennis (even more than the serve—think Rafael Nadal) given the way the game has advanced.
Players can virtually control the game only using their forehand, be it with a cross court punch for a winner, a down the line forehand following it up to the net, or pushing the opponent out of the court with a massive inside out heave. And in the worst case, they can hit a running forehand cross-court to leave their opponent at the net staring in disbelief. Winners out of the forehand wing far outweigh the winners from any other stroke in tennis, be it serve, backhand, or volleys (duh!). In fact, the biggest reason why Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have not won more Majors despite great all round games is because of the lack of a big forehand.
And the size and build of modern players has given the game some of the biggest forehands we have ever seen in Tennis. Be it the ugliness in the massive, huge heave of Robin Soderling, the effectiveness of Tomas Berdych, or the explosiveness of Andy Roddick (that is, before he converted into a grinder) or Jo Wilfried Tsonga, big forehands have become a norm. However, the massiveness of the forehands also come with their weakness. Soderling cannot hit them in windy conditions or when made to run because of his huge backswing, Berdych inevitably breaks down under pressure, and Roddick, well he does not hit them with that explosiveness anymore.
This leaves us with three contenders.
Juan Martin del Potro won the U. S. Open ’09 with the biggest and flattest forehand ever seen in the tennis history. In the final, he outplayed Federer by hitting 37 forehand winners as opposed to only 20 by Federer. What makes his forehand so effective is not only the flatness and the speed, but the minimal backswing that he requires to unleash this stroke, which makes it ideal for all conditions and situations.
If Del Potro has the flattest forehand we have ever seen, Nadal has the loopiest one. It is not amazing is not that he can generate incredible amounts of topspin on all surfaces. What is amazing is how can do it time after time in the most pressure situations given the extremely unorthodox technique he has. Even more amazing is the variety and evolution of the forehand, be it the adjustment to make it flatter on hard courts and grass (he has four Majors on these surfaces now) or the ridiculously curving banana swing forehand on the run. Of course, you know the point is about to end once he shapes up to fly in the air and hit that inside out forehand.
But even Rafa’s forehand has its limitations, and even now he sometimes struggles to return fast, deep balls. But there is one person against whom it will be hard to find any such weakness. He hss the best of both the worlds—he can hit it flat and almost any desired angle, hit with huge topspin second only behind Rafa, hit it on the run or create winners from center of the baseline.
This clip of his Australian Open matchup against Tommy Haas demonstrates that what this man can do with his forehand borders on the realm of the impossible.
The main reason why his forehand (or for that matter, any shot) is so effective is because of his great footwork. During the days, when he was THE Roger Federer, and not FedError or Shankerer (as his fans lovingly call him), he had such control and confidence on this shot that the ball seemed to wait an extra fraction of second just before it hit his racket. Jason Goodall further describes the Federer forehand.
In fact, the Federer forehand is not only the best among the contemporaries, but is possibly the best forehand of all times. That his forehand is as eye pleasing as it can ever get only makes his case stronger.
Winner: Roger Federer
Close Seconds: Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin del Potro
Honorable Mentions: Tomas Berdych, Robin Soderling, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
The Best Shots In Tennis - Part 1
With the tennis season in slumber mode, it’s time to start coming up with pointless and completely subjective analyses of any and every thing to do with the technicalities of the game. So here we are, unfurling a series of articles on what we believe are the best shots owned by players active in the tennis world today. Like all things in tennis, the discussion begins with the single most important stroke in any racquet sport – the serve.
Men – The Contenders: Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, Marin Cilic, Juan Martin del Potro, Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Sam Querrey, Taylor Dent, Mardy Fish, Kevin Anderson
As you’d expect, a player’s height plays a crucial role in the quality of his serve; in fact, so much so, that it almost seems unfair. Of the 12 contenders I listed above, only 3 (Federer, Fish and Roddick) are less than 6’3” tall. It’s all about the physics – the greater the height from which the ball comes crashing down off the racquet, the better chance it will have of clearing the net, consequently enhancing all the major factors that are responsible for the effectiveness of a serve. You get more pace, greater consistency, sharper angles and higher bounce – in short, everything that you need for a good first serve.
But before we hastily give the award to the tallest and strongest of these players, we should take note of another critical component of the serve – the second serve. There’s a saying in the tennis world that goes something like “You’re only as good a player as your second serve”. What do you do when your first strike fails you? Here, again, a good height does come in handy, but the advantage is not as pronounced. Andy Murray would have found his name up there in the contenders’ list if he didn’t have such a creampuff second serve. Rafael Nadal may not have the most lethal first serve (although his recent exploits at the US Open seem to indicate otherwise), but he is one of the best at outwitting his opponents with cleverly disguised and subtly varied second serves. Speaking of disguise and variation, few people in history have mastered either of those arts on the serve the way Roger Federer has. Any professional player will tell you that returning a 140 mph missile that you know is coming down the T is a lot easier than getting back a 125 mph serve that you have no idea is going in which direction.
So who has the best combination of a blowtorch first serve and an unattackable second serve? Speaking purely from a technical standpoint, Roddick should marginally edge ahead of the rest of the field – he owns the record of the fastest serve ever, his first serve percentages usually hover above 65%, and he’s got a decent enough second delivery. And what of Karlovic and Isner? They don’t need as much pace on their first serves as everyone else because of their ridiculous height (Isner is 6’9” and Karlovic is 6’10”), and their first serve percentages can rival those of Roddick. But serving is about more than just pace or angles. The ability to produce your best serves when you most need them is the factor that really separates the good servers from the great ones. Federer scores highly here – I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s saved a breakpoint with an ace or an unreturnable. The one player who does well in ALL of the criteria I have mentioned, however, is the one player that we’ve been pining to see on the court for about 7 months now – Juan Martin del Potro. Before he was sent into tennis oblivion by a debilitating wrist injury that forced him to have surgery, he just about had it all on his serve – pace, bounce, consistency, variation, angle and most importantly, the ability to unleash his mightiest bombs when under pressure. Here’s hoping we get to see more of that devastating weapon soon.
Winner: Juan Martin del Potro
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Men – The Contenders: Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, Marin Cilic, Juan Martin del Potro, Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Sam Querrey, Taylor Dent, Mardy Fish, Kevin Anderson
As you’d expect, a player’s height plays a crucial role in the quality of his serve; in fact, so much so, that it almost seems unfair. Of the 12 contenders I listed above, only 3 (Federer, Fish and Roddick) are less than 6’3” tall. It’s all about the physics – the greater the height from which the ball comes crashing down off the racquet, the better chance it will have of clearing the net, consequently enhancing all the major factors that are responsible for the effectiveness of a serve. You get more pace, greater consistency, sharper angles and higher bounce – in short, everything that you need for a good first serve.
But before we hastily give the award to the tallest and strongest of these players, we should take note of another critical component of the serve – the second serve. There’s a saying in the tennis world that goes something like “You’re only as good a player as your second serve”. What do you do when your first strike fails you? Here, again, a good height does come in handy, but the advantage is not as pronounced. Andy Murray would have found his name up there in the contenders’ list if he didn’t have such a creampuff second serve. Rafael Nadal may not have the most lethal first serve (although his recent exploits at the US Open seem to indicate otherwise), but he is one of the best at outwitting his opponents with cleverly disguised and subtly varied second serves. Speaking of disguise and variation, few people in history have mastered either of those arts on the serve the way Roger Federer has. Any professional player will tell you that returning a 140 mph missile that you know is coming down the T is a lot easier than getting back a 125 mph serve that you have no idea is going in which direction.
Winner: Juan Martin del Potro
Courtesy: SportsKeeda
Golden oldies
Sometimes athletes just won't lie down, especially if you pay them enough to risk embarrassing themselves in public.
In Italy at the weekend, the fate-temptingly named Domingo Hospital, 52, led a field of creaking old golfers home in the Sicilian Seniors Open, which sounds like a day out for retired Mafia dons.
It was his first success in years and a spectacle that did little for the aesthetics of the game, although it enhanced the Spaniard's finances by €37,000 (about £32,800). Hospital won in a play-off after labouring to a 74 on the last leg, perhaps literally.
When Greg Rusedski, 37, beat Pete Sampras, 39, in China at the weekend, for just the second time in careers of contrasting achievement, he was entitled to feel pleased that he not only had more hair than Pete, but a bigger serve. A win is a win – even if in an over-30s ATP Champions Tour event in Chengdu.
There are scores of such harmless distractions in sport. They leave no scars on the participants, and hardcore fans who can see past the receding hairlines and expanding waistlines of their heroes probably even get a nostalgic kick out of it. More fool them.
Other sports present different conundrums.
Roy Jones Jr, 41, several years ago the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, is in town this week, calling out David Haye for a shot at his world heavyweight title. While he would bargain for a purse upward of £100,000 (or downward, for that matter), the consequences of such folly do not bear contemplating. After Haye gives him the brush-off, Jones will seek a payday with another washed-up pug, the 48-year-old Evander Holyfield, whose dreams of regaining the world title are also delusional and dangerous.
But there is one sporting comeback this week that is a bit different.
Maybe because he remains the only world No 1 never to win a match at Wimbledon (he went out in the first round in four attempts on the blessed grass), it is easy to forget what a terrific player Thomas Muster was on clay.
In the mid-90s, the Austrian left-hander was all but unbeatable on the red dirt of Europe. Only Bjorn Borg before him and Rafael Nadal since have been more dominant. Many good judges would put him alongside the Italian clay-courter of the late 50s and early 60s, Nicola Pietrangeli, who won the French title twice in four finals.
After breaking through at Roland Garros in 1995, it seemed certain Muster would rule Europe for as long as he stayed upright. That year he won on clay 40 times in a row, the best sequence since Borg's 46 between 1977 and 1979; Nadal later won 81 on the spin. For a couple of months in 1996, before Sampras began his irresistible rise, Muster was No1 in the world, the first Austrian to break into the top 10.
Muster's strengths were his fitness and passion. In one memorable Davis Cup marathon, he took more than five hours to see off the German Michael Stich. "Tennis is my life," he once said.
But Muster's career was almost over before it started. A couple of hours after beating Yannick Noah in the semi-final of a tournament in Key Biscayne, Miami, on April Fool's Day, 1989, Muster was unloading something from the boot of a parked car. An out-of-control driver rammed the car at the front, hospitalising Muster, a photographer and a tournament volunteer. The player's knees were wrecked.
Muster wouldn't quit, though. He had a special chair made to allow him to continue hitting practice, put his knees back into serviceable shape and, in 1990, was voted Comeback Player of the Year.
For five or six years Muster played the best tennis of his life, culminating in his one Grand Slam triumph and that No1 ranking. Then his reconstructed knees betrayed him. He traipsed from one defeat to the next and after going out in the first round at Roland Garros in 1999, he walked away from big-time tennis with more than US$12m and a mixture of good and bad memories.
That should have been the end of the Muster story. But the passion would not die. In Vienna later today, Muster, aged 43, launches his second comeback, when he plays a lucky loser Andreas Haider-Maurer, another Austrian.
He was to have played the No5 seed Ernests Gulbis: but, while he had little chance in that match he now could reach the second round and no doubt will have the crowd with him just one more time.
Courtesy: The Guardian
Monday, 25 October 2010
Americans being left behind
This year, American professional tennis players have put up a particularly dismal performance at every Grand Slam event. The furthest that any American male player has reached in any of the four majors of 2010 is the quarter final of the Australian Open, where Andy Roddick put in an appearance.
Even this performance cannot be commended as anything out of the extraordinary, since Roddick has won the US Open championship, made Wimbledon finals thrice and has reached the semis at the Australian Open twice before.
Other USA players, who made a relative impact this year, are Sam Querrey, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon and the US Open and John Isner, who set a new record with his victory against Nicolas Mahut in the longest match ever to be held at Wimbledon, but imploded at the next round.
This progress is notably poor, when compared to America’s performance in 1995, four US players fought their way to the Australian Open semi finals, none of these players played in the first round of the Davis Cup and the US team still entered the tournament as prime favourites.
So where did US tennis go? Why is the state of the sport Americans such as Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi ruled, so dismal?
One of the main reasons for this is that the rest of the World was, at some point, bound to catch up to the Americans. The current ATP Tour’s top five players are a testament to this, and to the fact that it is a recent development. For example, although tennis has always been a prominent sport in Spain, Rafael Nadal is the first player to win as many Grand Slams as he has – the number equals more than that of any other Spanish players, put together.
Similarly, Roger Federer of Switzerland and Serbian Novak Djokovic are the first men from their respective countries to win Grand Slams. Scottish Andy Murray, as yet Major-less, still seems to be Britain’s best shot at a Grand Slam. The competition has gotten stronger globally, and the Americans have been left behind.
Another reason for this lack of success is that American players have always faced trouble off hard courts. This is not just the lament of mediocre players, although it has been forgotten now, even Sampras and Agassi had trouble at Wimbledon when they set out. This is because on a hard court, despite the size of your serve, the crispness of your volley and your immaculate return, what matters most is your adaptability to the hard court. The only player, who has managed this with finesse and speed, is Andy Roddick, but he has had the bad luck of facing Federer at every final.
One last, crucial reason for America’s lack of success on the hard courts is that, US players are just not the most talented players on the ATP Tour. Although, players like Roddick and Isner have tried to make the best of their opportunities, for the most part, the current batch of players lack ability and swift movement or groundstrokes, which could match the ATP’s top five.
James Blake may have that potential, but his forehand is weak and inconsistent, and his injuries have left him handicapped and unable to achieve greatness.
This is the vast difference in today’s tennis players and those in the era of John McEnroe, Sampras and Agassi. America has never lacked talent before. Take Andy Roddick for example, in the past few years, he has done as much, if not more, as an ATP top five player to improve his game.
However, he will always lack Rafa or the Maestro’s ability to cover the court. And his backhand will never be as strong as theirs. This is the hardest problem to overcome, and if new players are not discovered soon, the closest American players can expect to get to success at the US Open is watching their opponents shatter records.
Courtesy: Bettor
Even this performance cannot be commended as anything out of the extraordinary, since Roddick has won the US Open championship, made Wimbledon finals thrice and has reached the semis at the Australian Open twice before.
Other USA players, who made a relative impact this year, are Sam Querrey, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon and the US Open and John Isner, who set a new record with his victory against Nicolas Mahut in the longest match ever to be held at Wimbledon, but imploded at the next round.
This progress is notably poor, when compared to America’s performance in 1995, four US players fought their way to the Australian Open semi finals, none of these players played in the first round of the Davis Cup and the US team still entered the tournament as prime favourites.
So where did US tennis go? Why is the state of the sport Americans such as Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi ruled, so dismal?
One of the main reasons for this is that the rest of the World was, at some point, bound to catch up to the Americans. The current ATP Tour’s top five players are a testament to this, and to the fact that it is a recent development. For example, although tennis has always been a prominent sport in Spain, Rafael Nadal is the first player to win as many Grand Slams as he has – the number equals more than that of any other Spanish players, put together.
Similarly, Roger Federer of Switzerland and Serbian Novak Djokovic are the first men from their respective countries to win Grand Slams. Scottish Andy Murray, as yet Major-less, still seems to be Britain’s best shot at a Grand Slam. The competition has gotten stronger globally, and the Americans have been left behind.
Another reason for this lack of success is that American players have always faced trouble off hard courts. This is not just the lament of mediocre players, although it has been forgotten now, even Sampras and Agassi had trouble at Wimbledon when they set out. This is because on a hard court, despite the size of your serve, the crispness of your volley and your immaculate return, what matters most is your adaptability to the hard court. The only player, who has managed this with finesse and speed, is Andy Roddick, but he has had the bad luck of facing Federer at every final.
One last, crucial reason for America’s lack of success on the hard courts is that, US players are just not the most talented players on the ATP Tour. Although, players like Roddick and Isner have tried to make the best of their opportunities, for the most part, the current batch of players lack ability and swift movement or groundstrokes, which could match the ATP’s top five.
James Blake may have that potential, but his forehand is weak and inconsistent, and his injuries have left him handicapped and unable to achieve greatness.
This is the vast difference in today’s tennis players and those in the era of John McEnroe, Sampras and Agassi. America has never lacked talent before. Take Andy Roddick for example, in the past few years, he has done as much, if not more, as an ATP top five player to improve his game.
However, he will always lack Rafa or the Maestro’s ability to cover the court. And his backhand will never be as strong as theirs. This is the hardest problem to overcome, and if new players are not discovered soon, the closest American players can expect to get to success at the US Open is watching their opponents shatter records.
Courtesy: Bettor
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