Are Tennis Players too Precious?

Last Sunday I watched the Rogers cup final between Agnieszka Radwanska and Venus Williams.  Radwanska won the match in straight sets to claim her first title in Canada. However, it was the conversation between commentators Sam Smith and Anne Keothavong which got me thinking.

Venus went for a bathroom break so to pass the time Sam and Anne had a “natter” as Sam put it.  The conversation focused on Radwanska and her skill on court.  Keothavong said that although Radwanska had grown up on clay, 10 of her 13 titles had come on hardcourt (11 by the end of the match) Keovathong thought that on clay Radwanska would be a “nightmare” to play against.  Sam Smith concurred by saying Radwanska won the junior French Open and destroyed the field but so far on the WTA didn’t have the power to contend with the other top players.  Sam Smith mentioned the quicker courts in Madrid and Rome didn’t suit her but went on to say that the court in Canada suited her because it wasn’t too high bouncing so the ball didn’t get above her shoulder.  Sam Smith then went on to utter a profound statement “You know how precious tennis players are, they don’t like courts too fast, they don’t like courts too slow, they don’t like courts too bouncy!”

Are tennis players too precious?  And also are tennis fans too precious?  Part of the deal is that professional tennis is played on different surfaces.  Want to play professional football?  Only a grass pitch will do and the occasional synthetic pitch may slip through the net. Golf, Cricket, Rugby?  Only grass thank you.  Basketball?   Indoors.  Badmington? The same.  But Tennis?  Well we have grass, red clay, green clay, and hardcourts of all different speeds and persuasions indoors and out.  Plus we used to have indoor carpet and rebound ace thrown in for good measure. 

Therefore, from week to week, a player could play from one surface to another, with tennis balls which depending on the manufacturer play totally differently to the previous week.  Perhaps this may help to explain the “preciousness” of tennis players who have to re-adjust to different court surfaces on such a regular basis.  This has also created the surface specialists over the years as we know; players who feel comfortable on a certain surface and play as much as they can on it to pick up their points and prizes. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, there are constant questions by the media to the players about surface speed, especially before a major like the US Open coming up at the end of August, it’s a perennial argument which happens every year.  Some players like Nadal will object when he feels a surface is too quick for his liking.  Then Federer will argue that there needs to be more quick surfaces on the tour and surfaces are uniformly too slow and high bouncing.

Just look at forums, surface speeds are discussed ad nauseam on a daily basis.  The debate surrounding the greatest players is often scuppered by surface issues; either a player didn’t cope with the slower clay or the faster grass, or current grass is too slow aiding certain styles of play - it’s quite crazy. I myself are guilty, my blog has quite a few articles about surface speed! And why that might be good or bad for tennis.

So perhaps Sam Smith has a valid point, tennis players may feel that everything is often not in their favour to produce their best consistently and subsequently get “precious” about it all.   Or the tennis community (the players and the fans) should think of the diversity all of these differing conditions bring to the game and see it as a positive.  After all which other sport has a major tournament on clay then grass in the space of one month?  So to end with Sam Smith’s profound thoughts, let’s not try to get too precious from now on.

Flashback to 1993 Wimbledon Quarterfinal

Recently I watched a rerun of the 1993 Wimbledon quarterfinal on DVD between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.  After the great matches at Wimbledon this year including the semifinal between Dimitrov and Djokovic and the final between Djokovic and Federer, I was inspired to watch this match.  For some reason this is an often overlooked match in their rivalry, one of two which went to five sets at grand slam level.

I was intrigued because even though this is a totally different era, we had the match up of the talented shotmaker against the talented baseliner, much in the way of this year’s Wimbledon semifinal and final.  The dynamics going into this match were also interesting for a number of reasons.  Sampras was ranked number 1 for the first time in his career two months earlier in April of 1993.  That proved to be controversial because the argument was how can a player who hasn’t won a major for almost three years be ranked number 1 in the world?  Agassi went into this match as defending Wimbledon champion, an unlikely scenario as in 1992 he beat Becker, McEnroe and Ivanisevic to take the title.  Everyone expected Agassi to win either the US Open or French Open first.  Agassi also went into this match with a 4 to 3 lead in their rivalry, having won two matches on red clay and one on green clay.  Their head to head at the majors was 1:1.  Sampras beat Agassi comprehensively in the 1990 US Open final and Agassi returned the favour in the 1992 French Open quarterfinal.

Both players also went into this match with injury issues.  Sampras had an inflamed shoulder which forced him to slow his serve to around 110mph where he was known for hitting 1st serves between 120 and 132 mph (190kph to 215kph).  Agassi meanwhile had a problem with his right wrist which required surgery and time out of the game; forcing Agassi to use the abbreviated service motion.  This was the first time I saw someone use it and it was a service action I wouldn’t forget!  I don’t know if Agassi was the first but since then many players have used this action including the likes of Juan Ignacio Chela and Anabel Medina Garrigues, although I have no idea if they had an injury or if they just liked the motion.

Another interesting side note is that Agassi started the match serving first; this was also the case in the 1990 US Open final and 1994 Miami final.  This is pre Brad Gilbert and under Brad Gilbert from mid 1994 onwards, the tactic appeared that Agassi should always receive even if he won the toss, hoping for an early break. 

The commentators John Barrett and the late Bill Threllfall noted that Agassi started slowly in his matches during the tournament, but his timing would improve as matches went on making him dangerous.  Bill Threllfall also opined that he didn’t consider Sampras a “pure serve volleyer” because he liked to stay back and had very good groundstrokes.  Unlike on hardcourts, Sampras would serve volley on both serves throughout this match. 

Both players held their first game with Sampras, even though serving at reduced pace was still hitting the corners out of Agassi’s reach.  Agassi appeared distinctly nervous and was broken early in the match.  In fact, Sampras would have it easy in the first set, taking it 6:2 after 30 minutes of play.  The Sampras tactic was very interesting; on return of serve he was virtually blocking back every ball especially on the forehand side and used the slice wherever possible, keeping the ball low and making Agassi hit up.  Perfect grass court tactics against Agassi.  Threllfall likened this tactic to Arthur Ashe and his victory over Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final, where Ashe curbed his big shots to tie Connors up in knots, often giving Connors no pace to work with, which baseliners love.  Both Barrett and Threllfall suggested coach Tim Gullickson hatched this plan for Agassi.

The 2nd set went exactly the same way with Sampras dominating all of the important points and playing very smoothly.  Agassi had no play on his serve and from the back Sampras was troubling Agassi with his big cross court forehand, which helped engineer two breaks in the 2nd set, which also ended 6:2 after 30 minutes play, almost identical to the 1st set.

Agassi knew he needed to do something quickly to get the very young crowd on his side.  Well whatever happened, Agassi got the early break in the 3rd set, a combination of Agassi going after the returns even more and Sampras relaxing after taking the first two sets with consummate ease, something that happens so often in tennis matches.  Agassi was able to see out the 3rd set with some improved play from the baseline, in fact Agassi was trying to get to net wherever possible, no doubt recognising that he had to take the net away from Sampras whenever possible.  The 3rd set ended 6:3 in Agassi’s favour.  The start of the 4th went the way of the third with Agassi getting another early break, by this stage Sampras was looking much more uncomfortable and constantly feeling his shoulder, no doubt the scoreboard pressure reminding Sampras he had an inflamed shoulder.

By this stage, the tennis had really started to go up a notch with both players playing better at the same time.  In the first two sets, Sampras was dominating with his serve and taking all of the important baseline rallies.  By the 4th set that was starting to change with Agassi scoring with quite a few returns and passing shots.  Agassi with the help of the crowd was able to maintain the momentum and broke again when Sampras served to stay in the set, Agassi taking it 6:3 with a fantastic return and backhand crosscourt passing shot. 

Now, with Agassi serving first in the final set, with the huge crowd behind him and as defending champion, you would have thought he was ready to run through the final set, but clearly young Sampras was made of stern stuff and was not be denied without a big fight.  Actually, Sampras did have quite a bit of crowd support too, but as so often happened during Agassi’s career, his supporters were much more vocal.  Rather amusingly, there was one woman the cameras kept focusing on who didn’t know who to support, she was just loving the battle!  During the fifth set, Sampras also called for the trainer to treat his shoulder.

The fifth set had some of the best tennis these two played against each other, there was some absolutely incredible rallies, including one 20 shot rally which ended with Agassi coming in and Sampras hitting an amazing topspin lob.  The feel off the strings was so smooth you didn’t actually hear the ball come off his racquet as you usually would.  Another rally finished with a Sampras wrong footing underspin drive volley with Agassi moving in the other direction, Sampras looked at Agassi and smiled.  Sampras took the first break at 2:1, Agassi immediately broke back for 2:2 but Sampras broke again for a 3:2 lead in the final set.  After Agassi saved two match point at 5:3, Bill Threllfall said that he felt Agassi could break back in the next service game. Well, three aces in a row and the game was up for Agassi, Sampras serving out the match to love with a service winner on match point.

The historical importance of this match is pretty big.  Sampras took the confidence from this victory to defeat Boris Becker in straight sets in the semifinal and take his first title by beating Jim Courier in the final.  It also shows what high quality the latter stages of Wimbledon had in 1993 with so many former winners in the quarterfinals onwards.  At that stage, Sampras would have been a good outside bet with the bookmakers but not favourite.  I don’t think anyone would have predicted complete Sampras domination for the rest of the decade after his victory against Agassi and then taking the title two matches later.

This match was also a good barometer of the variety Sampras had in his game.  And one of the legacies of the 1990s is the fact that Sampras suffered for not playing Agassi in more Wimbledon matches.  They could have met in the final in 1992, 1995 and 2000 but only met in the final in 1999 with Sampras losing in 1992 to Ivanisevic in the semi, Agassi losing in the semifinals in 1995 to Becker and 2000 to Rafter.  I think had Sampras and Agassi met more often at Wimbledon as they did in the US Open, it would have been amazing for tennis.