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.