The Old and The New: A Glimpse to The Future in Grand Slam Tennis

What a year of grand slam tennis 2014 has proved to be. 

It all started with Stanislas Warwinka’s win at the Australian Open against Rafael Nadal.  Now, some will argue that Nadal was injured but the fact remains that Nadal was being totally outplayed for a set and a half before injury set in.  The situation was similar to the 2006 Australian Open final between Amelie Mauresmo and Justine Henin when Mauresmo was outplaying Henin.  The difference here is that whereas Henin retired early in the 2nd set, Nadal decided to play through the pain and finish the match; even though he knew defeat was inevitable as long as Warwinka held his nerve.

What so impressed me about Warwinka’s victory was the tactical deployment of big 2nd serves, deep into the corners around 110mph.  This definitely caught Nadal by surprise and threw him off his game.  It also proved that it is still possible to play an aggressive game against one of the world’s best counterpunchers and win. 

We can say order was restored at grand slam level when Nadal faced Novak Djokovic in the final at Roland Garros.  Nadal rewrote the history books again by winning his ninth French Open and equalling Pete Sampras’ record of 14 major titles.  I never thought I would see the day where a player wins a major tournament nine times.  When Sampras won his seventh Wimbledon title in 2000 that sounded like crazy numbers but incredibly Nadal has gone two better at a major tournament with the opportunity to win a tenth in 2015.

For a while though as in previous years, it looked like Djokovic would finally get the better of Nadal after taking the first set with some good tennis.  But as happened before, Nadal wore down Djokovic to the point of near exhaustion; Djokovic couldn’t take any more grinding.  I believe this has been the case since Djokovic beat Nadal in the 2012 Australian Open final in a match that lasted five hours and fifty seven minutes.  The human body and mind can only take so much and in the really long matches, Djokovic is often coming up short.

However, in Wimbledon, Djokovic was able to rectify that by taking his 2nd Wimbledon title beating Roger Federer in a five set thriller.  Roger Federer played his ninth Wimbledon final which is an absolutely incredible record over an eleven year period, especially as last year he lost in the 2nd round as defending champion.

It was a strange final, in footballing terms Federer almost sneaked the match at the end of extra time when he should have been out of the match in normal time.  He took the first set on a tiebreak when Djokovic seemed the better player.  Djokovic then took the next two sets by upping his level and consistency.  Djokovic was then in control when he served for the match in the fourth set but let it slip and Federer played some great tennis to win four games in a row to take it to a fifth set. Then, just as you thought Federer finally grabbed the momentum he lost it late in the fifth set.

What really surprised me about this final was that both players were regularly serving 1st serves between 110mph and 119mph throughout the match, surprisingly relatively slow for top players in 2014.

The highlight of the grasscourt season for me was Grigor Dimitrov who won Queens and reached the semifinal of Wimbledon, beating defending champion Andy Murray in the quarterfinal in straight sets.  In the semi-final, Dimitrov could have taken Djokovic to a fifth set decider but faltered in the fourth set tiebreak.  Dimitrov’s big first serve where he can get up to 135mph, cat like movement around the court, volleying ability and willingness to hit down the lines and attack the net really reminds me of Sampras and I have no doubt that Dimitrov is a Wimbledon champion in the making; as long as he believes and things fall into place. 

And onto the US Open.  Well, what a tournament!  Nadal missed the event as defending champion but in the end his absence was not really felt.  The tournament really came to life in the semifinals, with two huge upsets in one day.  The first time that has happened in a major tournament for years, since Federer and Nadal lost the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2008 to Djokovic and Tsonga, but that was on different nights.

Kei Nishikori had no business beating Djokovic in four sets in the first semifinal after five set battles against Raonic in Rd 16 and Warwinka in the quarterfinals.  Djokovioc should have been the fresher but Nishikori grabbed all of his opportunities and deserved to win.  I also often feel that Djokovic plays too passive in big matches and is not prepared to grab the initiative.  Djokovic is rapidly becoming the modern equivalent of Ivan Lendl; he has the number 1 slot locked down and appears in many finals but has lost a number of them so far.  Lendl’s problem was that he was always vulnerable to attacking players whilst Djokovic’s problems is a lack of aggression as he faces similar counterpunchers to himself.

However, the real eye catching performance was the second semifinal where Marin Cilic literally “thrashed” Roger Federer in straight sets.  Federer described Cilic’s performance as “old school tennis”.  Cilic rewrote all of the conventions which you are supposed not to be able to do anymore.  Having Goran Ivanisevic in his corner has proved to be a masterstroke.

The final was equally one sided.  On paper it looked like a 50:50 match up, the first “pick em” since Pat Rafter faced Greg Rusesdki in the 1997 final.  Unfortunately, Nishikori finally ran out of gas, and Cilic played the big game with the type of sustained brilliance we don’t see often anymore; it reminded me of Richard Krajicek’s Wimbledon run in 1996 when a player of 6ft 5 was hitting his groundstrokes and moving around the court like a much shorter man, Cilic was in that kind of zone.  It is very rare for a player that tall to serve, return and volley as well as Cilic did during this year’s US Open.

Those familiar with my articles over the years will know that I have been observing that many players can serve fast today but technically do not serve as well as the previous generation of the 1990s.  Ivanisevic persuaded Cilic to remodel his serving technique and it worked.  On the ad court Cilic now stands much closer to the centre line and instead of hitting fast deliveries more or less into the returner’s strike zone, Cilic was swinging the serve away from the returner with slice at pace which is much nastier to deal with.  That adjustment of technique also opened up so many more possibilities on the 2nd serves; he could be more in control of his destiny.  Ivanisevic was a master of serving and it is interesting to think how many other players can benefit from this sort of advice.  And it is certainly a technique I have been advocating top players use for the last ten years.

The other huge improvement was Cilic’s movement.  On almost every occasion where Cilic hit a big inside out forehand he attacked the net and finished the point with a good volley off a floating reply.  One source of frustration for me in mens tennis has been watching guys hit three or four inside out forehands, eliciting weak replies and eventually losing the point because they wouldn’t attack the net.   I always considered this not very tactical and downright diabolical, whilst many hid behind the excuse of slower courts and polyester strings.  It could be also a fact that many players today are not able to volley to a reasonably technical level.  Cilic proved this strategy still works on hardcourts if implemented properly.

Cilic’s win was a very satisfying end to a great grand slam year.  The question is, what does this all mean for the 2015 season?  Well I wrote an article back in the spring called Warwinka’s example where I argued that Warwinka winning the Australian Open and Monte Carlo showed that the top guys can be beaten in the big matches.  Cilic and Nishikori recognised this and took advantage.  Unfortunately in the US Open quarterfinal, Gael Monfils had his opportunity against Roger Federer but did what we have seen so often in the last ten years, not grab his opportunity because he played too passive when it mattered.  The lesson from 2014 is that both Wawrinka and Cilic won their majors because they took the game too their opponents and were prepared to go in bold on their 2nd serves. 

The other equation is the stage is now set for both Raonic and Dimitrov to show they are capable of winning major tournaments.  However, at the same time it is looking increasingly the case that Tsonga, Berdych, Monfils and Ferrer may have missed the boat.  But lets’ not count these guys out yet.  With Murray out of the top 4 and Nadal coming back from injury again, the opportunity is there in 2015 to win majors for those skilful enough to grab it.

Here’s hoping for a great grand slam year in 2015!

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.

Short Points - Tennis' Guilty Pleasure?

Pat Rafter at Wimbledon

 I have been watching tennis for over 20 years and in that time the game has gone through tremendous changes.  Technological advances from racquets to strings, to the weight and size of tennis balls plus alterations of surfaces; it’s all happened since the mid 1990s. 

 

And now, whenever I watch archive footage on YouTube or DVDs of favourite matches, I feel like I am watching something I shouldn’t be watching and it’s an odd feeling, something that has been banished or outlawed and you shouldn’t go there.

That my friend is the short point.  It really shouldn’t be allowed, which seems to be an unwritten code in top flight tennis.  I for one absolutely love and have always loved short points.  Many of my favourite players over the years were masters of short points.  Some of my favourite matches since the early 1990s have been a study in the art of high quality short points.  Matches like the 2000 Wimbledon final between Pete Sampras and Pat Rafter, or the 2001 semifinal between Rafter and Andre Agassi, and the final between Goran Ivanisevic and Rafter.  The latter two matches were 3hrs 30 minutes in length, even though both were five setters which went deep. 

I love the dynamism of points where there is great athleticism; like a stretch stop volley, a 2nd serve ace in the corner, a great return winner or a combination of good return and passing shot.  How about a great serve and volley play, or serve, volley and smash off an attempted lob? Or a great service winner when break point down?

However, many of today’s top players do not see short points as part of their arsenal; in fact it is an exception than a rule; how often do you hear commentators call a serve volley play a surprise tactic employed once a set? Points today by and large are so long that players often need more than 25 seconds between points to recover from the previous one, towelling after virtually every point no matter the weather or conditions.  And this is the case regardless of surface.  In the past, depending on the surface a player would adapt their game accordingly, that is no longer the case.  The situation is really best summed up by Nadal’s comments during 2011 Wimbledon “Personally, to watch a Pete Sampras versus Goran Ivanisevic match, or one between those kind of players, is not enjoyable.  It's not really tennis, it is a few swings of the racquet. It was less eye-catching than what we do now. Everyone enjoys the tennis we play much more. I am not saying we are playing better tennis, just more enjoyable tennis. For me, in the past it was just serve, serve, serve."

For so long, I watched tennis and never gave it much thought.  When Krajicek played Rafter I expected a different type of match to when Agassi played Courier.  A match was a match and as long as there were two top players playing each other, there was always something to enjoy.  The only matches I didn’t really appreciate as much was Brugera v Berasategui on clay.  But what is interesting about Nadal;’s comments is that there seems a combination of thought police and conditioning of mind; there is only one way tennis should be played, which appears pretty arrogant.   Maybe that’s why I feel watching short points is somehow a guilty pleasure all of a sudden, even though for most of my life this is the kind of tennis I’ve enjoyed, along with watching master baseliners like Ivan Lendl and Gustavo Kuerten, especially when they had to find solutions against attacking players.  But now I am being told by the number 1 player that I shouldn’t appreciate that and must enjoy endless long rallies and five hour matches instead.

Of course, Nadal has been empowered to make remarks like this; the removal of carpet courts around the world, the change in composition of the grass at Wimbledon, the slowing down of hardcourts everywhere on tour and at grand slam level, this has helped to make it harder for the next generation to come through.  Interestingly, younger players such as Dimitrov and Raonic instinctively want to play shorter aggressive points all the time, that also applies to Juan Martin Del Potro who is getting sucked into longer rallies than he really wants which hasn’t helped his wrist issues.  Jo Wilfried Tsonga can also be included here as someone who wants to play shorter points instinctively. I think that is one area the authorities forgot about in their desire to slow down surfaces to negate big serving, that many baseliners over the years also favoured short points for a variety of reasons, whether that be Marat Safin, Jimmy Connors or Magnus Larsson.

Ironically, as I was preparing this article, I sat down to watch the Queens final between Dimitrov and Feliciano Lopez.  Lopez is a player I have seen many times at Wimbledon and Eastbourne, in fact I saw him lift the trophy there last year.  Lopez is a classic grass court player with a big serve, excellent volleys and a lovely slice backhand.  Lopez hails from Spain, which is interesting as Spain is not known for usually producing players like this.  Dimitrov and Lopez produced one of the best Queens finals ranking alongside Sampras v Henman in 1999 and Mahut v Roddick in 2007.  The match had all the elements; incredible serving, diving volleys, athleticism, a couple of points in the end decided the whole match of almost three hours.  Both players served around 20 aces each and in the 3rd set tiebreak there were no rallies for the first 12 points due to the quality of serving from each man.  Despite that the crowd at Queens and the many thousands watching on television were completely enthralled by the contest.  Perhaps Nadal knows better here and will tell everyone watching that wasn’t proper tennis….

What would really give the game a shake up is players who want to play shorter aggressive points getting to the Wimbledon final this year.  Last year was a wonderfully historic occasion but three sets of tennis between Murray and Djokovic took almost four hours.  Match ups are important and a final between Dimitrov and Murray would do nicely; or Raonic v Djokovic.  How about Dimitrov v Raonic with the new generation facing off?  Fantasy matchups right now as the counterpunchers who are equipped to wear out their opponents have a grip on the game.

Anyway, I will continue to watch those YouTube clips and archive DVDs and re-acquaint myself with a brand of tennis which apparently has no place at the top level in today’s game but is damned good to watch.