Plan B Forum

Although for chronological reasons that I have not fully investigated, the Aussie Open men’s tennis final was not “live” on my television on Sunday morning, as I expected it would be (a tape of the women’s final was playing), but I did spend a few hours Sunday afternoon watching a replay of the incredible match between Djokovich and Nadal. For better or worse, I had popped onto ESPN-dot-com and learned the outcome before the men’s replay came on. Nevertheless…

As a tennis player myself, the match was an incredible display of shot-making, defense, and psychological warfare - not to mention almost-superhuman consistency. From a competitive standpoint, it was an outstanding event, with “crucial” points and exchanges throughout. It was truly not possible to predict the result until five minutes before the marathon match ended. It could have gone either way. It was one of those matches where it’s a shame that one of them had to lose.

Truly, these are the two top players in the world right now, with Murray and Federer just a hair behind. We are watching the best current tennis in the world when we see these guys play in a Grand Slam final.

But I have my doubts about whether this is “great tennis.” Although at a much higher level, this is similar to the state of women’s tennis when Chris Evert was first dominating the pro ranks. She was a player with great, consistent ground strokes, but only a fair serve and a mediocre net game. She won by simply wearing her opponents out with unending powerful groundstrokes. It was incredibly boring to watch. It wasn’t until Martina came along to beat her with a “complete” game that women’s tennis came out of the doldrums.

Similarly, the top men today have such fantastic groundstrokes that they have collectively become reluctant to approach the net, for fear of being “passed.” In fact, Nadal typically plays from 6-8 feet behind the baseline, and won’t approach the net unless he is virtually forced to, or his opponent is so out of position that he must come up to avoid being caught by a drop shot. Djokovich is almost as reluctant to approach, but at least he recognizes the value of moving forward to take shots early to exploit the angles when he can.

It is axiomatic in tennis that the best way to win is to hit deep strokes to force your opponent back, then come in to the net where you can win the points with angled volleys or overhead smashes.

It may be that the advances in tennis racket design and materials, combined with the advancement of topspin techniques, have simply made “serve & volley” obsolete. The passing shots are just too good to risk. If so, that’s a pity. S&V is a much more exciting tactic than today’s battles of attrition. If the trend continues the top French Open matches will take days to complete on the red clay of Roland Garros.

But I do note that it was not so long ago that Roger Federer was playing a series of exhibition matches against an aged Pete Sampras, and Pete was able to hold his own against Roger while coming up to the net after his 135mph serve. And there is no reason to think that Rafa and the Joker are any better today than Roger was five years ago. So maybe it’s not impossible to come to the net; it just involves risks that the players are not willing to assume.

Is this great tennis? We won’t know until we see who knocks The Joker off his pedestal, and how he does it. I do suspect that if these long matches become a trend it will not be good for tennis overall. Few casual fans will be willing to sit for 4+ hours to see a complete match, even if it is a Grand Slam final.

Anyone for a thread on how irritating it is to listen to women’s tennis matches these days? The shrieking drives me nuts. I’ve taken to setting my TV for the closed captioning, so I don’t have to listen to it.

It was indeed on live on ESPN2, from about 3am, until the match ended around 930am. I watched it at home, at the gym, and then at home again LIVE on Sunday morning. So did my sister.

Rafa and Djokovitch certainly ran themselves to death with their baseline to baseline shots, and the match was impressive, but I prefer Roger's shotmaking ability and angles over their raw power. As for the net, I saw a handful of point won there. Both have incredible reflexes, so I think going to the net is less successful.

I turned on the Tennis Channel at around 0730 EST, and they were playing a tape of the women's final.

Ironically, if the match had been normal length it would have been over by 0730 EST anyway.

Both finals showed players with almost superhuman speed and quickness, not to mention strength. I just think S&V makes for more entertaining tennis - both as a player and as a spectator.

Terrific column on the match

Excerpt:

You have just played the match of your life, or one of them, one of the many matches of your life, in the Australian Open final, where you fought back from the brink of defeat against one of the most dominant athletes on Earth. You fought for almost six hours, clawing at chances, screaming at yourself and scowling, until your opponent, who never shows weakness, visibly started to weaken. While he gasped for air and crumpled to the ground after rallies, you somehow got stronger. (But then, that's what you always do: You get stronger.) The power of your ground strokes, as measured by their average speed, was higher in the sixth hour of tennis than in the first. You broke the unstoppable champion early in the fifth set. The crowd believed in you. You had control of the match. And then, in a way that managed to seem both impossible and unsurprising, the champion got a second wind, and you lost.

How must it feel to be Rafa Nadal today? The cruelest thing about this glutted golden age of men's tennis is that it keeps producing astonishing matches, matches that actually expand your idea of what sport can be, and someone has to lose all of them. We've seen Roger Federer, probably the most effortlessly brilliant tennis player who ever lived, shattered and weeping on the court after losses that seemed to groan up from the Old Testament.1 We've seen endless variations on "Andy Murray having his heart handed to him," to the point that his career increasingly seems to be in the hands of some demented opera composer. Murray's five-set loss to Djokovic in the semifinals last Friday was clearly both the best match and the most painful moment of this year's Australian Open — or it seemed that way, until we saw Nadal play a match for the ages and still lose to Djokovic on Sunday.

As for the ladies game, frankly, women's tennis bores me these days. I don't watch enough of it to be bothered by the screaming.

It seemed to me that this year's Australian was the best slam in years. Five of the last six matches were very entertaining. (And even the disappointing exception -- the women's final, perhaps the loudest tennis match ever televised -- was worth watching just to see Sharapova get bageled.)

It was also one of those occasions on which I was very glad to have been completely wrong. I expected the Djokovic-Murray match to be a rather dreary, one-sided affair, but it turned out to be spectacular.

All in all, a great way to spend four days ....