Tennis

Slaythe_sl said:

I know this is a topic that gets beat into the ground, and you tennis die hards may be tired of it (if so just say so), but I'm curious what the people here think about racquet tech and it's impact on the game the past decade or so. I can't be the only guy that misses grind em out baseline players.

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Yeah, it's sort of interesting to imagine what someone like Sampras could have done with current racquets.

Slaythe_sl said:

I know this is a topic that gets beat into the ground, and you tennis die hards may be tired of it (if so just say so), but I'm curious what the people here think about racquet tech and it's impact on the game the past decade or so. I can't be the only guy that misses grind em out baseline players.

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What's your take on SABR? McEnroe was complaining earlier in the week that it was disrespectful. I find all the complaining hilarious and find the acronym is even more hilarious.

I've been watching/playing tennis on and off for a very long time. I always wondered when the players get the balls, they generally look at them and throw some back to the ball boys. What are they actually looking for?

I talked to a few ppl that also follow tennis, and some of the responses I got that its just part of their mental preparation for the next point and has nothing to do with the actual balls. I feel its not that simple. Are they maybe looking at the amount of fuzz on the ball or something like that?

Yeah, they are looking for the "freshest" ball to help the serve. Depending on the conditions of play, the balls can get fluffy rather fast. In damp conditions, they also absorb moisture, even more so when they end up rolling on the wet covers that are folded at the back of the court or land in the plants that surround some center courts, etc. In dry conditions, it has more to do with how coarse the surface is and if the ball got through a couple 40 shots rallies instead of a couple service winners... It would be interesting to try and make some statistics about it, but players often feel it is harder and harder to hold serve the longer a set of balls has been in play, so in interviews you see them mention how they were glad they managed to hold in the last game before the new balls or how they made a specific effort to try and take advantage of their opponent having to serve with old balls.

Though it really can't happen on the ATP tour, I hear some tricky players used to keep a fresh ball in their pocket so that several games later they could suddenly serve with an unexpectedly lively ball!

But checking the balls is also part of a routine. You have people like Wawrinka who checks the whole set of 6 (8?) balls every time, you have people like Gasquet who asks for the same ball if he played a good point, but you also have people like former player Davenport who asked for one ball and used that one. She probably decided that the benefit from picking the best ball was not worth the time it took and the distraction it caused.

What I always wondered and do not know, is if it could be beneficial to use a less lively ball for sliced serves. For a flat serve you want the fastest ball, for a kicked serve you want the one that will bounce the higher, but for a sliced serve you really want the one that will have the most curved flight, that will take the most effect and I am not sure how that works.



About the evolution of rackets and the impact it had on the game... it's a rather complex topic really. The materials of the rackets evolved (wood, aluminium, graphite, allowing greater and greater string tension), their shape evolved (greater head, greater sweet spot, more aerodynamic profiles), but the strings evolved also, like the infamous and promptly banned spaghetti strings and several generations of synthetic strings that "grip" the ball better and better.

[Side note: I hear in several federations, juniors are forbidden to use all synthetic strings and instead use half synthetic, half natural gut (like many pro do, including Federer), because the rigidity of the synthetic strings is traumatic for the joints, while the more elastic gut is much more comfortable.]

Obviously, this evolution allows for greater and greater control while maintaining power (my understanding is that a massive wooden racket with pure natural gut strings at a low tension is still the most powerful thing in tennis, providing you hit the small sweet spot and don't really care where the ball is going!). But as the rackets evolved, so did the players, getting more and more athletic, with guys like Borgs, ready to run down every ball for ever (which he did with a wooden racket) or Lendl, credited for being the first true modern professional in tennis as he was the first to do things like work on his diet with a dietitian, etc. Note that as players are getting more and more athletic, they also get taller and taller, because we know now how to turn a 6'5" guys into someone who can run fast and be stable on low balls (see Berdych's quads for reference!). But as the rackets and the athleticism of the players evolved, so did the surfaces. The grass of Wimbledon was heavily tinkered with to be slower and, to my knowledge, not a single event on tour is still played on cement or carpet. And the balls also evolved but that really is mess (I once tried to figure out which tournament used which ball, as players are always complaining about them, and I gave up pretty fast). Most notably, the balls used at Wimbledon used to be slightly smaller and I think it is no longer the case (they also used to be white, but now all balls are fluorescent yellow for increased visibility - during play and on TV).

So really, it feels to me the racket is only one of the many components at play. As they evolve for more spin / more control / more controlled power, they make it easier to hit passing shots, to stay in rallies while under pressure and to hit big ground strokes to safe targets. They also help with the serve (and Federer said as much when he went for his new racket with a bigger head / bigger sweet spot), but probably not as much as the increased athleticism of taller players. Afraid of Ivanisevic and his ilk, all surfaces got slower to reduce the dominance of the big servers, but as a result, there are only three guys left in the Top 100 that are pure serve & volley attackers...

Personally, I am rooting for a greater diversity in the speed of surfaces, because a really fun part of tennis is seeing many players with different play styles and see how those match up in different conditions. If all tournaments are played on slow courts, that will hurt the range of viable play styles.

It's the Masters' Cup this week, aka The World Tour Finals.

You know the drill: two pools of 4, best 2 go to knock out phase with the first of a pool playing the 2nd of the other.

POOL A:

DJOKOVIC: Did not lose a match since the US Open. Hardly lost a set.

FEDERER: Suffered a surprising early exit in Shangai against unheralded spaniard Ramos-Vinolas and lost two tie breaks against Isner in Paris. Between the two he won his home event in Basel, including a three sets victory against Nadal in the final.

BERDYCH: Won a minor tournament, took a beating against Murray in Shanghai, but only lost in two tie break sets to Djokovic in Paris. He ends on a pretty high note, but he also had some bad losses in a couple minor events.

NISHIKORI: After his frst round exit at the US Open against Paire he also lost to the frenchman at home, lost two breakers against Anderson in Shanghai and had to retire against Gasquet in Paris.

Obviously, Djokovic and Federer are the big favorites here, but strange things can happen with a round robin format. Maybe not this time though, as earlier today Djokovic outclassed Nishikori 6-1 6-1 and Federer played well enough to dominate a slightly off color Berdych 6-4 6-2.


POOL B:

MURRAY: Played well, qualified the UK for the Davis cup final and went deep into Shanghai and Paris (semi and final), but both times got curbstomped by Djokovic.

WAWRINKA: Won Tokyo, played a terrible match against Nadal in Shanghai and managed to push Djokovic to a third set in Paris.

NADAL: Pretty decent indoor run for Nadal; no title, but some good wins. He lost to Federer and only scored 4 games against Djokovic though (the other losses being against Wawrinka and Tsonga).

FERRER: The man who reached the title in 2008 bagged another minor titles, but lost in straight forward matches against Djokovic and Murray as well as against Tomic.

Murray should get through, if the impeding Davis Cup final does not mess with his will and focus. Difficult to foresee who the other guy will be though. Nadal is probably the favorite.

Day 2 was a bit lame. Murray and Ferrer played a relatively close match, but the spaniard, who struggled with double faults though the whole thing, blinked at the end of both sets. The Wawrinka vs Murray match started very strangely by two breaks to love before turning into a pretty good battle. Very up and down, the swiss gave Nadal a break of serve with his erratic play and quickly tapped out in the second set. Not very respectful for the fans who buy a pretty expensive ticket to see a double match followed by a single match. In fact, he could even get fined for lack of effort...

Day 3 should be better with a Berdych vs Nishikori followed by Djokovic vs Federer.

The Berdych - Nishikori was a stange affair, with both player rarely playing well at the same time. They both played a little better than in their first match though. I did not get to see the third set where apparently Nishikori found a "get out of jail free" card on break point at 3-3 and then rushed to the finish line.

In the Djokovic - Federer match, the swiss started a tad nervously but then was imperial on serve. Not that he was hitting the ball particularly hard, but he mixed directions, speeds and effects so well that Djokovic was not able to find the quality and regularity in his returns. Unable to make any inroad on the Federer's serve, the pressure increased and increased on Djokovic until he finally cracked against a Federer ready to pounce on anything short and who produced on set point the most outrageous of half volley winner. The swiss sprinted to a 2-0 lead in the 2nd against a dejected and eratic Djokovic, but then reopened the door thanks to a cluster of forehand errors. It had "momentum switch" written all over it, but in then end it was just a slight bump in the road as Federer confortably won the last 4 games of the match against a slightly off color Djokovic.

Tactically, other than the serve, Federer protected his backhand well, there where some slices, but not that many, he also did not go down the line that much. More often than not he went for top spin, looking for angles, hitting hard in the middle or going for great depth with a lot of volume to push back Djokovic behind his base line. When possible, he tried to pick on Djokovic's forehand, which is his less solid wing and, as always, attack, attack, attack. He did not recklessly rush to the net though, understanding very well how dangerous the serb still is at the end of his range.


With these results:

- Federer is sure to be through to the semi finals and is almost certain to be top of the group (he would need to lose in straight sets to Nishikori to possibly end second - if Djokovic win in straights against Berdych).

- Djokovic is almost sure to go through if he wins against Berdych. It would require him to drop a set against Berdych and Nishikori to beat Federer in straights, both with a very strange score line, for the World N?1 to be kicked out. If he loses in straight sets though, he is out no matter what. If he loses 2 sets to 1? He better hope Federer plays before or is very fair play, because the swiss could lose on purpose to kick Djokovic out.

- Berdych would have been out would Djokovic have won this evening. Now he still has as shot: he must beat Djokovic in straight sets and hope Federer will win again.

- Nishikori needs to win and then root for Berdych. In case Djokovic beats Berdych, Nishikori must win in straight sets, convincingly and Berdych must have greabbed a set from the World N?1.

Needless to say, the likeliest scenario is both Federer and Djokovic winning.

Day 4!

Pretty balanced match between Nadal and Murray with, as expected, a number of rallies and ridiculous time between points. It took them an hour to complete a set than Nadal won and in the second Murray really seemed like he ran out of gas while Nadal grew in confidence. The theory is that Murray did not rest much in the day between his two matches as a way to prepare for the Davis Cup final where it is likely he will play three days in a row (and best of 5 on clay).


In a Wawrinka Ferrer match, it's pretty obvious that the outcome is in Wawrinka's racket. Too many mistakes: you lose. A clean enough match: you win. In the first half of the first set, it looked that we would get the first scenario, but then the swiss settled in the match, missed less and less and hit harder and harder. Ferrer fought as best as he could, but... yeah. It's like trying to stop an avalanche when Stan does not miss.


These results make for a much simpler situation than in the other group:

Murray needs to win to go through. If he wins in straight sets with a very favorable scoreline and Nadal loses in straight sets to Ferrer in a very defavorable score line, he can top the group (very unlikely).

Wawrinka needs to win to go through. If he wins in straight sets with a very favorable scoreline and Nadal loses in straight sets to Ferrer in a very defavorable score line, he can top the group (very unlikely).

Nadal is through. If he wins or even if he bags just the one set against Ferrer he is certain to top the group. Only a heavy loss in conjunction with a very one sided match between Wawrinka and Murray could make him second (very unlikely).

Ferrer is out.


We are still waiting for a very good, highly competitive full match. Still 7 matches to be played though.

Day 5:

Federer did not serve particularly well today and, as a result, found himself in a number of rallies against a very much eager Nishikori. The swiss found a way to bag the first set 7-5, cementing him at the top of the group and looked at first like he would run away with the second, but Nishikori forced a momentum swing and forced a very hard fought decider. The match was a bit topsy turvy, but there was a number of great points in there with a very nice array of different shots. Federer won the third set and the match, putting the kibosh on Nishikori's slim hope of going through. A bit of a mixed bag for Federer. On one hand, he did not play as well as he would have wanted and played for more than 2 hours, with a number of hard faught rallies, on the other, he competed very well and did find a way to win in the end, which can't hurt confidence.


Berdych had to win in straight sets to go through and eliminate Djokovic. With a poor start that saw him trailing 0-2, thanks to an ineffective serve and some unforced errors, it felt like Berdych would not event come close to achieving his objective, but he suddenly started to play much better, serve much better and on top of his usual array of heavy groundies he even went to the net in opportune moments and will real purpose which, combined with his good technique, yielded decent results. That allowed him to break back and turn the first set into a pretty competitive affair. A business like Djokovic, covering his ground as well as we know he can, played his part as the human wall, even dealing with the vicious forehand cross court fired by his opponent. This solidity earned him another break and the set, synonymous with qualification as 2nd of the group. While the outcome was settled with still one or two sets to play, both players, credit to them, gave it their all in what was probably the best set of tennis in this Master's Cup so far. Very high intensity play, fast paced rallies and some inspired shots by both (Berdych notably picked an insane low volley that died on the net cord for a winner, he almost did it a second time, but Djokovic, obviously the body double for The Flash, managed to reach the ball and almost put it back in play!).


Last day of the group phase tomorrow.

It should be noted that the site of the atp already shows the scheduled time of a Djokovic vs Nadal semi-final, even if it is my understanding that Nadal could end up 2nd of his group. I am investigating to see if I misunderstood something...

The ranking mystery is solved: The criteria go like this 1) Nb of matches won 2) Nb of matches played (2-1 beats 2-0 - take that alternates!) 3) Direct confrontation if 2 players are tied and it applies.

So, even if Nadal loses today he will be at 2-1 as the will the winner of the Murray vs Wawrinka match, but since Nadal beat both, he will be top of the group, no matter what. So year, the match currently being played between Nadal and Ferrer is only for ranking points and money.

Day 6

With Nadal certain to be top of his group and Ferrer certain to be out no matter what the result, the Nadal vs Ferrer match was "only" about 200 ranking points, a big stack of cash and pride. Also about professionalism and putting a good show for the crowd at the O2 arena. The crowd definitely got their money worth as the two spaniard engaged in an all out war, packed with twists and turns. Ferrer was a break down twice in the first set and managed to rope Nadal in with some nasty inside out forehands to force a breaker that he won. Nadal could have gone through the motion and lose in straight sets to save energy for his match against Djokovic, but Nadal was not in this mind set at all, for him who struggled with confidence through the year, fighting and winning is paramount. As for Ferrer, all he does is fight every time he steps on a tennis court. So they fought, grueling rally after grueling rally, running and running, considering no ball a lost cause, grunting with each shot, huffing and puffing after each point. This culminated in a 14 minutes long first game of the third set in which Ferrer hold serve with the skin of his teeth, but it was all for naught as Nadal prevailed in the end, mainly because of his ability to win the rallies with venomous down the lines shots if Ferrer's cross court defenses were even slightly short.

The match for the 2nd qualifying spot between Murray and Wawrinka I saw very little of. The swiss prevailed in a first set breaker where he trailed 2-4, opened his shoulder and bombarded a slightly passive Murray to get a two breaks lead in the 2 set. It should have been a done deal, but a mix of rear guard action by Murray and Wawrinka getting a little tense resulted in Murray grabbing one of the breaks back and getting dangerously close to grab the second back as well. It would have turned the match into a very serious nail-biter if he did, but he did not and Wawrinka won in straight sets.


So we have our semi finals:

Djokovic vs Nadal

The first thought is that Djokovic should walk all over the spaniard like he did throughout the year, but the World N?1 had not the most convincing of group phase. He impressed against Nishikori (though the japanese made him shine), he faded surprisingly quickly against Federer and was far from his best against Berdych. On the other side of the net, even if he won his three matches, Nadal benefited from an extremely poor Wawrinka, a Murray who ran out of steam after 8 games (probably because of his Davis Cup final preparation) and then had to dig very deep (and find some top notch tennis in the process) to beat Ferrer that the other two discarded with ease... It's very difficult to know how this will turn out.


Federer vs Wawrinka

A rematch of last year's semi. A match that Federer won and that he had absolutely no business winning. Wawrinka choked hard in it and Federer wrecked his back fighting, forcing him to retire before the final. The match was also spiced by some back and forth between Federer's wife and Wawrinka, all of this with both players about to compete side by side in the Davis Cup final... I expect significantly less drama this time around, but it is still a very difficult match to call. The surprisingly slow court surface allows Wawrinka to use his huge ground strokes and we know that he is a nightmare to play against when he get those going, even for Federer. The coarse surface though responds very well to spin, making the Federer serves, slices and volleys that much more difficult to deal with. The only thing we can be sure of is that a swiss will be in the final!


I must say that a Federer vs Djokovic final would be nice, as the one last year could not be played, but a Wawrinka vs Nadal match could also be funny, especially if Wawrinka wins it as it would undoubtedly earns him the Cockblocker of the Year award after also denying Djokovic a French Open crown!

So, Nadal got demolished by Djokovic. The spaniard spent the whole match on his heels, hardly ever able to deal with Djokovic's length of shots and totally unable to read where he would hit next. Since the World N?1 played a very clean match, had a very clear game plan in mind (open Nadal's forehand side, attack the forehand, take the short cross ball early for a winner down the line) and executed it flawlessly, at no point it felt like Nadal had a shot. In fact he did not even get a single break points while he dropped serve three times for a 6-3 6-3 1h19m execution.

Federer's dominance over Wawrinka was only slightly less one-sided. The veteran turned almost every point into short ones, preventing Wawrinka to find his rhythm from the back of the court. This also had the side effect to turn the match into a strange battle where both players made a number of mistakes. At this game, Federer buried his compatriot and won in straight sets.


So, as expected, we get a Djokovic vs Federer final. Those two are now guaranteed to represent a total of 11 world tour final titles, as, other than them, only Davydenko and Nalbandian managed to bag one in the last 13 years! If both played like they did in their semi, Federer will be trouble, but different match-ups lead to different matches and while Djokovic is certainly the favorite, Federer did beat him convincingly just a few days ago and that can't hurt confidence. Let's hope for a good match in an event that saw a serious lack of them.

Well... the final ended up being a tad underwhelming. There were some great points here and there, but ultimately it boiled down to Federer not serving nor playing as well as he did in the group phase and, for my money, not playing with the best of game plan. Obviously, he wanted to avoid the backhand to backhand diagonal, but to escape it, he often picked the wrong ball to go down the line and almost never did so with a slice. Worse, when he had neutral balls to play, he too often went to the Djokovic backhand, allowing the serb to enter his strong diagonal. I understand that to expose the relative weakness of the Djokovic forehand, you need to move him to his left first, but a standard rally shot won't do, because Djokovic, when not under enough pressure, will always find the Federer backhand with his rock solid two-hander. The most annoying part, is that it's not like Djokovic produced some killer shot cross court or some surprising down the line shot with his backhand, Federer seemed so worried that those might happen that he made errors all by himself trying to flee from a diagonal where, at the end of the day, there was not that much danger.

Anyway, the fact I am dissecting the tactics of the rallies also underlines another problem: there were too much of them, which means the serve was a bit shit. Federer hit extremely few aces, had not a great percentage and for some reason known only to him, the variations of the group phase match vanished, most notably the wide kick serve as a first serve that did so much damage.

With sub-par serving and dubious rallying, it was obvious that Federer would be susceptible to clusters of errors or just the right mix of errors, bad luck and Djokovic producing some great shots. It happened three times in two sets. It could have been manageable with good returns, but Federer returned poorly, especially the second serves of Djokovic (possibly because when doing not enough he lost most the rallies and when trying to be aggressive he missed - the fact that he did not see that many second serve to begin with also did not help), so he just had some early opportunities in the first set (that missed a bit tamely) and that was it.

A 'meh' final for a really 'meh' Masters' Cup. Djokovic will not care as his good serving and solid ground play allowed him to be the first to win 4 Year End Championships in a row. The cherry on top of one of the most if not the most dominant year in tennis history with 3 Grand Slams titles ( and a final), a Masters' Cup and a record breaking 6 Master 1000 (and 2 finals!). In fact, out of the 16 events he entered this year, he won 11 and reached the final 15 times! His one early loss coming in his first tournament of the year to the hand of a very much inspired Karlovic (The other 5 losses being against Wawrinka; once, Murray; once and Federer; three times - two finals + Masters' Cup group phase).


The tennis season is not over just yet and there is still the Davis Cup Final! Even if it's a little difficult to get excited about it, considering it's a one guy team (Great Britain with Murray) against a no guy team (Belgium). That is... if they can play it, because as I write these lines, many public gatherings have been canceled in Belgium for fear of potential terrorist attacks.

Szilia, confirm/deny, Novak Djokovic is the greatest tennis player in the history of the sport? If not, where would you rank him?

Djokovic just had one of the best years ever, arguably the best: he won 10 of the 14 biggest titles of the year and made the final in 3 others, but you can argue that the Grand Slam years of Laver are better or that Federer's ridiculous 92 wins for 5 losses in 2006 is superior.

Now, is Djokovic the greatest tennis player ever? Well, if you look at his trophies, he obviously is not. If he manages to keep his current dominance going for two or three years though, he has a shot at climbing to the top of the pile on that metric.

Now, if you look at it from a tennis perspective, Djokovic is certainly one of the best returner the game has ever seen (some say second only to Agassi), also one of the fiercest competitor and one of the best athlete. His athleticism, in speed, core strength, flexibility, balance and coordination, allows him to have some of the best end of range shot production ever. The main problem for me is one of aesthetic. Djokovic's toolset makes him one of the best ever at not losing matches. As far as I am concerned, that negative approach prevents him to be a great tennis player. A great tennis player must be one of the best at winning matches, the greatest being the one that wins by producing the most tennis.

That may be unfair, but, for me, unless Djokovic finds a way to collect another 8 Grand Slam titles, he will be shelved in tennis history next to the likes of Lendl or Borg: players who won a lot, set records even, but whose game never put them in the GOAT discussion.

Davis Cup: Great Britain beat Belgium in the final in one of the most strange draw since the victory of Croatia over Slovakia in 2005.

That said, in 2005, Slovakia (Hrbaty, Kucera, Mertinak) had to pull two major upsets against the Spain of Lopez and Verdasco and the Argentina of Coria and Nalbandian to reach the final, while Croatia (Ljubicic, Ancic) beat a US team with Agassi, Roddick and the Bryan brothers as well as Russia with Davydenko and Youzhny.

In 2015, Belgium reached the final beating Switzerland without Federer nor Wawrinka, Canada without Raonic nor Pospisil and Argentina that has no Top 30 player. Wuwu!

The Czech showed several times that it is possible to win the Davis Cup with a very good player (Berdych) and a decent player (Stepanek), Great Britain showed this year you can win with a great player (Murray, of the Andy variety) and a very good double player (Murray, of the Jamie variety). They account for 11 of the 12 points needed to lift the trophy, the 12th being the surprise victory of Ward against Isner in the first round a victory that might very well have been critical.