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The Players Who Cant Behave On the Court

2008-07-30 13:01:00

Some players never seem to improve their behavior on the court. You would think that 30-year old Arnaud Clement has been around for so many years that he would have understood that every ball boy in the world isn’t as well trained as the ones at Roland Garros. Every time things aren’t going the Frenchman’s way (which has been almost every match this year), he is attacking the ball boys. I’ve seen him stare at them like they are his worst enemy, scream at them loudly and even throw the towel in their face. The latter usually happens after he has lost an important point and the towel isn’t presented to Mr Clement the way it is done at Roland Garros with both arms stretched out wide. It is very unpleasant to see Clement treat the ball boys this way, but I’ve only seen one chair umpire ever talk to him about it.

Robin Soderling is another guy who is often very negative on the court. Even when he is winning, you can see Soderling shaking his head, making gestures and constantly looking at his coach. He’s had some controversies with opponents in the past, with the one against Nadal at Wimbledon 2007 clearly being the most famous one. Last week in Toronto, the 2nd round encounter against Fernando Verdasco turned out to be another match where the two guys left the court as enemies. Soderling won the first set and was a break up in the second set. As Verdasco came back and won the second set, the Spaniard celebrated vividly with his entourage screaming loudly. At this point, Soderling was extremely frustrated with his game and the celebration from the other side of the court was too much for him to take. In the third set, the Swede constantly screamed “Yes!” and held his fist up every time Verdasco missed an easy shot. Despite his mental break down, Soderling eventually won. Verdasco never shook Soderling’s hand and walked right to the umpire’s chair. A few moments later, the two players started to argue in a very hostile way as they left the court. That’s clearly not what you want to see as a tennis fan.

Arnaud Clement and Robin Soderling are just two examples of the players who would terrify the gentlemen who dominated the sport 100 years ago.

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The Globalization of Tennis

2008-07-16 19:09:00

The sport of tennis has gone through an incredible globalization during the past 75 years. The first male Grand Slam champion from a country not hosting a Grand Slam tournament was the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm, who succeeded at the French Open in 1934. At the other Slams, it was not until 1954 at Wimbledon (Jaroslav Drobny, Czechoslovakia), 1959 at the Australian Open (Alex Olmedo, Peru) and in 1963 at the US Open (Rafael Osuna, Mexico). All the way until the mid 1970’s, the traditional tennis countries held a firm grip on the dominance of the sport. In 1975, 19 out of 30 players in the Top 30 were from one of the four nations that host a Grand Slam event. (Notably, the best French player was not ranked higher than 39th at the time). Ten years later, the number had fallen to 15. In 1995, only seven remained and in 2005, nine players from those four nations were in the top 30. Today, we can find a total of 26 nations represented in the Top 100 with former giants USA with nine players, Australia with a mere two and Great Britain with an embarrassing one player. The French are doing very well, though, with as many as 15 players in the Top 100.

A few days ago, Jean-Julien Rojer became the first player ever from the Netherlands Antilles to reach an ATP final. Rojer is from Curacao, one of the two islands forming the Antilles, which is located in the Caribbean Sea with a population of 138 000. My first interest for Rojer came when I curiously noticed the AHO in the draw sheets of Futures events back in 2002. Rojer became the King of the Carribean Futures as he triumphed an incredible seven times within five months between September 2002 and January 2003. He reached an additional two finals during that stretch, one of which was never played. Rojer enjoyed another fantastic streak between September-October 2004, winning five Futures in Venezuela and Cuba, four of which were won in consecutive weeks. Since quitting UCLA after three seasons with the Bruins, Rojer has won a total of 14 Futures and been one of the most dominant players on that level. However, he has found it very difficult to win matches on a higher level. The recent success has come in doubles and the 26-year old seems to have given up on singles, where he has only competed sporadically during the past year. In doubles, however, the Miami resident is on the verge of breaking into the Top 100, after winning the Challenger in Cordoba and reaching the final in Bastad ATP with Sweden’s Johan Brunstrom.

I don’t know how Rojer learned to play tennis on the Netherlands Antilles. Maybe his story is similar to that of a young Tanzanian boy who Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe noticed while travelling in Africa in the 1970’s. The American stars suddenly noticed a teenage player with beautiful strokes in Dar Es Salaam. They couldn’t understand how he had learned to play tennis that well, with a beautiful technique and a great understanding of the game without anyone there who could have taught him. When they asked, the boy told them that his father had bought Bill Tilden’s book “Match Play and Spin of the Ball”, the book which John Newcombe also used to originally learn the game. The young Tanzanian boy’s father had bought the book in India and worked with his son in front of the mirror for months before letting him go out on the court and hit a ball, which had to be done exactly as described in the book. The result was a boy with a game which was a complete image of the greatest player in the world half a century earlier.

Tennis can be learned in many different ways and has become one of the most global sports we have.

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A clay court specialist wins Wimbledon

2008-07-09 22:12:00

I hope that all of you got to watch the magnificent final that took place on the lawns of The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club last Sunday. Rafael Nadal ended the Wimbledon reign of Roger Federer in a match that will remain a significant part of tennis history for years to come. I must admit that I never thought that the Mallorcan kid I saw burst onto the tennis scene in 2002 would have any success on grass. Here was yet another Spanish guy who clearly had a game customized for clay court success. When he reached the final two years ago, I blamed it on a good draw. Last year, I blamed it on a strike of luck as Mikhail Youzhny suffered from an injury being two sets to love up and that Nadal faced several opponents who didn’t have any time to regroup from previous matches. Some people claim that his success in 2008 is due to the slower courts, but I’m done with excuses. Rafael Nadal has been the world’s best grass court player this season.

Everything about his game still makes it better on clay. In my opinion, Nadal is just as specialized on clay as several of his countrymen. The major difference is that Nadal is so much better than the rest of the pack on clay that his game even beats them on other surfaces. A player such as Juan Carlos Ferrero was World No. 1 on clay and perhaps considered the tenth best player on other surfaces at his prime. Rafael Nadal is obviously on a completely different level. The 22-year old has been dominating the game completely on clay since three years back and a constant improvement has now seen him challenge for World No. 1 on other surfaces. To win the finest tournament in the world on a surface as far away from clay as possible on the spectrum of surfaces proves what an unbelievable tennis player Rafael Nadal is. He has managed something that has remained a dream to the games two most dominating players during the past 15 years, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. The 22-year old from Mallorca raised the trophy at Roland Garros on 8 June and only had to wait four weeks for his next Grand Slam title.

To me and most likely a lot of other tennis fans, the final provided an emotional roller coaster. There is always a special sadness when an important winning streak comes to an end. The Center Court at Wimbledon has been Roger Federer’s living room (as famously described by Boris Becker) since July 2003, and the five set loss on Sunday will definitely be a match the Swiss maestro will not be able to shrug off easily. The remaining part of the season will be extremely interesting. Will Federer be able to bounce back and win a fifth consecutive title at Flushing Meadows? Will Nadal be able to keep his amazing summer form going during the American hard court season? Will Djokovic shake up things in the top and get back to the early year form again?

Men’s tennis is more interesting than in years.

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