Attacking the Bus

Mornin'. I know I've been a little scarce around here recently, but I've had a lot on my plate for Tennis magazine, and am just shoveling out now. I don't know about you, but the Australian Open seemed to fly by in a blur of blue courts -  courts that, I have to confess, I really disliked at the start of the event  but came to appreciate by the end. I still think they ought to create more contrast between the actual court and the surrounding area, probably with a stronger color contrast of some kind. I think blue and tan might be a combination with sufficient contrast but a soothing quality that would make things lighter (needed) if not brighter (not needed).

So, on to the post-mortems. It seems to me that the bar was raised in Melbourne in an area I mentioned briefly in my last post, that thing about "positive" tennis. I thought that both finals were a tribute to attacking tennis as it is being re-defined before our eyes. If you read this blog frequently, you know that I've often rued the demise of serve-and-volley tennis, but while it's always nice to see a few practitioners of "old-school" attacking tennis prosper, I should probably focus on the fact that attacking tennis need not be serve-and-volley tennis.

Maria Sharapova's best quality is her boldness - her willingness to play a high-risk game for the promise of high-reward. This is not as common an attitude as it ought to be in women's tennis, for the simple reason that from the earliest of ages, junior women have always been more inclined to play not to lose than to win, and it's probably because they've done hard time in the game long before they have the tools (muscle and stroke-wise) to take matches rather than receive them (I wonder of our resident sociologists have anything to say about that).

But the main point here is that Sharapova marched right out and, starting from Day One, took the tournament. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I don't think that even Serena Williams at her best is so single-minded, which probably is because she's always had more tools and natural talent. And Justine - well, she gets sucked into the game in much the same way as we get sucked into a good book or movie. That pays great dividends; when is your focus ever better?  But even a player like that can be blind-sided by a cold-blooded, calculating competitor who wants only to win.

The other day in Las Vegas, I asked Andre Agassi if the general "globalization" of the game, specifically the drift to medium and slow surfaces, has killed the net game in singles. Andre thinks that the biggest change has been wrought by the strings (the new polyester ones, among which the best known probably is Luxilon). Andre pointed that big swings once were risky, but the new generation of strings has turned the conventional logic on its ear. "Now," he said, "The bigger you swing the more you are rewarded."

One by-product of this development has been the increasing difficulty players face at the net. Andre said that facing an aggressive net rusher now is the equivalent of "target practice." Free from concerns of over-hitting, players can now really load up, and even if their aim is less than deadeye, the mere pace of the shot makes the volley that much more perilous an undertaking. You no longer thread the needle with passing shots - you blow the needle to living hail and if you hit with precision, so much the better.

Still. The most bracing aspect of the men's final was the way Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played so positively - with so much purpose. I don't know about you, but I sensed that both men played a little like pit bulls straining on a leash. Each one wanted to get off the chain and launch himself at his opponent. Neither broke off the chain until the end.  It also was the kind of tennis that made arguments over baseline and serve-and-volley tennis seem almost formal, a mite . . Victorian.

In most tennis matches, you have one of these broad scenarios: a defensive battle of will, consistency and stamina; a  battle of contrasting styles pitting an aggressive player against a defensive one (even when those differences are marginal); two attackers, having at each other. The Australian final was as clearly about two attacking players slugging it out as if it were an Australian Open final, circa 1965, pitting Rod Laver against Tony Roche - except without all those quaint serve-and-volley set pieces.

It was great to see such purposeful tennis, for that's the real source of the appeal of the extinct serve-and-volley style. The beauty of serve-and-volley has always been less about the footwork or stroke work (pleasing as that can be), than about having a clear, bold plan to execute, and taking the game to an opponent. Tennis is a game of confrontation; as a fan, I hunger for battle, not an extended negotiation.

Jo-Willy and Novak threw everything they had at each other in the final, swinging from the heels, stretching the court, probing the angles like two boxers trying to set up the right hook - what was not so manifest was that both men played defense well enough to guard against the knockout punch. That's the main reason we saw so few volleys and winning overheads at the net. I was fine with that, because throwing yourself in front of a bus should never be mistaken for attacking a bus.

In this context, it seems that the nature of the volley, as a stroke, has changed. In classic attacking tennis (serve-and-volley), the volley was a sharp offensive weapon. You served,  plucked a return out of the air and drove your opponent scrambling to one corner or the other. If he managed to retrieve, you were positioned to end the point or absorb the blow of a passing shot. Now, though, the volley has become almost a defensive shot, despite the fact that you end points with it.

Look at it this way: If you outmaneuver an opponent and finish him off with a volley, you didn't really show your offensive thunder on final stroke, but on whichever one set it up. The volley is the feather with which you knock the guy over, after you've landed that right hook. This is true even when you're pressed to make a great stretching or lunging volley. That's not an "attacking" shot per se - it's desperate defense, like shooting your way out of an ambush.

Today's game is so good that another element comes into play here: the players have become  like harried parents at Christmas, skipping steps 5 and 6 as they race through the assembly directions for some new toy. It used to be that you attacked (even if it was from the baseline, in the manner of, say, Jimmy Connors) and set yourself up for the closing volley. Now - and this seemed to happen dozens of times in the final - you attack and the point is over before you can fulfill the next two steps.

Sometimes, the ball explodes by you, sometimes your set-up shot overachieves and produces a winner or forces an error. This isn't even a conscious process in the players' minds (Lord knows they've got enough to worry about without having to keep track of a paint-by-numbers strategy). It's just that the speed of play, intent aside, overwhelms the pace at which strategy can be properly formulated and executed. What we're seeing is, in a way, a meltdown at the core of the game: Strategy? Ask someone who's got the time for such things - I'm busy winning a tennis match here, dude.

So what we're really watching is a form of inchoate tennis; what used to pass for is a yellow gas hovering above the court, the various chemical elements ready to combine into an identifiable mass, but never really getting to that point. We never end up with something substantial that suits our taste for sizing-up, measuring, weighing in the palm of our hand. Remember when you'd walk away from a match, saying something like, Man, Jack played well but he just couldn't hit that backhand pass down the line!

These guys are ending points before strategy gets a chance to kick in, and one towering reality emerges from it all: despite the increasing redundancy of the volley, the serve (especially on surfaces faster than red clay) is assuming paramount importance. I think Nadal's habitual struggles in the second half of the year testify to that.

So on to Jo-Willy: the other day, I wrote that he had the same sunny disposition as Evonne Goolagong Cawley, and to have left it at that is to sell both those players short. The real point here has less to do with amiability that ability. For the reason Jo-Willy and Evonne were able to appear so pleasant is because each of them has a quality that has considerable more heft: poise. And that may be the single, defining characteristic that most great champions share.

Tsonga maintained his poise throughout most of the match - a formidable accomplishment, given the stakes and his relative lack of experience on the Big Stage. My gut feeling is that Jo-Willy's biggest concern ought to be his drive. He's a relaxed, seemingly secure guy whose life now suddenly got a whole lot better - materially, at least. How he reacts to that holds the key to his future.

When it comes to Djokovic, the most impressive aspect of his performance in Australia was the self-assurance and focus with which he carried out the entire operation. There seemed to be no trace of the crippling Am I really ready to do this? interior monologue that  was in evidence in last year's US Open final - not at any stage in the event. His arc to Grand Slam champion status has been smooth in a way that has not only been satisfying to behold, but also reassuring, at least for those who like to see potential fulfilled, or are vested in his future. Count me in the former camp; I get a kick out of fulfillment.

The Djoker did not burst on the scene a la Pete Sampras in 1990, nor did he flat-line three-quarters of the way to the peak of his arc, the way TMF did in 2002 and the first half of 2003 (he failed in that span to match his two Grand Slam quarterfinals of 2001). It seems astonishing now, but Federer played in 16 majors, and was on the tour for five years before he won his first one. And that may be the most puzzling entry in his resume.

Djokovic had, before Australia, played in 12 majors, and he's in his fourth year on the tour. His pacing has been both superb and linear; his history in the game has the same pleasing symmetry and internal logic as his actual game. Throughout the Australian Open it was as if a magnetic field pulled Djokovic toward the stars as surely and implacably as if he were the tide, yearning toward the moon.

Being a great tennis player is a matter of character (although not in our customary, quasi-moralistic understanding of the term), and the fun really begins when you throw two players of equally high character into the ring with each other. What happens next is partly decided by strokes, but to an even larger degree it's determined by chemistry, and how the unique elements in one player react to those of the other.

I'm not sure what the rest of the year will bring, vis a vis Rafa and The Mighty Fed and Nole. But I am pretty sure that whatever we get will have just as much to do with chemistry as physics.