Articles by Steve Tignor

1968: Breaking the Color Barrier

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:02:00 +0000

Tennis is often described as a “lily white” sport. Before 1968, there was more than a little truth to the accusation.

The clothes that high-level players wore were uniformly white. The idea was originally inspired by cricket, which was played at the same clubs as tennis in Victorian England. The color, or lack thereof, also happened to suit the decorous ladies and gentleman who first played tennis, and who were big believers in never letting anyone see you sweat. For most of the 20th century, Wimbledon didn’t need to have an all-white clothing rule; no one thought of wearing anything else.

During that time, the top players themselves were almost all white. Althea Gibson became the first African-American to win a Grand Slam at the French Open in 1956, and there were a scattering of Latin champions, including Pancho Gonzalez and Mexico’s Rafael Osuna, who won the 1963 U.S. Nationals. But for much of the 20th century, the vast majority of major-title winners were white men and women who hailed from Australia or the United States.

Finally, even the balls were white. Purity was the image that tennis cultivated; this was a sport, its clothes and balls and general politesse said, that was above the commercial fray. Above the sexual fray as well: When Ted Tinling designed lace panties for Gussy Moran at Wimbledon in 1949, a club official screamed that he had “brought shame and sin” onto the grounds. Tinling wouldn’t return for 20 years.

All of that changed with the start of the Open era; crossing the commercial line meant crossing the color line, too. It was color, in fact, that helped lead the sport into its new age. In 1967, the BBC chose to make the Wimbledon men’s final its first broadcast—of anything—in technicolor. Suddenly, the folks at home could see that the surface was bright green on Centre Court, and they liked it. Broadcasters, and advertisers, began to think the grass might be a little greener in tennis than they had previously believed.

The following year, the sport got more colorful on the court as well. At the inaugural U.S. Open in ’68, Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Grand Slam. But that wasn’t his only crossover act. At the amateur-only U.S. Nationals near Boston a few week before, Ashe broke an 87-year taboo by daring to don a non-white piece of clothing. In the semis, he strolled on court in what the manufacturer called a “trophy yellow” shirt. The fashion barrier had been broken. From Tinling’s early-70s Virginia Slims outfits to Bjorn Borg’s Fila pinstripes to Andre Agassi’s spandex to Serena Williams’ catsuit to Rafael Nadal’s piratas and all the way back around to Roger Federer’s white Wimbledon jacket, tennis would present a full-color parade of styles for the next four decades.

What about the ball? It also became colorized in ’68. That year, Penn introduced what it called an “optic yellow” ball for recreational players. Sort of yellow and sort of green—47 years later, nobody is really sure which it is—the tint was judged in tests to be the best for player visibility. But the eventual target audience wasn’t the pro or the hacker; it was the couch potato. With more tournaments being televised in the Open era, the game needed a ball that would stand out on color screens. In 1972, the ILTF sanctioned optic yellow for use in pro events, and tournament directors were happy to fall in line. The exception, naturally, was Wimbledon. Lily-white remained the rule for balls, as well as clothes, at the All England Club through 1985.

Three to See: Australian Open Semifinal Previews

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:16:00 +0000

Maria Sharapova [2] vs. Ekaterina Makarova [10]

Peering in from the outside, it can be hard to say exactly what makes Makarova such a tough adversary for the world’s top players. She’s a lefty, which is unusual, and many of the women say she “reads the game well.” But she has no obvious weapons and isn’t conspicuously athletic—she’s a solid competitor, and that’s been enough to put her in the Top 10, get her to the semifinals of the last two Grand Slams, and earn her a straight-set win over world No. 3 Simona Halep in the last round.

But one place where Makarova’s game has not been enough, or even close, is in her matches against Sharapova. Whatever troubles her tour-mates doesn’t trouble Maria, who has dropped just one set in their five meetings. Perhaps Sharapova just powers through Makarova's spins and placements, and doesn’t give her fellow Russian a chance to read much of anything. Based on Maria’s last win, a straight-set drubbing of Genie Bouchard, there’s no reason to believe that's about to change. Winner: Sharapova

Serena Williams [1] vs. Madison Keys

This pair of Americans, who have never faced each other, will make the one-day turnaround that the Aussie Open demands of two of its women’s semifinalists. Last year that change in routine had a debilitating effect on Agnieszka Radwanska, who went out in a dispirited hurry. Will either Serena or Madison suffer that fate today?

Keys is the more likely victim, for two reasons: (1) Serena has reached the Australian Open semifinals five times, and she’s gone on to win the tournament on all five occasions—she owns the second week at Slams, and she played her best match of the fortnight against Dominika Cibulkova in the quarters; (2) Keys will come in already carrying a potentially serious injury; in her win over Serena’s sister Venus, the 19-year-old aggravated the left thigh strain that forced her to retire at Wimbledon last year. That may have helped her against Venus—Keys went for winners, and got them—but moving at less than your best doesn’t sound like much of a strategy against Serena. Winner: Williams

Andy Murray [6] vs. Tomas Berdych [7]

A lot of things point to a mini-upset by Berdych here. His power matches up well against Murray’s craft, as evidenced by the Czech’s 6-4 record in their head-to-head; he also won their last two meetings, on hard courts in 2013, in straight sets. Berdych’s form is impeccable at the moment; he has yet to drop a set in five matches, and that includes his quarterfinal stunner over Rafael Nadal. Finally, Berdych should have some new inside dope on his opponent: He’s working with Murray’s old coach, Dani Vallverdu. That may be the most intriguing aspect of this semi: What will Murray’s old friend have in store for him now that he’s in the enemy camp?

Still, as Murray says, he also knows what Vallverdu thinks of Berdych’s game, and he’s aware of his old coach’s tactical tendencies. More important, I think Murray will have something to prove in this one. I thought the same thing of his last match, against Nick Kyrgios; Murray looked inspired and toughened by the pro-Aussie crowd. When he’s in that kind of mood, and he’s not facing his superiors in the Big 3, he’s a hard man to beat. Winner: Murray

Mad Good

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 05:46:00 +0000

As Madison Keys strode across Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday afternoon, she led with her grin. It’s a toothy one, and an irrepressible one when she’s happy. At this moment she was very happy. A few seconds earlier, Keys—age just 19, rank just 35—had finished a post-match interview after the biggest win of her career, a 6-3 4-6, 6-4 comeback over Venus Williams that put her into her first Grand Slam semifinal.

Yet this modest Midwesterner could have been forgiven if her grin got a little smaller, and her eyes a little wider, at the next few words she heard.

“There goes the future of women’s tennis!” boomed the woman who had just interviewed Keys, former Aussie pro Rennae Stubbs.

As they say: No pressure.

For now, though, the future is just what it says it is. Keys is all about the present; over the last 10 days in Melbourne, her career has been turned upside-down. Or, I should say, right-side-up: After three years of stops and starts, of flying high one day and floundering the next, Keys has put together the best sustained run of her young life. It’s rare, in the age of 32 seeds, for a player outside of that group to go this deep at a major, and Keys has done it by knocking off two multi-Slam champs, Williams and Petra Kvitova, along the way. But for many of us who have been following this powerful athlete’s progress over the last five years, Keys’s success doesn’t come as a shock; it's right on time.

“I mean, it definitely feels amazing,” Keys said afterward, sounding all of her 19 years. “It’s one of those things where you want to feel this way all the time. I mean, I’ve had some good wins; I’ve had some bad losses. That’s my goal for the year, just being more consistent. Even playing badly, not being horrible.”

“Not being horrible”: That might sound like the ultimate in low expectations, but what Keys really means is that she wants to be more professional. With that in mind, this off-season she hired Lindsay Davenport and her husband, Jon Leach, as her co-coaches. The choice made sense: As a former No. 1, Davenport qualifies as a “super coach,” someone who has been there, and someone who can inspire. At the same time, Davenport’s down-to-earth personality would also seem to be a match for Keys’. As Serena Williams said, they're both "easygoing people."

“This off-season has been great, and it’s obviously working,” Keys said with a slight eye-roll, as if she couldn’t quite believe how well it has been working.

The scores were close, but Keys did something we’re not used to seeing today: She dominated the rallies against one of the Williams sisters. The story of this year’s women’s Aussie Open has been power: Serve speeds are up, and young players like Elina Svitolina, Garbine Muguruza, and Camila Giorgi have surprised Venus and Serena—the original pace-makers—by smacking the ball past them from anywhere on the court. But it took Keys, the biggest hitter of all—she has clocked a 75-M.P.H. forehand in Oz—to finally send one of the sisters packing. Keys led Venus in winners, 34 to 10, and broke her serve seven times.

In the past, Keys could look like a slugger rather than a player, and she often appeared to be winging it, without any plan, from shot to shot. In Melbourne, her swings have had purpose, and few have felt rushed or indecisive. By most accounts, Davenport and Leach have tried to get Keys to aim a little farther inside the lines, which makes sense; even without risking everything, she can still rifle the ball past her opponents. Against Venus, Keys tried to do damage with each shot, without necessarily trying to hit outright winners. She even impressed with her touch volleys today. Like another semifinalist with a new coach, Tomas Berdych, Keys’ shot selection has been the most obvious improvement under her new regime.

“I think I’ve just kind of figured it out a little more,” said Keys, who won this match despite going down a break in the third and aggravating the left thigh injury that put her out of Wimbledon last year. “Just been more consistent and playing better.”

There’s much more for Keys to learn; she still struggles to take the little steps she needs to get up to the ball on her ground strokes. And those 34 winners came with 45 errors. But she certainly had Venus’s serve figured out by the end. Down 3-4 in the third, Keys broke her with three straight forehand winners, and she broke her again at 5-4 with two more forehand winners. That’s the work of a slugger and a player, and it’s that combination that has traditionally won major titles on the women’s side. Serena, Maria, Vika, Petra, Li Na all have weapons, all create their own winners, and all won more than one Slam in the last four years. Two of this tournament’s losing quarterfinalists, Genie Bouchard and Simona Halep, each of whom had a breakout 2014, didn’t show off that same kind of firepower in Australia.

So is Keys, as Stubbsy said, “the future of women’s tennis”? Maybe not “the future,” but “a future” sounds plausible at the moment. She didn’t have the world’s toughest draw here, and Sloane Stephens was a semifinalist in Melbourne at the same age two years ago and has struggled mightily since. But Keys has a good attitude and a big game, and those things will never go out of style in pro tennis.

What does Venus Williams, the woman who inspired Keys to pick up the game 15 years ago, think about what’s ahead for her accidental protégé?

“Sky’s the limit,” Venus said. She wasn’t talking specifically about Keys, of course; Venus, through her own experience, is a big believer that anyone can do anything they set their mind to do. “The sky’s the limit for her and everyone out there.”

Venus's words might just put a grin on Madison's face. Sounds like she picked the right woman to follow.

Australian Open Quarterfinal Previews: Day 10

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:23:00 +0000

Venus Williams [18] vs. Madison Keys

You probably know the story by now: The 19-year-old Keys was first drawn to tennis at age 4, when she noticed the dress that Venus was wearing on TV. A decade and a half later, the two will face each other for the second time, and for the first time at a major. Venus won their only meeting, but that was two years ago on clay in Charleston. Keys has made progress since then, especially in the last 10 days in Melbourne.

At 34, Venus is also playing her best tennis in years. Keys has youth and fresh momentum; Venus has experience, and her legend, which was enough to make another young hard-hitter, Camila Giorgi, freeze up when she had their match in hand two rounds ago. The question here may be whether Keys can ignore who’s on the other side of the net, and forget for a minute why she’s playing this game in the first place. Winner: Keys

Serena Williams [1] vs. Dominika Cibulkova [11]

The streaky Domi, it has been said, can beat anyone on any given day. Anyone, that is, except Serena, who has a 4-0 record against the so-called Pocket Rocket. But while Serena rarely loses once she’s in the second week of a Slam, this one could take a little while. The American has lost the first set in her last two matches, and it wouldn’t be surprising if Cibulkova, who flew out of the gates in her win over Victoria Azarenka, blasted off to an early lead in this one as well. If she doesn’t, though, it’s hard to see her coming back. Winner: S. Williams

Stan Wawrinka [4] vs. Kei Nishikori [5]

These two have played just once, in the U.S. Open quarterfinals last year; that was a see-saw slugfest full of collapses and comebacks that Nishikori won in five sets. As far as their form goes at the moment, Nishikori appears to have the edge; he was at his best in his straight-set dismissal of David Ferrer in the fourth round. But Wawrinka, despite some shaky moments against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez on Monday, has the advantage of knowing he can win the whole thing here. It’s a toss-up, so I’ll go with the slightly more consistent player. Winner: Nishikori

Novak Djokovic [1] vs. Milos Raonic [8]

Welcome to the latest battle between old and new ATP guards. Will that guard change, or will the ancien régime reign for another day? The 27-year-old Djokovic and the 24-year-old Raonic—three years is enough to constitute a “generation” in tennis—have played three tour matches, and Raonic has managed to win just one set. His primary weapon, his serve, feeds into Djokovic’s best shot, his return; once they start to rally, there’s no contest. Two weeks ago, Raonic played with more dynamism and abandon than I’d seen from him before in the Brisbane final, an effort that nearly earned him a win over Roger Federer. The difference is that Djokovic, on his favorite court, doesn’t need to do anything special. Winner: Djokovic

What If

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:53:00 +0000

Tennis is famous for its “If–.” Two lines from Rudyard Kipling’s poem of that name greet every player who walks on to Centre Court at the All England Club. You know the words, the ones about triumph and disaster. A few years ago, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer were filmed reading that verse and others from the poem—while trying hard, it appeared, not to laugh—for a gauzy Wimbledon promotional video.

Now it seems that Nadal has had enough of “if.” Yesterday, after his 6-2, 6-0, 7-6 (5) loss to Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open, he officially banished the word from the game.

“‘If’ doesn’t exist in sport,” Nadal said when he was asked whether he thought winning the third set would have led to a comeback victory. “That’s the real thing. If, if, if—never comes. The thing is, you have to do it. I didn’t have the chance to play the fourth. I lost the third, so that’s it.”

Nadal is right, of course, and his attitude is the only one a tennis player can have and still maintain his or her sanity. Instead of treating triumph and disaster just the same, you have to forget the disasters entirely.

So forget “if.” Let’s move onto a word that does matter: “Why?” Nadal had won 17 straight matches over Berdych dating back to October 2006. As I wrote after Roger Federer’s defeat at the hands of Andreas Seppi last week, his first in 11 matches against the Italian, if you stick around long enough, the law of tennis averages says that you’re going to lose to a lot of people you normally beat. For Federer, the process began when he was 28; Rafa, who is 28 now, seems to be following in his rival’s footsteps. Last year he lost to Stan Wawrinka, Alexandr Dolgopolov, and Nicolas Almagro, among others, for the first time; yesterday Berdych, his most reliable whipping boy, finally turned the tables.

We should start by saying that the Czech, sometimes known the "The Choke" to the London press, played some of the best, smartest, and calmest tennis of his career to do it. He and his new coach, Dani Vallverdu, had a plan, and it was executed to perfection. What it was, exactly, Berdych wouldn’t reveal, but there was a Djokovichian quality to the way he set up rallies against Rafa—he powered his backhand crosscourt, stretched Nadal wide on the forehand side, and moved in for the short ball.

Just as important, he had Novak’s patience. Berdych's hair-trigger shot selection has always gotten himself in trouble against the top players; in this match, he didn’t go for the winner until it presented itself. At times, the way Berdych was throwing himself into his crosscourt backhands reminded me of how Djokovic hits that shot when he plays Nadal.

“It feels great,” said Berdych, who reached his fifth Grand Slam semifinal. “The really good thing is, the plan that we put together was the right one. Everything was working.”

From a stats perspective, “working” is an understatement. Berdych finished with 10 aces, no double faults, 41 winners, and 26 errors. He and Vallverdu have focused on his forehand and second serve in particular, and they both made a difference. (For more on Berdych on TENNIS.com, go here and here.)

On second glance, though, do those stats make this match sound a little too easy? Should Berdych, even on his best day, really be that dominant against Nadal? For every winner’s story, there’s a loser’s, and no game plan is executed in a void. Rafa, as he admitted, did his share to help.

“Is obvious,” said Nadal, who hadn’t faced a Top 10 player since last year's Roland Garros final, “that before [the third set] I didn’t play with the right confidence, with the right intensity, losing court, playing very short. I make him play very easy. You cannot expect to win matches in quarterfinals of Grand Slam helping the opponent to play well. That’s what I did....He played well, obvious. But my feeling was that I help him a lot in the beginning, no? Is easier to play well when you’re up one break, two breaks, from the beginning of each set.”

Nadal’s performance, until his desperate charge down the homestretch, was something of a mystery. He started very defensively, far back in the court, and while we know his shots land short when he’s tight, this time it was even worse—they were landing in the net. By the second set, he looked resigned to defeat in a way you don’t often see from him. You knew he was in trouble in the second game of that set, when he went down 0-40, fought back to 30-40, had an open backhand to make it deuce, and flipped the ball into the net. We’re used to seeing Nadal make that shot and come back to hold in that situation.

There were hints of a right thigh injury; he rubbed it during changeovers, stopped running for hard-hit balls at the end of the second set, and took a pill early in the third. He may have given up on a few shots because, after all of his other ailments, he feared making this one worse. Rafa denied that he was affected by any physical issue, and his movement, as well as his serve speed, returned to normal again early in the third set. While an injury may have contributed to the second-set bagel—a rarity for Nadal—Berdych won the match, and finished a tense third-set tiebreaker, with his own strong play.

It may have been a surprising performance from Nadal, but it wasn’t an unfamiliar one to Aussie Open fans. At the 2010 event, he retired to Andy Murray in the quarterfinals with a leg injury; in 2011, he lost to David Ferrer in the quarterfinals after pulling his hamstring; and last year he lost to Wawrinka in the final after spending an hour or so working through a back injury. As Nadal said when he got to Rod Laver Arena last week, “This has been a tough court for me.”

Can we predict anything about Nadal’s immediate future by looking at those past Aussie losses? The precedents are, for the most part, positive. In 2010, he recovered from his loss to Murray to win the three remaining majors and finish No. 1. In 2011, he might have done the same thing had it not been for Novak Djokovic, who beat him in the finals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. And last year, Rafa recovered well enough to win Roland Garros before hurting his wrist over the summer. (If he wants to change anything, he might consider his trainer(s)—how many different body parts can he injure?)

On the one hand, you could say that the inevitable decline of a champion has already begun. Nadal, who will be 29 in June, has won just once major outside of Paris since 2010 (the 2013 U.S. Open), and he hasn’t been past the fourth round at Wimbledon since 2011. On the other hand, as recently as 2013 he was the best hard-court player in the world, with a major and three Masters on the surface. This was also just his fifth match since he had his appendix removed in November. Nadal’s career has always gone in waves. Is it time for another upsurge, or is the tide slowly going out?

Rafa has a reputation for being, perhaps deliberately, pessimistic about his chances. But I've always thought he was a pretty good self-prognosticator, to the point where his expectations can seem to dictate his results. He said before his loss to Berdych that reaching the quarterfinals in Australia after a few months away would be a “great result for me,” and he repeated that afterward. We’ll see what happens, but his attitude so far this year has reminded me of the way he talked in the early part of 2010. While everyone else thought he was struggling, he insisted—rightly, it turned out—that he was getting better with each match.

“The season is long, I know," Nadal said yesterday. “Beginnings are tough. I need to be ready to accept the situations that’s going to happen and try to be strong, accepting everything, and working hard to be back the way I want to be. When I say ‘be back,’ I don’t mean win or lose, I mean have the feeling in court that when you are there you feel confident, you feel you can compete against everybody with equal conditions.”

Rafa is sick, in other words, of having to start over again every six months. In this sense, the most important aspect of his loss to Berdych is that he didn’t injure himself further. Hopefully we’ll get a chance over the next few months to see how he does when he’s not making a comeback. For now, he leaves Australia with positives and negatives: Yes, he lost to a player he has owned, but his health seems to be intact, and South American clay in his immediate future.

Did Nadal’s last words, about not caring whether he wins or loses, only about “competing against everybody with equal conditions,” reminded you of anything? To me, they sounded a little like Kipling's verse over the entrance to Center Court, about meeting triumph and disaster and treating those two impostors just the same. Nadal realizes that playing well comes before winning, and he sounds confident that when he's at full strength, he can still compete with anyone.

Rafa is right that “if” is a word you don't want to use when you've just walked off the court a loser. But he also seems to know that the words to “If–” are still worth remembering when you’re walking on court, or starting a new season.

Australian Open Quarterfinal Previews: Day 8

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 19:04:00 +0000

Simona Halep [3] vs. Ekaterina Makarova [10]

This is a match I've been hoping to see since the draws were made. Halep beat Makarova in straight sets in their only meeting, in New Haven in 2013. But the shrewd Russian lefty, who has more court sense than most, is a Grand Slam seed killer—four years ago she beat Serena Williams at the Australian Open, and last year she upset Agnieszka Radwanska and Euenie Bouchard at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, respectively. Halep, while she hasn’t been in serious trouble yet, has had a few anxious blips fly across her radar screen. Still, she’s too good not to be the favorite in this one. Winner: Halep

Maria Sharapova [2] vs. Eugenie Bouchard [7]

Sharapova leads their head-to-head 3-0, but Bouchard has been closing in. The first time they played, in Miami in 2013, Maria won 6-2, 6-0; the last time they played, at the French Open in 2014, Maria came back to prevail only after a mighty struggle, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. By now, each woman seems to have settled into solid form in Oz, and should be ready for a straight-up slugfest. May the better woman on the day win. Winner: Sharapova

Rafael Nadal [3] vs. Tomas Berdych [7]

Every year Berdych steamrolls his way through the opening week in Oz, and every year that roll comes to a screeching halt against a top player. Nadal has ended plenty of Berdych’s rolls over the years; the Spaniard has beaten him 17 straight times dating back to 2007. Three years ago, in this same round and on this same court, the Czech looked ready to break the hex. But over four close sets, all he did was push Rafa to play his very best. Winner: Nadal

Andy Murray [6] vs. Nick Kyrgios

Wednesday’s showcase match, first up at night on Laver, will pit solid and steady against rough and ready—I don’t think I need to tell you who is who. In their only previous match, in Canada last summer, the sixth-ranked Murray put a sleeper hold on the 53rd-ranked Kyrgios. 6-2, 6-2. It was a beating so thorough that the Aussie teen did an “I’m-not-worthy” bow to Murray on Twitter afterward. As far as their match-up goes, Murray’s return will always be an asset against Kyrgios’ serve—as will, of course, his experience and consistency. But an early-round day match in Toronto is, literally and figuratively, a world away from a quarterfinal night match in Melbourne. Winner: Murray

Halftime Review

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:41:00 +0000

This much we can say about the Australian Open: It has been bright. I doubt many of us old enough to remember the '80s have ever regretted the demise of day-glo, but I haven’t minded its resurrection in Melbourne. At least all of that blazing yellow and pink makes it a little easier for those of us watching from the East Coast of the United States to stay awake at 4:00 A.M.

This is the first time I’ve had to pull an Aussie all-nighter, or 14 straight Aussie all-nighters, since 2010. After making the trip to Melbourne the last few seasons, I’m watching from home and getting my blast of southern-hemisphere summer through the TV screen. Right about now, as the first flakes of a blizzard swirl ominously outside the living room window in New York, I wish I could feel that heat for real. But whether you’re on the grounds or not, the Aussie Open is the one major that never seems to disappoint. The neutral surface, the (relatively) rested players, the new coaches in their corners, the early-season optimism: It has added up, as it always adds up, to a lot of good, competitive tennis. There’s nothing like being there, but there’s also nothing like waking up at 8:00 A.M. here and tuning in to a raucous fifth set.

Before we get to the "business end" of the tournament, which begins on Tuesday with the quarterfinals, here’s a look back at a few of the highlights, from my point of view, of the week one party.

*****

Best Matches

Women: Dominika Cibulkova d. Victoria Azarenka 6-2, 3-6, 6-3

This match, while only a fourth-rounder, felt like a watershed. The shotmaking and athleticism were so good, and the competition so spirited and fast-paced, that no one could call it “mindless ball-bashing”—how about mind-full ball-bashing? And while there was grunting involved, to complain about it seemed churlish and utterly beside the point. Is this the match that will make the shriek OK? I doubt it, but’s it’s nice to think so.

Men: Andy Murray d. Grigor Dimitrov, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-5

Modern men’s tennis at its best, with full-flight, all-court shot-making grounded in physical grit. I’d like to see these two play a major final; at the very least, I hope their pleasing contrast in styles becomes a real, regular rivalry.

Fashion Favorite

Amidst the glowing riot of neon, Maria Sharapova’s primary-red dress has stood out.

Best Place to Watch

This is the first time I’ve caught the Aussie Open on TV since the advent of WatchESPN. Flipping between the coverage on that channel on AppleTV, and the coverage on ESPN2 on basic cable, is like flipping between television’s past and future. It’s easy to forget now, but ESPN’s wall-to-wall, single-channel coverage of this tournament was once a huge step forward for tennis. Now the commentary-around-a-desk you get on ESPN2 feels like a step backward when you can flip between every court, and see every match live, on WatchESPN. That’s more than you get in the press room at Melbourne Park.

Most Improved

It will be months, if not years, before the verdicts are in on the game’s new coaching arrangements; in a couple of cases, player and coach have worked together for literally a week. So far Tomas Berdych has looked energized by his switch to Dani Vallverdu, and Agnieszka Radwanska looks like she needs to work on her volleys before she takes any more of Martina Navratilova’s advice about getting aggressive.

The player who has already made a leap is Madison Keys, who is working with Lindsay Davenport and her husband, Jon Leach. In part, that’s because Keys, at 19, is still raw material as a player, and in part it’s because she offers so much raw material to work with. We’ll see if it lasts, but Keys has looked more purposeful with her swings, and she’s getting more shape on her shots. The one I’m going to remember was a forehand pass down the line to break Petra Kvitova at 2-2 in the first set of their third-rounder. Keys took the ball off of an overhead and changed directions with it. That was the shot of a player, not just a hitter, and if she wins the whole thing, I'll say it was the one that started it all.

Most Ominous

I picked Milos Raonic as the sleeper on the men's side at the start of the event, and the Canadian, who will play Novak Djokovic in the quarters, could still be that. But I’ve switched my most-likely-to-break-out allegiance to Kei Nishikori. He hit a couple of speed bumps over the course of the first week, dropping sets to Ivan Dodig and Steve Johnson. But he also played the most lights-out tennis of this tournament in finishing off Dodig, and yesterday he made impressively routine work of David Ferrer. Now Knish enters familiar territory: In the next two rounds, he could have a chance to repeat his wins over Stan Wawrinka and Novak Djokovic at last fall’s U.S. Open.

Polarizer of the Future

It’s an age of heroes, rather than villains, in men’s tennis. Over the last five years, Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Rafael Nadal have clipped their locks and smoothed their edges, and Roger Federer has expanded into a walking brand known as RF. The men who followed in their wake, Juan Martin del Potro, Raonic, Dimitrov, and Nishikori, also stick to the good-guy script. Is it time for a bad guy? Nick Kyrgios isn’t one in real life, but he does have a neon swagger and a salty way of communicating—his rough edges are very much intact. Some fans, possibly of the younger variety, will love him; other fans, possibly of the older variety, will not love him at all. That’s what being a star is all about; for some people, you shine too brightly.

Disappointment

His age is a mitigating factor, but of the Top 8 seeds, Roger Federer was the only one not to reach the quarterfinals. It’s a surprise more than anything else. He came to Melbourne looking sharp, but struggled in his second-round match, against Simone Bolelli, and lost his third-rounder, to Andreas Seppi, who had taken just one set in their 10 previous meetings. By itself, this isn't a sign of decline from Federer, and he put a good face on it in his press-conference afterward, but it's a long way to the next major that he might be expected to win, which is Wimbledon in June. (Post-loss presser)

Sneakiest

While the world has been caught up in Twirlgate (Twirlghazi?), Ekaterina Makarova has moved unnoticed through the same side of the draw as the twirler, Genie Bouchard, without dropping a set. The Russian, who reached the semis of her first major at last year’s U.S. Open, plays Simona Halep next, and while she wouldn’t be favored to win, or even take a set, from Serena in the final, Makarova does own a win over her Down Under.

Best Moment

By the fall, we’ll look back at Tim Smyczek’s first-serve give-back to Rafael Nadal and ask, “That happened this season?” Hopefully, we won’t forget about it completely. Smyczek reminded a lot of us that it’s not so bad being a tennis fan, after all. It’s worth it, sometimes, to stay up late.

Everybody's Heard, About the Berd

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:43:00 +0000

“Oh yes, there’s a confidence in my game,” Tomas Berdych informed the media after his first-round win at the Australian Open. That’s how the 29-year-old Czech has been talking so far in 2015, and that’s how he has looked in Melbourne. It’s a time of radical change for Berdych, who, despite his clothes-free appearance in last year’s Body Issue of ESPN: The Magazine, has a conservative side when it comes to his career. Maybe it was the specter of the Big 3-0—if that’s still a thing—coming up later this year, but during the last two months he has hired a new coach, Dani Vallverdu, and proposed, successfully, to his girlfriend, Ester Satarova.

After five years with his old mentor, Tomas Krupa, Berdych seemed to believe his game had stagnated, and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. While his ranking, which has bounced wildly between No. 6 and No. 7 since 2010, didn’t suffer much in 2014, he went through an uncharacteristic mid-season slump. He also watched as Stan Wawrinka, who had spent most of his career in the Berd's rearview mirror, won the Aussie Open, and 24-year-old Kei Nishikori became the first member of a new generation to pass him in the rankings. Late last season, Berdych retaliated by trying to hire his own supercoach, fellow Czech Ivan Lendl. When Lendl passed on the idea, Berdych settled on Andy Murray’s old friend and day-to-day adviser, Dani Vallverdu.

This may end up being the better choice; even when Lendl worked with Murray, it was Vallverdu who did the lion’s share of the scouting and strategizing. But Berdych’s rejection by his own countryman seemed characteristic: Over the last 10 years, the Berd, as high as he has flown, has never been the word. I still wince when thinking about the tweet he sent out in 2013 after he had been eliminated, for the third time in four years, before the semifinals of the ATP’s World Tour Finals. Berdych commemorated the moment by posting a photo of a London exit sign. The message, even if subliminal, seemed clear: It was time for the tour’s stars to shine, and for Berdych to leave the stage.

Thank you London pic.twitter.com/1inUcZ17KX
— Tomáš Berdych (@tomasberdych) November 8, 2013

Now Berdych, seemingly for the millionth time, will try to take that stage again. With his mostly easy 6-2, 7-6 (3), 6-2 win over Bernard Tomic, he has reached the quarterfinals in Oz without dropping a set for the third straight year. “I like this place,” he says; and in the past he has even inspired a (probably not ironic) Berdych Army cheering section at Melbourne Park. Yesterday, though, the Berd didn’t seem to love the fact that all of the cheering and chanting was not for Tom-as, but for Tom-ic. But afterward all was forgiven. “I took it and came through,” Berdych said.

From a technical and statistical standpoint, it was indeed an impressive performance. Berdych hit 17 aces and 52 winners against 33 errors. Despite making just 52 percent of his first serves, he faced only one break point. Berdych says he hasn’t spent all that much time with Vallverdu yet, and that he’s happiest with the fitness training he did during the off-season IPTL tour (Berdych could be the first IPTL success story). Still, the new coach may have had an effect. Berdych says they’re trying to improve his “second-serve variations” and to make his forehand more versatile. On the whole, he did those things well, and he looked a little more flexible than usual on defense, even sliding into a few gets on the forehand side.

But Berdych still faces the fundamental question: Can a tennis player change? Despite all of the work they put in, and all of the improvements they make, few pros ever leave their flaws behind. You can shift a grip and smooth out a swing, but trying to change yourself as a player, to the point where you start to win the matches you’ve always lost, is like trying to change your personality. Berdych’s opponent, Tomic, offered an example of this yesterday.

Bernie came to Melbourne with a new lean and hungry look, and he was sharp through three rounds. In the second set against Berdych, he looked confident that he could get under his opponent’s skin, and with each break point that he saved, his strut grew a little cockier. But like his countryman Lleyton Hewitt, Tomic’s confident strut masks an uncertain interior: When it came to the crunch in the second-set tiebreaker, Tomic went back to playing safely and passively, and lost quickly.

Now Berdych will face Rafael Nadal. If anyone can expose the flaws in Berdych’s game and temperament, it’s Rafa, who has beaten him 18 straight times dating back to 2007. Improving his “second-serve variation” isn’t going to be enough to get Berdych over that hump. Will anything?

Last year, after beating him in a tight four-setter in the Aussie Open semis, Wawrinka provided a harsh summation of Berdych’s fundamental issue.

“He was always the one who was a little bit choking [in a] few moments, a little bit down,” Wawrinka said, “and that’s what happened today.”

While much went right for Berdych against Tomic on Sunday, those nerves were still in evidence. In the second set, each time Berdych had a chance to break serve, and thereby break open the match, he hesitated. He missed a backhand pass down the line by an inch; he sent a put-away forehand over the baseline by a hair; he let Tomic come back from 0-40 down to hold, and briefly gain some momentum. Berdych's serves were great and his forehands were fine, but there was still tension in the arm.

Still, the nice thing about a new season, and about these early days in Oz, is that the slate is wiped clean—or at least it feels wiped clean. Berdych, Madison Keys, Agnieszka Radwanska, Milos Raonic, Victoria Azarenka, even 34-year-old Venus Williams all came to Melbourne looking ready for a fresh start, and all have survived into the second week. Wawrinka also offers some hope when it comes to breaking through against Nadal Down Under; in 2014, he recorded his first career victory over an injured Rafa to win the Aussie Open. Three years ago in Rod Laver Arena, Berdych himself pushed Nadal to the brink, and nearly to tears, before losing to him in the quarters. Yesterday, when he was asked how he could push Rafa over that brink and end his losing streak to him, Berdych kept saying that he would need to do “something extra.”

He didn’t elaborate on what that “something extra” might be. After failing to find the answer 18 straight times, Berdych probably has no idea himself. But one of the beauties of tennis is that, while players rarely change, they never run out of chances to try to find something extra in themselves.

Twirling On

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 16:35:00 +0000

No one has to ask Venus or Serena Williams to twirl. They’ve been doing it after every win, with grins as wide as their faces, for years now. Yet it still comes as a bit of a surprise: After spending an hour and a half looking stony and serious (in Venus’s case) or formidable and desperate (in Serena’s), these two 30-somethings suddenly turn back into ecstatic young girls and show us how much winning a simple tennis match continues to mean to them.

Yesterday, Venus and Serena had a chance to do their celebratory whirls within the same hour. First, Venus came back to beat Camila Giorgi 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-1; not long after, Serena followed her big sister’s lead and came back to beat Elina Svitolina 4-6, 6-2, 6-0. Serena said she saw Venus’ score in Laver Arena and was motivated.

“I thought, Wow, she’s been through so much with her illness, with everything she’s had to do," Serena said. "Gosh, if she can do it, I’m perfectly healthy, I’m fine. I should be able to do it, too.’”

Whether Serena’s thoughts went exactly that way on court, we’ll never know. But we do know that Venus has been inspiring her younger sister for three decades now. And in their matches yesterday, we got a glimpse of their careers, and the results of their relationship, in microcosm.

Venus, 15 months older, was the first to love tennis, and the first to become a star because of it. In Venus and Serena, the 2012 documentary on the sisters, there’s a scene of the two being interviewed as kids. A towering Venus is asked what she wants to be when she grows up. She says, “Tennis player.” Then Serena, much shorter and younger-looking, is asked the same question, and she gives the same two-word answer in the same tone of voice: "Tennis player." Venus always wanted to play tennis; Serena, who has called herself the “ugly duckling” to Venus’ “fierce swan,” always wanted to do what her sister did, and have what her sister had.

Has there ever been a greater example of a pure, lasting love for tennis than the the 34-year-old Venus’ win over Giorgi on Saturday? It was the first time Venus had faced the monumentally streaky 23-year-old, and it showed; the American looked surprised by the take-it-on-the-rise pace the Italian generated. Ten years ago, not many women could hit the ball past either of the Williams sisters at the baseline; it was a point of pride that they were the ones who always dictated play. Now, in part because of their influence on the women’s game, that’s no longer true. There’s point-winning power up and down the Top 30, and Giorgi and Svitolina surprised Venus and Serena by routinely smacking the ball out of their reach.

But while the women have increased their power, few, if any, have matched the sisters' mix of offense and defense. Late in the second set, Venus stunned Giorgi by using her 6’1” wingspan to reach out and flick a forehand pass crosscourt. Giorgi, who thought the ball was going down the line, nearly broke her ankles trying to reverse direction. The shot came with a message: Venus wasn’t finished yet. She never is, until the last shot has been hit.

Even on her worst physical days, Venus never lets herself look beaten, and she has always made her opponents keep working to put her away, made them grind through the entire match. Giorgi couldn’t do it. Serving at 6-4, 5-4, she froze; the rockets that had gone for winners began to veer dangerously off course. Venus still has her stubborn competitive streak, and she still has her aura.

“She played amazing,” Venus said of Giorgi. “Thought she played awesome and just so aggressive. It’s challenging to get a rhythm against her. Just kind of kept trying to get games on my board so hopefully I would get an opening at some point.”

This is one thing that has changed over the years: Venus and Serena, their battles to reach the top already won, have mellowed enough that they can give their opponents due credit when they play well. Still, Venus was mainly, and rightfully, happy for herself. The win put her into the fourth round at a major for the first time since 2011, and the first time since she announced that she had Sjogren’s syndrome. On the sideline afterward, she giggled and did a half-embarrassed little dance with her friends in the stands. When she was asked on court her how she had managed to come back, Venus said, with an even wider smile than usual, “Well, this old cat still has some tricks.”

Afterward, Venus essentially closed the book on the issue of age in tennis.

“When you walk on that court, there’s no such thing as age, height, any of that stuff," she said. "It’s really an even playing field. It’s a matter of, Can you get the ball in? Can you win the point or not?”

A few minutes before Venus said those words, her sister had won the final point—an exclamation point, really—in her win over Svitolina. Serena, as she tends to do, started slowly and ended quickly; after giving her opponent hope early, she left her with the bitter taste of a final-set bagel.

Serena couldn’t explain her shaky opening; “I need to figure that out,” she said, though it’s hardly a new phenomenon. For the first 30 minutes, she appeared ready to go—to borrow an Aussie term—walkabout. She was flat-footed, slow to react, and appeared to want to be anywhere other than a tennis court. As she lined up for one serve, she nearly fell over. What was next, a repeat of last year’s Wimbledon doubles meltdown?

The 20-year-old Svitolina, a ball of positive energy by comparison, took advantage. But in taking advantage, she also brought out the first signs of life from Serena. After breaking serve with a ground-stroke winner, Svitolina pumped her fist and looked to her box as she walked to the sideline. On the other side of the net, Serena, her eyes narrowed, was watching her. Is it a coincidence that, by the time she had crossed over for the next game, her sluggishness had vanished?

If Venus plays for the love of the game, Serena plays for the love of winning—for beating other players. She’s at her best when she can make a match personal, and she doesn’t seem fully engaged until she’s fist-pumping in her opponent's face. Svitolina, fiery and unintimidated, offered the personal challenge that Serena needed. Even when she was up 4-1 in the second set, Serena shot the Ukrainian a look after one of her winners, and answered with a winner of her own.

None of that should be surprising, because Serena’s desire to play tennis has been personal from the start. She did it because she wanted to be like, and be better than, her “fierce swan” older sister. So maybe it’s good news for her that she can make her next match, against Garbine Muguruza, very personal. The young Spanish player beat her at the French Open last year.

Asked about the rematch yesterday, Serena started calmly.

“It was the best loss I had all year,” she said, “[because it] made me realize what I need to work on.”

Soon, though, Serena didn’t seem to be remembering that day so fondly.

“She didn’t miss a shot,” she said of Muguruza. “She didn’t miss a forehand. She miraculously got every ball back. I believe she has the potential to want to do that again against me. So I’m going to be ready for that.”

Notice that Serena didn’t say Muguruza has the potential to do that to her again; she said she has the potential to want to do it.

Something tells me we haven’t seen our final twirl on Rod Laver Arena.

Three to See: Day 6 Australian Open Previews

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:48:00 +0000

Each day during the Australian Open, Steve Tignor will look ahead to three of the most compelling matches in each draw.

*****

Serena Williams vs. Elina Svitolina

The question may be: Did Serena already survive her obligatory first-week wobble, when she came back from 3-5 down in the first set to beat Vera Zvonareva two days ago? Or could she get wobbly again? Looking at her draw, this was the match that seemed most dangerous to me. While Serena won their only previous meeting, back in 2012, the 20-year-old Svitolina could be on the verge of a breakout season. She can slug from both sides, and she has 13 fewer years on her legs than Serena. Winner: S. Williams

Feliciano Lopez vs. Jerzy Janowicz

Can you see this turning into an epic, day-spanning mess? Lopez has won both of his matches this week from match-point down, while Janowicz, predictably, took five sets to get past Gael Monfils. Feli has been starting slowly; he was dead and buried against Adrian Mannarino until the Frenchman began digging his own grave a little faster. Jerzy, we know, never makes things easy on himself. Plus, they’ve never played, so they may want to get to know each other for a while. Winner: Janowicz

Venus Williams vs. Camila Giorgi

There’s been some talk of a Venus resurgence this week, but now that she’s 34, it’s bound to be temporary. Still, you would think it would get her through this match. Venus is ranked 15 spots higher than Giorgi, and while the American can be erratic, she’s still steadier than the Italian, who hits hard, plays fast, and only occasionally takes names. They’ve never faced each other; three sets seems like a possibility. Winner: V. Williams

Novak Djokovic vs. Fernando Verdasco

Djokovic has made such quick work of his first two opponents—14 games surrendered in six sets—that I’ve seen more of him in the stands watching his friend Viktor Troicki than I have of him on the court. In theory, this match should take a little longer. Verdasco has won four of their previous 10 meetings, though it’s been a decade since’s he beaten him on a hard court. Verdasco is 31 and currently ranked No. 33, but he’s risen to the occasion at the Australian Open before. Risen to the occasion, that is, and still lost. Winner: Djokovic

Petra Kvitova vs. Madison Keys

If you like your hitting hard, stay awake—or wake up—for this one, which is last on Laver. Kvitova won their only meeting, in 2013, easily. But so far in Australia, both women have looked poised to have good tournaments and good seasons. Kvitova is fit and trim, and has shown signs of a new consistency this year. Keys is working with two new coaches, Lindsay Davenport and her husband, and the work appeared to be pay off in her last match, when she elevated her game far above that of a Top 30 player, Casey Dellacqua. Now, can she elevate above a woman in the Top 5? Winner: Kvitova

David Ferrer vs. Gilles Simon

If you like your matches to unfold over a fair number of hours, stay up for this one, which is the first evening match on MCA. Simon and Ferrer, in their contrasting ways, like to dig in and make themselves at home. The Spaniard is a grunter and a grinder, the Frenchman is a smooth retriever, and each is a hard man to beat. Ferrer leads their head to head 5-2, but Simon managed to wear the Little Beast down at the U.S. Open last year. He should have won some kind of award for that. Winner: Simon

Tie Broken

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 16:15:00 +0000

Roger Federer once talked, after losing a final at the Australian Open, about the "monster" of expectations he had created for himself during his prime. That monster isn't quite as big or frightening as it once was, but Federer's success over the last year appears to have coaxed it back to life. Yesterday in Melbourne, after Federer lost his first match in 11 meetings against Andreas Seppi, 6-4, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (5), everyone was ready with an excuse for him. Everyone, that is, except Federer himself.

A few minutes after he watched the Italian's final brilliant passing shot sail fatefully past him for a winner, Federer was greeted with this question in his press conference: “You didn’t look quite comfortable out there today, especially the first two sets. Was something going on, or just a bad day?”

This may have been a reference to Federer’s hand, which had bothered him earlier in the week, and which might have bothered him in this match as well—his nine double faults were more than his norm, though he also had 15 aces and actually won one more point than Seppi in total. Either way, Federer batted the idea of injury down.

“Just a bad day, yeah,” he said, “I wish I could have played better, but clearly it was tough losing the first two sets...I guess I won the wrong points out there today.”

Two questions later, another reporter took a different approach to helping Federer explain the result. You might call it “the other guy played out of his mind” theory.

“Do you think Seppi played his best match ever?” Federer didn’t bite on that one either.

“We had some good matches in the past,” he said. “He hits a good ball, forehand and backhand, so I knew that on a quicker court where he gets more help on the serve it was potentially going to be more tricky.”

After that, a third theory of defeat was floated: Federer's slightly longer end-of-2014 schedule:

“When you come to reflect," he was asked, "do you think you made it back on top after a very grueling, very emotional Davis Cup very late in the year? Maybe this event came in a bit of a rush?”

Again, Federer was having none of it.

“Not really,” he said. “I was actually very happy that it was the way it went, because it allowed me to stay with the rhythm and take a break after the Australian Open. I was playing very well in practice. I was playing very well in Brisbane.”

OK, so the yearly schedule had nothing to do with it; how about the daily schedule?

“Were you surprised you were playing in the morning session?” another journalist asked. “Maybe the conditions might be different.”

“Who knows,” said Federer, sounding weary of trying to fend off the rationalizations for his defeat. “I mean, it’s totally no excuse. How many times have I played a day session, night session, day session, or day session, night session? Who cares?”

Finally, and ironically, there were the courts themselves. Federer, as quoted above, said that they were “quicker” and that this may have helped Seppi’s serve. Later, Seppi himself was asked, twice, whether the court had been “faster” during the heat of the day. He said “no, no, no,” the speed was the same as always. In the past, we’ve heard a lot about how the courts, in Australia and elsewhere, are too slow for Federer's attacking game. Are we going to start hearing the opposite now?

Credit Federer for not going along with, or even entertaining, any of the excuses offered up for him. “I think he did well,” he said of Seppi. “I struggled and he took advantage of it.”

That's as reasonable an explanation for the result as you're going to hear. Seppi was steady and sharp, and he was at his best with Federer at the net. The Italian, who loves a target, lasered passing-shot winners from both sides. Federer, who had rushed forward so effectively last season, finished just 29 of 50 at the net.

But the big difference were the two tiebreakers; they decided everything. Federer has made a career of pulling them out when he needs them, and he usually does it with clutch serving. Yesterday he led 4-1 in the first breaker, and 3-1 in the second. But both times Seppi raised his game and stole them. As Federer said, he won the wrong points in this one.

And Seppi won the right ones. The inside-out forehand that he put on the sideline for a winner at 5-5 in the fourth-set tiebreaker may have been the best and gutsiest shot of his career—that is, until the forehand flick pass he pulled off on the next point, and which ended the match. Instead of serving his way out of trouble and into a fifth set, Federer double-faulted to give back the lead, and give Seppi new life. Seppi has always had the timing and touch that his countrymen are famous for; this time he had the calm under pressure that they’re not so famous for.

“Maybe it's the match where I felt more comfortable in my life with my emotions,” he said. “I think that helped me for sure in the end of the match a lot.”

When it was over, Federer walked around the net and greeted his conqueror with a wide smile as he shook his hand. You had the feeling that he likes the humble Italian; it’s hard not to like him. Two years ago, I watched Seppi play Ernests Gulbis at Indian Wells. I went out to see the antics of the younger, wilder Gulbis, but left admiring the older man's conscientious, gentlemanly approach. Why was Seppi, a true pro, not as celebrated as the underachieving Gulbis? Yesterday, finally, he was rewarded with a little glory for his efforts.

“You know,” he said, “to beat Roger for the first time, especially in a Grand Slam, best-of-five, is a special moment for me.”

What does this mean for Federer’s future, you ask? Seppi, for one, was confident that the world No. 2 still has Grand Slam titles in him. On the surface, though, this one is a shocker: It’s the earliest Federer has gone out at the Australian Open since 2001, and in their 10 previous matches, he had lost just one set to Seppi. But if you stick around long enough, the law of tennis averages says you’ll lose to a lot of people you’ve never lost to before. Over the last five years, there have been a dozen or so guys who have recorded their first wins over Federer after many defeats—that includes the man who beat him at the last Grand Slam, Marin Cilic.

Federer said he was worried about this match because he couldn't find a good rhythm in his practice session the previous day. He said the same thing had happened countless times before, yet he had usually gone out and won anyway; this time his worries were justified. If anything, this is a tribute to how often Federer has won over the years without necessarily feeling that he had his best stuff. The norm would have been for him to have lost a lot more of these types of matches, to a lot more of the Seppis of the world. As Federer’s great Spanish rival would put it, “Losing is the normal thing, no?”

Will it finally become the normal thing for Federer? He was offered one final excuse in his presser, the excuse of age.

“Do you feel like you’re having these off days,” he was asked, “do you feel they’re coming more often in the last couple of years?”

Federer slapped the idea away, as he had all the others.

“Oh, no,” he said. “This is a feeling I’ve had for 15 years. To me, I don’t read anything into that. It’s not like I’m playing shocking or I’m feeling shocking. It’s like one of those things where you look back and [think] maybe, Yeah, I didn’t feel so good. But if you win, you never even question it. If I were you, I wouldn’t read too much into that.”

I, for one, will try to take your advice, Roger.

Three to See: Day 5 Australian Open Previews

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:53:00 +0000

Each day during the Australian Open, Steve Tignor will look ahead to three of the most compelling matches in each draw.

*****

Eugenie Bouchard [7] vs. Caroline Garcia

If you’re looking for an upset today, this is the place to start. Garcia won the only meeting between these two, last year in Acapulco, in three sets, and the Frenchwoman has been sharp so far in Australia. But Bouchard has yet to succumb to my predictions of an inevitable sophomore slump. We’ll see if she’s the vengeful type; it will be a good sign if she is. Also: Garcia is coached by an ex-mentor of Bouchard's, Natalie Tauziat. Winner: Bouchard

Tomas Berdych [7] vs. Viktor Troicki

Things are looking up for both of these men right now. Berdych has a new coach, a new fiancée, and seemingly a new lease on life at 29, while Troicki, on the long road back from suspension, has won 12 straight matches. But 13 may be unlucky for the Serb, who has lost five in a row to the bigger-hitting Berdych, all of them in straight sets. Winner: Berdych

Ekaterina Makarova [10] vs. Karolina Pliskova

Fans may be curious about Pliskova, who was just given a tweet of approval from Andy Murray this week. This may or may not be good news for her; four years ago he said Garcia was going to be No. 1 in the world, and she just seems to be recovering from the shock now. But Pliskova has been playing well; she reached the final in Sydney last week and is ranked No. 20. Makarova won their only meeting, last year in Pattaya City. Whoever wins this one stands a good chance of getting to the quarters or beyond. Winner: Pliskova

Nick Kyrgios vs. Malek Jaziri

Kyrgios will bring his styled brows and gold-chain 'tude to Margaret Court Arena for a night match with a 31-year-old Tunisian ranked No. 75. That scenario has Aussie beach-ball party written all over it, but beware of Jaziri for two reasons: (1) Goran Ivanisevic, the man who took Marin Cilic to the U.S. Open title last year, has volunteered to be his coach in Melbourne; and (2) The winner will face Roger Federer, which means this could be a trap match for the spotlight-seeking Kyrgios. Winner: Kyrgios

Maria Sharapova [2] vs. Zarina Diyas

Sharapova had never faced her last opponent, Alexandra Panova, and she nearly lost; she's never faced Diyas, either, and the 21-year-old is the tougher player. That hardly guarantees an upset, or even a decent match; last week in Hobart, Diyas lost to Alison Riske 6-3, 6-0. But she's ranked No. 31, and has been steadily improving. Is she ready for night tennis in Rod Laver Arena? Winner: Sharapova

Bernard Tomic vs. Sam Groth

These two Aussies will face off, for the first time, late on Hisense Arena. So far the fit-looking Tomic has been impressive, to the crowds and apparently to himself: Bernie walked off after his last win, over Philipp Kohlschreiber, with his fist raised as if he had just single-handedly won the Davis Cup for Australia. But Groth, he of the monster serve, is an Aussie of the all-business variety, and he knocked another of his hot-shot young countrymen, Thanasi Kokkinakis, out in five sets two nights ago. Bernie is going to want this one; he might get Berdych in the fourth round, and that’s a winnable match. Winner: Tomic

Also on the docket: Roger Federer (vs. Andreas Seppi), Rafael Nadal (vs. Dudi Sela), and Simona Halep (vs. Bethanie Mattek-Sands). On paper, they’re all heavy favorites.

Another Way of Winning

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:13:00 +0000

"He’s a great example of what he did today."

This was Rafael Nadal’s very Rafa-like way of congratulating his opponent, Tim Smyczek, after their five-set match on Wednesday. Nadal wasn’t referring to the 112th-ranked American’s surprisingly strong game that night; he was talking about the now-famous, and even more surprising, gesture that Smyczek made at 5-6 in the fifth set. Rafa was congratulating Smyczek for acting not like a professional tennis player, but like a human being.

As Nadal tossed the ball to serve at 30-0, someone inside Rod Laver Arena screamed, and Rafa sent the ball well long. He looked in vain for help from the chair umpire, who said his hands were tied—there’s nothing, as far as the rules go, that accounts for random noises from courtside. After his plea was rejected, Nadal slumped his shoulders and hung his head and walked back to serve; he had accepted, unhappily, his fate. That’s when Smyczek surprised him by coming to the rescue and letting him have another first serve. All Rafa could do was give him a thumbs up—and then beat him.

Smyczek had, in the court of public opinion, lost a battle but won a war. His name, odd spelling and all, rose to the top of Twitter's worldwide trend list, and he even inspired a French TV commentator to say the words “l’américain” and “bravo” at nearly the same time—how often do you hear that? In the U.S., Smyczek's gesture was noticed in part because of its timing. It came 24 hours after the most prominent team in the NFL, the New England Patriots, were accused of deflating footballs to gain an advantage before their win on Sunday—you may know the scandal as Deflategate. (I prefer Ballghazi myself). This came seven years after Spygate, when the Patriots were caught illegally filming opponents' practices. By now, the team’s coach, Bill "I've told you everything I know" Belichick, the dark lord of the hoodie, is commonly known as Belicheat. (We seem to specialize in clever nicknames for crooked behavior over here.)

Smyczek vs. Belichick—tennis obviously gets the better of that comparison at the moment. And in Smyczek’s gesture, we did see something that makes this game special: Tennis offers an opportunity for sportsmanship, a history of it, and an expectation of it. In most other games, it's a given that you try to subvert the rules whenever possible—as the saying goes, "If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin'", and the true crime is getting caught. In baseball, a batter would never give the pitcher a strike if he thinks the umpire got the call wrong. In American football, a receiver would never admit that he didn’t have possession of the ball in-bounds. In soccer... well, we know all about soccer and bending it—bending the rules to the breaking point, that is. As any head football would tell you, the ends justify the means in professional sports, because winning, and only winning, is your job.

But tennis retains the vestiges of a code of honor, rather than just a book of regulations. When you play it recreationally, you make all the calls yourself—even, in the case of double-bounces and double-hits, on yourself. When you're on court, you show the world your skills, and your ethics. At the highest levels, because the sport remained amateur for its first 100 years, with no prize money on the line, 19th-century ideas of sportsmanship that had become archaic everywhere else were kept alive on tennis courts. In its original Victorian public-school form, the game was supposed to teach values, to turn boys into well-mannered men.

This moral dimension was an aspect of all the sports that evolved during that time—cricket, rugby, soccer, hockey, and their American off-shoots—and it’s why we still cling to the old-fashioned and arguably untenable idea that athletes should be role models, rather than just entertainers. But tennis in the early part of the 20th century was often a testing ground for ideas of sportsmanship. In the 1930s, Don Budge spent time debating who had the more perfect concept of it, Bill Tilden or Baron Gottfried von Cramm. Tilden, ever the dramatist, liked to ostentatiously give back points when he thought an opponent had been robbed; for a time, Budge copied him. Then Cramm, the German aristocrat, told Budge before one of their matches that no one should give a a point back because it made the linesman who got the call wrong look bad. Budge eventually decided this was the purer form of sportsmanship.

By the 1970s, of course, money was in the game, and gentlemanly behavior, at least among the men, was flying out the window. In the middle of that wild-west decade, tennis created a Code of Conduct to regulate bad behavior, something it had never needed during the amateur era. But the men’s game has matured since then; Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are the models now, rather than Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe. With them, honor, rather than just simple rule following, has begun to creep back in. Nadal, Djokovic, and others will overrule calls against themselves. Jonny Marray alerted an unsuspecting umpire that he had touched the net on a volley in the middle of a Wimbledon doubles final. When Milos Raonic didn’t do the same thing in a match in Canada two years ago, he was roundly shamed for it. And now there's Smyczek. (Still, no one, to my knowledge, has matched Cramm’s standards. Can you imagine a player today accepting a bad call because he or she didn’t want to embarrass the linesperson?)

As much as you may have appreciated Smyczek's gesture from afar, would you have done what he did? I’ve asked myself that at least 10 times over the last two days, and I haven’t come up with a good answer.

If I’m playing a pick-up match at my club? Yes, obviously, I would give back a first serve.

If I’m playing the final of my club tournament? Ummm, yes, I think I would do it there as well, but the decision wouldn’t be so easy. It might, to be honest, depend on who I was playing.

If I were in the fifth set of an Australian Open night match against Nadal, with a chance for the biggest win of my life, when Nadal has already accepted that he’s not going to get a first serve back? I really don’t know. I kind of doubt it, in part because no one would ever blame someone for not giving that serve back. People might even have whispered that I was too nice, too soft to beat Nadal, that I didn’t have what it takes to be a pro.

And that’s what makes Smyczek’s gesture so admirable: He didn’t have to do it. In fact, the cutthroat ethos of pro sports, where ruthlessness is the highest virtue, says he shouldn’t have done it. As Nadal said, "It was a surprise, but it shouldn't be."

Afterward, Smyczek had the perfect, and perfectly concise, answer for why he felt like he had to give Rafa a first serve anyway:

"I thought it was the right thing to do."

1968: Open Era Begins in Bournemouth

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:16:00 +0000

This year marks the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine's founding in 1965. To commemorate the occasion, we'll look back each Thursday at one of the 50 moments that have defined the last half-century in our sport.

*****

Nineteen-sixty-eight was a year of revolt, when cities from Tokyo to Chicago to Paris to Prague were convulsed with protest. Things got so wild that even the staid old sport of tennis joined the fun—in its own quiet way, of course—in the sleepy seaside resort town of Bournemouth, England. That’s where, on April 22, at 1:43 P.M., in front of 100 hardy fans and a shivering dog, a 22-year-old from Scotland named John Clifton squinted up through the fog and mist and hit the first serve of tennis’s Open era.

As revolts go, this may sound a little mild. But in the ensuing week at Bournemouth, tennis caught and channeled the anarchic spirit of the 1960s. It was a decade when traditional divisions were erased and age-old hierarchies came crashing down. Black and white in the American south; men and women in workplaces and on college campuses; fine art and commercial art; jazz and rock: What had seemed like essential distinctions as the decade began had begun to dissolve by its end. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage; in ’68, women students were finally admitted at Yale and Princeton. In Bournemouth that spring, tennis added its own once-unthinkable co-mingling to the 60s cocktail party: The end of the distinction between amateur and professional.

That division had been at the heart of tennis since the game was invented in Victorian England nearly a century earlier. “Amateur” was the athletic version of “gentleman,” the man of inherited means who didn’t need to play a sport for money—having the leisure time to hone his skills on court was a sign of his status. The professional, on the other hand, had to serve and volley for his living. For much of the 20th century, the two groups competed on separate but not equal tracks. The amateurs gamboled on the grass and hoisted the trophies at the Grand Slams, while grabbing appearance money under the table. The pros drove through the small-town wilderness, on one-night barnstorming tours in the U.S., Europe, and Australia; any place where they could put together a semblance of a paying audience would do.

The pros were 60s all the way. One writer fancifully compared them to the decade’s original wilderness heroes: Fidel Castro’s Cuban rebels, who roamed the hills and bided their time before making their advance on the capital. Even the name that the pros gave to their objective—“open tennis”—was an echo of that Civil Rights-inspired buzzword of the early 60s, “free.” After many struggles and setbacks, tennis freedom was achieved in March of ’68, when the sport’s amateur governing body, the ILTF, bowed to the inevitable and voted to allow the barbarians inside the gates at its events.

Wimbledon, fearing irrelevance as more young stars joined the pro ranks, had instigated the move the previous fall; the All England Club had staged an experimental, pros-only invitational in ’67, and the club’s chief executive, Herman David, had dropped a bombshell when he called amateurism a “living lie.” But, as Bud Collins wrote, “The British weren’t so brave or brazen to drop the bomb at the sacred Big W.” Open tennis would make its debut Off Broadway, a couple of hours from London, at the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth.

The town’s West Hants Lawn Tennis Club was cozy and unassuming, but the British Hard Courts weren’t too far off of Broadway. The dual-gender event been an important stop on the amateur circuit since 1924, and boasted a who’s who of past champions. The “hard” courts in the name were actually made of red clay; the word was used in England to distinguish “hard” shale from the country’s primary surface, “soft” grass.

Despite the rain and fog, tournament organizers described the event as a “bonanza.” Twenty-thousand fans attended, twice as many as the previous year. They were there to see those legendary, long-suffering professionals finally come in from the cold. Rod Laver (gone for six years), Ken Rosewall (gone for 12 years), Pancho Gonzalez (gone for 19 years) joined fellow pros Fred Stolle, Roy Emerson, and others in the men’s draw, all of them competing for the $2,400 first prize.

These ghosts were spooky enough to keep many of the best amateurs away from Bournemouth. Arthur Ashe, Ilie Nastase, and Manual Santana skipped the event on the men’s side, as did Margaret Court and Maria Bueno on the women’s. At this stage, there was still a question of whether other tournaments would allow amateurs to compete after they had entered an open—i.e., tainted—event. Plus, the amateurs had their own reputations to uphold.

“I suppose the top amateurs won’t come to play the professionals because the amateurs’ [appearance-fee] price would go down if they lost,” mused Derek Hardwick, head of Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association.

On the women’s side, it was the pros who decided the give Bournemouth a miss. Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals, Ann Jones, and Françoise Durr boycotted the tournament because the $720 top prize was so low—and, more important, so much less than the men’s. Even before a ball had been struck, the Open era’s fight for equal prize money had begun.

A few of the male pros may have wished they had skipped Bournemouth as well. For them, it was put-up or shut-up time; they were supposed to return in triumph, and anything less than total domination would be a headline-making embarrassment. Yet they were older and inbred now, having spent years facing only each other, and they weren’t used to the best-of-five format that was still in place at Bournemouth. “There are so many we’ve never seen or heard of,” an anxious Laver said of the amateurs.

Owen Davidson, an Aussie pro, was so concerned after losing the aforementioned opening point of the tournament to John Clifton—the first in history between pro and amateur—that he was left “ashen,” according to Collins. But Davidson went on to win the match; Gonzalez and Emerson weren’t so lucky against Britain’s top amateur, Mark Cox. The burly, curly-haired young lefty ambushed the two old pros to reach the semis. His upset wins made him a front-page hero to London’s newspapers, which were firmly on the side of the amateurs.

“The mind boggles at the enormity of his achievement,” boomed Rex Bellamy of the Times of London.

Cox, a soft-spoken Cambridge graduate and old-fashioned tennis gentleman, was slightly more level-headed about what he had done. “These fellows are under a lot of pressure this week,” Cox said of the pros. “It’s as if they’ve got weights around their legs.”

“Somebody had to be the first to lose to an amateur,” the 39-year-old Gonzalez said with a weary smile after his three-hour, five-set defeat.

In the next round, Laver, solemnly determined to defend the pros’ honor, ended Cox’s run in straight sets. “He made mincemeat out of me,” Cox said.

In the end, the pros triumphed, and the crowds at Bournemouth saw a fine show. Rosewall beat Laver for the men’s title, while Virginia Wade beat fellow Brit Winnie Shaw for the women’s.

“There’s no going back after this,” Derek Hardwick said, champagne glass in hand, when the tournament was over. Tennis was open for business, and ready for Broadway.

Three to See: Day 4 Australian Open Previews

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:23:00 +0000

Each day during the Australian Open, Steve Tignor will look ahead to three of the most compelling matches in each draw.

*****

Victoria Azarenka vs. Caroline Wozniacki

Thursday's showcase match has ended up on Margaret Court Arena at night, a fact that generated so much outrage in my Twitter feed last night that I thought the scandal might begin to trend worldwide. I can understand the disappointment, but I can also understand how Sam Stosur’s match would be in Rod Laver instead. And while MCA isn’t the bigger court, it is the better one for spectators.

Those spectators will get an early-round treat from this match, which, by the end of 2015, could be a Grand Slam final. Both women are former No. 1s, and in completed head-head matches, they’re 3-3 (technically, Wozniacki leads 4-3). Azarenka is a two-time champ here, but Wozniacki is farther along in her rebuilding process. Winner: Wozniacki

Gael Monfils vs. Jerzy Janowicz

The night time is the right time for this trip through the tennis looking glass. The Pole and the Frenchman are towering athletes who are as gifted in self-sabotage as they are in shot-making. A match featuring one of them is unpredictable enough; put them together and you can only expect the unexpected. Monfils won their sole meeting, in fairly quiet fashion it seems, 6-3, 6-4 last year in Metz. Gael probably won’t settle for anything that dull in Hisense tonight. Winner: Monfils

Serena Williams vs. Vera Zvonareva

These two faced each other in the 2010 Wimbledon final—it seems so long ago, doesn't it? Can you guess who won? But while Serena has the upper hand in their head-to-head, she hasn't always dominated. Zvonareva has won three of their 10 matches, and two of five on hard courts. The Russian is 31 now and, after some time away, ranked No. 203. But this isn’t your everyday second-round match, and Serena won’t treat it that way. Winner: S. Williams

Milos Raonic vs. Donald Young

On the surface, this appears to be blowout city. Raonic is in the Top 10 and is a legitimate threat to win the tournament; Young is ranked 56th, he gives up six inches on Raonic, and has no weapons that can remotely compete with the Canadian’s serve. Yet the last time they played, indoors in Basel last fall, Young took it to a final-set tiebreaker before succumbing. Winner: Raonic

Madison Keys vs. Casey Dellacqua

The new Keys-Davenport team moves into its second round, and up a step in class. The Aussie and the American, ranked 29 and 35 respectively, should be evenly matched. Winner: Keys

Sam Stosur vs. CoCo Vandeweghe

It will be tension time in Rod Laver Arena tonight, as Stosur tries once again to shake her home-country nerves. Vandeweghe may not be the best opponent for that. The big-serving American has improved over the last year, and her improvement included a three-set win over Stosur in Miami last March. Still, she’ll be nervous for a night match, too. Winner: Vandeweghe

Honorable Mention: Venus Williams vs. Lauren Davis. Here we have the long and the short of it. Venus is 6’1”, Davis is 5’2”. They’ve played once, two weeks ago in Auckland, and Venus won easily. Can it be as easy this time?

Doing What She Does

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 15:39:00 +0000

"That’s what champions do": Of all the clichés associated with tennis, this one might be the most painful on the ears. Sometimes I feel like I will, literally, weep with gratitude when a commentator doesn't say these words after a great player makes a clutch shot.

So I was happy that, even as Maria Sharapova was pulling out a Houdini-esque, 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 comeback win over Alexandra Panova last night, I didn’t hear the commentators from Australia go to that particular well in the closing games. They must have been tempted: Sharapova is nothing if not a champion, and she won a match in a way that we associate with the game’s grittiest competitors: without her best stuff. (That’s another cliché, of course, but I guess you can only avoid one at a time.)

What Sharapova showed is that the phrase should really be "that’s what champions do—except when they don’t." Even the most invincible players lose on a regular basis; Maria has done it 135 times in her 13 years on tour. Whatever champions do, she didn’t do it on those occasions. And yesterday, even as she was clambering back from 1-4 down in the third set to a player ranked No. 150 in the world, Sharapova made a lot of questionable choices and did a lot of things that, coming from anyone else, would have been flat-out wrong.

With Panova serving at 4-3 in the third, looking visibly nervous and having lost two games in a row, the smart play from Sharapova would have been to keep the ball in the court. Instead, she rushed on a forehand, went for too much, and hit it long. Two points later, she rushed on a backhand, went for too much, and hit it wide. Panova, thankful for the gifts, held. Maria, rather than upping her game at the crucial time, appeared to let nerves get the better of her.

Two games later, at 5-4, with Panova serving for the biggest win of her career and even more visibly nervous, Sharapova did the same thing. She went for broke on a return and missed. She went for the lines on two straight forehands and missed them both. Why wouldn’t she make Panova, who was struggling just to toss the ball in the right place and swing her arm through on her serve, hit a few balls?

Down double match point, having made close to 50 errors and, as she would say later, feeling “pretty negative,” Sharapova went for everything on her return one more time—this time it went for winner. Down match point again, having pulled the trigger on her forehand and missed twice in that game, Sharapova pulled the trigger a third time—and put the ball just inside the sideline for a winner. Two points later, she put another forehand on the sideline to break for 5-5. With that she had also broken Panova’s heart.

What was going through Sharapova’s mind on those match points? Why did she hit the ball in, when she had hit it out before? The only difference I could see was that her swing itself was a little smoother and calmer in those moments than it had been earlier, when she was jerking the ball all over the stadium.

In her presser, Sharapova at first made it sound like her clutch play was the natural, involuntary reaction of a person who is used to winning:

"Of course, based on experience, you lift yourself up both mentally and physically," she said of her mindset on the match points.

A little later, she went into more detail:

"I was thinking about it too much," Sharapova said, "Instead of just like being in the present, saying, 'Hey, go up the line, do what you do, do what you’ve done thousands of times.' I’m good at that and I’ll continue to be good at that."

"Do you what you've done a thousand times." "I'm good at that and I'll continue to be good at that." No matter how many times she missed, Sharapova knew she would eventually stop missing. With Sharapova's 135 losses have come 563 victories; where Panova had to try to believe she could win, Maria knew from experience that she could. That knowledge is often the only thing that separates a second-round disaster from a second-round Houdini act. Or more: Last year in Melbourne, Li Na saved a match point in the third round against Lucie Safarova and went on to win the tournament.

How about the woman who didn’t win this match? I thought Panova’s performance disproved another common tennis cliché: That an underdog "can go out there with nothing to lose." Panova is a 25-year-old Russian whose court mannerisms—the string gazing before serves, the shadow swings before returns—eerily echo Sharapova’s. Through the second and most of the third sets, she swung away and out-did Maria at her own game.

But all of that changed when Panova reached 4-1 in the third. At this stage, she knew that to lose the match she would have to choke it away. It's a terrible realization; losing may not be the worst thing in the world, but choking and losing is. When Panova came out to serve at 4-1, up two breaks, it was as if an invisible wall was suddenly thrown up in front of her, something that hindered all of her movements. She had something to lose, and she lost it.

As for the woman who won it, the best summation of Sharapova’s comeback came from the man who restrained himself from saying "that’s what the great ones do" too many times last night, Aussie commentator Fred Stolle.

"If she’s going to lose, she’s going to lose her way," Fiery Fred said as Maria drilled another ball long.

This is Sharapova’s strength and her flaw: She goes for it, even when, to the rest of us, going for it doesn't look like the right choice. But that's the thing: Champions aren't like the rest of us. They bring their flaws with them and—five times out of six—they win anyway.

Three to See: Day 3 Australian Open Previews

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:57:00 +0000

Each day during the Australian Open, Steve Tignor will look ahead to three of the most compelling matches in each draw.

*****

Nick Kyrgios vs. Ivo Karlovic

At 19, Kyrgios has already beaten Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon and charmed Victoria Azarenka on Twitter. Now he faces the supreme test: Playing Dr. Ace, Ivo Karlovic. Kyrgios is a flashy young man, but is he also a patient one? We’ll find out when these two start trading bombs in the fairly intimate confines of Show Court 3. Hopefully, for his sake, Kyrgios will take his exile there as a snub. Winner: Karlovic

Andy Murray vs. Marinko Matosevic

Murray hasn’t dropped a set in two matches against Matosevic, but the Aussie with the sideways hat and motoring mouth say he’s finally “matured.” It's true, Matosevic has finally won a match at his home Slam, and he’ll have the crowd in Margaret Court Arena up in arms. But it’s Murray who has felt more comfortable in Australia in the past. He hasn’t lost before the quarters there since 2009. Winner: Murray

Philipp Kohlschreiber vs. Bernard Tomic

Which version of Bernie are we up to now? 3.0? 4.0? Bernie Forever? Whichever it is, the Aussie bad boy, who was once “misunderstood” but is now verging on irrelevance at age 22, has looked leaner, meaner, and tanner so far Down Under. So lean and mean that he beat Kohlschreiber last week in Sydney. Tomic Time doesn’t last past January, and it rarely travels past the Aussie borders, but he makes the most of it while he can. Winner: Tomic

Ekaterina Makarova vs. Roberta Vinci

With Ana Ivanovic out, Makarova has a much clearer path to a quarterfinal encounter with Simona Halep. But Vinci, a sporadically wily veteran with the purest one-handed around, has won two of their four previous matches. Winner: Makarova

Simona Halep vs. Jarmila Gajdosova

Tuesday was a slow day for men’s matches; Wednesday, it the women’s turn, as should be obvious from my choice of this probable blow-out. Halep and Gajdosova, an Aussie by way of Slovakia, have never played. While Halep, the No. 3 seed, is the prohibitive favorite, she could face a test from the Fanatics in the crowd. Winner: Halep

Eugenie Bouchard vs. Kiki Bertens

I’ve been talking about a sophomore slump for Bouchard, but she hasn’t complied so far. Her second-round match will come in an evening session on Margaret Court Arena, against an opponent she has never faced. Winner: Bouchard

Going to War Together

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 15:52:00 +0000

Can the women in tennis get along? Last year at this time, USA Today, in an article entitled “Frenemy Territory: No Love Lost Among Some Women Tennis Stars,” led us to believe that the answer was no. “What can I tell you,” Nadia Petrova told Doug Robson, “girls are girls. We always find something to fuss about.” Those were the days, after all, of Serena Williams’ public feuds with Sloane “I Made You” Stephens and Maria “She’s Still Not Going to Be Invited to the Cool Parties” Sharapova.

What a difference 12 months has made. Serena, after spending 2014 in a traveling love fest with Caroline Wozniacki, began the Aussie Open by saying this about the WTA: “It’s like a big family now.” Asked if she thought this was a positive development, Serena nodded. “I do, because you get to know the ladies. If someone gets hurt, you hear about it and you feel for them. You want to reach out to them.”

Which brings us to the two ladies who define the WTA’s frenemy divide at the moment, Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka. Caro, 24, and Vika, 25, who will face off in an unfortunately early second-round match on Thursday, have been friendly combatants since their junior days. As pros, they’ve ridden the tour roller coaster together.

Both have spent time at No. 1, and then watched as their rankings plummeted out of the Top 15. Wozniacki rebuilt her game in 2014; Azarenka is in the process of trying to do the same in 2015. They’ve played one epic match, in Doha six years ago, which Wozniacki won 7-5 in the third. At the time, I thought she had the brighter future of the two, because of her consistency. But Azarenka just needed more time to put her bigger game together.

Over the years, their friendship, like many friendships, has waxed and waned. As another player from the 1970s once said, while mourning the lack of camaraderie on the ATP side in those bad-boy days, “It’s hard to be friends when everyone has a ranking number hanging over their heads.” That’s especially true when the ranking is No. 1. Last year, though, Wozniacki and Azarenka connected again while each was going through a break-up.

“We were both in Monaco when her situation happened and everything with me happened,” Azarenka told Chris Clarey of the New York Times earlier this month. “We were just having dinner and crying on each other’s shoulders.”

“We’ve always been pretty close,” Wozniacki said yesterday. “You know, I think there’s times, periods where you spend more time together, periods when you don’t. Friends, you know your best friends, when you don’t talk to them for a few months, all of a sudden you talk, it’s like you’ve seen each other yesterday. She’s a fun girl to be around. There’s always loads to talk about. I’m glad to see her back.”

Wozniacki reacted to her break-up with golfer Rory McIlroy by getting right back to work. Success for her came quickly, as she reached the final of the U.S. Open and qualified for the tour championships in Singapore. Azarenka says she went through a period of depression after her break-up with the performer Redfoo, and took up painting as an outlet. Vika, whose coach and mentor is a philosophizing Frenchman named Sam Sumyk, has become something of a seeker in recent years.

“The dreams are always big,” she said yesterday of her plans for 2015. “And I think that’s kind of the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just to look and have a big objective of where you want to go.”

Judging by their performances yesterday, Wozniacki and Azarenka look poised to reascend the rankings ladder together this year. Both women were playing young Americans—Azarenka faced Sloane Stephens; Wozniacki faced Taylor Townsend—and both found their ways through them in characteristic fashion.

Azarenka made herself the aggressor against Stephens, going up the line and coming forward whenever possible, and in the process exposing Stephens’ inability to do either of those things.

“When you play against [Sloane],” Azarenka said afterward, “you want to try not to give her an opportunity to use her weapons....The important thing is just to try to control the game as much as you can.”

Speaking of frenemies, or in this case just plain enemies, Azarenka was pretty direct in her assessment of Stephens’ game, and what she’s not doing with it at the moment.

“You know, Sloane is a player that has really big weapons,” Vika said, “and when she uses them she’s a very, very dangerous player....She’s always been a dangerous player. She just needs to work hard.”

Wozniacki, meanwhile, had her hands full with Townsend. The 18-year-old’s aggressiveness, Caro said, made her “uncomfortable.” That was especially true in the first set, which went to a tiebreaker. Townsend, unlike Stephens, is using her weapons to the hilt these days, and there are few players of any age or at any level who can follow pace with touch the way she can. But Wozniacki, a veteran of many ups and downs at 24, knew she held a trump card over the teenager.

“I knew that at some point she’s going to start thinking,” Wozniacki said, “and I need to take advantage of that. Whenever I see her hesitating a little bit, I need to step it up, I need to get more returns in, I need to serve better. In the tiebreaker, I did so.”

On the surface, Wozniacki has a friendlier personality than Azarenka, but she’s her equal as a competitor—where Vika is fierce and boiling, Caro is quietly tenacious. More important, she believes in herself—Wozniacki almost dares her opponent to beat her, and she looks surprised when the player pulls it off.

Wozniacki and Azarenka supported each other last year, but they'll do battle this week. Does it matter if they get along? Does it matter if the women get along in general? When the men in tennis don’t like each other, we call it a bad boy era, and look back on it with wry fondness. When the women don’t like each other, we say that girls "will always find something to fuss about."

In truth, an environment where you’re directly competing to make a living with the people you see every day is never going to be conducive to easy friendships. And the tennis tours, men's and women's, will always be a mix of the social and the un-social—for every maverick Jimmy Connors, there’s a happy-go-lucky Vitas Gerulaitis; for every Li Na, who seemed to be universally loved by her tour-mates, there’s a Genie Bouchard who says she's happy to go it alone.

As a fan, when I think about Azarenka and Wozniacki, what I like most about them is the way they compete. And that’s all I’ll have to care about when they play on Thursday.

Three to See: Day 2 Australian Open Previews

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 17:44:00 +0000

Each day during the Australian Open, Steve Tignor will look ahead to three of the most compelling matches in each draw.

Sloane Stephens vs. Victoria Azarenka

This is turning into an annual event. Sloane and Vika have played in Oz each of the last two years. In 2013, Azarenka won a controversial semifinal; last year she won a routine fourth-rounder. It’s not a great sign for either player that they’re now meeting in the first round. Azarenka is on the mend after a frustrating 2014, while Stephens, her ranking down from the teens to the 30s, has a new coach and is trying mightily to have a new attitude as well. It’s still hard to say what Vika will do from day to day; she lost her opener in Brisbane. But one thing she seems to know how to do is beat Sloane in Melbourne. Winner: Azarenka

Kei Nishikori vs. Nicolas Almagro

In the age of 32 seeds, it has become hard to find a competitive first-round match-up involving a highly ranked male player. This may be the closest we get, at least on paper. Almagro reached No. 9 in the rankings a couple of years ago, has made the quarters in Melbourne, and last spring he beat Rafael Nadal on clay. But he underwent foot surgery soon after and has played just one match since June. Nishikori lost a close one to Raonic to start the season, but that shouldn’t shake his confidence enough to produce an upset here. Winner: Nishikori

Caroline Wozniacki vs. Taylor Townsend

These two played two weeks ago in Auckland, and Wozniacki was a 6-1 7-6 (4) winner. In the round before that, Townsend, 18, recorded a quality win over Yanina Wickmayer. And since then, Wozniacki has retired from the Sydney event with a wrist injury. Can the raw but skilled American take advantage? The match will be on her racquet, but the result will still probably be decided by Caro’s wrist. Winner: Wozniacki

Sam Querrey vs. Vasek Pospisil

Yes, it has to be a weak day for this one to make the cut. But American fans may be curious to see Querrey, who is currently ranked a respectable No. 35 and would seem to be poised to go higher. And Canadians will want to get a look at Pospisil, the toothy 24-year-old who has spent the last two years making it look like he’s bound for the Top 10. In reality, he’s ranked No. 60 at the moment. Winner: Querrey

Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Kurumi Nara

Aga won their only meeting, in Cincy last year, 6-2, 6-2, but Nara is ranked No. 39, not too far out of the seedings. Even if the match isn’t competitive, it will be worth watching to see what effect, if any, Radwanska’s new coach, Martina Navratilova, has had on her game. Martina has long shown her tactical savvy in the commentator’s booth; we’ll see how it translates from the player’s box. Winner: Radwanska

Gael Monfils vs. Lucas Pouille

La Monf returns to his home away from home: Margaret Court Arena in the evening. The loose atmosphere over there inspires his showman's side, so much so that he might throw the first two sets just so he can make it interesting later. But Monfils might not want to mess around too much against his fellow Frenchman. Pouille, ranked No. 117, came out of the qualifiers to reach the semis in Auckland last week. At 20, he may be destined for better runs than that in the near future. Winner: Monfils

Honorable Mentions:

Elina Svitolina va. Yulia Putintseva. There will be screams. There may be blood.

Madison Keys vs. Lesia Tsurenko: Like Aga with Martina, Keys will make her debut with new coach Lindsay Davenport.

When You've Got Nothing...

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:41:00 +0000

"What I say the other day is the real thing. Today is very hard to speak about having chances of nothing. Is not the right moment to talk about that. It’s the moment to really give to this victory the right value."

Is it any surprise that Rafael Nadal would react to his smooth and simple 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 first-round win over Mikhail Youzhny at the Australian Open with caution? To his fans, it had been a moment for rejoicing; over the course of the match’s 110 minutes, they let out cries and tweets of delight. They were relieved to see, after his rusty start to the season in Doha, that his forehand was hooking, his passes were dipping, his returns were penetrating, his fists were pumping, and his kit was louder than ever. Yet Rafa, as he always does, chose not to get ahead of himself. It sounded just as important to him to assess the meaning of this match correctly—"to give to this victory the right value"—as it was to play well and win it. And he wasn’t going to let anyone change his mind about that assessment.

Afterward, reporters informed him that Youzhny said he believed the Spaniard "can be very dangerous in the second week." Nadal answered by reiterating "what I say the other day"—that he isn’t one of the favorites to win the tournament. By now, this has become one of the cherished rituals of professional tennis, as predictable as Big 3 titles and outrage over grunting. The press asks Rafa if he's the "favorite" to win something, and he responds by hunching his shoulders, raising his eyebrows, shaking his head, and saying, "No." After which, fans roll their eyes and say, "There goes Rafa being Rafa." Or they accuse him of being falsely humble.

It's a bogus process all around. To begin, a "tournament favorite" is an artificial concept, useful mainly as a conversation starter for fans and media. It's also subject to daily change. Over the course of a two-week event, the presumed favorite can shift two or three times according to who goes in and out of form. As they famously like to tell us, the players can only think about, and win, one match at a time.

Beyond that, how many tennis players have you heard come out and declare themselves the favorite at a Grand Slam before it starts? This was Novak Djokovic’s answer to the same "Who are the favorites?" question over the weekend: "Well, I don’t think it’s nice to talk about the title already now when the tournament hasn't started....We have to have a right and humble approach to the tournament. So I'll take it one match at a time." Yet it’s Nadal’s answer that makes headlines.

That said, Rafa does think and speak strategically when he sets expectations for himself. Like a lot of athletes—as well as most humans and animals—he enjoys being the hunter rather than the hunted; he plays with more hunger and fewer nerves when he’s in that position. But what’s always impressed me about Nadal is his ability to speak honestly and usefully at the same time. In his interviews so far in Australia, I’ve been struck by how well he knows the drill when it comes to comebacks, and how realistic he is about putting a long-term plan into place.

"Every time is different," Nadal said of returning after a protracted layoff. "Every feeling is different. Every time you come back, you have the doubts, you have the feeling that you are far away from your best. But at the same time, you know the only thing you can is try to play with the right attitude and try to have the schedule to play matches, to play weeks in a row. It’s the only way to find the positive feelings and the confidence back."

Realistic and experienced enough to have a plan that looks long term, Nadal wins as much with his words, and how he uses them to think about his progress from match to match, as he does with those hooking forehands. That really is worthy of a headline.

*****

"It’s disappointing. You know, it’s probably the worst thing that could happen. But still, the year is young and I really have to now sit and work on a few things and just maybe try to have a different approach to this kind of event and try to see what was lacking."

Ana Ivanovic was the other player who made news on the Australian Open’s first day, but her fans were anything but delighted. Ivanovic, the fifth seed and a runner-up in her first event of 2015 in Brisbane, suffered a stunning loss to No. 142 Lucie Hradecka, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. Hradecka, as far as I knew, was purely a doubles specialist; it seemed weird even to see her playing singles, let alone out-hitting a Top 10 player.

Ivanovic, as the quote above attests, was just as honest as Nadal in her post-match assessment, and even gloomier. Her willingness to be open about her feelings, whatever they may be, is one of the things I like about her. She doesn’t rationalize or get defensive or make excuses or give her opponent backhanded compliments about how she was "playing out of her mind." When she was asked how she would get over a "shock loss" like this one, Ivanovic didn’t try to stay detached.

"It’s hard," she said. "There’s no easy way to do that... It has to hurt as well."

I had wondered as the season began whether we could finally trust Ivanovic’s latest surge. It had lasted for a full year and taken her back into the Top 5, but I still had the feeling that, unlike a true perennial Top 5 player, she remained subject to the whims of confidence—she could beat anyone when she had it, but lose to anyone when she didn’t. Yesterday, Ivanovic admitted that she succumbed to first-round jitters, and she was frustrated to think that if she could only have survived this match, she likely would have played much better after that. But Hradecka wouldn’t cooperate.

As open as Ivanovic was, though, her words were different from Nadal’s in a telling way: She didn’t talk about sticking to a plan. Instead, she talked, as she often does, about reassessing everything immediately. As she said in the quote above, "I really now have to sit and work on a few things and just maybe try to have a different approach to this kind of event and see what was lacking."

Ivanovic also admitted that, while she tries to see the big picture, "I’m such a perfectionist and sometimes I judge myself too much."

The Serb is famous for jettisoning coaches and trainers and starting over again with a new team; I won’t try to count how many times it’s happened. In this, she’s notably different from Nadal, who has had the same coach, his uncle, for 25 years. Whether she’s speaking or walking or playing, Ivanovic rushes ahead, and that seems to be true about her opinions of her game and herself. Misses aren’t just misses in her mind, they’re judgements.

Ivanovic will be better again. In a sense, she’s not all that different from Nadal—here, for the first time in a long time, she was the hunter rather than the hunted, and she didn’t like it. Watching as she struggled just to get the ball over the net in the third set, I thought about the wisdom of Nadal’s pre-tournament self-assessment. "Nothing" about his game was any good, he had said with a smile.

When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.