MVN - Most Valuable Network

What now??

The year isn’t over yet - but it’s been mostly no go for Roger and lovely for Rafa. Djokies is still a work in progress. The buzz since last Wimbledon was that Rafa had improved on grass a lot more than Rogi had on clay, and this year definitely proved that. You win less when your rivals catch up to you, and if you don’t do something special, they surpass you. Rogi has a lot of work to do to keep Rafa from consolidating his position. Sure, the odds are that Rafa’s body won’t hold out too well for very long, but someone who’s been No. 1 for so long like Rogi won’t be content to wait it out. So far he hasn’t done well against Rafa, either by his own strategy or with Roche and Higueras. On Sunday the single most effective shot he had was his big off forehand to the ad court, because his serve was on and off. In previous years he’d mostly try to avoid Nadal’s forehand, but he definitely went there with the off forehand and won a lot of points; it was great to see him use it. And as always when he plays Rafa, he had lots of chances to break; at one time he would. But no more; he gets too tight and Rafa has improved too much.

It’s a quandary. We’ve seen power hitters trouble Rafa on non-clay surfaces, but no one can do it every time. We’ve seen that no one’s topspin can compete with his, getting a ball past him is a major achievement, he hits killer angles, and he can hurt you from anywhere on court. The kid deserves a lot of credit. But aside from the topspin, we can say the very same things about Rogi. It’s just that the topspin is such a big weapon. It’s Rafa’s sine qua non. If growing a few inches, suddenly adding 20 mph to his serve or more topspin isn’t in the cards for Rogi, what can he do? I think it comes down mostly to his head - now I know it’s good enough against 99% of his opponents, but here’s something he can and must work on against Rafa. Where did his serve go for most of that match Sunday, for instance? Where did his head go for all those break chances he’s had against Rafa in various matches?

And the Williamses? Power ball. Venus won because she added volleys to her power ball, which saved the match from being just banging. In her post-match interview, Serena was her usual sullen self after a loss; just shows she doesn’t make allowances for losing to family. As re their doubles, more power ball. Okay, they won. But I’ve never found their doubs interesting and it’s not really doubles. More like using sledge hammers in fencing. Obviously, I’m not a fan.

Stepping Over the Lines: The Other Final

Are we all still standing? Living and breathing? As Wimbledon closes in stupendous fashion with the men’s final, some final thoughts on what Venus and Serena Williams achieved here too

Such was the greatness of the Rafa-Roger final yesterday that it nearly obliterated from memory what was a great women’s final on Saturday between Venus and Serena Williams. I had to go back and cull through my tapes to find them. God, isn’t life tough being buried in such a plethora of tennis riches! I’m nearly speechless. No truly, my brain was numb for two hours after Fedal went at it. It will be a greater match to view later, in retrospect, because to watch it was too excruciating. I felt wasted from spent nervous energy. I had set my tape for about three hours, but then it rained, and luckily I woke up anyway and checked and started a new tape, and went back to bed, and got up still later and stopped and muted the tape and saw the thing was still going on, and I thought holy mothers it’s still going on so I put a third tape in, and that had on it the first set of Venus and Serena. But fortunately, goodness came my way, I realized I had made written notes of Set One, and when I culled through the third tape I found I had Set Two after all, so I watched it again, and it took me back to how sublime their match was.

Serena looked quite bummed out, I felt like some surliness could have broken out at any second there in some of her post-match press interactions. Well that’s exactly how I would feel, and if this one wasn’t worth breaking a racquet or two over, then what good are you? I felt like both sisters were winners, and that’s the first thing I would tell Serena, not that it’s any comfort. She wanted this one and she was probably as mad as hell at some time after losing Saturday. Get mad, get even, I say. But they got to show what made each of them great, as players, it was on display, and nearly same time equal strength. Someone had to nudge ahead, and in the end it was the big sis. It was a great show, as if they had nearly staged it for all those former female champions attending. What a treat they got! The two biggest hitters in the women’s game got together, as did the two biggest guys. What started out two weeks ago looking for all the world like one bad train wreck of a tournament, with upsets early every which way, closed rather well. The men provided amply for us, and the sisters gave us what is probably their best major final ever. Nirvana for all! Tennis in general should generate enough great PR from this weekend to get through another five years, I reckon.

We had to wait five years since their last meeting in a slam, but it was worth the wait. Venus laid claim once again to being the dominant player of her time on grass. My co-writer Nina and I did not pick her to win, however. I thought it would be an uphill battle for Venus, and she would not be the favorite. Nina said in her coverage yesterday that Serena had a bit of a little sis complex going on, and that is certainly as good a theory as any for why Serena seemed, well, the word I settled on was somewhat sluggish. Now maybe we attribute this to her feeling inhibited. But I would argue that Serena can often look sluggish. Remember, she came out firing. I think the speed with which Venus covered the court, her ability to turn quickly and redirect herself, following up with the aggressive way she hit her ground strokes, especially the two hander, which flew up and down lines all afternoon, wore Serena down. Her serve and return game simply shut down little sis. Serena seemed to grow heavier before my eyes, while Venus just kept covering court like some giant mantis on steroids. It was just awesome to watch. I wish I had a better phrase, but nothing springs to mind. Venus can look ungainly and graceful nearly in the same moment. Venus in flight over grass is the great image of that surface, for me.

Serena has always seemed so much stronger. After losing early on in finals to her older sis, Serena got it going. And kept it going from year 2000 onward. And she looked far more consistent, in her serving and her ground game, from the start of this Wimbledon. You had to like Serena’s chances, simply because her game is normally a lot more solid than her older sister’s. Less can go wrong with the Serena serve, which is fairly short in the toss and compact in the swing, like her ground strokes. I’ve always thought that, as a motion, everyone should copy her serve, man or woman. She hits a clean ball, and she hits it a lot more consistently. Venus can be all over the place, and on a windy, sunny day her service toss can quickly evolve into a nightmare. For those reasons, many of us were picking Serena. And her mentality has seemed a lot stronger than Venus; Serena is a real toughie, her strong, powerful body type says that too. Venus seems positively fragile by comparison. That’s what I love so about this woman! She’s a racehorse that you silently find yourself praying will not break down, because it seems like break down she must, at some point.

In fact Tim Robinson quoted Simon Barnes, of the London Times, who said of Venus’s forehand, that it was “rather like a horse I used to ride - beautiful, immensely powerful, and ever so slightly uncontrollable, dangerous to both opposition and owner.”

I would also argue that, to counter the distressed little sis theory further, that after initial successes Venus became second fiddle to little sis, so if anyone had a complex it was Venus. After all, when you consider a big sis’s role, it’s mainly a protective one. To mount a consistently aggressive style against little sis may sometimes be beyond the range of Venus to always execute on court. Saturday it was not. Serena’s mountain to climb was a bit easier, because it fits more naturally into the younger kid’s mission to assert herself in the face of her elders. Venus emotionally may have faced the bigger mountain. I felt five years was also long enough that the dynamic between them now may have shifted, and Venus could beat her. She has other wins, but not in major events in recent years.

I think the beating Roger got will goad him a bit now. The Serena loss may generate the same effect on her. Both will be looking to reassert themselves, and we again, hopefully soon, will enjoy the fruit of those new labors.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Venus beat her sister Serena and Rafa beat Roger at Wimbledon in a totally glorious weekend of tennis at Wimbledon

Roger Federer had come back from two sets down to even the match at 2-2 in the fifth set of his Wimbledon final against Rafael Nadal when the rains came a second time. This was five hours and 17 minutes after the match had started and it seemed like a good time to sneak upstairs to the kitchen for a snack. On the radio, ESPN sports radio host Freddie Coleman was comparing Roger’s comeback to Tiger Woods’ “victory at broken knee.” Woods recently won golf’s version of the U.S. Open with a torn cruciate ligament and a double stress fracture in the same leg.

I’m not sure about that comparison and Roger had yet to win, but I was very happy to discover that a national sports program was hanging on every point of a tennis match. In between following the match, Coleman chided us for criticizing the outside interests of Serena and Venus Williams. Martina Hingis was consumed by tennis and where is she now? Kim Clijsters was consumed by tennis and where is she now? Justine Henin was consumed by tennis and where is she now?

Go ahead, criticize the sisters for wanting to get into acting and fashion design, but who’s got the most slams now? Serena passed Hinging and Henin with eight slams, Venus passed Hingis and is now even with Henin at seven slams. So Coleman is right to crow a little, but it’s hard not to think of what might have been. Serena needs four more slams to pull even with Billie Jean King and I’ll be heartbroken if she doesn’t get there. If she doesn’t, I’ll just remind myself that Billie Jean never had to beat the person she loved most to win more than a few of those titles.

I keep forgetting that Serena is the little sister because she’s the one with attitude to burn, but it burns just that slightest bit less against big sister and that was part of the problem in their Wimbledon final this year.

Serena started the match with a return winner and finished the first game with a strong backhand cross court to go up a break right away, and she wasn’t taking it easy on her sister. Venus won her second service game but not until she’d put away a hard shot aimed directly at her belly button.

The level of tennis was fantastic to start the match but Venus kept applying pressure with big returns until the she got the break back to even the first set at four all. Serena got a break point in the next game but Venus is the best grass court player in the women’s game. She’s the hardest server and she covers the most ground with those gangly legs of hers, and she managed to fight off the break point. Then Serena’s little sister syndrome made an appearance.

Venus had game point when Serena hit a shot and yelled “out.” The ball didn’t go out, it landed on the line, and the chair umpire called “let, replay the point” because Serena had hindered Venus by yelling during the point. Instead of replaying, Serena walked to the sideline and gave Venus the point and the game.

I don’t know if Serena would have yelled like that in a match with any other opponent – maybe she momentarily lost track and thought she was in a practice match with Venus. We don’t really know because she brushed off two questions about it in the post-match media session. But I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have given the point to any other opponent. She would have replayed it.

Venus is often faulted for having a weak second serve but it was Serena who won exactly one point on her second serve in the first set. When Serena served to stay in the set at 5-6, Venus ate up those second serves to win the game and the set.

Serena started off the second set with a return winner too and she also got a break point, but Venus had been hitting huge serves into Serena’s body all day and it got her out of the game. Serena got more break points in Venus’ next service game and she absolutely fought her heart out. It was the best game I’ve ever seen them play.

Serena got one of those break points with a with a beautiful stab volley while Venus saved four break points with second serves and hit a second serve ace. Finally, on Serena’s seventh break point in the game, Venus slipped backwards on the worn grass behind the baseline and Serena had her break to go up 2-1.

Venus was probably mad that she lost on a TKO – and that last game looked like a boxing match - because she broke right back. The big sister doesn’t always play her best against Serena either. This is the third Wimbledon final they’ve played and Venus lost the first two. But when Venus does play well on grass, no one in the world can beat her and she did play well.

Serena found herself facing two match points while serving to stay in the match at 4-5. She erased the first one with an ace and played a very good point on the second, but Venus was the better player.

Serena gathered herself then went out and won the doubles title with Venus. If it’s hard playing your sister for a coveted slam title and losing, how hard is it to put that away and go out and play a doubles final with her a little while later? This was their 12th doubles title, seven of which have been in slams. If they hadn’t already qualified for the Hall of Fame in singles, they’d be there in doubles for that number alone.

The first rain delay in the match between Roger and Rafa came in the third set. Just as Roger benefited from the first rain delay - he was already down two sets to none - Rafa should have benefited from that second rain delay because he’d just lost the third and fourth set. Roger had been having trouble with his serve so the match momentum had been heading towards neutral. Good thing, then, that Roger started right in with an ace and a service winner to close out the game and go up 3-2 in the fifth set.

Roger is still my boy, I’ve got plenty of time to fall in love with Rafa, and all Roger had to do was hold serve then get to the tiebreaker because he had 19 aces already and he’d won the third and fourth sets with tiebreakers. Then my heart sunk. There is no tiebreaker in the fifth set at Wimbledon and Rafa was the guy getting the breaks of serve, not Roger. So when Roger got down 0-30 with the fifth set even at 7-7, I thought to myself, “Here it comes, Rafa will now get his Wimbledon trophy.” Then I started writing my closing paragraph.

Rafa did break Roger and then served for the set as the dark was coming down and the clock was getting very close to 9:30pm – the witching hour. Roger flicked an impossibly sharp backhand winner off an equally wide serve to fight off Rafa’s third match point, but on the next match point, Roger put an approach into the net and the longest match in Wimbledon final history – all four hours and 48 minutes of it – was over.

Roger is no longer the king and I’m unhappy about that. I wanted Roger to come back from two sets down so that the local sports gods would hang on every point in the next slam. But now that Roger has lost, now that he’s 0-3 in slams this year, now that he
s failed to win his sixth straight Wimbledon title, it won’t happen. It won’t happen because Roger is now on the way down and the greater sports world will move on. If he can’t fight off the young Spaniard or win a major on a broken knee, well, we’ve got beach volleyball up next for you.

John McEnroe was being gracious with Roger when he interviewed him after the match. He said “It was the greatest match I’ve ever witnessed.” It wasn’t the best match of all time, it wasn’t even the best Wimbledon match of all time, and McEnroe should know because he played in it. The 1980 McEnroe-Borg final holds that honor for the 18-16 fourth set tiebreaker that McEnroe won after saving five match points and the steely calm that allowed Borg to shake it off and take the fifth set 8-6.

That was Borg’s last Wimbledon title and here was Roger poised to pass him with six straight titles in an almost equally dramatic match, but there were no tiebreakers left to play and he hadn’t broken Rafa since the second set and wouldn’t break him again and, anyway, it was Rafa who was making like Borg, not Roger. He was the guy who shook off the third and fourth set and hung around to win the fifth 9-7.

Maybe it was Borg’s shoulder Roger should have been crying on but it was McEnroe’s instead and that was the next best thing. McEnroe offered Roger a sympathetic hug and was sensitive enough to cut the interview short so Roger could shed the rest of his tears in private.

As for me, I am now officially in love with Rafa. I know, I know, I’m one of those quick-change what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sports commentators I mentioned above, but it’s time. It was almost time last year but Rafa had the slightest letdown in the fifth set and surely the time has arrived considering that Rafa cut his way through the clay court season yet again and made Andy Roddick look like Vince Spadea at Queen’s Club on the grass.

And how much better could it get? We go directly from one supreme champion to another and we’ve still got the Williams sisters fighting it out in slam finals. That is known as tennis heaven.

Nadal Conquers Wimbledon

Rafael Nadal took a bite out of Roger Federer’s legacy today and also of the beautiful golden trophy that he had hoisted five times before. In a Wimbledon final for the ages, Nadal dethroned Federer in a fast paced, action packed five set match that has ‘classic’ written all over it. The final score was 6-4, 6-4, 6-7,(5) 6-7.(8) 9-7 in the Spaniards favor.

Unlike the last Grand Slam final these two contested back in Paris, this match had everything we could have hoped for, and more. Tennis enthusiasts had been waiting for this final for two weeks to see if Nadal could finally take that next step in his still young career. After winning four times in a row at Roland Garros, and twice before a finalist here at the All England Club, everyone wanted to see if Rafa could become the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win these majors back to back. He did not dissapoint.

Nadal took the first two sets and seemed poised to perhaps hand Federer another lop sided defeat. While both were playing some superb tennis, it was Nadal who converted on his break opportunities when they presented themselves. Despite having three times as many chances to break his opponents serve, Federer could not quite find the right gears on those precious points. The third set went the distance and as he usually manages to do in tie-breaks, Federer rose to the occasion and got himself back into the match.

The fourth set is when the excitment level really began to takeoff. The players showed no signs of fatigue, and again we were fortunate to watch them battle into a tie break. Nadal took off to an early 4-1 lead and it looked as if Federer might finally succumb. Instead, he managed to fight his way back into the breaker and deny Nadal of two championship points in the process. His accurately placed serves got him out of trouble on numerous occasions and helped prolong the match.

Despite another rain delay in the final frame, and the threat that play might be called off due to darkness, the world’s number one and two players managed to take us deep into the fifth set. After 4 hours and 48 minutes of play, with both players showing us every aspect of their arsenal, Nadal broke Federer to go ahead 8-7 and serve for the championship. The atmosphere at Center Court was electric as the players took their final rest of the match before changing sides. Unlike earlier in the match when he squandered two match points, this time Nadal was able to control his nerves and hold on for victory. He fell to the court immediately after Federer’s final shot hit the net, unable to yet comprehend what he had just achieved.

In their post match interviews with John McEnroe, both players spoke about what the final had meant to them. For Federer a crushing defeat which he admitted stung a little more than a loss usually would. “It hurts”, he said to conclude the interview and then left just as tears began to form in his eyes. Meanwhile Nadal admitted that Wimbledon was the one tournament he had always wanted to win the most. He claimed that his positive attitude was the difference he needed this year to vanquish his rival on grass. He becomes the first Spaniard since Manolo Santana in 1966 to win at Wimbledon.

Nadal’s victory denies Federer of a record breaking 6th straight Wimbledon in the Open Era. It also gives Nadal his 5th Grand Slam title at only 22 years of age. If the talented lefty from Spain can continue to keep a tight grip on Roland Garros, and throw in a few more slams here and there, it may be him and not Federer that one day breaks the Pete Sampras record of 14 Grand Slams. After today’s incredible victory, such a thought must be given some serious discussion.

Records and statistics aside, this Wimbledon final was a special moment for the sport of tennis. We are truly fortunate to be able to watch two of the greatest players to ever grace the sport compete at the highest level imaginable. Both Federer and Nadal have held Wimbledon in the highest regard, and at the end of the match the emotions they both displayed revealed just that. The respect they showed for each other was also something special to be seen. I’m sure I can speak for all of us when I say that we eagerly await the next meeting of these two great champions.