MVN - Most Valuable Network

Tennis and Exercise - Beijing Style

Please welcome our newest writer to Tennis Diary, Lexa W. Lee. Lexa is a 4.0 singles player who’s just like the rest of us: she’ll do things for tennis she wouldn’t do for anything else. I’m going to let Lexa introduce herself because does a very good job of it.

When forced to evacuate after Katrina, the most important things she threw into her car were: her Abyssinian cat Little Foot (aka Wussie), her laptop, and her tennis racquets. She drove for three days to San Diego, chewed her nails for two months, drove back to New Orleans, helped clear tree debris, and then volunteered as a physician. Normal was when she started playing again on her home courts, still decent after the Corps of Engineers used them to stage emergency rescue activities. Now she controls her own schedule so she can do the things she enjoys most, including playing tennis.

China is all over the news these days – not necessarily for tennis – so I’ll be devoting several blogs to tennis and sports there from a few weeks I spent visiting relatives in Beijing. Like most big cities in Asia, it’s, um, space-challenged – 11,500 people per about 0.4 sq mi/1 sq km. A visit to a train or bus station during holidays offers a glimpse into barbarism, a little slice of hell. People have been trampled. The population tops 17 million – so many bodies, so little space. Urban couples are still only allowed one child, and you can only own one small dog; only small breeds are permitted.

Early in the morning and after dinner, public parks are packed with people engaged in physical activity, from just walking to calisthenics to martial arts to ballroom dancing. Seeing a crowd dancing to a weird paddle tennis choreographed dance routine done solo – well, that’s an epiphany. Urban Chinese, enjoying more leisure time these days, are becoming more interested in healthier habits and exercise, but space is too limited and there aren’t enough facilities to meet the demand.

I asked my relatives (wistfully and without too much hope) if I might play tennis somewhere, since I needed my fix. My cousin Jiang Jian whipped out his cell and wangled a court reservation through a friend, a week in advance – just like that. JJ said he knew of only two large indoor gyms with courts. Not many people play. JJ, who’s in his 40s, said he’d learned tennis as a kid in school, something rare in China. He hadn’t played for ages; reservations were expensive (impolite to ask how much) and had to be made well in advance. So JJ’s wife drove me to the gym one Saturday, winding through grimy streets and heavy traffic.

Like most city buildings in China, the gym was a big gray concrete building - maybe ‘70s vintage. The parking lot was full. Inside, an area about the size of a football field was divided into open spaces, each devoted to a particular activity, and each looked fully occupied. In the middle of the floor were 2 tennis courts enclosed by a wire fence. Lucky not all 17 million people wanted court time. JJ, two friends, and I got a good workout for 2 hours on a medium-paced hardcourt. I was unpleasantly surprised to learn later the shower facilities had been shut down because they were inadequate for the size of the membership. There were only several sinks available. At least they all had running water, which is still more than can be said of many facilities in China. Water is also a precious commodity in Beijing (so is toilet paper, it would seem). During the Olympics, farmers outside the city will be giving up water to meet the city’s needs. So many bodies, so little/few ______________ (fill in the blank).

Rafa Finally Gives Out

Rafael Nadal finally gave out while trying to defend his third straight clay court title in Rome. He lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero but at least he showed up.

When we watch a tennis match, usually we’re watching it blind. What I mean is that we may have no idea whether the player is physically hurting or not. Yes, the player is out there on the court, but what ailments is he suffering and is it a small niggling problem or a big problem that’s making it hard for him to play?

If this was baseball or football, the injury report would have made its way across the blogosphere and sports radio shows and newspapers. Commentators would be discussing it on the telecast of the game. But the tennis world isn’t like that. As we watched Juan Carlos Ferrero dismantle Rafael Nadal, it looked like Ferrero was playing the match of his life. He hit behind Rafa and he attacked his forehand whenever he got a short ball and he kept his level up throughout the entire match.

But maybe he knew something we didn’t know. He might not have known that Rafa had such pain in his foot that he could barely put his foot on the ground the morning he flew to Rome. And he probably didn’t know that Rafa thought it would be impossible to play when he woke up this morning. He might have known that Rafa went to the doctor today, as he did yesterday, and had his foot taped up and anesthetized with topical cream because things do get around the locker room.

But we didn’t know anything and the commentators didn’t know anything and this is how it looked to us. Early on, Rafa looked alright. Ferrero hit a low slice on Rafa’s serve at 2-1 in the first set and Rafa managed to run around it and hit a wicked angle on a forehand winner. Rafa’s return of serve was a bit inconsistent but he was getting to drop shots.

Rafa gave up three break points for Ferrero to get to 5-4 and that was unusual but, you know, it happens. And right about that time, the commentators noted that Ferrero is really taking the game to Rafa and pushing him further behind the baseline. Two games later, Rafa hit a crosscourt forehand wide that gave Ferrero a set point. Again, unusual, but Rafa is known for hanging in tough games. Then Rafa hit some short shots and Ferrero took the game and first set and now we’re thinking that Rafa is finally wearing down from defending his third straight clay court title.

As the second set continued and Rafa started hitting more and more errors and found himself down a break at 1-4, we said that it looks like he’d run out of gas but, still, you can never count him out. Then we saw the foot.

Most tennis players have ugly feet and Rafa’s foot looked no different as it was propped up on the bench getting treatments from the trainer. First there was the topical anesthetic, then the felt ring to keep pressure off the sore area on the ball of the foot, then the roll of tape to lessen the soreness from friction, but it didn’t help. Rafa didn’t win another game as Ferrero won the match 7-5, 6-1.

If we’d known about the foot, we’d have known that Rafa was hitting balls short because he couldn’t plant his foot without pain. We might still have marveled at Ferrero’s play because it’s not easy to go against an injured opponent and it’s very easy for your mind to start thinking about the fact that you’re about to beat someone who’s almost unbeatable on clay and we all know what happens when the mind gets too involved. But we wouldn’t have said that it’s the best match we’ve ever seen Ferrero play.

Why did Rafa play this tournament if his foot was in that condition? He played it because he wants to be the number one player in the world and he had a Masters title and all the points that come with it to defend.

Why did Rafa play out the match instead of retiring at 1-4 in the second set? He played on to give Ferrero the opportunity to be the focus of the match.

I feel a bit like an old fogy because respectful sports behavior in the form of playing out a match when you’re ailing is fast becoming a thing of the past. I might just have to get over it. Rafa is old school whereas Novak Djokovic is what’s happening now. Djokovic retired in the second set of his semifinal match with Roger Federer at Monte Carlo because he had a sore throat.

True, it turned out that Djokovic had strep throat, but your throat doesn’t get sore from being dragged across the tennis court, unlike a foot, and it’s unlikely his throat would have suffered much more if he’d played three more games. There was also a psychological message to it. Djokovic was not going to give Federer an earnest victory, he was going to walk off the court to show that Federer didn’t beat him, the sore throat did.

Ferrero deserves credit for the victory and Rafa deserves credit for showing up and playing. That’s two old school players and I like that.

Gasquet, Roddick, and Stadiums

Richard Gasquet looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but Rome, Roddick feasted on his good friend Mardy Fish, and stadiums save the day for U.S. tennis.

Here we are in Rome, the second Masters Series event on clay this year and the first of consecutive Masters events as we move on to Hamburg next week. Let’s set the scene in Rome. I can hear those crazy Italian police sirens in the background. To me they always sound like those Fisher pull toys I used to torture adults with when I was a child. I’d pull those damn things around all day an endless clatter.

Richard Gasquet’s shirt is so red that it’s bleeding on the screen and, as usual, he has his backward pointing white cap. How long do you think it’ll take Gasquet and Sebastien Grosjean and Benjamin Becker and all of those backward hat guys to grow out of the habit. Fashions change you know.

The stands in the tennis complex at the Foro Italico are all bright green and the on-court advertising is white lettering on the green background. Don’t really like the color scheme. Green looks rather loud as a background for the gorgeous red clay on the court. I do love to hear the score called out in Italian, though: trenta quindici – 30-15. Italian is one of the few languages which lovingly pronounce every letter in a word.

I haven’t seen Gasquet’s first round opponent - Luis Horna - play very much but he’s been around for a long time. Evidently his backhand is his weak side because he keeps trying to run around it and Gasquet keeps trying to attack it. Looking at Horna today, I wonder why he hasn’t done much better in his career but maybe that says more about his opponent than it does him.

Gasquet looked good at the beginning of the match and went up 3-2 without having lost a point on his serve. Horna keptpressuring Gasquet’s second serve and Gasquet finally caved in by losing his next service game with two straight double faults and it got worse from there on.

Gasquet isn’t dealing with pressure well these days. Davis Cup was a disaster for him after he decided to sit his ailing knee instead of playing Andy Roddick in the fourth and deciding rubber of the tie between the U.S. and France. Then he lost to Sam Querrey in Monte Carlo two weeks ago.

Maybe, two years from now, we’ll be looking back at all of the cruel things we said about Gasquet and marvel at his play as he turns out to be the guy who ends Roger Federer’s streak at Wimbledon. But right about now, his friend and countryman Jo-WilfriedTsonga looks like he’s just as likely to earn that distinction. You couldn’t mistake Tsonga for Gasquet on the court in any way shape or form. Hell, Tsonga looks excited just sitting in the stands watching Gasquet’s match with Horna whereas Gasquet looks like he was waiting for the next train to arrive.

Gasquet’s feet aren’t quite following his commands and he’s getting tripped up by routine plays such as a moonshot followed by a flat shot. Horna won the first set on a high looping second serve down the middle. Gasquet seems surprised by it and hit the ball into the net. Earth to Rishard.

It the second set it was worse. Gasquet lost his first service game easily then won his second service game but that was the last game he won. In his third service game, Gasquet and Horna got into a backhand crosscourt rally and Horna redirected the ball down the line with a rather weak and short slice. Gasquet got there but you could hear him frame the ball.

In the next game Gasquet framed another ball and the crowd turned on him. Wow, everyone is turning on Gasquet these days and how should he respond? If his knee is still bothering him then obviously he should go home for a rest. Even if it is a physical problem of some sort, it’s quickly turning into a psychological problem and that is turning into acting out on the court precisely by not acting at all. After the match he didn’t seem to know what the problem was:

I don’t know why I played so bad. Last week in training I felt fine and I was happy to come onto the court today. Sometimes in my career I’m really down. Today is one of those moments.

I suspect that he’s shining us on. No one could receive as much grief as he received from his fellow Davis Cup players, his Davis Cup captain, and even the head of the Davis Cup team and not be affected by it.

In the last game of the match, Gasquet served two double faults. The second one gave Horna match point. One point later the agony was over as the qualifier Horna moved on by the score of 6-4, 6-1.

What do you think Gasquet needs?

I had a lot of fun watching Roddick and Mardy Fish - two fast court players - slog it out on clay. Fish made very few accommodations for the clay. He hit the ball as hard and flat as he does every other surface. Roddick could hardly have hoped for a better opening match. This has to be one of the few times he has ever planned on winning a match by looping the ball back to his opponent and waiting for mistakes which is exactly what he did as he jumped out to a 2-0 lead.

If you think about it, Roddick is also lucky that the tour is going in its current direction. There’s one less clay court Masters event each year – if the ATP can settle it’s suit against Hamburg. On top of that, the new Masters event in Shanghai is on a hard court. Money talks because clearly tennis is more popular in Europe than it is in the U.S. - at least in terms of broadcast income – and here Europe losing a Masters events while the U.S. gets to keep all four of its hard court Masters events even though it’s breaching smaller tournaments left and right. The ATP just bought out the event in Las Vegas and sold it to South Africa. South Africa! Did I miss something, is tennis more popular in South Africa than the U.S.?

Indian Wells and Miami bring in a good three or four hundred thousand spectators a year and the broadcast problem is partially a case of overcrowding. In Europe, tennis is second to soccer in gambling income but in the U.S., tennis is far down the scale. Yes, gambling is a bonafide economic indicator.

Broadcast income is more important than ticket income but the U.S. has another advantage – tons of stadiums, both indoor and out, in which to stage a tennis tournament. France, for instance, has a few stadiums that work for such events but the U.S. has tons of them thanks to the popularity of basketball and college sports. Every big Division I school has a basketball arena that would qualify. And though it may be hard to fathom and says way too much about the U.S. subversion of education to the commercial world of sports, the University of Michigan football stadium – known appropriately as the Big House - can seat over 100,0000 screaming football fans.

So the tennis world is staying in the big stadiums in the U.S., leaving behind the smaller facilities in Monte Carlo – which is no longer a required event - and Hamburg, and branching out to the huge new stadiums in Asia. It’s all about the stadiums, don’t you know? If Roddick can hang around long enough, and it looks like he can, this turn of events should help him stay in the top five or six players in the world.

Roddick won the first set 6-2 in 22 minutes. Just over an hour later, Roddick had won his first match, 6-1, 6-4.

Just a quick note on the Federer watch. He says that he’s now 100% healthy and there were two signs in his match with Guillermo Canas that seem to bear him out. (1) The rhythm on his forehand has returned and the reason for that is (2) his movement is back. At one point in his relatively easy victory over Canas, he ran well into the ad court to get around his backhand and hit a curling shot down the line that skipped off the sideline and out of Canas’ reach. That takes some serious movement.

We even had a “did he really do that?” sighting. Canas hit a running forehand down the line and just as Federer was about to overrun the ball, he flicked a backhand dropshot from behind the baseline that dropped over the net oh so softly.

A a few points later, Federer hit a drop shot and Canas hit a pretty good lob to Federer’s backhand side. Federer swung at it and missed it then calmly glided back to the baseline and hit a forehand looper that landed on Canas’ baseline. Canas must have been a bit annoyed by now. He’d had two break points in the game and hit a good lob and here he was frantically running backwards to pick up a ball off the baseline tape. It was all too much and he hit the ball long to end the game.

Federer held serve then broke Canas to win the match, 6-3, 6-3.

On the fantasy tennis watch things are particularly grim. We can’t pick all the top players because we need them for later tournaments and, so far, Gasquet has joined two other second level players by crashing out in the first round. Paul-Henri Mathieu and Filippo Volandri are gone too. I’ll get into that more tomorrow.

Stepping Over the Lines: Could Tennis Use a Little Mayhem?

We like to think tennis is a civilized sport where sportsmanship is rewarded and nothing too terrible happens to players physically, but could it use a little more of the slam bam blood lust that say, ice hockey enjoys?

Usually it annoys me no end that tennis as a sport often ends up these days taking a seat at the back of the sporting bus. We’re sort of the fine watchmakers of the sporting world - precision-honed and rather quaint in our customs, which therefore renders us irrelevant in the eyes of most sport fans. Our Number One player is maybe the best of all time, and yet he’s scarcely known or acknowledged in this country. Still, the fans of tennis remain fans for a lifetime, and many of us kind of dig the peculiar insularity our sport is accorded. Our numbers are small but our passion is intense.

But every now and then I find myself getting burned out watching tennis. It feels claustrophobic at times, and I find myself returning to my dear friend Professor Higgins, who used to say “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” To paraphrase him, I find myself thinking this week, “Why can’t tennis get down and dirty a little more as a sport?” Certain sports have a built-in mayhem quotient, I like to think. Tennis is not one of them, and sometimes I am uncertain how I feel about that.

So what have I been watching lately that floats my boat, if not tennis? Well, Lord Stanley is in his cups these days in the States, which is to say that we are in the middle of one of our springtime sporting rituals here, namely the Stanley Cup ice hockey playoffs. In my other life I would love to play ice hockey, I guess because I am physically a little squeak and I’m always looking for ways to cast myself into a bigger sporting arena. Hey, these days in hockey Wayne Gretzky would probably be considered a little squeak too. Like all the other sports, the players keep getting bigger and better and stronger and faster.

I got hooked on hockey around 1996, while I was recuperating in the hospital and stumbled upon the joys of cable sports. It appealed to me right away, even though I had trouble following the action. I needed that, because I had just blown out a portion of my lower aorta due to a ruptured aneurysm. I was lucky to survive. So as part of my recovery I felt this incessant urge to see large sweaty athletes pummeling each other on ice. Tennis just didn’t do it for me at that point. I wanted the most physically difficult sports I could find. I wanted to feel the physicality of sport, because it held out the hope that I too would be back to my jocky ways someday so they were my inspiration. To see guys taking incredible hits and then getting up (usually) to skate on was very impressive.

But I’ve discovered that, in spite of hockey’s brute physicality, you have a high level of skill going on, as in tennis. You’re doing three rather complicated things, all at once. You’re skating fast, forwards, backwards, sideways. Then you’re trying to handle this little black puck with a long stick and sling it into the net past this Darth Vadar type who’s guarding like a wall of steel. All the while you’re trying to avoid getting creamed by another physical specimen who may be even bigger than your 6’4” 220 pound stats. The beating these guys take is startling, not to mention the dental bills. You have to expect you won’t keep your natural teeth very long. It’s good these guys don’t feel like smiling too much.

That’s a lot of action to keep track of, especially when it’s whirling around you at 90 miles an hour, or so it seems. Talk about keeping up with the pace of balls hit in tennis! Think about the pace that hockey moves along at and you’re thankful for instant replay. Some of us thought the ball was very hard to see most of the way in Monte Carlo. But the action in front of the goals can be so fast and furious that you’re lucky to see anything at all. Because of these elements I think hockey must rate just about at the top of those very physical sports which have what I call a high Mayhem Quotient. Tennis can’t quite lay claim to this, perhaps we should add “unfortunately,” because sometimes I think our sport needs a bit more physicality to build its fan base.

We do get some of that with players who get into long baseline rallies. The grinder group of players these days is full of guys who are very fit and play a very physical game, like Rafael Nadal, or David Ferrer. You can always find the “physical” players in tennis, starting with I’d say Lew Hoad in the late 50s, moving on to Jimmy Connors, then Bjorn Borg, then Ivan Lendl, Andre Agassi and finally into Nadal’s era. Part of how they win matches is by wearing down opponents physically. They count on their physical prowess to help them win, just as they would their forehands or backhands. I think this is as close as tennis will ever get to being grubby and physical, in the true sense of the word.

With the changes in the game especially over the last ten years, tennis can now offer more physically demanding situations. The rallies tend to go on now for quite a long time, unlike the days of serve and volley when you’d have bang-bang-you’re dead. I thought of this yesterday as I watched the Roland Garros “classic” match of the night on TTC: Guga Kuerten taking on Magnus Norman. This was a 2000 match, but the slowness of the play made me wonder if we weren’t back in the early 60s somewhere. The game has rocketed a long way even from then. If you go back to an earlier decade, say the Mats Wilander-Ivan Lendl match, you’re watching this and thinking, “Gee, my grandma could belt the ball harder than these guys.”

The downside to hockey would be the presence of those guys who don’t play by the rules, who try to hit people in illegal ways. The sort of hits that lead local DAs to ponder whether criminal charges should be filed. Tennis thank God doesn’t share in that goodness. We have gambling scandals and doping brouhahas intermixed with a few injuries. That’s about as bad as it gets. I was trying to recall the worst tennis injury I had ever heard of. Thomas Muster in Florida once got hit in the parking lot by the car of a drunken driver and suffered a broken leg. James Blake had a near catastrophic encounter with a net cord in Rome once, so that would be my “on court” injury pick.

Feel though for poor Sean Avery of the New York Rangers, who discovered after the game with the Pittsburgh Penguins last week that he had suffered a lacerated spleen and ended up in the intensive care unit. Penguins can be nasty I guess. Compare this with the zit some of us noticed on Roger Federer’s cheek at Monte Carlo.

Duh. Not very exciting but I think I’d rather wake up with one of those instead. Any old time.