Dunk a Clown

by Pete Bodo

A bit of housekeeping first: this morning, I received a note from a long-time reader and weblog editrix Aaress Lawless (cool name, huh?). TennisWorld has been nominated in On the Baseline's annual awards, in the weblog category. I've never paid much attention to "official" awards or contests, but as this is a group effort, I'm inviting you to check it out and vote if you're so inclined (justgo here). You can also vote for your favorite players in any number of categories.

I've got a post going up on ESPN soon on a subject we discussed here some weeks ago, the great "tennis needs an off-season" debate. I covered much of the same ground we explored back then, but I also had a few afterthoughts, starting with the fact that tennis has a kind of "magic number" in the match stats, which is the number of matches played by anyone in any given year. This year, for example, Rafael Nadal was 82-11 in singles, and Roger Federer ended up 66-15.

Whatever else you want to say about The Mighty Fed's year, you can't exactly say he overplayed; Nadal himself had 12 more matches. For perspective, keep in mind that in 1977, Guillermo Vilas's best year, the Iron Man of the Open era posted an astonishing 145-14 match record, although I'm having trouble confirming that it was exclusively in singles (Vilas played very limited doubles throughout his career, so I doubt too many - if any - of those wins were put up on doubs).

I know for certain that Vilas's singles record in just the last six months of 1977 (his best year) was 80-1. The former no. 1 Ivan Lendl put up some formidable numbers, too. In 1980, Lendl went 113-29. And in 1979, John McEnroe played 177 official matches. He won 27 events (17 of them doubles titles) that year alone, although he's better remembered for that glorious 1984, in which he went  82-3 in singles. That winning percentage (.965) remains the best on record.

When you start throwing those number around, it seems that, for better or worse, 100 matches represents a high but attainable and sustainable number, and especially if, like me, you don't necessarily believe that the competition is incomparably better today than it was in the heydays of the players mentioned above. If I had to pin down a date for when the game really took a quantum leap, in terms of overall quality, I would probably pick some moment in the early careers of Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg.

One reason I feel comfortable making that judgment is because the competition at any given time is no tougher - or easier - than the players themselves make it. Tennis, certainly in the early Open era but even today, is driven by a gold-rush sensibility, and because it's such an individualistic, wide-open enterprise(a reasonably good college player is always just a few qualifying events away from treading the lawns of Wimbledon, or prowling the hard courts of Flushing Meadow), both the motivation and pressure to stay on pace is high. Someone ups the ante on skill, fitness or even the number of events entered, you almost have to prepare a response.

The moment someone dials it up on either of two levels - results, or dedication - the pack seems to follow, like a school of those tropical fish that moves by a snorkeler in a wave so smooth it almost constitutes a pattern. There are just too many good players, many of whom have the requisite pride, for anyone to pull a fast one and simply out-want his or her peers. The sport embodies the old saw about a rising tide lifting all boats, if the talent of a Borg, Navratilova or a Federer can be described as a tide.

Or let's look at it this way: most players would give their left arms (excepting those who use a two-handed backhand) to be able to play 100 matches a year. That represents a heavy but by no means unique load for a top player, but a quick scan of the rankings shows just how few players even have the option. Nikolay Davydenko, a hard-working and highly successful player (the year-end no. 5), squeezed in 77 matches last year - fully a quarter below our threshhold.

Andy Roddick? The world no. 8, squeezed in just 67. And David Nalbandian, an international star and icon in Argentina, was limited to 60 matches. Gael Monfils, no. 14 in the world, played 47 singles matches. Was the tennis year too long and demanding for these familiar names, too?

It seems to me that far more players don't get enough matches, instead of getting too many. Yet almost all of them will complain about the grind of the ATP or WTA schedule. I think the real issue here may be the proliferation of weeks during which players are expected to perform at their peak. That is, if you just won Rome, it's pretty tempting to show up on Hamburg two days later and start kvetching about how tired you are - especially when all you see ahead of you is a winding trail of events, each of them incorporating a certain degree of pressure created by your past performance, the rankings, the need to make hay while the sun shines on your chosen field of play. The grind may be more debilitating mentally than physically, but we already know that the two areas are interrelated.

But let's set aside this issue of how many matches an upper-echelon pro ought to be able to play.

I've written before that tennis is an "interval" sport, with periods of rest alternating with moments of high stress created by the demand to perform. That demand has been inflated in recent years by the change in the status of the ATP, which has morphed from player union into tour organizer and (to some degree) promoter. The real problem therein is that the top players carry the sport, but under the present system their contribution is, as a matter of policy, ignored. You're not supposed to find out that there is indeed a golden goose in tennis, and it just keeps layin' 'em.

So an elite few may complain that they have to play far, far, too many matches, while very good players ranked not that far below them are entitled to complain about lack of matches (and, by extension, lack of confidence-building and bank account-padding chances). You don't hear such complaints voiced by the ATP or WTA hoi polloi for an honorable reason - those players know they're not earning the right to play more.

In the end, though, whatever your sense of justice or player solidarity is, it seems indisputable that TMF and Rafa are asked to shoulder a big work load in order to enable the Monfils and Cilics and Nicolas Almagros of this world to get enough matches. In that regard, top tennis players qualify as extraordinary humanitarians (I wonder if they could qualify for tax breaks, under some "charitable organization" provision), even as they sit on the sidelines watching their rivals woeful inability to capitalize on the inherent opportunity. Federer and Nadal are like two clowns, forced week-after-week to sit on the perch in the dunk-a-clown tank while a bunch of guys who mostly can't throw straight expend their energies.

When you look at this situation, you might better understand the beauty of the Challenge Round concept that was used in tournament play and Davis Cup back in the early days. Back then, the defending champion didn't have to play the early rounds (he'd already proved his worth); the tournament was held to determine a worthy opponent for the holder. The shortcomings of the format in today's world are glaring but, oddly enough, they have nothing to do what might be called the pure logic of sport. Why shouldn't the defending champ be entitled to sit out?

The sport most like tennis is boxing, and once a fighter gets to be champion of his division, he no longer has to slug his way through a slew of tomato cans in order to meet his top challengers. And it's important to note that individual and team sports are very different; the personnel on any give team changes year-to-year, and the weak link on a successful team doesn't have the same "right" to enjoy his status as do the handful of key performers.

If you think this idea is really crazy, just apply it. Imagine that the defending champ at any given event has a free pass to the final. It would have zero impact on, say, Monfils - as he didn't win an event in 2008. But TMF would get a free pass at four events in 2009, including the US Open (and remember, he struggled some this year), while Nadal would be exempt at eight events, including two Grand Slams - leaving him free to focus on those events where he was weaker. And keep this in mind: You would only be losing one star from every event - a hit that would be offset by the publicity generated by all the speculation leading up to any Grand Slam final where the holder is sequestered.

Hail, he or she wouldn't even be sequestered. You could easily ask the defender to be present for promotional purposes leading up the the final. The holder's preparation for his defense certainly would be closely watched by the most interested parties (like his native media).

This won't happen, of course. But I wish it would. Once the system got rolling, it would also add an extra dimension of intrigue, and more players would get the opportunity to break through (although that, in and of itself, is neither here nor there, value-wise). Anybody want to figure out how many players got shot to doll rags by Federer at Wimbledon in recent years, or by Nadal at Roland Garros?  Currently, the champion at any event is an impediment - the bullet in the chamber every player has to spin on the eve of the draw, and each round thereafter until he expires from causes natural or otherwise.

And ultimately, wouldn't a Challenge Round be a better solution than cutting back the calendar - especially if you acknowledge that the vast majority of players would prefer more to fewer playing opportunities.  Another interesting potential outcome here would be the prospect of top players supporting lesser events, because instead of pulling out of warm-up tournaments, the holder at Grand Slams would be inclined to play them, knowing that he or she will get plenty of rest during the first 13 days of any major. . .

Scoff at me if you will; the earth is only as round as you want it to be.