It’s always instructive to see a guy who spends most of his time at the Challenger level suddenly facing off with a Top 10 player. We get so used to seeing the big guns doing battle against each other that we, or at least I, can begin to take their skills for granted. “Djokovic’s forehand is too busy these days,” or “Del Potro struggles with low balls,” or “Roddick’s forehand doesn’t penetrate”—in an absolute sense, these statements are true, but when you take in the totality of professional tennis, the flaws of the guys in the Top 20 begin to seem highly relative. It’s not that they don’t matter—they’re the difference between champions and also-rans—but because the best players do so many things superlatively, the very few things that they haven’t completely mastered tend to stand out. For instance, it isn’t exactly a newsflash when a Top 5 player happens to be a ridiculously good mover. To get some perspective, you might go watch a first-round match at a Futures event somewhere in Arkansas. That’s where you’ll see a few guys who struggle with low balls.
Last night Amer Delic, a 26-year-old stalwart of the Challengers who is currently ranked No. 127, appeared in Rod Laver Arena to face 21-year-old world No. 3 Novak Djokovic. Delic more than held his own, showed off some effortless power on both his serve and forehand, was a paragon of sportsmanship, and even had set points to take the match to a fifth. But what I noticed as much as his virtues were his vices, because they’re different, and more fundamental, than the ones you usually see on center courts at Slams.
By fundamental, I mean they involved his footwork. It wasn’t terrible, clunky, or lazy; it just wasn’t perfect. When he ran around his forehand, he got there in time to hit it, rather than before he needed to hit it, à la Rafael Nadal or the Williams sisters or Djokovic or most of the players we see on a regular basis. When Delic was forced to move quickly to his left for his backhand, he made it over there competently, but he often didn’t get there in time to take the one extra adjustment that would have gotten him fully ready to swing. When Delic had a set point in the fourth, a Djokovic forehand clipped the tape and bounced lower than expected. Delic was still moving up to the ball when he had to reach down and hit it. He ran through it and didn’t set his feet; the result was a wild forehand wide.
Pete Bodo and I had been talking recently about how we thought Djokovic’s game had gotten a little wild and hitchy, where it used to be so compact and efficient. But seeing him on the other side of the net from Delic made me forget that conversation immediately—Djokovic takes the extra step on his backhand (two-handers like his require you to get into even better position), he gets set up early on his forehand, he almost never runs through the ball. After a close match like this, the most common reason given for the result is that it came down to confidence. I would add that it also came down to the years of military-like discipline that Djokovic must have endured to develop the one-extra-step footwork that serves him so well today.
The first time I encountered that discipline was as a kid watching Jennifer Capriati practice at the U.S. Open. She did a series of quick-reaction drills that forced her to hit, take a few steps forward, and hit again, until she reached the net. When I say “a few steps forward,” I really mean about 200 of them in total, because that’s about how many she took after you counted up all the tiny, squeaky, lightning-fast adjustment steps before each swing. Funny to think she has a reputation for being undisciplined now. But how often do we think about the amount of work that even the most talented players need to do to reach the top of the sport in the first place?
After the Delic-Djokovic match last night, I found my eyes following the pros’ feet. When you focus on one player’s movement exclusively, the sport in its current fast-paced form can begin to look like a spastic modern dance routine. Perhaps surprisingly, there's also a world of difference in the way each player gets around the court.
—Rafael Nadal, of course, moves with an aggressive sense of purpose. We know him as a baseline grinder, but his uncle has always said that his nature is much more forward-minded. You can see that come out when Nadal moves for a short ball. Where some baseliners have trouble moving forward, he relishes the chance. He makes a beeline to get the ball at its highest point and usually succeeds.
—Jelena Jankovic moves as naturally—it’s second nature—as anyone. After hitting, she drops right into position in the middle of the court, without ever looking to move forward. It’s a paradox: She flows back there, but that natural flow is a product of a million and a half drills in the hot sun at the Bollettieri academy.
—Caroline Wozniacki, the very young Pole-Dane, is more precise and robotic in her footwork than Jankovic. Hit, scramble back up to the hash mark; hit, scramble back up to the has mark; Hit, scramble back . . .
—Watching Ana Ivanovic move, her recent slump began to make more sense. Of the top players, she takes the longest strides—not what you’re taught—and uses the most leg movement to get from one place to another. She tries to combat this by bouncing her feet before she serves and moving around before she returns—hence the infamous squeaky feet. Ivanovic relies on shotmaking to win, which kind of reminds me of NBA teams that rely on outside shooting. They always have hot and cold streaks.
—Marcos Baghdatis also has a reputation for being undisciplined, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching his feet stay low-to-the-ground as he hustled against Mardy Fish. His movement was smooth where Fish’s was choppy—another example, perhaps, of our early exposure to baseball and football (we’re fabulous servers) and Europeans' early exposure to soccer.
—When we say Roger Federer is “in full flight,” the phrase really does fit, except that he’s always in full flight. He spends more time in the air as he moves across the court than just about anyone else—you wonder whether his heels ever touch the ground—and he's catlike when he backpedals. Like Jankovic, he makes militaristic discipline look artistic.
As obvious as it may sound, it all starts with footwork for Federer. In the third set against Safin, the Russian, after getting flattened in the first two sets, began to gain some traction. You might say he started to play better, but you might also have watched the number of steps Federer was taking on his side. Having cruised early, he was a little less balletic for a couple games during the third.
Some day the Swiss really will “lose a step,” as they say. It will be a pity when it happens: For Federer to lose a step from his footwork would be like John McEnroe never hitting another touch volley or Pete Sampras forgetting his service motion. Federer might continue to win, but something fundamental to the sport—a small element worth watching in its own right—will have been lost.
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