You’d think, after looking at and listening to the pros long enough, that a tennis writer wouldn’t be able to learn anything new about them. Not true: There are various ways of watching tennis, and the journalist’s is always cluttered with distractions. You must go to press conferences, you must read transcripts, you must write sentences, you must meet deadlines and make your editor happy (the last two are optional for bloggers). All of this takes away from your actual observing time. Compare this to the way a TV commentator watches a match. During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, I did online text commentary for the gold-medal matches for NBC’s website. This required, aside from a jarring wake-up call each morning at 3:00 A.M., that I have something to say about every point. I was surprised by how much this discipline affected the way I viewed a tennis match. Among other things, it made me realize again just how important the serve is, more important than even the stats would lead you to believe.
It was an eye-opening experience, but I’ve never been able to discipline myself to watch tennis that way again. If you’re not forced to formulate a thought during each point and verbalize it afterward, your brain isn’t going to work that hard on its own. On the other hand, I’ve been lucky enough to get to see the pros live, from fairly close range, on a regular basis. That’s always eye-opening as well, but in a physical rather than analytical way. A player's presence counts for a lot.
This week I’ve watched the tennis from Istanbul in another, perhaps unique way. I’ve been writing the Racquet Reactions that this site has been putting up after important matches, and sometimes not-as-important matches, for the last year—I think I did my first one on a Roger Federer practice session that was streamed from Stockholm in 2010. The RRs, which were the brainchild of our online editor Ed McGrogan, have been popular. They’ve also created a whole new tennis version of the wild west in the comments section. For the writer, they impose a schizophrenic discipline. You have to pay attention to virtually every point, which is time- and energy-consuming (you have to particular attention to women’s matches, which can turn on a dime). Then, the minute it's over, you must gather the match together and make some kind of point about in 45 minutes and 500 words.
For a writer used to covering the sport in a more distracted and wide-ranging way, the benefit of all of this time narrowly spent—there’s not much chance for multi-tasking when you’re Racquet Reacting—is that you get to watch tennis uninterrupted. Whatever your level of familiarity with a player, you learn new things about her; or at least you’re reminded of things you may have known about her three years ago but had forgotten in the torrent of new observations that you must make with each tournament.
This week I did seven RRs and got a long look at all eight women who played in Istanbul—I didn’t see any of the ninth, Marion Bartoli. Here’s something I saw, learned, or remembered about each of them.
Petra Kvitova: The we’ve-seen-the-future-of-women’s-tennis-and-her-name-is-Petra-Kvitova bandwagon, after emptying out at the U.S. Open, is filling back up. I’m on it, even if I think she will always be prone to error-filled walkabouts. What makes her backhand such a dangerous shot is also what makes it an inconsistent one: Rather than using it to set up her more reliable forehand, she takes a big cut and goes for the kill with it.
Even if she never realizes her immense potential, I’m on the Kvitova bandwagon because she can hit shots that no one else can. Case in point: Vera Zvonareva, in their match on Tuesday, hit a hard serve down the T in the deuce court. Kvitova lunged for her forehand, met the ball well away from her body, but still had the power and control—the unlearnable shot-making skill—to hit it inside-out and place it an inch from the sideline for a near-winner that stunned Zvonareva. I guess, since Wimbledon, I’d forgotten she could do things like that.
Li Na: Comedians are famous for having dark sides, and the WTA’s resident joker is no exception. I’d seen her berate her husband in the stands many times, but I’d never seen her put on the icy glare of self-disgust that she wore when he tried to give her some advice at the start of the second set against Stosur today. Li appeared to have receded behind a set of thick mental walls. No wonder he refused to come out when she requested him the other day. And no wonder she can struggle so mightily at times; when it goes bad for Li, it goes really bad, and she stops believing it's going to get better.
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Caroline Wozniacki: She clinched No. 1, but otherwise it wasn’t a banner week for Caro. She was overpowered by Kvitova and suffered some strange competitive lapses against Radwanska and Zvonareva. Still, what intrigued me were the moments when this defensive-minded player did hit out on the ball—when she bent low, took a Kvitova bullet return, and redirected it with a forehand up the line; when, down a set and a break, she threw her customary caution to the wind and knocked off a forehand mid-court winner with ease. No one would accuse Wozniacki of false humility, and most of the time she doesn’t lack confidence, but I wonder if she’s a better first-strike player than she lets herself believe she is. Percentage tennis has gotten her to where she is; but it probably won't get her further.
Vera Zvonareva: I know all about the meltdowns, but I’d forgotten how, even if she doesn’t rip her tape off or kick her racquet across the court, Zvonareva’s game can still unravel in a hurry. Which is a shame, because if you take Serena and Kim out of the picture, Vera, when she’s going well, may have the best mix of aggression and consistency of any woman in the world. In her first sets against Radwanska and Wozniacki, when she was swinging freely and easily, she was untouchable. Then her mind got into it. One dumb shot against Radwanska, a forehand from way behind the baseline that she tried to hit for a winner, was enough to shake Zvonareva’s confidence completely. Three points later, she couldn’t do anything.
Victoria Azarenka: She wasn’t tested enough to show me anything new in her game, but I will say that I’m tentatively, maybe ironically, in favor of the racquet-dropping, finger-pointing, tongue-wagging victory celebration that has become her trademark. On the one hand, “classy” is not the first word that comes to mind to describe it; on the other, she means no harm, and I would miss it if she quit doing it. The NFL comes to women’s tennis.
Maria Sharapova: There were two versions of her on display in Istanbul. The good Maria who takes the time to construct points, and the bad Maria who, at tense moments, hits each ball hard without linking her shots together or building them into something.
After her two losses, Sharapova gave her opponent a muted but not disrespectful handshake. Even Stosur, who hadn’t beaten her in nine previous tries, got no special recognition. No hugs or words of congratulations: This seemed right, and even admirable, to me, coming from Sharapova, whose ambition and professionalism has never allowed for chumminess.
Agnieszka Radwanska: My favorite, Aga. She rose from the dead against Zvonareva only to bury herself against Kvitova today. Watching the former match, I thought that I’d never seen anyone whose level of play improved in inverse proportion to how dejected she looked. So much for body language: Radwanska should begin every match by scrunching her face into a frown and stamping her foot. She’d never lose.
Sam Stosur: Um, she has a good forehand? Kick serve works nicely, too. Sometimes you can't find anything new.
Have a good weekend and enjoy the semis and final. I’ll be back with a wrap on Monday.