Tennis Magazine contributing editor and author Joel Drucker commented from San Jose Sunday night. This is my response from my living room.
Joel,
You’ve been covering this event for 26 years? Have you ever been spotted on TV before? As you probably know, Matt Cronin, Kamakshi (who may or may not be 26 years old), and you were called out by Jimmy Arias during the semis. He and Ted Robinson made you sound like the Mayor of Tennis—“everyone knows Joel!”
As for those turbo courts in San Jose, I’d say fans and players who want faster surfaces should be careful what they wish for, because they might just get Ivo Karlovic on any given Sunday. In this case, I didn’t think that was such a bad thing. The contrast between Ivo at the net and Andy Murray’s counterpunching was surprisingly entertaining. I guess I’ve been fully converted to serve-and-volley when I find myself enjoying Karlovic!
This weekend’s matches also made me think that tennis has one thing going for it over golf: We don’t need Roger Federer the way the PGA needs Tiger Woods. There’s been talk recently of golf tournaments having to shut down simply because Tiger chooses to skip them. But these days tennis rolls on smoothly even when Federer is home waxing his cars or getting seven-star spa treatments in Dubai. Last week we had a Davis Cup party on the men’ side and a breakthrough performance by Lucie Safarova on the women’s. This weekend we saw the continued development of a potential challenger to Mr. No. 1, Murray, and a marquee women’s final between Amelie Mauresmo and Kim Clijsters.
This is partly due to the way Federer has been beating everyone lately—it’s not even close, and not particularly dramatic. It would be a little like watching Woods win every tournament by 10 strokes. (Would golf fans get sick of that? Maybe not. I don’t think basketball fans got sick of the Chicago Bulls winning.) But it’s also a sign of the strength and variety of tennis’ current youth movement, which is now being led by Scotland’s Murray, whose game seems to grow and mature from one week to the next.
In San Jose, Murray had to show off everything he’s got in defending his title. He fought through a bad day against Hyung Taik-Lee, mastered and befuddled Andy Roddick for the third time, and made just enough of the few opportunities he was given against Karlovic. I guess I hadn’t realized how good Murray’s return was until he faced Roddick and Ivo. These are the tour’s ace machines, and they were serving on one of the fastest courts around, but Murray was consistently in position to get the ball back with pace. His anticipation in general is his most important attribute—he’s quick, but I think it’s court sense that allows him to get so many balls back—and it’s never more apparent than on his return. Arias says Murray may have the best return in the game (he didn’t qualify it by saying “except for Federer,” and he explicitly mentioned that it was better than Agassi’s). I’m not sure if I believe it’s better than Federer’s, but I do like the way Murray has both Fed-like anticipation and the ability to be aggressive with his two-hander, à la Agassi. It’s going to be the key to his success.
The other key, of course, will be his serve, which is still a work in progress. As Arias also pointed out many times, Murray’s first serve deserts him in the crucial moments. And he had trouble again this week holding serve after a break. His second serve is still average, but Gilbert has him trying to win more free points with bigger first serves. In San Jose I’d say it worked about half the time. Murray did come up with some aces on important points, but he also went through stretches where he couldn’t buy a first serve.
More important, though, will be Murray’s willingness to take charge of points in the future. He still has a defensive, reactive mind-set. That can make for some terrific points and spectacular shots—the kid absorbs power like no one since John McEnroe and hits a running forehand reminiscent of Pete Sampras’. But he has the all-court skills to make the first strike if he wants. Murray’s ability to sneak into the net was highlighted against Roddick, who came in behind more than a few questionable approaches. Murray, by contrast, can take a normal rally shot, put just a little more juice on it (without taking a huge chance), and get right on top of the net with ease. More than hitting service bombs, it’s that kind of controlled, natural aggression that’s will help him serve out sets in big matches.
For now, Murray’s got a pretty good set-up going into the spring. After winning in San Jose last year, he did very little all the way until Wimbledon. There will be plenty of points to gain and ranking spots to capture in the next few months. Do we have our next challenger to Federer, Joel? I’ve always thought his game matched up well with Sire Jacket's—he makes him hit a lot of balls and gives him more looks than most guys. First, though, Murray will have to show he can put people away—stomp on them when he gets ahead—rather than having to win with guile and rely on counterpunching. He needed two third-set tiebreakers to beat Lee and Karlovic, so we can’t crown him the new Baby Federer just yet. But he’s making the game more interesting already.
Other notes from the weekend:
Andy Roddick: What should we make of his attitude against Vince Spadea in the quarterfinals? For two sets, Roddick acted like his opponent had no business being on the same court with him. He smirked and rolled his eyes when Spadea hit a good shot, and he tried to drill him from close range more than once. Serving at 4-3 in the second, Roddick’s angst got the better of him—he looked so fed up that he just didn’t try for a game, and was broken. When the two started bickering at the end of the second set, the umpire had to step in and tell them both to “Stop it, guys!” Roddick looked embarrassed, and Spadea completely went away after that.
A couple commenters here have noticed the attitude Roddick takes when he’s playing a lower-ranked player. He’s generally respectful of the top guys, but if a scrub challenges him, he can become outraged and belligerent. As Don/Slice says, this seems like a defense mechanism of Andy’s. It wasn’t pretty against Spadea, but I also got the feeling there was something more this time. Roddick is a circle-the-wagons kind of guy, and I doubt he appreciated Spadea’s revelations (as tame as they were) about other players in the book he wrote last year. (Roddick said afterward that he hadn’t read it.) Or maybe he thinks Spadea is a desperate attention seeker who deserves to be throttled just for wearing those pants. Either way, Roddick was nothing but polite to Murray the next day, even in defeat.
Ivo Karlovic: There’s a misfit quality to Karlovic. He’s the guy who decided to play tennis because he was supposed to play basketball; he’s freakishly tall; and like you said, Joel, he has a stammer that really makes you feel for him when he talks. He showed more all-around game, and softer hands, this week than I’d seen from him. Even better, he came out of his shell a little on court, giving us a few (awkward) fist pumps in the final—it looked like he had some trouble generating the arm speed for them. All in all, he wasn’t the tournament killer I would have expected.
Commentating: Arias was excellent as always—is he the best in tennis? But the best line belonged to Barry MacKay, the tournament’s former director. He said the stadium in San Jose might be the best “indoor tennis arena in the world,” in part because of its “sensational locker room.”
The Mauresmo-Clijsters final from Belgium wasn’t shown here. Anyone catch it?