The Eagle's Eagle

(Ed. note - Miguel, the fastest forehand drop shot, East or West, will be blogging Shanghai for TennisWorld as his schedule allows. Here's the first typically thoughtful and well-textured post from Mikey - PB)

‘Ni hao’ from the city that proclaims to be ‘The Eyes of China’ – I’ll also try to be The Eyes of the Tribe while here at the Masters Cup in Shanghai, after having crashed out following a rough trip and the completion of my first day assignment for other outlets.

As usual, I couldn’t sleep properly during the long journey – but it was a pretty educational trip, between gathering a lot of inside tennis information (I’ll write about the Madrid Menace in  upcoming days). I was also reading a book on the historical liaisons and relationships between Portugal and China (All in, the plane trip was a lot easier than the journey endured by the Portuguese oceanic navigators who  discovered the sea route to Asia around Africa, exactly 500 years ago!).

Your own Peter Bodo always complains about never getting interesting neighbors on his flights; in my case, I’m never in a chatty mood on a plane. But this time, I actually had some interesting companions: João Lagos, the Estoril Open promoter (he provided VIP invitations to the winners of the TennisWorld contest last April); also, his assistant João Zilhão, who checked in with me in Lisbon. In Stuttgart, we picked up ATP vice-president Zeljko Franulovic; Fernando Soler, the newly appointed chief of IMG's Tennis Division, and Barcelona's tournament director, Sixto Cambre.

Oh, I almost forgot: we were also joined by Brit serving machine John Feaver (who owned the record of most aces in a match – 42 against John Newcombe in 1973 – until Ivanisevic broke it in 1997).

(Ed. note: Tribal chicks may have to revise the Hott lists if we can dig up a picture of dashing John Feaver! - PB)

I knew the plane would land right before the first ball of this year's Masters Cup was struck, so I rushed to the hotel for a shower before heading to the Qi Zhong tennis center. I had to follow the first set of the Federer-Nalbandian match on the TV while waiting for transportation; Roger looked like he wasn’t seeing the ball properly – the Swiss would miss after a couple of balls and the Argentinean seemed agile; Nalbandian took the initiative on the exchanges, but he also was getting away with a poor first serve percentage.

I figured Federer would start to capitalize on his old nemesis’ second delivery sooner or later. And by the time I finally got to the stadium, the match was over and Nalbandian was at the press conference. Ever the sourpuss after losing, he avoided eye contact when we crossed on his way out of the conference room – he wasn’t happy at all and reacted like a bear ready for hibernation. Perhaps it was that the naïve Chinese media informed him they were nicknaming Federer ‘The Eagle's Eagle’.

Yep, players are Fed up!

After all the fuss in the aftermath of Pedro Bodo’s piece about Roger lacking those tough, legendary matches (and achievements) Sampras had in his career, I was eager to ask Federer which matches he classified as ‘career-defining wins.’ It’s funny, because in Big Matches Roger either wins pretty easily or loses close ones. If you think about it, his most dramatic matches, with the exception of that epic win in his only match with Sampras, have been excruciating five-set losses. (Hewitt in the Davis Cup, Safin at the Australian, Nalbandian in last year's Masters Cup, Nadal in Rome…).

So, I waited until the very end of the press conference – after Federer was done with the English, Chinese and Swiss-German questions, and while he was answering in French. Roger didn’t pin-point any match, and opted for a generic answer instead: " I would win difficult matches every three or so months and learn from them", he said. Then, I reminded him of the match that I think triggered his ongoing, incredible, three-year run – that first round-robin match against Andre Agassi at the Masters Cup 2003 in Houston. Federer won that one in a tense third-set breaker; it was a tough match with a lot of officiating errors that could have gone either way.

"That one was important", Roger said. "Actually, it was the first time I beat Agassi. I was in a group with two players who I never had beaten previously, Agassi and Nalbandian. Plus there was Ferrero, against whom I had a bad record. I thought I’d soon be going home. . .So that win was pretty important."

Well, it was ‘just’ a three setter and ‘just’ a round robin match, but let’s say that from that point on, Roger never looked back – and we’re still waiting for those memorable/epic victories that transcend the sport, because right now Federer’s way of transcending the sport is with his fabulous play and incredible winning records.

There were two funny moments in that press conference, courtesy of two veteran Italian reporters. Michael Chang is even more famous in China than in the U.S.

He’s been here for six weeks now, learning Mandarin. He was at the presser, and he asked Federer a really long question about his tournament scheduling. Ubaldo Scanagatta, a titan of Italian journalism, reacted immediately and said, "That was quick."

This prompted laughter and made poor Chang blush! And while Roger was saying that the big difference between him now and years ago was the ability to get a hold of himself and a hold of his opponents’ games, the irreverent Gianni Clerici asked him if that experience had come from himself or with the help of "Some experts like Dr. Freud."

Much to our surprise, Federer responding by asking who Freud was!

"He was an expert in psychology", Clerici explained.

"Nope, never needed him," retorted Federer.

No Oedipus Complex for him, it seems – but what would Freud say about his relationship with Mirka and his nightmares in Tokyo?

During the flight on my way here, I asked João Lagos – a shrewd tennis analyst who won multiple Portuguese national championships (he went on to start a tennis academy and organize tennis events), who was the best played he'd ever seen. João, whose idol growing up was Roy Emerson (actually, he got to play Emmo at Roland Garros; got his derriere kicked in a doubles match and then went for a few beers with the great Aussie), emphatically said: "Federer is the best ever. He does everything on a court and does it with class, elegance and a perfect technique. He plays the way tennis should be played and taught to the kids. He plays pure tennis, the kind of tennis that would make a coach weep with joy."

Then I asked João to compare Federer and Sampras: “Federer’s game is way more complete than Sampras’s, much more balanced. Sampras’ game was unbalanced due to his backhand being clearly inferior to his forehand, especially on slower surfaces where he couldn’t use the power of his opponents’ shots”.

Best ever or not (yet), today Rodge got another trophy - this one commemorating his third finish as year-end No. 1. It could have been his fourth, were it not for a couple of matches lost in 2003, most prominently the one he admittedly choked away from match-point up on  Andy Roddick in Toronto - with the Number One spot at stake. Since then, he's undergone quite an evolution – even in his looks, from the phony ponytail, a la 1980s, to the clean sophisticated Prada look he featured today while showing the trophy to the press.

Roddick is also trying to evolve – not his looks, but his game. He was the other winner of the first day, beating Ivan Ljubicic. Let’s say there wasn’t a lot of poetry in that serving contest, even though there were a few rhymes here and there. The big Croat was exhausted after an influenza bout that bedded him for 17 days (!) and the American never faced a break point, showing an increasing willingness to finish the points with the volley: He ventured to the net 60 times!

Since I finally had the time to check TennisWorld and the post about the questions you'd like me to pass along in press conferences, I picked up Andrew Miller’s query about Andy’s volleying.

Roddick explained: “I want to get more away from just being a baseliner, but I don’t think I’ll ever be all the way over there. Hopefully, I can find that right mix in the middle ground; I want to be capable of serving and volleying, which is good. It’s definitely something that I wanted to do against Ivan (Ljubicic) because I didn’t want him to get comfortable trying to block the returns back in the court so he could get into baseline rallies; I felt I took that aspect of his game away today with the serve and volley plan”.

He then elaborated: “If you come in 500 times over one summer, you maybe learn the nuances of it a little bit more as opposed to using it as a panic play. The more you do it, I think the more you learn about when to come in and the right times to come in. I’m learning that and I’m committed to trying to learn that. It’s going pretty well so far, but I’m far from being a great net player. The most important thing to me is to put myself in good positions to succeed at the net, hitting good approach shots so I don’t have to be a good volleyer”.

That was a pretty smart analysis, I thought. Andy's trying to find the middle ground, the right balance. It's something Rafael Nadal is also trying to do:  become a better player on all surfaces and spare the wear and tear created by his peculiar technique and grinding style of play. He still has a long way to go, considering his performance against James Blake: he just lost to the American yet again, this time wasting a 4-0 lead on the second set - and losing the tie-break to love!

More on Nadal and Blake on my next ‘Shanghai shot’ – now I’ve got to go to their respective pressers, I’m really curious about what Rafa has to say…

- Miguel Seabra, in Shanghai