The weekend Rally continues with Kamakshi Tandon and I musing on a "season for the ages," and who might be player, and comeback player, of the year. (For part one, click here.)
Kamakshi,
Player of the Year: I guess you have to define it for yourself first. Is it the No. 1-ranked player, or the player with the most consistent results, or the player who had the biggest impact? Right now I would say those are three different men: Federer is No. 1, of course; Djokovic has had the steadiest results, and the best record at the majors; but I would say Murray, with his gold medal and breakthrough major, has had the biggest impact.
Still, I agree with you, I would take Djokovic if the season ended today. He was really only disappointing at Wimbledon and the Olympics, yet he made the semifinals of both. While his 2011 was obviously the more amazing season, almost as impressive is how steady he has become in 2012. For someone who has his emotional ups and downs, he almost never takes a bad loss these days. He's even tied Ivan Lendl for second on the men's consecutive Slam semis list with 10. I never thought that record would be challenged; now Federer has destroyed it and Djokovic might pass it in Australia.
Federer and Murray are both viable candidates as well. One turned back the clock at age 30 while the other finally made good on all of his promise (though after the Open, Murray said he didn't deserve to be Player of the Year, because he wasn't No. 1). So we'll see how it ends up.
I like your summer school idea for the fall season—it’s time for the dedicated, and in a case like Gasquet’s, the talented, to shine. One thing I enjoy about watching, say, Tokyo, instead of the U.S. Open is that you're back among the diehard fans. In New York, during the Open, tennis is suddenly everywhere, and the issues that are old hat to some of us—the women are so loud! nobody serves and volleys! America is horrible!—make headlines again (before they’re forgotten again, until the next Open). In the fall, I can go about my tennis watching in peace. The sport becomes an absurd passion again, rather than a mass entertainment.
Two questions:
What were you saying, in you last post, will be at the heart of the players’ looming showdown with the Slams? The question of what matters more, the pros or the events? It seems pretty clear that, despite their duty to use their profits to help promote tennis in their home countries, the majors can cut the players a bigger slice of the pie. Even the Slams seem to agree; I guess the question will be how much they’re willing to fork over.
You’ve obviously seen Su-Wei Hsieh play before, but despite the fact that she’s been around for 10 years, I’m not sure I ever had until this past weekend. She’s the proverbial, unorthodox, “fun to watch” player; great hands, great instincts, and an almost total disregard for the conventions of footwork. She’s cracked the Top 100 for the first time and is now inside the Top 40. Is she for real?
Hi Steve,
Nice carve-up on Player of the Year—I agree that it depends on how you measure it. In the end, the interesting thing is that it’s so close. How much the fall will affect it depends on whether the three will turn out at full strength—the word right now is that Federer hasn't completely decided on Shanghai—but these events might be significant for setting the stage for next year. Who really expected that Federer's fine run last year would culminate in getting back to No. 1 this summer? And Djokovic's Davis Cup win the year before would set up the Streak?
This time I'm looking to see if Tomas Berdych can build on his U.S. Open performance and establish himself as tennis' fifth man going into next year. The wind in the semifinals meant we didn't really get the chance to see how he would back up his big win over Federer.
Looking back on the year, what strikes me is that it was feat after jaw-dropping feat—Djokovic's epic endurance at the Australian (4 Slams in 5), Nadal's excellence on the clay (lucky No. 7), Federer's burst on the grass ('No. 7, No. 17, No. 1,') and Murray bookending Britain's golden sporting summer with the Olympics and the U.S. Open (1). Or to put all those numbers in another way (you instantly know what they mean), 4I5TORY, HIS7ORY, H1S7ORY, H1STORY. Do you think Nadal (Benito) had any idea what he was starting with that (very un-Rafa-like) post-French Open tweet? (Or me with the parentheses in this paragraph?)
But it's just as amazing to think that even the Slams they won may not have been the best they played all year. For me, the most striking performances often belonged to someone other than the champions—Nadal's brave aggressiveness in the Australian final, Murray 'getting closer' and closer in the Australian semi and the Wimbledon final, Djokovic's guts at the French, and Federer's brilliance at so many moments—at the Australian Open and the first few months of the year, surviving Madrid, the quarterfinals of Wimbledon onwards, and through the hard court summer till he ran into Berdych.
So while I'm not completely sure who might be the Player of the Year, I'm certain it was a Season for the Ages.
One category that's even more difficult is Comeback Player—Tommy Haas, Brian Baker, Sam Querrey are the front-runners, I think, but it's tough to pick between them. Maybe the fall will help decide that. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if the 27-year-old Baker might meet the criteria for Newcomer of the Year, which seems suitably bizarre.
To make up for all that haggling, the Player of the Year is unusually straightforward on the women's side. Serena's season, if anything, is underrated. She's been described as having a dominant summer since that first-round loss at the French Open, winning two Slams and the Olympics. But in fact, she's barely lost a match since Miami and for once, won a bunch of WTA events. That she played and won Stanford, a week after Wimbledon, might be my biggest surprise of the year.
But it looks like she's barely going to play this fall—just pulled out of Shanghai—and you get the feeling Azarenka, Sharapova, Radwanska are pretty spent. I hope they find a second wind by the time the year-end championships roll around, because it would be nice to finish a competitive season with a good showdown.
You're right that the U.S. Open probably helped Azarenka win over fans—she was in a good mood throughout, and her attitude after the loss in the final was impeccable. She seems to go through periods of being funny and entertaining alternated with periods of being hostile and guarded. There was a charm offensive in the hard court summer of 2010, then the second quarter of 2011, and now at the U.S. Open. I have no idea what makes it come and what makes it go, but it's intriguing. In our post-Australian Open exchange I wondered how she would do as the latest in a long line of new No. 1s—I didn't think she'd dominate, but wouldn't collapse either, and stay a contender for the rest of the year's Slams. At least that prediction made up in accuracy what it lacked in boldness.
To pick up on another of your questions, I don't think I had seen Hsieh play before. I just remember her tearing up the minor leagues years ago—she won three futures out of the gates as a 15-year-old in 2001—and then she kind of disappeared under the radar. But every once in a while there would be another moment of brief promise, which kept her in the memory and made me feel she had to have something. It was neat to see that confirmed.
And finally, yes, I was musing on the players vs. events question being the heart of the prize money battle going on in the background right now, and it's an undercurrent that runs through the history of the game. Obviously it's not an either-or, but it's another thing to watch this fall.
...which is now, what, only another six or seven weeks? It'll soon be time to start wondering why the off-season is so long.