The Rally: Stepping Forward

The Rally returns, with talk between freelance tennis writer Kamakshi Tandon and I about the Australian Open just past, and what it might mean for the near future.

Kamakshi,

I was prepared to begin this conversation by breaking a vow I made at the start of the year not to complain about tennis’s schedule. I was going to point out that, after the sport had reached a peak of interest during the final weekend in Melbourne, we follow it up by . . . watching as three of the players involved, Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray, disappear for six weeks.

But I won’t do that. I’ll just say it’s all good (as well as it is what it is, at the end of the day), that Indian Wells will get here when it gets here, and that we’re pretty much guaranteed to have our share of Big 4 semifinal and final rematches this season. Maybe more than Nadal (or Murray or Federer) wants to contemplate at the moment.

Now that we’re out of Oz and back home, how do you think the tournament changed the tennis landscape for the rest of the season? I’ll start with a few thoughts about the biggest names involved.

—You might say that Nadal and Andy Murray got a step closer to Djokovic at this one. After all, Nadal got a set closer and Murray two sets closer than they were in Slams finals last year. But the point to me ended up being the opposite: Djokovic still won. From the fourth round on, he struggled physically and mentally, and wasn’t as sharp as he was in 2011. Still, nobody could beat him. Djokovic had a weird sort of confidence in this tournament. It took him a while to find it in each match, but it was always there for him at the end. The only issue, I guess, is that he needed Nadal to tighten up and hand the match back to him in the fifth set before he could finish it. But coming out of this, I think you have to make him the favorite even at the French Open.

—What should we think of Victoria Azarenka? She showed she could win a major, hold her nerve against the defending champion in the semis, and dominate another top player in a big final. And at 22, after a year’s worth of steady improvement, she doesn’t appear to be a potentially flukey champ, à la Stosur or Li Na. In part that’s because she doesn’t rely on knockout punches the way some of the other top women—Kvitova in particular—do. I doubted whether Azarenka could ever win a Slam by working the ball around rather than belting winners, but she did it, and that should make her more reliable in the future.

One trouble with her: While she has mercifully ended the talk about Slam-less WTA No. 1s, Azarenka’s reign will only force us to hear more about the tour’s shrieking Deci-belles. Or could that lead to change? I did feel like the attention paid to the subject by fans and media in Melbourne had an effect on Azarenka and Sharapova.

Steve

Steve,

Come on, I’m still recovering from that match, and you want another right away?

The Australian Open was chaos giving way to order—the first week and a bit was brimming with drama and theatrics, from Sam Stosur’s exit to Marcos Baghdatis’ racquet-smashing, Tomas Berdych’s non-handshake, David Nalbandian’s Hawk-Eye controversy, Bernard Tomic and Alexandr Dolgopolov in a classic throwback, Hewitt’s run, Kim Clijsters fighting injury to somehow win against Na Li, Gael Monfils fighting through injury to somehow lose, Serena Williams’s shockingly tame exit and too many other things to keep track of. But somehow most of the top names managed to come through in the midst of all this, setting up some great showdowns during the later stages of the second week.

That was anticipated on the men’s side, but it was a surprise on the women’s, where it’s been a long time since we had four of the top five or six names making it through to the semifinals. More importantly, the top names generally played well rather than falling left and right in the early rounds—a promising sign for the rest of the season?

Note that when Stosur lost in the first round, it had marked the third Slam in a row that the previous women’s winner had exited first round, and the fourth straight time a first-time Grand Slam champ had done so. That’ll put a little extra pressure on Azarenka when she steps out at the French Open. But as you said, I think Azarenka’s slow and steady climb means she’s a little more ready than her recent predecessors. I’m not expecting her to dominate the tour, but if she stays healthy she should be a regular presence this season. Her last two matches were very impressive, and I particularly noted that even though Sharapova was just handing her the final in some ways, she didn’t wait—she stepped up and took it, playing with more aggression and variety towards the end.

But while Azarenka clearly showed she was ready to win a Slam, I’m not sure about whether she’s completely ready for No. 1. Once you’re No. 1, you can’t lose and then talk about learning from it and working hard, which is what she’s been doing till now. There’s a certain pressure to be the flagbearer, set the standard, and we’ve seen what it’s done even to players like Ana Ivanovic, who did have a Slam.

I’m interested in seeing how she handles it, because even more striking than the improvement in Azarenka’s play has been the change in her public personality over the last 18 months. It’s been fascinating to watch. She’s long got along well with the players she’s friends with, but at the French two years ago, it took something akin to a two-day manhunt, a fully-equipped SWAT team and interrogation techniques barely in line with the Geneva Convention to get an interview from her (I exaggerate, but still). But suddenly, there were reports of her showing up all smiles and anecdotes at the California tournaments that summer, and gave a side-splitting joint press conference with Caroline Wozniacki at the rain-plagued Montreal tournament.

Then there was the now-famous lecture from her grandmother before Miami last year, which seems to have had a lasting impact. By the time the French came around again, she was in a good mood, willing to talk and really sounded very mature in her attitude towards her game and results. I didn’t know whether to be bemused or impressed. I’m still a bit of both, but I kind of like the bad-girl- turned-good vibe she’s giving off right now.

On grunting, we’re at the stage where it’s now been acknowledged as an issue—what rock were they living under, anyway?—but is being claimed to be unsolvable. So don’t except much soon.

Now, the guys. It felt like the men’s semifinals swallowed the whole tournament—there was so much to see and then think about and say afterwards. If the expectations were high coming in, they surpassed them. I’m not sure I shared some of the general reactions to the matches, particularly for Murray. It was a positive that he played well for perhaps the first time in a big Grand Slam match, and he competed hard, but I didn’t think he managed the match that well. He let Djokovic stay with him early in the third set when the Serb was having problems, and seemed to let go of his serve too easily at the end of the fourth – that was a big mistake, not just because of serving first, but being too cold entering the fifth. I’ve felt for a long time that he’s ready to win a Slam, but this match left me feeling that maybe he’s a little further away than I thought. But, maybe this kind of match is also what he needs to fill the experience gap.

With Federer, I felt he should be encouraged by his performance, if not his result. That first set against Nadal was filled with more flair than we usually see, with drophots and net approaches and coming over the backhand, and it looked like a real, improving effort to try to solve some of the usual problems Nadal poses. Afterward, Nadal said he’s noticed that Federer has been hitting his backhand a lot more effectively against him in their last two matches, so this time he tried to vary his placement a bit more. It’s quite a compliment if so, though I’m not sure I’m entirely buying it—it did look like Nadal was going up the line and forcing the pace more in the parts of the match I saw, but my thought was that he was practicing for Djokovic.

And if he was, I think it paid off. Like Federer against Nadal, Nadal’s performance against Djokovic looked very encouraging to me, even though he lost. In some ways, the situation has parallels with Federer’s loss to Nadal in 2009—except that this is clearly Djokovic’s best surface and Nadal’s most difficult, which means that even coming this close is a step forward. The first set may be the best I’ve seen Nadal play, especially off clay, changing the direction of the ball, going for his backhand—in short, giving Djokovic something new to look at. I half-expected to see this at the U.S. Open, just because it was so obvious what Nadal needed to do, but we’re definitely seeing it now. So to me, the final sets up Nadal to turn things around against the Serb and start winning some of their matches. Then again, I keep thinking the same thing about Federer against Nadal too, but it hasn’t been happening so far.

Whatever happens, it’s fascinating to see these two all-time greats having to push their games like this. We know exactly what’s going to happen in these Federer-Nadal and Nadal-Djokovic matches, the question is whether they can change the way it usually plays out. I think it’s a slightly easier task for Nadal against Djokovic. With Federer, as we all know, the recurring problem is Nadal’s heavy topspin high to his backhand, especially on the return. The match-up leaves Federer constantly getting hammered at his weakest point, and no matter how he shores up the backhand, it’s always going to be vulnerable to Nadal’s forehand in those exchanges.

With Nadal, meanwhile, Djokovic seems primarily to be exploiting his predictability—a typical point is Djokovic pushing Nadal out wide to the sideline in crosscourt exchanges and then sending the ball down the line. Obviously it’s a lot easier to do this off Nadal’s backhand wing, but Djokovic’s particular strength is that he can also do it off the forehand, which has been devastating. But if Nadal can start going down the line, it changes the whole pattern of those points—and I don’t see why he can’t, especially off the forehand. So it’s more of a tactical adjustment.

The challenge, of course, is playing a whole match with a style that feels uncomfortable. You’ve read Nadal’s book, which indicates just how hard it is for him to play assertive, risky tennis. And since that’s what it looks like he has to do, his matches against Djokovic are going to be battles against himself as much as the Serb. Maybe that’s why it’s been so hard for Federer and Nadal to get over the hurdle in these match-ups—even though they have intermittent success and the matches are so close, the guy who eventually wins is usually the guy who’s playing his natural style, who isn’t fighting himself. The biggest thing for Nadal is that he didn’t played scared like at Wimbledon, and was able force himself to keep going back to that assertive style for almost six hours.

And what about Djokovic? He’s almost been overshadowed by his own success and the wreckage he’s left behind him. The only thing to point out is that he looked physically vulnerable again for the first time in a long time—but then again, he won anyway, so that just underscores his dominance. It was like Rome last year, times two. There isn’t much left to prove at this point, so it’s just a question of sitting back and seeing what he can do.

And lastly, a word about the tennis in the final and the Djokovic-Murray semifinals. There’s been some reaction filtering in about the sheer physical brutality of the final, in particular, and no wonder. Those rallies left me amazed and, sometimes, slightly aghast—was this Rod Laver Arena or some gladiatorial arena in Rome? Someone break these two up before they hurt each other. I don’t see it as an issue for the men’s game as such, mostly because apart from Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray, I don’t see too many other players even being capable of doing this sort of thing for any extended period—David Ferrer, perhaps. But I do see it as a problem for the three of them. The Australian Open picked up where the U.S. Open left off—there was some pretty heavy rallies once Murray picked up his game against Nadal in the semifinals and that four-set final between Nadal and Djokovic might have been the most brutal baseline war I’d seen until they did it all again Down Under. At this rate, they’ll need six weeks off every time they play each other.

But as you pointed out, the men’s final four left the game getting a lot of admiring attention from the big media outlets and the sports mainstream. In fact, it was a truly memorable Slam all the way through. And though things don’t look that different coming out it, there’s a heightened sense around the sport. If it didn’t change the landscape, it did at least magnify it for others to see.

Kamakshi

Kamakshi,

You say Na Li, I say Li Na; at least we have our bases covered. And thanks for reminding me of everything that happened earlier in the tournament. There really was a lot, and it did get lost after the final weekend—Dolgo/Tomic, somehow that had slipped my mind completely.

It’s true, Azarenka will likely have to adjust her mentality at No. 1—or at least we'll expect her to. A “learn from my losses” attitude isn’t what we're supposed to get from an established star, which is what she is now. Though I wonder if that’s still the attitude to have. Why not, after, say, losing in the quarters at the French, think of it as a learning experience? It’s not as if she’s ever won the tournament before.

As you wrote, Azarenka’s attitude has changed in the last year, along with her game. At times she was nearly effusive with the press Down Under, which is saying something for her, and she deflected the inevitable questions about shrieking with a practiced casualness. But Vika will never be warm and fuzzy, she’ll never be Ana Ivanovic. Which is probably a good thing. Maybe it really was grandma’s lecture last spring. I know she’s also tried the brain training that Mike Bryan has used, though Azarenka says she hasn’t done it enough to know how effective it might be.

I agree with you on Murray not necessarily taking a step forward in his semifinal with Djokovic in Melbourne. Unlike you, though, I’m not convinced Nadal made a big stride against the Djoker, either. He gave it his best in the first set, but by the end of the third he was as despairing as I've ever seen him. He survived through some amazing willpower and some help from a nervous Djokovic in the fourth set tiebreaker, but at the very end, in the fifth, Rafa instinctively, anxiously, went back to his defensive stance and it didn’t work. I do believe he could change the dynamic by going down the line with his forehand, but his more aggressive posture led to more errors than normal in the final, and he'll never be able to match Djokovic on the backhand side, especially down the line. It also doesn't help, as Rafa noted, that Djokovic pummels his serve with such uncanny consistency.

One potential positive for Nadal, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first: I’m not sure if it came across on TV, but he was extremely nervous from 4-2 on; when he missed that backhand down the line at 30-15, I was sure he was going to lose the next four games, and he nearly did. He might not be quite so tight with the lead against Djokovic next time, especially if their next one is at a Masters event.

As for the other side of the trivalry, I thought that Nadal-Federer 27 showed that it isn’t just the Rafa-forehand-to-Federer-backhand dynamic that spells the difference between the two. It’s also Federer pressing and pulling the trigger too early on his forehand. He made 30-something unforced errors from that side, including a couple of crucial ones in the final game.

Finally, the talk about the alleged “brutal physicality” of Djokovic-Nadal matches, and how it’s going to turn off fans. I’ve always liked to watch these guys face off, and I still do. I did see my share of fairly dull and brutal baseline tennis from the men over the two weeks—much of Hewitt-Stebe, the first set of Hewitt-Roddick, the opening three games of Djokovic-Ferrer, which took 22 minutes. But Rafa and Nole? Maybe it’s the grunting that makes it sound more “brutal” to some people, but I find their games—from Rafa’s inside-out forehand and passing shots to Djokovic’s sliding open-stance gets and down the line backhands—to have plenty of flair.

Six hours of these two? OK, I can live with less next time.

Steve