The Seles Principle

In all the fireworks and spirited debate in recent days over the withdrawals from Masters Series, Paris (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick and Ivan Ljubicic all bit the dust), and the implications it had for players who have stepped it up during the indoor season (Fernando Gonzalez, Mario Ancic, Richard Gasquet), I never did get around to acknowledging the 800-gorilla in the room - you can now make that the 1200-pound gorilla, Marat Safin.

You have to be daft not to insert Safin as a contender in the Paris Indoors (I vastly prefer the old name of the tradition-rich event; for some strange reason the very word "Bercy" bugs me) I erred the other day in my post Temporary Indoor Superstar, when I suggested that the winner in Paris would come out of small pool of what I call "almost-rans" - that is, the upcoming youngsters or struggling vets who are looking to count coup and beef up rankings at a time when the blue-chip players are all worn-out or already thinking ahead to the Masters Cup, or even the Australian Open. Given Safin's style of play, his basic comfort on indoor courts and his track-record in Paris, you would have to list him among the four or five favorites - perhaps the favorite.

Safin has won Paris three times, and it's just as easy to underestimate how much a winning history in a given event fuels a player as it is to overestimate Safin's ability to capitalize on precisely those kinds of psychological advantages. So once again, it's a wash of sorts: logic says Safin should win, history says Safin couldn't give a hoot about logic. Of course, Safin has been pulling his game back together in recent weeks (he was a finalist in Moscow) but - dang it! - I feel stupid even trying to analyze Safin's chances anymore.

The bottom line: he has a free pass into the quarterfinals from Richard Gasquet (he pulled out, apparently with a thigh injury) so  - dang it! -  that could mean Safin will announce that he's pulling out of the tournament, shaving his head, and going off to join the chanting saffron-robe brigade.

Sighs

Actually, the "wither Marat?" narrative also segues nicely with my last post, Georgia Fatwood, in that Safin is one of the very few players whose game has the heft to be troublesome to Roger Federer. Oh, I know, Safin is a paltry 2-7 vs. Federer. But the raw horsepower is there, in the muscle memory if not under the hood. Safin's 9-7 in-the-fifth win over TMF in the Australian Open semis of 2005 (from match-point down, no less) was a pretty good demonstration of what it takes to trouble TMF: punishing power, combined with great movement, shotmaking ability, and sufficient self-esteem (not ordinarily a pillar of Safin's persona) to step up and play the important points as well as the routine ones.

Safin has figured in two of the matches that I put into the category of "unforgettable." That win over Federer in 2005, and the masterpiece that earned Safin his first U.S. Open title, in 2000, over - more irony, if that's your thing - Pete Sampras. In that match, Safin did to Sampras what Sampras had done to John McEnroe in the semifinals of the 1991 U.S. Open (a match some commentors in the previous post cited), which is roughly the same RX I outlined in the above paragraph. It was an astonishing thing to witness: Safin out-Samprasing Sampras.

But this underscore a cold reality that some of our more aesthetically conscious readers tend to ignore: If you hit the ball hard enough and accurately enough, and with the aim of ending rather than extending points, you beat anybody. Period. Artistry, fluidity, and versatility have nothing to do with it, beyond a certain point. I've always thought of this as The Seles Principle, because La Monica was its foremost practitioner, almost to the point of parody: She couldn't volley, couldn't serve, couldn't run, but she could hit lines and corners like a darts champion and she won everything in sight.

However, I'll be the first to admit that it's never quite as simple as Seles made it look across the gender divide, probably because the basic power plant most men bring to the court almost rules out anyone cold-cocking winners from the backcourt with Seles-like regularity. Still, the pure purposefulness of The Seles Principle should not be underestimated, and at his best Safin can bring that to bear against whomever is signed onto his dance card.

Having reviewed most of the comments to the post below, the thing that I come away with is that you simply can't beat TMF without taking the game right to him - and I don't think it's unfair to suggest that this is something that a Marcos Baghdatis, James Blake, Tommy Haas, Lleyton Hewitt or David Nalbandian is simply incapable of doing - not with any kind of consistency.

The Federer-Sampras discussion also got me thinking on another track, thanks to a comment from Tribal Elder Lucy. The match I would love to see, perhaps more than Sampras vs. Federer, is Bjorn Borg vs. Federer. I don't think Borg/Rafael Nadal comparisons that are frequently bandied about are very useful  because their respective games are not nearly as similar as some folks assume (their temperaments, however, are alike: Both men have been strong-minded, confident warriors).

The critical difference for me is that despite those radical topspin groundstrokes, Borg had a special gift that ranks right behind sheer power as an asset. He was a sprinter who could raise the level of a rally to the point where the other player simply couldn't keep pace. Jet Boy, I think, relies more on muscle and counter punching. This is subtle, textured stuff, and I welcome you old hands to weigh-in on the issue, because I'm not entirely sure I've got it right.

One thing I'm confident about, though, is that it's pretty easy to overlook the value of speed and quickness. Give me a  player world class speed (and I'm talking track-and-field world class), consistent groundstrokes, and a strong mind and - bingo! - he's Top 5 for sure. The model for this kind of player is yet another woman, Steffi Graf.

So a TMF vs. Borg match would provide a fascinating yardstick for measuring where - if there is such a point - ball skills (a la Federer) yield to athleticism, much like they ultimately and almost by definition have to yield to power, even if nobody has quite that grade of power. But just as there no bankable stars who can overpower TMF today, there also is a paucity of players who can outrun him. Hewitt, Blake, Haas, et al have amply demonstrated that in a contest of speed, being just that fraction of a second slower than you need to be is tantamount to falling eight car lengths behind going into the first turn of a race. It's over. Or it ought to be.

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be a light blogging day; I have a few housekeeping chores to tend to for Tennis, and I'll also be making an announcement about a guest blogging turn I'll be taking at a very popular website. Stay tuned.