!92910723by Pete Bodo
Let's forget about Fed Cup, shall we? Okay, I'm sort of kidding about that - kudos to the Italian squad led by Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone, whose team spirit and ability to lift their games for the task at hand has to be the envy of anyone who's ever played or captained a Davis Cup or Fed Cup squad. Those competitions are only as important as the players make them by way of their level of commitment to what can seem like a thankless and is undoubtedly a time-consuming and energy draining chore.
Still, the big news of the weekend was Novak Djokovic's stunning three-set win over Roger Federer at the Swiss icon's home tournament in Basel. Djokovic is proving to be a tricky hombre. Just when you think his game has leveled off and perhaps grown a little stale, he pops up to send the message that he's still very much in the hunt for the title, heir to Federer. Job no. 1 for any player not ranked no. 1 is to stay in the mix at the top - witness the travails Andy Roddick has experienced in recent years when it comes to that mission. Djokovic is managing it.
Now, he's positioned himself nicely for a strong finish to 2009, and you have to wonder if he hasn't been doing a little sandbagging. Just the other day, Djokovic called for a summit meeting to jawbone over the loaded ATP calendar. Yesterday, he successfully called on all of his resources in denying Federer a fourth-straight Basel title. Was it the heroic effort of spent but indomitable player - or a shrewdly executed late-race move executed by a guy who may have more gas left in his tank than his recent comments suggest?
The question is especially relevant, given that Djokovic leads the entire ATP Tour in wins, with 71. And he's not looking especially banged-up. Nor is the man he beat. So there's a disconnect somewhere in there, suggesting that this length-of-year issue has taken on a life of its own. The default position for everyone seems to be - the tennis season is too long. Maybe it's just that at this time of year, there's no much left to talk about, and little left to do. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, right?
So let's take a closer look at the alleged problem.
In the six week span between between Jan. 1 and Feb. 16, Djokovic played 9 competitive matches. Then, from that latter day to March 12, a little over a month, he played 11 matches, including a Davis Cup tie. Between the 12th of March and and 12th of April, he played 10 matches, reaching - and losing - the final of Miami. So from the start of the year until mid-April, he played 30 matches, an average of 10 per month, or a 1:3 match per calendar day ratio. He had significant rest and recovery days, what with byes, television schedules, staggered round-by-round play and - of course - those early losses.
From mid-April until the middle of May, Djokovic played 14 matches - an average of roughly 1 match every two days. And from mid-May until mid-June, Novak played another dozen matches, bringing him to the doorstep of Wimledon. From mid-June to the end of August, Djokovic played just 14 matches, slightly below 1:2. But in the two months spanning September and October, he played just 15 matches, an average of one every four days.
Than brings us up to Basel, and with Djokovic playing Paris and the Tennis Masters Cup, he's likely to return to that most tight 1:2 ratio. What emerges here pretty much tells the story of a year-round tour with something like a slow period in the early fall, coupled with a furious finish. But remember, we're talking about the most prolific match winner on the tour this year. The match-to-day ratio of lesser players changes proportionately, and by the time you're down to top 20 or 30 guys, you're probably closer to a 1:4 norm. Now you can argue until you're blue in the face about how demanding the game, or the toll taken by practice, especially in the training-intensive off weeks. But you can't quatify the statistics and, after all, these young men and women are professional athletes - they're supposed to be strong and durable.
I know reducing the work load to a simple ratio is deceptive; but it underscores the extent to which tennis is a game of periodization. Everyone would be better off if that ratio would represent alternating days, as it does at the Grand Slam events, with days of rest alternating with days of play. But tennis is a game of compression, with intense activity packed into consecutive days, followed by a week or more of planned or opponent-dictated rest. But at the very least, players have significant rest intervals between their fate in one tournament and the beginning of the next one. By the end of the year, Djokovic will have played 28 weeks - slightly more half the total weeks of the year.
Tennis is a sport of periodiziation in another significant way: You have different tours on different surfaces and continents, and by even the mid-point of the year the change of scenery must be welcome despite the challenges posed by travel and having to make the transition from surface to surface. But this is how tennis works, in segments. And for all the complaints about the fall, the founders and pioneers envisioned something like a year round game - a big-tent game, that offered opportunities to all players because of the variety of conditions and surfaces it incorporated.
Long before an Andre Agassi or Rafael Nadal swung a racket, tennis players were following the sun, the money, or the ranking points, searching for playing and earning opportunities. Djokovic, for all his complaints about the length of the year, looks to be making the most of his considerable abilities on indoor carpet. His discontent with the length of the year goes against his own best interest, ranking and title-production-wise. You almost want to say, Novak, be careful what you wish for. . .
The other day, a player (I think it was Robin Soderling) Tweeted that he was really growing antsy and edgy after a few weeks of rest and recuperation. That's something all tennis players should keep in mind when they fantasize about a three or four month off-season. More than most other sports, tennis is a way of life. A tennis player can't ever be too far from a court and his or her rackets; the team sports model, in which a player is locked into a tightly-scripted schedule followed by a complete and utter escape from the demands of the season, just doesn't work in tennis and it never did.
Tennis players are surprisingly like the rest of us: they work most of the time, and take their rest and vacation time in snatches and doses pretty evenly distrubuted throughout the year. The internal logic of the sport demands it. That's why tennis players would never, ever embrace an off-season running, for the sake of argument, from mid-September until Christmas -as much as the current crop of players passionately believes it would be good for them, good for the game. If indeed tennis closed down shop after the US Open, they would be out there on a court somewhere by the beginning of October - and not merely to supplement their incomes. Their game is a way of life that they would sorely miss if they were forced to take an extended break from it.
One other significant factor shapes the anxieties of the players, and it's specific to an individual sport. A tennis player's health is not just his most prized possession, it's also his meal ticket. Wrench a knee that requires even minor surgery and a significant portion of your year is over, and you take 10 steps backward on the rankings tote-board. That makes tennis players particularly sensitive and averse to risk. Throw out your back in a team sport and you can sit back on the bench, do your therapy, and keep collecting the paycheck. But a tennis player is lashed to his health and it's natural for him to protest against anything that seems to threaten it. Yet a look at a typical player's schedule suggests that he has plenty of time to rest and recuperate. The Fall, on paper, should be no more freighted with risk than is the Spring.
The real underlying problem here seems to be psychological, and skewed by the curious, awkward placement of the majors. Everyone just feels that the tennis year ought to close quietly after the last major of the year. Part of the problem is that the year-end championships of both tours have failed to develop, as hoped, into a kind of Super Bowl, or league championships final. They just aren't perceived as critical events. The entire history of the Open era is one of using the entire calendar to satisfy all of the constituents, including players seeking opportunity. But that goes against the psychological grain.
It would certainly be a better world if the US Open ended in, say, late October, and then the players all dispersed to rest, work on their games, and - this last one would be great for the sport - take part in exhibitions and spectacles designed to grow the sport - to take it places where it doesn't get to go (like, uh, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh?), to seed the ground for future players and events.
But we're locked into the Grand Slam schedule, and players - no matter how bitterly they protest - need and want to play. After all, the sun is always shining somewhere, and if not there are indoor arenas, floodlights, and tennis fans dying to get a peek at a Federer or Serena Williams.