This week I'm discussing the 2006 season, and looking forward to 2007, with ex-pro and expert analyst Hank Moravec (also known as Dunlop Maxply here and at Tennis World).
Hank,
I was kind of busted by your last post. We journalist types love to go for the new, even at the expense of the true. While I was contemplating future men’s Grand Slam winners, it hardly occurred to me to talk about the guys who have already established themselves as contenders, like Ljubicic, Gonzalez, or Ancic. In the media’s defense, this is partially because we get a little tired of the old guys—I can remember making a special trip to see Gonzo play in the Open qualifying maybe five years ago, and I don’t have a whole lot of new observations to make about him. Still, I think you made an important point by stating what should be obvious: There are only 10 spots in the Top 10, and that the measure of a top pro is not earning points with a big win or two, it’s defending those points. While this may not be the sexiest journalistic topic either, it’s a crucial one for a young player’s progress. As you say, an early loss in Melbourne by Baghdatis could throw him off for a year.
Just to keep things as sexy as possible, I’m going to spend this post reviewing a few of the game’s eternally intractable issues, such as they appeared to me in 2006.
Scheduling
On the ATP side, there seemed to be a realization that the season isn’t going to get shorter any time soon. In fact, that’s pretty much a direct quote from the tour’s chairman, Etienne de Villiers. But there is movement on the issue of the Masters events, their location, and their timing. Madrid or Barcelona may get a spring dual-gender event, Hamburg may be out, no one’s quite sure. Spain deserves a big clay tournament; even now the grounds at the French Open have a Spanish feel to them. I could see Madrid moving from fall to spring and freeing up Paris to be the lone major indoor tune-up for the Masters Cup. But you’d have to demote Hamburg, and maybe either Rome or Monte Carlo, to do that, because three Masters before the French is already too many. Obviously it’s complicated, but it’s also just another extension of the ancient turf war between the old-guard establishment (the ITF) and the tour. De Villiers came in with the idea of working with the ITF, not against it; not sure how optimistic he is about that right now.
It’s too bad, because the Masters events are the best innovation/marketing idea that the game has had in years, and we shouldn’t be in the business of reducing them or moving them closer together. Ideally, I would put a Masters event before both the Aussie Open and Wimbledon, and try to carve out a grass-court season. This would mean getting more time between the French and Wimbledon, which is the core change that tennis needs to make to create a sensible schedule, but which seems least likely to happen (again because the Slams are run by the ITF and the rest of the tour is run by the ATP/WTA). Any practical, or impractical, changes you could see making, Hank?
The WTA
This was a banner year for star pullouts from top-tier women’s events. While the season-ending championship in Madrid was an improvement over the last three years in L.A., the rest of the tour is struggling just to gets its big names on the court. The women focus almost exclusively on the Slams now, and “Tier I” has been rendered virtually meaningless. It’s a problem that has begun to undermine the U.S. Open Series, which counts on getting both the top men and women out for its tournaments. The WTA has blamed injuries and tried to lower the number of its mandatory playing commitments. Is another strategy possible, maybe a stronger marketing/prize money push for the Tier I events, along the lines of the Masters Series? It’s either that or live on deep in the shadows of the Slams.
Playing Style
Having watching hundreds of dull, one-shot rock fights at Wimbledon, I’ve never spent much time lamenting the death of the serve and volley. That is, until this year, when I began to think that an entire element of the sport was being allowed to disappear. The tactical choice between rushing the net and hitting from the baseline was what made tennis a thinking-man’s sport. Imagine if pitchers only threw fastballs or basketball players only took three-pointers—wouldn’t be quite the same, would it? Watching Max Mirnyi wear down James Blake at Wimbledon also restored my faith in s & v as a plausible tactic, even in today’s power-baseline game. As I said yesterday, if you took a very talented and athletic player and gave him the complete net-rushing package from the beginning, I think he could succeed with it at the pro level—hitting a passing shot is still not like hitting a run-of-the-mill ground stroke,no matter what racquet's being used.
Doubles
I've also never lamented the decline of doubles; there just isn’t enough on the line, psychologically, the way there is in singles, to make it essential viewing. But on a visit to the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club this spring, one of the older members tried this idea out on me: To put something on the line, and to get the top singles players interested, make doubles results count toward singles rankings (with the exceptions of the Slams, perhaps). Then, at the end of the year, you’d know who the best tennis player in the world is, and you might even get those singles specialists to learn how to volley, which would make them more fun to watch whatever game they were playing. I had to say, not a bad idea. Not that we’re going to see it happen in this lifetime.
Steve