The good bard would probably sandbag me over the head for this but – something is rotten in the state of Tennis. As Roger Federer continues to march inexorably towards the holy grail of 15 Grand Slams, tennis, as a spectator sport, seems to have left behind much of its charm in the last millennium.
I searched for a list of top 5 tennis players in 1996 and compared them to the top 5 in 2006. This is what I found: 1996 – Sampras, Chang, Kafelnikov, Ivanisevic, Muster. 2006 – Federer, Nadal, Davydenko, Blake, Ljubicic. What is the difference between these lists – (other than the players being different of course)? The top 5 in 1996 was a healthy mixture of superb baseliners and brilliant serve-volleyers. If you discount Federer, the other four in 2006 are masters of the slogathon- players with out-sized muscles and outrageous stamina, who can probably wrestle The Undertaker, compete with Haile Gebrselassie in the marathon and then warm down with a few hundred push-ups, all in the same day. These qualities are undoubtedly to be applauded and yet tennis is the poorer for them.
I have been watching tennis for more than 15 years now, and at no point have I been as disillusioned about the state of the game as now. The recent retirement of Tim Henman barely created a ripple amongst the aficionados. This is probably justified to some extent, seeing as how he never progressed beyond the semi-finals of any Grand Slam. But he did deserve to be celebrated with more than mere murmurs of appreciation, for he was the last of an exciting and now almost extinct breed of pure serve and volley players. Most sports have tried to preserve elements of what made them popular in the first place. Cricket with the advent of power hitters like Matthew Hayden and Greame Smith still has a place for players like VVS Laxman and Mahela Jayawardene. Football places the magical skills of Ronaldinho and Messi above the sheer muscle of Steven Gerrard and Didier Drogba. It is this electrifying mix of sumptuously deft touches and bombastic power which keeps the crowd on tenterhooks –waiting for those moments of magic that justify the price of the ticket and the long queue waits.
Tennis, in its efforts to keep pace with changing parameters of performance and spectator demands, seems to have regressed. As sporting equipment revises the definition of power hitting it has taken away one of the most enthralling aspects of the game – the quintessentially classic battle between the baseliner and serve-volleyer or between two serve-volleyers for that matter. The players themselves cannot be blamed for this dilution of the game. With the kind of power generation that is possible with today’s equipment, volleying consistently is no longer a feasible option. A player at the net has considerably lesser time to see and place the ball – combine that with the explosive power of baseliners, and in most cases it would be humanly impossible to conjure up a decent volley.
The French Open has always been the domain of hard hitters – people with astonishing stamina and retrieval abilities and it has usually thrown up the most unlikely winners. Anyone remember Sergei Bruegera, Thomas Muster, Alberto Costa et al? Personally though, I found it the most boring of slams; its only redemption factor being the heightened vulnerability of top ranked players. Wimbledon a fortnight later brought relief and heightened excitement. I use the past tense because tennis now seems to follow a template where one dimensional players churn out one massive ground-stroke after the other, irrespective of the surface they are playing on. With the exception of Federer who is in already in the stratosphere while the others are still fuelling their rockets, every notable player simply tries to browbeat his opponent into submission and to borrow another sporting phrase – that is just not cricket!
The greatest matches have always involved at least one serve and volleyer. Borg vs. Connors, Borg vs. McEnroe, Becker vs. Edberg, Becker vs. Sampras, Ivanisevic vs. Sampras, Agassi vs. Sampras, Henman vs. Ivanisevic are a few line-ups which made for absolutely mouth watering clashes and more often than not lived up to expectations. I will use two of these line ups to illustrate my point.
Agassi vs. Sampras:
Agassi was flamboyance personified, master of the service return, with effortlessly elegant ground-strokes. Sampras was, simply put, majestic – one of the best servers the game has ever seen, with sensational net play. You see the drastic difference? This was tennis at its best – one man trying his best to get to the net, keep out the ferocious ground-strokes of his opponent conjuring up some spectacular volleys in the process; the other scampering around the court, retrieving balls from seemingly impossible positions, and finding incredible angles to pass his rival. There were occasions when the roles were reversed – who can forget the running down the line forehand that Sampras used to such devastating effect or the delicate drop volleys Agassi seemed capable of calling upon in the toughest of situations. Sport was never as thrilling, as awe-inspiring and as gasp evoking as this.
Becker vs. Edberg:
Here were two players who played so similarly and yet so differently. Edberg, much like his predecessor, Borg, was the epitome of style. Silken strokes, unruffled demeanour and soft volleys – he was the artist’s brush to Becker’s dynamite. The beauty in their matches lay in the desperate urgency to get to the net first. This gave spectators an opportunity to witness the supposedly weaker elements of their game i.e. the ground-strokes which were, incredibly, amongst the best in the business. It was easier to appreciate the completeness of these players – a diving Becker volley followed by a silent but deadly Edberg forehand. A neatly placed Edberg volley followed by a booming Becker backhand pass, scorching air on its way. Words cannot suffice for the sheer spectacle that passed for tennis during these matches.
Fast Forward: Nadal vs. Djokovic
Two baseliners slugging it out on Wimbledon greens. A brutally hit forehand is returned with a violent backhand – this continues for 20 strokes until Nadal finally manages to hit one so hard that it leaves almost a dent in the court. Point over – Game over – Match over. Tomorrow Nadal meets Roddick in another soporific power match up.
There are many things to appreciate in modern day tennis – a ball which seems to be landing out, suddenly curves in and falls right on the baseline – such is the amount of spin that players can coax out of their rackets. Spurred on by optimised diets and unbridled power, players are now capable of astounding feats of athleticism. Yet these elements have conspired to deprive connoisseurs of the most exquisite of tennis forms. Tennis needs someone to save it from its own drudgery.
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