Finally, after 11 months of crisscrossing the globe, the season-ending Barclay ATP World Tour Finals is about to start. Eleven months -- that's a ton of tennis. If you're Novak Djokovic, it means you've obsessively bounced the ball as you prepare to serve about 1.2 million times, give or take a hundred thousand. If you're Rafael Nadal, it means you've covered more ground than Chris Johnson and Cristiano Ronaldo combined. Now, with all but one week of the season in the rearview mirror, the top eight players will descend on the O2 Arena in London, answering a few questions along the way.
Ah, yes, it's Novak Djokovic, who's been in a rich vein of form since the U.S. Open. It's not just that he's won three titles -- Beijing, Basel, and his first Masters Series 1000 title of the year, Paris -- but the way he's gone about it. In Basel, Djokovic defeated Roger Federer for the title. In Paris, he outclassed Nadal in the semifinals and gutted out an emotional roller coaster of a final against Frenchman Gael Monfils. At times, Djokovic has flashed the kind of point-ending talent that makes the game look too easy; at others, he's chocked. It's a tightrope that the Djoker always walks. That said, he'll be the favorite to win his second season-ending championships, and he'll have an outside shot of finishing the year at No. 2, ahead of Nadal, who's in his round-robin group. The key: Djokovic will have to win the title without dropping a match and Rafa wins one or none of his round-robin matches.
Is the No. 1 ranking up for grabs?
Yes, Nadal has a chance to end the year on top. You can check the ATP's site for the likely ways this can happen, though fair warning: You're mind will go into meltdown mode if you attempt to hash out all the permutations. Suffice to say, Rafa will have to pick up the level of his play. In Paris, Nadal, ever the tinkerer, changed his serving grip, but he didn't effectively use his southpaw hook to take control of points. Federer, meanwhile, hasn't looked like a world-beater for weeks, even joking that he's become a clay-court specialist.
Who's the dark horse?
With Rafa and Roger not at their best, it might pave the way for the tour's workhorse, Nikolay Davydenko. He's a grinder who must hate the blink-and-you'll-miss-it offseason. "I don't play tennis to spend money, but my wife is a big spender," he says. Dogged determination, a wife who needs a new pair of shoes -- it's a lethal combination that could help Davydenko upset jaded stars wishing the offseason was already here.
What about the home-crowd favorite?
This marks the first time the season-ending championships will take place in London. Will Andy Murray orchestrate the crowd to his advantage, much like he's tried to do at Wimbledon, or will playing in front of his fellow Brits prove to be too much pressure? Let's hope he's at least recovered from Paris, where he sleepwalked through his loss against Radek Stepanek.
What about the rest of the eight?
Andy Roddick, who hasn't played since hurting his knee in Shanghai in October, withdrew at the 11th hour. In his place will be Robin Soderling, the 2009 French Open finalist. Since the U.S. Open, the Sod has been consistent, not spectacular, but his big-swinging game could catch fire again. Fernando Verdasco has played a ton of matches since the U.S. Open, but he's only got one title to his name this year. Hard to think, among the world's elite players, that he'd win his second title in London. Verdasco's athletic, but hardly a big-game finisher. That leaves Juan Martin del Potro. He's gone 2-3 since winning the U.S. Open, but if Delpo has proven anything this year, it's that he has the punishing strokes and burning desire to win the sport's big titles.
Bet on it: At some point in the near future, you will hear the following words. "I wish tennis still had guys like Marat Safin, crazy guys who would smash all their racquets. That's when the game had personality."
In this way, Safin is destined to become the modern-day Ilie Nastase. Like Nasty, he was blessed with otherworldly talent, but not with the mental discipline to consistently make the most of it. Each ended his career with two Grand Slam titles, but each will be remembered primarily as a charismatic character rather than a champion.
That's only fair, but there will be more to miss about Safin than just his ability to splinter a stick. Here are five aspects of the man and his game that tennis will be poorer without.
The sound of his shots
If greatness in tennis were measured sonically, Safin would be the player of the era, not Roger Federer. Whether he was practicing around the corner from you, or playing in the final of a major, there was no mistaking the thudding echo of the ball coming off his strings, especially when he rifled a winning backhand up the line.
Speaking of that backhand …
Safin squandered much of his talent, but he had such a surfeit of it that he still made a lasting contribution to the sport's evolution. When he debuted in the late-90s, he was one of the first men to take the two-hander up the line for a winner on a regular basis. Until then, the inside-out forehand, as developed by Ivan Lendl and Jim Courier, had dominated. The all-around slugfest that characterizes the men's game today was born.
His sense of honor
After his final match Wednesday, Safin said, "I've been great to everybody, even if I had a few fights with chair umpires." More than his achievements, this seems to have been what Safin valued most. His solidarity with his fellow players didn't help him win matches; if he lacked anything essential as a player, it was a killer instinct. But I'll miss his postmatch handshakes, and the respect he showed his opponents whether he'd won or lost. It was the same respect that led him to keep his celebrations muted even after he won his Grand Slams. He was one of the guys.
His human side
The popular belief is that Safin was too much of a hothead to be a champion. But his problem may have been that he was too normal. He didn't love having to get up and hit the same shot over and over and over every day. He didn't love answering questions about his life. He often couldn't master his nerves in close matches. He had good days followed by bad and found it hard to keep his eyes glued to the ultimate goal. Does this sound like anyone you know? Yourself, perhaps?
His fans
Tennis needs champions and warriors, but a good-looking rogue doesn't hurt, either. You could always tell one of his matches was happening just by the feeling in air around it -- there was an edgy sense of anticipation. The court overflowed with fans who were waiting -- hoping -- for the big guy to blow a gasket. Just like I'll miss hearing his strings hitting a ball, I'll miss walking into a side court at a Slam and hearing the crowd's buzz. It wasn't a buzzy, really; it was a titter. What other proof of Safin's value to the sport do we need? A million girls around the world can't be wrong.
With a mid-tier event currently being played in Bali and the Italians hosting the U.S. in this weekend's Fed Cup final, the WTA tour's winter break has not officially begun quite yet. But in the blogosphere, 'tis eternally the season for passing judgment, so the fact that there's still a bit of tennis to be played in 2009 won't prevent me from offering this incomprehensive roundup of the year in women's pro tennis, shamelessly styled after Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom."
Serena Williams
The defining moment of Serena's 2009 season came not in Melbourne, where she dominated Dinara Safina for her 10th career Grand Slam singles title, nor at Wimbledon, where she soundly defeated her sister, Venus, for No. 11. Those victories were overshadowed by her notorious tirade against the lineswoman who called her for a foot fault in the U.S. Open semifinals.
But regardless of whether you were perturbed by the vitriolic nature of Serena's outburst (I was) or thought she should have been allowed to play the women's doubles final 36 hours later (I didn't), one has to acknowledge that from a competitive standpoint, Serena's season was an unqualified success. She may have bungled her apologies for foot-fault-gate (for which further punishment may yet be assessed), but in going 5-0 to win the year-end championships in Doha last weekend, Williams reminded us how dominating her top tennis is.
As my colleague Steve Tignor wrote earlier this week, her status as the world's greatest player derives not just from her serve -- the best in the women's game -- or her quickness, but also from her court coverage, her competitive mettle, and most of all her ability to hit winners from any position.
Ten years after she became the first Williams sister to win a major, and seven years after she first claimed the world's top ranking, Serena will finish the year ranked No. 1. It's appropriate that that distinction goes not to the hapless Safina but to Williams, the best in the game.
Elena Dementieva
It may seem harsh to offer a negative assessment of a season during which Dementieva won three titles and made the semifinals at two majors. But the Russian 6-footer has been near the top of the women's game for so long that at this point, her career is defined less by what she has accomplished than by what her competitive résumé lacks -- a Grand Slam title.
Over the past decade, Dementieva has been a finalist at two majors (the French Open and the U.S. Open, both in 2004) and made the semifinals six other times. This year, in one of the best-played women's matches of 2009, she had a match point against Serena in the Wimbledon semifinals before surrendering to the eventual champion. As the 28-year-old closes in on a second consecutive year-end top-5 finish, the absence of a Grand Slam goblet in her trophy case feels conspicuous, especially considering the volatility and inconsistency at the top of the women's game.
Dementieva's serve is no longer a liability, she's less prone to breaking down psychologically in the big moments, and she's as fit as ever -- yet her best tennis credential is still the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. Her emotional reaction to that triumph in Beijing demonstrates how significant the big wins are for her, but she has still yet to hoist a Grand Slam trophy. With Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin back on the scene and Serena looking as formidable as ever, Dementieva may have missed her window. I fear she's doomed to a career of major futility.
Svetlana Kuznetsova
After an embarrassingly lopsided loss to Justine Henin in the 2007 U.S. Open final, it looked as though Kuznetsova -- the 2004 U.S. Open champion -- was a one-hit wonder on the downside of her career.
But this year, Kuznetsova, inspired partially by a discussion she had with Roger Federer, rededicated herself to her game and her training, and her results reflected her raised level of commitment. Kuznetsova was up a set and a break on Serena in the Australian Open quarterfinals before officials invoked the extreme-heat rule and closed the roof. When the players returned to the court, Serena regained control, which she didn't relinquish for the rest of the tournament.
Kuznetsova got her revenge in Paris, however, knocking off Serena in the French Open quarterfinals en route to her second career Grand Slam title. Kuznetsova gets extra credit for the maturity and empathy she displayed in the Roland Garros final, during which Safina suffered another meltdown. After completely outclassing her countrywoman on the court, Kuznetsova proved to be a classy champion by keeping her celebration relatively subdued.
Victoria Azarenka
The Belarusian's play in the first half of the year announced her as a starlet in the making, and the poise she showed in defeating Serena Williams in the Key Biscayne final seemed to clinch her status as the "next big thing" in the women's game: She's athletic and powerful, blond and bubbly.
But the intensity that the Arizona-based Azarenka shows on the court is not necessarily a competitive asset. She lost her composure during her ugly third-round loss to Francesca Schiavone in the U.S. Open, berating the officials, the fans and herself before double-faulting on match point. Last week at the tour championships during her round-robin match against Caroline Wozniacki, the tantrum-prone 20-year-old suffered another meltdown. It was an inauspicious end to a season during which Azarenka established herself as a top-10 player.
Players of Polish descent
Danish teenager Caroline Wozniacki, who was born in Denmark to Polish parents, won three more tour titles this season, raising her career total to six, and established herself as a top-5 player. Entering the U.S. Open, she had never made it past the fourth round of a major, but she went all the way to the final there -- and then in the on-court interview afterward addressed her fans in English, Danish and Polish.
Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak, the daughter of Polish immigrants, also enjoyed the best season of her career, reaching the fourth round of the French Open and achieving a career-high ranking of No. 21 in June. Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska, 20, maintained her spot in the top 10 despite not winning any tourneys, and her younger sister Urszula, 18, made her debut in the top 100, reaching No. 62 in August.
Serbian players
In 2008, French Open champion Ana Ivanovic became the first Serbian player, male or female, to achieve the No. 1 ranking. She was displaced at the top spot by her countrywoman Jelena Jankovic, who won four titles in 2008 and ended the year ranked No. 1. This year, both Ivanovic and Jankovic seemed to regress. Ivanovic, now ranked No. 22, didn't make it past the fourth round of a major (and flamed out in the first round of the U.S. Open). Jankovic, whose stellar 2008 Grand Slam record included a final and two semis, also failed to advance past the round of 16 at a Slam this year, and now finds herself ranked eighth.
On-court creativity
We were reminded this year that bludgeoning the ball isn't the only way to be effective, and that multidimensional games make for compelling viewing. Notable players who, refreshingly, incorporated some variety into their play include Flavia Pennetta, who this summer cracked the top 10 for the first time; the undersized and inexperienced but surprisingly crafty Melanie Oudin; and, most significantly, U.S. Open finalist Wozniacki. (Woz, however, gets a few points deducted for that unflattering, multi-layered lavender train wreck of a Stella McCartney smock/dress.)
Comebacks Kim Clijsters won the U.S. Open in her third tournament back from retirement. Kimiko Date Krumm, who hadn't played competitive tennis since the Clinton administration, returned to the tour and won a tournament the day before she turned 39. Maria Sharapova came back from a career-threatening shoulder injury to make the French Open quarterfinals, and during that Paris run spoke eloquently about the satisfaction she derived from having rejoined the pro ranks. Given Clijsters' fairy-tale return to the fold, and Sharapova's more qualified success, it is little surprise that the retirement of another former No. 1, Justine Henin, didn't take.
Newbies
The most promising newcomers to distinguish themselves in 2009 included Germany's Sabine Lisicki, a "Fraulein Forehand" for the new generation and a winner in Charleston; Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova, who made the semis of the French Open; and Sorana Cirstea, whose spirited effort against Jankovic at Roland Garros (Cirstea won 9-7 in the third) earned the Romanian a berth in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Waterworks
Though his weepy performance following his loss in the Australian Open final made Roger Federer this year's top lacrimation sensation, there was no shortage of tears on the women's side. The talented but tragicomical Dinara Safina made it halfway to a Sob Slam by tearing up during the finals of two consecutive major finals (the Aussie and the French, both of which she lost badly). Ana Ivanovic sobbed when injury forced her to retire from her fourth-round match against Venus Williams at Wimbledon. And Vera Zvonareva, already known as the master of the meltdown and a champion of self-flagellation, added to her legend in the fourth round of the U.S. Open, where she failed to convert any of six match points during her wrenching 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-0 loss to Flavia Pennetta. Not everyone is as unflappable as Don Draper, but the volume of tears shed during that epic loss was high, even by Zvonareva's standards.
Shortly after Venus Williams won Wimbledon in 2005, a victory that ended a three-plus-year stretch without a major title, Richard Williams proudly told reporters that his daughter had a lot of good years left in her, probably more than her sister Serena. Though Venus was the older sister, Mr. Williams thought she would age well, largely because she was a superior athlete to the rest of the women on the tour.
By 2008, when Venus won her third Wimbledon title in four years, her father's prediction seemed spot on. For my money, he's still right: Venus, physically, is a lot younger than her 29 years. She's still faster than anyone on the tour, still more powerful, and still more agile. She is the best athlete in women's tennis, with the recently unretired Kim Clijsters finishing a close second.
Why, then, can't she win a match these days? If you watched Williams' dismal performance against Elena Dementieva on Tuesday at the season-ending championships in Doha, Qatar, you'd have some idea. Physically, she's capable of anything. Mentally, she's capable of little. She has no confidence.
The telltale signs of a tired mind were everywhere in Tuesday's match. After a solid first set, Williams scored an early break in the second set. Then she played tense tennis, missing too many backhands (normally her more reliable stroke) and losing speed and depth on her serve. Still, she broke Dementieva again and had a chance to serve out the match at 6-5. Dementieva hung on and took a 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker. From there we were treated to vintage Williams, circa Wimbledon 2005: lots of running, sharp angles, and no mistakes. She tied the score at 6-6. After that? The not-so-vintage Williams took over: She missed a routine backhand and double-faulted to lose the set. She quickly lost the first four games of the third set, missing backhands, going for too much early in rallies and failing to approach the net, which worked well earlier in the match, the few times she bothered to try it. When she missed an easy forehand in the final game, Williams held her fingers to her head in the shape of a gun and pulled the trigger. The self-destruction continued on the next point, when she shanked a forehand 10 feet past the baseline. Dementieva easily served out the match. (How's that for a sentence rarely written?)
If you're a Williams fan in search of a cause for her recent poor play, look no further than her flat performance in the Wimbledon final, which she lost to Serena. Since then, Venus is 9-7, and she has now lost three of her past four matches, two of them to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a promising but unpolished 18-year-old. Since Wimbledon, Williams has reached one tournament final and otherwise had more success as her sister's doubles partner than as a singles player. Before Tuesday, Williams had beaten Dementieva six straight times.
What can Williams do to break out of this slump? She has been an unpredictable player for much of her career, and her confidence might well return in time for the Australian Open, or even this event, which she won last year. More and more, Williams looks like a player who needs a change, whether it's a new voice on her coaching team, a new strategy (volley more?), or a new approach to training. As James Blake recently discovered, change for the sake of change can be positive, even if it reveals that you ought to stick with what you were doing in the first place (at least then you can continue down the same path with confidence). Williams has the athleticism to play top-level tennis into her 30s and accomplish a lot more (on the short list: win her first Australian Open and her first U.S. Open since 2001). She doesn't have much time, though, to figure out how she's going to do it.
The tennis season is winding down in typical chaotic fashion. The frequency of player withdrawals once again has ramped up, leading you to believe that tennis might be more hazardous to your health than the NFL. Players are reviving the "season is too long" mantra. And the Legends of the Fall -- those pros who save their best for the post-Grand Slam season -- have returned in full force. But amid the upsets and sound bites, the fall season has raised 10 key questions.
In Shanghai, Davydenko showed us the blueprint to defeat Rafael Nadal. Using sharp crosscourt angles, the Russian hit forehand after forehand into Nadal's backhand, forcing him to slice the ball back from outside the doubles alley. This opened up the court for Davydenko to hit down the line or go behind Rafa. Although Davydenko is still Slamless, it's this type of focused performance that could net him his first major next year.
2. Why has Novak Djokovic sounded so pumped up?
It's nice to see, of course, but where was this positive mojo during the Slam season? He better bottle his attitude before heading Down Under.
3. Is the tour's Asia strategy working?
For years we've been told that tennis is booming in China. Recent events in Beijing and Shanghai suggest otherwise. While the Shanghai semifinals and final drew strong crowds, the rest of the sessions were barren wastelands. The truth? Tennis remains too expensive for most folks. Perhaps it's time for the tours to rethink their China strategy, because there's no worse advertisement for the sport than empty stands.
4. Will Federer have the last laugh?
While his competitors are globe-trotting, he's resting and regrouping. He knows better than anyone that it's not how you end the year, in London, it's how you begin it, in Australia.
5. Is Nadal's body finally falling apart?
It's a time-honored question every fall, when Nadal's results bottom out. Recent losses to Marin Cilic and Davydenko suggest that Rafa still must tweak his schedule to better pace himself. Suggested starting point: Don't begin next season by playing an exhibition.
6. Then again, should we believe what we read?
Andre Agassi floated the Big Idea that the Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal era is coming to an end. At least that's what the sensationalistic headlines read. What Agassi actually said was that eventually, at some point, Rafa and Roger would stop dominating. Stop the presses.
7. Does the women's tour exist?
With names like Yanina Wickmayer, Petra Kvitova, Samantha Stosur and Francesca Schiavone next to the words "Championship Match," it makes you wonder. But the topsy-turvy results have generated some creative spin among journalists, such as calling the tour "compellingly unpredictable."
8. Biggest surprise of the season?
Marcos Baghdatis, who has a reputation for slacking off, has gone back to the minor leagues to revive his once-promising career. As of Oct. 19, Bags had won three challengers in a row and raised his ranking from No. 151 in July to No. 66.
9. Has there been a more depressing farewell tour than Marat Safin's?
He has an abysmal 14-19 singles record, and he's ripped his colleagues for faking injury and complaining about the length of the season. Maybe he's telling the truth, but to wait until you've got one foot out the door before speaking up smacks of cowardice.
10. Will something finally be done about the pro calendar?
The issue seemed to reach a tipping point in Shanghai last week, where all the player withdrawals could lead a conspiracy theorist to believe the pros were on unofficial strike. It's still hard to fathom that 25 weeks -- the maximum required number (assuming a player reaches the second week of all four Slams and the Davis Cup final) -- is too much. But there's a bigger concern: If the tours solve this perennial problem, what will fans talk about during the fall season?
"They are young and playing well. It's not only because they are tall."
Those were the unmistakably blunt words of Rafael Nadal after his loss in the semifinals last week in Beijing. The Spaniard was assessing the current form of U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro and, more importantly, that of the man who had just given him an unceremonious thrashing, Marin Cilic. Fourteen months after winning Olympic gold on the same court in China, Nadal, 23, could muster just four games against the 21-year-old.
A "generation" isn't what it used to be in tennis. On the ATP Tour these days, it lasts about a year. In 2008, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, born seven days apart in 1987, established themselves at the top of the ATP rankings. Will 2010 be the year that Cilic, born five days after del Potro in 1988 and currently ranked No. 13, join his fellow big man in the top five?
It won't be because his effort or attitude is lacking. Cilic's coach, Bob Brett, who helped make Boris Becker famous, praises his charge's intelligence, practice habits and levelheaded demeanor. Those traits produced consistent, if unspectacular results until this year's U.S. Open, when Cilic made his first Grand Slam quarterfinal by defeating Murray in straight sets. And they were on full display again last week in Beijing. Cilic showed up at the site a full eight days before the tournament started, and when play did begin he went about his business with an unruffled calm that could only be described as Borgian. In the final against Novak Djokovic, he didn't betray a hint of frustration even after losing the first set 6-2. While he eventually fell in a second-set tiebreaker, it wasn't because he lost his cool. Cilic doesn't beat himself; when he goes down, it's because what he was trying simply didn't work.
Del Potro and Cilic aren't just the same age, they're the same height: 6-foot-6 -- taller than any previous major champion. The game's classicists might be tempted to ask: Is gigantism good for tennis? They should listen to Nadal. As he said, it isn't just because del Potro and Cilic are tall that they're having success. Although both own strong serves, it's their groundstrokes and returns that are their trademark weapons. Their extra width, rather than their height, is what helps them the most. Watch del Potro range far to his right and still connect with atomic power on a forehand. Then watch Cilic reach for a wide serve and manage to keep both hands on his racquet for more power. Being tall may be the future of tennis, but not for the reasons we always thought.
We've known that Federer and Nadal have put together a rivalry for the ages. Will they also go down as the last of the vintage, 6-foot-2 tennis champions? We'll find out more soon. Del Potro put himself in their stratosphere this year. In 2010, Cilic may just reach as high.
Order is restored: Serena Williams' second-round victory at the China Open on Tuesday ensured that she will reclaim the No. 1 spot when the world rankings come out next week. Williams will supplant Dinara Safina, the flailing, tragicomical figure whose on-court implosions (and self-flagellations) became increasingly difficult to watch as her 25-week reign at No. 1 went on. Serena needed to outperform Safina in Beijing to take over the top spot, and the hapless Russian complied by surrendering to a 226th-ranked wild card in the second round. It was a miserable loss that might put Safina temporarily out of her misery, in that it suspends discussions about whether the 23-year-old is worthy of the No. 1 ranking.
Serena's ascendance is merely a technicality; there was no question that she was already the best female player on the planet. She has won three of the past five Grand Slams to bring her career total to 11. Her dominance of Safina in the final of this year's Australian Open was so comprehensive that the Russian, reduced to tears on the court, was struggling to win points, let alone games. But while for now the infamous reign of the meltdown-prone Safina is, mercifully, over, it is Serena's notorious U.S. Open meltdown that begs the question -- should she even be playing?
I witnessed that shocking and dreadful scene on Arthur Ashe Stadium last month, when a lineswoman's foot-fault call -- and Serena's appalling reaction to it -- transformed what had been a compelling, high-quality women's semifinal into an ugly spectacle. There is no doubt that it was a tough call -- I think even the most even-tempered player would have been justified in losing her composure after being foot-faulted on a second serve, down a set, 5-6, 15-30 in a Grand Slam semifinal. But it was the nature of Serena's reaction that was troubling and, frankly, a little scary. Brandishing her racket pointedly like a fencer on the attack, she delivered the profane tirade -- "I swear to God, I'll [expletive] take this ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat," was the most malicious line -- with a hostile and menacing posture.
Regardless of whether Serena's toe crossed the line on that second serve, her behavior certainly did. But the issue of appropriate punishment for that kind of outburst is controversial. Her supporters argued that white men like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors used to get away with worse, and that harsh judgments of Serena's behavior smack of sexism or racism. Her conduct in the immediate aftermath of the outburst certainly didn't earn her any sympathy. She displayed an utter lack of contrition at her news conference following the match, and then bungled her apology such that she needed to issue two statements in the ensuing days, the second one clarifying that she had indeed intended to apologize in the first.
The day after the semifinals, the U.S. Open referee fined Williams $10,000, the maximum amount that can be assessed on site, for unsportsmanlike conduct. (She also was fined $500 for racket abuse earlier in the semifinal match.) Much stiffer penalties could be on their way: The Grand Slam committee, an independent body composed of representatives of the four Grand Slam tournaments and the International Tennis Federation, opened an investigation of whether Serena committed a "player major offense" at the Open, and could ultimately fine her the $560,000 in prize money she won at this year's tournament and/or suspend her from a future Grand Slam event.
The problem is that the process, as outlined in Article V of the Grand Slam rulebook, takes awhile. The player being investigated is given time to present evidence on his or her behalf, and the committee is given time to review and amend the decision made by its administrator, Bill Babcock. If the player is, in fact, found guilty of an offense, he or she may then appeal.
All of which presents a public relations conundrum for WTA Tour leadership. Stacey Allaster, the tour's chairman and CEO, issued a statement the day after Serena's meltdown condemning her conduct as "inappropriate and unprofessional" and supporting the disciplinary action (the $10,500 fine) the USTA had taken. But no one made a motion to immediately suspend Serena. U.S. Open officials could have banned her from the rest of the tournament, but there she was, back on Arthur Ashe 36 hours after the fact, winning the women's doubles title with her sister Venus. The WTA could have suspended her from this week's tournament in Beijing, but once again, here she is, reclaiming the No. 1 ranking even as the committee deliberates over her punishment.
The China Open is one of four tournaments the WTA made mandatory as part of its 2009 "Roadmap," a system designed to incentivize participation in non-Grand Slam events for the tour's top players, none of whom have been more selective in terms of competitive schedule than the Williamses. I'm sure the tour was loath to bar Serena from an event in which she is technically required to participate. Nor would the China Open organizers want Serena, the biggest star in the women's game, to be missing from their event. But the timing is unfortunate: Serena is being celebrated for her on-court achievements while the Grand Slam committee's investigation is pending. Might we receive two contradictory press releases next week -- one from the WTA, hailing her official ascension to No. 1 in the rankings, and one from the Grand Slam committee, announcing that she's been suspended from the 2010 Australian Open?
"The tour always has the right to discipline any member for conduct on or off the court, but we defer to the Grand Slams for misconduct at their own events," Andrew Walker, the WTA's vice president for communications, said Wednesday. It's not the WTA's fault that the GSC's disciplinary process takes so long. But in opting not to suspend Williams, the tour is in the awkward position of having to commend her for what she has accomplished in Beijing, even while we wait for the outcome of the GSC's investigation.
This doesn't happen in sports with single governing bodies. Roberto Alomar spits in the face of an umpire? Major League Baseball suspends and fines him immediately. Albert Haynesworth uses his cleats to perform dermabrasion on another player's face? The National Football League suspends him for five games without pay. Justice is applied swiftly, and then everyone moves on. Serena's behavior wasn't nearly as egregious as Haynesworth's or Alomar's, but it's discomfiting to see her out on the court, smiling and making the No. 1 sign, when we know she might eventually be forced to take a seat.
After beating Radek Stepanek at this year's U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic "challenged" Johnny Mac to a hit in front of the late-night crowd. It was classic Djoker, a moment that revealed his charisma and desire to be in the spotlight. Unfortunately, the 2008 Australian Open champion hasn't been in the spotlight for much else, unless you count a striptease he did in Montreal.
Although he's still clearly one of the elite players in the world, Djokovic seems to have lost his cutting edge on the court when it matters most. This season, despite winning two small titles, he came up short in five other tour-level finals and failed to seriously challenge for a major championship. He meekly retired in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open (the heat and the Djoker apparently don't mix) and lost in the third round of the French Open to Philipp Kohlschreiber and the quarterfinals of Wimbledon to Tommy Haas.
But it was his defeat at the hands of Roger Federer in the U.S. Open semifinals that, if you're a Djokovic fan, is most troublesome. Yes, the score (7-6, 7-5, 7-5) was close, but the match wasn't. Though Federer played well enough, Djokovic never looked like he believed he could win. Perhaps he should have borrowed a pair of shoes from Melanie Oudin. The Djokovic of old, the one who crashed the scene in '08, would have had a chip on his shoulder and not shown Federer so much deference. Instead, we got a smiling, seemingly content Djoker who had all the bite of a Chihuahua.
What happened to the player with the smug mug who delighted in the opportunity to knock the likes of Federer off his perch?
Todd Martin, who Djokovic hired as one of his coaches right before the U.S. Open, was there in Djokovic's box. "It felt like, in the grand scheme of the match, Roger was ready and willing to take advantage of opportunities. Novak struggled a little bit at being at peace with himself and seizing the moment when it comes. Against the top five guys, those moments are going to be few and far between. If you're not alert to make the most happen for yourself, it won't happen."
Although Martin won't give away any company secrets, lest the information find its way into enemy hands, he intends to sharpen Djokovic's strokes, strategies and mind game. For one, Martin would like to see his charge hit more forehands from the middle of the court. "His forehand is more temperamental than his backhand," Martin says. "His backhand is like the morning news -- it always shows up. His forehand has the potential to be a great weapon. … I'd like to see him make more of the opportunity of hitting forehands from the middle of the court."
Martin also emphasizes the importance of keeping a steady focus no matter the score. You see it in the most successful champions, he says, the ability to build momentum after a good point and, more importantly, to forget a poorly played one as soon as it's over.
Of course, it's not as if the Serb's game needs a complete overhaul. He's like a sports car -- high performance and highly temperamental. Getting a tuneup might be all Djokovic needs to get him back into the spotlight for the best reason of all, his tennis.
This is getting confusing. We've just spent two years hearing that Venus and Serena Williams did it the right way all along. They took time off, developed off-court interests and played only when they were healthy. The result was that even as two other Grand Slam champions, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, burned out and quit the game in their mid-20s, Venus and Serena continued to pad their major-title totals after more than a decade on the road.
That piece of now-conventional wisdom may be in the process of being overturned. Clijsters has come back after two years away, and in just her third tournament she beat both of the Williamses on her way to winning the U.S. Open. Now, her countrywoman Henin says she's ready to do the same thing.
Henin is the more accomplished of the Belgians -- she owns seven majors to Clijsters' two. Henin is remembered as the most versatile of modern WTA players, but she was also known as a "finely tuned engine" that could misfire at any time. At 5-foot-6, she had to take risks and hit all-out to hang with her bigger rivals. Sometimes those risks didn't pay off, and it may be a while before the engine finds its top gear.
But success will come sooner or later. Does anyone think Henin can't handle the current No. 1, Dinara Safina? Henin won their first five meetings without dropping a set; her loss to Safina in Berlin in 2008 was one of the triggers for her to call it quits in the first place -- you could almost hear her saying, "If I can't beat the likes of Dinara Safina …" Henin isn't coming back to take those kinds of defeats again. And though she never completely dominated the sport, she was a steady winner, taking home at least one Slam each season from 2003 to '07. Chances are, now that she's hungry again, she'll start a new streak in 2009.
If she does, what will we say? That it was the Belgians, rather than the Williamses, who had it right all along? That the way to get the most out of your career is to go hard, burn out, say you're retiring, and come back stronger once you get bored? No -- but what we should do is stop insisting that the Williamses have been helped by their "off-court interests." The reason Venus and Serena succeeded is that they've conducted their careers on their terms at all times, from skipping the juniors to concentrating on Slams rather than rankings. If Henin follows Clijsters back onto the Grand Slam podium, the Belgians will have done the same thing, even if their own strategy for success -- retire, unretire -- came about by accident. There is no "right way" to become a WTA champion, and there is no one role model for how to manage your career.
What's important is that the return of Henin is good news for everyone in tennis. The press gets a story and the WTA gets a star back. Best of all, young players on the way up get to see a woman who, from her flyaway one-handed backhand to her inside-out forehand, can do it all on the court. That's what being a role model in tennis is all about.
Twenty-year-old Argentinean Juan Martin del Potro, aka "The Tower of Tandil," won his first major title on Monday at the U.S. Open, where he defeated Roger Federer in five sets. Here are five reasons why his victory changes the tennis landscape more than any win since Rafael Nadal's first French Open title in 2005.
1. He wasn't in awe of Federer. Most of Federer's opponents can't handle the pressure of playing a tennis legend. Pretty much every player on the ATP Tour considers Federer the greatest player of all time, and he's a nice guy, too. Everyone likes him and looks up to him. Not many players, unfortunately, seem to think they are worthy of beating him (Nadal being the exception). Del Potro looked feeble against Federer at the Australian Open earlier this year, when he lost two love sets to him in the quarterfinals, and he started out in similar fashion in the U.S. Open final. By the middle of the match, though, del Potro was playing with confidence and aggressiveness. Few men have been able to do this against Federer, never mind at the U.S. Open, which Federer had won five years in a row.
2. He came from behind. The last man to defeat Federer in a major tournament after trailing two sets to one was Marat Safin in the 2005 Australian Open semifinals. Only two other men have done this against Federer, according to ATPWorldTour.com: Tommy Haas at the 2002 Australian Open and Jiri Novak at Wimbledon in 1999, when the 17-year-old Federer was ranked outside the Top 100. To do it on a stage this large shows how tough del Potro can be.
3. He won without his A-game. The U.S. Open final is the toughest major final in the sport. It's held the day after the semifinals, so the players are a bit more tired than usual. It begins in late-afternoon shadows, and often ends under the lights. This year, the wind was strong. Del Potro hadn't played at night the entire tournament and he plays a riskier game than Federer, which is more dangerous in difficult conditions. He missed far more easy shots in this match than he did against Nadal in the semifinals or, for that matter, in any other round of the tournament. Yet he kept his composure and made adjustments to his tactics when necessary. That's the sign of a champion.
4. He showed off a new weapon. Great players introduce something new to the sport. John McEnroe reinvented touch. Pete Sampras redefined the serve. Ivan Lendl brought fitness to a new level. Federer has super-charged the all-court game of yesteryear; Nadal makes the topspin of the 1980s look like slice. Del Potro's contribution is the hardest forehand in the history of the game (one was clocked at 110 mph). I've never seen a player who could consistently hit winners from four feet behind the baseline and wide of the doubles alley. If del Potro can continue to hit that shot, and even improve it, he'll be a threat to win every tournament he plays.
5. He can get a lot better. Del Potro is 20 years old and hardly in extraordinary condition. He can add muscle to his lanky frame and improve his stamina. He can refine his volley technique and his slice backhand. If he has the desire to do these things, he's going to be a great player for years to come.
It's not hard to grasp the appeal of Melanie Oudin. She is a young, cute, undersized underdog who exudes all-American charisma from the tip of her blond ponytail down to the soles of her customized tennis shoes, inscribed with her mantra "Believe." In her dream U.S. Open run, which ended in Wednesday's quarterfinals, Oudin frustrated and flummoxed a series of formidable Russian opponents, and celebrated each successive victory with a wide-eyed, I-can't-believe-it's-happening-to-me expression and a charming mixture of giddiness and euphoric tears that has endeared her to her rapturous (and rapidly growing) fan base.
But part of what makes Oudin a compelling character is an attribute that has nothing to do with age or cosmetics or Southern roots or baseball caps: It's her pluck. In her second-, third- and fourth-round matches, she dropped the first set to her seeded Russian opponent before swinging her way back into contention. In the round of 16, Oudin lost the first set to No. 13 Nadia Petrova by the dismal score of 6-1, and was down a break in the second before she started playing more aggressively -- and Petrova imploded.
"Oudin was down 6-1, 4-3, 40-15, and you think she's in trouble," Brad Gilbert says of that fourth-round battle. "But you thought she was in trouble at least three different times in this tournament. She reminds me a little of Lleyton Hewitt: She's got a lot of fight."
Oudin may have been overwhelmed by Petrova's power in the first set, but she wasn't overwhelmed by the occasion. That innate mental fortitude is a rare gift in today's women's game, where poise is at a premium and on-court meltdowns occur as frequently as injury timeouts. (Top-10 players Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva, both of whom have been reduced to tears during Grand Slam matches this season, are prime exhibits of emotional fragility.)
Though gutsiness is an intangible attribute, it's still a weapon for Oudin, as valuable as her solid groundstrokes and her agility. Tracy Austin, who was 16 -- a year younger than Oudin is now -- when she became the youngest U.S. Open singles champion in history in 1979, believes that the contrast between Petrova's and Oudin's body language is an indication of two dramatically different mental states.
"Petrova gets negative and down on herself," Austin says. "She has gotten better, but it's still her Achilles' heel and she obviously hasn't been able to overcome that completely. Melanie has that mental toughness. That's a strength -- the ability to bounce back and stay in the moment."
Austin herself exhibited the ability to bounce back in winning her second U.S. Open title in 1981. After losing the first set 6-1 to Martina Navratilova in 25 minutes -- "It felt like four," Austin says -- the American gathered herself and took the next two sets in tiebreakers.
"I was thinking, 'Martina just killed me 6-1, and I've got to win two sets and she's playing better than I am, she's handling the wind better than I am,'" Austin recalls. "So I just took one point at a time, concentrated on my passing shots, and Martina got a little nervous while I stayed sturdy mentally and in that second set. I won it 7-6, and then it was up for grabs. So somehow I snuck my way back into the match."
Gilbert says that losing the first set badly can sometimes exact a smaller emotional toll than getting blown out -- and can inspire an essential change in tactics. "No player intentionally wants to be down a set 6-1," he said. "But sometimes you lose a first set so bad you start to relax. And if you lose the set 6-1 or 6-2, you're like 'Oh shucks, I better change something.'"
At the 1987 Open, it was more than a strategy shift that helped Gilbert come back from two sets down to beat Boris Becker, then a two-time Wimbledon champion, in the fourth round. In what he calls one of the three best moments in his career, Gilbert ousted Becker 2-6, 6-7, 7-6, 7-5, 6-1, in a late-night marathon on the Grandstand.
"I got a huge lift in support from the crowd, spilling over from Center Court [Louis Armstrong] and filling up my court. I felt like, 'God, I've never had the crowd rooting for me like this before in my whole career, no way am I going to let them down.'"
Oudin's run, of course, was fueled by the crowd support. But her popularity among the Arthur Ashe stadium set derives not just from the fact that she's an American or an underdog or a blonde. New Yorkers like to root for someone who shows grit and moxie -- and unlike many of her more accomplished peers, Oudin does.
