It’s that time again, time to find out who I’ve overhyped and not gotten misty-eyed enough over during the last two weeks. There’s wisdom in crowds, someone once said. My question is: How wise was that person in the first place, if he thought the idea up by himself?
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Many attack-style players are high-amperage, wired to the hilt. But Raonic, like Pistol Pete, is calm and calculating... and relentless. I’m liking what I’m seeing here.—Slice and Dice
I’m trying to decide whether I agree with this. McEnroe and Navratilova: extremely high strung. Edberg and Rafter: not at all. Sampras, no. Who else is there in recent years? Taylor Dent, no. Max Mirnyi, no. Llodra, no. On the other side, Nadal, a baseliner, is pretty amped, and while Borg kept it all in, he was a self-described “mad man” as a kid. I wonder if being highly amped was a product of those rabid 1970s. It seems like tennis players have calmed down considerably over the ensuing decades. Hawk-Eye obviously hasn’t hurt.
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think there are 4 main considerations to assess the potency of a player's game (and their future potential!): ?1. movement ?2. ability to hit winners?3. avoidance of error?4. mental toughness. ?Put these all together and you have a champion of Serena-like or Graf-like proportion.?Kim Clijsters, for instance, is pretty strong overall, but just below the top in avoidance of error and, occasionally, mental toughness. But she's good enough to be a top player and win slams, especially when the competition isn't dominated by someone excelling at all 4 categories.—Charles
This is a decent way to look at it, though every champion is more than the sum of their parts. I would not say that either Serena or Federer have ever rated highly when it’s come to avoidance of error. These are four important categories, and movement is a bigger deal than ever and the one question mark when it comes to Raonic’s game. But each of these four is not of equal value. Looking at Federer, his ability to hit winners trumps his errors, while Serena’s mental toughness trumps everything.
Digression: The question of movement makes me wonder, whose game would have stood up better on the WTA tour today, Seles at her peak or Graf at her peak? Graf was the mover, but her backhand could be exploited. Seles was a hitter, but she didn’t have the same wheels. Or would they both have dominated?
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“Are both Roanic’s parents engineers?” Yes, they both are. His father has a PhD and his mother a Masters. Three of his four grandparents are university professors. Milos comes by his smarts and his intelligence honestly. He finished high school at 16 and he has been taking online university classes while on tour. It was one of his father's stipulations in allowing him to try tennis that until he was ranked 100, he had to continue his education and Milos has said that he definitely wants to get his degree.—Jackson
Can an athlete be too smart? You want to keep thoughts out of your brain as much as possible. Sampras’s father was an engineer, correct? Not that Pete’s an intellectual or anything. The opposite, in fact. From listening to Raonic answer questions in press conferences, he seems to have a very methodical mind, very centered, which is the right kind of smart for tennis.
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Todd Martin also noticed that the one big aspect of Sampras game that Raonic doesn't have (yet) is that running forehand that Sampras used so well to change the dynamic of a point. Del Potro wasn't able to hit that shot right away (but learned how to do it), and Jacket perfected it with the passing of time. Djokovic is getting better and better at it. Raonic's forehand is sound, so I wouldn't put it past him to acquire that tool.—Juan José
Raonic is never going to be as fluid a mover as Sampras, and that’s part of what made Sampras so good at a running shot—he could run. It seems like Raonic is a Sampras-type player for the tall man era. The trade-off will be mobility. Not that Raonic’s forehand isn’t going to get a lot better, but Sampras’s running forehand was uniquely good; I hardly ever remember seeing him miss it.
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I suggest we not worry about who's #1. Honestly, what value does it add to our lives?—Paul
It’s a good question, and one I find myself asking more often as I get older: Who cares? Then again, if you ask that question of the No. 1 ranking, you have to ask it of the World Cup and the World Series. You have to ask it about everything in sports. Why should we care who wins any tennis match between two people we don’t know that takes place hundreds or even thousands of miles away, while there are so many other more serious things going on right next to us? It’s better not to ask.
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i think steve is being to hard on JJ saying she can do the first-strike. if i understand he mean that she is not agressive, and that has change since long time ago. she has been more agressive and a lot more than Caro. the thing is...that she is just on the way to become the player that she was, specially last year during the clay court season. i remenber she was very agressive and confident. her serce, forehand, backhand, movement everything was amazing.—Euris from D.R.
Naturally, right after I wrote that JJ doesn’t have first-strike ability, she showed a good deal of it in her next match, despite losing it to the diabolical Wozniacki. Maybe there are better things for Jankovic ahead.
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Steve......... now really..... I think it might be delightful to watch the Cameron Crazies bouncing up and down to Novak's service dribbling..... plus, they all wear the right color of medium blue....—Frank
I hadn’t thought of that, probably because I’m a card-carrying Duke hater from way back, but you’re right. There should be a pro tournament at Cameron Arena during the school year. Imagine Nadal in there?
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I don't think that I am one who is part of the so-called anti media hype. I just think it's absurd to start comparing Raonic to the likes of Sampras. That's hyperbole of the very highest order. It's also quite unfair to this young kid. Why compare him to anyone? Let him make his own way and be his own unique self.—MindyM
Now let’s consider this question of “hype,” a word which is thrown around so much here. The word as I understand it has to do with publicity and advertising, with the deliberate and deceptive drumming up of excitement to boost sales for something. This is different from a journalist writing an article about a previously little known 20-year-old player who has just won a tournament and made a huge jump in the rankings. It’s also different from a journalist speculating about his future and saying what he likes and doesn’t like about his game. There’s nothing deceptive about that.
You might ask, “Why don’t you write the same stuff about Soderling, who just won two tournaments in a row?” Yes, Soderling deserved his props, and Bodo had it covered last week for us. The difference is that we know Soderling already, he’s in the Top 5, and he was a high seed at both of those tournaments, in Rotterdam and Marseille. Journalism is about the new, the unexpected. It’s not hype, which is fake, it’s news. Regardless of where he ends up, Raonic is also someone exciting for tennis fans—even Roddick, a sports fan, used the word when he talked about him.
As for the Sampras comparison, I doubt any sane person has written that the Canadian is a lock for 14 Grand Slams. It was made because Sampras is Raonic’s idol, and like Sampras he bases his game around a tremendous serve. As time goes on, we’ll see more of what he’s like as an individual.
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Fair enough about Andy's safe style of play, but I'm disappointed you didn't write in a more misty-eyed, sentimental vein about his gutsy way of winning his 30th title. Raonic, Raonic, Raonic. He is an exciting player and I'm perfectly happy with the hype that's slung his way. But Andy fought a really heroic fight with a bad cold and a tweaked shoulder. I was hoping you might open the floodgates and be really mushy about that but... I guess I'll have to hold up the slack on my own read-by-two-people blog. Sniff!—Kristy
It was a great win, and an heroic victory over his own testiness as well. And yes, I knew about his hair situation, but it seemed that a lot of people in the general sports world didn’t.
I might have ventured some purple prose, which I brought out in a big way when the U.S won the Davis Cup in 2007 and after Wimbledon 2009, except that the Memphis win seemed like a case of Roddick settling in to a game that’s good enough to beat most players outside the Top 20 and good enough to win smaller titles, but not good enough to take him deep at majors anymore, which is what he really wants.
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Wrong, Steve. Dubai is a WTA Premier Five Tournament (like Rome, Cincy, Montreal and Tokyo) just below the level of the four Premier Mandatories. Top Ten players have to play in four out of the five Premier Fives according to WTA rules. The winner gets 900 ranking points and $350,000.
In fact, together the PMs and P5s form a nine tournament series equivalent to the ATP Masters 1000 series. It's a shame people don't realize this.—woznowuss
You got me.
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The two tournaments in Austria (Bad Gastein and Linz) also still features "Ladies". I think Lady Flavia is a good pick to win Doha, if Caroline withdraws/retires/loses early.—woznowuss
Got me again. Still, whatever your level of political correctness, “ladies” has a retrograde ring to it.
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Remember, Canada is the inventor of basketball.—Sexy Commenter
Darn, you got me . . . wait, is that right? According to the Internet, which is never wrong, basketball’s inventor, James Naismith, was born in Canada, but he invented the game in Massachusetts. Can Canadians really claim America’s game? Now that you have Raonic, you people think you can have it all, don't you?