Taking Off

Q: You’re talking about the physicality of your game and it improving. I’m wondering if that break at the end of last year and have to be home, was it an intense training block in a lot of ways to catch up, get faster, stronger, maybe a blessing is disguise?

Marin Cilic: Absolutely. Yeah, I had maybe seven or 10 days off in four, four-and-a-half months, and I was working all the time. That, you know, helped me to build up my strength and to also heal some of the injuries I had before with my knee. Now I’m feeling really good on the court. So I used that time, you know, the best I could. It’s paying off.”

This conversation between Cilic and a reporter occurred at the U.S. Open, a few minutes after the Croat's straight-set win over Roger Federer in the semifinals. On that day, and two days later in his final-round win over Kei Nishikori, we saw a completely new Marin Cilic. His serve went from middling to menacing. Rather than rallying passively from the baseline, which had been his M.O. for the entirety of his nine-year career, he had dictated. He was more imposing, and more confident when it counted, than he had ever been. In a matter of days, the 25-year-old had gone from early-round cannon fodder to Slam-winning cannon blaster.

Much of the credit for this transformation was given to Cilic’s coach, Goran Ivanisevic. Like the other so-called “super coaches” on the men’s tour—Ivan Lendl, Michael Chang, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg—the 2001 Wimbledon winner managed to place his champion's brain inside his sometimes shaky student's head. But according to the Q&A above, Cilic's time away from the sport also played a big role. He said that, like most pros who are scrambling for money and points 11 months a year, he had never had time to “build my strength” and “heal some of the injuries" to that extent before.

Cilic is a well-liked guy, but this statement probably didn’t win him any new fans among his fellow players. He was off the tour for so long, as we know, because he was serving a suspension for failing a doping test. Whatever we think of that unfortunate fact (he was largely exonerated by the authorities), the bigger point about Cilic's U.S. Open win is that time away from the tour, time to train and heal, can help in numerous ways.

Injuries don’t have to be carried from one tournament to the next. Psychological burnout can be kept at bay. And a player can make experiments and improvements in his or her game without having to worry about trying to implement them in a match the following week. Players have a better chance, in short, to reach their potential. For those of us who have followed Cilic’s career from its beginnings a decade ago, it wasn’t a total shock that he was able to beat Federer and win the U.S. Open—he had been highly touted as a junior and had early success on tour. The surprise was that he had taken so long to show what he could do.

This is the time of year when the debate about the off-season—i.e. is it too short?—traditionally begins. That’s not quite as true as it has been in the past, as both tours have shortened their schedules in recent years. But the talk will never go away completely. This week, Rafael Nadal announced that he won’t be participating in the new IPTL (International Premier Tennis League) team event in December. At the same time, 33-year-old Roger Federer announced that he would take Rafa’s place. A number of other big names, including Novak Djokovic, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, and Andy Murray, have signed up for this brainchild of former player Mahesh Bhuphati—Cilic’s coach, Ivanisevic, will also be there. December is the only month when these players can rest, but the IPTL money must be too good for them to consider getting away from the grind.

The pros shouldn't be blamed for not passing up a chance to get paid. The majority of them don’t want the tour schedules to be shortened; they know their careers are brief, and they have to make their money while they can. I've always argued that the season should be shorter for the sake of the game and its fans—give us some time to miss it and get excited for a fresh start in January. But I also think that if players could force themselves to take more time away (failing a doping test is not recommended), the quality of their play in general would improve. They might even enjoy their jobs more.

Two players who are doing that this year are Victoria Azarenka and Nick Kyrgios, both of whom announced last week that they were shutting down their seasons early to concentrate on being ready for 2015. Vika has had an injury-riddled year, and Kyrgios said he was suffering from burnout after his breakthrough season, and wants to make sure he’s ready for what will be the most important part of his season, the Aussie summer circuit in January. (Vika and Nick have also, I assume coincidentally, been flirting on Twitter.)

These decisions could be seen as indications of fragility—physical for Azarenka, mental and emotional for Kyrgios. But in light of Cilic’s U.S. Open win, they also make sense. I’ll be interested to see how much progress each player makes in 2015. There’s obviously money to be made at the end of the season, but, as Cilic now knows, being a Grand Slam champ comes with a pretty nice payday as well.