Serving with Honor

Simona Halep held the WTA Finals in her hands for a couple of hours on Friday. As she walked out to play her final round-robin match, against Ana Ivanovic, she knew that she had already clinched a spot in this weekend’s semifinals. She also knew that if she lost in straight sets, she would guarantee Ivanovic's trip to the semis as well, thus eliminating top seed Serena Williams. In other words, with a few carefully timed shanks, Halep could make her own road to the title in Singapore a good deal smoother.

What should Halep have done? We know that the code of honor in sports tells you “play to win the game” at all times—you play for the integrity of the sport, for the fans who paid to watch you, for your own pride. But what if winning a match makes it more difficult, on paper, for you to win a tournament? Which takes precedence? Do the tours teach a class in “Round Robin Ethics?”

Lindsay Davenport, commentating on the Tennis Channel, advised Halep to split the difference: Try your best in the first set, Davenport said, and if you don’t win it, quietly “pack it in” in the second set. Early on, it looked like Halep herself might be conflicted about how hard to compete. She went up 5-2 in the first set before losing it 7-6, then appeared ready to do the same in the second when she let a 4-1 lead become 4-3. But Halep, surviving the long points and fist-pumping after the best of them, held on to win the last two games, eliminate Ivanovic, and put Serena in the semis.

The unwritten honor code for round robins says that a player in Halep’s situation owes a player in Serena’s situation her best effort—if the roles were reversed, she would want and expect the same thing. Of course, not all players have lived up to that ideal; some would say Halep was shooting herself in the foot by keeping Williams around. The most famous round-robin ruckus occurred at the Masters in 1981, when Ivan Lendl appeared to tank a match to Jimmy Connors, so he wouldn’t have to face world No. 1 Bjorn Borg in the semis. Connors called Lendl a “chicken,” but the Czech’s plan worked out just the way he planned it: Connors lost to Borg in the semis, Lendl won his own semi, and walked off with the runner-up’s prize money when he lost to Borg the next day in the final.

Back in '81, this was seen a sign of the big-money times in tennis; the old amateur-era ethics were a thing of the past. I was glad to see Halep go in a different direction and play with honor today, even if it comes back to bite her this weekend. From her perspective, if you’re going to compete at the top of the sport and try to win Grand Slams, you can’t run from other players. A champion believes she can beat anyone, and why wouldn’t Halep? She just beat Serena 6-0, 6-2 earlier this week.

As Halep said after her eventual loss to Ivanovic today, “I didn’t care, I’m not afraid again to play Serena.”

If Halep wants to become No. 1 in the foreseeable future, she's going to have to go through Serena someday, and that’s the attitude she’ll need to get there.

Dustin Brown, Nick Kyrgios, Martin Klizan, Feliciano Lopez, and Borna Coric: Those are the players who have beaten Rafael Nadal since he won his ninth French Open title in June. No wonder, after going out to the 17-year-old Coric 6-2, 7-6 (4) Friday in Basel, Nadal announced that he’s hanging up his racquet for 2014.

“I’m not competitive enough,” he said, as he pulled out of the ATP’s two remaining events, in Paris and London. “I’ll be back in 2015.”

A new year, and a fresh start, can’t come soon enough for Rafa, who spent the second half of this season sidelined by a wrist injury and then waylaid by appendicitis. He’s scheduled to have surgery for the latter on November 3. His first set against Coric was perhaps his worst of the season (he trailed 5-0), and he didn’t seem desperate to extend his stay in Basel any longer. If he hadn’t signed an appearance contract with the tournament last year, you have to wonder if he would have been there at all.

But that doesn’t take anything away from Coric’s win, which is obviously the biggest of his career—how many better players will he ever beat? Like his fellow teen Kyrgios, Coric played with no discernible fear against Nadal, and was the emotional aggressor the whole time, an edge that usually goes to Rafa.

Some have dubbed Coric “Baby Djoker,” and I started to see a few similarities today, besides the spiky hair. Coric, like Djokovic, is a precociously intelligent player. Today he played the right shot at the right time, throwing in high balls when he was out of position and changing speeds from swing to swing. He hit with margin to both corners of the court, yet never just pushed the ball back. And he competed with level-headed enthusiasm—like all teens, he has energy to waste. When Djokovic was 19, I wrote that he was “good at winning”; I’m thinking something similar about Coric today.

Who has the most valuable serve in the men’s game today? Most of us would start with the twin towers of ace, John Isner and Ivo Karlovic. Without their serves, they would struggle to make a living. But what about Roger Federer? He would obviously still be a champion even if his serve were something less of a weapon, but it would be tougher for him. Federer isn’t an ace machine or a bomb-thrower, but he’s the best clutch server I’ve ever seen. Even in his seemingly routine 7-6 (4), 6-2 win over Grigor Dimitrov today in Basel, Federer leaned on his serve whenever he needed a point, and his serve was always there for him.

Down 5-6 in the first set, Federer faced four set points, before eventually serving his way to a hold. He did the same in the tiebreaker, closing with two unreturnables. And in his only moment of anxiety in the second set, at 4-2, 30-30, Federer fired two more serves past Dimitrov to reach 5-2. With two swings of the racquet, he had gone from danger zone to virtual victory celebration. Federer finished with 10 aces, all, seemingly, at the right time.