by Pete Bodo
Greetings, everyone. I've been missing in action for a few days because I was performing my obligation as a citizen: serving jury duty. About which I have a cute story. On the first day, when senior court officer Kevin Browne took roll call, he glanced over when he read my name and said something to the effect of "I thought that was you. . ."Â Was he talking to me, I wondered?
Well, I did not get selected to serve on a jury, and yesterday afternoon a large group of us was dismissed. The court officials called our names and we had to pick up our "proof of service" documents. Once again, it was Browne who called my name. When I went up he smiled and told me he was a long time reader of TENNIS and TENNIS.com and knew my work. Naturally, I got a kick out of that. We chatted a bit and I learned that in his spare time, Kevin teaches tennis for an outfit called Youth and Tennis, Inc., in St Alban's, New York.
Now, the subject of the last post I wrote before going down to the courthouse was Jim Courier, who, Browne told me, had also turned up to perform his service recently. "Nice guy," Browne said, "He came here and did the same thing as everyone else." Which, mostly, consists of sitting around and waiting. I'm kind of bummed that I've never actually been selected as a juror, because serving as a panelist is one of the most critical and, I've been told, inspiring of experiences in a democracy. Guess there's always next time.
Anyway, on to the real news of the week.
She'll Always Have Pattaya. . .
Vera Zvonareva may not have had much luck bagging that elusive Grand Slam title, but the Pattaya City title is like money in the bank. Today, she notched her 13th straight win in the Thai event. She's going for a Pattaya mini-slam, a three-peat. Zvonareva has lost just two sets in this noteworthy run of three tournaments.
Last year, Zvonareva made the final at six events, including two majors (Wimbledon and the U.S. Open). But the only place she won a title was . . . Pattaya City. So a part of me thinks that there's some kind of hex here; maybe she'll never win a big one to go along with the title she earned at Indian Wells in 2009 until she begins losing matches at Pattaya City.
The Greatest Thing Since Vitas Gerulaitis?
Richard Berankis, the 20-year old Lithuanian who promises to the greatest thing out of his country since the late Vitas Gerulaitis, blasted past No. 6 seed Benjamin Becker and Donald Young to earn a quarterfinal berth at the SAP Open (San Jose) opposite a kid his same age—Canada's (by way of Montenegro) Milos Raonic. Crank up the hype machine—this could be a preview of the 2014 U.S. or Australian Open final, right?
Most of you will remember that Berankis and Raonic were two of the five young guns who caught our eye in Australia and collectively suggested that the fellas ranked right behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal shouldn't be too complacent about their seats near the throne.The other three men in that group of emerging talent are Grigor Dimitrov, Alexandr Dolgopolov and Bernard Tomic.
It will be interesting to see which of these youngsters is ready to back up his solid performance Down Under. Raonic looks better and better all the time; this is already his second ATP quarterfinal. He reached that stage in San Jose with a 6-4, 6-4 win over James Blake, a two-time San Jose semifinalist. Granted, injury and age (Blake is 31) have taken their toll on the American, and his ranking has plummeted to No. 170. But he's a former world No. 4, always a dangerous guy in the "any given match" sense, and the indoor courts at San Jose suit his slapshot game. I call it a good win for Raonic, but there will be a lot more pressure on him when he faces a generational rival in Berankis.
Should We Worry About Clijsters Burning Out?
Has anyone else noticed that Kim Clijsters, who has often professed a genuine reluctance to throw herself into the fray with full dedication and enthusiasm, has seemingly done nothing but play tennis since right after last Christmas? She's 14-1 so far this year, which puts her on track to play 180 matches in 2011, which is almost hundred more than a guy like Roger Federer.
Of course, she won't end up playing that many, but it gives you some idea of how assiduously Clijsters is pursuing that No. 1 ranking currently held (for at least another day or two) by Caroline Wozniacki. Clijsters was a finalist in Sydney, losing to Li Na, whom she then went on to beat in the Australian Open final a few weeks later. Then, in a really heroic effort when you consider the toll of international tavel (even if it is in first class), she returned home to Belgium to head the Fed Cup team in a laugher over the United States (Clijsters beat both Melanie Oudin and Bethanie Mattek-Sands). And then it was on to the Open GDF Suez in Paris.
Given the ambivalence Clijsters has expressed toward her career (both before and after that lengthy break she took from the game starting in 2007, when she had convinced herself that she was ready to call it quits for good), this is an interesting development. I have to believe that Clijsters really—I mean, really—wants that No. 1 ranking, although you'd never really know it from her comments. "I'm not going to sit here and say it doesn't affect me. It would be a nice accomplishment. But I'm not going to be disappointed if I don't make it. . . it would be a nice thing to have accomplished now that I'm in my second career."
So we've gone from wondering if Clijsters is going to show up to play tournaments to worrying about whether she's going to burn out. Is this whole happy supermom thing a kind of ruse, masking cold calculation, or is just surfing along on this wave of good play and relative contentment? Good question.
The Cost of Olympics Admission
For the first time since 2007, the U.S. Fed Cup team may feature Venus and Serena Williams when it travels to Germany to fight for its right to stay up in the elite World Group. This isn't a minute too soon for the U.S. squad, which has done a good job staying up on at the elite level without the services of one or both sisters at most ties. We can bank on the Williams sisters playing this one for a simple reason: they must play (or at least show up for) at least one tie this year in order to maintain their eligibility for the Olympic games of 2012.
This raises and interesting question that has nothing to do with Venus and Serena, per se. Is the Fed Cup/Davis Cup requirement for participation in the Olympics a good or fair thing? Give the ITF credit for somehow tying Olympics eligibility to Fed and Davis Cup service. And note that the ITF isn't asking for an inordinate sacrifice here. All a player has to do in order to be eligible for the Olympics is make him or herself eligible for two ties preceding the Olympic Games. That's two ties over the course of four years.
But you have to ask, why have any qualification rule at all? It isn't like tennis is such a niche sport that participation in federation-sponsored events is the only way to get any sense of the quality of the competitors. Tennis is truly an "Open" game, and we have transparent rankings and a tournament infrastructure that identifies the best players in the world with almost no room for debate. And you can be No. 1 in the world and win any or all four of the Grand Slam events without having anything to do with the ITF; you don't even have to be a member of a national federation (say, the USTA) to play in that outfit's tournaments.
I love Davis Cup and Fed Cup. But this archaic and, ultimately, irrelevant qualification rule just reminds me of the bad old days before Open tennis, when players really were controlled by their respective national federations. It's almost as if the Olympics rule is there as a monument to that unfortunate time in the history of the game. I say get rid of it.
!Kolya The Workhorse
What's up with Nikolay Davydenko? Once a contender at every major but Wimbledon and No. 3 in the world, the diminutive Russian is now ranked No. 34. His decline since 2009 has been as steady and inexorable as was his rise between 1999 and 2001. If you go to his player page on our site and graph both his rise and fall, you'll see that his career is not a bell-shaped curve. If anything, it resembles a majestic butte, or an anvil. This is not a good sign, because it suggests that Davydenko is more or less through as a contender.
Davydenko is 29, and ought to have a few good years left. But in some ways, the little guy reminds me of certain big and beefy NFL running backs—the ones known as "workhorses." They have a few great years, with productive yards-per-rush stats, but then they just hit a wall. Their average soon goes down and they become ordinary, bordering on ineffective. Their decline is less a matter of age than of something simpler—wear and tear. It's the cumulative toll taken by the hard, punishing work they do.
Those workhorse running backs don't have the special gift of a Walter Payton or Eric Dickerson, so they pay a higher price. Davydenko is like that. He's earned every point, the way those runners earned every yard. And it's costing him.
As a small guy (5-10, 154 lbs), Davydenko has had to bring all his resources to bear to stay competitive. That he was able to do so, at such a high level and for so long, is a tribute to his skill and will. But at some point, fatigue inevitably sets in. It's an insidious kind of tiredness, as much mental as physical.
Davydenko struck a big blow when he reached the final of Doha at the beginning of the year (losing to Federer), but he's now lost two first-rounders in a row, to Florian Mayer in Melbourne and Michael Llodra in Rotterdam. Thus, that great performance in Doha suggests last gasp more than renaissance. In retrospect, Davydenko may have hit the apex of his career in 2008, when he won Miami by virtue of back-to-back wins over Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal.
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That's it for this week, folks. See you over the weekend.