!104504342 by Pete Bodo
As the long season winds down, I'm thinking there are a few things I'd really like to see more of before the season-ending championships and Fed Cup and Davis Cup finals come to a conclusion, and a few things I've had quite enough of for one year, thank you very much. So today I'll name five things I want more of in the next few weeks, and tomorrow I'll write about five things I'd just as soon not see again before the start of the new year.
5. John Isner's "they can't win if you don't let them play" strategy. I'm a big fan of any player who can impose his will (or serve, or groundies, for that matter) on a match to such an extent that it's all about him. The minimalist approach isn't especially popular or suited to tennis; just look at how many players great and ordinary have complicated techniques (with signature, individual flourishes) or pursue their ends with the kind of robust variety that makes people nod and remark, Now that's a thinking man's tennis player.
Not me. One of the more intriguing questions to me is: Just how far you can pare down technique or strategy and still win? Miloslav Mecir, probably denied a Grand Slam because he had to retire from the tour with back problems, was one of those players who had a genius for the minimal. In some ways, Marcelo Rios did as well (another lumbar casualty). Monica Seles, who hit her groundstrokes with such laser-like precision that she turned tennis into something like a game of darts rather than a battle of skill sets, was of the same school. Isner has that gift, too, albeit less because of timing and placement than his huge serve.
Plenty of other players have big serves—Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych come to mind—but few of them so simply and transparently construct their games around the stroke. In this day and age of gifted baseliners, it's refreshing to see a guy just say no to groundies. Try as you might, you're never going to lure Isner into an extended baseline rally. I find his departure from the conventional wisdom and what has become a template for the international game downright refreshing.
4. Ana Ivanovic, playing well. Although I'm not smitten by Ivanovic, I really feel for the young lady and what she's been through since the wheels began to fall off over two years ago. In tennis, that's an agonizingly long period of frustration, dejection, and disappointment. She won Linz on Sunday—it was her second win there and, more importantly, the place where she won her last title almost exactly two years ago.
Ivanovic is a graceful player and gracious person, and the diligence with which she's pursued a comeback has made me want to see her succeed. Although some people are irritated by how easily it all seemed to come to her, especially in the marketing area, I never hold it against a player when he or she capitalizes on her appeal. And I find it annoying when some people actually hold a person's charisma or appealing looks—no matter how "conventional" they are—against her. Ivanovic strikes me as the quintessential "good girl," and I've never heard her speak ill of anyone. Boring? White bread? Vanilla? Maybe. But her virtues are anything but the norm these days and I appreciate them.
3. Roger Federer's inside-out, attacking forehand. Ever notice the footwork that goes into one of those suckers? How Federer simultaneously steps around and into the ball, and ends up hitting it with his right leg high off the ground, extended behind him? The timing is exquisite. Balletic. Ordinarily, I'm not real big on men in tights, but that shot defines the extraordinary body control and timing that supports Federer's game roughly like the sills and floor joists you never see keep your house standing and you safe on your couch, remote in hand.
