Finding Faults

The end of the season is a time to appreciate what we love about tennis. That was what yesterday’s post, my personal favorite moments from 2012, was about. But it’s also a time to admit that not everything that happens in the sport is so excellent. That’s what today’s post, the Faults to Thursday’s Aces, is about. Think of it as a quick remembrance of a few un-memorable moments and developments. Though I admit that a few of them do seem more entertaining in retrospect. I guess it takes all kinds to make a tour.

Bad Berd

I can understand not shaking an opponent’s hand. I had it done to me in the juniors, and I did it to another player in college. But Tomas Berdych didn’t need to leave Nicolas Almagro hanging here. Yes, Almagro had drilled him with a ball, and he had drilled it hard, but he had apologized. Going right at someone, if there's no other choice, is part of the game; it’s understood that you shouldn’t lose a point because you didn't want to hit your opponent. You would think Berdych would know that, being that his countryman Ivan Lendl is his idol. The only difference was that Ivan the Terrible never said he was sorry.

Come to think of it, though, maybe Berdych wasn’t such a birdbrain here. Maybe he was playing a longer game, one that paid off for him 10 months later in Prague. Maybe he took a look at the Davis Cup draw in January, figured that his team, the Czechs, would face Spain in the final, and decided to get the psyche job going early on Nico. If so, I take it back, the man's a genius.

Wait, Which One is Called Kuku Again?

In my Aces post, I included Lleyton Hewitt’s one-for-the-aged run at this year's Aussie Open. One reason I was impressed by Rusty’s win over Milos Raonic in Melbourne was that earlier that day I had watched this bizarre five-setter between Gael Monfils and Mikhail Kukushkin. In case you’ve forgotten, or have tried to forget, Monfils, who had a sore back, spent the first two sets either trying to tank the match or mistakenly believing he was playing an exhibition, or both. He sliced his backhand short over the over. He stood completely flat-footed to hit forehands. He attempted jumping volleys. He tried tweeners from inside the service line. He hit serves 50 miles per hour.

Then, at the end of the third set, with the match on his racquet, Kukushkin choked. Monfils’ back suddenly felt a little better. He ran away with the fourth, had the crowd revved up, and then proceeded to...blow it in the fifth, double faulting twice in the final game.

Admittedly, the highlights above make this one look like fun. And it would have been, if it hadn’t all been so pointless.

Blue-ing It

My first reaction to Ion Tiriac’s blue clay experiment in Madrid was negative. The color made it like just another hard court tournament to me, not to mention a sponsor-driven gimmick foisted on the players by a hubristic maverick. But I came around to the blue look, especially after seeing it in photographs. Even those who hated it had to admit that it got people’s attention. Tiriac has always dreamed of running a fifth major, but this year his tournament may have been more intensely discussed than any of the Slams.

I wouldn't mind seeing blue again, as long as it’s done right. And that, in the end, was the problem. Tiriac the visionary didn't dot his I's and cross his T's. The surface, as he eventually admitted, wasn’t up to professional standards, so next year he’ll go back to red like everyone else.

While I agree with the court’s detractors, most prominently Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, that the surface needed to fixed, I don’t agree that it was bad just because it was blue. Now the whole thing seems less like a gimmick and more like an opportunity, at least for the moment, lost.

Getting His Kicks

Yes, Murray and Serena and Nole had big years, but as far as notoriety goes, none of them could hold a candle to David Nalbandian in 2012. His bloody destruction of a box, and nearly a linesman, at Queens Club might have been the most widely known tennis event of the year. Type “Nalba” into YouTube’s search box and it fills out the rest for you: “Nalbandian kicks line judge.”

Everyone makes mistakes, and we’ve all blown up on court, but on second viewing six months later, Nalby’s moment of rage seems even less excusable than it did at the time. He went full bore into the wood, with a person sitting a couple of inches away.

Simon Says...

The least-welcome argument to return this year was the equal pay debate at the majors. This retrograde dispute seemed to have been settled, until Gilles Simon raised it again in his first interview after being elected to the ATP Player Council. The Frenchman began by saying that because the men play more sets at the Slams, they should be paid more. Then he said that the men were the bigger draw with fans, so they should paid more.

I would argue against the first, effort-based idea by saying that tennis players aren't paid by the set or by the hour, they're paid to win matches. I’d argue against the second, economic-based idea because, in my experience, the majority of spectators get a ticket for a Grand Slam to see the total event, not because they want to watch either the men or the women. Part of the appeal is that these tournaments bring together all of the players, ATP and WTA, in one place, and they always have. Wimbledon is about Navratilova and Graf and Serena as much as it about Borg and Sampras and Federer; it wouldn’t be the same, wouldn’t be as grand, if it were single gender. As for TV ratings, they’ve been higher for the men at certain times, and higher for the women at others. Should we adjust prize money each year by what we think the ratings will be, or which tour is perceived to be stronger at that moment? It’s simpler and fairer just to call it even. (The Slams are a different case than the other dual-gender events. In those, the men and women obviously both play three-of-five, but the tours pony up their own prize money, and the ATP is the richer organization.)

Simon said he was just voicing what his fellow players say behind closed doors, and that’s probably true—who doesn’t want more money? But if you're trying to make a case for why the men should get raises, you can do better than saying that the women, your co-workers and co-talents, should get less than you no matter what. Simon's position seemed to evolve over time, but it was picked up by others and became an unfortunate theme of the season.

Under Fire

In one of his farewell press conferences at the U.S. Open, Andy Roddick was asked about the next generation of American men. When he got around to his fellow Austin, Texas, resident Ryan Harrison, Roddick said he thought he would be fine, “once he figures everything out.” Looking on the bright side, we can hope that 2012, in particular his performance at the Olympics, was part of the figuring-out process for the 20-year-old Harrison.

At the end of a bitter first-round loss to Santiago Giraldo in London, Harrison slammed his racquet into the grass twice, breaking it the second time. After being ripped by NBC commentator Pat O’Brien that night, Harrison went to the studio to issue a doleful apology. The mea culpa, while in theory the right move, was  over the top in its execution. Hopefully Harrison, who has been praised for his fire on court, got the message that he needs to keep it under control. If this didn’t do it, it's hard to imagine what will.

In the Future, Everything Will Be...Quieter

This was the year that the WTA finally got tough on what can euphemistically be called “grunting” among some of its players. Someday, that is. The tour claimed it could do nothing about today's noisemakers, but that it would work on taming the tongues of the next generation. (If the ATP's future is going to sound anything like Marcel Granollers, the men's tour should do the same thing.)

This was welcome news to noted Deci-belles Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, who compared trying to moderate her shriek to trying to change her grip in the middle of her career. Which might make sense if any of the grunters practiced with different grips from the ones they use in matches. Because if you've ever seen them on a practice court, you know that they can hit their screaming ground strokes quite well in silence.

Nobody Beats Donald Young 17 Times in a Row...

Well, actually, yes, Donald Young did lose 17 straight times in 2012. On the year, he won just five matches against 24 defeats. His ranking peaked at a career-high No. 38 in February only to fall all the way to No. 189 by the end of the season.

Kind of makes you wonder whether cutting ties with the USTA, after having his best season in 2011, so he could be coached by his mom again was the wrong move, after all.