Still, when I was chatting with Andy Murray about this, he told he that he's convinced that the game has changed so much that comparisons of present players to past ones is useless. He's watched all the old tapes, and he thinks the Borg-era players simply played a different game, in terms of pace and power. The real question, I suppose, is the degree to which those players only appear to be slower, because of the difference in equipment and perhaps even the nature of video.
So, am I looking backward, through rose-colored Oakleys (from the Nostalgia line)? I don't think so. My reaction to Borg wasn't all that different from the way some people more recently reacted to the emergence of Rafael Nadal, with his cat-like quickness, explosive power, and stamina.They eyes may fib, but they don't lie outright.
Oh, sure, equipment has changed, and court surfaces have changed (more on that in a later post). And while training and fitness programs have changed, too, the basic configuration of athletes hasn't changed all that much.
I don't believe today's players aren't that much more naturally "strong" or "fast" than the players of yore. Do you?
The X's and O's of the game certainly change - we're in the era of the New World Game, during which the transfer of information and technique has created a fundamental, universally embraced style - one that was popularized and spread by Nick Bollettieri, and perhaps personified in the game of Jim Courier. In the New World Game, you step into the court and you look to end points with two-and-three shot combinations, most often employing the forehand, with a new, special emphasis on the inside-out forehand.
What was once called "approach shots" have gone the way of the Dunlop Maxply (heh-heh-heh), replaced by "placements" - particularly forehand placements that are meant to be either winners or unreturnables. Or maybe its that ground strokes have morphed into approach shots that you aren't intending or meant to follow in to the net. Either way is fine by me.
Insert asterisk here: The Mighty Fed is, among other things, in the midst of demonstrating that the New World Game is always vulnerable to a game based in high skill and versatility, although the level of skill and versatility required to pull it off rules it out as a strategy for the vast majority of players - partly because they are products of the New World Game approach. I know, let's play "Find that Tautology!"
In any event, one thing that simply doesn't change, IMO, is the intangible: the will. In some ways, it comes down to this: A.J. Foyt's Indy race car was much slower than today's Speedway racers, but I still believe that if Foyt were racing today, he'd be just as formidable as he was back in the day. Human beings simply aren't that different from what they ever were.
This taps into one of our most agreeable running debates here at TW, whether greatness is more technique and the X's and O's than mental and emotional strength (for convenience, we frame this an Arm vs. Heart debate). And I always come down on the "heart" side, although part of having the will of a champ is being instinctively judicious enough to find the game that most effectively maximizes your chances to win. That partly explains why Borg's game was so one-dimensional. It served its purpose. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Nobody had less obvious natural talent than Evert; nobody had a game that was more beautifully designed to maximize her strengths and minimize her weaknesses, or a facility for playing the shot most likely to win her the point (rather than the approving gasp of the spectators). LLeyton Hewitt,in his heyday, came very close to having that same virtue.
