The tough thing about watching sports is how much movement it requires—it can be exhausting. Yesterday a friend and fellow Philadelphia Eagles fan (yes, I’m going to talk football to start, as a man must do on Mondays; skip to the next paragraph for tennis) came over to watch our team play the hated—nay, detested—New York Giants in the opening round of the NFL playoffs. For the first half, we were content to stay seated in the same spots, occasionally leaning forward at crucial junctures. By the third quarter, I had begun to spend long periods staring downward and taking deep breaths, my fingers on my forehead. Finally, by the start of the fourth quarter, I was lying on the floor 2 feet in front of the TV, and my friend was pacing through my apartment. I began to pace soon after that, and we passed each other a couple times in the kitchen. By the time the Eagles had set up for the final-second field goal to win the game, I was down in a sprinter’s starting position, my face about a foot from the screen. Fortunately, the kick was good; if the game had gone to overtime, I was anticipating having to walk around the block until it was over. “I couldn’t even watch it, I almost passed out,” said Philly’s Doug Pizzica, who was at the game, about the final kick. Sad to say, but I hear you, Doug.
Is this passion or insanity? I can’t quite decide. I’m trying to remember the last time I acted like that during a tennis match; it was probably the 1999 French Open final, when Andre Agassi was trying to complete his career Grand Slam. I had to be in the right position for all crucial points that day.
The tennis this past weekend—it was the opening week of the 2007 season (we don’t waste time in this sport)—never got me out of my rocking chair, but there were quality performances and a few new faces to begin the new year. And there was that trademark blast of summer Australian sun to brighten our late-night January TV watching. You can almost feel it through the set. Here’s a weekend highlight reel:
Novak Djokovic: The no-frills, wired-tight Serb won in Adelaide and moved to No. 14 in the rankings. What I noticed for the first time in his wins over Joachim Johansson and Chris Guccione in the semis and final is how good Djoko’s return is, particularly on the backhand side. This isn’t a surprise, considering his strokes are compact. But watch him move on a diagonal on his backhand side in the ad court to cut off the serve's angle; that’s how every coach draws it up, but it's not as easy as it looks.
Otherwise, Djokovic played with controlled ferocity over the weekend. As a competitor, that’s how you want to be: He’s intense, but that doesn’t keep him from making the judicious shot choice—I don’t think any of the younger pros play it quite as safely (that’s a compliment). As a person, those contradictory qualities make Djoko a mystery to me. At one point, he snarled at a ball boy, “Towel, towel!” But in his trophy-presentation speech, he was the essence of class and worldliness, thanking the ball boys in near-perfect English.
Chris Guccione: My initial reaction to seeing the 21-year-old Aussie was, “This guy is a pro?” Something about the lanky, 6-foot-6, red-haired, red-faced kid with the stained trucker’s cap just didn’t say “world-class tennis player.” He beat Juan Carlos Ferrero three years ago, but I hadn’t heard a single thing about him since. Still, after two matches from Adelaide, I was duly impressed by his lefty serve, his commitment to serving and volleying on both deliveries (he’s in the Wayne Arthurs mold), and his level-headed mental approach. In the final, he could have caved to Djoko and called it a good week, but he fought him until the final point.
Best of all is Guccione’s forehand; the acceleration he gets through the contact zone is pretty obnoxious. The question is, can it make up for a shaky, one-handed backhand and an inconsistent return? His upcoming match with Nadal in Sydney will be interesting. I imagine that one of the sets will go to a tiebreaker—Guccione is tough to break, but I don’t see him doing a lot of breaking himself.
Martina Hingis: For the first time I found myself a little frustrated by Hingis. She lost to the more powerful but less-talented Dinara Safina in a three-set Gold Coast final. Yes, there were the “only Hingis” moments, such as a running forehand crosscourt drop shot winner (ridiculous). But watching her lose to someone she really should beat, I began to wonder if Hingis is willing to change her game at all to move up further and challenge for Slams. Her comeback has been remarkable, no doubt, mainly because she’s made the Top 10 without altering those old loopy, open-stance strokes one iota. The problem is, she simply can’t dictate play with them in today’s game (or even in the game of, say, four years ago). Is she willing to retool those strokes a bit, lean into them more, take them earlier? Can she change anything after all these years? It’d be nice to see her give it a shot.
Juan Martin del Potro: The kids just keep getting bigger—or, as they say in the NBA, longer. Del Potro, a 6-foot-5, 18-year-old Argentine, made the semis in Adelaide before losing a tight match to Guccione. Del Potro’s all limbs, but surprisingly smooth. His high-loop forehand is his best stroke, and it comes with a little added flair: He turns the hitting side of his strings backward at the top of the backswing, then whips it back around on the downstroke. He’s also got good hands, and he improvised a couple winning athletic plays near the end of the match. Weak point: Right now, he’s not getting the consistent power that he could from his serve; there’s a hitch in his motion somewhere. Other than that, he’s one to watch, and should have a bigger long-term upside than Guccione.
Xavier Malisse: Del Potro and Guccione be warned: It's not a long road from up-and-comer to mid-career underachiever. Malisse, physically smooth and mentally fragile, will be 27 this year—can you believe it? But at least he’s started on the right note. He cut off that godawful ponytail! And, yes, he beat Rafael Nadal on his way to the title in Chennai. It’s probably too late to believe in Malisse as a Slam contender, but there are worse potential tournament spoilers to watch. His game looks effortless. Unfortunately, much of the time it really is.
Joachim Johansson: A quick word on another former young gun. Johansson, who will be 25 in July, made the semis in Adelaide before losing to Djokovic. But it was on a winning point that the quiet giant reminded me of why, like Malisse, he hasn’t fulfilled expectations thus far: On a mid-court sitter, Pim Pim (can a Slam winner ever be called "Pim Pim"?) took the ball with his forehand at the service line and proceeded to drill it as hard as he could into one corner. He could have won the point with a shot half that speed, a quarter of that speed. Like every ball he encounters, he had to hit this one as hard as possible. It was interesting to see that Djokovic, at 19, was already playing a smarter game.
Channel 7 announcers: The Tennis Channel picked up the feed from Adelaide and brought us a surprisingly honest Aussie broadcaster in the process. You can generally tell when an announcer is reading facts about a player from the tour’s media guide (did you think Cliff Drysdale just happened to know that Carlos Moya’s favorite basketball player was Karl Malone?), but I'd never heard one come out and admit it until Saturday. That's when the color guy in Adelaide gave us this insight: “Djokovic’s mother and father have owned a pizza and pancake restaurant on a mountain in Serbia for the last 15 years. According to the ATP's media guide.”
Enjoy Sydney, those of you who can catch it. I’ll be back with more uncontroversial predictions for the Australian Open (yes, it is upon us) at the end of this week.