Since the level of discourse at TW has been so high (and still rising!)lately, I’m throwing in a subject for you all to weigh in on over the next few days: coaching.
I didn’t want to get sidetracked by this issue in my earlier Rogael Naderer posts, and I also avoided the subject because I just wanted to celebrate the glory of the recent Rome final, and the two superb combatants in it.
But those of you who saw the match and read the presser transcripts – and thanks, Ronnie, for posting the full text of both interviews in the Comments section of my post, “Your Service Has Been Interrupted” – surely noticed the way The Mighty Fed called out Toni Nadal for coaching Rafael.
In case you didn’t, here’s the exchange, and bear in mind that while Federer did not bring up this subject, he sure as heck didn’t dismiss or wave it off, either:
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Q. In the sixth game of the third set, you said, I assume to Tony Roche, "Is that all right, Tony?" Do you remember that? ROGER FEDERER: That wasn't for Tony Roche. That was for Tony (sic) Nadal.
Q. Tony Nadal?
ROGER FEDERER: He was coaching a little bit too much again today. Yeah, I caught him in the act, so...
Q. Did that upset you a little bit?
ROGER FEDERER: Well, not the first time. I told him many times already, through the entire match in Monaco already. But it seems like they don't keep a close enough eye on him.
*
My main reaction to this was: what is there about Nadal’s game that benefits from “coaching?” I mean, what do you do, scheme up some elaborate hand signal meaning, “run faster” or “slide and reach farther” or “get more stoked?” I look at Nadal’s game and I don’t see the kind of strategic nuance or technical variety that would warrant serious coaching. Sure I exaggerate, but you know what I mean.
More to the point, I never really saw Nadal as the kind of guy who wants to be coached. He’s seemed too much the fire-breathing stud to be shooting all those helpless, covert glances at the coach’s box, a la the toweringly insecure Ilie Nastase. Rafael always seemed a big boy, a warrior. You’d think he needs Uncle Toni’s tactical and emotional support (for courtside coaching always has an emotional component) about as much as he needs another wedgie.
But Federer is pretty clear on the issue – apparently, Toni really is coaching Rafael, so at some level Rafael is in touch with his inner weenie.
Okay, some of you are going to blow a Gasquet over that. I don’t care. The bottom line is that the last time I checked, coaching is prohibited, and Uncle Toni is, plain and simple, cheating. This reflects badly on both Uncle Toni and Rafael. They know the rules. Either they made a cold, hard choice to violate them, or they somehow don’t think the rules apply to them. Either way, they’re diminished.
I vacillate on the coaching issue. I think something of the grandeur of the game really is lost when it isn’t just you and another guy – or woman – out there, clawing and kicking and scratching, and having to think it all through as you’re doing it. Real men (and women) don’t need – or want- courtside coaching, legitimate or clandestine.
Lately, more and more pundits seem to be extolling the virtue of courtside coaching, a la Davis and Fed Cup, but for what is really an extraneous reason: the added “color” and drama it might bring to televised matches.
I just can’t bring myself to embrace that, although the argument is logical and supportable: Since coaching is almost impossible to police anyway, why constantly embarrass the sport with video shots of parents and coaches madly communicating with the players? There’s a lot to be said for the philosophy that if you can’t – or don’t want to – control it, legalize it – or at least “de-criminalize” it. The worst thing is to have laws that don’t have the will or desire (or both) to enforce.
My own take is that coaching of the kind that routinely occurs (as in the Rome final) can only be reduced in one way: if players have some kind of mechanism for lodging a formal complaint against their opponents for, in effect, unsportsmanlike conduct.
That means that, in a reprise of the Rome incident, Federer could go to the chair and formally complain that Nadal was being coached. The umpire could then direct a person dressed like Ronald McDonald or Sesame Street’s Big Bird, toting a big sign that reads “Cheater!”, to go and sit next to the offending coach/parent.
We’ll see how much hand-signaling, or feverish stage whispering, goes on then!
But seriously, nothing short of that can be done. The tradition of clandestine coaching is as firmly entrenched in tennis, starting in the juniors, as the tradition of winning by your own wits. The only real way to halt coaching is to shame the coaches into giving it up, but given the nature of some of these characters, the last thing you could do is make them feel shame.