* !Picby Pete Bodo*
By and large, tennis fans are a well-educated, rational lot, befitting a sport that is essentially a bourgeoisie enterprise. That helps explain their "long view" of the game, which is demonstrated by an active interest in tennis history as well as the search for logical, quantifiable answers to questions like, "Who is the greatest player of all time?" or, "Which was the toughest era in tennis?" or, "How much better are today's players than those of the past?"
Those explorations are all well and good, but it's also good to remember that in tennis, as in all sports, there is always room for a little, or a lot of, magic—for something unquantifiable, unpredictable, improbable even ultimately unbelievable. It's always tempting for the rational mind to overlook the extent to which sheer will, or some other inchoate quality or combination of attributes, can shape events. And it's always a mistake.
To that end, a few items caught me eye yesterday as I was catching up on the news following my family vacation in Nicaragua. Let's start with this: In response to some questions about how much tougher the game appears to be today, Ryan Sweeting told the Memphis Daily News: "Tell me one player from 25 years ago that could have lasted six hours (a reference to the Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal Australian Open final). If you’re not physically fit now, it’s impossible to compete."
I don't want to hammer Sweeting, he probably was speaking off the cuff. But this is the kind of thing we hear time and again, and it's a load of crap.
John McEnroe's idea of training/practice was playing doubles as well as singles. When Mac's arch-enemy Ivan Lendl engaged nutritionist Dr. Robert Haas, McEnroe famously quipped that he was not on the Haas regimen but on the "Haagen-Dazs diet" (a reference to a popular brand of ice cream—and his lack of serious training). And McEnroe played a 6-hour and 22 minute Davis Cup match with Mats Wilander in St. Louis in 1982. Neither of those men was taking 45 seconds between points, and McEnroe won it.
As well, anyone who doesn't believe that Lendl, who took fitness to a new level in the Open era, could have "lasted six hours" is simply dead wrong. He just hammered opponents so savagely that he never was pushed to that limit. And let's not even talk about Bjorn Borg, who simply never looked fatigued and whose resting heart-rate was somewhere around 50 beats per minute.
You get my point. And that point isn't intended to downgrade today's players (I believe they are, on the whole, fitter and stronger), but to keep the players of the past from being unfairly written off as inferior specimens.
By the way, Lendl did not invent fitness in tennis, he just brought an entirely new level of sophistication to the search for stamina and tennis-friendly strength, both aerobic and anareobic. Long before he began his quest, Roy Emerson was among those performing squats with a loaded barbell and doing countless jumping jacks and sit ups as part of his daily routine. As much room as there is for Lendlesque diligence, fitness isn't rocket science—not unless you want it to be, or it makes you feel better about yourself approaching it that way.
And then there was the item about Michael Chang advising New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Linn, who was transformed from bottom-of-the-bucket NBA journeyman into a star, overnight. Recalling his own experience for the Palm Beach Post, Chang reminded us: "I got comments about being too small, too short, there haven't been any Asian players and who am I to go out there and turn pro before my 16th birthday? And that's all good and fine. People want to have their comments and their opinions. Ultimately, you do what you believe in your heart. I think for me, things turned out OK."
Do you really believe there will never be room for another Michael Chang in tennis?
And does anyone recall that in 1992, Michael Chang and Stefan Eberg played a 5:26 semifinal that remains the longest match in U.S. Open history? There wasn't a lot of dilly-dallying in that one, either. And the funny thing is that I can't recall other pros, or pundits even, crowing about how Rod Laver or Ellsworth Vines or Bill Tilden never could have lasted that long on a hard court on a sweltering summer day in New York.
And lastly, did you see where Jurgen Melzer slashed his way to the Memphis title (d. Raonic in straight sets in final) on a broken toe? What does that say about the level of competition in the ATP, even if the top players were not present to challenge Melzer?
Actually, it says nothing about them.
But the saga tells you something about Melzer, and about the magic that can be conjured up in tennis, often at the least likely of times and even by the least likely of suspects. As Melzer admitted: “If anybody would’ve said last Friday, especially in the morning after seeing the doctor, that I’ll be holding the trophy next Sunday, I would’ve called him a fool. But sometimes, you know, life plays games like that."
Indeed. And life plays those games far more often than some of us think. So you could easily flip around what has become the stock, streaming narrative—that today's players are far superior to those of the past—and ask, "What's wrong with today's pros that a guy who's fallen to No. 38 and has a broken toe can go out and beat the tar out of the likes of John Isner, Radek Stepanek, and Milos Raonic?"
The only proper answer is, "Nothing. It's not just about the fitness or the strings or the diet or racquet head-size. It's also about the magic. Like it has been all along."