by Pete Bodo
Howdy, everyone. The silence in TennisWorld is, as they say, deafening, right? It seems like just over a week ago, I was grousing about the endless season and what was shaping up as a Sharade in Shanghai, and now I'm feeling a little paranoid and darting glances left and right: Hey, where did everybody go? What, no tennis? It's an outrage!!!!!!!
When it comes to this game, it seems that there's a little bit of the kid left in all of us. One moment, we're gorging on ice cream (okay, feel free to post your favorite flavor - I'm going with Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia), the next, after the tummy ache has worn off, we're clamoring for. . . more ice cream.
I think I feel this way partly because I just finished a new post for ESPN, on how the Tennis Masters Cup managed to produce a logical, clear end to the year. Ironically, as I write this my last ESPN post , on what went wrong with the YEC, is still featured on the tennis home page. But these back-to-back columns, one bemoaning the state of the YEC, the other praising the outcome, aren't a testament to my fickle nature. I'm just following my nose, and sometimes the trail takes a sudden turn - thank God.
Anyway, before we delve any deeper into the post mortems of the TMC, I want to thank Rosangel for all of her invaluable work in the past few weeks (and an assist to Andrew Burton). You know, trying to run what is essentially a one-man, 24/7 tennis blog where the coffee's always on and the fire is always burning in the hearth isn't all the easy. It isn't so much a matter of content - something is always happening in tennis. It's the logistics - being around to post a new Crisis Center, or extend a thread, and generally minding the store to ensure that readers don't check back periodically and find that nothing has changed. That's the tough part.
It's especially hard for me at this time of year, because I give up a fair amount of weekend, holiday and vacation time in the summer in order to feed the beast (and I'm glad there's a beast to feed). Come fall, I'm itching for a break, and it's my preferred time of year (I get drunk on joy in the autumn woods). It's also the start of the new school year for my loco cowboy Luke and a busy time for my working wife, Lisa.
Lots of good things have happened to some Tribe regulars these past few weeks - Andrew Burton is running amuck in Calgary as big cheese at his company, Easy Ed McGrogan is hitting his stride as a full-time employee here at Tennis.com, Andrew Friedman landed a nice book contract (about a competition among some of the best chefs in the world), Asad Raza submitted his film to the Sundance Film Festival, El Jon is deep into his book on Roger Federer . . . Anyone else care to volunteer information on what they're doing? Feel free - this is a pretty freewheeling post-season celebration we'll be having in the coming weeks.
In the coming days, we'll have a book-group meeting to discuss the book I published with Pete Sampras this summer (A Champion's Mind); I think we'll just do a Q-and-A type session, live, so you can comment on the book and/or ask any questions you may have for me. I'm also planning to produce a special feature with Greg Sharko, the not-so-mad genius of the ATP Tour. I'll also be visiting with Nick Bollettieri at his eponymous academy in Bradenton, Fla., sometime in the next few weeks, and I'll have a full report on that.
But before we close the book on 2008, here are some final thoughts. As I wrote in my new ESPN post, I thought the end of the TMC was, to use the precise word, "appropriate." More bluntly put, the tournament saved itself. Novak Djokovic sloughed off whatever had been ailing him (you could describe his illness as Competitive Abundance Syndrome, or CAS, and it's been known to strike certain Serbian players more viciously than most other pros) to end the year just as he began it, by bagging a big title and affirming his status as part of tennis's ruling triumvirate (along with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal).
Djokovic needed to remind us of this, and perhaps he himself needed a wake-up call, what with Andy Murray, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Juan Martin del Potro and even (perhaps) Gilles Simon emerging as authentic challengers to the supremacy of the big three.
And to a lesser extent, Nikolay Davydenko also made a statement - if he had crapped out in Shanghai, it would be pretty hard to refute that contention that Kolya the No Longer Obscure shot his wad in Miami, and that his triumph in a big Masters event underscored rather than undermined his status as a mid-level predator in the netcord jungle - the coyote of the tennis tour. You know how it is with coyotes: they decimate the fox population, but when the wolves show up, it's Armageddon for the fabled "Trickster" of native American lore.
Somehow - and luckily for the ATP - the Djokovic-Davydenko final was both unpredictable and unsurprising (kind of a lesser version of that 11-10 final score in the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. San Diego Chargers game - everybody knows the score is possible, it just hasn't happened before in 12,837 games!). All the talk in the fall was of Andy Murray, Jo-Willy, and Juan Martin, with Federer and Nadal looming in the background. And while nobody (at least nobody in his right mind) wrote off Djokovic or Davydenko, only their cluster of diehard fans paid the same attention to them as to the jockeying in rest of the field.
On top of that, all of the subplots (Gillies Simon, Nadal's knee, Radek Stepanek, Federer's tummy and Murray's hot start) indicated that the TMC could add an additional and not entirely credible name to the mix at the top - November tennis is unpredictable and not entirely reliable tennis. I don't know if my doubts and criticisms were rash, but if you just look at the results and rankings, the finalists were hardly mystery guests. At the same time, Djokovic was man who needed this title the most in order to sustain the general momentum he's built over the past few years. This is going to put him in a great frame of mind for the first major of the new year, in which I think his watchword is going to be "focus."
To my mind, Djokovic lost his way a little at about the mid-point of the year, and especially after Roger and Rafa made 2008 all about their rivalry. Djokovic's lack of focus seemed evident in his game; where it was once extremely clean and compact, a kind of looseness seemed to creep into it as the months rolled by. It was a little like buying a car that's sleek and tight and quiet, only to have a series of rattles and vibrations emerge once the odomoter turns 20,000 miles. You understand the perils of wear and tear, but you don't expect to have to deal with them so soon.
These are, of course, gut feelings. And tennis seen live, over a good chunk of tournament, is a much more reliable indicator than the televised product. One thing is clear, though, Djokovic is likely to be a hard-pressed no. 3, with Murray, Tsonga and del Potro bearing down on him - and Andy Roddick seemingly dedicated to hanging in there as well.
In the long term, that might be the best thing that can happen to Djokovic. If he's bent on fending off the challenge from below, he's going to be better equipped to meet the challenge from above because it will entail so much less pressure.
So what of Nadal and Federer, then? For the first time in about three years, I feel confident saying that those boys have their work cut out for them.
When Nadal launches his 2009 spring clay court campaign, he's going to be in a better and different position from the one he held in 2007 and earlier this year. That's just one of the many long-term benefits he'll reap from his epic win over Federer at Wimbledon. I'm not sure I can think of a single tournament win that has comparable potential as a career game-changer for the winner - perhaps even for the loser.
The Wimbledon final was the gateway to the no. 1 ranking that Nadal finally seized in August. It also officially extended his empire to surfaces other than clay - he now has both ends of the surface-speed spectrum covered, which is as important for Nadal, psychologically, as it is sobering for his rivals. Does anyone doubt that the player who can win at Roland Garros and Wimbledon will be able to figure out the hard courts of Melbourne or the US Open? Because of the role of surface, you never assume you can do something in tennis until you've done it. That's the main contribution of tennis's multi-surface tradition.
Still. Until this July, it seemed pretty obvious that Nadal operated like an old-fashioned warlord. His probing, opportunistic, sometimes tentative forays to kingdoms beyond clay were financed, so to speak, and generally supported by the tight grip he held on his own turf. You have to wonder if Nadal, despite his clay-drenched heart, will feel as obliged to defend his domain, now that he's so successfully expanded his range beyond it. Nadal is untouchable on clay, which is great reason for him to concentrate on the series of tournaments leading to Roland Garros. But his tendinitis of the knee, and his outspoken criticism of the spring workload he's faced these past few years, makes me think he might feel confident enough to cut back on his front-end work load. Just what he does may be determined by how he fares in Australia, on hard courts that suit his game.
Ironically, the emergence of Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Juan Martin del Potro may work to Nadal's long-term advantage. If more players take slices of the overall tournament pie, performance in the biggest events will assume greater importance. Playing fewer matches in the Spring would leave Nadal more fit for Wimbledon and the summer and better positioned to defend his no. 1 ranking - provided Federer, his main rival, isn't winning the events in which Nadal falters. Spreading the wealth will take the load off Nadal (and Federer's)shoulders, and perhaps make the battle for the top ranking less a question of who wins the most than of who wins the biggest events. That could inspire the top two players to surpass even themselves.
As for Federer, I think he's in great shape for the final stage of his career - a period during which he'll be free to focus on shattering Pete Sampras's all-time Grand Slam singles title record. Besides playing on a winning Davis Cup team (which is something within his grasp now, thanks to the maturation of Stan Wawrinka), it's the last mountain for him to climb. Because of the standard Federer set, it's tempting to pronounce his 2008 year a disappointment. On the contrary, I can think of a handful of ways in which this was a transition year for Federer, and getting to three Grand Slam finals (winning one) while feeling the tremors of change in the soles of his feet (and battling a subtle and insidious illness), isn't exactly caving in. Besides, he was within a few points of winning Wimbledon, and if he'd come through in that final against Nadal, what would we be saying about him now?
To my mind, the big issue here is the degree to which Federer can play like. . . Federer. . . even when he's not winning everything sight. This is a matter of confidence. Unlike some players, Federer did not have that surpassing confidence at the start of his career, which is why he was relatively slow out of the blocks as a Grand Slam champ. But once he dialed in his best game, he was unstoppable. Unless I'm mistaken, what he'll need to do in 2009 and beyond is bide his time and get beyond the point where his confidence is related to his week-to-week form. Oh, I have no doubt that he might be able to recapture his form of two, three years ago, and for extended periods. He's still young enough. But I don't know that he will or, more importantly, that he'll need to do that.
When you're Roger Federer, you have options. And now his main rival does too.