by Pete Bodo
If you watched Matthew Ebden play Andy Murray this morning (see my Racquet Reaction post for match details), you'll know what I mean when I say Ebden is a "throwback." Although he doesn't crush the big first serve and thunder to the net, you can tell that he's got a nose for approaching and both the desire, willingness, and ability to get up there and do a little damage with an excellent volley.
Ebden is in many ways the Platonic embodiment of a throwback, and shares many commonalities with a considerably more successful throwback, South Africa's ATP No. 30, Kevin Anderson. Both are born in South Africa, where attacking tennis is in the genes. Both are tall (although at 6'8", Anderson fairly towers over 6'2" Ebden), both of them even look about how you'd expect a tennis pro from the halcyon 1950s to look.
In tennis, "throwback" is code for a player who has an aggressive mindset in the original sense of that adjective—denoting a willingness to force the action and end points by getting to the net. Born in South Africa but now an Australian national (what a pity for South Africa's Davis Cup effort), Ebden, like Anderson, plays serve-and-volley tennis, better if rather more obscurely known as "percentage tennis."
The pioneer of this "percentage tennis" philosophy was visionary pro Jack Kramer, who was No. 1 in the world for five years in the 1940s (that's before the official computer rankings; various panels ranked the players but there was little disagreement about Kramer's status). Jack won three Grand Slam singles titles—before turning pro and thereby forfeiting his right to play in majors—and bucked the amateur establishment every step of the way. He had an enormous influence on the early pro game and helped found both the "Grand Prix" approach (a precursor to today's calendar) and the ATP itself.
Kramer's conviction (gleaned from Cliff Roche [no relation to Tony], a retired railroad engineer who dabbled in tennis) was that your odds of winning any given point increased if you were able to attack the net. There were other components, too, but never mind about them for now—you can always read Kramer's book.
Although serve-and-volley tennis had always been a viable strategy, it wasn't comprehensively embraced as the way to play, at least on grass and other fast surfaces, until after Kramer disseminated his theories—and enjoyed enormous success both as amateur and pro. Before long, everybody was rushing the net behind every serve, a style brought to its apotheosis in an era when three of the Grand Slams were played on grass by waves of Australian masters, among them Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Tony Roche, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe.
Here's something funny and kind of cool about tennis: The game has changed so much that you can be a throwback without having to wear a silly uniform that went out of style decades ago (as on the NFL "throwback" weekends), or look like you just staggered out of a Wendy's after consuming a bucket of French fries (in baseball, "throwback" is easily confused with overweight and out of shape). In tennis, the throwback may invite nostalgic flights of fancy, but he's still in with a shot. Ebden made it to the quarterfinals of the Shanghai Masters, after all, and Anderson is having a great year. The player is often remarkably effective (at least in doubles). The throwback in tennis is the real deal, and must be taken seriously.
Most important, though, the throwback tells us a whole lot about the way the game has changed.
That a player like Ebden conspicuously marches to the beat of a different yet familiar drummer points toward the mindset that has created the contemporary New World Game style. Back before the Open era, and well into it, where you came from often determined to some degree how you played. Jose Higueras (Spain), Guillermo Vilas (Argentina) and guys like Hans Guildemeister (Chile) were clay-court grinders extraordinaire. Americans like Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith were, like the Aussies, serve-and-volley players. The French, as ever, were a mixed bag. But today, the NWG has triumphed, partly because surfaces are becoming more similar than different, and the vast majority of them are medium to slow—ideal for the New World Game. We've been in the midst of an enormous process of homogenization, through which something is gained but something is lost, too.
The throwback also vividly reminds us of how much the equipment in the game has changed, and how those changes have incrementally changed the game. Is it mere coincidence that John McEnroe, the last great serve-and-volley player, was also the last great player to win majors with a wooden racket? We've talked about this on many occasions, but nothing puts the impact of larger-headed rackets, made from composite materials and fitted with strings unknown two or three decades ago, into greater perspective than the existence of the throwback. HIs presence is, in some ways, a rebuke as well as a testament to how fully and fluidly the game has changed.
Ebden's major flaw in the match with Murray was his poor second serve. But note that he went to the net 25 times, and won 19 of those points—that, against a guy hailed as the best returner and one of the two or three best counter-punchers in tennis.
Granted, Ebden speared some amazing volleys—shots that it's hard to imagine him making day-after-day. But still. . . what I saw from Murray was a measure of discomfort when he was attacked and forced to hit passing shots. The commentators told us that Murray vastly prefers to go cross-court rather than down the line with the passing shot. That tells us a lot about how woefully (or rarely) most of his opponents volley. A throwback ought to feast on cross-court passing shots. It wasn't so long ago that if you couldn't pass down the line in your sleep you didn't survive. I don't doubt that Murray could master the shot. What I'm saying is that he doesn't even have to.
Okay, Ebden lost 3 and 2. Put some of that down to nerves. Put some of it down to a second serve that may keep him from hitting ranking heights the rest of his game makes attainable. Can a throwback possibly succeed in today's game with any consistency? Most people would answer "no," but I hold out and say it can still happen, although the odds are long.