The Lucky Losers: Good band name, don’t you think? Not as good as, say, the Replacement Grips, or the Headbands, or, my personal favorite, the Semifinalists, but it's suitably catchy and ironic nonetheless (I can smell a post on tennis-inspired band names coming).
The phrase has been in the air more than usual recently, as two lucky losers have made the most of their good fortune by reaching tournament finals. First there was Andreas Haider-Maurer in Vienna, and last week Marcel Granollers followed his unlikely lead in Valencia. In the latter case, however, the phrase didn't fit. Yes, Granollers was a loser—he’d failed to qualify for the event—and yes, he was lucky enough to be handed a spot in the draw when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew. But there was nothing fortunate about his run to the final. The lanky Spaniard, ranked No. 67 to start the week, dropped just one set before the title match, and he threw everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at his opponents to get there. Even in the final, when he was up against a doubly inspired David Ferrer—he was fighting to get to London, and he’s also a part owner of the Valencia tournament—Granollers kept scrapping when he got behind. I guess spending a good part of your seven-year career on the qualifying circuit makes that a habit.
Granollers’ game is hardly eye-catching. The half-dozen times I’d seen him in the past, I’d been slightly amazed that he’d made it as far as he had on tour. Each of his ground strokes is a half-swing, and each is labored rather than smooth. But what they lack in flair, they make up for in practicality; you might even say their lack of flair makes them more practical. Unable to sit back and crack winners from the baseline on a regular basis, Granollers used his ground strokes as pathways to the net, where he showed off surprisingly deft touch. He won a good dozen points with an unlikely-looking lunge drop volley that landed short and spun away from Ferrer.
Maybe it’s because the surface in Valencia was relatively slick, but this shot was a weapon in all of the matches I saw there last week. Ferrer also won his share of points with drop volleys and short-angled volleys. Maybe it’s a Spanish thing. The Latin players of the 1960s and 70s—Santana, Osuna, Orantes, Gimeno—were touch artists. The current generation—Moya, Nadal, Ferrero, Verdasco, Ferrer, etc.—has left that tradition behind in favor of topspin-heavy baseline grinding. But the touch lives on, even if it’s buried beneath their forehands most of the time. We know Nadal has it, and so does Ferrer. Yesterday, he pulled off a delicate jumping forehand crosscourt drop volley—not a shot you see every day, and not one you expect from a hardcore baseliner.
Both finalists played a lot of all-court tennis—all-court tennis, 2010-style, that is. There were few, if any, slice approaches; balls were taken at shoulder height from near the baseline, sent down the line and into a corner, and followed up with, as often as not, a drop volley. Just as the swing volley has largely replaced the normal punch volley on the women’s side, the drop volley has made similar inroads on the men’s side. With their powerful ground strokes, the guys can tip the balance of court positioning so that their opponent is pushed farther back, even as they’re closing more tightly on the net. In this scenario, the drop volley is a logical point-ender. It also may come more naturally to a lot of guys these days than a standard-issue volley does. The men all hit drop shots already, but the classic punch volley requires very different mechanics from today’s ground strokes.
Whatever the reasons, it was an entertaining couple of days from Valencia. The tournament made a good case for speeding up hard courts in general; not because it would lead to more serve and volley, but because it might lead to more of this type of modern net-rushing. It was a pleasure to get a chance to appreciate a different face and game in Granollers, and an equal pleasure seeing Ferrer’s overjoyed reaction to his title. You can chalk the reaction up to his bid to make it to London, or you can chalk it up to the fact that this was his tournament. Even without those factors, though, it was another example of an unsung upside of tennis’ relentlessly long season. Every week one lucky winner (not loser) gets to feel the way Ferrer did. And we get to watch him.
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