Kevin Patrick
Hall of Fame
I thought this was very good column on a number of levels. But what most interested me was Bodo's use of the term "negative tennis." I remember him using that phrase when writing about Bruguera, it always seemed like a backhanded compliment. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about it.
From TennisWorld:
I have a confession to make. Halfway through yesterday’s NASDAQ-100 final (you can read the blow-by-blow here, with pirate-boy Rafael ripping forehands left and right, I got to thinking heretical thoughts. Maybe, I thought, Federer isn’t quite the towering genius he’s made out to be.
After all, his challengers for No. 1 are, in different ways, grievously flawed: Safin is a knucklehead, Hewitt is underpowered, Roddick lacks diversity. Ferrero is MIA, and Moya too pleased with himself—Gaudio, Nalbandian, Coria, et al.? Suitable stand-ins for the Seven Dwarfs to Federer’s Snow White. Andre Agassi? What do those “great matches” against Federer say beyond this: Agassi’s game plays right into the strengths of Fed’s.
It was easy to think those thoughts.
The way Nadal was playing, it looked like he might be another Bjorn Borg—a formidable combination of mental focus, topspin, foot speed, consistency, and impregnable defense. That would make him the new master of negative tennis, a player who uses his dark powers to demolish any creative player unfortunate enough to wander into his domain. For all the great baseliners out there, we haven’t seen this degree of negative genius since the heyday, on clay, of Sergi Bruguera.
But you know what happened next.
Federer eked out a tiebreaker in which he was, at one juncture, just two points from losing the match in three straight sets, and from there it was all downhill for the swashbuckling lad from Mallorca; down came the Jolly Roger, up went the white flag (no, it wasn’t his pristine clam-diggers) of surrender. Fed won 12 of the next 16 games going away.
I’m not sure I ever changed my mind so completely about two players in the course of a single match as I did yesterday.
Let’s take Nadal first: This tournament was my first chance to get a good close look at Nadal in a big match against a top player. As strong as he looked for the better part of three sets, it seems that Federer inadvertently but successfully pursued a rope-a-dope strategy, hanging in there while Nadal punched himself out—mentally even more than physically, perhaps.
Granted, Nadal is just 18 and inexperienced at pacing himself for long matches. But the one thing you can’t do if you play negative tennis is lose concentration because, as Borg demonstrated, the first requirement of successful negative tennis is consistency. Nadal, who speaks through a translator in what might be called Universal Caveman, acknowledged after the final that he experienced late-match brain-lock.
It may seem like I’m denying Nadal the credit he deserves; after all, he did get within two points of beating Federer in straight sets. But one other thing about Nadal’s collapse nags me. Federer said it took him a set-and-a-break to figure out how to cope with Nadal’s southpaw game and spins. That’s a lot to spot a guy, and it’s only a one-time deal. Federer will be better prepared to play Nadal next time.
Nadal clearly has a lot of game, but then, a lot of it is really ugly. Not long ago, Pete Sampras famously told me that Federer is “easy on the eyes” in addition to having a style that’s easy on his body and energy-efficient. Nadal, by contrast, is hard on the eyes—and prone to exhausting himself. This isn’t merely a style-of-play issue. It has technical underpinnings.
Take that serve. Nadal looks like he’s trying to climb into a small cardboard box, preparing for some Houdini-like escape stunt, when he hits it. From beginning to end, it’s a cramped shot (reminiscent of Jimmy Connors’ mediocre delivery) that robs Nadal of the major serving advantage that lefties often enjoy.
How about that atomic forehand? At times Nadal seems to hit it like he’s holding a hammer, the racquet at a right angle to his arm. That’s really ugly—it could compare to the worst of Yevgeny Kafelnikov. But there’s no doubt that Nadal’s forehand is a potent weapon, and it will remain that as long as his incredibly quick feet continue to compensate for any technical glitches.
By contrast, Nadal’s backhand is a less dangerous but more grooved shot. He gets down to it beautifully, plays it close to his body, and really uncoils as he hits it. Sure he tries to run around it, but so many players will get to it that, over time, it’ll probably develop into more of a weapon.
You can forget the volley—Nadal doesn’t have one.
Conclusion: Nadal is going to win a lot of matches on clay. But, when you compare his technique to that of, say, Borg, the soft spots in his game are glaring. Nadal may generate more power than Borg ever did, especially on the forehand side, but he’s not as grooved and his serve is weak. His speed counts for a lot, but right now he’s still more Alberto Berasategui than Ice-Borg.
Now Fed: Roger’s strokes speak for themselves—he’s silky smooth, easy on the eyes. We’ve all seen plenty of him by now, so I’m going to focus on the most underrated weapon in his arsenal: his mind, specifically that part of the brain that issues self-control commands.
And self-control, you’ll remember, was generally hailed as Borg’s greatest gift; the ultimate complement to his fail-safe groundies. Sangfroid. Restraint. That’s what Borg was all about—living up to Ernest Hemingway’s definition of “courage” as showing grace under fire.
Oddly, you don’t hear much about how utterly Federer has been transformed from a highly gifted but somewhat soft competitor into a player whose game seems to rise in direct proportion to the threat it faces. It’s probably because, as such things go, the transformation was rapid (the turning point probably was his unexpected second straight first-round loss at Roland Garros in 2003; after that, he won his first major at Wimbledon—and the rest is history).
Fed remembers what the buzz was about as little as two years ago. This is what he said, after he beat Nadal, in response to a question about the satisfaction he gets out of forcing an error:
"Yeah, it’s great, because I was always famous to win quick points, and people were saying, you know, “You just need to get the ball over three or four times and then he’s going to lose his mind, go for a winner or an error.” Now, you know, I’m coming through those tough rallies, also showing me that on the clay court it’s really not a problem. I’m really looking forward to that challenge as well."
I’ve seen a lot of Federer this past month, as he ran off Masters Series wins at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, and I’ve had lots of chances to observe and even question him on pretty much anything that seemed worth pursuing. The most striking thing about the mature Federer is his aplomb—the unflappable conviction that, all other things being equal, he’s got the game to beat anybody, anytime, on any surface. This is something that even Borg, haunted throughout his career by the prospect of having to play night matches at the U.S. Open, never developed.
Back at Indian Wells, I asked Federer if the sheer ease and grace of his game, and the attention paid to it, leads people to overlook his mental qualities. He replied:
"If you don’t talk about [a hidden virtue], it’s always a good sign for me. It’s the same with footwork, or the mental part of the game. We don’t talk about that much but the players I face, they know that they don’t just have to watch out for my forehand, or my serve, on big points.
I think in the end you’ve got to feel comfortable with yourself. I have a strong belief that I’m doing the things right, you know, working the right way. And this itself makes me a better player. I can rely on so many strengths, you know, because if something doesn’t go right, maybe a shot, I can compensate with different strengths in my game."
From TennisWorld:
I have a confession to make. Halfway through yesterday’s NASDAQ-100 final (you can read the blow-by-blow here, with pirate-boy Rafael ripping forehands left and right, I got to thinking heretical thoughts. Maybe, I thought, Federer isn’t quite the towering genius he’s made out to be.
After all, his challengers for No. 1 are, in different ways, grievously flawed: Safin is a knucklehead, Hewitt is underpowered, Roddick lacks diversity. Ferrero is MIA, and Moya too pleased with himself—Gaudio, Nalbandian, Coria, et al.? Suitable stand-ins for the Seven Dwarfs to Federer’s Snow White. Andre Agassi? What do those “great matches” against Federer say beyond this: Agassi’s game plays right into the strengths of Fed’s.
It was easy to think those thoughts.
The way Nadal was playing, it looked like he might be another Bjorn Borg—a formidable combination of mental focus, topspin, foot speed, consistency, and impregnable defense. That would make him the new master of negative tennis, a player who uses his dark powers to demolish any creative player unfortunate enough to wander into his domain. For all the great baseliners out there, we haven’t seen this degree of negative genius since the heyday, on clay, of Sergi Bruguera.
But you know what happened next.
Federer eked out a tiebreaker in which he was, at one juncture, just two points from losing the match in three straight sets, and from there it was all downhill for the swashbuckling lad from Mallorca; down came the Jolly Roger, up went the white flag (no, it wasn’t his pristine clam-diggers) of surrender. Fed won 12 of the next 16 games going away.
I’m not sure I ever changed my mind so completely about two players in the course of a single match as I did yesterday.
Let’s take Nadal first: This tournament was my first chance to get a good close look at Nadal in a big match against a top player. As strong as he looked for the better part of three sets, it seems that Federer inadvertently but successfully pursued a rope-a-dope strategy, hanging in there while Nadal punched himself out—mentally even more than physically, perhaps.
Granted, Nadal is just 18 and inexperienced at pacing himself for long matches. But the one thing you can’t do if you play negative tennis is lose concentration because, as Borg demonstrated, the first requirement of successful negative tennis is consistency. Nadal, who speaks through a translator in what might be called Universal Caveman, acknowledged after the final that he experienced late-match brain-lock.
It may seem like I’m denying Nadal the credit he deserves; after all, he did get within two points of beating Federer in straight sets. But one other thing about Nadal’s collapse nags me. Federer said it took him a set-and-a-break to figure out how to cope with Nadal’s southpaw game and spins. That’s a lot to spot a guy, and it’s only a one-time deal. Federer will be better prepared to play Nadal next time.
Nadal clearly has a lot of game, but then, a lot of it is really ugly. Not long ago, Pete Sampras famously told me that Federer is “easy on the eyes” in addition to having a style that’s easy on his body and energy-efficient. Nadal, by contrast, is hard on the eyes—and prone to exhausting himself. This isn’t merely a style-of-play issue. It has technical underpinnings.
Take that serve. Nadal looks like he’s trying to climb into a small cardboard box, preparing for some Houdini-like escape stunt, when he hits it. From beginning to end, it’s a cramped shot (reminiscent of Jimmy Connors’ mediocre delivery) that robs Nadal of the major serving advantage that lefties often enjoy.
How about that atomic forehand? At times Nadal seems to hit it like he’s holding a hammer, the racquet at a right angle to his arm. That’s really ugly—it could compare to the worst of Yevgeny Kafelnikov. But there’s no doubt that Nadal’s forehand is a potent weapon, and it will remain that as long as his incredibly quick feet continue to compensate for any technical glitches.
By contrast, Nadal’s backhand is a less dangerous but more grooved shot. He gets down to it beautifully, plays it close to his body, and really uncoils as he hits it. Sure he tries to run around it, but so many players will get to it that, over time, it’ll probably develop into more of a weapon.
You can forget the volley—Nadal doesn’t have one.
Conclusion: Nadal is going to win a lot of matches on clay. But, when you compare his technique to that of, say, Borg, the soft spots in his game are glaring. Nadal may generate more power than Borg ever did, especially on the forehand side, but he’s not as grooved and his serve is weak. His speed counts for a lot, but right now he’s still more Alberto Berasategui than Ice-Borg.
Now Fed: Roger’s strokes speak for themselves—he’s silky smooth, easy on the eyes. We’ve all seen plenty of him by now, so I’m going to focus on the most underrated weapon in his arsenal: his mind, specifically that part of the brain that issues self-control commands.
And self-control, you’ll remember, was generally hailed as Borg’s greatest gift; the ultimate complement to his fail-safe groundies. Sangfroid. Restraint. That’s what Borg was all about—living up to Ernest Hemingway’s definition of “courage” as showing grace under fire.
Oddly, you don’t hear much about how utterly Federer has been transformed from a highly gifted but somewhat soft competitor into a player whose game seems to rise in direct proportion to the threat it faces. It’s probably because, as such things go, the transformation was rapid (the turning point probably was his unexpected second straight first-round loss at Roland Garros in 2003; after that, he won his first major at Wimbledon—and the rest is history).
Fed remembers what the buzz was about as little as two years ago. This is what he said, after he beat Nadal, in response to a question about the satisfaction he gets out of forcing an error:
"Yeah, it’s great, because I was always famous to win quick points, and people were saying, you know, “You just need to get the ball over three or four times and then he’s going to lose his mind, go for a winner or an error.” Now, you know, I’m coming through those tough rallies, also showing me that on the clay court it’s really not a problem. I’m really looking forward to that challenge as well."
I’ve seen a lot of Federer this past month, as he ran off Masters Series wins at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, and I’ve had lots of chances to observe and even question him on pretty much anything that seemed worth pursuing. The most striking thing about the mature Federer is his aplomb—the unflappable conviction that, all other things being equal, he’s got the game to beat anybody, anytime, on any surface. This is something that even Borg, haunted throughout his career by the prospect of having to play night matches at the U.S. Open, never developed.
Back at Indian Wells, I asked Federer if the sheer ease and grace of his game, and the attention paid to it, leads people to overlook his mental qualities. He replied:
"If you don’t talk about [a hidden virtue], it’s always a good sign for me. It’s the same with footwork, or the mental part of the game. We don’t talk about that much but the players I face, they know that they don’t just have to watch out for my forehand, or my serve, on big points.
I think in the end you’ve got to feel comfortable with yourself. I have a strong belief that I’m doing the things right, you know, working the right way. And this itself makes me a better player. I can rely on so many strengths, you know, because if something doesn’t go right, maybe a shot, I can compensate with different strengths in my game."
