Depleted French Open

The French Open will depleted of talent this year.  On the women’s side, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams will all be out of action, and the French federation refused to grant a wild card to 2-time winner of the tournament, Maria Sharapova, who is returning from a drug suspension.  The denial of a wild card to Sharapova was justified on the grounds that she now should earn everything she gets.  The WTA responded that she had complied rigorously with the terms of her suspension and that although wild cards are granted totally at the discretion of the tournament, further punishment of Sharapova was unwarranted.

The controversy surrounding Sharapova will not die down.  Eugenie Bouchard has been quite vocal, calling Sharapova a cheater who should be banned for life.  It’s difficult to understand this point of view, given that all of Sharapova’s grand slam wins were achieved while in full compliance with the substance abuse policy, that the drug she wrongly took, Meldonium, had only been on the banned list for a few days before she played the 2016 Australian Open, and that sanctioning bodies ruled her violation to be unintentional.

Another point worth making here is that the science behind the decision to ban this drug is weak.  I searched the medical literature on Meldonium  and found that it improves ischemia reperfusion in a rat heart model and in other similar experimental paradigms.  When I looked there were no human studies on the effect of this drug on exercise tolerance, endurance through trainings, reflex times, muscle strength, or any other parameter of athletic performance.  As noted in a previous post, the entire system by which drugs are evaluated for acceptability should be carefully reviewed, and players should demand justification for any drug banning decision.  Sharapova is a wealthy woman who doesn’t need to play tennis, but lower ranked players or newcomers who get caught in a ban through error etc. could have their careers destroyed by a drug ban.

As for Bouchard’s opinions, I believe they are inspired at least in part by professional jealousy.  Sharapova  was a young phenom like Bouchard, but didn’t fail.  She won Wimbledon at age 17 and went on to reach the world #1 ranking and to win the career grand slam.  Bouchard, on the other hand, has sunk into the 40’s in rank after her initial success and has manifested significant psychological fragility on the court.  Add to this the fact that Sharapova is not the most gregarious of persons and has few real friends on the tour, and you have all the makings of a very bad tasting stew.  Bouchard can stew as much as she wants, but she would be better off solving her own problems than griping about others. 

All in all, the result is that the French Open will be missing several of the world’s best players. 

On the men’s side, Roger Federer has decided to skip the French Open.  This decision is somewhat surprising, given that he has won the tournament before and has made the finals several times.   Clearly Federer is not worried about the calendar slam, the number one ranking etc.  He appears to be selecting the tournaments he most enjoys playing and that exact the least amount of wear and tear on his aging body.  The decision is unfortunate for the fans, as Roger has been the best player in the world when he has played this year.

            The way looks pretty clear for Nadal to win his 10^th French title.  Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka have all shown a dip in their play, and Nadal appears back to the form that has made him virtually unbeatable on clay through most of his career.  Federer has beaten Nadal four times in a row, but none of those victories were on clay, and Federer will not be playing anyway.

Perhaps his biggest hurdle for Nadal will be Dominic Thiem, who has played Nadal tough several times this year and who beat him this week in the Italian Open.  The match in Italy was the best clay court encounter I’ve seen this year, with Thiem beating Nadal at his own game.   The challenges Nadal has made of Thiem have made Dominic into a better player.  It’s hard to believe how well he played in his match with Nadal in Italy.

So overall, injuries, personal life decisions and the French Open governing body have depleted the tournament of a lot of talent this year.  Let’s hope some great matches take place despite the circumstances. 

Tennis news

Great tennis returns to both tours

Some great tennis play returned to both tours this week.  Rafa Nadal totally overwhelmed Dominic Thiem, one of the world’s best clay courters, in the final of Barcelona.  Barring injury or some other unpredictable event, he will be a favorite, perhaps the favorite, to win the French Open.  Whatever Nadal’s problems have been over the last year or so, they appear for now to be over. 

In Stuttgart, Maria Sharapova returned to the women’s tour.  My hopes that she would use her suspension to get rid of her grunt (or perhaps we she call it her shriek) were in vain, as she was as noisy as ever.  She made it to the semis with some excellent play, going down in the penultimate round to Kristina Mladenovic, who has been one of Sharapova’s harshest critics.  The tour needs Sharapova right now, with Serena and Azarenka out of action.  As a former French Open champ, Sharapova should add a lot of interest to that tournament, where she is a wild card entrant.

Nastase is too nasty.  Ilie Nastase revealed his true self during the recent Fed Cup encounter between Great Britain and Romania.  He issued a racist remark about Serena Williams’ pregnancy, calling the future baby “chocolate with milk” in reference to the fact that Serena’s fiancé is white.  He also called Johanna Konta a “fucking bitch” for complaining about crowd noise, and publicly asked for the hotel room number of Anne Koethevong, the GB Fed cup captain.

Nastase later apologized for his remarks about Serena, calling them “spontaneous”.  This statement hardly qualifies as an apology, since spontaneity would rather suggest that his remarks reflected his true feelings.   This blog has stated before, and reasserts now, that there should be 0 tolerance for racism anywhere, tennis tours included.  Nastase has been suspended by the ITF, but given his history of bad behavior and this disgusting display of bigotry and sexism, it is my opinion he deserves a lifetime suspension.  At some point someone needs to stand up and say that there is no such thing as an acceptable level of prejudice.  I think Nastase should be suspended indefinitely and not allowed to return unless he can prove he as effectively addressed his mental maladies. 

We now have a president of the United States who was elected despite making remarks that were called “textbook racism” by a member of his own party, Paul Ryan.  The peril exists that the acceptance of racism in people with authority in our society will lead to a more general tolerance of the intolerable. 

The ITF, like the rest of us, should push back against this trend!

The Monte Carlo Masters – What we learned

The Masters 1000 event in Monte Carlo is now over, and here’s what we learned:

1) Murray and Djokovic are still showing vulnerability.  Andy Murray, the world #1, lost to Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the round of 16.  Ramos-Vinolas is a good clay court player, but last year Murray showed real dominance on clay, and one would never have expected him to lose this match.  Combine that with his early round loss at the Aussie Open (lost to Mischa Zverev), and the conclusion is inescapable that Murray is vulnerable and could lose his ranking before the year is over.

The enigma of Novak Djokovic continues, with a loss in this tournament to David Goffin in the quarters.  Novak had never lost to Goffin.  I’m a great admirer of Goffin, who compensates for is small size with great quickness, tremendous hand-eye abilities, and innovative tactics.  However, this is not a match Djokovic, the reigning French Open champ, should lose. 

So, question marks remain regarding the play of the two highest ranked players in the world.

2) Clay court line calls are error-prone.  When David Goffin played Rafa Nadal in the semis here, everyone assumed that Goliath would beat David easily.  That prediction was weakened substantially when David (Goffin), went up a break in the first set against Nadal.  Goffin was serving with the advantage for consolidation of that break at 3-2, and in the ensuing rally, Nadal hit a ball that landed at least 8 inches over the base line.  The linesman correctly called the shot out, but then the chair umpire, Cedric Mourier, overruled the call and ruled that the point should be replayed.  Goffin requested that the mark be checked, and Mourier then got down from his chair and checked the wrong mark.  Everyone in the stadium except Mourier knew that Nadal’s shot was out, but the point was replayed.  Goffin lost the point, lost his break advantage, lost the set, and eventually lost the match.  This errant line call by the umpire may have been the most critical mistake I’ve ever seen in a match.

In an earlier blog post, I suggested that the electronic line calling system, which, though not perfect, is far better than the “eyeball” approach used in clay matches, be implemented in clay court tournaments.  As I stated before, the French Open could install Hawkeye on courts Lenglen and Chatrier for less than 1% of the amount handed out as prize money.  A mistake of the magnitude that occurred in this Monte Carlo match would be a disaster in a major.

A couple of further points about this incident:  First, Mourier, who has been criticized by players in the past for poor umpiring, should be temporarily removed from umpiring until he shows that he is paying attention during matches.  Second, as Mary Carillo pointed out in commentary on this match, the incident was not Rafa Nadal’s finest hour.  Nadal knew very well that his shot was out, yet he said nothing and allowed this errant call, which had a huge impact on the match, to stand.  I agree with Carillo that Nadal should have come forward and awarded the point to Goffin. 

3) Nadal looks like the Nadal of old.  Rafa won his 10^th Monte Carlo masters, an amazing achievement.  But more telling than the achievement itself is the way Rafa did it.  He is looking again like the man who was virtually unbeatable on clay just a few years ago.  Many pundits are picking him to win his 10^th French Open, and he certainly has a chance, with both Murray and Djokovic playing less than legendary tennis.  I think the interesting match at the French would be Federer-Nadal.  Although Nadal has dominated Federer on clay in the past, Roger remains one of the best clay court players in the world, and he appears to have solved the problem of the Nadal forehand high to his backhand.  Federer’s play this year has also been nothing short of spectacular.  We will know that Nadal is really back if/when he takes out 2 of the other “big four” in dominant fashion to win the French. 

Women’s Tennis

While the men were playing Davis Cup last week, the women were in Charleston, where the theme was “emerging talent”.  Three of the last 4 spots in the tournament were filled by players who are relatively unknown:  Daria Kasatkina, age 19, from Russia, the ultimate winner; Jelena Ostapenko, age 19, from Latvia, the other finalist, and Laura Siegemund, age 29, from Germany, who made the semifinals.   Ostapenko relies most on a powerful two-handed backhand, Siegemund backs up a pretty powerful forehand with a lot of tactical ingenuity, and Kasatkina uses strong ground strokes from both sides and swift feet to succeed.  Siegemund, at age 29, is a late bloomer, but all of them have a chance to make some noise on the women’s tour, where nobody currently dominates. 

Other women’s tennis news: 

Sharapova set to return.  Now age 29, Maria will resume play from her suspension in Stuttgart on April 26.  It will be interesting to see how she plays and how her return is received by players and fans.

Kudos to Keys.  Madison Keys has begun a campaign to address the issue of abusive verbiage on social media.  In one TV spot she reads from tweets she has received herself.  One tweet called her the “cancer of tennis” and another simply said “monkey” in an apparent reference to the fact that she is African-American.  Madison gets the full support of this blog, where racism at any level, by any person, at any time, is considered absolutely intolerable.  Moreover, abusive behavior such as that to which Keys has been subjected should be considered totally unacceptable, whether or not it involves bigotry.  So, kudos to Keys for bringing this issue out for scrutiny and discussion.

Notable Results, Miami Open

            The Miami tournament produced some notable results, as follows:

The women: Venus Williams, who will soon be 37 years old, made it all the way to the semis before losing to Johanna Konta, the ultimate winner.  Williams’ play has been amazing over the past several months.  She is hitting her forehand as well as ever before in her career.  Caroline Wozniaki reminded us all that she twice before was year-end number one in the world by taking out world number 3 Karolina Pliskova before losing the final to Konta.  Wozniaki has always been criticized for playing from too far behind the base line, but my own opinion is that her problem was more related to a predictable cross-court topspin forehand.  She is now hitting a flat, inside-out forehand more frequently, and is moving up the rankings as a result.

            Johanna Konta is a late bloomer who has finally reaped a major reward for her steadily improving aggressive game.  She powered through all of her opponents, defeating a game and resourceful Wozniaki in the final.  This result may augur big things for Konta, who plays within herself very well while at the same time not being reluctant to open her shoulders and really give the ball a ride.  She also has a pretty big serve.  I think she could win a major and I certainly think she could reach the top 5 in the rankings.  Let’s see what happens.

The men:  In what may be the most intensely competitive match of the year, Federer defeated Nick Kyrgios in the semis, in three tiebreak sets.  The entire stadium was pulling hard for Federer, and on two occasions a fan called Kyrgios shots out when they actually landed in the court.   A distraction of this kind is of course more likely to hurt Federer, who in fact did hesitate to hit one of the shots when he apparently thought the linesman, not a fan, had called the Kyrgios shot out.  Nonetheless, these fan outbursts made Kyrgios very upset, while Roger only issued one very small gesture of frustration.  Mohamed Lahyani, the chair umpire, was a bit generous to Kyrgios when he didn’t take away a point or perhaps even a game for Kyrgios’ multiple acts of misconduct that included audible obscenities, ball kicking and racquet smashing.   Notwithstanding these histrionics, Kyrgios played hard throughout and exhibited good concentration.  He lost a close one, but it was very close.  We’ll see if Kyrgios can maintain his improved concentration as the year progresses.  I don’t agree with two commentators’ assessment that Kyrgios will certainly become number one in the world some day.  Nick has the talent, but consistency and psychological stability both on and off the court are necessary prerequisites for that level of success.  Kyrgios has not exhibited these characteristics as yet.  It’s true that he might become number one, but it is by no means a certainty. 

            In the final Federer played Rafa Nadal, who had a very good tournament.  Nadal had not served this well since he won the US Open in 2013.  Nadal’s draw was a bit easier than Federer’s as well. 

            The strategy adopted by Nadal in this match was to serve more to the Federer forehand and to hit more balls to the forehand side in base line rallies.  This approach was based on Federer’s dominance at the Aussie Open and Indian Wells, where his backhand was just awesome.  The problem with playing to the Federer forehand is that once the surprise factor fades, one is faced with playing against one of the greatest strokes in the history of the game.  Nadal apparently forgot that he, and just about everyone else, have been playing to the Federer backhand in order to avoid the devastating forehand.

            The first set was very tight, with tennis played at a level that every fan dreams of.  Federer got a late break of serve and served the set out at 6-3.  Although the second set looked competitive on the score sheet (one break for Federer and a 6-4 victory), the set was actually dominated by Federer, who held serve fairly easily and who controlled most of the base line rallies.   So Federer continued his amazing play in 2017.  He has been by far the best player in the world this year.

            Federer’s plan for the clay court swing is to play the French Open only.  I, for one, wish he’d play at least one warmup tournament.  I believe that would be good for his game, and of course, I have selfish reasons as well for wanting to see him play.

And by the way:  We should all look forward to the next round of TV banter about who has the best backhand in the world.  I get the feeling that the next time around Fed’s shot will be higher on the list!!