Tennis: Winning Isn’t Everything…

by Long John Silver… Why do you play a game?

Among the infinite answers possible, at the core, the answer to it is probably twofold. For the sheer love of the game, and just as importantly, to win.

The former leads to the latter. I guess all the athletes I have ever been drawn to have always had one consistent quality in them, the uninhibited, unrestrained, insatiable, almost inhuman blood lust to win.

Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher are probably two of the best examples. Here is what Senna had to say about racing when asked about why he ran into so many competitors with time, pure and simple .

Time and again a certain Scarlet clad German won the year end championships by a hairline, because even with an inferior motor car, torrential weather and pit stop disadvantages, Schumacher simply refused to go away.

His graphic desire to win has been witnessed on the grid many times, when he continuously pushed that lines that separate hard but fair and ruthless but foul .

He is a polarizing figure and you either like him or you don’t. Most champions of such essence are polarizing: Stephen Waugh, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Justine Henin, Saurav Ganguly, Michael Jordan, Maria Sharapova, Mike Tyson and Kobe Bryant. Wasn’t it Ganguly who said, “Being second is just first in the long string of losers.”

That’s why Roger Federer is unique. He isn’t anywhere near polarizing as Schumacher, Ganguly or any others on that list.

In fact, he wishes good luck to the new kids on the block when he plays them the first time. But once the optic Wilson is in play, I am very sure no one mistakes Federer for a priest. You almost need that raw, pristine ragged edge—concealed well in the case of Federer, but make no mistake, it does exist—to be as successful as he is in his craft.

That sense of drive is one of the simplest phenomenon in the world. Any person,who is half smart wants to be good in what he or she does. Whether you are an artist, editor, architect, poet, writer, analyst, designer, or scientist, your craft might be different but our purpose is singular, to be the best in what we do.

In a mutually exclusive world such as sport, that directly translates to one end, to win.

One of the low points of my tennis reading was when Andrea Jaeger—tennis player turned nun—admitted that she allowed her opponent to win a slam final after the rain break, because she saw how much it affected her opponent in the locker room during the rain break. Get over it.

If you are in the shark feeding business, you probably should not feel bad about dead fishes, but that’s just me.

It’s a tremendous disservice you do the game, fans, and yourself. It’s why in the world of Rafael Nadal and Federer, we admire Nikolay Davydenko and Lleyton Hewitt just as much for their desire to compete ever so honestly in an attempt to win.

I understand that players play to achieve that microsecond of salvation, when you picked a coin spot on the court on the sideline, and drill an inside out forehand screamer that lands on that very spot. That is an isolated moment of consummate liberation.

Even Nadal, whom I think is the most improved player from the time he joined the tour, sure loves the process. But that process has a purpose—to win.

Hence the process or the act of playing magnificently is a conduit to attain the eventual purpose. It’s a subset of the larger purpose. Top athletes are always driven by purpose. They don’t just do things, they do them for a reason. The rationale that drives every single action in their career is designed for them to win more.

The possible exception to this essence is Marat Safin. I am a huge admirer of the mercurial, tortured Russian. He went to the press and once said, “I just want to enjoy my matches, I want to play without any problems, then win or lose … go home.” Let us leave aside that irresistible soulful dark brooding cynicism for now.

Think about the matches this year, when the person who ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard played just as well as the winner. Think about the numbers: F-VED in Aussie semis, De-Joker in the Madrid semis, R-Andy in the London final and Elena Dementieva in the London semis. That’s four, out of hundreds of matches played this year.

On those occasions, if you went to F-VED, Nole, Andy and Elena and asked them, would you have rather played this well today and lost, or would you have much rather won playing a shade or two lower? Any guesses on their responses?

Their answer is the crux to your question.

Process is a crucial and an imperative part of the sport for continuous improvement. But it eventually is a subset of winning, as in it’s the driving force of winning. And in those rare few instances when you play just as well as your opponent and lose, you would have preferred to have won anyway.

Winning isn’t everything—it’s the ONLY thing.

Cheers

For Nostalgia: Suzuka 2000 (great clip)

Mechanics vs Mechanics: Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, Rafa Transtions Better

by Long John Silver… Congratulations, felis-tes-tio-nes to Rio de Janeiro!

So, now that AM has discussed the similarities between Rafael Nadal’s and Andy Murray’s games, I am going to get to the crux of the very difference in their games.

Both games are constructed based on defense, but it is not this that wins them slams or would potentially win slams.

At the fundamental level, their games are intrinsically different. Rafael is your offensive baseliner and M-Andy is your vintage ‘fourth generation’ (Wilander, Chang, Hewitt, M-Andy) counter-puncher. The evolution of the game is similar to that of an i-pod.

The succeeding generation of products are still true to their fundamental functionality (play music to the satisfaction of a music addict’s expected level of precision) but they always have additional features and are in a way, more adept to the current market’s requirements (i-shuffle and i-nano, I have a Prussian blue i-shuffle and I love it).

The crux of the difference between them lies in what we call as ‘Transition’. Nadal can transition from defense to offense quite seamlessly, and much better than Murray. That’s what has brought him six slams, and will potentially continue to bring him more.

The problem with M-Andy’s game is that very lack of transition. It’s not easy chiseling a defense based game to an offensive one, because innately your mindset is tuned to defend. When you are in trouble, the true colors always come out—and when your survival in a slam semi is at stake when the opponent is painting lines…you go back to what you are most comfortable with.

Nadal, with time, has willed himself to change that very mindset—and its one of the hardest things to do. That is what helped him conquer the coveted lawns of London, and to a lower extent OZ.

For some reason M-Andy still has to tell himself (or scowl at himself in the middle of the match) to attack more, or utter his famous ‘hit…don’t chip’ phrase. He still finds it hard to transition to offense when it’s needed most, very hard. That’s partially understandable, because even though he is No. 3, his game still is developing when compared to Nadal.

Hopefully it will develop faster. His game is very fine tuned, but not fine tuned enough to win day in and day out against first strike players. Look at the track record: F-VED in OZ, Gonzo in Paris, R-Andy in London, Cilic in NY. There is a pattern, and that pattern will stop when he transitions better.

That’s the crux: Rafael and M-Andy have games predicated on rock solid defense, but Nadal transitions to offense better.

Elena Dementieva: On the Short List of Contenders for the Big Apple

by Long John Silver… Something struck me during my conversation with my friend a couple of days before.

I was asked to pay closer attention to Elena “Viatcheslavovna” Dementieva’s game, and I did.

The current world No. 4 defeated Serena Williams (6 and 1) in the semis, and took down MA-SHA (3 and 4) in the finals to win the Rogers Cup in Toronto.

But it was the mechanics of her game that struck me as very unique to the women’s game.

Think about the best ways to hit a tennis shot. The ideal way to hit a forehand or a backhand is to hit it using the shoulders through its effective rotation, rather than using the entire body weight. Using the entire body weight exerts undue and unwanted stress on the body. The key is to hit with minimal effort while generating the pace and spin required to clean the lines consistently.

One of the reasons why Roger Federer has remained pretty much injury free is due to a combination of reasons, most importantly his ability to win and take control of the points using his fluidity in ground strokes. Less is simple. Economy in ground strokes undoubtedly increases the longevity of a career. There is a reason why counter-punchers rise and fall early.

Federer, Agassi, Graf, and Roddick predominantly hit forehands using the power in their shoulders. Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, Serena, and Sharapova use more of their entire body weight to drill a forehand. When one uses only the shoulders to hit a ground stroke, the entire torso of the body is directly in the line of the ball when hitting a ground stroke. When one uses the body weight to hit a ground stroke, the torso is not directly in the line of the ball, it is facing sideways. These examples are specific to a forehand.

Using the entire body weight requires more energy to be invested into the shot than if you have strong shoulders, or just taught how to hit the shot better when young. In the WTA tour, most women use their entire body to hit shots in an attempt to impart more power into their ground strokes.

However, when you watch Elena play, there is this innate feeling of efficiency. Her shots don’t take more effort than it should because she only uses shoulders to hit off both flanks. Her forehand and backhand looks fluid, smooth, and iPod sleek. Perfect mechanics.

Elena glides through the court without any significant effort side to side. It’s almost like Federer in terms of movement—you don’t notice how fast he is moving because he does it so effortlessly. Time and again she held her own on the ground with efficiency as compared to MA-SHA who looked like she was expending twice the physical effort to achieve the same end result. It takes its toll.

This clip highlights the contrasting styles of mechanics between the two. Look how compact Elena hits, contrary to her opponent. She is equally comfortable at the net and can take control of the points at will.

With that heart-breaking loss in the London semis to Serena, she has bounced back very well. The Williams sisters always raise their games for the slams, Safina still looks ominous, but I think Dementieva is in that mix of top contenders for New York. Probably the next best bet after Serena Williams.

The efficiency of her game innately leads her to conserve energy, more than her competitors. Her ball striking is splendid as of now, and she looks match fit and ready to go play in the Big Apple. She has been on the big stage before, she has been in slam finals twice (04 Paris and 04 NY)…and went Gold in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, which propelled her confidence to even higher levels.

She has always been in the mix at the business end of the slams. Time and again she has been bettered when she has been very close to the finish line. At 7-6 5-7 in the London semis, it would have been easy for her to say that she has played well and the opponent was too good as she always has been (S. Williams).

But what was most impressive was the way she decided to put it past her and carry on with the sword deep into the third, something from which she derived enormous heart and confidence from rather than surrendering meekly. She just fell short of the finish line (6 – 8 in the third), but sometimes you learn more when you lose a match, only to use what you have learnt to come back stronger (Federer V Hewitt Davis Cup 2003, Federer lost from being two sets up. He hasn’t lost a match to Hewitt since, a staggering stat).

A couple of chips fall her way…and there is no reason why the Russian world No. 4 cannot hoist the coveted crystal in New York City, adjacent to the irresistible evening lights of the Manhattan Island.

Needless to say the Sam Adams is on me the next two weeks,

Welcome to the Big Apple…

Cheers.

PS: Love the solo bass rendition of “My Friend of Misery” by Jason Newsted (”M” bassist).

Tennis Tri(P)fecta: Pain, Physical Fitness and Performance

by Long John Silver… The past few months I have wondered how the role of ‘Pain’ transcends between sport and reality. The final catalyst was during a conversation with a friend. Thought I would discuss that a bit, for pain, performance and sport are as intertwined as boys and girls in high school, and men and women in the real world.

To quote two champions of our time about playing with pain, who came out and said what essentially had the same gist:

Rafael Nadal:

“I played with some problems on the knee for the last few months. I’ve been making efforts to play week after week. The truth is that sportsmen always play with pain and don’t know where the limit is, where you can get to. I think I reached that limit now. I will work very hard to comeback as soon as possible. One of the problems is I’m thinking more about the knees than what is happening on court and it’s very difficult to play like that.”

Sachin Tendulkar:

“I always play in pain, all the time. I played with a broken finger for the last three months, but you know when pain is manageable or not, and most of the time I can do it,” he said. “I can still do what I did when I was 25 but the body is changing, so your thought process has to change too. I have had to change how I think, which is about taking less risk.”

Top sportsmen have always played in constant pain. It’s not new to them and eventually they get used to it. Sampras never hit a ball or practiced when he won his Hollywood Wimbledon under the London twilight defeating Rafter in the 2000 final. He practically won his last Wimbledon on one foot.

Agassi was on a healthy diet of cortisone for the last year of his career to play on the tour. There were days when he said he could not walk after the match. Hewitt went through the entire last year playing with a torn hip muscle. When Rusty double faults, more often than not it is because he cannot push up higher using his thighs due to the perennial strain on them.

Even though I end up berating him, “you are serving like my grand mum’” and then ‘”you are serving worse than my grand mum”, deep inside I do know the underlying problem.

An unhealthy Beckham came sooner than he should have to L.A. Galaxy and tarnished his hard earned reputation. When he came to the L.A. Galaxy he wasn’t as recovered as he thought he was.

One of Federer’s often underestimated skills is his meticulous ability to stay injury-free. It takes a lot of training off-court, not over or under training but the exact amount of training to remain that way. Federer has done an impeccable job of playing relatively pain free throughout his career. Sharapova missed most of 2008 due to her shoulder injury.

A pain in the shoulder is as good as a racket with the wrong string tension. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide for you need to use your shoulders to serve each and every point. It took a monumental effort on her part to play Roland Garros half fit and make a decent run this time around.

Murray and Henin both have remarked before that the pain they go through on the practice courts is significantly higher than what their bodies go through during the course of an actual match.

For the Ashes 2007, the entire Australian cricket team ran sand hills (normal hills are hard enough, sand hills?!) every day in the Australian peak summer as a part of their training regime.

In his prime, Michael Schumacher used to spend six hours each day in the gym. He hardly used to break a sweat driving the scarlet monster even under the most physically trying circumstances. He used to do exceedingly well in street and counter-clockwise circuits which stress the neck muscles more.

A physically fitter body can concentrate better for the longest period of time too, helps when your reflexes need to react in microseconds, rather than in seconds, you know driving a car at 200 mph and all.

A fit athlete isn’t a generic term, one can easily be fit for a sport but may not look fit in real life.