US Open Thoughts

Anyone who has read my previous posts - talking to you mom -  will know I haven't included anything about tennis in my writing. In preparing for this article, I felt a tennis topic should be front and center since this is, in fact, a tennis blog. With the US Open just wrapping up this past Monday felt this is about as good a tennis topic as you’re going to get – I tried hard for a one-on-one with Federer, but those are difficult to come by.

Interviews are always black tie affairs

This year’s US Open was fairly standard: week one commenced with wholesale destruction of poor journeymen players and week two involved the real tournament where players in the top 10 slugged it out for the championship.

In the course of watching all the matches I can’t help but notice something. And this “something” is pervasive in almost every tennis tournament I’ve ever watched: At times, I really want to kill the commentators. Now this may seem harsh, okay it is harsh, but there is a reason I spend an unhealthy amount of time wishing pain on the commentators.

This one's for you Carillo!

From time to time, commentators say some really stupid things. I can excuse the occasional slip here and there. We all make mistakes. However, what’s really annoying is hearing the same wrong idea repeated over and over… and over. It’s like a grab bag of ideas commentators use in case they run out of actual things to talk about.

“Hey this match looks like a complete and brutal beating. Let’s talk about how Federer glides so effortlessly around the court” (I’m looking at you John McEnroe).

 Here are five things commentators love to do/say during matches that totally need to stop.

5) The Good Old Days

John McEnroe and Cliff Drysdale are some of the greatest culprits in doing this. In just about any tennis match you watch, the commentators will compare how things are now to some enchanted nether time. This can take on several different forms. John McEnroe almost always references the demise of the serve and volley: players don’t know how to play the net, blah, blah, blah. We get it, people don’t come in like they used to. Get over it. There’s actually a very good reason the serve and volley has gone the way of Val Kilmer’s career.

Oh...Wow

Playing the net is much more difficult in today’s game. Serve and volley once a set and you’ll probably win that point, but do it too much and you’ve just turned your match into an ESPN highlight reel...for the other guy – including at least 2 spots in the Not Top Ten for your antics.

Other people like to lament the commercialization of the game (Carillo) or how you can’t get close to the players anymore (Carillo).  The thing is, all those sponsors help make everything possible. No sponsors. No money. No television deals and no commentators (wait, that last part doesn’t sound so bad). And as far as the players being less accessible, I agree they are, but I’m completely fine with that. The top players are indeed larger than life figures who can do unbelievable things on a tennis court, and that’s exactly what I want. Watch a match from the seventies and you’ll think, “Man, I could totally play with those guys.” Watch Djokovic and Fed play and you’ll spend most of your time saying, “Wow, these points are amazing. NO WAY HE JUST HIT THAT!!”

4) Attributing Everything to New Racket Technologies

Many of the commentators love this one. They’ll be having a conversation about the match, and as soon as one of the players hits a winner, on the run, one of the commentators will say something about how amazing new rackets are these days.

Of course, most tennis players know this is completely wrong. Racket technology hasn’t changed significantly since the introduction of graphite rackets. Any new racket line is essentially the same thing with a new paint job. It feels like Head introduces a new racket line every two months. The difference between a Flexpoint Prestige and a Liquidmetal Prestige? Nothing. There are several reasons why today’s players are able to hit the ball so hard. These include better strings, more intense training, better nutrition, detailed video analysis, etc. At least commentators have picked up on the importance of polyester strings, but you don't get a passing grade for getting 1 out of 5 correct.

Overall, players are simply bigger, faster, stronger, scarier (Tipsarevic haunts my dreams). There’s a reasons teenagers don’t win majors anymore. Those skinny, teenage kids can’t keep up with the top players for 5 sets. The picture below illustrates my point.

That’s Jimmy Conners being all Jimmy Conner’s like. Now look at the picture of Rafael Nadal. Notice anything different about those two guys?

Yep.

 Uh, Nadal is wearing a headband?

3) Communicating with people wearing headsets of the live broadcasts

This is really only a problem at US Open night matches during the first week. It's mainly due to the fact that, as noted earlier, early round matches are basically ritual sacrifices to appease the tennis gods. "Please accept this Paolo Lorenzi and give us good weather, amen."

At the US Open, spectators can wear earphones that have the live television broadcast. Why anyone would willingly submit to listening to Mary Carillo while physically present at a tennis match is a mystery to science. One thing the commentators love to do is communicate with the earphone wearers and gauge their reaction on camera, especially Roger Federer’s dad. I’ve seen this a few years in a row now: I’m trying to watch the match, but can’t because the camera is stuck on Mr. Federer.

“Nod your head if Roger’s ever aced someone four points in a row. Oh, he has? Wow, how many other times has he done this? Just nod your head for everytime and we’ll keep track. One, two, three…”

Stop it already! Please let me and Mr. Federer watch Roger beat this poor journeyman in the most elegant way possible.

2) Andy Murray is on Par with the Big 3

I know what you’re thinking. Murray just won the US Open. He’s definitely on the same level as Fed, Nadal, and the Djoker.

No, he’s not.

 Now, I have to preface this by saying I don’t like Murray. Absolutely don’t like him in any way. "Oh, really? He happens to hurt something everytime he misses a shot?"

Murray's ready position

I’m not denying Murray is a great tennis player. The guy can definitely play and wins a lot of tournaments. However, he isn’t as good as the other three. When I say he isn’t as good, I mean at everything, the whole package. If you want to compete with the Big 3 you have to have it all: a great tennis game, crazy fans everywhere, huge endorsements, and on top on that you have to rack up majors. Basically they are their own brand.

There are no casual Fridays

Go to any professional tournament and the Big 3 get the paparazzi treatment by fans. The cameras never stop flashing. When one of them is spotted you would think the Beatles were coming through (younger people won't understand that reference, but my parents sure will). Basically it's all out pandemonium when they are spotted by fans. 

Andy Murray? Not so much. When I was at Indian Wells this past spring, all of the top players were there, and Murray was hitting a few courts away from where I was watching. There was no fan fare, no hug crush of people to see him hit. In fact, my friends and I argued for a good 10 minutes as to whether that was actually Andy Murray at all. Turns out it was. Didn't matter. We didn't care and neither did the other fans.

Contrast that with Djokovic’s hitting session: the Djoker was supposed to hit at 3:30, fans started gathering at his practice court at 3, and when he arrived at 3:45 the whole place went defcon one. I know this because I was one of the schmucks who had been waiting around for 45 minutes.

Novak! Do your Sharapova impression!

Murray may one day be considered on the same level with the Big 3, but there's a big difference between winning a slam and utterly dominating the year. Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer have all done this (in Fed's case, he's done it quite a few years). If Murray wins a few more slams next year, then we can actually have this discussion.

1)He/She won because He/She just wanted it more

This is perhaps the most overused and untrue line in sports broadcasting… and it’s the most annoying. This line is pervasive for commentators in every sport, but that doesn’t excuse its use. I haven’t read any of the article about Murray’s US Open win (on account of the fact that I don’t like the guy), but I guarantee that someone attributed his win to him simply wanting it more.

“He really wanted it this year, when he’s that determined I don’t know how he can lose!”

Really? That’s the secret to winning championships? You just have to want it more. I’ve been doing things wrong my whole life. I thought championships were accomplished by trying to lose. By this notion, if only Murray had wanted that Wimbledon title more he would have won it. Or if Djokovic had wanted to win a little more, he would have defended his US Open title.

What a Quitter

The line has stuck around for so long because it easy to use, and doesn’t require the commentator to do any real analysis of the match.

“Mary, what do you think the key to the match was?”

“Well, he changed his tactics in the 3^rd set and started hitting his inside shot more which meant he could get more pace… ah screw it. He wanted it more! That must be the reason.”

A real example of this happened in Djokovic’s quarterfinal match against Juan Martin Del Potro. Near the end of the 2^nd set Del Potro was serving to even the match at 1 set apiece while Djokovic had to break in order to stay alive in the set. Down 4-5, in what is one of the best sets of tennis you’ll ever see, Djokovic is able to break Del Porto and eventually win the set in a tiebreaker. Of course, after Djokovic finally breaks after an epic game to even the set a 5-5, one of the commentators just had to say it: “Djokovic really wanted that break didn’t he?”

Of course he wanted the break! And Del Potro wanted the hold just as bad! The reason Djokovic broke was because he changed his court positioning and moved slightly back from the baseline in order to give him more margin for error. To say either player wanted it more is a completely asinine statement, and make about as much sense as a commentator saying, “Fed really hit that shot hat cup phone mouse.”

Suave readers will remark: Brad that last sentence doesn’t make any sense (because it doesn’t). However, it makes about as much sense as saying a player won because they wanted it more.