TENNIS in DEPTH.

Only a select few tennis teenage phenomenons have achieved a similar result to that of Juan del Potro by winning 4 tournaments in their first full year on the tour. Those four are Rafael Nadal, Leyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. Not bad company for this 6′6

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It has been reported that considerable pressure is being exerted on both the ITF and Tennis Australia to move the Australian Open from Melbourne to Beijing China and to rename the event the Asia/Pacific Open. This pressure is coming from corporate H Q’s throughout Asia who consider the Melbourne Park facility to be lacking many of the necessary ingredients required to maintain its status as the home of the only Grand Slam event in the Southern hemisphere. More than just a rumour, it has prompted the Government of the state to commission London based architects HOK Sports to present a master plan for a complete updating of the Melbourne Park site. The plan is expected to be presented to the Government early in 2009 after the completion of the 2009 Australian Open, and will include recommendations for changes in road and rail connections, changes to the entrance location, the building of modern corporate boxes and restaurants, a plan to ease crowd flow. The plan will also include the demolishing and rebuilding of Rod Laver arena. The arena is sadly out of date with a retractable roof that is antiquated and unreliable, and meagre corporate boxes and private court side seating.

The playing surface has also come under some scrutiny by those who want to see the Open played in China. Unlike the other three Grand Slam events, the Australian Open does not have a unique surface. Wimbledon has its grass, Roland Garros its clay, and New York has its hard surface. Maybe the Aussies should consider a surface made from ground coral, Eucalyptus leaves or peanut shells, just to be different. This coming year will see many improvements made by Tennis Australia to make the tournament more fan friendly. More night time matches for both men and women, much better player services, an evening entertainment line up of local and international personalities, and a host of other upgrades, but none of these address the root cause of the problem. If in fact there is a problem.

Tournament director Craig Tiley says,

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For a family to produce a single word class athlete is a rarity, but for a family to produce two is against all the odds. But it happened to the parents of Marat Safin and Dinard Safina. A Brother and Sister combination from Russian that has added controversy to the tennis scene. Marat the elder and winner of two Grand Slam events is the most misunderstood player on the ATP tour, while his kid sister, who has never played up to her potential in previous years, has had a dream season in 2008.
Safina is ranked much higher than her big brother at the moment, and I’ve no doubt she earned considerably more prize than he did in 2008. She played in 5 consecutive finals in seven tournaments leading up to the US Open, where she virtually collapsed from exhaustion in her match against Serena.
Marat a naturally gifted player who plays as effortlessly as any player in history, has suffered from a series of nagging injuries throughout his career. He made it all the way to the top, but did not remain as number 1 for more than a few months. On court he tries hard to keep his feelings in check but many times his frustrations boil over and he slams yet another racket into the ground. Marat is a big guy, not built like the conventional tennis player, and he puts a lot of stress on his legs, ankles and knee joints. As he is quoted as saying,

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The 2009 Australian Open Tennis Tournament starts in January 2009, and picking the winner in the Men’s competition should be easy if you follow the past performances of the key players. Just like Horse Racing, picking winners is all about form, breeding, and conditions. Once in a while an outsider comes along’ and everyone wishes they had bet on this long shot, but in reality the favourites win 45% of the time.
So from the Men’s draw let’s eliminate any chance of a long shot coming through. But if you want to take a risk, you might consider the kid from Argentine, Del Portro, or Tsonga, or Simon.
There’s really only four players that have a legitimate shot at the title, and theses four have separated themselves from the rest of the other players. They are of course, Nadal, the number 1 player, Federer the number 2, and the holder of so many records, Djokovic the number 3, and the defending champion, and the new kid on the block, Murray the number 4.
Follow along, take notes, and see how easy it is to pick the winner based on their 2008 past performances. I’ll make two assumptions. First is that all four players remain healthy, and do show up to play, and second is that only the results of previous meetings on Hard Courts is considered.

Nadal lost to Murray in the US Open, he lost to Djokovic in the Western Masters and the Pacific life.
Federer lost Djokovic in the Australian Open, he lost to Murray in Shanghai, and he lost to Nadal in Monte Carlo.
Djokovic lost Federer in the US Open, he lost Nadal in the Olympics, and he lost to Murray in the Western Masters, the Rogers Masters and in Cincinnati.
Murray lost Federer in the US Open, he lost to Nadal in the ATP Masters and in Toronto, and he lost to Djokovic in Montreal.

Is everybody clear now on who the winner is likely to be? Nadal of course! Are you ready to put your money on such an easy choice, or do you need more statistics? An alternative method of selecting the winner, a method I’ve used successfully in the past, is to throw a dart at the ATP rankings chart.
The Australian Open has always been the oddball of the Grand Slams. In the past many players have decided not to participate, including Nadal, but now he is Numero uno he most likely feels that he has an obligation to the sport to participate. Australia is a long way from home for all except the local players, and it is the first tournament of the season after most players have taken couple of weeks off. Some are not sharp, some are unfit, and some are simply overcome by the heat. Summer in Melbourne can be brutal, with temperatures that hover around the 100 degree mark.

NB. McEnroe has picked Andy Roddick!….but what does he know about tennis?

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For those young players and visitors to the 2009 Australian Open who stop to watch a match on the Number One Show Court, or happen to buy a postage stamp to fix to their letters home, they will see an image on the stamp, and a name over the court which are common to both. The name is of Margaret Court. Some may not be familiar with her, and some may be confused by another similar name of Margaret Court-Smith. They are one and the same person. Margaret Smith married Barry Court and continued her playing career as a married lady using her double-barrelled name.

Margaret, or

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For one player in particular the news that Rafael Nadal had pulled out of the Masters Cup was music to his ears. Gilles Simon became the second Frenchman to be included in the top elite players who competed for the season-ending Cup in China. As the ninth ranked player, and the player who was mathematically eliminated from the top 8 by his countryman’s win in Paris, Giles Simon was the first alternate player for the Shanghai event. When he heard officially about his inclusion he tried not to show his pleasure and said he felt compassion for Nadal. Simon knows first hand how tough the ATP can be. The trip to China was his 29^th. event of the 2008 season, that’s a lot of tennis for any player, but Giles decided to ‘go for it all’ in 2008 to prove to himself that he had what it takes to be a top 10 player. At one stretch toward the end of August he played 9 matches in 11 days while competing in Indianapolis and Toronto, his winning streak included wins over such players as Roger Federer, Tommy Haas, Dimitry Tursunov, and Marin Cilic before he finally lost from exhaustion to Nicholas Keiffer. He went on to win in Romania against Carlos Moyer 6-3, 6-4 for his 3^rd. title of the year and his 5^th. of his career, then proceeded to Madrid for the Madrid Masters. He reached the final, losing to Andy Murray 4-6,6-7 after upsetting home town favourite Nadal 3-6, 7-5, 7-6.

Simon is 5′11

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It has always been recognized by tennis historians that the game’s beginning can be attributed to the English. A group of well-off English toffs, of which there are still an abundance, came together to hit a leather ball with a cat gut strung racket over a net, and tennis was born. Exactly where and when has never been accurately determined, but the origin of the game is credited to the English. It was a society sport, played at only a few public schools, and on the grounds of some of England’s most prestigious estates. The archaic scoring, still in use today, was introduced more than a hundred years ago by a group of English gentlemen who used to bet on each point during the match, 15 pounds, 30 pounds etc.

As with most inventions, tennis crossed the English channel and arrived in Paris. The French added their own chic flair to the sport by playing the game on sand rather than grass. The sand eventually gave way to clay, women began to adopt the game, and soon all of France was cooing fifteen love! The brash Americans imported the game to New York, they built a venue called Forest Hills and popularized the game. Eventually the grass gave way to a synthetic hard surface, a product of American technology, and many Yanks adopted this ’sissy’ English pastime. A stigma that still persists even today in many places.

But it was in Australia that the game of Tennis progressed from a quaint English pastime for the rich, to a hard hitting highly competitive match played between combatants from both sides of the tracks. Tennis became Australia’s national sport, it was played by every age group of society and from the sparse population a succession of tennis players emerged who dominated the game for almost 3 decades. There was nothing ’sissified’ about playing tennis in Australia, nothing derogatory was ever said about tennis players, they were the new ‘heroes’ of the Australian sporting scene. Their names were revered, and their feats on the courts around the world became the proudest moments in Australia’s history. The climate in Australia is ideal for tennis. Other than cricket, the other sissy English sport, the Aussies did not have a game they could call their own. Tennis filled the bill. As tough as tennis players are, they retain a gentleman-like quality when they put on their white shorts and white shirts, and step onto the court. Being a good sport, respecting your opponent, applauding their good shots and playing within the written and unwritten rules is a part of tennis that was perfected by the Aussies. Compare a group of 20 year old athletes who are stars of their selected sport, and you will find that only tennis players and golfers possess the quality that can be best described as sportsmanship.

When the 2009 Australian Open is played in January, one thing you can be sure of, is that no matter who wins, the winner will be applauded enthusiastically by the crowds, and showered with accolades in the true tradition of Australian reverence to their sport.

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