Sports Then and Now

Boris Becker and Andre Agassi have continued their rivalry even after retiring from the game.

If it weren’t for Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Boris Becker could’ve had quite the rivalry.

Both men tried to be rivals to Sampras, but rather unsuccessfully. Becker’s game matched up poorly with The Pistol’s, who had all of the German’s strengths plus better movement. The only truly real classic matchup between Becker and Sampras was the 1996 ATP Tour World Championships in Hannover, where Sampras weathered Becker’s hot streak and crowd support before taking a five-set victory.

Agassi’s game, with its immaculate returns, made for a fun contrast with Sampras, but he couldn’t match The Pistol’s dedication and often responded to losses from his compatriot by going into deep dry spells.

Sampras therefore won a combined 32 matches against these two and lost 21. He defeated Becker in all three of their Grand Slam meetings, and Agassi in six of nine. He finished with as many majors as Boom-Boom (6) and Double-A (8) put together.

Agassi and Becker, though, could have provided an ideal contrast to one another as players. Both were men of charisma with loyal fan bases, though Becker’s serve and net-rushing approach was mostly favored by classicists, while Agassi’s enormous groundstrokes and flashy wardrobe appealed to younger fans. Read the rest of this entry →

María José Martinez Sanchez, that is, the new women’s champion of Rome. And yes, she also happens to be Spanish,  just like the male champion last week.

It’s another of those heart-warming stories that has pervaded the tennis tour in 2010.

It’s up there with Ivan Ljubicic winning his first Masters event at 31.

Or Andy Roddick reaching back-to-back Masters finals on home soil, and winning one of them, Miami, for the first time at 27.

Or Justine Henin taking the Premier title in Stuttgart just four months after her return from retirement.

Or Juan Carlos Ferrero, aged 30, reaching three consecutive finals and his highest ranking since 2004.

For the lovely Martinez Sanchez is now 27, and has just won is her first singles Premier title.

Although she had won two titles before this, both on clay, they were at International level—Bogota and Bastad in 2009. So Rome is a truly break-through moment for her. Read the rest of this entry →

A tennis pro can end up with just one major victory to their credit for a variety of reasons.

In the case of Iva Majoli – and potentially Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic – it’s learning that the sport actually gets harder when excellence is expected of you. For Jana Novotná and Goran Ivanisevic, it’s a case of early frustrations not met until later in life.

And then there’s Andy Roddick, whose best was good enough for one two-week period in 2003, but hasn’t been ever since. There’s almost always a hint of sadness to their stories (though Ivanisevic and Novotná’s end on positive notes), but some more than others.

Juan Martin del Potro is still very young, and may have many more years of success ahead of him. Before that, though, he has to be able to play again.

Del Potro’s first slam win at the US Open last year was stunning: He was the tallest major champion ever at 6’6”, and the first to demonstrate that a guy that size could trade groundstrokes with the game’s best – that’s certainly what Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are – and prevail.

Nadal has endured losses, even lopsided ones, at the hands of hard hitters on firm surfaces, but never before looked as helpless as he did against the big Argentine in the USO semis. Federer has been outlasted and outfought by Nadal, but he’d never been outright overpowered, or lost a USO final, before he ran into del Potro. Read the rest of this entry →

It’s April, and it’s the red clay of the European swing. So it has to be Rafael Nadal.

Though some players fitted in tournaments on the red stuff in Latin America in February, this is where the clay season takes centre stage, and what a stage!

The first of the terracotta Masters is held at the Monte Carlo Country Club, with the Mediterranean as its backdrop. It is hosted by royalty: Prince Albert of Monaco was flanked by Boris Becker and three-time Monte Carlo champion Ilie Nastase. Meanwhile, Nadal held court before them, leading a phalanx of no fewer than 11 Spanish players in a draw of 56.

The weather offered up some challenges: dust storms, rain, sometimes both together. Through it all, five Spaniards made the quarterfinals, three of them went on to the semis, and two fought it out in the final.

The result had a certain inevitability about it. Nadal had ruled here for the last five years and it was a fitting place for him to take his first Masters title in 11 months.

The strength and depth of the Spanish contingent also means that this week’s Power Rankings have a certain inevitability, too. There are five in the top dozen, with two topping the field. Read the rest of this entry →

Roger Federer and Serena Williams bestride their respective tennis worlds rather as Everest and K2 dominate the Himalayas.

They may be just two amongst many world-beating champions, yet they remain the standard against which those others are measured.

They can be conquered by the fittest, most ambitious, most determined of individuals, just as those two mighty mountains can, but they remain head and shoulders above the rest. The rankings say it all.

Williams has topped the women’s tour since November 2009 and is currently more than 1,500 points clear of the field. Federer has topped the ATP rankings since Wimbledon 2009 and currently towers over the chasing pack by more than 3,000 points.

This is all the more striking because the two No.1s of tennis have been notable by their absence since they both reasserted their superiority over the competition on the Grand Slam stage of the Australian Open.

Take Williams. Though she is clear of the chasing pack in the rankings, she has played eight fewer tournaments in the last 12 months than the second placed Caroline Wozniacki: just 16 events. In fact only one other player in the top 20 has played fewer than Williams, and that is Kim Clijsters, who only rejoined the tour last August.

Even more remarkable, though, is that Williams has played just two tournaments this year, reaching the finals in Sydney and winning in the Australian Open. That’s just 11 matches, ten of them wins. She did add some court time to her year by playing—and winning—the doubles in Melbourne as well. But since then, she has been laid low by a knee injury, so has not played a single match since the end of January.

Then last week, Williams pulled out of the Premier event in Charleston. She was not scheduled to play at Rome either, but the good news is that she just announced she has taken a wild-card entry for the Italian Open after all.

The return will be intriguing. How will her fitness be after three months with no match-play? Will she be prepared for the sudden transition to clay after her intensive fortnight in Melbourne brought the curtain down on her hard court season? Read the rest of this entry →

There’s something about the burnished, shimmering heat rising from the deep rust of a clay court that warms the spirit.

Sure, the tennis Tour started more than three months ago in the heat and humidity of the Asian Pacific swing. January hurtled through five hard-court events in the space of a fortnight on its way to the youthful camaraderie of the Australian Open. The players must feel they are on board a runaway bus, so fast and furious is January.

February, by comparison, offers an assortment of vehicles to destinations in every corner of the world.

Fancy some respite from the punishing hard courts of January? Then head for the grandeur of Latin America and take in some of the most exotic cities in the tennis calendar: Santiago, Costa do Sauipe near Salvador, Buenos Aires, Acapulco.

These courts are the closest the modern game has to traditional clay: deepest orange; little fear of rain; warm scented surroundings.

The fans who support the “Golden Swing” are enthusiastic, informed, and passionate supporters of the many South American and Spanish stars who choose to play. This is, after all, the single oasis of live ATP tennis that the continent has in the year.

Many players prefer to keep their feet on the hard, synthetic surfaces in order to maximise their preparation for the first spike in the Masters calendar: Indian Wells and Miami.

For those, there is the beating sun of South Africa, Dubai, and Florida, or the indoor protection provided by Zagreb, Rotterdam, and Memphis.

But get those March Masters out of the way, and a new atmosphere creeps over the calendar. Because April and May provide the longest, unbroken phase of the year. It’s clay or nothing right up to arguably the classiest of the Grand Slams, the French Open. Read the rest of this entry →