We haven’t had too many first time slam winners in the past few years, especially on the men’s side, could we end up with two of them at the Australian Open?

Our little enclave in the middle of Hollywood, Tinseltown, put up a big television screen in front of the Beachwood Market and gathered at 9am this morning to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. This tells you the importance of today because I’ve lived through quite a number of presidents by now and I’ve never seen any community I lived in join together and bear witness to an inauguration.

There was also a dose of reality. One of my neighbors had to leave early because, he said, “I’ve got to get to work. I have to lay off a few people today.”

I was thinking that Serena Williams might have turned up at an inauguration ball in some stunning outfit or other until I remembered that Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to steer clear of politics. In any case, she’s in Melbourne looking for her fourth Australian Open title and the cycles favor her. She’s won it every other year since 2003.

She looks like a deadhead with her quasi tie-dyed tennis outfit, albeit in very undead shades of the same color – aqua blue – that make her dress blend into the court at times. I almost wondered if she’d dive into the court and cool off like those kids who catapult into the basketball court in the Sprite “Liquid Freedom” ad . Would that be surreal or what? It certainly would have gone through my mind, especially as you’d think the organizers would stop torturing the players and close the roof under these flaming conditions. Isn’t that why the roof’s there?

Elena Dementieva looked like frozen fruit juice in her all orange outfit as she hugged a long bag of ice to her chest during the changeover. If I’d only seen her serve and had to guess which player it was, I might have been wrong because her serve actually now looks like a serve. There’s a knee bend, a trunk twist, and a toss that puts the ball more or less where it should be. Most of all, she serves with a nice rhythm, but her serving problems are not all physical. She lost her serve six times in her match with Kristina Barrois before winning in three sets.

Elena and Serena are the story here since defending champion Maria Sharapova isn’t quite finished rehabbing the tear in her shoulder and Ana Ivanovic is still shaky. I love, love Jelena Jankovic but I don’t have her winning a slam against a heavy hitter like Serena. On the other hand, Elena, like Jelena, has never won a slam and that brings up today’s question: Will the Australian Open end with titles for two first time winners?

Not on the women’s side. Elena is in Serena’s half of the draw so Jelena could very well reach the final, but my money is on Serena and here’s why – as if I need any more reasons than she’s already given us. She’s in shape and she’s feisty. She got mad early in her first round match when she couldn’t convert break points and then she threw in some attitude. After slamming a short lob into the court and over the court boundary in the second set, she struck a pose and stared down her already overpowered opponent, Meng Yuan, in case she needed any more convincing that Serena is a bad dude. Serena passed through to the second round in straight sets.

On the men’s side: maybe. Maybe Andy Murray will win it. I wouldn’t put my money on him but I wouldn’t put money on anyone else on the men’s side either. People said Murray lost last year’s US Open final to Federer because he was exhausted from his semifinal victory over Nadal and he was, but Federer also out-maneuvered him with the short ball. Murray played a lot of four set matches and one five set match in that slam. If you look at Federer’s slam resume, you’ll find very few four set matches and precious few five set matches, and that could be an advantage in Australia with the court temperature hovering around 120 degrees Fahrenheit/49 degrees Celsius. If Murray does the same thing here – and long matches are one of the hazards of being more of a counterpuncher than a puncher, Federer has a chance to tie Pete Sampras with 14 slams.

Or, Murray could win by default. He’s beaten Federer twice this year already and as you can see, Federer now needs help to win a slam in the form of, for example, an exhausted finals opponent. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has a bad back, Novak Djokovic is screwing around with a new racket, Juan Marin Del Potro isn’t quite ready as he himself said this week, and Rafael Nadal’s body is unlikely to weather these broiling conditions.

Who would you put your money on?

I was looking around on youtube for a video clip to add to Mike’s excellent post about Andy Murray’s victory over Rafael Nadal in Abu Dhabi today when I found this 12 minute clip of Murray-Nadal highlights. I don’t know whether it qualifies as an illegal clip or not, but since I’ve watched it I’ll make a few comments.

First a semi-political comment. I’ve heard murmurs that Australia is concerned about losing its slam to Asia and that’s one of the reasons they’ve been furiously upgrading the facilities at Melbourne Park and refitting their country’s Rebound Ace courts with Plexicushion. This week’s exhibition event in Abu Dhabi surely can’t make Australia feel any better about its slam future.

Last year Andy Roddick, Federer, and Murray started the year in Kooyong, an Australian exhibition event. This year six of the top ten players started the year in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Asia, to fight for a winner-take-all prize of $250,000. I have no hard evidence but I’d bet my house that winner-take-all is a figure of speech here. It takes a hefty appearance fee budget to get six of the top ten players to turn up at your event.

Kooyong, meanwhile, will have two top ten players at its event this year: Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka.

The Abu Dhabi clip starts at 4-4 in the first set and shows Murray breaking Nadal to go up 5-4. The next game is interesting and not just because that’s when I noticed that Nike is shortening Nadal’s shorts inch by inch. They’re still long but they’re clearly above the knee this year. It’s now Murray’s serve and what I found notable was his aggressive net play. He comes to the net on the first four points in the game, two of them serve and volleys, and wins the first set 6-4.

The clip then skips ahead to 4-4 in the second set and now it’s Nadal’s serve. On the first point in the game, Murray runs into the net and puts a Nadal backhand slice away. Nadal may have floated the slice but you don’t see that play every day. I don’t know how fast that surface is in Abu Dhabi but this event is outdoors so it’s not one of those slick quick indoor surfaces.

Murray has reportedly been running himself silly doing offseason conditioning work in Florida and conditioning is essential to mental focus, but he makes errors and loses his serve at 5-6 in the second set to lose the set and his one set advantage.

At 3-3 in the third set, Murray goes to the net only because he had too, but his length and quick hands win him a nifty net exchange with Nadal and give him a break point. On the next point he jams the net again and it takes a tough shot by Nadal to get the ball by him.

Murray eventually wins that game to go up a break and breaks Nadal again to close out the match, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3. This is mainly a tuneup for most players so I don’t think this says all that much for the Australian Open, especially as Nadal has never won it and Federer takes it easy on himself in exhibition events, but damn, am I happy to have some tennis to watch again!

Run Up to the Australian Open

To fan the excitement, here’s the schedule of events leading up to the Australian Open.

Brisbane International – Brisbane, Australia
January 4-11, 2009
Novak Djokovic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Fernando Verdasco, Robin Soderling, and Tomas Berdych, Richard Gasquet, Marcos Baghdatis. Ana Ivanovic, Amelie Mauresmo.

Chennai Open – Chennai, India
January 5-11, 2009
Nikolay Davydenko, Stanislas Wawrinka, Marin Cilic, Ivo Karlovic, Rainer Schuettler, Carlos Moya.

Qatar Exxonmobil Open, Doha, Qatar
January 5-11, 2009
Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Igor Andreev, Dmitry Tursunov, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Mikhail Youzhny.

ASB Classic – Auckland, New Zealand
January 5-10, 2009
Elena Dementieva, Nadia Petrova

Moorilla Hobart International – Hobart, Australia
January 11-16, 2009
Agnes Szavay, Flavia Pennetta.

Medibank International – Sydney, Australia
January 11-17, 2009
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gilles Simon, David Nalbandian, Tommy Robredo, Richard Gasquet, Lleyton Hewitt. Serena Williams, Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina, Amelie Mauresmo.

Heinekin Open – Auckland, New Zealand
January 12-17, 2009
Juan Martin del Potro, David Ferrer, Robin Soderling, Nicolas Almagro, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Why tennis players don’t always make the best tennis commentators.

Tracy Austin was a roving reporter at the WTA year-end championships this year. I often watch sports on television while I’m doing paperwork and answering my email, so much of the time I listened to Tracy rather than watching her. I would have been listening even if I hadn’t been multitasking because most of her commentary flew over the onscreen tennis action, and maybe it’s not fair to critique someone without paying full attention, but I have always found her commentary very vanilla relative to the fierceness that must reside somewhere in her body and mind given her remarkable playing career.

Which, by the way, looked like this:

Age 4: Appeared on the cover of World Tennis Magazine

Age 10: Won the national girls 12 and under

Age 14: Entered her first professional tournament as a qualifier and won the title

Age 16: Won the US Open

Age 17: Reached the number one ranking in the world

She won her second US Open in 1981 at the age of 18 but it was all downhill from there as injury after injury of the “overuse” variety – back injuries and sciatica in particular – left her sidelined for long periods of time. She won her last even in 1982.

I was thinking about Austin because I’m reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, known in these parts for the quasi-devotional piece in the unfortunately now defunct Play Magazine about Roger Federer. In the book, DWF completely slams Austin’s 1992 “written with” sports autobiography in a piece titled How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.

It’s not just Austin, DWF laments the perennial disappointment that comes with reading any sports memoir. We desperately want to get into the head of a champion and see what made them exceptional because we all want to be exceptional. My favorite reading in the world is a New Yorker profile because I’m looking for a “manual for life.” What makes Michael Moschen the most original juggler in the world? How could Lionel Trilling hate himself so much yet be so successful? And, consequently, can a self-critical being like me ever succeed?

But players seldom deliver the goods. Being a good tennis player doesn’t make you a good journalist or psychologist, it just makes you a good tennis player. And it’s celebrity that sells books. Readers want inspirational tales something like a longhand version of a People Magazine story, not an analysis of greatness.

DWF is not entirely correct, there are good sports memoirs out there and we saw one just this year. Pete Sampras’s memoir, A Champion’s Mind, does in fact give you good insight into the clear divide between the champion’s mind and the runnerup’s mind. Sampras suffered a competitive crisis after winning his first slam – which he won under no pressure at all because no one expected him to do it. It took him another three years before he figured out what it took to win a slam and whether or not he was up to it.

It doesn’t look like Austin had any such crisis. Whatever she put her mind to, she could do. Her game was grinding, outlasting her opponent, keeping the ball in play, and driving herself to perfection on the practice court. It wore Austin’s body down to the point that her career never got past her teenage years and you might think that the disappointment would have led to some reflection on her part. “Did I drive myself too hard?” “Did my family push me too hard?” But it didn’t. As DWF points out, the same mentality that drove her to greatness is the same mentality she used to deal with a near-fatal car accident that smashed her leg and derailed a comeback in the late 1980’s. She told herself that there was nothing she could do about it but accept it and that’s exactly what she did. The endless inner mental warfare ran along at a lower volume in her head.

Lack of self-reflection doesn’t make for good sports commentary. Some people have way too much self-reflection, you could even call them tortured, and they are the better candidates. Of course, I’m talking about John McEnroe and the volume in his head leans toward overload. And you have to be a bit nasty. Not nasty, exactly, but Austin’s sweetness keeps her from challenging players as much as she could.

In the video clip above, Austin is willing to give Agnieszka Radwansks a pass after Radwanska did her best to annoy Maria Sharapova’s serve at the US Open last year by creeping up to the service line. As far as Austin is concerned, it’s within the rules and that’s enough for her. I don’t want to turn her into Jim Courier, who postures unpleasantly here and dismisses Austin’s take, I just want her to be willing to have someone mad at her now and then.

The rankings will be a bit different next year. Here’s how.

According to Bob Larson’s Tennis News, the world of tennis is making big changes to the points system which determines a player’s ranking. I say “according to” because there hasn’t been an official announcement yet. Let’s assume this information is correct – which isn’t much of a stretch considering that the ATP tournament entry for the 2009 Australian Open shows the new point totals – and see what it means and whether we like it or not.

Here, in a nutshell, are the changes:

1. Slams (and most events) will be worth twice as many points next year on both the ATP and the WTA tour.
2. The ATP (and not the WTA) is increasing the value of winning an event by reducing the number of points earned by everyone below the winner. For instance, if you won a slam in 2008, you earned 1000 points and the finalist earned 700 points – 70% of the winner’s take. In 2009, the winner will earn 2000 points and the finalist 1200 points – 60% of the winner’s take. The semifinalist, quarterfinalist, etc. will also earn proportionally less.
3. The ATP is reducing the points earned in challengers.
4. The WTA is reducing the points earned in Tier II events.

Except to say that I’ve always been surprised at the number of players who make it into the top 100 mainly on challenger results instead of having to win more main draw matches to get there – meaning that I endorse number 3 because challengers are probably not as good a predictor of future success as qualifier events, I’m going to skip numbers 3 and 4 and focus on numbers 1 and 2.

There are two essential changes here. Most tournaments will double the points earned. The proportion of points awarded in a tournament will change in ATP events.

The question is: why do both? Since you’re doubling the point value at most events, what’s the purpose? None that I can think of.

Giving the winner more points proportionately emphasizes quality over quantity and that’s a good thing. It should be harder for Nikolay Davydenko to get the number five ranking without getting past the fourth round of a slam (hence the video above), as he did this year. If the same changes in the points system had been made this year instead of next, Bob Larson’s preliminary statistics show that Davydenko would have had the smallest increase in points amongst the top five players, so the new system does help, but he would still have ended the year at number five. So does the new system go far enough?

If the WTA had instituted these changes, it’s less likely that Jelena Jankovic would be the year-end number one. She got to number one without winning a slam. I tried to figure out the last time an ATP player had the year end ranking without winning a slam in the same year and I got as far back as 1992 before I gave up. Here’s the listing of ATP year end number ones. You figure it out, please. Whereas the WTA had the same situation in 2004 and 2005 when Lindsay Davenport ended both years at number one without winning a slam.

Given all that, why didn’t the WTA make the same changes to the points system? The WTA has already agreed to a greater number of combined men’s and women’s events and god knows I’d love it if they combined their websites too so I could, for instance, easily pull up each player’s performance in slams as I can on the ATP website. I’m guessing that the WTA and ATP will eventually look very much alike, but making the same changes to the points system looked a little too cozy for the WTA at the moment. It is courting the ATP but it isn’t quite ready to commit to an intimate relationship yet.

Perhaps the WTA will do the ATP one better and resuscitate quality points instead. I say resuscitate because they did exist at one time and if any points changes were to be made, they’re the more obvious choice. Quality points are points given in proportion to the quality of an opponent. The higher the ranking of your opponent, the more quality points you get if you beat them. Conversely, if most of your victories are over lower ranked players, you’d probably sink in the rankings.

So what’s the difference between quality points and giving the winner of an event a higher proportion of points: quality points reward victories over higher ranked players whereas giving the winner more points rewards going deeper in tournaments.

If I had a hireling who was willing to enter all of the appropriate data into a huge Excel file, then calculate the difference in rankings if quality points had been resuscitated instead of instituting proportional changes in points, well, I wouldn’t do it. (Unless one of you would like to volunteer, that is. You can find all necessary data at stevegtennis.com and I’d be happy to supervise your effort.) For right now, I’d rather take that money and spend it on a new aluminum MacBook Pro with its excellent webcam, then hire a tennis expert with good verbal skills – something I’m a bit deficient in owing to, among other things, poor memory – and beam Tennis Diary TV to your living room instead of making you read this text stuff all the time.

I will tell you this, though. Quality points would affect the rankings of every player. As it is, or will be in about three weeks time, winners of tournaments – and particularly slams – get a much needed boost up the rankings, but players in the middle of the pack will get fewer points with no way to distinguish them from all of the other players who win a tournament or two, or maybe no tournament at all. And those players, by far, constitute the bulk of the top 100.

The solution: go ahead and change the proportional value of winning a tournament if you like, but throw out the stupid points inflation, and, for heaven’s sake, bring back quality points. Or better yet, just bring back quality points. It’s much easier.