Are players wearing themselves out because they’re greedy or is the tour asking too much of them?

Further proving that Roger Federer should one day run for political office, he issued the following statement on his website last week:

2008 has been a tough year for me as I was always playing catch up after being diagnosed with mononucleosis at the beginning of the year. I feel fortunate to be healthy again, but I want to remain at the top of the game for many more years to come and go after the #1 ranking again. In order to do that, I need to get a proper rest and get strong again so that I am 100% fit for the remainder of the year or next year. At this point, I am not sure when I will be ready to play again, but I hope to be back at some point before the end of the year.

True to the tradition of standard political disclosure, this statement says everything and nothing. It hints at the possibility that Roger will skip the rest of the tour schedule or, at the very least, a large part of it. He scheduled himself to play Stockholm, Madrid, Basel, and Paris, and now he might not play any of them. So wha’ happened?

His statement says that he’s “healthy again” but he’s not 100% fit. We’ve been hearing that “healthy again” part all year and he may have believed it himself else he wouldn’t have entered four tournaments in four weeks. But clearly his viral levels are preventing him from playing the fall session of the tour schedule.

Mario Ancic suffered from mononucleosis last year and he had a relapse this summer, and now we learn that Vera Zvonareva had the same problem. I saw her play in the 2004 year end championships – the last time they were held in Los Angeles – then she dropped off the map and I always wondered what happened to her. In 2006 she learned that she’d had mono for some time and it took her a year and a half to recover and two years to feel good again.

I’ll throw one more thing into the pot before I get to the main question today. In case you were wondering if pro tennis players travel too much, Agnieszka Radwanska didn’t play in this week’s WTA event in Moscow because Russian authorities wouldn’t let her in the country. Why not? There was no space in her passport for a visa because all the pages were filled up! That’s a big deal for her. She’s currently number 10 in the rankings and it could mean the difference between making the year end championships or not.

So, should the pro tennis tour have required events? Or, to put it another way, do required events ease the players’ workload or add to it?

Masters Series events were designed to make it easier for tour players because their workload was clearly delineated. ATP rankings points tally up the results of the four grand slams, nine Masters Series events, and the five best results at lower level tournaments. That’s 18 tournaments and 24 weeks of work on three continents.

That’s a pretty cushy job if you think about it, so is player greed to blame for everyone getting worn out? Partially. Players fly off to Dubai before coming to the US for Indian Wells and Miami because Dubai pays far more than other optional events. Federer had lucrative Asian exhibitions planned this fall in his very short off-season.

But a players’ job is to chase the rankings and you can’t afford to skip parts of the tour schedule and expect your ranking to stay steady. That means filling up passports: an early season fling in Australia followed by a trip to South America for the spring clay court season or, alternatively, the spring indoor season in Europe or the US, a quick stop off in Dubai on the way to Masters Series events in the US, the European clay court season followed by the European grass court season, the summer hard court season in the US, the fall indoor season in Asia, and then back to Europe for the end of the season. That’s seven seasons with a few side trips thrown in.

The players dropped the ball when they let Etienne de Villiers trade the Masters Series event in Hamburg for a fall Masters Series event in Shanghai. They fired their player representatives on the ATP Board of Directors but by then it was too late. A required event in Shanghai all but made a fall trip to Asia mandatory.

Notice that there will be one less required event next year because Monte Carlo is no longer required, but so what if it means a trip to another continent? The problem isn’t that Shanghai is required but where it is, and it’ll be interesting to see if de Villiers did a good thing by spreading tournaments all over the damn place. Did he insulate the tour against the current financial crisis by diversifying its portfolio, so to speak, to Asia? Or did he spread it so thin that his main product – the players – will be too tired to turn up at required events? Some of them are already too tired as it is.

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This week’s submission deadline is Monday morning, October 6, 2am (EST) in the U.S./8am (CET) in Europe.

This week we have three tournaments in Vienna, Stockholm, and Moscow. We need eight players for our fantasy team so let’s pick three players from Vienna and Stockholm and two from Moscow.

Vienna draw (indoor hard, first prize: $213,846)
Stockholm draw (indoor hard, first prize: $177,692)
Moscow draw (indoor hard, $171,000)

The top half of the draw in Vienna is packed. We have a finalist, semifinalist, and two quarterfinalists from last year’s event. Stanislas Wawrinka is the top seed and he was the finalist. Gilles Simon is his main competition in the first quarter and Simon has a semifinal and a quarterfinal on indoor hard court this year. This is a tough pick but I’m going with Wawrinka because I’ve used up all my Simon picks for the year.

The second quarter is especially packed. Ivan Ljubicic and Feliciano Lopez both reached the quarterfinals last year. Lopez has three quarterfinals and a title here in the past five years, but he’s 0-4 on indoor hard court this year and he’s now lost in the first round of his last five events. Ljubicic just missed 10 weeks with a back injury and lost in the first round at Metz this week. Juan Carlos Ferrero reached the semifinals last year and Ivo Karlovic and Tommy Robredo are also in this quarter. However, I’m picking Jurgen Melzer because he’s 2-0 over Ljubicic, beat Ferrero here in 2006, is 4-0 over Karlovic, and I’ve used up all my Robredo picks.

Juan Martin Del Potro is in the next quarter and it’s hard not to pick him because he’s on such a roll. But I want to save him for Madrid and Paris which pay a lot more money. And that leaves us picking between Fernando Verdasco, Andreas Seppi, and Guillermo Canas because they can’t meet up with Del Potro till the quarterfinals. Verdasco reached the semifinals in Bangkok and the final in St. Petersburg last fall, but he hasn’t played much indoors this year. Canas just lost in the first round at Metz as did Seppi who lost to 181st ranked Adrian Mannarino. Seppi did get to the semifinals here last year but Verdasco because has a career 4-0 record over Seppi so he should come out of this quarter.

Fernando Gonzalez is the second seed and he reached the quarterfinals here last year, but I’m saving him for Madrid where he’s never finished lower than the quarterfinals in three tries. Ernests Gulbis could beat Gonzalez but I’m not counting on it. Radek Stepanek is now 10-2 on indoor hard court and he reached the semifinals at Metz this week. Gael Monfils got to the semifinals in Bangkok but Stepanek is much more consistent indoors so Stepanek it is.

I need three players from Vienna and Del Potro is likely to beat Verdasco, so I’m going with Wawrinka, Melzer, and Stepanek.

David Nalbandian is the top seed in Stockholm. Will we see another fall run for Nalbandian like last year when he won both year-end indoor Masters titles? The pattern is set. He got to the third round at the US Open last year just as he did this year, and his record on clay and hard court is actually much better this year. And he’s 2-0 over Nicolas Mahut and Albert Montanes, two other players in this top quarter. But Thomas Johansson beat him in their only meeting indoors and Johansson also reached the final here last year so I’m picking Johansson in this quarter. Keep at least one Nalbandian pick if you have it. He’s finished in the semifinals or better the past four years in Madrid

It’s hard to find a player in the second quarter. Jarkko Nieminen and Arnaud Clement both reached the quarterfinals here last year but they both have losing records indoors this year. Jose Acasuso has one victory on indoor hard court in the past three years. Thomaz Bellucci has never won a match on indoor hard court. I’m going with Nieminen in this quarter because he’s still ranked number 33 while Clement has slipped down to number 88.

Robing Soderling is 12-4 on indoor hard court this year and he reached the quarterfinals at Bangkok so he’s the clear pick in the third quarter.

Marcel Granollers is the eighth seed here but he’s never won a match on indoor hard court. Kei Nishikori isn’t eligible because he wasn’t ranked in the top 100 at the beginning of the fantasy season. Steve Darcis won the title in Memphis this year which accounts for all five of his indoor hard court wins. Mario Ancic lost in the first round at Metz, but he’s 7-2 on indoor hard court this year and he reached the quarterfinals here last year. Ancic beat Darcis in their only meeting on grass, which may not mean much, but I’m going with experience and picking Ancic.

I need three players from Stockholm and the second quarter is weak, so I’m going with Johansson, Soderling, and Ancic.

I’m only picking two players from Moscow so I’ll pick the top and bottom half of the draw.

Nikolay Davydenko is the top seed in Moscow and I saved him for this event because he’s won it three out of the last four years. I’m a bit concerned about his first round opponent, Florent Serra, because Serra reached the quarterfinals here last year, but Serra has a losing record indoors.

Janko Tipsarevic is in the second quarter of the draw as are Mikhail Youzhny and Mikhail Zverev. Tipsarevic reached the semifinals here last year, and he beat Youzhny in Rotterdam this year. Zverev reached the quarterfinals at Rotterdam as a qualifier but Tipsarevic just beat him at Zagreb. Tipsarevic should come out of this quarter.

Davydenko beat Tipsarevic here last year so Davydenko is my pick for the top half of the draw.

Michael Llodra won the title in Rotterdam but that’s the only time he’s gone past the second round indoors this year and that includes a challenger he entered a few weeks ago. Fabrice Santoro is not having a good year indoors. Victor Hanescu beat Ivan Ljubicic in Metz last week but Hanescu is more of a clay court specialist. That leaves us with Paul-Henri Mathieu, especially as he reached the final here last year.

Dmitri Tursunov won his last four matches over Igor Kunitsyn and he beat Robby Ginepri in their only meeting indoors. Lu Yen-Hsun reached the quarterfinals at San Jose this year but Igor Andreev has two quarterfinals and title in four trips to Moscow and he has a 5-1 record over Tursunov. If you have Andreev, use him. I used him up in the clay court season.

I’m expecting Andreev to pick off Tursunov so I’m picking Mathieu for the bottom half of the draw

Picks

My picks this week are Warinka, Melzer, Stepanek, Johansson, Soderling, Ancic, Davydenko, and Mathieu.

Happy fantasies!

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is injured again and thus we enter into a discussion on biomechanics.

This summer I read an article about baseball pitcher ”Tiny” Tim Lincecum, a stringbean body who regularly throws a baseball at 98 mph (158kph) for the San Francisco Giants. Teams were reluctant to draft him because they were afraid his body would break down. If he threw that hard with such a skinny body, they asked themselves, how could he possibly survive the long baseball season without breaking down?

His body hasn’t broken down and the article asks the obvious question: Why is it that Lincecum is thriving and injury-free while 6’5” (196cm), 225lb (102kg) Chicago Cub pitcher Mark Prior cannot stay out of the doctor’s office?

The answer is body mechanics and I thought about Lincecum when I noticed that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga retired from a match in Tokyo today after winning the first set against Viktor Troicki. Jo-Willie strained an abdominal muscle and that adds one more injury to his long list of injuries: herniated disc 2005, two right shoulder injuries 2005, back and abdominal injuries 2005 & 2006, knee surgery 2008.

Baseball teams now hire consultants to look at pitching prospects and identify mechanical flaws before they invest millions of dollars in these guys. Junior tennis programs might want to follow suit. If someone breaks down repeatedly, they’re clearly doing something wrong mechanically and it’s much easier to identify and correct earlier rather than later, and, to put it in a crass way, they’d be protecting their investment.

I’m not a biomechanical expert but if you look at the Jo-Willie’s forehand above and compare it with this video of Roger Federer’s forehand, Jo-Willie’s arm does not appear to move as freely as Federer’s.

Think of it like this. If you move your trunk like a block of ice and keep your arm stuck to your side, you’ll hurt your back because the spine is meant to move vertebra by vertebra, not as one piece. That also puts pressure on your knees because they’re being asked to rotate instead of the spinal vertebrae.

If, instead, you move as a spiral with the shoulders, ribcage, and hips rotating and the arm following – a la Federer, you’ll use your body the way it was designed to be used and you’ll hit the ball a whole lot harder because you can generate so much torque. That goes for the serve as well as ground strokes. A service motion is a whole lot like pitching a baseball, it’s all about generating arm speed through body rotation.

The first player that comes to mind when I think of Jo-Willie is Marcos Baghdatis. They both rose to stardom with magical runs to Australian Open finals and they’ve both been injury prone since. Baghdatis just returned to the tour after a ten week layoff for a wrist injury and promptly retired in both tournaments he entered. This week it was Metz where, a newspaper reported, Baghdatis “screamed with pain and fell on to the court” after a serve in his first round match with Ivo Karlovic. Ouch, that doesn’t sound pleasant.

Look at this video of Bagdatis’ forehand, he looks less flexible than either Jo-Willie or Federer. Baghdatis and Jo-Willie are both broad muscular guys, well, doughy might be a better word for Baghdatis but, for sure, he is broad. That doesn’t mean they can’t move, these are two agile tennis players, but it probably does mean they have to work much harder to be flexible than someone like Federer.

Baghdatis is not known to work hard and that’s part of his problem. Jo-Willie is credited with working hard to come back from his injuries, but his time might be better spent changing the mechanics that lead to injuries. And if he wants to increase his flexibility, I could direct him to a good Rolfer. Those guys will pound the crap out of you but you’ll be more stretchy when they’re done, guaranteed.

Yellow Fuzzy Balls

I don’t think you can correct injury producing mechanics by watching a video alone – a tennis instructor with good biomechanical knowledge might be necessary, but you might learn something by going to yellowfuzzyballs.com and looking at their instructional videos. It’s distance learning for tennis and it’s free, kind of. Ads streams across the bottom of the videos while they’re playing.

Those streaming ads might be the future of google advertising if not youtube. Currently I only have to put up with some invasive but innocuous text ads down the side of my gmail page – I’m still trying to figure out how they came up with a text ad for golf in response to an email about a vulva puppet, but I can see where video ads might replace text ads sometime soon and then I’ll have to learn to tune them out too.

Meanwhile, check out yellowfuzzyballs.com, it can’t hurt.

It’s time for the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out our Fantasy Tennis Guide. You’ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.

Sign up and join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

This week’s submission deadline is September 28, Sunday night, 10pm (EST) in the U.S./September 29, Monday morning, 4am (CET) in Europe.

The fantasy site lists three tournaments this week: Tokyo, Metz, and Bangalore, but the Bangalore event has been canceled. The ATP blamed security concerns in the area after a bomb blast killed one person and wounded at least 15 others in July. But Anil Khanna, an official with the Indian tennis association, assailed the tournament organizers for blaming security issues instead of admitting that they had trouble attracting star players and finding sponsors. I don’t know who’s telling the truth but if Khanna is correct, and there’s some reason to believe him considering that other sporting events in the area are going on as planned, the organizers have fanned terrorist concerns unnecessarily.

Tokyo is paying $135,000 to its winner and Metz is paying $90,923, so let’s pick five players from Tokyo and three from Metz to make up our eight player fantasy team.

Tokyo draw (hard court, first prize: $135,000)

Metz (indoor hard court, first prize: $90,923)

David Ferrer won the title in Tokyo last year but he’s having a terrible year on hard court. He hasn’t made it past the third round of a hard court event since the Australian Open and he just lost to Dudi Sela in the first round in Beijing. Sela is in this quarter and he beat Juan Martin Del Potro here last year, but Del Potro is 15-4 on hard court so far with two titles and a US Open quarterfinal, and I’ve only used him twice so he’s my pick for the top quarter.

Kei Nishikori beat David Ferrer at the US Open and this is Nishikori’s home tournament, but he’s not eligible for fantasy tennis because he wasn’t ranked in the top 100 at the beginning of the season. Richard Gasquet can probably beat Mikhail Youzhny on hard court but I’ve used Gasquet five times this year and, for some reason, haven’t used Youzhny even once. I considered picking Rainer Schuettler who reached the semifinals in Beijing this week, but Youzhny has beaten him the last four times they’ve met on hard court. Youzhny it is.

The third quarter has some firepower. Tommy Robredo got to the quarterfinals in Beijing this week though he didn’t beat anyone significant to get there. Tomas Berdych was on a run in Bangkok this week until he ran into Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Sam Querrey beat Tomas Berdych in the first round at the US Open, and Fernando Gonzalez can kick anyone’s butt on hard court when he feels like it. The Robredo/Berdych matchup is a tossup. They’ve beaten each other on clay and hard court. Gonzalez beat Querrey in their only matchup on hard court but that was two years ago. Gonzalez reached the quarterfinals in Beijing this week and I’ve only used him twice this year so Gonzalez is my pick. And since I need five players from this drawer and I’ve used Robredo five times already, I’m also taking Berdych.

I may have used my Andy Roddicks up too soon. He’s in the Beijing final and looking good. But Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is in the final in Bangkok and he beat his friend Gael Monfils to get there. I don’t think Tsonga can beat Andy Roddick but he should get to the semifinals so I’m picking him.

The Metz draw has last year’s semifinalists but no finalists and no quarterfinalists, so we’ll have to look at players’ indoor hard court records to evaluate them.

Ivo Karlovic is the top seed and he had a 13-4 record on indoor hard court last year, reached the semifinals in Rotterdam this year, and just won two Davis Cup matches on indoor hard court. However, he has a cruel draw in the person of his first round opponent: Marcos Baghdatis. Baghdatis reached the final in Marseille this year and reached the semifinal in an indoor hard court challenger last week. Guillermo Canas is also here and he was a semifinalist last year, but I think Karlovic and Baghdatis can beat him. I’m picking Karlovic for two reasons: Baghdatis retired during that semifinal and he’d just returned to the tour after a ten week layoff with a wrist injury, and Baghdatis’ indoor hard court record hasn’t been anywhere near as good as his record on carpet the past few years.

Ivan Ljubicic, Michael Llodra, Feliciano Lopez, and Radek Stepanek look most promising in the next quarter. Ljubicic has a stunning 54-19 record on hard court over the past five years but he’s only 7-6 the last two years and his ranking is down to number 47. Llodra won the title in Rotterdam this year but as far as I can tell, that’s the only time he’s ever gone past the second round in the main draw on indoor hard court and he just lost in the second round of a challenger. Lopez has lost in the first round in his last four tournaments. I’m picking Stepanek, he’s by far the most consistent performer indoors.

Mario Ancic is back from a seven week break due to ongoing problems with mononucleosis. He’s 7-1 on hard court this year and he won his Davis Cup match on indoor hard court two weeks ago. Ancic is 3-1 over Paul-Henri Mathieu including wins over him indoors in Madrid and Paris last fall, but his first opponent is Ernests Gulbis. Gulbis was 18-2 in indoor hard court challengers last year and he reached the quarterfinals in St. Petersburg last fall. I’m going to assume that Ancic’s main draw experience is more valuable than Gulbis’ challenger wins and pick Ancic.

Andreas Seppi beat Arnaud Clement in the first round here last year but he’d probably lose to Gilles Simon if he met him in the quarterfinals. Marc Gicquel reached the semifinals here two years ago but he hasn’t done well on indoor hard court this year. Simon is the third player in this draw with a tough first round. His opponent, Nicolas Mahut, reached the semifinals here last year while Simon lost in the first round. Simon reached the quarterfinals in Marseille and Rotterdam while Mahut reached the quarterfinals in Marseille and just reached the quarterfinals in Bangkok. It’s a tough pick but since I’ve already used Simon five times this year and I only need three players from this draw, I’m skipping this quarter altogether.

Picks

My picks are: Del Potro, Youzhny, Berdych, Gonzalez, Tsonga, Karlovic, Stepanek, and Ancic.

Happy fantasies!

A short observation on the psychoanalytic development of babies combined with a look at Rafael Nadal’s amazing year of tennis.

Latest Sign that the Apocalypse Is Upon Us

And it has nothing to do with the US financial crisis. Last night I went to Chavez Ravine to watch baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers take one step closer to a division title and I saw something that laid me out. At most sporting events these days, spectators compete to see who can get their face on the Jumbotron. US football fans dress up as if they were auditioning for Mad Max 3, basketball fans throw down Cranky Soulja Boy moves, and baseball fans get their kids into the act.

The music in the stadium was blasting as a man held up his young son who was shaking and twisting. This kid was not a day older than two years old and I swear, in the middle of his act, he turned to the Jumbotron and pointed at himself. This kid had totally skipped what a psychoanalyst would call the mirror stage – the point in a baby’s development where they see themselves in a mirror and realize that they are a separate being from their mother and also the point where they become captivated by their own image – and gone straight to American Idol.

I wonder whether we should now create a new psychoanalytic phenomenon called the Jumbotron stage, the point where a baby moves past the mirror stage and right onto the performance stage.

Rafa’s Golden Year

The men and women are playing in Beijing this week. The men are also playing in Bangkok and the women in Seoul. So far there’s been only one upset though it’s a pretty big one. David Ferrer lost his first match to Dudi Sela in Beijing. David is having a miserable year on hard court. I’d fly to Asia to see what’s wrong with him but our Tennis Diary travel budget won’t allow it and I’m not feeling like getting up in the middle of the night to check out the live streaming from Beijing.

Meanwhile, the ATP has finally caught up with youtube. They’ve launched the ATP World Tour channel. It’s about time. Tennis fans have been posting illegal TV clips of matches for forever and the ATP has been wisely encouraging it by not asking youtube to remove them. Their first effort is a celebration of Rafael Nadal’s golden year: eight tournament wins, two grand slams, an Olympic gold medal, and, possibly, a Davis Cup title.

So, is this the peak of Rafa’s career?

It could depend largely on the other three members of the top four: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray. After all, Federer would still be sailing along with Wimbledon dominance if Rafa hadn’t come along. I’ll give Rafa the French Open/Wimbledon double for the next few years but, of course, no gold medal and, likely, no Davis Cup. He doesn’t play Davis Cup that often and that’s really Spain’s only chance.

Djokovic has been overlooked a bit in this year of Rafa dominance. Nole actually improved over last year. He beat Federer in the semifinals at the Australian Open and won his first slam even if Federer later announced that he was suffering from mononucleosis at the time. Nole got to the semifinals at the French Open and Wimbledon, same as last year, and slipped just the slightest bit by going out in the semifinals at the US Open. Last year he reached the final. Okay, so maybe he only held steady as the year wore on but he’s still good for at least a few more slams which means a few less for Rafa and Roger.
[Correction: Djokovic lost in the second round at Wimbledon so he slipped a bit further.]

Roger looks good for a few more US Opens. He’s the only player who doesn’t seem to wear himself out by the end of the summer. The Australian Open is less predictable because it starts so early in the calendar.

Murray started off the year miserably in grand slams with a first round loss at the Australian Open and his US Open final was the first time he’d been past a quarterfinal in a slam. He seems to have trouble with startup. He lost his first round match at the Olympics after failing to adjust to the time change properly. So I’m not expecting much from him in Australia and he’s never done much on clay, so that leaves Wimbledon and the US Open. I’m thinking he’ll get one of the next few US Opens. Roger’s Opens might not come consecutively.

There’s one more person I’d watch beyond the top four: Juan Martin Del Potro. I’m not a stat person but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a guy who’d won four straight tournaments on two different surfaces that didn’t reach the number one ranking. Del Potro may not get there because there’s a logjam at the top but he could get pretty close. He followed up his four straight wins with a US Open quarterfinal and two singles victories in Davis Cup. This kid’s gonna fly.

Is this Rafa’s peak? My guess is that he’s not going win a US Open after a French/Wimbledon double. The only way he surpasses this year is to win three slams and that won’t happen at the same time he wins a gold medal and a Davis Cup. So it’s a peak that will only be surpassed if he picks up an Australian or a US Open to go along with his French/Wimbledon double.

I think those other top players will just keep getting better and take away enough slams to keep Rafa from getting his three in one year.