{"id":174,"date":"2005-07-03T01:28:19","date_gmt":"2005-07-03T09:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=174"},"modified":"2005-07-03T01:28:19","modified_gmt":"2005-07-03T09:28:19","slug":"wimbledon-2005-nijinsky-baryshnikov-and-federer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wimbledon-2005-nijinsky-baryshnikov-and-federer\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon 2005 – Nijinsky, Baryshnikov and Federer"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nI injured my back dancing in 1986. The injury was so severe that it took three years and many visits to chiropractors, Rolfers<\/a>, Feldenkrais<\/a> practitioners, and Alexander Technique<\/a> teachers before I could sit longer than half an hour without severe pain. I also went to a movement class so that I could learn to dance without further injury. The teacher told me to watch other people move if I wanted to learn about movement. \u201cWatch people walking, watch people running, watch people playing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When I was walking, I\u2019d watch people in front of me. Some of them locked their knee when they put their front foot down. Or their upper body moved and their lower body didn\u2019t. Runners were always entertaining. Some moved their right arm but their left arm stayed in one place. They landed flatfooted or on the balls of their feet. Their arms moved and their trunk didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now and then I\u2019d see a graceful athlete go by with every part of their body moving as one piece. Head, neck, trunk, arms, and legs. Everything moved as one long chain of easeful movement.<\/p>\n

During ESPN\u2019s broadcast of the the semifinal match between Roger Federer<\/a> and Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>, there is a 15 second super slo mo clip of Federer leaping into the air to hit a high backhand volley.
\n
\nHe jumps into the air moving his right arm to hit a high backhand as his legs splay and his left arm flies out to balance the movement. His body twists away from the net to move his racket to the ball. He slices sharply down at the ball then turns his head to follow its movement twisting his body back towards the net while leaving his trailing arm and leg curled behind him. His foot lightly touches down on the grass and the ball lands out of the reach of Hewitt.<\/p>\n

A ballet dancer caught in midair. A beautiful expression of Federer\u2019s unsurpassed artistry.<\/p>\n

Federer is back on grass where he has won 34 straight matches and he\u2019s playing an opponent he\u2019s beaten eight straight times, including this year\u2019s Australian Open Final. What can Hewitt do, he is the best player in the world except for someone named Federer.<\/p>\n

Hewitt wants to play long points, attack Federer\u2019s backhand and hope that Federer hits some errors. Hewitt serves well and gets everything back but he doesn\u2019t have a killer offensive shot. If he can consistently hold serve and Federer has a less than average day, he has a chance.<\/p>\n

\nA ballet dancer caught in midair. A beautiful expression of Federer\u2019s unsurpassed artistry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His plan doesn\u2019t work so well in the first set, he only gets 45% of his first serves in and loses serve twice to lose the set 6-3. Federer does even worse getting only 37% of his first serves in but he has other weapons.<\/p>\n

In the second set, another part of Hewitt\u2019s game plan falls apart. He loses his serve in the third game with five unforced backhand errors. Not a good idea if you want to get into a backhand battle with your opponent. In the middle of this game, Hewitt unleashes one of his primal \u201ccome awns\u201d after a winning passing shot. On the next point, Federer comes out with a much softer \u201ccome on\u201d after a winning forehand. A more subtle and possibly more effective strategy for dealing with Hewitt\u2019s histrionics than spitting at him or serving at his body on the fly as some other players have done.<\/p>\n

Hewitt holds serve well in the third set and stays even. Still, it\u2019s not easy. In the best point of the match, Federer blocks a very good serve to his body deep into Hewitt\u2019s court. Hewitt slams it down the line but Federer gets to it and runs Hewitt off the court with a cross court shot. Later in the point, Hewitt takes a floater out of the air and approaches the net. Federer puts up a defensive lob, Hewitt hits an overhead, then Federer tracks it down to hit a crosscourt passing shot for a winner. He hit a winner off an overhead smash. I don\u2019t care how much heart you have, that is hard to recover from.<\/p>\n

On the very next point, Federer uses a backhand slice return followed by two relatively shallow backhand slices then unleashes a rocket forehand down the line for a winner. His next opponent, Andy Roddick<\/a>, hits backhand slices too but he\u2019s not necessarily crafting a point, he\u2019s changing the pace because you should now and then. Crafting a point means using change of pace to set up your best shot. I don\u2019t give Roddick much of a chance.<\/p>\n

In the third set tiebreaker, Federer drops his first and only dropshot for a winner. He wins the tiebreaker and the match, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(4).<\/p>\n

As Xtra Sports Radio<\/a> co-host Mychal Thompson said Friday on the Loose Cannons show, “Who are the only two men better than Federer on grass?”<\/p>\n

“Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I injured my back dancing in 1986. The injury was so severe that it took three years and many visits to chiropractors, Rolfers, Feldenkrais practitioners, and Alexander Technique teachers before I could sit longer than half an hour without severe pain. I also went to a movement class so that I could learn to dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}