SF Tennis Freak

(This video clip is audio-only with a picture so that it could be uploaded to YouTube. It’s a slightly better way of presenting audio content.)

I had noticed these guys over the past several days and wasn’t quite sure how they related to the tournament. Most times they were sitting and watching. Sometimes they would be engaged in conversation with Bill Rapp, the tournament director. One day I even saw them carrying a jar of sand. Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued.

After observing yet another conversation with the big guy, I decided to see how they were involved with the tournament. To my surprise, I discovered that they were two-man entrusted with making sure the portable court surface remained in good condition for the duration of the event. I.E. making sure there were no huge seams that could cause injury, no bubbling on dead spots to interfere with the ball bounce, and dealing with any other issues that might occur.

They had some interesting travel stories to tell, including from their Fed Cup work with the team at the recent match in Wooster, MA featuring the Williams sisters. Very cool and interesting guys! I hope you enjoy this little audio feature.

Quarterfinal Loss Post-Match Press Conference
(This video clip is audio-only with a picture of Andy so that it could be uploaded to YouTube. It’s a slightly better way of presenting audio content. Hope it’s not too misleading.)

From the start it was clear that he was edgy. The faces of his support crew were all etched with concern. And for good reason. Though he was loathe to admit it in the post-match press conference, his ankle injury severely limited his ability tonight. His movement was okay, but his power off the ground was abysmal. His groundstrokes had no bite, and his serve speed was dramatically lower.

Istomin, on the other hand, was reading all of Roddick’s shots well: serves, approaches, and ground strokes. He always knew where to be to defend against Andy’s shots. In the press room, Andy was better than we thought he would be. But he was definitely a pained man after this loss.

There were many times during matches, press conferences, or even just waiting around when I would hear something that made me chuckle. I tried to keep notes when this happened so that I could share them after the tournament.

Here are some of the things that struck me funny during the SAP Open (in no particular order):

• Because it’s in my notes in front of me, Justin Gimelstob tweeted “congrats 2 @milosraonic on defending his title @sapopentennis @SAPSponsors 2 titles already in 2012 4 big Canadian, big year ahead 4 him!”. The second set score was 5-2 at the time, a game away from the end of the match. Matt Cronin immediately tweeted back “@justingimelstob it is still 5 2. Dewey vs truman?”.
• “I didn’t see it at all, but I challenged to make sure it was in” – Denis Istomin on the 151mph bomb that Milos Raonic hit to start the second set in their final.
• Steve Ullrich sometimes struggled while sitting in the chair to umpire matches with Denis Istomin.  I knew there were troubles when I heard “Estonia to serve” or “Game, Estonia”.  I turned to Matthew Laird and said, I didn’t know this was a Davis Cup event?
• I forgot to see which umpire was chairing the final between Mark Knowles/Xavier Malisse and Kevin Anderson/Frank Moser, but he definitely warrants a mention here.  Though Steve Ullrich had troubles with Istomin, this guy completely butchered the pairing of Knowles/Malisse.  Here is a random sampling of his pronunciation for this team:
  - No Expense (as in spare none for that volley technique)
  - No Spice (doubles, plain)
  - Nose Mass (about 50 grams, more if your surname is Nalbandian…no offense meant)
  - No  Spanish (good thing Verdasco wasn’t here)
  - Noel Spice (Xmas tennis spice?)
  Finally at 8-4 in the championship tiebreaker, he finally said it correctly.  I was pretty much rolling in the aisles by then.
• I asked a fellow scribe how he managed to maintain a sense of neutrality in the press box, to which he replied “I don’t give a shit who wins, though I prefer that someone wins who gives me a better story to write about”.  Hmmm…
• Best caption to accompany a Malisse winner in the Ginepri match: “Thank you for not making me move”.  From Matthew Laird in reference to the X-man’s lack of singles fitness and footwork.
• If you didn’t listen to my audio of the Stan Smith interview, his contribution to the comic relief section came when I told him about my first racquet:  a Stan Smith racquet.  He said that was great, and that it had been good  for two things.  I could play tennis with it, then I could start a fire with it.  THAT was unexpected.
• Will finish this section with “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may get upset” – John McEnroe jokingly putting the kibosh on a question regarding June 1984… would have loved the reporter to press that one a bit more.

It’s all in the knee bend!

At least that’s the first thing that stands out when you watch the service motion of the guys with the biggest serves.

Most players have fairly decent serves, but need to rely on great placement in the box to get an ace or set up points. The serving elite, however, have fine-tuned their service motion to get the optimum energy potential from their mechanics AND effectively transfer it to the ball speed.

My vantage point on the baseline afforded me a decent opportunity to capture some effective motions, and not so effective. Starting from most effective to the least:

• Milos Raonic
  Deep knee bend coupled with massive build up of kinetic energy in the calves and thighs, perfectly coordinated into the toss and arm swing as he springs up and into the ball. His serve reached speeds of 151mph To make matters worse for his opponents he can place the ball anywhere in the box, at any speed, with a kick or without. The combination makes his serve almost impossible to read or return.
• Andy Roddick
  Extremely deep knee bend with engaged calves and thighs, and an almost “Popeye”-like bulging of the muscles in his right arm as it prepares to strike the ball after the jump.  Feet are close to one another to better optimize the upward spring. Can still generate speeds into the 140 range. But since most guys out there have seen these speeds more and more, it’s not quite the weapon it once was.
• Kevin Anderson
  Extremely deep knee bend and forward movement in his hips to achieve maximum power when he springs up.  Unfortunately he doesn’t possess the leg strength of a Raonic or Roddick for maximum effectiveness. He is a very tall and lean guy (read: skinny) who doesn’t possess the amount of muscle necessary to “spring” with enough force.  Still, he possesses a great serve.
• Denis Istomin
  Not much knee bend at all to his serve, but decent use of the bend he has and an EXCELLENT placement of his serve in the box.  Placement does indeed matter! But when you are facing someone who routinely ups your serve speed by 20mph, some rethinking of the mechanics might be in order.
• Mark Knowles (old guy serve)
  It’s easy to see that it’s harder to get low with the older guys. I say this as a fellow older player who has also has problem with knee bend because of surgery.  But as a dubs player it’s much more important to place the ball wisely.  Knowles is crafty enough to do just that. Ditto for Johnny Mac who served extremely well in his doubles match (though he gets extra credit for being 53 yet still generating decent speed in the upper teens).
• Donald Young
  Not much use of engaged calves and legs for power, feet separation dissipating his power base, and mostly use of arm and hip motion to get serve speed. Everything looks and feels too spread out to be harnessed effectively. He gets hurt badly on returns when placement in the service box is off.
• Ryan Sweeting
  Definitely not enough knee bend for a guy his height, not enough leg strength for an explosive jump, not much hip action going forward (that could help with fluidity of motion) because of his static foot position, and not much in the way of effective swing motion. You get the feeling that he needs to have “more” of everything to correctly take advantage of his height.  Needs to improve serve greatly to keep up with the mid-level guys.

Some thoughts on a great day of finals!

Singles
It was a great day of tennis on Sunday at the SAP Open. After an up and down week of withdrawals, injuries, 3-setters delaying the schedule, there were some very compelling finals matches.

Milos Raonic was set to defend his title after a comprehensive win over Ryan Harrison in the semifinals. Harrison did almost nothing wrong in their match and still lost in straight sets because of Raonic’s outstanding level of play. Denis Istomin, one of last year’s semifinalist, had just knocked off two big scalps by beating both Andy Roddick and Julien Benneteau from France.

Raonic was playing at a level above both of those previous opponents, however, and many things would have to go Istomin’s way for him to pull off the win. And as you presumably know by now, the final was all Raonic! The only stat you need to know is that Milos lost 4 points on his serve for the entire match. The pressure on Istomin to hold his own serve was unrelenting. Though he served decently, he didn’t serve quite as well as he had in his previous match with Andy Roddick.

After the first set tiebreak, the fight slowly started to slip away from his game… and he began to look like a beaten man. He would look upward and smile to himself, or hang his head and slump his shoulders. Thankfully he didn’t tank the match (it was a final after all). But I’m sure if he could have been anywhere else as the serve bombs rained down on him, especially the ones reaching 150 and 151 mph, he would have gone posthaste!

The Raonic serve was the dominant feature of the day, but it was backed up by ferocious groundstrokes that always kept Istomin on the defense. Where the day before Milos had opted for solid consistent rallies, the final saw him outwardly exerting extra effort into his groundstrokes to attack Istomin at every turn. Istomin tried his best to counter with slices, topspin, and winners of his own. Nothing worked. Raonic was not going to be denied.

An interesting fact: Raonic won the toss and opted to receive. When asked about this in the post-match press conference, he basically said with as much confidence as a humble Canadian can muster, “I knew that if I could break him early I would have no trouble holding my serve and closing out the set”. When asked if he felt he could serve better, he said “Yes”. Scary!

One other observation on Raonic… When Ryan Harrison was asked about the difference between Milos from last year (when he beat the Canadian in Miami) to now, Ryan noted that his ground game has gotten a lot stronger. This was clearly in evidence from the quarterfinals through the final. Last year Milos was a little like Ivo Karlovic. Big serve, no ground game to match. Now he can hurt opponents with serve, forehand, and overheads from virtually anywhere on or off the court.

If Raonic stays healthy these next few months, the ATP landscape could get interesting!

Doubles
Mark Knowles and Xavier Malisse won the doubles title over Kevin Anderson and Frank Moser. The 40 year-old Bahamian and the Belgian, who rejoined forces for this tournament, won their first title since winning in Los Angeles last year. Though the match went to a championship tiebreak, the result was not really in doubt.

Knowles may have been the oldest finalist on court, but he was also the best doubles player of the group. There were many points where he took over at the net while his partner, Xavier, watched and admired. His partner, the X man, is a decent doubles player and certainly seemed to be happier in that capacity than during his singles match earlier in the week.

Kevin Anderson is a fine singles player, which doesn’t necessarily translate to doubles success. His partner, Frank Moser of Germany, is at best a journeyman in singles, and not ranked particularly high in doubles. There only hope was to maybe outhit their opponents from the baseline. In the end, good doubles strategy trumped the more singles-oriented baseline hitting. The championship tiebreak saw Knowles/Malisse take charge and never let go.

Moser, who is 35, was asked about playing doubles in San Jose and he remarked, “I wanted to feel young again, so it was good to play against Mark”. Kinda funny, but who is laughing on the way home with the trophy?

When your opponent is serving bombs that routinely reach speeds between 130 and 150 miles per hour, you sometimes have to guess which way the serve is going (based on ANY clue you might perceive in their service motion) in order to have a fighting chance at a break opportunity. Such was the case during Sunday’s final at the SAP Open.

Denis Istomin knew that Raonic was serving off the charts, but figured he might still get an occasional chance at a return. It was not going to happen with this serve in the picture on the right, however. 145 miles per hour is an abstract until you see it in action. Click on the picture to see a larger version that you can use to observe what happens when someone serves at that speed, and the returner is got flat-footed or, in Istomin’s case, guesses wrong. A special thanks to the fast shutter speed of my camera for capturing this sequence gem.

Denis made a guess on this particular serve that Milos was going to his forehand, so he presumably started to lean in that direction (#1). I say presumably because you can’t see any particular action other than the result of his split step preparation. The lean begins, all too late, in the second image. As soon as he leans he realizes that he made the wrong choice as the ball whizzes by him (#2). His weight is still shifting and his foot has barely hit the ground in the third image. Notice that the ball is completely out of the frame…probably embedded in the backstop right behind a ducking line judge (#3). All in less than a second.

The best shot of this sequence that I didn’t get was the look on his face afterward as he looked skyward with a “Why me?” expression. In a loose tie-in to this serve sequence, when asked about what he needs to improve in his game the answer came quickly: “The returns for sure!” Maybe Denis should commiserate with Ryan Harrison first.