Club Tennis

For over ten years (!) I've been attending group tennis lessons, originally organised by the LTA under the Parks Tennis scheme.

Today, Ben our instructor wanted to spend some time with his Mum. A not unreasonable request on Mother's Day. So instead, a group of us went to the club anyway and played tennis for a couple of hours. 

It was rather odd. The clubhouse was locked, and the balls were kept in a shed used for maintaining the courts and surrounding hedges and gardens. We all washed our hands before we started (20 seconds of scrubbing, minimum) and there were no handshakes or physical contact between us during the whole time. At the end, we all washed our hands again. I should have mentioned everyone had their own towel and own soap.

It is this ordinary strangeness that is the essence of the Corona virus epidemic so far.

Back home, the BBC announced that the number of deaths in Italy today was 651. It means that 5,476 Italians have died from the disease. From a selfishly British point of view, the fear is that we're behind Italy by two to three weeks, although I feel there are important cultural differences that make the stand-offish UK a little different to Italy. 

We shall see. 

Two Predictions

Blogs are great for sticking your neck out and making predictions.

Here are two from me:

1) The British people will decide to remain in the European Union on the 23rd of June this year.

2) Maria Sharapova, recently caught doping at the Australian Open, will be banned from tennis for two and half years by the ITF.

I really ought to back up my predictions with a couple of bets.

Tennis is hard

Many non-tennis players don't realise how hard the game is, especially if they just watch Wimbledon a few times for a fortnight every year.

But this diagram explains just how tiny the margins are, even at amateur level tennis, and why the instructors always insist you keep your wrist firm and 'follow through' on all your shots.

Courtesy of: FeelTennis.net

Laura Robson's Blog

British tennis player Laura Robson has had a miserable 2014 sidelined from the tour with an injury.

But it has given her time to set up a blog called Laura the Explorer which is thoughtful and visual and a delight to read. I've included it in the Tennis links below and to the right of this page.

Enjoy it, and lets hope Laura's comeback which is scheduled for next month goes well.

Roger Federer

We went to Wimbledon on Saturday for the women's singles final.

Disappointing as a match, it featured my favourite Petra Kvitova in Matrix like form as she destroyed Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-0 in 55 short minutes. 

A couple of doubles matches followed, but for me the real highlight of the day was at around 11am when, acting on a tip-off from a kindly official, we settled into the tiny outside Court Number 4 and saw Roger Federer practise with friend and hitting partner Fabrice Santoro and coach Stefan Edberg.

World Tour Finals

The loneliness of being Roger Federer (picture by roGER)

I've been meaning to post some pictures myself and Mandy took at the World Tour Finals at the Dome in November. We were very lucky with both the afternoon and evening sessions.


Roger Federer serves (pic by Mandy Parker)

In the afternoon we saw Roger Federer beat Mardy Fish in 3, and in the evening we saw Jo-Wilfred Tsonga beat Raffa Nadal also in 3. It's a wonderful event and we really enjoyed it from some very good albeit pricey seats.


Roger Federer splitsteps (pic by Mandy Parker)


Raffa Nadal serves (Pic by Mandy Parker)

Slipping Away (3-6, 2-6)

I love tennis, but it's that clichéd love hate thing and today was a perfect example.

We did our standard one hour of instruction, getting warmed up, rallies in the service boxes, rallies at the baseline, some basket drills and warming up our serve. That was the aperitif, nice enough, and I was having an OK sort of day, helped by the glorious weather. For once we had hazy sunshine, a light breeze and it was neither too hot or too cold. Perfect conditions for tennis.

Now comes the match.

The instructor divides us into teams, and I'm happy to be paired with the best player in our group - 20 years old, she's got a really nice serve and some deadly powerful ground strokes. With my strength at the net, we should be just fine.

We win the toss, and ask our opponents to serve with sun (slightly hazy though it may be) in their eyes. We win the first game. My turn to serve. I'm serving well, particularly on the deuce side, and go 40-0 up. Then my serve disappears and I serve three double faults in a row. There are a couple of deuces, and then I lose, 1-1. The first doubts start to cloud my mind.

Our opponents serve again, and we break them to win that one. My partner serves, she's got the sun at her back and a beautiful technically correct service action that the rest of us players can only dream about. She holds and we go 3-1 up. If we can just win this next game we'll be 4-1 up and barring a huge catastrophe, we'll win the set. It's a close game but our opponents win to stay in contact, 2-3.

My turn to serve. It's hopeless. My 1st serve has just gone. Double faults, weak second serves and some good returning pulls our opponents level at 3-3. My partner is cross, I'm furious, and we manage to lose the next game too. We're now on serve, trailing 3-4. My partner's serve deserts her too, and our opponents are really playing very well, especially the weaker one, who is playing as well as I've ever seen her. The thought crosses my mind that's it's not our day out here today...

It's 3-5, and our opponents are serving for the set. It's a close game but some outrageous shot making and some terrible errors on our part give them the first set 6-3. Oh dear.

We still have 20 minutes left, and propose a second set. Me to serve. I decide to take something off my serves, and try and get some consistency into my game. It doesn't work. We do all play tennis to a certain standard, low as it may be, and our opponents eat up my weak puffy serves with spoon. My partner is really down now.

Our opponents win their service game, but my partner holds, although we're having to produce our best tennis to get any kind of point at this stage, as our opponents are inspired. We're trailing 1-2, and soon it's 1-3 as they hold again. I consider faking an injury or smashing my racket or something - it's just horrible, playing as badly as I am now. I hate this bloody game. My turn to serve. I lose my serve, again. It's just gone. I can't place the ball at all, and even getting it over the net and into a service box is happening rarely. This is horrible. We're down 1-4.

They hold again, to basically seal the win with a 5-1 lead. Then my partner serves, and suddenly she's on, and I'm finally on and we have an easy hold for 2-5. Winning a game at this point seems unbelievable, given the way our opponents have been volleying and lobbing and net cording and generally playing with the tennis gods on their shoulders. Their best player is ready to serve it out.

The final game goes to four deuces, and I manage to save three match points with some inspired returning, as good as I'm capable of. We both know we've lost, and that knowledge enables us to play as well as we can, finally, and some of my bad mood disappears. The fourth match point is too much for us, and that's that for another week... I feel happy its over, sad we've lost, embarrassed at my miserable performance, and guilty at having let my partner down.

Tennis is hard.

Cold and Classic YouTube

It's been a tough couple of weeks in Britain with icy winds coming directly from the Arctic and lots of snow which has messed up everyone's travel plans.

After falling over on the ice last year and breaking a company laptop, I managed to negotiate 3 days working from home last week with my boss. It wasn't particularly great; I really needed to see some people to complete the work and the isolation is tough - my colleagues are a good bunch and it's always nice to see them.

On Friday evening I discovered a little gem on YouTube - the legendary five set encounter between Roger Federer (19) and Pete Sampras (29) at Wimbledon in 2001. The match itself is rather dull for long periods - Pete Sampras was a great tennis player, but his style of play - a kind of extreme Serve and Volley, only frequently without the volley, was boring and mechanical in the extreme.

But details of the match delight. There's the women line judges frumpy frocks that look like Laura Ashley by way of Saga Holidays. There's Roger Federer, slightly effeminate with a pony-tail and wearing a coral necklace that looks worth about £5, the same value as his cheap red Wilson racket bag.

Then there's Pete Sampras, 29 going on 40 with a bald patch that seems to be the only part of his body without hair.

There's the commentators surprisingly prescient comments about Federer's talent, and the way he's begun to mature and harness that talent.

And finally there's the sheer beauty of Roger Federer in action - deftly reading, deflecting and attacking Caveman's serves, whilst banging in plenty of aces himself. Federer is astonishingly cool and collected throughout - this was his first ever match on Centre Court and the first (and last, although nobody knew that) time he'd played Pete Sampras.

His victory came as an enormous relief, not just to his friends and supporters, but to the entire tennis establishment. With viewing figures plummeting, the sport couldn't have survived another ten years of Sampras style rat-bastard tedium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGgmePjkRQ

Day Off

Well, I *sort* of got the election right and since then thoughts have turned to the World Cup and upcoming grass court tennis season (blink and you've missed it).

Managed to score a ticket to Queens Club on Monday - a rather lovely old British institution - home of the LTA until recently and also Tim Henman's base. It supposedly has the finest grass courts in the world, and to my inexpert eyes centre court looked wonderful just before the start of play at 12:30pm.

Day one of the tournament featured several plucky Brits battling against players a hundred or more places above them on the ATP computer rankings. No luck for Jamie Baker, James Ward or Alex Bogdanovic, but we did get to see an authentic star in the shape of Richard Gasquet, whose wonderful strokes and sublime backhand were a pleasure to see.

In Denial...

I'm 45 today and in complete denial about it!

So weird - just cannot get my head around that fact, and of course that in another fast-forward 5 years (which will feel subjectively like about 18 months) I'll be 50. It is so strange!

On Saturday I had to go into London for something, but was done by 2pm so went over to Wimbledon to see the tennis museum. One of the features is a little trip to a viewing platform on Centre Court, my first visit to "the cathedral of tennis" since 1987. As everyone says, it's a shock to see how small and intimate it is, especially compared to it's hideous competitors like the infamous Ashe Heap in Flushing Meadows.

The museum is rather nice with that immaculate clean hyper-maintained look that pervades the whole grounds. While some of the high tech displays are a bit tacky, the alternative would be static displays of yellowing tennis clothes, posters and warped rackets - not really worth seeing for all but the most die hard fans.

Open

On Tuesday June 6th 1995, I left work at lunchtime and made my way across Paris to a not-very-good seat on Court Philippe Chatrier – the best tennis court in France.

Despite the prestige of the French Open grand slam event, and the brilliance of the players, it wasn’t a good day. The first match was a men’s quarter final between clay court specialist Thomas Muster, seeded 5 and the 2002 champion Albert Costa. Their contest went to four sets and I don’t remember a single point or moment from any of them.

Next up was the match I’d come to see; Yevgany Kefelnikov versus Andre Agassi.

In 1995 Andre Agassi was the most famous and exciting tennis player in the world, a fashion icon, media superstar, boyfriend of Brooke Shields, and with the best return of serve in the history of the game. Unlike the boring and one dimensional Pete Sampras (eliminated in the first round that year by an unseeded Austrian called Gilbert Schallier), Agassi excelled on all surfaces, and had a game defined by touch, skill, imagination and the most astonishing reflexes. He was also maddeningly inconsistent and often seemed distracted by the glamour and excitement of his much reported life off-court.

The match was a stinker – here’s how Andre describes it in his autobiography “Open” co-written by Pulitzer prize winner J.R Moehringer, and published a few months ago:

In the quarters I face Kafelnikov, the Russian who likened me to Jesus. I sneer at him across the net as the match begins: Jesus is about to whip you with a car antenna. I know I can beat Kafelnikov. He knows it too. It’s written all over his face. But early in the first set, I lunge for a ball and feel something snap. My hip flexor. I ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen, pretend I don’t have a hip, but the hip sends lines of pain up and down my leg.

I can’t bend. I can’t move. I ask for the trainer, who gives me two aspirin and tells me there’s nothing he can do. His eyes are the size of poker chips when he tells me.

I lose the first set. Then the second. In the third I rally. I’m up 4-1, the crowd urging me onward. Allez, Agassi! But I grow less mobile with every minute. Kafelnikov, moving well, ties the set, and I feel my limbs go slack. It’s another Russian crucifixion. Au revoir, Grail. I walk off the court without collecting my rackets.

The real test wasn’t supposed to be Kafelnikov. It was supposed to be Muster, the hair-musser who’s been dominating on clay. So even if I’d gotten by Kafelnikov I don’t know how hobbled I would have been against Muster. But I promised Muster I’d never lose to him again, and I meant it, I liked my chances. I think no matter who was on the other side of that net, I could have done something great. As I leave Paris I don’t feel defeated; I feel cheated. This was it, I just know. My last chance. Never again will I be in Paris feeling so strong, so young. Never again will I inspire such fear in the locker room.

My golden opportunity to win all four slams is gone.

It’s gritty stuff, and actually that passage is one of the least memorable in the book. Open is quite simply the best sports autobiography I’ve ever read, and is so good it transcends the genre to become one of the best autobiographies ever written. It’s also horrifying and shocking.

The horror comes early in the form of Agassi’s dad, a former Olympic boxer, portrayed as a tennis obsessed disciplinarian who attempts to mould each of his four children into the best tennis player in the world. Andre is lucky enough to be the youngest:

He doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes he made with my siblings. He ruined their games by hanging on too long, too tight, and in the process he ruined his relationship with them.

At 13, thousands of hours of constant practice and haranguing from Mr Agassi have turned Andre into an unbeatable junior, so he’s shipped off to Florida and imprisoned (there’s no other word for it) in a tennis academy run by a former paratrooper called Nick Bolliteri. Rebellious and miserable, Agassi is nearly thrown out of the institution, but his talent, and those thousands of hours of home practice mean he gets away with things and is indulged as the star pupil of the academy. Academy is a lose word here, the inmates are bussed out to a hopeless private school for four hours of hopeless teaching a day, then back to our full-time jobs, hitting balls until after dusk, at which time we collapse in heaps on our wooden bunks…

And so it goes on, a damaged childhood is followed by a bruised adolescence followed by the inevitable entry to ‘the circuit’ (aged 16) which of course is the endless travel practice play practice travel routine of the ATP Tour.

Agassi was known for his eccentric ways throughout his career, but reading Open, you soon come to be impressed with how normal he actually is considering the type of life he’s had. There’s some wry humour, and some nice surprises; Brooke Shields, his first wife, is far from the bimbo she seemed to me at the time; she has an English degree and a serious interest in art and literature. Pete Sampras, Agassi’s chief rival really is as one dimensional and boring as he appeared. Steffi Graff, Agassi’s second and so far final wife emerges from an almost equally damaged childhood so craves domestic bliss and normalcy, which she pursues with the steel eyed concentration that brought her 22 Grad Slam titles. Their marriage seems happy, and it’s easy to understand why, they are very different characters but have a lot in common.

It’s their second or third date:

“We talk for the first time about tennis. When I tell her that I hate it, she turns to me with a look that says, Of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

My Life is Complete

Last night I had one of those 'my life is complete' moments...

Since 2003 I've been trying to see Roger Federer play live in a competitive match. Well, last night I was lucky enough to see the great man play Juan Martin Del Potro at the Dome in London.

It was a vivid almost shocking experience, with passages of play that featured tennis of a standard that seemed unreal.

Right now, even 12 hours after it all finished, I can't get the images out of my head - just incredible what elite level tennis players can do. It rather resembles a magician doing some incredible tricks, but whereas with the magician you know that there are mirrors or wires and illusions, with elite level tennis players you know there is nothing but technique and talent.

Images and moments in the match kept replaying themselves in my head all of today - definitely one of those unforgettable experiences...

Tableau vivant

We're so lucky to have had three classic Wimbledon men's finals in a row. At the end of each one, I've found myself feeling deeply sorry for the loser.

Others feel the same. This is the last line of the match report by the Guardian's live blogger Scott Murry who reported the entire match on line with wit and skill:

Tableau vivant: Roddick is sitting in his chair, motionless, dead behind the eyes, contemplating deeply existential issues.

Best Final Ever

Saint Roger the Saviour of Tennis, elegant even when going down in defeat

I've just watched the best (or maybe second best) Wimbledon men's final I've ever seen and I can't get over it and go to sleep yet.

The earliest Wimbledon final I can remember was Arthur Ashe vs Jimmy Conners in 1975, and I *think* I've seen them all since then, including the allegedly "best tennis match of all time" which was Borg vs McEnroe in 1980. The match became famous for it's 4th set tie-break.

Today's match, (Federer vs Nadal for those of you who live on the planet Tharg) also featured a 4th set tie break, whereby each player consecutively swopped Championship point (Nadal) or set point (Federer).

As a fan of Roger Federer, I'm gutted my man lost, but proud that he lost in such a manner - an incredible display of iron will and grace under pressure. The scoreline was:

6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7

Which is about as good as losing gets...

Lets hope Federer gets over this result, which he's already called the most painful of his career, and keeps playing the kind of sublime tennis which he's still capable of producing. Conditions were tough for him today - gusty wind works against players with exquisite feel and touch. Had we had a nice still day the result might (just might) have been different.

As we've come to expect, both Roger and Raffa conducted themselves brilliantly before, during, and after the match even though it was sad to see Roger so visibly upset.

I doubt I'll remember anything of 2008 in a few years time except the incredible 4+ hours of highest quality tennis that they played this afternoon.

Oh and Raffa is playing so well at the moment that next year he may just be the first man to achieve the grandslam since Rod Laver...

We're lucky to live through this era of amazing men's tennis.

Wimbledon

Did the annual trip to Wimbledon yesterday in the company of my grand slam buddy SG, who was over from France.

In the past couple of decades we’ve done Roland Garros twice, the US Open once, and now Wimbledon. We talk vaguely about completing a personal grand slam and visiting the Australian Open at some point in future.

And so much for all that – what about the tennis?

We started on an outside court where Jarkko Nieminen (seeded 24) was playing unseeded American Wayne Odesnik. Nieminen is a Finn and had attracted his own slightly bonkers fan club along. We found their chanting a bit irritating; if I were him I’d have told the fans to shut up. I love the outside courts at Wimbledon. Particularly in the first few days of the tournament you can see some really wonderful players compete at a distance closer than the hotshots in your local park. It’s also odd to see tennis courts without any form of chain-link fences; at Wimbledon they are have an immaculate sparse kind of beauty. I once crept to the edge of one of the outside courts at the end of a long day and ran my palm over the grass. It felt as smooth and level as a good quality carpet.

We stuck around for the best part of an hour and then drifted over past court No 9 where a women's singles match was in progress (see picture) and took our not particularly wonderful seats in Court No 1. Despite being up near the roof the view was good. Tennis stadiums (with the exception of the awful “Ashe Heap” in Flushing Meadows) have an intimacy that for obvious reasons football and cricket grounds lack.

First up was the brilliant but inconsistent Richard Gasquet, who at the age of nine featured on the cover of the French tennis association’s magazine. See him play when he’s on form and you can see why.

SG, who plays tennis to much higher standard than me, was seriously impressed by his languid ground strokes. His opponent was the bizarrely named Mardy Fish, a cool young dude who looks as if he’s left his surf board in the changing rooms. The match set a pattern that became familiar for the rest of the afternoon. For four or six or even eight games, the unseeded Fish looked every inch the equal of seeded Gasquet. Then something happened and there’s a particularly outstanding shot followed by an unforced error or two and suddenly the break of serve is there and set is gone. Fish wasn’t humiliated or crushed or rolled over; it was more a case of a point here and a point there that were lost, followed by games followed by sets. Gasquet won 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. I later learned he reckoned it had been one of his best performances ever.

Next up was the icon of the WTA, the face and image of women’s tennis, Miss Maria Sharapova. A Russian with an especially creepy controlling and manipulative tennis dad called Yuri, she has the looks and height and figure of a catwalk model, something her many sponsors and the WTA exploit to the full. Interestingly, she’s far from popular with us tennis heads and two short sets in her company was more than enough for everyone on Court No 1.

So why is she so hard to like?

There’s the irritating shriek that accompanies every shot; this is probably gamesmanship as an important element of tennis is the sound the ball makes as it hits the opponents racquet. Flat hard shots make a loud POCK! slice shots make a kind of a zipping noise, and topspin is a mixture of both. Expert players use their ears as well as their eyes to anticipate the direction and speed of a shot. Maria’s theatrical shrieks drown out the sound of the shot and generally irritate.

Then there's her ugly habit of glaring at her opponent just before she serves; in fact the glare seems to be an intrinsic part of her serve action. It's a nasty unpleasant habit, unworthy in a player of Sharapova's status and ability.

Finally there’s her style of tennis, which is completely one dimensional and mindless. The tactic is to serve hard and fast, and hit shots hard and fast. And that’s it. No wonder opponents like Justine Henin were able to outplay and out think and out guess her.

Just to put the icing on the cake, Sharapova’s opponent was the unseeded Stephanie Foretz, once ranked 62 in the world and now down at 105. She was no match for Sharapova’s power and speed, at least not in this match, and was crushed 6-1, 6-4. Proponents for equal pay for women’s tennis (a battle the women have won) would have a hard time defending this ridiculous mismatch which seemed designed to highlight the lack of depth within the women's game now that Hingis has been forced into retirement and Henin and Clisters have both voluntarily hung up their racquets.

Back to the blokes, and had the ever charming and popular Andy Roddick was up next, playing a young Argentinian called Eduardo Schwank who was coming fresh from an impressive 3rd round at Roland Garros. He managed to give Roddick (whose serve was scary it's so fast and powerful) a good match, Roddick eventually winning 7-5,6-4,7-6. The match could easily have gone to four sets and both SG and myself feel we’ll be seeing more of Schwank soon – you heard it here first.

Women’s tennis was redeemed a little by the final match we saw on Court No 1, which featured the beautiful and charming Jelena Jankovic. She has a sense of humour and is almost unique among elite professional tennis players in that still seems to enjoy playing the game (separate from the joy of winning). Playing a decent opponent called Olga Savchuk, the match was a bit closer than the scoreline of 6-3, 6-2.

And that was that for another year. We dawdled back past the outside courts where a few matches continued in the dusk and made plans to visit again next year.

Wonderful game, wonderful institution, wonderful day. Lucky me!

Wimbledon

Just back from a great day at Wimbledon. Thanks to the miserable weather, what should have been a rubbish ticket on court no 1 (the day the ladies final was on centre) turned out to be a bargain as we saw a men’s semi-final for £27.

Djokovic vs Nadal was hardly a classic, but for a couple of sets we got glimpses of the horrifying power of Rafael Nadal’s ground strokes, and the wonderful touch and timing of Novac Djokovic – a possible future champion.

Murry vs Henman

I'm very lucky in having some of the kindest neighbours in the world. Fully equipped with cable TV, they know I like watching tennis and were kind enough to tape the whole of the Murry vs Henman match from Cincinatti. The cassette was waiting for me on the doorstep last night, along with a brief message on a yellow sticky.

Watching the beautiful match, which may well have featured the best British men's tennis played for 60 or 70 years, I was reminded of Mark Nicholas' comments from June:

But there is no Tiger Tim any more, never was really. Instead we have Tantalising Tim, a marvellously gifted and flowing sportsman from an age of touch and feel, slice and drop, even serve and volley that the baseline's heavy-hitters and grunters have blown away. Let's face it, he even looks a bit square. You know, tennis shorts and shirt both pristine white and so last century against the board shorts and singlet vests that are increasingly de rigueur. Maybe, the tale of Henman to Nadal is in the wardrobe.

The Other Beautiful Game

Where's this then?

Some exculsive tennis club? Maybe the grounds of a nice hotel or sports club? Part of Bill Gates' garden?

Nope - it's a public tennis court in Christchurch Park, Ipswich at a little before 9:00AM this morning.

I think it's the most beautiful court I've ever seen - too bad my game doesn't do it justice.

Roland Garros

From 1990 to 1996 for reasons that make no sense, and made no sense at the time, I lived in Paris.

It's remarkable how seldom I miss the city, or give it much thought now. But there's one glorious exception, and that's the French Open tennis tournament, called Roland Garros.

One of the four grand slam events, it attracts the best players in the world who come to a rather souless collection of concrete stadiums near the Porte d'Auteuil. Once inside they compete on a strange surface called "clay" which is in fact a complex mixture of house brick crushed to a fine grit, real clay, sand, and a rubber binding agent.

During the wooden racket era, this surface was deadly slow and boring, and turned tennis into stylised form of attritional warfare - 20 and 30 stroke rallys with the aim to play safe and wait for your opponent to make an unforced error.

But in today's power era of carbon fibre and titanium, the surface is much better. It slows the game down enough to produce rallys, yet keeps it fast enough to reward guile and variety.

But best of all is the attitude of the French towards Roland Garros. Sure, it's a national institution but one that belongs predominantly to tennis fans. The entire country doesn't stop to watch the final, or really give the tournament much thought. This means two wonderful things - the place is full of genuine tennis fans, and there is very little queing for tickets, which can be had at a very good price particularly in the first week.

I hate to admit it, but it's better than Wimbledon in all respects except asthetics - the colour of the red clay is vile, and hard on the eyes in bright sunlight...

Iveta Benesova

Iveta ponders how to reply to roGER's cheeky e-mail while she plays Mary Pierce

This post is to celebrate the beautiful and lovely Iveta Benesova's victory over Mary Pierce in the Australian Open.

Congratulations, hun, and please don't be so shy about returning my calls and e-mails (oh and please keep the choicies and flowers). See you in Prague.