Friday, December 26, 2008

Trademark Shots: Which shots make a player stand out?

One interesting aspect of tennis is the varying techniques and shots that players can have in their repertoire.

Particularly at a higher level, players tend to have trademark shots, shots which that player is known for, and one that most other players don't even seem to attempt, let alone execute. A player's trademark shot is not necessarily their best shot or strength, and could be something that’s more unique or unorthodox rather than spectacular.

Below is a list of some of those trademark shots, while obviously there are still quite a few that I've missed out on.

Rafael Nadal
The unusually powerful double-handed backhand crosscourt passing shot, where he swings the racquet through in a straight line making the racquet seem more like a sword or cricket bat. He bends his knees down incredibly low and his racquet nearly hits the ground on the initial contact. Commentators refer to it as being like a double-handed forehand.

Roger Federer
The flick backhand half-volley passing shot. His opponent comes in on an approach shot right to his backhand side and Federer’s still on the forehand side of the court. He smoothly and casually strolls his way there, or so it looks and barely makes any backswing nor does he even look up, he just keeps his head still. He flicks the backhand right at the last second and directs it exactly where he wants to for a winning shot.

He's also got the short-slice backhand intended to make his opponents scoop it back up and force themselves into the net, after finding themselves in no-man’s land. Then Federer whips across an easy passing shot winner straight past them, while making his opponents feel silly and hopeless in the process.

Andy Murray
The high loopy forehand crosscourt that he throws in to completely take his opponent off-rhythm before throwing in the fast-paced flat forehand or backhand the next shot. Two of the most contrasting shots you could play consecutively, and Murray does it deliberately. Most players only hit change-up loopy forehands to give themselves more time to get back into the court, or either they usually hit with a fair amount of topspin as it is. But Murray uses it as a regular shot in his repertoire.

Nikolay Davydenko
I once read someone describe Davydenko on form as like “playing on skates”. The way he sprints from side-to-side, then sets himself in position right on top of the ball each time with perfect timing, makes movement and racquet control almost synchronous with each other at contact.

I also like the strangely nice feel he has on those double-handed volley dropshots. He can’t seem to hit any other kind of effective volleys but he bends down really low and opens his racquet face right out flat, instead of at an angle like most people would. He barely moves his racquet at all, keeping it in the same position to cut under the ball making it stop dead as it bounces over the net.

Andy Roddick
Roddick's serve reminds me somewhat of a rocket or missile launch, in how the motion is almost completely straight up and down and the way he literally launches into it. He gets his feet set close together, then extends his racquet all the way down and bends his knees really low to push forward and create a violent, powerful motion.

David Nalbandian
The backhand crosscourt angle shot, that he throws in the middle of a neutral rally catching his opponents completely by surprise. He flicks his racquet across, using almost entirely his left wrist, with his right hand as support. Most players need to either slow the pace down when attempting a short angle, roll over it with top spin or both but Nalbandian almost does it entirely with racquet control and feel.

David Ferrer and Tommy Robredo
The effort that they put in to make sure that they hit as many forehands as possible, even if that requires running all the way out of court, only to hit a three-quarter kind of shot, not even a near-winner or setup shot. You get the feeling that not much thought goes into whether any sort of reward will come out of doing it, but rather to follow the mindset of making everything into a forehand, as long as it's humanly possible.

Gael Monfils
He teases his opponent with a floating, mid-court ball, begging for it to be hit for as an approach shot. His opponents do exactly as they should, hitting a deep approach shot into the corner, then you can feel Monfils lighting up with excitement already anticipating the glorious running passing shot winner. He sprints over to the corner three or so metres behind the baseline, does a trademark slide and finds the down-the-line shot, just as he knew he would letting out a predictable “Allez!”.

Fernando Gonzalez
The go-for-broke inside-out forehand, where he takes a massive backswing and you know it’s going to be big before it's even hit. The backswing itself is intimidating itself, then he gets his footwork in position like he’s putting every ounce of energy into it knowing that he’s not going to be in position if it comes back. But that’s okay because he wants to hit an outright winner off it. I remember when Andy Roddick got back one of his “forehand bombs” in the US Open match, and Gonzalez got to it late and slapped a forehand two metres long afterwards, to essentially give up the point.

Igor Andreev
The sound that comes off his racquet after hitting a forehand. Andreev gets right under the ball, then whips right across it to send it spinning several rotations. Like the complete opposite of a cleanly struck shot.

Richard Gasquet
When he's on one of his hot streaks and you can tell how eager he is to hit his shots before he even hits them. Gasquet wants to hit glorious winners and he wants them to be spectacular. He puts in that extra hop on the backhand to make it a jumping backhand and gets right on top of that forehand. And just because he's in that kind of form, most of those winners actually come off. It even looks like he's walking quicker and more purposefully in between points than usual.
 

Then there are the more unique trademarks, those that aren't necessarily considered to even be close to a strength:

Andy Roddick’s drive backhand, how he grips his racquet with both hands together close to the middle of the handle, leaving a gap down the bottom, depriving himself of getting the full amount of power out of it.

Janko Tipsarevic, when he's wrong-footed, going back to retrieve a shot on the backhand side, hits the ball on the other side of the racquet strings. Like a very strange kind of forehand.

Tommy Robredo’s backhand, where he sets himself up with an exaggerated backswing then whips through his backhand, in a windmill sort of motion making almost a full circular rotation. His opponents predictably kick it up high to that side on serve, and he falls backwards three metres behind in the baseline just to be able to prepare for that stroke.

Fernando Gonzalez's backhand down-the-line, in that his racquet face is so flat on contact that after the ball bounces, that it kind of side-spins to the left. He sets up for his backhand in a manner that would seem to strongly favour the crosscourt backhand. Surprisingly he executes this shot, more often than would seem possible and it often catches his opponents by surprise because of the unlikelihood of the shot, as what happened to Federer in their Tennis Masters Cup 2007 match.

Mikhail Youzhny's service motion. He starts off his service motion with his front foot a fair distance from the baseline, to enable himself to move his front foot a couple of steps forward before making contact. As far as I know, he's the only active professional tennis player to do this, while everyone else starts with their front foot as close to the line as possible, while the back foot moves during contact, to get the body weight moving forward. Then, of course, Youzhny also has the one-handed backhand that starts off like a two-hander.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Is Plexicushion an improved surface from Rebound Ace?

Serena Williams on the new Plexicushion surfaceEarlier this year, Tennis Australia and the Australian Open’s tournament director, Craig Tiley made a deliberate decision to change the Australian Open’s court surface, from Rebound Ace to Plexicushion. The Australian press made headlines out of the surface switch, emphasising the distinct advantage that the surface would give for local hope, Lleyton Hewitt who had long spoken out about his desire to finally win his home Grand Slam.

The claims were made by some sources that the new Australian Open surface would be sped up to become even faster than the current speed of the courts at Wimbledon, while other sources stated that the surface would be playing at a similar speed to previous years. There were fears that the surface would be too similar to the courts at the US Open, and that the Australian Open had lost its uniqueness.

But one year later, now that the surface has been tried and tested under tournament conditions, by the players themselves and observed by the fans, we can more accurately evaluate the surface and its differences with Rebound Ace, and which players it favours and disadvantages.

Rebound Ace had more distinct qualities to hardcourt and was most known for its high bounce and ability to take spin. Over the years, the speed of the surface varied significantly, both due to the indecisiveness of the organizers and the inability to effectively test the surface due to the major impact that weather conditions had on the speed of the surface.

The courts were playing relatively quickly way back in 2001, when Pat Rafter made it through to the semi-finals but since then they had slowed down somewhat, especially in 2006 and 2007, which in part was due to the slowing down of courts across the board on the tour. In 2007, was when Lleyton Hewitt famously yelled to “Fix the courts!” in his five-set encounter with Michael Russell out of sheer frustration, a plea for help which eventually led to the court surface change today. The appointment of Craig Tiley as the new tournament director, replacing Paul McNamee, was the other reason behind the change.

In night conditions, the court was often slow and players needed to generate their own pace to be able to hit through the court. The difference between how the courts played at night, compared to day conditions was magnified. Last year I watched big serving lefty Australian, Chris Guccione put on a serving clinic against Rafael Nadal in Sydney, consistently serving aces against the world number 2 back then with serves that viciously kicked and spun out of court.

Then scheduled for the night session the next round against Austrian Jurgen Melzer, it was like Guccione’s serve was suddenly transformed into a mediocre stroke without any of the vicious spin from the day before, and the ball was consistently landing right into Melzer’s strike zone to return back with ease. For this reason, Guccione has been known to often request day matches to improve his chances.

The introduction of Plexicushion meant that many of the fluctuating playing conditions that were problematic with rebound ace were drastically reduced. The heat no longer reflected off the court as severely, where it was reported that the temperature on the rebound ace surface was often 10-15 degrees above the air temperature. The surface began to show more of the qualities of a typical hardcourt, in particular, predictability.

It was a medium-paced court, as close to the definition of a neutral court as you could find. It was a surface that didn’t reward any particular style of play over another, where slice backhands stayed relatively low, but heavily topspun groundstrokes were also given their fair share of reward. Players could stay back to trade groundstrokes, but were also able to finish points off at net if they were selective enough about it. For that reason, the surface was relatively well-received by the players, and there were no complaints made about it publicly.

In the end, it was concluded that the new surface was not overly different from Rebound Ace, for any type of player to gain a significant advantage, given that the old Rebound Ace surface was known to be a relatively fair one, in itself. Even though the old surface had been known to take spin particularly well, flatter hitters like Andre Agassi, Marcos Baghdatis and Marat Safin also had some of their biggest successes on the surface. In fact, if you look at the winners list, five of the six previous champions have been known to be relatively clean, flat strikers of the ball (Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Thomas Johansson, Andre Agassi, Marat Safin while Novak Djokovic is somewhere in between in that he can either flatten out his shots or impart a bit more topspin). Showing that if players were either tall or strong enough, or had the ability to take the ball early to counter the higher bounce, then that was a good recipe for success.

With the added predictability and elimination of some external factors, logic would suggest that we can expect to see more of the favourites move through the draw. After all, factors like the heat and changing conditions are potential factors that could disrupt the rhythm, mental outlook and physical conditioning of the more favoured player, issues that make the one-on-one battle less about pure tennis abilities.

Starting from next year, this predictability will extend even further, now that the heat rule has been modified to allow matches to be disrupted when the heat reaches above the limit of 35°C on court. Considering that the most high profile players are usually scheduled to play under the comfort of a roof on the show courts, and that the majority of them are in physically good shape, you would think that this decision is one that impacts and favours more the second tier and below players, like Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych. Players that are known more for their shotmaking and ball-striking, than their physical fitness.

Roger Federer regularly trains in Dubai in difficult conditions, Rafael Nadal is known as one of the fittest players on the tour, Andy Murray recently triumphed in hot temperatures in Cincinnati earlier this year, and Novak Djokovic is also physically fresh at the start of the tennis season. On the women’s side, the players are less proven in this area, but their matches are less likely to be decided to be physical fitness due to the shorter format.

If there was one criticism of the change in playing conditions, it was surprisingly the change of balls from Slazenger to Wilson, which had been previously used at the US Open. Prior to the event, Richard Gasquet and Fernando Gonzalez had made complaints about the balls fluffing up and slowing down, while Marat Safin, Andy Roddick, Andy Murray and Roger Federer agreed about the effect of the Wilson balls.

Safin and Gasquet commented that players needed to be strong in the upper body to be able to generate the pace necessary to hit through the court, reiterating that the bigger hitters had a clear advantage over the counterpunchers. This was further backed up by the success of Novak Djokovic and surprise packet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga earlier this year, both players that are capable of generating massive amounts of pace on their groundstrokes. Maria Sharapova on the women’s side also overpowered her opponents to pick up the coveted Australian Open title.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The mental side of tennis: Handling pressure, overcoming slumps and finding confidence

It is commonly thought that in order to succeed in tennis, your mental strength has to be exceedingly high. Tennis is a sport of one-on-one combat, one that continually asks questions of its competitors.

Is there a particular way in which players should go about overcoming these questions? Maybe we should be looking at how the best players dealt with the mental side of tennis, or maybe players should find the best solution for themselves.

When James Blake says that he plays better when he goes after he shots, he's setting up himself for that mindset so it works. But we generally like to criticise players for either being too passive, too aggressive, not showing belief, so surely there must be some ideal way that players should approach things, even if mentally they aren’t up to it to do so.

So in that case, how should players ideally deal with the following?

How to play the big points
How should players approach big points, in order to find their best tennis when it is absolutely necessary? Players can either choose to take the riskier approach and back themselves, to try and hit their biggest serves in, or either go the safer route by trying to maximise the chance of getting a first serve in. Should players try to raise their game under pressure and is it better to aim big or high percentage?

If we look at how the champions have dealt with it in the past, they don't wilt under pressure, instead they relish the pressure. They buckle down, show just that extra bit of determination and simply refuse to lose. The very best players seem to have a knack of refusing to give away points under extreme pressure, when trailing in a match but also seize the opportunity to take the lead by taking matters in their own hands, but without being overly adventurous. Roger Federer tries to make sure his opponents work hard on big points, by making sure he gets the return back into play.

Then there’s that saying of 'sticking to a winning game'. Players should keep it simple, and play each and every single point the same, regardless of its magnitude. There are particular patterns of play that won them points, so the obvious solution would be to continue implementing those. Stick to your strengths, or keep relentlessly attacking your opponent's weakness, whichever strategy was working earlier.

Then there are change-up tactics that can be employed, taking the art of playing big points to a whole new level. Take the opponent completely off-guard, by going against the typical pattern of play and doing the exact opposite to what the opponent was anticipating.

We've all seen Rafael Nadal serve to the same spot, almost time and time again, then on break point, he swings it out the other way. David Nalbandian likes to serve and volley with a three quarter-paced kick serve occasionally on break points to the ad court, for an easy putaway volley.

In the end, the mental side of tennis is a very simple issue, or at least ideally it should be kept simple. Even though there are some methods that might be better in theory, most importantly, the player has to believe in it to work for it to come off, and they have to feel comfortable with it.

What's the point in backing yourself if you missed the last three first serves serving for the set? I don't think it's any good trying to get a player too far away from their comfort zone, but at the same token, that shouldn't discourage players from trying to introduce new things into their game, as long as it is done in smaller steps.

How to deal with an off day
Every player has their bad days, but how that individual person deals with it, says a lot about how good of a player they are, much more so than how well a player can play on their "on" days. There are going to be days where players can't find the timing on their shots, and they can't even seem to feel or control where it's going. What is the best solution? For players to keep going for their shots, and keep a positive frame of mind, knowing that it will come sooner or later. Or is it more reasonable to temper that game and resort to a more controlled way of playing?

Some people believe that, by resorting to a safer approach, that they are in the process of showing a loss of confidence. When Lleyton Hewitt and Marin Cilic start playing poorly, the racquet head speed starts to drop and shots start to get dumped into the net. Surely by doing that, the outcome will be the same more often than not, whereas if you take a riskier, more wild approach, the results can be more mixed. Although it must be said that both Hewitt and Cilic, simply cannot find enough confidence to be able to play loose tennis. If you're feeling tight, sometimes it's too difficult to be able to swing freely to generate the necessary pace on the ball.

I've noticed a trend these days, where more and more players are playing matches on
their own terms, where if they lose a match, they go down swinging, going after their shots. James Blake and Nikolay Davydenko are examples of players that do this, and Federer has been known to be relatively stubborn as well. In some ways, it's like hitting through your fears to overcome them. Of course, it is possible to be somewhere in between, which seems to be the most effective solution. Keep a better balance by bringing the margins in, while still maintaining the racquet head speed and a proactive, aggressive mindset.

One other thing to consider is how well a player's own problem-solving ability on the court is. Something that is difficult to observe on the court is to know the thinking processes that occur inside of a player's head, that tells them of the various adjustments to make during a match, both technically and strategically. Anyone that has played tennis themselves knows that if they're making particular types of errors, then a big part of fixing it is to figure out what adjustment to make - such as tossing the ball up higher on serve, or making sure the footwork is correct.

Most players will have some sort of idea of what tendencies or bad habits they are likely to get into that causes them problems, but some players are better than others at self-coaching while others may not notice as much, or can't get themselves to break out of the habit in a match situation. This very same issue can also apply to the tactical side of tennis where particular players have a better sense of what to do in that particular situation, based on how their opponent is feeling mentally at that point of time, executing their shots and their playing patterns.

How to deal with playing against higher class opposition
What happens when a player is facing off against an opponent that is quite simply a class above them? Immediately it forces that player to go into the match with the mindset that playing their normal style of game isn't going to cut it and that it will just result in getting outplayed. The immediate solution would be to start aiming closer to the lines, maybe inject more pace into each shot and play a more adventurous style of game to disrupt the opponent's rhythm.

Yet implementing that kind of game, is like constantly being on edge, close to self-destructing but not quite. Everything needs to be executed perfectly with the right amount of patience, otherwise the confidence can be shattered quickly and it can turn into a one-sided affair. Is it better to risk losing easily, or play reasonably well for your standards and hope your opponent is below par? There is no real answer to this.

Some people would think that playing within yourself is a defeatist approach because it's like hoping your opponent will have an awful day, awful enough to hand you the win. Which is almost impossible if your opponent is Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. But if you have a strong serve, this method can be quite effective, playing solidly enough, ready to prey on your opponents whenever they throw in a bad service game. It's also a way of mounting pressure. Andy Roddick and Ivan Ljubicic are excellent at this.

What seems to frustrate viewers even more is watching players like Fernando Verdasco try ridiculously difficult shots, in fear of what their opponent is about to do to them before it even happens. Both traps which players can so easily fall into.

In theory, it is best to strike the right balance based on how well that player's opponent is playing that day, but having to execute a game that is outside of a comfort zone is difficult, especially when it doesn't reap its rewards, and particularly on the bigger points when the stakes are higher.

Then there is the additional issue in some cases, of needing to overcome a poor head-to-head record or match-up problem. In most cases, if a player has a poor record over another player, it means they have tried a variety of strategies without the desired success. So naturally, it results in a lack of belief, which you could say is a direct result of not being able to find ways to consistently win points against their opposition. So it's not really a mental problem, but a problem that was caused initially by their difference in ability, at least match-up wise, and the feeling of helplessness that it causes.

How much of tennis is mental, and how much is confidence?
We've seen that a player's mental strength is significantly affected by their levels of confidence. Players tend to go through phases. Top players have their moments where they can be incredibly clutch, but might go through particular phases where they are lacking in confidence. Andy Roddick went through a phase of losing almost every single tie-break, then winning almost every single tie-break, and even nearly broke the record of consecutive tie-breaks won, and now he's back to blowing opportunities again.

Whenever players blow opportunities, often it becomes a habit, as players start to think about their previous matches more and more. But after feeling good about their game again and scoring some big wins again, all of that becomes history again, for some of them. Other players become emotionally scarred, and never seem to get over that hurdle, like Guillermo Coria though that is an unusually strong case.

Based on how often players seem to fluctuate in their ability to play important points or matches, it is safe to say that mental side of tennis is a lot about confidence and belief, which can change drastically throughout a player's career. Usually this is reflected by the fluctuations of a players' ranking. Confidence and belief can extend to many things, like the confidence to try to add variety in your game, or make major changes to your technique, then implement it in an actual match situation. I always admired Justine Henin's courage to tinker with her service motion on such a regular basis.

On the other hand, confidence and belief almost stems completely from your own results and things that have happened previously, like whether you were able to close out matches successfully recently or whether you choked a couple away. Some of it is really just a realistic estimation of your own abilities, like if you're playing well, then you're going to be feeling confident, with maybe only a 20% increase or decrease, depending on whether you're an optimistic or pessimistic person. If your second serve keeps getting attacked, then obviously you're going to believe that it's a big weakness. The big variable is what you think your potential is, not how good you are, and that belief has just as much to do with what other people think, specifically those closest to the players, such as coaches.

The kind of nerves that affect the end of sets and end of matches seem to be more easily fixable, because players are able to replicate that situation more often to be able to replace those bad memories with good ones. But the bigger occasions like Grand Slam semi-finals, are almost a completely different issue altogether, quite simply because there are much fewer opportunities to get over that hurdle and maybe it is the one thing that you can really say is dependent on natural mental ability or belief.

Some players handle it better with experience, others get better as they start to become better players and win more often while others remain equally poor with each experience. I'd say that this sort of choking is not necessarily about not believing in your abilities as a player, but having some sort of fear or doubts about whether they can finish off the match. Even a slight hesitation or over thinking about the match would be enough to do it. I'm sure there are many players that have done so in the past, that know how good they are as players.

So in this case, would sports psychology be an effective solution? Sports psychology can teach you ways to deal with pressure situations, like how to manipulate your thoughts and stay positive. Seeing how many players use different approaches to make sure that they remain calm and ensure that they don’t rush points, like Maria Sharapova looking at her racquet strings or Novak Djokovic bouncing the ball, there have to be some advantages in this. As a counterpoint, I've heard that turning to sports psychology is admitting to a problem, hence placing more focus on it. So next time, that player finds themselves serving for the set in a match, they’re just going to think about it even more.

Is it a good thing to think highly of your abilities, or to have an underdog mentality?
Some players seem to have a better ability to bounce back from poor matches, and poor sets of tennis, still showing that confidence within themselves to be able to raise their games. It is also necessary to show some sort of belief in your game to be able to challenge the top players.

There are some players that seem to believe that their game can just come together at any moment. David Nalbandian specifically comes to mind, as a person with this sort of mindset. You can easily see the benefit in having this approach since the more confidence you have, the less chances of having previous matches affect your performance negatively in future matches.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you think that your game can just come together like that, then surely the motivation to constantly improve your own weaknesses has to be diminished? What is better? To see your own weaknesses as major problems, and be willing to improve them, while easily getting down on yourself whenever your opponent attacks it, or to just believe in it outright? Is it possible to have both? I find it extremely fascinating in tennis, how on-court, it is necessary to stay calm and not get overly critical of your own mistakes. But the opposite is true when the match is over. You have to care enough to want to learn from those mistakes/weaknesses. Is it a case of just mind-blocking mid-match then, rather than any mental attitude?

At the lower level, players often go through slumps and long periods where they often lose consecutively in early rounds. It even happens often at a higher level for top 20 players, which shows just how common it is. Mikhail Youzhny seems to be an example of a player who has had a moderately fluctuating career from year to year.

It has to be hard to keep finding enjoyment in playing during times like that, when you're feeling down about your game. Imagine going for that like months, and still having nothing change, even after putting in all that work. It has to be discouraging, so it takes a lot of motivation and positive energy to get through that. Then add to that, the potential financial problems that could occur and questioning about whether they should continue playing tennis as a career.