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Heroic siblings take off again!
"If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again" - Terry Venables
1903 was a historic year for siblings. In tennis, two sets of brothers contested the doubles in
the Davis Cup, Reginald and Laurie Doherty leading the British to victory over Americans Robert
and George Wrenn. On December 17th 1903, exactly one hundred years ago today, the Wright
brothers, Wilbur and Orville, achieved the first powered flight.
From that date on, progress in aviation was meteoric. Six years later, Louis Bleriot earned
himself the £1000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail to the first aviator to cross the
English Channel. At that time aircraft could only fly for about twenty minutes before they
started malfunctioning. Sixty years later, however, men were flying as far as the moon. Unmanned
spacecraft now hurtle through the solar system. Andre Agassi owns a private jet of his own
to facilitate his tournament travel and several hundred million passengers board commercial
flights to destinations around the world every year.
In a couple of weeks their number will include another famous pair of siblings, the high-flying
Williams sisters, looking to re-establish themselves as the world's best at the Australian Open
in Melbourne. They will face not only Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne, the principal
beneficiaries of their absence, but also an exciting array of new talent, including a clutch
of fast-improving Russians: Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, Nadia Petrova, Vera Zvonareva
and Maria Sharapova.
When Bleriot landed at Dover all those years ago, he gave British Customs a problem. They had
no provision for a landing other than by ship, so Bleriot was logged in as a ship's Master
and his plane was logged in as a yacht! Australian customs officials may be similarly perplexed
when they're presented with Jelena Dokic's passport in the next couple of weeks. Her WTA bio
states she was born in Belgrade, but she was actually born in Osijek, Croatia. At the age of
eleven, she moved with her family to Australia and became an Australian citizen in 1994. Despite
twice representing her adopted country in the Fed Cup, she surrendered her Australian passport
two years ago following a bust-up with tournament officials over the Australian Open draw.
Since then she has played under the Yugoslavian flag, but earlier this year she declared an
intention to change her nationality back to Australian in order to compete in the 2004 Summer
Olympics in Athens! When she ends her self-imposed Australian Open exile next month, she will
(probably?) represent Serbia-Montenegro.
A century ago there was no Australian Open, but one of aviation's pioneers managed to find
some tennis courts near Melbourne Cricket Ground. He crash-landed a copy of Bleriot's
famous plane right onto the courts shortly after take-off! Given their long absence
through injuries, Venus and Serena will probably encounter some turbulence during the
fortnight, but it should be pretty much business as usual. I can't see them crash-landing
against the likes of Dokic.
Dave Winship (17 December 2003)
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Branded a failure at 14!
Tim Henman's first Masters title at the age of 29 is another reminder that success in sport is
not necessarily the exclusive province of the young. Late bloomers and late starters like
Martin Verkerk, Lindsay Davenport, Todd Martin, James Blake, Goran Ivanisevic and Rainer
Schuettler either missed the express route or took some stops along the way. Geographical
isolation contributes to the fact that many Australians, like Wayne Arthurs and Nicole Pratt,
are late bloomers.
Certainly, Henman was not the top British junior when he was eighteen. Which begs the
question - why is the LTA content to write off so many juniors when they've barely started
navigating their teenage years? The LTA Futures Programme focuses on the early identification
and development of talented youngsters. The training of 'Club Futures' players is funded out
of grants awarded to LTA accredited performance clubs and the better players are plucked out
for special 'County Futures' training administered by their County Association. The very best
are designated as 'National Futures' and receive individual sponsorship from the LTA. It's an
excellent programme. There's just one little problem - the Futures Programme caters for ten
to thirteen year-olds.
So what happens when these players outgrow the 'Futures' scheme at the tender age of fourteen?
Well, the best are creamed off for further development at one of a worryingly small number
of regional Academies. And the others? Well they go back to their clubs and try to cope with
the stigma of failure. At the age of fourteen!
Teachers and coaches are all too familiar with the scenario whereby children benefiting from
earlier physical development than their peers enjoy success at the age of twelve or thirteen
only to be overtaken in their mid-teens when the late developers get going. And that's just
one issue. What about the late starters? Rainer Schuettler didn’t even think about being a
professional tennis player until he was seventeen!
Tennis in this country will suffer greatly if we discriminate against late starters and late
bloomers. Frankly, it would be better to scrap the performance programme altogether and leave
it to independent coaches than persist with a strategy that involves telling fourteen-year-olds
that they are failures! After all, several of the Argentinian players who have recently made it
to the top of the men's game have managed it without any help from their tennis federation.
Fast-tracking is fine, but the Futures Programme must be expanded to embrace youngsters between
the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
Dave Winship (13 November 2003)
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Betting scandal shakes the ATP
"We won! We won! We won! Um, unfortunately, I bet on the other team, so we won't be
going for pizza." - Chief Clancy Wiggum (The Simpsons)
Coming hard on the heels of the revelation that its own trainers were guilty of dispensing a
nandrolone-contaminated product to players, another major scandal has slam-dunked into
the laps of the beleaguered ATP this week. Match-fixing allegations surfaced at the weekend,
plunging the game's administrators into a state of panic. It all came to light a while back
when bookmakers discovered that some matches were attracting a far greater betting turnover
than expected.
Gambling scandals have sullied the image of other sports and now it looks like tennis is going to
be dragged through the mire. At a recent news conference, the ATP's CEO Mark Miles pledged to
be proactive in tackling this serious threat to the integrity of the sport. He will need to be.
The explosion of internet gambling poses a significant challenge.
To his credit, Miles has taken the initiative of entering into an agreement with internet
betting company Betfair whereby ATP officials can request details of the company's audit logs
whenever there is a case to answer.
Ultimately though, the governing body will be judged by its decisiveness in dealing with the
cheats. Clearly, no one should be allowed to bet on a match if they can influence its outcome
in any way, but restrictions should also be applied to prevent the exchange of privileged
information. Where such restrictions are violated, there must be thorough investigations and
stiff punishments. The challenge for the ATP in today's cyberworld is to find a way to police
the game rigorously and deter the cheats.
Dave Winship (16 October 2003)
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The defining images of 2003
Although Summer seems intent on another lap of honour and Autumn seems reluctant to take the
baton, midweek evening tennis has just about run its course at our club for another year.
Looking increasingly brittle and tinted, the leaves will soon be floating in October's
puddles and moss spores will proliferate on the courts well before Halloween marks the end
of the month. By then, memories of the US Open will have faded somewhat. But for me, the
31st will prompt a flashback to Andy Roddick's triumph at Flushing Meadows.
At Halloween time, I often think of Charles Schulz and his famous 'Peanuts' characters. After
all, Schulz staked a bit of a claim on Halloween when he produced 'The Great Pumpkin' a few
decades ago. I'm sure you recall Linus who, while the rest of the gang went out
trick-or-treating, sat in a pumpkin patch year after year faithfully waiting for the Great
Pumpkin to rise up with his bag of presents? On one occasion, it seemed as though his lonely
vigil had been rewarded, but it turned out to be just a silhouette of Snoopy in his World War
I Flying Ace outfit.
I can't help wondering what Linus's reaction would have been if the Great Pumpkin had really
materialised before him. My guess is he would look pretty much like Andy Roddick looked when
his 123rd ace of the tournament brought him the coveted US Open title.
The image of Roddick curling into a ball, crying and mumbling "I don't believe it, I don't
believe it" was certainly, along with Roger Federer's emotional reaction to winning Wimbledon,
a defining moment of the sporting year for me. It was an engagingly gushy
reaction which belied the newly-discovered mental toughness which earned him his success.
Like Linus, most of us are condemned to wait in the pumpkin patch chasing silhouettes forever.
Great sporting achievements and global recognition may elude us, but did that ever deter us
from dreaming? Weaned on such aspirations, even the most humble of weekend warriors amongst
us can feel that twinge and empathise with a champion at the moment of victory. And every
time we feel that old tug at the heartstrings, we're reminded that their achievements
transcend the prosaic and illuminate the human psyche, even in this era of big business sport.
Dave Winship (1 October 2003)
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It could be all over in 45 minutes!
Here is an extract from a joint press conference held yesterday by two top Belgian
tennis players, Justine Henin-Hussein and Kim Clijsters-Campbell:
Kim: Hi, laydeez and gentlemen. I vill take ze first question. Oh wait
- Justine hass put her hand up, so she vill take ze first question.
Justine: I didn't put my hand up.
Kim: Ja, you did, I saw you!
Reporter: Excuse me. Justine, do you still stand by your assertion that you have not been doped with performance-enhancing drugs?
Justine: Oui, for sure! I am ready to undergo whatever test, wherever, whenever
to prove I'm clean. For sure, these things do not come in small pills you can hide in
your pocket.
Kim: Ja, zey do actually!
Justine: For sure, there's only one truth and therefore I tell you, as I have
said on many occasions before - I have never been tempted to use drugs. The drug testers
have found absolutely no evidence. I think, for sure, Kim is bluffing.
Kim: She iss ze one zat iss bluffing! Ja, y'know she iss alvays bluffing! She alvays says she has zees injuries when she iss loossing. Last week she called ze trainer and said
she had a temperature.
Justine: For sure, I did have a temperature.
Reporter: What was it?
Justine: 98.6.
Reporter: Kim, what do you say to the accusation that this is all just part of a strategy to prevent Justine taking over as world number one?
Kim: Vot? Ja, I vill tell you. Y'know, she must be stopped! She hass ze capability off
vinning Vimbledon in 45 minutes!
Dave Winship (12 September 2003)
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Damned statistics
Women's tennis has unquestionably become more powerful in recent years and we've heard
Serena Williams joke about competing on the ATP Tour. However, anyone wishing to make
too big a deal of this should heed the salutary lesson provided by a pair of physiologists
who, in 1992, announced in the scientific magazine Nature that the wide gap between men and
women athletes was closing fast. Their analysis of world-record running speeds at various
distances during the twentieth century led them to the prediction that the men's and women's
marathon world records would be equal by 1998 and that women record holders would catch up
with men in shorter distances early in the 21st century.
Unfortunately, extrapolation of the data also allowed the following conclusions:
- male runners were stationary just over a thousand years ago
- marathon runners will outpace 200m sprinters by the end of this century
- a woman marathon runner will be faster than a cheetah in 300 years time
- women marathon runners will reach the speed of sound in 4000 years.
What was that Mark Twain quotation about lies and statistics?!
Dave Winship (1 September 2003)
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Pushy parents
Parent coaches have been a significant feature of professional tennis for some time now.
The history of the game, particularly the women's game, is littered with stories of
parental abuse on the one hand and examples of highly successful bonds on the other.
French tennis was recently stunned by the revelation that the father of one of the country's
leading juniors was detained by French police for allegedly drugging his son's opponents. It's
yet another clear illustration of the hazards children can face when they encounter unreasonable
parental expectation and excessive parental involvement.
Nevertheless, many of the sport's greatest legends were forged in the fire of parental ambition.
The catalyst for the success of the Williams sisters was of course their father Richard's dream
that his daughters would one day be the top two female players in the world. "What's the point
in ordinariness?" asks Krishna Bhupathi, father of Mahesh Bhupathi, the former world No 1 doubles
player. "The real high of life is in being famous. Anyone who does not agree is a hypocrite. I
was very clear about what he should become and I’m not apologetic about it. I gave up my career
as an investment banker in Dubai for Mahesh’s tennis."
Unfortunately, for every Mahesh Bhupathi and for every Williams sister, there are probably
hundreds of victims of excessive parental pressure. The emotional intensity that a parent can
bring to a player/coach arrangement is a potent ingredient, but a potentially toxic one.
The parent-child bond is often painfully severed well before aspirants enter the world of
popping flashbulbs and endorsements.
The Lawn Tennis Association recently recruited the internationally respected Czech Zdenek
Zofka as coach of the academy at Bath. Zofka applauds the achievements of the Williams
family and laments the lack of parental involvement in British tennis. "Aggression is
necessary to win matches and we absolutely need pushy parents for that," he says. You can
see where he's coming from, but surely Richard Williams's success was based on a realistic
assessment of his daughters' athletic potential and his ability to harness their determination
to the driving force of his own burning ambition. It's pretty much incontrovertible that the
girls' commitment to the cause was genuine.
"It's just my desire," said Serena Williams in an interview a while ago, emphasising the significance
of her self-motivational qualities. "I think no one can say to someone else 'You have to do this.
Go, go, go!' You have to say it to yourself."
Establishing the right kind of balance between disinterest and destructive parental pressure is
difficult, but it must involve a recognition on the part of parents that their children should
be gradually taking control of their own lives. Refusing to hand over the reins in a controlled
manner could result in someone coming off the horse and getting hurt.
Dave Winship (12 August 2003)
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Should umpires be allowed to use discretion sometimes?
The day after Greg Rusedski's astonishing self-destruction in the second round at Wimbledon, my
son and I sat and watched an absorbing five-set encounter between Frenchman Anthony Dupuis and
the diminutive Belgian Olivier Rochus on an outside court. Nobody grunted very loudly, nobody
hurled expletives at the umpire and nobody cried during a post-match interview. No wonder the
media gave it a miss.
The tennis was superb and it held our attention for the greater part of three hours, but we did
find time on the changeovers to swap views about the previous day's big incident. There's no
point dwelling on Rusedski's over-reaction to the umpire's decision not to allow a let when a call
of "out" came from the stands. The poor man has had more than enough criticism heaped on him for
his outburst and I'm not going to shovel any more in his direction at this time. After all, they
say that before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes (then if he doesn't
like it, at least he's a mile away and you've got his shoes!).
However, fancy Greg not knowing that "out" calls from spectators are not considered a hindrance!
Okay, it's not exactly covered in the Rules of Tennis. And, all right, you won't find it in the
Code of Conduct or even in the Grand Slam Rules and Tournament Regulations! But, come on, you only
have to go to page 25 of the 2003 ITF Duties and Procedures for Officials and there it is, in black
and white, as clear as that spectator's conscience. Yeh right.
Surely common sense should have prevailed and a let should have been played?
Dave Winship (20 July 2003)
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The supplementary question!
Bohdan Ulihrach's drug suspension was dramatically overturned when the ATP announced that
it's own trainers were guilty of dispensing an electrolyte replacement product which may
have been contaminated by nandrolone. Seven male tennis players tested positive for the
banned steroid between August 2002 and May 2003.
One can sympathise with the players. They would not have thought of refusing a tablet
offered by a bona fide trainer to combat the effects of electrolyte imbalance and dehydration
during or after a match. Up until now that is.
The fact is, nutritional supplements are not licensed medicines and are not subject to the
same strict requirements as licensed medicines. There can be no guarantees that such products
are free from prohibited substances. It's a real embarrassment for the ATP. It's trainers
cannot fail to have been aware of the risk of contamination. The WTA, whose trainers do not
hand out supplements of any kind apart from individually wrapped aspirin, have adopted a much
more responsible attitude.
A cavalier approach to anti-doping policies is inexcusable and the ATP's handling of the
whole issue leaves them wide open for criticism. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is
concerned that the ATP's conclusions were based purely on internal investigations and The ITF
must be furious that it's anti-doping programme, backed by the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) and WADA, has been compromised in this way. It gives strength to the argument that the
ATP, the WTA and the Grand Slam Committee should be brought under the umbrella of a single
unified governing body.
It also compels players to increase their awareness of diet and the dangers of using supplements,
because, ultimately, they have to accept prime responsibility for their own bodies.
Dave Winship (17 July 2003)
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Corporate hostility!
Remember Greg Rusedski's Wimbledon quarter-final in 1997? There were two Britons in
the quarter-finals that year and the country was agog with excitement. You would have
expected to see packed rows of cheering, flag-waving fans, but when Rusedski walked
onto court, there were more than 5,000 empty seats. To borrow an epithet from Manchester
United's Roy Keane, "the prawn sandwich brigade" were apparently still in their marquees
guzzling champagne.
Remember the 2001 Wimbledon final between Pat Rafter and Goran Ivanisevic?
Rain had washed out most of Saturday's schedule and the men's final took place on a Monday
for the first time since 1922. 10,000 tickets went on sale at the gates just hours before
the match and Centre Court was filled with a noisy, vibrant crowd who sang and cheered and
chanted and transformed the stands into a kaleidoscope of painted faces, bizarre hats,
flags and inflated kangaroos. There were protracted Mexican Waves and every point was
greeted with a deafening roar. Rafter described the crowd as the best he had ever played
in front of and Ivanisevic said: "Today was unbelievable. I've been in the Final three
times before but never in this kind of atmosphere."
In common with other major sporting events, Grand Slam organisers gain a lot of revenue from
corporate hospitality. But what they gain in revenue, they lose in excitement - and an excited
crowd has a galvanising effect on the players. Was it just coincidence that the 2001 final
was an emotionally charged five-set thriller?
We should not be too critical of Wimbledon in particular. It is virtually the only top
sporting event where anyone can queue and get tickets on the day and the All England Club
tries to give preference to companies that support British Tennis.
Nevertheless, it is disappointing that security concerns have prompted a reduction in the
number of tickets available to people queuing overnight for the Wimbledon middle Saturday
this year. Only 500 Centre Court tickets will be available (compared to the 2000 sold to fans
at the gates last year). You would have thought that the organisers would be keen to repeat
the amazing success of "People's Days" such as the 2001 final. The benefit to the sport must
surely outweigh the cost of a little extra security?
Dave Winship (24 June 2003)
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The Wimbledon forecast
Two of Britain's great obsessions - the weather and Wimbledon - come head to head this month. "The
weather is one of the biggest assets we’ve got, or one of the biggest hindrances we’ve got," says
Eddie Seaward, the Head Groundsman at Wimbledon.
Of course, we Britons feel particularly aggrieved about the part the weather played in Tim Henman's
assault on the Wimbledon title in 2001. In a largely dry Wimbledon fortnight, rain stopped play just
when Henman seemed poised to become the first Briton in 63 years to reach the men's final. The
disruption halted Henman's momentum and played into the hands of Goran Ivanisevic and the rest is
history.
Yes, we're totally paranoid about our weather. The first sight of a cloud anywhere in the vicinity of
London SW19 prompts the great perennial debate over whether there should be a retractable roof over
Centre Court.
Spurious forecasts from the hapless people at the Met Office don't exactly help matters either. Now,
I don't know much about meteorology - if you mentioned El Nino in a conversation, I'd probably
conjure up the image of a Moroccan tennis player - but I assume that weather forecasters pay more
than lip service to chaos theory these days. As small variations in atmospheric conditions may lead
to big differences in the resulting weather, I assume they run their computer models several times
with different initial conditions to test the reliability of their predictions. But is British
weather forecastable at all? Air flows converge from all sorts of directions and they interact in
such a complex manner that even the most sophisticated systems can't cope. Ever since their failure
to predict the 1987 hurricane, have you noticed that forecasters no longer commit to anything
specific unless it's really obvious and they always allow for the possibility of some extreme
weather, just in case?
You see? There I go again. I should be writing about Hewitt and Henman and Agassi and the Williams
sisters, but thinking about Wimbledon somehow just gets me all excited about the weather. Every year
it's the same - the tennis almost fades into the background.
I came across this interesting quote today:
"He that will not reason is a bigot. He that cannot reason is a fool. And he that dares not reason
is a slave."
Well, I'd just like to add this bit to it:
"He that reasons badly has probably been listening to too many weather forecasts!"
Dave Winship (1 June 2003)
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Scrapping the Nationals is wrong!
I suppose the National Championships went on the endangered species list six years ago when Tim
Henman and Greg Rusedski decided their ambitions were better served chasing ranking points
elsewhere. The public lost interest, the BBC baulked at the prospect of training their cameras
on deserted stands, and the Lawn Tennis Association started losing money. Yes, okay, it was
definitely a problem!
But what message is the LTA sending to Britain's aspiring young players by unceremoniously
scrapping the event? Setting financial viability aside for a moment, the decision implies that
Britain's best simply aren't considered good enough to warrant a national championships. Can
you imagine the Football Association scrapping the FA Cup in response to the lack of success of
English clubs in European competition?
David Felgate, the LTA's new Performance Director, is right to encourage young British players
like the current national champions, Alex Bogdanovic and Anne Keothavong, to seek out Futures,
Challenger and Satellite tournaments in an effort to improve their world rankings. But it must be
possible to schedule the national championships at a time when opportunities are relatively scant.
It might even be worth moving the event to late November or early December when the tour
calendars fizzle out.
Andrew Castle's views on this are illuminating. "It's a shame it's gone," said the three-times
national champion. "The first time I played it, I was ranked about 100 in the world, I'd been
struggling in the challengers and satellites and this was a chance to come home, make some money
and put some wins in the bank. If I had a decent nationals, I felt good about myself for a long
time afterwards."
The event might fail to make money once in a while, but so be it. If it serves to give our
players a bit of a lift and if it serves to foster and strengthen a sense of unity among the
players - crucial for our prospects in the Davis Cup, apart from anything else - it would
justify dipping into the Wimbledon profits.
Surely, it's the duty of a national sporting organisation to determine the country's national
champions?
Dave Winship (15 May 2003)
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Agassi is the Red Baron of the red clay
The red dust starts to fly at the French Open at the end of this month. Intrigued by the name
of the stadium, I've had a little delve into the history of the tournament. Apparently, back
in 1927, the four musketeers Jacques Brugnon, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste beat
the Americans on their home soil and brought home the Davis Cup. However, there were no
suitable venues in France for the Challenge Round the following year, so the Stade Français
club offered to sell the tennis authorities a three hectare site, on condition that the new
stadium bore the name of one of its illustrious former members, the pioneering aviator and war
hero Roland Garros.
Garros had died ten years earlier - killed in combat only five weeks before the Armistice. He
was famous not only for being the first man to fly across the Mediterranean, but also for
integrating a fixed machine gun in the cockpit of his monoplane. He was able to fire through
the propellor by mounting steel deflector shields on the blades, but, tragically, his
ingenious technical innovation fell into German hands when he was shot down behind enemy lines
in April 1917. Pilots on both sides were under instructions to burn their planes if they came
down in enemy territory and Garros was frantic to avoid the discovery of his secret device,
but his plane refused to burn. It was taken to Berlin where Anthony Fokker, a Dutch airplane
designer working in Germany, copied and improved the concept. Within days, the Germans were
installing synchronizing gear on the Fokker planes made famous by pilots such as the
illustrious Baron Manfred von Richtofen, popularly known as the Red Baron. You must have heard
of the Red Baron - he even appears as Snoopy's adversary in Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoon!
However, the Germans have not yet mastered the art of playing tennis on the red clay of Roland
Garros. That particular secret has fallen into the hands of the Spaniards and South Americans.
Unfortunately, no Frenchman has won the title since Yannick Noah back in 1983. Grosjean,
Boutter, Escude, Lisnard, Santoro, Clement, Gasquet, et al will all be doing their utmost to
remedy the situation, but, to quote Snoopy's creator: "In the book of life's questions, the
answers are not in the back."
But Andre Agassi is a player who has found the answers in the past. Even at the age of
33, Agassi will be the most potent threat to the Spaniards and South Americans. The Las Vegas
ace is flying high as the world number one once again and you can expect him to arrive at
Paris with all guns blazing.
Dave Winship (1 May 2003)
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Video replays
The unsavoury spectacle of John McEnroe berating officials for poor decisions is now pretty
much consigned to history, but as television companies use more and more sophisticated
techniques to analyse decisions, the pressure on the umpires and the line judges continues
to mount. The players have to rely on officials making really tough decisions in the
heat of the moment, often under enormous pressure and always without any technological
assistance whatsoever (apart from 'Cyclops'). With the benefit of super-slow, close-up
replays, viewers at home are in a better position than the court officials to make accurate
judgements on line-calls. And that isn't good for the game.
Perhaps, like cricket, tennis could adopt the idea of an additional "remote" umpire. The
on-court umpire could refer cases of doubt to the second umpire who would analyse a
slow-motion replay and judge accordingly.
As for the argument that the game would become disrupted and the principle of continuous
play would be violated, that simply doesn't hold water, because, if you think about it,
decisions are already subject to scrutinization and review in clay-court matches when
the umpire comes down off his chair to examine a mark. Everybody accepts this level of
disruption.
So, provided that the camera technology would allow a second umpire to make a decision in the
time it takes an on-court umpire to walk from his chair, examine a mark and walk back again,
the principle of continuous play would not be seriously jeopardised.
The time has come for umpires officiating in Grand Slam, Masters Series and Tier 1
events to use cameras to ensure that no blatant mistakes can occur. It is no longer good
enough to say it all evens out in the end. If the camera can clearly show if a ball was in or
out, surely the question is not 'if' but 'how' the sport should deploy the technology.
Dave Winship (23 April 2003)
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The "Worcestershire Windmill"
The prospect of a British Wimbledon champion received a boost this week with the discovery
of a 15-year-old Worcestershire schoolboy who is believed to have the fastest serve in the
world. It is alleged that Michael Took, known variously as the "Kidderminster Cannon" and
the "Worcestershire Windmill", has exceeded Greg Rusedski's record 149 mph serve by an
incredible 15 mph!
His coach, a part-time laboratory assistant at the school where Michael is studying for his
GCSEs, said that Michael's serve was his most successful experiment. "I've been teaching the
basic principles of rocket propulsion to the kids," he told local reporters at the
Herefordshire & Worcestershire Under 16 Invitation Tennis Tournament. "Looks like Mickey was
taking more notice than I thought!"
The six-foot-two youngster is to receive considerable financial assistance from the Lawn
Tennis Association, although representatives of the LTA Coaching Department are thought to
be concerned about Took's unconventional serving action which starts with a windmill-style
wind-up, reminiscent of Who guitarist, Pete Townshend. "It's too early to talk about him
winning Wimbledon," said a LTA spokesman. "He can certainly serve at a frightening speed, but
his action looks unusual, to say the least. We're in the process of devising a five-year
development plan for Michael and we'll be keeping a careful eye on him."
If the boy can serve at over 160 mph, who cares if his action is unusual? I say don't tamper
with it - let him just go with his natural ability. Who knows? Maybe the windmill serve will
catch on and become part of the new look of tennis in the 21st century!
Click on the windmill picture for detailed analysis of Mickey Took's sensational "windmill"
serve.
Dave Winship (1 April 2003)
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Is David Felgate charismatic enough to succeed as the LTA's Performance Director?
When David Felgate accepted the challenge of replacing Patrice Hagelauer as
the LTA's Performance Director, he must have been a little bemused to hear certain
corners of the media criticising his appointment as the "safe option". The Daily
Telegraph, for instance, deplored the decision. In their view, a golden opportunity
to hand the reins over to a more charismatic leader had been missed: "Felgate brings
vast experience of tennis politics, through his work with the IMG sports management
agency, but he does not have the same inspirational qualities - or indeed high
profile - of someone like McEnroe."
Charisma is a quirky thing. Those who possess it have the ability to adopt a vision and
motivate others to bring it to fruition, but you never really know if it's going to be
a blessing or a curse. Certainly, the cost of following the wrong vision can be worse
than having no vision at all. Consider Hitler and Charles Manson! The LTA has been dogged by
criticism for its failure to produce world-class players, but to seek salvation by gambling
on someone like John McEnroe would have been a desperate measure indeed.
David Felgate knows the job, knows the people and knows what's required. His coaching
successes were achieved with a style which suggests a stoic and iron-willed character -
precisely the trait his new young charges would do well to adopt if they mean to follow Tim
Henman into the upper echelons of professional tennis. And that's all the charisma they'll
need.
Dave Winship (24 March 2003)
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Thoughts on the premature retirement of Martina Hingis
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Martina Hingis
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These days the top touring pros travel with an entourage comprising relatives, boyfriends,
girlfriends, physical trainers, sport psychologists, bodyguards, managers, agents and
publicists. Nothing is left to chance. And for those who feel they need more, there's a
plethora of other specialists offering their services - sports doctors, weight trainers,
therapists, nutritionists and so on and so forth. The Association of Tennis Professionals and
the Women's Tennis Association also offer services such as the WTA's "Partners for Success"
mentoring scheme. With a support infrastructure like that, how can anything go wrong?
Yet this month we hear of the "almost certain" retirement of five-times Grand Slam champion,
Martina Hingis. And what was the catalyst for this premature decision? Was it disenchantment
with the Tour or loss of motivation after winning too much too soon? Was it frustration with her
second serve that just kind of sat up begging to be punished? Or was it disenchantment with the way
the women's game has been shifting inexorably towards the power game, demoralising more subtle
exponents of tennis strategy?
Surely the fallout from the now-infamous French Open final against Steffi Graf in 1999, when
the Parisian crowd turned so remorselessly against her, must also have been a factor, mustn't it?
Most performers are motivated by an audience and Hingis must have feared public hostility ever
since that incident.
No, ultimately, her Achilles heel was ... well, it was her Achilles heel. Not your run-of-the-mill
injury, though. The culprit was allegedly ... a pair of shoes. Hingis's mother and coach
Melanie Molitor blamed her daughter's joint damage on the shoes she wore during her teenage
years. In fact, her assertions resulted in a $40 million lawsuit against an Italian sportswear
manufacturer.
But, a pair of shoes?
Despite all the expertise at Hingis's disposal, here we have potentially one of the greatest
careers in tennis history - apparently thwarted by a pair of ill-fitting shoes! I wonder if
she has just been too ready to accept her fate. I wonder if she sees this as a kind of
manifestation of Chaos Theory and just accepts that this most trivial of causes was capriciously
but unavoidably responsible for the catastrophic effect of terminating her career. Well, I guess
we'd all be happy to blame our disasters on that confounded butterfly flapping its wings on the
other side of the world, but I'm not sure it would really do us any good!
Hingis's confidence has obviously been sapped by her struggle to overcome her injuries, but at 22
she has plenty of time on her hands. If the injuries were to be given time to heal and if
she could just be persuaded to address the other problems that have afflicted her career in
the last couple of years, Hingis has the tennis brain that could put her back into contention
for more Grand Slam titles and the Women's Tour could yet again reap the benefit of her unique
brand of "thinking" tennis. I just hope this great champion will take destiny back into her
own hands, place her trust in another pair of tennis shoes and resume her captivating career.
Dave Winship (23 February 2003)
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Tennis at the speed of light!
I was gazing up at the night sky with my daughter recently. Explaining the implications
of the speed of light to a child can be one of the most rewarding and enchanting things you
ever get to do as an adult. You explain that the closest star is 25 trillion miles away and,
since light travels at 186,000 miles per second, it takes over 4 years for that light to reach
us. The light from more distant stars may take millions of years to arrive! So yes, it's true,
you declare - what you see isn't actually there! It's like you're in a time machine and
looking right at the past.
If you're lucky enough to get through to the child, the look of awe and bewilderment
is unforgettable.
Watching the brightest stars at this year's Australian Open was also like looking into the
past. Three of the men's semi-finalists - Younes El Aynaoui, Wayne Ferreira and Andre Agassi -
were in their 30s. At the age of 32, Agassi, in particular, spooked everyone by looking fitter
and more eager than anyone else in the draw. But hang on, weren't all the commentators telling
us that tennis would increasingly become the province of the young? Ever since Bjorn Borg
retired at the age of 26 with 11 Grand Slam titles to his name, players had been written off if
they hadn't achieved anything by their mid to late twenties.
So much for that theory! Agassi was light years ahead of his nearest rivals. And there was an
even stranger phenomenon at Melbourne this year. A legend came back to life before our very
eyes in the Mixed Doubles event.
Incredibly, the name on the trophy alongside Leander Paes belongs to none other than
46-year-old Martina Navratilova, who was the singles runner-up way back in 1975 and "retired"
in 1994 after collecting 56 Grand Slam titles (including 18 singles titles).
I'm not sure I know how to explain that to my daughter.
Dave Winship (28 January 2003)
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Bring in point penalties for cramp (and toilet breaks)!
At 7-7 in the final set of her 2003 Australian Open fourth round encounter with Lindsay
Davenport, Justine Henin-Hardenne collapsed with cramp in her left leg. After a time-out
for treatment, she returned to the baseline, served an ace and rattled off the rest of
the game - and the next one - to complete her victory.
My thoughts went back to the 2002 Australian Open when Lleyton Hewitt embarked on a
furious off-court row with Alberto Martin after the latter disrupted their opening round
match with an injury time-out for cramp right in the middle of a fourth set tie-break.
Hewitt went on to lose the tie-break and the match.
The point at issue here is not whether the disability was genuine or not. It's whether
or not players should be effectively penalised when an opponent suffers a loss of fitness
(as opposed to an injury). Prior to 1995, cramp was regarded as loss of condition and,
as such, did not warrant a medical time-out. Then, in the first round of the US Open,
Japan's Shuzo Matsuoka suffered cramps and was left writhing on the court in pain for
quite some time before anyone attended to him. As it happened, he was unable to continue,
but at that time he would have been disqualified for receiving treatment. The incident
gave rise to the change of rule whereby cramp became included among the medical conditions
qualifying for on-court treatment.
Umpires are not qualified to make any kind of medical analysis in respect of a player's
distress and it must be quite difficult sometimes to differentiate between cramp and a more
serious injury anyway. Indeed, a bout of severe cramp may cause an injury - the sheer
strength of a contraction can occasionally tear the muscle fibres. It's therefore imperative
that a player is permitted to call for a trainer in these circumstances. After all, no one
wants to see a player suffer. But the question remains - how can the unafflicted player be
rewarded for his or her superior fitness? There's an element of rough justice about it, but
there is an answer.
If the trainer's verdict is a temporary loss of condition such as cramp or exhaustion, a
point penalty should be applied. It's only fair that the fitter player should benefit in
some way.
Furthermore, I believe the same sanction should apply in respect of toilet breaks.
Dave Winship (21 January 2003)
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