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TennisOne Lessons 
The Year That Was — Best Of Vintage 2008 Paul Fein Best Player (Men) — Rafael Nadal, the 22-year-old Spaniard, dethroned Roger Federer, who had been ranked No. 1 for four straight years and had hoped to equal or break Pete Sampras’s Open Era record of six straight years. Rafa, playing more aggressively than ever, routed the 27-year-old Swiss in the French Open final on clay, outlasted him in a spectacular, five-set Wimbledon final on grass, and outclassed Fernando Gonzalez to capture a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics on hard courts. Federer salvaged his season, however, by decisively beating rising stars Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to take his fifth straight U.S. Open title.
Best Player (Women) — The flawed WTA rankings gave Jelena Jankovic the No. 1 ranking because, believe it or not, the results of her five worst tournaments were not counted. Serena Williams was the real No. 1, however, because she won the U.S. Open, gained the Wimbledon final, and won Miami (considered the fifth most important tournament), Charleston, and Bangalore. Serena was also a semifinalist at Stanford and a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open, Beijing Olympics, Rome, and Berlin in 13 tournaments. That said! , it behooves Serena to play 17 tournaments, and had she done so, she likely would have earned the No. 1 WTA ranking. Best Match — After four hours and 48 minutes of brilliant tennis that finished in the gloaming at 9:16 p.m., Rafael Nadal, an irresistible force of nature, dethroned Roger Federer, the champion for the previous five years, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 in an epic Wimbledon final. Federer staved off two championship points in the fourth set tiebreaker, but much like Bjorn Borg after losing the famous 18-16 tiebreaker to John McEnroe in another Wimbledon classic 28 years earlier, super-competitive Nadal eventually prevailed. Afterward, McEnroe, a respected TV analyst now, called the spellbinding duel “the greatest match I’ve ever seen.” Most veteran observers agreed. Federer graciously said, “Rafa’s a deserving champion. He just played fantastically.”
Best Tour De Force — Maria Sharapova rampaged through a brutal draw at the Australian Open to capture her third Grand Slam title. The Russian power hitter took out former champion Lindsay Davenport 6-1, 6-3, No. 11 Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-0, No.1 Justine Henin 6-4, 6-0, No. 4 Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-1, and in the final, No. 3 Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 6-3. Best Henin Confidential — “Tennis is something that has been in my life since I was 5. Do we really decide what is good or not for us when we’re 5? I have no regrets, but it’s just that at age 26 now, I am entering into my adult life,” said Justine Henin, who shockingly retired in May at age 25 while ranked No. 1. “It’s like a new start for me with the luck to have already had a career at 26 when most people my age are still studying or just getting started to work. I feel like I’ve already had three lives.” Best Federer Record — Roger Federer is the only player in tennis history to win two Grand Slam events five years in a row: Wimbledon (2003-07) and U.S. Open (2004-08).
Worst Racist Rant — “People are prejudiced in tennis. I don’t think Venus or Serena was ever accepted by tennis. They never will be. But if you get some little white no good trasher in America like Tracy Austin or Chris Evert who cannot hit the ball, they will claim this is great,” contended Richard Williams, who added, “The white man hated me all my life and I hate him,” in India’s Deccan Herald. Best Rebuttal To Racist Rant — “I kind of feel sorry for him if he is that angry and bitter about tennis players and about white tennis players. When people lash out like that, they must be miserable people…. He has a history of saying things that are unacceptable. And I don’t really think many people in tennis listen to him anymore.” —Tennis legend Chris Evert, talking to ESPN.com about Richard Williams’ claim that his daughters were still not “accepted by tennis” and his reference to Evert and Tracy Austin as “little white no-good trashers.” Best Victory Gesture — After she belted a crosscourt backhand winner against Jelena Jankovic on championship point of the U.S. Open final, Serena Williams threw her racquet in the air and then hopped seven times in ecstasy. “I’m so excited I can’t even describe it. I feel so young and I feel so energized,” said Serena, who won her third U.S. Open title, nine years after her first one, and her ninth Grand Slam title, her first since January 2007. Best Venus Confidential — In an interview on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” in May, Gumbel asked Venus Williams if she loves pro golfer and longtime boyfriend Hank Kuehne. Venus replied: “Why do you have to be asking that? I hate talking about my private life like this. I think he’s a great guy. I love him. Thanks, Bryant. That’s against every rule that Serena and I have made up.” When Gumbel asked, “Does he love you?” Venus replied, “He’d better.”
Best Doubles Team (Women) — Veterans Cara Black and Liezel Huber dominated the Tour in doubles by winning 10 tournaments, including the U.S. Open and the Sony Ericsson WTA Championships, both without losing a set, and finished No. 1. Their 6,158 points more than doubled the 2,809 points of second-place team Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruana Pascual. Best Doubles Team (Men) — The battle for No. 1 went down to the last match of year in the Tennis Masters Cup final. Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic clinched the Stanford ATP Doubles Race and the year-end No. 1 team ranking after defeating Americans Bob and Mike Bryan 7-6, 6-2 in Shanghai. The Canadian-Serbian duo snapped the Bryan brothers’ three-year hold on the top team honor after joining forces permanently as a pairing at the start of 2008. Worst Mental Game — “In the end, this is another reason to show to the people that this is a very mental game. Even though you are feeling great in certain moments and feeling a lot of confidence and motivation, everything can blow away in a second if you are mentally not ready and prepared for the challenge. Today, I had just a block, a mental block. I just couldn’t get through and get rid of it,” confided world No. 3 Novak Djokovic, on why he was upset by two-time Grand Slam winner Marat Safin, then 75th ranked, 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 in the Wimbledon second round. Best “In Memoriam” — Hamilton Jordan, best known as President Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff and the strategist that got him elected in 1976, died in May at age 63. Jordan was also a visionary and effective leader of both players and tournament directors who, feeling powerless, in 1988 left the ruling body called the Men’s International Professional Tennis Council. As executive director, Jordan helped establish the newly formed Association of Tennis Professionals, now the ATP Tour. “He built it out of almost nothing,” J. Wayne Richmond, a high ATP official then, told the Los Angeles Times. “We were at a point where the [four Grand] Slams could have crushed us, taken us over. He saved that.”
Best Rising Star — “We witnessed a star in the making. I haven’t seen anyone overpower a player like Nadal like that. I can’t remember a match played for three sets at that high caliber of tennis,” praised all-time great Roy Emerson, who returned to Australia to see Roger Federer surpass his 12 Grand Slam singles titles, but instead witnessed unheralded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga rout Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open semis. Despite mid-season knee surgery, Tsonga finished the season ranked a career-high No. 7. Best Denunciation Of Player Challenges — “Why, with a tool as powerful as Hawk-Eye, are we now saying to the players, in effect, “We know exactly where the ball landed, but unless you ask us the right way at the right time, we’re not going to tell you what we know?” —Greg Raven, a California teaching pro, rightly denouncing Player Challenges in a Racquet Sports Magazine column titled “What’s Fair is Fair.” Best Fact About Grass — According to BBC television’s technological bank, a serve leaving Roger Federer’s racquet at the same speed would now reach the returner 9 miles per hour slower after it had hit the modified grass − a type of Welsh rye grass called Aberelf − compared to the faster grass that was sown on the All England’s Club lawns six years ago. Best Serving And Volleying Lament — All-time great Pete Sampras, rightly lamenting the near-extinction of exciting serving and volleying, said, “It’s a dying game. It’s gone, really. Nobody really wants to come in. Even Roger [Federer], who played serve-and-volley when he beat me at Wimbledon [2001, their only meeting on tour], stopped doing it. Everybody’s staying back, just hitting the crap out of the ball, not taking those risks. It’s not an easy thing − it takes years to really perfect. But I miss seeing it.” Worst Seedings — “I’m mystified every time Rafael Nadal shows up at the French Open, and they don’t seed him No. 1. He’s never lost there. He’s won four straight!,” said Mary Carillo, rightly lambasting the French Open for always seeding Rafael Nadal, the perennial champion, No. 2. Worst Ranking Systems Flaws — To the discredit of both the ATP and WTA Tours, their ranking systems still do not count all tournament results. Imagine throwing out the 20 worst results (viz., losses) that the Boston Celtics or any other professional sports team had, and you can quickly see how inaccurate and thus unfair the standings would be − and how quickly those sports leagues would lose their integrity and credibility. No wonder former world No. 1 Jim Courier, after Nadal won the French and Wimbledon titles, on “The Charlie Rose Show,” said: “Nadal is No. 1 now, no matter what the [ATP ranking] computer says.” Best (?) Sign of the Times — Only eight women in the top 100 use one-handed backhands, and their average age is 25.6 years old. The highest ranking woman with a one-handed backhand is 29-year-old Amelie Mauresmo ranked No. 24. Best European Domination — Eighteen of the top 20 players in the season-ending WTA rankings come from Europe. The only non-Europeans are Venus Williams, 28, and Serena Williams, 27. Similarly, 41 of the top 50 players in the season-ending ATP rankings are Europeans.
Worst Masochism — During the Sony Ericsson Open, a frustrated Mikhail Youzhny repeatedly whacked himself in the head with his racquet until blood trickled down his face. More than 1.5 million hits on You Tube witnessed the bizarre event. Best Non-Fist-Pumper — When asked why she resists the trend to fist-pump after hitting great shots or winning big points, Venus Williams replied, “I expect to win the point. It’s not like if I win the point it’s something I wasn’t expecting.” Best Very Young Prospect — Michelle Larcher de Brito, a 15-year-old from Portugal who trains at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida, scored big wins over No. 16 Agnieszka Radwanska, No. 18 Flavia Pennetta, and No. 34 Gisela Dulko. But a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 loss to Serena Williams at Stanford was even more impressive. “If she plays the way she plays against me, she’ll be a great player,” said Serena, who trailed 6-4, 2-0 as the poised DeBrito belted forehand winners and effective body serves. Best Excuse — Twenty-one-year-old American Sam Querrey didn’t call his parents after his first-round win at the U.S. Open because he dropped his cell phone in the toilet. Best Reason to Play Tennis — People who participate in tennis three hours per week at a moderately vigorous intensity cut in half their risk of death from any cause, according to the late Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger, who was an internationally recognized exercise authority and studied more than 10,000 people for 20 years. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Paul Fein's article by emailing us here at TennisOne.
Paul Fein Paul Fein, a USPTA teaching pro and former top 10-ranked New England men’s open player, has won more than 20 writing awards. His 2002 book, Tennis Confidential: Today’s Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies, published by Brassey’s, Inc., was listed No. 1 among tennis books by Amazon.com and BN.com. Information about the book and how to order it can be found at www.tennisconfidential.com. His second book, You Can Quote Me on That: Greatest Tennis Quips, Insights, and Zingers, was published by Potomac Books, Inc. (formerly Brassey’s, Inc.) in 2005 and was listed No. 1 among tennis books by Amazon.com and BN.com. For more information, visit www.tennisquotes.com. His third book, Tennis Confidential II: More of Today’s Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies, was published April 28, 2008 and was featured on the home page of Amazon.com and has been listed No. 1 among tennis books there since April 1, 2008. |
