It's Not Cricket

Another post inspired by cricket and the transference of stuff across different sports (though I have just realised that the Hopman Cup starts on Saturday and the Abu Dhabi cashcow exo on Friday and I will be saved! saved! from the horror that is the Time With No Tennis).

At the moment, as I watch the cricket, one of the Pakistani batsmen has started to go for his shots, to smack the ball all round the ground and suchlike. Even if one isn't necessarily going for the Pakistanis, it's much more interesting to watch than the normal slow pace of test cricket, where it can take half an hour to score a run (or so it seems).

And then I thought about tennis and how players sometimes play in their shells, even when the shots are there to be taken, because it's percentage play. Sure, if they go for their shots they might make a mistake, but what's the worst that can happen? They lose a point. It might be a crucial point, but it's not like cricket, where you can lose your wicket.

I don't know where I'm going with this... except to say that people should go for their shots more. Because that's what the sport is, surely? It's not nudging the ball around the court until someone makes a mistake. It's shotmaking and artistry and winning a point rather than waiting for someone else to lose it. Yet some people play tennis like test cricket, and that's totally not the point of the sport.

In cricket, you have one day cricket and twenty20, where the whole point is to smack it around and score some runs and put on a spectacle for the viewer. We have no real equivalent to this in tennis - well, exos, I suppose. But it's kind of a shame we don't have an arena where players can open up freely on their shots.

Though I think we do, and I think it's day to day tour level tennis. There's no point being a tennis player if you're a wuss that won't, you know, play tennis.

Exhibitionists

So I was thinking today about the tournaments I won't be going to on my January adventure - namely, the Moorilla International in Hobart and Kooyong in Melbourne - and that got me to thinking about the phenomenon that is the exhibition tournament. (Obviously, Hobart has nothing to do with this, but whatevs).

Players are always complaining about their crazy tennis schedules - and with good reason, I do believe. I'm sure if I was pushing my body to the edge eleven months of the year I'd be pretty cranky about it too. But yet they still play these exhos, which sort of undermines their credibility in this arena some. So this begs the question... why?

The obvious answer is the cash, because these things are obviously huge cashcows. But the top tennis players - i.e. the people that get asked to play exhos - are ridiculously rich anyway, rolling around in piles of filthy lucre. So money alone doesn't seem to be enough, and without the points you'd get you have no incentive there, and with the already packed schedule... so why exho?

I think, personally, it's because of trick shots.

One thing you always hear when you watch tennis is the term 'percentage play'. Players that play high percentage plays all the time -people that play it safe - are stupidly boring to watch, and I can't imagine percentage tennis is that much fun to play either. But if it's your career, then you're not going to go risking losing your match because you want to try stuff out. In fact, the only player I've ever really seen try stuff out in a tournament match is Roger Federer, when he's sailing ahead lightyears in front, and even then it's sometimes not an especially good idea.

But exhos? You've been paid your cash and you don't have any points riding on the line, so why not cut loose and have fun? Nothing to gain so there's nothing to lose - so it becomes all about the shots.

Which begs the question... why isn't more exhibition tennis televised? Because that stuff is a watcher's paradise.

The JuJu juju

Another quick hit today, because I'm not sure how much I have to write about it - Justine Henin. She's back.

I have been, I admit, very dubious about her comeback - I didn't believe she was going to do it all the way up until the announcement. And I am, I confess, still not wholly on board. When she quit tennis in May last year, she looked so... broken. She hated tennis. She didn't want anything to do with it. And I haven't seen anything to suggest to me that that might have changed...

...well, except the fact that she's making a comeback and all. That might have some weight. I think I'm just very stubborn.

She's just won a couple of exhibition matches - against fellow Belgian Kirsten Flipkens and then against the lovely Flavia Pennetta. There has been a lot of excitement about this fact, and I totally understand why. That's worth getting excited over.

But I don't know how much you can read into it. Flipkens and Pennetta have just come off a solid year of tennis, and I think you can bet on their exhaustion. Henin is fresh. There's a distinct advantage right there. And, love of the game aside, no one - no one - can deny JuJu's talent. She's one of the biggest natural talents the game has seen in a long time. That backhand of hers... oh! what a thing of beauty!

And then she has the name factor as well, because hello, she's JuJu! These are all contributing factors to her exhibition success.

All this said, these are still big wins for her and I do actually now believe she's back for good and stuff. But I'm reserving judgment on her comeback until I see her play in Australia, in proper competition. Then we'll see what JuJu is really made of.