Not So Bad At All

You know, considering the amount of time I spend whinging about Australian tennis (which is very little compared to the Australian media, who seem to view our lack of awesome tennis players as some kind of national tragedy) it often comes as a surprise to me that our Fed Cup team is not so bad.

Think about it. We have Sam Stosur, who, while she has her sketchy days, has one of the best serves on the women's tour, an all-round great gam as well as stellar doubles credentials. Rennae Stubbs, ditto on the doubles credentials. We have Casey Dellacqua, who is not sub-par herself, and Alicia Molik, who is not bad, and Jelena Dokic, she of the sketchy brilliance. And then we have players like Olivia Rogwoska and Shannon Golds and Jess Moore and Monika Wejnert coming up... we are really okay when it comes to the ladies.

The Australian girls are currently one-all against the Spaniards, after Sam Stosur won her singles rubber but Casey Dellacqua lost hers. Apparently David Taylor agonised over who to put in as the second singles player, but I think Dellacqua was as good a choice as any, considering she was the second best performer of the Aussie girls at the Open. She's still not back to where she was but she did okay...

...but I digress. Stosur and Stubbs are looking the goods to take out the doubles and if Stosur can win her singles tomorrow then Australia will take out the tie. The Spanish women aren't exactly the powerhouse that the Spanish men are, but they're tough, and if the Aussie girls can get 'em that will be a real victory.

I know this doesn't say a lot, this here post, but really, I think we spend enough time bitching about the state of Australian tennis. There is my equivalent of fluff and celebration. This is my 'Australian tennis is not so bad' feel good post. Smiley face.

...and the Australians just totally won. Made of awesome!

The Other Fed in Tennis

I really wish Fed Cup was more awesome. I also wish Davis Cup was more awesome, but it's not struggling with quite the same level of not-awesome as Fed Cup is. It's not that the tennis is any less good (within the normal ATP/WTA parameters anyway, considering that men's tennis is in a golden age and women's tennis is not) but hardly any of the top players seem to have a desire to play Fed Cup, and that is not good.

The Davis Cup is one of those accessories that players like to have, a good trophy to have on the shelf. It's not a Slam or anything, but it is a rare opportunity for players to represent their nations and play as a team, not an individual. Even Federer, a pathological non-player of Davis Cup, has said he would like to win it one day... though this may be because it is the only trophy his decorated mantlepiece is missing. It's played at stupid times and is not well organised, but Davis Cup has prestige.

Whereas Fed Cup... not so much.

Look at Russia, powerhouse of women's tennis. They have Safina, Sharapova, Dementieva, Kuznetsova, Zvonareva... a virtually inexhaustible stream of top women. Yet who is playing? Sveta, sure, after she declared herself available at the last minute, and Alisa Kleybanova, who, while not crappy, is not exactly top ten. They're playing Serbia, who do have two former #1s in Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, but with the form of these two players at the moment, Russia should be crushing them. Instead, it's one-all.

And Belgium! Clijsters and Henin, hello? But no, it's Wickmayer and Flipkens stepping up to the plate. USA? Should be Williams and Williams. But no, it's Oudin and Mattek-Sands. The top women just don't play Fed Cup.

But you know the very first step to making Fed Cup more appetising for these top players? Do not schedule it the week after a Slam. This is not rocket science. Davis Cup is also guilty of this. If you want your top players in there, you have to schedule it at a time wherein they haven't, say, played seven five set matches in a row.

This is not a new rant. But that does not make it any less true. If Davis and Fed Cups are going to become truly awesome, then they need to schedule it better.

And Cilic Makes Six

So, is Marin Cilic some kind of otherwordly being or what? Is he possibly a zombie? Because only someone with a brain soaked in formaldehyde would play a tournament the week after a Slam wherein they played six best-of-five matches, including three that went the distance. And only someone with a body powered by something supernatural would be able to do it.

Mighty Marin is through to the semis of the tournament in Zagreb. I do not intend to make any kind of lasting comment on this tournament, because you might have noticed that I sure haven't been following it, but I have been following Mighty Marin. To get through to the semis - he came through Ivo Karlovic today - is a big achievement. But to do it when you're staggering around after a fortnight like he had? It seems foolhardy, and it also screams 'INJURE ME!'

It is his home tournament, so I think it would be foolish to suggest that this is the amount of tennis he would play after every deep run... but still. You sit down and put those big feet up, Marin. I have big plans for you and they won't work out if you're injured.

Let's talk about those plans. Obviously they're not anything I have, like, actual influence over or anything, but I have them just the same. Cilic is inside the top ten now, and I seriously wouldn't be surprised if he became this year's Juan Martin del Potro - the dude that took it to the very top guys and became a force in that power dynamic. We've seen that top group get bigger and bigger over the past few years - Federer has largely been on the very top, and it's been very apparent that the heir to the throne is Rafa (injuries nonwithstanding). The Slam records - 22 of the things between them now - and their continual, mostly undisturbed presence at #1 and #2 has shown that tennis is run by a Hispano-Suisse machine.

But then you had Djokovic come into the mix, and we had the Big Three for a while there. Then Murray shot up the rankings, and it was the Fantastic Four. And then Juan Martin del Potro went and won the US Open, and suddenly it's the Fabulous Five.

One guy a year for the past year has leapfrogged the gap into that top group. I used to think that Tsonga would be the guy who'd be next in. But you wait. I think that by the end of the year, the Fabulous Five is going to be the Super Six, and it will be Cilic who takes his rightful place in the upper echelon.

Boy Wonder

So, um, why is Marin Cilic playing this week? He should be back at home having a snooze. For aboout a week. He just played some epically huge matches in Australia. Why is he still playing this week?

But I didn't come here to write about Marin Cilic today - much as I do like writing about him, because I do sort of love him. No, today, we're talking about the boy he vanquished in the second round in Australia - Bernard Tomic.

I use the word 'boy' intentionally. Because Bernard Tomic is not a man yet, not even close. And although he played some great tennis in Melbourne, although he played above his physical age, and although he came within a few points of taking down the man who ended up reaching the semi finals and might well have come through Andy Murray if he wasn't so physically fatigued... he has a long way to go before he can really play tennis.

I don't question his physical ability - not at all. But what tennis, and especially Slam tennis, where the five set format comes into effect, is that tennis is mental as well as physical. There are lots of very fit, very able men in the ATP - it is the men who have it going on in the mind who rise to the top and become real champions. Take the king of tennis players, Roger Federer. He has always had his talent. He has always had his raw ability. He has always been fit and trained hard. So what turned him from a talent to a champion?

His mind.

Are you listening, Bernard?

If Tomic wants to make it to the top of this sport, he needs to man up. Those words are deliberately chosen. Because he is such a whinging child at the moment. Until he stops making excuses, until he curbs what appears to be an overweening ego, until he realises that even in Australia, where he is touted as the Next Big Thing, that he can never be bigger than the sport, he will go no further.

He suffers from Bad Dad syndrome. I don't think anyone can really doubt this. I heard rumours that his dad, John Tomic, stormed Craig Tiley's office after SchedulingNightMatchGate and threatened to relocate Bernard to Croatia. Now, does this remind you of someone? Because it reminds me of Damir Dokic, and we know how well that turned out.

I would like for Bernard Tomic to sit down with Jelena Dokic and have a good long chat with her. I think she could tell him some very interesting things and offer him some lessons. She had to learn how to become her own person her own way, and it took her years. Much as I find Bernard to be an annoying little shit, I don't want him to go through years and years of the Jelena experience before he comes good.

I want him to grow up.

So go grow, Bernard. And I don't want to see you again until you do.

The Good, The Bad and the Frankly Ugly

So, um, the tennis that's going on this week is incredibly, incredibly boring. The one result that interested me (even just the tiniest bit) was in Zagreb, where inked up Austrian bad boy Daniel Koellerer beat cutie-patootie Andrey Golubev in three sets. Andrey had some great wins in the Australian summer and I hope his mojo wasn't as fleeting as tennis down under. Because he was rocking some great stuff down here.

Though what's going on in men's tennis right now is certainly more interesting than women's tennis. It's Fed Cup this week, and it hasn't started yet. Cue yawnfest.

So... guess what we're going to talk about. I do believe that yes, once more, it will be the Australian Open.

I discussed what we had learned yesterday - which was basically that Serena aside, the women's tour was weak, and that Roger Federer was still light years ahead of the men's pack, despite there being some very good boys in there. But let's go in a bit more depth and look at some individuals.

Winners out of this tournament? Roger and Serena, obviously. They totally justified their #1 spots. I've talked about them a heap over the past few days, so for now I'll keep it brief: thumsb up.

Major winners also include Justine Henin, comeback queen, and Marin Cilic, who is proving his worth. Look for both JuJu and Red Hot Cilic Peppers to go deep at tournaments (probably Slams this year). Other winners include, in my opinion, Andy Murray, who may not have gone the distance, but he made the final and played some excellent stuff; Ivo Karlovic and John Isner, who proved they had games beyond massive serves; Nicolas Almagro, for match entertainment value; and Li Na and Zheng Jie, because hello, awesome for Chinese tennis right there. Also epic win - Hit For Haiti. The whole thing.

But now the juicy stuff. Disappointments.

Novak Djokovic. For somehow having an excuse every time he loses a major match. He didn't retire this time, but seriously, he has the constitution of a delicate flower.

Ernests Gulbis: I've been on your bandwagon a long time, dude, and you're giving me nothing here.

Sabine Lisicki: You're so talented, girl - and you went out to Alberta Brianti? What was going on there?

Russian women's tennis: Lena D has been the only one of any consistency in the girls lately, and she ran into the redhot JuJu in round two. Safina was injured, but when the Russian going furthest in the tournament is Maria Kirilenko, something is up.

Maria Sharapova: See above.

Serbian women's tennis: Not even touching this one.

Robin Soderling: Dude, if you throw away your awesome year last year for a string of badnesses, I will be very, very cross. You hear me?

Bernard Tomic: You can play tennis, kid, but SHUT THE HELL UP. And while you're at it...

Bernard Tomic's dad: SHUT THE HELL UP ALSO.

I'm sure there are more - but I have to have something to talk about over the next few days! So fill me in, guys - who were your winners and losers of the Australian summer?

What We Have Learned

There are tournaments going on this week - shout out to my man Peter Luczak for pulling an upset in Chile - but let's face it, no one really cares about them at the moment. It is over, but it is still, as always after a Slam, all about the Australian Open.

So let's have a look back at what we learned from this Slam, the first of 2010, and what it tells us about the year.

Let's start with the ladies. What has Australia taught us? Well, it's taught us that someone who stepped away from the game for the better part of two years can come back and reach the final. Actually, scratch that. We learned that last year when Kim Clijsters won the US Open. Justine Henin's run to the final here merely reinforced it. Not that there is anything 'mere' about Justine - her performance was mighty. She is truly talented and she has pulled off some truly spectacular results.

But there is something deeply wrong about a tour where players can come back so quickly and so hard and overcome nearly every possible obstacle in the way. If there wasn't a Serena Williams in the world, then Justine Henin would have pulled this off. The tour hasn't set out to make things easy for the Belgians, obviously, but the fact remains that both Kim and Justine have been able to pull it off, and that really, in an elite sport, shouldn't happen. There are very few women who are legitimately Slam contenders at the moment - Serena, Venus if the tournament begins with 'Wimble' and ends in 'don', Sharapova if she catches fire, Kuznetsova if she avoids erratic performers. For Kim and Justine to skip immediately into that top pool... well, that's fabulous for them, and an amazing achievement, but in a tour that was up to scratch, it really shouldn't have happened. People shouldn't be able to sail right back to the pinnacle of elite sport bam! like that.

So allez Belgium! And huge congratulations to Serena, who is really the one person holding up her end of the WTA bargain. Everyone else... lift your game. Please.

To the men now, where things are much brighter. I think the women's game looks so dull nowadays because men's tennis is undoubtedly in a golden age. Before the tournament, people were saying there were legitimately twelve contenders for this Slam. I would have narrowed it to eight - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, del Potro, Davydenko, Roddick and Tsonga - but the fact remains that there are a lot of excellent players at the moment, champing at the bit to reach the upper echelons. There is talent and amazing tennis everywhere.

But what did Australia teach us?

It taught us that Roger Federer really still is a cut above the rest.

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this into another slurred wineglass-waving ramble on how amazing Federer is... I think I've done that enough over the past few days! But my personal bias aside, he is one of the safest bets in modern sport. He hasn't lost before the semis in a Slam since 2004. Two thousand and freaking four. That is a long time ago. With this victory, he has now won a Slam every year for the past eight. And, oh yeah, he has sixteen Slams, which is more than anyone ever.

He was tested in this tournament by people who were definitely form players coming in - Davydenko, Murray, even Tsonga. He had a totally unenviable first round draw in Andreev. And every time - every time he was under pressure, he came up trumps. What really came to the fore in this tournament was his mental strength - yet another part of his spectacular game that is underestimated. You cannot overstate the value of calm under pressure, and that is where so many of the other men in the draw fell down.

Another thing that came to the fore was just how tough the game of tennis is. We saw Rafa's knees give on him. We saw Jo Tsonga and Marin Cilic burn out because of too many long, long matches. We saw Djokovic drive himself to vomiting... though the Djokovic constitution never seems to have been particularly hardy. This highlights, once again, the amazingness of Federer, because he just really hasn't had these problems. Whether it's fitness, or good scheduling, or just good luck... or a combination of all three! - the fact remains, and was reinforced by this tournament, that Federer, quite simply, is betterer. And the field has got a lot of chasing to do.

Space They Cannot Touch

It strikes me at random moments just how lucky we are to live in the age of Roger Federer.

Today at my desk, I was staring out the window. I was trying to think of a solution to a problem I had at work, and all I could do was relive the Australian Open's mens' final again and again. What is one trivial problem (granted, I work for the government, but still) compared to his achievement?

Sport is something that is often belittled (though not by Australians, for whom it is something of a religion) as something that is pointless in the greater scheme of things. I used to think this myself. But I think we have underestimated the nature of sport as an activity that brings hope.

It doesn't have to be tennis. It can be anything. When you support one thing, one team, one individual, you espouse a view which is different to any other. I am a competitive person on an individual basis, which is why I think tennis appeals to me so much, but the same is true, I think, of all sports. You may support a team because of its location or because of its players. Rarely does one support a team 'just because'.

Tennis is an individual sport, and so it is easier for a fan like me to transcend nationality and to support nationality. I am a Roger Federer fan not because he is Swiss or even because he keeps winning - though it certainly is not a downside! - but because he is Roger Federer. Not only is he the greatest tennis player the world has ever seen, he is potentially the greatest sportsman the world has ever seen when it comes to sheer statesmanship. Has anyone ever been a better example than Roger Federer?

Tennis is a gladiatorial sport. It is mano e mano - or, at the very outset, two men against two. Even in Davis Cup, nation against nation, tennis is more about the individual than the nation. I think this is why tennis can polarise fans so much. It is not like cricket, for example, where one tends to support one's national team. In tennis, one gravitates to the player in whom one's values most align.

And for a lot of people, this is Roger Federer.

He is an excellent player. His genius as a tennis player cannot be underestimated. I don't know if there's any argument now as to his status as greatest of all time. Laver, perhaps, could challenge. I don't think anyone else could. He has overcome challenge after challenge to win Slam after Slam - sixteen of them now. And beyond all this, beyond all this winning, he has become one of the best examples we have in sport at the moment.

He is a sportsman. He is a humanitarian. And this is what makes sport worthwhile - players like Roger Federer, people who care as much for people as for sport.

I think this was really crystallised for me at the Australian Open this year. I was there at Roger's practice sessions. I saw the care and respect he has for his fans. I was there at Hit for Haiti. I saw the care and respect he has for the world.

And this is what sportsmen - the gladiators of our time - can bring to the world. They can bring hope. And through victory and through loss, simply through virtue of being who they are - men like Roger Federer can make thousands smile and weep with joy.

This is basically a rehash of a conversation I had at the pub a few hours ago with a friend of mine, and I apologise if it's a little incoherent with a) alcohol and b) Roger love. But I do believe that there is nothing better for sport than people like Roger Federer - people who are brilliant, and who use their brilliance to give something back to the world.