TOUGHEN UP
I am an avid fan of most sports, but right now lets take a look at hockey, specifically the Detroit Red Wings versus the Pittsburg Penguins in last seasons Stanley Cup finals. In game 5 of the series Ryan Malone for the Penguins took a slapshot to the face, essentially obliterating his nose and all the bones in and around it. He got skated off the ice, put some blood absorbing sponge gauze and some stabilizing foam pads in his nose, and continued to play his shifts. Keep in mind he had an entire team that could have continued playing without him and had a chance to win(In tennis if you quit, its over) The next day he had his face reconstructed, and played in game 6 the following day… taking the obvious risks involved.
Why? To give his team the extra rest time of having him playing shifts… to boost the morale of the team and lead them via perseverence to winning game 5 and giving their team a better chance at the title. Obviously it didn’t give them a much bigger chance, but still more of a chance. Well done Mr. Malone. (On a side note, go Red Wings!)
Bare with me as I promise to get back to tennis here.
Serena Williams vs. Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. It’s Azarenka’s best result of her life to be here, and she wins the first set 6-3! Early at the start of the second set Serena takes a medical timeout for an injury to her ankle… which essentially means she is playing badly and needs a break. No problem, good play Serena. At around 2-2 in the second set however Azarenka starts to feel the effects of the blazing hot sun down under. After a long service game Azarenka gets broken and sits down on the change over. She then stands up and loses 4 points quickly on Serena’s serve, and retires. WHAT?!? retires. You have trained your entire life to get in this position, leading Serena Williams and potentially making it to the semi-finals of a Major and you retire while ahead because of the heat? Unacceptable.
Here are some options Ms. Azarenka should have looked into. Stand at the baseline while Serena serves 4 times (at 2-3)… you know your hurting so start thinking long term instead of next point! You get 25 seconds between every single point, use every second of it to stand in the shade at the back of hte court and recover. Your service game comes around, by now you’ve taken another 3 minutes without doing any sort of exertion and essentially standing in the shade the whole time. On your serve you hit the ball in the net (after your 25 seconds are up of course) and take your time before hitting your next serve into the net. Rinse/repeat, another 4 minutes have been burnt. You are now down 5-2 and get 120 seconds to sit in the shade and eat/drink all the replenishing materials that you can before standing up and burning another 3 minutes on Serenas service game.
Congrats! Now the score is TIED at 1 set each, and you get a 10 minute break between sets due to the excessive heat rule that was in effect there in Australia. If you still don’t feel well after the 10 minute break, you take an injury timeout for cramping etc. They get 3 minutes to asses your injury and 5 minutes to treat it and of course you take all 8 minutes. You’ve now been sitting in the shade and recovering for a total of 28 minutes. Perhaps she doesn’t recover in that time, but MAYBE she does. How do you not give yourself that chance? It certainly isn’t every day you find yourself in the quarters of a Grand Slam and Azarenka clearly needs the points! If you have a menial 5% chance to make it to the semi’s, wouldn’t you take it?
No, apparently “professionals” throw in the towel.
Novak Djokovic: Novak is playing Andy Roddick in the quarters of the Aussie Open this year with the score of 7-6(3) 4-6 2-6 1-2 when he quits. We all watched the match and clearly the heat was bothering the Djoker while Roddick was unaffected. What I don’t understand is why Novak can’t finish out the match. Sure the chances of him winning at that point are miniscule, but if you’re on the court you have a chance! Maybe Roddick gets hurt running for a ball. I think we’ve all sprained our ankles before right? You’re on the court anyway, why not take your 1% chance of moving on… and if you get beat without winning another game what is the difference? So Novak spends another 15 minutes on the court instead of sitting in a chair, does that effect him? Clearly not, but it could buy him a 1% chance to win which seems like more than enough insentive to me.
Incidentally Novak has quit in a Grand Slam 4 times now, and has only been playing them for 5 years. If you do the quick math here that means 20% of the Grand Slam events that he enters, he quits! He throws in the towel so often its getting worn and ragged.
Andy Murray: Mental quitter. I’ll give some props as he is improving this late
ly, however for the last 4 years it has sickened me to watch him simply give up in matches over and over. Credit to him that he stays on the court rather than pulling a Djokovic, but since your out there why not try? I have watched him live tank 3 matches, the first of which was to Arnaud Clement in New York in ’05. They played a fantastic first four sets and then Murray just slapped balls around and stopped trying, pouting the entire 5th set. These are harder than retirements to point out, but take a look at his playing activity and check out how many times he’s beaten in the final set 6-0 or 6-1. Sure that happens to everyone, but not with the frequency that it happens to him… and keep in mind he’s one of the top 4 players in the world!
All I want is 100% effort, is it that hard?
Rafael Nadal: The mentality every tennis player should have. Rafa just lost to Andy Murray in Rotterdam 6-3 4-6 6-0. I’m going to give you the quick version here, feel free to check out some other articles for more info. Rafa has chronic knee problems, he plays through it just like every professional player plays through some sort of nagging injury. In the first game of the second set he fell and injured it further, and after a medical timeout had his movement reduced to about 70%. At first he was able to still hit serves around 85%, but as the match wore on that dropped to a staggeringly low MPH due to inability to push off on his leg. Rafa knowing his knee wasn’t going to simply improve during the match started going for broke. With his insane talent he was able to break Murray several times in the 2nd set and somehow pull it out. What were the chances of Nadal winning that second set? Terrible… but he did it. What were the chances of him winning the third set on a deteriorating knee? Terrible… but he tried it! He tried 100% within his physical boundaries and put 100% of his mind into the match until the very last point had ended, despite the impending outcome. He rolled his dice on the off chance something happened to Murray or that he could come up with God like all or nothing winners and it didn’t happen… but he took his loss like a professional and yes, gave himself a chance!
You may be thinking that I’m a bit too harsh but lets just take a look at how often the greatest tennis players of all time have retired or quit, and I challenge you to prove me wrong on any of these.
“It’s happened before, He’s not the guy who’s never given up in his career. That’s kind of disappointing to see when you got two top guys playing each other and you give up. Andy probably would have run away anyway with the match. I mean he (Djokovic) gave up against me in Monaco last year because of a sore throat. Those are the kind of things you wonder about. I’ve only given up basically once in my career,” Federer added. “…In Paris against (James) Blake when I couldn’t move because of my back.”
I’m picking on Djokovic and Murray because those two players are in the spotlight, they are players you know… but if you really keep track of professional tennis its embarassing how much of this you see, on both the men’s and women’s side.
There are injuries and illnesses that warrent retiring from matches (i.e. Tommy Haas rolling his ankle to the point of it being the size of a volleyball during serving warm-up at Wimby) but you had better not be stepping onto the court in the next couple days or winning a tournament the week after it. If your hurting so badly that you cannot phsyically stand on the court and give yourself a chance you probably don’t fly half way across the world two days later and win a few rounds in an ATP event. Tennis is a sport that requires incredible mental toughness and physical durability, but it appears that these days it’s more widely accepted to quit when things head south rather than to dig deep and find a way. 
There is a reason that the “greats” are great, and it is their MENTALITY more so than their physical abilities. The Greats find a way to win when their bodies aren’t at 100% and things aren’t going exactly their way. Look for Federer to keep winning, look for Nadal to keep winning. Don’t expect Murray or Djokovic to take over the 1 and 2 spots any time soon (if ever) with the mental jello they display so often.
