Hitting the Wall

When long-distance runners talk about hitting the wall, they mean the dead legs and overwhelming exhaustion that comes from gobbling up all their bodies' stored-up glycogen. When tennis players talk about hitting the wall, they're usually more literal.  

My Worthy Opponent, ready and waiting at the corner of Greene and Waverly Avenues.

They're talking about a form of practice that doesn't need a court or another tennis player.

When I Hate Tennis talks about hitting the wall, it's about both.  Because when I've tried to hit against a wall, I've developed such a mental weariness that it's made me want to chuck the racquet and eat a box of donuts.

My Worthy Opponent, Marcy Rosewater, was singing the praises of wall-hitting.  "It really helps me focus on my strokes.  I can feel what I'm doing wrong and correct it."

"Not me," I moaned.  "I hit the ball, it hits the wall and then dies in front of me, or sails above my head."  Oh, yeah, I failed to mention that often, I hit the ball over the wall itself. This is quite a feat, Haters.  Take a look at that handball wall above.  It's, like, 20 feet high.  

I sighed.  "The only thing I seem to get to work on is being a better ball retriever."

"You just have to keep at it.  You get into a rhythm," said Marcy.  

Well, YOU do, I said to myself.  I could feel Tennis Hate blooming like a black rose in my chest. Where were those donuts??  

Now, I'm a True Grit kind of athlete.  I've taken 2-hour spin classes. I've been on century bicycle rides.  I've been to Saddlebrook's grueling, 5-hour tennis clinics in Florida, and have relished them.  Eventually, after rolling my eyes and whining, I suit up and show up.  I'll take Marcy's suggestion and try once again to put some time in front of the wall.  But I'm stunned by the knowledge that my default setting is, I can't do this!  It's not fair!

I'm inclined to think something is wrong with me.  I need to change my mindset, reduce my frustration, BE POSITIVE, visualize happy hitting.  Sports psychologists encourage this.  

But I'm intrigued by Oliver Burkeman's book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, who surveyed psychologists and philosophers working in the field of happiness and found this:

The startling conclusion at which they had all arrived, in different ways, was this: that the effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable.  And that it is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative -- insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness -- that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.

The solution, what Burkeman calls the "negative path" to peace of mind, involves "learning to enjoy uncertainty, embracing insecurity, stopping trying to think positively, becoming familiar with failure, even learning to value death."

I got familiarity with failure down, no problem.  Value death?  Got to work on that one.

I've been in a funk about my game.  In the middle of a lesson or a game, I can feel myself pushing the ball, swinging from my wrist, not my shoulder, leaning toward the ball from my waist rather than bending my knees, all the bad habits I've been told not to do.  I've taken thousands of dollars' worth of lessons, have spent 10 years on the court trying to develop a forehand drive and a finishing volley. Why do I keep reverting to my old, tentative, pushy ways?  I can't do this!  It's not fair!

I have toyed with the idea that tennis isn't for me, and I should take up something more immediately gratifying and endorphin-producing.  Like baking donuts.

I've been asking myself: If this is the best that I'll ever be, is that okay?

But I don't really want to give up.  That's not the True Grit creedo.  I really love tennis.  I enjoy the camaraderie, the warm-up rituals, the courtesy and sportsmanship embedded in its rules.  I love how physical it is, and mental, too, how it requires total and absolute focus from moment to moment, much like meditation. When I achive those precious seconds of concentration, everything dissolves -- the court, my opponent, Tennis Hate and the infernal chatter of what W. Timothy Gallwey calls Self 1.  I feel free and powerful and alive, even if I lose the point.  

So, I've been playing with my Tennis Hate rather than against it.  It's okay that it's there.  I'm not, as Burkeman describes in his book, "trying to drown negativity out with relentless good cheer."  I'm trying to seek "the happiness that arises through negativity."  

I've been asking myself: If this is the best that I'll ever be, is that okay?  What does it mean to have limits? What happens when I reach mine?  Will anybody kick me off the court?  Will no one want to play with me ever again if they don't see continued improvement toward a kick serve like Samantha Stosur's?  No, really: Will others love me less?  Will I have less value if I don't get a good, strong forehand approach shot?

That's the mental part.  Technically, I've been following what my Saintly Pros, Anne Hobbs and Al Johnson, have been telling me, and that is to simplify what I do, narrow my focus.  I think of two things while I hit a groundstroke: turn sideways to the approaching ball and extend through the shot, "swing to catch."  At the net, I think of getting my racquet out in front of me for my volley.  That's it.  I practice leaving all the running commentary on the sidelines, in a messy pile with my warmup pants and coat.

When I expose the lies my Tennis Hate tells me, I start to find some peace -- even joy -- on the court.  When I put my focus on simple tasks, like turning my body sideways to the ball, I experience the sweetness that comes with executing something you intended to do.  It's easier to just turn sideways and swing through the ball than it is to follow a ten-point checklist: "Racquet back? Check! Body sideways? Check! Left hand extended out to the point of contact? Check! Butt of the racquet toward the ball? Check!" Ad nauseum.

Forget those donuts.  Where's my racquet?

The Week in Tennis Hate

Roger Federer is feeling sorry for fans who will attend Sunday's ABN AMBRO championship final. That's because they'll be watching Juan Martin del Pot in Rotterdam.ro and Juiien Benneteau instead of him.

Might as well sell your Rotterdam final tickets, because Fed won't be playing. Courtesy AP/Peter Dejong

Federer, who was seeking a record third consecutive championship at Rotterdam, was upset by the 31-year-old Benneteau in the quarterfinals, 6-3, 7-5, on Friday.  The deed was done in just 80 minutes.  It was only the second time in Benneteau's 13-year career that he had beaten Fed, who looked more like a G-O-A-T than the Greatest Of All Time.  

I feel bad for the fans who don't get to see me now.

Fed's timing was off, in both his ground strokes and his serve.  He couldn't take advantage of the 39th-ranked Benneteau's second serves, hitting them wide or dumping them into the net.  He was spraying balls.  His serve was stinky.  His fourth double fault gave Benneteau match point.

It sounds like Benneteau did not try to the world number 2 Fed as much as he was trying not to beat himself.

"I had to do a lot of good things,” Benneteau said. “I prepared myself to play my game, not to try to play better than I can, but to be aggressive when I could. I needed to show physically and mentally I was here and that I wanted it.”

Federer's response was characteristically audacious:  

"I feel bad for the fans who don’t get to see me now. Hopefully this wasn’t my last time here."

Esther Vergeer quit while she was ahead.  Waaaaay ahead.  The 31-year-old wheelchair tennis great retired earlier this week after a 10-year, 470-match winning streak.  In 95 of those matches, the Dutchwoman double-bageled her hapless, helpless opponents.  She dropped only 18 sets.  She won the singles gold medal at four straight Paralympic Games, including Beijing in 2008.  She won the championship despite facing a match point against countrywoman Korie Homan, the only time that happened during her winning streak.

Gold digger: Esther Vergeer took a fourth consecutive gold medal in wheelchair tennis singles at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.

"Too good!" as ATP Masters broadcaster Robbie Koenig is fond of uttering when a winning shot leaves him grasping for something to say.

She's so good, in fact, she exists in a world without Tennis Hate.  "I'm hugely proud of my performances, my titles (148 in singles, 136 in doubles), and can look back on my career with a great feeling," she said at the ABN AMRO tournament in Rotterdam, where she made her announcement and released a book about her life and career.

I know what it's like to lose a Monopoly game.

If I were a reporter covering this, I'd ask Vergeer if she feels any Hate at all.  Does she get disgusted with herself on the court?  "I should have hit that winner even closer to the line, dammit!"  Is there any part of her game she's seeking to improve?  Does she beat herself up for allowing her opponent to even win a point?

How does it feel to win when you never lose?

NEVER lose?  I'm being too generous.  "I know what it's like to lose a Monopoly game," said Vermeer.  "And I don't like losing.

And finally, we close out our summary of Tennis Hate highlights with an uncharateristically cranky Rafael Nadal.

Hard on hard courts: King of Clay wants more tournaments on clay. Courtesy Clive Rose/Getty.The Spaniard is back on the tour after missing the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the 2013 season, and most of last season with a left knee injury.  He plays David Nalbandian Sunday in the Sao Paulo final in Brazil, after rallying to beat another Argentinian, Martin Alund, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-1.  It's his second final in as many tournaments.  Last week, at Vina del Mar in Chile, the first clay court tournament of the men's season, the King of Clay was stunned by world number 73 Horacio Zeballos in another three-setter.  It was Zaballos' first ATP World Tour trophy.

I can't imagine football players playing on cement. 

On Tuesday, two days after his defeat, Nadal griped about having to play too many hard court tournaments, saying it will lead to long-term injuries for players that will last long after they retire.

"The ATP worries too little about the players," he said.  "It should care more for them."

Rafa, THIS is a hard court. The tour's hard court surfaces? Like a pillow-topped mattress.He thinks more tournaments should be played on softer surfaces. Like....oh, let me guess....clay.  The seven-time French Open champ said hard courts are "too tough" on players' bodies.

"The ATP has to start thinking about ways to lengthen the players' [Editor's note: his] careers.  I can't imagine football players playing on cement, I can't imagine any other sport involving aggressive movements such as tennis being played on such aggressive surfaces such as ours.  We are the only sport in the world making this mistake and it won't change."

He's forgetting basketball, squash, racquetball and the not-the-beach-kind volleyball.

The 26-year-old said it's too late for him to "reprogram his style" to lengthen his career.  "I only have one," he said. And it's one that grinds out long points from the baseline. With no major changes in the tour on the horizon, Nadal doesn't think he'll be a recreational athlete after he and his sore knees limp off the court and into history.

"After ending the career, it would be nice to be able to play football with friends, or tennis.  But with this surface, I don't think it's going to be possible."

Worthy Opponent: Francesca Marguerite Maxime

Only two and a half hours into my Lenten disciplines this Ash Wednesday, and already, I owe $6 to the swear jar.  

I blame my Worthy Opponent, Francesca Marguerite Maxime. 

And she thinks she's making an ugly Tennis Hate face: Francesca Maxime holds my notebook, filled with useless tips on how to beat her.Maxime, a news anchor with the wholesome cable TV network, Ebru TV, brought out the not-so-family-friendly language from me with her signature inside-out forehand deep to my ad corner.  She also changes direction on a dime, drilling her heavy topspin shot past me into the deuce corner.  Corner to corner she had me, running, as Andre Agassi used to say, from Bradenton to Las Vegas.

"I started playing in high school, and didn't really pick up a racquet again until I moved to Florida in 2006," she said.  "I played there for three years until I came to New York."  

She, too, is a Tennis Hater.  "I'm addicted to it. It's like a bad relationship you just can't leave."

She writes about it in her new book, Rooted: A Verse Memoir:

He asked me if I had a vice, and what was it, and I told him

I like to eat, and he said That's it?

And I said That's it (although I like sex as much too)

unless you want to call playing lots of tennis a vice.

No, tennis is definitely not immoral.  But it is a bit naughty in the way it gets into your head and your dreams, the way you obsess over recreating the feeling, once you've had it, of connecting perfectly with the ball, your mind as still as a winter lake.  Call it passion.

Francesca Maxime plays a lot of tennis.  "I take clinics, play in ladies groups, and am on several USTA Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Mixed Doubles teams."  Like me, she burns with a desire to get better.  Like a Type-A New York journalist, she's ambitious.

"I need more wins than losses this year," she said.  I like how she puts that -- need.  Her results last season were marred by a bad back.

When she's not smiling with Tennis Hate, Maxime just...smiles."Did I mention I hate injuries?" Maxime seeks relief from this kind of Tennis Hate by watching the Tennis Channel and considering the plight of the injured pro.  "Because when I see people like Rafa Nadal out for seven months with bad knees, I feel a little less bad about my human plight, and hate tennis a little less."

In our match today, I got back some good, defensive backhand slices.  Where has that been? Ah, my Worthy Opponent's pace forced me to keep my wrist firm and to hit through the shot, rather than get all wristy and slice down on the ball.  Instead of floating into outer space, or the net, my slice backhand zoomed low across the net and deep into Francesca's court.  It drew an error a few times.  More often, it at least gave me time to recover and position myself in Chicago, before Francesca pulled me east toward Bradenton again.

Maxime concedes her serve is her weakest stroke, but I could not take advantage of it.  I kept hitting the ball long.  In between my own expletives, I heard the voice of Saintly Pro Al Johnson asking me, in his dry, sharp way, "What ball were you looking at?" The one sailing over the baseline, Coach.   

Christians worldwide are abstaining from meat today; I abstained from double faults, double clutch tosses and second serves.  It's a miracle, one brought on by several weeks now of good, solid coaching.  Coach Al and I are reconstructing my service motion, getting rid of, as he calls it, "hysteria." For weeks, I've been starting with the racquet head pointing skyward, no take back.  During last Sunday's lesson, I started working on a take back, pointing my racquet back behind me before swinging it up into that skyward-pointing position.  I tried this motion today, and liked how it felt to release the momentum of the swing into the ball.  I served well.  

By that I mean I got it into the box, made few errors and put some body weight into the shot.  I wish I could say that "serving well" means that I actually held serve.  Nope.  Maxime broke me early and often, beating me solidly, 6-2.  

I've got more work to do to adjust to her pace, to turn quickly and get my racquet back.  And to keep my focus on the damn DARN ball.  

Make that $7 in the Lenten Swear Jar.

Australian Open: Finishing Shots

From a Tennis Hater's perspective, there was a lot to love about the 2013 Australian Open (yes, Haters, I relish getting into your heads with my syntax; might as well, since I can't do so with my game).  

She's got game AND gamesmanship: Azarenka, after winning 2nd Australian Open. Photo courtesy of European Press Photoagency/Dennis SabanganThe final between Victoria Azarenka and Li Na was a graduate course in managing one's emotions on the court. Azarenka successfully defended her title despite a hostile Aussie crowd that cheered every time she missed a first serve. Li kept pace with Azzie, through early breaks of serve (she opened each set, and was broken each time by Azarenka), two tumbles to the court and a knock to her head during one of those falls that had her seeing stars.  Both players had to contend with a ten-minute break for Australia Day fireworks.

Blogger Matt Zemeck at All I Need is a Picket Fence thought the women's championship was a "more impressive competition" than the men's final between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray:

The way in which a person competes refers to immeasurables and intangibles, to realities that can’t easily be defined by numbers or raw assessments of technique....The men’s finalists, in short, were not subjected to the hardships that the women’s finalists had to walk through. Yet, when presented with a vast array of physical and psychological challenges, the point remains that the women showed so much more as competitors than the men did.

I agree.  The first set of the Murray-Djoko match was exhilarating for its fierce speed and aggressive athleticism, but after that, it got boring and predictable.  Murray eased off his shots.  Djokovic went for his.  Bada-bing, bada-boom -- game, set, match, Djokovic.

The Azarenka-Li final was like a good mystery novel.  You stayed to see how it would end, how all the clues would come together.

Li Na had 30 unforced errors off her usually-steady backhand. Photo courtesy of AustralianOpen.com.One clue for me was the look on Li's face near the end of the second set:"Oh, shit, it's 2011 all over again." That's when she lost the AO championship to Kim Clijsters, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.  

She could as well have said, "Oh, shit, it's 2012 all over again." She lost to Clijsters then in the Australian Open's Round of 16, dropping the second and third sets after winning the first.

Do I sense a pattern here? Does Li Na?  Did it mess with her head?

Yep, yep, and yep.  

"I really feeling I wish I can win the title because this my favorite Grand Slam," she told reporters, after being asked why she cried after losing.  ("It seemed like after the loss in 2011 you were a little more happy," said one.  Clearly, this journalist doesn't play tennis.)

"The second time I was in the final, and twice I was lost the match.  So, of course, I was feeling a little bit sad."

Meanwhile, the Bludger from Belarus successfully kept newspaper headlines like "It's Melbourne v Victoria" from getting under her skin and into her game.

"I knew what I had to do.  I had to stay calm.  I had to stay positive.  I just had to deal with the things that came onto me," said the Iron Maiden.  "I was actually really happy that I went through so many things knowing that I can still produce the tennis that I can and keep the focus that I can."

Someday, maybe Li Na will experience that kind of happiness. 

OTHER NOTABLE MOMENTS OF TENNIS HATE: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, saying Serena Williams and the other "girls" on the women's tour "are more unstable emotionally than us," leading to Williams' quarterfinal upset by up-and-comer Sloane Stephens, and no consistent Top Four, like the Djokovic-Federer-Murray-Nadal block.  

"It's just about hormones and all this stuff.  We don't have all these bad things.  So we are physically in a good shape every time, and you are not.  That's it."

Tsonga is forgetting long runs at the top of the women's game by menstruators like Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong, Billie Jean King and Chris Evert, who took 31 of the 36 Grand Slams between 1968 and 1976...or Evert's and Martina Navratilova's classic rivalry through the 80s...or 22-time Grand Slam champ Steffi Graf's dominance during the 1990s.  And then there are the Williams sisters, hoarding 21 of the 49 Grand Slam titles since 2000.  Testosterone has been known to make men say, and do, stupid things.  

Dr Ramon Spaaij, a research fellow at LaTrobe University, says sexism like Tsonga's colors people's view of most professional sports, and is what makes casual observers think the women's game is less predictable, more uneven and more competitive than men's tennis. 

There is compelling evidence that the prevailing belief that men’s tennis is currently highly predictable and less competitive than women’s tennis is false when we look at the entire tours. Economist Liam Lenten calculated that overall, men’s tennis is actually (slightly) more competitive than women’s tennis in terms of the percentage of matches that go to the deciding set, the likelihood of upsets, and so forth. 

I think the women's game is wobbly because of the serve.  Excluding Serena, who's the best ever, certainly the best right now, the top players cannot hold serve.  In their final, Azarenka and Li traded breaks, racking up seven of them in the first set alone.  Women on the WTA tour don't have the big boomers that win them easy points, and they don't have crafty, reliable second serves to get them out of trouble.  Why, I don't know.  Tsonga would say their breasts get in the way.

AND FINALLY, I may be giving too much credit to Novak Djokovic's mental toughness and confidence for the way he's been able to recover from grueling matches and notch more victories.  The New York Times had noticed this, too.

Last year, after a brutal semifinal victory over Murray, he bounced back with one day’s rest to beat Rafael Nadal in nearly six hours in the final.

This year, he played for 5 hours 2 minutes against Stanislas Wawrinka in the fourth round on Sunday night before winning, 12-10, in the fifth set. After his recovery work, he said, he went to bed at 5 a.m. on Monday and did not wake up until 2:30 p.m.

Djokovic's response to a question about how he does it got me curious.  

“After five hours of match, you need to really put a lot of time into recovery, different kinds of recoveries," he told reporters.  What KIND of recoveries?

“I understand that many people have many different views and opinions, and I respect that."  WHAT views and opinons?  "But I’m doing everything that is legal, that is correct, that is natural that I can, possibly can, in my power. And it’s working well.”  Legal?  Correct?  Natural?  What is Djokovic doing?

He's resting in an egg after matches, Haters.  Djokovic's secret weapon, contrary to HEAD ads, isn't his racquet or his gluten-free diet.  It's a $75,000 egg-shaped pressurized chamber. He's been using one since at least 2011, which is when the Wall Street Journal got wind of it:

The machine, which is made by a California-based company called CVAC Systems and hasn't been banned by any sports governing bodies, is one of only 20 in the world....The company claims that spending up to 20 minutes in the pod three times a week can boost athletic performance by improving circulation, boosting oxygen-rich red-blood cells, removing lactic acid and possibly even stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis and stem-cell production.

Rock star Axl Rose owns one.  It's where he goes when he's not churning out an album every fifteen years.  According to the WSJ, Djokovic stays at the estate of tennis pro and former ranked player Gordon Uehling III in Alpine, New Jersey when he's in New York for the US Open, and uses Uehling's egg.  Does this mean I can call Uehling an egg donor?  

Djokovic told the New York Times he didn't have a CVAC pod with him in Australia.  Too bad; it would have made for a spectacular arrival at Melbourne Park:

Meltdown Down Under: Serena Williams vs. Sloane Stephens

Serena Williams is the best server of the women's game, even when she's taking aim at Plexicushion instead of the ball.  Watch as she rotates her body weight into this racquet smash. There's no evidence of her second set back spasm in her Australian Open quarterfinal loss yesterday to rising queen-ager Sloane Stephens.  

The number 3 seed said she had a "wry smile" on her lips afterwards.  "It made me happy, unfortunately."  Thatta girl, Serena!  The Beatles had it all wrong.  Happiness isn't a warm gun.  It's a busted racquet.