Think Tennis Hate is Bad? Golf Hate is Worse

Sometimes, the Hate half of my seesaw relationship with tennis soars higher than my Love, and I feel like quitting altogether and taking up another activity. It'd better not be golf.  Frustration with that sport has people walking away in droves.

Okay, now give me a big soccer-sized ball to hit. And a baseball bat for a club. Photo, courtesy of Associated Press/Paul Abell.

A New York Times article notes that, by the National Golf Foundation's own estimates, five million golfers have bent their clubs over their knees and have walked off (or hobbled, depending on how that club-bending knee jab went). The NGF estimates about 20 percent of the 25 million existing golfers will do the same in the next few years.

"People under 35 have especially spurned the game, saying it takes too long to play, is too difficult to learn and has too many tiresome rules," wrote the Times' Bill Pennington.

Golf and tennis share a lot of Hate.  These sports aren't easy.

Golf and tennis are often compared. They're both games for life. You can play from 8 to 80. They have codes of conduct, an etiquette that is not evident in hockey, football, basketball or soccer. Both are traditionally country club sports, with tennis doing a much better job of increasing its diversity. Quick, name another black American golfer besides Tiger Woods. Now, think of tennis: Serena, Venus, Sloane, James Blake, Donald Young, with junior champion Taylor Townsend lurking in the wings.

And golf and tennis share a lot of Hate. These sports are not easy. The defending United States Open champion (golf, not tennis), Justin Rose, told the Times his five-year-old son doesn't want to play anymore because he's tired of failing at it.

The United States Tennis Association saw a similar problem and is about five years into an effort to reverse it with its 10 and Under Tennis program, once called QuickStart. It promotes the use of big foam balls, shorter nets and smaller courts, so that kids can hit more easily and rally longer, and, presumably, boost their satisfaction level so that they stay with the sport. To encourage -- others might say force -- notoriously independent American teaching pros to adapt, the USTA changed the rules for junior tournaments so that they required the foam balls and smaller courts. In 2010, when I reported on this for WNYC, only 50,000 of the two to three million kids taking tennis clinics went on to participate in USTA junior-level matches. Meanwhile, adults were coming to tennis in droves; 350,000 were participating in USTA leagues.

"Very few sports have more adults playing than kids, but tennis is one of those," the USTA's chief executive of community tennis, Kurt Kamperman, told me then. "We want to turn that upside down. We want to keep all the adults, but we really want to see a kids' revolution."

How is golf dealing with its crisis of Hate?  It's turning to tennis.

Yo, USTA, what about also working with what you have, which is an adult revolution? Why not try innovative ways to help adults find more satisfaction with tennis and play more? Why not give them more opportunities to compete, rather than the few open tournaments offered in which a 3.0 player can find herself playing a 5.0 club pro? Ah, a rant for another time.

Photo, courtesy of USTA.com.In the meantime, there's been a lot of ranting against Ten and Under Tennis, especially since the USTA changed the rules for junior tournaments in 2011 to require foam balls and smaller courts.  That has rankled some parents and teaching pros, who don't want to get with the program.  They've included Fox commentator Sean Hannity, who has two kids in the junior tennis circuit, and teaching great Wayne Bryan, father of doubles living legends Bob and Mike. The backlash has been so fierce on social media that the USTA had to convene a pow-wow with Bryan and other top dissenters in 2012 to calm things down.

How will golf address its crisis of Hate? They're turning to tennis. According to the Times, the PGA has put together an "eclectic" 10-member advisory panel that includes former USTA exec Arlen Kanterian, "who led American tennis’s successful effort to reverse a decline in participation."  He was gone in 2008, a few years before Ten and Under started getting actively promoted, but hey, he's the guy to go to if the USGA and PGA want to find ways to boost revenue and audience.  During his 8 years as chief exec of pro tennis at the USTA, Kanterian brought in instant replay, blue courts, a Sunday women's US Open final and Patrick McEnroe as head of player development.  And folks are STILL griping about the woeful state of American tennis, especially on the men's side.

Some golf leaders, including pro Sergio Garcia and golf-ball maker executive Mark King of TaylorMade-Adidas Golf, are suggesting a Ten and Under-style shift for golf, too, for youngsters and adult Golf Haters alike.  They include changes to courses like "pizza-sized" 15-inch holes, juiced balls, shorter rounds, tees for every shot and mulligans for every hole.  There are some who are even trying "foot golf," an unholy alliance of soccer and golf that involves kicking a ball into a hole.  Time to do a Johnny Mac here and exclaim, "You cannot be serious!"

Some golf purists are hoping they aren't. In fact, they're counting on it. 

“I don’t want to rig the game and cheapen it,” said Curtis Strange, a two-time United States Open champion and an analyst for ESPN. “I don’t like any of that stuff. And it’s not going to happen either. It’s all talk.”

These Swiss Don't Miss: Federer, Wawrinka, in Monte Carlo Final

It's an all-Swiss final at the Monte-Carlo Rolex tournament on Sunday, with Stan Wawrinka going up against Roger Federer.  How convenient for the citizens of the Principality of Monaco that they share the same national colors of red and white with the Swiss!  Fans can don face paint for either player and not draw the ire of Prince Albert II.  

The Stanimal feasts on David Ferrer, 6-1, 7-6(3), to reach Monte-Carlo final. Photo courtesy Getty Images.

In a twist, it's Stan who enters the match as the top Swiss men's tennis player in the world, not Fed.  Wawrinka is ranked third in the world, behind Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, and Fed is fourth.  Roger could elbow his Davis Cup teammate aside with a win tomorrow.

Federer defeats an injured Novak Djokovic, showcases his healthy wrists, in Monte-Carlo semifinal Saturday. Photo courtesy of USA Today.

Beside that bit of ranking friction, there are other story lines that recommend this match.  Fed has never won Monte-Carlo.  It, and Shanghai, are the only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophies that have eluded the Greatest of All Time.   He has come close.  He was runner-up to Rafa, King of Clay, three years running, from 2006 to 2008.  

While Federer has 22 Masters 1000 trophies to dust, Wawrinka has none.  He, too, has come close.  This is third Masters 1000 final (there was Rome in 2008 and Madrid last year).  Though he's a daunting 1-13 against Federer, Wawrinka has been having the year of his career.  He won his first Slam, the Australian Open, in January.  To get it, he had to shake off another losing streak by beating world number one Rafael Nadal for the first time in 12 matches.  A month earlier, Wawrinka snared the title in Chennai for a second time.  He is 19-3 since the start of the season.  As my husband often says as he stares at his cards at the blackjack tables, "he's due."

And if all of that isn't compelling, Serena Williams' coach, Patrick Moratoglou, likes the Monte-Carlo final because it's a one-fingered salute to all those teaching pros who are coaching their kids to hit two-handed backhands.

It was Wawrinka's backhand that demolished David Ferrer, 6-1, 7-6 (3) in their semifinal.  Stan avoided Ferrer's fierce forehand as much as possible, wearing him down through backhand-to-backhand duels.  He raced out to a 5-1 lead in the first set in under 30 minutes.   He reined in his unforced errors for the second set tiebreak quickly enough to get a 4-0 advantage early on Ferrer.  

"It was important to move well, be aggressive. That was my plan," said Stan.  At one point in the match, after handing his towel to a ball kid, Wawrinka crouched down on his haunches, sprang up, and did a series of football-player-running-through-the-tires steps  while waiting for Ferrer to serve.  I thought, uh oh, is he cramping? No. He was just reminding himself to move his feet.

Roger Federer reached the final by upsetting defending champ and wounded world number 2 Novak Djokovic, 7-5, 6-2.  Nole's been nursing a wrist injury all tournament long, but it didn't seem to hurt him until today.  He walked onto the court with his right forearm heavily bandaged and a heavy look on his face.

"It's unfortunate that when you're playing at this level against Roger, big tournament, that you are not able to play your game because something else is taking away all your energy and effort," Djokovic was quoted as saying in USA Today. "This injury has been present for last 10 days, and I tried not to think or talk about it. I did everything I could, really. I was on the medications every day, I was doing different therapies, injections." 

Djokovic said he's going to take some time away from tennis.

"I just rest now. I cannot play tennis for some time. How long, I don't know," Djokovic said. "I'm going to rest and see when it can heal 100 percent, then I will be back on the court."  His next scheduled stop on the tour is in Madrid, which starts May 4.  And the French Open is beckoning.  It starts May 25.  

Saintly Pro: Joe Dinoffer

Saintly Pro Joe Dinoffer hits two milestones this year. He turns 60, and his tennis training tools company, On Court Off Court, turns 20.  That's a pretty big deal, those two decades, when you think of what a niche market he's operating in.  

 Joe Dinoffer, made a saint for all the times he's had to say, "racquet back." Photo, Joe Dinoffer. Halo conferred by Amy Eddings.

Flip through a catalog or click through On Court Off Court's website, and you'll find the tools in a typical tennis pro's teaching arsenal: brightly colored cones, flat plastic targets, ball machines and big foam tennis balls.

But there are also gadgets like the Forehand Fixer, the Billie Jean King Eye Coach, the Contact Doctor and the enigmatic Arm Pocket Developer, which sounds like a sewing notion.  It's not.  It's an arm band that helps correct for big backswings.

We're still trying to get tennis players to embrace the use of training aids more like golfers do

"These things all definitely help, there's no question about it," said Dinoffer in a recent telephone interview with me.  "I think, intrinsically with tennis, there are people who would use training aids more -- and some do use them -- but there haven't been companies promoting training aids.  One of the reasons is, the numbers are small enough that companies that come up with one or two ideas cannot sell enough of them to stay in business."

That hasn't been a problem with Dinoffer, who started delving into the science of learning out of a desire to help his students improve more quickly.  "We've got a little over 200 proprietary products that I designed," Dinoffer said.  Some are simply modifications for teaching carts and ball baskets, but others clearly involved thinking out of the box, or, in this case, the court.  

The opening salvo in the War On Cones: Joe Dinoffer's Ropezone, which creates target hitting zones. Photo, On Court Off Court.His first product was Ropezone, a set of four, brightly-colored flat ropes that clip onto the net and are used to create target areas.  Dinoffer said Ropezone not only helps players develop directional hitting, it builds confidence.

"When I started my company, I jokingly called it Join The War On Cones," he said. Why the Cone Hate?

Tennis pros walk on court, typically, with a mind set that they're getting paid to find what's wrong

"If you aim for a cone that's 60 or 80 feet away, and you hit it, it's just pure luck.  People fail 95 percent of the time or more," he said.  That leads to Tennis Hate.  Haters, we know where that can lead us: straight off the court and onto the couch.  Dinoffer said target zones are more forgiving than cones, they can be adjusted to a player's skills and abilities and they offer higher chances for success.

"Tennis pros walk on court, typically, with a mind set that they're getting paid to find what's wrong. Consequently, that's what they'll do.  They'll see you, Amy, hitting a forehand [editor's note: I'm cringing here, which tells me he's on to something] and feel like, 'Wow, the more I notice what you're doing wrong, the more I can tell you what you're doing wrong, the better job I'm doing.'  But that's going to backfire on the student.

"I came up with the theory that a 70 percent to 30 percent success to failure ratio was a reasonable thing to help people feel good about themselves and their experience."  What Joe's offering through his products -- the funky Arm Pocket Developers, the ropes, the straps, even the little buzzing electronic shoe inserts designed to cattle-prod you onto your toes -- is encouragement and confidence.  Hey, I can do this, too.  I think I'll stick with this sport.   

A tennis training aid, a Hannibal Lector restraint device, or a goalie mask? You decide. Photo courtesy Square Hit Tennis.It takes a lot of balls, though -- and I don't mean the fuzzy, yellow kind -- to show up at your club and strap on your Flex Trainer.  I bought a Wrist Assist (check out the photo, left) after seeing coaching great Brad Gilbert shill for it on Tennis Channel, and it quickly moved from my wrist to the trunk of my car.  I was too embarrassed to wear it.

Even gadget-less training efforts can draw stares from others.  I once tried replicating a Bryan Brothers kick serve drill, one that involves serving from the baseline on your knees, to force you to hit up on the ball.  Two guys on the next court stopped to watch.  "Is that something you learned from watching Tennis Channel?" one jerk quipped.

I persisted for a few more serves, my cheeks bright red, every ball flopping into the net.  I got up a few minutes later and tried to look nonchalent as I picked out green grains of Har-True that were embedded in my knees.  Ouch.  In more ways than one.

Saintly Pro Joe Dinoffer was sympathetic.  "We're still trying to get tennis players to embrace the use of training aids more like golfers do," he said.  "People swing golf clubs in their backyards more freely to practice than people will swing their tennis racquet.  It could be that to play golf is a serious decision in that it takes half a day and it costs more money.  I guess it motivates golfers to practice a little more.  Tennis, perhaps, is taken a little more casually."

Well.  I'm not a casual type of gal, Haters.  I've put a lot of effort into trying to improve, and it often feels like it's been to my detriment.  That Wrist Assist I threw out cost me $59, and I used it maybe 5 times before I let shame deter me.  These things don't work anyway, I fumed.

I wonder if Joe Dinoffer offers an Attitude Adjustor?

That Wrist Assist, by the way? Joe says his Angle Doctor gets the job done for about half the price, something he hints at in this instructional video.

Proof of Tennis Hate #12: Lost Ball on Fulton Street

I spotted this lonely little guy dropped between the stoops of Greenlight Bookstore and the coffee shop, Greene Grape Annex along Fulton Street in Fort Greene.  Did someone pull it from their pocket and drop it there, along with the napkin they had just used to blow their nose?  

No one does this to baseballs. Or hockey pucks.  Or footballs.  I'd be hard pressed to find an abandoned basketball here.  But people feel just fine about abandoning what looks to be a perfectly good tennis ball.  Tennis Hate.  It's universal.

Lost in the line for coffee: a tennis ball outside my favorite coffee shop, Annex, on Fulton St in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Photo: mine.

Petkovic Wins, Weeps, at Family Circle Cup Semis

She won, so why was Andrea Petkovic crying into her towel?  She rallied after a shaky first set to beat hard-charging Aussie Open semifinalist Eugenie Bouchard, 1-6,  6-3, 7-5 in Charleston, S.C.  She beat Tennis Hate in the third set, steeling herself to come back from a 4-2 deficit.  Why the tears?

Not Tennis Hate, but Tennis Love: Petkovic cries with relief on reaching Family Circle Cup Final. Photo: Amy Eddings

Well, maybe it's because she hasn't been a finalist since last August at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., where she fell to Magdalena Rybarikova in straight sets.  Maybe it's because it's the farthest she's gotten so far this year. She was booted in the first round in three of the seven tournaments she's played; in Dubai, she didn't even get out of the qualies. Maybe it's because she's injury-free for the first time in three years, playing the way she used to.

"I was just so relieved and I was proud that I came back from all these injuries, and I never thought that I would play finals in the big tournaments again,” she said, according to the L.A. Times.

Petkovic had a breakout year in 2011.  She won her first WTA tournament at Brisbane.  She was the only player on the tour to reach three Grand Slam quarterfinals (Australian, Roland Garros and US Open).  She broke the Top Ten for the first time, reaching ninth in the world in October....and then the wheels started to come off.  Her wheels.  First, it was her knee that gave her trouble after her US Open run.  Then, in the second round of her comeback tournament in Stuttgart, Petkovic rolled her right ankle so hard, the bottom of her shoe was parallel to her shinbone.  Then, more knee problems, and a back problem, and she's down to 143 in the world one year later.  

Petko is now ranked 40th in the world, and I am rooting for her.  She gave my husband a sweaty hug after beating Roberta Vinci at the US Open in a match on the Grandstand court.  We had slipped into second row seats behind the baseline.  Andrea had run over to her coach nearby to embrace him when Mark leaned over the rail and shouted, "Hey, Andrea, can I have a hug, too?"  She flung herself up and into his arms, making us fans for life.

She faces Jana Cepelova of Slovakia, who, too, resurrected her game from the dead, down 4-1 in the third set tiebreak against Swiss qualifier Belinda Bencic.   

Update on Monday, April 7, 2014 at 3:22PM by Amy Eddings

She did it.  Andrea Petkovic defeated Jana Cepelova, 7-5, 6-2, to take the Family Circle Cup.  It's her first WTA tournament title in three years.  It wasn't easy.  Cepelova, serving at 5-4, was one point away from taking the first set.  

"When I was set point down, I was standing with my back against the wall and I told myself, this is not how you want to end this set, Petko told ESPN.  "I started playing more aggressive and started moving better and then I shook off the nervousness and played fine in the end."

Andrea's footwork was incredible for someone who suffered a devastating ankle injury 2 years ago.  Cepelova was trying to disrupt Petko's rhythm and was hitting lots of drop shots, but Andrea made tasty snacks of most of them, booting one down the line for a winner.  She was super fearsome on her forehand.  Most of her winners were from that wing.  

Cepelova was a Worthy Opponent.  The unseeded Slovakian didn't think she was going to make it very far.  She came to the tournament without an entourage: no coach, no physio, no hitting partner, no family to cheer her on.

Petko noted that during the trophy presentation.  "Had I known that, I'd of signed up to be your coach," she said, adding quickly, "Not that you needed one."

Cepelova's path to the final included a beat-down of the great Serena Williams in the first round.  No, not that she needed it.  

Petkovic needed this victory, though.  She said it would give her confidence.  Sounding like a true Tennis Hater, she told ESPN, "I doubt everything I do.  I'm such a perfectionist.  I'm very German, I throw tantrums and get really upset and grumpy."

I'm German, too, partially.  Like, maybe, 1/8th.  Is this my passport out?  "Sorry, guys, for swearing like a sailor out there.  I'm German"?

"I am constantly having these thoughts in my head and they are eating me alive, so it's been very rewarding the whole week and I'm just so grateful," Petkovic said.

Ah.  Gratitude.  An antidote to corrosive Hater thoughts.