Strawberry and Pimms

You know you're a real blogger when you blog away from home. Ideally, you're in some cybercafe in some exotic city, uploading images, recounting stories of the day's adventure.

This must mean I'm a real blogger. I'm blogging from Seattle. Outside of the DC area and Tennessee, where I grew up, Seattle is the city I'm most familiar with (OK, there's Ithaca, but I haven't there in years). There are times I think I'd like to move out to Seattle, having lived in the Maryland area for 15 years. Most of the people I know live in Maryland, but I know quite a few people who've migrated from Maryland out to Seattle.

Seattle is a city, and yet, it doesn't feel as urban as other cities. There's less crime, the people are friendly, there's more of an environmental feel. Sure, there's the bane of all cities: traffic.

I've never been much of a vacationing type. It has, I suspect, much to do with my temperament of wanting to feel safe and secure, and by that, I mean to be around friends and people I know. I have a friend who likes the unknown, who would go to a place because it's new and there's no one there he knows. I don't know why people particularly enjoy that, but he does.

Ever since I became employed full-time and therefore vacation became a scare resource (go USA! ...and I mean that rather cynically), I figured I should take vacations. Except the only place I want to go is Seattle, and it's all the way across the country, which makes travelling to and fro a mini-ordeal.

I should put on my tourist hat and just venture to Seattle, and see stuff, but that kind of vacationing is stressful. I don't mind spending a quiet day at someone's place.

Today, I caught the ladies final at Wimbledon. This seemed strange to me. But before I relate that story, let me talk tennis.

The most successful sports in the world are team sports, because they take the sports out of sports. By that, I mean that a team sport relies on fans to support the team---not the players. The quality of play, the players, none of that matters, provided the team does well.

Washington loves its Redskins, and yes, it manages to love them even as they can't seem to win. But if they had to give up Arrington and give up Sean Taylor (is he even there anymore), but they could win, would the fans care? I mean, that's what it means to follow a team. The team represents the city. The team represents the fans. The team is an extension of the fan, and in the end, the fan doesn't care how the team wins, only that it does win.

Tennis, on the other hand, is personality-driven. You like a player or you like the way a player plays. As much as Billie Jean King wanted to bring a team concept to tennis, she couldn't attract the top-named players, nor fans, nor make it anywhere near as important as the big tournaments like the French Open or Wimbledon or the US Open.

Like golf, tennis fans like seeing player for years. This is why people root for Martina even though she's closer to 50 than 40. They want Henman to win. They want Agassi to win. Fans like players, Sometimes they like their looks (eg, Kournikova or Sharapova, but even Edberg or Roddick). This makes support difficult. People loved Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. Once both faded from popularity (basically through retirement), these fans may not feel the same passion for any other player. You have to look for new players. Teams, on the other hand, have some permanence.

For example, Redskins fans have supported their team for years and years and years. Much longer than anyone could support a tennis fan. Perhaps in golf, where a player in their 50s might still win (except these days, strength seems to be important it's become a game for the young).

In order to watch tennis, you need cable. Without it, you don't get enough tennis on network television. Even the major events are only covered on weekends. To get daily coverage of Wimbledon, you need ESPN. If you want to see the US Open, you need USA Cable. Networks tend to cover Wimbledon like they cover the Olympics. They understand that people don't just want to see competition, they want to know the people behind the competition.

This is why Henman has such popularity. Everyone knows he carries the weight of British expectations to win Wimbledon. And yet, he played at a time when players like Sampras or Ivanesivic played. Henman always played above his abilities at Wimbledon. He was not a great player, yet, he was a very good player. If he just had a more powerful serve, or a better return, that might have been enough to win just one Wimbledon. It's amazing that one of his closest attempts to win a major is last year's French Open, when he made it to the semifinals. A confirmed grass-court player, who would have thought he could win on clay? It would have been a story of a lifetime, and yet, it was not to be. The clay court specialists are just too good in this day and age.

Henman lost in the second round, his earliest exit since 1995. Henman was often good to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. In many ways, Henman was what the Brits did and did not need. For years, Britain had few good players. Remember John Lloyd? Chris Evert's husband? (Er, first husband). He was one of England's best players. For a long time, the criticism was that Brits were too nice to win at tennis, that they needed to be meaner, a la Lleyton Hewitt.

Henman had the kind of game that could win Wimbledon. He had a good serve. He had a good volley. He could hit groundstrokes all right. He also had the misfortune of playing when Pete Sampras played. It's not so much that Sampras was 1 and Henman was 2. Henman tended to play much better at Wimbledon than anywhere else, but he's more like a #5 player in the world at best. He doesn't have the serve of Ivanesivic nor the volley of Edberg nor the groundies of Agassi.
Year after year, he'd give Brits hope, and year after year, he'd bow out to someone better.

This year appeared to be the changing of the guards. Henman was eliminated in the second round, and the Brits wanted someone else to cheer. And that someone was Andrew Murray. Who is Andrew Murray? I had no idea until I watched the NBC telecast of Wimbledon. NBC devotes part of its telecast to introducing the new faces of tennis. It makes sense for them to do this, especially for the folks who only watch Wimbledon and US Open as their tennis fare.

Murray survived one round longer than fellow Brit, Henman, losing to one-time Wimbledon finalist, David Nalbandian, of Argentina. Since Murray is only 18, young by male tennis standards, and Henman is 31, old by tennis standards, there's new hope that Murray can accomplish what Henman couldn't. Still, I have to admire how well Henman played without winning the big one. He thrived, for the most part, under the intense scrutiny of British fans, in a sport that the Brits were never that good at, save, Fred Perry.

If I enjoy Wimbledon, or tennis, in general, I can squarely put the blame on networks like NBC. I know. True fans only care about the game being played, and not specials about players, but the networks are right to believe that fans want to know who the players are, want to like them, want them to follow fervently, wishing players well. Without segments telling us who these players are, you'd never get to know them.

And, for all of that, I do believe fans watch tennis more for the quality of the game than anything. Fans that are bored by tennis only need watch, say, baseball. I know, I know. Baseball has a thrill all its own, but only when the games matter. Regular season games are not worth watching no matter how tight the game. I found it exciting to watch the Red Sox come back from 3-0 down to the Yankees, then win two games in the 12th inning on David Ortiz homers. But if I didn't know about the many years of futility that the Red Sox had to endure, or that they were making this comeback over the hated Yankees, I might simply not care.

Tennis can be that way too, where you watch two players you simply don't care about. However, there's intense drama in tennis as well. After a highly disappointing French Open where Mary Pierce simply collapsed against Justine Henin-Hardenne, I could only hope that Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport could play a great match.

Ah, Mary Pierce, you remember her. American dad. French mom. Grew up in Canada. Went to train at Nick's in Florida. Dad was a bit psycho, you see. Liked to rough up fans who didn't like her daughter. Made her practice in the rain when she didn't do so well. Poor Mary always looked so distressed. Then, Mom did the sensible thing and kicked dad out, and the WTA banned dad from attending tournaments, and Mary was happy and winning.

Except Mary, much like her psychological twin, Jennifer Capriati, is inconsistent. Both girls hit a ton. Both girls have had problems with parents. Both play well when they play well, and play badly, just as often. One day, Pierce plays well, then disappears for months at a time, and the next day Capriati plays well. Neither quite reached their potential, though one wonders whether Capriati's inability to deal with her personal demons had much to do with that.

Of the two Williams sisters, Serena is considered the more talented. Daddy Williams said it was so, and it turned out he was right. Yet, after the meteoric rise of the two sisters, who often played one unwatchable major final after another, the nerves of playing one's siblings often too much to bear, the two have had problems. Injuries and a possible downturn in interest in the game has meant neither player has won a major in a while.

Serena lost in the second round to one Jill Craybas. Who is Jill Craybas, you say? Never heard of her? Probably no one outside her mother and doubles partner had either. Craybas is 31 years old, and has generally never made it past the second round of any major. Her current rank is 85, and her highest rank is about 50. She's in the range of players that are solid, but never good enough to challenge the top players. In tennis, terms, she's a journeyman, the equivalent of, oh, I don't know, maybe a Luc Longley? Pick someone that sits on the bench a lot in the NBA, or is a role player.

85 is a respectable ranking. How many women can say that only 84 players are better than them? Yet, she might eke out a living, just making 6 figures. That sounds like a lot, but realize a player might have 10-15 good years of play time, if even that, and that travel costs and coaching adds up.

She had no business playing close against Serena, and yet close is how she played. Serena should have hit her off the court, overpowering her, and yet Jill stayed in the match. She eventually closed the match in a second set tiebreak. For a player like that, winning against Serena is like Serena winning the US Open. There's no chance Craybas gets even a whiff of the finals. Usually when a player like that comes out of nowhere to win a match, that's it. The next round, they're out.

The exceptions are rare, and usually budding talents like when Becker wins Wimbledon at 17, or Wilander wins the French at 17, or when Chang wins the French at 17. It's rare for a 31 year old who's never had much in the way of tennis success suddenly plays the tournament of a lifetime and wins. And Craybas was not going to be an exception to that rule. In fact, she had to answer to big sis, Venus.

Venus hadn't reached the finals of a major since 2003 and hadn't won since 2001. It had been a drought for someone of her talent, and there was questions whether she'd ever regain the form that lead her to two majors in 2000 and 2001. In the final, her opponent was Lindsay Davenport.

Davenport has a had a very solid career. She's won three majors, though never more than one in a year. She's maybe like Patrick Rafter. She's strong enough to make it to semifinals, but has a tough time closing the deal. She's a big girl, with big strokes, but never moved that well on the court. Although she shed a few pounds in the latter half of her career, her speed was not a big part of her game. She's never had the kind of adoration that Venus has. She's not particularly pretty, which hurts in a sport where fans go gaga over Kournikova and Sharapova. Even Steffi Graf had her admirers. Not so with Lindsay.

Both Venus and Lindsay are tall women, standing six feet plus. Both had something to show. Venus wanted to show she was back to top form, and Lindsay wanted to break through, and win one before her career winds down. Even at her peak, winning majors didn't come easy for Lindsay. And this was a great match.

Lindsay took the first set rather handily, and looked well on her way to winning the second. In the second, Lindsay had the match on her racquet: she just had to hold to win. Venus broke at love. She managed to take the tiebreak, and forced a third set. The third set was close, with Davenport serving up. Then, fortune broke Venus's way. Lindsay got injured around 4-all. She was hobbling, and it felt like if Davenport didn't break, Venus would eventually do so and win.

Lindsay knew this better than anyone, but it was so hard to break. In fact, she did quite well on her serve, holding it fairly easily, and even getting some chances to win it in the third. But Venus was resolute. As much as Davenport tried to stay in the match, she was hurt, and couldn't run. Perhaps it's good that Lindsay was never all that mobile to begin with, and the injury wouldn't have affected her as much, but it was clear that it was a problem. Rather than go for acute angles, Davenport began hitting shots up the center, if only to prevent Venus from hitting her angles.

In the end, Venus got her break at 7-all, and served out the match at 8-7. As much as some fans despise Venus (though most have warmed up in the many years she's played), there's no mistaken the unbridled joy that Venus gets when she wins. It was something she hadn't done in 4 years, and this didn't seem like the tournament where'd she'd hold up the gold dish that serves as the women's trophy, yet, there she was.

Lindsay has to be shaking her head wondering what if. What if she hadn't gotten hurt? What if she had played a little more solidly at the end of the second set. She can feel proud that she hung in the matches, even as she couldn't move as well as she needed to. She played smart, she hit good shots, but Venus played the big points that much better, and couldn't simply stop competing just because Lindsay was hurt. And despite the injury, fans were treated to a thoroughly wonderous match filled with power and angle, the kind of tennis that big racquets and big women now produce.

Wimbledon is a place of tradition and stateliness. While both women played unconventional hard-hitting tennis, they did so with grace and competitive fire, and made this wayward fan remember why he used to watch this game. The kind of emotional drama that a big tournament like Wimbledon brings is unparalleled by much of the rest of sport. It's as raw as one can be outside the brutal sport that is boxing.

It's still the one sport women play that compels men and women alike. Congratulations to Venus for her victory. Congratulations too to Lindsay, who made us believe that maybe, injury could be overcome, and the taste of sweet champagne drunk in the overcast lawns of Wimbledon.

Addedum: I started writing this on July 3, shortly after watching the rebroadcast of the ladies championships. However, the silly browser kept losing my changes. I didn't finally get around to finishing until over a week later, but here it is, as best as I can remember the feelings from a week ago.