Pumped Up

I was watching, for a few minutes, Wimbledon. Fortunately, even without cable, I can catch a few minutes on the weekends. As usual, along with tea and biscuits, rain was the order of the day at Wimbledon.

The match was between Venus Williams and Akiko Morigami. Japanese women have always fared pretty well, even as they have yet to crack the upper echelon of women players. The last "great" player was Kimiko Date. She could hit her flat shots towards corners, and make slow players look sluggish. But she could also toss dozens of unforced errors. She always struggled against top players like Steffi and Monica, though she managed to eke out a win, here and there. She was a top 10 player, but usually lacked the mental toughness to play in a final.

Date resembles the typical Japanese woman. Reserved with emotions, out there to play. Perhaps the modern players now see how emotional Western players play, and so they imitate, hoping for similar success.

Thus, Morigami appeared to have her hopes dashed when she went for a winning shot, only for it to fail to clear the net.

Only in women's tennis (and figure skating) are tiny skirts still the norm. Morigami had a daintly outfit, contrasted with Venus's garish combination, which included hip-hugging short shorts, and a shirt that exposed her sports bra (apparently tastefully covering her body, without a hint of titillation). It's the kind of urban look tempered for Wimbledon that the William sisters bring.

Despite the dainty frills at the bottom of her skirt, Morigami appears more than capable of hitting hard shots, and indeed, despite losing the first set 6-2, has come back 4-1 (could simply be one break) in the second.

I briefly saw Amelie Mauresmo complete her match, with her broad shoulders.

Unlike the men, the women seem to have backslid some. The power in the game doesn't seem like the chancy strikes of the days of Seles and Graf. What has come in its place though, are the journeymen women (journeywomen?) who now have more oomph in their shots. It wasn't so long ago that you'd see women play like Chris Evert or Tracy Austin, where steadiness and flat shots, not power and spin, were the order of the day.

But that oomph isn't the dazzling displays of a decade ago, when the rest of the field tried desperately to catch up, to learn to hit at a pace that would keep them even with Venus and Serena, with Jennifer and Mary Pierce. The big babe days of Lindsay Davenport seem to have passed. The players of today are more mobile, and hit somewhat less hard.

Has tennis faded compared to 15 years ago? Or is that an American view where the top players aren't American?

Perhaps it says something that I only watched twenty minutes of Wimbledon, so far.