The Tennis Futures Market: Australian Open Men's Recap

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by Chris Marshall:

For American tennis fans, the Australian Open often becomes the forgotten Grand Slam event. It is four months removed in either direction from any other major, and the time difference between the eastern United States and Melbourne, Australia, makes it difficult to watch for all but the most dedicated and deranged fans. Luckily I fall into that category.

Despite the lackluster response it gets from casual fans, though, the tournament sets the basic narrative for the entire season. On the men's side, it feels like more of the same. The Big 3.5 of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray will continue to dominate every tournament. Anybody who saw the last three matches will realize there is nothing bad about this development; rarely will you ever see such sustained excellence as was on display in the semis and the final.

For a few fleeting moments it seemed like Murray might break through and win his match against Djokovic, but Nole just has an extra gear that he can kick into when the match is on the line. At last year's U.S. Open he hit an incredible, go-for-broke return winner when down match point against Federer. In the semi against Murray this year, he bounced back from blowing a fifth set lead, and in the final against Nadal, he climbed back from a break down in the fifth. This ability is almost more damaging to an opponent's psyche than blowing them out, because with Djokovic, even if you are in the match, you still feel like there's no way you can beat him.

As much as I hate to say it, it appears that Federer may never come up with a solution to Nadal. Going into their semi, Roger had won 24 straight matches dating back to the aforementioned U.S. Open semi against Djokovic, and he was playing his best tennis since winning the Australian in 2010. Rafa dispatched him in four sets, and the most dispiriting aspect of it from Federer's perspective was that he didn't even play badly. Even at his near-best, he still couldn't even go the distance. Beating Rafa and/or Djokovic at the French Open seems like a pipe dream at this point.

Rafa, on the other hand, confirmed that, on the right day, he still has what it takes to unseat the world number one. Losing a match after being up a break in the fifth is a tough blow to absorb, but he has to realize that he was only a handful of points away from stopping his six-match skid against the Djoker. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not his body can hold up over the course of the year. If it does, it is hard to imagine that Djokovic will dominate the clay-court season like he did last year. If there's one thing that history tells us, it's that nobody beats Nadal on clay for any extended period of time. Of course, before last year, nobody could beat Nadal on clay at all.

Overall, nothing in the tournament signaled any sort of shift in the hegemony. Certainly Djokovic and Nadal have cemented their places in the top two, and Federer appears to be in no danger of losing his position to Andy Murray. The more interesting, if less meaningful, shake-ups have occurred outside the top seven (David Ferrer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Tomas Berdych are currently jockeying for 5th, 6th, and 7th). Andy Roddick, the American stalwart, is now in danger of falling out of the top 20 for the first time since 2000, and he is currently only the third highest-ranked American, behind Mardy Fish (8th) and John Isner (17th). With three top-20 players, the U.S. trails only Spain and France (four each), but it feels like we are farther away from a Grand Slam title than ever before. Fish and Roddick are old in tennis years, and Isner has likely reached the peak that his particular skill set can deliver.

But for less provincial fans, the Aussie Open heralded the possible emergence of three young players at least into top 20 territory. Kei Nishikori, Milos Raonic, and Australian hopeful Bernard Tomic all had impressive showings, demonstrating that their positive results from last year were not flukes. These three men, all age 22 or younger, have vaulted into the top 40, and the upside for each of them seems colossal. I expect Tomic, the youngest of the bunch at 19, to have the best career of the three, though he desperately needs to work on his return game. The sample size is admittedly small, but right now he is winning an abysmal 25% of first serve return points, tied for 80th in the world. Nishikori has exactly the opposite problem. He's 22nd in the world in first serve returns won, but 68th in points won on his own first serve. Raonic is probably the most dangerous of the three right now, simply based on his serve, but the era of monster servers dominating entire tournaments is long over.

Still, at least for the next couple of years, this youth movement will have to accept a Grand Slam quarterfinal as the best they can hope for. The big guys on top are not going to give up their semifinal spots so easily. But this is important to keep in mind as an outside observer. The four-headed monster that rules the sport right now won't last forever, and somebody else will eventually step in to fill the gap. For now, the goal is simply to break into the top 8, or at least the top 16, which allows you to avoid playing the elites until the 4th round or the quarters. It is notoriously difficult to predict long-term results in tennis, but if these guys can survive the shark tank that is the upper echelon of men's tennis, there is every reason to believe at least one will be an eventual Slam contender.


*http://au.eurosport.com/tennis/us-open/2009/big-four-well-ahead_sto2922451/story.shtml