Plucky Tree

For those that follow men’s tennis, you know it’s been dominated by 3 players for more than 15 years. Out of 60 grand slam tournaments that have been player, 85% of them have been won by these three players.

If tennis is not your sport, imagine that a single team or player won 85% of every major event for 15 years. It would get a little boring after awhile.

First off, it’s worth mentioning that these three players (Djokovic, Federer, Nadal) are exceptional players and all work very hard. Perhaps they are the best three tennis players of all time.

But tennis has a lot of interesting and subtle rules that assist top players in retaining their dominance. For each of these rules, there’s a good case to be made that it’s positive for fans and definitely positive for the bottom line of the sport of tennis. But taken together, they take some of the drama out of the sport.…

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Not since my 2016 pick of Alexander Zverev (now in the top 10!) have I been this excited by a new player. This year it’s Alex de Minaur. Currently ranked 208 in the world, this is definitely my biggest longshot of a pick ever.

He has a long list of things going for him:

• He’s got a great attitude. Gets fired up regularly and generally doesn’t have negative outbursts. They always tell you to play one point at a time and Alex does this. Terrible point? Reset, then try again.
• He’s fast as almost anyone out there
• He’s patient, which is rare in young players. He waits for the right moment and then strikes.
• He’s scrappy and steals points that you think you should have one
• He’s a tremendously good volleyer
• He hits the ball on the rise and does very well against difficult servers like Raonic

Weaknesses are his second serve and sometimes playing a bit too conservatively.…

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Denis Shapavalov is my pick for promising new player of the year. A very aggressive lefty, scrappy, and an excellent volleyer. Lots of positive energy although a bit too much temper.

Someone to watch in 2017. Currently ranked over 100 in the world.

Other predictions:

New tennis face for 2018
New tennis face for 2016
New tennis faces for 2011

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I did this for 2011 but I thought it would be fun to put my pick or picks for the next hot player in writing and see how I do.

I was watching a match on Court 5 at the US Open in 2015, which shares seating with Court 4 so you can watch two matches at once. On Court 4 was an unknown player, Alexander Zverev, playing veteran Philip Kohlshreiber. As time went on, I started watching that match instead. It was 95 degrees, humid, and the match went 5 sets. Zverev succumbed to cramps and lost the match.

But holy shit, one of the most impressive players I’ve seen in years. Tall with an impressive serve, fast, equally good on both forehand and backhand, but not such a great volley. Ranked around 100 in the world at the time. Future Top 10 for sure if not higher.

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First world problem.

I record a lot of tennis on TiVo partly because it’s usually inconvenient to watch it live (time zone differences) and if I time-shift it, I can zap the commercials or skim matches I don’t have time to watch all of.

It’s gotten increasingly difficult to not have the outcomes of matches I’ve queued up be spoiled before I’ve gotten a chance to see them. I almost need to cut myself off from the outside world during a tournament I’m watching. Here are the various ways matches can be easily spoiled:

• I follow tennis players on social media and they obviously are going to announce the outcomes of their matches.
• I play tennis often and players love to chatter about matches and will spoil ones I haven’t watched. Even if I tell them not to spoil it, they’ll do it in some subtle way (e.g. If they say a match was “shocking”, then it’s probably the underdog that won).

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The highlight of the Australian Open this year for me was seeing three very promising players that I’ve never seen before, two of which I’ve never even heard of:

1. Bernard Tomic, who has a very unconventional style that really messes with people’s minds. You never know quite what he’s going to do. Does need to ditch his father as a coach.
2. Alexandr Dolgopolov, who also has somewhat of an unusual style, but can surprise you with easy power.
3. Milos Raonic  was the most impressive of all, although he didn’t make it as far as Dolgopolov. He’s much more of a classic player, with an incredible serve.

All three clearly need more experience and to work on some things, but I was very impressed with their calm and collected attitudes and I will be very excited to see them play in 2011.

Other predictions:

New tennis face for 2018
New tennis face for 2017
New tennis faces for 2011

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I played tennis recently at a “public” court owned by Valley Church in Cupertino, CA. I was browsing their website today and came across a page about the tennis courts:

Valley Church: Sports Ministry

I think the mission statement bears repeating:

Building bridges with people through sports, introducing them to Jesus Christ, establishing them in their faith, assimilating them into the church and training them to reproduce.

Could that possibly be any creepier? Note that they’ve since removed that text but I found an old version of it.

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