TENNIS
McEnroe, Edberg and Sampras…
… Proved serve and volley was no folly at the French Open
As someone who plays, watches and follows tennis on a regular basis when you think about French Open, you end up visualizing a battle of attrition on the red dirt. Isn’t it?
You expect the matches to be a baseline slugfest, with long drawn rallies, powerful ground-strokes — at times with heavy topspin, clever use of the drop-shot and eventually a clay court specialist coming up trumps. If the eventual champion happens to be from Spain it is certainly not a coincidence. If the Spaniard’s name is Rafael Nadal, as has been the case in 14 of the past 18 editions, it is not a surprise but much on expected lines.
From a broader perspective every subsequent edition of the year’s second major at Roland Garros more or less follows the same script, with little scope for improvization. Courts with a high bounce, the speed drastically cut down, extended running time, physically strong players — mostly waiting for their opponents to make an error, and sometimes forcing the error, and a happy ending (read one of the pre-tournament favourites winning the title)… it can’t get more predictable than this.
However, there are quite a few examples to the contrary. Just as an otherwise mundane film script can…
