Spanish teenager Rafael Nadal was compared to Michael Chang, Mats Wilander and Bjorn Borg after his impressive march to victory in the French Open, but the tennis he played was superior to anything they produced on clay courts.
You can’t do any more than beat the best around, and Chang, Wilander and Borg, all teenagers when they first won in Paris, did that. But for power and strength, Nadal leaves them behind.
The explosive Spaniard was untested until he ran into world No 1 Roger Federer in the semi-finals. They had a top-quality four-set match, but Nadal’s physical ability would not be denied. He put Federer under constant pressure with his court speed and his consistently ferocious hitting. I thought he backed up very well to win a close four-set final over the under-rated Argentine Mariano Puerto.
Commentator Fred Stolle summed it up when the said: “I saw Wilander beat Guillermo Vilas to win his first French Open (in 1982), but the tennis was different back then. They had rallies of 50 or 60 hits. There was none of the power and big hitting we see now.”
It seems almost sacrilegious to suggest that anyone was better on clay than Borg, who won six French Open crowns, sometimes without losing a set. He was further ahead of his contemporaries than Nadal is today. But the clay court game has exploded. There are now dozens of South Americans, Spaniards and Frenchmen who are experts on this most testing surface in the game. It’s doubtful if even Borg’s athleticism, consistency and coolness would have been enough against a killer like Nadal.
For Nadal to come through against such hot opposition, in his first French Open, indicates what a champion he is. The challenge for him is to reproduce that dominance on other surfaces, as Federer has done.
It was just as well the men had such a great French Open, because the women this year were pathetic. Lindsay Davenport, the world No 1, prepared by going on holiday to Mexico. Mary Pierce, who is about 10 years past her best and seems unwilling to run, reached the final.
Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova, Amelie Mauresmo and Venus Williams must have all felt the title was there to win. But all played poorly.
The best two women were Justine Henin-Hardenne and Svetlana Kuznetsova, who met in a tough quarter-final, when Henin-Hardenne saved two matchpoints before winning.
I couldn’t help feeling, though, that Martina Hingis, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, Serena Williams or even Jennifer Capriati, in their best form, would have handled this year’s French Open field without many problems.
Marina Erakovic continues to prosper. Unranked at the start of the year, she is now up to 269th in the world. It hasn’t been easy. While the tennis spotlight has been on the glamorous European clay court season, she’s been battling away in uncomfortable $25,000 and $50,000 events in Asia. But she has produced consistently good results and the indications are that the 17-year-old Aucklander, who is coached by Chris Lewis, will soon be ready to compete in the top tier of events.
The features I like most about Erakovic’s game are her willingness to volley and her temperament. She also has a handy habit of winning close matches.
New Zealand’s Wimbledon Champion
Anthony Wilding is among the most significant figures in New Zealand sports history. Four times a Wimbledon singles champion, four times a doubles champion, four times a key figure in the Davis Cup-winning team, the French champion, an Olympic medallist – his tennis CV earns him comparison with the greats of the past century.
He rates alongside runner Jack Lovelock, boxer Bob Fitzsimmons, and the 1905 and 1924 All Black teams, as our biggest sports name before World War II.
It’s strange, then, that English journalist Wallis Myers’s Captain Anthony Wilding, published in 1916, was for so long the only significant biography of Wilding. Myers’s book, and Wilding’s autobiography, published in 1912, three years before his death, have been the only substantial books on this charismatic, brilliant sportsman – until now.
Christchurch academics Len and Shelley Richardson have combined to write Anthony Wilding A Sporting Life (Canterbury University Press, $49.95), and what a fine job they’ve done. This is a meticulously researched book of 160,000 words.
The Richardsons have been assisted by the vast amount of material available on Wilding. His hundreds of letters home, the diaries/scrapbooks kept so conscientiously by his mother Julia, and other Wilding family papers have formed the basis of this book, though the authors have searched widely for extra information.
Wilding had extraordinary parents. His mother had firm views on education and was not the sort of woman to shrink into the background. Wilding’s father, Frederick, a lawyer, was a towering figure of early Canterbury, a champion cricketer and tennis player, and a man who believed a healthy body developed a healthy mind.
The Wildings were a wealthy family and sent Anthony to Cambridge in 1902. He was to study for a good law degree, but did just enough work to get by, while immersing himself in sport – rugby, cricket and, especially, tennis.
His tennis improved every year. His first task was to remodel his backhand – when he arrived in England, he hit his backhand and forehand with the same side of his racket. Then he worked on his serve and overhead. He always had a powerful forehand and was a stickler for physical fitness.
The book is intriguing. Was Wilding a privileged rich kid who cared about nothing but himself? He basically travelled around Europe for a decade playing tennis and, because of his ability at the sport, gaining introductions to the rich and famous. He stayed for extended periods at the mansions of dozens of aristocrats and, except for one notably unhappy year, didn’t bother himself much with business.
But the Wilding the Richardsons describe was too popular to be so labelled. It’s true that his tennis fame opened doors. But he comes across as unspoilt, good company and a colourful personality with a zest for life, as evidenced by his infatuation with motor cars, motorbikes and aeroplanes, all in their infancy.
The Richardsons have been at pains to portray Wilding accurately. For instance, popular perception is that he died a war hero, and so he did. But we learn that he did not race eagerly to the trenches. He was expected to enlist and felt rather railroaded into doing so.
He was made a driver on the western front and it seems doubtful he expected to see much action. When motor vehicles were rendered virtually useless because of the trench warfare that developed, he rolled up his sleeves and fought, and died.
As a player, Wilding’s career is defined by his four Wimbledon singles crowns, and especially his straight sets victory in the 1913 final over American superstar Maurice McLoughlin. His contemporaries regarded Wilding as a tremendous player, perhaps a notch below the greatest ever.
The tennis in this book is interesting. But it’s the rest – the portrait of Wilding the person, and the glimpse of an era long since vanished – that makes it such compelling reading.