Agassi made people care

It was great to see Andre Agassi inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame over the weekend, not only because he deserved it, but because Agassi was always a special player to me.

In fact, Agassi was my first “favorite” tennis player. I can remember watching the young showman on TV playing in Boston when I was a kid, and I rooted for him in almost every match he played for the rest of his career (as a journalist who covered James Blake in from 2002-06, I rooted for Blake in his epic U.S. Open quarterfinal match against Agassi).

Agassi, to me, was like one of my favorite pro sports teams. I lived and died with his matches in the grand slams. When he won Wimbledon, his first major, I was with my family en route to Virginia, where we were going to spend a week with my uncle and his family. We arrived at their house just in time to see match point, and I recall thinking about that much often on our drive. Like Mary Carillo said, no tennis player could make people care about them as much as Agassi.

No player could possibly have provided more ups and downs to his fans than Agassi, which made the victories that much more rewarding. The French Open losses to Gomez and Courier were excruciating; so, later in his career, were the Wimbledon losses to Rafter and Sampras. But what makes the connection with Agassi so interesting is that the flashy, charismatic young guy was the one I first became a huge fan of, but it was the driven, focused, methodical, stoic punisher who I appreciated far more. There will never be another guy quite like him, and it was a pleasure to have been along for the ride.

Wozniacki's strategy lacks common sense

Two well-known players — Caroline Wozniacki and Tommy Haas — had to retire from their matches on Wednesday. I like both players, but my reactions to the two injuries were quite different.

In the case of Haas, I felt bad. Haas is a talented and charismatic guy who has had to work very hard to return to the game on multiple occasions. He finally won his first match of 2011 earlier this week in Newport, R.I., but then had to retire from his second-round match with a back injury. At his age (33, advanced for pro tennis), I admire his determination to return; many players would have called it a career after suffering through significant injuries this late in their career. I hope Haas's setback is minor and temporary.

In the case of Wozniacki, who injured her shoulder, I feel a bit exasperated. She's the No. 1 player in the world — she doesn't need to play so much. Why on earth is the top-ranked player competing in a tournament the very week after Wimbledon? Following a rigorous spring and early summer that includes the long claycourt season followed by a month on grass, and highlighted by two Grand Slam events that are physically and emotionally draining, the top players almost always take at least a week off. Roger Federer generally plays only two events between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Among the top 20 women, Wozniacki is the only one who entered a tournament this week.

And to make it even more puzzling, Wozniacki played a tournament on clay! Why? The claycourt season is over. Wozniacki is still chasing her first major title, and her next opportunity is the U.S. Open in about six weeks. Shouldn't her focus be on preparing for the fast hardcourts of New York instead of sliding around on European clay against inferior opponents? It just seems that a week or two off to recharge her batteries, followed by a a few U.S. Open Series tuneups, would be the best strategy. Now, you have to wonder if her injury will shorten her hardcourt season.

It may be foolish of me to question the preparation of the No. 1 player in the world, but playing in a tournament that seems to do nothing for her U.S. Open prospects strikes me as curious. It makes me wonder if holding on to the No. 1 ranking is more of a priority than winning a major. And let's face it — the time is right for Wozniacki to break through. Kim Clijsters is hurt. The Williams sisters have barely played. Li Na and Petra Kvitova have capitalized on the wise-open nature of women's tennis to win their first majors. Wozniacki could be next. She may need a better plan for making that happen.

Djokovic deservedly feted by home fans

This is really cool. Novak Djokovic has been through a whole lot of ups and downs to get to the top of the tennis world, and it just so happened that his Wimbledon title and hurdle-clearing victory over top-ranked Rafael Nadal coincided with his ascent to the No. 1 ranking. This reception in Serbia that honored him for his Wimbledon title resembled a parade for a championship-winning team in a major U.S. sport (if only tennis were so popular here).

Djokovic deserves to bask in this for a while. And I'll be very interested to see if he refocuses and has a big hardcourt season. As I mentioned here yesterday, he has a chance to leave behind an impressive legacy with one of the greatest seasons in men's tennis history. I already can't wait for the second week of the U.S. Open.

Last chance for Blake?

I realize the big news of the day in tennis is Novak Djokovic's undeniable rise to the top of the tennis world with his four-set victory over Rafael Nadal Sunday at Wimbledon. Finally, there is no longer any doubt that Djokovic is the best player in tennis. He’s won two majors this year, a number that exceeds the amount of matches he's lost in 2011. He has a chance to put together the best year by a tennis player this generation, surpassing anything accomplished by Nadal or Roger Federer.

But as someone who covered tennis in Fairfield County for several years, I was especially intrigued to hear that James Blake, of Fairfield, Conn., won a challenger event in suburban Chicago yesterday.

Blake is a former top-five player with some noteworthy career highlights, but he’s 31 and his best tennis is clearly behind him. However, the question for the last couple of years has been, can he rediscover some of that old magic and become relevant again? Due to injuries and minimal success, his ranking has plummeted and his confidence has suffered.

These next two months have always been the best part of Blake’s year. He excels on the hardcourts and has played some of his best tennis at the U.S. Open. His recent success in the challengers leaves him ranked No. 88 in the world, and a strong summer would give him a chance to get that ranking high enough to enable him to get straight into main draws again.

If he doesn’t play well this summer, it will be very difficult for Blake — who nearly upset Marcos Baghdatis in five sets at Wimbledon two weeks ago — to mount any sort of rally again. He’ll be 32 next year, and in time, wild cards will be less available to him. Does he want to play challengers and try to qualify for main draws into his mid-30s? It’s probably unlikely.

I certainly hope he can win some matches this summer and revive his career. He’s a stand-up guy who’s fun to watch when he’s playing well, with his electrifying speed and go-for-broke style that can be maddening and exhilarating (all in the same match). I’ll be watching his progress this summer with great interest.

Biggest match of Djokovic's career

Sunday's Wimbledon men's final is a much bigger deal to Novak Djokovic than Rafael Nadal. Djokovic will become the No. 1 player in the world on Monday regardless of the outcome of Sunday's match, and he's had a record-setting year. But he's never beaten Nadal or Roger Federer in a final, and he can truly justify that No. 1 ranking with a victory Sunday.

Nadal, meanwhile, has a truckload of Grand Slam titles. The pressure is off him. Djokovic has to win to validate his ranking and his year. Sure, he beat Andy Murray in the Australian Open final, and he's won a lot of matches since then. But he was beaten by Federer in the French semifinals, and he was fortunate enough to avoid Federer at Wimbledon. He can truly position himself as the best player in the world with a victory Sunday. If he loses, doubts will continue to follow him. Does he truly belong in the rarefied air inhabited by Nadal and Federer? We'll learn on Sunday.

Help me, Petra Kvitova, you're my only hope

The advantage to a blog versus writing in a newspaper is that I can write things like this: I don’t like Maria Sharapova. Plain and simple. She annoys the crap out of me. Therefore, I’ll be rooting for Petra Kvitova in Saturday’s Wimbledon final.

What do I dislike about Sharapova? Her I’m-violently-plunging-a-knife-into-another-human screams (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LawWhZcmV0) every time she hits the tennis ball are a great place to start. It’s almost unwatchable at times. I’m afraid to have the volume on Saturday for fear of terrifying my 14-month-old daughter. No living thing should make noises like that unless under severe duress, yet she does it when she hits a ball with a racket. Second, yelling “Come on!” after nearly every point, even opponent errors, is obnoxious and disrespectful. There are other, less tangible things that bother me about her (sense of entitlement, perhaps?), but the bottom line is, the next time I root for her in a tennis match will be the first.

Kvitova has the type of game that can challenge Sharapova on grass. So does Sabine Lisicki, but perhaps the moment of today’s Grand Slam semifinal was too much for the German in her 6-4, 6-3 loss to Sharapova. Kvitova is playing in her first final, so she may be awed by the occasion. But she’s clearly on the rise. At 21, she’s reached a career-high ranking of No. 8, and in her last five Grand Slam events, she’s reached a final (this one), a semifinal (2010 Wimbledon), a quarterfinal (2011 Australian) and the fourth round (2011 French). She’s made five finals this year — on three different surfaces — and won three of those. On Thursday, she rebounded after dropping the second set to decisively close out a very tough player in Victoria Azarenka. She’s a good player with a tough serve. She could win on Saturday.

I, for one, hope she does.

Murray-Nadal should be a classic

The time is now for Andy Murray. Britain’s latest hope for a Wimbledon championship has a realistic chance to get it done this weekend at the All-England Club after, as expected, he handled Feliciano Lopez with minimal difficulty. He may have to beat Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win it all. It could happen.

Nadal is playing good tennis, but he’s beatable at Wimbledon. We’re not certain about the condition of his injured foot, though he showed no signs of trouble on Wednesday. But you just have to figure that, eventually, one of these Brits (Tim Henman, and now Murray) will break through and win the tournament, and if Murray plays well, he could beat Nadal on grass. Working to Murray’s advantage is that he did just face a excellent lefty serve against Lopez in the quarters, and while Lopez and countryman Nadal are totally different players, conquering the opponent’s serve is a big step toward winning a match on grass.

The big news of the day is Roger Federer’s loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, which is surprising, though not the most stunning event ever to happen on a tennis court. He hasn’t won any of the last six majors, and three times during that span, he’s been ousted in the quarters. I thought either he or Djokovic would win the tournament, but Tsonga is a talented guy whose game is suited to grass. What makes Thursday’s result most surprising is that Tsonga overcame a two-sets-to-love-down deficit against one of the greatest closers in tennis history. And no one who watched the fifth set could have any doubt that Tsonga was playing better tennis than Federer. It was no fluke.

I’d love to see a Nadal-Murray final, but since that’s not possible, the best-case scenario for me is Tsonga-Murray. It would be great to have some new blood contesting a major championship. For so many years it’s been Nadal and Federer, with Djokovic occasionally getting into the conversation. A change would be nice.

On the women’s side, I see Azarenka and Lisicki coming through in Thursday’s semis, though I admit the Lisicki pick involves some wishful thinking.

Get your ear plugs ready

This could be your Wimbledon finals matchup — Sharapova, who shrieks like she's violently stabbing someone, against Azarenka, who sounds like a wounded bird. All the more reason to root for Kvitova and Lisicki on Thursday?

Rain and a look ahead

• And I thought Wimbledon constructed a retractable roof over Centre Court to avoid problems like today. Victoria Azarenka and Tamira Paszek will finish their quarterfinal match on Centre Court, resuming at 8 p.m. London time. Only one game had been played before play was suspended this evening, and fortunately the decision was made to finish the match under the roof tonight.

Knowing that rain is so likely in London, I’m not sure why they didn’t simply schedule four women’s quarterfinals on Centre Court to ensure that no disruptions occurred. The Azarenka-Paszek match will conclude many hours after it was expected to end.

• The men’s quarterfinal matches tomorrow figure to be outstanding. The top four seeds all meet lower-ranked opponents, each of whom is dangerous to some degree. Roger Federer faces the toughest task against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga; Tsonga is a big hitter and an excellent athlete, and he could make things difficult for Federer if he’s on his game. Mardy Fish has the firepower to challenge Nadal on grass, especially if Nadal’s injured foot is an issue, but this is new territory for Fish and I don’t expect him to upset the defending champion.

Andy Murray and Feliciano Lopez will square off in the second match on Centre Court, and while the atmosphere figures to be electric, Lopez doesn’t have this in him. He’s got the big lefty serve and his last two matches have been especially impressive in different ways (routing Andy Roddick and then winning a tough five-setter), but Murray will get through to the semis. I also don’t expect 18-year-old Aussie Bernard Tomic to defeat 2011’s best player, Novak Djokovic.

But these matches all have the potential to be close, exciting matches. The last three rounds of the men’s draw promises plenty of drama and great tennis.

Women's field: Big names sent home

This has been some kind of crazy day in the women’s field at Wimbledon. Both Williams sisters are gone, and so is top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki. You’d have to call Maria Sharapova the favorite heading into the quarterfinals, since she’s won a few majors, but either Sabine Lisicki and her big serve or Marion Bartoli and her tenaciousness could pose problems for Sharapova in the semifinals.

I like fourth-seeded Victoria Azarenka to win her first major. And I caution fans against abandoning the tournament with only one household name among the final eight; Petra Kvitova and Lisicki have games suited to grass, and Azarenka is a really good player. There will be some entertaining matches the rest of the way.

Wanted: More grasscourt tennis

I’m watching Andy Murray’s third-round Wimbledon match against Ivan Ljubicic (and his odd, vein-covered bald head), partly because it’s the only match being played, thanks to yet another rainy day in London. Ljubicic won’t make this easy for Murray, but I expect the Scotsman to advance to the fourth round, and probably reach the semifinals, where he’ll be outclassed by one of the Big Three (in this case, Nadal is likely to be waiting for him).

But that’s not the point here. I’m using my first blog post to complain about something that’s been on my mind for years — the insufficiently short grasscourt season. Truthfully, you can’t even call it a “season.” It lasts five weeks; after the French Open ends in early June, there are two weeks of Wimbledon tuneups, and most top players compete in only one of those weeks. Then there’s Wimbledon, followed by the low-level tournament in Newport, R.I., an event whose biggest name is always among the Hall of Fame inductees, not the players.

It used to be that you had to be able to win on grass to be a top men’s player, but that’s simply no longer the case. Most players will play two grasscourt tournaments in the whole year. If Novak Djokovic loses in the fourth round of Wimbledon every year, he’ll still be in the top three. He merely has to hold his own that week because of the big chunk of ranking points available. But if he struggles through the entire European claycourt season? His ranking would plummet.

On the other hand, if a player plays well only on clay, he can make quite a career for himself. Case in point: Nicolas Almagro. The Spaniard remarkably is ranked No. 15 in the world. Why? Clay. Despite his impressive win over John Isner yesterday at Wimbledon, Almagro owes most of his 2011 success to his claycourt prowess: a title at Nice, round of 16 in Rome, semifinal in Barcelona, round of 16 in Monte Carlo. Where it becomes unfair is that he won two titles and reached a third final in the weeks following the Australian Open, which is not really even claycourt season. The ATP just makes so many claycourt tournaments available (including some after Wimbledon) that dirtball specialists only venture off of clay when they absolutely have to, usually to unimpressive results.

I’m not a huge Andy Roddick fan by any means, but imagine how his career might look if there were several months of grasscourt events that he could play. And aside from big servers like Roddick, grass rewards artistry more than other surfaces. For every Roddick, Richard Krajicek and Goran Ivanisevic  — guys whose serves were the primary reasons for their grasscourt success — there’s a John McEnroe, Patrick Rafter and Tim Henman. Henman was good on grass because of his serve-and-volley style and his touch around the net. Same with Rafter, who was a brilliant volleyer and great athlete. McEnroe’s genius around the net is indisputable.

I understand that many players who succeed on grass are just as successful on fast hardcourts or indoor courts, but there are certain skills needed to thrive on grass. The ball doesn’t bounce very high. Soft volleys die on the grass. Various spins can be effective. And while the condition of the courts has improved dramatically over the years, making baseline exchanges more possible, players still engage in them at their own peril. Aggressiveness and variety are rewarded on grass.

My suggestion would be to simply add two weeks to the period between the French Open and Wimbledon. I realize it’s not that simple, and will probably never happen, but it would improve the game and allow it to visit its grasscourt roots more frequently. After the French Open, there would be four weeks of grasscourt tournaments before Wimbledon, mostly played in western/northern Europe and, possibly, the U.S. east coast (move Newport to the week after the French Open, so there’s a chance some prominent players would compete).

To do this, you can trim a week each off the spring claycourt and summer hardcourt seasons. Each has plenty of events, and players get ample opportunity to play on both of those surfaces all throughout the year. Players would be more prepared for Wimbledon, and perhaps fewer of them would consider grass little more than a brief interruption, a necessary evil.

That being said, I have some more tennis to watch. Grasscourt tennis. Wimbledon tennis.