Forleden dag var der en der undrede sig over, at to af de største damenavne kunne tabe deres allerførste kamp i turneringen Key Biscayne. Og sådan er tennissportens resultater tit en kilde til undren. Men for den, der interesserer sig for den idræt og måske oven i købet sætter penge kampene, så kan man ligeså godt først som sidst vænne sig til, at sådan er det og sådan har det altid været. Tætheden i verdenstoppen og køen af spillere, som står på spring for at komme ind og få del i de mange dollars, er lige så stor, som foran et lokaltog i Tokyo efter fyraften.
Uforudsigeligheden i tennis er klassisk og for at beskrive nogle af mekanismerne i sporten, låner jeg lige et par linier fra Michael Mewshaws "bibel" Short Circuit, som godt nok ikke er helt ny. Navnene vil være de fleste ukendt, men ellers er det det samme ting som er på spil i dag. Først lidt om, hvor lidt man kan støtte sig til verdensranglisten og lidt om underlagens underlagenes forskelligheder. Den er desværre på engelsk.
French Open
"The nightmare of players who grow up serving and volleying on fast surfaces is the crafty South American or Europeans who learned the game on pulverized brick dust and prefers to die on it than lose. Pavel Hutka, a low-ranked Czech, used to arrive in Paris each spring confident of upsetting anyone who had never seen him play. Thoroughly ambidextrous, Hutka served with his right hand, then transferred the raquet and hit groundstrokes with his left. Or was it the other way around? It sometimes seemed he switched his routine at critical junctures. I once watched an american crumble into ragged bits and pieces and scream at his coach, "You told me to hit to his backhand. How the hell can I do that? He doesnt have a backhand".
En anden ting der kan udløse overraskelser, er de forskellige baneforhold for eksempel i en Grand Slam, hvor favoritterne ikke er så vandt til at spille på yderbanerne, som dem de kan møde.
"On a field court an upset appeared imminent - not that many people noticed or cared. Jose Higueras, the bearded Spaniard who could pose for holy cards of Christ in agony on the cross, had dropped the first two sets to Damian Keretic, an unknown German. Lately, Higueras had made a habit of depositing himself in a hole and spending the better part of the day digging out. Earlier this month in Hamburg he had played the longest match in Grand Prix history, a five-hour-and-twenty minute final in which he had outlasted Peter McNamara.
Today he had to contend not just with Keretic but with Court Ten, which was always lethal terrain in late afternoon when the lacy shadows of chestnut trees spread over one end, leaving it dippled with pools of light and dark. At the other end there was a constant din from Center Court and from passers-by on the concourse. And a swirling wind, dry and hot as a sirocco, raked the clay into tiny dunes which erupted with a powdery explosion whenever a ball struck them.
If this wasnt bad enough, three demure ladies in olive-green skirts, their bare shins spackled with dust, sat cross-legged at the sunny end of the court, calling the lines - or rather, failing to call them. Heat and dust seemed to have mummified the women.
Higueras didnt complain. Perhaps he would be better known if he did spout off from time to time. But he continued to do what he does best - swat groundstrokes. He went about it with the dour, unswerving dedication of an Andalusian peasant plowing acre after acre of baked earth (flot).
Higueras doesnt give away points; he makes the other man win them. In this case Keretic couldnt keet it up. He cracked late in the third set and staggered through the rest of the match like a lost explorer in the Sahara, sun-dazzled, demented, his dreams of victory rattling in the dry pan of his brain like pebbles in a gourd.
Der er tusindvis af ting der kan påvirke spillet og udløse elevatorture op og ned af ranglisten. Her er lidt om Bill Scanlon
Genoa
"Instead I interviewed Bill Scanlon, a voluble Texan nicknamed Scaz. While V.G. feels ambivalent about his playboy image, Scanlon believes his own image has been largely negative and he spent years attempting to overcome a reputation as a quitter.
His career started in 1977 on a thunderously high note. After capturing the NCAA title, Scanlon embarked on on the circuit by beating Harold Solomon, Corrado Barazzutti and Ilie Nastase twice in one month. He ended the year by earning over 96000 dollars in prize money, and he signed a contract with Fila for "a total package" - which is to say, he agreed to wear their line of clothes and use a raquet which they were supposed to design expressly for his game.
Then abrubtly, Scanlon began to slide back into anonymous throng ranked No. 100. He lost his touch and blamed the Fila raquet. Like many pros who accept huge sums of money to switch raquets, Scanlon discovered that he didnt feel confident with the new one......
He also admitted to Bodo, however, that his raquet wasnt the only thing that had gone light in his head. "I was accumulating vast sums of money. That was the start of my decline". By the age of twenty-two he owned two cars, one of them a Mercedes, a Piaget watch, and two expensive guitars. Then he rented a couple of apartments - he always seemed to do things by twos - and "quit working as hard. I started spending all the money I made...I was throwing it around... I was spoiled I guess".
Tennis ceased to be fun, and he found life on the tour lonely, deracinating, a blurred kaleidoscope of interchangable hotel rooms, sports arenas, and courts. "I´m alone out there, and I cant handle it. There is just two of us, me and the other player, against each other and against the world". Thats where a coach would help - knowing there is somebody there for you".
Before he found help, things got worse. As we ate pasta in the players restaurant in Genoa, he looked back to the low point in 1978 when, in his own words, he "turned into a basket case" and dropped off the tour. "I didnt retire. I became a degenerate. I would have started drinking before noon - if I ever got up before noon". Og sådan bliver Scanlon ved .
Blot et par eksempler på de mange faktorer, der skal med, når væddemålet på tennis skal gøres.
Uforudsigeligheden i tennis er klassisk og for at beskrive nogle af mekanismerne i sporten, låner jeg lige et par linier fra Michael Mewshaws "bibel" Short Circuit, som godt nok ikke er helt ny. Navnene vil være de fleste ukendt, men ellers er det det samme ting som er på spil i dag. Først lidt om, hvor lidt man kan støtte sig til verdensranglisten og lidt om underlagens underlagenes forskelligheder. Den er desværre på engelsk.
French Open
"The nightmare of players who grow up serving and volleying on fast surfaces is the crafty South American or Europeans who learned the game on pulverized brick dust and prefers to die on it than lose. Pavel Hutka, a low-ranked Czech, used to arrive in Paris each spring confident of upsetting anyone who had never seen him play. Thoroughly ambidextrous, Hutka served with his right hand, then transferred the raquet and hit groundstrokes with his left. Or was it the other way around? It sometimes seemed he switched his routine at critical junctures. I once watched an american crumble into ragged bits and pieces and scream at his coach, "You told me to hit to his backhand. How the hell can I do that? He doesnt have a backhand".
En anden ting der kan udløse overraskelser, er de forskellige baneforhold for eksempel i en Grand Slam, hvor favoritterne ikke er så vandt til at spille på yderbanerne, som dem de kan møde.
"On a field court an upset appeared imminent - not that many people noticed or cared. Jose Higueras, the bearded Spaniard who could pose for holy cards of Christ in agony on the cross, had dropped the first two sets to Damian Keretic, an unknown German. Lately, Higueras had made a habit of depositing himself in a hole and spending the better part of the day digging out. Earlier this month in Hamburg he had played the longest match in Grand Prix history, a five-hour-and-twenty minute final in which he had outlasted Peter McNamara.
Today he had to contend not just with Keretic but with Court Ten, which was always lethal terrain in late afternoon when the lacy shadows of chestnut trees spread over one end, leaving it dippled with pools of light and dark. At the other end there was a constant din from Center Court and from passers-by on the concourse. And a swirling wind, dry and hot as a sirocco, raked the clay into tiny dunes which erupted with a powdery explosion whenever a ball struck them.
If this wasnt bad enough, three demure ladies in olive-green skirts, their bare shins spackled with dust, sat cross-legged at the sunny end of the court, calling the lines - or rather, failing to call them. Heat and dust seemed to have mummified the women.
Higueras didnt complain. Perhaps he would be better known if he did spout off from time to time. But he continued to do what he does best - swat groundstrokes. He went about it with the dour, unswerving dedication of an Andalusian peasant plowing acre after acre of baked earth (flot).
Higueras doesnt give away points; he makes the other man win them. In this case Keretic couldnt keet it up. He cracked late in the third set and staggered through the rest of the match like a lost explorer in the Sahara, sun-dazzled, demented, his dreams of victory rattling in the dry pan of his brain like pebbles in a gourd.
Der er tusindvis af ting der kan påvirke spillet og udløse elevatorture op og ned af ranglisten. Her er lidt om Bill Scanlon
Genoa
"Instead I interviewed Bill Scanlon, a voluble Texan nicknamed Scaz. While V.G. feels ambivalent about his playboy image, Scanlon believes his own image has been largely negative and he spent years attempting to overcome a reputation as a quitter.
His career started in 1977 on a thunderously high note. After capturing the NCAA title, Scanlon embarked on on the circuit by beating Harold Solomon, Corrado Barazzutti and Ilie Nastase twice in one month. He ended the year by earning over 96000 dollars in prize money, and he signed a contract with Fila for "a total package" - which is to say, he agreed to wear their line of clothes and use a raquet which they were supposed to design expressly for his game.
Then abrubtly, Scanlon began to slide back into anonymous throng ranked No. 100. He lost his touch and blamed the Fila raquet. Like many pros who accept huge sums of money to switch raquets, Scanlon discovered that he didnt feel confident with the new one......
He also admitted to Bodo, however, that his raquet wasnt the only thing that had gone light in his head. "I was accumulating vast sums of money. That was the start of my decline". By the age of twenty-two he owned two cars, one of them a Mercedes, a Piaget watch, and two expensive guitars. Then he rented a couple of apartments - he always seemed to do things by twos - and "quit working as hard. I started spending all the money I made...I was throwing it around... I was spoiled I guess".
Tennis ceased to be fun, and he found life on the tour lonely, deracinating, a blurred kaleidoscope of interchangable hotel rooms, sports arenas, and courts. "I´m alone out there, and I cant handle it. There is just two of us, me and the other player, against each other and against the world". Thats where a coach would help - knowing there is somebody there for you".
Before he found help, things got worse. As we ate pasta in the players restaurant in Genoa, he looked back to the low point in 1978 when, in his own words, he "turned into a basket case" and dropped off the tour. "I didnt retire. I became a degenerate. I would have started drinking before noon - if I ever got up before noon". Og sådan bliver Scanlon ved .
Blot et par eksempler på de mange faktorer, der skal med, når væddemålet på tennis skal gøres.