Neither the pioneer nor the existing extensionist of the low service visited Paris this year at the French Open.
Michael Chang, who won the tournament with optimal use of service in 1989, is back in the United States, spending time with his wife, Amber, and their three young children. Nick Kyrgios is back in Australia, spending time on social media as an independent tennis critic, who deserves to lead to deceptive conversations with his peers when he nevertheless returns to the circuit in person.
But Chang and Kyrgios’ legacy was laid bare during the first week of the Grand Slam tournament.
The ones below, who once considered the the sport cunning, have emerged in the gloom of autumn like mushrooms in the French countryside.
The high season would probably have been Wednesday. In the area of a few hours, you can also simply watch Alexander Bublik perform the service with a submarine (it turns out it’s time for a blunt one-word term), watch Sara Errani record a ball in shape with one and watch Mackenzie McDonald keep nothing at all. with a floating and sacrificed offer from a base on which 12-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal set out for a winning comeback in the direction of a 6-0, 6-1, 6-3 win.
“If he wins, it’s a smart tactic; if he loses, it’s a bad tactic,” Nadal said. He added that, for example, “it’s not a smart tactic” for Mackenzie. For Bublik, he said, “if it works, “it’s “a smart tactic. “
Unfortunately for Bublik, he doesn’t paint enough. He lost his second-round adjustment to Lorenzo Sonego in a duel that was also completed with other exotic tennis players, such as service tactics and volleys and interpolators.
With Kyrgios taking a break from the coronavirus pandemic, Bublik is obviously the standard-bearer of subordinates.
“I miss my boy Nick here, ” said Bublik in an interview. “We’d make 25 in a week. “
Kazakhstan’s wonderful talent, Bublik, like Kyrgios, has a snub first serve that makes his stealth efforts even more troubling to the opposition.
It’s the tennis equivalent of a flame-throwing relief switch, but Bublik knows it can’t happen too often or that the wonder detail has disappeared.
He has deployed it once or twice per game in recent tournaments. At last week’s German Open he beat Felix Auger-Aliassime with one in a first-round win and opposed Cristian Garin in a quarter-final defeat, while Garin expressed his displeasure with tactics.
In Paris, he beat Gael Monfils in the first circular and Sonego 4-5 in the first set, before missing the service below in the tiebreaker.
Bublik prefers the term “service under the armpits,” which has its supporters.
“To be honest, providing intelligent service under the armpits is very difficult,” Bublik said. “I practice. “
This is the way forward, especially after seeing McDonald’s fruitless efforts.
“Mackie was terrible,” said Paul Annacone, veteran coach and Tennis Channel analyst. “I think you practice it a little bit if you plan to use it. I think a smart service under your arms is justified in today’s game. “
With most sensitive players like Nadal and Dominic Thiem and players emerging like Sonego through the line umpires to return, there is indeed room for a serve designed to paint like a drop shot. It’s not just the underarm installations that land closer to the net. They do, however, pose a time challenge because the server doesn’t throw a long, high pitch and instead sends the ball forward at a time when a payout would start regularly.
“We had never noticed players getting that back before returning to service,” Chang said Wednesday night. “From a tactical point of view, it makes sense. “
Chang’s memorable service at the 1989 French Open was an act of despair, not strategy. At the age of 17, he faced No. 1 seed Ivan Lendl in the fourth circular and recovered from a two-set deficit, but had cramps in both sets in the 5th set.
At one point, Chang began walking towards the chair judge, Richard Ings, to withdraw from the game, but stopped because he said he felt that God was telling him to keep pushing.
At 4-3, 15-30 in the fifth set, Chang may feel that Lendl was about to break it again, and with his legs injured, he spontaneously decided to check the first serve of his career.
He landed short and a surprised Lendl controlled to overtake and send him back, but he may simply not handle Chang’s next pass shot, who continued to maintain serve at 5-3, then broke Lendl, who committed a double foul. to the fit ball. Chang won, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
“If you play this game 20 times, Michael wins it once,” said Jose Higueras, Chang’s coach at the time.
Chang won the tournament, his only Grand Slam singles title, and more than 30 years later, it is this service from below that remains with whom his success; many, by mistake, fit with Lendl as the final.
But surprisingly, in a game in which good fortune temporarily spawns imitation, Chang’s masterstroke has no tendency, partly because of an un written code that frames the shooting in a negative way, such as an attempt to flaunt a player to give a bad symbol. to an opponent.
When Martina Hingis attempted some low blows under pressure opposing Steffi Graf in his tumultuous and impossible to withstand the Roland Garros final in 1999, the French crowd opposed Hingis, who later lost.
After Chang, no guy has tried a high-profile attack for decades. Ivo Karlovic, a demanding Croatian with one of the most productive facilities in history, tried the one that worked against Tommy Haas in 2007, but usually when someone attempted the shot, as Frenchman Mikael Llodra did several times in his career, he had to apologize.
“I felt so bad on the court that I was just reviewing anything to get a fresh look,” Llodra said in 2011 after a lopsided loss to Robin Soderling.
Another French player, Virginie Razzano, also attempted some of them during the 2010s while struggling with his service, as did Errani, who has struggled with his career and resorted to tactics more than any active player.
On Wednesday, in a crazy three-set race against Kiki Bertens, Errani served for the 6-5 adjustment in the 3rd set and attempted four consecutive service shots without pulling the trigger. He eventually returned to serve below and lost then stored a fit ball with some other underlying before losing, 7-6, 3-6, 9-7.
“There are days when it’s bad,” Errani said, adding that “I had only tried to compete with everything I have. “
But increasingly, the bully has a show of strength rather than weakness. Kyrgios, who likes to play mind games with opponents, made him fashionable again, frustrating Nadal last year when he wore it in Acapulco and then reinterated him at Wimbledon.
Nadal turns out to have to settle for that, the e-book of tennis regulations obviously allows it, but he still considers the trend through a moralistic lens.
“If you do it for your game, or as a tactical thing, I help you 100%,” Nadal said Wednesday. “If you do it to disrespect the opponent, that’s not a smart thing. Everyone knows internally if you’re doing it the right way or wrong. »
Monica Niculescu attempted a trap against American wrestler Danielle Collins in the first round. Collins roared after winning the point, said it wasn’t because he had been offended.
“I’m excited to see it coming, ” he said. I approve of other people who are out of the ordinary and creative. “
In the end, the shots will thrive or fade according to the results, and Chang, who has tried only once in his career, liked his results.
“I’ve never missed a point for serving downstairs, ” he said.
Ben Rothenberg and Karen Crouse contributed to the report.
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