POWERPUFF GIRLS

The power game: Are touch and finesse going the way of white balls?

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

Fight the power? Fight the power trend that be with touch and finesse or roll with the wave that is sweeping women's tennis these days – back up a bash with a sonic boom?

Is there still room in the 126-year-old game for the sharply angled crosscourt slice or rolling topper that cuts across the service line and
drives your opponent into the fence? How about a delicate drop shot flicked from the baseline, a topspin lob hit on the dead run that that rollercoasters over your foe's head? Is there much room for a short volley off a rocket passing shot attempt that trickles over the net and comes to a dead stop three feet over the taut wire? Does any pro really care about a deep slice off the backhand side that hugs the corner, or the floating chip forehand approach shot? In short, do the elite power players really need a Plan B which includes taking pace off the ball.

"If you have the opportunity to bully your opponent, then you have to take
that chance," powerballer Venus Williams said. "I also think that finesse and
touch is something that if you move your opponent around and are tricky and
have her off balance, that's perfect also. But if you have the power, it's
perfect to use it. Its a happy medium to use both. Learning to use both is
good. Normally I use less power if I'm winning easily. I take a lot off the
ball and start to enjoy myself. But if I'm not winning easily, it's a lot
harder for an opponent , always having to feel like I'm pushing them back or
they have to keep returning my hard, deep balls. She feels pressure that I am
going to hit a winner. God gave me the gift of being strong and I'm going to
use it."

Given that in many close matches one or two points can decide the outcome, it
just might be the player who chips and charges as a change of tactics or who
draws her opponent unwilling to net with a spongey drop shot who ends up
winning the contest.

"Finesse is very important," said Serena Williams. "To put in a drop shot
now and then, you can win a free point. It could be a set point, you really
need it. All of a sudden you'll hit a drop shot and there you have it. It's a
shot I try to use quite often."

However, Jennifer Capriati closes the lab down when things get tough. "If
it's an easy match, that's when I'll try to experiment with something
different," Capriati said. "But when it's tight, I'm going to stick to my
weapons."

Without question, in the last 25 years, the women's game has made a full
transition from a sport that featured numerous touch players (Evert, King,
Goolagong, Wade, Casals, Morozova) to one whose vast majority of stars are
power baseliners (the Williamses, Capriati, Davenport, Clijsters, Seles and
Pierce). Only super fit competitors who can bench press their own weight and
rip a winner from three feet behind the baseline need apply for the No. 1
spot in 2010. Serena – not exactly a powder puff girl herself

agreed
that the game is going to the big hitters.

"I think so but then you have Martina Hingis and she doesn't hit the ball
that hard, yet she's No.1. But naturally, the game is meant to change.
Martina Navratilova added a little more power, added serve and volley. Seles
came along, hit even harder. There's definitely more power in the game now.
Every now and then there might be a player that has finesse, but that's going
to play out a little bit."

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

With the ways she's built, Lindsay Davenport has little time for cute shots, "I rely on power," the Californian said. "I've got to go with my power serve and try to out-hit opponents. The game is just going that way with the technology and type of players we have right now." In fact, a look at the current top 20 reveals only five players who can be called true finesse players

Hingis, Nathalie Tauziat, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Sivia Farina-Elia and Conchita Martinez

and all of them are in the twilight of their careers, save for Hingis. Three others are powerballers with significant variety to their games: Justine Henin, Anna Kournikova and Amelie Mauresmo, while Amanda Coetzer and Maggie Maleeva are for the most part counterpunchers. Yet the fact of the matter is that the last touch player of the current crop to win a Slam was Hingis at the '99 Australian Open.

TOUCH ME, BABE
"Of course there is still touch, but if you look at the up and coming players
like Elena Bovina, Jelena Dokic, Elena Dementieva and Lina Krasnoroutskaya,
they're all hard hitters," said Belgian basher Kim Clijsters. "There's no
slice, no one's playing serve and volley and touch. Its hard for touch
players to play like the William sisters, or the other hard hitters."

As deep as an on-court thinker as she is, Hingis is gradually going away from
mixing her shot selection like a chemist fooling around with the periodic
tables. The Swiss now employs a more straight-ahead, step-inside-the baseline
and trade blows approach. While she still frequently wrong foots many
opponents, Hingis simply cannot stand in crosscourt forehand rallies with
Serena, Lindsay or Jennifer. She has diligently worked on adding pace to her
forehand in order to cover up this weakness, but once she got more confident in the shot, Hingis began relying on touch less to stay in points.

She is widely seen as having the best hands in the game, but doesn't come to
the net enough to show off her deft volleys. Because her second serve is such
a major liability, she frequently finds herself running desperately to the
corners in attempt to field bullet returns of serves. As Hingis has
discovered, there is no value to trying to sneak in a drop shot or loft up a
defensive lob when your opponent is jumping up and down in the mid court
waiting to take a full swing at a short ball.

"It's great if you can mix it up, but it's hard to do. Martina has such
great feel but I guarantee you she would love to be able to step in and crack
winners all day long," Davenport said. "I would love to be able to hit drop
volleys and that kind of stuff but I think I handle it well. A lot of hard
hitters can hit lobs and other shots like that, but I would rather have my
power game going."

FROM THE HISTOYR BOOKS
Over the past century, there were times when it was difficult to see the ebbs
and flows of the game and exactly which style would become predominant. Who
would have foretold back in the net-rushing days of Margaret Court and Billie
Jean King that a cool-headed pony tailed girl named Chrisie would
revolutionize the game for decades by unveiling a clean two-handed backhand
breaking down her opponents almost purely from the baseline?

Who would have thought that a bold, serve-and-volleying woman named Navratilova would take
fitness to a new level and surpass Evert, and to be usurped herself by Steffi
Graf, an ultra-aggressive baseliner who only used her slice backhand to keep
herself in points and would run around the shot whenever possible to take a
massive swipe with her whiplash forehand? Plus, the German brought the first
serve speed up to a new level. Just when you expected another-serve-and-volley come along to challenge Graf, there came a grunting Yugoslav who leapt at the ball with two hands off both wings and never met an opportunity for a winner that she didn't like -- the rabid inside-the baseliner Monica Seles. Also appearing as No. 1s in the '90s: retriever
extraordinaire Sanchez-Vicario, she of the weak forehand but errorless
backhand fines volleys, and then murderous baseliner Lindsay Davenport, who
can also serve a ton.

"The perfect player would combine power and finesse like Billie and Martina
did, but touch just isn't as effective as it used to be," said Evert. "The
girls are so powerful now, there isn't much opportunity to hit soft shots."
If you look at todays' top power players, you'll notice a slight trend : they
are incrementally adding to their repertoire to win the handful of extra
points that it takes to win a match. While both the Williams sisters have
stubbornly fought changing their game from the baseline to a more pure
net-rushing attack, they also love the game enough to try every one of its
shots. Venus added, "Using touch volleys is necessary. You can also use it
when someone is at net, you lob over them with a nice finesse shot."
Sure, but like many of her elite counterparts, Venus wins matches via the
scorched backhand-down the line drive, the mule kick serve down the tee, and
the wicked slice serve out wide. For her part, Capriati dominates the court
with her leaping forehand, which she hits anywhere and at anytime to any
angle. Why massage the ball around when you can break your opponent's neck
back taking the ball out of the air from the midcourt and burying it in the
corner?

"It's gone to power," said Capriati. I's still good to mix it up. I don't
think it's going to be all power because you can't win points just doing
that. Even I like to mix it up, come to net or hit drop shots once in a while
for a change the pace. There's still going to be variety in the game. But
five years from now, it's going to be more powerful than it is right now."

This originally appeared in Inside Tennis magazine. For subscription info,
e-mail info@insidetennis.com.