Tennisers of the World, Unite! The topspin blog

After the French Open, the talk wasn't so much about the winner as the losers. That Nadal won was expected, given his historic sweep of the three clay masters coming in. So the story was sniffed for elsewhere.
As always, Larger Issues were looked for, and the one I've seen generating the most talk is the idea that Big Babe tennis has come to the men's tour. Big Babe tennis is where the women's tour had been for some years, with the six foot plus dominance of power hitters, from Venus and Serena to Lindsay Davenport to Maria Sharapova and Dinara Safina. While Venus and Serena actually have a lot more to offer than the trend which has followed them, flat out power tennis has been a major component of the women's game for the last few years.

Contrast that to the men's tour. Although Rafa is certainly powerful, his game is not strictly speaking a power game. He uses extreme topspin, while power hitters are generally considered flat hitters (that is, their arm speed is translated directly to ball speed, not spin). Look at the rest of the top players of the last few years: Fed, Murray, Djokovic, Roddick- none of these are power ballers (though Roddick was early in his career).

In fact, if there's been one thing that's defined success on the men's tour since the Sampras years, its been speed. Starting with Hewitt and Ferrero, then continuing with Federer, Nadal, Murray and to a lesser extent, Djokovic, the common trait of the top players for the last 2 generations has been quickness. In particular, Fed, Murray and Nadal are ridiculously fast. \

But now look who's been beating Fed: At the USO last year, Juan Martin Del Potro destroyed Nadal in the semis and then took out Fed in the finals. At the French, Soderling knocked Fed out, overcame another huge hitter in Berdych in the semis, and went on to get his teeth knocked out by Nadal in the finals.

So many are wondering if this is the new trend: huge men like DelPo and Soda Pop hitting the ball flat and going for everything on every shot.

I'm gonna say, Whoa.

First of all, Soderling has been around for a long while. And while Fed has 15 Slams to his name, Soderling has yet to win even a Masters level event. Del Potro of course shows tremendous potential, but so far we have 1 Slam and a long injury timeout. Meanwhile, Fed contested the '10 Australian Open against Murray (the antithesis of a power player) and Nadal still clobbered Soderling (and regularly clobbers power hitter Verdasco).

Del Potro may prove me wrong when he comes back, but I don't think the power players have the consistency to win multiple slams. Everything has to go his way for Soderling to win a match. Federer, Murray, Nadal, Djokovic play within themselves, and if that doesn't work, they have options.