Delray Beach Notebook

Scoop,

You didn’t hit a ball in four days! That my friend is a scoop! Now you mean to say that Gimelstob texted you on a piece you wrote on Tennis-Prose? That’s another scoop! Wow, are you going to share the text with us?

But Scoop, if Gimel has been following your articles/posts on T-P he’d know that you’ve been rather critical of him. Did he make mention of this? Is Gimel reading T-P?

Now you know I’m not big on looks right? But this Nakashima kid is not exactly gorgeous. Can’t you put the tag of Next Great American Male player on someone who looks a little more like Robert Redford? To that end, who’s the best-looking male American tennis player in the history of the game?

I’ll go with Derrick Rostagno or Dr. Dirt Tim Wilkison. But there haven’t been any knockout male players from America. Al Parker was good-looking, but he bombed. Chip Hooper, good-looking dude, but a monster. I mean you haven’t had a Borg or a Cash or Yannick Noah or even a Stefan Edberg.

Scoop, do you remember the phenom, Gabriella Price? Who had a video done of her when she was like 8 being trained by Rick Macci? She is now a junior in high school, 16 or 17 I’d gather, and she did win the Clay Courts this past summer beating Karina Miller, the # 2 18’s player in the country, but Gabriella is #24 in the nation and seemingly hurt as she hasn’t played a tournament since October.

I remember seeing her train with Macci when she was about 12 and she was playing a male college player and returning serve from inside the baseline and Macci adamant about the fact that she would be contending for the US Open at 18. That’s not going to happen, but kudos to Price for staying in the game, obviously still at a high level.

David,

Welcome to the site or at least I haven’t seen your post before, but you obviously know your tennis. But comparing Nakashima to Connors–that’s a bit of a stretch, my friend. Look, I haven’t seen Nakashima play much, but the guy’s lost to Kozlov this year. I know he’s only 18, but how good can he be if he’s lost to Kozlov?

Secondly, Winitsky I believe was from Miami not Wisconsin and he was a great player and even as few as 6 years ago he hit with my son and at 55 could still hit a beautiful ball. But the dude is stark mad. Once he starts talking, he never stops. If a book was written with him, the co-writer would have to have a major edit button. And if you’re looking for a good book on a journeyman player, look no further then the book I co-wrote with Vince Spadea, Break Point. Vince didn’t have a moustache the equal of Van’s, but he’s much more coherent.

Dan: Your point about Nakashima/Connors is well-taken though I still see similarities in their smart games and stroke production. Again, if the kid even approaches the successes of Connors I’ll be simultaneously stunned and thrilled. Still, I see a glimmer. And thanks for the heads up on the Spadea book. I have put it in the cart (along with a Scoop book) and look forward to them both.

Scoop: Thank you for your kind words and I hope we are correct. At 18 many things (good or ill) are possible. Time will tell.

This takes me way down memory lane, but Van Winitsky was a childhood tennis hero of mine, and I certainly wasn’t alone. I remember him playing at Longwood on Har-Tru in the late 1970s and doing well in singles and better in doubles with Heinz Gunthardt, the second best male Swiss player before Federer (Marc Rosset would be above him I guess) and longtime Steffi Graf coach. With a mustache like Bruins forward Derek Sanderson and an all-court game he was an appealing and charismatic player. Winitsky is also well-remembered in California from his brief but memorable time at UCLA.

In his 40s Winitsky was living and coaching, probably in Westchester County in NY, and came across the border to win a money tournament in CT, near where I was living, against players about half his age. Players and spectators, most of whom had never heard of Winitsky were awestruck at how good he was, mainly because of his superior ball-striking and successful volleying even after the game had gone in the direction of power baseliners.

I was lucky enough to see Brandon Nakashima as he embarked on his professional career with a swing through the California challengers last fall, and I touted him then. As Dan mentioned, he has been a standout in juniors for some time; a former UVa college player described him to me in such reverent terms that I was a bit skeptical. (I’d heard much the same about past UVa player Somdev Devvarman who in fact turned out to be a lights-out challenger level player and a decent tour level competitor but who lacked the big shot to get to the highest echelon). Nakashima however seems to be the real deal. At Tiburon he took out defending champion Michael Mmoh in the first round with complete ease and without the slightest trace of nerves. Win or lose Nakashima has kept this kind of preternatural on-court focus throughout his young professional career. Without points to defend until fall 2020 he could get on quite an amazing run if he goes deep in several tournaments.

Nakashima has a lot going for him. Technically his two-handed backhand, with its strong high finish and arms extended, is better than any of those in the last flotilla of young American pros. While he is stoic on court, he actually appears to have a sense of humor and to be thoughtful and analytic. I spoke with a couple of longtime American coaches, including Brad Stine, who told me that he is like a sponge in both seeking out and absorbing new information and adding it to his game. He reminds me of David Nalbandian who was better on hard courts than on clay and both have the same combination of beautifully-produced shots that are slightly flatter than the norm. Or, going again way back, there are parallels to Brian Gottfried, another grinder with flair.

(I didn’t see the match Nakashima lost to Kozlov but I did see him lose to former NCAA champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, another former UVa player, and I suspect it was the same pattern—he is vulnerable not to change of pace per se but to fully-struck balls with height and depth without much pace—in other words to the pro version of the recreational “pusher”. It’s much easier to beat that kind of player if you are taller because you can hit down and through the ball with power, like Khachanov or Querrey; if you already are producing a flat ball it is easier to make errors on a deep ball on which you have to generate power. As Nakashima gets fitter he can take those balls earlier, especially on the forehand, and he has probably already figured this out.)

Two observations….sounds like Co Co Gauff was by far the biggest celebrity on or off court at Delray this year

And Dan’s comment caused me to google and look at a picture of him…dang….Nakashima is one ugly dude.

Leif’s comments, always a must read. The Bernini of comments.

Jon – I feel for Nakashima. Would you refer to a woman player as ‘one ugly gal’ ?

I mean, he’s not the Apollo Belvedere but great looks aren’t supposed to matter – or do they ?

Guess Harry wasn’t able to build on his little success at Delray, goes out in the first round of qualies to a German ranked about 220..Oops, forgot the German was the higher ranked..lmao..Harry the one time future of American Tennis…

This seems to be the active thread, so I will post this here. Stefanos just defeated FAA in the Marseille final in SS. Felix did not play badly, but Stef was simply better. Stef is exactly 2 years older, and his greater experience showed, especially in his decision making. Both are so talented – very athletic and with all-court games. They are now 2-2 in Tour matches and should have a terrific rivalry over the years.

Vasek Pospisil, teamed with Mahut, won the Marseille doubles title, so it is great to see him back playing well. He is now in the top 100 in the rankings. Because he was out for several months last year following back surgery, Vasek has no points to defend for a while, and has a protected ranking, so he should go up quite a few spots over the next few months.

Doping news – Clijsters was tested 6 times before her return to competition.
More (from Tennis Now)
In comparison to Clijsters, fellow former world No. 1 Muguruza was tested 7 times in competition and 17 times out-of-competition, Simona Halep took 10 in competition and 17 out-of-competition doping tests, Maria Sharapova took 10 out-of-competition tests, Serena Williams was tested 6 times in competition and 5 times out-of-competition, Venus Williams was tested twice in competition and 14 times out-of-competition.

Don’t know why Serena moans about testing – just compare to Muguruza and Halep.

Yes, that was one of FAA’s coaches, Guillaume Marx.

Mugs and Daria have played some great matches. No false hugging and smirking at the end of this one. Both exhausted. I like that although I expect fans will go into a frenzy.

Martinez is turning Garbine into a net charger.

All slam champs are hot. NOT. Ever occur maybe some do better than others re no distractions, no modeling contracts forthcoming, etc? Pro tennis is closest thing to meritocracy there is despite the money advantages once you do well, because it’s about who’s better on the day. Just is. The ball doesn’t care what you look like how much money you have etc. If you hit it one more time across the net and it’s in, you win.

Like Muguruza because it’s only a matter of time before a video comes out with her chewing out someone. She is incredibly entertaining with her total negativity combined with a biting analysis. She and Medvedev 2019 should compare notes about the power of the dark ways of tennis.

Andrew – here’s the question: would X (or Y or Z) have been a better player if she hadn’t been so pretty ?

Blondes have more fun.

Muguruza does have wicked genius kind of dimension to her personality and game, she’d be great for Spanish cinema with its emphasis on psychological drama.

Rodionov wins another challenger, two in last three weeks.

Otherwise…an ocean of many players I have never heard of or seen. No wonder it’s so hard to maintain a ranking these days…so many challengers and qualies at same time.

Fancy car executives, post US open: we just signed two can’t miss superstars to our brand. Daniil and Bianca will really demonstrate the kind of passion we want to show to our big money clients worldwide.

Fancy car executives, February 2020: can you guys fire whoever it was whose “genius” idea it was to get behind a few players who did well last year but aren’t doing much this year?

To us kids, we saw Agassi as an idol. We didn’t think much about his girlfriend Wendy. We liked the denim and the lava pants and especially the yellow Donnay racquet and the orange and black and white Nikes. It wasn’t about sex appeal: we liked his rebellion against the old men of the tour including Lendl and the patricians such as Edberg – even though with time I am sure we all saw them as different players on a diverse tour.

What Agassi represented as a nineteen year old was a threat to whatever else was out there. But Sampras also had a lot of appeal as a dominant dog with a huge game whose racquet did the talking. Chang did too and as a young guy I don’t think any of us saw him as anything other than a short guy with a lot of heart.

I don’t think tennis works quite like how it’s being described but I’m glad to think about it with everyone. This was my experience of the sport – thought Sabatini was totally beautiful but then others I know would talk about how she carried herself like a guy (which I think was meant as a put down). Navratilova whose artistry I loved and courage was seen negatively too because of the obvious.

Generally we gravitated towards younger people because we were young ourselves. It’s why I think the reaction towards the brash players like Andreescu is so understandable – she’s got a rebel like game and is quite a disrupter, and her game is what’s rewriting a lot of scripts. Personally I think the Kenin game with its thoughtfulness should have more appeal too, showing smaller players what they can do with a racquet and intelligence.

Anyways. That’s my take. I grew to love Lendl because of what he could do with the ball, how he’d hit underhand forehand slice winners where he went under the ball and it would dart away from the opponents backhand side a nasty yet awesome shot. But not the pants. The pants were always bad. When the longer parachute pants came to the sport courtesy of the US players I was relieved.