Jimmy Arias, the mismanaged boy wonder?

The style Nick put him in was likely irrelevant to his lack of living up to his talent because he admitted he just did not want it anymore. Had he wanted it he could have changed his style and gotten different coaching as an adult. sounds like he just wasn’t into being the best. Jimmy’s quotes from Sarasota magazine interview.

“A few years later, at 19, I made one big mistake that changed my career. I got mono and kept playing, which enlarged my spleen and caused liver problems. I was given three months of bed rest. I started going through all the scrapbooks my mother had put together, and I had two terrible thoughts: The first one was, if I never accomplish anything else in tennis, I’ve already done well. What you say happens. I never actually did anything else that I considered worthy, although I won some big matches. The second thought was even more disturbing: I didn’t want to be No. 1 in the world anymore. It was too famous for my taste. I wanted to be able to go to a movie and not have everyone know who I was.”

Arias undone by wood to graphite transition? We forget that actually happened, it wasn’t a minor thing and it ushered in an era of enormous Tanner-like serving while shortening points. Unless you think technology doesn’t matter, the sport actually changed.

Chicago Tribune 1990
Ten-year tour veteran Jimmy Arias, once the sixth-ranked player in the world while using a wood racket in the early `80s, but now ranked 57th, is frustrated by racket manufacturers. He claims the flurry of technology is ruining the game.

”I think it`s going down the tubes,” Arias said. ”The game is much less exciting to watch for the spectators because there`s no more thinking in the game, just big guys with big rackets hitting as hard as they can and if it goes in, it goes in. There are no rallies, no imagination.

”There`s never any finesse coming into play. You (used to have to) outthink, outhit, outmove him. That`s no longer the case.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-05-16-9102130468-story.html

Arias is a credit to broadcasting. Since when do we blame Bolletieri for slam finals losses? I would have loved for some players to win specific finals, but it wasn’t in the cards. I can think of a few competitive finals where players should have rolled the dice and upped their chances to win, but their opponents were too good and like any tennis match they lost winnable points. That’s tennis! That is the sport.

Arias had a very very good career. Most US players today would trade theirs for his, but they’d have to also cope with the heartache.

The interview with Brian Baker showed me that the competitor in these players is part of them – even if they break every bone in their bodies they STILL believe they should have done better or risen higher. Even Sharapova’s final interviews where of course she would have welcomed another grand slam title…because five is better than four.

I will always be amazed when Djokovic says things such as I admire Federer and am glad to see him doing so well as his career goes the distance BECAUSE THAT GIVES ME MOTIVATION. Not he’s a wonderful player. It’s because HE SHOWS ME I CAN DO THIS TOO.

So tell me again what separates these players from mere mortals? Here’s my theory for anyone paying attention.

BUT IT’S PLISKOVA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scoop, Arias is great analyst with microphone. I like him for his tennis smarts, and Robbie Koenig for his enthuasism. I grew up on a diet of Stolle + Drysdale, and it took me a while to appreciate some other announcers. I especially like it when Drysdale is paired with a younger announcer who isn’t paying attention to a momentum shift and Drysdale does!

I think Petra is just more fun to watch than Pliskova. She is so aggressive, going for her shots, no matter what. She can drive her fans crazy sometimes – we talk about Good Petra, Bad Petra and Scary Petra (when she is in the zone).

Pliskova seems robotic in comparison. Outside of the time she attacked the ump’s chair, she doesn’t tend to show a lot of emotion on the court. Some of us joke that she is a cyborg. Whereas Petra will let out those screams.

Plus, with 2 Slams, Petra has had a better career so far. And of course there is the fact that Petra is so incredibly nice, certainly one of the most popular players on the tour, and a fan favourite for her personality.

Sad but with big three what will be lost is this record breaking rivalry among three unbelievable players. That’s how tennis works, out with the old and in with the new, and that’s how it’s supposed to work. They are trying to put it off as long as possible, but there’s a day in the future, maybe a few years from now, when Federer will begin handing winners trophies to champions at Wimbledon. Players are already saying, “I grew up watching Djokovic and Nadal and Federer, and I appreciate this chance to play my idol”.

Remember that’s what Federer said when he played Rios and when he played Sampras. So now we are at that point where kids rising grew up wanting to be the legends they are playing.

Djokovic to his credit knows he has to win now. And Nadal, Djokovic, have done an amazing job carrying this sport. I’m tired of them, but I can’t deny how outstanding they are in setting the highest possible standard for the game.

Arias – there’s a nice chapter in the book Hard Courts by John Feinstein about how Arias, at number five, got mononucleosis and never recovered. Anyone remember what happened to JC Ferrero and the chicken pox? He too was on top of the world (of course, far higher than Arias) and was never the same player (even if his ranking recovered to top 20). Arias said his illness made him a better person. He also said that he was treated a lot different at the lower ranking than he was when he was top five, and how at the lower ranking he lost a lot of friends!

Bolletieri had very kind things to say about Krickstein, Arias, all these guys.

Scoop, I fall into a trap believing that if only player X didn’t do this, or if only so and so didn’t meddle with player Y’s game (here’s an example: Todd Martin and the Djokovic serve from 2009-2010). The reality is we don’t know, won’t ever know, and there’s a lot going on that affects players. As far as I can tell mononucleosis stood in the way of Arias and a return to the top, but it could be that the game changed and a whole crop of players came behind him whose games, combined with a new racquet technology, proved too much to deal with. Or that married life was worthwhile but harder for a pro tennis athlete that needs to control everything.

Who knows? I don’t think the answers are easy. I think with some players they are (e.g., Lendl got older, he couldn’t compete as well, he didn’t want to anymore, etc), and with situations like Arias I think it’s unclear (he was sick, but also unable to make it back – was is the coaching? Was it the serious change in technology? Did he do what he did before to become better? Did his game need more help? Did his coach jump ship?)

These guys at some level are all free-lancers. Brian Baker said something that stood out – that rising in the tennis world has a lot to do with how healthy you can be for how long. Guys like Nadal, Djokovic, Federer are meticulous about these things that would have helped a player like Arias. All of that was not available to him at the time, which was a totally different era.

Too much shade for Ferrero! He recovered well, played a huge part in Spain’s Davis Cup success. Got back to top 20. It’s not awful, but he probably believes he failed too. I put a lot of fault for Ferrero at the switch from Prince to Head Racquets – I think for him it was too much.

I agree that Hard Courts is a terrific book. I read it at least twice. Unfortunately my public library no longer has a copy. The one they had probably fell apart.

Hard Courts is a good sports book but I prefer Mewshaw’s writing because it’s more scandalous and closer to reality in a lot of ways. Mewshaw was always an outsider and Feinstein was not.

On the Tennis Canada site there is an interview that Tom Tebbutt did with Louis Borfiga. Most of the questions were about individual Canadian players, but there was this one:

“Q: Over the years, in what way do you think you’ve gotten better at telling who’s going to be good – have you gained a certain wisdom? Are there basic things that you’ve learned?

LB: I know what I don’t know, that’s what I’ve learned. I know that you have to be careful saying he or she will be good or not good. You have to take a group of young players and train them well and then you’ll see. Drawing conclusions too quickly…you can’t say someone will be good or not good. There are always lots of surprises.”

Tebbutt’s post concludes with Leylah Fernandez.

“With all the efforts the family has made – including father Jorge having to sell his car at one point – Leylah Annie wasn’t about to be making any frivolous purchases. “We’re not rich,” her father/coach Jorge said during a Radio-Canada interview last year, “but we’re rich in our values and we’ll succeed.”

Borfiga had this to say about the youngster:

“Honestly, as the years went by, she was playing better and better. And now she surprises me because she’s really raised her level. She’s got something really important for me – she loves the game and she’s super, super motivated and super serious. It’s incredible.”

Exo sets are the true test of TP greatness.

I’ve been fooled by the dreaded practice sets too.

There is a big difference between 1 and 4, especially with Finals appearances. Just like there’s a difference between being ranked 18 for a week, or being top 20 for years😂

Good luck to Kid Markowitz

Tennis.com excerpts on Antonio Arias, Jimmy’s dad:

“My dad’s philosophy was, never tell you what you did right, tell you what you did wrong. I think that’s what got me to No. 5 in the world.”

“Antonio began teaching his son to play tennis the way any father who didn’t grow up playing the sport would: First from a textbook, and then with private lessons from a local pro. But the engineer spotted a flaw in the technique that Jimmy was being taught on his forehand.”

“Antonio had other ideas. He realized that stopping the racquet in mid-swing meant that you had to slow the frame down first, thus robbing yourself of power and spin.

“[My dad] said not to stop the racquet, to let it end up wherever it did,” Arias said. “He said to let my arm go. That was the start of my racquet-head speed.”

From the vantage point of 2017, it only sounds natural, right? The full-whip forehand is taught on tennis courts all over the world today. But in the mid-70s, it required an entirely new approach. Arias used a semi-Western grip, set up in an open stance and, as Antonio encouraged him, moved forward to take the ball earlier and create sharper angles. All of that is normal today, but even for a talented kid like Jimmy, it wasn’t an easy concept to understand, or master, at the time.

“I practiced seven or eight hours a day” to get it down, he said. Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email
Antonio Arias re-engineered the forehand, and his son Jimmy unleashed it on the tennis world. (YouTube)

“Kid, you aren’t getting another game,” Rod Laver said to his 12-year-old opponent. The Rocket had goofed around and gone down 0-2 to the precocious pre-teen from Buffalo, NY, but he wasn’t smiling anymore.

When you’re 12 and the Rocket says those ominous words to you during an exhibition match in your hometown, chances are you’re going to believe him, right? Not when you’re a 12-year-old named Jimmy Arias, and you’re armed with a forehand unlike any that had been seen before. In that case, you win three more games, and lose a close 7-5 set to the 11-time major champion.

Then, if you’re Arias, you walk over to your father and hear him say, “You played all right.”

“That was the closest he came to paying me a compliment,” Arias told journalist John Feinstein with a laugh. “My dad’s philosophy was, never tell you what you did right, tell you what you did wrong. I think that’s what got me to No. 5 in the world.”

When it came to tennis, Antonio Arias didn’t believe in limits or conventions or expectations about what you couldn’t and couldn’t do. With an outsider’s eye, an engineer’s mind, an athlete’s competitiveness and an immigrant’s do-it-yourself work ethic, he would leave an unsung mark on the sport.

The forces of history had brought Antonio to upstate New York. He was born in Spain, but his family left for Cuba during the Spanish Civil War. After growing up on that island, he left for the U.S. before the 1959 revolution to attend college. A soccer player for the Cuban national team, he introduced the game to his oldest son, Jimmy. Soon, though, Antonio tried the newly popular sport of tennis, and one day he handed Jimmy a Dunlop Maxply with a 4 5/8 grip. Even with that tree-trunk in his hand, Jimmy hit 10 straight balls back to his dad.

Antonio began teaching his son to play tennis the way any father who didn’t grow up playing the sport would: First from a textbook, and then with private lessons from a local pro. But the engineer spotted a flaw in the technique that Jimmy was being taught on his forehand.

Embed from Getty Images

As anyone who learned the game in the 1970s or earlier will likely remember, the standard procedure in those days was to take the racquet straight back, swing through horizontally, and finish by pointing the tip of the frame in the direction of your target. The man with the most advanced forehand of that era, Bjorn Borg, used a newfangled Western grip; but he still finished by pointing his racquet at his target.

“The pro was teaching the conventional style,” Arias told Tennis Magazine, recalling a lesson from when he was 7 or 8. “Continental grip, straight back, stay on your feet. I could barely get the ball back.”

Antonio had other ideas. He realized that stopping the racquet in mid-swing meant that you had to slow the frame down first, thus robbing yourself of power and spin.

“[My dad] said not to stop the racquet, to let it end up wherever it did,” Arias said. “He said to let my arm go. That was the start of my racquet-head speed.”

From the vantage point of 2017, it only sounds natural, right? The full-whip forehand is taught on tennis courts all over the world today. But in the mid-70s, it required an entirely new approach. Arias used a semi-Western grip, set up in an open stance and, as Antonio encouraged him, moved forward to take the ball earlier and create sharper angles. All of that is normal today, but even for a talented kid like Jimmy, it wasn’t an easy concept to understand, or master, at the time.

“I practiced seven or eight hours a day” to get it down, he said. Once he had it, though, he had a game-changing weapon.

https://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2017/04/how-tutelage-cuban-emigre-helped-create-modern-game/65550/

Anyone else see the IW qualies death matches? Check this out:
– Humbert vs. Sock Humbert! #42 in the world in qualies!

– Tiafoe vs. Mmoh

– Pouille vs. Noah Rubin

Arias dad belongs in HOF! From Steve Tignor’s article:

“The power game had come to tennis, and the U.S. benefited. But it had taken Antonio Arias, a Cuban-American, to engineer it. “Today the Arias forehand has a different name,” the author Matthew Futterman wrote in 2016. “It’s called a forehand.”

Wow, Rubin beat Pouille at the IW Challenger.

Julia Goerges dumps her coach after 5 months. Coaching women’s tennis is a difficult racket!

I saw Arias lose a long 5 set match to Tomas Smid at the US Open in 1985. Jimmy had a shoulder injury for a time but appeared to have recovered – his forehand seemed as good as ever. I didn’t write about the match except to note that Smid, who won on an easy volley, seemed to get under Jimmy’skin in some way. Bolletieri wasn’t with him by this time. Krickstein was already injured and out of the picture.