(The Economist)
Roger Federer and Serena Williams defy age at the Australian Open
LAST week, in the middle of the Australian Open, the first grand-slam tournament of the 2017 tennis calendar, the International Tennis Hall of Fame announced its annual slate of inductees, which included Kim Clijsters and Andy Roddick. Ms Clijsters earned four grand-slam titles between 2005 and 2011, and Mr Roddick won the US Open in 2003. Both players retired from their respective tours in 2012.
The freshly minted Hall-of-Famers have something else in common: they are both younger than this year’s Australian Open singles champions. At 35 years of age Serena Williams, who won her 23rd major title in Melbourne on January 28th, is two years older than Ms Clijsters, and has won eight grand slams since the Belgian retired. Roger Federer, who defeated Rafael Nadal on January 29th to clinch his 18th major title, is one year older than Mr Roddick, and has reached four slam finals since the American called time on his career.
This year’s champions padded their résumés as two of the greatest players in tennis history, and they set a bevy of age-related records as well. Ms Williams was already the oldest woman to win a major title, a milestone she established at Wimbledon in 2015 and has since extended twice. Mr Federer is the oldest male grand-slam finalist since 1974, when 39-year-old Ken Rosewall was the runner-up at that year’s US Open. Unlike Mr Rosewall, who was trounced by a 22-year-old Jimmy Connors, Mr Federer defeated his younger rival.
Ms Williams and Mr Federer weren’t the only veterans who exceeded expectations this fortnight. Serena’s 36-year-old sister Venus reached her first major final since 2009, almost 20 years after her first appearance at that stage, at the 1997 US Open. Mr Nadal, a relative youngster at 30, has long struggled with injuries and last made it to the endgame of a grand slam in 2014. In the tournament’s earlier rounds, the players recording notable achievements were often those with the most experience. Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who upset the third seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round and ultimately fell in the semi-finals to Serena, will reach a career-high ranking on Monday at the age of 35, beating a mark she set in 1998. Mischa Zverev, the man who knocked the top seed Andy Murray out of the tournament, is enjoying an unexpected peak at 29. Even Ivo Karlovic, who at 37 was the second-oldest player in either singles draw, won the event’s most dramatic first-round match: a late-night marathon against Horacio Zeballos that lasted five hours.
The ageing of professional tennis is nothing new. The trend has been evident since at least 2012 when, for the first time, a full one-quarter of the men’s draw at Wimbledon was made up of 30-somethings. Aided by advances in sports medicine and racquet technology—which have permitted aggressive shotmaking without the physical wear-and-tear of the serve-and-volley style of yesteryear—the sport’s stars have continued to mature. In 1990 the average age of the men ranked in the top 100 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was 24.6. The average age of the women ranked in the top 100 by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) was 22.8. Today the equivalent ages are 28.6 for men and 25.9 for women.
As much as the 35-year-old champions represent this trend in modern tennis, this year’s tournament might mark the end of an era. Tennis’s all-time greats rarely endure slow, steady declines, and most quit while they are ahead. In 1999 Steffi Graf won the French Open, reached the Wimbledon final, and had retired by the end of the summer. Chris Evert reached the semi-finals in three of the last four majors she entered. Andre Agassi played his last grand-slam final at the 2005 US Open and retired a year later, after Pete Sampras had hung up his racquet upon winning the 2002 major in New York. This isn’t to say that Serena is on the brink of retirement: she reclaimed the number-one ranking with her win on Saturday. But even small injuries can make top-level tennis impossible, and ageing curves for superstars are rarely linear.
The conditions at Melbourne Park were unusually conducive to attacking tennis, providing just the sort of environment to favour a hard-hitting veteran. Ms Williams and Mr Federer are both aggressive players: the short points of first-strike, go-for-broke rallies are less reliant on the extreme physical fitness that has allowed Mr Nadal, along with Mr Murray and Novak Djokovic, to thrive. The fast-playing courts not only helped the veterans win matches, but they also abetted the likes of Mr Zverev and Denis Istomin, who ousted Mr Djokovic in the tournament’s first week.
Today’s final was influenced by the conditions as well. The average length of the rallies, at 4.3 shots, was shorter than that of any of the three previous meetings between Mr Federer and Mr Nadal in Australia. Mr Federer was unusually aggressive with his forehand, especially his signature “inside-out” shot, in which he hits a cross-court forehand from the backhand corner of the court. Of the 42 such shots he hit today, he ended the point 26 times: a rate of 62%, which is nearly double his hard-court average of 35%. Some of those rally-ending shots were his own errors, but roughly two-thirds (17 of 26) won him the point. The last time Mr Federer defeated Mr Nadal at a major, at Wimbledon in 2007, the inside-out shot was potent—ending points on 47% of attempts—but he did not hit it as often or as successfully. For today’s match, he executed a game plan suited to both his age and the conditions.
Though this year’s tournament was dominated by veterans, three 25-year-olds gave evidence that they are ready to force their way to the top. Grigor Dimitrov, long touted as a future star, produced his best showing yet at a major, pushing Mr Nadal to five sets in the semi-final. CoCo Vandeweghe took advantage of the fast conditions to upset both the top seed Angelique Kerber and reigning French Open champion Garbine Muguruza, before losing to Venus Williams in a three-set semi-final. Another aggressive player, Johanna Konta, plowed through a warm-up event in Sydney and the opening rounds in Melbourne, winning 18 consecutive sets before finally falling to Serena Williams in the quarter-finals.
The very fact that 25-year-olds can be considered prospects, rather than superstars, indicates the shift in perception that has come with the ageing of the sport. By the time Venus Williams was 25, she had won four majors and played six other finals—losing five of them to her sister. By the same age, Mr Nadal had won the French Open six times. In large part because the generation of now-30-somethings is so strong, no younger player has achieved anything even remotely similar. Mr Federer, Mr Nadal, and the two Ms Williams have dominated not only their own era, but also the one that followed. Compared to the trophy cabinets of this weekend’s finalists, those of Mr Roddick and Ms Clijsters must look bare. But for the 20-somethings struggling to unseat their predecessors, Roddick- and Clijsters-level careers might be the very best they can hope for.
COMENTÁRIO (MEU)
Qual foi o maior desportista que vi actuar? Simples, foi este!
Porque há muito tempo que o é, porque mantêm um alto nível de jogo, porque tem a idade que tem, porque brota inteligência e coordenação motora, porque é ostensiva e genuinamente humilde. E depois porque, "complementarmente", tem características pessoais que o distinguem de outros incorrectamente apelidados de monstros do desporto, mas que não o são em todas as vertentes; como Maradona que marca golos com dolo e com a mão enquanto faz mais um negócio de droga; ou como Ronaldo que não consegue gerir a sua vaidade e sobranceria, enquanto faz um gesto menos correcto para o público, cospe para uma câmara de televisão, ou se atira pela enésima vez para o chão.
Federer é, definitivamente, um grande desportista, mas sobretudo um grande homem.
