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The Open mind-body of Novak Djokovic

A recent footnote in the tennis world – Novak Djokovic and his wife, Jelena, have taken up ballet. 

Let the sniggering begin.  “Ballet?” someone named Jaybee88 responded. “Ah, now, no wonder an ageing Federer beat him in Qatar.”

Ah, now, Jaybee, if you’re going to criticize, you’re going to have to learn how to spell “aging.”  What is a wonder is that in the 21st century, ballet is still considered unmanly, effete – and let’s face it – gay. After covering the arts for 30 years, I can tell you that many if not most of the top male dancers are straight or bi. I remember Ethan Stiefel, one of the greatest male dancers, telling me in response to a question about why he became a dancer, “You spend your days touching women in various states of undress. What man wouldn’t love it?”

But that’s not the point, is it? Gay or straight, ballet is one of the most physically and mentally demanding of careers. You start class at 10 or 11 in the morning. Then there are hours of rehearsal. You dance at night; on weekends, at matinees and evening performances. You finish around 11 p.m., grab dinner, then sleep and the whole thing starts all over again.  And that’s if you’re lucky and you perform regularly. Otherwise, guess what? You’re not getting paid.

If you’re a man, you’ve got to make the woman you partner always look good. That means sometimes you are lifting dead weight, no matter how light she is. You can’t ever show the strain the way an athlete can. And you can’t hide a few extra pounds. No wonder legendary New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig – the great “Iron Horse” of baseball – said, “Dancers make the best athletes.” ...

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Men’s tennis at a crossroads?

Had an interesting conversation with a saleswoman the other day regarding watches. I remarked that it’s intriguing that so many watch manufacturers have tennis players for pitch men – and women. You don’t see as many NFL players representing watches.

That might seem counterintuitive since tennis isn’t played against a clock – although it certainly records the time of each match, whereas football is played in four 15-minute intervals, albeit with lots of timeouts and a halftime. Shouldn’t Peyton Manning be the spokesman for Piaget?

But a watch – a gift of time – is a classy thing, she said. Tennis players are classy, she added. By implication, football players are not.

It’s always dangerous to generalize, of course, but there is some truth in what she said, as I myself have pointed out in this blog. Tennis has prescribed rules for deportment and an intimate, relatively quieter setting – though it can get pretty loud – that underscores infractions. When Novak Djokovic sarcastically applauded the crowd as it applauded his double-fault in a semifinal against Kei Nishikori at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals in London Nov. 15, he was quick to blame himself for letting the crowd get to him and losing his concentration.

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Rod Laver – the GOAT?

The return of the Rod Laver Adidas tennis shoe – which has been described as a sneaker for grown men who are nonetheless not yet willing to go gently into that good night – got me thinking about the answer to an oft-asked question: Who is the greatest tennis player you ever saw?

The answer to that is simply “Rod Laver.” Look, Roger Federer fans, he will never be the answer to that question for this Nadalista, just as I am congenitally incapable of rooting for the Red Sox as a Yankee fan.

But in any event, it’s not a horse race between Feddy Bear and Rafa, because there was Rod Laver. What made Laver so great? Well, for one thing, he was a lefty, and a lefty serve is, I think, more difficult to read. Certainly, Bjorn Borg, who spent all those years bedeviling and being bedeviled by Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, thought so. And certainly it’s the reason Novak Djokovic is always looking to practice with a southpaw the day before he has to face Rafael Nadal (who plays lefty but is really a righty in southpaw clothing).

The righty-lefty thing is something I touch on in my new novel “Water Music,” in which Alí Iskandar is a prodigious southpaw tennis player – which gives right-handed rival, friend and lover Alex Vyranos fits.

But back to Laver, whose racket I proudly owned as a child...

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Getting over the hump

Lots of people work over the holidays – me, everyone in the retail, food and hospitality industries, emergency workers in any number of fields and tennis players. Tennis players never seem to stop, with locales like Abu Dhabi presumably taking the sting out of what must sometimes be a grind.

On Saturday, Dec. 28, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, once again defeating David Ferrer. Rafael Nadal settled for third place. That’s a 24-match win streak for Nole and while you can say all you want about Abu Dhabi being a mere exhibition tune-up for the Australian Open, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the fact remains that Nole is looking good. Read more

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Your move, Rafa

So Novak Djokovic has announced on his website that Boris Becker is his new head coach. Already the “boobirds,” as Phil Rizzuto used to call them, are out saying this will never work, Boris was a serve and volley player from another time, you can’t teach Nole mental toughness, he’s not as tough as Rafael Nadal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, who knows how this will shake down. Nole has always been interested in coming in at the net, more than other baseliners, and Boris has got net. So Boris might add to his arsenal there. As for him teaching Nole mental toughness… Read more

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