about tennis and a new piece in The New Yorker

The Australian Open men's final this year was awesome. The Russki, Daniil Medvedev, is a funny, quasi-villain and impending champion, and Rafa Nadal, in his mid-30s now, is the sport's older statesman—older even beyond his tennis years because his unrelenting hustle and highly physical style of play has worn down his body. But Medvedev had the harder journey to this final, and Nadal is still a champion. Here is how a piece from The New Yorker summarizes Nadal's winning tactics:

Nadal’s topspin forehand gets a ball to not only bounce up but penetrate deeper wherever it’s headed, and he sent Medvedev chasing angled shots that bounded beyond the sidelines. He moved Medvedev forward and back with short slices, followed by deep, out-of-reach groundstrokes.

And then here is the column denouement:

Nadal spoke before the tournament began about how majors are bigger than any one player, and how generations of players come and go but the game remains. He also talked about how tennis is, as he put it, “zero important” compared with the pandemic that has swept the world. This was his way of talking about Djokovic, whose arrival, unvaccinated, in Melbourne, and subsequent deportation dominated coverage of the sport in the week before the Australian Open began, and threatened to cloud it afterward. That it didn’t—that the tennis was just too good not to become what mattered—was due in great part to Nadal and to Barty. That’s what the greatest champions can do.

 

Note: The final was played on January 30, 2022.