Tennis, the most "human" of sports

Tennis is back in fashion after decades of oblivion. It was since the days of Adriano Panatta and the successes of Italian tennis players in the 1970s that this sport did not regain the limelight on the national stage. Thanks to the victories of Jannik Sinner, Matteo Berrettini and an entire generation of players capable of making the public not usually interested in this sport dream. A sport with a long history and in which the human being summarizes and expresses all of himself and the best of his qualities. On the playing field every tennis player, whatever his level, demonstrates what he is and what he wants to become, solving numerous conflicts and developing a game that depends on the sum or lack of his qualities. To tell it is a book that reconstructs the evolution of tennis from the origins of man to Roger Federer: “ The last monkey ” (Hoepli Editore, 2022, Euro 27.90, pp. 224). The authors of the book, enriched by dozens of photos, are Marco Bucciantini and Federico Ferrero, journalists and commentators of the major tennis events for the Eurosport channel. We ask Federico Ferrero what, in his opinion, tennis has so particular compared to other sports: "More than particular, I would say unique because it is a wrestling sport but without contact, with rules of fair play unknown to other disciplines. . A sport that uses a tool but is extremely physical (unlike golf, for example), which also demands a lot from the mind because it forces you to solve problems and unexpected events, frustrations and obstacles in solitude. Despite being a battle, it has its own elegance that is difficult to find elsewhere: the gestures of tennis are almost like a dance, especially when interpreted by some athletes. It is also an extremely cruel sport: in football, if you are winning 4-0 in the ninetieth minute, the game is over. In tennis you can lead 6-0 5-1 40-0, that is one point from victory, and lose ”.

Has anyone compared a tennis match to a war ... is every match a duel to the death?

"Exactly. As I said before, it is a 'white' war because physical contact is not allowed. Indeed, tennis players would be forbidden to discuss any problems - wrong calls, annoying behavior - with each other; they should only turn to the chair judge. Tennis has also been designed in such a way that every defeat is final: if you lose the game, goodbye to the tournament. However, another difference compared to many other sports, the following week another one begins. Of course, that match is not always the Wimbledon final… ”.

In the book you talk a lot about the evolution of this sport: how much have the new materials - from rackets to surfaces - changed tennis?

"Very very much. The materials - strings even more than rackets, because graphite was already popular in the Eighties and had supplanted wood - have pushed tennis players to become supermen, allowing them to shoot very hard and to better control the ball. Today's tools resemble weapons, they are like cars that are able to guarantee grip when cornering at three hundred kilometers per hour. In the past it was not like this: you had to hit the ball perfectly in the center and, for example, Nadal's rotations could not be applied with an ancient tool. The surfaces have been approved: now you can dribble everywhere, including grass, and there is no longer a big difference between the terrains. Which allowed the tournament organizers to always have the strongest in the final, but which sacrificed variety. At one time, the Roland Garros winner could lose in the first round of Wimbledon to a serve & volley player. Not today".

Does talent or athletic training matter more today?

"The preparation. Talent is difficult to define, or rather, there are many. If we talk about manual talent, that is technical talent, sensitivity, it continues to be important in the sense that it helps a player a lot but it is no longer possible, for some time now, to make up for the preparation with natural qualities. After that, there are also athletic talents and mental talents. Ultimately, tennis is an endurance sport. There are very gifted guys who can't stand the sacrifices, sacrifices and frustrations of professional life, or who suffer too much defeat - especially the cruel ones, and there are many in the life of an athlete. So, in the end, today it is better to have a little less touch of the ball and a little more discipline and hunger for victory. Having said that all top tennis players are exceptional athletes, in one or more ways, because otherwise they wouldn't be where they are ”.

Describe a sport that has become more and more exasperated over time. In this growing need for exasperation, Roger Federer has appeared, the one you call "the last monkey". Is it really the end product of tennis evolution?

“It seems so, in the sense that it does what the greats of the past could do despite the fact that today's tennis forces you to make the ball travel at sidereal speeds. It collects in itself the soul of tennis that was and managed to show it to the spectators of the 2000s. There are no other players who have had such a concentration of game quality and quantity of wins and endurance at the highest levels ".

But in the end, if Federico Ferrero could choose, which player would you like to be like?

“It would be too easy to say Federer, so maybe John McEnroe. More than being in his head, which does not have to be an easy experience, it would be nice to be able to give the ball your voice as he did, decide to do something and know that it would happen, even if it is an unthinkable shot, a illogical trajectory. McEnroe was a creative genius, he invented a way to play starting from the mechanics of serving. Had it not been inhabited by its monsters, it would have won even more. Maybe: because, in the book, we go so far as to say that a player is the sum and subtraction of his being and hypothetical reasoning does not work. Many samples could have done more, but the spirit of each is hardly modifiable by an accounting reasoning. If McEnroe had calmed down, perhaps, he would have lost the pleasure of playing and would have quit sooner. Who knows".