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BOB LARSON'S TENNIS NEWS
http://www.tennisnews.com/

Thursday, October 4, 2007
PRO TOUR NEWS -- MEN

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

* Top four seeds advance at Tokyo; Nieminen, three others, fall
* Canas, Andreev win openers at Metz; Robredo reaches quarterfinal

TODAY'S MEN'S NEWS

Tokyo

Singles - Second Round: (1) D Ferrer def. W Moodie 7-6(7-5) 6-2
Ferrer still needs another win to match his fifth event; he faces Vince Spadea next.

Singles - Second Round: (2) T Berdych def. J Vanek 6-1 6-4
Berdych needs one more to break the tie in points for the #10 ranking (he and Tommy Haas have equal totals though Berdych is ranked higher); if he wins two more matches, he might start to climb higher still.

Singles - Second Round: (3) R Gasquet def. Z Fleishman 6-3 6-3
Interesting to see Gasquet here rather than in France. Of course, this place has more points and an easier draw. The Frenchman has now won six straight, and if he wins his next match, he, like Berdych, will start to increase his point total. And, perhaps, his Race standing.

Singles - Second Round: (4) L Hewitt def. L Gregorc (Q) 6-3 6-3
Hewitt is just barely alive in the Race, but he also has lots of room for optional points. This actually helps him, a little.

Singles - Second Round: B Pashanski def. (5) J Nieminen 6-3 4-6 6-4
We can probably consider Nieminen out of the Race after this. Not officially, but this event was the cheapest source of points he was going to get.

Singles - Second Round: (6) D Tursunov def. P Capdeville 6-4 6-3
Six straight wins for Tursunov. He too gets to start counting points with his next win.

Singles - Second Round: (7) I Karlovic def. B Becker 6-4 6-3
OK, so maybe Becker hasn't entirely recovered from his slump....

Singles - Second Round: (8) F Verdasco def. M Zverev 6-3 6-2
Along with everybody else, Verdasco gets to start counting points with his next win.

Singles - Second Round: (10) F Lopez def. R Kendrick 6-2 6-4
Kendrick has yet to manage back-to-back ATP wins this year.

Singles - Second Round: D Sela def. (11) J Del Potro 2-6 7-5 5-3, retired
Sela wins back-to-back matches at the ATP level for the first time in four tries this year.

Singles - Second Round: (12) T Johansson def. J Gimelstob 6-4 6-4
We won't guarantee it, but odds are that this really will be the last singles match of Gimelstob's career, unless he plays qualifying.

Singles - Second Round: V Spadea def. (14) S Roitman 4-6 6-1 7-6(9-7)
Spadea had to save two match points, but those are the sorts of things he almost doesn't seem even to notice.

Singles - Second Round: R Schuettler def. (15) F Dancevic 6-2 4-6 6-2
Schuettler has seven ATP wins this year. Five of them have been in the last two weeks.

Singles - Second Round: (16) M Russell def. M Cilic 7-6(7-2) 2-6 6-1
Perhaps a lucky escape for Russell. Although nine of the top ten seeds made the Round of Sixteen here, only two of the bottom six survived: Johansson and Russell.

Doubles - First Round: Kerr/Lindstedt def. Delic/Gimelstob 6-7(3-7) 6-3 10-4 (Match TB)

Doubles - First Round: Kendrick/Russell def. Capdeville/Schuettler 6-4 6-2

Doubles - First Round: Becker/Suzuki (WC) def. Nishikori/Soeda (WC) 6-2 7-6(7-5)

Doubles - Quarterfinal: Dancevic/Huss def. Gabashvili/Spadea 3-6 6-2 11-9 (Match TB)

Metz

Singles - First Round: (2) G Canas def. M Ledovskikh (Q) 7-6(7-1) 6-4
Canas was lucky in his draw: He was initially supposed to face Gael Monfils. Based on the score, he might well have lost that. Instead, he gets a win he surely needs, though it's probably too late for him to have any Masters Cup hopes.

Singles - First Round: (8) I Andreev def. F Santoro 6-3 6-3
First round matches Andreev wins. The question is always how he'll do in later rounds.

Singles - First Round: N Mahut def. M Montcourt (WC) 6-2 7-5
Montcourt has been creeping toward the Top Hundred, but obviously won't make it now.

Singles - First Round: N Lapentti def. N Massu 3-6 6-4 7-6(7-3)
Massu has now lost seven straight ATP matches, and he wasn't too good in Davis Cup, either.

Singles - First Round: M Llodra def. W Eschauer 4-1, retired (Neck)
Eschauer too has lost seven straight.

Singles - First Round: S Grosjean def. O Marach (LL) 3-6 6-1 6-3
Big for Grosjean, since he has semifinalist points to defend -- and, yes, that's significant to him, given how low his ranking has fallen.

Singles - Second Round: (1) T Robredo def. A Seppi 6-4 6-2
If he wins his next match, the points will start to count for Robredo.

Singles - Second Round: E Korolev (Q) def. M Gicquel 6-4 7-6(7-3)
Gicquel was a semifinalist last year, so he will probably be falling below #80. The excellent fall season he had last year is truly coming back to haunt him; his ranking will have roughly doubled just in the time since Washington.

Doubles - First Round: (3) Fyrstenberg/Matkowski def. Kohlschreiber/Koubek 6-4 6-3

Doubles - First Round: (4) Benneteau/Mahut def. Massu/Tipsarevic 6-4 6-2

Doubles - Quarterfinal: (1) Aspelin/Knowle def. Murray/Murray 6-4 6-3

TODAY'S FEATURE

Space Age Tennis

As you probably know if you have been listening to any science news at all lately, today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Space Age -- the Russians put Sputnik 1 in orbit on October 4, 1957.

In one sense, it wasn't really historic. Satellites could have been put into orbit somewhat earlier -- as Werner von Braun demonstrated in 1958, when he put Explorer 1 in orbit using all components that had been fully tested in 1957. But that's like saying Columbus's voyage to the Western Hemisphere wasn't historic because there were already people there, and Columbus's ships didn't use a new design: Yes, someone could have orbited a satellite before Sputnik 1 -- but no one did.

And that, of course, started the Space Race. Ironic to note that, in a way, the Russians are now winning: The American Space Shuttle is being phased out, while the Russians are still launching Soyuz capsules, forty years after the first one went up (and killed its passenger on landing).

But the space age has influenced us more than we usually realize. Some things are pretty obvious: Satellite weather data allows much better forecasting than ever before. Communications satellites make it possible to route many phone calls, and some internet fetches, across oceans. We tend to forget the other things, like new synthetic materials. Even though these are the ones which have most affected, say, tennis. (No, the author knows of no racquet material directly derived from space exploration. But it was the research associated with space exploration which started that whole branch of industry.)

And space exploration suddenly has reached a new stage. We have an almost-complete space station -- too small to do all we want, and in an orbit that is lower that is ideal, but still, a place designed for long-term habitation. It is an official goal of American space policy to proceed from there to the moon, and then to Mars.

Which means, among other things, very long periods spent in microgravity. Which, we now know, has very serious effects on the health of those who experience it: Their muscles atrophy, and their bones lose mass, and it is very difficult for them to ever recover.

There will doubtless have to be a complex set of treatments for this. But one of them will surely be exercise. Does that include sports? Specifically tennis? Let's dream a bit.

There are two basic differences between earth and any other random spot in the universe: Gravity and air. This isn't the whole list -- e.g. an object in earth orbit is subjected to much more dangerous radiation than one on earth's surface. But those are the two with the strongest effects on sports.

Curiously, nearly every major sport is directly dependent on gravity. Soccer/Football depends on the ball coming back to the ground. So does baseball. And golf. American football requires that, and also requires that the players be firmly held to the ground (you can't tackle someone if you don't have friction holding you in place). In hockey, gravity holds the puck to the ice. And so it goes: As long as a sport is about an object (ball, puck, ring, birdie, opposing team leader, opposing team leader's shirt) and attempts by various teams to control it (by throwing, kicking, putting, hitting, slamming into the ground and brutalizing), there has to be some way to keep the object within reach. In most sports invented so far, gravity has filled that role.

Air isn't as important in most games, but it certainly plays a part. Baseball pitchers need air to produce most of their trick pitches (curve ball, knuckle ball, etc.); without air resistance, their only tools for fooling hitters would be changes in pitch velocity and location. Top tennis players also use air resistance to put variety on their shots, and use spin and its effect on air to stabilize their balls; air resistance also influences how hard they can hit.

This means that various sports have different degrees of adaptability to space conditions (with the result that science fiction authors have invented various new sports for use in free fall environments). Soccer would take relatively little modification; even in zero gravity, you could just put a flat roof over the field and let the ball bounce off the ceiling as well as the floor; the three-dimensional aspect might even add to the sport. Baseball, by contrast, would probably be hopeless in an orbital setting where gravity would not hold the ball down; even if you enclose the field, the ball would be constantly escaping the fielders. You might rescue some aspects of the game by having just two players, pitcher and batter, with the batter taking whacks at targets. Similarly with golf: You could have an orbital driving range, and shoot at targets; you probably couldn't manage putting. But it's not even close to the same -- and it's almost worthless as exercise.

Tennis falls somewhere in between an easily-adapted sport such as soccer and a hopeless sport such as golf. It could not be played as it stands, but it could probably be modified.

The changes depend on the environment. If you are playing on the surface of Mars, say, there is some gravity although very little air. Gravity, of course, is the key to keeping the ball in the court. Less gravity means that you can't hit a groundstroke as hard and have it stay in the court. For beginners, it would hardly matter, but to produce a game as fast-paced as the current pro game would take changes in the geometry -- either a lower net or a longer court. (If the latter, it would probably be the end of serve-and-volley tennis on Mars.) And if you played on the Martian surface, you would need pressure and thermal suits as well.

The problem on the moon would be even greater, since the gravity is lower; the court dimensions would surely have to be changed. Climate control would probably be less of a problem, though; you would surely play in underground caverns (it's too hot to play on the Moon's surface during the day, and too cold and dark at night).

But it's the first challenge that's the biggest one: Playing in orbit. We may build a lunar colony, but the logical way to do that is not by sending some sort of modified Saturn V rockets to carry minimal payloads directly to the moon. Rather, it's to build a major staging ground somewhere in orbit (if we are going to do this right -- no guarantees on this, because NASA rarely gets exactly what it needs from the government -- probably in geosynchronous orbit, where the communications satellites live), and perhaps another one somewhere in lunar orbit. And orbit is where astronauts suffer the most health effects. So what about tennis in orbit, in free fall? Given a large enough container, you could certainly pressurize the chamber, so air isn't a problem (though chances are that it will be kept at a lower pressure than earth's surface, meaning that players will have to adapt a little). But without gravity, the ball simply could not be made to land in the court.

There are three possible solutions to this: "Artificial" gravity, substitutes for gravity, or a change in approach. Gravity is the result of the force exerted by a large mass on another mass, so if you can apply a similar force, it will seem like gravity. There are two ways to do that.

The more familiar one is acceleration. When you put your foot on the gas of a car, you experience acceleration, pushing you against the seat. If you could put rockets behind your tennis court, and keep them running for the length of the match, you could give a perfect imitation (in fact, the only perfect imitation) of tennis on earth. Acceleration by acceleration feels just like acceleration by gravity. The only problem is, you'd have to cart up enough fuel to maintain that acceleration. It's flatly not a possibility in reality -- at today's prices, you would be talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars to supply enough fuel for a single tennis match. Even if the human race can build a skyhook (in essence, an elevator into earth orbit), you'd still be talking at least tens of thousands of dollars for a match, and probably more -- and you'd also be blowing away vast quantities of irreplaceable fuel -- plus you've probably aimed your tennis court in an orbit that will ! take it to Neptune some time around 4377 C.E. So acceleration is out.

The other method of producing artificial gravity is to place the object (in this case, the tennis court) in a centrifuge and spin it. The faster the spin, the greater the gravitational force. This isn't as easy as it sounds -- to get a full earth gravity on a tennis court will require a cylinder spinning at very high speed, with all the mechanical problems that entails. But at least it's a one-time cost to spin the thing up.

This sort of artificial gravity has its complications, though. For one thing, the court will look funny -- the floor will appear curved (it will be curved!) even though it feels flat under your feet. Also, this sort of force feels like gravity, but you're in a spinning cylinder. When you hit the ball, it rises above the court, meaning that it's spinning at a speed different from the rest of the court. The ball will, as perceived by the players, curve as it goes through the court. Depending on the geometry of the spinning cylinder and the court within it, you might well find that a ball hit down the line would go crosscourt, or vice versa, and that at least one down-the-line shot would go straight out of the court. Players could certainly adapt -- but they would no longer be able to use the shot production required for earthly tennis, and they would need to learn different mechanics for every different cylinder in which they played. The author strongly doubts this w! ould prove popular.

Which brings us to alternatives to gravity. We don't actually care why the ball is pulled back down into the court; all we care is that it moves toward the court. So we could, for instance, make a ball with some metal in it, and play on a magnetized court, or give the ball an electric charge and the court an opposite charge.

But this wouldn't be much like earthly tennis either. The problem is Newton's famous inverse square law. The force of gravity, or electrical or magnetic attraction, decreases as the square of the distance from the source of the attraction. On the surface of the earth, this hardly matters. Hit a high lob, and the ball is still at effectively the same distance from the center of the earth as when it's at court level. Not so in space; if the surface of the court is electrically charged, a ball passing over the net (minimum height, three feet, or about 0.9 meter) will feel only one-ninth the downward force of the ball when it's a foot (.3 meters) from the court. A high lob might take minutes to come down, but once the ball gets close to the court, it will act like it is being physically sucked down.

So what's left? Not much except a true re-invention of the game. Ask a question: Why do you and your opponent have to have your feet on the same floor?

In free fall, there is no up or down. Orbital tennis should somehow take advantage of that fact. One obvious way is to put one opponent on the "ceiling," and one on the "floor," and have two nets. A side view would look something like this:

_________________________
|            |       P    |
|                    P    |
|    P                    |
|____P_______|____________|

where the short vertical bars represent the nets and the longer bars with the letter "P" represent the players.

Since you would have air inside this region, you would still have touch shots. Not the same touch shots, but spin could be very effective. As would wrong-footing your opponent; once your opponent is out of contact with the walls, there is almost no way to change directions (players might play with flippers on their feet, or compressed air jets -- the latter even adding a new twist if you give players only so much gas, so they have a limited ability to change direction quickly), so luring your opponent into committing would be an excellent strategy.

There would probably be other changes in this situation -- e.g. the author's guess is that you'd make the court longer (to give the resistance of the less dense air more time to act) and perhaps narrower (because of movement problems in free fall). Players might play with magnetized footwear on a metal floor and ceiling. But those are details.

Orbital tennis would be a very different game (and probably much easier on older players; the legs wouldn't take such a pounding), but it would probably feel much like earth tennis. Though we probably can't put it on the mission to Mars (it's too much mass for too small a benefit), we could build a court on a space station -- and we can keep the spirit of the game alive.

So -- how much to put a tennis court on the next space shuttle?

KEYWORDS: Sputnik 1 Space Shuttle Mars Moon Air Gravity Orbit Astronauts

THIS WEEK IN TENNIS

THIS WEEK ON THE ATP:
Tokyo (Hard). Defending Champion: Roger Federer
Metz (Indoor Hard). Defending Champion: Novak Djokovic

NEXT WEEK ON THE ATP:
Moscow (Carpet). Defending Champion: Nikolay Davydenko
Stockholm (Indoor Hard). Defending Champion: James Blake
Vienna (Indoor Hard). Defending Champion: Ivan Ljubicic

STATS AND FACTS

**RANKINGS

ESTIMATED ATP RANKINGS As of October 3, 2007

Rank &
Former
Rank ...Name .............Score
------- ---- .............-----
1..(1) Federer............7355
2..(2) Nadal..............5385
3..(3) Djokovic...........4180
4..(4) Davydenko..........3255
5..(5) Roddick............2540
6..(6) Gonzalez...........2360
7..(7) Blake..............2235
8..(8) Ferrer.............1940
9..(9) Robredo............1900
10.(10) Berdych............1880
10.(11) Haas...............1880
12.(12) Ljubicic...........1850
13.(13) Gasquet............1760
14.(14) Canas..............1633
15.(15) Moya...............1620
16.(16) Chela..............1465
16.(17) Youzhny............1465
18.(18) Murray.............1355
19.(19) Hewitt.............1345
20.(20) Monaco.............1320
21.(21) Baghdatis..........1295
22.(22) Nalbandian.........1195
23.(23) Ferrero............1190
24.(24) Mathieu............1180
25.(25) Nieminen...........1070
26.(26) Almagro............1015
27.(27) Safin..............1005
28.(28) Karlovic............974
29.(29) Starace.............951
30.(30) Tursunov............950

**DRAWS

Tokyo -- Week of October 1

.................3R
(1)Ferrer........(1)Ferrer
(14)Roitman......Spadea
(10)F.Lopez......(10)Lopez
(6)Tursunov......(6)Tursunov

(4)Hewitt........(4)Hewitt
(13)Querrey......Navarro
(9)Lee...........(9)Lee
(7)Karlovic......(7)Karlovic

(5)Nieminen......Pashanksi
(11)del Potro....Sela
(15)Dancevic.....Schuettler
(3)Gasquet.......(3)Gasquet

(8)Verdasco......(8)Verdasco
(12)T.Johansson..(12)Johansson
(16)Russell......(16)Russell
(2)Berdych.......(2)Berdych

Status of Seeds
(1)Ferrer
(2)Berdych
(3)Gasquet
(4)Hewitt
(5)Nieminen.......lost 2R (Pashanski)
(6)Tursunov
(7)Karlovic
(8)Verdasco
(9)Lee
(10)F.Lopez
(11)del Potro.....lost 2R (Sela)
(12)T.Johansson
(13)Querrey.......lost 2R (Navarro)
(14)Roitman.......lost 2R (Spadea)
(15)Dancevic......lost 2R (Schuetter)
(16)Russell

Metz -- Week of October 1

...................QF
(1)Robredo.........(1)Robredo
(6)Simon
(4)Mathieu
(8)Andreev

(7)Kohlschreiber
(3)Murray(WC)
(5)Starace.........Korolev(Q)
(2)Canas

Status of Seeds
(1)Robredo
(2)Canas
(3)Murray(WC)
(4)Mathieu..........lost 1R (Benneteau)
(5)Starace..........lost 1R (Korolev)
(6)Simon............lost 1R (Koubek)
(7)Kohlschreiber
(8)Andreev

SCORES

WEDNESDAY

Tokyo
Singles - Second Round
(1) D Ferrer def. W Moodie 7-6(7-5) 6-2
(2) T Berdych def. J Vanek 6-1 6-4
(3) R Gasquet def. Z Fleishman 6-3 6-3
(4) L Hewitt def. L Gregorc (Q) 6-3 6-3
B Pashanski def. (5) J Nieminen 6-3 4-6 6-4
(6) D Tursunov def. P Capdeville 6-4 6-3
(7) I Karlovic def. B Becker 6-4 6-3
(8) F Verdasco def. M Zverev 6-3 6-2
(10) F Lopez def. R Kendrick 6-2 6-4
D Sela def. (11) J Del Potro 2-6 7-5 5-3, retired
(12) T Johansson def. J Gimelstob 6-4 6-4
V Spadea def. (14) S Roitman 4-6 6-1 7-6(9-7)
R Schuettler def. (15) F Dancevic 6-2 4-6 6-2
(16) M Russell def. M Cilic 7-6(7-2) 2-6 6-1
Doubles - First Round
Kerr/Lindstedt def. Delic/Gimelstob 6-7(3-7) 6-3 10-4 (Match TB)
Kendrick/Russell def. Capdeville/Schuettler 6-4 6-2
Becker/Suzuki (WC) def. Nishikori/Soeda (WC) 6-2 7-6(7-5)
Doubles - Quarterfinal
Dancevic/Huss def. Gabashvili/Spadea 3-6 6-2 11-9 (Match TB)

Metz
Singles - First Round
(2) G Canas def. M Ledovskikh (Q) 7-6(7-1) 6-4
(8) I Andreev def. F Santoro 6-3 6-3
N Lapentti def. N Massu 3-6 6-4 7-6(7-3)
N Mahut def. M Montcourt (WC) 6-2 7-5
M Llodra def. W Eschauer 4-1 Retired (Neck)
S Grosjean def. O Marach (LL) 3-6 6-1 6-3
Singles - Second Round
(1) T Robredo def. A Seppi 6-4 6-2
E Korolev (Q) def. M Gicquel 6-4 7-6(7-3)
Doubles - First Round
(3) Fyrstenberg/Matkowski def. Kohlschreiber/Koubek 6-4 6-3
(4) Benneteau/Mahut def. Massu/Tipsarevic 6-4 6-2
Doubles - Quarterfinal
(1) Aspelin/Knowle def. Murray/Murray 6-4 6-3

***

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