By Chris Oddo | Wednesday July 29, 2015
Art and tennis? Or should we say tennis and art? Join us to discover what happens when the two worlds collide.
Photo Source: Julian Finney/Getty
Photo Source: AP
Tennis has evolved over the years, not necessarily for better or worse. Oh, it’s hard to say which is better or worse (for the record, we are not here to gripe but to celebrate), but one thing that is obvious is that improved string and racquet technology combined with slower, homogeneous surfaces has allowed a pounding, penetrating style of baseline tennis to proliferate and emerge as king. Call it modern tennis, and grunt while you do it.
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You want to be a great tennis player? Then learn to grind, hammer, and defend your way to victory. Get fit, work on your core, and hit the snot out of the ball, over and over and over again. If your arm or elbow falls off, call your physio, there’s probably another ready-to-use arm sitting in an ice bath somewhere. Sure, with all the grinding and hammering comes some miraculously good shotmaking—jaw-dropping angles so acute that geometry has become a new tennis buzzword, balls hit with so much spin that they morph into ostrich eggs as they cross the net and bounce randomly before morphing back into tennis balls again—but by and large today’s tennis is played from behind or at the baseline and forays to the net are about as rare as dinosaur sightings on the great plains.
In short, it pays to soldier on from the baseline, taking advantage of tiny percentages in rallies to execute winning, albeit grueling, points.
But some players buck the trend and collide head-on with reason in a stubborn attempt to be spontaneous on a tennis court. Reason says: “You can’t win at the net, because the ball is an egg and when you volley the yolk will get all over your face."
Reason says: “Why would you try that drop shot? You tried it seven times in Rotterdam and got booed off the court after getting double-bageled by a qualifier with large quads.”
But the tennis artist battles on, letting emotions, rather than percentages, dictate. Some says it's selfish, unsustainable, unprofessional. We say get your popcorn popped and enjoy it. The tennis artist exists to satisfy his own urges, not those of his or her coach, sponsors or fans. There is honor to be had in that. Cult status in the form of pirated videos and retweets galore.
And, this piece. Without any further ado, let us rank the top ten tennis artists…
1. Roger Federer
Well, what do you know, our top tennis artist is the most successful tennis player of all-time. So, not all artists are starving after all. Federer and his floetry-in-motion style have been making jaws drop ever since he hit the tour. The biggest difference between Federer and a lot of other artists that you’ll see later in the list is that the Swiss maestro deploys his brush with an assassin’s cunning. Victory is his end and art is his means. From backhand smashes to topspin ‘tweeners to gracefully angled volleys to running overheads with so much sidespin that they travel ten meters sideways in the air, Federer has the game that inspired the “Roger Federer as Religious Experience” ethos.
2. Agnieszka Radwanska
Wins haven’t come as easily for Radwanska lately, but the Pole and her "Ninjaness" still have the capacity to slash and thrash the tour’s elite with an especially refreshing brand of touchy-feely tennis. What Radwanska lacks in power—and she lacks a lot of that—she more than makes up for with her uncanny precision and improvisational skills.
3. Benoit Paire
Paire makes a lot of poor decisions, but so did Vincent Van Gogh, and that didn’t stop him from being one of the most revered impressionists of the Open Era (Yes, the art world had an Open Era, too). What makes Paire an artist is his ability to surprise. He’s in possession of one of the finest backhands in the men’s game, and he is not averse to running around his forehand to hit it. The Frenchman has great touch, great style and is surprisingly quick for his size and stature. Plus he’s a devil with the dropper. Even his fans find it maddening at times, but it makes for some wonderfully creative and spontaneous tennis.
4. Aleksandra Krunic
Personality and flair combine to make this Serbian firecracker a delight to watch. Krunic loves to knife the ball around the court, and her ability to scamper makes her tennis as playful as it is passionate. She doesn’t always win, but she is quite often must-see TV.
5. Gael Monfils
The Frenchman mixes his art with drop-dead gorgeous athleticism and a ripped physique. His slam dunk smashes may be unnecessary but necessary isn’t in the painter’s vocabulary. Impulse is everything, dude, don’t you get it? Monfils art dabbles in superlatives. Big splashes of color and rich iridescence. Think Jean Michel Basquiat with a Coca-Cola in one hand and a tennis racquet in the other.
6. Fabio Fognini
Forget the foul-mouthed protestations and instead enjoy the smooth, undulating footwork. The cat-and-mouse fury of Fognini on a clay court, one minute in repose, as if to say “I’m dead. I’m through with this agony,” and the next minute in an ironic sprint, immersed in the heart and soul of the chase. Strip away your distaste for Fognini’s antics and we think you’ll be left with an appreciation for his strange yet beautiful stylings.
7. Ernests Gulbis
Like Hemingway with a bad case of writer’s block, Latvian Ernest Gulbis can be ornery on court. For those of us who love him, it’s part of the package – his charm. Gulbis is driven by boredom, and his tennis can be power baseline just like the rest of today’s pros until, all at once, the futility of life’s predicaments hits him and he lashes out with 17 drop shots in a row. And that forehand? So ugly it has to be art, because it certainly isn’t sports.
8. Dustin Brown
A glance at Brown sailing through the air, dreadlocks following him like a thousand puppies in search of the same tennis ball that he seeks to volley, can turn a non-believer into a believer. Yes, non-believer, this sport of tennis is fun, visceral, attractive. Don’t change that channel.
8.1 Monica Niculescu
With a forehand like a ginsu knife and a backhand like a, well, ginsu knife, Niculescu seeks to shred her opponent’s timing with off-kilter madness. Sometimes it works. What’s interesting about Niculescu is that she can play it straight and narrow, too. One never knows what to expect from her. Watching how her opponents react to her is equally as fun as watching what she does, which is also nice.
9. Bernard Tomic
The Aussie’s personality is the antithesis of his game. He’s a smug, difficult-to-deal-with human being in the press room and in hotels, particularly when cops come calling, but whilst on court, Tomic’s awkward stylings generate curiosity—even wonder. Far from a gentle soul off the court, Tomic is a caresser of the ball on it. He guides the ball, imparting a rare, unique sidespin on his forehand that makes his shots playfully meander away from his opponents. He’s a carver rather than a pulverizer, and he’s blessed with great feel. He may be one of the more underrated skill players in the game today. Tomic gets all credit for what he does wrong, but rarely do we hear about his special brand of tennis.
10. Novak Djokovic
Djokovic plays the type of grinding baseline tennis that doesn’t get one mentioned on this type of post. But Djokovic’s art is not his style so much as his body. The way it bends, stretches, stumbles, bumbles, splits into two and puts itself back together in Matrix-like fashion. Djokovic, like all top players, is an amazing athlete to watch, but it’s his flexibility and suppleness that make him artful. No tennis player has ever done what Djokovic does on a tennis court. If he wanted to, he could probably have a second career as a contortionist.