The more things change...

The posts have been lagging, I know.

I've been at work on a number of projects behind the scenes that may all prove to be "game-changers" in the sense that the results of this work will, more than likely, fundamentally change the way we understand how to achieve ultimate performance in throwing and swinging sports.

As a bonus, this work may also finally provide a "bridge" that makes biomechanical analysis understandable and therefore, easily usable for all swinging and throwing athletes who want to increase their performance level.

In the coming weeks and months, I'll begin to reveal some of the incredible revelations and discoveries we have made through all of this ongoing "R & D" effort by the "Chain Gang" from the tennis world and beyond, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I decided that I would post a column I wrote just about a year ago for my partner-in-chains' regular online column on www.aroundhawaii.com. After another season measuring the stroke speeds of collegiate and junior tennis competitiors, the article unfortunately, hasn't lost one bit of relevance.

Without further ado, here's that article:

133, 119, 97.

What do these three numbers have to do with the question posed in the title of this article?

The title of the article asks one of the fundamental questions that's constantly looming in the minds of American tennis fans and followers: who's coming up the US tennis ranks to become the next Pete, Andre, Jimmy, John, or Andy? In the glory days of American Tennis, I think that question was phrased more like "How many are coming up?" rather than "Do we have anyone coming?" as it appears today.

So what do the numbers 133, 119, and 97 have to do with developing prospective American tennis champions?

Well, these are the average serve speeds generated by the 4 men who reached the 2007 Wimbledon semifinals (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Gasquet) plus the last Amercian man standing, quarterfinalist Andy Roddick.

The average fastest serve speed of this "Final 5" was 133 MPH (Roddick's fastest serve on average was the highest among the 5 highest at 142 MPH). Their average first serve speed was 119 MPH, and their average second serve speed was clocked at 97 MPH.

What's the point I'm trying to make here? Before I get to that, let me introduce three more numbers...

107, 91, 74.

What do you think these numbers represent?

Well, these are same serve speed measurements (average fastest serve, average first serve, and average second serve speeds) for a sample of 20 NCAA Division I tennis players taken from teams ranked between #5 and #25 in the final national rankings for 2007.

These 20 players include a former NCAA D1 Singles Champion, 4 players who were selected as 2007 NCAA All-Americans, and 8 players who participated in the 2007 NCAA D1 Individual Championships.

The point is that there is a HUGE difference in the performance capability (as represented by serve speed) between today's top college tennis players and the top ATP pros.

The difference between the two levels is measurable, and in the case of serve speed, the difference is about 20 to 25 MPH for both first and second serves. Does having a powerful serve alone explain the difference between today's NCAA All-Americans and the top ATP players?

No, it goes way beyond the difference in serve speeds in that the top touring pros today are fundamentally physically (athletically) superior in virtually all physical aspects of tennis: serve speed, movement speed, groundstroke speed, speed endurance, etc. when you compare them to even the best college players. The difference between the best collegiate players and ATP pros basically extends to every physical attribute required to compete at the professional level today.

In the past, the difference between the performance level of an NCAA All-American was not very different from ATP players. Many of the past NCAA D1 Singles Champions, say up until the early to mid-1980s, could come straight off of campus and perform (and win) at the ATP level, say, as if they were already ranked among the world's best 80 to 100 pro players. Today, the typical NCAA All-American plays at a much lower level compared to his ATP brethren. From what I've observed in recent years, the top D1 players are playing at a level comparable to a pro player ranked somewhere between 400 and 700 in the ATP rankings.

For all of the casual tennis fans out there, what I mean is that in the past (before 1990), it was entirely possible that a top college player could walk off campus in summer and become immediately successful at the main tour level or even at the Grand Slam level. In contrast, today's top college players would be hard pressed to perform successfully in pro tennis' minor leagues known as the Challenger and Futures Circuits. Again, tennis has evolved to a much higher, much more athletic level in the past 20 years, and the difference between college tennis and pro tennis is clearly diverging very rapidly.


OK, now I have three more numbers to throw your way...

100, 91, 71.

These are the same serve speed averages (measured during live tournament matches) for a sample of 34 nationally-ranked (ranked anywhere from #11 to 1500 nationally), 18 and under junior boys.

The serve speed difference between the ATP pros and the "typical" US junior player is 30 mph, which is even greater than the difference between college players and the top ATP pros.

The serve speed difference between the top ATP pros and highly-ranked college players is around 20 MPH.

That is a huge difference in terms of performance.

However, if you compare the juniors to the college players, there is very little difference in serve speeds between the juniors and the college players.

This makes perfect sense because the top college teams recruit is primarily, if not exclusively from the available pool of junior players who have high national junior rankings. Therefore, you wouldn't expect a big performance difference between the nationally-ranked junior player and a college player.

What's interesting to me is that with all of the physical conditioning work that's typically done in the great majority of college tennis programs, and especially at the top college programs, why isn't there a greater difference in the serve speed performance between the juniors and the college players?

After being an insider to two top college tennis programs over the 2006-2007 season, the reason is pretty obvious. It's because, in terms of increasing racket speed (the physical basis of serve speed), conventional (football-centric) conditioning ideas and methods that are typically used to train even top college tennis players simply have no impact on racket speed, and therefore have no impact on serve speed.

For all of the hundreds of hours that most college tennis teams devote to lifting weights, pulling resistance bands, throwing medicine balls, and stretching over the course of every season, none of these exercises has ever been shown to increase their ability to serve or hit groundstrokes faster.

The majority of college players, coaches, and strength coaches THINK or PERCEIVE that they're hitting faster serves and groundstrokes as a result of all the off-court training they do, but when you actually MEASURE the actual stroke speeds (as I have done over the past season for 2 different teams), a very different picture emerges. And we'll explain and explore those differences next month.

Finally, let's end this article by showing you these three numbers:

133, 118, 98.

These numbers represent the serve speed profile of 3 of the 4 Junior Boys Semifinalists (Donald Young, Vlad Ignatic, and Greg Jones) at Wimbledon this year. Compare them to the pros in the main event...They're virtually the same as the Wimbledon Men's "Final 5" listed at the beginning of this article.

What's the take-home here? On one hand, who really knows if those 3 boys are actually going to become successful on the ATP Tour, much less champions at that level?

On the other hand, at least from a quantitative performance perspective, those 3 boys are at least capable of hitting serves at speeds comparable to that of the top pros, whereas the college guys and the average nationally-ranked junior player fall 20 to 30 MPH short of meeting that measurable, quantitative performance standard.

It's very much like saying that in order to have a reasonable chance of becoming a Major League Baseball pitcher, it helps to be able throw your fastball over 90+ MPH. Or, if you would like to become an Olympic Gold Medalist in the 100 meter dash, you have to be able to sprint 100 meters in under 9.9 seconds.

So, for those of you Donald Young ("DY") doubters and nay-sayers out there (by the way, DY won the boys' singles at Wimbledon), at least DY can bring the serve at the same level as the sports' current greats, so his potential for success at the pro level is not such a far-fetched idea after all.


See you next time...

TTFN!

Radar Guns 101

In this post, we’ll move forward from our ongoing discussion of talking about stroke speeds (or the lack of stroke speed, as the case may be) at the various levels of US Tennis to talking about a more basic issue: how to properly measure your stroke speeds in the first place.

The first thing you need to do is to measure your stroke speeds accurately. To measure your stroke speeds accurately, you need to get your hands on a good quality radar gun and understand how to use it properly.

Over the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to use a large variety of radar guns from every price point that’s currently available from the under-$100 “budget” guns (i.e. Bushnell Speedster II) to the $1,400+ high-end guns from JUGS and Stalker. What I’ve learned from using these guns is that as long as you’re willing to spend at around $200 to $300 for a mid-price radar gun, there isn’t a noticeable difference in performance among the various brands, or between guns from different (i.e. higher) price points.

The price for radar guns is more-or-less open ended, and the more you pay, the more features you can get (direct download of data to your laptop, software analysis for the downloaded data, etc.). But the features that are available in the mid-range guns are more than enough for the purpose of getting accurate stroke speed measurements.

In my experience, you will only run into problems if you go the “budget” route and buy the lower-end guns such as the SpeedTrac/SpeedChek (the little black radar box you place in front of the net) or the Bushnell Speedster guns. The SpeedTrac/SpeedChek has improved since its original introduction in the mid-1990s, but when I use the SpeedTrac/SpeedChek side-by-side with a trusted mid-range or high-end radar gun, there is way too much difference in the measurements between the SpeedTrac/SpeedChek and say, the typical mid-range radar gun for me to trust the readouts of the SpeedTrac/SpeedChek.

IHMO, say no to the SpeedTrac/SpeedChek in all its incarnations because who knows what it’s measuring.

Likewise, I haven’t had a good experience using either the Bushnell Speedster guns—either one, Speedster I or II. The problem for me with Speedster I was that it couldn’t measure speeds over about 105 MPH very accurately (which doesn't fly when you work with high level competitive players who can serve over 110 MPH) and of course, when I read the “fine print” of the Speedster I specs, sure enough, it said that the measurement range topped out at 105 to 110 MPH for tennis.

Speedster II supposedly possesses improved technology compared with its ancestor, but still doesn’t seem to measure speeds over 110 MPH with great consistency or accuracy.

Therefore… IMHO, say no to the Speedster as well until further notice.

So, what radar gun do I recommend that performs without going overboard with either price or features?

The radar gun that I’ve found that has the best combination of performance and price/value is a relatively new introduction to the radar gun market called the Tracer SRA-3000 radar gun manufactured by Sports Radar, Ltd. (Homosassa, FL).

In side-by-side measurements with my high-end Decatur radar gun and a friend’s brand-new JUGS R1005, the Tracer, Decatur and JUGS guns perform identically when it comes to accuracy and consistency. The biggest difference between these two radar guns is that the Tracer is cordless (it runs on 6 AAA batteries!), and is much lighter than the Decatur (my Decatur is corded to a rechargeable battery stored in its carrying case).

The other difference between the Tracer and the Decatur and JUGS guns is the price. You can get a Tracer for around $180 retail, whereas the Decatur and JUGS guns will run you a minimum of $700 retail (new). That’s around a $500 difference in price for a radar gun that performs to the level of the “luxury” guns.

The performance and value of the Tracer that I’ve experienced is the reason why we decided to offer it for sale on the TennisSpeed website. It performs at a high level for a great price. What more can you ask for from any product?

OK, so now you have some idea about what the various radar guns on the market offer… So now you may be wondering how to use that radar gun to measure your stroke speeds.

Using the radar gun to get accurate stroke speed measurements is straightforward enough…

1. Mount the radar gun on a tripod (make sure you have a tripod mount on your gun… The Tracer has one, does yours?) to ensure that the gun itself is consistently aligned for each measurement—this makes for the most consistent measurements.

2. To get the most accurate measurements on groundstrokes, place the radar gun behind the contact point and place the tripod in straight line behind the intended flight of the shot. Make sure to set the height of the radar gun at the intended contact height of the stroke (i.e. if you intend to make contact at waist height, make sure the gun is also set on the tripod at waist height).

Therefore, if you want to measure the speed of your down-the-line forehand, a simple way to check that you’ve placed the radar gun in a straight line directly behind the path of the shot is to point the radar gun toward the area of the court where the forehand will land (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Radar gun positioning for down-the-line forehand (gun positioned in a straight line behind the path of the shot).

3. To get the most accurate speed measurements for your serve, set the height of the gun as high as your tripod allows. Place the tripod behind you in the same line as your hitting shoulder. Similar to the speed measurement for your groundstrokes, align the radar gun itself in a straight line directly behind the intended flight of your serve to obtain the most accurate measurement (Figure 2).

So, if you want to measure the speed of your slice serve, a simple way to check that you’ve placed the radar gun in a straight line directly behind the path of the shot is to point the radar gun toward the area of the service box where the serve will land in the service box.

Figure 2. Radar gun positioning for slice serve (gun positioned in a straight line behind the path of the shot).

When you follow these 3 simple steps, measuring your stroke speeds becomes a breeze.

Maybe now you are wondering about which strokes should you be measuring…

I have been measuring maximal serve and groundstroke speeds for my players in the same way the WTA measures its players to create its “Power Index”. I have been measuring maximal (and average) forehand, backhand, first serve, second serve and overhead speeds (of balls hit into play, of course!) in both training and live matches.

I have also been measuring so-called “rally speeds” where I measure the ball speeds during “neutral” groundstroke rallies (neither player is in an attacking or defensive mode/position). The “rally speed” of a player tells me a lot about what tactical options are available to a given player. And yes, there is a great difference in rally speed when comparing the various levels of competitive tennis from juniors and high school varsity tennis to college and professional tennis.

The difference in “rally speed” is quite similar (among US players) to the differences in serve speed that we’ve been talking about at some length in recent posts. That is, there is about a 25 to 30 MPH difference in rally speed between juniors and professional players.

To sum it up, go get your hands on a decent radar gun and remove all of the myth and mystery from your game. Measure your stroke speeds and create your own “speed profile”: average speed of your fastest forehand, backhand, first serve, second serve and overhead. Now you have a way to compare yourself to other players with known speed profiles to see where you really stack up…

Then, measure your “rally speed”, and when you finally look at the numbers… It will be a number that probably won't be keeping Roger, Rafa and Andy awake at night.

Don’t be surprised when you find out that your speed profile is well, more like a “slow profile”. Get it?

Starting with my next post, we’ll be getting into what you all have been waiting for…

We’ll start talking about how to increase the speed of the various strokes from a technical and conditioning perspective. And I’ll begin talking to you about one of the special projects I’ve been working on recently that has truly blockbuster potential in changing the way tennis technique is taught by coaches and learned by players.

So stay tuned…

TTFN!

Informal stroke speed survey of US tennis-Postscript

After the last post where I reported stroke speed measurements for high school varsity tennis players, I received a comment from a reader who raised some interesting questions that I felt would make the basis of an interesting post and becoming a starting point to share some other interesting stroke speed-serve speed, specifically-“phenomena” with you.

The two main questions raised in this reader’s comment were as follows:

Q1: You mentioned the wide range of skills among the high school players you measured. In a future post would you be willing to break out your data to show the difference in ball speeds between the couple best players and the run of the mill HS player?

A: The average fastest serve for three 5A State singles (#1 to #3) champions was 104.7 MPH.

The average first serve (all serves combined) was 94.5 MPH.

The average second serve was 73.9 MPH.

The serve speeds of these State high school singles champions are comparable to the speeds demonstrated by the typical Nationally-ranked 18-and-under junior boy (see the post titled “Memo to American college and junior players: Find another 30 MPH ASAP!) whose average first serve was 91 MPH and average second serve was 71 MPH.

Q2: Also, how much variance is there in the Division I ball speed data? Having measured, using a RADAR gun and video analysis, the serve speeds of several Division I male players (from one team), I'm surprised that the average first serve speed you found for Division I players is just 90 mph. My measurements found first serves to be on average more than 10 mph higher than that. My measurements were in practice, though, and not in competition so that might explain much of the difference. For instance, the players were simply hitting hard first serves, not mixing up the speed and spin as they do in matches.

A: The way I measure serve speeds, I record the speeds of individual serves and note what type of serve (flat, slice, topspin, or kick) was struck. So, when I report the average serve speed for either first or second serve, the speeds of all serve types are lumped together in that figure. So, on first serves, the faster flat serve speeds are averaged together with the slower slice and topspin serve speeds.

To address the comment, if we consider the average fastest serve speed for 1^st serve for the D1 players I’ve measured, that average fastest 1^st serve speed is comparable to the serve speed measurements made by the comment author (which I am now pretty sure that he measured the average fastest 1^st serve speed) :

102.4 MPH (speed range was 81 to 120 MPH, mine) versus 100 MPH (his)

What’s also interesting to mention here is the trend I’ve noticed in the speed differential between the different serve types, i.e. flat versus slice and flat versus topspin/kick serves.

What’s interesting is that the speed differential between the different types of serves is relatively consistent even between the vastly different competitive levels from ATP pros down to 3.5 to 4.0 high school varsity players.

What I mean by this is:

The speed differential between a flat and slice serve is between 15 and 20 MPH at every playing level from the top ATP pros down through the NTRP 3.5 to 4.0 crowd.

For example, Andy Roddick’s flat serve averages typically averages around 135 to 140 MPH whereas his slice serve typically registers between 117 to 12 MPH. The typical NTRP 4.0 hits his fastest flat serve around 85 MPH, and his slice serve averages around 65 to 70 MPH.

The speed differential between a flat and topspin serve is typically 20 to 25 MPH for all playing levels I’ve measured so far.

FYI, if you are wondering what the difference between a topspin serve and a kick serve is, the easiest way is to distinguish them is to observe the direction the ball moves after the bounce.

A topspin serve bounces straight ahead or slightly toward the middle of the court relative to the original flight path of the serve, whereas a kick serve bounces toward the side fence (for right-handed servers, the bounce is toward the right side fence and for lefties, it’s toward the left side fence).

The speed differential between a flat and kick serve is typically between 25 to 30 MPH for all playing levels I’ve measured so far.

Why are kick serves slower than topspin serves? The answer is because of the slight difference in the arm swing path between the two serves—the additional sidespin applied to the kick serve by moving the toss further overhead decreases the forward momentum of the arm swing slightly resulting in a slightly lower overall racket speed (and therefore, (s)lower ball speed).

So, based on this consistent speed differential between the four main types of serves, I can essentially predict what the serve speed “profile” of a player is based on a single serve speed measurement. For example, if a player hits a kick serve at 75 MPH, the fastest flat serve they can hit will be in the range of 100 to 105 MPH. And if a player can hit a flat serve at 105 MPH, their slice serve will range from 85 to 90 MPH.

Are there exceptions to this “rule” of serve speed differential?

Of course there are… And the exceptions are of course, those players who can hit the absolute fastest serves (into the service boxes, of course)… i.e. the Andy Roddicks and Ivo Karlovics of the world, that is…

Roddick, for example, in the match he played today in the Masters Cup against Davydenko, routinely hit his flat first serve around 230 KPH or 143 MPH and his kick second serve around 160 KPH or 99 MPH….

This makes for a speed differential of 44 MPH!

But, I think you’ll agree, that in terms of on-court effectiveness, that 44 MPH difference doesn’t really have the same impact on Andy as it would for many lower-level competitive players whose maximum first serve speed is maybe, on a really good day, around 90 MPH. These are the same players who, after missing the box with their “90 MPH bombs”, then follow up with a massive 46 to 51 MPH topspin, “get it into the box” sitter that “quacks” as it flies over the net, to avoid the dreaded double-fault!

So, to close out this post, here's a memo to those of you who are standing, lifelong members of “Club 46”:

1) In order to hit an effective spin (second) serve, you need to generate the same amount of racket speed as you would on your flat serve to create both the necessary spin (for control) and ball speed (so your serve doesn’t quack and get smacked into all corners of the court by the returner).

2) If you want to hit a relatively effective topspin or kick serve, you need to be able to hit your topspin/kick serve around 70 to 75 MPH (air speed) to generate enough height and speed after the bounce to prevent most players from smacking your serve to all parts of the court without conscience.

3) Of course, if you can’t hit your flat first serve around 100 MPH, there’s basically no way (given the laws of physics governing the universe we inhabit) you can generate enough racket speed to hit a 70 to 75 MPH topspin/kick serve. So, if that’s your situation, may I suggest you start training with the SpeedChain to help you develop that extra 20 to 30 MPH you need to reach “Club 100”?

TTFN!

Court Movement 103

In this post, we’ll continue our series on increasing the speed (and efficiency) of your court movement by having a brief discussion of how to hit efficiently while on the run.

First, let 's define what I mean by "hitting on the run"…

What I am talking about is situations during play where you have to move—sprint, that is—more than three or four steps before you can form a hitting stance to strike your shot. In general, we are talking about playing situations where you may be:

• Reacting to a shot where your opponent changes the direction of your return (e.g. your opponent hits your crosscourt return down the line or vice-versa)

• Retrieving shots that your opponent aggressively drives into the deep corners in response to your own soft or short returns

• Retrieving drop shots, drop volleys, or, if you are playing Federer, low, short slice shots that land in the service boxes when you are positioned well behind (> 5 feet) the baseline.

In these situations, you maybe forced to cover a very large distance (perhaps as much as the entire half of the court to return a drop shot, or the entire distance along the baseline from one doubles alley to the other to retrieve a well-struck forehand) in very short time in order to make any contact, much less effective contact, with the ball.

And, many times the total reaction time you have to make contact in those “emergency” situations won’t allow you to set up completely to make your shot… You might only have enough time to set one, rather than both feet in an improvised hitting stance from which to accelerate to ball contact.

Of course, the ideal way to “hit on the move” is to move fast enough to “win that race” with your opponent’s return and set up completely—i.e. set both feet firmly on the court—for a clean, controlled strike.

But, what if you can only move fast enough to achieve a “tie” in that race to the ball, where you will arrive only at the last possible moment to make an effective stroke? What then?

In that case, there are three critical moves you must make to hit effectively while on the dead run:

1) Make your initial steps to the ball as explosive as possible.

· First, lower your center of gravity using your split-step.

· Second, turn your hips and shoulders in the direction of the ball, and start moving toward the ball using the leg that’s closest to the ball (if you need to move to your right, “step out” with your right leg and vice-versa), and pump your arms powerfully in your initial move to the ball.

2) After you’re about halfway there, stop pumping your arms and immediately finish your backswing such that the only move you’ll make with your hands and upper body is to accelerate the racket forward to contact.

3) Swing forward very aggressively to contact a split second after you make your last step with your back foot.

You need to be very aggressive with your forward swing because you are fighting somewhat all of the momentum you’ve generated by moving explosively toward the ball. Effectively, your feet are propelling you in one direction, and you are trying to swing with your hands and arms against the direction of the momentum of your lower body by swinging to make (solid) contact with the ball. So you need to aggressively accelerate towards contact.

These are the three core moves you must make to hit effectively while on the run.

Now, you might ask the question: what do I do after finishing my stroke?

On what foot should I land after making contact? What’s the quickest way to begin my recovery for my opponent’s next return?

The answer to the former question is, quite frankly, “it depends”. There isn’t a single, optimal foot to finish on. The foot which you land on depends mainly on the type of shot you chose to execute on the run (i.e. a deep, hard drive, or a high and heavy looping return, or a sharp crosscourt angle return). You could land on either foot really… It's really a matter of personal "style".

Although I will point out to you that players who can consistently generate a sharp (fast) crosscourt angle return on the run tend to land on their front foot (see Federer, Roger and Sampras, Pete), while players who are adept at hitting high, heavy and deep topspin returns while on the run often land on their back foot first, with their front leg held in the air (see Nadal, Rafael).

Likewise, if you want to produce a return with a lower, “driving” trajectory (rather than a higher, more looping trajectory), landing on your front foot after contact has been the preferred method of accomplished tennis millionaires throughout the history of the sport.

(Hmmm… “Accomplished Tennis Millionaires” or “ATMs”… That acronym is a keeper. See the connection? “ATMs”, as in, receive tons of cash money in return by playing tennis in a certain way. :) )

The answer to the latter question is simply, “sit down” or “step out” on your back leg, and immediate push back toward the center of the court with the same leg. So, if you landed on your front foot, immediately after the front foot makes contact with the ground, use your back leg to stop and push hard back toward the center of the court. Likewise, if you landed on your back leg, immediately begin moving toward the center of the court using the same leg.

Notice that I am not trying to explain in any fine-grain detail about how to perform the exact movements required to make the initial moves toward the ball or how to recover. Other than telling you which leg (right or left) to use to initiate an efficient movement sequence, the fine details of how to execute an effective running shot (total number of steps, how big are the steps, how fast to pump the arms, the final speed needed to reach the ball to make contact, etc.), and how well you can execute your running shots may vary infinitely from situation to situation and from player to player because all of this is solely dependent on your own innate athletic ability.

AND, as athletic ability ranges so widely even among elite tennis players (i.e. the difference between Federer’s apparent ability to “glide” from shot to shot versus Roddick’s sometimes heavy-footed, “stomping” action), it’s virtually impossible to give a very detailed description, much less an “exact” description of the movement themselves beyond describing the optimal way to initiate the movement itself.

All that’s really possible is to describe the principles involved, and leave it to each player to execute the necessary movements in their own unique way. There is indeed a “science” to all athletic skills, but in the end, the execution of those skills ultimately represents the “artistry” of the player him/herself.

And that “artistry” is yet another element that explains why so many of us are so fascinated by this great sport.

So, to review the key principles of hitting effectively on the (full) run:

1) Make your initial steps to the ball as explosive as possible.

2) After you’re about halfway there, stop pumping your arms and immediately finish your backswing such that the only move you’ll make with your hands and upper body is to accelerate the racket forward to contact.

and,

3) Swing forward to contact a split second after you make your last step with your back foot.

TTFN!

P.S. For those of you that still have trouble grasping this idea of how speed is the defining element of tennis success, just look at the singles players who made the Final 4 at Flushing Meadow.

Final 4 Men: Federer, Djokovic, Davydenko, and Ferrer

Final 4 Women: Henin, Kuznetsova, Williams, and Chakvetadze

All 8 players possess the necessary foot and racket speed to either out-run their opponents or out-hit them.

What’s interesting among the group is that both the Men’s (Federer and Djokovic) and Women’s finalists (Henin and Kuznetsova) hit with the most spin from among the original group of 8…

What does this mean? The take-home message is that the 4 finalists not only generated the fastest strokes (from serves to groundstrokes), but they also maximized their control over their strokes through their higher spin production.

These 4 players achieved both maximum power (ball speed) and control of their strokes.

In other words, they get to "have their cake and eat it too"... Which , BTW, for those who may be keeping track , the "cake" that Roger gets to enjoy is worth, in real terms:

• 500 ATP ranking points (the maximum possible for winning a single tournament--compare that massive points windfall to the winner of an entry level pro singles tournament, who is typicially overjoyed to earn an astronomical 12 ranking points ), and

• $1.4 MILLION in prize money as the US Open singles champion (compare this amount to the $1,200 earned by the singles winner of a $10,000--that means 10K in total prize money, people--Futures tournament.)

As you can see, there's a lot of valuable "cake" out there for players to enjoy...