By Alan Trengove
Mark Philippoussis serves up evidence that the elements of power are
all in the mind and
body, not the new technology of the fugitive weapon.
Cover story: Philippoussis tests the racquets
The recreational-player test: Wood is no good
About Philippoussis: A powerful attraction
Last summer the International Tennis Federation caused an uproar by
unanimously voting to
outlaw racquets over 29 inches long for both professional and organized
amateur play after two
manufacturers---Dunlop and Gamma---already were selling them. The ITF's
contention was that
these racquets would turn the game into nothing more than a fast-serving
contest with few
rallies, rendering the game boring to watch and play. Many disagree,
arguing that the true
source of serving power isn't the racquet, but rather the server's
technique and physical
strength. TENNIS decided to put the issue to the test. We clocked the
serving speeds of tour pro
Mark Philippoussis and some recreational players with their regular
racquets, a 291/4-inch
frame and a wood racquet.
It was fascinating, yet kind of scary--- a possible foretaste of the
21st century doom facing tennis. The
location wasn't very reassuring, either. We were in Melbourne, Australia,
scene of that grim movie
classic "On the Beach," about the end of the world following nuclear
war. In this scenario, a muscular
giant with JFK Jr.-like matinee-idol looks, who had slammed a tennis
serve faster than anyone in
history, was about to do what the International Tennis Federation (ITF)
had banned all professional
tennis players from doing in competition. Mark "The Scud" Philippoussis
was going to see how fast he
could serve with a highly controversial extra-long racquet, a Dunlop
Max Superlong +2.25 (which the
brand began selling six months before the ITF rule change), and compare
that recorded speed with
what he could muster from his standard 27-inch model.
A third racquet, an antique wood one, was put in the test mix mostly
for the benefit of the ITF, which
had been openly pining for "The Way We Were"---before, the ITF says,
racquet technology changed
the game and put it on the dangerous cusp of a one-dimensional fast-serve
contest. Philippoussis had a
determined gleam in his eye as he strode past a group of novices toward
Showcourt 3 at Melbourne's
National Tennis Centre, site of the Australian Open. "Hello, Mark,"
said a nervous little boy in baggy
pants. "G'day, young 'un," Philippoussis muttered with a faint smile,
his attention squarely focused on the
task at hand. It was high noon, and he seemed as confident as any gunslinger
would be who
approached a shootout knowing one of his missiles would be fired from
a much-dreaded fugitive
weapon.
In fact, this was to be a Scud missile trial rather than a shootout;
a trial that perhaps should have been
held a year ago, before the ITF's sudden decision to reverse its own
rule last summer and reduce the
permissible length of tennis racquets from 32 to 29 inches. The ITF
acknowledged to TENNIS recently
that it made the rule change before it had the proof. Nonetheless,
the ban came into effect for
professional play at the beginning of this year, but amateurs have
until the year 2000 to toy with the
superlong instruments of terror before they, too, are legally denied
them.
Nobody is better qualified than Philippoussis to test a 291/4-inch racquet
for serving speed against the
conventional-length and wood racquets. He has tied the world record
at 137 m.p.h. There is also his
ATP Tour record of 44 aces in a three-set match. Maybe, if the ITF's
hunch were realized, he'd
produce a sonic boom with the longer racquet. Maybe he'd whack the
ball so hard that sparks would
fly, the net would collapse and the back wall would disintegrate into
a pile of rubble. A 140-m.p.h.
serve? 210?
But two hours later the net was still standing, the back wall unblemished.
The world may have come to
an end in "On the Beach," but this "doomsday" was just another day
Down Under. The speed
difference between the 2.25 and Philippoussis's own racquet averaged
a mere 2 m.ph. In fact, the
wood racquet came within 4 m.p.h. of stealing the 2.25's serving thunder.
But forget speed for a second. The most significant finding of our test
was the pinpoint accuracy
Philippoussis soon acquired with the Superlong, a racquet he had never
seen before, let alone used. In
his warm-up, he lacked so much control with the Superlong that spectators
were ready to duck and
weave. Yet during the trial, he put 12 of 15 serves into the court
with the 2.25, an 80 percent accuracy
rate. His rate with the wood was 60 percent. With his regular racquet,
he had only a 52 percent
accuracy rate.
"We're not surprised," said Dave Haggerty, Dunlop president and the
head of the Tennis Industry
Association's Game Improvement Committee, which has been trying to
get the ITF to overturn its
length ruling. "The Philippoussis test supports what we've been saying
all along: The long racquets don't
produce significant serving power; that comes from the player's technique
and physical strength. Long
racquets do increase the likelihood of getting the ball in and keeping
the rally going, which is more fun
for both the spectator and the participant."
Countered Brian Tobin, the ITF president: "We don't want all the tennis
players at the club serving like
Philippousis with nobody being able to return the ball. We believe
[we] are correct, but we're not able
to prove [it] at this point, any more than the manufacturers, I suppose,
can prove the use of longer
racquets will be better [for the game].''
The ITF will institute lab tests on the long-racquet issue sometime
this year, Tobin adds. "The ban could
be lifted after the tests,'' he says.
THE SETUP: Leveling the field
It wasn't easy for Philippoussis. The three racquet heads were vastly
different in shape and size,
ranging from the 84-square-inch hitting area of the wood racquet to
the 90 square inches of his
Revelation and the massive 115 square inches of the Superlong. The
latter necessitated tricky
readjustments to Philippoussis's ball toss. "I didn't know where to
put the ball in the air," he said later
about his first attempts.
Every effort was made to ensure the Scud trial was credible. Both the
extra-long and wood racquets
were shipped from England to the U.S., where they were strung by Jay
Schweid---Philippoussis's
personal stringer---to the same tension (70 pounds) and with the same
string (Babolat VS gut) that
Philippoussis uses in his regular racquet. The grips were shaped to
his requirements. The racquets were
then sent to Australia for the test.
There were two wood racquets, both in pristine condition, their laminated
frames glistening in the g'day
sun, just in case one broke.
THE WARM-UP: Cover yer 'eds, mates
Philippoussis's warm-up serves were erratic. After some swats with
his familiar racquet, he served
with a wood racquet for the first time since he was 6 years old. The
Scud growled as he planted a 78
m.p.h. delivery into the net. "The damn thing feels like it's going
to fall out of my hand," he complained.
He found the 2.25 even stranger to wield at first. "It's all racquet
head and no throat, and the strings are
really wide apart," he said, referring to the open string pattern,
so different from the compressed pattern
in his regular racquet.
With the 2.25, he netted a few serves, then belted a ball at 127 m.p.h.
that didn't land within the entire
court and might have kneecapped a linesman had any been on duty. "The
ball seemed to take two
seconds to leave the strings," was his reaction to the inevitable catapulting
effect that helps make the
racquet so serviceable for lower-level players. He also announced that
he didn't think he could serve
flat with the 2.25. "I'll just have to spin the ball in," was how he
said he'd have to approach the test with
this stick.
THE TRIAL
With that, the Scud trial began. Philippoussis, the player whom Pete
Sampras reckons has the best
second serve in the world, struggled to land a ball in with his regular
racquet. Although his five best
serves averaged 124 m.p.h. and his best was 127, consistency eluded
him.
He then picked up one of the wood racquets; it was 2 ounces heavier
and more to his liking than the
other wood racquet he had used in the warm-up. Even so, he reached
only 75 m.p.h. with his first
serve. "Oh, my God," he wailed. After being disappointed by four more
moderate deliveries, he
unexpectedly hit a string of serves at 119 m.p.h. or better, averaging
122 over his best five serves.
That caused Tennis Australia's Peter Johnston, who was on hand, to
reflect. "I've seen a lot of old film
footage of great players with wood racquets," he said, "but I swear
none served as fast as Mark just
did.'' Lew Hoad was one of the most devastating servers of the 1950s,
but he probably would have
conceded service-power superiority to Philippoussis. The biggest advantage
Philippoussis has over
Hoad was not the racquet, but the fact that Hoad was prevented from
incorporating a jump in his
service motion because of a foot-fault rule then in force. The service
jump of the 6-foot 4-inch
Philippoussis contributes markedly to his speed prowess.
When Philippoussis returned to the Dunlop Max +2.25, which was roughly
the equivalent of a pilot
transferring from a Tiger Moth to a 747, we reckoned it might be time
to again run for cover. But after
a couple of wild serves, the Scud found his range and hit the target
with eight of his last 10 serves.
There was no more talk of resorting to a spin to get the ball in. With
a loud "Ooo-arrgh!," he climaxed
the series with a 127 m.p.h. cannonball down the middle of the court.
His five best serves with the
extra-long 2.25 averaged 126 m.p.h.
THE SCORE: Man 1, Machine 0
It was an extraordinary performance considering the contrast between
the petite wood racquet and the
blunderbuss 2.25. Yet, even when he had 21/4 inches of extra length,
Scud could average only 2 m.p.h.
over his regular racquet.
"The server with the longer racquet gains some leverage but loses swing
speed, which is as important
as length in a fast serve," says physicist Howard Brody, a racquet
scientist at the University of
Pennsylvania and a TENNIS magazine advisor. "In Mark's case, this trade-off
resulted in virtually a
dead heat."
Anatomy of a great server: Technique, not technology
Later, over drinks in the players' restaurant, Philippoussis said he
would never consider changing to a
291/4-inch racquet even if he legally could. His 27-inch racquet, he
believes, gives him more control
over all his shots. "With the 2.25," he said, "I could serve and volley,
but I don't think I could do anything
else with it." He noted that he'd once briefly experimented with a
271/4-inch racquet but didn't like that,
either.
The ITF claim that racquets make the server trivializes the dedication
of players like Philippoussis. It
took years of practice before Philippoussis acquired the elements of
a strong serve: a sound ball toss
and consistent rhythm in the successful transference of body power.
He was 13 years old when he and
his father, Nick, decided the serve should be the cornerstone of his
game. He was already a naturally
talented server. Unlike most youngsters, he'd never had difficulty
putting the ball into play. What he
wanted now was not only to be steady, but to be intimidating.
Nick Philippoussis, a social tennis player, gave up his job in a bank
to help his son. It was Nick who
thought up placing a brick on the baseline during workouts to get Mark
into the habit of jumping when
he served.
He continues to work on his serve, devoting about 30 minutes of a daily
two-hour practice session to
serving thunderbolts. He adds to his strength and flexibility through
gym work, and recently took a
course in kickboxing to smarten up footwork and timing.
He rebuts criticism that today's racquets give big men with big serves
an overwhelming advantage and
that watching them bombard opponents with aces eventually becomes boring.
"Big servers have been
involved in plenty of great matches," he said. "People have to understand
that even for a big guy, it's not
easy to go ace, ace, ace. They don't appreciate the skill required.
It takes a lot of work, and if you can
do it, good luck to you."
Added Rick Perry of Dunlop Australia: "This guy could serve aces with
a baseball bat."
Alan Trengove is the consulting editor of Tennis Magazine, Australia.
The recreational-player test:
Wood is no good
If wood racquets came back into style, they could ruin the game for
recreational players, according to
the results of a TENNIS test that monitored the serving results of
three amateurs, and TENNIS
racquet advisor Bruce Levine. Like Philip-poussis, the Connecticut-based
foursome hit with a super
extra-long, a wood and their own standard-length graphite racquets.
The amateurs' serving speeds were about the same with all three racquets.
But for all three players
accuracy with the wood racquet was dismal, indicating that if racquets
made from trees once again
became the norm, recreational players receiving serve could take short
naps while waiting for the ball
to get in play.
Following a brief warm-up at our playtest facility, the clay courts
of the Oak Lane Country Club in
Woodbridge, Conn., they served with their own racquets---regular 27-inch-long
sticks---and the wood
Dunlop Maxply Fort and a 291/4-inch-long Dunlop Max +2.25, the same
models that Philippoussis used.
Here are the test results:
Ron Johnson, a 4.0 player and New Jersey restaurateur,
and an ex-New York Giants running
back, never had used an extra-long racquet,
but played with wood when he started playing the
game 25 years ago. His average speeds were
86 m.p.h. with his racquet (a Head 660), 85
m.p.h. with the Max +2.25 and 80 m.p.h. with
the wood. But his serving percentages greatly
increased from the wood (32 percent) to his
standard racquet (50 percent) and the long racquet
(65 percent).
JOHNSON Avg. Speed Serve %
Head 660 86 50
Dunlop Max +2.25 85 65
Dunlop Maxply Fort 80 32
Dana Brassil, a 4.5 player, is a student at
Quinnipiac College in Connecticut. Brassil began
playing tennis seven years ago, but had never
played with an extra-long or with wood. When she
first picked up the wood racquet for the test,
she said it felt "gross," and her serving percentage
with that racquet reflected that. She could
only get 30 percent of her serves in the court with the
Maxply, compared to 73 percent with her racquet
(Prince Precision), and 75 percent with the
Max +2.25. Her speeds were similar: 71 m.p.h.
with both the long and standard , and 65 m.p.h.
with the wood.
BRASSIL Avg. Speed Serve %
Prince Precision 71 73
Dunlop Max +2.25 71 75
Dunlop Maxply Fort 65 30
Sue Kelly, a 25-year veteran of the game, is
a teaching pro who plays at the 4.0 level. She came
into the game in the wood racquet era, and
has experimented with long racquets only a few
times. She could get only 20 percent of her
serves in with the wood, compared to 52 percent
with her racquet (Dunlop Tour Mid) and 56
percent with the extra-long. In the serving-speed
area, it was practically a dead heat for Sue:
59 m.p.h. with both the wood and her own racquet
and 60 m.p.h. with the Max +2.25.
KELLY Avg. Speed Serve %
Dunlop Tour Mid 59 52
Dunlop Max +2.25 60 56
Dunlop Maxply Fort 59 20
Bruce Levine, a 5.0 player, actually increased
his serving percentage with the wood: 65 percent
with the Maxply vs. 60 percent with both the
standard racquet he was using for the test (a
Wilson Pro Staff) and the Max +2.25. In the
speed department, Levine clocked his serves at an
average of 86 m.p.h. with wood, 97 with the
Wilson, and 100 with the extra-long. "I think the
less accomplished you are in tennis, the more
you can benefit from longer length," Levine says.
"You'll see a lot more longs at the park than
on the pro tour."
LEVINE Avg. Speed Serve %
Wilson Pro Staff 97 60
Dunlop Max +2.25 100 60
Dunlop Maxply Fort
86
65
About Philippoussis: A powerful
attraction
The most powerful young man in tennis holds a powerful attraction for
a rapidly increasing number of
fans. Twelve months ago, an Australian women's magazine named Mark
Philippoussis one of the
country's 50 most eligible bachelors. Today, he probably rates as high
on an international scale.
Both in his native country and elsewhere, the 20-year-old is perceived
not only as an exciting talent but
as a sex symbol. His voluminous fan mail includes hundreds of flattering
letters and love poems. One
anonymous admirer placed an advertisement in Australia's largest-circulation
newspaper on St.
Valentine's Day last year declaring her love for "Sexy Scud The Stud,"
who, she wrote, has "the sexiest
eyes in the world."
Philippoussis regards the growing adulation with amused resignation.
"I found it weird at first," he says,
"but I've learned it's all part of the parcel. I'm far more relaxed
about it than I was a year ago." Even
before he had won his first title on the ATP Tour at Toulouse, France,
last October, Philippoussis was a
major drawing card at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, where he was besieged
by adoring young
women. He also was extremely popular in Rome, no doubt partly because
of his ancestry. Although the
Melbourne-born Philippoussis has a very Greek name---another nickname
of his is "Zorba"---three of
his grandparents were Italian, and he may owe his vigor not so much
to souvlakia as to pasta, cooked
by his Italian-born mother, Rosa.
It was at the 1996 Italian Open that rumors began of a romance between
Philippoussis and Martina
Hingis. The two were seen together occasionally and paired once in
mixed doubles, but Philippoussis
denied they were more than good friends.
With his towering physique, swarthy good looks, laid-back personality
and go-for-broke tennis,
Philippoussis possesses the ingredients to become tennis's biggest
matinee idol since Andre Agassi.
"He's got natural charisma," says Dunlop's Rick Perry. "You see this
big, macho guy with a bit of a
stern look, and then he gives you a shy smile. That's what melts the
girls' hearts."
"We're pinning our hopes on him becoming our next superstar," says Peter
Johnston, whose job of
marketing the game in Australia would be greatly facilitated if Philippoussis
wins a major. Already,
Philippoussis is on a path to do for Australian tennis what golfer
Greg Norman, cricketer Shane Warne
and swimmer Kieren Perkins have done for their sports. "He hasn't made
it yet," Johnston admits. "If
he ever does, he could be Australia's biggest trump since Newk [John
Newcombe] 25 years ago."
---A.T.
Copyright © The New York Times Company Magazine Group, Inc.