Diogenes of NY

It is common in tennis, and other sports, for players to think they can approximate their performance against other players based on results against common opponents. Let’s say Adam (A) plays and beats Brad (B) Mathematically, this is can be expressed as A > B. Then Brad plays and beats Charlie (C). Therefore B>C. Adam hears the second match result and is sure that he will beat Charlie when they play. If A>B, and B>C, then A>C.

Tennis is a sport where the better player usually, though not always wins. One would think that Adam would beat Charlie when they play. But it is not uncommon for Charlie to beat Adam. Because tennis, like most of life, is not transitive.

What can explain such results? Well, each player is a mix of strengths and weaknesses. One might have a terrific serve, along with poor volley skills. Another has a great forehand which he uses to hide a weak backhand. Winning matches requires a player to determine where he has an advantage over his opponent and exploit those match-ups repeatedly until the other player responds by changing his patterns of play and/or exploits a counter weakness. If the other player won’t or can’t do so, he loses.

It’s like the children’s game of rock, paper, scissors, also known internationally as roshambo. Used instead of a coin toss or drawing straws, players “throw” gestures with their hands to determine the winner: rock breaks scissors; scissors cut paper; paper covers rock. Pure match-ups. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. No strategy always wins.

All players have performance ranges, and some days are better than others. On any given day, a player could  feel that he played much better than average (for himself), and on other days he might feel that he performed poorly relative to his own standards. Part of being able to perform well is understanding the patterns of play you are initiating as well as those of your opponent. A player “plays well” when he is dictating, and “plays poorly” when the opponent forces him to hit his least favorite shots. So, within a range of abilities, a player does not beat the same player every time. He might beat the opponent when they are both playing well, or both playing poorly, but not win when the opponent plays well and he does not.

Diogenes is delighted that tennis is not transitive. How glorious to be forced to figure things out! The thrill of matching wits with someone else of relatively equal ability is the essence of competition and part of the enduring appeal of sports.

On this last day of the year, Diogenes was delighted that the ATP World Tour has resumed after its annual six week off-season. Live play began today from the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a relatively secular Arab state with a striking new skyline of eclectic modern skyscrapers. The incredibly international nature of the tour was reinforced while watching the first televised match on the Tennis Channel between the Italian Simone Bolelli and Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

A new rule was put into effect for this season that ought to improve the viewing experience for the fans. The server has 25 seconds from the end of the last point to put the ball in play. Players today are mostly the products of academies that teach students to employ serving rituals to focus their attention as they step up to serve. Until this year, tour players regularly took three or four balls from ball kids to choose which two to use, even though six balls are used in tour matches and changed every 9 games, so there is not a lot or difference between them. In addition, many players toweled off between almost every point whether or not they were profusely perspiring. These routines sometimes elongated time between play to 45 seconds. (Imagine club play with opponents taking these kinds of delays, especially in New York, where we pay for court time by the hour and someone is always waiting to take your court when your time is up. In the absence of umpires, many would be tempted to club their opponents!)

Until now, umpires would issue a warning to players for time code violations. Additional time delays were supposed to be progressive in that they would result in the loss of the point. As a result, it was very rare for umpires to call second time violations. The new rule calls for umpires to start a clock which only they can see at the end of a point, and call a time violation at 25 seconds if the ball is not in play. The penalty is loss of the first serve. Subsequent violations are not progressive and results in loss of the next serve whether it is a first or second.

Tennis is one of few sports where there is no time limit to finish. Players must win 2 of 3 sets in regular tournaments, and 3 of 5 sets in Grans Slam events. This can sometimes result in very long matches. At the 2012 Australian Open final in January, Novak Djokovic defeated Rafa Nadal (two notoriously slow players) in the longest slam match in history, needing 5 hours and 53 minutes to prevail. In addition to scheduled 90 second breaks every two games, each player routinely took 30 or 40 seconds to serve, so the actual time the ball was in play was likely less than an hour. Such matches are almost as difficult for the spectators as for the players. Shortening them with faster play improves the game for everyone.

In the Bolelli v. Gimeno-Traver match today, time violations were called several times, particularly at crucial break point junctures. This was terrific to see. Diogenes expects that basketball-like countdown shot clocks will be put at court side by next season to further engage spectators and allow the players to time their actions to avoid the penalties. At the end of the day, it’s not just sport. It’s entertainment!

Diogenes is a long time resident of a New York apartment building which has the wonderful amenity of a fitness room in its basement. First established nearly 20 years ago, this gym had deteriorated over the years through lack of updates into a slightly dingy and depressing, albeit functional place. One feature of the health club that regular users cherished was that each of 12 aerobic machine stations had its own small TV and VCR/DVD player, allowing users to record their own media and watch it while working out. A long overdue refurbishing of the gym at the end of the summer yielded flat screen TVs with no speakers and no media inputs. It seems that the remodeling committee decided that users (their neighbors) could not be trusted to comply with facility rules requiring headset use. Additionally, some few of us were spending too much time on any one machine, and perhaps grunting overly or perspiring too much while doing so.

Initially, Diogenes was outraged at this small infringement of his right to sweat profusely. Of course, the reality is that anything that governs any action is a limit on liberty, which is why the Founding Fathers held the idea of limited government as a basic tenet of the foundation of our republic. “Civil society” regulates our activities in countless ways, so why was Diogenes annoyed? It was because he had seen this problem coming and tried to head it off. As an original member of the committee that planned the construction of the gym, he had long ago specified the equipment to be replaced. Diogenes wrote letters to the current committee asking for slight changes to accommodate personal media. In a West Side building this input would have likely been debated intensely, but in this East Side coop, Diogenes was ignored, probably due to a lack of technical knowledge.

The simple answer to the equipment change in the gym would be to purchase new media from iTunes for every use of the facility. But Diogenes is rarely simple. This would constitute a new tax when he already paid for cable and NetFlix. Accepting the self imposed challenge to find a solution to the new equipment required Diogenes to exercise his brain, a far more daunting task than beating up his body. It had been years since Diogenes had considered the topic of video capture, and most of what he knew involved recording in old, “standard” definition of 480 lines of resolution. His first attempt involved the purchase of a TV tuner for a laptop. It would not record through the cable box, and so would only record unencrypted basic 2-13 channels. Not good enough.

The wonder of the internet is the ability to teach yourself almost anything without leaving your desk. Eventually, Diogenes purchased a high definition video capture device intended for gamers. It allowed the recording of signals through the cable box to a laptop. Unfortunately, the recorded media was not in a format to be transferred into an I-Pad. Further research yielded a separate media conversion software program that did the trick.

Diogenes wound up spending as much for hardware and software to record and view media as he would have to simply buy it for a year or so. But as noted physicist and polymath Richard Feynman wrote in 1981, sometimes “the pleasure of finding things out” is its own reward. Every time Diogenes forces himself to overcome his inertia to use the gym, he chuckles to himself as he watches…whatever he wants. He thanks the committee for prodding him to expand his knowledge, and upgrade his viewing experience.

The US Anti Doping Agency on October 10 made public hundreds of pages of documents of evidence including financial payments, emails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) by Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service team that won seven Tour De France crowns. Included was testimony given by eleven of his teammates that Armstrong and the other riders used steroids and growth hormones. Further, they performed transfusions of their own blood in a well organized program to enhance their performance over the grueling three week event. Despite hundreds of tests performed in and out of competition over many years, these men evaded detection. How did they do that?

History of Performance Enhancing Drug usage

Doping in sport is not a new phenomenon. Ancient Olympians were reputed to eat a lizard meat that provided a special edge. The popularity of endurance sports at the turn of the 20th century gave rise to open usage of various substances, including cocaine, that might keep competitors upright. In the modern Olympics, the winner of the 1904 marathon was given brandy and strychnine by his coach during the race. During World War II, US soldiers and airmen were routinely given amphetamines in order to better endure long hours in combat operations.

Steroid usage in sports was first utilized by East German weightlifters in the late 1940s and was later expanded to swimmers and track and field athletes. Following widespread calls for action,  the International Olympic Committee finally banned PEDs in 1967. Enforcement was inconsistent until athletes, sports governing bodies and international organizations formed the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999 to codify what substances were to be banned and to administer uniform testing methodologies for possible violations.  As the creators of PEDs continue to improve their sophistication, potency and transparency, WADA and its constituencies also innovate new ways to detect these drugs. It publishes an updated “Prohibited List” annually. Because WADA is unable to anticipate all possible new developments, the first page of the list states

“Any pharmacological substance which is not addressed by any of the subsequent sections of the List and with no current approval by any governmental regulatory health authority for human therapeutic use (e.g drugs under pre clinical or clinical development or discontinued, designer drugs, substances approved only for veterinary use) is prohibited at all times.”

What drugs/procedures are prohibited and why?

The drugs taken by athletes differ widely based on the performance needs of the sport. Erythropoietin (EPO) is largely taken by endurance athletes who seek a higher level of red blood cells, which leads to more oxygenated blood, and a higher VO2 max, which increases the body’s ability to transport oxygen to the blood during exercise. EPO has become popular among athletes who choose to juice because it has a low degree of detectability when compared to other methods of doping such as blood transfusions. EPO is believed to have been widely used by athletes in the 1990s, in large part because there was not a way to directly test for the drug until 2002.  EPO is very dangerous because it increases the viscosity of blood, leading to seizures and heart attacks, and has been linked to the deaths of 18 pro cyclists in the last fifteen years.

In sports which physical strength is favored, athletes have resorted to anabolic steroids, known for their ability to increase physical strength and muscle mass. The drugs mimic the effect of naturally occurring  testosterone in the body.  Anabolic steroids were developed as a solution to the extensive side effects of testosterone use, although they are far from completely safe. Their many negative side effects in men include, but are not limited to, acne, impaired liver function, impotency, breast formation (gynecomastia), erectile dysfunction and baldness.

Athletes seeking to avoid testing positive for doping use various methods to cheat on the drug tests. The most common methods include urine replacement, diuretics (which are used to cleanse the body before having to provide samples) and blood transfusions, which also increase the blood’s oxygen carrying capacity (in turn increasing endurance without the presence of drugs that could trigger a positive test result.)

Some Other Considerations

Despite the health problem brought by PEDs, some athletes point to the already dangerous environment in sports like football and martial arts and wonder if there is a double standard. Health concerns brought by the aggressive nature of these sports is deemed acceptable but PEDs are not. They point out that protective headgear results in both more dangerous and greater numbers of head and neck injuries in football than if no helmets were used.

Many top athletes also believe the doping rules are somewhat arbitrary. Changes in diet such as consuming whole grains or eating gluten free are acceptable choices while the sweetener Stevia (found in energy drinks) was once prohibited. Ill athletes are generally loathe to take anything more than aspirin because decongestants and asthma medications require specific WADA waivers. Sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber to increase the supply of oxygen in the blood is acceptable, though not accessible to most, while low cost drugs to achieve the same effect are banned.

The Morality Issues

The world governing body of professional cycling, the UCI, recently stripped Lance Armstrong of his record seven Tour de France titles. The UCI decided that no winners would be declared for those years because the use of PEDs was so pervasive that it was likely that anyone near the top of the standings was similarly tainted. Lance won those races by spending countless hours training and six or seven hours on the saddle most days of those Tours. If he had not “juiced” with PEDs, it is almost certain that he would not have crossed the finish line a winner. If he wanted to win, he had to juice. Because everyone else was too. He could simply have walked away, and refused to participate. Every elite athlete has a precious window of time in which to potentially dominate. This was his time. So is he guilty or is he a victim of circumstance? Don’t the governing bodies have an obligation to provide for a “level playing field” so that athletes who abide by the prohibitions have a reasonable chance to win?

What of the future? In London last July, Oscar Pistorius of South Africa became the first double amputee to run in an Olympic track event after winning a court appeal against the IAAF (track and field’s world governing body). The IAAF had maintained that his carbon fiber prosthetic legs gave Pistorius an unfair advantage over other athletes.

The reasons for the ban on PEDs are primarily the health risks of usage and the desire for equality of opportunity for athletes. In the coming years sports governing bodies will be forced to deal with genetic enhancements and other mechanical changes to the human body. Authorities will be hard pressed to decide what regulations to enforce when changes made by athletes are both permanent and not health risks. Violators of any standards will almost always be one step ahead of the testers, and regulatory bodies would do well to use a light touch rather than a heavy hand. The moral issues are far from straightforward, and there will be many valid opinions as to what is right or wrong. What do you think? How far would you go to be a champion?

One of the many problems of aging athletes is the simple inability to move as quickly as they did in their physical prime. Many tennis players respond to the ravages of time by trying to play more doubles. But the challenge of switching to doubles is the difficulty of organizing four players of remotely equal abilities at just the time when a court is available.

Diogenes believes that the ultimate solution to this problem is a new format that is easier for old bodies to play. Called One-on-One Doubles®, also known as Ghost Doubles, the game’s rules were developed and trademarked by former Harvard Women’s Coach Ed Krass, who is also a USTA High Performance Coach, and the Director of College Tennis Exposure Camps.

1-0n-1 Doubles Tennis is the first alternative, competitive format to singles and doubles since the inception of the game in the 1870s. 1-0n-1 Doubles Tennis is a half-court, serve-and-volley singles competition played on a doubles court. 1-on-1 Doubles Tennis can be played in both tournament and league format.

The half-court, serve-and-volley singles game played on the doubles court is strictly a cross court competition with new game dimensions. There is a divisible line drawn through the middle of the court from the center service line to the middle of the baseline. On clay, one can use a regular court liner to make this divisible line through the middle (informally players can just scrape a line with the edge of their shoe). On hard courts, one can use chalk or white athletic/trainers’ tape to mark off the middle line (or informally, just pretend the line is there). All points are played cross court with the alley included. All players must serve and volley on both first and second serves. Half-volleys are permitted. The returner can stay back or come into the net.

In singles a player must defend a space 27 feet wide by 39 feet deep; a total area of 1053 square feet. In one on one doubles, a player defends a space of 18 feet by 39 feet; a total area of 702 SF, 1/3 less than in singles. This means that 3 steps gets to any ball instead of the four it often takes in singles.

Speed and power advantages of younger players are blunted, allowing older players to compete more evenly with youngsters. The angles are better too. It is harder to hit winners through the court so placement is more critical than pace.

The 1-0n-1 format forces players to hit to a specific target, and to focus on how to “not miss”. One is always required to hit a cross court shot over the lower part of the net, which is what most players should do on about 90% of ground strokes but probably only do 60% of the time. Hitting up the line, or straight through the court requires crossing your ball over the higher part of the net and bringing it down in a shorter distance than hitting cross court. As a result, even on the ATP tour, where all the competitors have exquisite skills, about 80% of ground stroke errors occur when a player chooses to change direction and NOT hit cross court.

The 1-0n-1 game provides a competitive format of play combining both singles and doubles skills all within one game. It places a premium on hand and racquet skills that can be improved at any age. Because winners are very hard to hit, the rallies tend to be longer, yielding play that is higher intensity with lower impact on older bodies. Many players who want to play on consecutive days (weekends) are more easily able to do so without pain. Did I mention that One-0n-One Doubles is also great fun? The points are quick and more varied than in singles, with both players often ending at the net with smiles on their faces.

This week’s Mutua Madrid Open tournament inaugurates a stunning technological move forward for a tradition bound game. For the first time, an ATP Tour event will be played on blue clay. The announced reason for the change is to enhance the contrast to the yellow balls for both the players and the television audience. The playing characteristics of the surface are said to be identical to that of traditional red clay, also known as “terre batu.”

Blue Clay in Madrid

The change came about at the initiative of former player and now billionaire businessman Ion Tiriac, the owner of the tournament. Known as “Count Dracula” because of his Transylvanian roots and trademark mustache, he has sparked other innovations in this Masters Series event, which is one of 13 tournaments ranked in importance just behind the 4 Grand Slams.

At most tour events, ball boys and girls are either promising local junior players or members of the club where the event is held. Several years ago, Madrid inaugurated the use of professional models for televised matches. Seeing the very slim, pretty girls next to the tour players made the athletes appear even more superhuman. While the mostly male audience clearly approved of the models, by the second year, the models were selected with an eye toward their ability to throw and catch tennis balls. By the third year of the change, male models were used for the WTA Tour event, to the delight of female audiences.

In 2009, the Madrid Open moved into “La Caja Magica” (the Magic Box), a stunning, $200 million structure that is the most modern municipal tennis facility in the world. Although the tournament is an outdoor event,  La Caja has three stadium courts with retractable roofs that lift away like giant lids to a box.

Traditional red clay courts are made not of natural clay but of crushed bricks fired from red clay. The crushed brick is then covered with a topping of other crushed particles. American green clay courts (Har-Tru) are constructed similarly using crushed basalt that is faster drying, but also harder and “faster” (the balls bounce lower so a player has less time to get to it).

The blue Madrid clay courts are also made from red clay, but iron oxide is removed from it before the bricks are made, resulting in a “white” clay. The white clay compound is immersed in a water soluble blue dye for 24 hours before being formed in bricks and fired. The bricks are dyed again after firing before they are crushed to form the court surface.

Mr. Tiriac has a long history of tennis innovation, claiming that 25 years ago he was the first to use a blue surface for an indoor hard court tournament in Stuttgart. Since that time, blue hard courts have been widely adopted around the world and are used for the US Open and the Australian Open events. Says Tiriac “for the players on the court, it’s about a 22 percent improvement. For the television viewer, it’s even more: about 27 percent.”

The bounce of the ball on the new blue clay courts is supposed to be exactly the same as for red clay. But playing conditions are always affected by altitude, humidity, wind, temperature and other local conditions, and some of the players are not happy about the change in Madrid. Most vocal has been French Open defending champion Rafa Nadal, arguably the best clay court player ever. Nadal thinks the conditions in Madrid are already hard to adjust to because of the altitude (2200 feet), and that yet another variable such as the blue clay provides another unnecessary distraction in the middle of the clay court season. Of course, if you are a creature of habit and legendary ritualized behaviors such as Nadal, why would you want any changes in the game?

I applaud the effort to make  tennis more video friendly. My favorite parts of the tour are the “dirt ball” events of the clay court season because the slow surface forces the players to construct long grinding points that showcase the range of their skills. But there are many televised matches I have stopped watching because it is just too hard to follow the ball on my screen. This week Diogenes will be in blue heaven.

Watching the final time trial of the 1989 Tour de France convinced Diogenes that embracing technological change can yield victory from almost certain defeat. After 20 stages, American Greg Lemond trailed defending champion Laurent Fignon by 50 seconds with only a 15 mile individual ride remaining. A November 1989 Bicycling Magazine article, supported by wind-tunnel data, estimated that Lemond gained a total of 76 seconds by wearing an aerodynamically shaped helmet and using triathlon type aero handlebars while Fignon rode bare headed with his pony tail exposed to the wind. Incredibly, Lemond won the Tour with a margin of 8 seconds, so without the aid of technology, he would probably not have won.

There are some who are put off by technology and others who embrace the change it brings. It’s simply a lifestyle choice. We all know people who need a “geek” to set up their computers, while others sit down and actually read the user manual. So it is with tennis. The idea of maximizing one’s potential holds seductive appeal. In a repetition sport such as tennis, the more consistent one is with strokes, tactics and equipment, the higher the level that can be achieved.

I bring two or three racquets to the court to make sure that broken strings do not interrupt play. After realizing that I consistently preferred one racquet to the other seemingly identical frames, I purchased a postal gram scale and was surprised to find an eight gram difference in weight between them. This may not seem like much, but a 3% weight difference is clearly discernible to someone swinging a racquet several hundred times/session repeated several times per week. Seeking to eliminate these differences, the purchase of a “balance board” and lead tape applied to various parts of the racquets readily made their weight and balance virtually identical.

Many players are indifferent to their strings. Whenever one breaks, they deliver the racquet to the club’s pro shop and get it strung with whatever brand the stringer recommends at somewhere near the middle of the tension range. Players are told to restring their racquets as many times per year as they play per week. So if you play four times /week, restring every three months. With the new polyester strings (Luxilon and others), strings rarely break, and most tennis players are so cheap they never cut unbroken strings out of their racquets.

This contrasts squarely with the pro tennis tour, where almost all players change to a freshly strung racquet every nine games when the six balls in play are replaced with new ones. There are two reasons for this. First, it makes it extremely unlikely that a player will break a string during play. Secondly, a freshly tensioned racquet provides a consistent feel with new balls.

I reckoned that if the pros do it, perhaps there could be value in providing consistent string tension to my game. Although I had long since consistently used the same string in all racquets, it seemed that every time one was strung, it was hit or miss as to whether it would be an improvement over the older strings. After doing some research, I bought a Gamma ERT 3000 string computer. This little digital device measures the force required to move the strings in the center of the string bed, also known as the “sweet spot.”

Newly armed with this string computer, I asked my club’s stringer to restring three of my racquets at the same time, with the same string, at the same tension. Said stringer was utilizing a top of the line Wilson electronic stringing machine. Imagine the surprise when the string computer measured nine pounds of tension difference top to bottom in those three racquets from a 57 pound requested tension. When confronted with these results, the stringer sheepishly admitted that two of the frames had been strung on the same machine by someone else. This was the last straw.

Last week, I purchased a Gamma X-ELS machine.

Although I had never strung a racquet before, I presumed (correctly) that it was not rocket science, and I could take a DIY approach. One of my regular opponents, less fastidious about his equipment, asked directly if I thought it would make much of a difference. I replied that if it meant that I missed two balls less in one hundred by a few inches, that would be enough. In an average close 6-4 set, the winner typically wins only 2 or 3 more points than the loser. About 60 points are played in a set with an average of four strokes per point. So out of the 240 strokes, of which I hit 120, if I were to miss two fewer times, it could easily change the outcome from a loss to a win. So yes, it’s worth it.

Both a Ford and a BMW can provide transportation, but the quality of the ride is decidedly better with one compared to the other.  I could continue to restring only occasionally. But by taking the time to restring every time I play, I am reassured that from a technical perspective everything has been done within my power to maximize the possibility of success on the court. In his 1974 book Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig relates the tale of a cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which “the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details–be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.” The subtitle of the book is An Inquiry Into Values and ultimately, it is an exploration of what is the meaning of “best”?

What is luck? Is it good fortune, advantage or success attributed to random chance? If luck is distributed randomly, can  we attribute good luck to the intervention of a higher power? Alternatively, it might be ascribed to some talisman of a deity imbued with good fortune, such as a rabbit’s foot. Lacking a belief in supernatural forces one must inevitably conclude that luck simply doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter. Luck then is merely a name we give to events after they occur which we find to be fortuitous.

Is luck an escape from personal responsibility for one’s actions?  Is a blessing a desire or prayer for divine intervention, or luck? Some argue that you make your own luck by working hard. There are some consistent elements to the “creation” of good luck. Generally, this means one is open to good fortune by remaining positive (the glass is half full), finding the good in whatever happens (make lemonade if life deals you lemons), and in general, expecting good fortune. In 2009 researchers at the University of Pittsburgh reported that optimists lived longer and healthier lives than pessimists. The research showed a strong link but failed to prove causality, so perhaps the pessimists were right to expect the worst.

Expecting to be able to make one’s own luck is itself the product of random fortune. We in the developed world, especially in the United States, are fond of believing that we have the opportunity to do almost anything, be almost anything, and make our own fortune. But what if we had been born into the grinding poverty that is the fate of most of the Third World? Anyone who has traveled extensively in India or Africa can easily understand how exceptional and unlikely it is to escape those circumstances. So if we in the Western World are by definition all part of the lucky sperm club, do we in fact all have equal opportunities to have further good fortune and wealth?

In America, we like to believe that we have an equality of opportunity and a difference in results. If I am smarter than you, and I work harder than you, shouldn’t I be allowed to make, and keep more money than you? Of course, it can reasonably be argued that we can try to give equal opportunity to all, but this is impossible to achieve in practice. The single working mother can’t possibly spend as much time reading and enriching her children’s lives as the well to do housewife with a father providing support.

The median household income in the US is about $50,000. Assuming that making 50% more in household income than the median and a college education defines at least some measure of success, or luck, religion is a strong predictor of economic success, as shown in the chart below.

Once again, there seems to be strong linkage, but causality is not proven. At the end of the day, one’s individual luck could always be much better, or worse, than the ethnic, religious or national group to which one is born into. But it sure does seem to be important. What do you think?

As we approach the first major tournament of the year next week, I wanted to test my predictive skills to pick the winner.

My top choice is Andy Murray. A thinking man’s player, he has both power and guile, and can win from any or all parts of the court. To date he has lost in three slam finals without taking a set, which many pundits say indicates a huge capacity to choke. His overall record in finals appearances is 22-9,  and the lack of a major title has made him hungrier than any of the other contenders. Murray is still determined to improve, and he has made an inspired new coaching choice in Ivan Lendl, a former player who lost in his first four slam final appearances but then went on to win eight major titles by taking his mental and physical conditioning to another level. He also took equipment specification to a new level, becoming the first player on tour to change to a freshly strung racquet on every change of balls. Lendl won his first major at age 24, the same as age as Murray is now. Andy is poised and ready to win.  Diogenes Odds 8:3

My number two choice is the world #1 and defending champion, Novak Djokovic. An amazing player who believes he should win every match he plays, he had a phenomenal 2011, which is why he is #1. It’s hard to bet against him, but Murray is an old friend who is not intimidated by him in the way some other players (notably Nadal) are. While he certainly can’t be discounted, the commercial odds makers have him as a prohibitive favorite (see chart below) at nearly even money. Diogenes Odds 3:1

Source: betting-directory.com

Diogenes pick number three is Juan Martin Del Potro. His return to form was impressive in the second half of last year. DelPo hits huge shots from both sides, but more importantly, has the mental toughness to believe that he can, and will beat the best. And the Argentine already has the critical first major monkey off his back, so he’s playing with house money.  Diogenes Odds: 9:2

My number four choice is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The Frenchman plays with incredible flair from all parts of the court. He can hit with power from the baseline with anyone, but has exquisite touch at the net, and is not shy about getting up there. He plays well in the heat of Australia, and was a finalist in 2008. Jo-Willy has become far more consistent, and consistently healthy in 2011, and it would not be a huge surprise to himself or anyone else if he broke through here and won.  Diogenes Odds: 6:1

There are two notable players whom I do not see winning this tournament, although they may go deep into the draw. The first is Roger Federer, who may well be the greatest player of all time. While still a stunningly beautiful player to watch, he is just a fraction off from the peak of his powers, and that’s just enough to make him vulnerable. He won a lot of matches at the end of last year and the start of this year, but then he defaulted a semifinal match in Doha, Qatar last week with a bad back after having to go three sets in his quarter final match. It was only his second ever tour retirement. He is 30 now, and father time is never kind, though he remains the Diogenes sentimental favorite.  Diogenes Odds: 7:1

Rafa Nadal is also not one of my favorites for this event. Not only has he been completely psyched out by Novak Djokovic, losing to him five straight times in 2011, including twice on clay, but he simply is not in good form, and hasn’t been playing well since the end of last year. His serve is now slower and more predictable than it was a year ago. I am not sure if Rafa is injured, mentally exhausted, or is just suffering from a loss of confidence, but he is not good enough at the moment to beat the best over seven rounds in Oz.  Diogenes Odds: 10:1

The Australian Open usually has some incredibly hot and debilitating days of play. The players are settling in to new coaching arrangements or still tweaking new equipment after the off season. Mentally it’s a new year and a new campaign. As a result, the tournament usually sees the emergence of one or two players who are not yet well known to the general public. They go deep into the draw and are seen as real contenders for a slam for the first time. Two players who I do not foresee winning the tournament this year fill that bill. The first is Milos Raonic, a huge Canadian with a serve and forehand to match his frame. The other is Alexandr Dolgopolov, Jr., a slight Ukrainian with an Aussie coach who is a sweet striker of the ball and plays with reckless abandon. Both of these youngsters will be in the top 10 at the end of 2012 if they can stay healthy, and I believe slam wins could be in both of their futures.

So what do you think? Want to place some bets?

Being an aging athlete is kind of a stinker. Partially it is because you know that your efforts, exertions, and dreams don’t matter much to anyone but yourself. Passion after all, is under rated at any age. As I watch my youth eclipse and my (limited) abilities fade, sporting participation miraculously remains one of the things that makes life worth living.

When I was boxing, I paid a few bucks to spar with real fighters, who mostly worked on their defense and tried not to hurt me. I had tried to get into the Golden Gloves competition, but was too old. So a couple of other white collar pretenders and I from Gleason’s Gym signed up to fight 4 round prelims at Madison Square Garden for $100 per round at the Friday night fights. We were gonna be contenders! The Monday before the event, I got a middleweight up and comer as a sparring partner. In front of his friends, I hit him with a terrific combination that knocked him down. Of course, he got right up, and knocked me senseless. I woke up with the endswell pressed to my nose wondering what the heck had happened. There followed not one, but two operations, to repair the septal hematoma and fracture that ended that phase of my crappy athletic odyssey.

Forget that I am not a naturally gifted athlete. That just doesn’t matter. I have tried to achieve a high level of competence in multiple sports. During my skiing phase, I went to race camp with the Mahre brothers, who won gold and silver medals at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984. As Phil said to me, “you have world class attitude; it’s too bad you have virtually no talent!” When I bet him $100 he couldn’t beat me by 2 gates on a race course; he wouldn’t take the bet. In the actual event, he beat me easily by more than 3 gates.

I decided to take up tennis again. It’s a sport that I excelled at as a Public Parks kid. Perhaps it might not be life threatening? I won the consolation doubles at the National 45s indoors at Snowbird. OK, it was like 5th place, but my partner and I had to win several tough matches to win that cheap crystal ball trophy. The next day, basking in a euphoric afterglow, I went skiing in nearby Park City. I  jumped off the moguls on double black diamond runs to dance in the sunshine of a spectacular Utah Bluebird Day. Unusually, I fell over. No problem, it happened occasionally. But this time, I fell across my Telemark non-releasable binding, and fractured my fibula right through the hard plastic boot. Ughh! That required a plate and six pins to repair.

Two seasons later, I was playing the National 35s grass courts (they were being held near where I lived, and I thought I might get lucky and steal a match). While serving for the first set against a pretty good local teaching pro who was not familiar with the grass court surface, I stretched for a backhand and…ouch! It felt as if someone had hit me in the leg with a racquet. My opponent came to my side of the court looking at me sadly as I said I was OK. “Sure you are”, he replied, just before I defaulted the match because of a ruptured Achilles tendon that was operated on two days later.

Now I was determined to play it safe. Just take my training conscientiously, and do nothing dangerous. Physical therapy, trainers. No more skiing or anything that would put me into a hospital again. Fast forward another couple of years to last spring. It was the 55s singles at the National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows. I was playing just great (as well as could reasonably expected, and then some). It was the semifinals against the #2 seed, and I won the first set only to lose the second in a tiebreaker. My wife and one of my daughters uncharacteristically showed up for the third set to cheer me on. I was serving down 2-4, 15-40 and miraculously came back after some terrific play that surprised even me to win the third set 6-4. Despite the adrenaline coursing through my body, I felt a stabbing pain in my foot. I took several Advils and luckily came back and won the final the next day in straight sets. But my foot really hurt.

After a few weeks of limping around, a podiatrist diagnosed me with a Morton’s Neuroma. Several injections, expensive orthotics and some physical therapy didn’t eliminate the pain. It would only hurt a little at first, but as I continued to play, the pain increased . Hitting partners got tired of my asking to do only half court drills while avoiding full court play that pounded my foot with needle like sensations. I was advised to get an MRI to confirm the original diagnosis. (Of course my health insurance refused to pay for it.) The MRI showed that I had a plantar plate tear. Last week, I had a Weil Osteomaty to finally correct the problem. It was my 5th surgery from self inflicted athletic injuries.

To some people, my continuing cycle of injuries sustained in the course of sporting activity seems ridiculous and excessive. But I am already plotting the changes I will undertake to improve my game and avoid other injuries. In about six weeks, I hope to be back on a court. I might even be well enough to defend my title at Flushing Meadows. Life is good!