The Shot
Posted: September 13th, 2009 | Filed under: Other Sports | 47 Comments »
When I was young, I used to practice tennis trick shots. It was my way of handling the monotony of tennis practice. Well, I was never good with monotony. I would stand in the supermarket parking lot, and hit shot after shot after shot after shot into that brick wall, and I would imagine being on Centre Court facing McEnroe. Then I would imagine being at the U.S. Open facing Connors. Then I would imagine hitting the ball so hard that it would knock back the bricks, a millimeter at a time — WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! — until finally I hit the final ball so hard that it would break through the wall and come out the other side, right into the produce section where it would hit the guy spraying lettuce with a water bottle. These reveries would usually sustain me for as long as 15 minutes. Then I would practice trick shots.
The definitive tennis trick shot is going back on a lob and then hitting the ball between your legs. I’m pretty sure that the first person I ever saw do this was Yannick Noah at the French Open one year … and it animated my imagination. I used to be able to do all sorts of little tennis tricks. I can pick up a dormant tennis ball several different ways. At the net, I could hit a low volley between my legs, I could hit a behind the back shot. I practiced hitting a drop shot with so much backspin that the ball would bounce back over to my side of the net.*
*When I say I could do these things, I mean I could do them roughly one out of every 500 attempts.
But the go-back-and-hit-the-ball-through-the-legs shot was (and is) the gold standard of trick shots. So I must have practiced hitting it 50 times a day. The way to practice the shot is like so: You get close to a wall, and then hit the ball at an upward angle against the wall so that the ball pops up and over your head. Then you run up to the ball and measure the bounce so that as it is coming down you are basically standing OVER the ball — you actually want to overrun the ball slightly — and then come through with a full downward swing so that the racket hits the ball cleanly and goes through your legs on the follow through. If you hit it just right, the ball will have some power behind it and come out at a low-line drive, like a single up the middle.
When you practice this shot a lot — especially when you lack talent — you will hit yourself in the shins fairly often. This hurts a great deal. You will also miss three or four dozen times in a row and look foolish to anyone who happens to be walking by. But it’s worth a little pain and embarrassment for that moment when you strike the ball just right. At least that’s what I assume. I never did strike the ball just right, at least not in an actual tennis match. Ever so often, I would get it right in the parking, though. That had to be enough.
All of this rushed back on Sunday, when I watched Roger Federer face Novak Djokovic in a Sunday semifinal. It was a beautiful match to watch — especially the second and third sets — because Djokovic is an entertaining player himself, and he played well enough to bring out some magic from Federer. This is how good Federer has become — most of the time when you watch him play, you barely see his brilliance because his opponent simply isn’t good enough to coax it out of him.* Djokovich, on this day, wasn’t good enough to win even a set. But he was good enough to make Federer play brilliantly.
*It reminds me of when I saw Larry Hughes play basketball in college. Hughes was playing for St. Louis University then, and he was playing against the University of Missouri-Kansas City — UMKC as we call them in the American City of Fountains — and it was clear that Hughes was a remarkable basketball player. But no one on the floor was good enough to bring out his talents. At first, I actually was irritated at Hughes for not showing the full array of his preposterous gifts. He played well enough — I recall him scoring some points, making a couple of moves that left you to wonder what he could really do. But mostly he seemed like a musical prodigy who refused to play music.
Only then did I realize that it wasn’t Hughes at all — he was just too good for the game. Ali needed Frazier to bring out his boxing courage. McEnroe needed Borg to unleash his tennis genius. Michael Jordan needed the NBA to feed his competitive hunger. Joe Montana needed the NFL and the final two minutes to generate his gift for the dramatic. Maradona needed the World Cup to set loose his artistry.
And Larry Hughes simply could not show us what was inside him during a nothing game against UMKC. There wasn’t enough energy in the building, not enough competition on the floor, not enough magic in the night. He has gone on to become a good-to-excellent NBA player, and on many nights he has shown what he could not show on that day in Kansas City.
Throughout the match, Federer hit some shots that left people gasping. Here’s the most remarkable thing to me about Federer: Seems to me that the more you know about tennis, the more amazed you are by the guy. If you know nothing at all about tennis, he’s amazing. If you know a little something about tennis — maybe you have played a few times in your life — he’s more amazing. If you know a little more about tennis — maybe you played in high school and once had illusions of becoming a pro — he’s even MORE amazing. And if you were a great player — if you are a McEnroe or a Connors or a Courier — then Federer is preposterously amazing.
That’s how you know you’re watching real greatness. Most people are affected by what I might call The Magician’s Standard. That is, a magician who can wow kids is on one level … but maybe adults might see right through his silly little tricks. A magician who can wow adults is on another level … but maybe amateur magicians can still see how the trick is done. A magician who can wow amateur magicians is on yet another level … but maybe professional magicians shake their heads because they notice some sloppiness. And, one last level, a magician who can wow professional magicians is obviously technically remarkable … but he might leave children cold and bored.
But a magician who can wow ALL OF THEM, yeah, to me, that’s real greatness. And that’s Federer. He plays such beautiful tennis that anyone — even someone who doesn’t like tennis — can easily appreciate it. But he also hits shots that leave John McEnroe speechless. At one point in Sunday’s match, Djokovic hit an impossibly hard forehand down near the line, an almost unreturnable shot. Federer reached down easily — almost causally — and, with a flick of his wrist, took off much of the speed and spun the ball into the open court, where it skidded off the line for a winner. McEnroe — who I think is the best announcer in the game, any sport, and a guy who made his bones hitting near-impossible tennis shots — was left fumbling trying to explain the absurdity of that shot. “It was … just … so … easy,” McEnroe sputtered, and you could tell right then that he wished he could scream the words that would explain to America the almost comical genius of that shot. But there are no such words.
My own favorites in the Federer Collection are the inside-out forehands he hits from deep in the corner of the ad-court — that is, all the way on the left side. From that side, the average player generally hits backhands but Federer’s speed and footwork is so good that he can run around his backhand (which is merely great) and hit his forehand (which might be the best shot in the history of tennis — there with Connors’ and Nadal’s backhands, Sampras’ and Tilden’s serve, Borg and Agassi’s return of serve). Federer can hit that forehand down the line, into the middle, he can hit it with ferocious topspin or he can hit it flat. But what’s really amazing is that he can hit that forehand crosscourt at such absurd angles that at first it appeared to me he was mis-hitting these shots. It seemed to me the only way to hit a ball at that sharp an angle was to have the ball careen off the top of the tennis frame. But these were not mis-hits. Federer would hit those shots again and again, and on Sunday he must have hit five of them at different speeds that looked like optical illusions.
Yes, it was an entertaining match. Federer won the first two sets — the first in a tiebreaker, the second on a break of server at 5-6 — but other than the Federer’s indomitable tennis competitiveness, there wasn’t much to tell them apart. The point of the match actually belonged to Djokovic who stood at net and returned four straight shots when Federer had him at point blank range. The fourth return was a pop-up — a set up for a Federer smash — and Djokovic turned his back and stuck out his butt, as if to give Federer a target. The crowd loved it. Federer smiled too. And Djokovic hit several other brilliant shots — plus he was uncanny at challenging bad calls. He was a great foil for Federer on this day — fierce in competition but still aware enough of the moment to flash a sly smile when Federer hit one of his immortal shots. And down two sets, he continued to play with energy, and he held serve all the way until 5-6 again. And then Federer won the first two points on Djokovic to go up love-30.
That’s when it happened. Djokovic hit a drop shot. Federer charged, managed to get the ball back over the net, and Djokovich lofted a lob over Federer’s head. A great lob. There wasn’t much of anything Federer could do except … well, yes. Federer ran back … and I could see (you could see, we all could see) he was measuring it. He was setting up for the great. He ran up to the ball, ran over it, and then suddenly swung down hard — slashed the racket between his legs. A blur.
And … he … ripped … a … winner into the open court.
“Whoa!” I screamed, and I never scream at the television set. My wife raced down: “What happened?”
“You have to see this,” I said, and they showed it again, and then again, and again, and my wife was impressed, of course, because how can you not be impressed when you see a tennis player hit a vicious winner through his legs? But she’s only learning tennis now … and she went back to her day.
I could not … I had to sit there and let the shot sink in. It didn’t surprise me a few minutes later — Federer won the match on the next point — when Federer called it the greatest shot he’d ever hit. Of course it was the greatest shot he hit. It was the greatest shot anyone had ever hit. It was absolutely perfect — the perfect setup, the perfect moment, the perfect shot.
“A lot, actually,” Federer said when asked if he practiced that shot. Well, sure he did. Even Roger Federer can get bored practicing tennis. Even Roger Federer needs a few moments of escape, a few moments when he can practice the greatest tennis trick shot in the world. The difference between Federer and every other dreamer who practiced hitting shots between their legs, of course, is that he’s the greatest tennis player who ever lived. And for him the perfect moment happened in the semifinal of the U.S. Open, two points away from victory. That’s when he hit the greatest tennis trick shot in the world. Only, in that moment, it was even more than that. It was art.
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It didn’t take you long to cook up 2,000 words.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by daveleeder, Nicole Auerbach and Glenn Davis. Glenn Davis said: Now THIS is what it deserves. RT @JPosnanski A couple thousand words on the most amazing tennis shot ever hit. http://bit.ly/HA3It [...]
I am glad to know that I wasn’t the only one watching tennis on this American holiday that is the start of the NFL Season. The US Open has a tendency to get overrun by the start of football, and understandably so. But there is still some great tennis happening, and I am looking forward to tomorrow’s final against Del Potro.
One of my favorite columns. Federer rocks and that shot just underscores how amazing he is. We’re privileged to be able to watch him play.
(And I agree, Johnny Mac is one of the best announcers. Getting to see/hear him work with his brother during the Open has been a treat)
Here’s YouTube of the shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37qyvTRVus8
I’m sorry I missed it live!
I gasped and dropped my laptop out of my chair when he hit that shot.
It’s one thing to hit it. Another to get it over the next. Another to land it.
But that was just absurd. He is SO entertaining.
SI hired you because you can write pieces like this in a matter of hours. Well done.
[...] must-read: Joe Posnanski on “The Shot.” Tags: Roger Federer Between The Legs, Roger Federer Between-The-Legs Shot, Roger Federer [...]
I am certain that I have seen Agassi hit a clean winner on the between the legs shot but I’m sure the list of players who have pulled it off is short. . . .
Was on air all day and hadn’t seen this before reading this great essay. I loved your noting how the more you know about tennis, the more you appreciate Federer, and the analogy to magicians.
Glad you could write such a wonderful essay on this shot. All I could have come up with is Oh My God.
Joe – Larry Huges did not turn into a good to excellant NBA player. He turned into Vernon Wells. He had 1 above average year that turned into a crazy contract that’s been a nightmare for every team he’s been on since. I understand the point you were making, but Huges is an awful example.
Federer’s shot was the second craziest thing I watched today. The craziest thing? Pedro: 8 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 7 K, 130 pitches, in a 1-0 game against the Mets.
Roger Federer : Tennis
Joe Posnanski : Sports Writing
Great article. I, like many of you, am very disappointed to not get another Federer/Nadal final. The Aussie Open final this year may have been my favorite match of all time. Good luck JMDP.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s one thing that tells us how great that shot was: Federer’s reaction. He rarely shows such emotion while the match is in progress, which is part of what makes him such a great player.
I saw most of the first two sets this afternoon. Federer has rarely been more masterful.
Ever so often, I would get it right in the parking
That’s what I’d be afraid of.
I think you’re right about Noah being the first to bring that shot into the limelight. I recall hearing that most pro tennis players immediately went to work on it — sort of like basketball players work on half-court shots after practice is over. Because you never know.
The more impressive magic tricks to me are the times when Federer hits a ball that looks like it should go out, given the angle he’s chosen and the force with which he seems to hit the ball. The opponent gives up on it, but it drops just in — because Federer took just enough off his swing to make it so. He got Djokovic a few times with that one.
Agreed about McEnroe being the best announcer in any sport. There is no more tireless advocate for his sport than Johnny Mac — in part I think because he accepts that tennis fights a constant uphill battle for major sport face time. Case in point — on the “All Sports” tab on espn.com, tennis is the fifteenth link, between “High School” and boxing (of course, that’s the website which dispensed with seasonality a few years ago and gave the NFL the preeminent link position year-round, but still….).
“Only then did I realize that it wasn’t Hughes at all — he was just too good for the game. Ali needed Frazier to bring out his boxing courage. McEnroe needed Borg to unleash his tennis genius. Michael Jordan needed the NBA to feed his competitive hunger. Joe Montana needed the NFL and the final two minutes to generate his gift for the dramatic. Maradona needed the World Cup to set loose his artistry.
And Larry Hughes simply could not show us what was inside him during a nothing game against UMKC.”
So Larry Hughes was pitching to the score?
I’m not really a big fan of tennis. It’s fun to play, but I don’t play all that much and watch even less.
I can’t stand Roger Federer. I want him to lose every time. I guarantee I will never purposefully watch tennis unless Federer is out of the tournament.
On the other hand, in completely admitted hypocrisy, Tiger Woods is the only golfer I want to win.
I can’t explain it.
[...] writer Joe Posnanski has written an entire, beautiful column about this Federer shot; check it out here. In it, he makes a fantastic point that I completely agree with: The more you know about tennis, [...]
“I can’t explain it.”
Irrational behavior. In other words, humanness.
David W:
No, this is like if Nolan Ryan was forced to start a game against West Podunk High’s JV, and decided there’s really just no point throwing anything but heat.
Joe, loved the piece. It reminded me of the immortal David Foster Wallace’s article on Fed a few years back in the New York Times. Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all
I think this piece is required reading for anyone who appreciates the genius of not only Federer, but also Woods, Pele, Pujols, or any other singular master of their craft.
No question about McEnroe being the best announcer in any sport.
Maybe the networks should stop hiring the nice guys . . . go for people who were thoroughly unlikeable in their playing days. At the very least it would lead to fewer Al-Leiter-endorsing-pitching-to-the-score moments.
Come to think of it, Nick Faldo in his playing days was considered “prickly”, or something close to that.
My moment of zen from the Open was the fleeting thought zipping through my brain as Serena Williams went into meltdown — “Is that linesperson the same dude who faced down the tank in Tianamen Square 20 years ago?”
[...] Speaking of Roger, his remarkable penultimate shot from his semifinal win over Novak Djokovic yesterday netted an instant 2,000-word reaction piece from Joe Posnanski. [...]
@Janek #22: You beat me to it…
“It’s hard to describe — it’s like a thought that’s also a feeling. One wouldn’t want to make too much of it, or to pretend that it’s any sort of equitable balance; that would be grotesque. But the truth is that whatever deity, entity, energy, or random genetic flux produces sick children also produced Roger Federer, and just look at him down there. Look at that.”
-David Foster Wallace
Great post, thank you. For a minute there, you made me care about tennis, and even when I was on a (bad) high-school team I didn’t care about it, though I briefly had a few years earlier during the brief height of the Borg/McEnroe era.
As for the Hughes/competition point, yeah, that happens, and to anyone, I posit. I for example am a legitimately good skier. But I look a lot different in a narrow 40-degree chute than on the bunny hill. On the bunny hill, everyone looks the same: slow.
[...] Posnanski is on point, as [...]
A great day for sports, at least my two favorite sports, anyway:
1) Ichiro breaks a 108-year-old record by becoming the first player in the history of baseball to post nine consecutive seasons with at least 200 hits.
2) Federer making the near-impossible look easy.
I used to play tennis all through high school, that shot probably took me the longest to learn, but once you master it, it’s basically all the same. The toughest shot is, by far, the backhand cross-court one. If you don’t pull it hard enough you leave it right down the middle and you’re in trouble, you pull it just too much you miss the line, or, worse, you hit too far up the side of the net and you don’t get a gratuitous bounce to their side of the court.
And I really thought Roddick would’ve/could’ve/should’ve beaten Fed at Wimbledon.
Wait, the same Larry Hughes that is responsible for http://heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com/
Because if so, I don’t think he’s a good to excellent basketball player.
Joe, the magician analogy was an excellent one. I’ve known quite a few of them in my work, and I remember asking one of them one time “who impressed HIM?’. I remember him telling me about this Dutch guy who did nothing but ‘close up’ magic involving only the use of watches. He said most people wouldn’t see the brilliance because it wasn’t ‘big’, but to a pro, being that close, and still not completely figure it out was mind blowing to him. Great stuff, as always.
Federer’s shot was the third sick shot of the day….the first two were made by his buddy, Tiger Woods. Tiger had already sown up the tourney by early in the back 9 and was playing a par 5. He doublecrossed his drive so bad he threw his club in the air and hit himself in the face with it. The drive ended up right of right and his only shot was through a tiny window of trees. The next shot was ridiculously hard. He hit a ball near 200 yds that went perfectly through the gap in the trees and never got more than 6 feet off the ground. Unfortunately it ended up almost directly behind ANOTHER tree on the other side of the fairway. He then hit a trap hook around that tree, missing the tree by about 3 inches and running the ball 125 yds to a few feet past the whole and making the putt for a birdie. Few players could have made either of those shots. He’s just ridiculously better than anybody else who ever played.
By the way, I highly recommend the movie “Sugar” to everyone…..about an Dominican kid playing for the “KC Knights” major league organization and moving from the baseball camps of the Domincan to play for the Single A team in Iowa. It’s good as a baseball movie but more about his attempt at adjusting to the USA, speaking English, and coming to grips with his own and his familys’ expectations and pressure.
[...] Setup, read this link before clicking on the video. Chills when watching greatness in action, no matter [...]
How did you know Ichiro broke a record. I thought ESPN was still showing Jeter’s every at bat….
“The thing about tennis is: no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They’re fucking relentless.” -Mitch Hedberg
@17: David Wintheiser
You beat me to the analogy. All those guys Joe mentions are pitching to the score.
“Only then did I realize that it wasn’t Hughes at all — he was just too good for the game. Ali needed Frazier to bring out his boxing courage. McEnroe needed Borg to unleash his tennis genius. Michael Jordan needed the NBA to feed his competitive hunger. Joe Montana needed the NFL and the final two minutes to generate his gift for the dramatic. Maradona needed the World Cup to set loose his artistry.”
This was unfortunate by Joe.
Ali had demonstrated his courage long before meeting Frazier — in 1964, just getting in the ring with Sonny Liston took more guts than a heap of other contenders were willing to show. Then there was the first Norton fight and going ten rounds with a broken jaw. Listening to Angelo Dundee speak about it is to hear true admiration.
McEnroe played genius-level tennis against lesser opponents many times and destroyed them. It doesn’t stick in the mind because one-sided matches never do.
NBA and NFL hold no interest for me so I can’t comment on Jordan and Montana.
Maradona’s World Cup artistry would stick in the minds of Americans because that’s the stage on which they’d see him. But he spent years doing similar things in Naples.
I’m still going to vote for Steffi Graf as the greatest tennis player ever. And she also would run around her backhand to turn it into a forehand. I fear that in the horror over Monica Seles being attacked that we forget that Graf has 23 Grand Slam titles against some furious competition.
This is the downside to your being with SI, Poz…. you Cover Jinxed Federer!
@ #16: Agreed on Johnny Mac and all he tries to do for tennis…
Which is why it was such a shame to see him not included with Borg and Sampras when R-Fed won at Wimbledon this year–DESPITE BEING IN THE SAME ROOM… To see Federer pull out that God-awful coat after beating Roddick, then leaving McEnroe out of the photo op in the press room after the match completely made me sour on him…
His game may be brilliant, but his of-the-court execution could use some work…
Kyle, you do realize that he had no way of knowing that the ‘15′ jacket existed? Nike handed it to him a few minutes after winning.
Federer didn’t even notice the little dinky ‘15′ in the corner until the journalist who interviewed him pointed it out to him.
Anyway, congrats to Del Po. Well deserved.
For a number of years I have been describing McEnroe to friends as the best TV sports announcer/analyst in the business. I didn’t realize other people thought so, too. CBS would do well to let Mac and Carillo work the matches by themselves.
@35 Damon – Nice
I was making sure that I read every comment before I posted Mitch’s quote. You beat me to it.
Joe – Great post. You rule.
Larry Hughes= the anti-Jordan.
“But a magician who can wow ALL OF THEM, yeah, to me, that’s real greatness”
I think there is one additional level of greatness here: the magician who can wow even himself with his feats.
Federer rarely gets excited by his own abilities, but his reaction after “the shot” was telling. Even the great Federer couldn’t believe he was able to pull the shot off.
[...] That shot by Federer explained. [...]
I am a mediocre but loving tennis player who once actually paid for a 1/2 hour lesson on that shot. I could never hit the ball without hitting myself. What Federer did was, indeed, magic.
That said, as much as I loved it, I’ll take Adrian Peterson’s TD run as the play of the day. We have the young Earl Campbell again, and that too is a special thing.