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More Tennis

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• Marco tennis clinics set

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Having watched many of the matches of the U.S. Open, and in particular the men’s and women’s finals a week ago.

It’s still very apparent to me classic techniques are classic because they work!

Are you able to hit a solid sliced backhand to keep the ball in play when you are in trouble? Roger and Justine can.

Can you peel your sliced serve low and wide in the deuce court to pull your opponent out of the court and make them lift the ball? Roger and Justine can.

What about the ability to brush up the back of the ball to dip it short and low when you need to execute a passing shot under duress? Are you up to the task?

Racket skills that instinctively and immediately respond to a visualization input are what separate the best from the rest.

Golfers study the lie, the wind, and the pin placement, then visualize a flight path and choose a club that takes them toward the pin or away from the hazards as the situation may demand, and then while standing still execute their swing.

Make no mistake, it requires great skill and powers of concentration to play a great round of golf.

Now consider the tennis player having to evaluate, adjust, visualize and execute five, 10 or maybe 20 shots quite literally hundreds of times over the unfolding of a tennis match.

Did I mention that the ball may be moving toward you at speeds approaching 140 mph with various and hellacious spin and that you might have to be running at full speed when you swing.

We may be witness to the most physically sophisticated human athletes ever to have played sports in Roger Federer and Justine Hennin.

Their embracing of what I term old school skills and game styles combined with the devotion to physical training that the modern athlete has been forced to implement in an effort to succeed, has produced two champions for the ages.

There is nothing new under the sun in tennis technique and the styles of play that are winning the great events now are the same skills that won in the 40s, 50s and every other decade since the game has been played.

Thank you Martina Navratilova and on the men’s side the little known Thomas Muster for raising the bar of athleticism and physical training to the heights it has risen to today.

Modern tennis, at its highest levels, is testament to tried and true techniques and a Spartan devotion to conditioning not seen in many sports other than perhaps boxing and the martial arts.

Granted the technology of modern equipment adds to the speed of the game but the explosive movement and amazing dynamic balance of today’s great players makes top level tennis a wonder to behold.

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Howie Burnett is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and tennis director at the Island Country Club on Marco Island. Burnett welcomes questions on strokes, tactics or etiquette. To reach him, call the tennis shop at 394-4464 or e-mail him at islandclubtennis@hotmail.com.