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The interesting element in this week's tournaments is that you'd think they'd hung a sign:

  The interesting element in this week's tournaments is that you'd think they'd hung a sign:  Defensive-minded players need not apply. Even Davydenko, while saddled with a slight physique and a relative lack of power, plays an aggressive game based on relatively flat, laser-like counterpunches.  The advantages of aggressive, attacking tennis are manifold, and it was just a matter of time before players worked out exactly how be aggressive on the fundamentallhy slow courts used today.  Federer bumped the process along, less because of his own capaciity to play offense (a capacity he can afford to neglect, although not without a price) than because of the demand placed on his rivals to do something/anything to try to stop him. We're seeing the fruits of that process in this week's finals.
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Nobody wins big anymore if he isn't willing to pull the trigger when an opportunity presents itself.

  Nobody wins big anymore if he isn't willing to pull the trigger when an opportunity presents itself.  And only Nadal has the kind of skills that enable him to be not just a Federer tormentor, but a reverse-mirror image of his rival. Only Nadal can do what Federer does on offense from a defensive and sometimes  seemingly hopeless position. Apart from Nadal, the players most likely to succeed these days are those trigger-pullers—the Novak Djokovics, Robin Soderlings, Tomas Berdychs and Juan Martin del Potros. Throw Fernando Verdasco, flaws and all, in there, too. Andy Murray and Andy Roddick are borderline characters in this scenario, because Murray gravitates more to a Nadal-esque sensibility (his best offense flows from his superb defense), and his problem may be put pretty simply—he's not Nadal. Roddick is by nature a trigger-puller, but his groundstroke skills are not on par with his serving abilities. This may make his life a little more difficult in a few hours, whe...
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