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.