What Sets the Tennis Elite Apart from the Rest?

Over the last few hours, I took the time to watch Novak Djokovic play Amer Delic, an interesting matchup in that the match should have been bursting with ethnic, nationalist tension (Djokovic is Serbian, Delic a naturalized American of Bosnian descent).

The political aside, I was struck by how close in skill and ability the two players were. This would be intuitive if it were, say, Djokovic facing Murray. This, however, was a match-up between world #3 and world #127.

Djokovic ended up winning in four sets, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), but from the parts I saw, there was little to differentiate the players. Given only a glimpse and without prior knowledge of the world of tennis, I just may have even been inclined to view Delic as the superior and higher-ranked player.

However, according to the rankings, this is far from the case.

Of course, one might say I am being naive, as it is common knowledge that all tennis pros, especially those ranked within the top 150, are absolutely phenomenal players. Watch any match and it is not easy to differentiate the skills of the players.

However, I think this is false that we recognize the diverse, diffuse wealth of talent, as we operate on the premise that the world's top players are a world apart from their peers. And there is a reason for this: it is convenient to generate attention and viewership to promote and exaggerate the abilities of the best players. It is simply a good business principle for the sports media.

It was only this time that I watched that I had such a stark sense of two such players, 124 ranking spots apart, mind you, being so evenly matched. It was like an epiphanic moment, just not an exciting religious one some folks claim to have.

Perhaps I was just not watching closely enough. Pay attention more closely, and you would see Delic's inability to challenge Djokovic off his serve (Delic's calling card is his big serve). Pay attention, and you would see Djokovic whip his ground strokes with more precision more consistently.

However, I think my point stands that the two players are very close in ability. Most of the match, they handily went to and fro holding serve, accompanied by the occasional break. Delic started the fourth set tiebreak with pizazz, winning the first two points, only to collapse from there. If he had won, the two were looking destined for a long, competitive fifth set.

One could cite Djokovic's lull in play—he is not playing his best at the present moment—to explain why Delic played close. On the flip side, Delic, after being given the freeing power of a second chance—he went through qualifying and lost, but was awarded the lucky loser spot on a random draw—has been playing terrifically in the tournament, upsetting No. 28 seed Paul-Henri Mathieu the round previous.

Forget all these minor factors, though. The fact of the matter is that world No. 3 met world No. 127, and they looked similar. that is significant. Yet, as nearly always happens in these cases, the better player is able to win. In fact, their ability to win such matches is often why they are the better player.

But there are other minor things that separate the best from the *almost* best, like Delic. Minutaie are the difference between sporting fame and millions, and relative anonymity and modest salaries.

But what are these minutiae? There are some things that many of the great players share. Chief among them is the ability to win points when they need to. They have the proverbial sixth gear that allows them to take their game to another level when they absolutely have to win a point. It is an innate, unteachable, even un-contemplatible skill that the great players have.

In such an elite world where the smallest of details makes a difference, the difference great players have is the ability to be technically sound wiht greater consistency. All pros have phenomenal technique, and can put away balls with astounding accuracy—something that stands out in great relief for me, an ex-tennis player who knows the ins and outs of missing the "easy" shots. The great players can do it more consistently, and more importantly, they do it when they have to.

I would be tempted to say that the great players define themselves by a superlative skill. Federer's subliminal skill, elegance, and racquet control. Nadal's all-universe athleticism. Djokovic's ability to do just about anything on the 78 by 27 feet of a tennis court.

But that is not sufficient for me. Plenty of players occupying lower rungs have one superlative, go-to skill. In a sense, it is their fault—they can do little else with consistency or quality. It is Delic's problem—he hardly loses his serve, but can he win a ground stroke rally? Goran Ivanesevic practically caricaturized this. By a country mile, his best tournament was Wimbledon, where his monster serve could always hold serve and bank on winning a few tiebreaks.

Thus, I think the great players become great by not only mastering the minutiae, but also by diversifying and broadening their game. Federer couples his large serve and forehand with his skill and his shot making. Nadal took his game to another level when he grew out of the constrictions of being only an athletic ground stroke grinder that could only win on clay. Andy Murray's game has grown immensely in the last year, in nearly every possible facet. Djokovic couples his widespread abilities with a firm, borderline cocky resolve.

Players will, of course, be different, in the sense that some will be defined by their diverse games, like Djokovic or Agassi of the prior generation, and others will be defined by one incredibly superlative skill, like Nadal with his mind-boggling athleticism and fitness or Sampras with his serve and forehand that God himself designed for Wimbledon.

But, to acheive greatness, these players had to, have to, and will always have to broaden, diversify, and refine their game, or else their relevance will dissolve about as fast as did our economy.

As such, while Djokovic and Delic did look of strikingly similar ability, there is a reason Djokovic won. He had a more consistently well-rounded game, allowing both to pull the occasional break and to keep serve with Delic. He had greater mastery of the minutiae, evidenced in the 4th set tiebreaker in which Delic made several costly errors. Finally, when he had to, he was able to raise his game to a level Delic could not match. So, while they looked on par for the large majority of the time, Djokovic was able to differentiate himself when he had to.

It may be a sport in which the great and the nobody are separated by the slightest of differences, yet it is in these slight differences—having a few more "tools in the toolbox," making a few less errors, rising to the occasion—that the great are made and the rest spending a career fruitlessly trying to rise to the top.