Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
A few days ago, Mats Wilander held his 10th annual celebrity charity event at New York's Westchester Country Club, a golf and tennis pro-am that raises money for DebRA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fighting and raising awareness of a painful, genetically transmitted childhood disease, epidermolysis bullosa, or EB.
Two of Mats' four children, Emma, 15, and Erik, 11, suffer from the condition, which causes the skin to break or develop blisters under the slightest friction. Thankfully, their cases are relatively minor, but it still prevent both children from playing sports (the thing they love) with typical gusto for extended periods.
Wilander says watching his kids deal with their affliction has given him an enormous amount of perspective, especially because the youngsters have shown such courage -- along with the resolve to minimize the impact of ED on their daily lives without giving up the things they love (for Erik, it's tennis; for Emma, soccer.)
As Mats said, "I don't feel sorry for the kids at all, I feel more sorry for other parents of kids who have to deal with this kind of thing, because they have to see their child suffering. It hurts, even if that child is stronger than we think."
Wilander was always one of my favorite players. His perspective is congenial, and his tennis analysis is shrewd. Mats had a classic, economical baseline game, anchored by a failsafe, two-handed backhand -- and the quickest, most nimble feet in tennis. And as we chatted during his event, he expressed a huge admiration for a player who's out of the same mold, Andy Murray.
I think Murray reached a kind of tipping point at Madrid, where he beat Roger Federer in the semis and then took the title from the conqueror of Rafael Nadal, Gilles Simon. Murray must be the most improved player on the ATP Tour for 2008, although I suppose we ought to hold off making that judgment until after the smoke clears in Shanghai.
McEnroe has been a Murray fan all along, although he began to entertain the same doubts as everyone else in 2006 and 2007, when Murray's bandwagon ground to a halt. It seemed Murray, for all his talent, simply didn't work hard enough on his fitness to keep pace with his rivals (in all fairness, he also had injury issues and a fairly productive but not entirely comfortable relationship with his coach of the time, Brad Gilbert).
All that changed, and dramatically so, in the second half of this year. "Andy took his game to another level," says McEnroe. "That backhand is unbelievable, but the fitness is the key. He's really worked at it, and you can see the difference. The guy is playing unbelievable tennis."
And Wilander adds, "Murray is the next most dangerous player [after Nadal] for Federer. He's much smarter than Djokovic. He's got a bigger repertoire. Murray isn't as powerful, maybe doesn't move quite as well as Djokovic, but he'll play the game his opponents hate -- and that's always what I tried to do."
If Murray can pursue that strategy with the same success as Wilander, there's a No. 1 ranking and a pile of Grand Slam titles in his future. Wilander is a guy with great perspective, so I'm taking his word for it.
Peter Bodo
