Wednesday 13 May 2020 15:22, UK
The brutal serve that Goran Ivanisevic pounded down the court in 2001, when he became the unlikeliest Wimbledon champion since a 17-year-old Boris Becker, was the envy of the tennis world.
The 6'4'' Croatian, ranked No 125 in the world when his sole Grand Slam arrived, was a one-dimensional weapon that nobody had an answer to during his month of glory. He hit 212 aces, a record, during the tournament.
Ivanisevic's 23.3% of aces throughout every Wimbledon appearance is, compared to fellow great players, the highest ever - Pete Sampras is second-best, way behind with a 16.5% success rate.
But was he too reliant upon his standout technique? After all, it took Ivanisevic 14 attempts to win Wimbledon while the more skilled Rafa Nadal needed four, Roger Federer needed five, and Novak Djokovic seven.
Following analysis of 22 years of articles and statistics by IBM and their Artificial Intelligence platform Watson about the great Wimbledon champions we have a new perspective on how adapting playing styles could have seen him win more titles.
Mark Petchey told Sky Sports: "The serve was too much. Ivanisevic was over-reliant on it and the stars had to align for him to win it once."
Brian O'Driscoll, the Irish rugby legend, frequently extolled the virtues of improving strengths rather than weaknesses.
"Practise things you're good at," O'Driscoll told BBC. "Keep on top of things you're not so good at, but be world-class at your best. Never think, I'm very good at this and that, I can leave those for a bit.
"What do you remember about Jason Robinson? His feet. Not how improved he was under a high ball or his kicking skills. Everyone remembers those feet."
O'Driscoll is the highest try scorer in Irish history (47), the eighth highest in international rugby union history, and the highest in Six Nations history (26).
"You've got to have a point of difference to make it to the top. Being a jack of all trades but a master of none would make you a good club player - a reasonable career," said former England player Will Greenwood when assessing O'Driscoll.
But his true focus was not simply amassing points. A 21-year-old O'Driscoll plundered 35 points for Ireland in 2001, but they only had a 57% win ratio that year. His adaption into the ultimate team player came at a young age because, by 2003 and 2004, his points reduced to 23 and 20 but Ireland won 77% and 78% of their games.
"When he started out he was incredibly elusive and electric on the first yard. He could beat you in a phone booth," Ireland's former head coach Eddie O'Sullivan said as part of 22 years of IBM's studied information through Artificial Intelligence platform Watson. "As his career moved on he adapted his skills to be more of a ball-carrier and to be more direct. He passes a lot more now."
Although in 2009, aged 30, O'Driscoll had the second-best points tally of any individual year (33) to help Ireland win seven out of eight matches, the stats do back up O'Sullivan's claims that he adapted.
His points scored fell to 20 in 2011 as Ireland were 60% successful, then in his final season, O'Driscoll's generosity was proven as he didn't score a single point but helped his country win 80% of their matches.
The trend continues to England head coach Eddie Jones who inherited an England team that has a calamitous 2015 World Cup and led them to a record-equalling 18 matches unbeaten. He adapted the same set of players that failed under Stuart Lancaster - Jones started 15 of the 23 players that were beaten by Australia at the World Cup in his first match in charge.
Continuity was key for Jones. He started the same 12 players throughout his unbeaten Six Nations campaign. Jones won 100% of his matches in 2016 and 91% in 2017, after Lancaster managed 50% and 67%, respectively, in the two years leading up to and including the World Cup.
Jones improved their try scoring - in 2014 and 2015 they had scored 28 and 31 (before a 10-try win against Uruguay in a dead-rubber World Cup game that should be seen as an anomaly). Under Jones, they scored 43 and 37 in the next two years.
"He played and preyed on the fact that they were a despondent group who needed a new leader," Greenwood said.
But perhaps it's easier for a rugby player, with 14 team-mates backing you up, to focus on improving strengths.
By also focusing on his one outstanding talent, the big serve, Ivanisevic became the 2001 Wimbledon champion but sustained success eluded him.
Perhaps Ivanisevic's sole Wimbledon title compared to the trophy cabinets of other great players is the most telling factor in whether a well-rounded game is more efficient in tennis than a one-dimensional one.
His reliance on a serve-and-volley tactic is proven - Ivanisevic won only 42.84% of points contested on the base-line (for reference, the next lowest out of Wimbledon's great players was 46.75%, by Pete Sampras, a seven-time champion also known for a powerful serve).
This result can be partly explained because Ivanisevic only chose to contest 11.59% of his points from the base-line, due to his serve-and-volley preference, while he approached the net for 23.2% of his points, a stark contrast to 16.6% of Roger Federer whose more well-rounded game has yielded eight championships.
More remarkably yet, Ivanisevic made serve-and-volley approaches for 70.2% of his points, more than any other great player, and a world away from Rafael Nadal's 1.8%. That reliance had, clearly, not resulted in as much success for four-time finalist Ivanisevic compared to the other top players.
The serve was Ivanisevic's strength but also an underlying weakness, which separates him from the comparisons to rugby.
"Could he have won more if he adapted his game? Maybe," Petchey said.
He has committed double-faults with 7.2% of his serves, compared to Federer's 1.7%, part of which can be attributed to the raw power that Ivanisevic attempts with every delivery - the average speed of his second serve was a record-high 108.8mph. Ivanisevic only won 54% of points on his second serve, a 31.5% drop-off from his first serve. Federer's serve is not as fast, not as powerful, and won't make as many headlines but it is more balanced - he won 79.7% of points on his first serve, then 60.7% on his second.
Nadal has the highest proportion of documents containing terms relating to adapting or imposing, according to Watson closely followed by Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray - this is on account of his ability to adapt and impose his clay court game.
Ivanisevic famously said (and who can argue?): "I don't care now if I ever win a match in my life again. Whatever I do in my life, wherever I go, I'm going to be always Wimbledon champion."
The difference with the likes of O'Driscoll and Federer is that they wouldn't settle for one title. Can England boss Jones can follow in their footsteps by learning from tennis?
