I remember posting about this, maybe two or three years ago, about an article I read in Tennis Magazine from the late 70s or early 80s, back when I was little-kid Tennis Guy. It was an article about types of tennis players, and one of them was called "tennis ball breakers." The article said, in a nutshell, that this type of player hits the ball as hard as they possibly can, on every shot, and the match ends very quickly, either with them winning or losing very fast.

Sound like Big Babe?

Look how Graf obliterated her opponents in under an hour, and almost completely off the forehand side. (She favored her forehand more than Rosie O'Donnell favors Krispy Kreme). And when did she lose dominance? Well, when the wonderful Monica Seles came in and obliterated opponents off of both wings, that's when. Not long after came Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, the Williams sisters and Sharapova.

Now we have a squealing and shrieking generation of "-ova's" and "-ina's" and "-ovic's" that are prone to horrendously erratic play, yo-yo rankings, #1s-without-slams, injuries, and ridiculously early retirements.

Graf only blasted off on one side, but look how injury-prone she was from the mid to late '90s. And she was (still is!) monsterously fit.

Monica and Jenny are hard to gauge because of their circumstances. If Jenny hadn't rebelled and missed so many years, would her body have broken down sooner? She became a fitness beast to get her two AOs and a FO and rise, finally, to #1, but look how she finally succumbed. If Monica hadn't been stabbed (I have to pause as my blood still boils about this) would her feet have bothered her earlier? Would she have hung up her racket sooner based on physical issues? We'll never know about these two.

Lindsay, to a certain extent, is tough to gauge because of her early career. Her early years with the mean-applied nickname ("Dump Truck") don't seem to help in the discussion. She became successful after shedding those pounds and had great career afterwards. She too, had injury issues towards the end of her career. Were they because of her style of play, or did her heavier early teen years already take a toll?

Now we have Venus and Serena who've been brutally criticized for not taking advantage of the quantity-over-quality-rewarding ranking system that certainly hasn't helped in stabilizing the womens' tour. Look at all the wanna-be's that have come and gone while they stuck around and continued winning big events. Venus and Serena, like the others, are epitomes of Big Babe. But this bucking-of-the-system seems to be a big part of why they're still around. Both have had injury issues, especially Serena with her knee, but both of them have been successful, and to a much greater extent, consistently successful.

Big Babe casualties of today speak for themselves.

Sharapova. Poster child for Big Babe damage. Blasts away, mentally tough, long blond-haired screamer...and a body breaking down in front of our eyes. A damaged shoulder that's caused lethal tinkering with her serve, and results that will probably never be what early success had suggested.

Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin. Retired way too early. Kim wanted to have a family at a young age, but even before then was having injury issues. Justine...retired way too early, either because her "Little Big Babe" style was taking too much out of her or because she really just wanted to leave the game?

Safina and Jankovic and a frustrating ranking system. Both of these ladies reached number one, and we all understand mathematically why, but they haven't won a SLAM. (Thank all that is good that Kim and Amélie finally corrected their courses and got the two that they did) Safina's back is another victim, and JJ had to retire at Wimbledon.

Vaidisova. Enough said.

Ivanovic, Chakvetadze, Paszek, Szavy, Safarova. They go up, up, up, and come down, down, down. Spraying balls in every direction. One even over-acheived to win a SLAM. May not be too injured, but they're not successful, either.

We can't have this kind of discussion, without mentioning the Non-Big Babes. Who were successful? Well, Hingis had a year+ of dominance ('97, and don't get me started on the 2.5 years she held #1 without a slam) and won 5 SLAMS, but look what happened. Foot problems and other injuries while trying to counter the Big Babe onslaught. And a retirement at 22, no less, and another at 27. (And don't get me started on Hingis's opportune time of dominance, Graf injured and nearing the end of her career and Monica not being the same after being stabbed...remember, Monica would have only been 23 that year...enough, I know, we've had that argument before, ad nauseum....)

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario did a great job, but wasn't nearly as successful as Graf or Seles, who really were the only Big Babes of her time.

So people bitch and moan about the state of the WTA, but could it be that what the game has become, in all its Big Babe "glory," just isn't sustainable over most players' shelf lives?

And FWIW, maybe Nadal might become a poster child for Big Dude, while the Fed is the opposing argument.

I don't know. There's certainly no question that the women play--on the whole--a much higher-risk game than the men. It really struck me when I was watching Wimbledon this year that these days Serena actually has more variety than most of her opponents. Almost all the women pretty much try to play like Robin Soderling.

Whether that's the cause of the injuries or not, I'm not sure. Career-breaking injuries affected women early on long before the big babes--remember Tracy Austin? And they've often retired young too--think of Sabatini, Jaeger and Kimiko Date. I've always thought that the problem for women is that in order to get to the top they have to train very hard when they're very young, which leads to burnout, both physical and mental.

Good point. Tracey Austin and Anrea Jaeger burned out way too quickly, but the belief at the time was that the age rules had to be changed. When Capriati was winning so young, the same comparison and worries came about, that she'd get hurt and burn out too quickly. She "burned-out" a different way. Sorry...

But in that late 70s to mid 80s era, the top players weren't injured nearly as much as they are now. Chris and Martina were quite healthy. Hana Mandlikova was tough, too. Now, even the top players are walking wounded. Venus is one of the tougher ones, now, but had her share of wrist issues, Serena has knee issues, Safina's practically in traction now, JJ's down, Justine and Kim are injured again (Kim seemed to get hurt often, even before her retirement), Sharpie's shoulder is a chronic issue, etc...

I like the "women try to play like Soderling" comparison, 'cause it's kind of true. But who's a female equivalent of the Fed these days, with graceful, fluid strokes with perfect technique, that, because of the economic fluidity, has so little impact and wear and tear on the body? I can't think of such a lady on the WTA right now.