Having seen the Raducanu post-victory press, it occurred to me she may not agree with my statements. This is someone who as a student was immersed in calculus and likely has faith in science.
Assuming that, if you look at the match highlights, she wins one point with a forehand down the line; there is no thought because thinking slows you down. She is intimidating owing to that quality.
It's something the person may no even realize. They are better than the practice because they are natural. The faith in science is misplaced owing to the intellect giving too much credence to the logic; it will be interesting to see the if she stays this natural or is gradually corrupted by 'them'.
Well, the comment I posted on swordsofreh above seemed to sum-up the T-shirt design coming-up from artist Elena, which is titled "Destruction of the new.. By the old".
A specialist, trained in routine, lives in the head of rather than in physical reality. Routine cannot compete with natural flow. The paradigm we live in has now been comprehensively defeated by Raducanu, so I think it's worthwhile summing-up what aspects of tennis reflect this old-order that is being revived.
From the purely visual aspect, the looped forehand winner in the 2nd set (shown in slo-mo) is a Bjorn Borg trademark. Apart from the sex of the performer, there's totally no difference in the stroke; it's a purely instinctive and lethal use of reaction with no thought.
It happens because the racket is being swung freely with no predetermination. The bane of the modern game is when the power-shot overrides shot-making; why should tennis advance if it is no longer a game, and more like an ordeal?
Raducanu has some habits - such as playing a forehand to open-court from return of serve - but is able to adjust to each game.
What caught people off-guard was her breezing through 10 matches with not even a set-point against her; this simply points to how similar the opposition is. They are power first and placement and free-swing second. The only exception is the other teen, Fernandez.
These two are able to destroy specialization that is too alike with the old-time values of a game that flows freely - flows in spontaneous rhythm. Specialists agonize about psychological tension because they don't fully inhabit the game. In the days of Borg/McEnroe, any tension came from the ebb-and-flow of the match rather than from some physical problem that is really masquerading as mental (vis Sakkari quote.)
In the same way, the physical problems of the modern world - that are numerous - masquerade as mental (by contrast, Raducanu's injury was manifest.) Instead of a physical solution to our problems - which would entail a revival of free-ranges and jungle-beats (see Lee Perry) - we get endless specialist routines, duly relayed by news networks.
Since we live in a world of the head, we maybe don't often recognise it as such, but that is what news is; if there were fewer specialist routines there would be less news!
As was already noted, the biggest specialist routine of all is DNA, since that attracts the ego of acolytes like flies to a dungheap. Modern methods often depend on a weakened system - immune, psychological - in order to treat it with ever-more advanced methods.
This is what you call big-hitting, that deals with life as a routine rather than a set of balanced, coordinated responses. Some responses are lightning - as with Raducanu or Borg - and their spark is lost.
America has now become the false $ (Apollo) of pure routine and throwing money at problems, rather than allowing the body-in-motion to simply act. This applies to whether it's cowboys on the range, Indians or streetwise blacks in relatively self-sufficient communes (see Foxy Brown, prev.)
The same point was made awhile back on Detroit (Drama3), which kept its communal identity in the face of federal pressure, became poor and rough, then revived through investment and solidarity.
What I'm basically saying is news is information that applies increasingly to the head as opposed to the body. The head is attracted by routines and specialist schemes that involve logic and manipulation of numbers (dollars), but in the process the coordinated game of life is lost.
Instead of this false sameness of physical weakness that has a corresponding psychic confusion, athletes are antagonistic on the court - 'the smiling assassin' - and the body functions are antagonistic, coordinated pairing of muscles. Push and pull.
I mean, the freedom of physical response inevitably leads to psychic calm; one is living by one's wits as a hunter did. Life lived as a muscular game cannot be micro-managed by 'them' to the detriment of freedom of physical expression.
Raducanu has shown the way with her uninhibited play; it is still possible to defeat routine and stymie advance when the future of the game is at stake. We are advancing into a cage that attracts a certain type; the type that advocates robotic routine with no possibility of recovery through physical strength and resilience. The type that lives in the head is psychically weak because psyche is thoroughly dependent on the physical reality.
