Word: tony
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Showtime's United States of Tara (Sundays, 10 p.m. E.T.), on the other hand, is not something you've seen before: a comedy with four protagonists all sharing the same body. The title character (Toni Collette) is a Kansas woman with two kids and three alternative personalities, or "alters": T, a trash-mouthed 16-year-old; Buck, a gun-loving redneck (and a dude); and Alice, a '50s-style prim housewife. Which makes for complications, as when hubby Max (John Corbett) must spurn T's advances because "Tara wouldn't like...
...That forehand is the central component of a style that tennis experts call "counter-punching." It's one that absorbs an opponent's attacking play with aggressive returns, and springs from Nadal and his uncle's contrarian instincts. Nadal is naturally right-handed. But early on, Toni decided his protégé should play with his left hand to impart unusual southpaw spin. Toni then encouraged, or perhaps failed to correct, the extreme grip Nadal uses, and the unusual way he swings his racquet. To this day, instead of using the forward momentum of his body to generate pace...
...while Nadal gripes about too many matches, Toni has been reworking his nephew's game to make it less physically demanding. In recent months, the pair have focused on increasing the velocity of Nadal's serve in the hope of earning more aces, and improving Nadal's net play in the hope of shortening rallies. More drastically, they have begun altering Nadal's trademark forehand. In Paris, I spent two hours watching Nadal practice forehands with a follow-through that came around his body in the traditional manner rather than whiplashing behind his head. Toni barked complaints if his pupil...
...coach encouraging Nadal to mimic Federer? "No, Federer is too good," says Toni. "Rafael must play like himself but better, [less spin], quicker points." But how can Federer be too good when Rafael is ranked No. 1? "There is a difference between who is better and who knows more," says Toni. "Better now is Rafael, he is No. 1 in the ranking. But who has the best game? Federer...
...changing tennis's most unique and effective specimen backfire? Nadal will never lose certain aspects of what makes him so effective: his pugilist spirit, and the ability to impose his muscular game on more talented players. But so much of his success stems from his resistance to tradition that Toni's plan to make his charge more orthodox may dim Nadal's aura among fellow pros. When I asked the American player Andy Roddick about the changes, he couldn't believe that Nadal would voluntarily reduce the spin on his forehand. "One of the things that is difficult about facing...