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GREAT article on Taylor from the St Petersburg Times - I recommend a read! About
his consistency and (hopefully) imminent success!

Throwback Dent on verge of greatness
By KEITH NIEBUHR
Published March 23, 2005

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/23/Sports/Throwback_Dent_on_ver.shtml




He chips. He charges.

He smashes his serves.

He races to the net.

In an era dominated by baseliners, Taylor Dent is one of the exceptions. He
plays the game the way it used to be played, with a serve-and-volley style
reminiscent of yesteryear, when three of the four majors were contested on grass
and baseliners routinely got clobbered.

He is, pardon the cliche, old school.

"He's a throwback," ESPN commentator Cliff Drysdale said. "There's not many
left that play that way. He has a kamikaze style."

Dent's go-for-broke attitude has made him one of the game's most exciting
players, if not yet one of its most recognizable. Dent, ranked No. 33, is one of
only four Americans in the top 50. But because No. 3 Andy Roddick and No. 10
Andre Agassi have won a combined nine major titles, they receive the bulk of the
media attention and Dent remains somewhat of an unknown commodity among the
sporting public.

That could be about to change.

Dent, a 23-year-old native of Newport Beach, Calif., appears to be playing the
best tennis of his life. And recent victories over No. 4 Marat Safin, this
year's Australian Open champion, No. 2 Lleyton Hewitt and No. 9 David Nalbandian
have given him an injection of confidence heading into today's Nasdaq-100 Open
at Key Biscayne.

"For the first time I'm really excited about where I'm at," Dent said. "I want
to see if I can climb over the top."

Will it happen?

It's difficult to tell, of course. Dent has four career titles and played for
the bronze medal at last year's Summer Olympics, but he has had limited success
in Grand Slam events. His best finish is a fourth-round showing at the 2003 U.S.
Open.

And yet, there is reason for hope.

Recent history shows that serve-and-volleyers peak later than those who spend
the bulk of their time on the baseline. And for Dent, who turned professional in
1998, that could be good news.

"We saw it with Patrick Rafter," said tennis legend and Dade City-native Jim
Courier. "It took awhile for him to develop. And with Tim Henman. It takes a
little bit more time because you have to understand all the angles."

Baseliners, Courier said, get an earlier start. He said when players learn the
game today, they focus on groundstrokes, not net play. And physically, he added,
most players aren't ready to serve and volley until they are 15 or 16.

As Dent contended, "It's just a tougher game. You have to be able to do
everything."

Still, Dent does not necessarily buy into the argument that it should take
serve and volleyers longer to find their groove. "I don't believe it has to be
that way," he said.

His greatest struggle thus far, he says, has been with consistency. At times he
hits all the shots. At others, he stumbles. Minor injuries also have caused
havoc, and all of this has made maintaining his patience a difficult task.

He wants to be a top-10 player.

He craves Grand Slam success.

And he would rather have this sooner than later.

"It can be frustrating," Dent said.

Dent learned the craft from his father, Phil Dent, an Aussie great and former
Top-20 player who reached the Australian Open final in 1974. Drysdale, a close
friend of Phil Dent, said the elder Dent had a style similar to his son's.

It's no coincidence Taylor Dent lists Rafter among his favorite players. Rafter
achieved great success, winning U.S. Opens in 1997 and '98. His first Open title
came when he was 24. Up to then, he had never advanced past the third round at
the Open and only earlier that year - in the French Open - did he reach the
semifinals of a major for the first time.

"There are a lot of parallels," Dent said. "I go for more but he had more
consistency. In some ways I've tried to copy him."

In the recent victory over Safin, one he says is "up there" among his biggest,
Dent thought much of his game came together. Most important, he said, was that
he won almost 60 percent of his second serves, long a weakness of his.

"That's very, very big for me," Dent said. "The top four players in the
rankings win those points 60 percent of the time ... all the time."

In the past, Dent spent too much time trying to perfect every aspect of his
game, he said. Now he concentrates on a few select parts. Otherwise, his plan
hasn't changed. He is staying the course and has no intention of changing his
style.

"I'm only 23 and I feel like I have a lot of tennis left," Dent said. "I'm
playing good, solid tennis. I can see consistency coming. It's just a matter of
time."


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