November 12, 2012

Knowing A Good Thing When You See It

World Tour Finals, Semifinal

(1) Federer d. (3) Murray, 7/6 6/2

Roger Federer tonight defeated Andy Murray to move through to the deciding match of the World Tour Finals. Earlier today Novak Djokovic qualified for the final by beating Juan Martin del Potro. The world No.1 will therefore take on the world No.2 in the last match of the ATP season. Each man has won a Major and three Masters titles this year, and have split their encounters two apiece. While any other configuration of the four semifinalists would hardly have felt wrong, there is a sense that a finale between Djokovic and Federer is exactly right. This, naturally, is a matter of personal perspective. Thankfully it wasn’t quite a question of nationalist perspective, about which nothing is natural, although for too many it proved a close run thing.

While Federer and Murray busied themselves with tennis, there was a second contest being played out in the stadium, in commentary booths and across those forms of online miscommunication we ironically term social media. The fact that at least half the crowd weren’t supporting Murray was taken by some to be a national disgrace. Swiss flags outnumbered the Union Jack, although I see no reason to think British citizens were waving them. The Times’ Neil Harman, whose infatuation with Murray is so searingly pure that it almost rises beyond creepiness, although not beyond ridicule, was particularly incensed. He and ESPN’s Brad Gilbert established a small echo chamber on Twitter in which they could lament the deplorable situation whereby some English people supported their favourite player over the guy who happened to be born in an adjacent country. The English, felt Harman, don’t know a good thing when they saw it, even as they erupted when Federer won the first set. Afterwards it was implied by some that many of the English were deliberately cheering against the Scot, a clear sign that Great Britain’s Olympic unity had fractured beyond repair. Lost in all this madness was the small voice suggesting that maybe nationalism had little to do with it. Maybe it was about tennis.

Someone else remarked that Federer’s Facebook friends outnumbered the entire population of Switzerland, apparently as clear proof of traitors living elsewhere. Clearly thousands were infesting the O2 Arena tonight, and I hope the Home Office is maintaining files on all of them. One gained the impression that some of their compatriots would like to get a copy of those files, and visit each subject personally in the small hours. I imagine there’s a bulging one on Sir Ian McKellan, who’d ensconced himself right by the Federers, and had been rather tardy in praising Murray earlier in the week. Kevin Spacey was there, as well. So much for the Special Relationship.

Over on Sky Sports the experts unanimously predicted a Murray victory, but they mostly did this for the best of reasons, which is to say realistic reasons relating to the sport that was being played. Plenty of impartial pundits backed Murray for the simple fact that he has looked much better than Federer this week, and rapidly dismantled the Swiss when last they met in Shanghai. After Federer won, which I will come to shortly, the tune on Sky darkened abruptly. Opinions were revised sharply floorward. Suddenly there was talk of a ‘wake-up call for Andy,’ although this was from Boris Becker, who might well have been talking about the loss to Janowicz in Paris last week.

For the first half dozen games, it looked as though any prediction of a Murray victory was not only astute but obvious. The Scot was as sharp as hell, as sharp as in Shanghai, while Federer looked duller even than he had yesterday. A trio of forehands into the net, punctuated by a backhand shank, and Murray had an immediate break. The shift seemed to come in the seventh game, when Murray missed an exceptionally makeable running backhand pass – especially with his hands and leg-speed – and thereafter, and for no readily adequate reason, changed his tactics totally. Suddenly he was passive, diffident and sarcastic, excoriating himself both vocally and in his play. He almost entirely gave off attacking Federer’s second serve, which had been such a feature in Shanghai. Federer, cordially invited to play better, began to. The tennis was not brilliant in any sustained sense, but there were still flashes of it. Federer earned his first break point with a chip-charge that should never had worked, and sealed it by rushing the net behind a scathing forehand.

It was in the tiebreak that the tide truly turned against Murray, both on court and elsewhere in the O2. When he lost the exchange to fall down set point, his racquet connected firmly and fatally with the court surface. He spent an age inspecting it for damage, before jogging over to grab another. The crowd booed, although hopefully a portion of the disapproval was directed at Steve Ulrich, who for some reason failed to issue a warning. When Federer subsequently took the set the roar was thunderous. After that the second set gambolled away from Murray with startling alacrity – Federer afterward confessed to be as surprised as anyone – especially when we consider that many of his victories against the Swiss have come from a set down. But, from serving at 40-0 up in the third game, it was almost as though Murray was determined to lose, as he began to mix in awful drop shots with the other tactics destined to fail, although the worst of these came a game later, and barely troubled the net. Mark Petchey suggested that Murray may have run out of ideas.

Murray was broken again for 2/5, with Federer first executing a now-perfect chip charge, and then luring his opponent in to observe a savage backhand pass from closer range. The world No.2 served out the match with a blithe confidence almost entirely the opposite of how he’d commenced the match. The decisive stat for the day was Federer’s perfect record on second serve returns: 34 from 34. He chipped almost every backhand return, but tore vehemently into his share of forehands, and overall won 63% of the ensuing points. However, he served poorly by his standards, at only 54% first serves and many of those at reduced pace. Murray’s fans, including those Brits not currently being detained for suspected Swiss sympathies, will surely regret that their man didn’t impose himself more forcefully on return. The opportunities were certainly there.

If the second set went by in a hurry it had nothing on the haste with which Murray departed the scene afterwards. I suppose he had no compelling reason to stick around, except to take down the details of those who’d failed the test of allegiance. But, interviewed later, he showed little inclination to be drawn on the crowd’s questionable loyalties, merely suggesting that Federer always enjoys considerable support wherever he plays, due to having won so much. He also declared uncontroversially that it had been the best year of his career ‘by a mile.’ Meanwhile Federer afterwards admitted that he’d felt like today was going to be his last match of 2012, since Murray was playing so well at the beginning. It wasn’t, but tomorrow’s final will be, win or lose.

 

Comprehensive highlights of the first semifinal can be found here. Highlights of the Federer – Murray semifinal can be found here.

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November 11, 2012

Ambling Home

World Tour Finals, Day Six

(6) del Potro d. (1) Federer, 7/6 4/6 6/3

(4) Ferrer d. (8) Tipsarevic, 4/6 6/3 6/1

The round robin phase of the 2012 World Tour Finals is now complete, with the upshots being that speculation on the final group standings can mercifully stop, and that any remaining ticket holders can rest assured they haven’t paid top dollar to attend a match they wouldn’t otherwise bother watching on television. In all, the round robin portion featured twelve matches, but there wasn’t anything like an upset until the eleventh of these, in which Juan Martin del Potro defeated Roger Federer. The twelfth match saw David Ferrer eventually beat Janko Tipsarevic in a dead rubber. It is hardly my intention to level any disrespect at either of those guys, who are after all elite exponents of my preferred sport. But it’s hard to avoid doing so when I say that for thousands of the fans in attendance it probably wasn’t quite how they’d hoped to spend their Saturday night. For what it’s worth, Sir Ian McKellan didn’t bother to stick around.  Luckily the match itself was sternly contested for a while, recalling the pair’s excellent US Open quarterfinal, until it wasn’t. In the end it seemed a fitting amble with which to conclude a round robin phase that never quite hit its stride.

Ferrer’s victory did have ramifications for the final standings in Group B, with the wash-up being that Juan Martin del Potro, who’d earlier threatened to secure top spot after defeating Roger Federer, must make do with second. I confess I did not at the time grasp the various permutations whereby this matter might be decided. My fogged confusion was expertly deepened by Sky Sports, who did their soporific best to divest me of my will to care. Surprisingly, it turned out Greg Rusedski had the best and lengthiest read on it, though when it comes to keeping an audience enthralled he is hardly Peter Ustinov. Speaking nothing but common sense, Rusedski is unquestionably spell-binding, though unfortunately it’s the same spell that knocked Sleeping Beauty out for a century. I confess I nodded off. It was all academic anyway, and now that Ferrer has beaten Tipsarevic it isn’t even that. It’s just what it is, and all the speculation on it was merely wasted breath. Del Potro will face Novak Djokovic in the first of the semifinals, an outcome that one assumes provides him with little solace.

It probably doesn’t leave Djokovic’s fans feeling terribly relaxed, either, for all that their man boasts a sterling record against the Argentinean. Like everyone else, Djokovic has been quite up and down this week, though the fact that he was mostly up against Tomas Berdych in his last match should instil a measure of comfort. But del Potro is certainly looking dangerous. Federer more or less ruined the early part of his season by providing an impenetrable roadblock to titles and later rounds from the Australian Open through to the French. Del Potro thus won’t have had the best laugh, but he’ll undoubtedly have the last one, securing a couple of vital wins late in the season, and ensuring that Federer’s usual practice of going unbeaten through the indoors won’t continue. As an interesting quirk, del Potro remains the only man to have defeated Federer in the round robin phase at the O2 Arena. Now he’s done it twice.

Federer, it must be said, has not quite looked himself since the early rounds of the US Open some months ago. Whatever issue hobbled him in Basel – he referred to ‘niggles’, from which his detractors reliably inferred poor sportsmanship  – has apparently not resolved itself in the weeks since. He can play well in patches, but too often the fine points are alloyed with sufficient rubbish that his opponent’s moments of inspiration prove to be crucial. In all Federer hit 46 unforced errors today. Generally this isn’t a stat that I find very useful, but many of these errors came in clumps at vital times, such as the first set tiebreaker. And too many came on shots that were never going to be winners, and could only generously be described as ‘forcing’.

For Federer, any realistic assessment of his chances against a player like del Potro (or, say, Berdych) will include the anticipation of any number of spectacular forehands ploughing a furrow through the baseline, or monstrous first serves rupturing the service line. It’s just going to happen, and it’s not worth pretending that he defends as well as Djokovic or Andy Murray that he can reliably stop it. He defends well, but his great strength is in attack. For Federer, the recent problem with del Potro’s game is neither its ferocity nor its regularity – which given the Argentinean’s abilities are a given – it is that the Swiss player too frequently places himself in a position in which his opponent’s great play becomes decisive.

The service game in which Federer was broken today, in the third set, provides a useful example. A 30/0 lead was carelessly yielded up, including an eminently makeable forehand of his own delivered forcefully into the net. It was at 30/30 that del Potro suddenly found his range, and then forced the break. But it was hard to shake the sense that Federer’s mistakes had provided the platform from which del Potro launched his sortie. As I say, you can assume a player as powerfully accomplished as del Potro, fairly bristling with ordnance, is going to unleash an uncounterable assault at some stage. This was the case in all of their matches this year, including the handful that Federer won.

But just as Federer hasn’t been at his best lately, due allowance should be made for the fact that del Potro often wasn’t at his best then, with the quarterfinals at Indian Wells and Roland Garros particularly standing out. And just as Federer earned plaudits for those victories, so too should del Potro for these. Beating Federer at the O2 is hardly less audacious than beating him at home in the St Jakobshalle, and in both cases del Potro was fierce and fearless when it mattered most. He’ll need to be both, and more, to beat Djokovic.

Nonetheless, due to his continued disinclination to lose to either Ferrer or Tipsarevic, Federer has topped the group. His reward, if one can call it that, is to face Andy Murray in the semifinals. As far as I can tell, this is the third time this year that Federer will face del Potro and Murray back to back. In Dubai he defeated the Argentinean and the Scot in the semifinal and the final respectively. At the Olympics, he very much didn’t. This will also be the third time Federer and Murray will face off in London this year, having already split the finals of Wimbledon and the Olympics. Even for those of us who chose to be born outside of Britain, this match cannot help but assume a special significance.

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November 9, 2012

All The Pretty Drunk Horses

World Tour Finals, Days Three and Four

The World Tour Finals, still the most unfortunately acronymed tennis competition since the Surrey Hills Invitational Tournament made such a splash, has yet to break out of a lurching trot. This is through no fault of the tournament itself. Even the comprehensively winless Janko Tipsarevic was happy to term it ‘probably the best [Barclays] event of the year’, although he may have been a trifle addled from absorbing one del Potro forehand too many. Sometimes it just happens.

Indeed, it is rare for the tour finals to reach a gallop before the semifinals. Even proverbial horses led to water don’t necessarily drink (though it turns out real ones are more biddable once I’d figured out they prefer whisky and lead them to the pub instead). Similarly, you can muster eight of the world’s best tennis players and confine them to the O2 Arena, but there’s no guarantee they’ll produce magic. Since my last post, in which I rather selfishly lamented the way predictable results are harder to write about, there have been four more singles matches played, and each of them was won by the higher ranked player. Back the underdog at your peril.

(2) Djokovic d. (3) Murray, 4/6 6/3 7/5

Of course, it would be a pretty rough task to convince most of the crowd in the O2, not to mention the gallant Sky Sports commentary team, that Andy Murray was an underdog against Novak Djokovic. Boris Becker briefly implied it, and thus risked public scourging. In a similar vein, it seems impossible to convey the idea that just because a tennis match was both long and close doesn’t necessarily mean it was great. I think we can take it as read from now on that Djokovic and Murray cannot beat each other in under three and a half weeks. They’ve been proving it all year, Miami aside. They did it again on Wednesday.

But not all epics are the Odyssey. Sometimes they’re merely Paradise Lost. Yesterday’s match was nowhere near as good as their terrific Shanghai final from last month. It also seems to be the case that Djokovic and Murray cancel out each other’s strengths so completely that headway is only made when one is playing well and the other isn’t. Even so, it is rare in their matches for the winner count to approach the error count, let alone surpass it. Murray was exceedingly sharp in the first set, but was inevitably blunted. In the end it largely came down to Djokovic’s superior initiative, and willingness to press forward on points that otherwise might conceivably never end.

(5) Berdych d. (7) Tsonga, 7/5 3/6 6/1

The third set between Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came down to a similar spirit of endeavour from the Czech player, dovetailing nicely with an apparently soul-deep ennui afflicting the Frenchman. Tsonga had briefly roused himself to win the second set, but then collapsed suddenly and fatally after he failed to capitalise on break points in the opening game of the third.

His new coach Roger Rasheed, interviewed mid-match by Sky, suggested that Tsonga’s minor revival came after he (Rasheed) shouted at him. I’m not sure how true that is, given that Tsonga’s first language isn’t English, which is in turn only tangentially related to Rasheed’s corporatised lingo. Perhaps in trying to puzzle it all out Tsonga was momentarily diverted from his existential malaise. Whatever the reason, for a time he successfully ‘brought his assets’, but then he exhausted them. He looked so sad. Berdych looked dangerous, and remains an outside chance to make the semifinals.

(6) del Potro d. (8) Tipsarevic, 6/0 6/4

My last post also included the bold prediction that Tipsarevic would assuredly bounce back from his abject loss to Roger Federer. Today he lost zero and four to Juan Martin del Potro, and afterwards expressed mordant pleasure that he’d stretched the match beyond an hour. Given he’d lost 6/3 6/1 to Federer, I’m not sure I can really sell this as ‘bouncing back’. As a candid insight into where my brain goes of its own accord, I did spend some time considering which configuration of four games was worse. (In my defence, equine-themed pub-crawls and live tennis being played on Greenwich Mean Time leaves little time for sleep and its attendant pleasures. This morning I called my son by my dog’s name. His loud indignation at this affront almost woke the horse, who is nursing a terrible hangover. I digress, though you might have to get used to that.) After only five minutes of furious internal debate I concluded that it didn’t really matter. It was rather like having two circling seagulls dump Surrey Hills Invitational Tournaments onto your jacket, and debating which was less savoury. Sometimes it’s best just to move on, and maybe change your jacket.

Tipsarevic afterward insisted that he’d felt physically fine, but that the ongoing duel with his own body had left him little time to practice. I’m not convinced it would have mattered much. Del Potro was in an imposing mood, especially in that first set when he made it clear to the Serb that missing a first serve was a certain prelude to a lost point. I can hardly recall Tipsarevic winning anything behind his second serve, although I do remember him running a lot. There was stiffer resistance in the second set, and he fought mightily to hold on for a few games, to the apparent ecstasy of the 17,000 fans who’d shelled out for the night session. But once the Argentine broke through in the fifth game it felt very much over. Tipsarevic now cannot qualify for the semifinals. Del Potro can, but will have to beat Federer.

(1) Federer d. (4) Ferrer, 6/4 7/6

Del Potro beating Federer is hardly beyond the realm of possibility, given that he did it the last time they played, and that Federer’s form is no less skittish now than it was then. It’s perhaps a backhanded judgement to deliver, given that the defending champion saw off David Ferrer in straight sets, thereby recording his fourteenth straight victory against him. But as straight sets go, they were pretty wonky, and it would be untrue to say either man was at his best. Federer afterwards raised eyebrows by declaring that he’d played a great match. (For some, this was merely further proof of Federer’s sly and underhanded lack of class. Simmering outrage at his alleged crapulence boiled over when he hoodwinked his peers into giving him the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award again, and fooled so many fans into thinking he was their favourite player. It was all too much.)

The match-up between Federer and Ferrer usually comes down to the Swiss manhandling the Spaniard from the court, and then closing down the forecourt. Ferrer can defend against a lot, but he has never proven quite up to the task of defending against that. But today it didn’t quite pan out that way. Federer’s play was pensive, and many of the rallies saw the ostensibly defensive Ferrer pushing his opponent around. Of course, Ferrer’s capacity to step in and play effective indoor hardcourt tennis should by now be beyond question. For much of the match he was the one dictating. Federer’s effective recourse to the backhand error also played its part, as did some indifferent serving and Ferrer’s ability to transition to offence via stinging crosscourt forehands.

Overall, it came out about even. Federer broke early, but was facing breakpoints in all his own service games, and he couldn’t quite save them all. The difference came at the death of each set, when Ferrer was the one to crack, as is all too often the case when he faces a player ranked above him, especially Federer. Federer is through to the semifinals. Ferrer must beat Tipsarevic to book his own spot.

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November 7, 2012

No Surprises

World Tour Finals, Days One and Two

There is a certain satisfaction to be had when when things more or less turn out the way we said they would, and reality graciously yields to our preferred take on it. This is especially the case for those who essay predictions on professional sports. For the gambler this satisfaction translates into cash rewards. For the fan whose favourite has won this satisfaction can endure for some time, especially if the prediction was bold and the occasion significant, in some cases producing enough goodwill to drown a guinea pig. But for anyone purporting to write about sports, the satisfaction is more ephemeral, and rapidly subsumed by the realisation that your task has only grown harder. Put candidly, it’s always simpler to be amusing about upsets and disasters, and the more extravagant they are, the easier it becomes. In all fields, cock-ups make for great copy.

All of which fails to bring me to the World Tour [Barclays] Finals, currently playing at London’s O2 Arena. So far there have been four matches completed, and not one of them was an upset. Even the two that were close had been anticipated as such. In most pundit’s minds today’s second match between David Ferrer and Juan Martin del Potro had probably seemed the least certain. I’ll therefore start with that one, for no better reason than this being the point at which this paragraph has arrived, and I have to start somewhere. You’d probably be surprised how often that is the case. I’ll try to invent a better justification for this later.

(4) Ferrer d. (6) del Potro, 6/3 3/6 6/4

Notwithstanding del Potro’s pronounced advantages as a tennis player – or in brain-melting Roger Rasheed parlance, his ‘upsides’ – in hindsight it’s tricky to justify why his first match with Ferrer was considered so dicey. (I’m not excusing myself from this.) The Spaniard is ranked higher, has won considerably more matches and tournaments each year, and was riding a winning-streak of ten matches, having secured his first Masters title in Paris just two days ago, and Valencia the week before that. He has also defeated the Argentinean three times in a row, across clay, grass and hard courts. On the other hand, he just secured his first Masters title in Paris just two days ago, and Valencia the week before that. Surely even his mighty legs must liquefy at some point.

But that in itself seems an ironic presumption, since Ferrer’s transcendent fitness and determination are the only qualities he earns universal respect for (as well as his hair). His supreme conditioning is a given. I suspect, beyond the nebulous belief that he must be weary lurks the tacit assumption that del Potro is a fundamentally superior tennis player, and that he should be beating Ferrer. It’s an assumption buttressed by a Major title, and an earth-rending forehand, and a recent victory over Roger Federer. But it is not an assumption necessarily grounded in the reality of the match-up, and it’s certainly not an assumption that either player shares.

Nevertheless, it was a fine match, their finest since last year’s Davis Cup final. When del Potro held serve under considerable pressure at the start of the second set, and then broke, momentum had definitively shifted. Where before he’d maintained a self-defeating restraint he now began to dictate more rallies, which in turn enabled that lovely drop shot winner on set point. The Spaniard’s legs had formed a brown blur as he was sent scurrying, and the chatter in commentary turned once more to the leagues those legs had covered. The third set was excellent, with both men approaching their best, though this never quite occurred simultaneously. Ferrer broke early and well, then del Potro returned the favour with some force. Then, serving at 4/5, del Potro bestowed another favour, broke himself and lost the match.

Ferrer, who is at considerable risk of becoming an indoors specialist, was afterward ecstatic, and immensely charming when interviewed on court. He was reminded that is next opponent was Federer, and that his record against the Swiss in 0-13. Smiling, he replied, ‘that is not good news. That is very bad news. How would you beat him?’ No helpful answer was forthcoming, but the really good news is that by winning today, he might not have to beat Federer at all. Del Potro, on the other hand, probably will have to.

(1) Federer d. (8) Tipsarevic, 6/3 6/1

They’ll have their work cut out. The day’s earlier match had played out pretty much as expected. Conditions in the O2 suit Federer perfectly, and Tipsarevic was in poor form even before he retired fatigued in Paris last week. There was talk that he still hasn’t recovered, although it was hard to tell. He actually saw out the match, so he must be feeling at least a little better. The defending champion broke the Serb in his opening service game, and probably could have broken him even more than he ended up doing, which was a lot. It was enough.

Tipsarevic, maintaining a healthy line in wry understatement and gentle self-pity, afterwards remarked that it hadn’t been a great day, and thanked the few fans he had remaining to him. I actually have a feeling he’ll be dangerous in his next match, which will be against del Potro on Thursday.

(2) Djokovic d. (7) Tsonga, 7/6 6/3

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had been without a coach for a long time, and there was broad consensus that it had been too long, despite the fact that he has sustained a solid top ten ranking for well over a year. But his record against his peers is deplorable, and his form, to be exceedingly generous, has been patchy. He really needed an elite coach to help him rediscover the verve and panache that makes him dangerous to anyone, tempered by a greater appreciation of the game’s subtleties. Or so we’d all believed. Apparently what Tsonga himself felt he was missing was an ardent self-promoter with a penchant for semi-literate cliché. Luckily Roger Rasheed was available. One fervently hopes that, say, Darren Cahill wasn’t, since he would have been an excellent fit. It’s a baffling appointment.

All the same, it is far too early to blame Rasheed for Tsonga’s enervated and muddled performance against Novak Djokovic on the first day. That was all Tsonga. He had many chances in the opening set, when Djokovic emerged nervous and flat, in that way he sometimes can for reasons that aren’t entirely obvious. But the Frenchman failed to capitalise on any of them, and in the second set lapsed into despondency. ‘He’s just feeding balls to Djokovic,’ remarked Petchey in commentary, evocatively. Upsides, sadly, were few.

(3) Murray d. (5) Berdych, 3/6 6/3 6/4

Local hearts fluttered as Andy Murray stepped onto a British court for the first time since he claimed the gold medal for Scotland and its affiliates back in August. Flutter gave way to lurching palpitation when he dropped the first set to Tomas Berdych, although it settled back into mild arrhythmia once he took the second and moved ahead in the third. It must be said, for those of us not deranged by patriotism or troubled by cardiac issues, that it wasn’t a great match, and Berdych was rightfully irritated to have lost it. Sky Sports, characteristically circumspect, ranked it slightly below the signing of the Magna Carta, the publication of Principia Mathematica, and the 2012 US Open final on the scale of inspiring world-historical events.

Sky is running a viewer poll asking which player will win this year’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals (they never, ever omit the sponsor’s name). It turns out fifty per cent of their viewers have faith that Murray will win, while only eight per cent tip Djokovic . Federer, from memory, was somewhere in between. The other five players were collectively termed ‘Other’, whereupon they were placed in a sack and dumped into the Thames. Given that the vast majority of people watching Sky are British, and that among those of us who aren’t very few are permitted to participate in this poll, the most astounding part of the whole exercise was that Marcus Buckland managed to look surprised at the result.

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November 5, 2012

Trees and Planets

Paris Masters, Final

(4) Ferrer d. (Q) Janowicz, 6/4 6/3

David Ferrer has won his first Masters title, in, of all places, Paris. He is a small man, and grew smaller still as he collapsed onto his beaming face after winning today’s final, but his sudden exultation was immense and irresistible. A Barcelona title might well mean the world, but winning Bercy was extraplanetary, which the Palais Omnisports helpfully illustrated by immediately transforming itself into a planetarium. They just can’t leave those lights alone. This part of the planet being France, the crowd’s reaction had been mixed during play, but was mostly rapturous now that it had concluded. The Parisians had really taken to Jerzy Janowicz as the week wore on, and the camera, during those brief moments when the lighting permitted it, had no trouble picking out great red swatches of Polish support.

Those fans who’d feared, with some reason, that Ferrer might end his career without a Masters can finally know peace, or could if peace was a state that any sports fan can truly know for long. Meanwhile those who’d gleefully written Ferrer off as a jumped up journeyman are faced with the choice of whether to revise their low opinion upwards, or instead to denigrate his achievement. Predictably, this being the internet, the latter option has proven more attractive.

It doesn’t help that the Paris Indoors boasts the most diverse winners list of all the Masters events. Firstly there is the minor quirk whereby no man has won it twice in a row since 1971, when Arthur Ashe successfully defended a strikingly different event held in a completely different location. This is somewhat surprising, since Bercy has for several decades represented the jewel in the weathered and unblushingly modernist crown of the European Indoors, and has boasted no shortage of multiple champions among the elite. Boris Becker won it three times, as did Marat Safin. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi won a couple each. Roger Federer finally won it last year. Novak Djokovic claimed it in 2009. All of these men have been ranked No.1.

But, in the last fifteen years, Bercy has worked hard to cement its status as the Masters event of choice for those players who’ve never won one before, and may never win one again. Since 1997, it has provided the only Masters triumph for Greg Rusedski, Sebastien Grosjean, Tim Henman, Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robin Soderling, and now Ferrer. (David Nalbandian’s 2007 twin-Masters title run also falls vaguely into this category.) What is mainly striking about this list is the high quality of the players on it. These are men who at their best were (and still are) filling out the pointier end of Slam draws, and all of them qualified for the season-ending tour finals at least once. By those lights, it should have been obvious that the answer to the searing question of where Ferrer would win his first Masters title was Paris. It should have been, but it wasn’t.

My money was on Shanghai, notwithstanding that clay is Ferrer’s best surface. But implicit in any such selection was the realistic assessment that victory on any surface would require eluding the top four, unless he somehow managed to meet Andy Murray in a Rome or Monte Carlo final, which wasn’t likely. In other words, if he was to win a Masters, he probably wouldn’t do it by causing an upset. He was thus arguably lucky that Sam Querrey took out Djokovic, although there’s no sound reason to believe the Serbian would have stuck around until the semifinals. As he always does, Ferrer kept his head down and dealt with those opponents he was supposed to beat. If he doesn’t cause many upsets, nor does he suffer them very often, even faced with a recklessly inspired Michael Llodra. All the while he no doubt maintained an interested eye on the other half of the draw, through which Janowicz was progressing with the delicate grace of a M1 Abrams tank through an aged care facility.

It was the first time Ferrer had contested a Masters final as the favourite, and I was curious to see whether this new dynamic might rupture his equilibrium. He was supposed to beat Janowicz, but then so had all of the Pole’s opponents this week. It was a difficult position, but one Ferrer managed well. He kept on doing what he always does, remaining largely unflappable even with the tension dialled all the way up. Perhaps he committed more errors than usual, but he made far fewer than his opponent. If he found the endless David and Goliath reference as deflating as I did, he didn’t show it.

It’s hard to say if the occasion got to Janowicz, since he’s never found himself in that situation. (No Pole ever has.) It’s hard to believe that playing so many fraught matches day after day hadn’t taken its toll. He has redoubled his focus on fitness, but he’s played a lot of tennis, and he was faced with a veteran world No.5 whose ranking is partly a testament to his capacity to run down very fits guys in fifth sets. More serves were coming back, and those audacious drop shots – one of the week’s special treats – earned fewer cheap points. Still, Janowicz forged chances in both sets – a break point at 4/4 in the first, and a break near the start of the second. But the sense was unavoidable that once Ferrer had dealt with these situations, by holding and breaking respectively, he would push on with it. And so it proved.

Given the thunderous emergence of Janowicz this week it is debatable whether Ferrer’s maiden Masters title really qualifies as the premiere story of the week. I suppose it’s lucky we’re under no obligation to rank the achievements, notwithstanding that ranking things is intrinsic to the enterprise of sports, not to say culture. In any case, it is too early to tell. We’ll have to wait and see precisely what this heralds for Janowicz, although one can confidently assert that you don’t fluke five consecutive wins over top twenty opponents, not all of whom heard London calling (Janko Tipsarevic apparently found its allure irresistible). Indeed, by reaching the Bercy final Janowicz has himself almost risen to the top twenty. He gained 43 places this week, and landed on No.26. He’ll be seeded at the Australian Open. Then we’ll find out what he’s made of.

Ferrer, on the other hand, has all of a day to savour his triumph, and play with his tree. He faces Juan Martin del Potro at the O2 Arena on Tuesday. As the only top man to have lingered in Paris, it will be fascinating to see just how weary even the putatively indestructible Ferrer will be. Certainly he’ll be exhausted from the trophy presentation, the length of which was sufficiently heroic to give any watching CBS executives a stroke. Soon after the [Barclay’s] ATP World Tour Finals he’ll spearhead Spain’s team in the Davis Cup final. With all this ahead of him, some prudent types have suggested he too should have fled Bercy early. But they’re wrong. He has won his first Masters title, and I doubt he’d trade it for the world.

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November 4, 2012

Luck of the Draw: World Tour Finals 2012

Having exhausted their supply of bombastic hullaballo the night before at the ominously-lit player’s party, today’s draw ceremony for the 2012 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals turned out to be a fairly muted affair. Juan Martin del Potro was on hand to ensure it was all above board. Once it was released, the ramifications of the draw took all of three seconds to sink in. They were six-fold.

Firstly, it became immediately apparent that it is possible to divide up the world’s top eight eligible players into two groups that are strikingly uneven. Secondly, Rafael Nadal’s absence has a strong bearing on this. Thirdly, in downplaying this imbalance some commentators were obliged to take dramatic understatement to a truly transcendent level. Fourthly, del Potro has no patience for journalists who cannot remember his name. Fifthly, anyone who mentions the tour finals but forgets to include the title sponsor will have that sponsor’s name inserted awkwardly into any quotable material. Sixthly, the special round robin format of the [Barclays] World Tour Finals requires a new appendix to Bracketology, the Reading of Draws, and Why Men Have to Sleep Around. The tour finals pose something of a problem for the professional Bracketologist, quite aside from the perennial concern of finding time for work amidst all the scientifically-mandated infidelity. A few of these six points will be addressed in due course, but certainly not in that order.

If the tour finals were to be staged elsewhere, the two groups of players would hopefully be given more evocative names, like Lotus and Moon or Lust and Envy, and the lads would be kitted out in some representative local duds. London really missed an opportunity to garb them all as chavs, instead opting for austere pinstriped suits. They looked uncannily like stockbrokers, especially Novak Djokovic in his spectacles. The groups were called Group A and Group B. They could more usefully have been called Bloodbath and Pillow Fight, respectively. Here is why:

Group A (Bloodbath)

1. Novak Djokovic

2. Andy Murray

3. Tomas Berdych

4. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Group B (Pillow Fight)

1. Roger Federer

2. David Ferrer

3. Juan Martin del Potro

4. Janko Tipsarevic

Federer is the two-time defending champion at the tour [Barclays] finals, and has won it a total of six times in the past decade. In this year’s edition, he’ll commence with a combined 30-3 against his group-mates, with all three of those losses coming to del Potro, but only one of those occurring in the last three years. Admittedly that loss came just two weeks ago in Basel, but Federer surely intends on playing better than that. I should mention that aside from Nikolay Davydenko, del Potro remains the only person to defeat Federer at this venue. But that was a long time ago, and this del Potro is surely fatigued, has just lost to Michael Llodra in Paris, and must face Ferrer first, a match-up that favours the Spaniard. Then again, Ferrer still has a final to play in Paris. Federer meanwhile opens against Tipsarevic, who has been in quite terrible form of late, and who in any case hasn’t looked much like beating the Swiss since January 2008. For Tipsarevic neither group was going to be easy. Federer will assuredly make the semifinals, but whether he is joined by Ferrer or del Potro will depend quite heavily on how that pair fare against each other.

Meanwhile over in the Meatgrinder section, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga must be wondering what he did to piss off that old gypsy woman. Like Tipsarevic, the Frenchman hasn’t been at his best in recent months, and I sadly cannot imagine he’ll repeat last year’s run to the final. Admittedly given the season he’s had, any configuration of available players would have been problematic. His record against the rest of the top ten is 1-11 in 2012, and he has fallen twice to Berdych in the last month. Berdych’s recent record against Djokovic and Murray hasn’t been especially good, and readers may recall how utterly blunted he was by Djokovic in Shanghai last month. Uncontroversially, I expect Murray and Djokovic to make it through the round robin, but I also think they’ll be considerably more dinged up than Federer, and it’ll be a nice question which of them gets to face him first. Those among their fans who’d so gleefully celebrated their favourite tanking in Paris might learn to be careful what they wish for.

The phrase ‘a little bit’ sees much use in sports commentary, which seems ironic given most commentator’s tendency to soar into unfettered hyperbole given the merest opportunity. Cricket fans are perhaps familiar with Tony Greig’s indefatigable recourse to the phrase. ‘The pitch is opening up a little bit at the Paddington End’ might be used to describe a crevasse into which the bowler has just lost his shoe. ‘There’s a little bit of swing out there’ might fail to evoke a Waqar Younis yorker that was initially aimed at second slip. Shane Warne’s famous deliveries to Andrew Strauss or Mike Gatting, by this definition, spun ‘a little bit.’ So when Peter Fleming remarked that the groups for the [Barclays] ATP World Tour Finals were ‘a little bit’ unbalanced, I assumed it was merely more of the same. He then went on to qualify this, however, by matching up each of the players, and concluded that Group A was ‘marginally tougher’ than Group B. I suppose it is, in the sense that patting a lone purring tabby is a marginally more agreeable feline experience than being set upon by a horde of them. With their tiny claws, and those cruel, cruel eyes . . .

It’s a worthwhile thought experiment to see how this draw would have shaken out had Nadal turned up, and assuming he was in something approaching fighting trim. He would have been drawn in Federer’s group, although it must be said that the O2 Arena is the court upon which Nadal troubles the Swiss the least. Rounding out Group B would have been Berdych and Tsonga, while Ferrer and del Potro would have moved over to Group A. Tipsarevic would have been the alternate. That’s quite a different configuration, and, I would argue, a more balanced one. If nothing else, it suggests that the top four and the group of four players ranked below them complement each other quite well, and that draws can be thrown into minor disarray, even round robin draws.

Anyway, it is what it is, and each man can only make the best of the hand that was shakily thrust his way. I can’t think of a much fairer way to conduct things, aside from having all eight players dropped into a narrow alleyway in Pamplona, and having Jerzy Janowicz released amongst them. Incidentally, the newly added appendix to Bracketology includes full colour illustrations of how this might look. Unfortunately, the graphic nature of these images has seen the book referred to the classification board.

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November 2, 2012

Variations On Lethal Power

Paris Masters, Days Three and Four

Querrey d. (2) Djokovic, 0/6 7/6 6/4

(Q) Janowicz d. (3) Murray, 5/7 7/6 6/2

For the first time in precisely two years, a Masters 1000 event will be won by a player outside of the top four. If it was going to happen anywhere, it was probably in Paris, and if it was going to happen any time, the chances are that it would happen this week. Two of the top four never showed up, and the other two have already left. If London wasn’t on their mind already, it certainly is now.

Novak Djokovic was yesterday upset by Sam Querrey from a set and a break up, while today Andy Murray suffered a similar fate at the hands of Jerzy Janowicz, with the added twist that the Scot served for the match and even held a match point. In both cases the belief has rapidly disseminated that the higher ranked player would have taken a straight sets win, and did his utmost to achieve that. But when his hitherto over-matched opponent showed steely resolve to level the match, the choice became whether to fight out a tough three set win or to lose convincingly. The season has only a week and a half to go, and everyone’s energy reserves have never felt more finite. In other words, the idea is that once they dropped the second set, Djokovic and Murray tanked. I will, for the moment, leave to one side the question of whether this is true or not.

There was a time when so serious an accusation would only have been levelled by a given player’s detractors. After all, the accusation is one of bad sportsmanship, and the ATP has a rule imposing penalties for lack-of-best-effort, although in order to actually be charged a player must more or less recreate The Baumer’s meltdown from The Royal Tenenbaums. However, what is most troubling is that we have reached a point at which it is the player’s most ardent fanatics who are the first to cry ‘tank’, and invariably the loudest. They actually seem proud of it. In essence, they’re implying that poor sportsmanship is preferable to the idea that your favourite lost to a ‘lesser’ player, and that they subsequently compounded this by casually lying to the media about it. I’ve never heard a player come out and immediately declare that they’d tanked.

Indeed, the sport’s most famous such admission was Andre Agassi’s in Open, which he made some 13 years after the event. Unfortunately, in confessing that he’d thrown the 1996 Australian Open semifinal to Michael Chang, Agassi has opened a floodgate. Sadly, it’s a floodgate that sluices directly into a septic tank. When you’re willing to make such assertions in defence of a player, be in no doubt that your regard for the player has exceeded your respect for tennis. Winning and ranking have come to mean more that the means by which those things are achieved, to the detriment of the sport’s integrity. Of course tanking happens, but it is never the right thing to do. It is hardly defensible, let alone a worthwhile defence for losing.

Whether Murray or Djokovic tanked or not is, for me, a less interesting issue. I don’t think they fought as hard as they might have in their respective third sets, but they’d looked pretty committed before that, and to make too much of such points to unfairly belittle the outstanding efforts of their opponents. Janowicz in particular grew into an almost unplayable colossus in the final set, and the comparisons to Lukaz Rosol at Wimbledon are as apt as they are obvious. A few years ago, I recall lamenting the way big men would once upon a time go ungovernably feral for a week or two, and tear draws to pieces, but that this no longer happened, since the top echelon was now so solid and all the big men were head cases. (It was in the course of an initially inspired Robin Haase being ground painfully down by Andy Roddick.) Suddenly, the big men are back, and doing what they’re supposed to do, especially indoors. They’re playing first-strike tennis, and making their opponent’s life miserable.

Murray has fallen to such a player twice in his last three tournaments, although I don’t recall the roof being closed when he fell to Milos Raonic in Tokyo. It’s also worth mentioning that his last three losses have come after he held a match points (in addition to Paris and Tokyo, there was the heartbreaking loss to Djokovic in the Shanghai final). I don’t think this constitutes a meaningful pattern. Of slightly more concern to his fans, and not merely those commentating for Sky Sports, is that his US Open victory has proved less transfigurative than many had hoped it might be. Murray looks about the same as he did before. What this should tell us is that he was good enough to win a major before, but people will doubtless persist in the belief that becoming a Slam champion instils some ill-defined ‘champion’s mentality’. It also means that Murray will end his best season without a single Masters title, the first time he has failed to win one since 2007.

I first heard of Janowicz that year, when he finished runner-up in the Juniors at the US Open to Ricardas Berankis, an incipient David and Goliath tale that has failed to sustain itself on the professional tour, although there’s still a chance if the Lithuanian can get his body in order. The next time I saw him was during a flailing five set loss to Amir Weintraub in Davis Cup (from memory this was the Israeli’s first match for his nation). Unsurprisingly, my only real thoughts were that he was a big lad with a big serve. Like everyone else I saw no need to include him in the group of talented youngsters who for the sake of convenience and laziness are endlessly grouped together: Tomic, Harrison, Dimitrov etc. Even at this year’s Wimbledon, when he reached the third round and fell to Florian Mayer in five sets, he didn’t rise perceptibly in pundit’s estimation. His defeat of Ernests Gulbis, accomplished though it was, was still held to be Gulbis’ fault, as so much else is.

But beating Murray in Paris has been the result Janowicz needed. The bandwagon is now rolling. He is being compared to Raonic, who lost today. He’s still a big lad with a big serve, but he moves particularly well for his size – he has said that fitness is now a major focus – and has decent touch around the court. Murray isn’t the easiest player to out-fox, but time and again he was stranded on his heels while a Janowicz drop-shot perished beyond reach. That the world No.3 was already rocking backwards was a testament to the rest of the Pole’s game, which is mostly a series of variations on lethal power, which is fearless even when erratic. After winning Janowicz fell heavily to the court, and his smile was boundless. It was, by his own account, the ‘most unbelievable day’ of his life.

In other news from Bercy, both Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Janko Tipsarevic have successfully qualified for next week’s World Tour Finals by reaching the quarterfinals, defeating Nicolas Almagro and Juan Monaco respectively. I could say that no one had been in any real doubt that this would transpire, but that would be to insult those who spent considerable time thrashing out the mathematical scenarios whereby Gasquet, Isner or others might squeeze through. Juan Martin del Potro also lost, which is either a good or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. Good because he might be better prepared for London next week. Bad because this could have been a real chance for him to pick up his first Masters title. There’s always next year.

For the record, of all the players remaining in the draw only Tsonga and Tomas Berdych, who earlier in the day survived a rampant big man in Kevin Anderson, have won a Masters event in their careers. Both men have one, and in both cases it came here at the Paris Indoors.

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October 31, 2012

Six and Two

Paris Masters, Days One and Two

Persistent readers of The Next Point may well have noted my enduring fondness for the European indoor season, although the I’d assert that any perversity in my regard owes not to the tournaments themselves, which are worthy even when dull, but because of the lights, which are sallow and flat even when they aren’t flashing or strobing. With the exception of Valencia, which owing to latitude and superior architecture can only simulate winter, these events feel soulful and gloomy. I love it. It’s a question of contrast.

As I write it is late morning in Melbourne, and the mercury has already bubbled up past 30C, which according to the unfailingly helpful lady trapped inside my iPhone equates to 86 degrees in the archaic and confusing scale that still sees use in Belize, the Cayman Islands and the United States of America. Spring has uncoiled, and it has leapt for the throat. Word is we’ll hit 35C before the change arrives. A pair of English tourists have just combusted outside. That’s Halloween in Australia. Meanwhile in Paris it isn’t Halloween yet, and Tomas Berdych has just wrenched a patchy first set tiebreaker from Andreas Seppi. As they sit down the stadium lights go dark and each man is luridly spot-lit, so that we can better watch him fiddle with his equipment and stare straight ahead. There is no question that this is all occurring on the far side of the world.

The frigid gloom of the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy can seem almost noirish in its allure. It always looks like the chill would find its way into your bones. It won’t be finding its way into Roger Federer’s bones, who of course pulled out following his loss to Juan Martin del Potro in the Basel final. He would undoubtedly have done the same had he won, given the relatively heroic length of the match, and the way the next few weeks are configured. It was surely the right decision, but it’s still a shame, since he was the defending champion in Paris. Hopefully even his detractors agree that no tournament is richer for having him miss it. Rafael Nadal has of course withdrawn from 2012 entirely, and you can bet that wherever he is, he’s sensibly avoiding real winter. There was talk, as there is most years, that Novak Djokovic would also miss the event. As recently as yesterday he was attending to matters in Belgrade, but’s he’s since ventured to France.

I suspect I’m not alone in disapproving of the removal of the gap week between the Paris Indoors and the World Tour Finals, even as I concede that the reason for the decision was understandable. The idea was to grant the top players an additional week off at the end of the year. But I can’t help but think there must have been a better way. Paris will inevitably suffer for it, and it suffers enough even in the best of years. It isn’t merely that Federer and Nadal aren’t there –Nadal would have been absent regardless – but also that other top players that have turned up will begin to weigh up the cost of participation as the week goes on.

To those who’ve already qualified, the truth is that London matters more than Paris. For Berdych and David Ferrer, who titled last week in Valencia, there is also a Davis Cup final looming after that. Meanwhile del Potro has just won back-to-back titles in Vienna and Basel, including the enervating final last Sunday. It’s hard to image he’ll push himself too sternly at Bercy, especially as he’s in Djokovic’s quarter and is already hauling around his share of late-season niggles. Andy Murray will be keen to perform well at the O2, especially given his mighty English summer campaign, and in light of last year, when he wore himself out in Asia and Paris and was compelled to leave the event early.

Meanwhile Djokovic has already secured the year end No.1 ranking, and to even reach the later rounds in Paris he’ll potentially have to survive Sam Querrey, Milos Raonic and John Isner, and then face Jo Wilfried Tsonga. He’ll be bruised and flak-happy come London.  Of all the top players, only Tsonga has a compelling reason to fight his heart out. He has won this event before, and is defending runner-up points from last year. He also hasn’t technically qualified for the tour finals, but that really should be a mere technicality, assuming he doesn’t lose in an early round, which he almost did. Removing the week’s break between Bercy and London only muddied a complicated situation. I’ll throw my negligible weight behind Guy Forget’s proposal to move the Paris Indoors to a reconfigured February, assuming that its Masters status is maintained.

The corollary to flagging interest among the elite is that lower-ranked players might finally have a legitimate chance at winning a Masters event, which hasn’t happened in a long time. The last player outside the top four to win a Masters was Robin Soderling here in Paris exactly two years ago. The last time both Federer and Nadal skipped Bercy was the year Nikolay Davydenko won it, in 2006. Berdych won it in 2005. Tim Henman won in 2003, David Nalbandian in 2007. It feels like we’re due for a ‘new’ champion, and Paris is traditionally the place for it to happen. My outside picks, as ever, were Philipp Kohlschreiber or Mikhail Youzhny, both of whom managed to lose in the first round, to Jerzy Janowicz and Marcel Granollers respectively. I didn’t see Youzhny’s loss, and therefore cannot say or even possibly imagine how it happened, although this won’t dissuade me from blaming his shamefully beardless face. He won Zagreb looking like a lumberjack. There’s a lesson there. The lesson is that he shouldn’t be losing to Granollers on an indoor hardcourt at all. Had Youzhny won, it would have been his 400th career victory. I don’t know if the ATP had a commemorative car prepared. If they did they’ll need to ship it out to Australia for January. As ever, my dark horse pick for the title was Florian Mayer. He has lost, too.

Grigor Dimitrov hasn’t lost yet, although in some ways he’s lucky to be there at all, since by reaching the quarterfinals in Basel last week he almost missed his chance to qualify this week. But qualify he did, and then managed soundly to beat Jurgen Melzer in the first round. Notwithstanding some trouble serving out the first set, and a developing obsession with tiebreaks, he is, to be honest, looking quite superb. Barry Cowan on Sky Sports warned us all not to get ahead of ourselves, and then proceeded to out-pace everyone in heaping praise on the young Bulgarian. Dimitrov won 7/6 6/2. Indeed, it feels like just about everyone who won today has done so by that score line. Janowicz managed it against Marin Cilic. Kei Nishikori did the same against Benoit Paire.

As I write Berdych has just finished off Seppi. After that dicey first set tiebreaker, he galloped away in the second, predictably allowing the Italian just two games. This was the cue for the lights to go haywire, since it is the belief of indoor tennis events that this makes everything more exciting. It’s part of the twee charm of these events, and I wouldn’t be without it. Meanwhile from outside my window comes the steady crackling of mad dogs and Englishmen bursting into flame under the noonday sun.

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October 29, 2012

Those Masters Of Bright Shadow

Basel, Final

(2) del Potro d. (1) Federer, 6/4 6/7 7/6

Despite some less than divine form, Roger Federer had reached a seventh consecutive final at the Swiss Indoors in Basel. There he was fated to face Juan Martin del Potro for the seventh time this year, having already won the other six meetings. If he’d won today’s final he would have tied John McEnroe on 77 career titles. For fans of Federer – and the nine thousand souls thronging the St Jakobshalle were assuredly that – the number seven must have assumed an almost biblical significance. Not that the locals require much prompting to think about Federer in those terms. In the end, as he was defeated by the eminently deserving del Potro, there was a kind of uneasy silence. Was this the end of days? Probably not, but if it wasn’t revelatory, it was perhaps revealing. These two are the reigning masters of the great indoors, and Federer had finally tasted defeat in the seat of his power.

The way Federer’s presence permeates Basel echoes the way Mozart’s saturates Salzburg, with the difference being that Federer is still alive (so, for that matter, is Basel) and therefore gets to enjoy it, assuming that is possible. (There is also the small difference that Mozart never produced much of note in Salzburg, at least by his own heavenly standards. Idyllic as it is, he couldn’t wait to get away, and he never returned. Naturally the locals didn’t realise what they’d lost until well after he’d departed and, indeed, perished. That was the way of things back then, with the internet still in its infancy. A man became worm-food well before he was canonised, and women were obliged to wait longer even than that. Of course, Salzburg, now the world’s prettiest and kitschiest museum, is determined to make up for lost time. Early neglect probably explains why their regard for Mozart now borders on the fanatical. That famously homely profile stares down blankly from every available vantage. An entire industry exists around the practice of moulding chocolate into his putative likeness: with the Mozartkugeln being merely the most notorious. Lindt is destined to work similar magic on Federer. Sometimes adulation reaches a sufficient ecstasy that only confectionery can express it.)

In the end, or at the beginning, Mozart left for Vienna, for him the centre of a world to which all roads necessarily tended. Two centuries later and the world has no centre. Federer conquered all of it. The fact that he keeps returning to Basel and then doing some of his best work while there probably explains part of the adulation. He is adored everywhere tennis is played, and famous even where it isn’t, but he never forgets where he’s from. Basel repays him with unstinting regard and an ironclad guarantee that no one will ever want for apparel emblazoned with his logo. One got the sense this last week that he found it all rather exhausting, and his performances on court gave a very strong impression that had it been any other 500 level event he would have given it a miss. It’s an impression that was only reinforced by his announcement that he won’t defend his title at the Paris Indoors next week, thus conceding the year end No.1 ranking to Novak Djokovic.

Del Potro, on the other hand, is raring to go. Indeed, he’s been raring to go for quite some time now. He won Vienna last week, and was mostly untroubled on his way to the final this week. The ATP said he’d ‘eased his way’ to it, which is hard to argue with, since the term can mean anything. (I’m easing my way to the end of this post, with ‘easing’ here being synonymous with ‘meandering drunkenly’.) Anyway, having attained the final, del Potro had every reason to stop raring quite so lustily. He was facing the world No.1 on his home court, whom he hadn’t beaten in three years. But it was the raring Argentine who started stronger, while Federer was flat and pensive, recalling his loss to Murray in Shanghai, and sternly contradicting the Sky Sports commentators who’d been breezily convinced he would get up for the final, as though this is an intrinsic characteristic of all champions all the time. Despite, or perhaps because of the locals, who never gave off cheering his every won point, Federer looked like he’d prefer to be lounging somewhere warm and coastal. It was del Potro who seemed happiest to be there.

The first set ended 6/4, and to be fair the defending champion only struggled in the service game in which he was broken, although the term struggle belies the ease with which he was broken. But del Potro served magnificently, and was never in trouble at all. Even second serves, never his sturdiest stroke, were finding the lines. Meanwhile the forehand, which is his sturdiest stroke, was justifying every comparison to artillery, no matter how trite. He even avoided his usual trick of being endlessly flummoxed by sliding serves to the deuce court. It was an almost perfect set from del Potro, proving that sometimes even Mozartean grace is powerless before sufficiently Beethovenian power.

The second set was tighter, mainly because del Potro began to lose rhythm on his first serve. The sforzandos started falling late. Federer earned an actual break point. He’d clearly forgotten how valuable these are indoors, despite the earnest advice of his 9,000 closest friends, and quickly discarded it. Mark Petchey made the convoluted but correct point that Federer was putting himself under too much pressure now that he had an actual look at more returns, with the net result being that he wasn’t making many more of them than before. Leif Shiras concurred. Some 15,000 miles in the future, my clock now read 1.30am, and outside my front window the world’s tardiest roadwork crew was getting in some quality practice with a jackhammer. I was thus in no state to argue. Nevertheless, both players held fairly comfortably until just before the tiebreak, when Federer held fairly gingerly, which the Sky commentators never stopped believing had been his opponent’s best chance. But hold Federer did, and the tiebreak ensued.

This, it should be said, was not del Potro’s finest tiebreak. In fact, even Federer said that afterwards. Naturally given the protagonists, there were some decent shots, and two of these saved set points for del Potro. Federer won a long rally on the third set point, gave a shout and marched to his chair. The crowd gave over to delirium, and we were into the deciding set. Barry Cowan chimed in with the reminder that Federer had won more matches from a set down than anyone else this year, with the number being twelve. Del Potro fans spontaneously united in wishing he’d shut his mouth. When Cowan then brought up the Roland Garros quarterfinal, they were doubtless willing to shut it for him. They were justified in feeling that their man had been the better player all day, but that Federer had escaped.

Nonetheless, Cowan’s words came to feel prophetic when Federer continued to hold easily but fashion some inroads in the Argentine’s service games. There were more break points. The first time this happened del Potro silenced the crowd by holding with three exceptionally mighty forehands, each more like a howitzer mounted on a bazooka-firing cannon – a heavily classified super-weapon called a howzooka, probably – than the last. His next game featured three more break points. Sadly, the world No.1’s renowned capacity to insulate his mind from its surroundings meant that he was still no wiser on what to do with these. The experts on Sky, who persist in calling them ‘break point opportunities’, believed that this had constituted Federer best chance. In this they proved correct.

The eventual tiebreak provided Federer with a fitting platform to both repay his opponent for that execrable second set effort, and to finish off the week as he’d started it, which is to say not terribly well. It commenced well enough with a forehand winner and an ace, but from 2-2 Federer became patchy and prone to mistiming, while del Potro remained solid, and forcing where it was required. Three match points came, although only one of these was required as Federer’s last forehand fell wide. What became of the other two match points no man can say, even Barry Cowan.

Once Hawkeye had confirmed the final out call, del Potro gave the most muted, sweet and appropriate victory celebration imaginable, and embraced Federer at the net. After shaking Lars Graff’s hand, he crossed himself and raised his arms briefly aloft and clapped. The crowd, initially stunned to discover that match point isn’t merely a structural precursor to Federer winning, were by now standing and cheering. Del Potro is pretty popular, too, and deservedly so. Unquestionably he had deserved to win this title, given the way he has played this week, and the way he conducted himself today. Indeed, I’d remarked as that final set looked to be slipping away that it would have felt supremely unfair had he somehow lost.

But nothing in this sport is given, least of all beating Federer in a Basel final. This one was earned. This is del Potro’s biggest title this year, and indeed his most substantial since the US Open of 2009. I confess to experiencing a profound sense of satisfaction, infused by a healthy portion of exhaustion, as he held the trophy overhead, the only trophy in the entire European indoors that doesn’t inspire immediate derision. He will arrive in Paris, and perhaps London, as the hottest indoors player on tour. Indeed his only indoors loss this year came to Federer in Rotterdam back in February. On the other hand, this is Federer’s first loss indoors (hardcourt) since falling to Gael Monfils in Bercy in 2010. In the last three seasons he has accrued seven titles on this surface, and lost only twice. Both men have proven their mastery in the bright shadows of February, October and November. Notwithstanding the intervening Paris Masters, how these two fare in London’s O2 Arena will be of urgent interest, assuming Federer is rested, and del Potro hasn’t played himself to death.

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October 22, 2012

Hearts of Gold

Vienna, Stockholm, Moscow, Finals

There were three ATP finals played almost concurrently last night, or yesterday depending on your time zone of preference. All of them took place in continental Europe, and each of them was played under a roof. Lest there was lingering doubt, this is why it’s called the European Indoors. Given their near simultaneity, watching all three was theoretically problematic, but made eminently more possible by sufficiently robust coffee and the gallantly straining internet connection at my panoptic command centre in Melbourne, which I like to pretend is really a super-villain lair in a hollowed-out volcano. It was the middle of the night, and everyone else was asleep. I was free to pretend as I pleased. Sometimes I pretend my dog (Richter) is my chief henchman and enforcer, but with a secret heart of gold. Anyway, Juan Martin del Potro won in Vienna, Tomas Berdych in Stockholm, and Andreas Seppi in Moscow. They beat Gregor Zemlja, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Thomaz Belllucci, respectively. That’s all you really need to know. The rest will be padding.

Stockholm gave us the best of the finals, although Tsonga’s partial collapse from a set and 4/2 wasn’t the most noteworthy of the capitulations. That accolade he cedes to Bellucci, whose absurdly wide eyes went even wider still when it came time to serve for his first hardcourt title in Moscow. He was broken back, but then broke again. By the time he was broken back for the second time he looked like Gollum, though with a tan and better hair. Seppi took the tiebreak pretty comfortably, and was far stronger in the final set, when Bellucci’s first serve more or less disappeared. It is Seppi’s third career title, and second this year. Most curiously, he was won all three of his titles on completely different surfaces, defeating a stroppy Janko Tipsarevic on grass in Eastbourne, a typically sporadic Benoit Paire on clay in Belgrade, and now on indoor hardcourt. The Italian rises to No.22 in the rankings, and in the, wait for it, Race to London. With only two weeks remaining of the regular season, I am confident in declaring Seppi might not quite make it to England this time round.

Both Berdych and del Potro almost certainly will make it, and there’s every chance Tsonga will, too. But ATP is taking nothing for granted, and I suppose it’s in their interest to sustain the alleged drama of qualification for as long as possible. Thus we learned that Nicolas Almagro remains a mathematical chance of qualifying, assuming he posts some frankly amazing results in Valencia (which is possible) and Bercy (which isn’t). The players who are in contention are presumably sick of being asked about it. Reciting disinterestedly from the ATP Media Handbook (22nd edition), Berdych remarked that ‘London is always a goal every season. You have to play well the whole year to qualify.’ Rafael Nadal has of course proved that this is false. The Spaniard has qualified fourth, and hasn’t played since June. There was also a period from Roland Garros until the US Open when Berdych himself played like rubbish. But I suppose his point stands, the point being that the ATP has probably asked him to sell the merits of the Tour Finals when asked.

Del Potro had earlier chanted from the same hymnbook after he’d finished off Gregor Zemlja in Vienna: ‘I also look forward to London. I’m looking better to qualify there. We have two big tournaments coming next week.  They have the chance to get points also, so it will be very interesting to see how we are going.’ It is the universal language of the sports star, in which nothing of interest can be said, even by accident. It’s a factory-packaged lexicon designed to ensure that even nice young men with hearts of gold speaking in their second language can all sound mostly interchangeable. The conceit of the interview is that it helps us connect with the players, whose astounding physical gifts can otherwise make them seem remote. The irony is that they have learned the hard way that it is in their interests to all sound more or less the same. Connecting with them is the last thing that is likely. You could take any of the winner’s statements from any of yesterday’s finals, and with only minor alterations there would be no way of knowing who said what.

Luckily, these gifted men are paid the big bucks to do more than talk about tennis. They also play it, and on court they’re permitted far more scope for self-expression. In the Vienna final del Potro as ever chose express himself via blasted forehands and huge first serves up the T. The only dicey moment came early in the first set when he dropped serve, but after Zemlja essentially broke himself back del Potro’s sailing grew relatively plain. Still, it was a tremendous week for the Slovenian, who qualified and then beat Tommy Haas and Tipsarevic on his way to the final. If you haven’t seen Zemlja play he is well worth a look, with an attacking yet utterly unglamorous disposition and a decent turn of speed. He’ll go back to expressing himself on the Challenger circuit for the rest of this year, but I cannot doubt he’ll feature more regularly on the main tour in the years to come. His new ranking is No.50.

Here in my fearsome command bunker, my burly henchman, or henchdog, had long since retired to his bed, and my coffee had grown cold and, it turned out, even less drinkable. I love the European Indoors – it’s in Europe, and it’s indoor – but that squalid ache of exhausted eye-balls and the tart tang of too much caffeine was wearyingly familiar. It’s the feeling all super-villains experience before they too retire to sleep.

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