The Next Point

Wimbledon, Semifinals

(1) Djokovic d. (8) del Potro, 7/5 4/6 7/6 6/7 6/3

(2) Murray d. (24) Janowicz, 6/7 6/4 6/4 6/3

The final of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships will be contested between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, who are the number one and number two players in the world, and, not coincidentally, the top two seeds in the tournament now racing towards completion. By the time it is completed, these men will have contested three of the last four Major finals. It is a testament to the strangeness of the last two weeks that despite the utter predictability of this final configuration – attested to by the fact that so many people actually predicted it – it almost feels startling that it has come to pass, a match that has eventuated in spite of everyone’s assumption that it would.

Viewed from within this acrid haze of uncertainty, it hardly seems remarkable that Djokovic reaching the final should overshadow Murray doing so, notwithstanding that the former is a six-time Major champion who has titled here before, while the latter is the plucky local whose victory will presumably re-energise national pride at a stroke. But Murray’s semifinal was a merely passable tennis match, while Djokovic’s was a classic that tended towards the folkloric even while it unfolded, thus aligning itself with Wimbledon’s core conceit, which is that it is much more than a mere tennis tournament. Wimbledon is the tennis tournament. This empyrean status is reaffirmed at every level from the players down to the fans, ably assisted by the promotional material. (Wimbledon’s official annual movie is a good place to start, its narration often attaining a gravitas so overwrought that it makes The Silmarillion sound like Irvine Welsh.)

In his short interview immediately after leaving court yesterday Djokovic did not hesitate to anoint his match among the very best he has been part of, in part because it was conducted on the consecrated turf of Centre Court. Leveller heads had already conceded its greatness, but wasted no time in declaring Djokovic’s victory over Stan Wawrinka at the Australian Open to be its superior. From a purely tennis point of view, that may well be true – I am slow to wade into such debates – but, as I say, Wimbledon isn’t purely about tennis.

Most people, if they’ve heard of a tennis tournament at all, have heard of this one. ‘Attending Wimbledon’ features prominently on the bucket-lists of those who otherwise cannot tell an authentic Stepanek from a CGI goblin, right there alongside swimming with dolphins and learning the saxophone. Those hardly souls queuing for tickets overnight on the cement pavement aren’t hardcore tennis fans, and very often aren’t English. (Plenty of them seem to be Australian – Channel 7 always makes a point of interviewing any of my compatriots who’ve congealed in sufficient numbers to form an ad hoc choir, whereupon they’re invited to demonstrate their mastery of atonality.)

Of course, British fans quite literally view it differently. Djokovic and del Potro played the one of the great semifinals of the era, but Murray’s victory over Janowicz was nonetheless the highest rated English television programme this year. To hear some tell it, significant parts of the British Isles are reduced to a skeleton crew whenever Murray takes to Centre Court, especially in the later rounds. Todd Woodbridge in commentary remarked that there’s never an easier time to get around in London: aside from under-rehearsed gangs of ex-pat Australians, the streets are comparatively deserted, as the hordes flock to pubs and bars, or, for the lucky few, to a special vantage on the Scot’s crowded mons.

Given the interests of television, it seemed a strange gambit to put Murray’s semifinal on second. They gained a later timeslot, but with it came the uncertainty of knowing when his match would start. Given the variables involved, especially del Potro’s variable knee, the second match could have commenced anywhere from twenty minutes to six hours after the first. It probably just illustrates the difference between the BBC and CBS. For the players themselves, the first semifinal is surely the preferable one to have, since it allows you to structure your preparation with a degree of certainty, and means your match won’t end controversially under lights. This presumably affected Jerzy Janowicz more than Murray, given the relative experience of the two players at this level. Murray’s is extensive, while Janowicz’s was non-existent. Naturally, the Pole then won the opening set. So much for theory.

It is peculiar that at the last two Majors the local favourite has played the second semifinal. It’s an issue that is only exacerbated when the first semifinal is an extended humdinger, as was the case in Paris last month and in London yesterday. Poor Jo-Wilfried Tsonga commenced his semifinal in resonant stadium given to dust and shadow, although the word is that he requested the second match, for reasons unexplored, and no doubt regretted. Of course, that was unlikely to be an issue at Wimbledon. English tennis fans seem more devoted than their French counterparts, and can maintain their devotion for longer. Perhaps it comes from having fewer targets to direct it at, allowing the rapacious tabloids to hone their coverage to a crueller point. Mount Murray would have remained packed tight even had Djokovic and del Potro forged on through the night, and most of the next day.

It was yet another argument in favour of final set tiebreaks, though, like all the others, it wasn’t a very compelling one, and even collectively these arguments don’t add up to anything much. Not knowing how long a tennis match will last is part of the charm, not a deficiency to be addressed. John McEnroe, however, operates on the principle that tympanic repetition will achieve what cogency cannot. Once he starts banging out the theme, he’s hard to silence. Today he commenced beating his fifth-set tiebreaker kettledrum at 2/1 in the fifth set of the first semifinal. It was felt that the greater certainty supplied by having a tie-breaker would do del Potro a favour, since he clearly lacks McEnroe’s stamina.

Really, onlookers should give off trying to circumscribe del Potro’s capabilities. And in ‘onlookers’ I include myself. About the only thing certain about the Argentine was that he would continue to defy my insistence that he would soon lose easily, although it’s possible he was motivated by more than a desire to prove me wrong. Yesterday he did lose, but it wasn’t easily and it wasn’t quick. It was long – the longest semifinal in Wimbledon’s history – and it was wonderful nearly all the way through. Even as the third set wound up – as with the first two the better player losing it – people were already declaring it to be the best set of the men’s tournament. But they were wrong: the best was still to come.

The best came at the end of the fourth set. Djokovic moved ahead by a break, only for the Argentine to claw it back. Nonetheless, the general feeling was that the world number one was ascendant (even though his backhand up the line had deserted him and he kept falling over). Even del Potro seemed to feel it, and had taken to languidly showboating between points. A match that had been majestic gained a wild edge, although Djokovic did his best to ignore it, and continued about his business undaunted. He was in his thirteenth straight Major semifinal, and experience features prominently among his long list of qualities. Better focussed, he was certainly superior in the tiebreaker, and eventually gained a couple of match points at 6-4. From there del Potro sprang to life, saving both match points with outrageous yet typically muscular play. He sustained his  momentum through the change of ends, claiming the tiebreaker 8-6. The crowd went nuts. Murray, for many of them, had undoubtedly been the day’s main attraction, but right then they were nearly unhinged with delight at what they’d just witnessed. I know I was.

So far it had been a memorable Wimbledon that had featured relatively few good matches, and certainly no great ones, an assessment buttressed by the fact that through five rounds it had produced the fewest five set matches in the tournament’s history. Of course a match doesn’t have to travel its full span in order to be adjudged as great, but it certainly helps. Yesterday’s first semifinal went to five sets, and although the final set was by no means the best of them, the manner of its arrival was arguably the best thing this Wimbledon has so far produced. A tournament that had cried out for classic had one thrust upon it. Whatever happens in the final, the predictably unexpected final between the top two seeds, there’s no taking that away. And there’s no forgetting the embrace that followed, as Centre Court, Murray’s Mound and the world thundered its approval.

Wimbledon, Quarterfinals

There was a moment there, as Andy Murray trailed Fernando Verdasco by a couple of sets, Jerzy Janowicz  had been reduced to blubbering incoherency and Juan Martin del Potro was one functioning knee short of a full complement, when it looked like Novak Djokovic’s path to his second Wimbledon title would be even less difficult than anticipated. This was encouraging for those of us who’d based our predictions on the initial version of the draw. Once the tournament commenced, this draw was almost immediately re-imagined in homage to M. C. Escher, thus confounding everyone. It was a pleasant feeling to get one thing right. Those who’d presumed to analyse the women’s draw can’t even claim that.

It was entirely appropriate that of the four men who yesterday moved through to the semifinals, Djokovic’s victory celebrations were the most muted, at least in relative terms. The world number one has now reached his thirteenth straight Major semifinal, and knows there’s work still to be done. At the far end of the spectrum was Janowicz, who reached his first Major semifinal, inspiring a joy so overwhelming it rendered him nearly insensate to anything. (More contrast was provided when he celebrated victory by donning his opponent’s shirt, whereas Djokovic’s greatest triumphs inspire him to shred his.) I’m not sure it even qualifies as irony that Janowicz’s match was the most straightforward of the lot in purely tennis terms. For all that Łukasz Kubot played very well, Janowicz was never behind. Djokovic at least had to recover a double break in the third, or at any rate he had to hold fast while Tomas Berdych recovered it for him. Otherwise Djokovic out-served, out-returned and generally out-rallied the Czech, especially once parity had been restored in the second set.

Meanwhile del Potro’s impediment came not from his hobbled and oddly over-matched opponent, but from his own left knee, against which the Argentine seems to bear a particular grudge. He’d already savaged it a few rounds ago, but then did so again in the fifth point of yeasterday’s match, crashing heavily to the court. A long medical time-out ensued, during which a field hospital tent was erected, within which the tournament witch-doctor conducted a dark ritual akin to the one that saw Khal Drogo reduced to a vegetable, though with a more salubrious outcome. I am assured no ponies were harmed; indeed one was saved. The official explanation is that del Potro ingested an anti-inflammatory of such wondrous efficacy that he himself later dubbed it a ‘magic pill’. Who am I to argue? I still think escalators are a kind of sorcery. In any case, a near-certain retirement was averted, and then happily transfigured into something else.

Ferrer’s bad ankle having had ample chance to cool, he was broken a few games later, and then a few games after that. Just a year ago the Spaniard had played superbly to dismantle del Potro in straight sets at this very event, a result that was perfectly in keeping with their other encounters, rather than peculiar to the location or surface. Ferrer beats del Potro everywhere. It is known. Except yesterday he didn’t. It’s easy to blame injury for this, and not necessarily wrong to. Del Potro’s knee inspired him to a level of aggression more commensurate with his innate firepower – too often he plays within himself, perhaps believing his forehand’s best role is that of a nuclear deterrent – while Ferrer’s injury took away his best asset, which is to say his mobility. This is, of course, reductive. Ferrer also made a ton of unforced errors, which is saying something at Wimbledon, where in order to accrue that stat one must fail to put away an overhead at the net while the opponent is chatting to the umpire. The third set tiebreak was excellent, and tight, and concluded fittingly with a sequence of fearless del Potro running forehands. One of my many incorrect pre-tournament predictions was that del Potro wouldn’t go far. I only wish I could blame the draw for that. I’m pleased to be wrong, though.

Fearless forehands more or less defined Verdasco’s first couple of sets as well, although these were usefully interleaved with some excellent variety off the backhand – including a determination to go up the line – and a laudable plan to get around his propensity to double-fault by going after his second serve. Since so many of his double-faults plonk limply in the net, this was a pretty good idea, and it certainly did its part to keep Murray at bay. It also required courage to stick with it, especially after he opened with a double fault. After that Verdasco was great, while Murray wasn’t. Murray’s own second serves were ill-directed and dismally soft even by his standards – averaging well below eighty miles per hour in the early going – and the first set ended when one missed the service box entirely. Scripts were consulted throughout Dear Old Blighty, and it was discovered that, in keeping with this year’s Wimbledon, it had been sharply deviated from. It was Murray’s first dropped set of the championship.

The next set was his second. Due credit must go to the resurgent Verdasco, who was stepping in and going after everything, but Murray for his part was far too diffident, conceding immense acreage by retreating metres behind the baseline. His defence was naturally brilliant – often making retrievals from beyond the camera frame – but he was guaranteeing that it had to be. If there was a strategy involved, it seemed to rely heavily on the assumption that Verdasco couldn’t maintain such form forever, although based on recent seasons it probably wasn’t an unreasonably assumption to make. It was justified in the third set. Verdasco dipped, and Murray lifted. Over on Court One the Poles repeatedly aborted their service motions as the mighty roars accompanying Murray’s successfully breaks and holds washed over the grounds. Verdasco reasserted himself in the fourth set however, and Murray was obliged to save a number of break points with his first serve. Missing any of those would have proved catastrophic, but he held firm, broke, and took the set. It was all even and the crowd went bananas. The fifth was the best set of the match.

For those inclined to find Verdasco endlessly disappointing, it’s vaguely heartening that his two best performances at Grand Slams have ended not with a whimper, but with a bang, in explosive five set tussles. I hope he feels encouraged by that, in time. Murray, of course, moves on. After the match he insisted he’d enjoyed himself immensely, especially the way the crowd had supported him when he fell behind two sets. One imagines the prevailing feeling was relief, which I suppose is also a kind of enjoyment. For his supporters – and I’m sympathetic to his cause – any confidence that he’d have an easy passage to the final has given way to the fervent hope that he won’t begin the semifinal as he began the quarterfinal. His tendency when nervous is to invite attack, knowing that his legs and hands will always work. Against Verdasco’s big forehand it was enough, barely. But in Janowicz he’s about to face a guy with a big everything, a nearly un-lobbable giant whose serves can hit any part of the service box, and whose incongruous mastery of the drop-shot will punish any inclination to retreat. One wonders what Janowicz will make of Murray’s second serve. Mincemeat, quite possibly.

Of course, it could all come down to nerves, for both of them. This is all new for Janowicz, although he has already proved himself a dab hand at deflecting pressure. When he finally stopped shaking enough to be successfully interviewed, the Pole remarked that he hopes ‘Andy will feel some kind of pressure. I’m sure he’ll feel some kind of pressure because Great Britain is waiting for the English champion in Wimbledon.’ Make of that what you will.

Wimbledon, Day Three

Day Three of Wimbledon 2013 was one that will be remembered for a long time, despite the understandable determination of many fans, and a few players, to take to the bottle in order to forget. Others have sought refuge in alliteration: Wild Wednesday has taken hold, and I doubt whether it’ll ever let go. We all cope in different ways. Across the men’s and women’s events the rate of withdrawals, upsets, retirements and sundry casualties achieved a cracking pace in the first hour, and barely let up throughout the day. With bloodshed occurring on a scale that was at once industrial and predictable, it was like tennis’ version of the Somme. But that’s not quite right: so many of those who fell today number among the game’s elite. Perhaps Götterdämmerung is closer to the mark. Alas, I’m not George R. R. Martin, and I cannot promise to maintain an appropriately Wagnerian tone as the main characters are mown down wholesale.

I can recall few days to equal it in tennis history, at least tennis played at this level. There was of course that notorious case of dysentery at the appropriately acronymed Surrey Hills Invitational Tournament a few years ago, when all but one of the entrants was forced to scurry from the court after lunching on rewarmed chicken, rapidly overwhelming the available toilet facilities. (For the record, the last chap standing was a plucky youngster named Bradbury, about whom little is known, although the rumour around the club is that he went on to become a handy speed-skater.)

Given the sustained carnage, it almost seems wilful to anoint any single result as indicative, yet it would be perverse to pretend that Roger Federer’s loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky wasn’t the apotheosis. It was Federer’s first loss before the quarterfinal stage of a Major since Roland Garros 2004, capping a sequence of thirty-six consecutive events. It is a record that bears testament to his capacity to survive, and then flourish, on days when his peers are cut down around him. There have been other Red Weddings, but Federer has always eluded the knives.

It is also his earliest loss at this level since Wimbledon 2002, when he fell to Mario Ancic in the first round. Indeed, Wimbledon 2002 is an appropriate tournament to invoke right now. The current edition of Wimbledon feels eerily similar to that one. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi having been drawn in the same half, there was some consternation that this had thereby rendered the draw bottom-heavy, although these concerns were allayed when both men were upset early. Their half of the draw consequently collapsed, with the eventual semifinalists emerging as David Nalbandian (playing his first grass court tournament) and Xavier Malisse. It seemed clear to all the experts that Malisse, unlike that overhyped and flashy Federer, was destined to contend for Major titles for years to come. Lleyton Hewitt, as top seed, waltzed through the top half, with only Sjeng Schalken providing much resistance in the quarterfinals, to claim his second Major and cement his place atop the world rankings.

Hewitt, perhaps fittingly, lies among yesterday’s heaped bodies. It’s a long time since he contended for a Wimbledon title, though after his deft performance against Stan Wawrinka in the first round, and given Rafael Nadal’s exit, there had been a reasonable expectation that he’d push through to the fourth round, if not further. He was certainly the favourite against Dustin Brown, ranked No.189. In the end the best that Hewitt managed was to ensure Brown won’t become the only qualifier ever to win Wimbledon without dropping a set. One suspects the Australian hoped for more. Certainly John Newcombe did, as ever bringing to his commentary a parochialism so incandescent that even the usually deferential Todd Woodbridge found it hard to look at. (It’s debatable whether the rest of Australia was paying much attention, anyway: the slaughter at SW19 had been prefigured by some hours by similar scenes in our national parliament.)

In their defence, Newk and Woody gave Brown his due, although it you’d hardly expect otherwise given how brilliantly the German was executing the kind of aggressive grass-court tennis both commentators were once keen exponents of. I wouldn’t quite call it old-school serve-volleying – one flicked backhand volley is found on no curriculum anywhere – although the full-stretch diving volley to claim the first set recalled Boris Becker at his best. As Hewitt clawed his way back, winning the last six points to claim the third set tiebreaker before transforming into a beet-faced homunculus, there was a widespread expectation that he’d then go on with it. Surely Brown couldn’t sustain his level. It turned out he could not only sustain it, but elevate it, and he broke twice to claim the fourth set, and the match. His celebrations throughout the match had equalled Hewitt’s for flamboyance, but upon winning his reaction was muted and respectful. He surprised himself and us by bursting into tears, and fleeing the court. The exception to the idea that you’ll eventually find out why a guy is ranked 189 is that sometimes you won’t. You’ll then discover he’s not ranked there any more.

Mikhail Youzhny had by this time wrenched the first set from Vasek Pospisil, thus establishing a pattern in which the seeded favourite started stronger but failed to capitalise. At least Youzhny bucked the day’s trend by eventually winning, although victory should never have taken five sets given the exalted form the Russian showed in Halle. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ernests Gulbis had taken to Centre Court by this stage, eager to provide succour to a crowd whose expensive day had thus far consisted of Victoria Azarenka’s withdrawal and Ana Ivanovic’s flailing loss. This was the pick of the men’s second round matches. Knowing types had expressed the belief that Tsonga was a realistic chance of winning this year’s Championships, despite having been handed the toughest draw since Great Britain’s 1879 Davis Cup tie at Rorke’s Drift. One of the knowing types was John Lloyd, who heaped effusive praise atop Tsonga as he took the first set comfortably. Gulbis, however, is an even more formidable floater at Wimbledon than he was at Roland Garros, and proved it by tightening up his game in the second set, which he won. Then he won the third, and there was clearly something wrong with Tsonga. It tuned out it to be his knee, and it was very wrong. He called the whole thing off, a move that has seriously damaged his chances at claiming the title.

The casualty list by this stage was alarming: Radek Stepanek, John Isner, Tsonga, Marin Cilic, Steve Darcis, Yaroslava Shvedova and Azarenka had either retired or withdrawn. Jelena Jankovic, Maria Sharapova, Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki had lost without claiming a single set between them. Hewitt was out. Benneteau was out. By the time Federer and Stakhovsky took to Centre Court, six former number one players had fallen in a single day. When Yen-Hsun Lu’s resistance to Andy Murray unexpectedly stiffened in the third set, there was real concern among the locals.

It is partly a measure of Federer’s stature that even when the Wimbledon draws looking like Omaha Beach, set-dressed by Steven Spielberg and scored by Samuel Barber, there was no discernible consternation among tennis fans. Surely, once again, he’d pick his way through the mangled remains of his peers, and attain the safety of the bluffs. After all, he’d been magnificent in the first round while seeing off Victor Hanescu, for all that the Romanian only barely maintains a position within the top fifty. But Stakhovsky languishes outside the top hundred, and Federer hadn’t lost to any man ranked that low in over eight years.

Stakhovsky later conceded the pointlessness of trying to rally with Federer from the baseline on grass, thereby proving himself to be at least twice as astute as Hanescu. Instead the Ukrainian ran towards the net at any opportunity, often after he’d just served. Once there he’d stop without touching it – that step is crucial – and hit a volley. Sometimes he’d hit two, as needed. Frequently he’d combine all these discrete stages into a single fluid motion. Unlike Brown’s earlier efforts, this was old-school serve and volley: relentless, and, it turned out today, highly effective. For those who still celebrate the demise of the discipline – and discipline is exactly what it requires – Brown and Stakhovsky proved today that not only can it still work effectively given sufficient skill, but that there is ample variation to be found amongst its proponents. I have never seen Stakhovsky play better. Nor, by his own admission, has he.

Federer later conceded that he didn’t play the big points well enough, an issue that has afflicted him all year. It’s a hard assessment at which to cavil. So many of his best performances this year have come in matches that have featured no big points at all. I can recall few moments in which he has been obliged to execute under real pressure, and has done so; the Australian Open semifinal, which he still lost, and the Indian Wells fourth round, which featured Wawrinka. Facing a bold serve-volleyer is all about executing under pressure, since accomplished net-rushing forces both men to dance along a highwire. But Federer yesterday didn’t look like the man who once out-stared Pete Sampras on this very court, especially when we remember that Stakhovsky, as well as he played, is not Sampras.

Whether this is merely a form slump or indicative of terminal decline isn’t for me to say. It might be both. Detailed prophecy, I seem to remember quoting recently, is not our business. Orwell, who said that, really was a prophet, but it’s not surprising that others who aren’t are less reticent in their prognostications. The eager consensus seems to be that an era has passed: the king is dead. I’ve never been especially interested in that kind of commentary on any player, and long ago experienced the elementary revelation that anyone claiming a player is done for will be proved right eventually, even Novak Djokovic’s mother.

Of course, even Sampras wasn’t quite Sampras by the end, at least at Wimbledon. The year after the American’s Centre Court tyranny was ended by Federer, he lost dispiritedly to Swiss journeyman George Bastl. That was the notorious 2002 edition of the tournament, although even that bloodbath didn’t boast a single day to match yesterday. It’s hard not to feel that Federer’s loss yesterday was his Bastl moment. It occurred precisely eleven years later to the day. Perhaps there’s solace in remembering that Sampras later redeemed himself by winning the US Open in his last professional match. Perhaps there’s glory still to come.

Or perhaps there isn’t. Federer has now failed to defend every single title that propelled him back to number one a year ago: Basel, Bercy, London, Rotterdam, Dubai, Indian Wells, Madrid, and now Wimbledon. It was an audacious run, sustained for longer than seemed possible, culminating in a record 287th week atop the rankings. Many perceived this as a resumption of normal service, if not the commencement of a new order, but there’s every indication that it wasn’t. From here, as the twilight of the gods descends, it looks more than ever like a sunset mistaken for a dawn. Perhaps I can be Wagnerian, after all. Or perhaps I’m merely exhausted. After a long day, and a longer night watching another day, I finally lapsed into fitful slumber as the sky lightened, and dreamed that I awoke to discover the walls of the house I shared with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had cracked, crumbled and collapsed outward.

Wimbledon, Day One

Darcis d. (5) Nadal, 7/6 7/6 6/4

To suggest that draw analysis is an inexact science is misleading, insofar as it suggests that the act of predicting how a tennis tournament will play out based on the configuration of its participants is a science at all. At its best, it is a harmless diversion, one that might propel a writer into adjacent regions, amusingly or fruitfully as their taste or skill allows. More often it stands revealed as folly. Yesterday it looked like folly. If anyone predicted that Steve Darcis would defeat Rafael Nadal in the first round of Wimbledon, and that he would do it in straight sets, they were either Darcis’ coach putting on a comically brave face or they kept it to themselves, lest they invite ridicule. Not even Darcis himself expressed real faith in victory; he has learned by rote the value of realism over a long decade on the lower tours, and his initial reaction upon conducting his own preliminary draw analysis was simply to exclaim ‘Shit!’

After all, last year’s second round loss to the hundredth ranked Lukas Rosol still numbers among the greatest upsets of the Open Era. The idea that it could be reprised a year later was laughable. The idea that it could be surpassed was frankly absurd. It remained absurd until the very end. There was no moment, until Darcis’ final ace hummed past Nadal, in which it did not seem that even the merest slackening of momentum would prove momentous: Nadal, constrained as he was, his brow terraced by its usual cares, could surely turn it around given the slightest dip from Darcis. Yet somehow, despite a persuasive case to do so, and given the fine examples of so many before him, Darcis never wavered. He continued to play magnificent grass court tennis until the end, operating with a kind of willed obtuseness, in which he never quite grasped that diminutive journeymen with single-handed backhands aren’t supposed to sustain this kind of attack, against an all-time great on a grand court. There are supposed to be rules.

I won’t pretend that I’ve seen Darcis play all that much – perhaps a dozen times – though on today’s evidence I clearly haven’t seen him play enough. I last saw him live as he was outclassed by Philipp Kohlschreiber at Melbourne Park. More pertinently, I watched him slice Tomas Berdych’s game to ribbons in the first round of last year’s Olympic Games, but while I found Darcis’ efforts admirable that day, he was merely one of many men inflicting early-round losses on Berdych at the time, and I thought little of it. A year on, however, and the pattern now seems clear: if Darcis is going to threaten a top player, it will likely to be on grass, and specifically on grass that has yet to see much traffic. Being a type of exotic predatory mammal – small, spry as a whippet and unusually aggressive – we can say that early-round grass is his preferred habitat. Yesterday he was in his element.

However, the lure of the easy explanation is strong, but it isn’t one to which one should necessarily succumb. It’s too tempting to believe that advantageous conditions amount to much. Yesterday surely wasn’t the only match this season in which conditions suited Daric, yet through six months of toil, this was only his third victory at tour level.

The other thing worth noting is how astonishingly easy it is to look prescient in retrospect. One can analyse how and why Darcis won, but due admission must be made that this is nothing but wisdom after the fact, if indeed wisdom it is. While I broadly subscribe to the idea that anything can happen in sport, as recently as two days ago I pointed out that it rarely does. Today it did. Some have helpfully reminded us that this is why we watch sport at all, as though we need reminding.

Others have proved that this certainly isn’t why they watch sport. Witnessing your favourite player lose in straight sets to the 135th best player in the world probably featured nowhere on the bucket lists of many Nadal fans. Understandably, this was an experience they could have done without. (Some of these have summarily announced that Wimbledon for them is over. This is understandable, but not excusable.) I imagine Darcis’ fan-base is somewhat smaller, but for those few it was an experience hardly dreamt-of.

Though I probably risk loud outrage for even suggesting it, I suspect the lesson here is that Nadal is not a great grass court player. What he is, is a great tennis player. In an era that through lack of a proper grass season wants for true grass specialists, this has generally been enough to see him through the first week of Wimbledon. By the second week, the All England Club’s main courts are functionally similar to a hardcourt – harder, slower and consistent in their pace and bounce. But in the first week, when the turf remains lush, green and slick, Nadal can be vulnerable to attacking players. Traditionally, these challenges have come from powerful men such as Robin Haase or Lukas Rosol, or those whose assault is abetted by the surface, such as Philipp Petzschner. Nonetheless, for all but Rosol last year Nadal’s skills, reflexes and athleticism have enabled him to get through. Even given Nadal’s habit of starting gingerly at Majors, Darcis hardly constituted a legitimate threat.

Into that general mix we can add inadequate preparation time. Nadal’s grass-court acclimation, as far as I can make out, entailed a lone practice set against Kei Nishikori. He pulled out of Halle, apparently on the orders of his doctors. There has, naturally, been ample talk of injury. The extent of player injuries and the degree to which they have contributed to a given outcome has become a fraught area of discussion in recent year, although that isn’t to say it is therefore an interesting one. It’s like the most boring minefield in the world, and rendered more so by the knowledge that however carefully you step, you’re going to put a foot wrong. For what it’s worth, I thought Nadal was a trifle ginger at times later in the match, especially moving out of his backhand corner. Nevertheless, he was as fleet as ever moving into that corner (and was consequently caught out by particularly good slices on a few crucial occasions). I’ve seen him win plenty of matches in worse condition, especially against guys ranked outside the top hundred. Put it this way: he was nowhere near as hobbled as he was the last time he lost in straight sets at a Major, in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Australian Open. That night he could barely move, and when he could, he couldn’t stop.

But it doesn’t require an extravagant injury when you are operating on your worst surface – first round grass – with inadequate preparation, and facing an inspired opponent playing wonderful tennis. When we put all these things together, it’s not that hard to see how Nadal lost. The funny thing is that no one managed to piece them all together beforehand. Sadly, you get no marks for retrospective prophecy. It does suggest that any draw analysis, if it must be conducted at all, should wait until the tournament is over. Just about every who tried it soon after the draw was released got it wrong, especially those who immediately bewailed the likelihood of a quarterfinal between Federer and Nadal.

It hardly seemed reasonable that Nadal would fall before the quarters, and indeed some had already installed him for the title. It followed that any loss would come in defiance of reason, and so it proved. Darcis’ victory was unreasonable in the way it defied the usual gravity of professional tennis, which dictates that an ostensibly lesser player will remain buoyant only until he or she realises what is happening. It is not unlike Douglas Adams’ advice on how to fly: you throw yourself at the ground and miss, and then only remain aloft until you realise that what you’re doing is impossible.

Or, to adapt Andy Roddick’s line about facing inspired journeymen: ‘Sooner or later you’re going to find out why a guy is Steve Darcis.’ I thought we’d find out in that second set tiebreaker, when four set points went begging, only to be fatally bashed in a back-alley. (On the other hand, Darcis boasts a tiebreak record superior to the vast majority of the men’s tour. Only Federer, Djokovic and Isner are consistently better once the score attains six-all, although to be fair those guys have to be good against each other, whereas Darcis has compiled his record against comparative minnows. Minnows, and now Nadal.) I was sure we’d discover the why of Darcis when he secured that early break in the third, given the vanishingly slim chance that he’d be able to hold serve , and his nerve, until the end.

But we never did find out. Perhaps we’ll find out later. Perhaps we won’t. Perhaps Steve Darcis will never lose again. It is, after all, sport, and anything can happen. At least now we can say we saw anything happen. We can, because it was unforgettable.

The draw for the 2013 edition of Wimbledon has been released in its traditional manner. Under the watchful supervision of the All England Club’s chief gamekeeper, a number of burly beaters take to a nearby copse with long paddles, in order to flush their prey out. Startled, the fledgling draw takes desperately to the skies, whereupon it is dispatched by a single gunshot from the club president, who is elected precisely for his skill at this task. Upon hitting the ground it is finished off with a croquet mallet, and then laboriously dissected by the world’s media. It has ever been thus. The attempt to read the future in animal entrails is called haruspicy, and is considered barbarous and cruel. The act of reading the future in tea leaves is called tasseography, and is a harmless hobby. The act of reading the future from a tennis draw is called Bracketology, and its practitioners treat it like pseudo-science.

The truth is anyone with a basic knowledge of men’s tennis should be able to read the Wimbledon draw, and arrive at something like the correct conclusions, notwithstanding the inevitable distortions of fandom. Tennis fandom is nothing if not conflicted, though another thing it often is is tedious. I imagine those without a basic knowledge of the sport do not care either way, which is their right. Assuming those who don’t care are busying themselves fruitfully elsewhere, I therefore won’t tarry overlong on the details. The draw ceremony as ever took hours. While British journalists extolled the glories of tradition, the rest of us winced as the president’s shot merely winged the draw, which meant the old lady with the mallet had a hell of a time finishing it off.

Of the top seeds, Novak Djokovic has the simplest path to the final, an unridged tarmac paved with feathers and the pulverised dreams of every other player in his half. This is the traditional point when people usually chime in with the adage that anything can happen in sport. It’s true, anything can happen, but, unremarkably, it usually doesn’t. If it did, there’d be even less reason to analyse the draw. In fact, there’d be no point at all. The only significant reason to suppose Djokovic won’t reach the final is that Tomas Berdych might beat him the quarterfinals. For that to happen a lot of things need to go right – or wrong depending on one’s tastes – not least the requirement for Berdych to win four matches first. The idea that Djokovic has the toughest opening opponent in Florian Mayer would be more amusing if it wasn’t merely irrelevant. If it mattered more it might be debatable, but it doesn’t: I doubt whether any of the big four will lose their opening match. This leaves the Serb, or more particularly his more ardent fans, in the uncomfortable position of ceding underdog status to another player. (Thus backed into a corner, this usually marks the point when people suddenly decide that the whole concept of favouritism is spurious: if I can’t be the underdog, then no one can.)

He could usefully cede it to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Of all the men who might otherwise threaten for the title, Tsonga has by a considerable margin the harshest draw. His path could well prove taxing from the outset: David Goffin followed by Ernests Gulbis. Meanwhile, progression through the later rounds will require defeating nearly all the finest players in the current era, a tennis version of The Avengers, minus Scarlet Johansson and that guy whose special power is arrows. The first Avenger Tsonga will encounter will be Andy Murray, who I think is the Hulk in this scenario, though I’m happy to be corrected. In any case, it is about the cruellest draw I’ve ever seen, though if anyone is capable of remaining psychotically positive in the face of such malignant caprice, it’s Roger Rasheed.

As per all the headlines, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will face each other in the quarterfinals, assuming they face each other at all. There was a twenty-five per cent chance that this configuration would eventuate, which means that it was considerably more likely than Djokovic losing before the final. The upshot is that Federer will likely find his an eighth Wimbledon title rather harder to win than his seventh, in which he ‘merely’ beat Djokovic and Murray.

Assiduously courteous types have gone to agonising lengths to pretend the general hope wasn’t that Nadal would be drawn in David Ferrer’s quarter instead. As ever, any discussion of Ferrer at the Major level is liberally peppered with the fatuous phrase ‘With all due respect’, usually followed by a lumbering tap-dance around the reality that despite his top four ranking there are still four players who are undeniably better at tennis than him. While Ferrer hasn’t lost to anyone but Djokovic Murray or Nadal at a Major in two years, when he has lost to those guys, he has done so with rough certainty. The weird supposition is that respect matters at all. I assume Ferrer is amply respected by the people who matter to him, and well remunerated for his time. Why worry on his behalf?

The venerable statistic that Nadal and Federer have never met before the semifinal stage at a Major has been duly exhumed, and paraded about. Assuming they do meet, then after this tournament they will have met precisely once at the quarterfinal stage at Major level. Another streak will have ended, whereupon human civilisation will once more demonstrate its resilience by pretending it hasn’t been shaken to the core. Municipal services will continue as before.

I sometimes wonder if a portion of the anguish attendant upon Federer’s shallow decline reflects a certain distaste at seeing his streaks cut short. More than any other champion, he has accrued not merely records, but records that reflect excellence sustained for longer than seemed possible. For example, between 2004 and 2010 Federer reached twenty-three consecutive Major semifinals, exceeding Ivan Lendl’s original record by thirteen. In other words, the best any man had ever done, in all the history of tennis, was ten semifinals in a row, and Federer not only doubled that streak, but kept on going. Nonetheless, as astonishingly high a number as twenty-three is, it remains dramatically, if not categorically, less than twenty-three and counting. There’s just something about unbroken streaks, a quality of unhindered possibility akin to youth, and witnessing their end feels like an intimation of mortality. The long summer can feel eternal while you’re living through it, or the long winter interminable. The players know differently, of course, and they’re invariably less given to sentimentality. Of everyone, Federer was the least interested when his semifinal streak ended at Soderling’s hand, and suggested wryly that there was still a quarterfinal streak to get excited by. (There still is. Imagine the angst when that ends. John Hannah is standing by to recite ‘Funeral Blues’ again.)

Federer and Nadal’s rivalry is famed for similar reasons; unlikely repetitions rendered heroic by their duration. There are Wikipedia pages devoted to nothing else. They spent so long ranked numbers one and two that plenty of casual sports fans still think of them that way, which is completely unfair to Djokovic, not to say Murray. There were whole years when Nadal and Federer only met in finals. Then it became semifinals. Now a quarterfinal? Is this what growing old feels like? The only thing I know for sure is that if an encounter comes to pass both men will be queried about it at length, and both, consummate professionals that they are, will try to look interested for our benefit.

In the current era we expect any first round involving a title contender to provide either sporadic interest, or none. Nonetheless, this Wimbledon draw is striking for how few of the other first round matches grab ones attention. Stanislas Wawrinka and Lleyton Hewitt offer arguably the only truly tempting prospect, for all that Wawrinka’s unsuitability to grass has been established over a career. Normally at Major level there are half a dozen first rounds as enticing as that. I could claim that it is an issue of the surface – and it is, since there are several players who might be grass-court specialists but for the lack of a season in which to specialise – but even Wimbledon usually provides for better openers than this. Nor does thirty-two seeds explain it.

This isn’t to say the first round won’t produce its usual quota of memorable matches –  let’s no forget the apparently dangerous Florian Mayer – although I’d suggest anyone eager to drum up interest in such potential humdingers as Lopez-Simon and Tipsarevic-Troicki should focus their efforts elsewhere. Malisse and Verdasco might deliver, but there’s no telling what. The same goes for Cilic and Baghdatis. Tomic and Querrey?

If only the AELTC’s president could shoot straight. In the best years the draw is dead before it hits the ground, its feathers unruffled and form pristine. Instead, wounded it thrashed and squawked mournfully while dear old Mavis went about her business with the croquet mallet. What a mess.