May 13, 2013

All the Tension Sluiced Away

Madrid, Final

(5) Nadal d. (15) Wawrinka, 6/2 6/4

Rafael Nadal today defeated Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets to reclaim the Madrid Masters title, winning a final whose almost complete lack of drama proved a fitting conclusion to a tournament whose outcome felt more or less foregone by the quarterfinals. There wasn’t even a Will Smith to enliven proceedings. Nor was there the usual dose of Ion Tiriac. Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images Europe Say what you like about him and his various ‘innovations’, but he at least allows tennis fans to indulge in their most cherished activity: vociferous moral outrage over highly trivial things. Alas, there was none of that.

Nonetheless, Nadal didn’t have it all his own way. He actually dropped a set this week, in total contrast to last week in Barcelona, where he dropped none. (That’s a worrying trend. He might conceivably drop two sets in Rome, and three in Paris.) Nadal’s key moment, we have been informed at soporific length, came when David Ferrer led him by a set and 6/5 in their quarterfinal, with the favourite serving to stay in the match. Ferrer achieved his desired short ball with Nadal hopelessly stranded on his backhand side. Ferrer, obeying his sly inner voices, opted against hitting the ball into the unoccupied acreage in Nadal’s ad court, and thereby gaining a few match points, which are the kind of points he should be interested in obtaining. Instead he hit it straight back to Nadal, who improvised an excellent reflex lob and subsequently won the point.

This point illustrated several things. Firstly, by so comprehensively stuffing it up, Ferrer lent further credence to the belief that he is destined always to blow it in such situations. Secondly, Nadal’s desperate shot to stay in the rally was a good example of what great hands he has under pressure, and showed why he is so difficult to beat: all he needs is half a chance. Thirdly, it usefully demonstrated that skill and luck are not mutually exclusive. Skill makes certain outcomes possible, or less unlikely, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee them. Skill gave him half a chance.

The only thing less surprising than Ferrer wasting his half-chance at victory was that, even up a set against a curiously wayward Nadal, it would prove to be his only chance. However, one shouldn’t make more of this moment than it merits. There’s a reason we don’t maintain statistics on all those who win titles after nearly facing match point. As soon as Nadal won that point, the match was as good as over, and all the tension sluiced away. The third set was a bagel. So was the first set of his semifinal against the unlikely Pablo Andujar, who’d sustained his audacious run by upsetting Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals. Andujar is probably the least likely Masters semifinalist in recent times, and Nadal quickly set about demonstrating how little his compatriot belonged in the last four at this level.

Wawrinka’s path the semifinal had been altogether more fraught, since he’d been obliged to overcome two top ten players, including last year’s finalist Tomas Berdych in the semifinals. This was probably the match of the tournament (although others had run it close, such as Grigor Dimitrov’s dramatic upset of Novak Djokovic, Ferrer’s over Tommy Haas, and Daniel Gimeno-Traver’s victory over Richard Gasquet). It ensured that Madrid’s final weekend at least had one match worth remembering, which is sadly about all we can hope for these days. Both of Wawrinka’s victories had taken three sets, as had the one against Dimitrov, and each had boasted its share of enervating drama. This probably wasn’t going to play in Wawrinka’s favour against Nadal.

Introducing today’s final, Sky Sports led enthusiastically with the statistic that Nadal had never lost to the Swiss in eight previous meetings, and that he hadn’t dropped a set in any of them. They then reiterated precisely how exhausted Wawrinka must be, given his heroic toils en route to the final, and how nervous, in just his second Masters final. His only hope, it was intimated, was the altitude, which Madrid has a lot of, and which Nadal, we were constantly told, doesn’t much care for. Regrettably, Wawrinka’s feelings on the matter weren’t canvassed, and no tactical advice was forthcoming on how he might turn this astonishing geographical phenomenon to his advantage.

Although Nadal had won seventeen consecutive sets against Wawrinka, none of them were bagels. At least Wawrinka can hold that over Ferrer, for the time being. Still, it was a close run thing when Nadal leapt out to a 4/0 lead. Wawrinka thankfully managed to hold, and then held again for 2/5. But holding was all he was doing and it wasn’t anything like enough. Nadal had yet to drop a point on first serve, and closed the set out easily. We were whisked back to the Sky studio, where the visual evidence was confirmed: Nadal was indeed playing exceptionally well, in spite of the altitude.

Wawrinka faced break points in the opening game of the second set, but made the key adjustment of saving them all, which produced the happy result of him holding serve. Nadal held more emphatically, but at least some kind of battle had been joined. It was still a hopelessly lopsided battle, but it was something. I think Nadal was taken to deuce on one of his services games, which was very exciting. (When you’re searching for narrative tension, you have to take what you can get.) Wawrinka threw in a truly appalling game at the set’s midpoint, sealing his own fate with a pair of double faults. I assumed it was the altitude, and that those serves would have found the service box at sea level, but the experts working for Sky offered no insight. Nadal held comfortably for the title. Clearly that earlier deuce game had weighed on his mind; as Wawrinka’s final shot landed long, the Spaniard collapsed onto his back, exultant at closing out a match he’d never once looked like losing. The stats told the tale. Nadal won ninety per cent of first serve points (as ever he landed the majority of them), while Wawrinka achieved a perfect return on break opportunities: 0/0.

Afterwards, while Nadal searched for a part of the Ion Tiriac trophy he could bite without sustaining injury, it was reiterated just what an achievement it was for him to win this week, in spite of Madrid’s allegedly trying conditions. It was all growing rather tiresome. The conceit, unquestionably, is that even when Nadal wins easily there’s a requirement that he must be struggling against something. The discourse of el guerrero imparable is too pervasive to be casually set aside, and thus most analysis is made subservient to it. Nadal’s incredible technical skills on a tennis court, buttressed by tens of thousands of hours training, are constantly glossed over in favour of the preferred narrative that he wins through sheer spirit despite the putatively crippling flaws in his game and atmospheric conditions designed to test only him. I think this does nothing but diminish Nadal as a player, in pursuit of a trite story.

According to this story, not only does Nadal battle the exterior elements – wind, rain, altitude and roofed-courts are his perennial adversaries – but his own inner demons as well. Thus we are treated to constant assessments of Nadal’s ‘confidence levels’. After today’s final we were reminded that this victory would give him a great deal of confidence heading to Rome, as though winning it six times already wouldn’t do that, and as though it matters much either way. No other player’s results are so closely tied in with this nebulous concept of ‘confidence’. Indeed, the current confidence-level can even be measured in real-time based on the depth on his groundstrokes: the shorter they fall, the less confident he is. I have never heard any other player’s shots discussed in this manner; mostly they hit balls short because striking a tennis ball is an imperfect art and no one can hit a perfect shot every time. Sometimes you have a bad day, and less of your shots go where you want them to. Once again, it comes down to the widespread eagerness to downplay Nadal’s technical mastery in favour of his capacity to overcome adversity. In fact he dropped a decent proportion of forehands short in today’s final: in the last few games alone there were plenty that didn’t clear the service line. The difference is that Wawrinka, unlike Djokovic, couldn’t attack them, and Nadal is a superb counter-puncher who deals severely with any assault less than perfect.

The apparently unfathomable truth is Nadal wins matches and tournaments because he is a great tennis player. He wins a vast number of clay court matches not because of some indomitable warrior spirit, but because his exceptional game is even more exceptionally suited to that surface. His forehand is ferocious, his movement is exceptional, his serve is effective and difficult to attack, and he is generally quite deft around the net. Part of this is also mental and instinctive: he reads the play well, and, like Djokovic, has an astonishing capacity to alter his patterns at crucial moments.

But most of his matches don’t have a crucial moment, because his level is almost invariably so high that he never gives the other guy a look-in. Confidence doesn’t enter into it. Since returning this season he has reached seven finals from seven events, and won five of them, including two at Masters level. Indeed, he has now won twenty-three Masters titles, which is two more than anyone else in history. I wonder when analysts will accept that he wins because he’s really, really good at tennis, and not despite the fact that he isn’t.

By winning Madrid, Nadal has closed to within twenty-five points of the number four ranking, and will assume it if he defends his Rome title next week and Ferrer fails to reach the semifinal. Wawrinka, meanwhile, returns to the top ten, an excellent return for his recent fine form.

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May 10, 2013

Above a Million Solitudes

Madrid Masters, Third Round

(5) Nadal d. Youzhny, 6/2 6/3

Anyone truly concerned that Sky Sports is insufficiently ardent in heaping praise atop Rafael Nadal presumably found solace in last night’s effort. The encomiums began to pile up even as he ambled onto court, and by the end had formed an imposing mound. Watching Nadal on clay can be like that. A discussion of the time violation rule unsurprisingly failed to resolve the issue either way, although I was intrigued to learn Andrew Castle would rather watch Nadal do nothing between points than watch most other players do anything at all during them. Jasper Juinen/Getty Images EuropeHe ascended into pure ecstasy as the Mallorcan sealed the match with yet another masterfully agile point: ‘How about that for a finish! Took my breath away. Another sublime shot!’

I suppose they had to talk about something, since the match itself had hardly proved competitive, and since they clearly know next to nothing about Mikhail Youzhny, for all that he is a fourteen-year veteran of the tour. Some bafflingly poor umpiring from Cedric Mourier provided a brief diversion, and there was a momentary fight-back from the Russian in the second set, although to be frank it was more of a lapse from Nadal. Otherwise the result was precisely what one would expect, given that the gap between these two is significant even when Youzhny is at the top of his game on a hardcourt. In execrable form on clay, it was a mismatch. I’d like to say that Nadal will face a sterner test in the next round – if only for the sake of viewer interest – but it isn’t likely, since his opponent will be David Ferrer. They haven’t played since the Acapulco final, a match that would have violated the UN’s convention against torture had it not been so mercifully quick.

Tommy Haas’ bid to return to the top ten has been delayed by at least week. It was a long shot anyway, since he probably would’ve needed to reach the final, which would have meant surviving Nadal on the way, after dispatching Ferrer. As it happened, he didn’t dispatch Ferrer, although it was close, and a strong showing in Rome next week should just about do the trick. Earlier, Daniel Gimeno-Traver retired tearfully against Pablo Andujar, citing a leg injury. I imagine some adventurous people made good money betting that Andujar would reach the quarterfinals in Madrid this week, though I sincerely doubt whether there were many of them. Andujar has been in awful form this year – his Casablanca title defence was abject – and only featured in Madrid’s main draw by the grace of a wildcard. Still, it’s hard to begrudge a man making the most of an opportunity, and he hardly looked more pleased than his opponent to progress in that manner.

Grigor Dimitrov followed up his upset of Novak Djokovic with a very bold performance against Stanislas Wawrinka, taking the first set and looking for a while as though he’d grab the second. Some have inevitably painted this as a failure on Dimitrov’s part, as though he hasn’t properly backed-up Tuesday’s breakthrough win. These people are, frankly, dullards, and probably won’t acknowledge the Bulgarian’s efforts no matter what he does. Wawrinka is an excellent player in fine form on his preferred surface: there’s no shame in losing to him, and every reason to feel pride at playing him so close. The Swiss is surely favoured against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals: there’s a new rule on tour that anyone who drops a set to Fernando Verdasco must relinquish favouritism for his next match. Still, if Tsonga started poorly, at least he finished well. Verdasco has learned by rote that this configuration is preferable to the reverse.

(14) Nishikori d. (2) Federer, 6/4 1/6 6/2

Roger Federer’s audacious return to the number one ranking last year largely came as a result of eight tournament victories stretching back to October of 2011, and culminating at Wimbledon. So far he has failed to defend seven of those titles, with the latest being the Madrid Masters. The first of those tournaments was the Swiss Indoors in Basel, in the year the tournament’s hardcourt surface switched from its traditional confectionery pink to a wearying standard-issue shade of cobalt. In the final that year he defeated Kei Nishikori in straight sets (who’d just recorded his breakout win over Djokovic in the semifinals, thereby becoming the only Japanese man to defeat a reigning world number one). It was Federer and Nishikori’s only previous meeting, and it established the older player’s superiority on any blue surface. La Caja Mágica’s return from blue clay back to a dull reddish-brown was destined to prove telling.

As it happened, Madrid’s rusted courts today seemed appropriate for Federer’s game. After seven weeks away, the fine joints were stiff with it, and the gears screeched and crunched whenever he sought to change them. Flakes of it cascaded from his racquet frame whenever a ball struck it, which occurred with worrisome regularity. (There was also a feather nestled amongst the scattered rust at one point, inspiring the Sky commentators once again to revisit the allegedly decisive moment in Murray’s Australian Open loss. Like Proust’s madeleine, the feather’s mnemonic imperative appears irresistible.) Nishikori, on the other hand, was easy, loose, and frequently spectacular, especially from the forehand side. He broke once to take the first set, though order seemed restored as Federer, essaying greater variety, swept through the second. He looked like going on with it at the start of the third, but some meek errors on return permitted Nishikori to hold, and to re-assume the initiative. He broke twice to take the match, and the defending champion, in a flurry of forehand errors, was gone. So is his hold on the number two ranking.

(3) Murray d. (16) Simon, 2/6 6/4 7/6

Whatever the tournament’s outcome, Murray will become the new number two on Monday, and will presumably retain it until Roland Garros. A top two seeding will arguably ensure he receives a more favourable draw, unless he doesn’t, in which case we can console ourselves that the French have it in for the British, and that the whole thing is rigged. Duly noting that the species of conspiracy theorist convinced of draw rigging is mostly inured to reason, I can point to today’s match as a potent rebuttal. For the Madrid draw to be rigged, that must mean someone high up actually wants to see Andy Murray play Gilles Simon, thereby displaying a near-totalitarian desire to crush the spirits of a million innocents. Their encounters are gulags for the soul.

Afterwards, the Sky commentators predictably dubbed it an ‘epic’, demonstrating a grasp of the term commensurate with most Twitter users. To be fair, being dull doesn’t disqualify a journey from being so adjudged; Homer’s Odyssey remains an epic even when recited by Stephen Hawking, and by 1:15 in the morning, when the match ended, no one was thinking straight, anyway. I won’t hide the fact that I find Simon’s matches something of a trial no matter who he plays, but he really seems to draw the worst out of Murray, who is otherwise at his superlative best when countering an aggressive foil. I’m not convinced that it’s simply an inevitable dynamic arising when two stylistically similar players face each other. After all, Tomas Berdych and Kevin Anderson typically play fine matches (today’s was no exception). But Simon and Murray answer the unasked question of what happens when an immoveable object encounters an immoveable object, and neither has anywhere pressing to be.

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May 6, 2013

The Best Story in the Sport

Munich, Final

(3) Haas d. (4) Kohlschreiber, 6/3 7/6

Tommy Haas on Sunday won Munich’s BMW Open, defeating local favourite and defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber in eighty-three minutes, and providing a measure of hope to thirty-somethings everywhere that an ATP title remains within reach.

Endeavouring, as ever, to surge ahead of the field, I had actually kicked off my campaign for a maiden title the day before, on Saturday. I am thirty-seven, only two years older than the evergreen Haas, and blithely figured it is never too late. I was officially in training. It is now Monday, and I can just about lift my right arm higher than my shoulder without the whole assemblage feeling like it’s going to come apart. I have also gained a newfound appreciation for the phrase ‘wave your arms in the arm like you just don’t care’. Haas Munich 2013 -7Previously I’d always associated elevated hand-waving with disputes involving Mediterranean men or flagging down passing rescue planes, but I can now see how it might indicate a certain unhinged insouciance. Oh, to be so carefree. Anyway, my point is that an ATP title might be some way off. Actually, that’s not true. My real point is that I am astonished that Haas can go on winning these things.

He has become just the fourth man over thirty-five to win a title in the last three decades, joining Andre Agassi, Fabrice Santoro and Jimmy Connors, an august assembly that I look forward to joining. It is also the first time Haas has won a title on European clay. His only previous claycourt title came at Houston, which is played on brown dirt hosed down with used laundry water. Indeed, here’s a curious stat: Haas maintains dual-citizenship of Germany and the USA, and hasn’t won a title outside those two countries since 2001. In fact, even his most recent runner-up efforts were in San Jose, Washington and Hamburg. His only Masters title came in Stuttgart. (This suggests that my first title will probably come in Australia. I’m a Queenslander by birth, so Brisbane would seem a good fit. But I also live in Melbourne, so I’d be doing myself a disservice to rule out the Australian Open, although winning seven best-of-five matches might conceivably tax my shoulder, assuming I was granted a wildcard. Auspiciously, the last time a local won the Australian Open – Mark Edmondson – was the year I was born.)

Haas’ victory in the Munich final was reasonably straightforward, with breaks coming well into the first set and immediately in the second, separated by a restrained fist pump and the requisite shirt-change. Complications arose as he served for the title, and was broken back in a hail of double faults and some typically brazen shotmaking from Kohlschreiber. They ably navigated their way to the tiebreaker, but from there Haas once again assumed control. Both produced their share of winners – it was precisely the kind of aggressive all-court match I most appreciate, and I won’t pretend both players don’t number among my favourites – but in the end Haas was steadier when it mattered.

Kohlschreiber as ever landed an absurd proportion of first serves, something like eighty per cent in that first set. But Haas used his own serve more effectively, prising open the court, controlling the baseline, then hustling the smaller man back and across with superior weight of shot. Kohlschreiber can produce tremendous power given his size, but too often in the groundstroke exchanges he was unable to wrest away the initiative, or to maintain it once he did. From there he was generally the first to execute a shot that would decide the point either way; the Bavarian is adept at many things on a tennis court, but patience is not among his virtues. It’s tempting to believe that his extended semifinal victory against Daniel Brands the day before played its part, causing not weariness but the pre-emptive recklessness that comes from rationing a dwindling supply of energy. Then again, it is fool’s errand to look for more reasons why Kohlschreiber might play recklessly. He rarely plays any other way, and as ever it’s thrilling to watch a man sprint along a tightrope. It will always inspire a measure of envy in those of us, earthbound, who habitually face-plant on the sidewalk.

Upon clinching the title, Haas collapsed onto his back, spreadeagled on the European clay. He first reached the final in Munich thirteen years ago, in 2000, when he lost to Franco Squillari, and he today conceded that it was a title he’d always hoped to win before the end. He certainly looked pleased. In addition to a pile of money, he was also given the white BMW Z4 sDrive 28i that’s been lurking in the corner of Munich’s Centre Court all week. Last year in Vienna the ATP celebrated his five hundredth tour victory by giving him a Fiat 500, with his name boldly stencilled on the bonnet, an addition that will undoubtedly affect its resale value. Thank heavens this latest prize didn’t have anything embarrassing written on it. There was of course a trophy, whimsical after the German fashion. It looked as ever like an Employee of the Month award doled out by a large automotive corporation.

Haas was also granted 250 ranking points, which propelled him up to a lofty number thirteen in the world. Last year he was denied a wildcard into Roland Garros, and was obliged to qualify. This year he will boast an encouragingly high seeding, although just how high will depend on his performances in Madrid and Rome, where he has nothing to defend. The top ten isn’t beyond question. As far as I’m concerned, Tommy Haas remains the best story in the sport, at least until I win the Australian Open.

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May 3, 2013

Laborious Fruit

Munich, Second Round

Inspired by a boisterous local crowd and the jauntily tilted BMW presiding over Munich’s Centre Court, Florian Mayer’s recovery from a set down against Marinko Matosevic kicked off a fine day for the German men. Later on Daniel Brands would conclude the day’s play with an aggressive third set dismissal of Gael Monfils. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images)However, the most anticipated match on the ticket was undoubtedly the second one, between Tommy Haas and Ernests Gulbis. I confess I was excited.

Unfortunately, rain intervened. There didn’t seem to be an English-language stream available, and my choices were otherwise limited to Italian or nothing. I selected the former, and was intrigued to learn that the Italian term for ‘rain delay’ is actually ‘rain delay’. I can attest that Italy does experience rainfall, and that it certainly experiences delays, and that these two phenomena can sometimes converge. Nevertheless, there it was: a rapid and mellifluous torrent of Italian was momentarily impeded by the awkward phrase ‘rain delay’.

Anyway, with time to kill I opted to catch up on some reading, trusting that I’d recognise the Italian phrase for ‘play is resuming’ when I heard it, especially if they said it in English. Foolishly, the reading I opted to catch up on was related to tennis. Specifically: tennis writing, for which, like bad tennis commentary, I maintain a morbid fascination. If nothing else, it confirmed my belief that there is a long article begging to be written about the poor state of tennis writing, and firmed my resolve that I might be the one to write it. One day, perhaps.

I sometimes wonder whether there’s a conspiracy of tolerance among professional tennis writers. It is, after all, difficult to tell a colleague that his or her work is appalling. Some of it really is terrible. However, even in this field it’s rare to encounter prose that manages to be bad in every direction at once. What do other tennis writers say when one among their number produces prose so poor it defies belief? Do they merely shuffle their feet and compliment the writer on his fine choice of font? For example, try this opening:

‘The weeks in between the Australian Open and Indian Wells/Miami are funny ones because there is no clear ending point other than the beginning of the clay court swing, unless you consider the these two American Masters Series to be min-Slams.’

To deride writing like this as amateurish is to insult amateurs, even those who’ve yet to graduate high school. The typos are a serious issue in and of themselves: ‘consider the these’, ‘min-Slams’. Bear in mind that this is the opening sentence, and that first impressions count. Out of the whole piece this is the sentence that matters the most. I’m not sure which explanation is more acceptable: that the writer didn’t proofread his opening before publishing it, or that he did but simply didn’t notice the errors. The first possibility suggests a disdain for standards of professional writing that borders on contempt, with the tacit implication that the readership isn’t worth his trouble. The second possibility is probably more disturbing. Despite his best efforts, this is the best he could manage.

However, even with the typos removed this sentence remains almost unsalvageable, due to its flaccid cadences and near-perfect ignorance of metre. I fear there is no cure for a tin ear. The rest of the piece is no better, and often fails to ascend even to these stylistic valleys. I’ll leave a full analysis for another time. For now I’ll just say it remains a touchstone for truly bad writing.

During the ‘rain delay’ I came across an article about Grigor Dimitrov that ran it close, written by James Masters on the CNN website. There were some inevitable factual inaccuracies – Dimitrov didn’t win Brisbane in January; he was runner-up – but these don’t interest me as much as the prose itself. Whereas many tennis writers are content merely to muddle the basics, Masters is clearly an aspiring stylist, with a special gift for untrammelled metaphor.

His article is entitled: ‘’Baby Federer’ tag weighs on tennis star’s shoulders.’ Often the headline isn’t composed by the writer of the article, but in this case it matches the style of the main body so perfectly that I cannot believe Masters didn’t devise it himself. What kind of tag is he talking about? How much does it weigh, and why would a tennis player wear it on his shoulders? Is it like a mantle?

That Dimitrov’s shoulders wouldn’t be able to support a tag becomes even more confusing upon reading the opening sentence: ‘Built like a wrestler, when Grigor Dimitrov says “don’t call me baby,” you’d be advised to listen.’ That must be some tag, to so encumber a wrestler. Then again, having watched Dimitrov from close range several times, I’d say it’s debatable whether he is actually built like a wrestler, although there are conceivably obscure versions of wrestling that stipulate the proponents must be whippet-thin.

I discussed this opening with a friend, who also happens to be a tennis writer. Her first response was to ask whether wrestlers really do insist on not being called ‘baby’. She thought it more appropriate to Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. I couldn’t help but agree, and realised that despite being the key word in the article’s opening clause, wrestlers weren’t integral to the piece at all. Indeed, no further reference to wrestlers or wrestling proved extant. I presume the point was that Dimitrov, like Jennifer Grey, doesn’t like being called ‘baby’, accompanied by a vague implication that he’ll beat you up if you keep on with it. A less gifted writer might have simply said that, but Mr Masters is no ordinary writer. In any case, CNN clearly doesn’t care what Dimitrov likes or dislikes. Immediately above that opening line is an embedded video clip entitled ‘Can ‘Baby Federer’ become a champion?’

It only got better. Sample this marvellous line from a bit further on: ‘A full-blooded display against the undisputed king of the surface was eventually curtailed by defeat in three sets, but the fruits of his labor were bared for all to see.’ As a devotee of bad writing, I wouldn’t miss that final image for the world, even as I blushingly averted my gaze from Dimitrov’s scandalously bared fruits, especially while they were fully engorged with blood. The article’s remainder was heavily bulked out with quotes by Dimitrov himself. It turned out he actually had very little to say about the ‘Baby Federer’ tag, despite his ongoing struggles beneath its crippling weight.

Thankfully by this time my Italian commentators had reliably informed me that Haas and Gulbis had finally made it onto court. (As far as I could tell, there had been no recourse to purloined English phrases.) The two players immediately set about demonstrating that in this digital age the true story of tennis is told not in words, but on court, and that when allowed to the sport says nearly everything that needs to be said. Haas eventually won, exciting the reduced crowd with his shotmaking, athleticism and multiple shirt-changes. Sadly the fruits of his labours remained modestly concealed. It was, as I said, a fine day for the Germans. There are now four of them in the quarterfinals.

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April 29, 2013

The Search for Meaning

Bucharest and Barcelona, Finals

Rosol d. Garcia-Lopez, 6/3 6/2

(2) Nadal d. (4) Almagro, 6/4 6/3

Lukas Rosol today won his first tour title within hours of Rafael Nadal claiming his fifty-fourth. It feels like there’s a compelling point to be made there, as though something profound has occurred; as though the juxtaposition of these two momentous events is more than just a coincidence. Perhaps, through the warped prism of professional men’s tennis, we’d been vouchsafed a fleeting glimpse of the world’s fearsome underlying symmetry. Rosol Bucharest 2013 -4Last year Rosol inflicted the season’s least likely loss on Nadal at Wimbledon, ensuring that their names would remain forever entwined, like Isner and Mahut, or Marks and Spencer, or Tango and Cash. And now here there were, in Bucharest and Barcelona. When two men do something that matters at about the same time, it feels like it should really mean something.

Further significance arrived in the form of Rosol’s opponent, the great magic-realist novelist Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, whose last tour title came three years ago in Thailand. If Rosol’s Wimbledon victory constituted the most audacious upset of 2012, then Garcia-Lopez’ upset of Nadal in the Bangkok semifinals was the standout example of 2010. (So far in 2013 the palme has gone to Horatio Zeballos in Vina del Mar, again against Nadal. It’s a fine compliment to Nadal that his most absurd losses endure in the collective memory, even as we wonder at his practice of making them an annual ritual.)

Rosol’s victory over Nadal was more significant, since it occurred over five sets on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and was the Spaniard’s last match of the year, but Garcia-Lopez’ was undoubtedly stranger. Nadal was playing in his first tournament since claiming his first US Open title a few weeks earlier, and took the first set easily, 6/2. He almost took the second set easily, but, despite gaining dozens of chances, managed to blow every single one: one hundred breakpoints of ineptitude. Garcia-Lopez somehow engineered a baffling and impossible turn-around, took the tiebreak, broke flashily in the third, and grimly held for the match. For Garcia-Lopez and Rosol to be contesting the Bucharest final mere hours before Nadal was due to defend Barcelona seemed like a dire omen. Of course, Nadal was playing Nicolas Almagro, whom destiny has long since given up on.

Introducing the match, Sky Sports put in a desultory attempt to pretend that it wouldn’t be a sorry mismatch. Marcus Buckland put it to the assembled luminaries whether Almagro had much chance at victory. In all cases the answer was unequivocally negative: Almagro had no chance. Buckland seemed disappointed at this, although he conceivably had a producer in his ear beseeching him to drum up any interest in the final at all. Sadly the graphics department hadn’t received similar instructions. They flashed up a handy graphic to illustrate the hopelessness of Almagro’s cause, by breaking it down into smaller yet equally dismal categories: not only has he never beaten Nadal at all, he hasn’t beaten him on clay, in 2013, or at a Major! Nadal Barcelona 2013 -4Such lists can be expanded endlessly, and I really wish they’d tried. How many times has Almagro defeated Nadal in April, or while it was raining, or in Spain, or while sponsored by Lotto?

To these useful categories we can now add the number of times that Almagro has defeated Nadal while leading by a double-break in the first set. (The tally remains at zero.) Still, for a moment hope must have flared in Buckland’s heart that the elder player would go on with it. He had begun superbly, displaying the kind of aggressive and stylish shot-making that he famously cannot, or will not, sustain. Nadal lifted his level in the fourth game, and broke back, twice. Almagro reverted to the kind of suavely measured claycourt tennis that sees him dominate lesser opponents – he thrashed poor Philipp Kohlschreiber yesterday – but which never detains Nadal for very long. The weather undoubtedly played its part. Reckless endeavour grows dicier in sluggish, damp conditions: ‘With the rain, the ball got heavier and it wasn’t the same for me anymore.’

There were a few brief moments of tension at 4/4: Almagro played a few excellent deuce points to gain break points, whereupon Nadal played excellent points to save them. Otherwise the match played out more or less exactly as everyone assumed it would, even Marcus Buckland. It is the Mallorcan’s eighth Barcelona title – since 2003 he has won 80 of 82 sets played at this venue – and will surely re-instil whatever confidence he lost in Monte Carlo last week. If he’s going to lose to anyone this clay season, it won’t be to the calibre of player populating the Barcelona draw this week. Beyond that, it’s hard to say what it all means.

It’s debatable to what extent winning tennis tournaments means much at all. That said, whatever its significance, writing about it certainly matters far less, and so I’m obliged to attach some meaning to it all, or else what am I doing here? These are existential musings best left for the small hours – as Martin Amis said, it’s the information and it comes for you at night – when they proliferate in the fertile widening space between thoughts. For now let’s assume it all matters a great deal.

It certainly matters to Rosol, though its significance had nothing to do with Nadal, and everything to do with his father, who suffered a heart attack three weeks ago while watching his son play Davis Cup, fell into a coma, and died a week later. The trophy was tearfully dedicated to him. It was a very touching moment.

Indeed, the entire finish was quite touching, which was lucky, since it wasn’t particularly exciting. Garcia-Lopez was emphatically outplayed, and unsurprisingly outhit. Once Rosol took the first set comfortably, he moved ahead 4/0, and it seemed clear even to him that he was likely to win. A fraught final set tiebreaker with multiple matchpoints either way would undoubtedly have better taken his mind off things. Rosol Bucharest 2013 -5But with time to ply his trade and dream ahead, his cares were free to roam.  The full weight of the moment was obvious. It is to his credit that he hefted it so easily, when he had every reason to be brought low. He later said, once he’d dedicated the trophy, that he’d felt his father was watching down on him.

I wonder what his father thinks of the trophy. Bucharest had always been something of an anomaly in this area, by failing to uphold the rich European tradition of bestowing truly hideous objects on proud men who surely deserve better. Last year at this tournament Gilles Simon hefted a cut glass bowl that was almost tasteful. I’m please to say that the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy has now fallen into line. The new trophy is an unrelieved eyesore, guaranteeing that even those future champions not suffering recent bereavement will have a tear in their eye. I hope Rosol wins another tournament soon, so that his trophy shelf features something a little less garish. Perhaps Umag. Or Montpellier.

Actually, there are plenty of other reasons to hope Rosol goes on to win more tournaments, which have nothing to do with trophies or his father. Wimbledon demonstrated to the world how uncompromising and aggressive he can be, and that when he finds his range he can be virtually unplayable. However, too often in the week-to-week grind of the tour he proves that and aggressive unwillingness to compromise isn’t quite enough to guarantee a ranking commensurate with one’s abilities. By winning Bucharest, Rosol has now risen to No.35, and is therefore within striking distance of a seeding at Roland Garros, and at Wimbledon. This does not feel inappropriate, and ensures, at the very least, that he and Nadal cannot meet in the second round. Perhaps they’ll meet in the final. Maybe that’s what today’s results really mean.

Then again, perhaps it’s all just a coincidence.

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April 22, 2013

Rich With Portent

Monte Carlo Masters, Final

(1) Djokovic d. (3) Nadal, 6/2 7/6

The Monte Carlo Masters final was off to an unpromising start when, moments before its protagnists could take to the court, the clouds carried through on an earlier threat and hurled their contents down upon the Mediterranean coast. Now that we know how the match turned out, we can say that this was a downpour rich with portent. Djokovic Nadal MC 2013 -2It turns out the future is much easier to predict once it has become the past. At the time, there was merely a prevailing view that the heavier conditions would favour world number one Novak Djokovic more than the eight-time defending champion Rafael Nadal.

The horizon beyond the world’s prettiest centre court contracted and dissolved in the rain. Everyone’s view was obscured. It can’t have been pleasant for those in the stands, exposed to the sky, most of whom had paid rather a lot to be rapidly drenched. Still, they had an advantage over those of us watching on television, exposed to Sky. None of us were watching tennis, but at least they were gazing at the stars. Apparently the guy who Red Bull dropped from orbit was there. You can’t buy star power like that. At least, I can’t.

Those of us of detained elsewhere were stuck with Barry Cowan and Greg Rusedski, who, sadly, have never been dropped from orbit, although I suspect I’m not alone in wishing someone would rectify that. (It’s a Kickstarter project begging to happen). Rain delays are a real problem for broadcasters, especially when they occur before a ball has been struck. In the normal course of events the broadcaster already sets aside sufficient time before the match for an exhaustive intro, so that interested viewers can be adequately prepped. Today Sky’s intro included a lovely on-site chat between Annabel Croft and Tommy Haas, but otherwise involved Messrs Rusedski and Cowan expounding at soporific length precisely why either, but not both of the excellent tennis players could win this match. Cowan favoured Djokovic, Rusedski preferred Nadal.

Rain delays during the run of play enable the assembled experts to at least recount what action has occurred, and extrapolate further trends from it. Cowan, armed with an iPad, has lately succumbed to the allure of freeze-framed analysis, whereby he’ll pause the action at a crucial moment in order to reveal what is about to happen, thereby proving his capacity to predict the past. Unfortunately Nadal and Djokovic had so far only ambled onto court then scurried off, and not even Cowan was able to adduce much from this. Consequently, they were invited to expand on their already expansive pre-match predictions. They’d been directed to kill time, but apparently failed to realise that this is merely a figure of speech. Marcus Buckland, Sky’s indefatigably professional anchor, aged before my eyes.

Luckily the rain never became incumbent, and before long the part of France in which the Monte Carlo Masters takes place was drenched in sunlight. Conditions lightened considerably, and the court remained dry (it was watered before play began). The players returned, and Sky Sports’ lurid London studio was left behind. Indeed, Sky itself was left behind, as the telecast switched to the syndicated world feed, with the excellent Nick Lester presiding. This was an upgrade. The players, meanwhile, had returned to the court, completed their warm-up, and were ready to play. Anticipation could not have been higher.

No one predicted what happened next. Djokovic, playing with a magnificence rare even for him, shot to a 5/0 lead, breaking Nadal twice. Five times in that sixth game he held a set point, threatening to serve Nadal his first claycourt bagel in six years. We were duly reminded of that previous occurrence, which had come in the final of the Hamburg Masters in 2007. Once again, the omen seemed clear – that was the match that ended Nadal’s fabled eighty-one match claycourt winning streak. It was helpfully reiterated that Nadal hadn’t lost in Monte Carlo for a decade, compiling a forty-six match winning streak at the event, covering a period that had witnessed three different popes, the successful reboot of the Batman franchise, and the death of Albus Dumbledore. He had also won eighty-one straight matches in April. Presumably Nadal was acutely aware of all these milestones, and consequently redoubled his efforts. He saved all those set points, and then a few more, holding serve and then breaking back.

Djokovic’s backhand was impregnable and his movement was outstanding, a combination that famously creates problems for Nadal, although the deeper reality is that it creates problems for everyone. Djokovic looked uncannily like that version of himself from two years ago, the terrifyingly complete version that constantly defeated the Spaniard in Madrid, Rome, and everywhere else. Yet there were signs towards the end of the first set that the Serb’s focus had begun to waver. The winners were now alternating with errors, and he was having more difficulty avoiding Nadal’s forehand. Nonetheless, he broke again to take the set, on Nadal’s third double fault. We viewers were whisked back to the Sky studio, where Rusedski blithely reiterated his faith in Nadal’s eventual triumph. It was suggested that the contours of this final were reprising those of the Miami decider from a few weeks ago. Those among us who believed that match had contravened laws both corporeal and spiritual fervently hoped otherwise.

Still, Rusedski’s faith in Nadal hardly seemed misguided. He was certainly the stronger player as the second set commenced. It looked as though Djokovic had spent himself on those magisterial first five games, and his reserves were looking increasingly low. He was broken in the third game. If history was any guide, this was the moment at which Nadal would commence his rampage. But it never happened, which constituted perhaps the largest surprise of the afternoon. Somehow his technical ascendancy at the start of the second set never translated into sufficient confidence that permits him to gallop away with the match, as he usually does. Of course, a great deal of that was due to Djokovic, who even though he couldn’t sustain the form of the first set remained imposingly complete. He broke back. Then Nadal broke again, for 6/5, and came round to serve for the set.

From there, it was a rare and unlikely capitulation from the Spaniard. He lost eleven of the last twelve points, including being broken to love and losing the tiebreaker 7-1. Djokovic, with an astonishing final effort, returned to his erstwhile level, dispatching flat groundstrokes to the corners, and constantly leaving Nadal with nowhere safe to hit. Cowan later whipped out his iPad to demonstrate this at some length. A final Nadal error, and it was all over.

As had happened in Hamburg six years, Nadal’s mighty and unprecedented streak ended with a whimper not a bang, as he succumbed wearily to a rampant world number one. Afterwards, the rampant world number one’s hands rose fleetingly to his collar, but he quashed the inclination to tear his shirt apart. Perhaps this was out of respect for Nadal, although it may well have been because Carlos Berlocq has kind of ruined it for everyone.

Everything that has a beginning has an end. As canned wisdom goes, it barely even rates as a truism. On the other hand, it’s no less true despite having served as the by-line for the third Matrix film, in which it was intoned by an oracle whose main trick, a la Barry Cowan, was to foreshadow outcomes that were already patently obvious to the audience. There was no good reason to think Nadal would go on winning Monte Carlo forever, even if it was unclear how he’d ever lose. If he was to lose within the next three or four years, it would probably be an upset. And so it proved. Today’s result was an upset, although it was by no means a colossal one.

Readers may have picked up that the leitmotif running through this article is that of pundits being wise after the fact. Some are now declaring that today’s result proves that Nadal was never the favourite to win this tournament. Apparently they don’t quite understand what the term means: it isn’t a guarantee of victory, but merely an assertion that you’re less likely to lose than anyone else. In Nadal’s case, of course, it’s also a millstone around his neck, and one that he attempts to cast off at every opportunity. Some have suggested that today’s loss will do him a service by lightening the load, but that’s probably wishful thinking. After all, winning this title every other year has hardly proved detrimental to Nadal’s claycourt season. I’d say, on balance, he’d rather have the trophy.

Alas, for Nadal, the trophy now belongs to Djokovic, whose coach, you may recall, had advised him to skip the tournament. He didn’t, obviously, and now insists it was the best decision of his life. By winning Monte Carlo he has now claimed eight of the nine different Masters titles, which is more than anyone else, and fourteen of them overall, which puts him at fourth on the all-time list. It’s hard to imagine he won’t add to that tally by Roland Garros. Indeed, if he sustains this form, by Rome he might well be the favourite.

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April 21, 2013

Deep Down

Monte Carlo, Semifinals

(1) Djokovic d. Fognini, 6/2 6/1

It seems magnificently unfair that Fabio Fognini should look the way he does while being a highly-ranked professional tennis player. It’s unfair on the many actors who’ll never look like that, no matter how much they’ll spend on cosmetic procedures.Fognini MC 2013 -7
It’s unfair on his poor fellow-pros who toil day after day on the practice court, yet won’t ever be able do the things Fognini seemingly does on a whim. (As I write this he has casually held to love, comprehensively outfoxing and out-stroking Novak Djokovic.) But most of all it’s unfair on those of us who’ll never look like that, and never strike a tennis ball half so well, but who are cursed to write about those who do.

It’s a badly kept secret that those who can merely turn phrases, even as we labour to turn them until they trip, skitter and catch the light, feel an abiding envy towards those who effortlessly turn heads. It is an envy nourished by the sad discovery that even the most serious writers spend all their time thinking about those who in return barely think about them, and abetted by the queasy realisation, which usually comes at night, that the seductive pleasures of the depths might add up to less than the undoubted thrills of the surface. And even though we might console ourselves that the turning heads are empty, there’s usually enough evidence to the contrary to suggest the consolation itself is hollow. Deep down, I’d probably give it all up to be Fognini. Or maybe not so deep down.

For a while we have comforted ourselves that the Italian’s head, at least as regards tennis, didn’t have that much in it either. Despite all the talent in the world, his middling ranking attested to a crippling lack of mental fortitude. The Italian has never won a tour title, despite several excellent opportunities to do so last year, and has thoroughly earned his reputation for losing interest once he falls behind. He is always the first to make the assessment that he cannot win, whereupon he works hard to make it true. His general air of strutting insouciance attains a haughty grandiloquence as he tosses aside handfuls of unwanted points. Lazy narratives attach themselves to particular players, and they are very hard to dislodge, partly because Il Gattopardo doesn’t change its spots, but also because those who talk about tennis can grow complacent. Tales of wasted talent are the easiest to tell.

Now we may have to find a different tale. Fognini defeated a pair of top ten players en route to the last four in Monte Carlo, remaining poised, focussed and professional throughout. Suddenly, he is ranked well within the top thirty, a lofty status which brings with it all the attendant respectability of a French Open seeding. No longer will he be a dangerous floater, an inspired wastrel ruining a serious player’s day. I confess it doesn’t feel quite right.

On the other hand, Fognini in the semifinals of a Masters event did feel right. That it happened in Monte Carlo felt entirely appropriate. He is made for tennis along the Mediterranean, although he would doubtless be better suited to an earlier, more permissive era. It is no stretch to envisage Fognini as a Lothario prowling the sun-drenched claycourts of the bygone Riviera. Once again, deep down, the sensation is one of envy, mixed with a piquant nostalgia for an era when a pure stylist might attain the heights of the sport, when even the best played tennis as though there was more to it than winning.

Alas, befogged nostalgia is all it is. In this era, more than any other, one sooner or later collides with an entirely modern reality. The modern reality is usually incarnated in one of the big four, and the collision is invariably catastrophic. That game that Fognini held to love might have been delightful, but it certainly wasn’t pivotal. The entirely modern Djokovic had already broken once to open the set, and would break again to seal it. He broke a few more times to win the second set, and thus the match. The romance of the old world had encountered the stark reality of the new, and it was like witnessing a cavalry unit charging a Panzer division.

There were naturally moments of pure Fognini brilliance, but Djokovic was perfectly ruthless in never allowing them to join up into something meaningful. A benevolent dictator, the Serb will permit dissent but not resistance. This is almost always the case when the great players face Fognini. Fully aware of his penchant for theatre, they use the scoreboard to stifle his opportunity to create drama. There’s not much more to add. The whole thing was over very quickly; under sixty minutes. Although there is great theatre that takes less than an hour, none of it occurs on a tennis court.

(3) Nadal d. (6) Tsonga, 6/3 7/6

Rafael Nadal, another aspect of modern tennis reality, had earlier finished off Jo Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets, although his eagerness to do so quickly and therefore avoid unnecessary drama was undone by an audacious late change from the Frenchman. The Spaniard has now reached his ninth consecutive Monte Carlo final, despite being the overwhelming favourite to do so. Earlier in the week he was asked about this matter himself, he was unsurprisingly quick to disavow his favouritism. Nadal MC 2013 -9I wish someone would explain the concept to him, but really it hardly matters. Fortunately, favouritism isn’t a matter of opinion, and isn’t something the players get to choose for themselves, although this obvious point does not deter the assembled media from endlessly pestering them about it. Thankfully the betting market had long since made up its own mind, and so Nadal remained virtually unbackable.

Tsonga began aggressively, and to be honest he never really eased up. His failures, once he’d unluckily failed to break at 2/1 in the first set, were entirely of execution and focus, rather than of intent. Simply put, he began to play awfully, to a level that I hadn’t truly believed a top-ten player could play at. It is hard to believe that that simple failure to break serve was so decisive, given that he’d been playing well until then. It was almost, dare I say it, Fognini-like.

Conditions, admittedly, were difficult: unseasonably cold with a strong swirling breeze, although the sun was out. Nadal, for the most part directed the ball safely between the lines, lofting it over the net with ample air. Faced with a rapidly disintegrating opponent, he was entirely right to do this. But it was by no means interesting. The Spaniard finished the set with five winners to four unforced errors, which was at least a dozen less errors than Tsonga, who managed a heroic 16% of points behind his second serve.

The match continued to stagger down the same path in the second set, with Tsonga broken straight away, and Nadal eventually moving to 5/1. Having learned his lesson in the first set, Tsonga had now won precisely zero points behind his second serve. From there the defending champion’s standard did not alter appreciably, while the conditions remained unchanged. Yet somehow, at the uttermost end, Tsonga for no good reason rediscovered his form. He broke Nadal back twice, saving four match points in total, and eventually forced an unlikely tiebreak. Sadly, at 3-4 Tsonga’s capacity to make sound decisions once more deserted him, first with an ill-considered backhand up the line, then with a pointlessly risky slice that curved into the tramlines, but that would have yielded him no advantage had it landed in. Nadal sealed the match with a bold series of forehands, capped by a winner.

In the end a semifinal that looked like being a perfunctory blowout achieved a small measure of interest, although I’d be overstating the case to say it achieved more than that. Social media inevitably told a different tale, although the tale was mostly told by Nadal fans who don’t realise that almost coming close to dropping a set isn’t the same as losing a match. In the end their man faced no set points. Indeed, I don’t recall that Tsonga ever came within three points of winning the set. A similar, if more fraught, scene had played out yesterday, when Nadal defeated an inspired Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals. Dimitrov did actually take a set, and made it to 4/4 in the decider, although he never came especially close to a match point, or even a break point.

The narrative that has coiled about Nadal is that of the unstoppable warrior, battling against impossible odds to achieve desperate victories, defying his own crippled body, hordes of blood-thirsty foes, and the very gods themselves. Through this snakes the sub-narrative of his innate fragility – that his form is only ever contingent on a perfect mental state and ideal conditions. (You should have heard people go on about the effect of the weather yesterday, as though cold damp coastal claycourts are Dimitrov’s ideal operating environment, somehow placing Nadal at a crucial disadvantage, which he then heroically overcame.)

These narratives are fatuous. The reality is that Nadal wins the overwhelming majority of his matches in straight sets, even when he isn’t at his best, just like the other top players, who often aren’t at their best, either. For almost a decade he has defeated almost every other tennis player on the planet in every kind of weather on any surface, regardless of his prevailing form. (The last time he lost in Monte Carlo, Federer hadn’t yet won a Major. To put it into a broader global perspective, the first year Nadal won here, in 2005, Youtube didn’t exist.) He does that because he is a very, very good modern tennis player. Tomorrow he’ll face another very, very good modern tennis player in Djokovic. As baffling as it sounds, the markets have installed Nadal, eight-time defending champion and arguably the best claycourter of all time, as the clear favourite. Yet another thing he’ll have to overcome.

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April 15, 2013

A Cautious Soul

Houston, Final

Murray / Peers d. (1) Bryan / Bryan, 1/6 7/6 12-10

(5) Isner d. (1) Almagro, 6/3 7/5

‘Jamie Murray, by far the less heralded of the Murray brothers, helps upset the most heralded brothers in the sport – the Bryans.’

It is entirely forgivable when lumpen phrases emerge half-formed in the heat of play – spontaneity trumps sonority – but the delayed timing and measured delivery of this one suggested the commentator had been chiselling away at it for a while. Intoned after the Houston doubles final in that plodding, myth-making metre favoured by American sports-callers, such lines grant easy ammunition to those who dismiss English as an ugly language. Certainly it’s a language that doesn’t yield up its music casually. Murray Peers Houston 2013 -1 The same phrase in Italian would no doubt sing, and by the time Verdi was through with it, it’d probably have you singing along. But coming from an ambitious yet tone-deaf English-speaker with no sense of cadence, it merely made me sigh.

Still, I cannot fault its content. Jamie Murray, ably assisted by the even less heralded John Peers, had indeed defeated the resplendent Bryan brothers, recovering from a first set hiding and saving a championship point before triumphing 12-10 in the deciding match tiebreak. Their recovery in the second set tiebreak was particularly stirring, as they came back from 0-3 to win seven consecutive points.

It was certainly the most exciting tennis match I saw this week, although for sheer drama it was narrowly topped by the US Masters play-off at Augusta. Adam Scott – too heralded, if anything – has therefore eclipsed Peers as the Australian sporting story of the week. For his troubles Scott was hustled to an anachronistic log cabin and draped in a spiffy green crested blazer, whereas Peers and Murray were obliged to dive-bomb into a pool. Horses for courses, I suppose.

A day later John Isner was elegantly gliding into that same pool, having defeated Nicolas Almagro in the Houston singles final. It’s one of the nicer rituals at the US Men’s Claycourt Championships: having toiled away for a week on a court that looks like it has been sluiced with used dishwater, the victor is permitted to cleanse and cool his worn body. Although it wasn’t a long final, it had been a warm and sunny day in Houston, and the giant American was cramping such that he hadn’t been able to sit down during the press conference. A sudden plunge into cold water was surely just the thing. Isner Houston 2013 -4It always makes for a slightly awkward moment once the players are actually in the water, with the pool ringed around by tournament staff and media. Should one swim around for a bit? Perhaps crack some jokes? Or just get straight out? Isner got straight out.

Even if he’d wanted to dog-paddle about languorously, there wasn’t time. He and Almagro are even now slumbering miles above the Atlantic Ocean, en route to Monte Carlo. Their heralds have preceded them, trumpets a-blast. Isner belatedly requested a wildcard to the Masters, which was duly awarded. He was roundly criticised for skipping the event last year, with many pointing out that the undoubted glory of being named the US Men’s Claycourt Champion was worth less in the long term than maintaining crucial momentum in Europe. Some felt he might legitimately challenge the best players in Madrid, Rome and Paris, but that by returning to the United States so soon he would achieve little besides distracting himself. In the end Isner lost in the Houston final, pronounced himself exhausted, and didn’t return to Europe until Madrid, where he lost in the first round. His results hardly picked up from there, and by the time he crashed out of Wimbledon no one regarded him as a contender anywhere. It’s probably a stretch to say skipping Monte Carlo brought about his terrible summer, but this season he’s taking no chances. The Monte Carlo tournament is already under way, and he’ll be compelled to hit the ground at a full loping run. But as he himself said, he might be tired, but he’s also coming in on a five match claycourt winning streak.

Interviewed after the final, Almagro was decidedly less upbeat about his prospects in Europe, and about his form in general. I wonder how much of that reflects disappointing results through the so-called Golden Swing, the part of the season in which he traditionally thrives. The Spaniard certainly wasn’t at his best in Houston; although he’d hardly been pressed after his tough opening match with Gael Monfils, he’d remained peevish and distracted through the week. Even today he appeared beset. (Meanwhile Isner ambled around with typical languor, at one point earning a time violation warning, whereupon he took the unprecedented step of not going bananas at the umpire.)

Almagro commenced impatiently, and grabbed the early lead by breaking in the third game, which is usually enough to guarantee the set against Isner. He made it to 3/1, yet from there lost five straight games, broken twice. The first of these was especially poor, and seemed to galvanise the American. It’s more or less a given that Isner will serve well and move badly, but this was the most assertively he has struck his groundstrokes in some time. Almagro Houston 2013 -3The slowness of the surface enabled him gradually to manoeuvre his feet into position, whereupon he’d anchor them and lean into his forehand. Light balls and a hot day didn’t hurt, and nor did an opponent too content with crosscourt patterns.

Like everyone else, I have no idea why Isner doesn’t play like this all the time, even when he’s short on form, especially because his form-slumps seem to affect his back-up game just as profoundly as his primary one. Even if nothing goes in, the result will be the same either way, and he won’t be tired. Despite being eight-foot-whatever and the boasting the capacity to kick serves into a second storey window, there seems to be a cautious soul trapped somewhere inside Isner. After he defeated Roger Federer in Fribourg last year, following Jim Courier’s insistence that he remain recklessly first-strike at all costs, Isner conceded that he is supposed to play like that all the time. This week he has said several times that he has finally turned a corner. Hopefully that means he’ll go back to playing like he should all the time, all the time.

Almagro was finally broken again in the eleventh game of the second set, in which he heroically saved four match points, before bringing up a fifth with a forehand error, and losing it with another off the backhand. He summarily dispatched a ball over the stands, and watched on with the rest of us as Isner served it out. The American fell down 0-30, but then recalled his fabled ability to smash serves very hard into the corners of the box. This wasn’t quite as impressive as sinking an eight metre putt in a Masters play-off, but it did the trick.

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April 14, 2013

Luck of the Draw: Monte Carlo 2013

Depending on your tastes and assuming you care at all, one’s reaction to the near-certainty that Rafael Nadal is about to claim another Monte Carlo Masters title can be placed somewhere on a continuum between deflation and ecstasy. This scale can be found as an appendix in the latest edition of my masterpiece Bracketology, the Reading of Draws, and Why Men Have to Sleep Around. (It was adapted from a similar scale used to measure anxiety levels in those citizens exposed to pronouncements by Kim Jong-un, which typically range from pants-soiling awe all the way down to pants-wetting mirth. Nadal MC 2013-2It turns out listening to North Korea’s enlightened leader is very injurious to one’s trousers.) The new edition was necessitated by the special problems posed by the Monte Carlo draw, specifically the problem of sustaining reasonable interest when the eventual result is foregone.

Nadal is attempting to win his fifty-eighth consecutive title in the Principality. According to my records, which admittedly differ from the official ones, he hasn’t lost since here November 12, 1955, when his knee was first ruined in a freak collision with a fugitive DeLorean. His knees have required constant care ever since. Nearly six decades later, no betting market has failed to install Nadal as the outright favourite, and for very good reasons. He has dropped six sets here since 2005. Since returning from his extended sojourn Nadal has contested four tournaments, of which he won three and finished runner-up at the other. Furthermore, his only reasonable impediment to the title – world number one Novak Djokovic – sustained an ankle injury in Boise last weekend, and was initially unlikely to play at all, although even in a wheelchair he’d no doubt turn up for the player’s party. Whether Nadal’s inevitable triumph inspires eager delight, weary indifference, or outright dyspepsia, to pretend that it leaves one breathlessly intrigued requires an unreasonable suspension of disbelief. I’m perfectly happy for Nadal to win it – he certainly deserves to – but I do wish his doing so felt less inevitable.

That being said, no one seems sure to what extent Djokovic’s ankle will truly hamper him. The initial assessment of ‘catastrophic structural collapse’ has been steadily downgraded, and he’ll be able to take the court. It helps that his first round opponent will be the irascible Billy Bye, who never learned properly to slide on this surface, and whose record on red clay is consequently dismal. It also helps that Djokovic and Nadal have been placed on separate sides of the draw, meaning they cannot meet before the finals, except socially, assuming Nadal can find time amidst the constant meetings with Prince Albert.

All of which is to reiterate that Monte Carlo is quite disruptive to the standard model of tennis draw analysis as laid out in Bracketology, my seminal work in the field of evolutionary psychology. (To those who’d point out that in science an exception to a model immediately disproves it, I would merely respond that this is what makes evolutionary psychology such an exciting discipline – it’s way out there beyond the leading edge of science, going to extraordinary lengths to legitimate adultery for us all.)

I suppose the conspiracy nuts can make their usual compelling case for a rigged draw – Stage One in the standard model – this time by pointing out that Nadal and Djokovic falling on separate sides constitutes a clear case of official manipulation. After all, it was only a fifty-fifty chance that this would happen. What are the odds? Maths isn’t my strong suit, but I’d guess one in a million. Andy Murray has been drawn to face Nadal in the semifinals. Typical. Murray’s quarter also has four qualifiers, and Stan Wawrinka and Nicolas Almagro. Make of that what you will. I predict Murray won’t reach the final four.

But those fans that derive hope by claiming their favourite as the underdog (Stage Two) are in for a dire time, especially if their favourite is Nadal. Naturally some will make the effort, and thus remind us that the term ‘fan’ evolved from the word ‘fanatic’ in the nineteenth century, and that for many it hasn’t evolved much since. Meanwhile, fans of other players can assert with perfect authority that their man won’t win the title, thereby draining most of the fun out of the exercise, and hopefully learning a helpful lesson in being careful what one wishes for. Asserting underdog status is a delicate balancing act: you want to suggest that your man winning would entail a titanic upheaval of the natural order, thereby rendering any eventual victory all the more heroic and excusing any loss as wholly understandable. Yet you don’t want to quash hope entirely; there must be some faith in victory. You want to be self-diminishing, but not self-defeating.

As ever, the genuine interest resides in the early rounds, and fortunately the Monte Carlo draw has thrown up a few interesting matches to get thing rolling. Jerzy Janowicz faces Kevin Anderson, although the South African may well be spent, since he’s contesting the Casablanca final tomorrow. Fognini and Seppi could be one for the ages, although perhaps not one for all ages. Dimitrov should beat Malisse, but both of their careers have effectively destabilised any solid definition of the term ‘should’. Ditto for Dolgopolov, who should beat Tomic. I think Benneteau has an excellent chance at upsetting Raonic, and I’d put down Gulbis as the outright favourite against Isner. Kohlschreiber and Bellucci looks tempting on paper, but the German has seemingly not regained the full measure of his form and fitness, and Bellucci is still Bellucci.

There is also a fascinating qualifying draw already underway – some unlikely bagels were plated up today – and it’ll be intriguing to see where the seven victors surface into the main draw. One of them will face Monfils, and probably lose. Another will play Davydenko, and feasibly win. Thankfully, the first few rounds should give us enough to go on, before the top seeds take over, and the draw transforms itself into a conveyor belt delivering the expected result.

Still, for a rarity, I’m going to essay some bold predictions as to the eventual quarterfinals:

  1. Djokovic v. Del Potro
  2. Seppi v. Gasquet
  3. Nadal v Dimitrov
  4. Almagro v Wawrinka

I can feel your astonishment from here, but, nonetheless, there it is. I’ve said it. Neither Florian Mayer nor Mikhail Youzhny will reach the last eight. I’m not happy about it.

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April 8, 2013

A Mite Overstimulated

Davis Cup, Quarterfinals

Having narrowly survived the treacherous eddies and rips of its opening two rounds, the 2013 Davis Cup  has finally entered clear water down the home straight. The World Group semifinal line-up can now be made out, gathering detail as it drifts nearer. Serbia will host Canada, and Argentina, as they did last year, will face the Czech Republic, although this time they’ll likely face them on the banks of the Vltava. Berlocq DC 2013 -4 The World Group qualifying nations have also been decided, although until the draw occurs we can only guess at their configuration. Every nation assumes they will draw Spain, even as they hope they’ll meet Israel.

My hope that the quarterfinals would provide a more coherent viewing experience than the first round has been revealed as naïve. Canada only finished off Italy a few minutes ago, and already the weekend’s finer points are submerging themselves in the dark waters of general forgetting. I’ll try to note a few as their needle-like spires fitfully burst through the surging surface, before they recede astern and slip below forever, to be revisited only in nightmares, therapy or under hypnosis.

Argentina’s victory came at the expense of France, in the very stadium where they saw off Germany back in February. I feel like there’s a complicated point to be made there – something to do with World War Two – but I can’t quite grasp it. Carlos Berlocq was the hero of that earlier tie, a status he earned by claiming the opening rubber, and then advertised by tearing his t-shirt off in what has become a wearisomely common practice. Other than Hulk-like brawn and a surfeit of testosterone, I’m not entirely sure what this is supposed to signify. Given that Berlocq’s opponent, Philipp Kohlschreiber, had retired injured, and that it was merely the first match of the tie, some felt the Argentine’s reaction to be excessive. The delirious crowd at the Parque Roca felt otherwise.

Today was a different matter, though the venue was the same. This time Berlocq defeated Gilles Simon in a live fifth rubber, completing a dismal weekend for the Frenchman, who was reduced to tears by the end. Berlocq’s shirt never stood a chance. The locals, already losing their collective nut, immediately evaporated in a haze of pure ecstasy.

Jo Wilfried Tsonga was left in an unenviable position, having won both his matches yet not won the tie. Disappointment at his country’s capitulation must therefore be layered with satisfaction at his own fine performance on his least preferred surface in a hostile environment. He did everything he could, but they still lost. It’s no doubt a familiar sensation for star players in losing sports teams, but unusual for tennis players. David Ferrer knows how it feels, and probably has some useful tips on how to cope. A good night’s sleep on a bed made of money probably helps.

A 3-2 victory can be dissected any number of ways. At some level it’s unfair to say that Simon’s poor form placed undue pressure on the doubles team. If nothing else, it placed doubles right in the position where it should be in Davis Cup, which is that of the fulcrum around which the entire weekend pivots. Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau surely fancied their chances, even on clay and away, but they were rightly wary of David Nalbandian, and whoever his plus one happened to be. If blame is to be apportioned – and it always is – I’d say Llodra and Benneteau deserve a fatter slice of it than Simon, although he could probably use the calories.

The Bryan Brothers, on the other hand, surely felt as surprised as I did when Nenad Zimonjic’s plus one turned out to be world No.1,150 Ilija Bozoljac. The USA – Serbia tie was locked at a rubber apiece, and the easy choice was to go with Novak Djokovic, who even after two matches would surely remain a lock to win the first of the reverse singles. But the Serbian captain Bogdan Obradovic insisted he’d never felt a moment’s doubt – it was to be Bozoljac all the way.

I’d never suggest the Bryans are anything less than consummately professional in their match preparation – as opposed to nauseating in their music – but they are the most successful doubles pairing in history, and currently ranked number one. While they’d fallen to Brazil in the opening round, that had been a shocking upset – which are by definition rare – in a near-empty barn in Jacksonville, in which the South American team appeared to have more support than the hosts. By contrast, the dense crowd within Boise’s Taco Bell Arena was a credit to the organisers, and supplied precisely the kind of febrile ambiance in which the twins typically thrive. (This has been statistically demonstrated; the volume of the home crowd has been indexed to the elevation at which the Bryans bump chests. In Boise, as the match entered its fifth hour, there was a real chance they’d hit the roof.)

But, somehow, it was the Serbian team that prevailed. Zimonjic was superb, especially on serve, but Bozoljac proved to be the real surprise. Insofar as many people have heard of him at all, he is known for losing his way on court, usually comprehensively, often histrionically, and occasionally hilariously. Yet on Saturday he remained utterly unflappable, even as the fifth set saw each team accumulate a dozen games each. Faced with the best doubles combination ever, knowing that a doubles loss would place his country in the unattractive position of relying on Viktor Troicki to win the deciding fifth rubber, Bozoljac actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Afterwards he insisted his faith in victory had never wavered. It was one of those moments that defines Davis Cup, in which a journeyman ranked outside the top thousand (in doubles) holds his place on court with three of the best doubles exponents on the planet, and achieves an outrageous victory for his nation.

One wonders whether Bernard Tomic’s excellent adventure in Uzbekistan will help to define him a little more generously, at least in the merciless gaze of the Australian media. As the great hope of a proud tennis nation fallen on hard times, Tomic is forced to endure more than his share of ecstasy and opprobrium from one day to the next. Last year when Australia failed to qualify for the World Group, falling to Germany, Tomic was the only man to win a rubber, yet it was upon him that the most lavish selection of ordure was heaped. He’ll probably never be well-loved, but those who seek to legitimise their antipathy by dubbing him ‘un-Australian‘ deserve to be reminded that he is now 10-2 in Davis Cup. This weekend Tomic won both his singles rubbers, including the clinching point against Denis Istomin. The other point was claimed by Lleyton Hewitt – whose every loss is merely a testament to his indomitable warrior spirit in the eyes of his nation – and Matthew Ebden. Once again the doubles was pivotal.

Some other quick notes: Milos Raonic is apparently unbeatable on Indoor Hardcourt Premier – the surface the Spanish federation once attempted to have declared illegal, before they won a tie on it – and by claiming both his singles matches has helped put Canada through to their first Davis Cup semifinal in history. They’ll face Serbia in Serbia, and it probably won’t be on an Indoor Premier court. It is supremely unlikely the Canadians will progress to their first ever final. But you never know – Djokovic could be injured.

Then again, it will hardly matter if he is. Today he rolled his ankle badly in the first set against Sam Querrey, came back to win it, lost the close second set in a tiebreaker, then took twelve of the next thirteen games to seal the tie. By all accounts – especially Djokovic’s own – the injury looks to be serious, and there’s a strong chance he’ll miss Monte Carlo next week. On the other hand, I’m not sure Querrey has any excuse. I’m sure he wasn’t as uninterested as he looked, but it was still a dispiriting way for a home tie to end.

Lukas Rosol won both singles matches in securing victory for the Czech Republic – there seems to have been a lot of that this weekend – who are of course the defending Davis Cup champions. Although on paper Kazakhstan was the most benign of potential quarterfinal opponents, even in Astana, things grew complicated when Tomas Berdych ruled himself out, and Radek Stepanek opted not to play singles. It only grew more complicated when Czechs lost the doubles (the only victorious team in the World Group to manage this rare feat). Also, the last time they played, in Prague, Kazakhstan was victorious, with Andrei Golubev playing as only he can, or can’t, as the case now is.

Which brings me to arguably the most stirring result of the weekend: Great Britain’s recovery from two rubbers down to defeat Russia. It was, of course, a Russia whose best players are aging, woefully short on form, and didn’t actually turn up. On the other hand, given the British squad lacked precisely one Andy Murray, Russia still began as the overwhelming favourites. Dimitry Tursonov and Evgeny Donskoy are both ranked in the top hundred, while Britain’s best available singles prospects – James Ward and Dan Evans – have rankings only expressible with scientific notation. Results did not defy expectations through the opening two days. Russia won both opening singles matches – although Donskoy, on debut, was compelled to recover a two set deficit – and Britain’s more accomplished pair made short work of Saturday’s doubles. Some have questioned Shamil Tarpichev’s decision to play young Victor Baluda, but it’s hard to see who else he might have picked that would have made a difference. Tarpichev is notorious for his occasional wily masterstrokes, but I suspect this was more a case of conceding the doubles and giving a young prospect valuable experience.

He should know better. The doubles – and I might have mentioned this before – is crucial. Suddenly, with their easy win, the Brits had momentum. Ward might have been crippled after blowing a two set lead on Friday, yet he opened the final day by recovering from two sets to one down to upset Tursonov. The tie was now locked at two rubbers apiece. The fifth rubber was between Donskoy, ranked No.80 and in his first Davis Cup tie, and Evans, ranked outside the top three hundred, and a five-tie veteran with an imposing record of 2-7. It wasn’t even close, which is fortunate, since Donskoy’s Davis Cup history is entirely composed of heroic two set recoveries, and Evans is not noted for maintaining form under pressure. The Russians were understandably despondent. The Brits were bouncing around in a vaguely amoebic cluster on the court. The British sporting public would have undoubtedly shared their team’s triumph, had they only known about it. Apparently it didn’t merit television coverage in Britain, or even a mention on the news.

Now Britain will get its shot at returning to the World Group, presumably with Murray available. I really hope they draw Spain; not because I’m mean-spirited, of course, or Australian, but because that would ensure it will be televised. I’m only interested in the good of the sport, and its profile in its land of origin. Trust me.

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