Howdy, everyone. I won't bore you with the details of my trip. Suffice it to say that I'm present in Indian Wells and eager to get rolling with coverage. I did manage to catch a good bit of Lindsay Davenport's match last night, and you can read my thoughts on the importance of this event to Lindsay over at ESPN.
Altough Lindsay struggled against Yung-Jan Chang, in her presser she was in a fine mood, but discouraged about one particular thing. She's playing Marion Bartoli, last year's Wimbledon finalist, in the second match on the Indian Wells Tennis Garden's Stadium 1 Court tonight. This means that she won't be able to watch her long-time tennis friend and rival - and retired Grand Slam scourge - Monica Seles make her debut on the popular television show, Dancing With the Stars.
"I am so bummed," Lindsay said last night. "I play second after 7:00 p.m. I'm like, what are the odds that that happens? But I'm so excited for her. I'm hoping someone in this area TiVos it for me so I can watch it after my match. I sent her an e mail today wishing her good luck, and there's signs in the locker room for all the players to vote for her and watch. I swear, she's so great, she's so courageous I can't wait to see her."
That Lindsay was so worked up about missing a television show when seemingly more important things loomed was telling. Here she is, in as close to a "must win" tournament as she has played in many years. But instead of talking about Bartoli's forehand, or her game nature, she's talking about Seles chances on Dancing with the Stars. . .about her infant son Jagger's first unplanned visit to a doctor (it happened here on Sunday, when Jagger had a low-grade fever). . .about how she's working less on her game, enjoying it more, and. . .next thing, she'll be weighing in on Generation Obama.
Of course, the press is always more interested in personal tidbits than X's and O's, but still. . .
Although Lindsay still must put up a few good wins over top player to convince us that she's as good as her results in small-ish tournaments at the end of 2007 and thus far in 2008 suggest, it's pretty clear that she has come to a startling but not entirely lunatic conclusion - that playing at a high level on the pro tour doesn't necessarily require donning a hair shirt, checking into the Career Hotel under an assumed name, and drawing the curtains on life outside.
Oh, that may have worked for the Pete Sampras's and Steffi Grafs of this world, but nobody has ever confused Lindsay with Sampras or Graf. Throughout her career, she has had a Top 5 game married to Second 10 issues of confidence and focus, ensuring that she lived in the worst of both worlds: she sacrificed large chunks of her life for tennis without reaping the same rewards as others who went that route. As she said, "I still dedicate as much time as I can to my career. It's certainly not as much as I did for about an eight year stretch between '98 and 2006 or something."
She talked further about her transformation from one-trick tennis player into multi-tasking supermom: "It's better now. I enjoy being busy. I enjoy having things to do. A lot of what makes the tour life so boring is when you're not playing and not practicing there's a lot of down time. Especially with my husband not traveling there was a lot of down time in foreign countries. Kind of drives you crazy. Now I feel like I'm more fulfilled than ever on the road. Just trying to get as much time in the day when I'm at home to do everything I need to do."
This was an interesting confession that pulls back the curtain on a subject you won't hear most ATP or WTA pros address directly and honestly. The reality is that for all the time, energy, emotion and money they've invested in themselves, those who are good and/or lucky enough to make it on the tour end up with an awful lot of down time on their hands.
By then, though, they've been conditioned to do as little as possible beyond practicing and playing tennis. And the further afield a potential activity is from the profession, the more it's perceived as a threat. Most tennis pros lead lives that are both sheltered and blinkered. They've been told, over and over, that it must be that way, and they're afraid to test the validity of the trope. They become captives of a unique "lifestyle" that's basically hostile to every other lifestyle, as well as toward the raw value of new experience. This diminishes them, and I've always suspected that it makes many of them less successful.
There's no point trashing players for that. In fact, if you've ever been jealous of the money, the fame, the lifestyle of a typical pro, you can console yourself with the fact that a hidden cost of that life is the basic isolation it demands from some of the joys and wonders that the rest of us are free to experience. Even if a tennis player does set out, with the most sincere of ambitions, to scale Everest, chances are he'll be forced to turn back before he hits base camp.
A little of what many players frequently, longingly and sometimes wistfully call "normal life" goes a long way for a tennis pro. It's just the way it is, which is why it's so refreshing to see someone like Lindsay revel in her ability finally to do what many, many of us pull off every day: accomplish our work at a high level, come hell or high water - or crying babies, jerk supervisors, grocery lists, bumper-to-bumper traffic, health issues, tax season, fending off those cold callers, hellbent on selling us replacement windows.
In fact, Lindsay has not just come to appreciate the well - or at least better - rounded life, she's realized that having obligations and responsibilities to fill that "down time" when she's not practicing or playing is tonic for her spirit and may even benefit her game: "Sometimes it's a nice relief and break to go on court and know you have 90 minutes to focus on something else. A lot of times he (son Jagger) comes with me. I have really, really great people that watch him, so every time I leave him I'm never ever concerned about his well being. But for you know, it's challenging. For here it's a first time he's been sick and we had to take him to the doctor, so yesterday I was stressed out of my mind like yelling at my husband, all because, you know, my son has a fever and he's not sleeping. But for the most part we juggle it pretty well."
Having joined the legions of diaper-changing, sitter-collecting, sleepless, where-did-my-life-go? parents out there, Lindsay now sings in their choir: Hey, I can do this! I can juggle and tap-dance and multi-task with the best of them, and you know what? I'm still me! It's the most basic lesson of parenthood and, not coincidentally, the antithesis of the code by which the typical tennis player lives. The fact is, you really don't know what you're capable of until you try pushing some boundaries.
For that, among other reasons, I'd love to see Lindsay have a good year. It's not to show up the players who feel they absolutely, positively cannot perform at their best unless they ignore that call from an old college pal, stick to turkey on whole grain (hold the mayo), or sleep on sheets with a thread count of at least 450. It's more because it's pretty cool to see people refuse to become timid souls, or bow to oppressive conventions. In tennis, the mandate to slam to door on "normal life" is not just a formula for making all-time champions, it's also a straight-jacket for players who have neither the talent nor temperament to win multiple Grand Slams. It's a scare tactic, inviting players to leads smaller rather than larger lives. It often has nothing whatsoever to do with winning or losing matches.
This is an important tournament for Lindsay. These next three weeks (with Miami coming up next) will reveal a lot about how realistic it is for her to target Grand Slam events and the toughest players. If she does well in March and early April, Lindsay will show that while we admire the kind of fidelity the greatest of players show to the game, not everyone must be a slave to his profession to prosper and flourish in it.
Multi-tasking - it's the way of today's world, isn't it?
