21 posts categorized "KeyBiscayne2008"
As Nikolay Davydenko loaded up to send that final, blistering inside-out forehand whistling past the outstretched racket of Rafael Nadal, I suddenly wondered what Kolya would do when the ball briefly singed the hard court and flew on. I mean, this self-effacing Russian is not the sort you expect to do the worm, melt to his knees with arms raised in triumph, fall flat on his back and make snow angels on the cement, or go stadium climbing to kiss his wife and hiss to his agent, "Get me on Leno."
If anything, I was afraid that Davydenko would drop his magic racket and scurry to hide behind one of the sponsor placards on either side of the umpire's chair. That he had every right to beat his chest with both fists and scream Who's the Man! has nothing to do with it. This is a player who has repeatedly found ways to undermine his chances and produce nervous, error-prone tennis in the late stages of big events against top players; for that, he has earned the most horrific of sentiments from fans and critics alike: sympathy.
Besides, thumping his chest would have meant dropping the widely publicized "magic racket", and there was no way Kolya was going to do that. No way he was going to hurl it into the stands, or give it away to a ball kid (which seems to me the kind of thing he would do) - not after producing a symphony in 18 strings with that custom-made Prince frame. Hail, it's going to be mighty uncomfortable for the lovely Mrs. Davydenko tonight, sleeping with that Prince wedged tightly between them.
When he won, Davydenko held his magic racket tightly, and shook both arms as he let out a brief, high-pitched scream.
In contrast to yesterday's wild shootout, this seamless 6-4,6-2 tribute to aggressive baseline tennis had the customary two or three critical junctures. The first and most important one was the uncharacteristic forehand unforced error Nadal made when he had a break point to go up 4-2 in the first set. As Nadal said in a subdued presser: "I make the mistake with the forehand. At this moment he changed the match. He start to play much better. I didn't see way for change the match."
That hold was particularly important for Davydenko, because he struggled mightily with the sun at that south end of the court, especially early in the match. In that early going, Nadal played with his usual ferocity, but Davydenko demonstrated that he was willing and able to make this match a conundrum of sorts: Can a counter-puncher playing another counter-puncher still be called a counter-puncher? The encouraging thing, for Kolya fans, was that he stepped up and played his best tennis from the get-go. There was no sign of trepidation, big-match jitters, or any vestige of the Woe is Me complex that has, in matches past, seemed part of Davydenko's psychic equation.
The biggest miscalculation of the day appeared to have been made by the man who seems more familiar and comfortable on Sundays at Crandon Park. Nadal was taking Davydenko's 96 and 98 MPH first serves from a receiving position three or four feet behind the baseline. Since Nadal made his breakthrough at Indian Wells in 2007, he frequently has said that he cracked the hard-court code by playing more aggressively, from further inside the court. Why he chose not to put that defensive strategy into practice today, especially when you take into account Davydenko's sun-induced serving difficulties, is puzzling. I listened to the pressers at my work station television monitor, so I never had the chance to ask him.
The other outstanding moment was the break Davydenko achieved to start the second set. It put him in great position to continue hitting out, and pursuing a strategy which, he later admitted, borrowed heavily from Novak Djokovic. He described it this way: "I remember, you know, Djokovic beat Nadal in Indian Wells. He's play the same game (as I did today). Because I remember he have good forehand, backhand, baseline, and he played short cross to him and very good control. Also play fast (with a lot of pace)"
Executing sharply angled cross-court shots is no mean feat; the person who did it best, to my mind, was Monica Seles. But there's a vast difference between the balls she drew a bead on, and what Davydenko was facing in Nadal's bolo forehands and rifle-shot backhands.
Day-in, day-out, Davydenko may have the cleanest style since we lost that other short, bald dude, Andre Agassi. The strokes produced by Kolya are picture-perfect, and he has a great talent for using his opponent's pace to his own advantage. On this day, the talent paid off handsomely, because Nadal simply was not the dominating, physical presence to which we are accustomed. In the early stages, he sometimes seemed curiously passive; later on, he showed subtle signs of an unexpected listlessness and frustration.
By the time Kolya held his first serve of the second set, Nadal's fist pumps were infrequent and half-hearted, as if he merely felt obliged to play to character. I don't recall a single, leaping air-punch. When Nadal ducks into his linebacker's crouch to receive, his extreme western grip leads him to hold the racket with both fists, the face parallel to the ground. Against Davydenko, it sometimes looked like Nadal was holding a cross that he was about to thrust up in an effort to ward off a vampire.
That Davydenko could inspire such a menacing parallel is news in and of itself. Here at this site, many of us are accustomed to having a little fun at his expense. Although he's a surprising 11-3 in title-round matches, his career mark against Top 10 opponents is 15-38 (however, he's 11-16 since breaking into that company in June of 2005). But in finals against fellow Tenners, he was 0-3 going into the match, and 0-2 against Nadal (including a loss on hard courts).
A realist, sometimes in that Woe is Me kind of way, Davydenko knows that he doesn't have loads of star quality (if anything, he reminds me of a highly-acclaimed character actor in quality film). Some of his comments might even leave you thinking that he finds the idea of being a star a little, well, scary. When he was asked about perhaps becoming a star in the U.S. he seemed so startled that he made the entire room laugh:
"To be famous? Here? Yes? Really. To be famous really in tennis you need to win Grand Slam. Or, like, say Masters Series, but not (just) one, you know, like a few or - maybe every one. But, yes, I would say if I would like to be famous by self (sic) I need to win tournaments here and to play very good tennis and to beat No. 1 and No. 2 in the world. Then I have more fan.
"Because if you see, I didn't play on center court at beginning of tournament, because, you know, we have here, Roddick, Blake, Americans, and Federer, Nadal, Djokovic. (They are) best player in the world and should be playing on center court and get TV. It's good. Because for beginning tournaments I don't want to play on center court. (more laughter.) It was good for me to play on Court 1 or Grandstand and, you know, to feeling little bit more confidence to come here for quarterfinal first time in center court and feeling much better."
Should Davydenko win a bushel of Masters events or a handful of Grand Slams, it's unlikely that he'll be confused with any of the other beautiful people vying to carve out their own identities. As he said, "My face look like Davydenko, you know? Different."
Well, it's time for the mad dash to the airport, and on to home. I'm around next week. I'll leave you all with thanks for reading, and one more tribute to Kolya, which I just received via email from our TennisWorld Poet Laureate, Highpockets (aka Madame 'Pockets):
THE LITTLE RUSSIAN WHO DID
Magic racket in hand, he took to the court,
This strange little Russian, number four in the sport.
He’s been under suspicion and under the gun
In a huge betting scandal that hasn’t been fun.
He’s disliked the publicity and all the attention,
But he’s beating top players and is on the ascension.
He took Andy in straight sets and Rafa today,
And he's now twelve and three in finals they say.
He’s the champ in Miami, a Masters no less,
And he won it with brilliant hard court finesse.
I guess he’ll hold onto his newly-strung racket,
Cuz the name Davydenko’s at the top of this bracket.
Mornin', all. We had massive rainstorms here in Miami last night, which I rode out imprisoned on a high floor of the downtown Hilton. Want to hear something right out of bizarro world? The hotel elevators are "in renovation", meaning you never know when you press a button if the elevator is going to show up or not. And this, in a hotel where the "lobby" is something like five flights up from ground level and accessible only via an entirely different - but no less unreliable - set of elevators. Worst thing: you can't let fresh air into your room; the floor-to-ceiling picture window can't be opened. I feel like a tuna in a can in that stupid room.
Bu today isn't about me, right? It's about Nikolay Davydenko (striking a heroic if uncannily "social realism" pose above), affectionately known hereabouts for ages (thanks to Ptenisnet) as Kolya the Obscure, although we've officially amended that to Kolya the (No Longer) Obscure. Just like yesterday, Tom Perrotta and I had do "point-counterpoint" style blog entries over at ESPN, and I got to make Kolya's case.
Thankfully, I'm out of the Hilton and all packed for the post-final run to the airport and my flight out tonight. I should have plenty of time to post on the men's final, but if things go awry (say, the predicted thunderstorms materialize) I'll have to do an abbreviated version. We'll see.
In any event, enjoy the final. You'll have a Monday Net Post tomorrow and I'm working on getting Bud Collins to drop by some time soon to answer some of your questions.
I can think of lots of reasons to like Jelena Jankovic, including the Flying Ponytail and China Doll make-up, and laser-like, stinging two-handed backhands. But the best reason of all may be her light-hearted appreciation of all things crazy and unpredictable. She takes this placid, often grave game that thrives on nicely executed set pieces and forehand to backhand conversations and turns it into women's mud wrestling in chiffon cocktail dresses.
We had a good example of that today. As we settled into our seats in the shade of press row to watch Jelena play the final of the Sony Ericsson Open against Serena Williams, we were expecting a tough, compelling and basically sensible clash between the best attacker and best defender in the WTA game. What we got was semi-orchestrated insanity hitting dramatic heights usually reserved for pro wrestling. The match started ugly, turned riveting, and finally radiated pathos before Williams won 6-1,5-7,6-3.
I confess that as a professional tennis watcher, I'm not sure I'm supposed to like this stuff. Praising it seems to be my vocation's equivalent of extolling the virtues of unfiltered Camel cigarettes or deep-fried chicken to impressionable children. But that chicken, it sure tastes good. This match was a hoot, but I find it's often like that when I catch Jelena (in her first round match here, she was 1-5 and five match points down in the third before she stamped her foot and cried, No mas!).
Ah, Jelena. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll throw popcorn at the screen and demand your money back. We were on the verge of that as Williams jumped out to a 6-1, 3-0 lead, with Jankovic spraying balls so badly that she sometimes doubled over in embarrassment at the baseline. She looked like she was about to hurl. She wasn't the only one.
 It was so bad in the early going that at one point she challenged a call on a ball that had to be four-feet beyond the baseline. But I guess that when your other shots are landing 12 feet back, you've got legitimate cause to hope. But just when it seemed that the match was going to wind up as another of those 6-1, 6-1 bummers that remains the bane of the women's tour, it morphed into something far more palatable - a sometimes fascinating struggle between the hunter (Williams) and the hunted (Jankovic). As is often the case in that scenario, the prey kept slipping out of the grasp of the predator, and the hunt would begin all over again. And again.
Jankovic worked her way back into the second set with admirable grit and her finest tennis, which is an appealing display of aggressive counter-punching with a striking degree of athleticism and an unrivaled arsenal of quality strokes. She plays with a low center of gravity, which shows superb discipline. She seems to scuttle, crab-like, and just because she's gone off your TV screen or out of your peripheral vision doesn't mean the ball she's chasing won't come spinning back, sky-high over the net. Today, at one point she stretched for a shot to her right and ended up doing a perfect split. She's plays like a gymnast.
Although the backhand is Jankovic's more reliable shot, it's a treat to see her powder that forehand, the follow-through wrapping around on a nearly level plane, just below shoulder, in a manner that reminds me of Roger Federer. The momentum of the shot often brings her right foot clear of the ground and curling up behind her. Freeze the pose, add the trailing rope of hair, and you could carve it into a nice wooden figurehead for the SS Serbia.
But Williams sails under the Jolly Roger, cannons bristling starboard and port. Her game plan was to overwhelm Jankovic with firepower, and it bore fruit throughout the match - even in the critical middle portion, when her forehand was frequently misfiring and she was being broken as often as she broke. I'm not going to bother much with "turning points" or any of that other hooey, unless we're talking in multiples of seven. The match featured 32 break points (22 for Serena, who converted just eight of them) and 13 service breaks in 21 games (not counting the tiebreaker).
That's not tennis, folks, it's anarchy, born of Jankovic's unique game: She can break anyone, anytime (even Williams), but because of her so-so serve, she can be broken by anyone. anytime (especially Williams). She turns a match into Chinese handcuffs with one player at each end.
But for all the shifts of momentum and surprising plot twists, there was one riveting and satisfying constant: the struggle between Serena's bold offensive fussillades, and Jankovic's dodging, weaving counter-thrusts. How imposing was Serena? In Jankovic's presser, I suggested that it was a crazy match and wondered if Jelena herself was laughing about it. She said:
"Where? During the match? I had all these actors (Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, sitting in the photo pit) when I was returning. It was just funny. I was thinking that one of the actors was in that movie, if you know, White Men Can't Jump. I was feeling when I was playing that match, I thought, White Girls Can't Play, you know. . .I felt like that at a certain point playing against Serena. I was just, like, there's no way I can play with this girl. She's just too strong for me. But, you know, I could have done it, but she was just, you know, too good at the end."
The tense, second stage of the match ended with Jankovic winning set 2, 7-5. The crowd, recaptured, showered the women with a rousing ovation, which Williams took as a cue to go on a five-game run to kick of Part 3. But on this day, every run ended in a trip. Down 0-5, Jankovic reeled off two games. Williams responded by building a 40-love lead. Three wasted match points and a service break later, she smashed her racket on the court and hurled it at her chair. When she was reminded of the moment in her presser she feigned ignorance:
"I smashed a racquet? Oh, my God. Really? You sure it was me? "
Q (amid laughter): Looked like you.
"Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, I guess maybe more than likely my hand must have been really oily and sweaty. That just doesn't like you said, that's just not me. God. . ."
But like all good things and train wrecks, this all had to come to an end, and unhappily for one of the combatants. That turned out to be Jankovic. When she was asked about Serena's power, she replied: "(She has) just amazing power. I felt, you know how I felt, to be honest, it's like heavyweight champion and I'm a feather champion, you know? That's how I felt. I cannot match up against her. Just too much power for me to handle, especially on a good day where she's playing well. It's amazing. I need to improve some of the things, but I will never be like that."
Jankovic sold herself short with that assessment, but keep in mind that this is a crafty young lady who knows a thing or two about sandbagging - her entire game is based on it. She almost pulled it off against Williams, and succeeded in making one of the game's most courageous and cool competitors throw her racket, scream, and go to pieces as she let one match point after another slip away before she finally converted her eighth. Contemplating her uncharacteristic struggle with nerves, Williams reflected:
 "Well, at that point (fill in your match-point of choice - plenty to choose from!), you know, more or less it's me just feeling like, you know, I'm almost there. Or, God, I would hate to lose this match after being up so much. I think that's more of the emotion. Like, 'How am I going to sleep tonight? ,How many Ambien do I have in case I lose this match' type of situation? So you know, you never want to go home like that. That's really one of the worst feelings, and I think when you think about all that, then you end up putting a little more pressure on yourself."
When Williams finally did convert that seventh match point, we looked at each other almost with a measure of disbelief, wondering "Can it be? Is this thing really, really over?"
The fans staggered away, exhausted, dehydrated (the match lasted two hours and 25 minutes), and not even sure that what they watched could be called in any way "good." It sure wasn't classic, but it most definitely was interesting. They had goofy grins plastered on their faces. I'll bet half of them had so much fun that they had no idea where they'd parked the car.
As Williams and Jankovic awaited the presentation ceremony, the beaten finalist thought back to the racket smashing episode and whispered to the winner, "You really smashed that racket to pieces."
William replied, "Yeah. I had to."
I know the feeling. Pass the Ambien.
[ PS - you can check out Tom Perrotta's preview of the men's final here.]
I'm posting this as a breaking news item tonight, but it will be your Crisis Center post for the Sony Ericsson Open's women's final, which starts at 12 PM tomorrow.
The big news on Key Biscayne this evening was Andy Roddick's semifinal loss to Nikolay Davydenko. It was a win built on the platform of Kolya's almost skater-like ability to glide around the court and hit penetrating groundstrokes. But there was a less familiar, almost outlandish sub-plot: Davydenko's serve. He consistently kept Roddick out of his service games, which allowed Kolya to think more about breaking Roddick than about being broken. Roddick saved five of eight break points but had only one break point of his own (he did convert it). It was supposed to be the other way around.
After the match, Roddick said: "The thing you normally don't see about him is the way he served tonight. I remember last fall he had problems getting the serve in. (Tonight he) came out and served - I don't know what he ended up with, 75% plus. He goes for first serves, which he doesn't do that often. He made it tough for me in rallies. Because once he gets on top of a rally, he's pretty good about switching directions and driving the ball to the corner. So I think his serve helped him a lot in his service game as far as taking control of the points."
And when Roddick tried to attack and keep Davydenko from opening the court, stroke-by-stroke, he failed to execute at the required level. Roddick blamed some of his troubles on a mediocre transition game, but let's face it - on any night when Roddick is serving above 70 per cent and he still loses a tiebreaker and gets broken three times, the guy on the other side of the net has some big juju working.
Fittingly enough, the magic poured from a single, irreplaceable racket that Davydenko has been using here this week. Explaining why his game suddenly caught fire here after a disappointing tournament at Indian Wells, he said:
"Because I change racquets here after Indian Wells. I have the same racquet, Prince, just. . .I have before 16 string; now 18 string. Now I have more control. That's what is surprising - I have only one racquet. I play all five matches (with) just with one racquet. I didn't change any racquets. I have not any one (other) racquets. It should be coming, you know, next week to my home, but with one racquet I play three sets (tonight). I didn't change, you know, like, and I was surprising myself, you know."
Of course, Davydenko had a bunch of his old rackets handy, in case he popped a string in his enchanted frame. But the only thing he ended up popping was a handful of aces (6 to Roddick's 9) - and Roddick's balloon here at the event where just last night he took out Roger Federer.
The biggest collective laugh in the press room during my stay here erupted today after Rafael Nadal bounced Thomas Berdych out of the Sony Ericsson Open. One intrepid newshound was all wrapped up in his conviction that Nadal hit only two "powerful" backhands during the match, and asked him why.
Jet Boy, like most of the stars, is accustomed to strange and even dumb questions. Yet he doesn't pillory or mock the poor schmoe who's on a mission seeking some bizarre form of celebrity-related validation. He doesn't even roll his eyes. He seems to take the cheerily democratic view that all questions are equal, although you can tell the ones he takes seriously. For those, he sits up straight and thinks; he thinks so conspicuously and seriously that I half-expect one of those little cartoon thought bubbles to appear over his head. But this question about the powerful backhands was not in that category.
"I really don't know," Nadal said, confessing. "I didn't think about this." He paused. "I think I have more backhands, no? But, you know, sometimes it depends of the points. It's difficult say why I'm not touching the ball. It's about your feeling in that moment, no? I don't know."
See Rafa, no good deed goes unpunished. You take a question like that seriously and you to wind up in bizarro world. What's worse, the tone-deaf guy who asked the question pressed on: "Because a lot of times you played the backhand more safe, but you can hit it very powerful, and people talk about how you should play aggressive on hard courts. It's much talked about. That's why, because you can hit the shot, and we'd like to see it more often maybe."
Jet Boy's look said, Okay, I give up! and he looked right at the pressman and deadpanned: "I going to do more times in the final. If you like, I going to do it."
I know I write a lot about Nadal's pressers here, but I can't help myself. The transcripts don't even come close to doing justice to them; for example, where the transcripts say "comparison", the word Nadal really uses is one he made up: "comparation." It's just one example - and I can think of half-a-dozen similar ones - of the properties that lend charm and a touch of whimsy to the proceedings.
Roger Federer's pressers are crisp, on-target and professional. Occasionally there are moments of levity, but on the whole they're like a meeting of the UN World Council on Reducing Erosion in Riparian Corridors. In his interviews, Novak Djokovic tends to make speeches instead of engaging in conversations; of all the top guys, he's the one in gravest danger of referring to himself in the third person. (When I asked him in Indian Wells what luxuries he'd allowed himself now that his material well being was secure, he very sternly warned me that this was a "private" matter. I'm fond of Novak, but if that's his idea of something "private", there's something lacking in that boy's life.) And Andy Roddick pressers can be like certain late-night conversations in a bar; you never know if you're going to share a laugh with the guy - or end up rolling around in the sawdust, fists flying.
 By contrast, Nadal's appearances are a press room happy hour, sans booze (these tournament promoters aren't entirely nuts). Feel bored? Cranky? Uninsipired? Maria Sharapova just look at you like you're some kind of iridescent green bug when you said hi to her at the transport desk? Get on over to the interview room, Rafa's coming in! The guy turns the room into his kitchen, hops up on the counter, and you talk. It's a warm, enjoyable experience and that means something. Even when he takes exception to an ill-conceived question or comment (Rafa, don't you ever get tired of being stuck at No. 2?), Nadal expresses his annoyance or displeasure without malice - a slightly pained expression the only clue that he's discomfited.
And some things do get to him (among them, incessant "comparations" between this year and last, between his serve now and 18 months ago, between the relative value of the Wimbledon and French Open titles). Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald invited him to elaborate on something she'd read on his blog, pertaining to the recent fortunes of Roger Federer. He said: "I think the people are speaking too much about Roger's moment. I think Roger is not in that moment, but, you know, it's very tough to be all the time at 100%. He has for last four or five years unbelievable records. Right now he's not doing bad. He's doing semifinals in Australia and semifinals Indian Wells. Here, quarterfinals.
For sure we are not. . .for us, not normal watch Roger lose in these tournaments, but he's a human person. Anything can happen, because the levels always are very close. Roger has a special ability and always win the important matches and win in the difficult moments.
For that reason, I think it's not fair right now we speak bad about Roger."
It was a touching tribute to a rival who has kept him pinned at No. 2 despite (as Nadal claimed) Jet Boy having had, at various times in the two years, more ranking points than some No. 1 players of the past.
So what of Federer then? Charlie Bricker noted today that this is the first time in something like four years that the Swiss icon has gone four tournaments without a title. But like so many of the other statistics created by Federer's supremacy, you have to ask: What does that really mean, in the big picture? My own answer is, not that much. Roddick is a player who, at his best, can knock out and bury people in a blizzard of teeth-jarring forehands and court-denting serves. Give the man his due.
But if you insist on making this all about Federer and are looking for comfort, go back into the record book - you'll see comparable dry spells in every great player's resume, especially when they get to the mid-point of their careers - and beyond. It's ironic - and perhaps telling - that Roger has become pals with Pete Sampras. Those guys talk. And Pete has always been pretty vocal about his decision, taken at a time comparable to this point in Federer's career, to focus on the majors. This is a tricky issue for Federer for many reasons, including political ones having to do with the prestige and credibility of the tour. For, as Pete said of sub-major tournaments: "At one point they all started to run together and I didn't really care that much."
The trouble with making this all about Federer is that it also invites you to leap into the alarmists' camp, where you just might end up stewing in your discontents and wildly unrealistic expectations for a good spell. If you scrutinize yesterday's scorecard and focus on the critical seventh game of the third set, you can find justification for panic. The score was 3-all and Roddick was serving, and down, 0-30. But Federer wasted that chance uncharacteristically, shanking a pair of returns. On game point for Roddick, Federer drove an ugly forehand into the net. Worse yet, he was broken in next game, at love. Roddick then served out the upset.
That chain of events handily illustrates the most persuasive doomsday scenario, if you care to go there, darkly implying that Federer has misplaced his confidence and that his nerves, overloaded for so long, are burning out and sending error messages to his arm. This happens, although not usually overnight, and not so finally that a player tumbles head over heels off the ranking tower. Right now, it's most likely that Roger is in the middle of a mild (for him) "slump", or having trouble getting motivated for run-of-the-mill tour events, or he's just in the midst of a simple run of bum luck, with an on-fire opponent lurking in every draw.
That players are more resilient than we sometimes give the credit for is a truism that was proven again last night, when slam-dunk finalist Andy Roddick was beaten by recently troubled but now resurgent Nikolay Davydenko, who will now meet Rafael Nadal in the men's final. It would be a shame to doubt that Federer has the same kind of resilience.
Just ask Nadal. Next Happy Hour is Sunday, around 4 PM.
[Moderator note: despite the CC label, please treat this post as On Topic - the following post should be used for match calling and general tennis discussion]
Afternoon, everyone. And how 'bout that Andy Roddick? I'll have more thoughts on his performance against Roger Federer later - probably after his 7 PM match tonight. It's a bright, humid one here in Miami, and Rafael Nadal is serving for the first set as I write this. Tom Perrotta and I are doing a point-counter-point for ESPN on tomorrow's women's final. He's arguing Serena Williams's case, I'm making the pitch for Jelena Jankovic. We'll be doing the same for the men's final tomorrow. Whoops! Tomas Berdych just double-faulted away the set. I'd better post this so y'all have a place to gather and talk.
Well, in all the excitement of today, the Miami Morning CC topped 1150 comments.
So fans of Kuznetsova, Tipsarevic, Federer and Zvonereva can use this continuation thread to assuage their grief, while fans of Serena Williams, Davydenko, Roddick and Jankovic are urged to continue with their usual gracious mien.
Leave it to Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach into the bottomless bag of animal similes and come up comparing herself to. . . a mouse. Yesterday, after Serena Williams snatched a semifinal match away from her here at the Sony Ericsson Open, Kuzzie groped for the analogy that best described the events of the day and came up with this:
"Yeah, I think this game I had so many chances. It was amazing. Every time I felt like I had it, but I could not take it, you know?" She paused and raised her right arm, pretending to hold some imaginary object aloft, and concluded, "Like you have cheese here. . . and you cannot just eat it."
Still, how often does the mouse get to scale the counter and actually get to hold that indescribably savory and aromatic wad of Limburger in its tiny trembling paws - and with the rolling on its back on the sunny spot on the floor no less?
Not very.
So Kuznetsova was surprisingly upbeat about the way Williams suddenly rolled over onto her belly and sprang up on the counter to take the cheese for herself. Mice do best when they're reconciled to their place in the food chain; they also know they can grow pretty fat and sassy feasting on breadcrumbs instead of Limburger.
Describing a match between 'Rena and Sveta as a grand drama on the order of, oh, an episode of Tom and Jerry (shall we say the incomparable Puss Gets the Boot?) isn't just an exercise in mere whimsy. Kuznetsova is built on a mouse platform, with a thick body and no appreciable waist, as well as strong legs that she puts to good use scurrying energetically around the court. 'Rena has a seemingly enormous advantage in her long limbs and the lax, limber muscles that enable her to pounce in surprise. Watching her, you often get the feeling that she's not all that interested in running; her specialty is the short burst and the kinetic explosion.
True to the mouse spirit, Kuzzie is a worker; if you've ever spent time in the country and heard mice racing along the rafters on cold, still night, you know what I mean. And at the start of the match, Sveta was all industry. She's fleet but not at all leggy; she just churns along, and then puts her remarkable eye-hand co-ordination to work in an effort to probe and open up the court with a slice here, a flat drive there, a topspin lob somewhere else. It worked perfectly in the early going, because Williams looked sluggish and out of sorts. You know trouble is afoot when the you can hear the murmuring of the crowd and know they're asking: What's wrong with Serena?
 Kuznetsova won the first set, 6-3, and, as this was my first live view of the "new" Serena, I was baffled. I could see that she was fit - perhaps the fittest she's been since her best years on tour. But when Serena isn't moving well (or showing no inclination to move, well or badly), it's hard to envision her at her best and most feline. That may just be because a little bit of moving carries Serena a long way - in this case, a long way being just that extra second or 18 inches she needed to position herself to crack those heavy, bold groundstrokes in a way that might enable her to turn the tables.
Williams seemed in big trouble when she fell behind, 15-40, in the first game of the second set, but she saved the game. Soon she began to find her groove and the set was blissfully free of service breaks (the point of the game is to hold serve, right?) until Kuzzie crumbled in the 12th game.
Part of Kuznetsova's game plan was to play from further inside the court than usual, and for a while it worked.But as Williams applied steady pressure, driving Kuznetsova back with penetrating service returns and precise placements, Kuznetsova's best shots began to seem less like forceful statements than attempts to remain in the conversation. And we all know how hard it is to say something interesting when you feel pressured to do so. The greater the silence, the more daunting a task it is to fill it with something notable. And the silence when you're serving at 5-6 against a dangerous, go-for-broke returner like Williams is pretty profound.
On balance, though, this was not an unusual position for Kuznetsova; relying on her inventiveness may be her ultimate comfort zone. For all of her assets and skills, Kuznetsova is basically a reactive player. In the endless game of cat and mouse, she's always the mouse.
Every player goes into a match with a game plan. But some players are far better than others at implementing and even adjusting that plan during the flow of play. Kuznetsova is an oddity; she often hits a great shot and you sense that she, like you, is wondering; So what's going to happen next? This occurs at a very subtle level - after all, you don't get to be no. 3 in the world standing around watching your shots like some high school kid. And while it's undeniably a good thing for a tennis player to, as they say, "be in the moment", but there is also too much of a good thing. It amounts to the sense that instead of building points with a inter-connected series shots, she's taking it one stroke at a time.
I think of this as Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario disease. All counter-punchers are susceptible to it, no matter how flashy or well-rounded.I don't know if there's a cure for this essential stop-start feature in Kuznetsova's game. In some matches, it's probably an asset, because it certainly opens frontiers of surprise and all manner of options against someone who enjoys playing set pieces. But you just can't survive rallies and counter punch your way to success, taking all your cues from an opponent - not against a player of Williams's caliber. She has too much power, too much range, and she's willing to take charge if you won't - physically as well as psychologically.
This was a good day for Kuznetsova (if only you could score a tennis match on a curve in which all points are equally meaningful!), and a perfect portrait of an original game in all its idiosyncrasy. She broke Williams in the first game of the third set, but was broken right back. Ditto the next two games. The women remained on serve for the next three games, until Williams got the killing break for 6-5. That game was well-played game by both women, and while it was great to see Kuzzie playing keep-up instead of catch -up (she hit two forehands with such uncanny timing and force that both her feet ended up a good two feet off the ground), Serena closed her out, then served it out.
In her presser, Kuznetsova rued her inability to take control of the match: "When I was on the top, I was playing too careful. When she was on top, I was playing better, you know. I couldn't find the right balance there. I think that was my main mistake for the match. . . I would like to see next time me be a bit more aggressive and play better when I'm on the top."
Serena was opaque in her own meeting with the media. But like the Cheshire cat, her smile spoke volumes.
I'd better make this quick because Serena Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova will be taking the court in a few minutes. It was a hectic Miami morning: first, the annual "Breakfast with Butch (Buchholz)" and then a round-table with Patrick McEnroe, regarding the USTA's reconfigured player development program, which will now incorporate a "Pro Track" component aimed at developing players (previously, the USTA's buzzword, and very real, philosophical stance - was to "facilitate" development). I'll have more to say about this subject later, but right now it's. . . Game time!
Rafael Nadal has been around the battle long enough to know where the mines are planted, and when even a seemingly innocuous question can blow up in his face. So it was only natural that he balked when, after his 3-6,6-3,6-1 over James Blake here at the Sony Ericsson Open, I asked if he could sense the air going out of Blake's spirit and game in the late stages.
Nadal is expressive, which makes him a pretty easy read. I swear you can see it each time a cloud passes in front of his sunny mind, or read the precise degree of ambivalence he is experiencing by the angles of his brows. This time, you could almost hear him thinking, I'd better watch it here, I don't want to say something that's going to backfire on me. . .
But you know how it is with expressive people. They're incorrigible truth-tellers, even when they're trying to hide the truth. One of the great things about Nadal is that he never tries to hides the truth; he isn't nearly calculating or devious enough to even want to pull it off. If a truth happens to be inconvenient, or not in his best interest to divulge, he'll just tap dance around it for a while, orchestrating the dance with a full range of scowls, knitted brows, "who me?" shrugs. But like all honest people, the weight of deception sits heavily on his spirit. It makes him uncomfortable. He'll tap his feet, twist and churn this way and that, but in the end he needs to say what he feels or knows to be true, just to rid himself of that weight. On this occasion, he said: "Well, sometimes happen, no? Well, the thing is it's strange. . . .I don't know what he (Blake) says before (in his presser), I don't know what he says. But I think he was playing fine today. I think he was playing very good tennis. After the third game or fourth game of third set he comes a little bit down. I have lucky. . .but I think he goes a little bit down, no?
Thank you, Rafa. I'm glad it wasn't my imagination. Or it was both of our imaginations, in which case all I can say is that I like the company.
You had to feel for Blake on this sweltering afternoon in Miami; he's had two fine Masters events (Indian Wells and Miami) ending with Nadal wagging his finger: No pasaran! What must have made this doubly frustrating is that before Indian Wells, Blake was 3-0 against Nadal. If he was going to crash the Top Five, Nadal was his wedge. The psychic capital alone, when it came to Blake's reputation among the players, was significant. It's different now, and if Blake, ranked No. 9, can't be faulted for losing two matches in a row to the No. 2 player in the world (and a multiple Grand Slam winner and two-time Wimbledon finalist), he hasn't made his own life easier by yielding the momentum in the mini-rivalry.
What struck me on both of these recent occasions is how unfit and dispirited Blake looked at the tail end of each clash. In Indian Wells, I simply thought, James definitely has fitness issues. It was the same as I watched Blake teeter, tooter, and finally collapse here today. This one had to hurt, I thought, after Blake sealed his fate at 1-2 and break-point down in the third. He misplayed an easy smash and then compounded the error by spearing a volley into the net to give Nadal a 3-1 lead. But hurt or no hurt, that happened early in the third set in a match of consequence. It was hard to rationalize Blake's subsequent listlessness.
I wondered how I might approach this glaring and - to Blake - potentially insulting issue. But I remembered something a number of great athletes have taught us. Fitness is will, and fitness is game. If you're fit and strong enough (and I'm not sure you can ever simply work your way to the required level in a gym, because it isn't just about the reps squats), your game and spirit are better protected against incursion, and your will isn't forced to carry around the extra baggage of a tired body. So I phrased my question like this: Is there a physical solution to dealing with him? Staying with him? Staying in the match all the way through? Is it the kind of thing maybe with some different training technique or whatever, you could change?
Blake's reply was eloquent and insightful, so much so that I'll quote it almost in its entirety: "If there's way to train my mind not to be so passive. . . I felt like I was doing well in the first set. I've had, in general, success against him on hard courts. Last two times it wasn't, but both were pretty close matches. It could have hinged on a couple of points. I don't think anything needs to be changed. That's one thing that won't get me down, that won't say I need to revamp my whole game plan, which is where I think a lot of guys do get into trouble.
"They have a couple bad losses and they think they need to change coaches, they need to change their game style. They think they need to change everything. Where if I get a little lucky on a couple points here or there, I just played a little smarter for a little longer, I feel like I could have won this match. . .
"If anything, I'd love to go out there and play again and play a little smarter and take my chances a little more. I might lose, I might win, but it's my best game. That's what I'm sure of by now.
"At 28 years old, playing on tour for as long as I have, I know what my best game plan is. It's not a question anymore. It's not going back to changing everything to serving and volleying all the time, to staying back, to playing defensively, to completely changing my training to where I'm going to go out and run in the sand for five hours a day. I know how much is too much.
"I've done trial and error for a long time. I've overtrained at times, and I've undertrained at times. I've done everything. I've done everything that I need to do to find out what the best solution is for me, and I've come to that conclusion. It was with the help of Brian Barker and Mark Merklein, and it feels good to know, to go out there and know what I'm doing. Then it's no one's fault but my own to go out there and not execute on a given day. Those guys are not to blame. It was me that went out there and just didn't follow through on all the hard work."
Those points are well taken. Yet I keep bumping up against the evidence of my eyes. Dang it, the man looked beaten. Fatigued. Spent. And it's not like there's anything wrong with that, were it not for the positive, fast start, and the fact that this was a three-set match.
Nadal himself admitted to being shell-shocked by Blake's early move, saying, "Well, he start playing so aggressive. I don't have many chances in the beginning. I can't touch the ball. I can't get the rhythm in the beginning, nothing."
Yet by the early part of the third set, Blake's aggression was draining away like motor oil out of the pan of an expensive rally car that had struck a rock four miles into a race. At the same time, Nadal's engine was only revving higher - and higher. Sure he had the momentum - but as he said, "But I was all the time very focused, no?"
So I felt I needed to press Blake a little further. I did it with sincere deference: Correct me if I'm wrong, in both these matches your level seemed to decline, even physically your body language and stuff as you got deep into the match and toward the end. You know, that's what it looked like from the stands.
Blake wasted no time:
"I'll correct you when you're wrong. I think you were wrong. Because I think a lot . . .like we said yesterday, when we talked about Rafa's desire and his will to win and everything he does, and his fist pumping and all that kind of stuff. . .Well, I said it yesterday: Every single person out here has that. They just don't express it the same way.
"If I were to go out there and show that much emotion it would be detrimental to me. I know that. I've had times where I've looked down. . . I mean, if you look back at the tape where I was playing Sebastien Grosjean, and down two sets to Love, I'm sure commentators and media people were already writing their story - that I looked like my expression was down, I wasn't ready.
"In my head I'm fighting till the end, and whether or not it looks like it or not, that was always the plan. I said it yesterday, I said it today, I always feel like I can win. And I will win. Today I didn't, but I have to go on that. It's just different ways of expressing that.
"You know, to me, I take all the criticism and accolades with a kind of a grain of salt. But it does irk me a little bit when it's something that people feel like they see, and when they see that they think they know me.
"It's something that it's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, because even when I was young, when my coach would say something like that. . .He knows better now, since we've been together long enough but he knows not to say the way I'm feeling or anything, because it's kind of frustrating to me.
"If I was coaching someone I would never tell them how they're feeling or tell them what they should feel or anything. That's very personal, and I felt like I could win today the whole time, and I didn't. But it wasn't that I was down.
"I mean, I honestly if anyone wants to, I can put my shoes back on and go out and play three more sets. It's not physical. It's the fact that he beat me down mentally. He played more aggressive. I played too passive. It has nothing to do with my training, because I was ready to go."
Blake's obvious,keen disappointment must have at least partly accounted for the defensive tone in his comments, as well as for how far he strayed from the
original question and in how many directions. And who am I to second guess his analysis? I respect Blake's self-awareness, his openness in talking about these things, and his thoughtfulness. And, at the end of the day, let's remember that nobody could mistake this result for an upset.
But I still wonder why Blake couldn't put those shoes on in the third set, instead of offering to do it when the cause was already lost.
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