14 posts categorized "June 2010"
 Kvitova, Pironkova, Schiavone, Stosur: Are you wondering
where these women came from? Are you wondering what’s happening in women’s
tennis right now? You’re not alone. This was supposed to be the year when the
old ruling class—in short, the Williamses, the Belgians, and Maria
Sharapova—was going to be reconstituted and set loose against each other in one
epic Grand Slam final after another. Instead, the last two majors have brought
us a parity that's bordering on chaos.
Partially, this has been a product of the draws, and the wrench
that the current rankings of Justine Henin and Sharapova have thrown into them.
Henin had to face Sharapova and Stosur early in Paris, and Clijsters early at
Wimbledon. Maria, who seemed to be playing as well as anyone, had to face her
nemesis, Serena, in the fourth round at Wimbledon. But when you look at the
bigger picture, what’s striking isn’t that the old guard hasn't dominated the way we
might have predicted, it’s that there’s no new guard there to take their
places. Each of the women I’ve mentioned so far made her debut all the way back in the 1990s, with the exception of Sharapova, who isn’t exactly a new face; she won Wimbledon in
2004. If you have a plausible overarching explanation for this aging process,
you’re one up on me. Clijsters and others say that it’s the physical nature of the
WTA now, and the women probably do hit harder then ever. But this has been a
long-running trend. When Steffi Graf won her Golden Slam in 1988, we didn’t
foresee someone like Monica Seles coming along so soon to knock off her off her pedestal—Graf played the most powerful and intimidating baseline game in the
history of women’s tennis up to that point. But there Seles was, just a couple of years later, taking Graf's power and sending it right back—and past—her. When Serena won her Serena Slam in
2003, it looked like she would dominate for years. And, for the most part, she has. While she’s had her lean
seasons, no one has come along to knock off her and take over. There hasn’t
been a Monica, a new future, this time around.
The other theory I’ve heard recently is that the tour’s
age-eligibility rule, which limits the number of tournaments that young players
can enter, has held some girls back. This is also possible, but if there’s been a
player of Seles’ or Serena's talent and competitive abilities who has been thrown off track by that
rule in the last decade, I’m unaware of her.
But, even though I’ve just spent 400 words on it, none of
that matters at the moment. There’s no reason to lament the lack of a new
Monica Seles, when the four players who are currently in the semis have provided us
with as much determined excellence (that would be Serena) and inspired surprise
(that would be the other three, the Va's). We like to see the legends go head to head as often as possible, because their matches immediately go into the lore and
history of the sport. But one small beauty of the Grand Slams is that, when the stars fade out, the tournaments still go on
long enough for you to develop a brief but eye-opening connection with a new player or two. You may never see them again, but each of these players brings
something fresh to your appreciation of the sport. This week I’ve liked
Pironkova’s energy, court sense, and I’ll-hit-any-shot-it-takes-to-win
approach. I’ve liked Kvitova’s athletic attack, even if I can do without her
particular brand of fist pumping. And I’ve liked Zvonareva’s level
third-set head. She really doesn’t come across at all like a basket case off
the court. Deep down inside Vera, maybe there’s a cool competitor just waiting
to break out.
Will we see that competitor break out tomorrow in the semis?
The head to head isn’t comforting: In their only meeting, on hard courts in
Moscow last year, Pironkova routed a hurting Zvonareva 6-0, 6-2. And from a who-is-less-likely-to-melt-down-under-the-pressure-of-a-semifinal-on-Centre-Court point of
view, you’d probably go with Pironkova. She showed intelligence and craft in
the way she kept Venus on the run, and the ball out of her strike
zone, in the quarters. There’s just one minor issue from the Bulgarian’s standpoint: She’s not as good
as her opponent. I mean that purely from a ball-striking standpoint, of course,
but that’s the one that counts the most. The key for Pironkova will be to avoid a lot of straight-ahead baseline to baseline rallies. The key for Zvonareva will be to
keep it together if she doesn't start winning those rallies right away.
Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova, 20, of the Czech
Republic, have also played just once, with Serena predictably winning 2 and 1, at the Aussie Open this year. Serena obviously played well at that
tournament—she won it—but I’d say she’s been even more impressive so far at
Wimbledon. She’s played with pretty much total calm and self-assurance—I don’t
think I’ve ever seen her smile and joke with her opponents as much as she has
here. Serena and her sister idolized, and were smart enough to model their
serves after, fellow Californian Pete Sampras growing up, and Serena has been
more than a little Sampras-like in the way she's gotten through this draw. She’s been challenged, but
she’s won with her serve, and she’s won exactly when she’s had to win. There
can hardly be a more perfect distillation of the difference between Serena and
Sharapova than what happened at 9-9 in
their first-set tiebreaker. Sharapova threw in a wild double-fault; Serena took
the same ball and fired an ace for the set. Come to think of it, that’s what
separates Serena from everyone else these days, and maybe why she’s never been
knocked off that pedestal I mentioned earlier.
Does Kvitova have a chance? The first time I saw her play
was at the U.S. Open last year, when she upset the No. 1 seed, Dinara Safina. I came out of
that match thinking that it really hadn’t been an upset, that the better player
and bigger hitter, regardless of her ranking, had won. So, yeah, Kvitova, who can
play offense and create openings, and who competes with gusto, has a chance. It
may happen to be in hell, rather than at Wimbledon, but she has a chance.
 My soccer career ended very early. I was about 12, and I was playing a two-on-two game in one of the unused, semi-public yards that gave the kids in my neighborhood a little room to run. I had a breakaway (at least that's what we call it in basketball). I ran toward the goal—two
baseball gloves lined up about 15 feet apart—while my teammate and opponents
lagged behind. When I looked back, I saw that they’d given up altogether. This must have thrown me off, because as I
came near the goal, I had trouble controlling the ball and keeping it moving forward. In my frustration and anxious desire to score, I finally just picked
it up and hurled it through.
Listening to the reactions of my fellow Americans to this
year’s World Cup, I’m beginning to think that my story could serve as a
metaphor for our relationship with the sport. Frustration is the watchword:
“Nothing ever happens.” “You think there’s going to be a good play, and then
someone messes it up.” “I turn my head for a second and miss the only goal.”
And it’s true, this time around the World Cup has made me
believe that the fundamental problem with soccer is that it’s just too hard (message
to the sport’s rule-makers: it would help if you could use your hands). It’s too hard to control the ball long enough to score, which
leads to the aspect of the game that Americans don’t get: The total lack of results.
In baseball, you get some kind of result with each at bat; in the NBA, you see two points scored on each of roughly 100 trips down the court; in football, teams can sustain many
drives all the way down the field and into the end zone. To us, a suspiciously large number of
soccer’s results—its goals—look like random occurrences, the products of a
lucky bounce off a goalkeeper’s hands or a dubious call that leads to a penalty
kick. On paper, we know the sport can’t be all luck—Brazil’s five Cups prove
it—but in practice it can seem that way to our untrained eyes.
This year, like any tennis fan, I’ve watched the World Cup,
soccer’s biggest event, in tandem with tennis’ biggest event, Wimbledon. Some
days I’ve had tennis on one screen on my computer, and soccer on a screen
behind it—you can hear the vuvuzelas buzzing away back there. Like rugby,
croquet and badminton, tennis and soccer each got their formal start in Victorian England (cricket also went international during
this time). The rules of soccer were codified there in 1863; tennis was
invented there in 1873. Why this sports explosion? The cricket writer and
historian C.L.R. James says that once democracy became rooted in the West
through the 18th and 19th century, it quickly became clear what the people wanted more than anything else: They wanted games.
Tennis, invented as a way to sell sets of racquets and balls
to the masses and capitalize on the craze for garden-party activities, was taken up by
private clubs and became an elite sport. Soccer, played at elite English
public schools in the 1800s, went mass all around the world. All around the
world, that is, except in the U.S. Here, soccer comes with an elite flavor. Where tennis is a symbol of wealth, soccer in the States is a symbol of
liberal open-mindedness, kind of like joining a CSA. Where I grew up, the kids
who played it all went to a private, craft-loving, hippie-ish elementary school
(think cubbyholes instead of lockers). Where I live now, in Brooklyn, it’s
considered a healthier and safer alternative to baseball or American football.
Alternating between the World Cup and Wimbledon over the
last week, it’s been hard to believe that the two games came from
the same place and time. In soccer, fans live with long
stretches where no goals are scored or shots taken. Tennis is nothing but
results; something is decided every minute. Soccer is about the quick, shocking
burst into the goal that seems to come from nowhere. Tennis is a slow
but inexorable accumulation of points. Soccer is a gray area; was he pushed or
did he dive? Tennis is clearly marked; the ball is either in or out, and
unlike soccer we use the technology at hand to prove it one way or the other.
Half of the fun of soccer seems to be crowd participation, whether it’s
singing, calling for your opponent’s blood, or blowing a kazoo. Tennis fans are
forbidden from making any noise while play is going on. Self-expression
versus hushed reverence, messiness versus order: Like C.L.R. James might have
said, if democracy does nothing else, it gives every class and group of people
their game.
I love the fact that Americans don’t care about
soccer. It proves that nothing in the universe is universal, and that a game
really is nothing more than a game. (I also wonder if the passion the rest of
the world feels for it would be quite as deep if America started to
dominate it.) I love that I can see What’s-His-Name Messi on TV and just
say, “Oh, there’s that guy, I think I’ve seen him somewhere before…” like any
idiot in the U.S. who doesn’t know Michael Jordan from Derek Jeter. It
makes me realize that having to care about sports stars can be oppressive, and a little pathetic. It’s
nice not to be in awe of at least one group of millionaire athletes. (Except Maradona, of course. He’s
must-see TV.)
Can we say which is better, tennis or soccer? One teaches
solo resourcefulness, the other teamwork. One speaks to group identity; the
other singles out the individual as the most important unit. Both are cruel,
both can be decided by inches, both require a razor-thin balance of patience
and aggression. Both produce their share of egomaniacs and gentlemen. Both have
stuck with their Victorian rules and traditions and avoided drastic changes to
make themselves more “fan-friendly” (i.e., dumber). It may try a new
ball every now and then, but if any sport proves that you don’t need much
scoring to keep fans—billions of fans—interested, it’s soccer. People don't seem to be so easily bored as our entertainment industry likes to think. The
most popular entertainment on earth is the one where, on the surface, the
least happens.
Whatever soccer's mysterious appeal, I’ll always believe that tennis
is the superior sport. It helps that I know how to play it, and how to watch
it. I have no idea how to watch a soccer game. Every four years I start to
learn, I start to appreciate the moves and dribbles and runs and passes even
when they lead to nothing. But after a month it disappears on me again. I admire soccer for, metaphorically, admitting that futility is
part of life—the best-laid plans of its players almost always go astray. But,
and maybe this is an American thing, I also find that admission depressing.
What I like about tennis is that you get to use every part of yourself to
succeed—your brain, your legs, your heart—and you have to become a master of every element of it. You do the serving and the volleying; you play offense and
defense. And every second game, you get to be in total control. You get to
dictate how a point, and those few seconds of your life, will begin. Nothing
seems futile when you step up to serve. The ball is in your hand.
 You have to hand it to boxing and college football. It's not
enough for them just to show the games and the bouts, and to build up the requisite hated rivalries.
They also, in the long-held American belief that you can never have too much
hype, feel the need to name them. The Thrilla in Manila, the Border War,
Separation Saturday (I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds crucial), and my
favorite, the War at the Shore. Just in case you’ve forgotten, that was a
heavyweight fight between Michael Spinks and Gerry Cooney in Atlantic City in
1987. Spinks won on a TKO in the fifth, but more important, Cooney came away from it with one of the best nicknames in sports history: the Great White Dope.
Tennis is obviously lagging in this department, as evidenced
by the second Monday at Wimbledon. Here is an unprecedented day, in which all
16 fourth-round matches go off around the grounds at the All England Club. What
do we call this day? If Brad Gilbert has come up with a name worthy of the
moment, I’m unaware of it. The best the New York Times could do this morning
was: "a Monday likely to be remembered.” Wow, this is something I gotta see! (To be fair, it is better than, "a Monday that someday will be forgotten.")
Big Monday, Manic Monday, Magic Monday, Happy Monday,
Overkill Monday, (I Don’t Like) Monday. Or maybe, in the
tradition of The Shining, we should just
say, as ominously as possible . . . Mon-day, and imagine a screeching, frightening sound effect playing in the background.
Anyway, you know what I’m talking about. There was enough
going on at Wimbledon today to discombobulate ESPN’s programmers right from the start. After showing
most of the second set of Venus Williams and Jarmila Groth, the network cut away to
the snooze-fest between Federer and Melzer just as Groth was failing to serve
it out. At the same time, they pretty much gave up on bringing us the first two
sets of Henin and Clijsters altogether. I didn’t get a feel for what was happening until I
got to work and could line up three courts across my computer: It was all going
down at once. Maybe that’s
our name for the second Monday at Wimbledon: The Big Bang. Here are five thoughts
that came to mind as I watched it unfold.
Is it better to be tight than calm?
I found myself asking this at the end of the first set
between Andy Murray and Sam Querrey. Murray was tight—gagging, really—and
Querrey had his usual “what’s going on in that head of his” look of blank, mouth-breathing placidity. It seemed that this was going to benefit
Querrey, especially when he got a break point at 5-5. He worked the rally
the way he wanted it, earning a look at a hanging inside-out forehand. But he
overcooked it wide. Murray scrambled out of the hole, won the set 7-5, and
didn’t look back. In retrospect, it seemed that Querrey pulled the trigger one
shot too early—he was too loose, too freewheeling. Murray, nervous, played it
safe, but it worked. Sometimes being tight means that you feel the needed desperation to win, even if it’s not pretty or fun while you’re doing it.
Serena-Maria: Not Really as Close as the Score?
Yes, Sharapova made it a match and nearly pulled out the
first set. But she struggles against Serena because she plays a very similar
game, only without as much strength or speed. Both of them swing big, hit flat,
dictate rallies, and intimidate with intensity. I liked the way Sharapova
upped her level for this one—she lost not because of her own errors, but
because Serena was able to move her side to side on the important points. There’s not really a lot she can do about that if Serena is finding the
corners. Sharapova, unlike Henin, lacks the versatility to change a losing game
against her.
Liking Yen-Hsun
The few times I’d seen Taiwan’s finest, I thought he
looked something like a raw-boned Andy Roddick. But he showed that, at least for one
day, he had something Roddick didn’t: The ability to push his opponent just off
the baseline and sneak into the net, or at least into an attacking
position. Lu even did it off a play that I’ve always thought could be used more
often: the deep approach right down the middle. It’s a tough shot to counter,
but it's risky; you can’t leave it short. Roddick wasn’t broken until the final
game, but it was Lu’s versatility around the court that made the difference and
allowed him to be decisively the better player most of the afternoon. Kudos to
him for coming back after blatantly choking the fourth-set tiebreaker, and
drilling a forehand pass to win the fifth. I like his wiriness.
It’s tough to beat human nature
It’s exciting to see a player exceed your expectations for
the better part of two sets. You think they’re going to fold or cave or
screw-up, but they keep hitting big shots. Groth can hit a bullet serve, has a
backhand that she can use as a point-ending weapon, and was timing Venus’s serves well.
How many people can put the ball past Venus Williams for clean winners once or
twice a game? Groth was doing it today.
Then, she caved. Like clockwork, Groth was broken when served
for the set, and she seized up on the final forehand in the tiebreaker, after
she had put herself in a good position. It wasn’t surprising that
she couldn’t handle her nerves—it’s natural. Unfortunately, that’s what tennis
asks you to do: Defeat human nature.
The return of the Big 4
There are surprises, like Lu, who come out nowhere. Then there are surprises that happen right under your nose. But that doesn't make them any less surprising. When you try to see into the future in sports, all you can
do is go by the past, by the current trends. It's just that half the time the current trends have no bearing on the future. Take Novak
Djokovic and Andy Murray. They’ve been non-factors for months, and it would
have been easy to pick them to go out early here. We were even talking about
how we had all gotten on their bandwagons prematurely. Today they faced two
players, in Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Querrey, who came to Wimbledon after winning
grass-court titles, and who seemed like good dark horse picks. So what happens?
Murray and Djokovic beat them routinely. The beauty and the terror of
sports: Every day is new. Who knows, maybe Murray and Djoko will go out in the
quarters and show us we were right to doubt them all along.
***
Looking at the draws now, it seems like the most appropriate name for this day might be Bottleneck Monday. Suddenly, there are just eight players left
in each draw. Suddenly, it feels like the Williams show again on the women’s
side. Suddenly, the men’s draw—Federer-Berdych, Nadal-Soderling, Murray-Tsonga,
Djokovic-Lu—looks like, hmmm, what should we nickname it? The Clash of the
Titans (and Someone Named Lu)? The Monsters on Turf? How about—drumroll, please—the quarterfinals.
 In my old brownstone-filled neighborhood in Brooklyn, you
can see into people’s ground-floor apartments as you walk down the street. From
that vantage point on a hot day, every living room looks temptingly black and
cool. But none looked as tempting as the one I glanced into about 10 years ago, while straggling back from a jog in the park on a humid July afternoon.
Just inside the open window, there was a big television set—big for those
pre-flat-screen days, anyway—that was tuned to Wimbledon. Centre Court’s green
grass glowed in the dark, and the pop of the balls and polite murmuring of the
British crowd seemed to come from some other, more civilized world. I’ve never
been so close to knocking on a stranger’s door and inviting myself in. If
there’s a sporting venue more perfectly suited to television, I haven’t seen
it. The show courts at Wimbledon fit the playing surface inside the
screen, while keeping up the illusion that the grass might go on forever
outside of it.
The last two years I've spent the first week of the tournament on the other side
of that screen, walking around the grounds. This time I’ve been back on the
outside, but I’ve felt almost as surrounded by the event here, across the ocean. The ESPN crew is already at it when I wake up, I can get four
different matches on my computer at work, and the players stop by to
chat on the Tennis Channel in the evening. These days Wimbledon seems to be
made, and played, for TV. I’m not complaining. If nothing else, this week of tennis has helped me get the sound of the vuvuzela out of my head.
After all of that scattered watching, listening, and
reading, here’s what stuck in my mind from the opening days. ***.
Speaking of having the stars stop by to chat, I’m still
amazed by how often tennis players are asked to talk about themselves. They do
press conferences in multiple languages, and then make the rounds of various TV
networks from different countries. It makes me think of what Andy Roddick said at one of those borderline-useless
pre-Davis Cup press conferences. He was asked what surprised him the most about
being a pro. Roddick, with a half-serious, half-joking sneer, said, “I never thought I’d have to answer so many [darn] questions."
My two favorite Q & A sessions from this week involved Roger Federer on ESPN, after he’d met the Queen, and Justine Henin on the
Tennis Channel after her second-round win. Federer, hunched low in his seat and
wearing a striped Wimbledon member’s tie, looked like a happy schoolboy. As he was
describing what the Queen had for lunch and laughing his goofy laugh, I thought about what a different type of
person and star he is from a guy like Tiger Woods. The weekend before, Woods
had been ice cold in his post-U.S. Open TV interview, to the point where it got
a little awkward. Granted, he had just let a major slip through his fingers, and
Federer never would have shown up on ESPN if he’d already lost at
Wimbledon. Nevertheless, there’s something appealingly disarming and
un-Olympian about Federer’s demeanor in these situations. In the days of Borg
and McEnroe, it was said that the No. 1 player had to be a society to himself,
closed off and above his fellow players. It was one reason why the very social
McEnroe didn’t thrive there at first. That stayed true during the Sampras era,
but from all accounts Federer doesn’t operate that way. He doesn’t need to
distance himself from his fellow denizens of pro tennis, and you could see that in his interactions with Mary Carillo and Pat McEnroe.
 As for Justine, her TV interviews always bring her normal side out to me. On court, she can appear to be a tightly-wound freak of
athletic intensity, so it’s always surprising to see that she can be smiling
and comfortable and relatable on camera. There’s distance, of course, an
un-American distance. But I like hearing her say she "felt the passion" of Wimbledon again (instead of saying, "it was great"), and that the time she spent on a horrid-looking reality-TV show in Belgium was “fantastique." She sounded
like she was reminiscing about a beautiful love affair. It’s true: Life is drama and drama is life for Justine. ***
Should we complain about the TV coverage? These days, if you don’t like it, you can always squint at the Internet instead. Still, you wouldn’t be a tennis fan
if little things in the broadcasts didn’t get to you, little things that you would do
differently. Take Friday morning. Yes, I was interested in how John Isner was
doing in the match after the longest match, but once he went down two sets and
showed how little gas he had in the tank, I wanted to leave him and see Henin
vs. Petrova on Centre Court. It felt like ESPN was pushing the Isner phenomenon
one step too far, abandoning the tennis fan for the casual drive-by viewer. But
then I saw that Henin had won the first set 6-1 anyway, so I really had nothing
to complain about. Ah well, there’s always next time. ***
Dick
Enberg: How did he end up, in the middle of the Murray-Nieminen match, making
this statement: “It makes you wonder when the U.S. is going to have a female
president”? ***
The Rog-Rafa report. Federer has settled in, after
a real scare in the first round, from Falla, and a tricky/wacky opponent in the
second named Bozoljac. I’d like to see more of the man in shades, with the
two-handed strokes, the wild and deceptive ball toss, and the go-for-broke game.
Federer struggled with his backhand against Falla and looked constricted in general.
We’ll see if it means anything.
As for Rafa, he was under the gun against Haase, who looked
like he’d been taking lessons from Isner and Mahut; he threw in two four-ace games
and was as relaxed as anyone I’ve ever seen who was up a set on the No. 1 player
in the world. For once, “wake-up call” didn’t sound like a cliché. Nadal had to play better than normal over the last two sets to win. It made for some energetic tennis
and might serve him well down the road. ***
 Who else looks good? It’s too bad Serena and Maria are
destined to meet so early; each has been sharp, as has Venus, despite a few whiplash-inducing moments today—Kleybanova is a quality opponent, and Venus won when she needed to. She just feels more in command at Wimbledon, like she's running around her backyard.
I’ve said many times that what Andy Murray needs more than
anything is a putaway topspin forehand. That’s just what he was trying to hit
against Nieminen. It’s still not a natural shot for him, but he had success
with it. Stay tuned to it, it could be the key to his tournament.
Justine vs. Kim? I’d be lying if I said I had any idea who was
going to win. I said at the start that I’ll take Henin because it’s a
major.
Soderling and Querrey: Under the radar spoilers. Could we
see them in a semi, instead of Murray and Nadal?
Alexandr Dolgopolov: I liked this guy’s game when he was a
junior, but he’d be a lot easier to watch now if he got a haircut. Still, he barely
lost to Tsonga and continues to make inroads with his touch style. ***
Friday’s match between Lleyton Hewitt and Gael Monfils was a
study in playing within yourself, on one side of the net, and beyond yourself on the
other. At first I thought Rusty might be in trouble. It didn’t look like he had any
way to hurt the rangier Frenchman.
But Hewitt found a way by sneaking forward at just the right times, a tactic he didn’t always have in his repertoire. Meanwhile, Monfils wasted crucial
points launching low-percentage bombs from behind the baseline. The tight
second-set tiebreaker told the story: Hewitt won it with another sneak attack,
and a deft drop volley. While Hewitt did a vintage lawnmower, Monfils was left jumping in the air, scissor-kicking
his legs in frustration, all that style and ability gone for naught once again. *** One last thought on Isner-Mahut before we move on. Think about how the Frenchman must feel, if he stops to consider this: He won far, far, far more points than anyone ever has in a match, even his opponent. It ended up 502-478 in his favor. Call it the Bush-Gore of tennis. Shows you what points are worth.
 ***
The Queen’s visit: Memorable? Cool? Awesome? Underwhelming? I liked the
waves myself. One tiny one with the right hand to acknowledge the 6,000 people on that side of Centre Court; another tiny one with with her left hand to
acknowledge the 6,000 people over there. Good gig, being Queen. ***
See you on Monday, the most comprehensive day of the tennis year.
 As a kid, I would hit against a wall in a nearby park and
pretend that I was on Centre Court. It was always the fifth set of the Wimbledon final, and while I
don’t remember who I was playing, I do remember that the score was
remarkably similar every time. Usually it was 9-7 in the fifth; something about
those numbers had just the right ring of history and exhaustion. If I was in a more imaginative mood, and
not as tired, I might string my poor doomed opponent all the way to 11-all before
taking the last two games and accepting a standing ovation from the crowd.
There are plenty of arguments for fifth-set tiebreakers, but one thing they
don’t do is speak to a kid’s imagination in quite the same way as a set that's played all the way out. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun
to spend two hours hitting against a wall if the final score in your head always had to be 7-6.
But there are limits to the imagination, even for a
daydreaming 12-year-old. Mine never got anywhere near 70-68; that would have been
a joke, a science-fiction number, a college basketball score. But while there was something surreal about the way John Isner and Nicolas Mahut reached that
number over the last two days—after a certain point, every time the chair umpire called the score, a
laugh of disbelief went up from the stands—it wasn’t a complete surprise. At
6-all, seeing how easily each guy was holding, I began to wonder if the match
would ever end. Seriously. I couldn’t see either of them finding a way to break. Their
serves were too good, and their return games—Mahut with his one-handed
backhand, Isner with his restricted side-to-side movement—were too mediocre.
Both of those things stayed true for 138 games. Isner-Mahut
was an epic, a jaw-dropper, a match that will be spread across multiple pages
in the record books for years. Most of all it was a testament to the
will of these two particular players. Was it enjoyable to watch? Well, yes and no.
Point by point there wasn’t a whole lot there most of the time, unless you’re
an ace fanatic. But game by game you couldn’t really turn away. It was a high
wire act, in which neither guy seemed in any danger of falling off—that may not make for spine-tingling entertainment, but in a way that made the feat even more impressive. The
spectacle wasn’t in the points themselves, but in the ability of both players
to avoid the slightest letdown for eight hours. Even Roger Federer said he
was speechless when he shook Isner’s hand afterward.
Did this match represent or crystallize any kind of trends in
tennis? To me, it was the product of a few long-running developments. Height,
for one, and the evolution of the tall player into more than just a serve. Isner, as you know, is 6-foot-9, but did you realize that Mahut, who looked tiny next to his opponent, is 6-foot-3? Yes,
Isner hit 112 aces—I thought Ivo Karlovic’s record 78 from last year might stand forever—but at crucial moments, just when he seemed ready to keel over, he
could also step around and belt a perfectly placed inside-out forehand from
one corner to the other. And after all those aces, Isner finally won it with two
pinpoint passing shots, the first of which he short-hopped off the baseline. The
other, more general trend that Isner-Mahut exemplified was the quality of play you can see from the second-tier of men's tennis now. The sport has evolved to a point where a first-round match
between two guys well outside the Top 10 dwarfs the level of shot-making that we saw in the
most dramatic finals of 30 years ago. Racquet technology, fitness training,
stroke evolution, worldwide competition: After three decades, they’ve produced
an individual like Roger Federer at the top end, and over the last three days
they gave us a match where two players were good enough, when they took the
ball to serve, to be unbeatable for a period of 11 hours. This was a
match where the loser could hit 103 aces and, after 100 games, still
have the energy to dive across the grass. This was a match where
the winner could stagger around in a daze for four hours, whiff on several
balls, and still have the stroke-making proficiency to go for dozens of games
without facing a single break point. This was the modern game, with all of its
power and skill, going up against itself. The shots that
were once the province of the best—the forehand winner from behind the
baseline, the ripped one-handed backhand down the line—are now routine, and can
be repeated for hours.
 There was only one winner, but you had to be equally impressed with both players. Isner
has said that playing college tennis, where the pressure of having to come
through for the team is always there, has made him a good tight-situation
player. In D.C. a few years ago, he won five consecutive matches in third-set
tiebreakers. But this was something different. This was truly mind over matter;
Isner won despite his body. As for Mahut, I’ve always liked his old school,
linear, forward-moving game, and I liked the way he never flagged, physically
or mentally. He went about his business without any change for all 138 games.
And afterward, I liked his graciousness, and his willingness to acknowledge
that Isner had done something special in surviving. In the past, judging only by his vicious hair and prickly way of dealing with ball kids, I’d
always assumed that Mahut was kind of a jerk. Not so, apparently—his dignity in
defeat may be what I remember longest from this longest match.
My favorite moment, though, came not from either player, but
from Jimmy Connors, who was announcing for Tennis Channel. When Isner reached
double match point at 33-32, Connors rightly advised him to go for broke on the first one. Isner
popped his return back to the service line, and then, for the first time in
many games, hit a safe and tentative slice backhand. As soon as Jimmy saw him
open up the racquet for a slice, he said, with real anxiety, “Oh no.” He was right, of course. The ball landed short, Mahut
took it up the line, and a few minutes later he had held serve. It would be
73 games before Isner would have another serious shot at winning. Jimmy must have known what was coming when he said “Oh no.”
After watching ace after ace for hours yesterday, I went out
and played a little myself—one hour, not 11. Is it a surprise that I had the best serving day I’ve had in
years? I must have hit a dozen aces; when I threw the ball up, I felt
like I couldn’t miss if I tried. I wasn’t pretending I was at Wimbledon this
time—I’ll settle for a club championship in my daydreams these days—but
Isner-Mahut and 70-68 was still powerful enough to speak to my tennis
imagination. *** Quiz answers: 1) D; 2) C; 3) B (in 1970); 4) D; 5) B; 6) D; 7) D; 8) B; 9) B; 10) A
 As you may have noticed, I’m off to a slow start at
Wimbledon this year. Work has called, as well as TV. Along with Pete Bodo and
our fellow Tennis Magazine editor David Rosenberg, I spent most of yesterday in
a small room, under hot lights, talking about the sport for a set of clips that will be shown in the New York area over the next few months. The
upshot is that I missed a day’s worth of Wimbledon and was just getting
a grip on the tournament Wednesday morning. Then I had to suspend all activity for the John Isner vs. Nicolas Mahut record-shattering first-round epic. Part of me wanted it never to end; another part of me couldn't take it anymore.
For now, I’ll look ahead to the other epic event of the
first week, Thursday’s return of Queen Elizabeth II to the All England Club after
33 years away. I knew Her Maj didn’t like tennis, but she must really not like
tennis to avoid the place for that long. I
was at Wimbledon in 2002 when Tim Henman played a semifinal against Lleyton
Hewitt. The Queen’s office, as it always does when the Brits are in danger of
sending someone to a Wimbledon singles final, sent out the word that she “had no
engagements” planned for that coming Sunday. (This, in Royal-speak, must be the equivalent of you or I saying, “Hail yeah, I’ll be there!") Somehow the
possibility of her appearance gave that semifinal a whole new layer of
gravity that it wouldn’t have had otherwise. History was tantalizingly close, and Henman
felt it. He played a tentative match from start to finish and lost in
straight sets. Afterward, just before he walked off Centre Court, he turned around to give the
crowd an appreciative wave, like an actor accepting his applause as he exits the stage. Except that Henman's act had been a total failure.
What made it more painful was that the other semifinal to be played later that
day was between Xavier Malisse and David Nalbandian. If Britain was ever going
to end its Wimbledon curse, it was going to be that year, in a tournament
that had begun with a stunning upset of Henman’s primary nemesis there, Pete
Sampras. But Henman still couldn’t pull it off. It gave his parting wave a sad sense
of finality—“I tried my best, but I wasn’t up to it,” his face said. Henman never made it
back to the semifinals.
This year the Queen, now that the U.K. has another legitimate
contender in Andy Murray, is going to test the waters early. Maybe she’ll help
Murray get used to her presence, though I’m more interested in her reaction, if
she lasts that long, to the last marquee name scheduled to play on Centre Court on
Thursday, Rafael Nadal. In honor of the occasion, here’s a quiz to test your
knowledge of the royals at Wimbledon. I have no prize to offer, but I hope you
enjoy it anyway. I’ll be back tomorrow, or whenever Isner and Mahut finally
finish.
- Queen
Elizabeth II presented the winner’s plate to Great Britain’s Virginia Wade
in 1977. What did the Queen say to her?
a)
“Well played, miss”
b)
“You must be frightfully knackered”
c)
“Finished just in time for tea, thank God”
d)
Wade couldn’t hear her
- After
winning Wimbledon in 1993, Pete Sampras was informed that Princess Diana
had been “clapping like crazy” for him in the Royal Box. What was Sampras’
reply?
a)
“I have that effect on people.”
b)
“She inspired me.”
c)
“Maybe she’s got a crush on me.”
d)
“I never notice people in the crowd.”
- How
many times has 61-year-old Prince Charles attended Wimbledon?
a)
0
b)
1
c)
2
d)
10
- Prince
William’s girlfriend, Kate Middleton, appeared at Wimbledon in 2008. What
did reporters spot her doing there?
a)
“Assessing Rafael Nadal’s backhand.”
b)
“Cheering for Andy . . . Roddick.”
c)
“Playing barefoot on an outer court.”
d)
“Giggling with her female companions.”
-
 In
2009, Queen Elizabeth sent Andy Murray a congratulatory note after he won
the Queen’s Club event. What did Murray say he did with the note in a message on
Twitter?
a)
“Tacked it up on the fridge.”
b)
“Put it in its own pile away from the bills.”
c)
“Going to look at it on changeovers.”
d)
“Might see what I can get for it on eBay.”
- Until
2003, players had to bow or curtsey to the Royal Box as they walked off
Centre Court. What reason did tournament CEO Chris Gorringe give for
eliminating the rule?
a)
“I got tired of Billie Jean King bothering me about it.”
b)
“Lleyton Hewitt threatened never to come back if he had to
keep doing it.”
c)
“The players weren’t doing it right anymore. It was a bloody disgrace.”
d)
“We know there’s very little bowing or curtseying in royal
circles now.”
- What
did Althea Gibson, the first black Wimbledon champion, say after Queen
Elizabeth presented her the winner’s plate in 1957?
a)
“Thanks.”
b)
“It’s hot out here.”
c)
“I like your hat.”
d)
“At last! At last!”
- How
many royals are ahead of the Duke of Kent, who currently presents the
winner’s trophies at Wimbledon, in the line of succession to be king?
a)
3
b)
23
c)
5
d)
100
- This
British player, when given the title of OBE—Order of the British Empire—by
Queen Elizabeth, joked that it should stand for “Order of the Backhand
Error.”
a)
Sue Barker
b)
Tim Henman
c)
John Lloyd
d)
Fred Perry
- When
Queen Mary walked into Centre Court in 1934, what did a young Don Budge
allegedly do instead of bowing?
a)
Made her smile by waving his racquet at her
b)
Raised his arms in irritation
c)
Kept playing
d)
Spit out his barley water in shock *** Answers tomorrow, along with a post.
 You can feel it, right? The tension, the gravity, the anticipation: Wimbledon is the one again. Thirty, 20,
maybe even 10 years ago, you probably wouldn't have felt that way. Despite the
reverence that the best players maintained for the event, All England’s patchy,
outdated surface made it feel a little like a one-off, a prestigious sideshow, rather
than the unofficial world championship that it had been for most of
the sport’s history.
What a difference a new brand of grass can make. Now that
the bounces are truer, the lawns stay greener, and even the dirtiest of
dirtballers can succeed there, Wimbledon represents the peak of the season again. The U.S. Open, which through the 80s and 90s had
become the truer gauge of the sport’s pecking order, now feels like it arrives
a little late to the pro tennis party. The players—Federer, Nadal, Sharapova,
the Williamses—revere Wimbledon more than ever.
So the cream rises to the occasion. On the women’s side, the
WTA’s two best athletes, and sisters, have played the last two finals and won
the last three titles. The same has been true on the men’s side, where Federer
and Nadal have played each other in three of the last four finals. Rumors of
their demises aside, those two men come into this event reigning as supremely
as ever. They’ve split the first two majors of 2010 and traded the No. 1 and 2 rankings. Will the tiebreaker happen on Centre Court? It couldn’t come in a
better spot. London is calling.
*** The Women
First Quarter
Maria Sharapova, the 16th seed and 2004 champion,
who is starting to resemble her former self, is the perfect sleeper pick on the
women’s side. And I would pick her to win the whole thing, if I knew she
wouldn’t have to face one of the Williamses along the way. Unfortunately for
her, she’s got Serena in the round of 16. Or is that fortunate for her? If
you’re going to play one of the sisters at Wimbledon, you might as well do it early.
Is there a chance that Serena might not get to Maria? There
are good players in her vicinity. She has Larcher de Brito, a solid hitter
beneath the shrieks, in the first round, and, potentially, Andrea Petkovic in
the second. Post Sharapova, Serena might see Li Na, Svetlana Kuznetsova, or
Wimbledon adept Aggie Radwanska in the quarters. The Williams sisters will lose
a step one of these days, but I’m not going to predict that it will happen in
the next two weeks.
Semifinalist: Serena Williams
***
Second Quarter
Sam Stosur, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka, Zheng
Jie: Those are the four names that stick out here. Is Stosur due for a letdown?
Well, yeah. The player most likely to take advantage of it on grass is former
semifinalist Zheng, who loves
this stuff. On the other side, Wozniacki and Azarenka are scheduled to play in
the round of 16. They’ve both played a lot of tennis this year and have already been
through their share of ups and downs. Azarenka, after a total flame out in
Paris, is suddenly back on the upswing; she beat Kim Clijsters this week. In
other words, this is an anything can happen area of the draw, ripe for a surprise.
First-round match to watch: Azarenka vs. a returning Mirjana
Lucic
Semifinalist: Zheng
***
Third Quarter
While Wimbledon in its seemingly infinite wisdom reserves the right to tweak the seedings the
way they see fit, they didn’t do anything significant on the women’s side this
year. Which means that Justine Henin, the 17th seed, might face
Clijsters, the 8th seed, in the round of 16—good for fans, not so
good for the two of them. But there’s more to this section than the Belgians. Jelena
Jankovic opens against Laura Robson, Yanina Wickmayer gets a chance to avenge a
loss to American teenager Alison Riske, Nadia Petrova will try to bring her
Williams-beating form across the channel, and Melanie Oudin will attempt to
defend her fourth-round run here from last year. Lots to watch, and a tough section to predict. How will Henin bounce back after her backhand
breakdown in Paris? How will Kim be playing after her layoff? Can a steady
Jankovic sneak under the radar, the way she did at the French? It will
be tough. She has Zvonareva, Wickmayer, Alona Bondarenko, and the woman who
beat her last year, Oudin, on her side. I'll take Henin over Clijsters (it's a Slam, after all), and over the rest as well.
Semifinalist: Henin
***
Fourth Quarter
Who is this we see at the top of a quarter? Francesca
Schiavone? Talk about being ripe for a letdown. She made the quarters here
last year, but she’s lost her only match since her Parisian miracle, in
Eastbourne. Another quarterfinal appearance would be accomplishment enough,
considering that she’ll likely have to play Venus Williams if she does make it
there. Can Venus do what she always does? Survive an early-round scare and
elevate her game once she’s settled into Centre Court during the
second week? Safina, Kleybanova, Szavay, Kudryavtseva, Peer, Ivanovic will be
the women Venus will probably face to do it. It’s going to be tough to take
this tournament from Venus and Serena, isn’t it?
First-round match to watch: Peer vs. Ivanovic
Semifinalist: Venus Williams
***
Semifinals: S. Williams d. Zheng; V. Williams d. Henin
Final: S. Williams d. V. Williams
***
 The Men
First Quarter
Roger Federer couldn’t have asked for too much more coming
to Wimbledon. He’s been made the first seed, and he’s got a draw that he has to
like. The next-highest seed is Davydenko, who's coming back from a long layoff
and has never done much at Wimbledon. The closest seeds to Federer are
Robredo, Lopez, and Melzer. The one threat he faces in this section, at least
on paper, is Berdych, whom he wouldn’t get until the quarters. Is there a
sleeper in the house? Feliciano Lopez, perhaps? He beat Nadal at Queens. Janko
Tipsarevic, perhaps? Two years ago, he beat Roddick here and almost beat
Federer in Melbourne. They could see each other again in the fourth
round. All in all, it’s hard not to see a new semifinal streak
beginning in a couple of weeks.
Semifinalist: Federer
***
Second Quarter
Andy Roddick also can’t be too displeased with his treatment
thus far in London. He was bumped up to the No. 5 seed, and has landed in the
same quarter as Novak Djokovic, a man he has beaten on several occasions. If
there’s an early fly in Roddick's ointment, it could come in the form of Philipp
Kohlschreiber, the German shot-maker who took him out in Melbourne a couple of years ago, and who is not averse to grass. Roddick might face him in the third
round. After that, he could get Marin Cilic, who beat Andy in Melbourne but
hasn’t done a whole lot since.
As for Djokovic, he has a few small minefields to avoid.
Olivier Rochus in the first round, Taylor Dent in the second. Lleyton Hewitt or
Gael Monfils in the round of 16. Hewitt, in particular, is a threat for
the semis, and—maybe, who knows, why not—beyond. The 2002 champ likes Wimbledon, obviously, and he just beat Federer for the
first time in 16 matches. He must be feeling good. If he gets to Roddick, we
should get another special match from them.
Semifinalist: Hewitt
***
Third Quarter
United Kingdom, here is your chance. Andy Murray has a lot going for him in this draw. He's on the
opposite side of Federer. He can ease into the tournament; Gilles Simon is
the first seed he would face, and either Sam Querrey or JC Ferrero are the
biggest threats to him before the quarters. And on the other side, the top two seeds are Verdasco and Tsonga, neither of whom are very good at the majors.
True, Murray hasn’t been playing well, and in his current
form it’s conceivable that he could lose an early shocker. But last year he was
buoyed by the energy of the crowds at Wimbledon, until the semis, when the
prospect of a final with Federer, in front of the Queen, got to him just enough
to let the other Andy through the door. The Queen is coming early this time.
We’ll see if Murray notices.
Semifinalist: Murray
***
Fourth Quarter
Moving from first seed to second supposedly has no effect on
the draw, but don’t tell that to Nadal right now. The heavyweights have sunk to
the bottom with him. To reach the semis, he may have to go through Blake (who has
beaten him three times), Gulbis (who has been injured but took a set from him on clay in Rome), Isner (who took a set from him in Indian Wells), Youzhny, not
his favorite opponent, and Soderling—we know all about their history. Is Nadal
up to that task? Is he in 2008-type form, where no one really bothered him
until the third set of the final? No, he’s not playing like that; he may never
play like that again.
But who is going to beat him? Isner may not be fast
enough. Gulbis has trouble sustaining for three sets. And Soderling is
still not a sure thing on any given day, even though I do like his draw. A
Rafa-Sod quarter could be another nasty little classic.
Semifinalist: Nadal
Semifinals: Hewitt d. Federer; Nadal d. Murray
Final: Nadal d. Hewitt *** I won't be at Wimbledon this time, but we've got Tom Perrotta heading over tomorrow. Look for his stuff starting this weekend, and for Pete Bodo later in the tournament. I'm all over the TV report from the couch. There are worse fates than Wimbledon in HD.
 Certain tennis players, myself included, like to emphasize the brutality of the sport. Underneath the genteel image, we say, it’s a vicious mental struggle, a game for tenacious loners,
boxing without gloves, hockey with a full set of teeth. And it can be all of
those things. But, while this may disappoint the bloodthirsty and the
militantly masculine among us, it doesn’t have to be. For one, you’re not
really alone on a tennis court, except when you go out to hit a bucket of serves by
yourself, and anyone who has ever done that for more than seven minutes knows
how much of the charm of this individual sport vanishes when there’s just one individual doing it. And as for the viciousness part, when you scan a set of
busy public park courts, or watch the players at your average tennis club on a
weekend morning, do you see or hear a lot of competitive savagery? Frustration,
yes. Disbelief, yes. Maybe even agony. But if the courts near you are anything
like the courts near me, venom is rarely in the air.
What I see and hear is, aside from the moans and groans over
missed shots and blown opportunities, a lot of joking around, a lot of razzing,
a lot of self-deprecating one-liners. A lot of enjoyment, in other words, of
the social rather than the competitive aspect of the game. Everyone at my club
is in it together, and on a Saturday morning or a Tuesday evening the place becomes a
refuge from the aggressive striving all of us must do in every other aspect of
our lives. In this sense, tennis is the opposite of combat. Instead, it’s a rare chance
to be outside and to relate to people we know in a way that isn’t about our
careers or our families or our ambitions or our raw survival.
Men and women, husbands and wives, friends and doubles
teams, play for an hour in the morning, have a burger from the grill for lunch,
and head back out for doubles in the early afternoon. Politeness becomes more
elaborate and enthusiastic—“take two!”—but at the same time it's the good-natured
elbow in the ribs—“Next time just text me your excuses before you get here,
Tom”—that is elevated to the highest form of social interaction. The ancient,
animalistic need for doing battle may be the foundation of it all, but it isn’t the
point, any more than the need to fill your stomach is the point of going to
dinner at a good restaurant.
Playing a match in the midst of a crowded weekend morning,
you sense the atmosphere of a tennis club through its sounds—words,
grunts, barks, laughs, shrieks, hisses whatever they may be. I played Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday this past weekend; let me try to conjure a little of the atmosphere
through what I heard.
*** “Feels great, doesn’t it?”
These are the words of my playing partner, Keith, as we make
the slow, back-stepping walk from the net to the baseline before we begin to
warm-up. He’s flinging his arms out to his side as he talks. On the one hand
it’s the typical rec player’s half-hearted attempt at stretching, but it’s also
the movement of a guy who has spent too much time cooped up at work and is
savoring the chance just to get his body in motion. What “feels great” to him is the sunny, dry weather, and the lucky chance to get out and play after a day
at work. He’s right, it does feel great
*** “Ha-choo!”
I hear this, as I’m running for a ball, from the apartment
building that sits right next to the court where I’m playing. I miss the shot.
How do the pros block that stuff out? When I tell my opponent that’s
why I missed, he’s not overly sympathetic. I'm not sure he believes me.
***
“Let’s go, El Presidente, get out here!”
This is yelled from Court 1 toward the club’s president, who is
late for his doubles match.
***
“Do you practice that shot?”
My opponent, John, has just missed a towering defensive lob
by less than half an inch. Two games earlier he landed the same shot smack
on the line, quietly enraging me. He has an uncanny accuracy with this shot, but
he smiles and shakes his head at my question—no, he doesn’t practice it. This doesn't make me any happier.
*** “Do you think you could beat Bill Tilden, if he
time-traveled to this court?”
I’m asked this by Keith. We both think, based on no
evidence, that we could. Then again, when I watch the 1980 Wimbledon final
between Borg and McEnroe, I feel like, at times, that I could beat both of them. I couldn’t.
***
“I thought I played well today, and I thought you were a
little inconsistent.”
This is John as we shake hands after our match. He's beginning a
part of the tennis experience that I especially look forward to: The post-match
analysis of my game and my opponent’s game. We play, and then we come
together afterward to talk about how we played. It’s as if we did it only so we could talk
about it.
***
“Kill the sun, gonna kill the sun.”
This is me, muttering after a double-fault, very angry that
the sun chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud and get right in my
eye as I tossed the ball. When I watch the pros, I usually scoff when they
blame a bad bounce or something else beyond their control. Now I’m talking
about killing the sun. What would I do if there was money on the line? Throw my
racquet at it?
***
“You hear that, man? He’s scared of you, he wants it to
rain!”
This is the club’s groundskeeper talking to my opponent,
Rich, as we wait to go on court. I’ve just asked him whether it’s supposed to
rain that afternoon.
***
“You’ve never seen me in full regalia, have you?”
I’m asked this question by a gregarious, gray-haired of
the club who typically plays in a tank top. Today he’s dressed up. He’s
wearing a T-shirt.
***
“Spring!”
This is simultaneously hollered, à la the old “Norm!” greeting in Cheers, by three members of a doubles foursome as their fourth clanks
open the gate and walks on court. His last name is Spring. What is it about
calling someone by their last name that says so much more about the person than
calling him by his first name?
“Spring!” sums everything up about him, with that double-edged male combination of irony and
affection. You can see that hearing it makes Spring feel good,
recognized, an individual but also one of the guys. You can also hear that it
makes the guys who are saying it feel good; its always great, unaccountably great, to see a friend. It's for this moment, as much as any
other, that we come down on a Saturday morning to play tennis.
***
I don’t like you
But I love you
Seems that I’m always thinking of you
Wait, what is this I hear, while I’m collecting a ball at
the back fence, from deep inside an apartment right behind me? It’s part
Fender, part John Lennon scream, part soaring harmony, part thumping drums:
It’s the sound of a Beatles song, which I never expected to here deep in this
section of Brooklyn, where disco and reggae reign. This is a digital
version, which is fine, but you don’t have to be a music snob to recognize that
nothing can beat the jammed-up power of the Beatles in old-fashioned, original
mono. It will take the world’s audio geniuses a thousand years to come up with
a new recording technique that begins to approach the excitement of
hearing the Beatles on a mono slab of vinyl.
The sound of that Fender, of Lennon’s voice: It triggers a
thousand memories as I play. Riding back from Kmart staring at the Sgt. Pepper record my dad had just bought me when I was 11. Sitting a couple inches from my parents old hi-fi listening to
“All My Loving”—have I ever been as excited about anything the way I was
excited as a kid when the first notes of that song rushed in (and more than most songs, they rush in)? Up in my
room with a 6th-grade friend, who had just started “going with” a
girl who lived on my block, playing “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” over and over to infuriate him. In a car with two college friends blasting “Roll over
Beethoven” and “Thank You Girl.” My roommate and I were in the front seats; we
were old friends and had bonded over our shared music obsessions for years. We were
just starting to hang out with the guy in back. At one point he leaned forward
and said, “I love how Lennon just screams everything. Has anyone else every
sung that way?” My roommate and I didn’t look at each other, but there was a
moment of silence—electric silence—that communicated everything. Call it the
music lover’s version of a group hug. We knew we had a new friend.
***
“Tssssss.”
This is the hiss of the black cat that hangs around the
courts. At dusk, when the last players are walking off, he—or she—wastes no
time in sliding through a hole in the fence and immediately plopping down on
the first court in full lounge mode. It looks like the cooling clay feels good.
He’s right behind our court now. I'm pretty sure he’s saying that it’s time for me to go.
 On Friday I began by quoting from Gordon Forbes’ amateur-era
memoir, A Handful of Summers. Since you can't really beat the man’s writing when it
comes to tennis anecdotes and humor, I’ll open this post by referencing his
second book. No quotes are needed; the title alone should be enough to give
us a theme. It was called Too Soon to Panic.
You know where this is going. Is it too soon to panic? This
is the question that many fans of Roger Federer are asking, now that he’s lost
his 15-match win streak over Lleyton Hewitt, as well as his title in Halle, which
seemed to have come with a lifetime guarantee. If my own club is any
indication, it might be the Fed fans who are most likely to answer with an
emphatic “yes.” This weekend I asked the club’s pro, a diehard Federer-ite,
when we should start worrying.
“If he loses to Hewitt today.”
“Well, he lost.”
“He lost? I’m worrying.”
A few minutes later I mentioned the upset to another member who
has a more neutral view on the subject. His response, which he said out of the side of his mouth as he walked past me, was to the point: “Whatever.” In other words, no need to panic, or worry, or think twice about it. It's Federer, relax.
So what does his loss to Hewitt mean, if anything, for
his chances at Wimbledon? Generally, it's harder to predict Federer's Slam form based on his tune-up form than it is Rafael Nadal's. He's not as much of a confidence player as Rafa—with Federer, the confidence is ingrained but the shots can go haywire; with Nadal it's the reverse. Look at 2008: It was clear that Nadal was on a roll when he came to Wimbledon that year, and he did end up winning it. The opposite was true with Federer when he came to the U.S. Open. He'd lost to Gilles Simon and Ivo
Karlovic in Toronto and Cincinnati, but he rebounding to win at Flushing Meadows. A similar phenomenon happened in 2009, when Federer had a horrible spring
before winning in Madrid and at the French Open, and again this winter, when he
lost to Davydenko in Doha, then came back to beat him in Melbourne on the way
to winning the tournament.
Federer's most recent performance at a major offers a slightly different possibility for his immediate future. He started the clay season
horribly, shanking his way through losses to Gulbis and Montanes and struggling
with his forehand, the way he did at times against Hewitt in Halle. In Madrid,
though, Federer willed his way through a win over Gulbis and found an acceptable
clay-court form in losing to Nadal in the final. It was pretty much the
same form that he carried into the quarters in Paris, and which wasn't enough to get him past Soderling for the first time in his career. By that think piece of evidence, we can say that draws will become more important to Federer's success than they have been in the past. In Paris, aside from Nadal, Soderling
was probably the worst quarterfinal opponent Federer could have played. I’d say Federer is in a similar position going into Wimbledon. The
loss to Hewitt, a guy he’s owned, shows that, while Federer will be on his best
surface rather than his worst in London, his current form leave him with just a
sliver of vulnerability, one that could be discovered and exploited by a big hitter who happens to land in his quarter—a Berdych, a Gulbis (if he plays), a Soderling, an
Isner or a Gonzalez. Maybe even Hewitt. This is a reason to worry,
naturally; but worry is the natural state of all fans. Is it a reason to panic?
Not quite. With the right draw, any vulnerability in the Federer serve or
forehand could easily go undetected during the fortnight.
*** OK, let’s change the question slightly, moving from Gordon
Forbes to ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption. There they play a game they call “Too Soon?” As in, is it too soon to make a prediction about a player’s
future based on one limited and perhaps incidental event.
The two Andy’s, Murray and Roddick, who floundered in
Queens, are in trouble coming into Wimbledon. Too soon?
“Trouble” is too strong a word, so it is too soon to use
this phrasing. But neither is where they want to be at the moment, for slightly
different reasons. Murray, though he’s still ranked No. 4 in the world, hasn’t been a
dominating force for most of this year, and he can’t seem to find a way out of his essentially defensive game. He’s been hit off the court this spring
by Soderling and Berdych, and beaten twice by Mardy Fish, including once on
grass last week at Queens. He was in a funk for most of that match, but he
won’t be—he can’t be—next week. The wild card for Murray is the Wimbledon Thing:
Last year, he thrived on the excitement early in the event; it counterbalanced his usual moodiness and gave his sometime wayward emotions a
focus (sort of like the focus that Marat Safin gained when he played Davis Cup). A boost
from the fans and the atmosphere could be just what Murray needs. Otherwise, he
looks vulnerable.
While Roddick suffered a rare loss to a significantly
lower-ranked player—Dudi Sela—at Queens, his problem isn’t form as much as it
is momentum and rhythm. He hasn’t had enough match play to build either since way
back at Key Biscayne in April, and Roddick gets antsy when he has to sit around
waiting to get out there. This could have an affect on him in the early rounds, if he draws a quality opponent.
*** The Other Americans—as in Fish, Querrey, and Isner—are a legitimate part of the Wimbledon conversation now. Too soon?
Too soon. All of them have the serve-based games that can work on grass; of the three, I think Isner, with his dominating delivery, is the most likely pull off a tiebreaker-heavy upset of a top seed. Just as important, he's the most outwardly ambitious and grittiest of them; he seems to have willed himself against great odds into the Top 25. Fish also has the strong serve and a shot-making style from the ground, but he got tight at the end of the second set in the Queens final and gave the match away. After a nice week, he ended it on the sidelines with his towel over his head, and some of the wind out of his sails going into Wimbledon. Still, he'll be unseeded, and the definition of a "guy no one wants to face" in the first round. As for the flavor of the day, Querrey’s win at Queens was impressive for two reasons: (1) The way he cleared
his head so quickly and completely by taking a week off—when he left Paris, I
wondered if we’d ever see the guy again. He’s a levelheaded and self-aware kid with the
strength to be honest with himself and the media. (2) For the way he put
himself into position to hit as many forehands as he did in the Queens final.
He didn’t need to run around his backhand all that much, but somehow the ball
kept coming back to his forehand. Patrick McEnroe has praised Querrey’s “court
sense,” that nebulous, know-it-when-I-see-it term that’s the rough equivalent
in the NBA to “basketball IQ.” Querrey gets it, but does he get it at the
majors? That we haven’t seen. Going back to the NBA (I’m turning into Brad
Gilbert here, I know), the Slams are what you might call “playoff basketball,” which means there's more intensity,
rougher play, and a cutthroat mentality. Querrey’s even-keel style has worked
well in the low-key world of the regular season—he’s won three 250s this
year—but hasn’t gotten him deep in the playoffs. But if Sam has shown us anything since the French Open, it was way too soon, for him or his fans, to panic.
 “They were so simple, those little English tournaments, so
utterly artless. Homemade, if you like. Red clay courts, damp and heavy,
clubhouses of old brick, and inside all the woodwork nearly worn out. Floors,
tables, bashed-up little bars. In the change-rooms, wooden lockers, wet floors,
and nice old smells, musty as the devil. They were funny things, those
tournaments, but they were open-hearted, and they allowed ordinary people to
play them.
Our first tournament was at Sutton, Surrey—cold, damp, old
and English. Veal and ham pie, lettuce and watercress, fragile cucumber
sandwiches. Also, Teddy Tinling. A tall man in tennis clothes, who seemed at
first glance to be all legs and piercing eyes, approached me and said, “My dear
chap, those shorts you’re wearing are appalling! Simply appalling. You have no
knees,” he sniffed. “Come along with me. We shall have to rig you out.”—Gordon
Forbes, writing about his first trip to play the English spring tournaments in
1954 in A Handful of Summers. ***
“I think any surface change has something nice about it, but
grass obviously is the most special one because you are only one month on it,
so every day you have the chance to play in this surface is a special day. I
feel it is something you want to savor as long as you are on the
surface.”—Roger Federer, after his match Thursday in Halle. ***
Queens is the tournament that reminds me the most of tennis’
old amateur circuit, or at least the old amateur circuit as I like to imagine
it. This 250-level event comes just a few hours after a Grand Slam has ended,
after two weeks of gladiatorial theatrics in bloody arenas at Roland Garros,
where matches are won by sweating and sliding. By comparison, Queens is modest,
human-size—homemade, as Forbes might say. It’s also, like those English tournaments
of the 1950s, played not in an arena but in front of an old brick clubhouse that,
inside, really does have woodwork that seems deliberately worn out. The last
thing Queens, which houses a court-tennis court deep inside it, wants to feel
is shiny or corporate. The scale is small enough that, like its sister
tune-up tournament in Eastbourne, you can see the houses of the surrounding
neighborhood from the cheap seats.
After Paris, everything moves a little more quickly and
crisply at Queen’s. The players walk among the fans as they travel the short
distance from clubhouse to court. The ball skips through the grass—it still
does, no matter what people, or Pat Cash, say about how slow the surface is
these days. The points get shorter, as do the players’ strokes. The no-nonsense
atmosphere must be contagious because they even, including Rafael Nadal, get up
to the line a little more quickly to serve. Sandwiched between the high-stakes
history-making intensity of the French Open and Wimbledon, Queens feels sort of
like a very (very) good club championship. Where else will you
see Nadal let out a laugh in the middle of a close third set?
Of course, it’s not exactly like the old days. In Forbes’ day that many of the English events were played on red clay.
Even more confusing, they were called “hard courts," to distinguish them from “soft” grass courts. The first open tournament, in
1968, was the British Hard Court Open, played on clay in Bournemouth, England.
Now it’s all about grass in Great Britain, which is as it should be. As Federer
says, it’s a season to savor, a brief flowering, the way I imagine summer is
over there. Grass tennis, because we see it so infrequently, looks like a lark. The
players, who have no time to prepare for it, wing it out there. They slip and
fall, but it doesn’t matter too much. It’s grass: Boris Becker used to dive on
the stuff.
Because of this lack of preparation, I’ve always been
surprised that form typically holds at Queens. John McEnroe won it many times,
and more recently Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Murray
have hoisted the tournament’s absurdly large trophy. So I guess it’s somewhat of a shock that this year everything fell apart. The matches so far have shown again that grass-court tennis,
more than clay-court tennis, can come down to just a couple of points. Murray
had to sneak out a first-set tiebreaker in the first round against the net-rushing Ivan Navarro. It was a match that, for a second, could have gone either way, but after one excellent passing shot from Murray it veered sharply in his direction.
Today he was on the opposite side of that phenomenon. Murray let his game get
away from him for just a minute or two in the third-set tiebreaker against
Mardy Fish, but they were the wrong minute or two. Ditto Nadal this week. He
appeared to have carried his momentum across the English Channel, the way he did
in 2008, right up until he handed a break back in the second set to Denis Istomin with a couple of oddly timed and, for him, almost nonchalant drop
shots. All of that clay-season momentum, built over 24 straight victories, vanished just like that. Nadal barely
survived Istomin, after stoning an overhead on one match point, and then he
took a rare loss to a fellow Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez. Late in the first-set
tiebreaker of that match, he anticipated a backhand return, had a good look at
it, but put it in the net. On set point, he had an open crosscourt pass, but he
went up the line instead and missed in the net again. A match on grass, especially at
Queens this year, remains as dodgy and unpredictable as the footing. (Note: For
years I’d never seen Nadal miss an overhead, or even hit one for anything other
than a winner. Now he's missed three in four matches: One at Roland Garros against Melzer, the one
I mentioned above against Istomin, and another, into the net, against Lopez.
If there’s any shot that you don’t want to start thinking about, it’s the overhead.
Could it become a factor at an important moment at Wimbledon this year?)
 Besides crisp tennis and upset fever, the grass season, such
as it is, has brought us a couple other bits of news. Yesterday, Murray was
incensed when Mardy Fish unilaterally left the court because he thought it was
too dark to play. This comes on the heels of the Kid’s Night debacle between
Fognini and Monfils at the French. Is it time for tennis, in the spirit of
Hawk-Eye, to stop leaving the judgment to the chair umpire—who, obviously,
isn’t out there playing—and begin using cricket-style light meters? These, from
what I’ve read, gauge the light and allow either team to call off the game when
it gets down to a certain point (tell me if this isn’t how these meters
work; I've never actually seen them, or a full cricket match/game/test, etc.).
Also worth noting, on the women’s side: Is Maria Sharapova
currently playing with a Prince racquet? The company itself won’t confirm that
she is, according to Tennis.com’s gear man, Bill Gray. Whatever that blacked-out racquet is,
it’s working, and tomorrow she'll take it out against a 19-year-old American named
Alison Riske, who has continued a nice run on the ITF circuit with an
even nicer run past Yanina Wickmayer to the semis in Birmingham. (Here's Riske at Nottingham this year.)
Whether it’s the star players or new faces, like Federer
says, the ephemeral grass season is to be savored. Compared to hard
courts, it's simply more pleasing to the eye. Have you ever played on it? After being
rained out on a trip to Queens Club a few years ago, I finally got my chance at the venerable and beautiful Orange Lawn Tennis Club in New
Jersey. The paradox of the surface is apparent right in the name of that club,
and in the name of the original game: lawn tennis. It wasn’t called field tennis, and
it wasn’t played in a park like baseball. It was played in a private space; it
was a game for people with land of their own. But when you run around on it, you can feel the least private space of all, the earth, under your feet—there’s nothing between you and the ground. There’s
something immortal in it; you’ve entered a small square of nature. After a season of cement
and clay, the sight of a grass court is calming, the same way the woods—the immortal
metropolis—can be so calming when you leave the city. The grass season is
short, but it’s timeless as well.
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