June 8, 2011

Visions Fugitives

The Tour has released Paris to its Gallic follies, and rolled inexorably onward to verdant pastures, Anglo and Teutonic respectively. Queens and Halle are already a few days old, the grass is deep and slick, and del Potro has suffered an injury scare, which has to happen before any event can truly get under way. Federer and Djokovic have pulled out, citing niggles, and breaking the heart of least one tournament director. Andy Roddick has returned, sporting Mardy Fish’s socks. But before I grow too immersed in the lamentably fleeting grass season, here are some visions fugitives left over from Paris:

The Rankings

The big story was a change that did not happen, courtesy of a pre-ordained final that never took place. I speak of course of Novak Djokovic claiming the Roland Garros title and thereby wresting the top spot from Rafael Nadal. The Streak, as it will be wondering dubbed by future historians, had by now generated its own internal logic, part of which dictated that past results should count for little, the standard conceit of any new-world-order narrative. From the rubble shall emerge . . .  well, you know how it goes. Perspective is the first thing to go whenever a player goes on a tear. The incredible fact that Djokovic hadn’t been beaten led some to the impertinent belief that he couldn’t be, which was only buttressed as the Serb galloped through his early rounds and Nadal almost foundered. Indeed, the concern arose that the world No.1 might not meet his obligations. Come Sunday evening, and Nadal was still standing, and he is still world No.1, though only by a whisker.

The other ranking stories included a pair of Americans percolating into the top ten: Mardy Fish is up to No.9 after a best-ever third round effort, while Andy Roddick returns to No.10 despite not going to Paris at all, courtesy of Jurgen Melzer’s precipitous plunge. Viktor Troicki is now at No.12. He broke new ground by reaching the fourth round at a major, but ploughed a very worn paddock by choking badly when he should have gone on with it. Special mention should also be made of Juan Ignacio Chela, the veteran who cleaned up on a ransacked part of the draw and progressed to the quarterfinals, something he has done no fewer than 11 times at significant events, and then not won any of them. He has moved up to No.20.

Roger Federer

Most of what needs to be said about Roger Federer has been, and no one has really gotten it wrong. Federer’s knowing grin and raised index finger after that pulsating semifinal said it all: you discount the greatest player in history at your peril. The narrative leading into Paris was all about Nadal and Djokovic, but you can bet it won’t be as we move to London, and not merely because Federer is a six time champion. He is confident, aggressive, and punctuating streaks of unplayable serving with patches of unplayable everything, a tough combination on grass. It won’t be a question of who is unlucky enough to have him in their half, but of who is unlucky enough to be in his. Or he might lose in the first round. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

Nicolas Almagro

Several days prior to the French Open commencing, Nicolas Almagro paused whilst opening his umbrella inside under a ladder as a black cat crossed his path. He was also planning an expedition to Egypt, whereupon he would desecrate the tombs of several mummies, and Turin, where he would wipe his backside on the Shroud. None of this would have the slightest influence on his campaign in Paris, since he was already playing (and winning) in Nice, and was thus irredeemably cursed. His first round exit at Roland Garros capped a perfectly disappointing European clay season, and after the briefest of sojourns in the top ten, he has fallen to No.15. He won’t climb higher for quite some time.

The Coverage

I like Mats Wilander, who seems like a genuine guy. I like that tour bus thing he drives around America giving out impromptu tennis lessons, a charming idea that vaguely recalls Sviatoslav Richter’s mission to bring the classical piano recital to the benighted peasants of Siberia. I also confess eternal respect for Wilander’s 1988 season, in which he won three majors and gained the No.1 ranking, apparently motivated by little more than a desire to punish Ivan Lendl’s hubris. Unfortunately, when it comes to commentary, Wilander is the colour guy granted too free a rein, and the calls invariably devolve into a Mats monologue, periodically relieved by plugs for his nightly round-up show. Early rounds proved soul-miring, but, for a wonder, Wilander was nowhere to be heard in the later rounds.

Otherwise Frew, Simon and the gang were no worse than usual, and I assiduously avoided Barbara Schett. It was nice to see Gustavo Kuerten amble in for a chat. Meanwhile, rival networks offered no fatter pickings. Mark Woodforde still doesn’t realise there is no ‘k’ on the end of ‘thing’, and the avuncular Fred Stolle is progressively losing the plot. Thus did we delight in that semifinal between Federer and Ivanovic.

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June 6, 2011

Dominance Blooming

French Open, Final

(1) Nadal d. (3) Federer, 7/5 7/6 5/7 6/1

It was not until 5/1 in the fourth set, with the return of the sun and a second break in hand, that the dour knot marring Rafael Nadal’s brow began to unknit, leaving only a furrowed focus. Twenty-four previous encounters had drummed home a stern lesson: a single break against Roger Federer is no guarantee of anything. The lesson was now quite fresh, having been meted out just a set earlier.

Nadal had appeared harried since the very beginning, even as the indefatigable fatuity of the pre-match interview was inflicted on him. Dropped sets to Isner ghosted his gaze, and pale efforts against Andujar and Ljubicic. Hard losses to Djokovic rode his shoulders, and there, like a millstone suspended from a collar made of albatrosses, was Federer’s imperious triumph over Djokovic just two days prior. The world No.1 looked beset, and as play began he was beset, by the sport’s greatest player in scathing touch.

In form if not in timbre, the 2011 Roland Garros final recalled several of this pair’s previous tussles at the same venue (discounting the unrepeatable mauling of 2008). The arcs were familiar: Nadal’s doggedness blooming into dominance, and Federer’s brilliance growing clouded by a flailing impotence. Today’s final was like that, too, but it felt somehow larger. Partly it was because this encounter was not inevitable, where the others had been, but it was also the match itself. Nadal toiled harder to figure out this win, and if Federer’s brilliance was shorter lived, it kept coming back, in waves, until suddenly it was gone.

Naturally, a scoreline of 7/5 7/6 5/7 suggests a match that might have veered either way, and both men afterwards conceded as much. The first set was two inches from another outcome, and the rain’s sudden intervention almost cost Nadal the second. Federer, by the Spaniard’s admission, grew unplayable in the third, and by the time the fourth rolled in, they were virtually equal on points. But then Nadal held from 0-40 to open that set, and cosy hindsight tells us it was thereafter going only one way. At the time, though, with events unfolding in the miraculous high-resolution real-time of life, inevitability was harder to make out, especially as Federer shrugged away disappointment and held easily. The momentum still seemed to be his.

But then it wasn’t. The margins on a tennis court are vanishingly small, but suddenly vanished entirely. Nadal had lifted from nowhere, and began to marry creative counter-attack to desperate defence. How many lunging stabbed lobs landed within a foot of the baseline, utterly blunting his opponent’s netward forays? Looping crosscourt retrievals were transfigured into vicious drives up the line, and it ceased to be a dull question of how long Federer could sustain the attack before he missed, but a desperate issue of how long he could keep the world No.1 at bay. Not long.

Afterwards Federer aired his usual opinion – genuinely held, and hard to refute even as we query its putative arrogance – that these matches are more or less on his racquet. He said the same thing after losing to Djokovic at the US Open, and was just as right in saying it. If all his shots go in, he wins. But there’s a good reason why so many of his shots don’t go in against Nadal on clay, and today it had little to do with the amply-hyped looping forehand to the one-handed backhand ploy – which Federer actually dealt with very well – but everything to do with Nadal’s incomparable tenacity. Federer fought harder than he ever has, but Nadal fought harder still. In the end, the match ended like so many of theirs do, with a driven forehand error as elegant as all the winners, but more succinct than any concession speech.

I was immediately reminded of the 2009 Australian Open, or even 2008 Wimbledon, though this time Nadal only dropped to his knees, and rebounded quickly. He has tied Bjorn Borg with six French Open titles. As far as I am concerned, he is now the greatest clay courter ever to have graced the court.

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June 4, 2011

He Is The Man, No?

French Open, Semifinal

(3) Federer d. (2) Djokovic, 7/6 6/3 3/6 7/6

In the end – for the players, the crowd, and at least one person on the far side of the world – it was all about light. As Paris hurdled nine o’clock in the evening, and the fourth set surged to its wrenching climax in today’s semifinal between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, word filtered down that the necessary decision had ossified into the official one. If Djokovic forced the match to a fifth set, play would be suspended. It was bound to be an unpopular announcement, and a French crowd that had actually booed the net was unlikely to display equanimity. They had rioted once already this week, over nothing more serious than a venue-shift (whereas the Australian Open’s riots invariably arrive courtesy of senseless Balkan antagonism).

When Djokovic finally broke in a monumental, manicure-ruining game for a 5/4 lead, the writing was on the wall, and it said ‘To Be Continued’, like the weekly serial in which a new plot element is introduced five minutes from the end. Two and two were put together, and the answer was tomorrow. No one was happy about it, though, excepting perhaps Djokovic. The stadium announcer was moved to a remote, secure, and secret location, hopefully delaying the delirious crowd from visiting grievous harm on him.

One could partly see their point, given they had so far witnessed the most electrifying and brilliant tennis match of the year. It demanded a better finish than a one-set shoot out in the brash light of Saturday. Federer’s record at the Slam level when leading two sets to love is 174-0, and no one has won from two sets down in a French Open semifinal in the entire Open Era. Tasty stats, and nourishing for Federer’s confidence, but they would seem like empty calories if Djokovic took the fourth, and was permitted to sleep on it. A one-set tussle is far more manageable than winning three in a row.

But Federer was having none of it. Three scintillating points, including a rocketed backhand winner up the line, earned him three points to break back, and he took one with a ferocious inside-in forehand. Back on serve, and the crowd erupted. The Serb fought on grimly, his face stricken, his body elastic. Both men were everywhere, and Federer’s first serve was again untouchable. As Paris neared nine-thirty in dying light, we attained the tiebreak. Federer moved ahead early, even as Djokovic fought back. Then at 3-3 an error and two big serves brought Federer to triple match point, which is one more than he’d blown against Djokovic back in New York. Fittingly, the first two vanished with a dead net cord and an ace. The third was on Federer’s serve. One more big one would do it. As the serve kissed the centre T at somewhere over 200 km/h, Djokovic’s head dipped, Federer raised a single finger, admonishing a doubting world, and crowd was lost to delirium.

Here in Melbourne, pre-dawn light sluiced over the city like old dishwater. Once more, exhaustion and elation had fused in that cold grey wash of light. Addled from sleep-debt, I was transported back four years to the Hamburg Masters final, as Federer ended yet another titanic streak, and to Nadal’s gracious words at the trophy presentation: ‘If I have to lose against someone, he is the man, no?’ Before today, he was the last man to defeat Djokovic, all the way back in November, and now he is the only man to do it in 2011.

For Djokovic, he of course falls agonisingly short of any number of accolades: the greatest start to a season, the No.1 ranking, a first French Open title. The first is essentially meaningless, and John McEnroe has already conceded that Djokovic’s run is categorically superior to his own in 1984. As they embraced at the net afterwards, Federer told Djokovic that ‘the streak speaks for itself’, and it truly does. As for the No.1 ranking, it is undoubtedly not far off. Indeed, if Federer takes out Nadal in the final on Sunday, Djokovic will still rise to the top spot.

However, in order for that to happen, Federer must achieve the apparently impossible, and defeat Nadal at the French Open, a feat that has been achieved precisely once. Usually when one man has done the impossible, that man is Federer, but not this time. The great Swiss has never even taken Nadal to five sets here, and the last time they met on this court he didn’t even take him to five games. Today he beat the best player in the world, and on Sunday he must beat the world No.1 and most terrifyingly complete clay-courter of the era. As assignments go, it hardly gets tougher, but if anyone can do it, well, he is the man, no?

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June 2, 2011

Yet Again . . .

The semifinalists for Roland Garros 2011 have been decided, and for a wonder the Big Four constitute the final four. The lazy inclination is to add a knowing ‘yet again’, but in fact it only seems that way. It occurs far less often than you might think. The last time it happened at a Slam was the first time it happened at all, at the US Open in 2008, the moment when Andy Murray joined this elite coterie. It also happened at the World Tour Finals last November. Incidentally, the configuration – Murray v. Nadal, and Djokovic v. Federer – has been the same in each case. One for the conspiracy theorists.

What happens far more regularly is that three of the four make it through, with one falling en route. In 2011 this has been the case at every significant event at which all of them have turned up, totalling one major and four Masters events. As consistent domination by the elite goes, it is unprecedented, and topped only by the fact that Djokovic won all of those tournaments, which cannot be topped at all. It also means that the dozens of remaining players are invariably fighting over a sole semifinal berth, or must be content with a quarterfinal finish. Of course, if they’re in Djokovic’s quarter, they can abandon all hope from the get-go.

Returning to Paris, and the journey to the semifinals proved considerably riskier for the draw’s bottom half than the top. Between them, Djokovic and Federer have faced five other seeds, while Nadal and Murray have faced only two. Federer has seen off Lopez, Tipsarevic, Wawrinka, and Monfils, which is a tough sequence on clay, though losing to any of them over best-of-five would have inspired headlines, probably, somewhere. Federer remains the only player to have not dropped a set, and hasn’t looked this imposing since London last November.

Speaking of London last November, that was the last time Djokovic lost a tennis match, and he lost it to Federer. Ominous, no? No. Things change. That’s what things do. That’s their thing. Djokovic did for del Potro in the third round, which immediately qualified it as a tough draw, though honestly it seemed tougher on del Potro. The quarterfinal walkover ensures Djokovic is amply rested. Those commentators concerned that a five day break will lead to radical deskilling should display a little more faith. He’s still the guy that straight-setted Nadal twice on clay in as many weeks, and he’s probably been practicing. The odds on a Federer win were about $3.50 yesterday, which is about as low as I can recall for a Slam semifinal.

Meanwhile, Murray’s draw has been about as taxing as a sustained fracas with down-stuffed pillows, although to be fair the pillows were being wielded by large hairy men, and he has a dodgy ankle. Thus hobbled, the Scot has rethought his fundamental approach to the sport. Firstly, he is now beginning matches extraordinarily slowly, to the point of gifting a few breaks from the outset, apparently so as to spend even more time on court. As strategies go it’s not amazing, though it’s still more solid than whatever tactical masterstroke saw him go down to Donald Young and Alex Bogomolov. Once Murray feels the ropes kissing his backside, he commences throwing haymakers. Through five rounds, he has hit more winners than anyone else, both as a total, and in proportion to games played. Whilst neither Djokovic nor Nadal are ultra-aggressive players, Federer is, so this is saying something. He’s a world-class noodler, usually, but expect him to continue hitting out against Nadal in their semifinal.

Meanwhile, talk of an ailing and declining Nadal has proved premature. It turns out there was nothing wrong with him that couldn’t be cured by seeing Robin Soderling over the net. If nothing else, it refocused the Spaniard on his true purpose, which is not to go on winning French Opens – he feels no ‘obligation’, apparently – but to continue putting the Swede in his place. Soderling, apparently, felt ‘obligated’ to submit to it. He played poorly. Instructive parallels might be drawn with last year’s Wimbledon, where Nadal navigated a tricky first week, but lifted considerably upon meeting Soderling in the last eight, before seeing off Murray in the semifinals. The key difference is that this time, there will be no Tomas Berdych in the final.

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May 31, 2011

Vexing Questions

I ended the week vexed by two questions, the first newly-minted and the second near-eternal:

  1. What is wrong with Rafael Nadal?
  2. Is Liszt’s E-flat Piano Concerto worse than a root canal?

Pleasantly, or unpleasantly, the latter question has at last been answered to my satisfaction. The Liszt is far, far worse.

It turns out avoiding the dentist for nearly 30 years is pretty bad for your teeth, but I’d really needed a dentist to tell me that, so how was I to know? Bit of a Catch-22, really, and I certainly wasn’t going to toddle along for a check-up on the mere say-so of any armchair experts. These included my wife, who had nonetheless displayed saintly patience as I sobbed quietly into my pillow each night. After only a few months of this, I discovered that pain in sufficient quantities proves compelling. My resistance wore away as steadily as the back end of my molar, and so I relented.

Apparently it was a pretty bad scene in my mouth, although I told the dentist I already felt contrite as hell, so he let me take the spirited and inevitable lecture as read. I felt like I’d kind of dodged a bullet on that one, but the Lord works in nebulous ways. God’s plan for my come-uppance was truly labyrinthine, and long-range even by his standards, and began with inspiring a young Franz Liszt in 1830 to begin work on one of the lousiest pieces of music in history, and ended by making someone program it to air on the radio just as I was being jabbed repeatedly with a whopping needle. I let out a low groan, inspiring some concern that the local anaesthetic had failed. Really, only a general could have saved me, but it wasn’t to be, no matter how I begged.

I have now endured a root canal and Liszt simultaneously, and lived to tell of it. I didn’t feel great, and no one was certain if the drool was due to half my face being paralysed, or to being sonically lobotomised by the vacuous idiocy wafting from the radio. I’m due for round two in a week. Liszt’s Second Concerto is a better work, but I’m taking some Rachmaninov along just in case.

For the record, I have no idea what is wrong with Nadal. No one does, and all the theories sound trite. Perhaps someone messed with his water bottles?

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May 30, 2011

The Fog Lifts

Roland Garros, Day Eight

Fognini d. Montanes, 4/6 6/4 3/6 6/3 11/9

The opinion has been aired that the finale to today’s astonishing fourth round encounter between Albert Montanes and Fabio Fognini could not be scripted if you tried. This is incorrect. It honestly wouldn’t be that hard to come up with something like this, assuming the writer has a knack for absurdity, and a willingness to sustain it. The real issue is that any movie produced from such a script would be laughed out of theatres as being too far-fetched, and this is from audiences willing to countenance midi-chlorians, or Gwyneth Paltrow as a sex symbol. Even Wimbledon did not go so far.

That said, if ever Richard Curtis gets around to making Roland Garros, Actually, he could do worse than cast Fognini in the lead. First of all, he has the looks, and is now the only bona fide dreamboat remaining in the draw (apart from Ivan Ljubicic). Secondly, the man knows drama, and indeed the casual tennis fan might know him for little else. Recall his match against Gael Monfils here last year, or his final against Tommy Robredo in Buenos Aires back in February, which ended with the Spaniard refusing to shake hands, and Fognini screaming ‘Pedazo de Mierda!’ at him.

Today’s encounter began tamely enough, with Montanes eking out a tight first set, and Fognini roaring back in the second. They traded the next couple, but when the Spaniard moved ahead in the fifth, it looked like superior clay court pedigree would carry the day. The fifth set, so the saying goes, is all about nerves, which Montanes set about demonstrating as he stepped up to serve for the match at 5/3. From there on it was only nerves, until it was all Fognini. Four hours in, and the match got interesting. Even the French crowd – whose disloyalties were until this point evenly split – felt compelled to sit up and take notice.

Fognini broke back, and now it was Montanes clinging desperately on. A few games of this ramped up the tension up nicely, although Fognini – dramatically speaking – was just getting started. Serving at 6/7, he apparently wrenched his left quad, and stood very still at the baseline for a very long time, whereupon the umpire ambled over and duly permitted an impromptu time out. The fans, roused from slumber and now to ire, made their displeasure plain, and the match referee strode on to court soon after, demanding to know why a player was receiving a mid-game time out for cramp, which is a no-no. Fognini played it cool, and the medic played it coy. Neither would admit to cramp, Fognini shrugging away the ref’s queries in a winsomely Gallic fashion, which failed to get the crowd back on side. He returned to court, but he could no longer move properly. Somehow he served out that game.

Even more astonishingly, Montanes was unable to exploit his opponent’s mobility. If the Italian had to venture more than five steps he didn’t bother, but swung lustily and effectively at anything straying within reach, which, bafflingly, was just about everything. ‘Never a backward step’ is an admirable credo, but there are limits. After a half-dozen foot-faults, we could surmise that Fognini had more or less conceded the impossibility of victory. He steadfastly refused to take a step backwards, though Montanes proved equally intractable in not drop-shotting and junk-balling his way to a legitimate and inevitable win.

Still, despite his best efforts the Spaniard earned five match points, which vanished in a fog of winners and net-cords. Then at 9/9, Fognini broke. He couldn’t move, but he didn’t have to. Montanes just could not hit the ball away from him. The Italian moved to 40-0. A stinging return erased one. A twelfth fault-fault did for the next. Then Fognini won, with a deft backhand drive up the line. The result merited a stunned silence, but the crowd was roaring and hissing and clapping and snarling and booing, as French crowds do. Fognini’s camp went bananas, though the man himself looked merely bemused as he limped towards Montanes’ impatient handshake. Fognini is through to his first major quarterfinal. This is where the adventure ends, even if he can take the court. He faces Novak Djokovic, who has no qualms hitting the ball away from anyone, no matter how mobile.

Still, thank God for this match, since otherwise today’s pickings were slim. As they did in Indian Wells and Melbourne, Federer and Djokovic have collision-course scrawled all over them. Both played immaculately today, but it’s hard to find much new to say about Federer straight-setting Stan Wawrinka, or Djokovic straight-setting anyone.

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May 28, 2011

Epic

French Open, Day Six

(13) Gasquet d. (23) Bellucci, 6/2 6/3 3/6 6/3

The stylistic cliches that define tennis coverage are legion, and cover the entire spectrum of suck, from bowel-wrenching cringeworthiness to the extravagantly pointless. Examples of the former include those horrible interviews with players directly before they step on court, or Barbara Schett interviewing anybody. An example of the latter would be Spidercam, which subsists almost entirely on the belief that everything is more thrilling when the camera is moving. Fortunately, no one has cottoned on that the action is even more intense when the camera is handheld. Think of The Bourne Supremacy, and now imagine the Wimbledon final as directed by Paul Greengrass. Praise be for small mercies.

The technology for cable-suspended camera systems has been around since the 1980s, although it took almost 20 years to gain currency with broadcasters, who arrived only gradually at the realisation that many sports are too visually dull to engage viewers without adequate technical gimmicks. By the early part of last decade, Skycam was seeing use at a number of NFL and NCAA fixtures. It was roughly concurrent to this that the concept made the digitised crossover to motion pictures. Recall the Battle of Dagorlad in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, where it perfectly complimented the sweep of a vast battle, or in Troy, where it helped make some very boring sequences more confusing. That swooping panoramic shot is now standard for any battle sequences in any film, a visual shorthand for ‘epic’, which once upon a time meant something other than endless combatants – real or virtual – or the supplementary biceps on Brad Pitt’s jaw.

The irony is that, despite those Skycam-type shots being borrowed from sports coverage in order to lend movie sequences a heightened dynamism, sports have since re-appropriated the technology in order to invest events with an epic quality.

However, tennis coverage has to be more than just epic. Unlike the battle sequences in Troy, it has to make sense. Viewers really need to be able to follow what’s going on, and as the athletes are moving quite a lot during the course of play, this makes a stationary viewpoint strictly necessary. In any case, Spidercam cannot be deployed during points, since anything larger than a stray gnat cripples a player’s concentration. Consequently, Spidercam’s task is almost entirely limited to swooping down onto the court while a player collects balls, or in the 78 seconds between Djokovic beginning his service preparation and the point actually commencing. Epic it is not, but still they try.

Thus did I muse today as the camera swung in low and fast over the heads of a thousand screeching Parisians, wheeling lazily over the scruffy, slope-shouldered, red-clad hobo gathering balls at one end of the court. Match point had finally arrived, courtesy of a screaming forehand winner. He served, and match point was won, and Richard Gasquet was on his back, another sure clue that the match had been truly epic. The crowd were losing it, and Tomaz Bellucci, with his unruffled tan and vast sensitive eyes, was striding netwards. The scene vaguely recalled Federer’s 2009 Roland Garros triumph, in exultation if not in detail, the key differences being that this was a third round match, and although it had been closer than the scoreline indicated, it hadn’t been much closer. It boasted all the furnishings of an epic, except where it mattered.

Nevertheless, it is the first time Gasquet has progressed to the last 16 at his home Slam, which explains why he hit the dirt so suddenly. Whether he goes any further is a dicey question. Next up as faces the winner of Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro, a third rounder for the ages. Locked at a set each, play was suspended until tomorrow.  Expect an epic.

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May 27, 2011

Thud

French Open, Day Five

Six qualifiers have progressed to the third round of Roland Garros: Antonio Veic, Leonardo Mayer, Lukas Rosol, Steve Darcis, Alejandro Falla and Lukasz Kubot. I’d like to say this is the first time, but honestly I haven’t checked. Six feels like a lot, though. Admittedly, if it’s going to happen anywhere, it’ll be on clay; if so inclined, a Challenger-level player might confine himself to dirt for much of the year, thereby honing some pretty specialised skills. So armed, he will occasionally inflict a bad day on peers whose higher ranking was primarily achieved on hardcourts or grass. Still, regardless of precedent or reason, six is a decent number, and rendered more striking by the fact that aside from those six, only four other non-seeds have progressed to the last 32.

(Q) Rosol d. (8) Melzer, 6/7 6/4 4/6 7/6 6/4

The upshot is that 22 of the initial 32 seeds remain, which as attrition goes is not excessive. Other Slams fare far worse. However, it is the calibre of the fallen seeds that has pushed brows up, and the ramifications thereof. The top ten is being reshuffled, almost hourly. Last year’s semifinalists – Berdych and Melzer – are now both out, and both to qualifiers. The gravity of the 52-week ranking system is generally irresistible. A big result or two buys a year’s buoyancy, but once that has expired, you’d better be able to back it up, or you will return to earth in a hurry, with a thud. Melzer is in free fall. Berdych still has a Wimbledon final to defend before he too produces a sizeable crater.

(5) Soderling d. (Q) Ramos, 6/3 6/4 6/4

This is partly why Robin Soderling ranks among the more intriguing cases in men’s tennis. Based on his efforts at the 2009 French Open – did you know he beat Nadal? – his ascent was swift, and by capitalising on some good fortune at the World Tour Finals that year he rose even higher. However, two years on, and the cheerful Swede continues to blow raspberries at precedent and gravity. His two preferred things are clearly ‘indoors’ and ‘Paris’, and he combined them to great advantage in winning the Paris Indoors last year. His portfolio of points is now sufficiently diverse that a failure to defend his final here at Roland Garros this year would be a serious blow, but not a mortal one. Those are thoughts for later, however, since Soderling is still in the draw, although he has so far only faced a lucky loser and a qualifier, with another qualifier next up. He will doubtless reach the fourth round without facing anyone in the top hundred. It’s better to be lucky than good, I suppose, although it’s ideal to be both. Speaking of Nadal . . .

(1) Nadal d. Andujar, 7/5 6/3 7/6

So far the defending champion has looked unusually vulnerable, although the more fervent zealots have suggested that this is when he is at his most dangerous. This is not only counter-intuitive, but wrong. He is always dangerous, but he is at his most dangerous when he looks dangerous. Of course, Nadal dropped a couple of sets to Isner, but he rightly rued the squandered energy more than the score. Today he was back to squandering: he won in straight sets over his compatriot Andujar, but again looked terribly unconvincing and spent far too long doing it, having to rally from 1/5 in a third set that lasted 93 minutes, which is nine minutes longer than Federer’s entire match took yesterday. The French Open is only two rounds old, and Nadal has already spent well over seven hours on court.

Fortunately, Nadal is close to Albert Costa, who fair bristles with useful advice. As defending champion in 2003, Costa played approximately 22 five setters on his way to the semifinals, and spent almost 7 weeks on court, although my recollections may be hazy. Nadal is drawn to meet Soderling in the quarterfinals, where he will be as exhausted as Soderling is ill-prepared.

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May 25, 2011

An Awfully Nice Curse

Roland Garros, Day Three

(Q) Kubot d. (11) Almagro, 3/6 2/6 7/6 7/6 6/4

Of all the practical jokes recently inflicted on Nicolas Almagro, two in particular were humdingers, and it’s a nice question which of them has proved funnier. Firstly, whoever convinced him to play (and win) a minor tournament on the Cote d’Azur the week before Roland Garros should feel tremendous pride in their skills of persuasion. It proved to be a sustained dereliction of common sense, especially given Richard Gasquet’s example from just last year, which Almagro has now replicated: a title followed by a first round upset from two sets up. That said, the second gag was arguably better. Convincing Almagro that Roland Garros had moved to a best-of-three format attests to a Loki-calibre aptitude for mischief. The look on Almagro’s face after breezing through those first two sets, only to realise he had to continue . . . Well, that was spun gold.

Hopefully it is now obvious that the Open de Nice is cursed. This might seem like bad news for its organisers, but word was going to get out eventually, and there’s no reason to think this will stop players turning up. After all, the only way protect oneself from such a curse is to not play the event, which requires a level of scheduling dexterity roughly analogous to dodging an on-rushing tortoise. So far only the best of the best have proved up to it. The other thing that should be clear is that Almagro cannot reliably showcase his abilities on any stage larger than a milk crate. For all that today’s baffling loss resembled Gasquet’s from 2010, it more immediately recalled Tomas Berdych’s from yesterday, with the deft twist that Almagro was mostly ahead even in the sets he lost. Admittedly, he didn’t blow any match points, but he did blow a 3/0 lead in the fifth. He’s also blown his European clay season, again. February 2012 looks a long way off.

(1) Nadal d. Isner, 6/4 6/7 6/7 6/2 6/4

Andre Agassi’s fine autobiography Open can be appreciated on any number of levels, some more scandalous – and thus more vigorously publicised – than others. To my mind, the most engaging parts are the frequent match descriptions, since they give us Agassi at his most thoughtful, or in any case his least grandstanding. Particularly curious is the way he recounts five set encounters, employing a refreshing matter-of-factness, as though they are just like other tennis matches, the point being that once upon a time they were. Sometimes matches go to five, but the better player still wins, and it’s no big deal. Prior to 2004, even the best players would lose sets and matches all over the place. Federer and Nadal have so recalibrated our expectations that even dropped sets are ponderously considered, each a portent of doom to come. Someone the other day was talking up Jurgen Melzer’s chances at the French Open, given that he’d almost taken a set from Nadal last year.

However, there is such as thing as a sense of perspective, and it is merely willful to ignore it. Rafael Nadal was today taken to five sets by John Isner, yet he never really looked in serious peril. For all that the Spaniard’s on-court celebrations were overblown, his more measured press conference suggested little relief, and more irritation that he’d spent so much longer on court than he’d wanted to. Call it arrogance, but I suspect that even at two sets to one down he didn’t feel in enormous danger, especially once he’d broken to open the fourth. He could see perfectly well that Isner’s legs had gone. Journeying further into Roland Garros 2011, the essential point to take from this match isn’t that Nadal nearly lost, since he didn’t, but that he expended much more energy than he should have. Sterner tests await.

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May 24, 2011

Grass-Bound

French Open, Day Two

Berrer d. Raonic, 6/4 4/6 6/3 6/4

Darcis d. Llodra, 6/7 6/3 6/3 6/3

As a journeyman drawing a seed first up, you’d rather face Milos Raonic than Novak Djokovic, probably anywhere, but especially on clay at a major. If compelled to choose a French seed, you’d presumably pick Michael Llodra over, say, Gael Monfils. As it happened, neither Michael Berrer nor Steve Darcis were given much choice in the matter, but both took their chance, both in four sets.

Raonic ends his excellent clay adventure with more wins than losses, and certainly more wins than many had anticipated for him back in March. There is a prevailing expectation that he’ll thrive on grass, but I’m not prepared to cede that point without reservation. Obviously his enormous serve will be an enormous asset, but serving isn’t quite everything, especially on today’s slower grass. For it to be the decisive factor, he will need to get his percentages up, notwithstanding the devastating curve and bite on his kicker. Returning and movement are pretty important too, and they aren’t his strongest points. And all else being equal – which it isn’t – the real key to grass is the capacity to hold your nerve, especially at the death of inevitable tight sets. But I digress: the second day of Roland Garros isn’t the time to be thinking about grass.

Robert d. Berdych, 3/6 3/6 6/2 6/2 9/7

Sadly for Tomas Berdych, grass is exactly what he has to think about now, following a heartbreaking, come-from-ahead loss to Stephane Robert. He’ll be spirited back to Ostrava, and there submit to reprogramming at the hands of his trusty Tengineers. Henceforth, he won’t employ the slide so much, or the kick serve, which is a shame since he didn’t use them to such ineffect today, which partly explains how Robert was able to tee off on nearly ever second serve return and how just about any ball the Frenchman placed near a line was either an outright winner, or guaranteed that the next shot would be.

It would be misleading to lay the afternoon solely at Berdych’s feet. Robert was fearless, which is the only way to be at two sets down, with hordes of compatriots hoarsely hollering. It’s harder to remain fearless once parity is restored at two sets all, but he did. The compatriots were now flecked with frenzied froth, and Robert – who at 31 years old had claimed only one victory at Slam level – had every reason to tighten up. He didn’t, even down match point. Breaking at 7/7 in the decider, the fans moved to a place beyond my powers of alliteration. He was even beyond his opponent’s considerable reach, with the Czech later claiming resignedly he should have just gone for aces on every serve, first or second. He would have stood a better chance. Robert served out at 15, and Berdych, last year’s semifinal, is grass-bound.

In other news: the current mania for monogramming has claimed another victim. Feliciano Lopez found a way of saving break point that I’ve never seen before, despite eventually losing to Federer in three excellent sets. The Eurosport coverage is the usual miracle: a mostly relentless monologue from Mats Wilander, broken only by the ad breaks at the change of ends, at which juncture they often sneak in a promo for Wilander’s round-up show: Game, Set and Mats.

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