The Next Point

Monte Carlo Masters, Final

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monte Carlo, Semifinals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indian Wells, Quarterfinals

(1) Djokovic d. (8) Tsonga, 6/3 6/1

(7) del Potro d. (3) Murray, 6/7 6/3 6/1

Idle hopes that the second pair of Indian Wells quarterfinals would prove more interesting than the first grew forlorn after today’s first match, although I suppose this depends on one’s definition of ‘interesting’. If you’re fascinated by groups of highly partisan tennis fans losing their minds on social media, then last night’s disappointing encounter between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer had it all. (I’m not particularly interested in that, although I will register dull wonder at how incensed some people become at the differing opinions of others around trivial matters.) Fans of public executions no doubt appreciated Novak Djokovic’s flawless fifty-four minute thrashing of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Sky Sports was my provider of choice for today’s matches, partly because their streams are of reasonable quality, but mostly due to Andy Murray’s presence on the order of play. My firm belief is that the spectacle of professional tennis is only heightened when it is accompanied by a deranged cheer-squad.

I don’t mean to suggest that Sky does nothing but cheer for Murray. After all, sometimes they’re obliged to show matches that don’t involve him. They’re careful to bring in a non-British commentator for these encounters, to lend the affair a suitably cosmopolitan feel. Peter Fleming had come all the way from America. Absolved of the need to be partisan, he could merely be inscrutable: ‘I don’t think Tsonga has done enough to throw caution to the wind. He’s just been a little reticent to throw everything at the wall.’ It was a hard point to argue with, at least until I’d deciphered it. I think it meant that Tsonga was too reluctant to be reckless. He needed to be more reckless about being reckless. Or perhaps he needed to be more reckless about that. It didn’t help that even as Fleming spoke Tsonga was ploughing a sequence of insufficiently reckless forehands into the lower half of the net. When your safe game is producing extravagant errors, there’s no reason to believe greater abandon is the key. Still, perhaps it was a question of intent.

Cutaway shots of Tsonga’s coach Roger Rasheed gave little away. I imagine he was preoccupied with the effort of distilling this debacle into a psychotically positive message. If anyone is going to manage it, he’s the man. (It’s a quality he shares with North Korea’s military regime.) You can always tell with him – it’s in his chewing. Today he clearly had his special tweeting gum in. His eyes remained hidden behind sunglasses, but I like to believe they were closed, enabling perfect stillness while he composed the perfect hashtag.

Fleming was the only one among Sky’s assembled luminaries who had much to say about the match at all. Marcus Buckland, who apparently lives in the Sky studio, didn’t bother with the link man’s usual job, which is to sustain interest even when the match turns out to be a dud: ‘Totally predictable so far,’ he remarked after the first set. He asked Mark Petchey if he thought it was totally predictable. Petch concurred that it was totally predictable. They were totally killing time until Andy Murray took the court. This wasn’t due to occur for another hour and a half, but they knew they could fill the gap with replays of the Scot’s past triumphs.

Djokovic thereafter grew only more magnificent, and finished with the astonishing ratio of twenty-one winners to just six errors. Sky was contractually obligated to provide some kind of post-match analysis, and hastily arrived at the conclusion that the result had hinged on Tsonga’s tactical shortcomings. Admittedly these are legion, but I’m not convinced they were decisive today. When the better tennis player plays as well as he can, he invariably wins, and right now Djokovic is unquestionably the best tennis player in the world. Tsonga could have channelled the enmeshed spirits of Napoleon and Hannibal, and he might have made it closer. But he would have done better to hit more of his forehands in, especially the reckless ones.

Having disposed of all this unpleasantness, Sky brought us some more in the form of Carlos Berlocq’s apparently notorious grunt. This was a clear improvement from their point of view, since it permitted them to express righteous outrage. Surprisingly their feelings on this tedious matter aligned perfectly with Murray’s, which was that the Argentine’s grunt is excessive. This ate up a bad ten minutes, and left enough time for an extended highlights package from the final of the 2009 Cincinnati Masters, between Murray and Juan Martin del Potro. Apparently the ideal way to prepare for an extended hardcourt tussle between two guys is by watching the same two guys on a different hardcourt several years earlier.

Eventually this gave way to live tennis, expertly narrated by Andrew Castle and Barry Cowan. By 3/3 in the first set Castle declared this to be the best of the Indian Wells quarterfinals, and you didn’t need to be British to agree. I seem to be in a minority of tennis fans in that I quite enjoy Castle’s work. His delivery is fine, he’s sufficiently opinionated and won’t let idle idiocy from his booth-mate pass by without interrogation, and his flights of fancy are generally well calculated.

For better or worse, I can hardly recall the titanic climax of the 2008 Wimbledon Final’s fourth set tiebreaker, as Nadal then Federer produced outrageous shots to gain then save championship point, without hearing Castle’s response: ‘The two best passing shots of the tournament – without doubt ­­- have just taken place on the last two points. It’s eight-all. What’s next?’ He started out solidly today, easily talking rings around Cowan, although his equanimity sagged as del Potro gained a break in the second set, and displayed no interest in giving it back: ‘He’s not choking; he’s not getting uptight! Why not?!’ Though probably intended ironically, it sounded a trifle petulant. Cowan, who’d astutely backed the Argentine, offered no answer.

It was the first time Murray and del Potro had faced each other since the end of 2009, and this is the first tournament the Scot has played since the Australian Open. Nevertheless, the belief was fairly widespread that he’d win. This belief seemed justified as he claimed a densely-textured first set, winning the key points by targeting del Potro’s backhand. The Argentine was unusually reluctant to bring his mighty forehand into play. This changed in the second set, and he started to venture forward more. Indeed they both did, although back in the Sky studio they made it clear that only their man had any business up there. Petchey later delivered the entirely backhanded compliment that del Potro ‘volleys well when he can get his racquet on the ball’. He got his racquet on enough. By the third set still hadn’t faced a break point, owing mostly to prowess off the ground, since his serve numbers were hardly stellar.

Murray finally achieved a couple of break points early in the third, but didn’t appear to realise how valuable they were, leaving them untended, whereupon a gleeful del Potro snatched them back. Murray was broken in the following game, and it was hard to say it wasn’t a mental let down, and that he hadn’t been distracted by the missed opportunity, a feather on the soul. Murray was broken again to close the match, sealing it with a double fault. It was still the best of the quarterfinals, but for a match that had started out so strongly, it was strange for the way it just melted into air. The issue was probably match-play, which Murray sorely lacks, and del Potro’s forehand, which grew almost uncounterable as the match wore down. ‘He has a big game,’ remarked Murray in his press conference, ‘and when he strings it together he’s a top, top player.’

‘Probably not the result we were all looking for,’ admitted Buckland back in the studio. The Sky coverage presumably wasn’t going to Argentina.

During the final set, querulous messages appeared from several senior British journalists on Twitter. Firstly David Law remarked that: ‘Following Twitter during big televised matches I’m learning commentators can’t say anything right.’ Richard Evans responded: ‘Commentators are such easy targets for people who have never done the job.’ I have no idea whose comments they were responding to (certainly not mine), but I’ll still make some general points, since it has a bearing on the theme of today’s post, which is nationalism in commentary.

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that social media, and Twitter in particular, entertains a very heavy selection bias in this respect (and in all respects, which is why it is so questionable as a metric for measuring popularity, let alone value). The nature of the medium is such that you are far more likely to hear about bad commentary than good. Ninety-five per cent of commentary is at worst unremarkable, but it is the remaining five per cent that will be aggregated onto your timeline. People are more likely to praise a commentator or coverage overall, but will only very rarely relay a specific moment of commentary they liked.

To an extent this perception is compounded because most of the people who are likely to be commenting on Twitter during a professional tennis match probably have little need for commentary anyway. They would certainly miss it if it wasn’t there, since it has become part of the furniture of sports coverage, but it provides little informational value for those who know the game well. Tennis isn’t that complicated, and there is usually broad agreement about what is going on most of the time. The knowledgeable often only notice commentary when it’s missing, or when the commentators are wrong or biased. Indeed, this is the reason why I seek it out.

Secondly, just because most people have never or will never commentate doesn’t disqualify them from having an opinion. If that were the case then bad commentary would drift almost beyond reproach. Especially in an age of specialisation, the contention that you shouldn’t criticise someone because you couldn’t do their job better is specious. Thirdly, the validity of criticism is not predicated on how easy or hard it was to make. Yes, it is indeed easy to criticise.

I am not accusing Sky Sports of patriotic bias towards Murray. Surely the matter is beyond question, and I cannot imagine their coverage is intended to sound any other way. They know their market, and their market is British. They are currently running a poll in which viewers are invited to name the male tennis player they miss most. Tim Henman is the clear number one (although I’m deeply impressed to see that Fabrice Santoro is at number six). Indeed, I imagine that any effort towards greater neutrality would be looked on unkindly by management. I’m not suggesting it is even especially cynical – although it might be – merely that those speaking on air are permitted the ful  range of their pleasure or disappointment when the local hope triumphs or loses. Like it or not, such policies are unlikely to change.

I don’t particularly like it, and I will go on poking fun.

There were three ATP tour events concluded at various points this weekend. Individually they demonstrated certain principles in their own right, while collectively they offered yet more unnecessary proof that not all tennis events are created equal. Yesterday Novak Djokovic won his 36th title on a slick outdoor hardcourt in Dubai. A few hours later Rafael Nadal won his 52nd title on an Acapulco clay court that was mainly remarkable for being littered with the remains of David Ferrer. Both of these finals were enhanced by rambunctious capacity crowds. Meanwhile Ernests Gulbis has just claimed his third career title in Delray Beach, which surpassed itself by taking the unusual measure of not allowing any spectators in.

Dubai, Final

(1) Djokovic d. (3) Berdych, 7/5 6/3

If I can be candid for a moment – always a clear admission that a writer is being evasive elsewhere – finding new and interesting things to say about Djokovic winning tennis tournaments is not getting any easier. One must search in ever-more obscure nooks for original insights. A disinclination to repeat oneself can be crippling (which is presumably why so few tennis writers bother with such a stricture). Already my search parties are roaming into remote districts, while a team of bright young interns scours the historical record, on the lookout for abstruse references I might appropriate. So far their toils have proved fruitless. What more is there to say?

The alternative, once it becomes apparent that nothing new can be said, is to append this latest victory to all the others, and subsequently churn out some numbers, and see where we go from there.

It was Djokovic’s fourth title at this event, meaning his armada of Dubai silverware almost rivals Federer’s, which opens up some interesting dramatic possibilities. At the present rate of accrual they’ll one day be able to recreate some of the more stirring encounters from the Hornblower novels, if not the Battle of Trafalgar. Indeed, after a weekend watching my daughter adroitly repurpose any object not nailed down into a Harry Potter prop, it occurs to me that the multifariousness of tennis trophies enables the more successful players to stage fairly elaborate recreations. Or, if not them, their offspring: I imagine Federer’s twins will one day invade his trophy room in search of useful props. Any of the World Tour Finals trophies would serve as a decent Goblet of Fire – they’ll need to remove those naff ribbons, and perhaps affix them to their bicycle handles – while Stockholm’s silverware would make a perfect doomsday device for Dr. No. The Dubai runner-up dagger would be excellent for The Golden Child. Mikhail Youzhny is your man if you want to borrow one of those.

But back to the numbers. It is also Djokovic’s eleventh straight victory over Tomas Berdych. Sadly, it was no more remarkable than the recent wins in Melbourne, London or Shanghai, all of which occurred on hardcourts, and none of which saw the world number one attain an unassailable peak. Berdych fought all his considerable worth, and repeatedly forced Djokovic to defend. Unfortunately Djokovic is the best defender in the sport, and that is the aspect of his game that seems immune to breaking down. You cannot allow Djokovic to attack, but obliging him to defend is merely to play into his hands. It seems an insoluble problem. It must seem that way to Berdych.

After the Shanghai semifinal loss Berdych had sounded resigned that even with his powerful (if limited) arsenal there was simply no way to break down or through the Serb. The increased speed of the Dubai surface enabled a few more of his shots to penetrate, as did a courageous early commitment to launching his backhand up the line, and he was characteristically more assertive than the similarly proportioned Juan Martin del Potro had been in the semifinal. But it wasn’t enough, and Berdych’s focus typically warped and buckled under compression. Some have sought to isolate the result in a few missed shots from the third seed – a simple forehand volley, a botched overhead – but that’s being overly reductive. I don’t see that the outcome would have been materially altered had the Czech made those shots. There were decisive moments for Djokovic as well. The difference is that he gains greater clarity when pressed, not less. It helps that he is generally more careful to make the key moments break points on his opponent’s serve rather than his own.

The rest of Djokovic’s numbers are no less impressive, for all that each merely represents an incremental increase on whatever it was on Saturday. He has now won eighteen consecutive matches, dating back to the Paris Indoors (his loss there remains his only one since the US Open final). He has also won thirteen consecutive matches against the current top eight, including every single member of the elite besides Nadal, who he hasn’t faced. Perhaps the numbers are enough. They are, after all, astonishing.

Acapulco

(2) Nadal d. (1) Ferrer, 6/0 /62

Had Djokovic faced Nadal in Acapulco a few hours later it might have been a different story, although that is debatable. He certainly would have provided a sterner test than Ferrer did. However, the story wasn’t that Nadal defeated Ferrer. The real story, or stories – there are two – is that so many people believed Ferrer would win, and that his defeat was of a severity and thoroughness hardly glimpsed since the Romans sacked Carthage.

The word heading into the Acapulco semifinals was that this was Nicolas Almagro’s big chance. If he couldn’t beat Nadal now, a mere three tournaments into Nadal’s allegedly long-term comeback, then he never will. With these conditions in place, I am now satisfied that he never will. As for the semi, so for the final: this was Ferrer’s ideal opportunity to end a losing streak to Nadal on clay stretching back nine years. He won two games, which was at least twice as many as he deserved.

At the risk of sounding boastful, not to say prescient after the fact, I have insisted from the beginning that Nadal would commence winning tournaments from the outset. I was less surprised than exhausted when this turned out not to be the prevailing opinion. There has been endless talk about how hard it is to come straight back into competitive match-play. Many people point to del Potro. I would respond by pointing to Nadal, and then pointing out that he isn’t del Potro, and that he is furthermore one of the greatest clay court players ever, contesting a series of small tournaments through South and Central America. People point to the outrageous upset to Horacio Zeballos in Vina del Mar, apparently forgetting that it was an outrageous upset, and these by definition do not reflect the norm.

The idea that Nadal was the underdog in this final was perhaps the most fantastical of all. Ferrer had been poor in seeing off Fabio Fognini in his semifinal, but even if he’d been playing well I doubt whether it would have enabled him to do more than challenge for a set or two, much like last year’s Barcelona final. A head-to-head record this lopsided doesn’t come about by accident, and it has little to do with luck. Also bear in mind that their last match was the semifinal at the French Open in 2012, in which Ferrer claimed just five games. He might conceivably have reached five games in Acapulco had it been best of nine sets. I confess that for all I’d expected a Nadal victory I hadn’t expect it to be this comprehensive, not to say merciless. But nor did Scipio Africanus ease up once his legion had broken the gates.

At the start of last year I suggested that Ferrer had hit upon a sound method of pushing Nadal, which was to probe at his backhand until it yielded an error or a short ball. It was a tactic employed to great effect by Djokovic in 2011, as well as by Murray in Tokyo that season, and by Federer in Indian Wells a year ago. If the Acapulco final bears analysis on a technical level, that is probably the detail that matters: Nadal’s backhand was impregnable, which it often is, and lethal, which is rarely the case. Normally on clay this doesn’t matter too much, since Nadal’s preternatural footwork allows him to scoot around his forehand. Quick as he is, though, this tendency does open up his forehand wing for any opponent willing to go hard cross court (Djokovic). Today, however, he remained content to use his backhand, and he used it to bludgeon Ferrer into the dirt. Denied anywhere safe to go, Ferrer’s approach grew fragmented and entirely ineffectual.

After Scipio raised Carthage he salted the land, so that it was rendered unusable for generations. Prouder men than Ferrer have been dismantled less thoroughly, and never recovered. One wonders where Ferrer goes from here, though I suspect that he’ll be fine, in his way. He’ll simply return to self-assigned task, which is to beat those ranked below him. I’m not the only one to have decried the increasing consistency with which he capitulates to those above him (regardless of ranking, this includes Nadal), but I’m beginning to suspect he doesn’t let it affect him that much – getting thrashed is simply something he has to get through. It’s likely to be painful, but at least it’s quick. Best get it over with, and move on. Afterwards his only explanation was exhaustion.

Nadal was afterwards overcome, shedding tears into his towel. I’m not a qualified mind-reader – more a dabbler – but I suspect this title meant more to him than Sao Paulo did. I don’t know whether his overwhelming feeling was relief or pride. But I’m sure they were both present, just as I’m sure both gave way to pure delight when he was given an oversized sombrero and a large silver pear-like fruit, which I’m reliably informed is called a guaje. Whatever it is, he now has two of them, and can join Djokovic and Federer’s dramatic reenactment society, although I’m struggling to imagine which movie they’ll recreate. Pear Harbor?

Delray Beach, Final

(Q) Gulbis d. Roger-Vasselin, 7/6 6/3

Nonetheless, it was Ernests Gulbis who won Saturday’s most interesting match; a jaggedly-contoured semifinal with Tommy Haas, in which both men both men repeatedly scaled the peaks of quality only to hurl themselves into the surrounding abyss, thence to recommence the slow climb. Throw in an exploding helicopter and it was basically Cliffhanger. Haas was of course the grizzled veteran once incarnated by Sylvester Stallone, and as the third set wore on, it seemed inevitable that he’d prevail. Like John Lithgow, the affably skittish Gulbis was miscast as the villain of the piece, and in a surprise twist redeemed himself via a sequence of heroic holds, and a quite magnificent final tiebreaker.

It was Gulbis’ seventh straight victory – having pushed through qualifying – which predictably inspired some to declare that he’d won enough matches in a row to claim a theoretical Slam, assuming one was to be staged as a best-of-three set event in Delray Beach for the benefit of about two dozen spectators. For the record, a theoretical Slam is not the same as a real one. Still, it was a harrowing slog: The Road, reimagined as Latvian vaudeville.

He defeated Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the final, handily but for a stumble as he endeavoured to serve out the first set. It was the first time two players ranked outside the top hundred had contested a tour level final since 2007. Gulbis moves to a perfect 3-0 in finals, with two of those coming at this event. He was characteristically forward in praising the place afterwards: ‘It’s my favourite tournament. It’s the only tournament in the world I am winning.’ The local chamber of commerce might want to enlist him as a cheerleader.

Then again, perhaps not. That was probably Gulbis’ least controversial utterance of the week. He has, admittedly and typically, provided tremendous value, especially when it came to revealing his latest source of motivation: ‘I was really getting pissed to see who’s in the top 100. There are some guys who I don’t know who they are. Some guys, I’m sorry, with respect — they can’t play tennis.’ His Delray Beach title propels him back among their ranks, landing him on No.67. He’ll still have to qualify for Indian Wells this week, meaning that, for the time being, he’s still obliged to toil away on the outer courts with more of those allegedly hapless nobodies he refuses to regard as his peers.

Dubai Semifinal

(3) Berdych d. (2) Federer, 3/6 7/6 6/4

The tendency for broadcasters of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to liberally sprinkle their coverage with images and footage of local architecture is apparently irresistible. Admittedly, it is a hard urge to fault. It is important to showcase the local culture for a global audience, the local culture in this case being the irrepressible desire to sculpt land and sea into pointless configurations, and to erect monoliths of dubious practicality but undeniable cost. These are structures of a scale and variety almost unique in the world, although they have a spiritual precedent in the Baroque confectioneries of Bavaria, a contemporary equivalent in Las Vegas, and embody an impulse that is now spreading even into Mecca. Really, we’re being invited to gawk.

The rococo tendency to elevate decoration to the status of architecture is anything but new. It would be wrong to say that the Arabians merely got there late, since the truth is they got there early. The deeper truth is that for those with wealth the inclination towards ostentatious bricolage is universal and never truly goes away, and Dubai has more wealth than almost anywhere. With enough money, you may not be able to buy the world, but you can dredge up its semblance from the Persian Gulf, and put resorts on it. Some may prefer to hide their wealth under a bushel, but they don’t reside in this part of the world, unless The Bushel is a 356 star hotel perfectly recreating Peter Bruegel’s Tower of Babel, with three replica Titanics balanced on top.

The Burj Al Arab, the world’s only 357 star hotel, is iconic in this sense, not to say totemic. At a stroke, it wrenched away from the Sydney Opera House the dubious privilege of being the world’s least discreet architectural homage to a ship’s sail. It isn’t the highest hotel in the world – indeed there are several taller in Dubai – but alone on its own island it does prove that monumentality has everything to do with proportion and context rather than simple dimensions. It is a constant reference point for the Sky Sports coverage, one they often return to in between helicopter fly-bys of the city proper and the odd tennis match.

Tonight’s odd tennis match was between Tomas Berdych and Roger Federer, the part-time local who once famously hit up on the Burj Al Arab’s helipad, although he may yet be remembered for more than that. The Dubai court, located nearer sea level, is one of the fastest hardcourts on the tour, and both these players are disinclined to hang back when the opportunity to step in presents itself. It was relentless assault from the outside, and although there were many moments of fine defence, these were moments born of necessity rather than temperament.

It is strange how a densely-woven and intricately-textured set of tennis can suddenly unravel. Through the first seven games, neither Berdych nor Federer enjoyed a comfortable service hold, and both were obliged to save break points. The standard, however, was excellent, and a tight finish seemed inevitable, and fitting. Then, serving in the eighth game, with a 40-30 lead, Berdych’s attention wavered, momentarily distracted by a Sky Sports helicopter on another strafing run. Several double faults and some loose errors cost him the game, permitting the defending champion to serve for the set. Federer did so to love, sealing the game with a second serve ace. The statistic that he has never lost in six previous Dubai semifinal was duly paraded.

The intricate pattern continued through the opening stages of the second set, with both men holding on grimly to 2/2. Then Berdych wrenched momentum his way with a hold to love in 82 seconds, before breaking Federer to 15. Federer returned the treatment a few games later, breaking back to 15 as Berdych served for the set. He then held at love in 82 seconds. If the first set had been an unravelling tapestry, the second was shaping up as a weirdly contrapuntal palindrome, like one of Bach’s clever-dick numbers from The Musical Offering.

Then the pattern fragmented, and the oscillations of momentum grew more rapid. Federer narrowly failed to break at 5/5. Berdych nearly succeeded in breaking in the following game when a shanked shot from Federer on set point landed just long. The correct call would have given the Czech the set, but he bafflingly failed to challenge, instead remonstrating with the umpire about crowd noise. Federer went on to hold, and force the tiebreak.

From a dramatic perspective, it is well that he did. Momentum began to dart around coquettishly in the breaker, first with Federer, then with Berdych, then again with Federer, who moved to 6-4, and a pair of match points. The first of these came on his own serve. He didn’t take it – eventually slicing a backhand long – and it would transpire that this was his best chance. Berdych saved two more match points on his own serve, before taking the set with a monstrous forehand return winner at 9-8. Federer’s concentration lapsed crucially at 2/2 in the third set, and Berdych pounced. The Czech eventually closed out the set 6/4.

Berdych has now defeated Federer five times in this decade, and joins Novak Djokovic as the only men to have done it twice while saving match points. We should also bear in mind that Berdych lost the Marseilles final last week after holding match point. There seems to be a lot of it around this season. Tomorrow he’ll have a chance to make amends, of sorts. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a chance. He’ll face Djokovic, the 2011 champion (of everything), and reigning world number one. The Serb, notwithstanding a brief and non-fatal let down as he served out his earlier semifinal against Juan Martin del Potro, has been in magnificent form this week. He has also won his last ten matches against Berdych, nine of which occurred on hardcourts, and one on this very court, meaning that each is entirely pertinent. Consequently, Djokovic’s only chance of winning tomorrow is if Berdych doesn’t hit every ball as hard as he can onto the line. It is a good chance to have. That’s why he’s world number one.

Federer’s return to number one after last year’s Wimbledon was achieved on the back of a tremendous eight-title haul that had commenced after the US Open in 2011. It was always going to be difficult to reproduce that level, let alone to sustain it. The cruel beauty of the twelve month rankings system is that success only ever buys a player a year’s grace, before that success must be reprised. Of the five titles Federer has had to defend since the 2012 US Open – Basel, Bercy, the World Tour Finals, Rotterdam and Dubai – he has successfully defended none. (Indeed, he hasn’t won a title since the Cincinnati Masters.) After Bercy he relinquished the top ranking to Djokovic. If he fails to defend Indian Wells next week he could well cede the number two ranking to Andy Murray.

Davis Cup, First Round

It has been a long week, and it isn’t over yet.

The Australian Open concluded last Sunday, as ever seen out with considerable pomp by a 200-piece brass band performing a vexatious medley of tunes by John Philip Sousa, arranged by Erik Satie. On Wednesday I released The Next Point’s 2012 Annual to considerably less fanfare: a lone hobo with a decrepit sousaphone attempting the Baby Elephant Walk. Having resolved to take an extended break from writing, watching and thinking about tennis, my reaction upon realising that the Davis Cup first round would begin in only two days was thus mixed. I was dismayed to learn that drinking heavily only made the time go faster. Still, it helped. If by Friday my mood hadn’t quite lightened into ecstasy, at least my resignation had shed its bitter weight.

The singles began on Friday, but precisely what this meant within a global context was unclear. At no time is the transcontinental nature of tennis more evident than in the first round of the Davis Cup, when ties are spread across nearly every continent on Earth, besides Antarctica, whose bid to host South Africa’s home tie at McMurdo Station fell through at the last moment. For determined tennis fans camped on the prime meridian, Friday began at about ten o’clock the night before, when New Zealand and Lebanon kicked off their tie in Auckland. Friday finished as Canada and Spain completed an intriguing day’s play Vancouver at about three o’clock Saturday morning.

The first day of play, in other words, went on without a break for about twenty-nine hours, and by the time it ended the second day’s play was already under way across the date line. By the time Frank Dancevic had engaged fully with the task of thrashing Marcel Granollers, New Zealand’s doubles pair were already well on their way towards securing the home tie. It turns it’s possible to watch David Cup almost continuously over its first weekend, assuming you have an internet connection capable of simultaneous streams, a ready supply of amphetamines, and no loved ones to talk you out of it.

I won’t pretend I have any intention of doing that. I fear I lack the means and the fortitude. As a rule I don’t sleep much, but that only causes me to covet the little I do get. For the Australian tennis fan, the sadness that accompanies the conclusion of the Australian Open is heightened by the awareness that following the sport and adequate rest will be mutually exclusive until at least October, during the tour’s brief return to Asia. Most of the results that truly matter occur in the middle of my night. So do the results that don’t matter much at all, such as Novak Djokovic’s bold (and not-at-all fearful) romp over Oliver Rochus in the first match of the Belgium-Serbia tie. By the time the plucky David Goffin had established a two set lead over Viktor Troicki, I felt at once enervated and energised. I had never felt so alive; if the dead do yearn, it isn’t for their beds. Nothing much matters when you feel like that. Or like Jurgen Melzer, who’d just lost to Evgeny Korolev.

I rose in time to see Granollers collapse to an inspired Dancevic, thereby frog-marching the Spanish squad to the edge of elimination. The last time Spain contested a Davis Cup tie without Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, Nicholas Almagro or Fernando Verdasco was long before any of those men had attained the top ten or even world fame, back when Juan Carlos Ferrero and Carlos Moya were national heroes, as opposed to national treasures. Alex Corretja probably would’ve preferred to bring either or both of those guys back. We marvel endlessly at Spain’s depth – and I suppose there are of nations competing this weekend who would struggle to field a team at all without their top five players – but it isn’t infinite, and they’re one lost rubber away from a first round exit.

Meanwhile France’s best pair was available for the tie in Rouen, where they had little difficulty in seeing off Israel’s best pair. Amir Weintraub is something of a Davis Cup warrior, but he’d yet to face anyone of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s quality. He acquitted himself very well in taking a set, and seemed like the better player for passages in the fourth, with the difference being the Frenchman’s superior serve. It ended badly for the Israeli, in a flurry of silly errors. I hope that isn’t the part of his performance that stays with him, although it was clearly the part he was dwelling on in the immediate aftermath. It was the last thing I saw before sleep pulled me under.

My dreams were troubled, but at least they were dreams. Alas, they were too brief, and featured a terrifying hobo with a sousaphone.

Australian Open, Final

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

Novak Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in the last match of the 2013 Australian Open, historically the match a fellow must win in order to be proclaimed champion. Given fertile soil, the certainty quickly sprouted that Murray, now 1-5 in Major finals, is therefore a one-Slam wonder. This has coiled about the sturdy belief that Roger Federer has grown too ancient to threaten for titles, and through the florid concern that Rafael Nadal’s knees have done him in. Neatly skirting this thicket of doubt and fear is the certainly that Djokovic will go on winning all the Majors in perpetuity.

The most notable take-down of Murray appeared in the New York Times, which leads with the rather provocative headline: Andy Murray Risks Becoming One-Hit Wonder. The author is unnamed, although the address suggests it is by John Leicester. (The prose itself suggests that Mr Leicester has never been taught to parse a sentence: “But he couldn’t reel in the Serb, who now has six major titles and the top of men’s tennis to himself with age slowly blunting Roger Federer’s abilities and Rafael Nadal’s future clouded by creaky knees.”

Metaphorically, there’s a lot going on in this sentence, although I don’t mean to imply that the constituent parts are acting in concert. If they are, it is the same harmony of purpose achieved by buckshot pellets as they exit a shotgun barrel, which is to say the grievous wounding of anyone caught in the path. We begin with a fishing analogy (‘reel in’) and somehow arrive at a rare atmospheric condition (‘clouded by creaky knees’). It’s a shotgun blast to the mind. But I digress.)

History was against Murray, although in the scheme of history that probably mattered less than the fact that Djokovic was against him as well. History was embodied in the statistic that no man had ever backed up his maiden Major title by winning the next one. Indeed, Murray had already dealt history a body-blow by becoming the first man to reach his next Major final. This was already a laudable achievement. I’m not entirely sure why some are determined that he should feel ashamed by it.

The first time I heard the term ‘one-Slam wonder’ was when John McEnroe applied it dismissively to Pat Rafter before the Australian won his second US Open, although it may have been coined well before that. Lest you hadn’t realised, this is not an accolade players aspire towards. It is occasionally applied by champions who’ve demonstrated their mastery repeatedly, and often by fans who’ve never won anything. The term is entirely pejorative, imputing the sense of a fluke. After all, a player can get hot for a few weeks, and enjoy some lucky breaks. Dubbing Murray a one-Slam wonder thus groups him with, say, Gaston Gaudio, who aside from winning Roland Garros in 2004 never ventured past the fourth round at a Major in his entire career. That one-Slam wonderment is preferable to no-Slam oblivion should be self-evident, and to Andrei Medvedev and Marcello Rios it probably is. I fear this obvious point is lost too easily.

I doubt whether, in the final reckoning, Murray’s Major tally will approach double figures. I fear he has left his tilt at immortality too late, although I can’t deny that anything can happen. But it does beg the question of how many titles he will end up with (which is unanswerable) and, more pertinently, how many he needs before he stops being prematurely consigned to history’s dustbin. One more and his tally will equal Lleyton Hewitt’s. Two more and he joins Gustavo Kuerten, recently inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame. Three more and he pulls level with Jim Courier. How many is enough? Perhaps enough is enough.

Wherever Murray ends up, he’ll get there quicker if he stops running into Djokovic, although based on last night it’s hard to see how that is possible. The question of how many Majors Djokovic will finish with is easier to calculate. Given Murray’s alleged hopelessness, Federer’s blunted antiquity and Nadal’s deafening knee-fog, we can simply multiply the remaining years of the Serb’s career by four, and add to that figure the six he already holds. After all, no one else will ever win one.  Assuming Djokovic will remain active for another decade, we can therefore project an eventual haul of forty-six. That seems about right. He’ll become the first man to win thirteen Australian Opens in a row.

I’m not serious, but then the issue isn’t so serious that it merits a less frivolous response. I suspect both Djokovic and Murray have more important things on their minds than their ultimate places in tennis history, and to worry overly on their behalf is a kind of conceit. There’s such a thing as a sense of perspective.

Exceptional in this sense, as in so many others, are the British tabloids. Perspective is the one conceit they’re unwilling to countenance. Typically understated, the Daily Mail remarks that: ‘It took a player of extraordinary resilience to drag Djokovic to three hours and 40 minutes of tennis in Melbourne, and Murray is still the only player in the world who could have done it.’ Certainly Federer – ‘technically No.2’, according to the article – couldn’t have done it. There’s no mention of Stan Wawrinka, or of last year’s final, which by the three hour forty minute stage  was still locked at two-all in the first set.

The tone of hagiographic mania is maintained across most of the British rags, and a clear pattern emerges. Djokovic is continually elevated to godhood so that Murray’s capacity to stay with him might be recast as an audacious assault on heaven itself. The difficulties weren’t merely technical, but physical, too. Djokovic scourges opponents: ‘Playing Djokovic equates to physical, raw discomfort. He attacks your skin as much as your second serve.’ He commands the beasts and birds, or at any rate their feathers. Murray was certainly up against it, especially when we recall that the tournament itself had conspired against his victory.

Murray’s specific and heartfelt endorsement of Craig Tiley in his speech – ‘He gets it!’ – was strangely inconsistent with the Daily Mail’s revelation last week that the Scot was ‘furious’ with the tournament director, not to say the uncounted Daily Mail readers who insisted that Tiley personally had it in for the Brit. It was made abundantly clear that this was in keeping with a fatal deficiency in the grubbing Australian character, notwithstanding that Tiley is South African.

The truth, as usual, is more mundane. Djokovic is a superb tennis player, one of the finest who has ever lived. Murray is also an excellent tennis player. Indeed, he is almost as good as Djokovic. However, two nights earlier he played a four-hour, five-set semifinal against a man whom age hasn’t wearied quite as seriously as has been advertised. (Courier correctly remarked towards the end of last night’s final that ‘Roger Federer’s fingerprints are all over this match.’) One imagines Murray’s feet were already in reasonably bad shape. Then again, Djokovic might well have won anyway, eventually.

Djokovic was far from god-like through the first set and a bit. He looked completely mortal. However, those insisting Murray blew the match by not breaking at the start of the second set would do well to recall that his opponent had already blown a handful of break opportunities in the first. Why Djokovic came out so flat is a nice question. It could be that his semifinal victory was too easy, leaving him underprepared. Conversely it could be almost anything else. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that he recovered and rediscovered how to win in time. Contrary to the narrative of Djokovic’s infallibility, he didn’t have to recover. It wasn’t fate. That’s what made it heroic.

It also doesn’t much matter whether Murray’s loss is treated as the latest shameful failure of a one-Slam wonder, or as the doomed endeavour of a mortal storming the firmament. What matters, ultimately, is what he does from here. He probably will win more Majors, although it’s not impossible that he won’t. Djokovic certainly will. Unless he doesn’t, in which case he’ll forever remain a six-Slam wonder.

My full match recap can be found here.

Australian Open, Semifinal

(1) Djokovic d. (4) Ferrer, 6/2 6/2 6/1

‘I am trying to do my best every match, but I know they are better than me. What can I do?’ – David Ferrer.

In some ways, it felt appropriate that David Ferrer won just five games in his semifinal against Novak Djokovic tonight. That’s exactly how many games he won against Rafael Nadal in the semifinal at Roland Garros last year. If you’re going to get blown away, you might as well establish a pattern. Everyone loves a pattern. It creates the seductive illusion of meaning, and encourages us to concoct a narrative. The narrative in this case is that Ferrer, the sport’s most dogged underdog, fights his heart out but is simply outclassed on the biggest stages: ‘But I know they are better than me. What can I do?’ Isn’t he adorable?

Djokovic’s ownership of Rod Laver Arena isn’t yet as secure as Nadal’s of Court Philippe Chatrier, although based on tonight’s near-perfect performance it isn’t beyond imagining that it soon will be. He didn’t look like he’ll be losing any time soon, although whoever he faces in the final will almost certainly provide a stiffer challenge than Ferrer did. At the very least, we can assume they’ll put up a fight.

The most lavishly applied term, at least in American coverage of Ferrer’s matches, is ‘respect’. The prevailing vibe is that the Spaniard receives nowhere near enough of it, although as far as I can make out this crippling deficit frustrates the commentators more than the player himself. When probed, he generally waves the issue away. Nonetheless, expect ESPN to announce a twenty-four hour telethon for his benefit, whereby concerned viewers may call in and pledge some respect of their own (not too much, mind, but every little bit helps, and it’s all tax-deductible). Indeed, there seems to be consensus that not only is Ferrer not respected enough, he is actively ‘disrespected’, which has come to mean far more than the mere absence of respect. Apparently it’s worse.

Given my anachronistic determination to go on using the many subtly-shaded words that English already had before ‘disrespect’ became a force – disregard, irreverence, insolence, impudence – I am unqualified to judge how much disrespect Djokovic directed towards his opponent tonight. Did he not respect him enough, or did he disrespect him too much? Some suggested that by thrashing Ferrer so vehemently, Djokovic showed enormous respect. The line of reasoning is that the world No.1 brought his best game to bear precisely because of the threat posed by the Spaniard (with the implication being that he would have chosen to play worse if facing an opponent he respected less, or disrespected more). If this is true, it surely explains why Ferrer is reluctant ever to engage with the matter when it’s raised. If this is what respect feels like, he can probably cope with less of it, not more. He’d already experienced Nadal’s respect at last year’s French Open, and he couldn’t sit down for a week afterwards.

Ferrer’s genuine humility invites all this concern, and there’s a case to be made that the ‘disrespect’ allegedly broadcast at him takes its cue from the deprecation he expresses towards his own game. Lleyton Hewitt in commentary told an excellent story – he is always valuable when he eschews trite analysis in lieu of the type of specific detail available nowhere else – that revealed just how winsomely diffident Ferrer can be. A few years ago, but recently enough that it falls within the Spaniard’s hey-day and the Australian’s long twilight, Ferrer wanted Hewitt to sign his Davis Cup shirt. However, Ferrer was too shy to ask Hewitt himself, notwithstanding that he was himself a fixture in the top ten, while Hewitt was struggling to reconcile a professional tennis career with his passion for surgery. Instead Ferrer put it to Hewitt’s Spanish-speaking physio, who relayed it on. Hewitt admitted to being taken aback. (For the record, he did sign the shirt.) There is no shortage of respect for Ferrer amongst the tour players, and he is, by all accounts, hugely admired.

Among non-players, however, the main term I’d use is ‘patronise’. Too much respect can be fatal, especially as tonight when it comes on inexorably like a tsunami. But to be patronised endlessly is to experience the slow suffocation of lowered expectations. Tonight’s semifinal was pitifully uncompetitive, and my problem with it was that no one appeared  to expect more. Too many shrugged, tossed about some canine metaphors, and pronounced themselves satisfied. But Ferrer is currently the world No.4, and the fourth seed, playing a Major semifinal. Just because he’s a nice guy doesn’t mean he gets a free pass for submitting to a hiding. If Djokovic was too good, why didn’t Ferrer try to make him play worse? Why didn’t he try something?

As the third set commenced, Hewitt, in strong anecdotal form, recalled the parallel moment during his loss to Djokovic here last year in the fourth round. He related that when down two sets and being hustled all over and off the court, he broke the contest down into its constituent elements. He simply focussed on holding his own serve at the cost of everything else, so that he could at least feel like he was ahead in that set. Then he could see what might transpire. What did transpire was that he came back to win the third set, as the unexpected stoutness of his defence caused Djokovic momentarily to waver. The sheen in his eyes as he turned to his box suggested that this one set meant more to him than any number of victories had. Naturally, Djokovic is far too good to allow this to continue, and he’s a far better player than Hewitt, and so came back to win the fourth. While Hewitt was relating this, Ferrer was perfunctorily broken to open the third, his game unmodified from the first two disastrous sets. The contrast was perfect.

In truth, Hewitt made far more adjustments in last year’s match than simply focussing on his serve. He stepped up into the court and refused to yield the baseline, and began to employ his slice more often and more variously. He lured the world No.1 into the net, and passed and lobbed him. In short, he tried everything he conceivably could. We can point to match-ups all we want. It’s undeniable that Djokovic is a terrible match-up for Ferrer, but he’s hardly a better prospect for Hewitt. Yet twice last year Hewitt fought his heart out to grab sets from Djokovic, and at the Olympics nearly delivered an audacious upset.

Tonight Ferrer played the third set the way he played the others, with a near-pristine lack of imagination, and a perfect willingness to be dictated to. Upon delivering first serves he would immediately retreat to the Melbourne sign metres beyond the baseline, whereupon he would commence running, and be prodded into locations from which he couldn’t penetrate. Djokovic’s form was imperious, but with his opponent scurrying backwards there was no reason for it not to be.

Obviously, it might not have made any difference whatsoever. Players have attempted any number of creative approaches to save a dying cause, but to no avail. When Tommy Haas was demolished by Fernando Gonzalez in the 2007 Australian Open it wasn’t because the German lacked imagination. Gonzalez was simply unplayable. It happens, and although Haas left the court feeling he hadn’t played especially well, he at least knew he’d tried everything he could have. In a Major semifinal, especially if you’ve never progressed beyond it, there’s no reason not to try everything.

It could be that I’m alone in this, but I thought Ferrer’s endeavour was entirely inadequate, as were his responses when questioned afterwards. Of course he ran. He always runs, but running endlessly is not the same as fighting, and too readily are the two confused. His assertion that Djokovic had simply been too good – ‘I didn’t have any chance for to win tonight’ – has been greeted rather indulgently and pityingly, as though it is self-evidently true. Perhaps Djokovic was too good – he was very, very good – but the last person who should accept that is his opponent. If Ferrer gains too little respect, I don’t think his effort tonight merited more, and it’s easy enough to be humble when you’ve just been humiliated. He’s supposed to be a fighter. Where was the fight?

Australian Open, Quarterfinals

 (1) Djokovic d. (5) Berdych, 6/1 4/6 6/1 6/2

(2) Federer d. (7) Tsonga, 7/6 4/6 7/6 3/6 6/3

(3) Murray d. Chardy, 6/4 6/1 6/2

(4) Ferrer d. (10) Almagro, 4/6 4/6 7/5 7/6 6/2

Four men’s quarterfinals have been contested in the last two days. The upshot is that we now know who the four semifinalists will be. Fuzzy likelihood has sharpened into weary certainty. I doubt whether many are surprised that the semifinals will be contested by the top four seeds, who are at present the top four ranked players in the world.What might surprise you more is that this configuration is exceedingly rare in the Open Era. It hasn’t occurred at the Australian Open since 2012.

Rare or not, it certainly seems to happen a lot these days – relatively speaking I suppose it does – which can mean it feels inevitable. But given the extravagant lengths three of the men went to in order to progress, we shouldn’t assume that anyone’s presence in the last four was guaranteed, excepting perhaps Murray. It’s rather like watching someone navigate an exceptionally long tightrope. The longer they stay on, the more you may be lulled into believing it isn’t all that difficult, when in fact it only becomes harder. The top four seeds are through, but they certainly didn’t have to be.

Of the quarterfinals, two staggered in laden with baggage, and the other two didn’t. The two that did turned out to be perfunctory affairs, while the others were dramatic five-setters, although the shape of the drama was radically different for both.

The gossip before Andy Murray’s match was that his camp was furious that he hadn’t yet been granted a night session on Rod Laver Arena. Today’s match amply demonstrated why. It barely deserved a crowd. My prediction before the tournament began was that the Scot would face the most formidable quarterfinal opponent in Juan Martin del Potro; in fact I boldly asserted across several websites that the Argentine would win their match. Somehow I didn’t predict that he’d fall to Jeremy Chardy in the third round. I’m sorry about that. That’s my fault.

The quarterfinal is easily recapped: Chardy belted humongous and lavishly-prepared forehands, sliced a lot of backhands, and was completely outclassed. Murray wasn’t spectacular, but I don’t mean this as a criticism. A spectacle was hardly uncalled-for, and would have felt gratuitous, if not a waste of energy in the allegedly crippling Melbourne heat. He did what a true champion does, per Niki Lauda, which is to win going as slowly as he feasibly could. It was still fast enough to deliver a comfortable win. Now he’ll get that treasured night session.

Nicolas Almagro’s loss is an easy one to be ungenerous about, due both to the strained particularities of its unfolding, and because the capacity to deride extravagant choking has already been honed to a fine point by Sam Stosur. When it comes to poking fun, I’m in practice. The comprehensiveness with which Almagro failed repeatedly to close out victory could have only been rendered more excruciating had he actually held a match point. But he never did.

Almagro served for a spot in his first Major semifinal no fewer than three times in the first four sets. But he lost it in five, to his compatriot David Ferrer. Astute fans will recall last year’s Davis Cup final, and that Almagro lost the deciding fifth rubber, while Ferrer, whose heroics had so far kept Spain alive, watched on helplessly. I’d assumed that was the lowest moment of Almagro’s career, especially afterwards as he sat alone and for too long none of his teammates sought to console him. If Ferrer was that kind of guy, today would have constituted some kind of revenge. For the record, I don’t think he is that kind of guy, and I doubt whether it crossed either man’s mind at the end. But it crossed mine, if only as a reminder that two of the lowest moments of Almagro’s career have occurred in rapid succession, and that a tumble into the crevasse was prefigured by a glimpse of the heights.

In fact, I’m not quite sure what did cross Almagro’s mind. Afterwards he appeared too little chagrined by his fall, seemingly subscribing to the view that what’s past is past. Naturally there were plenty of positive aspects to his performance. He did, after all, lead the world No.4 by two sets and a break, and recovered well from the disappointment of losing the third set. But the careening flair that repeatedly brought him to the precipice of victory entirely stalled when he needed it most, and instead of leaping desperately he tried to edge his way forward. It behooves him to think on why this might be so. Anyway, Ferrer is through to another Australian Open semifinal, to face Novak Djokovic.

Based on the on-court interview conducted immediately after the second quarterfinal, and the presser staged slightly later still, the main item of interest in Novak Djokovic’s match was how he’d recovered from his titanic struggle with Stan Wawrinka two nights earlier. ‘Very well’ was the obvious answer, but the assembled press clearly wanted more, and wouldn’t be satisfied until they got it. It wasn’t enough to know that he’d partaken of ice baths. They had to know how many, and precisely who was present (turns out it was Lleyton Hewitt at least once).

There was, sadly, little to speak of about the match itself. Aside from some stiffer resistance from Tomas Berdych in the second set, there wasn’t much to differentiate this encounter from the one between the same men at the same stage of the same event two years ago. That previous match was so unmemorable that I can barely remember it, for all that I spent its duration seated cheek-by-jowl with the Berdych Army. For those who’ve forgotten, the Berdych Army was an allegedly lovable coterie of larrikins whose entire act consisted of painting the letters of the Czech player’s name on their torsos, and yodelling shoddily arranged pop medleys in ragged unison. I can remember the incessant chanting – on television they term it ‘atmosphere’ – but little of the actual match beyond the score, which as I think had a six in it.

What had seemed clear that night, and has since come to define what we may generously term their ‘rivalry’ is that Berdych’s defensive capabilities are limited, while Djokovic’s are not. Furthermore, although Berdych’s firepower is immense, his arsenal is relatively small. For example, his mighty forehand is considerably mightier when directed cross-court than up the line, and his ability to create angles is questionable. His second serve neither kicks nor bites, and slots neatly into the returner’s strike zone. Djokovic’s defensive skills are already unworldly anyway, but he reads Berdych’s game so well that he remains impregnable even when earthbound. In other words, the top seed’s B-game is generally good enough to deal with Berdych’s best, and last night the Serb brought his A-game, which meant that as well as defending desperately he was pummelling his opponent without mercy. As in Shanghai, when Berdych confessed he simply could find no way through Djokovic, it felt like a mismatch at a fundamental mechanical level.

Jo Wilfried Tsonga, on the other hand, is more creative than Berdych on attack, and, being a superior athlete, also defends with considerable virtuosity. I am inclined to agree with Jim Courier, who repeatedly stressed that Tsonga is the only player around his ranking who combines these attributes. This isn’t to say he lacks shortcomings. His middling results over the last year or so aren’t entirely contingent upon bad luck (he is 1-16 against top ten opponents since the start of last season), and nor was his loss tonight, for all that he was the superior player for large parts of the match.

For longer stretches than I would have believed possible Tsonga reprised his performance in the 2011 Wimbledon semifinal, when he recovered to inflict Roger Federer’s first ever defeat from two sets up at a Major. As he had that day, Tsonga’s considerable presence tonight caused his half of the court to shrink alarmingly. There were times when Federer could find no avenue of attack that wasn’t already blocked off, usually by artillery. Meanwhile Tsonga was lethal whenever he could get his feet set, off both forehand and backhand, while his returns – generally the weakest part of his game – landed not only miraculously in, but searchingly deep. Federer admittedly did not serve well, both by percentage and placement, and ended up with few aces, especially compared to his opponent.

Federer was compelled to fight, and to take what few chances he could get. Even then the chances were often yielded back. Several times in the first four sets his grip on service breaks proved rather too relaxed, especially in the face of a fearless and bold opponent. The second seed held four match points on Tsonga’s serve at 2/5 in the fifth, but failed to take any. The sighs of Federer’s legion fans could be heard across the globe, a vast pained exhalation that accelerated the melting of Greenland’s permafrost. Normally so secure in closing out victory, the prospect of Federer serving out the match seemed like the diciest enterprise since, well, Almagro the day before. It had just been that kind of night. From anywhere, at any point, Tsonga remained dangerous until the very end.

As it happened Federer did serve it out, and interviewed by Courier immediately afterwards was even more ebullient than usual, undoubtedly owing to a profound upwelling of relief. He’d known, as we all had, that this match hadn’t been over until the last overhead landed in and Jake Garner finally called it. He moves through to his tenth consecutive Australian Open semifinal, where he will play Murray for the fourth time at a Major, but for the first time before the final.

Australian Open, Day Seven

(1) Djokovic d. (15) Wawrinka, 1/6 7/5 6/4 6/7 12/10

The turning point came as Stanislas Wawrinka led 6/1 5/3 30-0, serving for a two sets to love lead over two-time defending champion, world No.1 and noted goat-cheese enthusiast Novak Djokovic. Until it turned, the match had been a sustained purple patch for the Swiss, as he clubbed the Serb’s hitherto impenetrable serve into submission five times in a row. But from that moment the purple began to fade into greens and yellows. Djokovic broke back, then wrestled away the next three games and stole the set. The purple patch was clearly a bruise, and as Djokovic broke again to open the third set, it was obvious that it reached far below the skin. Something in Wawrinka’s core had been damaged. It undoubtedly was a turning point. The miracle, however, was that it wasn’t a decisive one.

The match had commenced at the weary end of an uninspiring day’s play, in which every singles match in both the men’s and women’s draws had ended in straight sets. What resistance Kei Nishikori, Kevin Anderson and Janko Tipsarevic mustered was sporadic and inadequate, and initial hopes of a memorable fourth round were rapidly quashed, and soon forgotten. The day ticket to Rod Laver Arena had turned out to be a particularly poor investment, and those filing in for the evening session can’t have fancied their prospects any better, particularly when Agnieszka Radwanska thrashed Ana Ivanovic in a one-sided match that was at least mercifully quick. Djokovic and Wawrinka were anticipated to produce the least competitive match of the lot. I’d resigned myself to it. Sometimes an early night is just the ticket, with a big week ahead.

The wonder of Wawrinka’s fearsome and audacious opening was that he kept it up for so long. He went after everything, and missed nothing. Comparisons to Lukas Rosol’s defeat of Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon didn’t take long to surface. I didn’t find them to be inappropriate, for all that some people went to great lengths to explain that such a comparison was unfair to a player of Wawrinka’s stature. The comparison did not rely upon the magnitude of the potential upset, or in any equivalence between the two men. It reflected Wawrinka’s commensurately reckless defiance of gravity. There was just that quality to it, as though a ball was thrown but didn’t form a parabola and return to earth, but just kept hurtling upwards. Like Rosol, Wawrinka seemed to be in a trance.

The trance seemed to fissure on the very point that brought him to 30-0. He won it with a dead net cord off a backhand drive that dribbled over so flaccidly that even the freakishly spry Djokovic immediately gave up on it. Debate rages in some quarters over whether a player should apologise for dead let cord winners, in those places where people love to heatedly debate trivial matters (we collectively term this place ‘the internet’). My feeling is that a gesture is simply good manners, and that it’s wrong to think of it as an apology, but more as an acknowledgement to your opponent that chance played an undue role in the outcome of the point. If a player doesn’t want to acknowledge that, no one is going to make them, although they’ll doubtless have to endure the opprobrium typically hurled at any public lapse in manners. Either way, I think both sides of the debate would agree that whatever the player does, he should do it and move on. Wawrinka, sadly, looked almost stricken with contrition, and in his case I think the gesture he made to Djokovic was a genuine apology. From operating with crystalline purpose, he rapidly passed through disbelief at his own form – the downfall of many a stumbling journeyman, and dovetailing fatally with the certainty that it cannot continue – into the sorry state of doubting whether he deserved to be winning at all.

Djokovic long ago divested himself of such fancies. He dialled up his pace marginally, and, most crucially, stilled the flow of errors. Through the next four games he hit few winners, though the best of them was the backhand up the line to seal the set. But he knew as well as Wawrinka did that nothing more adventurous was required. Each Wawrinka error was like an act of atonement for the winners he’d presumed to inflict earlier. Had it been a clay court, he might have etched ’Sorri’ into it with his toe.

The expectation from a set all and a break to the good was that Djokovic would be going on with it. However, while the Serb won the third set, Wawrinka did enough to stay close. Andy Murray discarded an easy set to Djokovic in last year’s semifinal, and learned the hard way that momentum matters, even in a lost cause. You allow Djokovic a free rein at your peril: once he attains a full gallop, he becomes almost impossible to stop, and he can keep going for longer than you can believe. Wawrinka kept it close in the third, and closer still in the fourth. The match had indeed turned, but it had turned into a superb contest, delicately balanced and ferociously fought. Wawrinka sustained his endeavour through the tiebreak, beginning and concluding with two of his best shots of the night, especially the forehand that capped the savage rally on his third set point. Suddenly, somehow, it was two sets all.

Rosol’s name rustled once more through Rod Laver Arena – the sibilance makes it easy to whisper – as Wawrinka initiated the fifth set with a roaring break. By this stage the Swiss was having his sturdy thighs kneaded by the trainer at every changeover, in a valiant and questionable attempt to stave off cramping. Djokovic broke straight back, and a series of tough holds followed. Then, suddenly, at 4/4 Djokovic slumped to 15-40 on serve. For the first time in over four hours, the realistic possibility of an upset took amorphous, monstrous shape in my mind. But both points were saved, then another. And then a fourth, the most controversial of the night, as a fierce Wawrinka return cleaned the baseline, only to be called out. He looked askance at umpire Enric Molina – who confirmed that it had been long – and so didn’t challenge. Replays showed that it was in. It was undoubtedly a mistake on Molina’s part – not to mention the linesperson – but the greater responsibility must fall to Wawrinka; the Hawkeye system exists so that players may dispute the official’s opinion, not cede to it.

Had Wawrinka broken, he would have served for the match, a dicey prospect. Instead he was now obliged to serve to stay in the match, a tricky situation for a guy whose composure notoriously fractures under pressure, and whose legs had grown resistant to his bidding. The constant massages certainly helped, since Wawrinka served first after the changeover each time. The question of whether this violated the spirit of the rules is one worth posing. It probably did, but it’s worth pointing out that Djokovic eventually won anyway, and that I cannot imagine anyone wanted to see so brilliant a spectacle end with Wawrinka retiring due to cramp. As it was the match continued on under life-support, but it was enough. The task of serving for survival seemed to trouble Wawrinka hardly at all, although he was helped by some uncharacteristically haggard returning from Djokovic.

Inevitably, as the score spiralled neatly upward, Rosol’s name gave way to Isner’s and Mahut’s. Eurosport were quick off the mark, invoking the sport’s longest match even as the score attained six all, and Molina bestowed additional challenges on each man. (Wawrinka added them to the pile he was uselessly hoarding.) Other broadcasters followed quickly. The games ticked by. One or the other player would occasionally claim the first point on their opponent’s serve, but this never proved decisive. The key game was the last, as it often is. Djokovic limped to deuce (literally) after Wawrinka failed to convert game points. The first match point was saved with a first serve up the T. The second was as good as any in the match, Wawrinka transfigured desperate defence into extravagant offence, capped, as the clock cleared five hours, with his final backhand winner of the night. Game points tarried and fled, as did a handful of deuces. The match ended on the third match point, fittingly with a superb all-court rally; desperate, courageous and scrambling from both, and concluding with a perfect crosscourt Djokovic backhand pass, and Wawrinka on his knees.

The two men embraced at the net, and Djokovic recreated his victory celebration from last year’s final almost gesture-for-gesture, as the Steadycam operator swooped in obligingly. He has changed clothing sponsors in the interim, but the shirts supplied by Uniqlo seem no sturdier than Sergio Tacchini’s when Djokovic is intent on shredding them. Wawrinka gathered up his unrent gear numbly, briefly turning to acknowledge the endless cheers of a crowd that had, against the odds, obtained exceptional value for the cost of their tickets. Djokovic was clapping too as his opponent departed the arena, tears spilling over.

It was the equal of any match I’ve seen at the Australian Open, up there with Nadal and Verdasco’s 2009 semifinal, and Roddick and El Aynaoui’s 2003 quarterfinal. If it doesn’t end up as match of the year, then we are either in for a truly stellar season, or there’s no justice. What it will mean for either player is an interesting question, one that in Djokovic’s case will be answered tomorrow as he faces Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals. The world No.1 has long since proved his capacity to recover from marathons, and I cannot imagine that Berdych’s passage has grown one whit easier.

As for Wawrinka, time will tell if this was his master’s piece or merely a masterpiece. If he can reproduce and sustain this form, then a return to the top ten is frankly too modest a goal. Of course, that ‘if’ in the previous sentence isn’t the biggest word, but it is the one around which the future pivots. Anyway, it is an issue for another day. What matters is that he played like this once, last evening and into the morning, and in doing so combined with Novak Djokovic to produce an ideal advertisement for the sport, by providing a species of elevated drama that can be found nowhere else. Not only that, they completely ruined my plans for an early night.