INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—Q: “Do you enjoy playing a player like him?”
A: “No.”
This terse answer was issued by Rafael Nadal during his press conference on Wednesday. He'd just been asked about his next opponent, Ivo Karlovic. His response, as you can see, was pretty definitive. Rafa doesn’t like playing this guy.
And who can blame him? There are so many reasons to detest facing a player with a titanic serve and not much else. Nadal gave a few of them himself.
“You are in his hands all the time,” he said. “If he serve well, nothing to do. A lot of times you’re very far away from the ball. You’re not even close sometimes to touch the ball. It’s like a penalty [shot] every time.”
Playing someone like Karlovic is a mental test of epic proportions. You must decide beforehand that you are going to accept every ace he hits and not get frustrated when he cracks three in a row on break points. When you are lucky enough to put one of his serves back in the court, you must stay relaxed and not think, “This is my only chance. I must win this point.” There’s no quicker way to lose a point than that.
It’s almost as tough on your own serve. There you also need to fight the feeling that you must hold—even though you know it's essential. And you have to do it against a player who likely isn’t giving you any kind of baseline rhythm. Worst of all, though, is when your opponent, who is likely very erratic, sends a ground stroke 15 feet long or hits one that doesn’t even reach the net. Then you must fight the natural reaction: “How can I possibly lose to a guy who hits shots like that?”
Nadal fought through all of that today, but it took him a while to adjust and find the proper “calm,” as he calls it. I thought that, while he was just being honest in his presser the previous day about his dread of Dr. Ace, it affected the way he entered the match. His attitude was too negative to start—sometimes a little dishonesty with yourself helps, but that’s not the Nadal way. You could see that he realized this when he came out for the second set after losing the first. It was a different Nadal, one with more energy in his step, and one who was stepping in and going after his returns proactively. It almost earned him a bagel.
But everything about playing Karlovic is weird. Nadal called him “the lottery” in his presser, to laughter from reporters—sounds like a good nickname to me, though: Ivo "The Lottery" Karlovic. One more weird aspect of the Croat's matches is that momentum doesn’t carry over from one set to the next. Once he’s back on level terms score-wise, you have to start all over and find enough luck to break him. Naturally, it all came down to a breaker (they could have saved themselves two hours and just played it after the warm-up, then gotten dinner early). Credit Karlovic for coming back from 0-2, 2-4, 4-5, 5-6, and 6-7. He returned exceptionally well at the end, out-maneuvered Nadal on a couple of rallies, and of course, kept serving bombs. I saw Karlovic the day before, immediately after his win in the previous round, out on a side court. He had a right-handed practice partner standing at the service line and hitting serves to him with reverse—i.e. left-handed—spin. The serves, not surprisingly, were pretty weak. He couldn't find a lefty anywhere, I guess. I thought for a second about offering my services.
One thing wasn’t weird about this one. You knew, once it got to the end, when it had to be decided, that whomever he was playing, Nadal was going to find a way to win it. He said afterward that his own serve was “terrible” in the tiebreaker, and that he was “very nervous.” You wouldn’t have known it from the way he hit the ball in the rallies. At 6-6, he hit a vintage forehand pass down the line with his body weight going in the other direction. Even Karlovic stopped and looked at the heavens in disbelief when it touched down on the line.
Two points later, he hit a forehand that wasn’t as spectacular, but was equally impressive. Karlovic floated a ball that curled in the wind and dropped straight down, with no pace on it. Nadal stepped forward with fast feet and hit it inside-out for a winner. To me, this shot is the one from this match that sums up Nadal best. In a match where he had been nervous, at a stage when he was admittedly exceptionally nervous, on a shot he couldn't miss, but which, as the ball hung in the air, was very missable, he took the extra quick steps that you’re always taught to take in that situation but which you almost never do.
Two points later Nadal was sitting on the court, pumping his fists. It was a new celebration. It was a familiar and well-earned result.