Everybody's Heard, About the Berd

“Oh yes, there’s a confidence in my game,” Tomas Berdych informed the media after his first-round win at the Australian Open. That’s how the 29-year-old Czech has been talking so far in 2015, and that’s how he has looked in Melbourne. It’s a time of radical change for Berdych, who, despite his clothes-free appearance in last year’s Body Issue of ESPN: The Magazine, has a conservative side when it comes to his career. Maybe it was the specter of the Big 3-0—if that’s still a thing—coming up later this year, but during the last two months he has hired a new coach, Dani Vallverdu, and proposed, successfully, to his girlfriend, Ester Satarova.

After five years with his old mentor, Tomas Krupa, Berdych seemed to believe his game had stagnated, and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. While his ranking, which has bounced wildly between No. 6 and No. 7 since 2010, didn’t suffer much in 2014, he went through an uncharacteristic mid-season slump. He also watched as Stan Wawrinka, who had spent most of his career in the Berd's rearview mirror, won the Aussie Open, and 24-year-old Kei Nishikori became the first member of a new generation to pass him in the rankings. Late last season, Berdych retaliated by trying to hire his own supercoach, fellow Czech Ivan Lendl. When Lendl passed on the idea, Berdych settled on Andy Murray’s old friend and day-to-day adviser, Dani Vallverdu.

This may end up being the better choice; even when Lendl worked with Murray, it was Vallverdu who did the lion’s share of the scouting and strategizing. But Berdych’s rejection by his own countryman seemed characteristic: Over the last 10 years, the Berd, as high as he has flown, has never been the word. I still wince when thinking about the tweet he sent out in 2013 after he had been eliminated, for the third time in four years, before the semifinals of the ATP’s World Tour Finals. Berdych commemorated the moment by posting a photo of a London exit sign. The message, even if subliminal, seemed clear: It was time for the tour’s stars to shine, and for Berdych to leave the stage.

Now Berdych, seemingly for the millionth time, will try to take that stage again. With his mostly easy 6-2, 7-6 (3), 6-2 win over Bernard Tomic, he has reached the quarterfinals in Oz without dropping a set for the third straight year. “I like this place,” he says; and in the past he has even inspired a (probably not ironic) Berdych Army cheering section at Melbourne Park. Yesterday, though, the Berd didn’t seem to love the fact that all of the cheering and chanting was not for Tom-as, but for Tom-ic. But afterward all was forgiven. “I took it and came through,” Berdych said.

From a technical and statistical standpoint, it was indeed an impressive performance. Berdych hit 17 aces and 52 winners against 33 errors. Despite making just 52 percent of his first serves, he faced only one break point. Berdych says he hasn’t spent all that much time with Vallverdu yet, and that he’s happiest with the fitness training he did during the off-season IPTL tour (Berdych could be the first IPTL success story). Still, the new coach may have had an effect. Berdych says they’re trying to improve his “second-serve variations” and to make his forehand more versatile. On the whole, he did those things well, and he looked a little more flexible than usual on defense, even sliding into a few gets on the forehand side.

But Berdych still faces the fundamental question: Can a tennis player change? Despite all of the work they put in, and all of the improvements they make, few pros ever leave their flaws behind. You can shift a grip and smooth out a swing, but trying to change yourself as a player, to the point where you start to win the matches you’ve always lost, is like trying to change your personality. Berdych’s opponent, Tomic, offered an example of this yesterday.

Bernie came to Melbourne with a new lean and hungry look, and he was sharp through three rounds. In the second set against Berdych, he looked confident that he could get under his opponent’s skin, and with each break point that he saved, his strut grew a little cockier. But like his countryman Lleyton Hewitt, Tomic’s confident strut masks an uncertain interior: When it came to the crunch in the second-set tiebreaker, Tomic went back to playing safely and passively, and lost quickly.

Now Berdych will face Rafael Nadal. If anyone can expose the flaws in Berdych’s game and temperament, it’s Rafa, who has beaten him 18 straight times dating back to 2007. Improving his “second-serve variation” isn’t going to be enough to get Berdych over that hump. Will anything?

Last year, after beating him in a tight four-setter in the Aussie Open semis, Wawrinka provided a harsh summation of Berdych’s fundamental issue.

“He was always the one who was a little bit choking [in a] few moments, a little bit down,” Wawrinka said, “and that’s what happened today.”

While much went right for Berdych against Tomic on Sunday, those nerves were still in evidence. In the second set, each time Berdych had a chance to break serve, and thereby break open the match, he hesitated. He missed a backhand pass down the line by an inch; he sent a put-away forehand over the baseline by a hair; he let Tomic come back from 0-40 down to hold, and briefly gain some momentum. Berdych's serves were great and his forehands were fine, but there was still tension in the arm.

Still, the nice thing about a new season, and about these early days in Oz, is that the slate is wiped clean—or at least it feels wiped clean. Berdych, Madison Keys, Agnieszka Radwanska, Milos Raonic, Victoria Azarenka, even 34-year-old Venus Williams all came to Melbourne looking ready for a fresh start, and all have survived into the second week. Wawrinka also offers some hope when it comes to breaking through against Nadal Down Under; in 2014, he recorded his first career victory over an injured Rafa to win the Aussie Open. Three years ago in Rod Laver Arena, Berdych himself pushed Nadal to the brink, and nearly to tears, before losing to him in the quarters. Yesterday, when he was asked how he could push Rafa over that brink and end his losing streak to him, Berdych kept saying that he would need to do “something extra.”

He didn’t elaborate on what that “something extra” might be. After failing to find the answer 18 straight times, Berdych probably has no idea himself. But one of the beauties of tennis is that, while players rarely change, they never run out of chances to try to find something extra in themselves.