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by Pete Bodo
When we last left Robert Kendrick, under leaden skies almost a full week ago, he was beating up on some poor schmo named Middelkoop on Court 10 at the National Tennis Center before a scattering of tennis diehards and dead-enders, just setting forth on a perilous three-stage journey intended to land him in journeyman heaven, the main draw of the U.S. Open.
Yesterday, that journey having been completed with admirable efficiency and speed (Kendrick didn't lose a set in his successful qualifying run), he was out on Court 11, under a dazzling blue sky and a burning sun, exchanging punches at racket's length with the mercurial French star and the No. 17 seed, Gael Monfils. The permanent grandstand on the west side of the court was packed for the duration of the three-hour and 20 minute match, and both players had partisans on hand. Every cry of "Allez Gaa-ayle" was answered with a robust, "Go, Kendo!" or "Go, shadow!"—Kendrick somehow having acquired the nickname White Shadow thanks to a coach with a sense of humor.
You may remember that I wanted to write a post on Kendrick last week, before the rains came, because he's an archetypal tennis journeyman. By broad athletic standards, he's been enormously successful. He's been in the elite ATP tour Top 100 (he made the big leap in 2008, and is knocking on the door again), he's earned over $1.2 million in career prize money, he was an All-American collegiate player (he also led his high school team to a state title and had an 80-1 prep record, which may be more charming than impressive, but still. . .), and he not only won his first career Grand Slam-event match at Wimbledon in 2006, he also went on at that tournament to scare the bejesus out of Rafael Nadal, firing 32 aces as he won the first two sets and stretched the third to a tiebreaker.
On the other hand . . . Well, let's be blunt about this: Kendrick is 30 years old, an age at which the commute between the Challenger and tour level-events gets tiring, and sometimes even depressing. He seems to be spinning his wheels. The ATP website has no summary of his 2009 record, as if the organization had decided it isn't worth the bother—just look at 2007 or 2006 and switch around some dates and stuff. Thirty is an age in tennis at which people who may have more exacting standards of success for a tennis pro than for themselves are likely to wonder: Why does he keep banging his head against the wall?
**I guess that depends on whether or not you see Kendrick's job as a noggin-meets-concrete kind of enterprise, which strikes me as falling far short of a realistic or appropriate comparison.
It proved not to be a good day for exploring this delicate subject with Kendrick, because he blew a significant opportunity to advance. He led Monfils in the fifth set by 2-1 and 40-love on serve, and the cries of "Run it, baby!!" and "Keep coming after him!" had to be ringing in his ears.
Alas, it didn't end well for Kendo. Monfils won the next two points, and Kendrick then double-faulted to deuce. An inside-out forehand error gave Monfils the advantage, but an errant lob wasted it. But a forehand error by Kendrick gave Monfils another break-back-point, and he capitalized on it with a forehand winner to level the set at 2-2. Three hours in, we were back to Square One. It's a feeling Kendrick knows well, in the big picture.
But it wasn't like we'd wasted those 180 minutes. Monfils and Kendrick both have great presence, and the contrast between them was arresting. Kendrick skews to the conservative; he was wearing tennis whites and an everyman trucker cap. He's a good-looking kid, in a clean-cut way, and he really likes to dial in that forehand, especially inside-out. He moves easily but slowly, with a ramrod-straight back, and he projects Zen-like tranquilty, except, of course, when he totally loses it and screams a string of expletives into a towel held against his mouth—which he did at least once today.
Monfils is well known and much loved as a ham. He looked like a comic-book superhero today; his sleeveless, tight-fitting white tummy coffin emphasized his guns, and his baggy but preppy patterned shorts highlighted his stick legs, each one girded by an elastic strap just below the knee, as if you could screw off the lower legs to make him the size of Olivier Rochus.
Appearances don't make much of a difference when it comes to execution, but Monfils' style of play is no less flamboyant than his look and his frequent dramatic outbursts. Therefore, he's capable of making his life much more complicated than it need be. For one thing, he's always looking to hit that bunny-hop backhand, even when there's no real reason to get on that back foot and jump. I like that two-handed flipper backhand he sometimes uses, with the top of his racket starting almost at shoetop level. it can be effective, but it's also a bit lazy, or perhaps the right word is flimsy.
That's the trouble with Monfils' game, and also the thing that can make him so dangerous. He likes to make it up as he goes along, relying on something like feel combined with mood of the moment. Where a guy like Kendrick is always trying to get in touch with the discipline that informs each swing of the racket in a player like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal (or Robin Soderling and Andy Roddick, for that matter), and sometimes has trouble managing the job, Monfils seems to rebel against that basic mandate to execute your strokes with discipline and clear purpose.
Monfils is like a guy playing chicken with the ball; let's see how far out of position I can be, or get, before I have to take a swat. For all of his assets, and they are formidable, he never leaves you feeling that he knows what he's going to do next. As a result, his shots typically look more improvised, challenging, and hurried than the flow of play demands. And the longer the point lasts, the more likely it is that Monfils' shot will wind up looking more like a barn door flapping on its hinges than a Federerian, rapier-like thrust.
