INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—There are days you want to forget, and then, it seems, there are days that want to forget you. David Ferrer experienced both on Tuesday in Indian Wells.
Ferrer was scheduled second up on Stadium 3. This not-quite-marquee arena was a surprising location for the world’s No. 5-ranked player, one who was 19-1 on the season coming in, with three titles already. He had won his last two events, on South American clay, while dropping just one set in total. His only loss in 2012 came to Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
However many matches or tournaments he wins, though, Ferrer remains distinctly below the collective tennis radar. So far below that in the initial Order of Play that went out yesterday, his match with Dennis Istomin wasn’t listed at all. The oversight was corrected, and Ferrer was indeed allowed to play.
That was just the beginning of Ferru’s troubles. The match scheduled before his, between Nikolay Davydenko and Thomaz Bellucci, turned into a walkover when Davydenko became the latest victim here of the stomach flu. That meant Ferrer and Istomin were up at noon, at least half an hour before either of them would have expected to play. It showed in Ferrer’s game; he was immediately broken. You could see that his strokes, especially his backhand, lacked pop, and that it would be an uphill fight against the sharper, and taller, Istomin. He had reached the final in San Jose a couple weeks ago, and his strokes had a sting today.
Not that many people noticed either way. Stadium 3, an excellent and intimate place to watch a match, was one-fifth full. Two women with red-and-gold pom-poms did call out “Dav-eed!” after his winners, but otherwise it was crickets. Well, not crickets, exactly—birds. Their tweets were the loudest thing happening during this match. Except, that is, for the occasional announcements that wafted in from the big stadium across the grounds. The ones that said, “Game, del Potro,” or “First set, del Potro.” Or, finally, “Game, set, match, del Potro.” That was Juan Martin del Potro, of course, the player seeded four spots below Ferrer here, and the one whom Ferrer beat in the crucial rubber in last year’s Davis Cup final. For the second straight round, del Potro opened the day’s proceedings inside the main arena, while Ferrer toiled in that stadium's shadows.
Why does del Potro play a starring role while Ferrer remains the ATP’s Rodney Dangerfield? A big part of the reason, at least in the U.S., stems from one match: the 2009 U.S. Open final. Del Potro’s win over Roger Federer that day made him a star. Ferrer has never had a defining win of that magnitude, on that kind of stage. In 12 years on tour, the 29-year-old has been to just two Slam semis and no finals. We’re used to forgetting about Ferru.
Part of it, though, is also his game. Even at its best, it’s hard to describe it as a crowd-pleaser. After watching various practice sessions here, and seeing Rafael Nadal’s forehand in action in doubles from nearby yesterday, I was struck today by the things that Ferrer can’t do. His ground strokes aren’t explosive. They don’t land all that deep or kick off the court with much spin. He doesn’t attack second serves. Even his passing shots, which you would think would be his bread and butter, weren't dipped or threaded today.
Still, this is Ferrer, a man who knows how to win, and who has been doing a lot of it lately—his ability to do it with so few obvious gifts only counts in his favor. I kept waiting for him to find a way out of this one as well. He did the right things. He was always ready, whenever there was even the slightest hiccup from Istomin, to take advantage of it. The flimsiest pretexts were enough to elicit a "Vamos!": Forty-love down on Istomin’s serve and he misses a volley to make it 40-15? “Vamos!” This attitude, on most days, is what makes Ferrer a winner. But even the grittiest players can’t live on grits alone. Every time he had an opening today, Ferrer closed it off himself with an errant ground stroke; maybe it was the thin air here, but he had no feel for the ball. And when Istomin grabbed the lead, he didn't let go. He clamped down with 125 m.p.h. serves and flat bullet forehands
For today, Ferrer’s slow boil was more entertaining than his game. It followed a logical progression. After three games, he took a ball that was thrown at him by a ball kid and batted it away. After seven games, he took a towel and screamed into it. At 1-1 in the second set, he briefly exploded, turned to his box, and raised his hands over his head. A let call by the chair umpire on one of his serves set him off—“Hombre!” Ferrer yelled into the sky. After getting broken in the second set, though, he looked more resigned and philosophical about it all, scratching his chin and trying to find an explanation with his coach.
The final insult was inflicted late in the match, when Ferrer hit a return down the sideline that was called out. Ferrer was so sure it was in that he settled back into his returner’s crouch before the Hawk-Eye replay even began. Istomin was also sure enough that he set up to serve. The only problem was that Hawk-Eye said the ball was out. Ferrer, head down, sheepishly and wordlessly crossed to the ad court.
A few points later, Ferrer thought about challenging again, but waved it off. The gesture said, “Oh, forget it.”
It was that kind of day all around.