!Ljubicic
By TennisWorld Senior Contributing Editor Andrew Burton
This is my fifth year in a row visiting Indian Wells, and I feel like I've got the first Saturday down to a fine art. Direct flight from Calgary: one of the more interesting plane approaches to an airport, skimming low through desert mountains in the Coachella Valley to Palm Springs; a winding drive along Highway 111, trying to pick up some fire and brimstone preaching on the car radio; a patio Mexican lunch, fajitas and Bohemia lager midway between the airport and the stadium; then pop the car into ten minute parking and duck into the media credentials office at about 4 pm in the afternoon.
As I collected my credential, I looked across at the plasma TV, and caught Donald Young walking back to the baseline trying to suppress a sly grin. Four minutes later, Andy Murray pushed a last groundstroke into the net, then he trudged to the net to shake his opponent's hand. What had I written twenty four hours ago? "I'd be astonished if Murray doesn't go through in straights." My other picks yesterday included Berankis and Nishikori: I hope you still think you're getting value for money from this blog.
Of course, if you grow up cheering for English sports teams in soccer, rugby or cricket, you get used to making confident predictions and feeling the taste of ashes in your mouth shortly afterwards. But it's also easy, from a fan's or writer's perspective, to shrug off an ill-considered forecast—you don't really have any skin in the game. For the player it's a different matter: the unforgiving format of tennis tournaments puts three-quarters of the draw entrants out of the event after the first two rounds (two-thirds in a 96 player drawer like Indian Wells). Sports history is written about winners, but we rarely think about how much more of a player's psychology has to be built around handling all those losses.
For Rik De Voest tonight, it was all about mini victories—like getting on the scoreboard at the end of the 9th game. I could sympathize with De Voest—in my last tournament in Calgary, I lost the first eight games, and winning just one game almost felt like winning a set. As it happened, I did go on to win the set, before going down in three. De Voest was only able to win two games, but he got a generous round of applause from the crowd after he held at the fifth attempt, and even managed a three-quarter hearted fist pump as he jogged over to the chair. Just keepin' it positive....
Ivan Ljubicic had a pretty tough first match as defending champion. On form, Juan Martin Del Potro ought to be seeded here, but he's on the comeback trail as a dangerous floater, and he came back from a set deficit to knock out last year's winner. Ljubicic was also taking positives from the match: he'd suffered an ankle injury in Dubai that had kept him off the practice court for three weeks:
"We had some great points. I came up short in the end. I was physically actually really tired in the end. I couldn't really practice for the last three weeks, so I was just happy to go on court and try to play today, because of the injury I get in Dubai. I'm kind of pleased with the performance in the first set, but of course very disappointed that I couldn't go through. Because I felt like if I can win a round or two, I get back in shape, you know, who knows what would happen. But of course Del Potro played a solid game, as normally he is, and it was too much for me today."
As I said, Del Potro's on the comeback trail: he said he felt very calm during the period that he was working his way back to fitness. I asked him how high he expected to go this year:
Q. Do you have a target to qualify again for the World Tour Finals at the end of this year, or are you not looking that far ahead?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: No, it's very far, very far in my goals. I just want to play healthy for all the year, trying to be ready as soon I can to play against Top 10 players. I feel good, you know. Maybe two months ago I feel really sad when I lost against Verdasco, Roddick, because I felt difference, different game. That's what I'm trying to feel again. I want to feel like I play against Top 10 players in same conditions.
As I wrote above, I didn't get to see how Murray went down to Donald Young. The British journalists wore a rueful look: the consensus seemed to be that even a below par Murray shouldn't have had too much difficulty making the next round, and one of them suggested that perhaps the Scot had been in experimentation mode. Murray himself was having none of it:
"I don't know. I mean, I started the match well, and then, you know, when it got close to the end of the first set, I just didn't—I didn't do anything particularly well. I didn't, you know, do anything to really make I guess lift myself. You know, kind of the crowd were, you know, for him. He started playing better. I didn't find my way back into the match."
Miami looms as a very big tournament for Murray, who went into a tailspin after losing in the Australian Open final in 2010 which lasted until Toronto. Every player has the occasional off day: Murray is developing a habit of having off months.
His conqueror, Donald Young, can relate—he's effectively had to battle through lost years:
Q. Do you realize it's been three years since you won back?to?back matches on the tour?
DONALD YOUNG: I do. I know more than anybody.
The marquee draws—Nadal, Federer, Wozniacki, Clijsters, et al—can go on runs when it appears that they've suspended the laws of tournament physics, which start with this proposition: expect to lose. The vast majority of players go into a match hoping, for a while, to suspend this tennis entropy. It isn't just about how we treat with triumph and disaster: it's how we handle futility which turns a hopeful into a veteran.