[Ed. note - Frequent comment poster Nigel Graber sent me this nice, evocative description of the Nottingham tournament on Friday, as Ivo Karlovic - always a TennisWorld favorite - was just beginning his final push to the title. It was supposed to auto-post on Friday, but I screwed up and left it in draft form. I still think it's so evocative of British tennis that I am going to post it now. A few details may be dated, but rain is never irrelevant during the Wimbledon summer, and you will undoubtedly find something very familiar - and timely - about Nigel's ruminations - PB]
The East of England is cold and dry; the West, warm and wet. But today, this East Midlands town had it all. So I was sentenced to shiver, drip and burn by turns. But I turned up. Because I love the English grass-court game.
Or, at least, I love what it has become: clay on turf. Today was quarters day at Nottingham and it was nearly half completed. It was a draw quartered and divided by a varied architecture of styles.
First up, and beating the rain to a nifty conclusion, Ivo Karlovic, a streetlight of a man who brought to mind England’s six-foot-seven-inch soccer player Peter Crouch. Pete’s always referred to as having ‘good feet for a big man’, and his tennis buddy is Ivo ‘good hands for a big man’ Karlovic. The big Croat mixed volcanic serving with chips and dips, angles, spins, and drops to see off talented youngster del Potro.
Besides the smart hands, Ivo left me with an impression of utter fearlessness. Mainly in the way he saved a handful of set points in the first-set breaker; in particular, at 5-6 with a colossal serve and deft volleyed dropper to within an inch of the chalk. Are you born with Wilanders like that? Are they taught or bought? Or are they just a product of a sort of stupidity or insensitivity?
Next on centre court, Tursunov and Garcia-Lopez (how many Spanish names did he want?). Sitting underneath the burning sun, the biting wind and the intermittent showers, I was in my element. This is the kind of baseline grass tennis that TV will never capture: the foreshortened end-on view removes both pace and trajectory and probably two-thirds of the fun.
Sitting near the baseline, at a height of maybe 15 feet, you see Tursunov and Garcia-Lopez-Martinez-Rodriguez pound deep, explosive groundies in what I once described as an act of ‘pendulous suspension’. This is the real beauty of the game: beaten drives that explore the acreage of the court, testing dimensions, swinging East then West, shots finding their compass in a puff of chalk and finally an open court.
Yep, when someone asks me on my deathbed why I wasted my life watching this game, I’ll tell them about the mortar balls that strafed the net, drives that inscribed unique parabola dictated by height, pace and spin, ripping into the turf and fizzing into taut strings.
Someone once said that if a rally is a beautiful conversation, then a winning volley or an ace is a full stop. They were spot-on. For me, the pendulous suspension is the stomach lurch of a theme-park pirate ship or a pillion ride aboard a Kawasaki. The metered rhythm of the rallies was due reward for the rain breaks, spent chasing a 30-second challenge on a Concept 2 rowing machine. For the record, 153 metres wasn’t quite enough to win the Hammer 6.
In the first set, Tursunov’s disposition did for him, his invisible black cloud hanging around his head like a dirty turban. With Tursunov, creating something beautiful can appear slightly joyless. They return tomorrow, locked at a set apiece, when I’ll be back at my desk.
I’d wanted to see Bjorkman, too ? no longer youthful, but useful still, a cool, likeable guy from the land of Abba and the age of Oasis. Sadly, the elements put paid to a last chance to see a man manically fighting the elastic pull of his tennis twilight and the smart bungee snap that might hasten the pipe and slippers.
Amid all this, Britain did tennis the way Britain does. In the grounds, the schoolkids drawn to the ropes and waiting for seats during the compelling Karlovic tiebreak and pulled away by their teacher at 10-9 with the promise ‘we’ll watch later’. Why, what the hell else might you be doing?
Witness, too, the Pimm’s brigade, the corporate suits and the certain-age ladies who prop up the game. Witness the swathes of empty green seats and the general ignorance. ‘Is this doubles?’ she asked. Well, is it? Count the players. ‘Aaaaaah,’ they go, after the repeated first serve raps the tape after a let. (Had you really forgotten in that tiny span of time?) ‘Why are they so good when I’ve never heard of them?’
Then there’s Panama-hat man ? a vision in linen. Replete with G&T, he’s wedded to a short-seasoned world of British summer events ? all Pimm’s and polo, Lords cricket, pristine lawns, Ascot Ladies’ Day, and rain-spattered marquees. Brogues by Barker; moustache by Biggles. Available for hire, for your wedding, sometime soon. Bring your own English lawn. And brolly.