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by Pete Bodo
Mornin'. Wow. The women's draw at Indian Wells has blown up even more quickly and spectacularly than I had anticipated. Kuznetsova and Henin both out? Hantuchova and Ivanovic (that's three Indian Wells titles right there, bucko, right down a desert Port-a-Potty) saddling up and headed for Miami? What is this, a sign from above that Bethanie Mattek-Sands going to win her first Premier Mandatory, or is she already out, too? Say what you will about the quality of play, one thing about this tournament is that the it's producing some awfully good. . . quotes.
After Kuznetsova lost yesterday, she said: "The tennis ball is perfect. I am not perfect." There's a breathtaking degree of cut-to-the-chase insight in that one, folks; it's a nine-word analysis of the history of, oh, the last 112 years in tennis. What a pleasure it is to have someone with the imagination and poetic streak of Kuzzie with us, even if she doesn't stay around that long these days.
If you read her post-match quotes you'll see she was as baffled by her poor play as you were, although I confess I smell a rat. Sure, players have bad days, and women players often have bad days for biologically-related reasons that are never discussed (it goes against the grain of both good manners and our general social philosophy) but loom at the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room.
But with Kuzzie, I wouldn't assume anything. It's entirely conceivable that she spent the past two weeks smoking cigarettes and cutting a Russian-language hip-hop CD, and didn't bother acclimatizing to the desert and properties of the Indian Wells courts until her pre-match warm-up yesterday. That's how she rolls. But that's pure speculation; perhaps she spent the last week immersed in two-a-days plus spinning-class and weight-room workouts, and simply came up blank. It happens.
After (finally!) securing a racket deal-and-clothes deal with Dunlop, Nikolay Davydenko was equally to the point when he said of his long-time struggle to get some kind of a deal with Prince (who makes the racket he's played with for ages). "Prince give everything to (Maria) Sharapova and no money any more." Now that's some serious poetry, too, although it's more apt to appeal to an accounting major than your typical vegan undergraduate who has a tat quoting Janko Tipsarevic on the small of her back and still has a thing for the music of the Smiths.
While we're on Kolya: I assume that with his Dunlop deal, he's no longer obligated to wear that "Airness" kit that seemingly tried to draft on the names of Michael Jordan and Nike, and was created as some kind of "street" wear (there's that hip-hop thing again) by an enterprising Frenchman of African descent. That's fine, Davydenko is baggy jeans with his boxers showing never did it for me anyway. I wonder if Kolya has also hit Dunlop up for tires, for that's what the company does best. Somehow, I see him in a vintage 1970s Camaro - you know, that one with the huge Polish eagle on the hood.
And let's ponder what Mardy Fish said the other day, shortly before he played Novak Djokovic: "I feel like I can beat him, but I haven't."
I think every tennis player on earth, even your woebegotten 3.5 player who'll never have a serviceable backhand knows that feeling; I mean, knows it, as intimately as we any of us knows the face that greets us in the mirror in the morning. You think you can beat this or that guy, or girl, you're sure of it, in fact; but the moment you start hitting balls things somehow, for no explicable reason, get away from you.
Yet you still know it, and you carry on - not exactly shattered or even frustrated - game after game and in the end you're always the one left thinking, If only I'd gone to the backhand with that return in the tiebreaker. . . while the winner stands there with a poop-eating grin on his face, his work done, and routinely so, for the day.
How do you think Fish felt, after feeding Djokovic a bagel to level the match at a set apiece? Like his feelings about having a handle on the Djoker's game are justified, that's how. And the next thing he knew, Fish - who had played Djokovic in final in 2008 - is outta there, 6-2 in the third, and still looking for a way to beat the guy he feels he can beat, but hasn't. It's a tough life, tennis.
Well, as you all know Justine Henin also joined the march of the lemmings the other day. After spraying balls all over the court in a loss to Gisela Dulko in a 6-4 in-the-third comedy of errors, she admitted that she was a basket case out there, emotionally. Henin later said, of the difference between practicing and playing matches: "On the court it's much harder because you have an opponent and she wants the same thing as you want. It's a real fight."
Duh!
Okay, if I can't get great, competitive tennis, give me great quotes. Actually, I might prefer great quotes even to great tennis, being a journalist, and unlike a W earned at a tournament, a great quote lasts forever.
Enjoy the tennis today, everyone!