Meet Dimitry Yin

The contrast - and irony - out on Louee Armstrong stadium yesterday could not have been more striking. As the sun threatened to set on the British empire, tennis-wise, there was Tim Henman, 32 years old, hampered by an aching back, angular and frail-looking as usual and dressed in tennis whites, fighting for his life as a competitive player in this, his last US Open. Playing, really, as if it were his first US Open, except for the fact that he forgot how to be nervous about the Big Stage long ago.

And there, at the other end of the court, was Dmitry Tursunov, the soulful Russian (wait, is that redundant, or merely a ghastly cliche?), dressed in hooker red, a sturdy 24-year old with muscular legs and a striking ability to hit a tennis ball like it done him wrong. Only yesterday, he had no beef with the ball. In fact, as Henman pieced together a sincere and valiant four-set upset to extend his career as a tournament player by one match and two days, it was Tursunov who appeared to be the player looking to call it quits.

Dang, these Russian dudes sure know how to make things complicated. Tursunov is the Yin to Marat Safin's Yang. As he admitted in a conversation I had with him after yesterday's loss, "Marat smashes his racquets and I go nuts in a different way, I just shut down and turn off, but at the end of the day we both go nuts. Maybe it is a Russian thing."

Not so fast, Dmitry. I go for the appalling generalization as fast as the next guy, but I seem to remember a couple of other Russian players, the two Andreis (Chesnokov and Cherkasov), who had L or XL hearts tucked inside M games and bodies. And then, until recent events submarined the love affair, we had Nikolay Davydekno - all models of consistency and effort. Changing your names from Marat and Dmitry to Andrei isn't likely to help either, because this self-destructive, self-abusing, self-loathing Russian thing really got going with Andrei Medvedev and that notorious five or six million dollar Fila contract that is said to have destroyed his motivation and career.

But that's all water under the bridge, right?  Ancient history.

In the here and now, Dmitry is struggling. And why not?  He just put up a career-best result at Indianapolis (he won the title),which for a guy like him is a signal to go and do something really dumb and self-defeating, like lose in the first two rounds of his next two events, on the surface most suited to his explosive and at times breathtaking game, and enter the US Open with less confidence than Ivan Karamazov had in the idea that there is a God.

In one of the very few predictable things either of the Karamazovs (Marat or Dmitry) has done, Tursunov did just that - losing in the first round in both of the big summer Masters events (Montreal and Cincinnati). And now, he's looking inward, which for either of the yin and yang twins is little like looking in a funhouse mirror. It isn't like Dmitry is dying to get back on the practice court to straighten out his game. It is, of course, far more complicated than that.

This, in all honesty, is not as complex as it may sound, and I appreciate that Tursunov was so honest and articulate about his troubles. His problem may be that he currently lacks the primary ingredient to success: patience. Simple, don't smash the racquet or beat yourself upover this patience. Dmitry wants to mope, but it isn't because he feels sorry for himself, or can't believe he's losing matches. It's because his recent brushes with major-league success have left him hungry for more and, unfortunately, more prone to impatience when things don't continue to fall into place.

This is, of course, a tricky problem that touches on the basic issue of patience, as well as that roadside bomb that endangers every player on the tour, perfectionism. But it also suggests that Tursunov might be a little bored with tennis, and in rebellion against the demand it makes: You can't be perfect. You must try to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. Practice makes perfect. . . and so on. This is why youngsters and those players who never question or lose their enthusiasm for the game - either the thrill of competition or the happy work of perfecting an imperfect-able game - are so lucky. They don't get bored, and nothing kills patience or encourages anger and rebellion as effectively as boredom.

That this is not a problem easily quantified or even articulated is borne out by the fact that in his attempt to put his finger on exactly what his problem was on the practice court, he ultimately came up with this: The closest thing, maybe, is PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome), where you get aggravated about certain things and have no control over it. When that happens I just don't really want to be out there."

I confess, I had to wonder how Dmitry actually knows what PMS feels like, him being a dude and all that, but that's alright. Have another Midol on me and, as far as the explanation goes, that's a rockin' effort and a novel one, too. He added:

What Tursunov most seems to need is patience, a recognition or embrace of the fact that he's never going to be perfect - and neither is Roger Federer. If that's not comfort enough, Tursunov probably can't be helped.