* !Picby Pete Bodo*
WIMBLEDON, England—This tournament, which is not just one of the four Grand Slams, but also a kind of annual celebration of the game, is the place to be if you're a world-class tennis player. Heck, it's the place to be if you're a world class tennis fan, or pundit. But unlike fans and pundits, a player's Wimbledon can be over in the blink of an eye. The casualty count begins quickly around here.
So it was that I kept close track of three matches that started at 11:30 AM today, thinking I'd do a little piece on what it was like to be the very first person to lose at this year's Championships. Not that there's a great deal of notoriety attached to this anti-distinction; we tend to be more interested in the winners than the losers, at least until we're into the second week. Flavia Pennetta, Ksenia Pervak, Petra Martic, and Carla Suarez Navarro all started strong in this derby, but my money was on squarely on Martic.
Martic was playing Sabine Lisicki, seeded 15th and a semifinalist last year. Lisicki is a powerful young lady who can just blast an opponent off the court, right? Besides, Pervak's opponent was No. 11 Li Na, a very hot and cold player; I could see Pervak rebounding to win the second set and having it wind up 11-9 in-the-third, with dusk falling over the court. I had little hope that Pennetta would be willing or able to slide into oblivion despite her slow start, given that she was seeded 16th and in against qualifier Camila Giorgi. Suarez Navarro was up against Sam Stosur, the highest seed playing in these matches (No. 5), but I've always liked the little (5'4") Spanish girl's sneaky backhand and soft hands, especially when matched with the Aussie's tendency to go to pieces mentally. The first round can be a tough hump to get over, even for the mental giants in the game.
I had a personal interest (in my business, we call it "rooting for the story"), which I'm sure in some way influenced the outcome. I had hoped Pennetta would be the first loser, because she's articulate and charming—even if she probably wouldn't be after falling victim to a green 20-year-old who is, like herself, from Italy. My last choice was Suarez Navarro, and not just because the diminutive Canary Islander was playing the toughest opponent. Her English is poor; how was I going to get her to articulate the disappointment you must feel when your tournament is over before the action on the show courts has even started?
This pretty much guaranteed that Suarez Navarro would be my woman (you know how those things work), which is how it turned out—even though Pervak made a strong move when she fell behind Li, 3-6, 1-4. Suarez Navarro was done at exactly 12:44 PM, in just about an hour. I regretted that I had not taken that crash course in Silbo Gomero, the whistled language common on the Islas Canarias.
Suarez Navarro has had tough luck at Wimbledon more than once since her astonishing breakthrough in Paris in 2008, when she qualified for Roland Garros and reached the quarterfinals. In her first two years at Wimbledon (2008 and '09), she lost to, respectively, former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic and five-time champ Venus Williams. Suarez Navarro missed the tournament in 2010 but was beaten last year by Ekaterina Ivanova. Today's loss dropped her Wimbledon record to 4-4.
"Here the points are very quickly, and are shorter than on clay court or hard court," Suarez Navarro explained when I was asked about her extremely early exit. Fair enough. And, as she noted, "Today I feel Sam was playing at a good level—good tennis. It was difficult for me."
I wondered if I ought to try to commiserate a bit with her, soften her up in classic scheming journalist fashion with a show of empathy. I could tell her it was difficult for me, too, given that by comparison Pennetta would have been a regular motor mouth and Pervak might have had something amusing to say about Li Na. Before I could think of anything, though, Saurez Navarro went on, "But that's tennis. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes it take one hours, sometimes it takes three hours."
I had not expected the little baseliner to have such philosophical inclinations, so that made me feel a little better about the situation. I also learned that she had been in town for four days (up from Eastbourne) and was staying at the Holiday Inn Express. She had a nice fish dinner last night and did not feel at all nervous this morning. "I felt good. Happy to be here," she said. "But I have bad luck here. Is important tournament, yes, but I play a Top 10."
"Top Five," I interjected, and asked if it was hard to be first on, first day, against a top seed.
"I prefer to play on that time," she said. "When you are in mixed tournament like Grand Slam and if you have boys before you, they can go to fifth set. You never know when you can go on court. When you have (are) first match you know when you have to wake up, when you can eat, when practice."
It still seemed a raw deal, but Suarez Navarro was thinking along more realistic and practical lines than was I. She reminded me that her tournament isn't really over; she's in the doubles, with Lourdes Dominguez Lino. In our obsession with singles, we sometimes forget that tennis has the equivalent of a safety net for most of those first- and second-round losers, and there are times—like today—when that's a wonderful thing for even the toughest and most irrepressible pro to have.