Yesterday we talked about how the surface has been slowed down in Bercy. Today the court went even farther: It cracked at the seam in the final game of the Novak Djokovic-Viktor Troicki match. Just what Troicki needed: His mind had cracked half an hour earlier; now the ground was opening up beneath him. Fortunately, all hope was lost by that point and he could get off the exploding court quickly.
The rest of the day wasn’t as dangerous, though Bercy’s light show is pretty wild. This spring, when I was at Roland Garros, I wrote about how nice it was not to have any special effects or roving cameras between games at the French Open. I guess they do things differently on the other side of town. To the Parisians' credit, they still don’t instinctively ham it up when they do find a camera on them, the way we’ve learned to in the States.
Here are some other observations from afar, on a day spent watching from the office desk.
Best Example of the Law of Unintended Consequences
Troicki wins the first set from Djokovic and then watches as the world No. 1 attempts to tank his serve at 2-2 in the second. Djokovic smacks a forehand well wide, goes for everything on a backhand and misses, and then flips up an easy drop shot and watches it without moving. He’s struggling with his serve and seemingly his shoulder; more important, he’s struggling with the same wandering motivation that plagued him in Basel. He looks ready to roll out of Paris.
So what happens next? Troicki wins two more games. Like a guy playing an opponent with cramps, he’s thrown off by the change in the competitive wind. Whatever he was doing well to get to that point, he stops doing. Djokovic, like it or not, is still in Paris.
The Mardy Fish Revisionist History Begins?
It’s all about words, isn’t it? Fish spends the better part of a decade, by his own admission, not living up to his potential; then, the day he clinches his first appearance in the year-end championships, a TV commentator compliments him for being “patient” with his career.
Still, as tough as this day ended up being for Fish—he retired with a hamstring injury after losing two match points again Juan Monaco—it was nice to see him finally get rewarded for his efforts this year and last. He couldn’t do it in the Davis Cup, and he couldn’t do it at the U.S. Open. But reaching the YEC in London puts his much-improved consistency in perspective.
The Grace in Efficiency Award
You want contrasts in style? How about David Ferrer vs. Alexandr Dolgopolov. They both patrol the baseline, but that’s about all they have in common. Dolgopolov is the more graceful, stylish, frustrating, and thus interesting player. He’s also the perfect guy to make you appreciate the much-less-flashy genius of Ferrer. Dolgo tries a twisting reverse sidespin backhand; Ferrer runs up unceremoniously, hits it safely into the corner, and wins the point. Dolgo tries his umpteenth drop shot; Ferrer tracks it down and pushes it safely up the line and wins the point. Dolgo contorts himself in a dozen different ways; Ferrer wastes no motion. Ferrer wins 3 and 2.
Two Ships Passing on the Court
Andy Murray vs. Andy Roddick, at 2 and 2, was even more one-sided. These appeared to be less stylistic opposites than two players heading in the opposite directions. We know Murray’s crosscourt forehand pass is one of the sport’s most automatic shots, but he was even knocking off his down the line version today. If he and Federer meet, as they seem destined to, in the semis, and if both maintain something like their form today, it should . . . be a good match.
As for the other Andy, he took a heavy beating today; he took one last week from Federer in Basel; and he took one at the U.S. Open from Nadal. Roddick has had his physical problems this year, but at these stages in the past, he has typically found a new coach and, temporarily, a new lease on life. I can see a new coach, but is there time, at 29, for one more new lease on life?
To Love Him is To Know Him
I’ve wondered here in the past whether fans, rather than any ostensibly objective observers, come up with the most accurate assessments of their favorite players. I was reminded of the idea when I was reading a piece about famous music critics, and how you can really only trust them when they write about the artists they enjoy and, to some degree, identify with—in other words, the artists whom these supposedly disinterested listeners are fans of.
So I listened with interest to Chris Wilkinson and his unnamed Masters Series TV commentating partner today as they called the Roger Federer-Richard Gasquet match. As his partner stated near the start, both he and Wilkinson are admirers of Federer. I wanted to hear how Wilkinson in particular, an ex-pro, would analyze him, and whether he or his partner would alert me to anything I, in my relative disinterest, wasn’t picking up about the Maestro’s game.
I didn’t learn much that was new or revelatory as Federer artfully dismantled Gasquet, but Wilkinson did point out Federer’s defense, which can go underappreciated—he never indulges in anything as dramatic as sliding on hard courts—and his also underappreciated ability to put a backhand passing shot at his opponent’s feet. Overall, the two broadcasters, by taking virtually everything from the Federer point of view, did give me a useful reminder of the things he does well, but which are often obscured by how smoothly routine he makes them look.
Ironically, the biggest beneficiary of this viewpoint was Gasquet. He essentially did very little wrong in the eyes of the commentators, even in a lopsided defeat. That stoned Gasquet volley? Look where Federer put his pass! That stupid backhand drilled into the middle of the net? What else could Gasquet do? He’d simply “run out of ideas” for how to hurt Federer. That double fault on break point? Obviously, “the pressure” from Federer, who was moving around to hit a forehand return, “was too much.” Maybe I was wrong; maybe they were Gasquet fans in disguise, bent on drawing attention away from his every weak-willed play.
Not that this bothered me. There are two opposed but valid viewpoints to every tennis match, one from each side of the net. You don’t have to see it from both sides to see something that’s true.
Credit Where Credit is Not Necessarily Due
A doubles partner of mine once complimented me on an article I’d written for Tennis Magazine. He even quoted from it. I smiled, until I realized that the line he was quoting was in fact just that, a quote I’d used from A Handful of Summers, by Gordon Forbes (I couldn’t blame my partner; it was, as always, a great line by Forbes).
I felt something similar Thursday when another Masters Series TV announcer, Robbie Koenig, said that he had read a “very interesting article recently,” about how the top male players of the last few decades had all “dominated for seven years.” The article came from this column, but the observation/calculation didn’t come from me. It was put together by a reader who goes by the name of Cotton Jack here. I couldn’t blame Koenig; he was right, it was pretty interesting.