By Asad Raza**
Good evening, friends! It's great to be writing in this hallowed space again--as you know, Pete's away at AmyLu and Juan José's wedding today and so you'll have to put up with me for a post. First off, let me just add my congratulations to everyone else's on the big day for JJ and the PST. I'm proud to have been a part of the community in which those two first encountered each other. I have a soft spot for both: AmyLu must be Rafael Nadal's most intelligent and kind-hearted fan, and Juan José, in addition to having being one of the finest, funniest writers ever to comment on a blog, was kind to me in a nerve-wracking situation: he responded to my very first comment on TW. Can't wait to see the pictures, guys. Felicitaciones! Felicianolopez!!! Stonada sends love.
So I'm sitting here in the bowels--I like to think of it as the gut--of Arthur Ashe Stadium, in the media center, after a day of tennis-watching. Speaking of bowels, yesterday, a lady sitting next to me exclaimed, upon hearing a player (who shall remain unnamed; let's just say his last name was Zimonjic) serve, "he sounds like he's going to the bathroom!" A little too loudly--I think I saw the player (first name possibly Nenad) glance over at her, out of the corner of his eye. Ahem. Maybe she'd had one too many U.S. Open "speciality cocktails." At thirteen bucks a pop, it's easy to have too many! Or maybe not. I think that's like four dollars per melon ball.
Aaaanyway, enough from the gut. I'm currently sitting here at Pete's desk next to Kamakshi Tandon--yup, the Kamakshi Tandon--to type up an account of my day. Actually, I'm trying to, but Kamakshi keeps distracting me by saying things like: "Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is Safin 2.0: he has a better forehand, better serve, better volleys, and better movement. It's a reflection of the rising level of the tour over the last ten years." Distractingly interesting, huh? Okay, I'm gonna put on some headphones and try to tune her out.
You hear a ton of knowledgable opinions while walking around here: it's like Tennisworld, only not virtual. Earlier, as I was heading out to watch the match of the day, Gael Monfils versus Daveed Nalbandian, I passed Tom Perrotta, mentioned where I was going, and he said, "Monfils might just be the most athletically gifted guy ever to step on a tennis court." Andrew Friedman told me the match was "The Battle of Unfulfilled Promise, Young Version versus Old." I also passed Vince Spadea ostentatiously checking his email, perhaps hoping someone with a tape recorder would approach him, but I didn't bite.
Once I got to Louis Armstrong Stadium, as you doubtless know, Monfils rolled Nalbandian like a spare tire. However, the match was surprisingly entertaining for a straight-set beatdown. The reason, most assuredly, was not Fat Dave, who showed about as much positive emotion as subprime mortgage salesman in exurban California. No, it was Le Monf, who might be the most confoundingly exciting player I've ever watched. He can crack a forehand as hard as Gulbis (seriously!) but mostly chooses to play not ten, but twenty feet behing the baseline (seriously!).
The match took over two hours, and featured a lot of those circus points that comprise a baseline rally, a short ball, an approach, a drop volley, a reverse crosscourt flick, a lob, a tweener, and then... the point restarts. Nalby actually won a point after hitting a tweener, Monfils attempted multiple between-the-legs and behind-the-back shots. It was the kind of match that could be sold out of a streetcart with a bun, some mustard, and a large papaya juice.
Monfils and Nalbandian also spent a lot of time exposing a perverse, dark secret of tennis: that there is a space on the court, about three feet behind the service line, where you can hit the ball with literally no pace and, as long as it stays extremely low, you won't immediately lose the point. Thus, these two pros, who can hit the logo off the ball, had several rallies today in which three consecutive shots were hit more softly than you'll ever see a club player attempt. Craftier players (exhibit A: Mr. Radek "Killer Nerd" Stepanek) tend to use soft, low, dying shots to frustrate the more, er, bashful. And Gael and David are certainly fond of point-winning strategies that are less likely than, like, winners. And I was reminded all over again of how dominant and deceptive Nalbandian's two-hander is--not for him anything as normal as a dominant forehand.
But it was Monfils I'd come to see. I've been following young Gael around for a few days now, researching an article on him for TENNIS, the magazine. On court, he has a very strange ability to confuse tempos: never has someone so lackadaisical moved so fast. He hits the ball with a variety only matched by his range of facial expressions. He covers the territory from his aforementioned power base, twenty feet behind the baseline, to the net to retrieve backspinning dropshots in a flash. Andrew Lawrence of Sports Illustrated, who I was watching with, said he thinks Monfils could play wide receiver in the NFL. Definitely, the guy's absurd quotient of ability, and the ease with which he deploys it, remind me of no one so much as Randy Moss.
In person, Monfils is good-natured, confident, and funny, with eyes that light up and bug out a bit when he finds something droll. In a word, he's cool: the kind of guy who has a lot of friends and is the natural leader of the group. Of course, he's also prone to making puzzling decisions on court, such as throwing himself on the court three times in one game, while up two sets and 5-1 (dude, think of your ankles!). After one of those awkward falls, a knowing French journalist behind me explained, simply, "Il est fou."
Anyway, regarding Monfils, I shouldn't give away the farm here (full disclosure: unlike the proprietor of Tennisworld, I don't have a farm, just a rent-stabilized apartment through which mice scurry, ten miles from the USTABJKNTC). I gotta save the juicy stuff for the magazine. Subscribe now! For now, let me just say that I really, really like Monfils. Blake and Fish have gone on now, and tomorrow's lineup is simply dyn-o-mite. So I'll let you get back to the tennis. One final note, though. I just want to say thanks to Pete, for many things. His openness and encouragement are among the reasons I'm writing from the U.S. Open at all, and they're also the reason thousands of us feel so welcome, so at home, on his weblog. I urge you, reader, if you haven't taken one of the chances that come along to meet him here, there, in Wimbledon, or in Indian Wells, do it. You won't ever meet a nicer guy.