It was hard to forget the first time you saw a Fernando Gonzalez forehand from up close. There were few rushes in tennis like seeing the ball burn a hole in the court as it flew past a stunned and helpless opponent. The sound alone—the sizzle and pow—stayed with you even after you walked away. My first glimpse came while I was wandering through the side courts at the U.S. Open in 2000. Here, in front of very few fans, was a strange sight: A player who choked up on his racquet and used no backswing on his serve, yet could hit the ball harder than I’d ever seen it hit before. I stopped wandering immediately and sat down. Gonzalez, who had turned 20 a month earlier, proceeded to bludgeon his opponent so badly that I went away wondering who in the world could possibly beat him.
For 24 hours, I thought I had discovered the next No. 1 player in the world. But that’s about as long as the thought lasted. The next day I found out that, yes, there were still plenty of players who could handle that forehand and strange serve. Tim Henman carved Gonzo up on the Grandstand in straight sets. Even in the power age, it seemed, there was still more to tennis than power. Gonzalez would go on to prove this many more times over the next 10 years. When he began his rise, he seemed to be another signal that the future of the men’s game would be about brute force getting more brutal and more forceful every year for the next century. That wasn’t how it worked out. Gonzo is still the hardest hitter I’ve seen from the ground, but power alone didn’t turn out to be the ticket to the top.
“Gonzo” was his nickname among American fans, and even if he didn’t use it himself, it fit. Even better to me was the name that his agent, the late Ken Meyerson, used to call him: Tarzan. Like the character, Gonzalez went down swinging. His strokes, from his shredded forehand to his makeshift slice backhand, were never smooth or polished—though his abbreviated serve was a masterpiece of concision—and his general tactic was to thrash the ball as hard as he could as soon as he could. Too hard for a time. It took a while for this former world junior champ to get his game under control. The following year at the U.S. Open, the guy I had thought was going to hammer the ATP into submission was stuck in the qualies. I made a special trip out to watch him lose with another friend who also loved his game—a pilgrimage to power. Gonzalez's breakthrough came six months later, at Key Biscayne in 2002. As a qualifier, he straight-setted Pete Sampras in the fourth round.
From there Gonzo became a national hero by teaming with Nicolas Massu to win doubles gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. With Larry Stefanki in his corner, he improved his backhand and his consistency. He rose into the Top 10, became a fixture in Grand Slam quarterfinals, recorded wins over Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and reached the final of the Australian Open in 2007. He was an Olympic hero again in 2008 in Beijing, where he won a silver medal in singles. Though that was also the scene of his biggest infraction, in my eyes—he didn’t tell the chair umpire that a passing shot hit by his opponent in the semifinals, James Blake, had ticked the top of his racquet before going long.
Gonzalez could play with menace, both in his forehand and the cold stare he kept up during matches. He could also work himself into a fury on a bad day, and he didn’t shy from aiming a big shot in an opponent’s direction. So it was always surprising to hear him hear speak so softly and mildly once he was done with his thrashing for the day. I’ll remember Gonzo up close, powdering balls in the Grandstand at the Open—he scared the fans in the front row with his warm-up serves—or the Bullring at Roland Garros or the old Court 2 at Wimbledon. It was in the latter stadium where I sat next to Meyerson and watched Gonzo slide four aces past his opponent in one game as if it were child’s play. Meyerson laughed and said, “That’s the way, Tarzan.” The top of the game is more polished and well-rounded now, and Gonzalez, despite 13 good years on tour, never reached its highest echelon. But I've never seen, or heard, a player make the ball sizzle and go pow the way he did.