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by Pete Bodo
Mornin', everyone. It looks as if Fernando Verdasco isn't going anywhere any time soon, a development that will surprise those of you who, like me, always considered him a lightweight. These days, 'Nando is finding all sorts of leathery qualities in his game and, even more important, his heart. Today, he beat Novak Djokovic in the Internazionale D'Italia, which continues a trajectory that might have him facing his pal Rafael Nadal in the finals.
But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. Did you also see that John Isner and Sam Querrey rassled down Roger Federer and Yves Allegro in the doubles? This guy Federer is becoming a regular punching bag, eh?
Alright, we can dismiss the doubles result easily enough. It's a busman's holiday for Federer, and if anything he deserves credit for being game and open-minded enough to take part in those best-of-two affairs. But I think it's also a mistake to dismiss Federer's recent struggles as irrelevant because of his obvious focus on Grand Slam events. Losses, in singles, doubles, checkers or rock-paper-scissors are like a virus. They get into your system and you never really know just when, where, or how they're going to express themselves.
For that reason, I wrote a post this morning for ESPN on the five things I feel Federer needs to do in order to enter the French Open with the kind of confidence and serenity you need to endure two grueling weeks of clay-court tennis. The idea that a guy (or girl) can absorb puzzling losses left and right and then simply delete them from his hard drive is nothing more than whistling as you walk past the graveyard. I wouldn't say that Federer is in big trouble. But he's in trouble. And he's in more trouble than he would be if the French Open were played on any surface but clay.
The main problem I see for The Mighty Fed is inconsistency, which can result from anything anything from a lack of mental focus to serious technical problems in his game (of course, the two are more closely related than we sometimes assume). It's a good sign that TMF isn't exactly losing three-and-four to the likes of Ernests Gulbis or Marcos Baghdatis. I've always said that once you've held a match point, you can feel entitled to assume that you pretty much won a match but failed to advance. But his inability to close out opponents is borderline alarming. Unless the other guy is hitting stone-cold winners, the failure to close out a match - especially if you're serving - is a nervous condition.
Unfortunately, inconsistency is also a shortcoming you can ill afford on clay, in either the micro or macro sense. In the former, it causes you to lose matches, not just matches you should win, but matches you could win. And as strong as Federer is on clay, there's at least one guy of whom you have to say, Roger could beat him on clay. . .
But the macro context is more troubling than the micro one. A player has to toned and conditioned, mentally as well as physically, to keep winning best-of-five matches on clay, and while Federer may be toned physically, he seems nowhere near where he needs to be, mentally, with the big events looming (Madrid and Paris). Spinning out early is as much a habit as staying in the hunt to the late stages; for a player like Federer, being in, say, the fourth round ought to be a given, not a accomplishment (although it is that as well).
Federer is too smart a guy to give himself up to denial. But even for so cool a customer, external forces and pressures ultimately come to bear. The losses Federer suffered in recent events, taken one by one, amount to a hill of beans. Taken together, though, and with the inevitable questions they beg dancing like shadows on a wall, they can take a toll. TMF is good at dealing with pressure, although he's even better when none exists.
But that pressure exists now, and I believe Federer feels it. Having crossed to the far side of his career, he can just up and walk away from it all without ever feeling like he's blown or missed an opportunity. And that's a dangerous luxury. At this juncture, only an idiot would treat a Federer loss during the first week of Roland Garros as a cataclysmic event. Over the recent months, Federer has been training us - inadvertently, of course - to accept his accelerating mortality. A tennis player can be something like a god, but even he can't be that forever.
For those reasons, that splendid little event in Estoril, which begins next week, represents an interesting and tricky turn on the road to Roland Garros, and my feeling is that TMF needs to dive into it and come out leaving the smell of burning rubber in our nostrils. He may be able to put off his re-grouping until Madrid, but that would represent betting an awful lot on a lone roll of the die, and at any event where the price on his head will be high.
For all I know, though, Federer would chuckle upon reading this and say, But dude, don't tell those nice folks in Rome, but my whole game plan was to start my clay campaign in Estoril. . .
And even if that wasn't Federer's master plan, it could certainly become that, now that we're at this point in the season. Estoril as a warm-up for Madrid, Madrid as a warm-up for Paris, Paris as a warm-up for another victory lap, this time wearing a jacket with gold epaulets, lace cuffs, and a big honking no. 17 embroidered on the back. Now we're talking!
The one thing I'm pretty certain about, now that I've had a few days to think about things, is that Federer needs some Ws. Anything is possible; we all know that. But tennis players are better off trafficking in probabilities than in possibilities, and that means TMF has to roll up his shirt sleeves and get ready to begin grinding before sooner becomes later.