In the electronic age there's no such thing as yesterday, and every tomorrow is eternally today - if you want it to be. I engage in such Deep Thoughts because this morning, long before Svetlana Kuznetsova jerked us around on an emotional string even more effectively than she exercises opponents on the court, the rain delay at Roland Garros enabled Tennis Channel to re-broadcast the Dinara Safina vs. Kimiko Date Krumm first-round battle of yesterday.
And here all this time I thought "rain delay" in the language of tennis translates only to "Krickstein vs. Connors!"
I was fired up for this, because I didn't see any of that Safina vs. Krumm match, live, and I was really curious to see Kimiko in action. She did not disappoint.
I know that everyone has been talking for the past few weeks about Dinara Safina's struggles with confidence, but the first thing that struck me when she began banging balls was the struggles she may have been having with the Napoleons or seven-layer cake. Maybe it was the fit of that raspberry dress she wore, but if this were London, the tabloids would be posing the question, Who's the father? The next time Safina goes out to play, she might ask her coach that timeless question: "Does this dress make me look fat?"
If Safina is in the kind of shape her tummy - or that dress - suggested, it helps explain how she she seemed to run out of gas in the third set against Date Krumm. One of the reasons Safina's condition is worth noting is because while Date Krumm is showing signs of that dreaded "middle-age spread" (sure she's 'only' 39, but let's remember Boris Becker's comment about measuring a tennis player's lifespan in dog years), and had her right calf heavily-wrapped, she seemed to have greater reserves near the end of the match than did Safina.
In all fairness, you can probably put some of Safina's woes down to that primary, "confidence" narrative. You know a player is in trouble, mentally, when she handles a small, light, nappy-headed object like a yellow Dunlop as if it were a medicine ball. At times, especially when Safina was serving, she left the impression that the ball weighed a ton, and it was all she could do to lift it, never mind hit it where she wanted. She would manage to loft the ball and, with a prodigious grunt and swing, perform the Heruclean task of accomplishing a serve. On her follow through, she frequently looked like a mighty oak, toppling under the axe of a logger.
All this was good news for Date Krumm. Last year at this time, Safina was No. 1 in the world and trying to explain how she could claim being the best player in the world when she had yet to win a Grand Slam event. Meanwhile, Date Krumm was answering questions about how it came about that she decided to take a 12 year break from the game and still expect to get four or five games off anyone whose name ended in "ova."
Twelve years. That's a Rip Van Winkle number, but unlike that popular character in folklore, Date Krumm returned to the same world she left. A world full of talented players, like Safina, who could be exploited because they simply don't have the mental strength to match their physical talents and skills.
Date Krumm could be the star of a reality show, The Desperate Housewives of Boulogne. She would be the one who takes tennis lessons at the country club twice a week, runs the bake sale at her kid's school, and has the working women in her neighborhood green with envy. It's a small price to wear for the privilege of hanging around Starbuck's at 10:30 in the morning, all dressed up to go hit the stairmaster at the gym.
Krumm wears a visor. is there a piece of gear more emblematic of the weekend warrior? In her case, it encircled a top-knot bound with a white elastic hair-thingy that looked a lot like that white plastic tab then now use to close off the end of the bag containing a loaf of bread.
The bandage on Krumm's calf suggested that, all nods to convention aside, this is a woman who comes to play. It represented an attitude and a statement of seriousness; you can find it any level of the game, including at the country club. Don't underestimate me, it seems to declare. I may have a proper, conservative, sporty look, and I may have other things in my life besides tennis, but I'm a lot tougher and more of a gamer than you might think. Serve 'em up, sucker!
!100506651 Well, Safina did. And she more or less blasted her way through the first set, looking pretty imposing in that clingy raspberry dress topped with a necklace that featured a strange amulet (a shrunken head?) dangling from a black cord. It must have presented Date Krumm, who stands 5-4 to Safina's 6-feet even, with quite a menacing image, especially when Safina periodically let go with a wild Tartar shriek. Krumm played silently; as women like her are wont to do.
The racket looks almost comically large in Krumm's hands, something a cartoonist might draw to emphasize the diminutive stature of his subject. And the way Krumm hits her shots doesn't exactly disabuse you of the notion that she has trouble manipulating an object so big and seemingly unwieldy. That's because she has one of those curious forehands that begins with a loosening and drop of the wrist, and often ends with more of a snap than a swing.
Krumm's lack of sheer power reduces her options; that racket is never going to be swept in a swift, authoritative arc, to swallow the ball and send it flying back at warp speed (a la Serena Williams) with a good does of topspin. Krumm is a counter-puncher, a dart-thrower. And in the second set, those darts began to find the 10-ring.
Krumm's only concession to the drama-queen behavior that is so fashionable on the WTA tour these days was a tendency to throw her hands up and fling back her head when she made a silly error. It was sometimes accompanied by an expressive grimace, although there was always a big smile buried just under the surface of her mien. Desperate? Maybe for the moment. But happy, too.
Safina's game began to crumble in the second set and Krumm took it. But it took plenty out of the 39-year old Japanese as well. Krumm was broken the first time she served in the second set, and broken again shortly thereafter. By then, she was visibly limping as she tried to scamper to retrieve Safina's punishing groundstrokes, but she still had reason to hope. Safina seemed to tiring, and her body language suggested that she felt by no means on top of things.
So Krumm continued to plug away, diligently avoiding errors and carefully choosing her opportunities to pull the trigger on a placement. This is her stock in trade - pursuing a well-modulated, discreet game plan. She was giving nothing away; if Safina wanted the match, she'd have to take it.
This was something Safina was incapable of doing. She gave back one break, but served for a 5-3 lead only to double-fault away that game. She grew more and more emotional, and therefore less and less emotionally sympathetic as the match slipped away. Krumm just kept chipping away, knowing that revenge is a dish best served cold, as women like her are wont to know.
That attitude often pays off against a player like Safina, and it did once again. A deadly combination of Krumm placements and Safina errors became the undoing of the former No. 1. She lost six of the last seven games in the match, and didn't win a point on her serve in the final game.
It was a bravura performance by a tough little player who, despite the disadvantages of her size and age, meets the challenge of competition with open arms and a healthy appetite. Safina ought to take note, and learn to eat more wisely.