The Drive vs. the Slide

* !Ms Slap slap slap.*

That was the only sound inside Court Philippe Chatrier at 1:00 P.M. on Sunday as Justine Henin prepared to throw up her first service toss of the day. It should have been an afternoon of high tension and excitement in Paris, but the clouds that had settled over the stadium for the last 36 hours had done a good job muffling the crowd. Still, they hadn’t muffled Henin’s opponent, Maria Sharapova, who was set to receive serve on the other baseline. That slapping sound was the sound of her left palm hitting her thigh. Sharapova did it with such intensity, she almost looked like she was trying to draw her own blood.

The thigh slap is a move that used to be reserved for juniors, mostly juniors 14-and-under. It has migrated to the pro tour over the years, but I’d never seen a player go to it as often as Sharapova did on Sunday at Roland Garros. It’s almost a tic. One on point, Henin threw up a toss and caught it. Sharapova’s reaction was to take her left hand off her racquet and begin her slapping motion again, even though she didn’t have time to get her hand all the way to her thigh. In between slaps, Sharapova clenched her left fist. When a point ended, she began to pump it again, lightly but constantly, until the next point began. If Sharapova had a one-handed backhand, she would almost surely be the first person to play an entire match with a clenched fist.

In this sense, the third-round showdown between Sharapova and Henin was a battle between the two sides of the sport: the smooth and natural vs. the willful and manufactured. My preference for one or the other vacillates, but whichever side you choose, tennis is a stronger sport for being able to contain and show off both of them. On Saturday, my admiration shifted toward willfulness, toward Sharapova. When she and Henin came out in the early evening, it was cold and misting; walking around on the grounds, you couldn’t look up without getting an eye-full of water. The weather was right on the border of being playable—“it’s not just drizzling; it’s pouring,” Sharapova said—which, as Rafael Nadal mentioned in his press conference yesterday, can play havoc with the normal dynamic of a match. That’s what happened Saturday. Henin came out particularly sharp, and Sharapova came out flat. It was 3-0 in minutes and the rallies were so lopsided that there was no reason to believe that anything could change.

But Sharapova decided—you could see it in her face—that it was going to change. It began with a highlight-reel fist-pump after she finally held serve. From then until the end of the second set, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any player, in any round, at any tournament, will herself back into a match to the extent that Sharapova did in this one. By the time she won the second, she wasn’t just winning points; she’d gone one step farther, breaking Henin’s streak of 40 consecutive sets won at Roland Garros and breaking her vaunted clay-court game down as well.

In the third set today, the rallies pitted Sharapova’s drive and length vs. Henin’s angles and side-to-side sliding defense. Sharapova got the better of this battle early, winning the first two games and going up 0-40 on Henin’s serve. But Henin is a four-time champion here for a reason. She’s comfortable enough on this surface to beat Sharapova just by playing a solid version of her normal game. Sharapova, who can’t slide or play anything like the kind of defense that Henin can, had to push herself to her limit on offense to have a chance. She reached that limit at 2-0, 0-40, when she drilled a routine backhand into the tape. This looked more like a blip than an opening, but Henin made the most of it. Suddenly her angles were beating Maria's length, Sharapova was slipping along the baseline and reaching desperately with her left hand for backhands, and Henin was holding serve with a traditional “Allez!”

Henin won a point at the net in that 0-2 game. It was her first successfully aggressive foray of the day, and, according to her, something clicked after that. “I came to the net,” Henin said, “and that gave me my confidence back. I really needed that game. After that, everything was easier to go to the net and play more aggressive. It really helped me to feel free.” So coming in does still matter, maybe not as a tactic, but as a way to get the blood flowing. And it's true, nothing makes you feel more competent as a tennis player than constructing a point that you finish with a volley. It’s interesting that even a player of Henin’s accomplishments still needs that nerve-scattering kick start.

Two more moments stick out for me from Henin’s subsequent 6-3 third-set win. At 1-2, right after she had held from 0-40, Henin played her first rally from on top of the baseline, rather than behind it. She won it with a confident, on the rise forehand. The battle of court position had shifted in Henin’s favor. The second, and more spectacular moment, came in Sharapova’s long, crucial service game at 3-4. On the final deuce point, Sharapova battered the ball from mid-court, while Henin slid from side to side, digging out balls that appeared to be past her. Finally, Sharapova put a forehand into the net. Henin’s superior clay game, her one-handed backhand and peerless sliding skill, had proved to be the difference at last. If the point had been reversed, there’s no way Sharapova, a self-described “cow on ice” on clay, with a two-handed backhand, would have been able to stay in that point.

Henin goes on to play another powerful opponent in Sam Stosur next, though you get the feeling Justine “freed” herself a little with this win and got her clay legs under her again. Her backhand, in its flair and its efficiency, was still a wonder to watch, and it’s hard to think of anyone, even Rafael Nadal, who looks more at home while working a clay court.

But it’s the loser, Sharapova, whom I’ll remember from this match. I've spent a lot of time this week admiring the smooth and the natural in tennis; seeing the pros move on clay does that to me. But in her ability to nearly do what seemed impossible through raw determination, Sharapova, who no one would say moves with particular beauty on dirt, made me admire the other side of the sport, the willful side of the sport, again. She refused to give in, for the simple reason that that’s all anyone really has the power to do. Down 3-5, 40-0, triple match point in the third, after having blown a 2-0, 0-40 lead, Sharapova walked to the baseline to receive serve. I was so accustomed to the sight by now that it took me a second to notice what she was doing as she bent to return serve. She was clenching her fist.