* !Nd I'm at the beach this week, so I'll wrap up Toronto (seems so long ago, doesn't it?) and do a quick preview of Cincy as I head out*.
Tennis tournaments carve up time; you can live in them. When you look at a season’s worth, only four will become part of fans’ collective memory. Only four will mean anything after their final Sunday. Cincinnati had begun almost before Toronto ended. But while you recognize, in the back of your mind, the virtual irrelevance of the results in the long run, while it’s happening a tournament is a self-contained world, the whole world in a week. It begins all at once, a mass of striving spread out on various backcourts and played from morning until late at night. How long ago did I watch Ernests Gulbis knock a sweatband at a girl on a quiet evening in the Grandstand in Toronto, or see Sam Querrey and Kevin Anderson trade howitzers for three long, intensely muggy sets on Court 1? It seems like, in the hermetic world of a tennis tournament, a lifetime ago.
From that early free-for-all, the weeding process begins and a sense of order gradually materializes. You watch various players have their striving ended, face their farewell press conferences, and get in cars heading for the airport. Finally, it comes to Sunday, a day of fanfare in the stadium and frenzy in the pressroom. At the end of it, the computers get packed away and the wheely bags come out. Everyone says a temporary goodbye; with each person you see, you have to figure out when and where you’ll see them again. To live like this week after week would have its drawbacks and dangers—buffet dinners, airport fear, unlimited Haägen-Dazs bars—but the upside is that the little world will soon start over again somewhere else. You never say goodbye for good.
The tennis universe has picked up and moved itself wholesale to Cincy. Before they vanish entirely, here are a few stray images from Canada, the kind of stray images that give the little world its color and meaning, as temporary as it may be.
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It’s three hours before the quarterfinal night match on Friday and I’m upstairs in what’s known as the Rogers Lounge, a gathering spot above the stadium for assorted VIP, as well as the press, whose members are invariably the most indifferently shaven and least expensively coiffed people in the room. I walk past a large table, which at first glance looks empty. But scattered around, at a safe distance, are little groups of people who all seem to be covertly looking in the same direction. When I walk back, I see what they’re looking at: Roger Federer is alone at the back of the table, leaning forward, sticking a forkful of pasta in his mouth. A glimpse into the glamorous life of the tennis superstar.
Later, during Federer’s match, I spot Paul Annacone in the same lounge, watching the final unfold from above. According to Federer, he can’t sit courtside when he’s playing Murray, due to LTA obligations. Annacone has a much better view of what’s going on and how points are developing from up here.
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When I was younger, I’d read profiles of tennis players and shake my head at how one-dimensional their lives were. They all holed up in their hotel rooms and never bothered to see anything else of the cities they visited. Now I’ve begun to see some of the appeal of that hotel room. The good big bed, the deep darkness in the morning, the flat screen TV right smack in front of you, That 70s Show reruns on each night when you get back from work at 11:30. There’s not much more you can ask. Each day last week, there’d come a point in the press room when I would feel myself wishing I could get out of there and go, not to a museum or a concert or a restaurant or a neighborhood in Toronto, but back to the dark haven of the hotel room.
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My only real-life Toronto adventure came on the first weekend, when my friend Tom Tebbutt, tennis writer for the Globe and Mail, invited me to play at his home club, the ancient and venerable and surprisingly large Toronto Lawn Tennis Club, founded in 1876 and home to a version of the Rogers Cup in the early 1970s. It was charming and absurd to see how modest the pro tour once was. “Center court” was the middle court in a line of five normal-sized club courts. The TV crew set up behind the back fences, and small temporary bleachers were constructed. That was the set up when Rod Laver reached the final one year.
Even better for me was a chance to check out a small collection of hard-to-find tennis books that Tom has tracked down during his travels over the years. One dispiriting aspect of writing about the sport in the U.S. is that it simply isn’t taken seriously, either as a major sport or a writing subject. I don’t care if tennis gains significant mass appeal here—the chances are beyond slim—but I would like to think that what I do has some kind of history or tradition, the way golf and baseball writing do in the States. Tom’s collection was an eye-opener and an inspiration because it contained old volumes of the best British tennis journalists of their time. John Oliffe of the Telegraph, David Gray, Rex Bellamy, and three great Americans, Allison Danzig of the NY Times, Herbert Warren Wind of the New Yorker, and Al Laney, from the days when the sport was covered on a daily basis in the country’s biggest papers. The bookcase that held all of this history wasn’t big, but it was enough to make me feel that tennis writing has its place and its honor. It’s nice to be reminded of that now and then. It’s even nicer when you realize it for the first time.
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What is a tennis tournament? To you and I, it’s part of our daily lives, maybe even our daily jobs. To its officials and ball boys and merchandise hawkers and food staff and ice haulers, it’s a one-week paycheck. But what is it to the average ticket buyer? They are, after all, the vast majority of people who will experience the event. Their time with the sport can be summed up in two very different scenes from last week.
- It’s 7:30 P.M., a warm, bright Tuesday evening, and the stadium court is a rare sell out for an opening-round match. Roger Federer, the man who the city has come to see, is playing in a pink shirt. The atmosphere is half sporting event, half performance—I wonder how Federer doesn’t let himself get caught up in the latter. The fans run the gamut from upper crust/middle aged to young guys in baseball hats who feel free to yell whatever they like. Federer, the modern incarnation of the tennis gentleman in flannels, glides over the court and seems only to have to caress the ball with his racquet—it barely makes a sound coming off the strings—to send it exactly where he wants it to go. This is tennis as the elite of all elite sports. It stayed amateur for decades after other sports in part because it wanted to stay above those other sports, a clean little world of its own. Even now, in the pro era, when the money involved is obscene, its retains that elite status for most people. There’s an elevating effect to watching Federer; the people here seem to be looking up at him.
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- It’s early evening a day later and the Grandstand court is half full. Two players of relative distinction, Fernando Verdasco and Eduardo Schwank, are facing each other, but it’s no blockbuster—Verdasco is killing him. The sun is setting and the air has cooled, People sit back and put their feet up on the chairs in front of them. Not much is really happening; there’s no fan favorite out there. The entertainment level is just enough to keep people’s attention, nothing more (or less). There’s no sense of occasion, just a chance to see the traveling tennis world come through and watch how ridiculously good even its average members are—when Verdasco hits a forehand winner, the oohs from the crowd are a little like what you might hear for a tightrope walker at the circus.
A mishit sends a ball into the stands, where a spectator stands up and makes a one-handed catch. Everyone cheers; he takes a bow. When, after half an hour, Schwank finally wins a game, he raises his arms in triumph. The audience claps and whistles. When the match is over, there are spirited cheers that die away quickly. We stand up, raise our arms and stretch, and slowly shuffle out together. It’s the last match on that court; the tennis world has shut down for the day.
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So, Cincy. The players have gathered again. Is it too late to do a preview? How about we just call it a "look ahead" then? I’ll give you a few possible highlights from each quarter.
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At the top, Nadal could get a test from Taylor Dent right away. Tiebreakers may be in order, but on most days Nadal will be out of Dent’s league. The match to hope for here is a quarterfinal between Nadal and Tomas Berdych on Friday. We’ll see if Berdych is for real against players other than Federer.
Semifinalist: Nadal
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Speaking of Federer, he should be OK until the quarters, though I’d love to see a Fed-Monfils fourth round at night. The bottom half of his section is fairly strong—Querrey, Ferrer, and Davydenko are all there. Is it time for Kolya to find his game again? It’s got to happen at some point.
Semifinalist: Federer
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Murray, fresh from his Toronto win, will presumably struggle, but he’s been given the best draw of the top four, with Verdasco the highest seed near him. Based on very little, I’ll take a flyer on a another guy with talent who’s due to do something, Ernests Gulbis.
Semifinalist: Gulbis
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Novak Djokovic has had success in Cincy in the past, but he may have a few tough opponents to contend with this week—Soderling, Roddick, Nalbandian, and Isner all stick out as dark horses. Even his first round, against countryman Victor Troicki, will be tricky (Troicki and tricky).
Semifinalist: Djokovic
Semifinals: Nadal d. Federer; Djokovic d. Gulbis
Final: Nadal d. Djokovic
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If the weather is bad where I am, I may be pop in later this week. Otherwise, be thankful you can watch from your couch rather than having to play in Cincy in August. Whatever happens, there will be sweat.