“Tennis is about the big points.”* This is the sport’s original truth, parroted by all writers, commentators, analysts, pundits, and no-nothings. Even the players have been known to repeat it now and then. But is it true? And if it is, what constitutes a big point?
I’ve always gone along with the concept, but with a hint of a meddlesome doubt in the back of my mind. Yes, I realize that every point of a tiebreaker is bigger than one a point at 40-0. And that entire sets can be decided with one sloppy play late in a breaker. But at the same time, you have to win the little points to get a crack at the big ones. You have to win a 15-30 to get to the all-important 30-30. And isn’t the first point of a game just as crucial as a deuce point? You’ll decrease your chances of getting to the latter if you don’t win the former. The majority of points, big or small, makes a small change in a match's landscape and momentum, and ultimately its outcome.
I’ve also heard the theory that match point is the most important of all, because if you win it, you win everything. But it doesn’t follow that if you lose it, you lose everything. A tennis match might be compared to a pyramid; it can’t be complete until it reaches a glorious pinnacle, but you can’t get to that pinnacle without building the base. Or maybe a match is like a football team; the quarterback can’t do his job without. . . .
Whatever metaphor you choose, in tennis, no point exists independently of the ones that come before or after it in a game.
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“Rafael Nadal plays every point exactly the same way*.” Since the Spaniard’s rise in the middle of the decade, this piece of wisdom has become almost as accepted as the one I cited above. It’s meant as a compliment, to show how circumstances can’t dimimish his tenacity. But while Nadal plays without any loss of determination when he’s behind, say, 0-40 on his serve, it’s not true that he appoaches every point the same way. Down 40-0 on an opponent’s serve, Nadal is just as likely as the next guy to take a risky cut at a ground stroke, miss, and move on to the next game.
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“A champion finds a way to win matches even when he isn’t at his best*.” This axiom is undoubtedly true, if only because every player is “at his best” so infrequently, and for such short periods of time. But what is the champion’s secret? How does he win when the rest of us lose? A brief sample of Nadal’s three-set victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber today should give us an idea.
With little energy in the humid stadium, Nadal started lethargically. His first backhand floated aimlessly wide, he sent a forehand into the bottom of the net in the second game, and he was down 0-3 to a strong-serving Kohlschreiber in a matter of minutes. Nadal continued missing returns, hitting backhands late and wide, and sailing forehands over the baseline. He didn’t play with anything like his usual conviction and energy until the second point of the second set. From there, he began to find his range and run Kohlschreiber sideline to sideline.
“After losing the first set, I think he played very, very aggressive,” Kohlschreiber said, “so he pushed me back from my side, and then it was tough.” But Nadal was still a little off; he lost control of more than one simple backhand slice backhand. He was measuring his shots are times, rather than hitting them, and he started the third set misfiring on his returns.
It was the long series of games in the middle of that third set which decided the match. In retrospect, this is where the big points occurred. But did they look like what you typically think of as big points? Did they happen when they usually happen?
Serving at 1-2, Nadal double faulted and went down 15-30, a precarious position. On the next point, he hit a very good wide serve for a winner. At 40-30, he hit a very good second serve to win the game.
Serving at 2-3, Nadal sent two routine forehands well long: 0-30. This was serious; 2-5 was staring him in the face. On the next point he got another forehand. He didn’t hesitate to hit it aggressively, with depth. He won that point, but went down a break point soon after. That’s when Kohlschreiber blew his best chance, shanking a backhand return well out. When he had the chance, when he should have felt good, he didn’t go after it; but when Nadal should have been nervous with his forehand, he hit out. You might say Kohlschreiber’s break point was the biggest of the day, and it might have been. But Nadal would have had to face three of those break points instead of one if he hadn’t righted his shaky forehand earlier in the game. Which is the more significant moment, the earlier or the later?
Two points after Kohlschreiber’s return miss, Nadal hit a running forehand pass that clipped the tape and went past his opponent for a winner. It was the highlight-reel shot of the match. Nadal had held; he’d soon break; and he’d soon serve out the match at 5-3 at love. On the first point of the final game, he hit nothing but forehands. On the second point, he again hit nothing but forehands. He ended the third point with a full-throttle overhead. It was over.
If you’re serving out a match, the points are certainly big. And Nadal gave a clinic on how to make sure you play them to your strengths. But momentum was on his side by that point, and it was on his side because of the hard sledding he’d done—and the mistakes his opponent had made—when the match was up in the air in the middle of the set. What was impressive to me was not Nadal's guts in those moments, or his ability to hit out when it mattered. He was as tentative on a few of his break points as Kohlschreiber was.
What Nadal did well was something less obvious, but which he’s always specialized in: He stopped negative momentum just as it appeared ready to start; he gathered himself when it looked like the match might spin out of control. In the third game, Nadal double-faulted, took his time afterward, and came back with two strong serves. In the fifth game, he missed two forehands, took his time again, and hit the next one well.
Nadal didn’t play every point exactly the same way, with the blind tenacity that he’s famous for. But he did do what another famous tennis axiom instructs us to do: He took it one point at a time.