“We need to see some more genius now.” This was BBC
commentator Boris Becker’s on-air coaching advice to Roger Federer during the fourth set of his match with Tomas Berdych on Wednesday. That’s a
pretty tall order, wouldn’t you say? 

Genius on command: It sounds like on
oxymoron and seems like a logical impossibility, but, unfortunately for
Federer, that’s what he’s made us expect will happen every time he steps on
court. First we watched him in his years of unprecedented dominance. More
recently we’ve seen his nervy comebacks from the precipice of defeat, one of which he’d pulled off just the week before, against Alejandro
Falla in the first round. Put it all together and most tennis fans, and even
observers as knowledgeable as Becker, believe that when Federer doesn’t reach
perfection or turn his game around at exactly the right moment, that something
has gone wrong—with him, with the sport, with the universe. There’s a
disquieting element to a Federer loss at Wimbledon, because at this point it’s more than an individual
failure. It’s almost as if he’s failed us, failed to prove that good—i.e., the
superior player—will always win out in the end. Down a break at 3-4 in the fourth, with
Berdych serving at deuce, Federer went for a big forehand return, caught it a
hair late, and sent it just over the baseline. Becker’s BBC boothmate was, in
his understated British fashion, flabbergasted. “We’ve not used to seeing that,”
he said. Two games later, at 4-5, Federer had a break point and a look at a
second serve; this was the moment everyone had been waiting for, when he would turn
on a dime, raise his game from iffy to brilliant, and break his opponent’s heart.
But Berdych hit his second ball with a little more depth and firmness than
he had been, and Federer’s forehand reply slumped and died on its way to the
net. This time both commentators cried, with real disbelief, “What happened?”

What happened was exactly what’s happened to every tennis
player, including Federer, since the game began. When a pro misses, it’s not just because he couldn’t find the court; it’s because he couldn’t place the ball exactly where he wanted it to go. At that level, each player needs to calculate how
risky or conservative he can make each shot, judging by the score and by what
his opponent can do in reply. In the final game, knowing Berdych would be nervous,
Federer’s calculations leaned to the conservative. He played a series of low
slice returns and low slice backhands, trying to force his 6-foot-5 opponent to
hit up on the ball. It worked. Federer got to 15-30 and had Berdych on the move in that rally. The Czech made a brilliant backhand save from the corner and
eventually won the point with a backhand volley that just touched the sideline.
Despite that, Federer still reached break point, where he netted the return
that so shocked the BBC’s announcers. It appeared that Federer was sticking with his
conservative calculations—they’d gotten him to break point, so why not?—by
trying to poke a forehand return low and down the middle. But, surprised by Berdych’s gutsy second serve, he put it a little too low.

In a broader sense, to answer Becker’s question, “what happened” was a tennis match. Perhaps the biggest tribute to Federer’s achievement over the last six years—and to Rafael Nadal’s similar
achievement on clay over the last five—is that everyone seems to have forgotten
that fact when he plays. As anyone who has ever played one knows, a tennis
match can go in any direction at any time; miss as few as two shots in a row
(and we’ve already seen the calculations that must go into every one of those
shots) and the whole thing can change complexion in your head and head south in a hurry. This particular match was one that, going in, was even less of a
given for Federer. His last two Grand Slam losses had been to Juan Martin del
Potro and Robin Soderling, both of whom, like Berdych, are tall guys who pummel
high, relatively flat balls off both sides. All of them, when they’re clicking, have the
power to knock Federer back and keep him from moving them side to side. Most
important, this spring Berdych had beaten Federer for the first time in six years. He knew it could be done, and aging legends like Federer
live off the fact that most of the guys they play don’t know that it can be done (see Falla).

Berdych won this match because he got low for Federer’s
persistent slice backhands—I love how balanced the Czech is on both sides, but
particularly when he gets in his stance for a low backhand; great preparation
on that shot. He won because Federer’s forehand went off for a couple of games in
the first set, long enough to surrender his serve. Berdych won with his wide
serve into the deuce court. He won by taking advantage of second serves. He won
because Federer was unsettled enough to play ill-advised drop shots on key
points, when forehand drives would have done the trick. Berdych won because,
when Federer had a game point at 3-3 in the fourth, he anticipated where he was
going with a forehand, kept himself in the point long enough to win it, and went on to record the decisive break from there. He won because, while he wavered a bit in the final game, Berdych never played outside himself. He believed in
his game, and in his ability to finish against Federer, enough to take his last
forehand and do exactly what he would have done with it at any other time:
Drill it for a winner.

So another tall man has sent Federer packing from a major,
this time at his beloved Wimbledon, where he had reached seven consecutive
finals. Does this herald a new future for men’s tennis? There have always been
tall players on the men’s side, and there have always been bombers. But guys
like Krajicek, Ivanisevic, and until now Soderling have been primarily a sideshow, dangerous on any given day but a little too inconsistent to
take the sport over from its more well-rounded champions. With Berdych and del
Potro, though, we’re beginning to see big guys who are also well rounded; they
can bomb, but they can also move and rally. Berdych gets an immense amount of
power with a very smooth and effortless-looking swing, something we’ve rarely
seen from a guy his height. It remains to be seen whether he and his fellow big
men can finally take center stage, and whether the ideal tennis frame will go
from 6-foot-1, 185 pounds, where it has been for 20 years, to something larger. Who knows, Federer may appear to future generations the way the 5-foot-9 Rod
Laver looks to us in old clips today.

As far as Federer himself goes, is the end of his era? Is he in terminal decline now
that his Wimbledon finals run has come to a close and he has dropped to No. 3 in
the rankings? Well, we asked the same question two years ago, and he came back
to reclaim the No. 1 spot in 2009. At the same time, his three-Slam seasons are
almost surely a thing of the past. Players whom he has owned are beating him,
and he’s finding that he can’t turn it on at the majors the way he has been in recent years. He’ll also need to find some kind of answer to the big boys; what
that is, I don’t know. Still, there’s no question in my mind that he will
win more Grand Slams, simply because he’ll
always put himself in contention. Unless he really falls off the map, though, I don’t
think “decline” is the right word for what will likely happen to Federer. I’d call it a  “return to reality.” Maybe, as he loses more
often, we can all realize again that tennis matches aren’t sure things, that
winning them over and over and over is not normal, that even Roger Federer can’t
always measure the perfect return of serve every time he needs one.

Afterward, Federer said he had leg and back issues. I’m not
sure why he volunteered this information. Maybe in the past he felt that he had
kept quiet about injuries and illnesses after losses only to feel the need to
mention them later, and this time he wanted to be up front about it. My first
reaction was that he had dug in his heels in front of the press, which is
what happened after he lost to Marcos Baghdatis at Indian Wells this year.
We’d tried to get him to praise Baghdatis’s serving, but Federer wasn’t having any of it. He’s one of those champions—Pete Sampras and the
Williams sisters are three others—who don’t believe they should lose if they’re
playing the way they should. It’s a useful attitude to have, and a self-fulfilling
prophecy, but it can also make these players search for excuses, extenuating
circumstances, for losses. That’s what I thought Federer was doing here when I
read his remarks, and so did Berdych when asked about them later. And to a
certain extent he was. Federer even blamed “unlucky” bounces and Berdych’s
ability to hit the ball “on the line over and over,” as if that were about his opponent’s luck rather than his skill.

Federer is right to be honest about what happened on the
court. That’s why he’s in the press room in the first place. Still, talk of his injuries perpetuates the idea that I mentioned
earlier: That he can’t actually, really, officially lose a tennis match. It’s
the same for Nadal on clay. His fans want to believe that he couldn’t possibly
lose at the French Open to Soderling unless his knees had hindered him. Like I said, it’s a tribute to Federer and Nadal that they’ve made people think this
way, that they’ve made people believe that the laws of tennis have been suspended
for them. Nevertheless, Soderling won in Paris, and Berdych won
yesterday. I believe Federer when he says he was hurting, but when I write
about a match my rule of thumb is that if I can’t see any visible sign of an
injury from a player, any slowing down or wincing, then I’m not going to
consider it a factor in the outcome. As Federer also said at Indian Wells this
spring, every player has some physical issue going on most of the time.
If you go by those words, Berdych probably did as well yesterday.

This morning I watched Federer’s presser, and his words
struck me a little differently. His heels weren’t all that dug in, and he didn’t seem to be blatantly making excuses. He was much more even keel than I thought
he would be. Did he even sound resigned to not winning Wimbledon? It seems
incredible to me, considering the reverence he has for the place. When I read his line about the quarterfinals being “a decent result,” I’d assumed that he was
covering up so he wouldn’t have to express his disappointment in public. And I’m guessing
that was part of it. But Federer also put this loss next to his quarterfinal
loss in Paris, as if it they were part of an unavoidable trend. He said, twice,
that “I’m winning my matches,” as if getting into the second week was an
accomplishment. Was this because of the injuries, or because his sights have been lowered? Was it all a rationalization, a cover, or was he sincerely
OK with losing at Wimbledon? Was he just tired of shouldering all those expectations of perfection and wanted to shrug a few of them off? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the day that Roger Federer says that the “quarters is a
decent result” for him at the All England Club, we really have reached the end of an
era. 

It will be different in the new one. Commentators won’t be able to call for genius on
command. Fans will have to stop believing that one player can suspend the laws of
tennis. We may have to start accepting it: Reality has returned.

You can feel it, right? The tension, the gravity, the anticipation: Wimbledon is the one again. Thirty, 20,
maybe even 10 years ago, you probably wouldn’t have felt that way. Despite the
reverence that the best players maintained for the event, All England’s patchy,
outdated surface made it feel a little like a one-off, a prestigious sideshow, rather
than the unofficial world championship that it had been for most of
the sport’s history.

What a difference a new brand of grass can make. Now that
the bounces are truer, the lawns stay greener, and even the dirtiest of
dirtballers can succeed there, Wimbledon represents the peak of the season again. The U.S. Open, which through the 80s and 90s had
become the truer gauge of the sport’s pecking order, now feels like it arrives
a little late to the pro tennis party. The players—Federer, Nadal, Sharapova,
the Williamses—revere Wimbledon more than ever.

So the cream rises to the occasion. On the women’s side, the
WTA’s two best athletes, and sisters, have played the last two finals and won
the last three titles. The same has been true on the men’s side, where Federer
and Nadal have played each other in three of the last four finals. Rumors of
their demises aside, those two men come into this event reigning as supremely
as ever. They’ve split the first two majors of 2010 and traded the No. 1 and 2 rankings. Will the tiebreaker happen on Centre Court? It couldn’t come in a
better spot. London is calling.

***

The Women

First Quarter

Maria Sharapova, the 16^th seed and 2004 champion,
who is starting to resemble her former self, is the perfect sleeper pick on the
women’s side. And I would pick her to win the whole thing, if I knew she
wouldn’t have to face one of the Williamses along the way. Unfortunately for
her, she’s got Serena in the round of 16. Or is that fortunate for her? If
you’re going to play one of the sisters at Wimbledon, you might as well do it early.

Is there a chance that Serena might not get to Maria? There
are good players in her vicinity. She has Larcher de Brito, a solid hitter
beneath the shrieks, in the first round, and, potentially, Andrea Petkovic in
the second. Post Sharapova, Serena might see Li Na, Svetlana Kuznetsova, or
Wimbledon adept Aggie Radwanska in the quarters. The Williams sisters will lose
a step one of these days, but I’m not going to predict that it will happen in
the next two weeks.

Semifinalist: Serena Williams

***

Second Quarter

Sam Stosur, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka, Zheng
Jie: Those are the four names that stick out here. Is Stosur due for a letdown?
Well, yeah. The player most likely to take advantage of it on grass is former
semifinalist Zheng, who loves
this stuff. On the other side, Wozniacki and Azarenka are scheduled to play in
the round of 16. They’ve both played a lot of tennis this year and have already been
through their share of ups and downs. Azarenka, after a total flame out in
Paris, is suddenly back on the upswing; she beat Kim Clijsters this week. In
other words, this is an anything can happen area of the draw, ripe for a surprise.

First-round match to watch: Azarenka vs. a returning Mirjana
Lucic

Semifinalist: Zheng

*** 

Third Quarter

While Wimbledon in its seemingly infinite wisdom reserves the right to tweak the seedings the
way they see fit, they didn’t do anything significant on the women’s side this
year. Which means that Justine Henin, the 17^th seed, might face
Clijsters, the 8^th seed, in the round of 16—good for fans, not so
good for the two of them. But there’s more to this section than the Belgians. Jelena
Jankovic opens against Laura Robson, Yanina Wickmayer gets a chance to avenge a
loss to American teenager Alison Riske, Nadia Petrova will try to bring her
Williams-beating form across the channel, and Melanie Oudin will attempt to
defend her fourth-round run here from last year. Lots to watch, and a tough section to predict. How will Henin bounce back after her backhand
breakdown in Paris? How will Kim be playing after her layoff? Can a steady
Jankovic sneak under the radar, the way she did at the French? It will
be tough. She has Zvonareva, Wickmayer, Alona Bondarenko, and the woman who
beat her last year, Oudin, on her side. I’ll take Henin over Clijsters (it’s a Slam, after all), and over the rest as well.

Semifinalist: Henin

*** 

Fourth Quarter

Who is this we see at the top of a quarter? Francesca
Schiavone? Talk about being ripe for a letdown. She made the quarters here
last year, but she’s lost her only match since her Parisian miracle, in
Eastbourne. Another quarterfinal appearance would be accomplishment enough,
considering that she’ll likely have to play Venus Williams if she does make it
there. Can Venus do what she always does? Survive an early-round scare and
elevate her game once she’s settled into Centre Court during the
second week? Safina, Kleybanova, Szavay, Kudryavtseva, Peer, Ivanovic will be
the women Venus will probably face to do it. It’s going to be tough to take
this tournament from Venus and Serena, isn’t it?

First-round match to watch: Peer vs. Ivanovic

Semifinalist: Venus Williams

*** 

Semifinals: S. Williams d. Zheng; V. Williams d. Henin

Final: S. Williams d. V. Williams

*** 

The Men

First Quarter

Roger Federer couldn’t have asked for too much more coming
to Wimbledon. He’s been made the first seed, and he’s got a draw that he has to
like. The next-highest seed is Davydenko, who’s coming back from a long layoff
and has never done much at Wimbledon. The closest seeds to Federer are
Robredo, Lopez, and Melzer. The one threat he faces in this section, at least
on paper, is Berdych, whom he wouldn’t get until the quarters. Is there a
sleeper in the house? Feliciano Lopez, perhaps? He beat Nadal at Queens. Janko
Tipsarevic, perhaps? Two years ago, he beat Roddick here and almost beat
Federer in Melbourne. They could see each other again in the fourth
round. All in all, it’s hard not to see a new semifinal streak
beginning in a couple of weeks.

Semifinalist: Federer

***

Second Quarter

Andy Roddick also can’t be too displeased with his treatment
thus far in London. He was bumped up to the No. 5 seed, and has landed in the
same quarter as Novak Djokovic, a man he has beaten on several occasions. If
there’s an early fly in Roddick’s ointment, it could come in the form of Philipp
Kohlschreiber, the German shot-maker who took him out in Melbourne a couple of years ago, and who is not averse to grass. Roddick might face him in the third
round. After that, he could get Marin Cilic, who beat Andy in Melbourne but
hasn’t done a whole lot since.

As for Djokovic, he has a few small minefields to avoid.
Olivier Rochus in the first round, Taylor Dent in the second. Lleyton Hewitt or
Gael Monfils in the round of 16. Hewitt, in particular, is a threat for
the semis, and—maybe, who knows, why not—beyond. The 2002 champ likes Wimbledon, obviously, and he just beat Federer for the
first time in 16 matches. He must be feeling good. If he gets to Roddick, we
should get another special match from them.

Semifinalist: Hewitt

*** 

Third Quarter

United Kingdom, here is your chance. Andy Murray has a lot going for him in this draw. He’s on the
opposite side of Federer. He can ease into the tournament; Gilles Simon is
the first seed he would face, and either Sam Querrey or JC Ferrero are the
biggest threats to him before the quarters. And on the other side, the top two seeds are Verdasco and Tsonga, neither of whom are very good at the majors.

True, Murray hasn’t been playing well, and in his current
form it’s conceivable that he could lose an early shocker. But last year he was
buoyed by the energy of the crowds at Wimbledon, until the semis, when the
prospect of a final with Federer, in front of the Queen, got to him just enough
to let the other Andy through the door. The Queen is coming early this time.
We’ll see if Murray notices.

Semifinalist: Murray

*** 

Fourth Quarter

Moving from first seed to second supposedly has no effect on
the draw, but don’t tell that to Nadal right now. The heavyweights have sunk to
the bottom with him. To reach the semis, he may have to go through Blake (who has
beaten him three times), Gulbis (who has been injured but took a set from him on clay in Rome), Isner (who took a set from him in Indian Wells), Youzhny, not
his favorite opponent, and Soderling—we know all about their history. Is Nadal
up to that task? Is he in 2008-type form, where no one really bothered him
until the third set of the final? No, he’s not playing like that; he may never
play like that again.

But who is going to beat him? Isner may not be fast
enough. Gulbis has trouble sustaining for three sets. And Soderling is
still not a sure thing on any given day, even though I do like his draw. A
Rafa-Sod quarter could be another nasty little classic.

Semifinalist: Nadal

Semifinals: Hewitt d. Federer; Nadal d. Murray

Final: Nadal d. Hewitt

***

I won’t be at Wimbledon this time, but we’ve got Tom Perrotta heading over tomorrow. Look for his stuff starting this weekend, and for Pete Bodo later in the tournament. I’m all over the TV report from the couch. There are worse fates than Wimbledon in HD.

by Pete Bodo

When Sam Querrey flamed out in the first round at Roland Garros and abruptly said No mas! to the European clay tour in a press conference more noteworthy for its honesty than its diplomacy, pundits speculated on the damage Querrey’s actions might have on friendship with his amigo and double partner, John Isner.

Querrey, after all, was pulling out of the doubles—leaving Isner high and dry. The two of them were committed to doubles, and one of their goals for 2010 is to qualify for the year-end ATP Tour World Championships as a team. They were off to a good start, too; after a loss in the semifinals at Indian Wells, they slashed and bombed their way the final in Rome, where they lost to that other pair of big American galoot, Bob and Mike Bryan.

But when Isner gets off the plane in London today, he’s less likely to take a swing at Querrey (who’s in the hunt at the Aegon Championships) than to throw him a big soul-shake and greet him with a man hug. Isner, with whom I spoke yesterday, completely understood and supported his buddy’s decision to pull the plug in Paris. It had no impact on their friendship; they still talk on a daily basis.

“It was a tough five weeks in Europe for both of us,” Isner said. “I was ready to come home, too, but I did a little better in singles in Paris [Isner lost in the third round to an eventual semifinalist, Tomas Berdych]. Sam did what he had to do, and I just want the best for him, the best for me.”

After losing to countryman Robby Ginepri in Paris, Querrey was extraordinarily frank about his desultory performance and overarching desire to return him to the U.S. Some critics ravaged him for calling it quits, and questioned his professionalism.

But Craig Boynton, Isner’s coach, begged to differ: “One thing most people missed in this is that it wasn’t so long ago that Sam came within millimeters of never playing tennis again (shortly after the U.S. Open last September, he sliced open his right arm in a freak accident and didn’t play again until the start of this year). He overdid it when he came back, playing pretty much non-stop from the Australian Open on. I saw him hit the wall after that Belgrade final with John. He was looking glassy-eyed after that.”

Isner himself was spent after his satisfying performance in Europe. He returned after the French Open and spent a few days with is family in North Carolina before resuming training on a grass court at his home base, the Saddlebrook resort. He was originally scheduled to play this week in Eastbourne, but he decided to remain in the U.S. to train for Wimbledon.

“The best practice for me is playing matches,” he told me, “But after a long trip like I just made I need to work a little bit on my condition. Get into the gym, improve my cardio and general strength. Both of them can decline, even if you’re winning matches, so it’s an interesting bind. You just do what you think is right, depending on what your body and mind are telling you.”

Querrey has banked a few Ws at Queens, putting a little pressure on his friend and rival with Wimbledon coming up. At No. 23, he’s ranked four rungs lower than Isner. And counted  together with Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish, they’ve set the stage for a significant American impact at Wimbledon.

After rain caused a three-day delay in her opening match, Maria Sharapova put in a double shift to reach the second round of Birmingham.

After rain caused a three-day delay in her opening match, Maria Sharapova put in a double shift to reach the second round of Birmingham.

No matter how dramatic the events of the previous 12 days
may have been, it’s the final weekend of a Slam that sticks in the mind and
rings in the ears. As time goes on and history is written, the finals
end up representing everything that led up to them—in retrospect, they look
like destiny. When it comes to this year’s French Open, that’s not such a bad
thing. Neither of its finals offered a classic match or marked a milestone quite
like Roger Federer’s win last year. But what they offered instead—an inspiring
modesty—may stick in my mind much longer.

It’s too early for history, though. Before everything other
than the smiles of Francesca Schiavone and Rafael Nadal fades away, let’s rate the performances of the tournament’s MVPs.

Francesca Schiavone

One moment can stand in for the entire final, and the way
Schiavone went after it. Up 5-2 in the second-set tiebreaker, she was two
points from winning what she had to believe, as a 29-year-old who had never cracked the Top 10, would be her only shot at a major. Or at least I thought she had to believe this. I’d been waiting, through the second set and particularly through
the tiebreaker that ended it, for her to remember it and tighten up accordingly. But she didn’t tighten up. In fact, she’d played some of her loosest
and more assertive tennis in the breaker.

At 5-2, I thought now, surely, the weight of the moment
would land on Schiavone’s racquet and make it just a little harder to swing so
freely. From a tactical perspective, it might even have made sense to play a
little safer against an erratic Sam Stosur—there’s no shame in inching across
the finish line. But that wasn’t how it was going to be for Schiavone. On the next
point, she took an even bigger cut on her backhand return, she ran around and
drilled a forehand into the corner, and she finished it with a sweet and
difficult shoe-top backhand volley that was angled to perfection.
From the start, Schiavone had taken Stosur’s biggest weapon, her serve, and
managed to get on top of it and attack it like no one else had all tournament.
From the start, she had taken this match; there was no other way for her to end
it.

No, actually, there was. Along with that 5-2 point, I’ll
remember one line from her classic, classy acceptance speech. “I’ve always watched every final of this tournament and I
know what the big champions say. I want to thank everybody.” Even after her
win, Schiavone was humble and honest enough to differentiate herself from the
“big champions.” In one sense, she was right; she’s not Serena Williams or
Steffi Graf or Justine Henin. But she’s also wrong. Schiavone showed that, in the right time and place, there can be a big champion in any of us. She showed, by winning the way
she did, that opportunities can be taken. Hers is a win I’m going to want to
remember. A+

Rafael Nadal

This was the first time since 2005 that Nadal had had the
luxury of playing someone other than Federer in a Slam final. You could see the
difference in his approach right from the opening games. Against Federer,
we’re used to seeing Nadal be more aggressive, take control of rallies a
little earlier than normal, and get them moving in the direction he wants them to go.
Against Soderling, he didn’t feel the need to do any of that. Instead, Nadal settled himself
behind the baseline and went into lockdown mode. The Sod had to
hit one great shot, two great shots, three greats shots, four great shots,
maybe even five greats shots to win a point. Most of the time he was tapped out
by the third, which, when you think about it, isn’t bad for a guy who plays with such a low-percentage style. Nadal also neutralized Soderling’s serves by sending them back high and deep and giving him little to work with. If that type of return isn’t as scintillating as, say, Andre Agassi’s was, it’s still underrated in its effectiveness.

The stars aligned for Nadal at this tournament. No del Potro
or Davydenko to be found. No No. 1 player in the world to face in the final. And a
chance not only to reclaim his title, but to have the added satisfaction of
doing it against the guy who took it from him last year. It must have been just as
satisfying for Rafa that, after struggling with his knees and his movement so much in
2009, that it was his running ability that won the title for him this time. As in 2008, Nadal didn’t drop a set. If this wasn’t as crushing a
performance as that year’s, it was almost as impressive in how routine it
looked. In going undefeated on the surface for the first time, Nadal took his
clay-court game to a level that was simply unreachable for anyone else; he was on a different floor of the building. In pool, the
best player is the one who never has to hit a risky or show-stopping shot.
You could say the same for Nadal in Sunday’s final.

But what looked routine for Nadal during the match was
anything but afterward. He sobbed in a way that looked as painful and cathartic
as it did celebratory. After this past year, he genuinely wasn’t sure he would
get back to this spot, even if the rest of the universe was.  I laughed in the post-match interviews
when Nadal said that he needed to play his absolute best in the final, because
beating Soderling was “almost impossible” otherwise. OK, I can buy this when
you’re facing Federer, Rafa. But Robin Soderling, “impossible” for you to beat?
On clay? Of course, Nadal is the same guy who, after beating John Isner in
three sets in Indian Wells, shook his head and described the towering
American, who has never been near the Top 10, as “one of the greatest players
in the world.” He made it sound like defeating this tennis god on earth was a
feat of Herculean proportions. In this sense, Nadal’s motivation moves in the
opposite direction of Federer’s. Where Federer, like Pete Sampras before him,
believes that he should win if he plays to his potential, Nadal uses his
ever-present doubts—“there are always worries” he said with a smile in Indian
Wells—to fuel his desire to overcome them.

Nadal did the same thing when he won the 2006 French. He
hadn’t been able to play the Australian Open that year, and he’d been worried
about career-threatening injuries even then. When he won at Roland Garros, he
said that he became emotional when he thought back to how he had felt just a few
months before, about how far he’d felt from the sport and how he’d wondered if he’d
ever get back in the winner’s circle in Paris. If anything, he was even more emotional this time. Nadal isn’t a champion who plays with
ironclad confidence or the swagger of the naturally superior; he doesn’t awe us by making it look easy. He’s a more democratic champion, a guy who’s been down and gotten back up. He plays with
doubts, which we all have; more important, though, is that he plays with hope—vehement hope—which is something we can all use. Nadal knows, especially after the last 12 months, that bad times will come, that nothing is accomplished easily or can be taken for granted. Like Schiavone’s, Rafa’s win is a moment I want to
remember, for inspiration. It’s proof that, whatever we may think at the time, whatever
doubts we have about the future, it might, just might, turn out to be good. A+

Sam Stosur

Poor Sammy. She beats Serena. She beats Justine. She takes a ballpeen to Jankovic. And then she’s ambushed by the seemingly harmless little Schiavone. Like Soderling, Stosur didn’t play badly, and she didn’t full-on choke; she just didn’t seize the opportunity. It’s nice to think that the WTA has found another contender. But it was sad to see her on the trophy stand, staring blankly and a little disbelievingly. After winning the matches she wasn’t supposed to win, she’d lost the won that everyone thought was hers. One question for the future: Is it possible to try a different pair of shades? How about the ones that the Queen of Spain was sporting? A

John McEnroe

I kind of want to be sick of the guy. My first reaction when I saw that he was doing NBC’s women’s final was, “Does he have to stick his mouth in everywhere?” But, as usual, he won me over. This time it was his enthusiasm for Schiavone’s play that did it. He could see from the start that she had a plan and wasn’t afraid of the stage. That enthusiasm was contagious, and made Schiavone’s win even more exciting and touching. That’s what a good commentator can do. A

The “Nothing is Impossible” Crew

I’m referring to Schiavone’s T-shirt-wearing player box, of course—her brother and her friends. We may never see them again, but we won’t forget them either. Best group hug I’ve seen in a while. A

Robin Soderling

Like I said, I thought he played reasonably well through the first set and a half. He hit a lot of good shots, but his game isn’t designed to hit that many good shots in a row. Its one-dimensional quality was also exposed by Nadal, who felt like he could basically sit back and wait for the same bombs to be fired over and over. Was Soderling just flat? Or was he awed by the moment, the way he was last year? I expected more, considering that he had already reached this round before. One of Soderling’s biggest weapons is his competitive edge and his aggressive body language, but there was little of either on display in the final, and none in his lame final attempt to break in the third set. The Sod tried hard to fire himself up at various points, but you could see it was an uphill battle. And then, all of a sudden, as it usually happens against Nadal, he was down two sets, out of big swings, and out of options. A-

***

I’ll be back Wednesday to run down the rest.

by Pete Bodo

After Francesca Schiavone advanced to the final of Roland Garros via a 7-6, retirement win over Elena Dementieva, she was asked why her star in the game had risen so “late.” As is her style, she waited to answer, a dreamy, faraway expression on her face, as if she were trying to hold onto the moment, savoring it. She eventually replied:

“Why late?” She paused. “I think everybody are different. Could be late for you, could be good for you. I think it’s my time now. Maybe before I wasn’t ready. Maybe before I had the chance I didn’t catch, so I think now I have just to live and to keep going to work like I did for many years.”

It was a philosophical assessment, and a valid one for both of the women who will walk out on the Court Chatrier to play the women’s singles final, after which one of them will walk off the winner, probably thinking: I thought this kind of thing was supposed to happen to somebody else!

That other woman is Samantha Stosur, and quite a pair of finalists they make. Neither has ever been ranked in the WTA Top 5. They have a grand total of five career titles between them. Stosur is 26, and Schiavone 29. Somebody is going to feel good – over-the-moon good – come Saturday night.

It was an odd day at Roland Garros. The semifinals combined lasted for a mere 2:10, the amount of time it usually takes for someone like Rafael Nadal to get unlimbered and into the flow of things. Of course, that was partly because the first semifinal ended after just one set. But that set, at 1:10, was ten minutes longer than the entire second match.

However, the lingering effect of that 1:10 has been considerably longer; I’m probably not the only person who’s spent more time thinking about what happened in Schiavone’s victory than it took the Milanese woman to produce it. She won when Elena Dementieva, another woman looking to become a Grand Slam champion for the first time, quit the match after Schiavone won that first-set tiebreaker.

Dementieva gave up the hunt when the pain of a left-calf injury (a tear) that she’s been nursing for the better part of this tournament suddenly became too much to bear. This was the first time I can recall a player defaulting a match with a leg injury of which there was very little indication, visually. And the scoreboard didn’t exactly hint at it, either.

When I asked Schiavone if she herself had any inkling that Dementieva was sufficiently hurt to quit, she said: “No. The truth is that I didn’t see her do something special, but was not easy for me to watch to the other side. It was already a lot to try to look at me to do my best. So I don’t know really what’s happened, but it was a very tough set. I think both of us, we play good. But I was a little bit more consistent than her. When I had the chance I tried to push, but was not easy.”

That Dementieva could push Schiavone to a tiebreaker – and one in which she led, 2-0, before Schiavone won 7 of the last 8 points – and then abruptly stop was no more puzzling to anyone than Schiavone herself, who looked stunned when Dementieva went to her chair to tell Schiavone that she couldn’t continue. Was Schiavone disappointed by how it ended? “A little bit, yes, because I was not ready to finish like this. But I’m not upset, eh? I know her, I respect. If she decide to finish, she has for sure some good reason.”

Still, the circumstances were bizarre. Dementieva had been tending to her torn calf muscle for the entire tournament. She said she’d thought about quitting in her third-round match against Alexsandra Wozniak. But, as Dementieva said, “I was very close to stop the match in my third round with Aleksandra, but I was able to win this one. Then I had a day off, so it was a little. . .it was getting a little bit better on the day off because I didn’t practice at all. But, I mean, by playing, especially moving on clay court, it’s just getting, you know, worse. You just aggravate it during your movement because it’s very hard to control yourself on the court.”

Fair enough. But Dementieva had played a solid first set; she led by a break at 4-3, but made errors (including two double faults) to surrender the advantage. Rino Tomassi asked perhaps the most pertinent question: Had you won the first set, would you have been able to continue? Dementieva replied, “I have been asked already (if so, it wasn’t in the press conference). I don’t think that I would be able to continue because of the pain.”

Well, if nothing else, we’ve put another entry into the “Bizarre Grand Slam Moments” record book. When it comes to the shock value of the moment, I couldn’t help but think of Justine Henin’s default (with a bad stomach) to Amelie Mauresmo in the Australian Open final of 2006. When Schiavone was asked if she had ever experienced anything quite so shocking on a tennis court, she said – with grin and laugh: “Yeah, there are many things that the woman do that can shock you.”

As she spoke those words, Jelena Jankovic was underscoring them on Chatrier in the second semi. She caved against Stosur, and in a way that could also be called “shocking,” given that she’s a former No. 1 player, had been to a major final before (unlike Stosur), and was the highest seed left in the tournament (No. 4). Granted, Stosur has been playing fine tennis, but Jankovic managed just one game in the first set. She won the first two games of the next one and built a 40-15 lead in the third game with an ace – then utterly collapsed. She never won another game, and she knew what she’d done. Afterward, she said:

Samantha played really well. She served well. Overall, you know, she played quite solid. But, you know, I felt heavy on my feet. I didn’t really move out there. . .When I had chances, I made, you know, bad mistakes. I just you know, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t my game out there. Unfortunately, I lost. . .”

I had to wonder, with a maiden Grand Slam title up for grabs among four women who had never won one, and only two of whom (Dementieva and Jankovic) had even been in a final, was she angry at herself for so egregiously flubbing the opportunity?

“Yeah, I’m angry. You know, it’s not easy not to lose like this, but it’s the way the game goes. I just have to stay positive, and I will have another chance.”

I suppose she needs to look at it that way; it’s certainly better than beating herself up. Yet there comes a point when some great players – Martina Navratilova, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras – have turned on themselves and acknowledged that they needed to dig deeper, to make changes. That they had to be accountable to themselves, first and foremost. Can Jankovic see herself at that sort of Rubicon?

“I don’t know. You know, in this moment it’s tough to say all this. But, you know, in this particular match today, I just . .  don’t know what happened, but I just you know, she was the better player. When we played at Indian Wells . . .”

It doesn’t make much sense quoting the rest of her reply, about how well she had played at Indian Wells, and how today she wasn’t even at 20 percent of her ability. This is a woman who needs to have a good long talk with herself.

But that shouldn’t diminish the poise, dedication, and focus Stosur showed today. Jankovic had good reason to be unnerved, but she also has the experience to steel herself against the threat represented by the way Stosur has played here. The resurgent Aussie knows that you don’t get to the Roland Garros final by playing at 20 percent, and she’s acted on that information over three daunting rounds of play. She’s only the second woman to beat both Justine Henin and Serena Williams at a major.

It’s hard to imagine that she will backslide at this point, which means that Schiavone has her work cut out for her. Not that Schiavone isn’t capable of playing the match of her life Saturday, which is what it might take for her to land a Grand Slam title for Italy.

As both finalists can tell you, better late than never.

The view from my desk got much better on Friday. Two days of
heavy clouds and umbrellas were behind us. The sun, and a ton of tennis
matches, were in front of us. There was nothing to do but get out and see a
few. When I sat down to write about them, I couldn’t think of anything better to do,
on such a vivid day of tennis, but paint a few portraits—or, if that sounds too
lofty, take a few snap shots—of the players who were part of it.

***

Serena Williams is under control. So under control that her purposeful presence keeps the crowd inside Court Suzanne Lenglen unusually
quiet as well. She rules the moment without even trying. But sometimes Serena
needs to remind herself not to lose that control. When she misses a shot, she
stops, stands still, and puts her left palm out parallel to the court. “Take it
easy, take it easy,” is the message. After bad misses, Serena
turns downright delicate. She stops, looks down, and pushes her feet up and down
into the red dirt, like a cat pushing into a blanket.

Serena doesn’t need to worry today. Her opponent, Germany’s Julia Goerges, is flailing. She catches the ball
late and sends it into the alleys. She knows the the pace is coming, but she
can’t adjust her strokes to keep up with even a routine ground stroke
from Serena. Who can? Eight years ago, I saw Serena play a match at Wimbledon
right before Tim Henman. There was no question who hit the ball harder.

Late in the first set, Goerges gives Serena a short ball.
Serena is out of her normal baseline stance and on top of it, with her racquet
back, more quickly, with less extraneous motion, than anyone I’ve seen here. Serena
walks slowly, almost gingerly, between points, so slowly and gingerly you have a
hard time believing she can get those feet to move so quickly when she needs
to. She stores up a lot of energy.

Serena hits with a wider open stance, on each side, than
anyone else. This gives her a head start on covering the court after she hits,
and helps her on clay, where she’s at a disadvantage because she rarely slides
into the ball. It also lets her set up farther to the left of the hash mark on
the baseline, giving her more shots at her forehand. But
playing so open can get in her trouble. When she misses, it’s often because she
comes off the ball and doesn’t lean into it, the peril of hitting with this
stance. On clay, she needs all of her power; even today, the surface holds up
some balls that would have penetrated on another court. She’ll
have to hit the ball more crisply than she does today if she’s going to win the
tournament.

Serena gets tight for a few minutes at the beginning of the
second set, but Goerges can’t do anything with the opportunity. The interest on
this morning isn’t in the competition. It’s in Serena’s command of her
surroundings. Other players nod at the ball kids when they want the ball tossed
to them. Serena looks at them. While her opponent stops at the first changeover of a set for a drink,
Serena, like her sister and only her sister, follows the original rules and walks around the other net post
without stopping. When she does walk to her chair, Goerges stops to let her
go by first. Serena doesn’t look up, but there’s no arrogance in the gesture.
It’s understood: She’s in control here.

“What can you learn from [this match] in terms of the kind
of form you’re in for the rest of the tournament?” Serena is asked afterward.

“How can I get them to all be like that.”

***

Novak Djokovic has a clean-looking game when you see it from
the outside. He’s balanced and mostly uncluttered from both sides and can take the ball anywhere. But
when you get closer, you see how much work it is for him to manufacture that shiny product.

Djokovic grunts—a guttural, no-nonsense, almost painful
grunt, not a grunt for effect—with virtually every shot against Kei Nishikori
today. He wipes his brow from the first game. You can hear him breathing as he
waits to return serve, all the way on the other side of the net. He goes to the
towel early. His forehand swing is long, wide, helicopter-like; he leaps off
the ground every time he hits it. When he’s pulled wide on his backhand, he slides hard into the ball and thrashes at it with a short-backswing,
goalie-style flick. His drop shot can seem like a cop-out shot at times; today it looks like he’s taking a well-deserved rest. Today he’s also lucky: It’s not humid. He
won’t be lucky every day at this tournament.

Perhaps the only way Djokovic can make all this labor
bearable is to be a character, to let his personality out when he can. When he trips on the Bullring clay today, he looks back at the chair umpire in
outrage and throws his arms in the air. What can the umpire possibly do about
it? Djokovic compliments Nishikori’s good shots and apologizes for his own
mishits—he’s a hothead, but an honorable one. He also can take a moment, even
when the match is still close, for a joke. As Djokovic gets set to serve and
begins bouncing the ball, a woman in the crowd sneezes. He bounces it again,
and she sneezes again. The third time he tries to time his bounce to her
sneeze. When she sneezes a fourth time, he stops and cracks up.

“I just want to know,” Djokovic is asked afterward, “what do
you need to do after a long match on the clay to take care of your body. Maybe
with your physio . . .”

“I prefer woman,” Djokovic says, laughing, “but unfortunately, I have to stay with my
physio for two hours.”

***

Roger Federer is like a silence at the center of Court
Suzanne Lenglen. Even his body language is silent. He goes to get the ball to
serve and, twitchless, takes it, walks to the baseline, bounces it twice, and
starts his motion. But he’s done it all so fast and so casually that his
opponent, Julian Reister, hasn’t ad time to get ready.

As always, there’s a big crowd to see Federer, but it’s the
least noticeable big crowd I’ve ever seen. They watch in silence. Is it
awe, or is it just that Federer seems to recede from them? He keeps his head
down and finds his own zone. It’s not trance-like, the way Nadal can get, but
it’s farther from the surface than Djokovic or Murray—Federer doesn’t mumble or
breathe elaborately or yell at invisible people in the crowd. Only after
shanking three balls off the top of the frame does he say a couple of words while he gets the towel. This is a different Federer from the one I
watched up close in Indian Wells in March. There he seemed edgy from the start,
and only got edgier as his opponent, Victor Hanescu, played better. Today
there’s no edge. He takes a ball from a ball boy and flicks it to
the other side of the court with a strange grip; he’s always liked to invent
spins and shots, and he seems to be taking a moment to invent one here. Is this
Federer in Grand Slam mode, at a comfortable distance from his surroundings?

Just when you think he’s gotten a little passive, when he
can’t penetrate Reister’s colorless baseline defenses, Federer makes his subtle
strike. At 4-4, Reister hits the first ball long. On the next point, Federer
plays a little farther forward than he has been during the rallies. He wins it.
0-30. On the next point, he sneaks all the way to the net. He wins that, too.
0-40. He breaks and doesn’t lose another game until the third set.

Afterward, Federer is asked whether rain delays bother him.

“When it rains like this, I don’t mind those days, either.
They’re just slow and nice and relaxing. No traveling for a change, no cars, no
flights, no nothing. Just sitting still for a change.”

He sounds comfortable.

***

“Sammy, hang tough!”

Sam Stosur’s supporters have a lot to cheer about on Court 2.
She’s lost the first set but is taking a wrecking ball to her opponent in the
second. Her serve and forehand sound like cannon-fire, and her sunglasses are
vaguely menacing—is that a woman or a tennis playing machine behind them? She
walks boldly, head high.

Stosur wins not by moving her opponent around the court with
guile or deception, or even with angles. She does it by belting one forehand
crosscourt, getting a short ball, and hitting that crosscourt also, for an
incontrovertible winner. She does that three more times for the game. Stosur is
not a huge person; she has, as they say in baseball, a live arm, and she’s
swinging it with abandon today.

At the end of the set, her opponent hits a nice approach.
Stosur is out of position, but she recovers and flicks a one-handed backhand
from behind her body that touches down perfectly in the corner.
Soon after, her opponent tries a drop shot. Stosur moves forward and slides
toward it, like a real clay-courter. As she does, one of her people says,
with glee, “Oh, she’s got this!” He’s right. Stosur smacks a backhand winner up the line, disdainfully. She walks back to the baseline with cold eye. The
glasses are glinting. We’ll find out more about what’s behind them soon.

***

Ivan Ljubicic doesn’t run down a drop shot. He scuttles
after it. But he gets there. Ljubicic is over 30 and has no hair, but he plays
deep into a fifth set with Mardy Fish. Ljubicic hits his backhand with such a
closed face and a flat swing path that you can’t believe the ball can get over the
net and down into the court consistently. It does. Ljubicic walks with
deliberation between points. He looks a little stiff. But he’s flexible enough
to hit a deft backhand crosscourt pass to set up match point. Fish is crushed.
Ljubicic breaks into a swivel-hip dance. He looks like he’s rolling an invisible
hula-hoop around his waist. He walks to the baseline and ends this two-day epic
with an ace. It’s the highlight of the first week so far.