Concrete Elbow by Steve Tignor

Playing Ball: When the Wall Fell

2009-11-20T13:40:59-05:00

This month the world celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Do you remember where you were when it happened? I have no clue myself. My only explanation is that I was in college.

I was spending a semester at Pomona, a liberal arts school in the dry hills east of Los Angeles. The fall of the wall, the raising of the Iron Curtain, the execution of Ceausescu, the Velvet Revolution: I knew all of it was happening, and I knew that it was thrilling and utterly improbable in equal measures. This was a revolt that seemed to have been devised and carried out in about 30 seconds—history hadn’t changed, hadn’t changed, hadn’t changed . . . and then it had all changed at once. Everything I’d known about the world for my first 19 years was gone.

But the upheavals of 1989 existed at more of a remove from my daily life than they would if they were happening today. Anyone who remembers being in college knows that your priorities get spun in circles and turned upside down during those four years in ways that are incomprehensible to most adults. Including me. These days, on my way to the gym, I pass a small university in Brooklyn. In front of one of the dorms, no matter how cold it is, no matter what time of day it is, I never fail to see kids hanging outside the front doors in pajamas and flip-flops, bleary-eyed and smoking, hugging and texting, looking as if time has lost all meaning for them. Which shouldn’t be surprising, considering that they have so much of it on their hands. It almost seems like a cruel trick to play on young people, most of whom have had their youths regimented to the millisecond.

Time-management wasn’t a problem for me at Pomona. I was a junior in the fall of ’89, there for just one semester in an exchange with my normal school. California had seemed more my speed as a 19-year-old than typical exchange destinations like Grenoble or Glasgow. What I didn’t expect was that my outsider status at Pomona would motivate me in new ways. On my own, I could create my own priorities and interests, my own regimented schedule, without having to worry about the judgments of anyone around me. I had all that time on my hands, but I didn’t have to waste any of it creating a campus identity for myself or whiling away the hours smoking and hugging in my pajamas.

I could spend an hour in the library tracking down and poring over a book of criticism or poetry—or my bible of that moment, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas—that had nothing to do with any of my classes, and not have to run into someone who would call me a slacker for it. It was these deep-library discoveries, which expanded on my natural interests and inclinations, that made me want to write in the first place. I could also meet people from varying spheres of life around campus—frat guys, prep-school snobs, black-shoed Lou Reed fanatics, caffeinated literary types, grizzled Deadheads from the desert, fellow Spy Magazine obsessives, people who liked to play Centipede, even regular Joes with no distinctive traits whatsoever—and feel free to hang out with them without making any social statements or offending any friends. If I happened to hear Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”—my anthem of the moment—blaring across the campus from a dorm window on a warm night, I could knock on the guy’s door, whoever he happened to be, and stand in his room with his friends and listen to the song until its end, all of us with our hands in our pockets, tapping our feet and nodding our heads slightly, smiling at the genius of Robert Zimmerman. Then I could leave without saying a word. Or, on a weekend afternoon, I could pile into a van another set of kids and go to the beach. One of them, a barrel-chested, wild-haired hippie with a perpetually beatific grin, would demand that the rest of us run, bellowing, straight into the cold October Pacific water with him.

What I did more than anything, and as much desire as I have before or since, was train for tennis. In the past, I’d never been able to lift weights for more than a few minutes without feeling both self-conscious and totally asinine. But I began to look forward to the painful strain of it that fall. I’d never considered getting up at 8:00 A.M. to do crosscourt drills before I went to class. But I learned to love this as well, the satisfaction of getting a jump on the morning. Part of it was the freedom I had to make my days up; another part of it must have been the weather. Even now when I make my annual pilgrimage to Indian Wells in California, the sight of blue sky and sun outside my window when I wake up is enough to pull me out of bed on the spot. (Such is not the case in Brooklyn right now, where I wake up to the sight of newly bare trees and ever-grayer skies.) That early day satisfaction in California was particularly acute on weekends, when, on my walk back to my room, I’d pass the large TV in my dorm's lobby. There I’d see a dozen guys slouched on various couches, watching football. This was how I’d spent innumerable weekend days in the past. Now it seemed like a criminal waste of time.

I played mostly with Paul Cross, who was Pomona’s No. 1 and was ranked in the Top 5 in Division III. (I was somewhere in the teens or 20s at the time, I think.) He was a funny black-haired frat guy and a good athlete. We worked hard that fall, emphasizing the drudgery: crosscourt drills, volley drills, practice sets, and the dreaded I-go-crosscourt-you-go-down-the-line baseline death march. It was all made bearable by the bright sky and Southern California’s trademark bald brown hills, which rose in the distance and looked extra-terrestrial to me. (I think they reminded me of sets from the original Star Trek.) Now I knew why California had produced so many legendary tennis players. Not only could you play outdoors all year round, but the sunshine, seemingly cranked up by a weather machine each morning, could make even the most arduous aspects of practice enjoyable.

On many evenings, after class and dinner, I came back to the empty courts to run lines, one more part of the typical tennis regimen that I’d largely ignored out of laziness. In this drill, you start on the doubles sideline and sprint back and forth to each of the other lines across the court—near singles sideline, service T, far singles sideline, far doubles sideline—for however long you can take it. I started around dusk, which cast a blue glow on everything around me. The music on my Walkman was always the Clash’s London Calling; I’d recently graduated from their trebly, croaking first album, which had finally died in my tape player from overuse.

London Calling was better college music anyway; by which I mean, girls liked it. At Pomona, I’d put the CD in at a friend’s party and immediately found myself in a fervent conversation with a brown-haired girl in black Chuck Taylors who seemed to like the Clash to the exclusion of anything else on earth. I used to cringe when I’d remember what we’d said, things like, “‘Death or Glory’ is so amazing.” But now, when I hear the brisk drum roll that opens “Spanish Bombs,” when its ringing opening guitar lines come in out of nowhere on my IPod as I’m walking around Manhattan, the memory of us leaning awkwardly against a movie poster and holding beer cups in that dorm room in 1989 seems almost poignantly cool. College may turn your priorities upside down, it may turn you into a flip-flop-wearing hug machine, but it also surrounds you with youth and music and possibilities and the future in a way that's never repeated in your adult working life.

The Clash were perfect for running lines as well. London Calling was long, there were no songs you needed to fast forward, and there was that moment at the end of “Rudie Can’t Fail,” one of the most glorious in rock, when Mick Jones interjects a new, expansive tempo with his voice: “Rooo-deee can’t fail!” It always happened just as I was starting to get tired, and it always inspired me to pick the pace back up.

I went back to the East Coast and my regular school, Swarthmore, the following spring. Our tennis team was ranked No. 2 in the country in Division III, and we were going to host the NCAA Championships that May. We’d lost in the final the year before, 5-4, to UC-Santa Cruz. I hadn’t played well, or anywhere close to my potential; I hadn’t practiced hard. I'd lost my singles match in the final, then snapped out of it in time to help my partner and I win in doubles. But it was too late. I sat in the stands above the famous courts in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where we playing the nationals, and watched our No. 1 doubles team lose in three close sets. I knew it had been my fault.

The next spring, when I got back from Pomona, I would have my best college season, winning most of my matches at No. 2 singles and doubles. The foundation I’d put down in the fall had supported me through the year. Whenever I get annoyed at hearing the pros complain about the lack of an off-season, I remember how that full fall of workouts and practices at Pomona stayed with me, how it continued to help my game seven months later. There’s no question that a longer off-season would improve the quality of pro tennis.

At the NCAAs, I reversed my performance of the previous year by winning all of my singles matches. The team had been going through two-a-day practices for weeks before the tournament, and by the time the event started the ball looked like a basketball to me as it came over the net toward me. We reached the final again in front of our home fans. Waiting there for us again was Santa Cruz. It rained the day of the match, so we had to play it at a nearby indoor club. We thought our home-court advantage was lost, but hundreds of students showed up anyway. We could hear them banging on the glass whenever we won a point. I won my match at No. 2, and we swept to a 5-1 win and the D. III title. The memories of the previous year’s failure had been wiped away. At a time when the political world around us was completely new, an old fact had been confirmed for me: Success, winning, excellence—it’s a process. You really did have to sow before you could reap, but that heightened the satisfaction in the end.

That evening we received the winner’s trophy at a banquet for all the teams. It was the same brown, rectangular NCAA plaque that the college basketball champs hold up each year on TV. We walked back to our seats slowly, smiling, trying to get the most out of the moment, a little stunned that a seemingly impossible goal had been accomplished. Sitting in the aisle near our table was Paul Cross. He didn’t look up as I approached. Pomona had been upset in the first round, and he was slouched all the way down in his chair. As I got closer, he raised his forearm and put his hand up at the side of his face, like an Indian saying “How.” I wasn’t sure what he was doing at first, and he still hadn't glanced at me. But from up close I could see that his lips were set in a crooked, rueful, sincere smile. He knew I was coming. He was giving me a high five.

***

Have a good weekend.

WTF is Happening

2009-11-19T10:49:00-05:00

We like to say that certain tournaments on certain occasions are wide open, that there are no clear-cut favorites or safe bets. But usually anything can’t happen. Usually there’s a player—his name might be Roger Federer—who at least qualifies as the default choice to hold up the champion’s trophy in the end. But I don’t think we can say that for the ATP’s year-ending World Tour Finals, which makes its London debut on Sunday. The long, winding, always-surprising 2009 season has left us with eight—OK, maybe seven; OK, maybe six—guys with legitimate shots at winning the year’s last and most lucrative title.

Each of them stands at some kind of crossroads. The world No. 1 hasn’t had much juice in his last two matches. The guy with all the momentum might be gassed. The guy who has been gassed might be motivated to back up his breakthrough Slam win. The home favorite is still a question mark at tournaments of this magnitude. The player with the lowest ranking, who backed in as an alternate, might have the most favorable draw of anyone.

All of this is to be welcomed, and all of it is as it should be in a draw that bans anyone outside of the Top 10. There’s no easing into the event and finding your form here. All of this also seems appropriate for a tournament with these three particular initials. What the heck is going to happen in London? No, WTF is going to happen in London.

Group A

Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Fernando Verdasco, Juan Martin del Potro

This is what we get to wind up the 11-month season? Group A and Group B? The ATP has taken bland to new heights when it comes to naming its fearsome year-end foursomes. What happened to Group Awesome and Group Superb? Too wrestling, I guess.

Group A is nominally Federer’s section to lose, though he's vulnerable to both Murray and del Potro. Which Federer will show up? Will he have the energy and hunger to lift himself out of his Paris doldrums? I can see three reasons why he will. (1) He’s already come out of deeper doldrums this season and recaptured every bit of his best form. (2) A four-time winner and one-time runner-up, Federer, like regular WTF champ Pete Sampras before him, is motivated by the presence of his closest competitors. And like anyone else, he’s comfortable playing guys he’s steamrolled on multiple occasions in the past. (3) Finally, as he said afterward, Federer didn’t play all that poorly in Paris in the first place. He lacked initiative and pop on his strokes, but Julien Benneteau took the match to him in front of his home crowd.

Speaking of which, how will Andy Murray hold up in front of his own countrymen? He has never seemed overly awed by the atmosphere at Wimbledon, though I did feel he was more agitated and tentative than normal by the time the semis came around this year. Of course, the WTF is not Wimbledon. Maybe the not-quite-insane level of pressure that Murray will feel next week will help him without making him tight. He’s beaten Federer and del Potro this year, and while he lost to Verdasco in Australia, I wouldn’t expect a repeat performance of that.

Next question: Which del Potro will show up? All I’m asking for now is that he lose a match without retiring first, which is how he’s gone out in his last two events. Does the big man wish he were already on a beach, away from all of his new fans and new expectations? Or does he want to make us remember he’s the U.S. Open champ and leave one last stamp on his breakout season? Either way, I’m ready to see that monster forehand get revved up again.

Semifinalists: Federer, Murray

Group B

Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko, Robin Soderling

B is for beta male, right? That’s hardly the case with Djokovic at the moment. The defending WTF champion is riding a two-tournament win streak, one that includes wins over Federer and Nadal. Will fatigue, be it mental or physical, do him in? Djokovic himself has said that he'll need to find some energy for one last push. But I think he’s relishing his return to world-beating form—that vein-straining celebration in Paris, anyone?—too much to let it get away from him so easily in London. The draw is also generally favorable to Djokovic. He outclassed Nadal last week, he’s beaten Soderling twice this fall, and he lost a third-set tiebreaker to Davydenko in Shanghai last month. Most important, Djokovic has played his best tennis of the season in the last two months, most of it indoors. After last year he knows he can survive the Top 8 at this event.

On paper, it looks grim for Nadal. He’s lost to all three of these guys the last time he’s played them, and he’s struggled just to stay in matches with the world’s best competition since his knee injury and his parents' divorce in the spring. When he gets down early these days, he seems to get discouraged more easily than he did in the past. At the same time, few picked Rafa to win the Aussie Open at the start of 2009; he has a habit of coming up with his best stuff just when you think all is lost. Still, he's never done it at this event, where he has yet to reach a final. And while a run to the title match could give Nadal his No. 1 ranking back—how is that possible?—his priority right now is being ready for the Davis Cup final the following weekend.

The guy with the best draw might be the guy who wasn’t supposed to be here, Robin Soderling. The Sod, ranked No. 9 but upgraded when Andy Roddick pulled out, can beat Nadal, as we know; he took a 6-1 set from Djokovic in Paris; and he has developed a bizarre hex on Davydenko over the last three years, winning five of their last six matches. He also likes to play indoors. Is this destined to be the Week of the Sod?

Like I said, it's WTF time.

Semifinalists: Djokovic, Soderling

Semifinals: Djokovic. d. Federer; Murray d. Soderling

Final: Djokovic d. Murray

Enjoy the last tournament for a couple of months. It should have more than it's share of twists and turns. The opening matches are on Tennis Channel live starting Sunday at 7:30 A.M. EST.

Deep Breaths

2009-11-16T14:25:49-05:00

We thought this would be the generation of the giant. We hoped it would be the generation of the stylishly versatile. We, or at least I, have feared that it could turn into the generation of the nice. But after three hours of watching Novak Djokovic and Gael Monfils labor their way through the final in Bercy on Sunday, I think I know what to call this current crop of male pros: the Generation of the Heavy Breather. Both guys spent long periods sucking wind—Monfils through his mouth, Djokovic up his nose. Add fellow air seeker Andy Murray to this mix and you can see this sport is taking up its share of the world's oxygen these days.

Fatigue was to be expected, considering what the two finalists had been through to get there. Monfils had won his previous two matches 6-4 in the third, while Djokovic was deep into his second straight full week of play, having beaten Roger Federer in Basel the Sunday before. By the third set yesterday, all of that tennis had taken its toll on the quality of play. After a 43-shot rally to end the second game, both players staggered through a final set that was largely decided by breaks of serve, double faults, missed returns, and exhaustion.

If they weren’t at their best physically, though, Monfils and Djokovic made up it for it emotionally. After winning a crucial point, the Frenchman would spin, grimace, beat his heart with his racquet, and demand that the Parisian fans get to their feet. For once, one of their tennis players had them under his thumb. At the same time, Djokovic fought—himself, his opponent, the moment—with the life-or-death ferocity that had once made him look like the game’s next No. 1 player. His muscle-straining celebration after match point was memorable because it went beyond joy or relief and into the territory of primal release. That’s the other thing about this generation: The code of gentlemanly behavior no longer precludes wearing your heart way out on your sleeve—or going past your sleeve and pointing to your biceps, if you’re so inclined. And the sport is more colorful for it.

Still, for 45 minutes this match looked like it would have no color at all. Djokovic built a speedy 6-2, 3-0 lead by doing just what he had done the day before to Rafael Nadal: He took the ball early and made changing directions with it look like child’s play. Djokovic didn’t need to take the full-blooded, down-the-line swipes he’s famous for; he kept the pressure on with plenty of margin for error.

At the same time, Monfils, as is often the case, couldn’t locate the balance between control and aggression. He veered too far in each direction. During his first service game, Monfils rallied passively. On two occasions, Djokovic took advantage of that and pushed him far into his forehand corner. Both times Monfils, rather than sending back something high and safe, let loose with risky down-the-line bullets that ended up in the net. He was broken, the first set was over 15 minutes later, and it looked Djokovic’s momentum from the previous day would be enough to carry him through.

But if Monfils struggles to find a tactical balance, Djokovic struggles to find one mentally. I speculated last week that Grand Slams are difficult for the Serb because over two weeks he expends so much emotionally, goes through so many ups and downs, has to overcome so much frustration, that he can be spent by the semifinals. By Sunday, he was trying to survive another long two weeks, ones in which he had knocked off both Federer and Nadal. He almost didn’t make it. Up a break in each of the last two sets, Djokovic became oddly negative, slump-shouldered, and testy; he’d lost the balance. As the third-set tiebreaker began, he almost looked resigned to defeat.

This attitude likely came from two factors: (1) Djokovic couldn’t forget the fact that he had lost four Masters finals this year, plus an epic semifinal in a third-set tiebreaker against Nadal in Madrid; and (2) He’s not used to being the clear favorite at this type of tournament. His earlier final-round defeats had come to Nadal (twice), Federer, and Murray. It was hard to imagine either Federer or Nadal, two born front-runners, giving away two big leads in one match to Monfils. This doesn't prove that Djokovic is a choker; rather, it proves how hard it is to win the matches you're supposed to win, and how rare it is to have a guy like Federer who has made it look so routine for so long. Maybe this breakthrough in Paris will make crossing the finish line a little easier for Djokovic in the future. What's more likely, though, is that he'll always struggle to keep his emotions in check.

What does this tournament mean for Monfils? I criticized his flash-over-substance style at the U.S. Open this year, but last week he came as close as he ever has to giving us both. Yes, he went for between-the-legs shots. Yes, he tried his share of jumping forehands. Yes, he threw his arms in the air to get a rise from the crowd at inadvisable moments. And yes, he lost. But his comebacks from the brink on Sunday were impressive and encouraging for two separate reasons.

In the second set, Monfils found the elusive balance between control and aggression by attacking Djokovic’s short second serves, and by using high-bouncing semi-moonballs to work his way into offensive positions in rallies. The latter, a tactic that tied up Andy Roddick at Roland Garros, is a smart way for Monfils to take advantage of his length and leverage without having to leave his comfort zone on the baseline too soon. Few guys can generate the kind of spin and trajectory that he can; it's time for him to make the most of these assets.

Then, in the third set, just when he looked out of gas and out of the match, Monfils leaned on his first serve to get him to the tiebreaker. With Djokovic shaking his head, I thought we were about to see the emergence of a new Monfils: Gael the survivor, the cagey match player, the winner. Instead, he locked up in the breaker and gave the initiative back to Djokovic. The Frenchman didn’t gag away the tiebreaker, but he suddenly lacked a surefire way to win a point, to work himself forward. When it counted, Monfils lost his balance, while Djokovic found his.

They’ve played better matches, but this tournament was a step forward for each guy. If Monfils can give us this much substance in the future, if he can find his way through the close ones, I won’t complain about the pointless flash, the empty calories anymore—I’ll be able to say “that’s Gael being Gael” with a smile rather than a sigh. And really, would we want to see the guy intentionally not hit a forehand from 10 feet in the air? As for Djokovic, I was heartened, if a little frightened, by the return of his family and their us-against-the-world rooting style in Paris—even his girlfriend looked like she was ready to mix it up. If they keep him this motivated, if he tastes the top again, if he can tip his mental balance from frustration back to the hunger he had in 2007, we won’t have to worry about this generation being too nice. If Djokovic and Monfils keep playing matches like this one in 2010, all we'll have to worry about is that there's enough oxygen around to keep them on their feet.

The Bercy Blow Up

2009-11-13T14:37:21-05:00

If you like your tennis tournaments to have the air of a three-ring circus, this has been the week for you. The Masters event in Bercy has stood logic on its head on a daily basis. Take the bittersweet case of local journeyman Julien Benneteau. Buoyed by his home-country crowd in Paris, he was transformed into a balletic volleying machine and blubbering giant-killer one day, only to be returned to his normal status as an underpowered, stoical third-round loser less than 24 hours later.

Wild swings of fortune are the inevitable result of the compact, six-day Masters format. If you were a player, you'd probably say this format also unfairly punishes those who get the short end of the scheduling stick. And it's true, these events are perversely compressed. The top guys don’t get started until Wednesday, and then they must go at it every day from there. This led to disaster for Andy Murray, who didn’t get off the court until after midnight against James Blake in the second round. Predictably, he showed up the next afternoon half-comatose and lost to Radek Stepanek. He was so out of it, he didn’t even let the Irritator get under his skin. So disappointing.

Otherwise, from a fan's perspective, the tournament has been whiplash-inducing, and more fun for it. At this point in the season, the ATP script has been thrown out the window. Even second-seeded Rafael Nadal’s trip to the semifinals has been an unlikely adventure. I’ve been trying to discern a few trends in all of it, but by the next day they’ve been reversed. So I’ll just wing it with the observations. It’s that kind of week.

Late Season Looks

It used to be Andy Roddick who would show up at the European fall events looking a little worse for wear, his hair a little longer than usual, his baseball hat an inch farther out of place. This year, with Roddick looking for apartments near my Brooklyn neighborhood, it was left to defending champion Jo-Wilfred Tsonga to carry the scruffy late-season baton. His hair was wild—it made him look much taller—but so was his play at the wrong moments today against Nadal. I’d say the same for Gael Monfils' hair, but his late-season look lasts all year long.

Speaking of Rafa, first it was sleeves, then it was the pink shirt, now it’s the plaid pants. He’s going overboard to shed the warrior look. I like the plaid—bold and loud will always be his style—but can a man win a Grand Slam title in those? Maybe that’s why he debuted them at this point in the season, and why they’ll likely be gone by January.

Keep It High and Tight to Jo-Willie

Back to Tsonga for a second. What is unique about the man’s game? He's one of the few players who are much better diving for a volley than hitting one when they can set up. Get the ball away from him and he’s deadly; few others, Pete Sampras notably excepted, have made the athletic moves Tsonga makes in tracking down a passing shot. But like Sampras, he volleys with his legs rather than his hands. Send the ball right at him and chances are he’ll carve under it too much and pop it up. On the first point of the final game, Nadal mishit a pass that ended up diving right into Tsonga's body. Unable to move into it, the Frenchman stoned it 10 feet wide.

Sod’s Dream Dies. . . For This Year

Robin Soderling has come a long way in 2009, but his old weakness—maddening inconsistency—caught up with him just a few inches shy of the finish line. He lost in three sets today to Novak Djokovic, thereby ending his bid for a spot in the World Tour Final in two weeks (unless Roddick is still apartment hunting, that is; then the Sod would be fired into the London draw). But think about Soderling’s Grand Slam season—he lost to Federer at three of them, and two of those losses were in very tight, tiebreaker-heavy matches. Soderling is still only 25, and after this year he must finally believe he belongs in the latter stages of majors. I’ve even started to like watching him play—concentrate on the arms and the swing, ignore the legs. Look no farther for your major-title dark horse for 2010.

Del Potro Gets Back to Business

There are players, like Tsonga and Monfils and Soderling, who at some point in a match will become mentally unsettled and miss a series of critical shots. Then there are players, like Murray and Verdasco and Simon and Robredo, who don’t grab a match and make it theirs. Neither group wins a lot of big tournaments. Then there’s a guy like del Potro, who’s tenacious enough to stop a bad run of errors before it hurts him, and explosive enough to grab the reins in the middle of any rally. His confidence in his ground strokes can be astounding. Serving at 4-4, 30-30 against Marat Safin in the second round, he took a deep mid-court return from Safin and, rather than doing the safe thing and looping back a rally ball, drilled it inside out for a winner. This was a tougher shot than it looked because del Potro had no natural angle to work with; he had to create it himself. At the same time, it wasn’t a wild, all-or-nothing stab designed to get the rally over with one way or the other. It was the immediate, unthinking reaction of a guy who knows he can hit any shot from any part of the court. Those are the kinds of players who win big tournaments.

Rafa Comes Out of His Shell

Was it Woody Allen who said that 99 percent of life was about showing up? That would certainly explain the continued success of both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. They keep their noses down, go about their business, put themselves in contention, and let the rest of the world self-destruct around them. That’s been a key to Federer’s major-title wins in 2009, and it’s been the key to Nadal’s semifinal run in Bercy. In each of his first two rounds, his opponents, Almagro and Robredo, served for the match. Nadal upped his game just enough each time and let their nerves do the rest. Neither had ever beaten their fellow Spaniard, and that’s a tough obstacle to clear no matter how well you might be playing. Like an incumbent running for office or a boxing champion in a close bout, a player like Federer or Nadal will always reap the benefits of status. As Tommy Haas and Nicolas Almagro now know, you have to land the knockout punch against them.

I wrote at the beginning of the week that Nadal needs to sweat his way into a tournament before he can play his best. I just didn’t know how much sweat it would require. Rafa was in his default defensive mode, his feet firmly planted behind the baseline, through his first two rounds and well into the first set against Tsonga. But after saving three break points, he began to come out of his shell bit by bit. Nadal served better to end the first set, which put him inside the court to hit his ground strokes, which in turn led him to stay aggressive—he looked for winners with his forehand and bailed on the defensive backhand slice he’d been using earlier in the week. Even after all of his successes, it still takes Rafa time to show himself that he can win by taking control of points. It still takes him time to believe that he really is pretty good.

Best entrance music of the week: Prince’s “Erotic City” before the Nadal-Tsonga match. What was that about?

Marat TV: Final Episodes

I’ll leave you with two last Safin clips, both of which took place in Paris. That’s about all they have in common. Man of the people, that's all I'll say. Enjoy the weekend.

Marat TV: Knocking Out the Federer

2009-11-11T15:30:28-05:00

The long, ragged farewell was brought to a suitable end today. Marat Safin, 6-foot-4 champion of the past, lost his last match to a 6-foot-5 champion of the future, Juan Martin del Potro. You might say a torch was passed—both guys beat all-time champions at the U.S. Open as 20-year-olds to win their first majors—except that I’m not sure del Potro is looking to pick this particular torch up and run with it.

But Safin’s loss was appropriate, and so was the manner in which it transpired. As usual, he showed flashes of flowing brilliance, and as usual, he couldn’t summon them at the very end of a tight match. For today, let’s remember one of the exceptions to that Safin rule, the best match he ever played, and one where he summoned his flowing brilliance all to the way into the 15th round.

If any match is worthy of a music-video treatment, if was Safin’s 9-7-in-the-fifth-set win over Roger Federer, the man he called “the Federer,” in the semifinals of the 2005 Australian Open. That’s the treatment it gets here, to the tune of the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly.” And once you get used to it, it does add a certain momentum to these highlights. My favorite line from the song—“I don’t need to be forgiven”—might even sum up Safin’s career as he walks away.

—Unlike most YouTube highlight reels, this one doesn’t show entire points. It’s cut all the way down to the memorable strokes. It gives you an idea of what these guys were doing best that day, and how many shots still stick in the collective tennis memory from this match.

—On Federer’s side, there’s a drop shot that’s threaded so finely it can only be described as vicious. There’s a shot-hop backhand pass that could be sent off in a time capsule as an example of his smoothness under pressure. There’s a skyhook overhead, and an inside-out backhand return winner that seems to shock Safin. And there’s the ill-advised tweener he tried at match point in the fourth set. He didn’t need to hit it, and the choice cost him.

—On Safin’s side, there’s a half-volley drop shot winner that shows off McEnroe-like touch. There are numerous thudding backhands up the line, culminating in the best of the evening, the one that brought Federer to his knees on the final point. And then there’s the get Safin made and the lob he hit over Federer to save that match point in the fourth set. Did we know he could run that fast?

—Safin’s confidence and determination grow as these highlights accumulate. He has said that winning this tournament was very important to him because he needed to prove to himself that he could take home a second major. He was never a guy who could keep that level of belief up for long, but perhaps doing it this time was enough for him. He’ll always know that he really was that good.

—The match reminds me of the del Potro-Federer Open final in many ways. You have a taller, heavier hitter trying to batter through the skinny, springy Federer and his wildly curving shots. In both of those matches, as well as in the 2008 Wimbledon final, Federer almost snuck through a match where his opponent was playing lights-out, only to lose in the end.

—Fittingly, this one ends on a high note. You can see some exhaustion from both guys in the fifth set, but after nailing all those backhands down the line, Safin puts the last one even closer to the corner. That’s how accurate he was with it that day. Federer finally succumbed, but he forced Safin to throw the final punch and literally knock him to the ground.

—I may miss Safin's handshakes the most. Win or lose, he was always respectful of his opponent; he always realized it was just a game—in some ways, he was too gentlemanly. At first I was surprised by his harsh reactions this week to the Agassi revelations. But then he was always a guy who believed in the solidarity of the players, that it shouldn't be every man for himself. It makes sense that he would see Agassi as betraying that.

Notice also his muted celebration here. It was exactly like his muted celebrations after both of his Slam wins. He doesn’t want to revel in his opponent’s defeat, and he knows that winning a tennis match is not the most important thing in this world. That attitude might have hurt him as a player, but it made him a favorite of everyone who played with him and those of us who watched him. He was one of the guys. And in his “failures”—to master his nerves, to discipline himself, to live up to his potential—Safin was one of us.

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There's more from me on Marat over at ESPN.com. Paris talk tomorrow.