Articles by Steve Tignor

The Rally: Rafa's Brain

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:18:00 -0400

This weekend, as Roland Garros gets underway, I'm doing a two-part look inside the mind of its only seven-time men's champion, Rafael Nadal, with clinical psychologist, Alexandra Guhde, Psyd. Alexandra is also the author of the tennis blog Extreme Western Grip.

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Alexandra,

Since your last psychological study of the world's tennis players here was so well received, it seemed appropriate to come back and get a little more specific with one of the more interesting "head" cases in the ATP, Rafael Nadal. We'll probably be seeing quite a bit of him over the next couple of weeks in Paris.

When we talked at Indian Wells, you mentioned that RAFA, his autobiography, was a treasure trove of insight about his mental makeup. It's true, you learn a lot about his worldview, and its origins, in those pages. The most obvious origin is his uncle Toni, who basically implanted his Spartan philosophy of competition and life in Rafa's brain when he was a child. I'm curious: What, from a psychologist's perspective, is the significance of having an uncle, rather than a father, as the dominant figure in your career, and to an extent your life? You told me that Rafa is an "Oedipal victor," which I think means that his father never stood in his way; he never had to "conquer" him. It doesn't seem like Rafa ever tried to conquer Toni either, but he's not afraid in the book to complain at length about how tough, even cruel, his uncle was to him. In general, Rafa always seems to be concerned with doing the right thing, which in his world means sticking to his uncle's philosophy of constant self-effacement. Do you think Toni is sort of a superego for his nephew? Even Rafa's penchant for making his opponents—and the media and just about everyone else—wait for him seems to have its origins with Toni, who would arbitrarily show up later than planned for their meetings and practices.

There's much more to talk about here, obviously, including Nadal's daily transformation from a bundle of nerves off the court—he's afraid of just about everything—into one of the game's most confident competitors on it. From you point of view, Alexandra, what brain type do you think Rafa has? What sticks out at you immediately about him from a psychological perspective?

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Hi Steve,

Thanks for having me back. Did I really describe RAFA as a "treasure trove"? I must have been well under the influence of that gold Indian Wells sun. Still, it’s not untrue. So far as psychologists are concerned, autobiographies are the mother lode.

So, what does RAFA tell us about the forces that drive Nadal? As you say, a lot about his relationship with Toni Nadal, for starters. Is it any surprise that the most three-dimensional character in the book is Uncle Toni? Emphatically a “thinking type,” with a moral code that borders on dogma, Toni seems to be one of the ATP’s most compelling and polarizing supporting characters. The question I am most often asked by Nadal fans—after “does Rafa have OCD?”—usually goes something like, “Is Rafa’s relationship with Toni healthy?”

It’s an important question, and not made less so by the fact that I cannot answer it! The difficulty with psychology, as it offers outlines for human behavior and experience, is that theories work with probabilities, or averages and generalizations. The moment you try to pin them to an individual, you risk assumptive error. This might be part of the reason why the role of psychology in sports remains so unsettled. It can be profoundly useful—except when it’s not.

That said, what is unquestionably valuable about the psychological lens is the way it can expand a field of view, or, even help the explorer reflect back on him- or herself. For example, in the final chapters of RAFA, Nadal devotes some quality time to railing against his uncle’s unjust treatment. He even experiments with his own psychological theories about Toni’s approach to coaching. On one level, those passages are awkward for the reader. The material is raw and personal, and Rafa is by turns defensive and attacking.

On the other hand like so much else in Nadal’s career, he seemed to approach the autobiography more as a process than as a finite product. And if the process gets a bit messy at times, well, that’s life. There was a way the Rafa-Toni portions of the book reminded me of one of Nadal’s more effortful tennis matches—his agonizing victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Cincinnati in 2011 comes uncomfortably to mind— even as part of me wanted to look away, I could not but press on, all the while admiring his commitment to the endeavor.

And on a psychological level, railing against Tito Toni was a valuable endeavor. You asked about the importance of Toni’s familial relationship to Rafa—that he is uncle and not father—and yes, I believe that is crucial, although, obviously, tennis has no shortage of successful parent coaches. Parents, as tennis fans well know, make remarkably potent coaches. The trouble is that they are often narcissistically over-involved in their charge’s success. Letting go, or providing space to grow, as the child becomes a professional adult can become all but impossible. Even if the parent-coach is able to step back, he risks leaving a player rudderless.

At this point I am not saying much that educated tennis fans don’t already know. But what's unique about Toni Nadal as an uncle-coach is that he has access to the power of the familial bond—being in a sense free to inflict the intensity of his needs on his nephew, to infuse Rafa’s game with multiple generations worth of desire. Yet Rafa still has a psychological “way out” of the relationship. Even if his parents are at home on another continent, they provide Nadal with an emotional touchstone.

Furthermore, Toni acts as a mentor to Nadal in ways a father simply cannot. The term mentor originates with the ancient Greek character by the same name; “Mentor” was the wise and loyal advisor assigned to protect Odysseus’ son in Homer’s Odyssey. Modern psychological study has recently proved what Athena and the ancient Greeks knew all along: It’s important to have parents and mentors! There are lots of reasons for this, but a crucial one is that mentors help deflect the deadly heat of Oedipal competition. Competitive desires can be pretty scary to kids, particularly to remarkably gifted kids who might worry about outshining their parents. It doesn’t require much stretch of the imagination to picture Rafa as one of those kids.

You mentioned the term “Oedipal victory” in reference to Rafa’s relationship with his father Sebastian. Yes, you’re right, Oedipal victory can be understood as a father not blocking his son’s way. But it also has a darker side. If the son surpasses the father at too young an age, before he is truly prepared to take on the grown-up tasks that come with triumph, the victory will come back to haunt him. Even if this victory exists primarily in the mind of the child, it can be deeply disturbing. If you’re 12 years old and you’ve already “defeated” your father, who can possibly protect you from attack?

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that Toni Nadal, as Rafa’s mentor, functions as a guide, but also as a kind of displaced target for the ferocity of Rafa’s competitive drive—as a buffer for Rafa’s relationship with his father. In an illuminating passage in RAFA, a young Rafael is bereft over losing a tennis match he feels he ought to have won:

"On the way back home in the car I was deathly silent. My father, who’d never seen me so gloomy, tried to cheer me up. He said, “Come on. It’s not such a big deal. Don’t feel bad. You can’t always win.” I said nothing.… He insisted. “Come on, you’ve had a terrific summer. Why’s that not enough?” “Yes, Dad,” I replied, “but all the fun I had then can’t make up for the pain I’m feeling right now. I never want to feel this way again.” (p. 45)

Nadal goes on to say that his father retells that conversation to this day, and I can well imagine Sebastian Nadal, quietly driving along, wondering how the hell he got such a force of nature for a son. But because Toni Nadal is also so close to Rafa, yet not his father (and thus also not the root source of Rafa’s “deathly” Oedipal impulses), Toni is available to bear the brunt of Rafa’s competitive force.

So all this sounds pretty good, right? And it is. From a psychologists’ perspective, there’s a lot to like about the interdependent Rafa-Toni pairing. But where there are strengths, there are also struggles; which brings us to your superego question, Steve.

Yes, for better and for worse, Toni seems to function as a kind of looming superego enforcer for Rafa. One function of the super-ego is to protect the ego (the “self”) from pain at all costs. The young Rafa says, “all the fun I had then can’t make up for the pain I’m feeling right now. I never want to feel this way again…” Well, this is essentially a superego statement. The lesson is ‘discipline will prevent pain.’ Or rather, controlled self-inflicted pain protects against the uncontrollable pain of loss. And really, in tennis, this is true!

Toni reinforces this dictum with his insistence on humility at all costs. The message being, ‘A lack of humility will cost you everything.’ (I’d hazard a guess that thinking of himself as “the favorite” in a tournament might equate with “fun” in Rafa’s lexicon.) But before you feel too sorry for the hardworking Rafa, another task hyper-muscular superegos are really good at is cruelty. There is nothing like a dominant superego to teach a person the soul-killing power of subjugating another. RAFA tells us of a tennis training game Uncle Toni used to play with his nephew in which the first person to reach 20 points was the winner. Toni would let an excited young Rafa get all the way to 19 before stealing the game away from him. Sound familiar?

How many times have we seen Rafa play defense for 10, 12, 19 strokes, lulling his opponent into a false sense of safety, before breaking his competitor’s spirit with an off-the-back-foot wrist-snapping forehand pass? Superego tennis at its best.

But is it healthy? A healthy superego is psychologically protective. An overdeveloped one is self-destructive. Is what’s good for the tennis good for the man? This is a question only Rafael Nadal can answer, and probably will answer many different ways over many years time. Tennis careers are short, but the individuation process lasts a lifetime. For the rest of us, our opinions are likely say far more about our own questions and answers. But so far as Nadal’s tennis is concerned? Well, that speaks for itself.

Parisian Thoroughfares

Fri, 24 May 2013 20:56:00 -0400

A draw is a conversation starter, but it may be more valuable as a conversation killer. Once the men and women are locked in their brackets, we can leave behind the airy speculation about “favorites”—a meaningless word if you’re a player—and stop pondering the endless “what ifs” about who might play whom in what round. Now everyone has their path, and they must walk it. Or, if they can, slide it.

Who has the easy road, and who has the tough one to the Coupe des Mousquetaires in 2013? Let’s take a look at what awaits us over the next two weeks. (Draws are here.)

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First Quarter

The primary question on the men’s side, to my mind, concerns Novak Djokovic and his recent form. Will his early losses in Madrid and Rome, and his ongoing recovery from an ankle injury, carry over to Paris? Judging from his play over the last three years, it won’t: No matter what he’s done at the Masters events, Djokovic has reached the semifinals or better at the last 11 Grand Slams. Whether he continues that streak could decide who wins this French Open.

Djokovic has said that Roland Garros, which would complete his career Grand Slam, is his highest priority in 2013. He has also wanted to prove that he can knock off Rafael Nadal here since at least 2006. That year in Paris the two played the first of their 34 professional matches against each other. Nadal won, but afterward Djokovic stunned many by claiming that Rafa was “beatable” on clay—in this gentlemanly era, that was enough to put the stamp of brashness on Nole. Since then, Djokovic has proven himself correct by beating Nadal on clay in Monte Carlo, Madrid, and Rome; everywhere, that is, except Paris. Rafa is 4-0 in their head-to-head at Roland Garros, but Djokovic won his first set from him there in last year’s final. He also walked away believing that the experience of playing his first French final had helped him.

This year Djokovic and Nadal are scheduled to play in the semifinals. But each needs to win five matches first, and given Djokovic’s recent form, that’s not a lock for him. He has, relatively speaking, a difficult opener against Belgium’s David Goffin, a talented player who made his mark with his run to the fourth round here in 2012. It might not get any easier for Djokovic in the third round, where he could face Grigor Dimitrov, the Bulgarian who upset him in Madrid two weeks ago.

Theoretically, though, things should get better for Nole after that. He’s scheduled to play Philipp Kohlschreiber in the fourth round, and his countryman and whipping boy Janko Tipsarevic in the quarters. And there don’t appear to be many dangerous types in this section—Dolgopolov, Haas, Isner, and Youzhny are the other seeds. If trouble comes for Novak, it looks like it will come early. But if he makes it to the fourth round with his body intact, he becomes a co-favorite with Nadal to win the tournament.

Americans in Paris: Isner and Ryan Harrison. They could face each other in the second round.

Question Mark: Tommy Haas. The Ancient German is having a good year, but will he struggle with three-out-of-five on clay? He's been ill this week, and he lost in the first round in the year’s other major, in Australia.

First-round match to watch: Djokovic vs. Goffin. They’ve never played each other.

Nice to have you here: Bernard Tomic. He opens against Victor Hanescu.

Semifinalist: Djokovic

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Second Quarter

As of this morning, the second big question of this draw was: Where will the fourth-seeded Rafael Nadal land? Now we know he’s on Djokovic’s side. Does it make a difference if they play in the semis or the final? Probably not. Nadal does tend to raise his game for finals, and he did that in Rome and Madrid; but this match would have all the trappings of a final anyway. It’s possible that it could end up hurting the winner, who will have to go out and play another match two days later.

Nadal comes into the event in his usual excellent clay form. Rome in particular forced him to deal with very different opponents in Gulbis, Ferrer, Berdych, and Federer; Nadal improved as he went. He should also be in a good frame of mind. He already owns the all-time record for titles here, and whatever happens, he'll still have to be happy with his season thus far. Nadal opens against Germany’s Daniel Brands. The two have never played. On the one hand, Brands’ height—he’s 6-foot-5—and big serve might make him a tricky opponent; on the other hand, his one-handed backhand might not. Of more interest to most is Nadal’s possible third-round opponent, Lukas Rosol, though Rosol would have to beat 27th-seeded Fabio Fognini to get there.

Nadal’s presumed fourth-round and quarterfinal opponents are Kei Nishikori and Richard Gasquet, respectively. More intriguing, though, are the presences of Stan Wawrinka and Jerzy Janowicz, both of whom are on Gasquet’s side. Stan and JJ could play each other in the third round.

Also here: Benoit Paire, who opens against Marcos Baghdatis. How will the new French hope deal with that status when he plays in Paris, perhaps in Chatrier? There’s a chance Paire could play Rafa in the fourth round.

Semifinalist: Nadal

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Third Quarter

Is this David Ferrer’s shot, at long last? As the fourth seed this time, he has avoided his traditional quarterfinal against one of the Big 4. Even better, he has landed in the opposite half from Nadal and Djokovic. There is that little issue of his potential semifinal opponent, Roger Federer—Ferrer is 0-14 against the Fed—but why be so negative so early? For now, Ferrer, who lost to Nadal in the semis here last year, opens with Marinko Matosevic and has what looks to be a nice draw into the quarterfinals.

If everything goes as planned, his opponent there would be Tomas Berdych. Like Ferrer, the Czech should be thinking of this draw as an opportunity. Nadal and Djokovic are on the other side. Murray and the man who beat him here last year, del Potro, are out. While Berdych is just 3-7 against Ferrer for his career, he won’t mind him as far as potential quarterfinal opponents go. And if Berdych does make the semis, we know what he can do against Federer.

Unfortunately for the Berdman, he’s been handed a scary opening two rounds: A hot-hitting Gael Monfils in the first, and, most likely, Ernests Gulbis, the self-proclaimed most dangerous unseeded player in the tournament, in the second.

Question Mark: Xavier Malisse. Does he have what it takes to knock off a struggling, between-coaches Milos Raonic in the first round?

First-round match to watch: Berdych vs. Monfils

Potential second-round match to watch: Berdych vs. Gulbis

Player who could go out in the first round or make the final: Gulbis

Semifinalist: Ferrer

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Fourth Quarter

What a difference a few days can make. On Sunday, Roger Federer looked helpless against Rafael Nadal in Rome; today, as he scans the draw in Paris, things are suddenly looking up again. Federer will avoid playing either Nadal or Djokovic until the final, which means he could avoid Rafa, the one player he almost surely can’t beat in this draw, altogether. Instead, Federer is scheduled to play Ferrer in the semis, a player he has never lost to in 14 matches.

But Federer has to get there, right? There’s good news on that front as well. Federer will open against a qualifier, Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain—he's not a pushover, but he is ranked No. 166—and then get the winner of two other qualifiers in the second round. In the third, Federer may face Julien Benneteau, who beat him earlier this year in Rotterdam, but who has been slumping of late. Federer’s scheduled quarterfinal opponent, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, would certainly be challenge; Jo had match points on Djokovic here in 2012. But he also has to make it to the quarters. Tsonga lost to Janowicz early last week, and has said that he doesn’t feel especially confident at home on clay. Jo does have a decent draw this time, though; the next highest seed in his half is Marin Cilic.

Americans in Paris: James Blake, who plays Viktor Troicki in the first round, and Sam Querrey, who gets Lukas Lacko

First-round match that may or may not end: Gilles Simon vs. Lleyton Hewitt

Semifinalist: Federer

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Semifinals:

Nadal d. Djokovic: Nadal is the favorite to win the tournament, but he’s less of a favorite to beat Djokovic specifically—Novak won their last match on clay, in Monte Carlo, and we know his style troubles Rafa. Each will play five matches before they face each other, and we won’t know what their form will be until then. What we do know is that Nadal tends to get on a roll at Roland Garros.

Federer d. Ferrer: This could be the Spaniard’s moment, to finally make a Grand Slam final and finally beat Federer. But I can’t pick against the guy who is 14-0 in the head to head.

Final: Nadal d. Federer

A Roll Through Roland Garros?

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:05:00 -0400

Not so long ago, the introductions to my women’s Grand Slam previews all had two words in common: “wide open.” As late as the end of 2011, that’s how the WTA draws always felt. Things have changed in a hurry. Coming into Roland Garros in 2013, the top women are vying with the top men to see who can put a tighter stranglehold on their respective tour. Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, and Victoria Azarenka have collectively split the last five majors between them, and they’re the women to beat in Paris as well.

Actually, only one of them qualifies as a woman to beat this time around. Serena will enter this major with the rest of the draw fading fast in her rearview mirror, and that includes Maria and Vika—Serena dominated Sharapova in the Madrid final, and Azarenka this past weekend in Rome. Should the rest of the WTA even show up in Paris? Now that the brackets have been filled, let’s see if anyone stands a chance of tripping Serena up on her way to the coronation. (Draws are here.)

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First Quarter

Williams will open against 83rd-ranked Anna Tatishvili. The two have never played, and there’s no reason to expect a repeat of Serena’s first-round loss here last year Virginie Razzano—except that Razzano was ranked No. 111 at the time. Serena will be, needless to say, determined not to let that happen again. More interesting is a possible second-round match against France’s Caroline Garcia, who nearly upset Maria Sharapova in Paris in 2011. If that gets at all tight, the French crowd could become a factor, as they were in the Razzano match last year.

The closest seed to Serena is Roberta Vinci, an Italian slice queen who would at least give her a different look. A bigger-hitting threat could come from Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the Russian turned Parisian who has shown some progress since hiring Martina Hingis as her coach this year.

If her Grand Slam history is a guide, Williams will have a scare at some point over the next two weeks, a day when she won't be moving well or hitting crisply, when she'll be furious at herself for not playing her best. If and when that happens, her opponent will have a shot; we'll see if anyone can take it. Serena is obviously the best everywhere else, but she hasn't reached the semifinals in Paris since her infamous loss to Justine Henin, and her equally infamous hand, at Roland Garros in 2003.

Angelique Kerber is the top seed on the other side, though she’ll have her hands full in her opener, against fellow German Mona Barthel, the best unseeded player in the field. Kerber has had a see-saw year, but she likes clay, reached the quarters here in 2012, and does have a win over Serena, who was less than fully into their match in Cincinnati last summer. She’ll be fully into it if they play at Roland Garros.

Americans in Paris: Christina McHale, who starts against Jana Cepelova; Grace Min, who qualified and will face Galina Voskoboeva; Varvara Lepchencko, who play Mirjana Lucic-Baroni

First-round match to watch: Laura Robson vs. Caroline Wozniacki

Semifinalist: S. Williams

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Second Quarter

Agnieszka Radwanska is the top seed in this section, but she’s hardly an intimidating presence at the moment. Aga comes to Paris having lost in the first round in Madrid and Rome, and fighting lingering shoulder pain. Radwanska will start her longshot campaign off against Shahar Peer, and will play the winner between Mallory Burdette and Donna Vekic after that.

That means, for everyone else, this is the quarter to be in. Who can take advantage of the opportunity to make the semis? Sara Errani, the fifth seed, is the first choice. She reached the final here last year and was a semifinalist in Rome last week. On paper, her first test could come against Sabine Lisicki in the third round.

But there are other candidates. Carla Suarez Navarro is seeded 20th but loves clay and has done some damage this spring. Ana Ivanovic made the semis in Madrid and has won this tournament before. Venus Williams remains dangerous on any given day, but perhaps not for five of them; she plays the younger Radwanska, Urzsula, in the first round.

First-round match to watch: Suarez Navarro vs. Rome semifinalist Simona Halep

Americans in Paris: Madison Keys, who plays Misaki Doi; Shelby Rogers, who faces Irena Pavlovic

Also here: Virginie Razzano, currently ranked No. 178.

Semifinalist: Errani

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Third Quarter

As if Serena Williams needed any more good news, she found out today that she’ll only to have to beat one of her fellow members of the Top 3 to win the title. That’s because No. 3 Victoria Azarenka has landed in Maria Sharapova’s half.

That’s good news for Vika as well, and it only gets better when you look at who is with her in this quarter. Azarenka starts against Elena Vesnina—they’ve played four times and Vika has yet to drop a set—and the three seeds on her side are Cornet, Flipkens, and Bartoli. Azarenka is a heavy favorite to make the quarters.

If she does gets there, the seedings say that she’ll meet 2011 champion Li Na, though Li’s road may be a little more complicated. She opens against Anabel Medina Garrigues, who nearly beat Serena Williams two weeks ago in Madrid. In the second round, Li could face Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who has played well this spring. Li hasn’t been at her best lately; she was upset by Jelena Jankovic in Rome and run off the court by Keys in Madrid. It feels like a long time ago that Li reached the final of the last Grand Slam, in Australia. Yet she remains a threat.

Americans in Paris: Mattek-Sands, who plays Dominguez-Lino in the first round; Coco Vandeweghe, who plays Shvedova.

Semifinalist: Azarenka

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Fourth Quarter

And what about Maria? She’s the defending champion, yet few would give her much of a chance of succeeding in that defense.

But even when she hasn’t won Grand Slams in recent years, Sharapova has been reliable through the early rounds. She’s made the semis or better at four of the last five majors, and was an Olympic silver medalist. Her opener, against the eccentric, off-pace game of Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh, could be tricky. After that, though, the closest seed to Sharapova is No. 28 Tamira Paszek.

The highest-ranked player on the other side is No. 7 Petra Kvitova. She lost to Sharapova in the semis here last year, but her up-and-down game has mostly been down of late—the Czech went out early in Madrid and Rome. Kvitova starts against France’s Aravane Rezai.

Of more interest may be two potential dark horses that have landed in this section: No. 9 Sam Stosur and No. 18 Jelena Jankovic. Stosur reached the final in Paris in 2010, Jankovic is a three-time semifinalist, and each has shown signs of life on dirt this spring. But each also opens against a talented veteran: Stosur gets Kimiko Date-Krumm, while Jankovic plays Daniela Hantuchova.

Sleeper: 2012 quarterfinalist Dominika Cibulkova. She could play Sharapova in the fourth round, and has beaten Maria twice in the past.

Americans in Paris: Sloane Stephens (she plays Karin Knapp first); Jamie Hampton (vs. Safarova); Lauren Davis (vs. Mladenovic); Melanie Oudin (vs. Paszek); and Vania King (vs. Cadantu).

Semifinalist: Sharapova

*****

Semifinals:

Williams d. Errani: Serena is 5-0 against the Italian, and that shouldn’t change, even on clay.

Sharapova d. Azarenka: This one would be tough to call. Sharapova won their last match-up, in Istanbul last fall, and has won their two matches on clay. But Azarenka has won four of their last six overall, three of them with ease. I’ll take Maria to continue her good vibes in Paris, at least for one more day.

Final: S. Williams d. Sharapova

Speaking the Language

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:41:00 -0400

What was the most impressive aspect of Serena Williams’ win over Victoria Azarenka in the Rome final on Sunday? There were the big serves and the winning ground strokes, of course; few players have dominated their closest competition as thoroughly as the women’s No. 1 has this spring. But while her play was excellent, it was hardly a shock; we’ve been watching Serena hit and run circles around her opponents for 15 years now. It’s what she did afterward, in her victory speech, that surprised and impressed me the most: She spoke in Italian. According to most knowledgeable reports, it wasn’t perfect Italian; there may have been a few Spanish words that made their way in as well. But it was good enough to earn the appreciation of the trophy presenter, and the applause of the Roman audience. Whatever they thought of Serena's pronunciation, the effort alone from an American must have stunned them.

But that’s Serena, and to me that speech was one more indication of why she’s been so successful. She showed no fear, she embraced the challenge with a smile, and she didn’t seem at all concerned about failing. Take it from one of her typically unilingual countryman: It’s easier for me to imagine hitting my forehand as well as Serena than it is giving any kind of speech in a language other than English.

That's always been the Williams way. Whether it’s playing tennis or launching themselves into life in Europe, they tend not to recognize any limits to what they can do. Serena, who trains at the Mouratoglou Academy in Paris, has had an apartment in that city for years, can speak passable French, and has no problem using its bike-sharing plan to cycle her way through its chaotic streets. Venus, who is also a lifelong globe-trotter and a person of many interests, said last week that Rome is her favorite city (outside of her hometown in Florida). The sisters have a downright un-American attitude toward the world, in the best possible way.

It’s also an attitude that some of their male counterparts from the U.S. could do well to imitate. At the same time that I was watching Serena roll through Rome, I was reading updates from other American players about their own adventures in Europe. The men, as a whole, didn’t sound as content as Serena.

The last I heard, John Isner was beginning his first run through the entirety of The Sopranos, 14 years after its debut. In 2012, Isner’s promising season was undone by his disastrous spring trip to Europe. He complained then of the long, dull days on the road; a year later, he still seems to have a fair amount of time on his hands.

In another part of France, Ryan Harrison was taking pictures of the foul weather that greeted him there, pointing incredulously at the tiny cars on the cramped streets, and wondering how to eat the gigantic whole fish that was placed in front of him at a local restaurant. Harrison finished his fish tweet with the hashtag, #IsThisRealLife

Only Jack Sock sounded pleased to be in France, though that didn’t mean he had embraced the local food or culture. The Kansas native tweeted, with satisfaction, that his quest to find a Chipotle in Paris had proven successful. (I can’t really blame him. I myself once went to bed hungry in Paris because the only thing open at 1:00 A.M. was a McDonald’s, and I would rather have starved than eaten at a McDonald’s in Paris. I guess I can’t scold Sock for doing the more sensible thing and finding something he liked for lunch.)

With tennis players, struggling to savor life in Europe is a tradition dating back, at the very least, to Vitas Gerulaitis. Even as he was winning the Italian Open in the late 1970s, the brash Brooklynite still maintained that Rome was the “a--hole of the universe.” As a teenager, Gerulaitis's friend John McEnroe was fueled by pizza grease in London and Paris. In the early 90s, Andre Agassi pushed aside three-star French meals to go in search of Taco Bell. Pete Sampras portrayed his slog through the fall European indoor circuit in 1998, in a successful attempt to finish No. 1 for a record sixth straight year, as something akin to the seven labors of Hercules. Three years ago, Sam Querrey, after doing the full clay tour, was so fried by the time he lost in Paris that he bailed on the doubles with Isner and flew straight back to home sweet home in California.

The language barrier doesn’t help; most of us Statesiders can’t speak anything other than English. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the only U.S. man to win more than one title at Roland Garros in the last 50 years, Jim Courier, also developed a worldly spirit and learned to speak French. In the tennis sense, clay is the equivalent of a foreign language to us.

It could also be a function of this country’s exceptionalist psyche, which is well represented in athletics. Tennis is one of the few sports where Americans mix in on the same tour with the rest of the world. For the most part we play our games—U.S. football, basketball, baseball—while Europe and the world play theirs—soccer, cricket, rugby. Golf and race-car driving are international in theory, but each is divided into U.S. and European tours. In tennis, Americans are forced to take our place in the society of nations, to play on the same surfaces, to broaden our horizons, to live with everyone else on equal terms.

I’m not saying that visiting the Louvre or learning to say "Merci" is going to lead any of the American men to a French Open title anytime soon. Maybe, rather than Venus or Serena, a better role model for them is Jimmy Connors. Like his fellow ugly Americans, Jimbo hated Paris at first; after being banned from the French Open in 1974, he boycotted the event for four years. But Jimmy being Jimmy, a tennis lover and a cussed punk at heart, he returned in 1979 and reached the quarters or better every year until 1985. Connors says that he learned to love the atmosphere in Paris, where "the crowd was close to you, and you got down in the dirt and really battled.”

A couple weeks ago, Connors told me, “There was nothing more satisfying than grinding it out for four hours and beating a clay-courter on his surface”—that's a dirtballer’s mindset if ever there was one. I got the sense that, rather than going to Europe discouraged that he probably wasn’t going to win the tournament, Connors took pleasure in the process, in the novelty and challenge of the clay-court game, in the adventure that came with staying in Paris and trying to win one match at a time there. You don’t have to be Serena Williams, the No. 1 player in the world, to have that attitude.

Speaking of the sisters again, it should be noted that as African-Americans, they could be thought of as belonging to another American tradition. Successful black performers from the U.S.—artists, writers, jazz musicians—have often been more comfortable in Europe, and have ended up moving there. But I’d like to think that we could all learn from the Williamses’ self-confidence. And Serena has certainly not been a favorite at Roland Garros in the past. She was booed off the court there after losing to Justine Henin in 2003.

I look forward, this year or another year, to listening to Serena stun that same Parisian crowd by accepting their winner’s trophy with a few fearlessly imperfect words in French.

Tennis Talk with Steve Tignor

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:40:00 -0400

On Thursday, May 23 at 11 am EST, TENNIS.com senior writer Steve Tignor will take your questions about the upcoming French Open and anything else tennis.

Tennis Talk with Steve Tignor

The Rally: 2013 French Open

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:58:00 -0400

With the French Open just days away, senior writers Peter Bodo and Steve Tignor are here to give their thoughts on the tournament, in a back-and-forth exchange not dissimilar to the rallies you'll see in Paris. Check back throughout the day for updates; editor Ed McGrogan leads off the conversation.

MCGROGAN: I'm not sure if either of you realize it, but we're about halfway through the tennis calendar and at the midpoint of two very symmetrical seasons. In January, Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka, two relatively new entrants into their tours' uppermost echelons, rode their two-handed backhands to title defenses Down Under. But neither picked up another hard-court title in Indian Wells or Miami, and by the end of March, three of the four top men and the three top women each had a big tournament win under their belt. Then clay came, and one player from each tour has won pretty much everything in sight—I'm of course talking about Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. They are both massive favorites to cap off their dirt runs with a title on the terre battue.

Of course, many people think the season truly begins now, with three Grand Slam events to be contested in roughly the next three months. I think there's some merit to that, but regardless, who do you think needs a title at Roland Garros the most, across the sport? Will Nadal's comeback, amazing thus far, look different to you if he doesn't win the ultimate prize? Will the pressure begin to bubble over for Djokovic, who needs just a French Open to complete the career Slam, if he fails to back up another clay Masters win over Rafa in Paris? What about Serena, who inexplicably went out in round one last year? There's certainly pressure on her to perform. Is it someone like Azarenka or Maria Sharapova, needing to escape Serena's shadow, or an outsider like David Ferrer, who's playing at his peak? Or Roger Federer, just to shut everyone up about his demise?

BODO: That’s an interesting analysis, Eddie, and the way Djokovic and Azarenka were caught and then surpassed in recent weeks shows just how much parity there is in today’s game. I want to get back to that and pose a question to Steve on the subject, but let me answer your direct question first.

The player who most needs this title is Sharapova—far and away. And that’s especially true if form holds and she faces Serena in the final. You just know what pundits and astute fans will say if Serena crushes Maria in yet another big match, running her winning streak to 13 matches, dating back to 2004.

It may already too late to revise the judgment that the Russian was a placeholder number one and Grand Slam champion, as incapable of beating Williams as the WTA journeywomen are of beating Sharapova. It’s truly bizarre that there’s such a huge gap between Sharapova and Williams. Their matches haven’t even been competitive.

On the men’s side, the guy who needs this most is a Frenchman—any Frenchman—while the guy who could most use the title (there’s a big difference there) is Federer. Let’s focus on the French for a moment. They’ve established themselves as perhaps the most diverse—and diversely talented—national block of players. They’ve had numerous Top 10-level players in recent years, going way back to the Cedric Pioline/Sebastian Grosjean era. Yet none of them have even had a whiff of their native title. Imagine if England had produced a dozen Tim Henmans instead of just one, and they had comparable lack of success at Wimbledon (where Henman played above his head consistently). It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

Now let me pose my question for Steve: Don’t you find it interesting that despite the growing similarity in the playing properties of the surfaces, players seem to be carving out fiefdoms based on surfaces (e.g. Nadal on clay, Djokovic on hard courts)? Does that tell us something about the surfaces, or is it that we’re entering an era in which tennis has grown so popular and remunerative that we’ll regularly have four or five players—both WTA and ATP—content to divvy up the spoils, feeling no real pressure to dominate on a 10-month basis? And is that good for the game?

TIGNOR: Hey Pete, let me take a crack at Ed's original question in this back and forth before I get to yours about surface fiefdoms. I think the player who "needs" this French Open the most is Serena Williams—I put that word in quotes because it's hard to say anyone needs any Grand Slam title when there's another one coming two weeks later. But Serena would suffer if she didn't win this one. She was the favorite last year and went out in the first round; she's an even bigger favorite this year, and you have to think that if she just plays at 80 percent of her best throughout she'll still win the tournament. All of which means that there will be sky-high expectations—from the outside, from all of us who have called her a virtual shoe-in, and from the inside as well. Last year Serena came to Roland Garros on a similar roll, but she got tight in the first round in Paris when she suddenly didn't find herself playing as well as she had been. Serena has always had a reputation as the ultimate competitor, someone who doesn't succumb to the doubts that the rest of us do. If she loses here again, after crushing Maria and Vika the last two weeks, it will look as if the pressure got to her.

Pete, you mention that the surfaces have been divvied up, at least on the men's side. It's true that, going by this season, Novak is at his best on hard courts and Rafa is still the king of clay. But if you take the long view, to me this is still an all-surface era on the men's side compared to the past. Federer and Nadal are two of only four men since 1968 to own career Grand Slams, and Djokovic is threatening to become the fifth. Nadal just lost to Djokovic in Monte Carlo, and Federer made the final in Rome. And while Federer has been second-fiddle to Nadal on clay over the years, he's also reached five French Open finals, compared to zero by Pete Sampras.

Do you think the players could become content to divvy up the spoils and carve out their own niches? I can't say that I see that—Djokovic, Serena, and Maria have all made intensive efforts to win at Roland Garros, on their least-favorite surface. It may be true of Rafa and Federer out of necessity. Each will have to do what they need to do, schedule-wise, to stay healthy and play their best at the big tournaments—Rafa because of his knees, Federer because of his age.

But back to this year's French for a minute; I know you're getting ready to head over there, Pete. I think we can agree that, as the tournament begins, Nadal is the favorite to win the event on the men's side. But if he were to play Djokovic in the semis or the final, who do you think would be the favorite in that match? I don't think Rafa is the overwhelming choice then. Do you?

BODO: Steve, I think Rafa is actually in the boat that you put Serena in above, and let me first explain why I don’t think she belongs there. At this stage of her career, I think Serena is bulletproof. She’s 31, and by consensus on the short-list for greatest female player of all time.

In some ways, Serena is the WTA version of Lew Hoad—the Aussie icon who doesn’t have quite the same record as some of his rivals (partly because he was forced to retire prematurely because of a bad back). Legions who saw him play, including that ultimate chorus of his countrymen and peers, say that at his best, Hoad’s power was such that he was well-nigh unbeatable (those who don’t share that opinion tend to say the same of Pancho Gonzalez). That’s said of Serena too, and she’s been far more prolific than Hoad—and is still at it. She may not catch the five women who have more than her number of Grand Slam titles (15), but the testimony of her generation counts.

The long and short of it, though, is that to me Serena is already beyond judgment—as is Roger Federer. It’s all gravy now. And a part of me wishes that they just stopped keeping records when players pass 30, because apart from the chance that they’ll do something spectacular and unexpected, they get mostly punished for having the devotion, game, and physical gifts for extending their careers to the maximum. I mean, does anyone really think that the results between Rafa and Roger going forward will be as meaningful as they were back when both men were at their physical peak?

As for Rafa, he’s just about to turn 27. He’s coming off a long layoff, which presumably had benefits other than those that applied strictly to his knees. He’s demonstrated that those knees are working just fine—at least for the moment. Which brings Rafa right back to where we left off last July at Wimbledon, where he was still trying to solve his nasty Djokovic problem. That could mean big trouble at Roland Garros.

Djokovic simply isn’t as intimidated as others by Rafa, and he’s not dragged nearly as far out of his comfort zone when they play. And some elements in Djokovic’s game reinforce and justify the psychological comfort he seems to feel. His superb backhand tends to neutralize the advantage Nadal has over most players simply by virtue of being left-handed and, frankly, Rafa’s good-but-not-great serve is less of a threat to Djokovic than to most because of the Serb’s returning skill. It just seems that there are special playing-field levelers at play in the match-up—just as there are a number in Rafa’s favor in his mastery of Federer.

On top of that, the pressure certainly will be on Rafa. I mean, just look at the degree to which he’s dominating the early discussions and handicapping! There were some very shaky moments from both men when they met in last year’s final at Roland Garros, and my gut tells me that Rafa may have more trouble dealing with them this year. So let me ask you, do you think these “mental” or “emotional” factors are over-estimated in our coverage of these games and players?

TIGNOR: You mean, do we overplay the pressure that a player might feel? Or do we overplay the idea that another player might be someone's head? Or both?

I'm not sure the mental aspect of tennis can be overplayed—even the greatest champions, after all they've achieved, get nervous and choke. But we can definitely misinterpret, overestimate, or underestimate how much of an effect it has on a player on a given day. Players can tighten up or melt down when you least expect it, and confidence can wax and wane from one set to the next against anyone. Take for example Djokovic vs. Berdych last week in Rome. When Novak was up a set and 5-2, who would have thought that it was remotely possible that he would let that lead go, against a guy he was 13-1 against in his career?

And I do think—and know, from experience both good and bad—that players can get in other players' heads. Nadal admitted it as much about Djokovic last year. Coming into the French final, Rafa had been utterly dominant for two weeks, and he had won his two matches against Djokovic on clay that spring. Yet he still struggled to get past him in the championship round that mattered. Losing four straight Slam finals to the same guy, including one where you were up 4-2 in the fifth set in Melbourne, will do that to you.

How about if they play this year? I think you're right to say that Djokovic presents a special case and special problem for Rafa, both from a technical and a psychological point of view. Nadal exorcised the Djokovic demon in 2012, but it reappeared in Monte Carlo this spring. In the final there, when Djokovic came out firing early, Rafa seemed to lose belief, even on clay—it felt like 2011 all over again. This year, instead of coming to Paris 2-0 on clay against Djokovic, Nadal comes in 0-1. If the two of them played the Roland Garros final today, I would make Nadal the favorite, but not a huge favorite, and a Djokovic win wouldn't surprise me.

They'll play five or six matches before they would meet in Paris, and a lot can happen in that time as far as expectations go. I think back to Wimbledon in 2011, when Nadal had just won the French, and Djokovic had suffered that deflating defeat to Federer in the semis in Paris. It seemed to many of us, including me, that Nadal had the momentum going into the final, but Djokovic stopped him in his tracks. I know this is clay, not grass, but Djokovic has the best game for Rafa on any surface.

As for Serena, there's no question she's going to go down as a legend and a warrior and an all-time champion no matter what happens at the French Open; like I said, there's another major, her favorite, coming right up, and she can make us forget about Paris in a hurry with a win at Wimbledon. But I also think Serena believes she should end her career with more than just one title at Roland Garros. She said she was crushed by last year's loss here to Virginie Razzano, which came after she had experienced a clay renaissance in the spring. A win this time would put that Razzano defeat behind her, to some degree. A loss—and, let's say, for a kicker, another title run by Sharapova—would hurt.

With regards to Federer, I understand that as champions age, their head-to-heads with rivals can get precipitously, and meaninglessly, worse. Jimmy Connors lost his last 17 matches to Ivan Lendl, but that doesn't mean he was a lesser player than Lendl overall. And after Rome, it does seem like the chances of Federer even competing with Nadal on clay again are slim. But I don't think we can start to downgrade his losses to Rafa just yet. Federer beat Nadal in straights at Indian Wells last year, he's the defending Wimbledon champ, he was a set from the Aussie Open final this year, and he finished 2012 at No. 2 in the world. If, later this year, Nadal shreds him on an indoor hard court the same way he did in Rome, then things might begin to look different to me.

Thinking of the draw now, Pete, could things work in Federer's favor in Paris? Andy Murray has withdrawn, which means that the top four seeds will be Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, and Ferrer. It's possible that Djokovic could play Rafa in one semi, and Federer could play Ferrer in the other. That's not a bad set-up for Rog, who has never lost to Ferrer.

We know who won the last time Nadal lost in Paris.

BODO: That’s a great question Steve, regarding Murray’s withdrawal in Paris. My feeling is that it’s a real shame he’s out of action; this is a real playing-field “unleveler” as far as the four seeds go. As much as I admire Ferrer for his doggedness, his inability to really take it up a notch, probably mentally more than physically, somewhat dampens my enthusiasm. It’s easy to respect the workmanlike but difficult to love.

But in all fairness, let’s look at this as a potentially great opportunity not for Federer, who’s not exactly the first person who pops to mind when you list people who can use a leg up, but for. . . Ferrer. I mean, which of the top three guys would you want to face in the semis if you were Ferrer? And should a Federer vs. Ferrer semi be in the offing, the motivation for Ferrer ought to be off the charts. Let’s remember, he’s 31; time is running out. He’s terrific on clay. He’s never been in a Grand Slam final. This is a career moment waiting to happen, and while I don’t much like his chances against Nadal (good picadors all know who the matador is), I think the lapses Djokovic has shown now and then throughout the clay season can be exploited by a guy as steady as Ferrer.

I freely admit that this scenario—a Ferrer win at Roland Garros—may seem implausible, but that’s only because we’ve been so conditioned in recent years by the dominant nature of the three top players. A part of me feels that the dam has to break at some point, the forces and stresses just continue to build, and let’s face it, nobody is rolling into Roland Garros with clear superiority over his rivals.

For Djokovic, I think his recent lapses, and perhaps even his state of fitness (ankle) could become an issue. For Nadal, I sometimes think the dramatic way he’s approached and spoken of his comeback almost makes him a little vulnerable emotionally.

Rafa will face a lot of pressure in his drive to win a mind-boggling eighth title, and nothing, not even his facility on clay, lasts forever. At some point, this attitude he projects—that he can’t believe he’s that much better than everyone else—could come back and haunt him. And then there’s Federer—we’ll see if his decision to cut back on his tournaments and more or less focus on the majors leaves him well-prepared to face all the eventualities.

In some ways, the climate is very different from the conditions over on the WTA side, so let me ask you this: Do you think there’s a greater chance that the top three men will survive to make semis than there is that their WTA counterparts—Williams, Sharapova, and Azarenka—will pull that off? And are we more likely to see headline-generating upsets on the WTA or ATP side? I have a gut feeling that this will be a more exciting tournament than it has been in years past, but that’s just a feeling, not a well-thought out conviction.

TIGNOR: The Picador: Do I hear a new nickname for David Ferrer being born as we speak? I like it; beats Little Beast, anyway. Though I'm not sure Ferru himself would cotton to it.

You're right, though, if Ferrer goes into Federer's half, that's an opportunity for the Spaniard. Still, it would be even nicer for Ferrer if someone else knocked Federer off for him. Federer is 14-0 in their head-to-head, and he has dropped just three sets in those 14 matches; he's also 5-0 on clay. Maybe Ferrer should hope he lands in Djokovic's half instead. He has beaten Nole in the past, and if Djokovic is shaky, he could be the man to grind him down and send him around the bend. Either way, I'm hoping, for logic's sake, that Djokovic and Nadal avoid each other in the semifinals. If they face off, it should for the title.

To answer your question, as strong as the Top 3 women have been over the last year and a half, I would still bet on more of the Top 3 men reaching the semifinals. Nadal is the King of Paris, Djokovic hasn't lost before the semis of a Grand Slam since 2010, and Federer, whatever his recent struggles, is still a regular in the late rounds at majors. On the women's side, I think that if Serena is going to lose, it will be earlier rather than later; she hasn't made a semi in Paris in a decade. Azarenka, based on past results here, is even less of a lock—she's been to the quarters at Roland Garros twice, but no farther. That said, I'll probably pick all six of them to survive until the semis.

I'll finish with what I think are the two most important questions coming to Paris, one for each draw:

Djokovic has suffered upsets in his last two clay tournaments, and he has had ankle issues this spring. But will those struggles carry over to Roland Garros? Recent history says no. As I just wrote, whatever else has happened to Djokovic over the last two-and-a-half years, he has put it aside and reached the semis or better at the last 11 Grand Slams. If that continues, and he's still around on the second Friday in Paris, Djokovic will have a very good shot at winning this tournament, because we know he can beat Nadal on clay.

On the women's side, I don't see Serena losing in the semifinals or the final, or to Sharapova or Azarenka. She has crushed those two this spring. But she hasn't been at her best in every match, either. In the semis in Madrid, Serena was listless enough to nearly lose to Anabel Medina Garrigues. I don't think we'll see that kind of performance from her, exactly, but she's had her bad days in the middle of majors before, for no apparent reason—in fact, it's something of a tradition with Serena, in particular at Roland Garros. We know she can put a beat down on anyone, but can Serena win seven straight matches at Roland Garros? She hasn't won five in a row there since 2003.

I know Paris isn't your favorite city, Pete, but I hope the tournament is a good one for you. Like you said, we have two big favorites, but there's also reason to believe that we could be in for a few surprises.

Have a question of your own? Ask Steve on Thursday at 11 am EST, and Pete at 4 pm EST.

Inside Story

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:22:00 -0400

It’s been hard to miss Jimmy Connors over the past week in New York City. He’s made pit stops at The Today Show, Mike and Mike, CenterStage, Hannity, and Charlie Rose, among, I assume, many others. He’s been written about in the Daily News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, along with just about every other outlet in the country. And anyone who happened to walk past the restaurant in the Peninsula Hotel at the corner 55th and 5th in Manhattan would likely have caught a glimpse of him there, ensconced at one of the tables up front, answering one question after another. Jimbo always did say he liked to grind.

I caught up with Connors at the start of this particular five-set marathon at the Peninsula. He was there, of course, to promote his new autobiography, The Outsider, but he didn’t look out of place among the spiffy tourists and businessman sipping $20 gin and tonics. Connors was in a dark blue suit himself, and while his hair was edged with gray, none of it was out of place. Listening to him quietly answer questions that he must have been asked 10 times already that day, it was hard to imagine that this was the same man who, 20-odd years ago, had gyrated his way to the semifinals of the U.S. Open in short-shorts at age 39, and held this city in his grip while he did it.

That’s one reason Connors says he’s doing this book now, two decades after his retirement and well after much younger tennis stars, such as Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, and even Rafael Nadal, have put their lives on paper.

“It’s been long enough,” Connors says. “I have some perspective on my tennis career, and I saw it a little differently than I did when I was in the thick of it. It was hard to give up playing, and I kept at it [on the senior tour] until the end of the '90s. But now I can look at it as a whole.”

Connors, like most athletes, has never been known as an introspective type, or one prone to revealing every detail of his life. His beloved grandmother, Bertha Thompson—known to Jimbo as Two-Mom—once told him, “Keep a little mystery about yourself,” and Connors says he lived by those words his entire life.

“It was hard work doing this, remembering everything, digging everything up,” Connors admits. “It’s amazing what comes back to you; some things you wish wouldn’t have come back to you.”

When I ask if there are any misconceptions about him that he wanted to clear up, Connors fixes his eyes on me. I flash back to the bug-eyed way he stared across the net as he destroyed Bjorn Borg in the 1978 U.S. Open final. Is he going to treat me the way he treated the tennis ball in that match?

“Read the book,” he says. Next question.

I have read the book, and I can say that it's worth the time of any tennis fan, especially any fan of the game's Wild West 1970s and early 80s. It’s also not exactly what I expected. Connors says “it’s not a tennis book,” and I can see what he means. Written with his long-time friend Casey DeFranco, The Outsider glosses over many of his familiar on-court triumphs fairly quickly—one of his most definitive, his run to the title at the first U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, in '78, is covered in a couple of paragraphs. What we get more of is Connors’ off-court life, his relationships with his mother, his grandparents, his older brother Johnny (you might describe him as a tennis version of presidential brothers like Billy Carter or Roger Clinton), his coach Pancho Segura, his wife, Patti, and their struggles through the years, as well as his early relationship with Chris Evert.

That last story is what made The Outsider a source of controversy well before its May 14 release. Connors says that he didn’t want to hold anything back; unfortunately, that included the previously unknown fact that a very young Evert had an abortion while they were engaged, and that it contributed to their break-up. From Connors’ perspective, the revelation might seem justified on the grounds that it was a major event in his life. But it was unfair to Evert, who has been blindsided and hurt by the episode. Connors claims that he has talked to Chris since, but declines to say anything more about the conversation.

While that revelation comes at her expense, Connors does confess his share of his own sins and embarrassments. The book reads much like the memoir of that hotheaded Irish-American star of the Open era, John McEnroe. Like virtually every star athlete, Jimmy and Mac both achieve unexpected youthful glory, and then spend the rest of their story confronting the indignities of physical decline and the frightening sense of aimlessness that greets them when they retire. Jimbo admits that he has OCD, though it wasn’t diagnosed until he was in his 30s. He talks about the arrogance that led him to cheat on his wife and briefly leave her and their son, Brett, in the early 1980s. He owns up to an “out of control” gambling addiction. In 1992, he successfully placed a million-dollar bet on himself in his Battle of the Sexes match with Martina Navratilova in Las Vegas. Later he would, as he says, “piss away” an untold fortune on sports betting, until Patti finally staged an intervention and sent him to Gambler’s Anonymous.

Through all of this, Jimbo’s attitude alternates between defiance and, again like McEnroe, a surprising vulnerability—the mask of bravado that he wore as a player is often dropped, sometimes to his own chagrin. After describing the end of one relationship, Connors reflects, “Looking back at it now, I wonder why all the women I broke up with took the news so easily.” Connors talks with real warmth about his long-running friendship with bad-boy mentor Ilie Nastase. “God tennis was fun back then,” Jimbo suddenly gushes, in a poignant burst of nostalgia for the old days, his own youthful days, as he thinks back to one of Nasty’s nastier moments at Forest Hills.

“This is a great era,” Connors tells me when I ask what he thinks of the game today, “but every era has had great champions. There’s not much individuality now. When I played, everyone seemed to have their own game and personality, and I don’t think that’s as true now.”

What is true, thinking back on watching Jimmy in his prime, was that there was a connection, an electric current, that he could establish with an audience, with an entire stadium—sometimes the crowd loved him, sometimes it hated him, but people were caught up in the match when Connors played. I don’t think I’ve seen that, in quite the same way, with any player since.

"How do you get more people to like tennis? That's the question I always had in mind when I played," Connors says. "Back then, we couldn't take for granted that there was going to be an audience for it."

The book comes with some emotional highs and lows, one of which is Jimbo’s unabashed love for the pet dogs that have been his “shrinks” in his retirement. Most moving, though, is his recollection of the death of his grandmother, Bertha, of a heart attack, just as his career was about to take off in 1972.

“How could Two-Mom, the woman who had done so much for me, who had made me laugh, chased after my stray tennis balls, cooked and cleaned for me, treated me to ice cream and soda—how could she not be here anymore? How was it possible that she would never see me walk onto Centre Court at Wimbledon, play for my country, win the U.S. Open five times, or any of the things we had dreamed about together? She would never know what became of me....We’d been through so much hard work together and now, just as things were starting to get good, she had left us.”

Connors can be coarse and self-justifying, he wasn't kind to Evert, and, like most tennis players, he’s focused on his own needs and problems. But he’s also someone I liked by the end of this book’s 400 pages.

*****

(A side note: There’s at least one name that Connors doesn’t divulge. It’s that of a journalist who, according to Jimmy, wrote that he saw Connors doing coke while on-court at Wimbledon in 1980. “That guy’s a dishonest pr--k and he knows who he is,” Jimmy concludes in his book.

That supposedly dishonest so-and-so is my colleague, Peter Bodo. In his 1994 book on the pro tour, The Courts of Babylon, Pete wrote that he had, briefly, wondered whether Connors might be snorting cocaine out of a towel on Court 3 at Wimbledon in 1980. But when he asked one of Connors’ cronies about it, the man scoffed and said that “Jimmy would never fool around with that dope.”

The point Pete was trying to make was that he had realized how ridiculous it had been to think that Connors would join that era’s vogue for coke, and that under the cocky bad-boy image lurked the heart of a midwestern straight-arrow. Jimbo, obviously, never read it that way.)

When I finished The Outsider, I felt like I had learned a lot about what had happened to Jimmy Connors over the court of his life, from his point of view. But I also felt like some of what I knew, the myth of Jimbo, the reason he had been a rebel icon in the first place, was missing. He had, as I said, sped past some of his defining moments as a player. And he had debunked at least one legend from his life:

The story goes that, rather than walk in Wimbledon’s centenary parade of champions in 1977, Connors had snubbed the All England Club and the Duke of Kent by practicing on an outside court with Nastase as the ceremony was taking place. It made him persona non grata at the club, but also something of a punk hero on the streets of London. It turns out, as Connors writes here, that the real reason he had missed the ceremony wasn't because he was making a punk gesture. Rather, he had an injured thumb, had needed to see a doctor about it that afternoon, and had tried his best to make it to Centre Court, only to be shut out at the gate at the last second.

Frankly, I liked the story better when it was a thumb in All England’s eye, rather than an injured thumb. And I wondered: Which is the more meaningful life, the factually correct and occasionally banal one that Connors tells here? Or the fan’s version, the one where Jimbo is a rebel through and through, sticking it to the tennis establishment? That particular fan’s story was told by Joel Drucker a few years ago in his memoir, Jimmy Connors Saved My Life. To Drucker, Connors was the man who showed him that caring about things, fighting for things, and putting yourself on the line was more rewarding than playing it cool. He found meaning in Connors, and a myth that Jimbo himself probably can’t believe, because he knows his own story too well.

The two tales, the star’s and the fan’s, are different, but for the purposes of everyone not named James Scott Connors, they’re equally real and equally valid. We’ve had the myth for decades. It’s good, finally, to hear from the man.

Rome: Nadal d. Federer

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:00:00 -0400

In my preview of the Rome men’s final yesterday, I made a wish that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer would pick up where they left off here in 2006, when they staged a classic five-set final at the Foro. That wish came true for one of them, anyway.

Nadal has long dominated Federer on clay; their career head-to-head is now 13-2 on the surface. But rarely have their matches been as one-sided as this one—Nadal was as good today as Federer was bad. Rafa, hitting with power and confidence from both sides throughout, went to Federer’s backhand to open up his forehand, then went to his forehand to open up his backhand. The ball never seemed to be in Federer’s strike zone; if he wasn’t struggling to get on top of its high-bouncing topspin, he was lunging to catch up to its bending sidespin. Nadal typically beats Federer by pounding his backhand relentlessly, but once he grabbed the lead today he felt free to mix up his locations and use the whole court. And that included his serve. Nadal varied his targets and hit his spots, putting the ball on Federer’s forehand hip on one point, and then bending it sharply wide on the next. He used the latter serve to save the only break point of consequence, at 0-0 in the second set, that he faced all afternoon.

As Federer said after the 6-1, 6-3 rout, it wasn’t his day. That started to become painfully obvious in the third game, when he couldn’t get all the way around Nadal’s hooking spins to hit his forehand. Federer ended up flipping two of them long and was broken. The floodgates opened from there, as Federer shanked his way through the rest of the first set. If there’s a stat line that tells the story of this match, it’s the unforced errors: Federer made 32, Nadal made eight. Federer also never found the first serve he needed to pressure Rafa; he made just 57 percent of them on the day. As the match progressed, Federer tried to move forward, but he wound up lunging hopelessly at the net as well—he won just nine of 19 points up there. In the first game of the second set, Federer went up 0-30 on Rafa’s serve, but he dumped a makable backhand volley into the net and Rafa ended up holding. There would be no turning points in this match. Fedal XXX was over in 69 minutes, and won't linger long in the game's historical memory.

Nadal improved through the week, and as he did in Madrid, he saved his best tennis for the final. This is Rafa’s seventh title in Rome, and he has won six of the eight tournaments he’s entered since returning to the tour in February. He’s No. 1 in the Race to London, and has, at long last, wrestled the No. 4 seed at Roland Garros away from David Ferrer. But Rafa is hardly the fourth-favorite to win the title there. With Novak Djokovic struggling the last two weeks, Andy Murray contemplating his back, and Federer clearly still a step (or two, or three) behind him on clay, Nadal will go to Paris as the man to beat once again.

Rome: S. Williams d. Azarenka

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:40:00 -0400

At 31 years old, Serena Williams seems to have decided that she has no time left for rivals. Last week she beat world No. 2 Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-4 in the final in Madrid. This week she beat world No. 3 Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 6-3 in the final in Rome. She’ll go to Paris next week with the rest of the women’s field barely visible in the rearview mirror.

Serena set the tone right away in this one by breaking Vika in a long opening service game. Azarenka was under immediate pressure, and she began to press. With a break point in the second game, she jumped at a forehand and drilled it in the net. At the same time, Serena was showing off the clay chops that had made her so casually dominant all week: She was sliding, she was retrieving, she was hitting penetrating shots while she was on the run. Her most effective play today was pushing Azarenka outside the sidelines with her cross-court forehand, and following that with a backhand winner into the open court. Serena made this play look absurdly easy, against an opponent who is the aggressor in the majority of her matches. Williams won 74 points on the match, an astonishing 41 of them with winners. And she did it on what for her was an off serving day; Serena made just 59 percent of her first serves—though nine of them went for aces.

You could argue that this one was closer than the score indicated. Many of the games went to deuce, the match lasted for more than an hour and a half, and Azarenka mixed things up enough in the second set—charging forward, trying the drop shot—to briefly get back into it. When Vika came back from 1-4 to 3-4, Serena was nervous enough to hit a very tight backhand return into the net at break point. But Azarenka shot her own comeback in the foot by double faulting on the next break point to go down 3-5. There would be, almost literally, no more returns for Vika from there: Serena hit two aces and a backhand winner to close out the match with a fist-pump and a “Come on!” From the score to the rallies themselves, it was too much of an uphill climb for Azarenka to get back into this one.

Last year, Serena went to Paris as the clear favorite. This year it’s even clearer; few players have ever distanced themselves from their closest “rivals” the way she has at the moment—maybe we should just call the other top WTA players, “opponents closest to Serena in the rankings.” She melted down in the first round at Roland Garros in 2012, and it’s possible that the weight of expectations will weigh on her again in 2013. But after losing just 14 games in five matches at the Foro Italico, and showing off her new mastery of a surface she never loved in the past, no one can take Rome away from her.

The Classico Returns to the Foro

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:02:00 -0400

There’s a cinematic theme to Sunday’s Rome final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. It’s their 30th career meeting, which, if we’re naming it Super Bowl style, would make this the XXX edition of their rivalry—however it turns out, I doubt it will be as scandalous as that sounds. It’s also the long-delayed sequel to the epic five-set final they staged here in 2006, which was the second-best of their 29 meetings, and the second-best match played by anyone in the last 10 years. (See the highlights at the bottom of this post.)

Can Rafa and Fed top the Rumble in Rome all of these years later? That’s doubtful. They’ll only play two-out-of-three tomorrow; ironically, that’s a direct result of the ’06 match, which forced both players to pull out of the tournament that followed in Hamburg, and led the ATP to downsize all Masters finals starting the next year.

But I’m thinking this could be a worthy follow-up, whatever its length. Nadal, as he was then, still rules the clay universe, but Federer has yet to drop a set in Rome this week. And while he did lose to Rafa here seven years ago, Federer had two match points.

The last time these two played, in Indian Wells in March, Nadal and Federer described their rivalry the same way: “classic.” Here are four things to consider as we watch its next chapter unfold.

*****

Form

Nadal will be playing in his eighth straight final, which is a career record for him; he has reached the final of every tournament since returning to the tour in February—not bad as far as comebacks go. As for Federer, he seems to have recovered from his own two-month layoff nicely.

Federer hasn’t lost a set, but he also hasn’t played anyone in the Top 10. Rafa has dropped one each to Ernests Gulbis and No. 4 David Ferrer, but he knocked off No. 6 Tomas Berdych in straights, and has looked better with each match. Federer has gone in the other direction. He played his best earlier in the week, but he wasn’t razor sharp against Benoit Paire in the semis on Saturday. Federer struggled with his forehand for stretches and didn’t serve as well as he did against Jerzy Janowicz the previous evening. He’ll obviously need to have a big serving day against Nadal, and avoid any extended forehand shank sessions.

*****

History

The past, as we know, favors Nadal. He’s 19-10 overall against Federer, and 12-2 on clay. He also won their last meeting, on hard courts, in Indian Wells 6-3, 6-4, though Federer was clearly hindered by a bad back that day. Is there anything, from an historical perspective between these two, that might give Federer hope? As I wrote above, he did have match points when they played on this court in ’06, and he does have those two wins on clay.

The standard template between these two is that Nadal uses his forehand to wear down Federer's backhand and take away his belief. It doesn't help that Federer has traditionally not played his best, most confident tennis against Rafa, especially on clay. Part of that is mental; he misses shots that he doesn't miss against other players. But it hasn't always worked that way. In the Madrid final in ’09, Federer escaped the usual losing dynamic and won with a mix of targeted aggression and well-timed drop shots, and he broke free long enough to roll to a 6-0 third set win over Rafa in Hamburg in ’07. Federer knows that an intelligent, varied offensive attack two sets can be rewarded against Nadal on clay, and that he only has to sustain for it two sets tomorrow.

On the other hand, the last two times these two played on dirt, in Madrid and Paris in 2011, Federer won the first set but couldn't sustain his winning level for another. Rafa, who has weathered his share of early storms from Federer in the past, won both matches.

*****

Motivation

Coming into this tournament, I would have given the check to Rafa here. As the week began, many were looking ahead to a semifinal between Nadal and Novak Djokovic. This would have been the last time that the 2012 Roland Garros finalists, and presumed 2013 favorites, would have faced each other before Paris. Getting an edge of Novak, and locking up the No. 4 seed for the French, were big opportunities for Rafa this week. The latter still is—with a win on Sunday, he’ll be safely back in the Top 4, and he’ll go to France as the favorite again.

When he arrived in Rome, Federer’s primary motivation might have been to get in some much-needed matches before Paris—he had played all of two since March. But now he has a chance to do something rare for him: Win a title for the first time. That it would come at the hands of the man who denied him here in 2006 would make it all the more sweetly satisfying.

Beyond that, with Andy Murray’s attendance in Paris in question, and Novak Djokovic suffering surprise losses in Madrid and Rome, Federer has to think that his chances for a second French title have improved dramatically in the last few days. A strong showing here would make him a serious contender again.

*****

Meaning

This won’t have the tension of a Grand Slam final, but it should have more edge, and be more competitive, than their never-in-doubt quarterfinal in Indian Wells. Style is paramount in Rome, and the Romans have always love Federer’s; they’ll be rooting hard for him to finally win their tournament, the same way they did in 2002 when a 32-year-old Andre Agassi won his first title there. But I don’t expect Parisian-style viciousness, either. It should be one of the best atmospheres of the year, and a tennis celebration above all.

Before Federer and Nadal play these days, we’re always told that we should enjoy it, that we won’t see too many more matches between them. Federer is over 30, Nadal’s knees are deteriorating, the sky is falling, and tennis will soon be dying. But this is already the second time they’ve faced each other in last two months, and in their current form there’s no reason they won’t do it a few more times in 2013 alone. When it comes to Nadal and Federer, we’re always talking about the coming decline. But it’s a decline that never seems to come for either of them. Now they’re back in the final in Rome, seven years after their first one.

My memory of that 2006 match was that it seemed to go on forever, and that that was a good thing. It got better and more dramatic as it went. Since I guess I have to pick a winner this time, I’ll take Rafa in three.

That said, my hope is that in Sunday’s match, they pick up where they left off in ’06, giving us more of the tennis that only they can give.

Rivals in Rome?

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:06:00 -0400

Let’s try this again.

Last week in Madrid, Serena Williams played Maria Sharapova in the final. This is the matchup that many in tennis would love to be able to call a rivalry, but Serena stubbornly refuses to let it happen. And she refused yet again at the Caja Magica, sending Sharapova back to the sugar shack, and the drawing board, with a convincing 6-1, 6-4 win.

But there's always a new week in tennis, and tomorrow in Rome we get another chance, with a different contender, to find out if a women's rivalry may be ready to develop. The question now is: Will Serena give the third member of the WTA’s Top 3, Victoria Azarenka, a chance?

The last time we saw Vika at full strength, back in Doha in February, it looked like she was on her way to starting something serious with Serena. There, in a three-set final, she ended a 10-match losing streak to the American. But she never had a chance to follow that win up, as an ankle injury forced her to withdraw in the quarters of Indian Wells, kept her sidelined until last week in Madrid, and kept her from playing at anywhere near her best until this week in Rome. Meanwhile, in her absence, Serena has gone 23-0 (two Fed Cup wins included) and taken full possession of the No. 1 ranking that had previously belonged to Azarenka.

Even more ominous—for Vika, for her fellow players, and for fans hoping for a compelling final on Sunday—is the fact that Serena has played some of her best tennis of that streak in Rome. She’s lost at total of 10 games in four matches, and has hung a 6-0 set on her opponent in three of them. In her last two matches, against Carla Suarez Navarro and Simona Halep, Serena even added a few twists and touches to her usual power-based arsenal. She used the extra time she has on clay to experiment with different speeds, spins, and angles. In the quarters and semis, she looked to be on top of her game and in complete control, without a hint of the sluggishness that she showed in her semifinal against Anabel Medina Garrigues in Madrid. Apparently, though, Serena wasn’t altogether satisfied with her 6-3, 6-0 win over Halep on Saturday. Afterward, she went back out for another hitting session. Now that’s ominous. Hopefully, Azarenka didn't catch any of it.

Can Vika give Serena a match? For the most part, Azarenka has appeared to be her normal self at the Foro Italico—in other words, she has played dynamic, athletic tennis while looking like she could boil over with rage at any moment. She’s only lost one set so far, to Sam Stosur in the quarterfinals, but she did a good job of stopping the Aussie’s momentum in the third set; Sam was playing with an unusually determined head of steam in the middle of the match. Azarenka showed the same cussedness in holding off Italy’s Sara Errani in front of a full Roman house on Saturday afternoon. Like Stosur, Errani fought hard enough to come back and get her nose in front in the second set, but Azarenka, after bending for a few games, refused to break. She brought a rare silence to the Foro's center court by winning the last three games. If there’s one concern for Vika, it could be her fitness over a a long match on dirt, after so much time away from competition.

Clay has never been the favorite surface of either of these women, but on paper, at the moment, it favors Serena. She has won her last two events on it, in Charleston and Madrid, and she seems to be learning new ways to use her game on it even at age 31. The expectations and motivations of the two players are different as well: Serena hasn’t lost since February, she’s building toward a title run in Paris, and she’s not going to want to surrender her second straight match to Azarenka right before she heads there. As for Vika, her goals are likely more modest: She’s trying to find her feet, her fitness, and something approaching her best form as the heart of the Grand Slam season begins.

But it’s also possible that her lack of match play could work in Azarenka's favor. Intense to a fault, she typically gets out to a fast start to each season, as she did again this year, and then runs into a period of burnout later. In 2012, the burnout was happening right about now; this spring, after her time away, she should be mentally fresh. More important, for the first time since 2009 she'll come in having won her last encounter with Serena.

So will our second stab at a women’s rivalry go any better than it did in Madrid? I think Azarenka will make this final more competitive than Sharapova did last week. Still, while Serena hasn’t faced any Top 10 competition so far in Rome, she has looked very comfortable on its clay. Right now it's hard to see her slipping up, even against a player of Vika’s quality. Whatever the result, this is the match we’ve been waiting to see, one that could have a real effect on the WTA’s immediate future, one that we can at least hope is the start of a rivalry that will put a little more spice into 2013.

Rome: Federer d. Janowicz

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:42:00 -0400

Rome was the appropriate place for Jerzy Janowicz, a young Polish player on the rise, to have his first audience with the game’s Papal equivalent, Roger Federer. It went as many of us would have expected.

Janowicz is a 6'8" slugger with a bomb serve who loves the drop shot more than anything else. In other words, high-risk is how he plays his tennis. He was even less cautious than normal on Friday evening, apparently having decided that injecting maximum pace into the rallies at the first opportunity was the best way to counter Federer’s own first-strike style. Until the end of each set, it mostly worked for him. Janowicz, who finished with 29 winners against 26 errors, didn’t face a break point through his first four service games. But in the fifth, when he was down 4-5, his low-margin style couldn’t survive the extra bit of pressure. In that game, Janowicz made a backhand error to go down 15-30; at 30-30, he went for a monster forehand and drilled it into the net; and at set point down, on Federer’s first break point of the match, Jerzy popped up a drop shot and Federer passed him.

To his credit, an unfazed Janowicz kept firing in the second. He broke Federer in the opening game with a forehand return winner and held with ease all the way to 5-4. (This was bang-bang, blink-and-someone-just-held tennis throughout; the two players got through 23 games in an hour and 24 minutes.) Again, though, Janowicz’s nerves, as well as his shot selection, deserted him at the crucial moment. On set point, with a look at a hanging mid-court forehand, he went for a drop shot instead and put it in the bottom of the net. At deuce, he double-faulted. And on his third break point, Federer hit his own drop shot/volley combination to make it 5-5.

Jerzy's chance had come and gone in a flash, and he briefly went haywire. A few minutes after being up a set point, he found himself down two match points at 5-6. He saved both with huge serves and forced a tiebreaker—with Janowicz, there's no middle ground between the jaw-dropping and the head-scratching. The subsequent breaker was all Federer, though, as he came up with two forehand winners and two big service winners to clinch a frenetic 6-4, 7-6 (2) win and a trip to the semifinals.

Federer hasn’t dropped a set in Rome, and has looked as sharp as he has all year. For the most part, he handled Janowicz’s pace, and his serve was actually the bigger weapon—Federer made 76 percent of his first deliveries and finished with 11 aces, a more-than-respectable number on clay. And he was just as effective from the ground, where he hit 26 winners against 13 errors. He’s shaken off the Madrid rust and must have his eyes set on his first trip to the Rome final since 2006. Next up he’ll get surprise semifinalist Benoit Paire. The ex-champions all say that it’s tougher to recover as you get older, but even a slightly less spry Federer than the one we’ve seen so far this week should have enough to win that one.

Rome: Nadal d. Ferrer

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:45:00 -0400

It was an afternoon of surprises in Rome. First Tomas Berdych came back from a set and 2-5 down to beat Novak Djokovic for the second time in 15 tries. Then David Ferrer turned what looked to be a regulation grind-out loss to Rafael Nadal into a dynamite display of all-court tennis. Unlike Berdych, though, Ferrer couldn’t hold off the inevitable. Nadal improved his record to 19-4 against his countryman, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, to advance to the semifinals.

The culprits, as they usually are for Ferrer in these matches, were the big points. In this case, those were the break points: He converted just three of 16. That alone was the difference in the first set. Ferrer was 0 for 6, while Nadal was 1 for 1. More telling was the way each man played those break points. At 1-2, Nadal came up with a dipping backhand pass under pressure to save one; two games later, he saved another with a wide serve that caught the sideline, which he followed with a down-the-line forehand winner. Ferrer, by contrast, faced with a break point at 2-2, pushed a routine backhand wide. Despite having been two points from beating Rafa in Madrid last week, it looked like Ferrer had even less confidence that a breakthrough was possible today.

However he felt to start, though, Ferru quickly shook off any first-set disappointment. He played better, cleaner, more aggressive tennis from the start of the second. With Rafa serving at 0-1, Ferrer hauled off on a forehand return for a winner. That shot seemed to free him up. He broke with another caution-to-the-wind forehand approach, and kept rolling through the next two games to build a 4-0 lead. Ferrer was on top of the baseline, and, for once, was a step, a shot, and a thought ahead of Nadal in the rallies.

Now it was Rafa’s turn to respond. He crept back into the set to get to 3-5. In that game, Ferrer reached set point and double faulted, while Nadal came up with a brilliant bit of deception—seemingly a sitting duck at the net, he feinted to his left, coaxed Ferrer to go down the line with the pass, and then reached out for a sharp-angled backhand volley winner. When Ferrer netted a backhand to hand over his serve, it looked like this one was going to end in straights.

Except that this time it was Ferrer’s turn to get a bit of (temporary) luck, and to make an opportunistic play of his own. At 30-30 on Nadal’s serve at 5-4, he hit a net cord winner. On set point, he made two seemingly impossible stab gets of very good Nadal smashes, tracked down a Rafa drop shot, and passed him at the net. We were going three, and a second shocker seemed to be in the cards.

The quality of play had risen through the second set, and it continued its ascent at the start of the third. Fans came for a baseline grind, only to see a jailbreak for the net break out. Nadal approached 37 times (winning 27), and Ferrer 36 times (winning 22), high counts for both over three sets. It was as if neither could break the other guy down from the baseline, so each went to the drop shot as soon as he could. What followed were cat-and-mouse scrambles at the net; if you’ve watched any of Nadal over the years, you knew that, despite his bruiser’s reputation, he was going to win the majority of the touch-craft battles. He gradually began to wear Ferrer down, to answer his opponent’s best with something better.

Nadal held off two break points at 0-1, and then broke, on his third chance, at 1-1. Surrendering his serve broke Ferrer for good. Rafa usually beats Ferrer at his own baseline game; today Ferrer adjusted, and Nadal beat him at his adjusted game.

Nadal, with three-set wins over Gulbis yesterday and Ferrer today, has done a lot of running this week, and if he’s going to win in Rome, he’ll do a lot more this weekend. The good news for Rafa is that he’s into the semis tomorrow; the better news is that he’ll face Berdych, rather than Djokovic, when he gets there. Nadal has won his last 13 matches against the Czech.

Rome: Djokovic d. Dolgopolov

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:42:00 -0400

Has a player ever had more trouble with a court than with an opponent? That appeared to be the case in Novak Djokovic’s hour-long, 6-1, 6-4 win over Alexandr Dolgopolov in Rome today. The only thing that tripped the Serb up in his stroll into the quarterfinals were a few dodgy, sunken spots on a rain-soaked center court.

The tone of this one was set in the fourth game, when Djokovic won a grinding rally, with multiple deep backhands, to break serve. From that point on, there was nowhere for the 23rd-ranked Dolgopolov to go. He tried to move Djokovic side to side; he tried to rocket balls past him on the first swing; he tried, when all else failed, to drop shot him. None of these worked for long. Djokovic was there to meet all the challenges, and was too solid to need to take many risks of his own. He finished with a tidy 13 winners against nine errors for the match.

Just as important was Djokovic’s serve. He made 69 percent of his first balls, and won 79 percent of the points on them, but that didn’t tell the whole story. What mattered was that whenever he needed a point, he could get one with his serve. Faced with his only break point of the first set, he hit a high kicker that Dolgopolov couldn’t handle. Faced with another in the second set, he went to Dolgopolov’s forehand side and forced another errant return. That play, the sliding serve to the forehand, worked for Djokovic all day—Dolgo couldn’t control his seemingly simple chip return from that side. The stylishly long swing that makes the shot look so appealing is also what makes it so inconsistent.

Djokovic moves on to face Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals tomorrow. Put his 13-1 career record against the Czech together with his sharp form today, and he’s the heavy favorite to keep strolling toward the semifinals, and a possible 35th clash with Rafael Nadal.

Rome: Nadal d. Gulbis

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:41:00 -0400

There may not be a sure-fire way to beat Rafael Nadal, but there is a type of player who can do it, and Ernests Gulbis, whatever his other flaws may be, fits the bill. The irascible, mercurial, and sometimes lackadaisical Latvian is tall enough to take Nadal’s high-bouncing topspin in his strike zone. He can hit the ball on the rise with his two-handed backhand. He can power ungettable shots from the baseline. And he has a serve that can bail him out of trouble. Gulbis shares many of these traits with other past Rafa-beaters such as Robin Soderling, James Blake, Tomas Berdych, Lukas Rosol, and Novak Djokovic. It’s no accident that Gulbis had taken a set from Nadal in four of their previous five matches, including one on clay in Rome three years ago.

Today the two were back on that same red Roman dirt, and before the stands were full Gulbis had another set in hand, 6-1. There was magic in his racquet for those 30-odd minutes, as he belted backhands that made Nadal look like he was standing still. Rafa was pushed to the far reaches of the court by the pace of Gulbis’s 130-M.P.H. serves and 100-M.P.H. forehands. Gulbis had a point to hand Nadal his first bagel set loss on clay in nearly six years, but he ended up having to wait a game to close it out. That one game, though, was enough for some of the magic to leak out of Ernests’ wand. Shots that had gone for winners began to find the tape and the alley, and in the end he needed two aces to secure the hold.

Nadal dug in and tried, with intermittent success, to move forward in the second set. He also tried to hit the ball deeper and higher to his opponent’s backhand. But Gulbis, despite his best efforts to undermine himself—he can find trouble on even his best days—didn’t go away. At 3-4, it looked as if he had blown the set when he hit a too-casual overhead wide, stopped in the middle of one point, and almost fell down during another. In the next game, though, with Nadal serving for the set, Gulbis began firing backhands to the corners again, and broke with a net-cord return winner.

But Nadal wasn’t rattled by the Gulbis barrage, or that last lucky shot. Rafa came back with a level-headed love hold for 6-5, and then made the most important shot of his afternoon. Serving at 15-30, Gulbis hit yet another backhand bomb at a sharp cross-court angle. It looked unreachable, until Nadal reached it with a long sideways slide and flicked it back from his shoetops to keep the rally alive. A few seconds later, Gulbis netted a drop shot to go down 15-40. A minute or so after that, the set was Nadal’s. It was a mostly defensive performance today from Rafa—he would finish with just 13 winners to Gulbis’s 59—so it makes sense that his most crucial shot of that set was a defensive gem. He gave Gulbis one more chance to implode, and it was enough.

The third set went much the same way. Nadal broke for a 4-2 lead, but Gulbis again proved surprisingly resilient and broke back with one more screaming backhand winner. A little later, serving at 4-5, 15-40, Gulbis saved two match points, one with a service winner and another with a forehand volley that he hit with a broken string. But it was in that same game that Nadal came up with his most important combination of shots of the third set. On the first point, he lofted a backhand lob over Gulbis that won him the point. At 15-30, he pushed Gulbis back with a return and followed it with a rare forehand winner, and at deuce, after squandering those two match points, he came up with another strong forehand to force an error. Like anything else in tennis, it's not how many great shots you hit, it's when you hit them.

Once Gulbis missed a forehand wide on the match point, clay-court order had been restored, and Nadal had an unpredictably predictable 1-6, 7-5, 6-4 win. But it had taken longer than even the most hopeful Gulbis fan might have expected. If Ernests isn’t yet the type of player who can beat Nadal, he’s certainly one who can scare him. But it’s Rafa who moves on, to a very different, but potentially just as difficult, quarterfinal tomorrow against David Ferrer.

Rome: Janowicz d. Tsonga

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:15:00 -0400

This was the first time that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Jerzy Janowicz had played, and their match-up promised a lot. A lot of power, court coverage, big serves, drop shots, and decisions that can only be described in that politest of criticisms: “ill-advised.” The tall Frenchman and the even taller Pole play a brand of tennis that seems to point to the future, even as it remains frustratingly imperfect in the present.

We got what we expected from their games, but the result, a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win for the lower-ranked Janowicz, was a surprise. Jerzy was focused and hitting the ball cleanly from the start. At 0-1 in the first, he held with an ace. At 1-1, he controlled the rallies with his forehand to reach deuce, before blowing that point with a missed drop—as predicted, it didn’t take Janowicz long to go from brilliant to questionable. At 2-2, though, he capitalized on his good play. On the only break point of the match for either player, Janowicz hit a bullet forehand behind Tsonga for a winner. The set, essentially, was his. At 5-4, he made four first serves, and held at love with an ace.

Tsonga woke up in the second set, and the result was some highly athletic all-court tennis. Drops, lobs, overheads, reflex retrievals, passes, and volleys—they used the whole court and every shot they owned, good and bad. But the key remained Janowicz’s serve. It was his get-out-of-jail card on numerous 30-30 and deuce points. The best of those service saves came at 5-6. At 40-30, Janowicz hit a drop shot into the net to make it deuce, and then missed his first serve; suddenly, Tsonga seemed to have a chance to break. But Janowicz jammed him with the second ball, and Jo put his return in the net.

The subsequent tiebreaker was well-played at both ends, as the two traded volley winners and passes. It looked for a millisecond as if the set would be Tsonga’s. Up 5-4, he had a mid-court forehand that he struck confidently. It might have gone for a winner, if it hadn’t caught the tape and bounced long instead. From there Janowicz ended the match in the same high-quality manner he had started it, with a volley winner and a forehand pass at match point.

How good was this win? Jersey-ripping good, in Janowicz’s opinion. By the time he shook Tsonga’s hand at the net, he had a foot-long tear in his shirt. Hopefully he has another for his third-round match, which will be against Richard Gasquet.

Roman Reversals

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:17:00 -0400

What a difference a couple of days make on tour. Rome has started out looking like Madrid through the looking glass. Two of those who were up last week, Grigor Dimitrov and Ana Ivanovic, are already out. Roger Federer has cut his hair, and he cut out the shanks that plagued him at the Caja Magica in a 51-minute blitz job over Potito Starace on Tuesday evening. The Romans themselves sound like Madrileños in reverse: Rather than whistles, Novak Djokovic heard little but love from them in his comfortable opening-round win today. Next thing you know, Maria Sharapova will be announcing her break-up with Dimitrov on a camera lens after her next victory.

The atmosphere couldn’t be more different in general. Where the courts are sealed away in concrete in Madrid, they’re sunken and open to the strolling public in Rome. So open that, with a TV and a couple of side-by-side streams on your laptop, you can almost feel like you’re strolling from one court to the next there yourself, even if you’re an ocean away. Here are a few notes from the early rounds in Rome.

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More Days, More Dollars...More Sense?

This has always been a busy stage of the season, with big events running right up against each other in the madly compressed dash toward Paris. But Madrid and Rome have taken the take the race up a notch. No longer do they follow on the heels of each other; they out and out overlap. While the eyes of the tennis world were focused on Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal in Madrid on Sunday, main-draw matches were already going off in Rome. The same had been true the weekend before, when Madrid got a head start by opening on the weekend. The same will be true in a couple of weeks, when the French Open kicks off on a Sunday.

Is this a positive development? Is more always better? It’s hard to begrudge the European Masters their desire to expand, when their counterparts in Indian Wells and Miami have gobbled up two weeks of the calendar apiece for years. With player prize money on the rise at the Grand Slams and Indian Wells, how long will it be until Madrid and Rome feel the pressure to give their own significant raises, if they don't already? The extra days of tickets sold may become a necessity.

Still, overlapping the tournaments is hardly ideal for fans trying to follow along at home. Ion Tiriac has made no secret of his desire to expand Madrid (though he has long maintained that draws should be smaller). Rome has done a lot of development on its grounds in the last few years, since it went dual-gender—the place seems to have been completely revamped and rebuilt since I was there in 2007. Is there a way, without blowing up the clay season, to separate the tournaments so they have room to grow without running over each other?

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Americans, Vanquished and Vanishing

In one way, it does make sense for the big European tour events to expand, because the continent has virtually eliminated the competition at the top of the game, especially on the men’s side. With the Madrid title going to Rafael Nadal, Europeans have won the last 29 Masters titles, as the well as the last 13 Grand Slams. Nine of the current Top 10 men are Euros, as are seven of the Top 10 women. Of those 20 players, only one, Serena Williams, is from the United States. Even Canada's most recent hope, Milos Raonic, has struggled in Europe; today he went out in his opener to Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Just when Americans thought that things couldn’t get any worse on clay, well, they have. In the old days, you knew we weren’t going to win any titles on dirt, and chances are we weren’t going to win many matches, either; but at least we got to watch our players head ignominiously for the exit. This year, in Rome, Sam Querrey and John Isner both lost on the tournament’s first Sunday, before TV cameras had arrived in the city. Can a 30th consecutive European Masters triumph be stopped? As of now, only Kei Nishikori of Japan, Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, and Kevin Anderson of South Africa stand in the way.

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The More Things Change...

Two things have remained the same in Madrid and Rome: The puzzling and complete lack of success of Caroline Wozniacki and her friend Agnieszka Radwanska.

Wozniacki lost her third straight first-round match on dirt to a lower-ranked player, in this case Bojana Jovanovski, who hadn’t won a match since the Australian Open and played today with her upper left leg wrapped in tape. I know that Wozniacki’s game isn’t made for clay, but in the past she excelled at winning early rounds with her superior patience and consistency. I only saw the final-set tiebreaker today, which she lost from 5-2 up. This time, when it counted, she was the one who made the errors. Yet I don’t sense that Wozniacki is any less confident in her abilities than she was when she was No. 1.

As for Aga, I watched the first half of her upset at the hands of Simona Halep. Radwanska’s game is also not built for clay; like Caro, she doesn’t have the power to hit through the slow court. Today it seemed that the clay was a great equalizer. Halep matched Radwanska retrieval for retrieval, angle for angle, dig for dig, point for point. Aga didn’t look happy about any of it, even when she was winning.

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An Exo Waiting to Happen, No?

What’s the rematch that the tennis world awaits the most? For many, it would be Rafael Nadal vs. Lukas Rosol, a restaging of last year’s earth-shaking upset. There haven’t been many chances in the last 10 months, what with Rafa’s absence and Rosol’s middling ranking, which means he has to qualify for tournaments like Rome. But it looked like we had a chance, when Rosol was awarded a lucky loser’s spot in the draw, just a couple of brackets down from Nadal. Alas, their third-rounder wasn’t meant to be, as a not-so-lucky Rosol lost today to Viktor Troicki, 6-4 in the third set.

Maybe it’s time to forget the tour and try to put these two together in an exhibition. On grass, say, in England, the week before Wimbledon. I’m pretty sure they’d both give everything they had not to lose that one.

Rome: Stephens d. Pennetta

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:18:00 -0400

As Tuesday dawned in Rome, there were quite a few women who fell into the “could really use a win” category. Unfortunately, two of them were facing two others. Early in the day, Bojana Jovanovski, who hadn’t won a match since the Australian Open, came back to beat Caroline Wozniacki, who lost her third straight first-rounder of the European clay season. A couple of hours later, Flavia Pennetta, a 31-year-old wild card whose ranking has fallen to No. 104, took on Sloane Stephens, the 20-year-old American who has gone 2-7 since reaching the semifinals in Melbourne in February. Somebody had to come out a winner, right?

It was obvious from the start who it should be. Stephens was the stronger, faster, more easily aggressive player the whole way. She says that clay is her favorite surface, and she moves well on it for a hard-court-raised American. On faster surfaces, her sometimes-passive footwork can lead to late swings at the ball, but on dirt today she was able to get around her forehand in plenty of time to knock it off and take over rallies. Stephens finished with a healthy 23 winners against 26 errors—not a bad ratio on clay—and fired her inside-in forehand especially well.

Pennetta, who is still finding her way back after undergoing wrist surgery last year, didn’t have any answers. She was a step behind in rallies, forced to go for desperate winners while on the run, and well behind the baseline. Still, with the Italian crowd behind her, she hung in as long as she could. Pennetta saved a match point at 1-5 down in the second set, broke Stephens in the next game, and did enough to make Sloane, who has lost from this position before, get a little tight. But It wasn’t enough, and Stephens finished with a 6-3, 6-3 victory.

That score may sound routine, but there are no routine wins for Sloane these days. Despite being the superior player, she showed flashes of why she’s struggled of late. In each set, Stephens let a lead slip and gave Pennetta hope. With a chance to break for 5-0 in the second, she missed an easy forehand. With a match point two games later, she tried to do too much with an easy backhand, missed it, and ended up keeping Pennetta in the set for two more games.

In this case, though, a W really is a W, however it went down. Stephens will play Kiki Bertens next. If she gets another W there, she’ll likely be back on a big stage for the first time since Australia, in a third-rounder with Maria Sharapova.

The Dominants

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:00:00 -0400

There’s been a lot of talk over the last year, some of it done in this column, about Maria Sharapova’s mid-career transformation on clay. Suddenly, instead of slipping, the Cow on Ice was sliding, a trick that never comes naturally to a hard-courter like her. Instead of belting the ball at the lines, the woman once derided as a “mindless ball basher” was retrieving, defending, constructing points, and winning 23 straight matches on red clay.

There was, of course, one small caveat to this story: She hadn’t beaten Serena Williams on the surface. Their only meeting on clay in the last year had come on the blue version laid down in Madrid in 2012, and Serena had won that easily. On Sunday, Sharapova had a chance at a rematch in the same city; a chance, on the real red stuff, to prove that she had earned the right to be called the Queen of Dirt.

Leave it to Serena to take all of that away from Maria, in 78 minutes and two quick sets. Williams has now won their last 12 matches, dating back to 2005, and 20 of the last 22 sets they’ve played. But this must have been among the most discouraging of those defeats for Maria. She had taken a rare set in their last encounter, in Miami, and had talked afterward about how she felt like she was making progress against her nemesis. Sunday was a regression: Not only did Serena allow her just five games, but she made Sharapova look like she had forgotten all that she had learned about clay-court tennis.

Afterward, asked to assess what makes Serena so tough, Sharapova focused on her power. That may sound obvious, but it's still the most relevant factor; Serena's easily the biggest hitter out there, Maria said. Big enough that Sharapova had to lurch and lunge after the ball. She was off-balance and a step behind from the first shot of each point, on both sides of the net. Serena’s serve, as it always does, handcuffed her, and so did her returns. I’m not sure I’ve seen Serena stand in and knock off Sharapova’s serves with as much blatant ease as she did on Sunday. No amount of improved play on clay was going to help Maria prepare for those rockets. Maria won just 36 percent of points on her second serve.

Watching the Madrid final, I’d say the Williams-Sharapova matchup—it can’t be elevated into anything close to a “rivalry” at the moment—hinges on two things, one physical and one mental. Because Serena is the stronger player from the ground, and she’s very tough to break, Sharapova must serve her best to stand any chance. Yesterday she made just 62 percent of her first serves and double-faulted five times in her first three service games (she finished with eight doubles for the match). Sharapova’s serve, like her clay-court game, has improved over the years, but both need to improve a lot more to handle Serena.

The second, and even more obvious, factor that separates these two is the mentality that each brings to the court when she faces the other. There’s game-sharpening focus on one side, and a crippling lack of belief on the other. In Miami, Sharapova was scolded by her coach, Thomas Hogstedt, for mentioning that Serena had begun to play well in the second set—he didn’t want her worrying about Williams’ game, or using it as an excuse. But after all of the losses, who could blame her? As for Serena, in her previous match, against Anabel Medina Garrigues, she had been sluggish and unfocused, bageled in the second and on the verge of defeat in the third. Facing Sharapova, Serena was exactly the opposite; beating her is a challenge that never gets old. And when Williams did fall behind 1-3 in the second set, she righted herself immediately with a forehand winner and a fist-pump in Maria’s direction. Sharapova won just one more game.

Afterward, Serena said that Madrid, despite being one of the WTA’s four top-level mandatory events, “wasn’t the biggest title.” But it was good preparation for the big one that she wants coming up, in Paris. In 2012, Serena had a great run on clay in the spring, and she has matched it in 2013 with titles in Charleston and Madrid. But last season she arrived at Roland Garros having not won a Grand Slam title in two years—the pressure was different in Paris, where she hadn’t been a champion in a decade, and she felt it right away. Since then Serena has won two majors, Olympic gold, and returned to No. 1. And she has dominated the defending French Open champion on clay.

If you’re looking for a theme to women’s tennis this spring, it might be this: Anything Maria can do, Serena can do better.

*****

Rafael Nadal, unlike Serena Williams, seemed to think that winning in Madrid was a very big deal indeed. You could see it in the way he fell flat on his back after beating Stan Wawrinka in the final, a celebratory flop that he generally reserves for the most meaningful and emotional victories. You could hear it in the way he spoke about reclaiming his home-country Masters event after the blue-clay debacle of 2012: “Being able to play here in Madrid and being able to win in front of all my people, is something really special,” Rafa said.

But well before the end, you could sense Nadal’s will to win this one. On a deuce point at the start of the second set, he came to the net and won a point by fending off two Wawrinka passing shots with two frying-pan forehand volleys; Nadal hit them with the racquet perpendicular to the ground, swinging from high to low. That’s not exactly how you’re taught to do it, but it got the job done. When Wawrinka’s third pass went wide, Nadal turned, bent down, let out a roar, and finished with a fist-pump/leg kick combination. And this was a deuce point.

Nadal, who dropped one set during the week, played most of this tournament with a similar single-mindedness. By the time he walked out for his first match on Wednesday, the man who had beaten him a couple of weeks ago in Monte Carlo, Novak Djokovic, was already out. From that result, Rafa was reminded that no player was safe; perhaps more important, he knew the tournament was his to win. Wawrinka made for a much less imposing final-round opponent than Djokovic: In his nine matches against Stan, Nadal has yet to drop a set.

As with Wawrinka’s countryman, Roger Federer, it’s the one-handed backhand that kills him. Nadal went at that side whenever he could with his dive-bomb cross-court forehand. As the match wore on, Wawrinka tried to run around and take those shots on his forehand side, but that wasn’t a feasible, let alone winning, proposition in the long run. A few times, after going for big shots and missing, Wawrinka could do nothing but shrug. Even a one-hander as strong as Stan's is a liability against Rafa.

“He’s a lefty,” Wawrinka said, “and puts so much topspin on his forehand, so I have to play my backhand always high. So I need to have perfect timing to play a strong shot...If I don’t have the legs to get there, I have no chance to come back in the point.”

Nadal has now played seven tournaments since returning to the tour in February. He has reached the final of all of them, and won five. He’s second in the Race to London, only 130 points behind Djokovic and 1,100 points ahead of Andy Murray. He says he played his best match of this week in the final, and that’s probably true. His only slip-up, only show of vulnerability, in Madrid came in his quarterfinal against David Ferrer. That day Nadal hit his backhand poorly—it improved in the semis and final—and was two points from his first loss to Ferrer on clay in nine years. Ferrer was able to do a little bit of what Djokovic does against him, opening up the court with his cross-court/down-the-line backhand combination.

Does this mean Nadal will be more vulnerable to Ferrer in Rome (they’re scheduled to play in the quarterfinals again)? I don’t think so. I doubt Rafa will hit his backhand that badly against him again. Next obligatory-but-mostly-unanswerable question: Does winning Madrid give Rafa more confidence against Djokovic (they’re scheduled to play in the semis in Rome)? I doubt that as well. Nadal’s game, he said last week, is close to peak level again, but the match-up against Djokovic is unlike any other for him. He lost their last round, in Monte Carlo, where Djokovic took the initiative early. Nadal will have to find a way, as he did on clay in 2012, to return the favor and turn their baseline dynamic in his favor again. Beating Wawrinka meant doing what he always does; beating Djokovic will mean doing something different, and probably better.

But that’s a story for a different day. For now, Nadal has his 40th clay-court title, one that he obviously relished. You might, after all of the clay wins over the years, wonder why he would be so pumped up to win one more. Here's one reason: Rafa’s bad times have historically made him appreciate the good, and he had the worst time of all while he was sidelined for the second half of 2012. He also knows that his knee pain will almost surely sideline him again at some point.

So while his partner in dominance this weekend, Serena Williams, was looking ahead, Rafa was happy for the here and now. Happy to be with his people, happy to win with a forehand or a frying pan, happy to be running, with the pain in check, on red clay again.

Forward to the Foro

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:45:00 -0400

On Sunday, I spent much of the morning looking at a shiny red car that had been placed behind the players inside the center court in Madrid. On Monday morning I was greeted with a new view, of the white statues and marble rows of seats that surround those same players in Rome. The Caja Magica made progress this year, but there’s only one Foro Italico, and there’s no mistaking it. You can feel its chaotically slouched, sunnily cigarette-stained Old World atmosphere right through the TV screen. Like its home city, it’s eternal.

As you must have gathered from that first paragraph, play has begun in Rome. In fact, two full days have already have gone into the books while I’ve been watching and writing about Madrid. Before we fall any farther behind, here’s a look at the men's and women's draws, and what we might see in the week ahead. I’ll start with the men.

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First Quarter (ATP)

The first piece of news to report is that Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have landed in the same half. They haven’t met in a semifinal since 2009, but that streak could be broken here.

Djokovic likes Rome; he’s won twice, and lost to Rafa in the final two other times. From what I remember, he has also been treated well by the fans, something he should appreciate after the whistles he heard in Madrid. He should also be sharper than he was last week, when he was still in recovery mode from his recent ankle injury. Novak starts with veteran clay dog Albert Montanes tomorrow and could get an intriguing match with Madrid finalist Stan Wawrinka after that. Nole beat Stan in the final here in 2008, and we all remember their classic in Melbourne in January. If they do play, we’ll get an early idea of how far Wawrinka may be able to progress this season. Djoko hasn't lost to Wawa in almost seven years.

Tomas Berdych is on the other side of this section. Can he recover from his last-second meltdown to Wawrinka in the Madrid semis? He lost to Nadal in the quarters here last year, and has landed in the trees this time around. Istomin, Anderson, and Cilic are the three players closest to him in the draw.

Potential second-round match to watch: Wawrinka vs. Dolgopolov

Semifinalist: Djokovic

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Second Quarter

Call this the déjà vu section: Nadal and David Ferrer are scheduled to play in the quarters, as they did on Friday in Madrid. Each should have a little extra motivation for this one. If they play and Ferrer wins, he locks up the No. 4 seed at Roland Garros; if they play and Nadal wins, and goes on to win the title, he’ll steal that spot from his friend Ferru.

Ferrer’s draw looks manageable. He’ll open against either Zeballos or Verdasco, and then should get Philip Kohlschreiber. Nadal, a seven-time champion here, starts with Fognini, a home favorite who will have the crowd behind him. That could be tricky for a bit, until Fognini realizes who he’s trying to beat. Also on this side is Ernests Gulbis, who took Nadal to three sets here a few years ago, and lucky loser Lukas Rosol. We know what he did against Rafa.

Third-round match to hope for: Nadal vs. Rosol

Semifinalist: Nadal

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Third Quarter

Clay hopefuls and unreliables—Andy Murray, Juan Martin del Potro, Nicolas Almagro, and Kei Nishikori—gather here. Neither Murray nor del Potro has had a good spring in Europe thus far. The Argentine, who pulled out of Madrid with an illness, has won a total of one match since his runner-up finish in Indian Wells two months ago. The Scot, despite much talk about his new focus on dirt, hasn’t fared much better, going out in straights to Wawrinka and Berdych in Monte Carlo and Madrid, and hardly looking more comfortable on clay while he was doing it.

But each has a decent shot at the semis in Rome. Del Potro opens against qualifier Andrey Kuznetsov and could see Almagro in the third round. Murray starts with Marcel Granollers and might get Nishikori after that. Who is going to finally come through among them? I’d like to say Nishikori has a shot, but he’s 0-7 in sets against Murray for his career.

Semifinalist: Murray

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Fourth Quarter

After his rusty clay kick-off in Madrid, Roger Federer will try to build some momentum in Rome, starting tomorrow night against Italy's own Potito Starace. Federer has reached the final here, and he made it to the semis last year, but he’s taken his lumps at the Foro as well, including an ugly upset at the hands of Ernests Gulbis three years ago. We’ll see what we get from him in 2013. A potential third-rounder against fellow father, and one-hander, Tommy Haas could be good.

Second-round matches to watch: Tsonga vs. Janowicz; Gasquet vs. Dimitrov

Semifinalist: Tsonga

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Semifinals: Djokovic d. Nadal; Murray d. Tsonga

Final: Djokovic d. Murray

First Quarter (WTA)

Serena Williams has won her last three tournaments; can she make it a fourth, as well as pull off the difficult Madrid-Rome double? It proved to be too much to ask, physically, in 2012, when Serena withdrew with a back injury before the semis at the Foro against Li Na. This time, seemingly in good shape after her straight set romp over Maria Sharapova on Sunday, she’ll start against Laura Robson tomorrow night. The two have never played, though Serena did watch Robson beat her sister, Venus, on Monday afternoon.

Not having to play Venus was a help for Serena, and, as if she needed any more, she also got some from No. 6 seed Angie Kerber, who withdrew with an abdominal injury. That leaves No. 11 Nadia Petrova as the next highest seed in this section. Petrova plays Carla Suarez-Navarro to start.

Surprise thus far: Melanie Oudin got her first main-draw win of 2013 on Monday, when Ekaterina Makarova retired against her down 2-4 in the third set.

Also here: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Semifinalist: S. Williams

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Second Quarter

Li Na and Aga Radwanska: Remember them? Neither spent much time in Madrid—Aga was rolled in round one by Laura Robson, while Li got the same treatment from another teenager, Madison Keys. Now they’re scheduled to face each other in the quarters here.

Li, who was just a few points from the title in Rome last year, would seem to have the better chance of bouncing back, though she could have a tricky opener, against either Rybarikova or her countrywoman, Jie Zheng. After that, Li might play either Jelena Jankovic or Caroline Wozniacki. Meanwhile, Radwanska could face a challenge from Italian Roberta Vinci, who beat her at the U.S. Open last year, in the third round. If Aga loses that, she might begin to wonder if blondes really do have more fun.

First-round match to watch between players who could use a win: Caroline Wozniacki vs. Bojana Jovanovski. Caro lost first-rounders in Stuttgart and Madrid, while Bojo is 0-7 since the Australian Open.

Semifinalist: Li

*****

Third Quarter

Maria and Serena have had the field mostly to themselves the last couple of months. Isn’t it time for Victoria Azarenka to join them again? She earned one win, as well as a code violation for racquet abuse, in her first tournament back, in Madrid. This week Vika starts against the winner of Goerges and Hlavackova, and could play a resurgent—for the moment—Ana Ivanovic after that.

On the other side, No. 8 seed Petra Kvitova will open with what's sure to be a wild ride against Sabine Lisicki—it’s not often that the Czech faces someone more erratic than she is, but Lisicki might just qualify.

Also here: Sam Stosur, Rome runner-up in 2011. The Aussie won her first match of the European clay swing on Monday.

Semifinalist: Azarenka

*****

Fourth Quarter

Last year Maria Sharapova lost to Serena Williams in Madrid, and followed it with a title in Rome. Is a repeat performance possible? She’ll start against hard-hitting Spanish youngster Garbine Muguruza, and might see Sloane Stephens, another young player who could use a win, in the third round.

Scheduled to await Maria in the quarterfinals is Sara Errani. That would be interesting if it happens. Errani is a home favorite, she’s coming off a semifinal run in Madrid, and she tested Sharapova severely in Miami last month. The Italian will open against either Karin Knapp or Christina McHale.

Semifinalist: Errani

*****

Semifinals: S. Williams d. Li; Azarenka d. Errani

Final: S. Williams d. Azarenka