Ride the Fur Off It!

One of the better things about tennis is that most events give fans a chance to get very close to the action and the players at tournaments, including a blue-chip one like the Pacific Life Open. As nice as it is to be at a Grand Slam, where you get the intoxicating sense that you're very close to what is, at the moment, the hot, molten core of TennisWorld. But there's a lot to be said for life in a cool, shady place as well.

There isn't an awful lot of shade in the desert, of course. In fact, the dry heat here can be more tricky than the oppressive humidity and heat at the U.S. Open. It may not seem very hot, but you can get dehydrated and drained of energy very quickly, and find yourself hallucination Does that scoreboard just say that Marat Safin lost to Nicolas Mahut, 6-0 in the third?. That Roger Federer is out, in the first round? But that was a risk Doug Robson and I felt well worth taking when we wandered out to catch two intriguing if not-quite-marquee match-ups on the field courts here at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Our first stop was the Evgeny Korolev vs. Dmitry Tursunov battle on Court 8. At this semi-sunken court, you can watch the match from the walkway at the North baseline, slightly above and so close to the day laborer at that end that you can just about reach out and bend down to flick a piece of lint off his shoulder. Try doing that at an NFL or NBA game. It's an added bonus that as you lean on the rail and stare down the length of the court, you don't just see the other guy at the far end of the court. You see the Santa Rosa mountains looming. It's an appropriate name; all day the mountains are bathed in a palette of subtle,changing colors, ranging from coppery to mauve to honey and rose in the evening, the best time.

From our close vantage point we had a good look at the youngster (he'll be just 19 in a few days) Korolev's game. He has a curious service motion. He holds the ball close to his chest as if he were afraid that you're going to reach out and snatch it from him; then he pops it up in the air with an awkward motion. There's nothing wrong with the result, though, and it leaves you wondering if the motion is a genuine flaw or merely an aesthetic offense and you ought to get a life. The rest of his game is explosive; he hits a clean, heavy ball - as a cowboy says of a horse, he rides the fur off it.

TennisWorld's favorite blogger also knows a thing or two about whaling on the ball, and doing so brought him back from a set down to even things in a tiebreaker. In fact, Tursunov kept dialing it up to build a 3-1 lead in the second set before he was lured into commiting an offense that seems to be chronic with him - he went for too much. This is a form of reverse-choking, the standard variety consisting mostly of driving the ball wide or into the bottom of the net and then casting your eyes heavenward, as if rueing the fact that the gods of tennis had chosen this particular moment to assert their authority.

For two hours plus, the players assembled all the pieces that could be fit together into a fine ending that tied up all the various plot lines. Then Tursunov abruptly appeared to lose interest in the creative process and essentially said, Enough, Evgeny, you finish it and leave my name off the cover - it'll leave you room to get that "Y" at the beginning of yours. . . Tursunov played sloppy, dispirited tennis while Korolev managed to drive his game along a similar precipice without ever plunging over it. It was an oddly unsatisfying end to a promising build-up, but I was impressed by Korolev.

Hmmmm. . .

As we started to move on, we bumped into Hank Moravec (aka, Dunlop Maxply). He was all kitted out in a neat Adidas outfit and he had by his side his boy, Liam. The kid had a slick, shiny tennis racquet and I could tell he was just dying to get a piece of Marat, or Fernando. They were on their way to get an autograph from Ivan Ljubicic. For some reason, it made me think highly of Liam that Ivan's was the signature he wanted. Like he's a serious kid, or something.

Doug and I moved on to watch Peer and Safarova, a brace of 20 year olds (although if you want to get all technical, Peer won't shed her teen status until May) having at each other on Court 4. This court is at the back corner of the grounds, and we found a sweet spot in the upper corner of the small bleachers. A breeze just light enough to ruffle the colorful flags atop nearby Stadium 3 washed over us, carrying one of my favorite of scents - sagebrush.

We arrived as Peer, having won the first set, was struggling and down 1-5 in the second. She promptly served four consecutive double faults to give away the set. The sun clearly was bothering her, or perhaps she wanted to make up for what the crowd was missing as a result of the withdrawal of Elena Dementieva by doing a passable impersonation. In any event, she smacked her thigh on the changeover and looked pouty.

I have a high opinion of Peer's game, and in retrospect the loss to Serena Williams at the Australian Open can hardly be called surprising. But Safarova is not just impressive, she's impressive in the same way as Peer. Both women play aggressive, purposeful tennis, and appear to have a joie de combat . They're fairly conventional players, for aggressive, athletic baseline seems to be the style of choice these days; and, like Tursunov and Korolev, they hit clean balls. Both of them are on track to give the top players fits (they've already nailed their version of Martin Luther's 95 Theses to the castle door), and their similar stations in life may have accounted for the zest with which they launched rockets at each other.

It was highly entertaining and this time neither of the combatants was disposed to unfurl the white flag. The sun beat down on my neck, but the girls were beating on each other and giving of themselves so fully that I didn't want to desert them. At 4-3 in the third, the usual assortment of sunblock and water-bottle toting rubber neckers and grave robbers began to flood into the bleachers, which I mildly resented, because its like flipping to the back of a book to read the ending before you'd done the hard yards of reading. I knew what they were thinking, of course:  Hey, I never heard of either of these chicks, but somebody is going down and I want to see the chalk outline and yellow police tape!

Hard as the women fought, it didn't quite become an epic. Both women played full-on, go-for-the-win tennis, although Peer was more demonstrative about it, balling up her little fist and spitting exhorations to herself with growing frequency. It was good to see the girls going at it with "last girl standing" resolve, and when Safarova went down 6-4 in the third it was with her guns barking. For Peer, it was just the kind of match that, played and won often enough, increases her competitive vocabulary to the point where she'll be ready to make a big, clear, persuasive statement. I have a feeling that Peer could do that as early as later this week.

So if I had to rank the four players I watched as competitors, the order would be: Korolev, Peer, Safarova, Tursunov. Sorry, Dmitry. . .

As I wandered back toward the press box, I noticed that Fernando Gonzalez and Frankie “Tire Boy” Dancevic were locked in mortal combat on Stadium 3, with Frankie ahead in the second set. I drifted over, because the joint was jumping – the red hot chili peppers were out in force: Chi, Chi, Chi, Lay, Lay, Lay! Chile!Chile!Chile!I found a seat at the North baseline, behind two blonde gringas who had declared their temporary Chilean citizenship on the entirely reasonable grounds that girls just want to have fun. They chanted along and danced up a storm, which can be tough to do while you’re seated, but they managed.

Frankie is Canadian, by way of Niagara Falls, and his game is the equivalent of going over the big lip in a barrel - which is exactly the kind of thing most people say about the guy he was playing, the explosive Gonzo. Frankie is not yet 23 – he’s a sleeveless shirt-wearing, fist-pumping dude who never met a low percentage shot he doesn’t take. I like his variety, nerve, and his penchant for playing cowboy tennis. Gonzo did not have a lot of trouble knocking Frankie down; the problem was keeping him down. The tone of the match was perfectly caught by a Frankie fan (who knew there was such a thing?) sitting right behind me. After Gonzo tagged a particularly vicious forehand winner down-the-line, causing Frankie to slip to the court, the fan yelled, Shake it off, Frankie. Get up! It ain’t over yet!

And it wasn’t over. Dancevic took the second set, although Gonzo had enough firepower to wear him down and win in three.

I call Frankie “Tire Boy” because he looks a lot like a kid who used to work in a garage and discount tire shop near my farm in game-rich Andes. He was, like Frankie, a dark-haired lad given to sleeveless shirts (even in January), although his was navy blue with buttons, and his real name stitched over the breast pocket in bright yellow thread. He was a quiet, laconic kid who looked like trouble and probably was, and women from far and wide tapped into their Inner Lady Chatterley at the very sight of him. I’d see them, in the rubber wellies and green, waxed-cotton Barbour coats, littering the shoulder of the local roads, tires flat. Just waiting for rescue. Terrible, m’am, and what’s with the ice pick sticking out of your pocket?

It was refreshing to see watch Frankie slug it out with another guy who rides the fur off it. Tennis, after all is ultimately a game of self-control, cool calculation, and big shots pushed to, but not quite past, the breaking point – a talent wonderfully displayed today by Korolev. But cowboy tennis can be fun too; every now and then it’s nice to hear the stillness of tennis  interrupted by a wild cry of Hee-yah!