I was originally going to write this post about Lleyton Hewitt, who beat Amer Delic like a tin drum in the first match on Arthur Ashe today, but I thought Delic's presser so compelling that I decided that my homage to Lleyton could wait for a day or two.
Amer, you see, needs a little love. In fact, he needs a lot of love, because a very bad thing has happened to Amer Delic. He's lost his tennis game. He lost it like you or I might lose a hex nut in the tall grass while we're wrenching on something under the car. It has to be right here in the grass in front of my face. It must be right there. But I can't find it - how could it not be here?
Lost it, like you lose that piece of paper on which you wrote the direct-line number for that help-desk dude who you finally reached after finger-walking through 45 minutes of robot-voice menus.
Lost it, that is, in a way that makes you want to hurl a chair across the room, or weep tears of frustration, or - if you're anything like me - just cuff your palms against each other and walk away, muttering "to hail with it."
Only Delic can't do that; his lost tennis game is something he spent a lifetime building, perhaps never exactly knowing what he was creating, which is the root of his present problem. To find something you lost, you have to know what to look for. Man, am I Zen or what?
Delic, of course, is a guy we love. He's a loquacious, humble, gentle-giant (6-5) who has known a fair share of hardship, much like that other tennis refugee, Ivan Ljubicic. That's one of the reasons we hate to see this kind of thing happening to Amer. Delic and his family were refugees from war-torn Bosnia who fled to Florida. As Bonnie DeSimone, the ESPN heavyweight, wrote in this story: Delic, his parents and older sister, Lejla, arrived in Florida with $1,000 in cash and four suitcases, managing to find room for a pair of tennis rackets that belonged to 13-year-old Amer. They moved in with their relatives, seven people sharing a two-bedroom apartment. Lejla, the only English-speaker, translated when their parents went on job interviews.
You can also read a more detailed if less organized version in thispresser, which Delic conducted in Miami after he upset Nikolay Davydenko in the Sony-Ericsson Open. My favorite riff is this one, about Amer's junior high days:
Something about that last bit, being everyone's hitting partner just to get to play, is touching. Delic quickly became good. Really good. He went to the University of Illinois on a scholarship and capped those heady, wonderful days by leading the Fighting Illini to its first NCAA team title (the squad went 32-0 record, and Delic won the singles title). Delic bolted for the pros shortly thereafter (he was just a junior) and, powered by a flashy game and thunderous serve, quickly reached a career-high singles ranking of 60 in July.
Then the roof fell in.
Delic has won just one match since Wimbledon, and nothing since. He became an instant asterisk when he was beaten by Donald Young recently in New Haven - it was Young's first win in 12 attempts on the pro tour. This wouldn't be so bad if this weren't the time of year when Delic ought to do the most damage, on the hard courts that suit his big, all-court game. His case is interesting, because it's one of those When bad things happen to good people scenarios - as well as a cautionary tale.
When Delic walked into the very sparsely attended interview today, Bonnie just said, "What's up?"
Delic has a basic problem. He is, by his own admission, a "flashy" player. But last year, he was wise enough to realize that, as he put it, "flashy doesn't win you matches." So Delic did the right thing - or so he thought. He just said no to to his flashy, streaky urges, and won matches with consistent tennis.
Clearly, Delic lost his game. And the excruciatingly painful, ironic thing about that is that he lost it because he was trying to do the right thing. He didn't want to rely on raw "talent." He didn't want to be the flashy guy who could beat a James Blake or stretch a Roger Federer one day, and then get picked to pieces by a David Ferrer, or Guillermo Canas the next. There's an interesting backstory to that issue as well, because Delic had good reason to feel he could grind his way through matches. When I asked him if he felt that attacking or grinding was more suited to his basic temperament, he replied:
While Delic is bent over, searching the area around his feet (the game was right here, where could it have gone?), the other players are taking every opportunity to plunge great big giant knives into his back. It's a harsh world, out on that pro tour. While Delic is asking himself, Should I stay (on the baseline), or should I go (to the net), his rivals are gaining ground, most of them by building on the tried and true formula: Work on your weaknesses, but work even harder on your strengths. Dance with the one who brung you. Don't forget how you play you best. Don't lose your game.
Delic is trying to sort this all out. He broke with his former coach and trainer, Paul Pisani, and hired Scott Humphries (who has worked with Mardy Fish, a player who always knows where his bread is buttered - up around the center-strap).
Someone in the interview room mentioned that during the USA Telecast, Jim Courier suggested that Delic needed to go back down to the Challenger level and win some matches. Delic didn't need to think about his reply at all. He said, "I think Jim is right. This Monday I signed up for the New Orleans Challenger right after the US Open. I just need some matches. Last year when I played more matches, got the confidence, winning points became automatic."
Delic is going through something other players have endured - especially talented, flashy players to whom most any style of play comes easily. The more identities you have, the more difficult it is know which is the real you. It isn' the end of the world, even though a couple of continents have been blown to smithereens and the Indian Ocean has vanished. And the one thing that I'm pretty sure about is that when Delic finds his game, he'll never forget what it looks like, ever again.