By the fifth game, you could see that Gulbis was having a good day. He’s known for his bomb serve and his I-wanna-be-a-surfer forehand, but Gulbis is just as good, and more varied, from the backhand side. With Del Potro serving at 2-2 in the first set, he tracked down a drop shot and poked it perfectly into the corner with his backhand. He won the next point with a backhand drop shot. And he closed out the service break by blistering a backhand down the line for a winner.
“I played well in my first-round match,” Gulbis said. “This match I played really, really great tennis. I served well, I returned well.”
Gulbis was especially pleased that, despite Twitter’s warnings of a collapse, he survived his nerves.
“I was happy that in the third set,” he said, “even [though] I got a little bit maybe tight, and he played well when he broke me back ... I still managed to win in the tiebreak.”
Gulbis’ play has drawn attention, and so has his appearance. He’s sporting a hipster-mountain man beard this week. There are calls for him to shave it, but he says he’s not listening to them. It suits his new man-at-peace mien.
“Just, to be honest, a little lazy to shave,” he said when asked if the beard was for good luck. “It’s not a style thing. Just how it is, you know?”
Gulbis recently became engaged, and on Thursday the sarcastic, calculated-to-outrage edge of his younger years was nowhere to be seen or heard. He was all easygoing smiles.
“I was very relaxed,” Gulbis said of his attitude about playing Del Potro. “Didn’t surprise me because I’m in a relaxed state of mind right now coming into this tournament ... I’ve been hitting the ball well already for more than a month.”