In case any of you missed it, Nadia Petrova crafted a potentially career-transforming win last weekend over Justine Henin-Hardenne. Make no mistake about it, Petrova could not have dreamed up a more bracing, promising result - not in her wildest fantasy.
This was the young player whose mental stamina, emotional resolve, and mobility have all been questioned (doesn’t it seem like just yesterday that some comment posters were suggesting that Nadia has a terminal case of Kournikovitis, that rare affliction that keeps gifted players from actually winning tournaments?). This was Petrova, coming up hard in a final against Justine Double-H, known, but for the little episode Down Under, as one of the grittiest, most passionately competitive and nimble of women in this era. Is there a woman better eqipped to win on clay than Henin-Hardenne? Nyet!
In short, it was a recipe for disaster. But Petrova not only won, she won in an agonizingly close match of the kind that even her most ardent supporters probably would not dare think she could win.
I felt good for Petrova after this one, because I find her one of the most likeable of the WTA players, and an apt symbol of the contemporary game and the people playing it - at least the best of that game, and finest of those people.
Make no mistake about it, this is not your grandmother’s women’s pro tour; it isn’t even your mother’s pro tour. Thirty-three years ago, a sheltered girl with a pony tail and gold hoop earrings became an overnight sensation just up the coast at the U.S. Open. Chris Evert was 16 at the time, and she had rarely ventured far from the friendly surroundings of her Ft. Lauderdale home, where she was a student at a parochial girls' school.
When Nadia Petrova was 16, she was the top-seed in the 1998 Girls 18-and-under division of the Orange Bowl International, arguably the crown jewel of junior tennis – but still a far cry from the U.S. Open. Yet by then, Petrova already was a full-time tennis pro, living away from her parents and friends - that's "away" as in, in another country.
By 16, Petrova already had experienced challenges that most icons of the game – including Evert, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin-Hardenne, Steffi Graf, Billie Jean King, Martina Hingis, Venus and Serena Williams – would never know, not in a lifetime. This is no slight to them; it’s just a comment on Petrova.
I met Petrova at that Orange Bowl. Now, if you’ve never been to that event, I urge you to book your trip immediately (the tournament usually takes place in late December at the same, Key Biscayne Crandon Park facility where they play the NASDAQ 100). I promise, you’ll get a dose of tennis you won’t forget, under amazing, intimate conditions (meaning, you walk around all day, choosing who you want to watch, from as close as your tolerance for flying sweat or voluble grunting allows), and walk away feeling roughly like that art lover who bought those weird drawings by some arrogant little guy back before he had just that one name, Picasso.
As an added bonus, you will have a great window into the flesh market that is pro tennis today, as agents, coaches and other juiced, Inside Tennis pooh-bahs swarm all over the site.
But I’m going to leave a more detailed description of that scene and experience for a follow-up post. Suffice it to say that the male players I watched and, in some cases, talked with extensively at that 1998 Orange Bowl included (and this is just the 18s division): Fernando Gonzalez, Feliciano Lopez, Mikhail Youzhny, Jarkko Nieminen, David Nalbandian, Jurgen Melzer, Ricardo Mello, Guillermo Coria, Andy Roddick and some weird kid with dyed-blond hair named Federer. . .
We won't even get into the women until next time.
Anyway, I sought Petrova out because I happened to watch her beat up on a talented little Slovak girl, Daniela Hantuchova, and liked what I saw: very clean strokes, a big wing-span, an impressive, “long” game. BTW, this is one of the great but rarely acknowledged qualities that make some players especially dangerous and successful. It’s a hard thing to quantify, this “longness”, but do you ever notice how some players just really S-T-R-E-T-C-H out the court by hitting groundies that are relatively flat and consistently cover more territory, because of both their depth and angle? A player who has a good long game (think Andre Agassi, among others)just makes it seem like the court is twice its real size, because of the amount his or her opponent must run (Gentlemen: start your emails!)?
Okay, it wasn’t like Petrova was unknown; she was, after all, the top seed. And in our interview, she handled herself with a champion’s aplomb. Despite her youth, she looked me right in the eye and held the conversation with no trace of self-consciousness or nervousness. Her degree of maturity was almost preternatural, which is one of the reasons I was surprised in later years to see her struggle so much with the mental aspects of the game.
Petrova,a native of Russia, moved to Cairo when she was 12. Her parents, distinguished athletes in the Soviet Era (her father was a prominent track-and-field coach; her mother an Olympic sprinter), were recruited to train Egyptian athletes. She was introduced to tennis by an expatriate from the Ukraine, Tatiana Motohnuk. “Mostly,” Petrova told me, “She brought me into the tennis culture, to where I could see a future in the game.”
When Petrova was 15, her size (she was already 5-10) and smooth strokes caught the eye of a coach scouting talent on behalf of a Polish entrepreneur and tennis nut, Andrew Glinski. He flew Petrova out to Krakow, and arranged for her to train with former Polish Davis Cupper Witold Meres. He liked what he saw and Glinski offered to underwrite and serve as a de facto guardian to Petrova.
Can you imagine signing off on your child taking that leap - especially a young girl? We’re not talking about attending a Nick Bollettieri or Chris Evert academy here – we’re talking about going to Krakow, under the guardianship of a stranger. Isn't Roman Polanski a Pole (disclaimer: I am as well, one-quarter on the maternal side)?
Petrova's parents decided to take a chance, partly because Nadia wanted to go. She knew what she had to do, given that her parents, despite their iconic status in the SU, couldn't hope to earn enough to underwrite a career for Nadia in international tennis.
Glinski, too much the entrepreneur and realist to do all this out of the goodness of his heart, worked up a deal. He would underwrite Petrova’s training and competition (there wasn’t much of that in Poland) in exchange for 70 per cent of the prize money she earned until her 18th birthday. When we spoke at the OB, Petrova was still sending the other 30 per cent back to her parents.
By that time, Petrova had already learned to take solace in the refuge of the solitary or displaced, reading. She was working her way through Spartacus. She also likes to fish, which is another contemplative pastime (although, as someone has observed, it’s best enjoyed in good company). When she was on the road, which was pretty much all of her young life, she packed tins of red caviar – they reminded her of home and they were the one luxury she allowed herself.
I often thought of Petrova in the years that followed, lugging around her latest tome (Tolstoy? Flaubert? Hardy?) and those little tins of Russian caviar, learning the ropes, seeing the road out of Krakow widen before her very eyes. I’ve always meant to look up Glinksi; maybe he’ll read this and shoot me an email. I guess I just wanted to express some kind of thanks, in general, for what he’d done to make Petrova what she is today.
The French Open is going to be a big test for her. One poster, the always interesting if elliptical Myskina+Trains=Tolstoy, has already weighed in to express what many feel. The other day, she wrote:
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Hingis will go far...especially if she's given a top 16 seeding (possible if she reaches the final in Rome). She's fully capable of taking out an errant Clijsters, a rusty Pierce or Sharapova, or an inconsistent Dementieva or Schnyder -- all of whom will be top 8 seeds.
I don't see Petrova being able to handle the burden of being the favorite. Put her in a 4R and QF battle with Venus and watch her flinch.
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I suppose that’s not really going far out on a limb; most of TW's Elders probably would agree. Maybe it’s pure sentiment, but I think Petrova is better than that (the realist in me adds this caveat: she does look overweight and less than fully fit in her most pictures).
Sure, it’s taken her some time to find her sea legs. And why not? She’s got awfully long legs. I’ve never claimed that it’s a fair world, or that anyone deserves anything, in the end. I just think that where Petrova’s been and what she’s seen, done, and overcome, will hold her in good stead – if not this month then next, if not at this Grand Slam, then at the next.
I don’t make a habit of pulling for players, but I would like to see this girl win the French Open.
P.S. In that '98 OB, Petrova lost a three-set final, due partly to a terrible lapse in concentration that led her to give up the last set, 6-0. The winner: Elena Dementieva.