Kc

When the dust and the insults had settled after the infamous Hit for Haiti a few weeks ago, I suggested that Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras take their rivalry on the road—maybe with arm wrestling and a steel cage match thrown in, just to keep things fresh. Now I have another suggestion for them: Make the game’s other highly entertaining, if a little nerve-wracked, rivalry of the moment your warm-up act. Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin may not play consistently stellar tennis against each other, but if their showdowns in Brisbane and Key Biscayne this year are any indication, you know what you’re going to get. You know that there will be a brisk rat-a-tat-tat of beautiful backhand winners, running forehand passes, and athletic improvisations, none of which you’ll see anywhere else. You also know that there will be feeble double-faults, blown leads, and surges in confidence that last no more than two points before crumbling back into craven insecurity. You know there will be wide-eyed stares at the player’s box from a desperate-looking Justine. You know there will be the ever-present temptation to rush as quickly as possible to the next serve and the next error from a fatalistic and frustrated Kim. Best, though, is that after all that, you know the final score will be 8-6 in a third-set tiebreaker. Most players taking part in an exhibition have to work hard to make a match that close. When Kim and Justine get together, it just happens.

The consensus this morning seemed to be that last night’s match between them was “terrible,” a “trainwreck,” an “all-time choke job,” or some gruesome combination of the three. I enjoyed it myself. Like I said above, what’s compelling about Henin vs. Clijsters is not that they drive each other to play better as the games go on, à la Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal; if anything, they drive each other to play more anxiously and even recklessly. In an echo of the Williams sisters’ matches, Kim and Justine get to more of each other’s shots then their other opponents, thereby forcing each other to hit one more ball and potentially creating an error that they woudn’t have made against anyone else. Still, because of this, Clijsters vs. Henin offers a lot—shotwise, emotion-wise, facial-expression-wide—over the course of a couple of hours. You can’t take any sign of momentum for granted. Both times this year, Kim has come out firing and gone up a set and a break. But you that wasn't going to be it. You knew there’d be a second act, and a third, before it was all over. If the nervous and erratic give and take between Clijsters-Henin isn’t as awe-inspiring as the mid-air swordplay between Federer-Nadal, it is easier to relate to.

All of the various back and forths can’t possibly be narrated coherently. But there were plenty of elements to the match worth noting.

—About Clijsters’ fast starts. When you get off to one of these, when your shots are clicking right out of the gate, you often feel like this is the real you. If only you could play without pressure, you’d be able to show the world what you could do. You also wonder where this version of your game goes, and why you can’t hit these easy winners all the time. Of course, this is only part of the real you, the part without nerves, the part that can never last for long. I do get the feeling, seeing Clijsters in these moments, that she might be the most gifted of any woman of her generation. I wonder if deep down, when she’s playing this well, she gets that feeling as well. Not living up to that kind of potential, while other around you do, might make you want to walk away from the game for a while.

—Justine is, rightly, credited with having one the more gorgeous backhands in tennis history. But last night I found myself gravitating toward Kim’s two-hander. It won’t go down in history, but I like the circle windup and the solid wallop at contact. I liked when she pitted it in a back and forth with Justine’s. Much of the time Kim's had the edge in power and placement.

—At Indian Wells, I’d been borderline appalled by the way Clijsters had rushed herself out of a 4-0 lead in a third-set tiebreaker against Alisa Kleybanova. Whether or not she learned anything from that debacle specifically, she was a different person and player in this third-set tiebreaker. She played with assertiveness and margin to get up 6-3, taking advantage of Henin’s second serve while not trying to win points with one shot. That is, until she squandered all of those match points, the last on a very shaky forehand return into the net.

—We’ve heard a lot about Henin’s new attack mode, and how she was going to stick with it come hell or high water or rampant unforced errors. But by the third set last night, it was Clijsters who was coming forward more. Was her mishit winner volley at 6-6 in the breaker pure luck? It was lucky, no doubt, and even produced a smile from her. But it wasn’t pure luck, because she had put herself in an offensive position, right on top of the net. It’s a good place to go if you’re trying to get lucky.

—How many different ways are there to choke? The number seems to be infinite. The most obvious way is to get tentative, to play not to lose. But you can also react to a nervous moment by going for too much, by choosing “flight” instead of “fight” and ending a point, and with it the pressure, as quickly as possible. Djokovic often opts out with a near-suicidal drop shot. Andy Roddick tends to serve and volley, not his forte, on break points. There’s some of this in Justine as well. She goes for more when the match is on the line.

—The crucial and revealing moment for Henin happened when she was up 2-0 in the third-set breaker. She had come from behind in the second set, and she’d watched Clijsters gag while trying to serve out the match at 5-4 in the third. Now Henin looked ready to run it out and leave Kim to beat herself up over what might have been. Henin took control of the next rally and forced a high, defensive lob from Clijsters that landed near the baseline. Henin had already missed a couple of overheads from this spot earlier. The smart choice would have been to back off and hit a forehand. But it wouldn’t have been the Henin choice, would it? She went for the overhead, went for it big, and smacked it long. Clijsters would win five of the next six points.

Stubbornness, nerves, speed, pointless errors, good hands, a second-set collapse, a backhand showcase, surprising calmness in the clutch, dumb luck, a smile, a victorious scream, and a double air kiss at the net to end it. You might call it a trainwreck, but who can turn away from one of those?