By Pete Bodo
Just the other day Vera Zvonareva issued a spirited defense of her "emotional" nature, telling reporters: "There is a big difference between being mentally tough and being emotional. It's a huge difference. I will always be emotional. As long as I use those emotions to my advantage, that's only a plus to me. If I need to break the racket to pump myself up, then I will break the racket. I don't care."
Yesterday, Zvonareva could have benefited from a good old-fashioned Marat Safin-esque racket demoliton in Dubai, where she was crushed by fellow Russian Alisa Kleybanova, 6-3, 6-2. The other day I was joking around, suggesting that maybe winning Pattaya City in Thailand for two consecutive years (2009 and 2010) constituted some kind of hex that prevented Zoner from winning bigger, more significant titles (for example, in 2010 Pattaya was the only title she bagged in six finals—including two majors, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open).
Well, the run at Pattaya is over; Zvonareva was beaten last week in the semis by Daniela Hantuchova. Zoner raised some eyebrows in that match when she pitched an angry fit over being fined for cursing. So inquiring minds want to know if we're about to return to those good—or bad—old days, when you could count on Zvonareva meltdowns as faithfully as you could rely on John Isner serving aces.
Zoner has made enormous career strides over the past two years, and losing successive Grand Slam finals in 2010 to Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters is not only nothing to be ashamed of, it's a pretty good example of bad luck. Let's remember that on paper, Zoner could not have been expected to win either match. So she had two outstanding major events.
But these more recent developments, coupled with Zvonarava's straight sets loss to Clijsters in the Australian Open semis, may constitute a warning sign. It takes a player like Zoner (Sam Stosur is another good example) a long time to get to or near the very top, but any player not to the manor born can slip from the upper echelon subtly and swiftly. The start of this year suggests that the Zvonareva surge is diminishing. It's funny, I don't recall much discussion about Zoner's "emotions" back when she was riding high last summer. And that tells me something. There is a big difference between being mentally tough and emotional, but not necessarily in the way she described it.
Au Contraire, Monsieur!
How French is it that French Federation president Jean Gachassin says that Sunday's vote to keep the French Open at its current Roland Garros site was "a choice against the current fashion of gigantism"?
I guess he means that having expansive grounds with tons of elbow room for thousands of spectators, places where fans can sit beside fountains, or on grassy knolls or quads, and where you might find food courts, merchandise concessions, "fun zones" for kids, and even plazas where you can catch a rock concert between tennis sessions (the way it's done at Melbourne Park during the Australian Open) is a really, really bad thing. Almost, like—and we're not going to name names here—like something from a country somewhere across the ocean...
Far better, Gachassin seems to be saying, to preserve our wonderful culture and its habits, like having to stand in line for two hours to buy a baguette jambon, having no place to go for cover during a sudden rainstorm, having to wait thirty minutes to get through a crowded passageway between courts—or over an hour to get a chance to sit down to watch a doubles match featuring two players you've never even heard of on an outside court at Roland Garros.
Well, you know that the French consider it in incredibly poor taste to actually talk about money, but of course there's no law just thinking about it, or working it into your calculations. I have to believe that the significantly lower price tag on a renovation (as opposed to the construction of an entirely new site outside Paris) may have had a teensy-weensy bit to do with the decision to remain at an expanded Roland Garros. The FFT said that the cost of renovating and expanding the present footprint of Roland Garros by 60 percent would be $370 million, while building from the ground up at any of the three proposed alternate sides would have cost between $630 million and $1 billion.
One of the more realistic—and frank—voices in this debate was that of former WTA No. 1 and multiple Grand Slam champion Amelie Mauresmo, who's now a tournament promoter and journalist. Sounding more like an entrepreneur and visionary than sentimentalist, she sensed that the quality of the event and game was not the only issue in play here. She said, “I don’t know if the tennis aspect prevailed in that decision. I have some doubts. I clearly said that I was more in favor of a development, of an ambition, that is, to move.”
In any event, any expansion at the overcrowded if charming and so very French Roland Garros site is welcome.
No More Mr. Nice Guy...
Give Fernando Verdasco a break. He was dealt one of the more rotten hands a player can get when he had to play fast-rising ATP star Milos Raonic twice in three days on fast indoor surfaces, where Raonic's atomic serve is particularly deadly. This was just the fourth time since 2000 that the finalists in one event had to square off again in the first round of the next one.
ATP No. 84 Raonic defeated No. 9 Verdasco in San Jose last Sunday in a pair of tiebreakers, after which the beaten man predicted a bright, Top 20 future for the winner, and spoke with wit and warmth about the skinny legs and arms of Raonic.
Yesterday, Raonic got the better of Verdasco again, this time in Memphis, and once again the key was a tiebreaker—in this case a decisive, third-set 'breaker won by Raonic 7-6 (5). You can see why Verdasco might feel a little frustrated. He said during his press conference: “He was luckier than me in the tie-break. He hit the line at 5-5 with the return and then he had big options to win the match. In San Jose he tried to make the points really quick, if I managed to return the serve he went to the net, like he did today a lot of times."
Don't say that as if it's a bad thing, Fernando. That's how you're supposed to play when you have a big serve and a good volley and the surface is fast.
Verdasco also groused, "For me that’s not a real match in tennis. I hope to play soon against him in clay court to show him what it is to play tennis, and play rallies, and run, and not only serve.”
Verdasco might have chosen his words a little more carefully, lest they come back to bite him on the behind. Because winning with the serve and a good net game on fast surfaces and playing well on clay are not mutually exclusive, as any number of players have demonstrated. We'll put Verdasco's reaction down to exasperation. But it's pretty good bulletin board material, so remember it if the men should meet on clay over the coming months.
!Ryan Well, That Didn't Work out So Good...
You may remember that late last year, we broke the news that Ryan Harrison had hired a coach—the former ATP singles player and late-career doubles specialist Martin Damm, who had formed a relationship with the Harrisons (including the patriarch and head-of-family, Pat) while they were all together at the IMG Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.
Pat Harrison, a teaching pro now employed at the NBTA, was torn in different directions by his three tennis-playing children and wanted to step back so he could do right by all of them. He backed the idea of hiring Damm. But Ryan's results early this year under Damm's tutelage were lackluster. He qualified for Brisbane, and lost in the first round to Robin Soderling. That wasn't so bad. But Ryan was beaten up in the first round of the Australian Open by Adrian Mannarino, a left-handed Frenchman ranked No. 61. Worse yet, a fleet of appealing new contenders, including Raonic, Richard Berankis, and Bernard Tomic, all fairly close in age to Harrison, played well Down Under and attracted a lot of attention.
The Damm finally burst when Harrison traveled alone to Honolulu, Hawaii, for a Challenger event after he lost in Australia—and won the thing. That raised his ranking to a career-high No. 138 and convinced him that he might just as well let go of Damm and retain Pat, his original coach, while he searched for a better fit.
The feeling here is that, given the news made by the youngsters at the Australian Open, Ryan has to ramp it up a bit lest he get lost in the shuffle. If a rising tide does indeed lift all boats, Harrison is due for some kind of break-out, but it won't happen in Memphis. He lost in the first round of qualifying to Germany's Bjorn Phau.
Where Did THAT Come From?
The most interesting—and bizarre—thing about Justine Henin's "farewell" press conference was the way she introduced the doping theme into what ought to have been a celebration of the Belgian champion's legacy, combined with an update on the precise reasons she left the game for a second time, following an aborted comeback that began at the beginning of 2010.
At one point in her presser (this is from news reports), she asked journalists who had tackled the recurring doping rumors to leave the room, and said of their interest and inquiries, "I can't accept that, nor will I forget or forgive. I have never cheated."
Her anger is understandable, but why bring it up—especially in a farewell press conference? Have those rumors recently been rekindled in the Belgian press following her unsucessful comeback (I'm asking, not suggesting)? The one thing we do know for sure is that way back in 2003, Kim Clijsters' father, Leo—no stranger to the hazards of engaging the media, having been a professional soccer player—and other tennis pundits made some ambiguous and provocative remarks about Henin's physique and stamina following her win over Clijsters in the 2003 U.S. Open final. And once the doping cat is out of the bag, it's hard to wrestle him back in.
I can see where Henin might feel aggrieved over having had to to deal with these rumors. They aren't the only ones that have a long shelf-life, because a reputation is the easiest thing to acquire and the hardest thing to shed. But I can't for the life of me figure out why she would introduce that issue, or refer to it, in her leave-taking.
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That's it for now, folks. Just an FYI: I'll be around through the weekend, but then we're taking a family vacation (returning to the island of Vieques) the following week. Steve Tignor, Richard Pagliaro, Bobby Chintapalli, Ed McGrogan and others will keep you more than amused while I am away.