Fernando Verdasco’s win over David Ferrer in the fourth round of the U.S. Open was a major highlight of the season, and it clocks in at No. 8 on my list of the best matches of 2010. But it was a personal lowlight for me. I’d finished writing from Flushing Meadows for the day and was heading out to the train when I saw that these two guys were somewhere in the third set. I could hear the grunts and the cheers from the other side of the stadium walls. I briefly contemplated sticking my head in, just to get in a little bonus baseline bashing before I headed out—you knew these two would have their points. But I didn’t. I kept walking. By the time I got home to Brooklyn and flicked on the tube, the fifth-tiebreaker was starting and the crowd in Armstrong was giving both players a standing O. That’s the problem with going to a Grand Slam—you end up missing so much tennis.
But I did catch the breaker, and its epic finish, which included what may be the best shot-reaction combination I’ve ever seen on a match point. The breaker is the top clip above; below it is a brief highlight reel from the rest of the match.
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Two Spaniards in New York is an odd sort of match to watch, especially if you have no particular rooting interest. For me, it robs it of some drama. When you have friends and countrymen (but, alas, no Romans) competing, there’s a sense of duty to the proceedings. Neither guy can really relish the battle.
The upside is that you’re free to watch simply for the tennis itself. As you would expect from these two, this match, which was both a war of explosiveness and a war of attrition, emphasized the physicality of today's game. Ferrer can be an entertaining player, but only when he’s playing a shot-maker. He’s good at making rallies happen, but he needs someone else to supply the flash. Judging from the highlight clip, Verdasco supplied plenty of it with his forehand.
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When he gets hold of a forehand, there’s something Berdych-esque about it. Not in the stroke itself, but in the effortless pace they both generate, and in the way the ball seems to pick up speed as it moves through the court. It’s an illusion, of course, but when they catch it right, Verdasco and Berdych both hit their forehands so cleanly that the ball ends up moving faster than you think it will at first. One of those forehands seems to catch Ferrer by surprise here. Verdasco has a sort of deceptive power, and whether you like power-baseline tennis or not, it can be an awesome sight.
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Ferrer is a warrior who tends to shy away from the battle at just the wrong moment. Here he was up two sets to love, he was up a break in the fifth, and he begins by going up 4-1 in the breaker. At that stage, you would say there was no way he could lose—his shots and his manner were assertive and assured. Then he totally fell apart. Twice Ferrer hit the ball tamely into the net. Then he was uncharacteristically late on a backhand and sent it way wide—a nervous shot if there ever was one. Then he floated an easy ball long. Suddenly it was 6-4 and Verdasco hadn’t done a whole lot to earn it other than slice the ball back in play. Ferrer remains a soldier of the week-to-week, but doesn’t have a game or a mentality that’s designed to peak at the majors.
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Then Verdasco did earn it. First you’ve got the mad scramble from behind the baseline, then you’ve got the hook forehand that curls around the netpost and lands with storybook precision in the back corner. Then you’ve got the best part, Verdasco falling, arm raised and eyes wide with elation and surprise, like he’s being pulled backwards into water. Except that he hit Deco-Turf; no matter, nothing was going to hurt him at that moment.
Is there a better shot and reaction at match point? The one that comes to mind was Richard Gasquet’s running backhand up the line pass against Roger Federer in Monte Carlo in 2005. The facial expression wasn’t nearly as good, but the shot was just as much of a stunner.
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That, unfortunately for Verdasco, is not the end of this clip. The end comes when ESPN’s Darren Cahill says that the Spaniard will now have to be ready to face the winner of a match between two other Spaniards, one of whom is Rafael Nadal—talk about a disappointing reward. Verdasco had just hit the shot of his life and played the match of his life, but there would be another one to play soon enough.