Mornin', everyone. This is a Your Call thread so feel free to range widely in your conversation, although tennis, and commentary on this post, the events of the day should take priority. I take the pain to note this because while the Your Call and Crisis Center formats are popular and useful, during weeks when the red meat is scarce a menu of Your Call selections on the home page isn't especially appetizing for new readers who may be unfamiliar with our habits.
So from now on I'll use a standard hed (that's journalese for "headline") for YC and CC posts most of the time, in order to encourage passers-by to visit a while and maybe get into the conversation (not that we don't have a boatload of readers already).
Anyway, you all saw that Dinara Safina was ousted from the Japan Open the other day by Taiwanese qualifier Chang Kai-Chen in a bitterly fought, tough three-setter. Last year, Safina dominated the event, pulverizing Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final, 6-1,6-3. You can't help but notice who different a vibe now surrounds Safina.
The Chen match was Safina's first sinice she lost to no. 72 Petra Kvitova in the US Open. That was no disaster, btw; Kvitova is a dangerous, explosive player and she had a great US Open. I watched her squander numerous chances in her match-up with eventual semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer, and on a day when a few more of those stinging volleys and probing forehands land good she's be a handful for anyone.
Apparently, Safina broke down in tears while still at the site shortly after the match in Japan, which underscores the pressure that has been building on her since she took the no. 1 ranking without having won a Grand Slam event last year. I thought she's handled that situation extremely well, given what an uproar her continuing presence at the top of the rankings caused in the intervening months, fueled by the semi-jocular complaints and observations about the situation rendered by Serena Williams.
Almost a year has gone by since the outcry began, and it hasn't exactly died. You can blame Safina for that - sort of - because no player in recent memory has gone on a tear anything like Safina in 2008 and '09, only to persistently deliver the crowning touch. Maybe that's understandable, given that her name is "Safin," which we've come learn means "exasperating and complex" in Russian.
Safina came up startling small in the first major of '09; she was crushed in the Australian Open final by her most vocal critic, Serena Williams. Safina rallied somewhat, and had a golden opportunity in Paris, but founda way (which could not have been easy) to blow the final against Sventlana Kuznetsova. Then the Grand Slam wheels really fell off: She was humiliated by Venus Williams in the Wimbledon semis, and went out meekly in the aforementioned US Open.
But through all of that, she maintained her composure and stood up for herself without being too tetchy or becoming overly bitter about the criticism leveled at her. She stayed on message, basically taking the same position as anyone else (myself included) who felt exasperated by the seeming injustice but recognized that you can't cry "fair" or "unfair" when a written-in-stone numerical formula produces a result - the only result, by definition, that such an approach kicks out.
Hate the system - fine. But don't hate the player, and especially not when you can't offer a better alternative that isn't, in its own way, even more wildly prejudicial. And don't go changing the system because of a historical oddity (which I think is the case here). It couldn't have been easy for Safina to have to defend a system that functions very well most of the time, and her own role in exposing it's main fault line - the disconnect between winning Grand Slam events and overall, week-in, week-out performance. Usually, top performers win the majors. But not this time. And remember that Serena has the almost diametrically opposed proflle, and an increasingly unusual one in today's game: She's the player who has more trouble winning the small events and matches than pounding the top players and grabbing the biggest titles.
And now?
Perhaps the pressure is getting to Safina, particularly with Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin back in the mix, and a passel of young players popping up to garner attention. Safina can't possible ignore or pooh-pooh the struggles of Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and perhaps even Maria Sharapova as ominous signs, suggesting that you can only squander so many big opportunities before the crows come home to roost and you find yourself kicking yourself, mentally, for having let your chances slip away.
Oddly, and this is the crux of it for me, there was no real reason for Safina to have reacted so dramatically to her loss. It was her first competitive match in a long time, and the most meaningful portions of the year are long past. That she reacted so strongly to the loss may say less about her burning desire to compete and win than about the state of her spirit and mind. She's in a complicated situation, on various levels. Things must seem far more precarious and confusing to her than they ought to for a player who's held the no.1 ranking for long enough to prove that she wasn't merely benefitting from a seam in the system.
You can almost hear Safina saying her prayers at night: Oh godot! Please just give me one more chance to win a major, I promise I'll do better nexts time! There's only thing she can do to right the situation, and if she accomplishes it, the fog will lift very quickly. She needs to win a major, but it's something she can't achieve until the beginning of next year. And that gives the pressure plenty of time to gnaw at her, and promises to make this fall and early winter fraught with anxieties and a repitition of the same tiresome questions.
That's the great thing about tennis - there's always a next time. But it's surprising how few of those next times there really are.
-- Pete