!Sam
by Pete Bodo
We're about six weeks into the Euroclay season and well underway at the French Open (the grand finale), and a few American players made some news today. Better late than never, right?
John Isner scared the bee-jeezus out of Rafael Nadal over a span of four hours on Court Philippe Chatrier before the defending champ and world No. 1 prevailed, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-7 (2), 6-2, 6-4. And we were spared the indignity of touting this loss by an American player as some kind of triumph by Sam Querrey, who played a fine match when it really counted for the first time in many moons, taking out Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber in four sets.
Vania King only made things that much sweeter by pulling off a nice little three-set surprise against the No. 22 seed, Dominika Cibulkova. And let's not forget, Mardy Fish and Bethanie Mattek-Sands both won their first-rounders yesterday.
Wait. Are we talking dynasty here? Hail, we keep going at this rate and we may have an American of one sex or the other in the third round! At Roland Garros. Imagine that.
These have been grim days indeed for U.S. tennis, and they were made a little bleaker when Andy Roddick, struggling with a right shoulder injury, pulled out of Roland Garros. This was both emblematic of the godawful streak the Americans have been on in Europe this year, and perhaps a wake-up call, given that Roddick, the only active American male player with a Grand Slam title, has become the unofficial standard-bearer for the U.S. game.
This is as it should be, because Roddick is the only active male player who's won a Grand Slam singles title, and while he has yet to win a second, he's been ranked No. 1 and a factor at or near the top of the game for a decade. Still, you start harping on that "decline of U.S. tennis" theme again around Roddick and you're likely to get an earful, like some fella did in Rome when he broached the subject a few weeks ago:
"At a certain point, the only part that confuses me is how I am answering questions (about said decline) and that it’s my responsibility," Roddick said. "I feel like that I’ve handled my part for more than a decade. I’ve been doing my job for a long time."
Maybe Fish, Isner, Querrey and Ryan Harrison (who got a set off Robin Soderling in a loss today; every little bit helps these days) were listening at the keyhole, and decided they ought to step it up a bit, if for no other reason than to take the heat off their alpha dog. And in all honestly, there are reasons to feel the U.S. players may salvage something yet out of this clay season. We certainly won't have to wait very long to find out.
Querrey is a talented player; his problems at this time of year have had mostly to do with the fact that he doesn't travel all that well. Kohlschreiber is a tough out for a Yankee in clay, but Querrey was ready. "I always have liked clay," said Querrey, whose goal this year was to get his first career win at Roland Garros (let no one accuse this man of having unrealistic expectations). "I feel comfortable playing on it. It gives me a little more time to set up on my forehand. I'm comfortable sliding to the backhand, not to the forehand, but you don't need to slide to every ball. I feel like I'm a pretty good athlete and I can move around on it, and I just feel comfortable on it."
Bottom line: Querrey's shortcomings have been more motivational and emotional than technical or strategic. Has he turned a corner?
Fish also can play on this stuff. He's got terrific feel for the ball, and smooth, easily-generated power. The only time he's lost in the first round on clay this year was in Madrid, where he was taken down by. . . Isner (irony much?). Granted, Fish has never been past the second round at Roland Garros, but his recent Davis Cup heroics in Colombia were noteworthy, as were some other past efforts. My feeling is that Fish has spent a lot of time trying to show that he can win with what we might call a typical, consistency-based clay-court game, rather than figuring out exactly how his assets, which include a big serve and excellent volley, can be put to best use. What he needs, maybe, is a little more Isner in his game.
Long John Isner has also had a bumpy ride this year. He's failed to get much traction on the damp clay, but the statistics from his epic battle with Nadal are interesting. Isner hit a grand total of just 13 aces, only five more than Nadal, who's won this event five times and has lost just one match at Roland Garros in his entire career (to Robin Soderling, in the fourth round in 2009). The rest of the serve-related statistics also undermine the conventional wisdom, which is that Isner can only hang in there when he's raining down aces like a regular Ivo Karlovic—the guy who hit 78 aces in a clay-court match in 2008, the ATP single-match record until Isner shattered it on the more serve-friendly grass of Wimbledon last year.
But today, it was less the pre-emptive nature of Isner's serve than the inhibitions and doubts Isner can plant just by virtue of what he can do, even if he's not accomplishing it with maximum force or efficiency. Today was also about what having that cannon can do to keep a guy back, on the defensive, and vulnerable to attack. Isner understands better than any of his other big-serving colleagues just how much of his game he can built around his serve; how fully he can exploit the latent menace of it. As Isner said in his presser:
"I was winning points coming in. Simple as that. I felt when I was in control of the point I did fairly well. When I wasn't in control of the point, I didn't do well. You know, that's what my serve helps me do. It helps me get, you know, on the offense pretty quickly. . .The game plan was to mix in a lot of serve and volley, which is what I did. Any ball he left short, relatively short, you know—I'd attack and come to the net and make him pass me. Obviously he passed me a lot. Um, he also didn't pass me a lot. I won a lot of points at the net. For me, that was my only shot."
I sure hope Fish and Querrey decide to be good buds and take Long John out for a few pops tonight, and ask him how he managed to play so close for so long with Nadal without busting the ace-o-meter.
"Mardy and Sam, those guys can go well," Isner said. "I know firsthand that Sam can play really well on the clay. And Mardy, with the way he's rejuvenated his career, he can play well on this surface He moves just about as good as anybody out there. That's what you need on this surface. It's probably never going to be Americans' best surface, but I don't see any reason why like, you know, myself or even Andy, Mardy, Sam, can't break through in an event like this, and maybe Sam and Mardy can."
Or, as Querrey put it: "I think all of us are playing well right now. Maybe the results over the last couple of months haven't shown it, but I think we're all feeling great and striking the ball clean. I feel like we're all pretty dangerous players. . .any of us can beat anyone."
It's funny, what getting that first-ever win at a major can do for a guy.