Going to the Ledge

Each year at the U.S. Open, we’re told that the tournament hasn’t really begun until we get a five-set match that goes deep into the night. For tennis fans in American time zones, the Australian Open doesn’t feel like the Australian Open until we wake up one morning before work, sip our coffee, flip idly through a few channels, and find a tennis match that’s being played live in Melbourne. You may have set your DVR to tape it at 3:00 A.M., but it’s too late to go back to the start now.

You're compelled to keep watching because, whether it’s Safin vs. Federer, Roddick vs. El Aynaoui, or Baghdatis vs. Hewitt, the first thing you hear is the buzz of disbelief inside Rod Laver Arena about what’s happening down on the court—you may not know the score yet, but the moment sounds historic. That’s how it sounded again this past January when I woke up and discovered Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco deep in the fourth set, and the fourth hour, of their semifinal in Melbourne. There was a lot of scampering, spinning, and sneaker-squeaking going on, but the first shot I remember seeing was a forehand by Verdasco that was positively hammered, straight and flat, past Nadal. It wasn’t even close to the sideline, yet Rafa was nowhere near it. The shot gave Verdasco six set points to take it to a fifth and had fans in the arena on their feet. It only got better from there. It was hard to imagine that this match would be topped over the next 12 months; despite two other very strong contenders, it wasn't.

—We get snippets of the reactions of the Aussie announcers in these clips. The first word we hear, appropriately enough, is “sensational.” As the match progresses and the shots keep coming, the announcers go from saying words to just making sounds, like “Oh!” and “Ah!” and “OHHHH!!!”

—This is the third match in my Top 10 from the Australian Open. We see again that the court inspires hard-hitting even as it allows the other guy to run down those hard-hit shots. And we see again that the break before the tournament allowed a guy like Verdasco, who had spent the off-season training with Gil Reyes in Las Vegas, a chance to improve his game before the weekly grind began to take its toll. Which, eventually, it did. Will there be another surprise like Verdasco in Melbourne in 2010? Who might it be?

—Some facts: At 5 hours and 14 minutes, it was the longest match in Aussie Open history. The first set alone took 75 minutes. Verdasco hit 95 winners overall. The final score was 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (1-7), 6-4.

—Writing about the Aussie Open final a few days ago, I mentioned that Nadal, when he’s feeling upbeat about his game, is very good at being tactically one-dimensional. In other words, he’s very good at finding the right moment not to be one-dimensional. He finds that moment early in the first-set tiebreaker, when he sneaks in behind a deep ground stroke and slides a forehand drop volley an inch over the net. Verdasco isn’t expecting it, and is nowhere near it.

—This match opened up as it went along, as both guys got comfortable enough to improvise. Was it something about the fact that they’re both left-handed? I’m also left-handed, and while I hate playing fellow lefties with strong serves, it can be an intriguing novelty to get into rallies with them. Instead of belting every ball crosscourt, to a right-hander’s backhand, you find yourself backing up to your right and looping the ball inside-out with your forehand from there, trying to get it into your opponent’s backhand. You can see in this match that Nadal and Verdasco are both trying to make this dynamic work for them. Whoever is hitting the forehand to the other player’s backhand will control most of the points. It makes for a kind of reverse chess match from the one we usually see in baseline tennis, and it contributed to the uniquely creative rallies we saw from Nadal and Verdasco. Who says you need a contrast in styles to produce classic tennis?

—No rally was more creative or improvisatory than the one that gave Nadal a set point (or was it a break point?) in the third. All of the slices and sidespins, as well as Nadal’s killer final hook shot from way outside the court, made the point feel almost playful.

—Then, in the fourth set, there’s another shift. You can hear it on Verdasco’s strings. He’s gone beyond playful and improvisatory and just started clubbing his shots, yet he’s lost none of his accuracy. With that nice, high, true bounce, the ball must have looked like a basketball coming into him. As for Nadal, whether he was rolling over it, around it, or under it, his spin gave him so much control that the ball looked like it was on a string after he hit it. It seemed, on this day, that he had finally made his slice into a weapon. By season's end, he wasn’t hitting it half as well.

—At 4-5, 30-40 in the fifth set, after five hours, Nadal and Verdasco had each won 192 points. Then Verdasco, who seemed to have left his old, unreliable self behind for good, reverted to form and double-faulted. Nadal finished the match flat on his back, while Verdasco was bent double on the other side of the net.

—I’ve said in my round-ups of 2009 that this was the year of the tear, of the Emotional Generation baring its soul. Most of those emotions came out on the trophy stand, but in this match, Nadal's eyes went glassy with tears before the final point, something I can’t remember ever seeing before from a male player. The picture of that moment, above, is a fitting testament to the 2009 season.

If going to the ledge so often, both mentally and physically, shaves a couple years off of Rafael Nadal's career, so be it. Because of him, and because of his performances in matches like this, we've gotten to see just how far the sport can push a man.