MELBOURNE—Does this tournament seem like it’s going by more quickly than your average Slam? It does to me, though I can't tell you exactly why. Yesterday reminded us of how unpredictable these events can be. For most of the afternoon, the consensus in the press room was that things were “flat”—Roger Federer’s walkover certainly contributed to that feeling. Then, suddenly, we were immersed in what will surely go down as one of the 10 most exciting matches of 2012. Tournaments tend to go by fast when you’re absorbed in them the way we were for Isner and Nalbandian.
Here’s how the local papers in Oz covered the day, and what else happened away from the craziness in Maragaret Court Arena.
Links: *Sydney Morning Herald*; *The Australian*; *The Age*
Roasting the New Guy
New ATP chief Brad Drewett met the press for the first time yesterday, opening with a short speech and fielding questions. The initial impression? It could have been better. Fellow journalists walked away wishing that, in this time of struggle and strife, Drewett had offered something more concrete or realistic than bromides about how the “men’s game is in an unbelievable position, arguably the best ever,” and how he’s “going to hit the ground running.”
The Australian’s Patrick White puts these sentiments into print today, in a scathing column entitled, “ATP chief hits the ground running, but maybe his eyes aren’t wide open.”
White begins by noting what a disappointment Drewett was as a player. Quarterfinalist at the Aussie Open at age 17, he was touted as the Next Newk, but never cracked the Top 30.
Yesterday, White writes, “Drewett spoke of the health of the ATP in a rollicking, optimistic manner uncomfortably at odds with the reports the players want to strike.”
“The business of tennis is booming,” White continues. “That was the message Drewett was determined to serve and volley to death.” He notes that while Drewett listed his time spent in the ATP’s senior management as one of his credentials, that’s hardly going to win him friends among the players at this particular moment.
Asked about the strike possibility, Drewett made this unfortunate answer: “I’ve read the articles. I think they’re quite sensational in lots of ways. I’m obviously not going to go there.”
White wraps up his roast with a zinger. Drewett is asked when China will have a top male player:
“’I get asked this question a lot when I’m in China (second only to when he’s in the Galapagos islands),” White writes, quoting Drewett. “’My answer is, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.’
“Which actually was the question in the first place.”
Pulling His Punch
Andy Murray's column returns to The Australian. This time he marks the 70th birthday of one of his heroes, Muhammad Ali, and talks about his love of boxing. Murray claims that one of his favorite things about the sport is its gamesmanship, and he mentions that Ivan Lendl has begun to regale him with stories of the bad boy days, and the gamesmanship that went on then in tennis. Murray seems intrigued; we'll see where that leads.
But is that his style? The Scot goes on to reveal something else about his psyche, and perhaps his tennis game. Talking about the time he sparred with Amir Khan, a former welterweight champion, Murray writes,
“His trainer kept telling me to hit him . . . but I was a bit half-hearted because it felt strange trying to punch someone.”
It’s counterpunching, not punching, that will always come naturally to Muzz.
Young Bernie Grows Up . . . For Now
The Morning Heraldlauds Bernard Tomic’s solid, professional follow-up win over Sam Querrey last night.
“On Monday afternoon we had our first real glimpse of Bernie the Warrior,” Jon Ralph writes. “Last night the tennis world was introduced to Tomic the Technician. We knew he was wildly talented. Now we know he’s utterly nerveless.”
Uh oh. Up until now, the Aussie coverage of Tomic had been cut with a healthy dose of realism/skepticism. It seems that blind hope may be starting to win out.
—Elsewhere in the Herald, writer Mark Stevens needles Glynn Hewitt, Lleyton’s father, for sticking with his trademark mullet for all of these years.
“Full marks for loyalty to the year of 1985,” Stevens writes, “a year when the Hooters were cool.”
—Stevens also notes the prevalence of blowouts in the women’s draw. In 11 of 64 first-round WTA matches, the loser managed three games or fewer.
—Serena Williams said she might request not to be put on at night again, because, “I hate bugs more than you can imagine.” Apparently there was an invasion of tiny black creatures in Laver Arena during her first-round match. “They kept jumping on me. Yuck!”
When Williams was reminded that the women’s final is scheduled for the evening, she pulled back. “I’ll try to get used to them.”
—The Herald, surveying the top players in the first round, touts the chances of Li Na, who looked fitter and sharper than she has in six months. Li says she had a good off-season of training in Germany.
Rank Injustice
The Age’s Greg Baum also talks up Li Na, while Peter Hanlon decries a WTA ranking system that puts the likes of Caroline Wozniacki at the top of the heap.
Hanlon quotes Martina Navratilova: “Right now, there’s too much emphasis on quantity,” she says of the tour's computer system. “A correct ranking system reflects accurately what the feeling is among the players.”
True enough, but the players believe that Serena Williams is the best in the world. Should she just be popped up to the top of the rankings, even after she hasn’t played for four months? Or should the rankings be a poll of the players, the way coaches are polled for college football rankings?
Rafa Has No 'Election'
The ATP's No. 2 appeared on an Australian TV show that features a player sitting in a sponsor vehicle and answering fan questions from an IPad. Rafa received this hard-hitting query: What color hair does he go for in a woman?
“There was Rafael Nadal, long-term partner of the dark-haired Xisca, his sweetheart from Majorca," the Age's Linda Pearce writes. "Blonde or brunette, Rafa?"
“Both things can work really well,” he smiles. “I don’t have any election.”
Raging with Class
An epic match deserves a suitably over-the-top headline, don’t you think? For that, we must return to the motherland, where they know how to do these things. The *Daily Mail* obliges:
RAGING NALBANDIAN DEMANDS ACTION AGAINST UMPIRE AFTER CONTROVERSIAL EXIT TO ISNER
Raging? Oh, that’s not all Nalby was yesterday. The Mail also describes him as “the furious David Nalbandian,” and “the clearly livid Nalbandian.”
So, yes, Nalbandian was mad. He argued, he pointed, he threw his racquet wildly. But in the end, I was impressed by the Argentine’s restraint—this is a man who was once known as the "Grouchy Gaucho." Nalbandian didn’t take away from Isner’s win, or sulk afterward. He said that it wasn't the reason he lost, and while he was outraged in the press room, he didn’t act like it was the end of the world. Nalbandian even said that it wasn’t the worst call that he'd ever suffered. That came in the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 2003 against Andy Roddick.
Raging, furious, livid, and, in the end, about as classy as you could ask.