PARIS—These are the long days, the ones that start at 8 A.M. and finish at 11:30 P.M., the ones where the U.S. press, with our latest of all deadlines, has to wake up the security guards to let us out of the place. The mornings, afternoons, and evenings are hectic, overcrowded, and under-airconditioned, and there are so many matches going on that you're constantly being whipsawed between joy and disappointment, comeback and choke. Because of the sensory overload, these days are also addictive. It’s feels like an accomplishment just to get to the end of one. Sometimes it feels like all you’ve ever done, and all you ever will do, is type.
Tuesday will be another of those days. Before it starts, let me take a quick look around at a few of the developments that emerged from the Roland Garros scrum yesterday.
We talk racquets a lot. We’ve talked surfaces lately. We even make mention of those diabolical modern strings that allow the game to be played so well. So it was probably only a matter of time before we made it over to that other fundamental piece of tennis equipment, the balls. That’s what happened yesterday.
Last year the French Open changed its ball provider to Babolat. There were complaints. The ball was too light, too fast, too hard, too tough to control, too different from the ones used in the run-up to Paris. This year, according to the players, Babolat has heard their cries and made the balls slower and heavier.
Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Milos Raonic all voiced that opinion yesterday. “The change in the ball is obvious,” Djokovic said.
Leave it to David Nalbandian to take the minority position. “For me, that’s the contrary. I felt the balls were faster than other years,” Nalbandian said after his four-set defeat. “They fly more. They’re more like lively balls.”
Nalbandian theorized that Federer was feeling the effects of playing on Lenglen, which he says is, “usually a court that’s slower than the other courts; whereas, you know, I had the impression that the balls were fasters and more difficult to control.”
Or maybe Nalbandian just couldn’t control anything yesterday.
Is it possible for the British press to be too easy on an athlete? Laura Robson is only 18—sometimes it feels like she’s aging backwards—but I was still a little stunned by this scandalous headline in the Mail today:
IMPROVING ROBSON IS PUT OUT TO GRASS AFTER BECOMING FRENCH OPEN CASUALTY
“Improving”? Huh? Is the Mail running scared since the tabloid phone-hacking case broke? Probably not. But it was interesting to read tweets from British journalists during Robson’s match yesterday against 29th-seed Anabel Medina Garrigues. Robson was lauded for how well she was playing, how she was fighting hard and putting balls away. Only at the end of the tweet did you learn that, despite her efforts, she had been broken again. Or that she was down a set. Or that she was down a set and a break. Or that she had lost 6-2, 6-0.
This isn't a horrible thing. It's saner and better than the treatment given to Alex Bogdanovic, best-known in the tabs as the hapless Boggo, the Brit who couldn’t win a match. As I said, Robson is still too young to rip for losing to a seed at a Slam. And the Brits aren’t the only press corps that likes to hope—witness Brian Baker, the world’s most famous winner of a first-round match. I guess my problem is that Robson has already been on the radar screen so long, it feels like we should take a more skeptical, or critical, or realistic, or whatever you want to call it, attitude toward her results.
Something similar could be said in the case of 20-year-old Ryan Harrison, who was up a set and serving for the second before tripping up against Gilles Simon on Monday. Harrison is still in the developing phase, so slack must be cut, but at some point he won’t be in that phase anymore. Yesterday Harrison himself referenced the topic. He criticized U.S. reporters for “harping” on his temper, after he was issued a warning for tossing his racquet; and he objected to the use of the word “deficient” to describe his ability to close out sets when he’s ahead.
“You could have used a little better word choice there,” Harrison said. “It’s not very nice to call somebody deficient.”
“Sorry,” the reporter responded. “An area of improvement.”
“There you go,” Harrison approved. “That would have been nicer.”
Improvement: That’s the word the Mail used when talking about Laura Robson. At what age or stage does “an area that needs improving” become a full-fledged “deficiency”? And does it make a difference if the player is a man or a woman? Robson, at 18, is improving; with the 20-year-old Harrison, it’s currently a gray area, though I think we can all agree that he’s still in the learning stage of his career, especially considering the advancing ages of the pros in general.
There comes a time, though, when a player must acknowledge a weakness that has nothing to do with youth, a flaw that isn’t going to be solved merely with more experience. When that moment comes, exactly, will probably be in the eye of the beholder.
The press conference of the day, courtesy of Alex Bogomolov, Jr., who sadly retired with a leg cramp at match point in the fifth set:
Q. That was a strange ending. Why did you decide to retire on match point?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: Because I couldn't move my leg.
Q. Did you think about maybe asking for a physio?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: You can't get a medical timeout for cramping.
Q. Wasn't it possible to play a few more points?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: I tried, but once it locks up, can't do anything.
Q. When did you start feeling the cramps?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: The deuce point after I ran to the dropshot. My whole leg was straight. I couldn't bend it; I couldn't walk.
I didn't want to risk a potential ligament damage or something. And you can't get a trainer for that.
Q. You didn't feel cramping in the games before?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: I felt it coming the whole time.
Q. You didn't think it would maybe take a few seconds to recover and then you would have an opportunity to play?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: I don't understand where you're going with these questions, man. What do you want me to say? I got cramps and I retired.
Q. Without the cramps do you feel you had the opportunity to win the match?
ALEX BOGOMOLOV, JR.: I had match point in the fourth set.
Tuesday’s play is already under way as I write this. On the docket:
Rafael Nadal’s 2012 debut, against Simone Bolelli—not sure I need to say more than that.
Serena Williams vs. Virginie Razzano—after Vika's thrill ride, will Serena be extra careful?
Andy Murray vs. Tatsuma Ito—there’s concern here over Murray’s back
Caroline Wozniacki vs. Eleni Daniilidou—Caro has hired Sweden’s Thomas Johansson as her coach
Donald Young vs. Grigor Dimitrov—are these two relatively young players still improving, or are they officially deficient? Either way, I'm hoping for good things from both today.