The flight is over—16 hours total to get across the country, seven of them slumped in O’Hare Airport. But it was worth it just to feel warm California air again. It’s been a while. Here’s an hourly report after opening day in Indian Wells.
6:00 A.M.: Fully awake after a death-like sleep, I flip on CNN and see that people are already out killing each other in Florida. It seems a little early until I realize I’m on West Coast time. Is this what Californians wake up to every day?
8:00 A.M: A Holiday Inn breakfast with tennis fans; living in New York City, sometimes I forget they exist. They also happen to be the fittest crew of 70-year-olds I’ve ever seen. They’re ripped! (A little leathery, but still…)
10:00 A.M.: Practice, practice, practice: That’s what the early days at Indian Wells are about. The practice courts are mini-show courts here, with small concrete galleries around them and towering desert hills behind. They draw as many if not more fans than the first-round matches. If anything, the pros are even more impressive in practice. A guy walking past me today says, in wonder, “everything is on the sweet spot.” From Nalbandian to Petrova to Youzhny today, they hit cleanly, easily, on the screws every damn time. Even if they miss, it is almost never a mis-hit.
As I walk down to the courts, I’m passed by a herd of teenagers, all heading toward the first court. That’s where I see the familiar late-whip forehand of Rafael Nadal. In a white bandanna, he looks ready for business. And he is—from the very first warm-up ball, he’s hitting at top speed. I want to tell him to go easy before he throws his arm out.
Even in this informal setting, Nadal wastes no energy or movement. He’s in his own world, undistractable, just as he is during a match—the only difference is that the fist-pumps are reduced to little head nods of intensity or self-laceration. With a packed crowd right up close, there’s a big-match atmosphere to what should be just a routine hitting session. At close range, the athleticism of Nadal and his opponent, JC Ferrero, is a revelation; they’re both kind of exploding around the court. I almost feel sorry for Ferrero when they begin to play a set, until I realize that Nadal has forced Ferrero to raise his own game. JC, loose and relaxed and penetrating with his backhand, gets the better of many of the points.
How is an hour of this practice different from your hour of practice? Every shot counts, nothing is cursory, no time is wasted (except for the volleys; even the pros generally sleepwalk through those, which may tell you something). Next time you practice, try to make every last shot count—you might get better.
10: 30 A.M. Two courts away the atmosphere is decidedly less explosive. Andy Murray is warming up with Richard Gasquet, their coaches, Brad Gilbert and Richard Deblicker, standing with arms folded behind them. On both sides of the court, there’s a kind of father-son dynamic—the boys spend much of their time sulking and rebelling as their fathers try to tell them what’s good for them. The funny thing is that one plays out in English, the other in French, but they look identical.
Murray is taller and thicker in person, more athletic. But his hitting is not quite as impressive as some of the other pros in practice (for some reason, Nalbandian comes across as the world’s cleanest ball-striker in these sessions). Up close you see Murray takes the ball very late on his forehand, and he’s never really on his toes (that’s the opposite of Nadal). Murray has buzzed his hair, and it takes a while for the fans to recognize him. “Wait…that’s Andy Murray!” I hear about a dozen times. I think the shorn look suits him and makes him look jockier—is this the Gilbert influence, sort of like when he took the visor off Roddick’s head? Kamakshi and our colleague Sarah Unke disagree, though; they don’t think it’s a very good cut.
Anyway, Gilbert watches and doesn’t say much as Murray and Gasquet rally. He interjects occasionally: “Need some inspiration, gotta get some inspiration!” Then he looks at Gasquet and says to Murray, “He’s sucking wind over there.” Brad: Always looking for an edge.
Murray doesn’t respond. When he misses a backhand, he says, in that Scottish baritone that’s always a surprise coming out of his mouth, “Andy, yoock!” At one point he scrambles and comes up hobbling. He bends down to touch his knee and says, semi-panicked, “Brad, my knee just went out!” Gilbert comes over and says, “Really?” more in disbelief than worry, as if he’s seen this before. Murray shakes his head, curses, then starts walking. “It’s OK,” he ends up conceding. There’s no mention of the knee again.
From what I can tell, Gilbert is concerned with three things. Murray’s physicality and shot selection on his forehand, and his extension on his serve:
Murray’s playing defensively for the most part, but after one good first serve, he steps in and cracks a heavy-topspin crosscourt forehand for a clear winner. Gilbert exults. “That’s the forehand, very physical!” He makes a topspin motion with his hand, and I see him continue to stress that motion for the rest of the practice. After Murray’s best serve of the day, Gilbert says, “Nice. Good extension.” Later, Murray goes for a high forehand down-the-line winner and nets it. Brad comes out and says, “Maybe that’s not the shot right there, up above your neck.” The only problem is that Murray loudly says “Thanks!” to Gasquet in the middle of Gilbert’s speech, cutting him off. He’s tuning Dad out for the moment.
The session gets steadily more morose on the Murray side, as Gasquet serves him off the court. After one netted return, Murray curses and says dourly, “Into the net.” The next one he hits long and says, more dourly, “Into the fence.” He tosses his racquet to the ground and a woman next to me says, “Oh, so that’s Andy Murray. I recognize that racquet throw from San Jose.” By the end of the hour, Murray has begun to miss his backhand. He slouches a little lower after each, and after he nets one return says, “The best part of your game, down the toilet” as he walks to the other side of the court. There he misses another return and begins to walk back in the other direction, saying, more slowly and dourly, “The…best…part…of…your…game. Down…the…toilet.” Gilbert puffs his cheeks and blows out a sigh.
I’d tell you this is a bad attitude, except, sorry to say, I’ve been there.
11:45: Gael Monfils is beating Julian Benneteau handily in the third set when someone in the crowd yells, “Bring it home, Monfils.” I wonder what Monfils will make of this comment. “Huh, he wants me to bring something to my house?” After that, he collapses and loses five straight games for the match.
Seriously, Monfils is his own worst enemy. As Sarah Unke mentions to me, “He likes to go for it when he’s moving backward.” This, of course, is not how the game is taught. I would also add that Monfils had two match points and went for drop shots on both.
1:00: Court 6 is packed for the third-set tiebreaker between Lucie Safarova and Agnieswka (pronounced, I believe, “Aneeshka”) Radwanska. Safarova wins because she’s the bigger hitter, but sometimes you just get taken by a single shot of a player, the rest of her game be damned. For me, it’s that way with Radwanska’s two-handed backhand—when she gets into one, her contact is, in golf terms, dead solid perfect. It has its own sound. In the breaker alone, she blitzes one for a passing shot winner, hits a perfectly disguised drop shot with it, and then levels another for a crosscourt return winner. And still loses. Ah well, those are the shots I’ll remember, and a good enough reason to watch the match.
1:30: Juan Monaco and Nicolas Mahut are both fine players; their games are fun to watch—one has French flair, the other South American grind. But in the five minutes I’m out at their match, Monaco yells at a linesman and Mahut at a ball girl. I wonder what the casual fan thinks: “Spoiled tennis players,” most likely. But as I watch them fight through a three-setter, it occurs to me that it’s hard to ask them to be so intense and competitive, and then not also get testy. It doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it reminds me that tennis is lucky is to have guys who can balance competitiveness and class: Federer, Nadal, Ljubicic for the most part, Safin for the most part, Roddick for the most part (OK, maybe just Federer and Nadal). It’s tougher than it looks.
3:00: Which leads me to the two press conferences I attended today—Federer’s and Nadal’s. You couldn’t ask for much more from these guys. Nadal humble and smiling, nervously rubbing his arms; Federer casually commanding. Nadal was told that James Blake had recently shot a hole in one. He immediately raised his head and blurted, “A hole in one! Unbelievable!” He was then asked, “What was your greatest sports achievement outside of tennis?” Nadal smiled, threw his palms up, and finally said with a grin, “Not much!” The whole room broke up.
He was also told that Larry Stefanki had said that Fernando Gonzalez had the best forehand in the sport. Nadal’s answer: “Who? Who say that?” He went on to assert that he thinks his forehand is better than Gonzo’s, but not as good as Federer’s. Hey, the kid’s honest.
It came out in Federer’s presser that he had practiced with Pete Sampras for a couple days recently. When he was asked about it some more, Fed was ready with a line that sounded like he’d been practicing it. He said, with a smile, “[Sampras is] playing very good, but not good enough to beat me.”
Someone asked what the score had been. This time it sounded like he had agreed with Pete beforehand what the answer would be:
“Can’t tell you,” Federer said, grinning. “But it was good fun.”