LONDON—Feliciano Lopez walked into the interview room this afternoon, pulled his hair back, and listened to a question. Actually, it was a statement, a statement that sounded like tennis’s version of science fiction.
“You had 57 winners and just seven unforced errors,” a reporter told him. When the numbers came out of her mouth, they seemed to surprise her all over again. “Those stats are almost unbelievable, really.”
I knew Lopez had played some supreme tennis today, but 57 and 7 was indeed hard to credit, for me and even for Lopez himself. His eyes widened a little as he heard them, even though, it turned out, his coach had already passed them along.
“Yeah, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “I was surprised that I didn’t miss . . . anything almost.” And, it turns out, those numbers may not be entirely believable. There's been a lot of talk here about the low unforced error, high winner count so far this week. But one thing is indisputable: Lopez played some ball today.
For a long time I was never a particular fan of his game. It was too service-based, and his rudimentary ground strokes broke down when he got tight, which was a lot of the time. Then I saw him play the doubles in the 2010 Davis Cup final with Fernando Verdasco. Lopez was the star of the show. He owned half-a-dozen shots I didn’t know he could hit, and which he never gets a chance to show off in today’s one-note singles game. Best among them was a backhand volley lob that he kept taking out of the air at the service line and landing with uncanny accuracy on, or very near, his opponents’ baseline. The way Lopez took the pace out their hard-hit shots and turned them into something delicate, was a sure sign that this was a guy who, while he had made himself a great player, had a good deal more to offer. He offered it all today against Roddick.
The 29-year-old ranked this win first among his Grand Slam victories, and it was his first in eight tries against Roddick at any tournament. “It’s definitely a great win,” Lopez said. “I played solid all three sets. When you play Andy here, you never expect to win two straight tiebreakers against him.”
“I got beat,” Roddick said soon after. He wasn’t just informing us of the result. He meant, “I got beat.”
“He served about as well as someone has,” Roddick elaborated. “The stuff that’s enabled me to beat him seven times, making him make passing shots under duress, making him play defense on his forehand, he did well today. He played an outstanding match.”
Roddick was sober and clear-eyed in defeat, and there was little that was bitter or somber in his answers. “He played better than I did,” he said. “It’s easier for me to walk out of here with that and move forward with that,” than it was last year, after his loss to Yen-Hsun Lu, a match that Roddick said he “gave away.”
And for the most part he was right; there wasn't a ton her could have done today. Lopez hit 28 aces in three sets and seemed to have Roddick completely fooled most of the time. The American guessed one way on his return and Lopez went the other. “There weren’t a whole lot of patterns,” Roddick said. At times it looked like Roddick had his head down and was walking to the other side of the court before Lopez’s serve had even crossed the net.
The simple difference from their previous matches was that Lopez played better. He made his passing shots, and the quality of his serve saved him from any nerves that might—would—otherwise have crept in. Still, Roddick’s approaches floated, and he allowed Lopez to gain the advantage in important rallies. Most crucially, he played poorly in the tiebreakers. Down 2-4 in the all-important second-set tiebreaker, his approach sat up and Lopez cracked a passing shot. At 2-5, the Spaniard came in and Roddick attempted a strange slice backhand pass that landed limply in the net. Asked afterward if he felt like he was still improving, Roddick was brutally honest in his self-assessment.
“Not this year,” he said. “I haven’t played well this year, for sure. I don’t think I’ve played my best since April of last year.” But he did end on a note of at least slight hope. “I think I can [improve]. It has to get better.” He sounded thankful to have Davis Cup to think about next week, even if it does potentially mean having to face Lopez again right away.
As for Mr. 57 and 7, it was a pleasure to watch him from inside Centre Court. The shots that had looked rudimentary in the past appeared smoothly understated this time around. In the age of the belted ground stroke, it’s a little surreal to see a player simply cut under a ball, send it skidding without a ton of pace into a corner, and yet still have it be enough for him to win the point at the net. Every once in a while a Slam offers up one of these flashback moments, and they’re always just as eye-opening—it can still be done!—and always as fun to see.
But all of those nice slices and curled passing shots and angled volleys wouldn’t have meant much to Lopez if he also hadn’t served lights out. Even that shot had its appeal from an aesthetic perspective, as all great serving does. Each memorable server has his or her distinctive moment. Ivanisevic’s came in his arm extension—straight up, no clutter. Sampras’s happened when he raised the left side of his body high and then started his right side upward. Lopez, in their league for one day at least, takes his arms apart slowly and deliberately to begin. There’s a dignified menace in the gesture.
For the rest of these two weeks, no one is going to want to face that gesture, or the skidding, hard to read, line-catching lefty serve that it produces. Lopez might play Gael Monfils next, and, if he gets that far, Andy Murray. (The British press, which has lately learned that Judy Murray refers to Lopez as “Deliciano," is praying for that one.) In the longer run, Lopez is playing the best tennis of his career and, if he keeps serving his nerves away, could potentially, even at this late stage, turn himself into a reliable alternative to the two-handed, baseline-slugging, baseline-hugging consensus.
