LONDON—You might think that Manic Monday at Wimbledon would be just that, a manic, sweaty scramble from court to court and epic to epic; a dream day, in other words, for any tennis-loving journalist or fan. And it did seem like a wild ride for at least one reporter in my row in the press room. Her assignment was to get to all 16 matches, and then write about the experience. She was in and out of her seat all day, getting redder from the sun as the hours went on; but she seemed energized by it all. It couldn’t have been easy: She probably had to sprint to make it in time to see any of Azarenka’s or Kvitova’s blowout wins.
That wasn’t how it worked for me. I could theoretically have tried that same scramble, and I would have enjoyed it. But what if there was an upset, what if Serena lost, or Roger got in a fist fight with Jake Garner, or Andy Murray ordered Judy, Kate, and Wills out of Centre Court? Then what?
To guard against all of these possibilities—and I really wouldn’t have wanted to miss the last two if they’d happened—I had to spend an unfortunately large amount of my Monday parked at my desk in the press room. The downside was not seeing a whole lot of live tennis. The upside was, with two monitors in front of me and every court televised, that I got to see a lot of tennis, period, on a wild day of it. Watching Federer and Nadal get behind in first-set tiebreakers simultaneously, I couldn’t decide whether I was loving the moment, or whether it was all a bit too much to handle, or even follow properly. It’s a trade-off, really. If you sit in the press room, you can, with a little bit of ingenuity, see every important, exciting, weird, and fun moment on every court. But if you do, you won’t have had a chance to participate in those moments, the way you do when you see them live. On the other hand, once you leave the press room and commit to seeing something in person, you’re going to miss 10 other things happening on other courts. Which is fine—I came to Wimbledon because I love live tennis.
Either way, live and on the tube, by the late afternoon Manic had turned to just plain Mad. Here are a few recollections from my vantage point at the “center” of it.
Most Illuminating Comparison
You might think it would have been the sight of Rog and Rafa trying to slip out of their tiebreaker troubles together, but we already know what those two look like when they’re playing at the same time. What was more interesting was seeing Serena-Bartoli side by side with Gasquet-Murray.
The men’s shots curved more, and there was a cat and mouse aspect to their rallies. There was a lot of flash and style, but there was also something detached about the competition, as if they just wanted to go about their business without confronting each other directly. This is the general tone of men’s tennis these days, but Murray and Gasquet seemed to be as much artists as warriors out there—to be fair, though, Murray won in part because he brought a well-measured emotional aggression to this one.
It was the opposite in both cases in the women’s match. There was no bend on the ball; it went flat and straight and fast. And while neither woman got in each other’s face, exactly, there was more of a willingness to throw themselves forward emotionally, to play the warrior role—Serena always does this, of course, but today Bartoli made a conscious effort not to let her take up all of the emotional “space” in the arena.
There’s only one conclusion that can be drawn: Men are sensitive creatures.
Most Galvanizing Moment
I was deep into the Serena-Murray split screen on my two tubes when it slowly became apparent on my computer’s live scores—three things to follow at once!—that Caroline Wozniacki was in trouble. I switched over intermittently during the third set and was pleasantly surprised, as I have been many times in the past, by her opponent Dominika Cibulkova’s bouncy, feisty energy—one writer here refers to the diminutive Slovak as Pocket Rocket. While I have my, um, reservations about that nickname, the concept is sound.
Before I knew it, someone in the row behind me was calling out “match point for Cibulkova”—we tend to just say these things automatically, but the alerts can help our colleagues. I switched back over, saw her serve, saw Wozniacki lob back an OK return, and saw Cibulkova waste no time in running around it and banging it with a free and easy arm into the corner for a winner. That’s how you finish a match! Her smile as she waved to the crowd was nice, too, as Court 2—not such a bad place, after all—rippled with contagious energy. These are the little moments, tucked away on small, packed courts, that make the Slams the bristling, bustling events that they are. I saw it on TV, but I was happy just to see it.
Most Surprising, but Not Really All That Surprising Development
I wrote recently that Bernard Tomic is tough to figure. The same could be said for Bulgaria’s lean, wispy and deceptively talented Tsvetana Pironkova. Great game—versatile, with feel and subtlety; at Wimbledon, and against Venus Williams, it’s a winner. She had Venus thrown off from start to finish. Don’t disappear again on me, TP, watching your win wasn't a bad way to spend a “lunch hour”—at, like, 4:00 P.M.—inhaling a (very good) beef and horseradish on white bread sandwich at my desk.
Most Surprisingly Fun Moment
Along with every court, you can also watch press conferences at your desk. My favorite of the day was Marion Bartoli’s, though I was in the room for that one. It’s always nice to see a player search for answers and try her best to speak to a reporter’s specific question. Bartoli was revealing and smart and giddy, and she even looked at her questioners with interest. I also liked her American-isms. This is how Bartoli described her previous match, a 9-7 win in the third over Flavia Pennetta, “Well, I was suffering the most definitely against Flavia,” the Frenchwoman said. “I mean, that one was crazy.”
Of course, it’s easier to be revealing and fun and polite when you win. Andy Murray was about as light-hearted today as I’ve ever seen him. He talked about how it hurt to shave his upper lip, so that makes him less willing to shave when he should. But he kind of regretted it today. If he’d known that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—a.k.a. Kate and Wills—were going to be there, he said, he would have buzzed off "the puff."
Most Near-Epic Moment
Nadal-Del Potro was a vintage modern match. It had the good and the bad: the winners, the gets, the spins and rallies and power that make us drop our jaws a few dozen times a match. It also had the medical time-outs, for both players, and warnings for slow play, given to one player, Nadal, though both were slower than the legal 20-second limit, that we’ve come to expect.
Nadal’s heel injury—he’s getting an MRI—planted a seed of doubt in his head, and I thought del Potro might end up the winner. He appeared to be the stronger and more confident player for much of the match. But not for the parts that counted the most, the tiebreakers. Del Potro was up 3-0 in the first and lost 8-6, and he missed three routine forehands in the all-important third-set breaker, after playing some fine tennis in the preceding games. But credit Nadal as well. He wasn't at his best in those same preceding games, yet early in the tiebreaker he dug up with one of his best returns of the match and grabbed the momentum from there—it was an ambush. I would say that this is what great champions do, but I’m guessing you already know that.
Finally, as darkness was setting in, I made it out into the warm air—it felt wonderdul—and up to the press seats inside Centre Court. No more upsets of fist-fights were possible; Federer had won, and Tsonga, whose play has been a revelation these last few rounds, had taken care of David Ferrer. I sat down to a classic tennis scene, the classic tennis scene. A full and buzzing Centre Court crowd. A sense of light fading, which only enhances the atmosphere. A final match of the day, with all eyes on it. And, most of all, a long, almost-epic struggle on court. Then came the capper, the best of the sport's recurring moments, when one player walks out from a changeover and tries to serve it out at 5-4. There’s no escaping the responsibility; there are no alternatives but ultimate success or sinking failure. Nadal stepped into that responsibility, got his first serves in, and held at love.
It was a sane and fittingly impressive ending to an impressively insane day. I would tell you that that’s what great champions do, but I’m guessing you already know that.