Rafael Nadal was down, 3-6, 2-4, and struggling to hold serve when a Rafaelista in the open air sauna that is the Indian Wells Tennis Garden cried out, "Come on, Rafa, use those biceps!" My blogging comrade Steve Tignor and I, sitting side by side, turned to each other and, more or less in the same breath, said, "As if that would be the answer. . ."
In all fairness to the Nadal fans in the pews yesterday, I'm not sure there was an "answer" in any meaningful sense of the word: Novak Djokovic was serving a heavy ball, beating Nadal in the critical if barely perceptible race for court positioning, and Nadal was Nadal at his most vulnerable - making uncharacteristic errors and looping a few too many balls into the dangerous places.
Of course, the two men on court were playing a grade of tennis an entire level better than we are accustomed to seeing - heavy, purposeful, fearless, I'll see your inside-out forehand and raise you an extraordinary crosscourt backhand flick! tennis. So the 6-3, 6-2 win by Djokovic was in many ways more satisfying and praiseworthy than some 7-6 in the third cliff dweller in which the principals hand the match back and forth, as if they were two polite gentleman haggling over the last brazil nut in a cocktail tray: Please, take it! No, no, you take it. I insist, it's yours!
The lack of drama made this a fine match to contemplate rather than track, and I find my parenthetical margin notes more inviting that the point-by-point shorthand alongside them. It was a corker, weather-wise, and as we took our seats a friendly neighbor stood up and gave everyone a free dousing from his Rube Goldberg heat alleviation machine, which was a lime-green bottle that looked like a plant sprayer, with a battery operated fan mounted on top. When he turned on the fan and squeezed the pump trigger, the contraption sent out a fine spray. Ever see what a drizzle does to a notebook and ink? So much for good neighbors.
When Nadal broke Djokovic in the third game, it looked as if we were in for a long one, but Djokovic broke right back and after that he never trailed. The pattern that emerged was Djokovic taking command with a penetrating, flatter game and a greater willingness and more opportunities to make positive placements. One of the instructive things about the match-up between these two Roger Federer understudies is that it reveals the extent to which Nadal is just as surely a clay-court player as he is a charming provincial in a game dominated by players who have cosmopolitan roots.
It always seemed to me that Nadal's game was designed and developed by people who had heard about and perhaps even caught a glimpse of tennis, this strange game they play in far away and conceptually intimidating places like Paris and New York. But they decided to teach it to one of the boys on the island anyway, albeit without consulting the user's manual.
What they came up with is like tennis, but different - idiosyncratic, simplified and born less of an obsessive focus on technique and a vague concern with aesthetics than the pure desire and exuberance of playing games, and playing them with the intent to win. Nadal is like Jean Jacques Rousseau's archetypal Noble Savage. He may not have ever put it exactly this way, but can't you just see him saying, with that signature knitted brow and somewhat baffled expression, "But tennis is about to winning, no?"
So it is that Nadal developed a game that, no matter what else you say about it, is an organic and profound expression of his unspoken, atypical understanding of the game and why and how you play it. If you think that's stretch, just compare him with his neighbor Carlos Moya. There must have been some fundamentally different vision of "the game" for them to have ended up playing it so differently.
The way Nadal plays is a pure reflection of the surface on which he developed his game, and his early realization that it is always better to win than to lose, and therefore the whole point of tennis was to play in the way that most often enabled you to win. How successful was he? For years now, he has basically been unbeatable on clay. I'd say that's pretty successful. But on other surfaces, through no fault of his own, he faces a different and in some ways unanticipated challenge. You could say his game matured long before he had a good idea of what lay out there beyond those red clay courts by the sea.
I write all this because as much as I admire Djokovic's game, my heart really went out to Nadal today. He is a player of tremendous courage. This is an era when we've seen a shift to medium-speed tennis on mostly hard courts, and which features equipment that has also transformed the face of clay-court tennis in many ways. We've seen a gradual emergence of an "all-court attitude" as well as an all-court style. Djokovic and Nadal both played mostly on red clay as kids, but you'd never know it from the way they play today.
Djokovic's all-court attitude is rooted in his style, technique and strategic approach to the game. Nadal's is rooted in his heart and will, and that fact that he wins as often as he does, and competes so wholeheartedly on surfaces other than clay, is a tribute to his great character.
Consider this: Bjorn Borg is the only rival Nadal has in the Open-era clay-court pantheon, not just in terms of success but also as a radical stylist whose physical qualities, technique and disposition was ideal for clay. Yet the very sight of a hard court was enough to bring a grimace of chagrin to Borg's face. Nadal has answered the grass court challenge as well, if not as successfully (so far), as Borg, and he has faced to the challenge off hard courts far better. Noble savage indeed.
Another reason I'm thinking along these lines is because it seemed to me throughout this tournament that Nadal has been struggling - at times mightily. Of course, you can say that Jet Boy is made of struggle, which is exactly why it's so easy to overlook how tough some of these events are for him, and on him. He has a lot to overcome in many of his battles, starting with his own natural game. Just think how often he makes miraculous saves to stay in points, and how many of those desperate save end up earning him a precious hold or break that, theoretically, he should not be able to claim. A player like Djokovic is capable of denying him those saves.
