!Picby Pete Bodo
WIMBLEDON, England—At one point in the terrible punishment Victoria Azarenka was inflicting on Ana Ivanovic on Centre Court, a raft of pigeon feathers came fluttering down from the closed roof. It was received as a sign that all was well again—that Rufus, the Harris hawk employed by Wimbledon to keep the pigeon numbers down, was back on the job.
Azarenka was distracted momentarily, but she quickly returned to the job at hand, which was setting poor Ivanovic's tentative rehabilitation back to, oh, January of 2010. In no time, Azarenka polished off the former No. 1, 6-1, 6-0, sending a shiver down the spines of those who have been reveling in how unpredictable and competitive so mamy of the women's matches here have been.
Azarenka was asked about the pigeon right off the bat in her presser, and she said, "Well, I have no idea actually. I just saw some feathers coming down. Actually, I don't know how it got there. The roof was closed. It was kind of interesting, but there is nothing else to say."
It's unclear whether or not Azarenka actually hit the pigeon, but when queried she cut off the theme, cold: "Yeah, I really wasn't focused on that, sorry. It was not my concern there."
That's a pretty representative exchange for the impatient, impetuous, not entirely sunny-dispositioned Azarenka, aka Ms. Whoooo! Her sarcasm can be as stinging as her forehand, her opacity as grating as her ululations. But the No. 2 seed could re-claim the No. 1 ranking Maria Sharapova snatched out of her hands a few weeks ago by the time this tournament is finished (in any event, there will be a new No. 1 next Monday). The curious thing is that so far very few people seem to care about this aspect of Wimbledon.
Azarenka has progressed through the draw largely ignored if not exactly unnoticed. It isn't that the game of the former No. 1 and reigning Australian Open champion is unsuited to grass, nor that anyone has established superiority over her. She's not slumping, hurt, or in any other way less than the new favorite. It's just that despite having an exciting game and, if you can ignore the ceaseless cauterwauling, a fundamentally appealing style and look, nobody is getting all fired up about her. She's getting dangerously close to Ivan Lendl territorry in the "champion that nobody loves" category.
This mostly comes down to the fact that Azarenka is a bit of a hard case, a volatile combination of blunt and impatient. She's sometimes seems to be in as much of a hurry to leave the interview room as the tennis court, only that quality really only pays off at the latter. I shudder at the thought of how she must treat a waiter who's a little slow rolling out the cheese trolley.
Here's an unedited sequence from her presser today. Having demolished Ivanovic in an hour, you'd think she might relax and put her proverbial feet up for a bit:
Q. Why are there so many upsets in the women's draw this year?
A: "It's not really a question for me. I can only speak for myself."
Q. Is there a difference this year in the courts, the balls, the weather?
A: "You can always find some excuses. You can also find some differences or whatever. I don't know. I cannot speak for other girls. I'm trying to stay focused on my game."
Q. You find it very good, dropping only 13 games?
A: "Not counting, sorry. Really not counting. Just taking it one at a time."
Okay, they may not be genius-grade questions, but most of the other women have no trouble understanding that all they really need to do is jabber away for a bit and everyone walks away happy. That's just not the Azarenka way. Be that as it may, Azarenka's natural impatience may have been a drag on her development as a champion. And while today's match may not have been an exercise in problem-solving for Azarenka, the ones that lie ahead may demand the patience that has never been her trademark, although she did seem to embrace something like it shortly after her grandmother famously told her to slow down and enjoy life and stop being such as sourpuss.
It was almost as if something along those lines crossed her mind midway through her presser, because she suddenly seemed to slow down and relax, and by the end she was a regular chatty Cathy—at least by her own standard. Someone returned to the distractions theme and asked her to catalog the ones she's experienced.
"Unusual distractions? I can't really think of some. Sometimes it can be annoying when somebody is chewing chips right when you're serving. Doesn't really matter. You just have to stay focused on your game. Whatever is going on around is going on around. It's out of your hand. But the feathers, it was fun."
Given that this is Azarenka here, that last line make me wonder if she didn't hit that bird after all.