By TW Contributing Editor, Andrew Burton!Creatureslightdark
Morning, all.
Yesterday saw an epic struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
There are fundamentally two ways to win a tennis point: through an opponent's error, or through hitting the ball to a place where he or she can't get to it before the second bounce. There's a whole taxonomy around winners, forced errors, unforced errors, aces, and so on, which really don't amount to too much - in the end, a win is what counts.
But the two ways to win, in cartoon form, help us to define two fundamental strategies - setting up and executing winning shots, or showing the opponent that you can keep the ball in play, tempting him or her into an error from frustration or overreaching. (Of course, playing the ball deep with spin can be another way of creating errors - what counts is the margin for error a player is looking for)
In the ATP, primary exemplars of what I'll call strategy A are James Blake and Ivo Karlovic. Strategy B is represented by Lleyton Hewitt and David Ferrer.
There's something of a tendency (you know if you do this or not) to see the former kind of approach as positive, and the latter as negative. And from there it's a short, hop, skip and a jump to good and evil, and our eternal Manichean struggle.
Or not. Still, I was musing on this (maybe I caught too much sun) as I watched Juan Monaco, who looks like he got an assist from Raphael (the painter, not the Mallorcan tennis player), take on everyone's favorite little devil, Ice Cold Willy Canas. To make it interesting, Monaco was in full white with blue accents Adidas, while the Topper-clad Canas sported black with the occasional hellish flash of red.
Seen up close (I had a front row seat in one corner, next to two Argentine coaches), Canas is remarkable. His - um - slightly shorter shorts exposed the biggest quadriceps I'd ever seen. The bulges above Canas knees are as amazing as the biceps on Nadal's right arm, especially when Canas flexes to serve.
And I expected running, but not what Canas did with the ball when he got there. Again and again, Monaco would stretch his fellow countryman wide. Most pros in this situation use height to recover (they hit a looping topspin or floating slice), but Canas stays with a relatively flat, whipped deep drive. Now, this may take a bit of time away from his opponent, but it also leaves Canas with little time himself to get back in position for his next shot. His ability to execute this shot after shot is amazing, and I warmed to him as I watched him push himself over and over again.
When Monaco took a second set tie-break and Canas called for treatment on his ankle, it looked like Light would prevail. But the Darkness was ultimately stronger, at least mentally. At 2-2 40-30, Canas played an approach shot up the line, called out by the ad lineswoman. Carlos Bernades overruled, and Monaco lost it. On the TV replay (I'd gone in to escape the cold) it looked like a poor overrule. We were still on serve, but Monaco was figuratively and then literally broken, and he essentially gave up at that point. It was a pity that the match, which took the better part of 3 hours, ended this way - but staying strong when the calls don't go your way is as important as stretching for the ball on the 30th shot of the rally. Canas showed he could do both, so on to a meeting with Djokovic in the next round.
Scouting report: at 10:15am I ran into a lady called Leslie, one of the Federer "Shh - Quiet - Genius At Work" brigade, who told me "no sightings yet." Since rf.com has deployed resources comparable to those of the CIA in "The Bourne Ultimatum" to track Federer's movements, looks like he either practiced at 7am, or is skipping it before his anticipated 1pm match.
