If only tennis were a team sport. That’s the thought that kept going through my head during Sunday’s superb final between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and David Nalbandian in Paris. It would certainly inject more life into the indoor season, a time when the atmosphere in the stands is often polite at best, sleepy at worst. But each time one of their countrymen took the court last week, French fans showed up and perked up. When the last of those countrymen, Tsonga, held serve at love to start the final, it felt like the refined, and presumably secular, tennis spectators of Paris might even raise the roof a little before the afternoon was over.
The match offered as much contrast, in style and demeanor, as you’ll find right now. Nalbandian and Tsonga are both baseliners by nature, and are only three years apart in age (26 and 23, respectively). But on Sunday the Argentine looked a lot like the sport’s recent past, while Tsonga could have served as a model for the way many observers think its future will go. Nalbandian is classic—a smooth, compact, patient, low-to-the-ground point-constructor. He doesn’t reveal much as he goes about his business. Tsonga is vanguard— a long, tall, hopped-up athlete who swings fearlessly and emotes regularly. Rather than getting his opponent on the run and out of position before he pushes forward, à la Nalbandian, Tsonga takes a belt as soon as he can and charges the net with abandon.
It’s a game predicated on size, power, and daredevil athleticism. In jazz terms, it’s bop compared to Big Band—the dutiful warm-up stuff is chucked so we can get straight to the highlights. In jazz, that’s the solos; for Tsonga, it’s the monster forehand and leaping putaway volley. Tennis fans have been hearing for years that something like this would render classic technique and tactics obsolete, but the revolution so far is incomplete. Tsonga may not be the future of anything; as brittle as his body is, and as much as he throws himself around the court, it’s impossible to make any predictions regarding the Frenchman’s future. Not that anyone in Paris was looking ahead yesterday.
Tsonga came out hot. In the second game he hit a topspin lob winner that rattled Nalbandian, who double-faulted twice and was broken. Tsonga’s game plan was apparent: Take each ball, and take charge of each pont, as early as possible to keep Nalbandian from getting his teeth into a rally and beginning his customary slow, side-to-side torture routine. This was particularly apparent on Tsonga’s forehand side, where he made contact well in front of his body and with both feet virtually facing the net. If his shot was a strong one, he was on his horse and heading forward. When he missed a forehand, it was typically because he ran through the ball too quickly on his way in and never bothered to turn his body at all.
Each time Tsonga missed one like this, I wondered if it wasn’t a rash and overly risky game plan. But those times when he didn’t get control of the rally, when he stroked the ball passively and sent it floating to Nalbandian’s service line, the Argentine inevitably won the point with his own, more-measured assault. In football, coaches say the game is won by the team that wins “The Yard,” that few feet of space between the offense and defense at the line of scrimmage. Control the Yard and you control the rest of the play. On Sunday, the player who controlled the first ball of the rally controlled the match. All of which gave the tennis an edge. Neither player let us settle in and get comfortable.
Knocked back early, I half-expected Nalbandian to take a dive in the second. He was on the road, he was sweating hard, he was lumbering between points, and he was ready for home. On cue, he double-faulted to go down break point in the first game. But he came right back with an ace, and subsequently began to find the range on those wide baseline angles he loves so much. Nalbandian built from there, countering Tsonga’s straight-ahead punches with feints and jabs of his own—miraculous topspin lobs, impudent return-and-volley combinations, delicate short-angle backhand overheads, and, at 5-4 in the second, a fabulously disguised backhand flick crosscourt pass to help him break Tsonga’s serve for the set.
All of which would have been enough to demoralize a player who wasn’t desperate to win in front of the home folks, to make it to his first Masters Cup, to salvage a season that had failed to deliver on its early promise. But Tsonga had all of those inspirations to draw from. Credit him above all for staying the attacking course in the face of Nalbandian’s artistic arsenal. While at times Tsonga pressed the issue and made errors, he simply couldn’t afford to go on the defensive. He’s not effective from either side when he’s pushed back or forced to scramble along the baseline.
Where was Tsonga effective? He rocked back and up high for aces—25 of them, including one when he was down a break point at 3-2, and another to set up match point at 5-4. He muscled his forehand into the corner—Tsonga is better at turning his body into a crosscourt version of this shot than he is at pulling his body away and hitting it inside-out. He used his high strike zone—the guy barely bends his knees, which helps him play taller than his 6-foot-2 frame—to take a forehand from back in the court and finish the point on the next shot with an emphatic high forehand volley. (To continue the analogies to other U.S. sports, Tsonga plays above-the-rim tennis.) And while he's not a great defensive mover, he showed his ability to change speeds and accelerate as he raced from baseline to net. Plus, luck was on the Frenchman's side: In the third set, Nalbandian simply couldn’t find the range on his forehand return when he needed it.
Lucky or not, reckless abandon was the order of the day, though it looked like it might finally catch up to Tsonga in the final game. He ran through two forehands, netted them, and went down 0-40. Two points later it was 30-40 and he had another high forehand staring him in the face. He didn’t hesitate, rifling it down the line with no margin for error. It was a winner. It was deuce. He bombed in ace number 25, then drilled a forehand that Nalbandian couldn’t handle. The match was over.
Tsonga is a hard-charging and emotional player, but he was a surprisingly subtle celebrator yesterday. After match point, he opted for an understated-yet-dramatic look of disbelief, rather than a bloodthirsty fist-pump or an uncontrollable fall to the court. In the press room and beyond, he’s a thoughtful, soft-voiced man who measures his words and speaks with a philosophical tinge that Americans think of as distinctly French. For all these things, from his dynamic all-court game to his quietly soulful public persona, Tsonga would be a tremendous asset to the tennis of the future. For now, let’s be happy to have him back as the player of the moment.