Slacker Agonistes

Ahoy, friends. Asad Raza here. I'm back with some thoughts on last week in tennis - more specifically, on tennis' beloved, infuriating slackers, David Nalbandian and Marat Safin. The two players' fortunes diverged wildly over the last few days, with Nalbandian as we all know pulling off the rare 1-2-3 by defeating Nadal, Djokovic and Federer to win his first Master's Series shield in Madrid. (Just that fact alone, that it was his first MS victory, is a shock - even when they win these guys remind you how much more they should win.) Safin, meanwhile, declared his season over after a first-round loss to a bigger lug, Lil' Ivo Karlovic, in the selfsame Madrid event. This means he will miss the Davis Cup final - more on that below.

Mentioning Safin's potential always gets people mentioning that 2000 U.S. Open final as proof of his abilities, which, to be honest, I think is pretty silly. It was only one match. Still it gives rise to the following tempting and glorious thought: what if there was a player so big, so strong, and so good that he could whip anyone in straight sets, make any player, even Pete Sampras, look overmatched? And wouldn't it be something if that player had a tragic temperamental flaw that prevented him from dominating? The reason it's an attractive myth is that it partakes of what was known to the Romantic poets as the sublime: i.e. the sense that there are mountains that dwarf the Himalayas, giants walking the earth, players with abilities far beyond the level of the tennis we see.

Safin has a poetic way of fitting into this line of thinking: he's a big boy, he has heroic good looks, and he's capable of breathtakingly hard hitting. (I saw him hit a ball out of the Grandstand in anger two months ago; it's hard to describe--I have never seen a ball struck like that.) But the idea that he should be capable of destroying the field is simply wrong. It's true that he can play scintillating baseline tennis, when matched against a player who stubbornly lets him stay in rhythm. You see this with top players: Agassi in Melbourne in 2004, Federer in 2005. They won't demean themselves by giving him no pace, mixing things up, and they fall victim to the devastating metronome of Safin's crosscourt groundstrokes.

But it's also true that humble bamboozlers like Fabrice (The Great) Santoro or Oli Rochus, can bamboozle Marat by taking pace off the ball and playing patiently. The strategy works because it exploits his single greatest problem: his tendency to "go away" during matches. This is a weakness as real and as consequential as Elena Dementieva's serve. Sure, the Captain's many admirers love to fantastize about taming him and helping him settle down, but the point is that Federer or Nadal fans need entertain no such fantasies. Those guys already have the capacity for long periods of focus, extreme workout routines, and sustained concentration. Marat, meanwhile, has always suffered inconceivable losses and sudden breakdowns of form. And since coming back from a bad knee injury in 2005, his mobility and especially his agility have suffered, giving him less margin for error and exacerbating his problems.

I think it's pretty obvious Safin is having a crisis of confidence right now, and probably considering retirement. His abortive mountain-climbing mission was a sign that he's looking for ways to contemplate what he should be doing with himself. His announcement that will not play in the Davis Cup final, however, is much more serious--he's not even leaving the decision about his level of play up to his brilliant coach, Shamil Tarpischev. It's quite sad, coming from Safin, a player who has been a stalwart for his country. Marat Safin seems not only to represent his country but to personify it, to symbolize contemporary Russia in some prodigious way. (An aside here: for a hilariously sharp take on Russia, America, and the farce that is current geopolitics, please read Gary Shteyngart's satirical novel, Absurdistan.)

Like Safin, Nalbandian is a Davis Cup symbol for his country, and plays his best tennis in that setting. Outside of Davis Cup, Nalbandian has this signal characteristic: just when we think his days as a guy who can beat Roger Federer are over for good, he comes back and does it again. He's like the comeback specialist who specializes not in rising through the rankings, or winning Slams out of nowhere, but coming out of nowhere to beat Fed. A pretty cool ability to have, but Nalbandian has little in the way of prizes: just six career titles, to be exact. He also has a slew of big-match collapses, such as giving up two-set leads against Baghdatis in Australia and Roddick in Flushing Meadows. Madrid was the first final he reached in 2007, while in 2006 he won Estoril but failed to reach another final.

Nalbandian did his reputation for underachievement no favors by losing quickly at Wimbledon in 2006 after requesting, and not getting, a time change so he could watch Argentina play in the World Cup. But there may be a meaning in that story hasn't been remarked on. First off, it's obvious that Nalbandian cares pretty strongly about his nation--and we Americans must try to understand the importance of the World Cup for the traditional footballing nations. There is a deep-rooted pride involved, one that that combines the civic love that, say, Bill Simmons has for the Boston Red Sox with all the patriotism that attaches to a shared culture and language.

Trust me for a minute here. I am not trying to excuse Daveed for the Wimbledon debacle. But if you put that together with his Davis Cup heroics, I think you have something: both point to a man who finds it easier, and more natural, to motivate himself by attaching his sympathies to something beyond his own self-interest. A nation, a team, and especially a national team, can electrify certain people who have trouble staying engaged when only playing for themselves. Remember how John McEnroe, the greatest Davis Cup player in U.S. tennis history, used to complain about the solipsism of singles tennis and point out the collaborative joy he felt in team play?

Nalbandian and Safin play well for their countries, and oscillate wildly in individual competition. The downside of this is that to see such talented players struggle with motivation can leach some of the joy out of watching tennis. It makes you wonder, do they even care about tennis? And the answer may well be: not as much, and not in as single minded a way, as Mr. Federer. But I think they both deserve some sympathy too: I'm not sure Marat actually has the physical ability to challenge the best anymore, and Nalbandian is hardly the only guy who goes all Haas-like under pressure. Safin and Nalbandian bring gorgeous, fluid ability to the game--that's a pair of the most beautiful two-handers you'll ever see. Both struggle with consistency (hey! I can identify!), which makes watching them an unpredictable drama, but they typically find a way to get it together when playing for something bigger than themselves. To me, that's worth appreciation.

A final note: their head-to-head is 6-3 in favor of Safin, the more accomplished player, but Nalbandian won the last two meetings, in the Madrid 2006 QF and then last year in the Davis Cup final in Russia, where Argentina's standard bearer took out Russia's, 4, 4, and 4.

-Asad Raza