PARIS—You couldn’t get away from David Ferrer at Roland Garros on Wednesday. Everywhere you looked, from the Jumbotrons outside of the Bullring, to the dozens of TV monitors in the pressroom, to the flat screens in the dining area, there was the Spaniard, doing his tireless side-to-side hop as he waited to receive serve. All day, Ferru seemed to be dancing. It was tiring just looking at him. To his opponent watching him do it from across the net, it must have looked like a dance of death.
It paid off today for Ferrer. At the ripe old age of 30, he beat Andy Murray to reach his first French Open semifinal. Can this man who was born for dirt really not have been this far before? No matter, he belongs there now. Afterward, Murray himself said that Ferrer was one of the four best clay-courters in the world, and that he had done well just to take it to four sets.
Ferrer is, among avid tennis followers, famous for not being famous. Even after establishing himself in the Top 10 and becoming an anchor of Spain’s Davis Cup dynasty, he was still left off an Order of Play entirely this year at Indian Wells. When the mistake was rectified and Ferru was scheduled for a small side court, the stands were still no more than a third full.
There’s such a lack of demand for him in the media that it has felt strange this week just to see transcripts of his press conferences. Often Ferrer can slip out of town without any requests for interviews at all. One of the few times I can remember him being in the main interview room at the U.S. Open—the one reserved for the high seeds—was last year, after the hullabaloo over his match with Andy Roddick, the one that was moved to a side court after the surface in Louis Armstrong Stadium cracked. But that presser alone was enough to convey Ferrer's down to earth mentality, and his honesty. When a New York reporter, trying to stir the pot, implied that Open officials had urged the two players to go out on a wet, dangerous court, Ferrer refused to take the bait.
“Nah, nah,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “They didn’t do that.” Creating controversy, and things to complain about, isn’t Ferrer’s style. No wonder the press doesn’t seek him out more.
With that in mind, let me take this moment to give Ferrer the star treatment for once. Here are a few things to appreciate about him, before he recedes into the background again—which, let’s be honest, since he plays Rafael Nadal next, he’s likely to do. Even Ferrer said today that getting a set—not a match, a set—from Rafa on clay would be an accomplishment.
Ferrer gets on with it
To see Ferrer play Andy Murray is to witness one of the great contrasts in on-court demeanor. Murray is in rare form today, castigating himself every way that he can imagine. “That used to be one of your best shots,” he says, sounding like a disappointed father talking to a badly behaved son. Another time he yells, “I’m trying my tits off out here!” In the second set, a camera that hangs suspended above the courts catches Murray’s eye and gets on his nerves. The whole match feels, as many other Murray matches have felt, like a public therapy session.
What does Ferrer do on the other side of the net while Murray is on the shrink’s couch? He wipes his face with the towel. He takes the balls from the ball kids and, without breaking stride, walks up to the baseline to serve. When he wins an important point, he looks at his box and gives them a single fist-pump. Here and there, he throws his hands in the air after a bad error, but that’s it. After a miss, Ferrer's face and his manner betray no sense that he’s let it stay with him or make him frustrated.
Ferrer is like a good drummer
I confess that I don’t gravitate to Ferrer’s game on its own, the way I do the Top 4 men. I enjoy Ferrer best when he’s facing a creative opponent. In those situations, he often brings out the most entertaining aspects of another player, because he gives them a million balls to hit. Even in defeat today, Murray’s best stuff is to fun to watch, because it’s bounced off of Ferru’s more straightforward style. In these situations, Ferrer is like a drummer keeping the beat of a good song. But you don’t need two drummers.
It also helps that Ferrer is very easy for the fans of each of the Top 3 players to like, in part because he so rarely beats their favorites.
Ferrer is too smart to need to be a genius
Murray is famous for his drop shot, and he throws in a beauty today, a fancy, high-flying one from the baseline that he ostentatiously carves around for extra sidespin. It appears at first to catch Ferrer napping, and Murray stands still for a second, watching it. But Ferrer quickly makes up the ground, picks the ball up as it's about to bounce twice, and drops it right back over, an inch in front of the net. Murray is the one caught napping, and who can’t catch up. There's nothing fancy about Ferrer’s version of the drop shot, and because of that, no one would ever call him a “genius” for hitting it. All it's done is win him the point.
Ferrer is better at more things than you might think
You can sum up Ferrer with his backhand: It’s unorthodox and doesn’t look like much, but it can kill you. Ferrer shovels the shot, and he keeps a space between his two hands that can cause him to lose consistency at times. But he also has tremendous racquet head speed on that side, and seeing him hit five crosscourt backhands in a row in a rally can be mesmerizing. On passing shots, the space between his hands helps him create a sharper angle when he flips it crosscourt—he surprises Murray at least twice with the shot today. And just when you think Ferrer can’t put the ball past Murray, he begins to hit outright winners from the baseline against one of the sport’s best defenders. Ferrer gets better as he goes.
Ferrer is down to earth
He used those words to describe himself this week in the interview room, a place where he's had a good tournament in general. Ferrer has said, “Every year I try to improve my personality,” and that if writers want to call him by the nickname “Little Beast,” that’s OK, “but my name is David Ferrer.” Today he flashed a big smile when he was asked how it felt to make it to the semis.
“Happy,” he said. “My first time in semifinal in Roland Garros, so I feel good.” Ferrer went on to talk about how much the event means to every Spanish player. All of them watched Sergi Bruguera win it when they were kids, and later Carlos Moya and Juan Carlos Ferrero.
But that didn’t mean Ferrer was going to overdo it or anything today. When Murray’s last shot landed wide, Ferrer turned around to his camp, brought his left arm up, and . . . wiped the sweat off of his face. For a working tennis player like him, it must have been a satisfying feeling.