LONDON—At Wimbledon these days, the grass is supposed to be too slow, the balls too heavy, the bleachers too big, the scoreboards too electronic. And it’s true, the world’s oldest tennis tournament doesn’t feel all that old anymore. But even after years of modernization, this morning it still only took about 10 seconds for a reporter to stumble into a scene that has been happening here for the better part of 125 years, and which could only happen here.
At 12:30, the sky was layered with clouds of various shades of gray, ranging from the distinctly ominous to the not quite as ominous. Court 14, a side court prominently located near the press and broadcast buildings, was the kind of lush, unscathed green that we see in our Wimbledon dreams. The seats were full and every square inch of viewing space around them was taken up—politely, politely. Most familiar of all, the points being played on that grass were crisp and quick. So crisp and quick that you could look down to scribble something in a notebook in the middle of a game and look up to see the players walking off for a changeover. Points and games came and went so rapidly that you wondered if they had ever happened. Now that’s grass-court tennis! That how I remember it, and, frankly, how I mostly want to forget it.
Yes, it was throwback grass-ball time out on Court 14, led by perhaps the first throwback grass-baller in history, Canada’s Milos Raonic—it was a tough thing to be before this past decade, considering that virtually every Wimbledon contender had played the same way on these courts for the previous half-century. But there was a sense of déjà vu in the way the points and rallies went between Raonic and Marc Gicquel. When one player got ahead in a rally, with a big serve or well-placed slice, the other had to come up with something close to miraculous to turn it around. Good defense and good returning were game-changers, as they are everywhere else these days, but the serve was the game. At the match’s crucial juncture, with Raonic serving at 4-5 in the second set, Gicquel hit two excellent returns to reach set point. Raonic answered with two service winners and held. A few minutes later, he finished the tiebreaker with an ace. He would end with 25 of them; through his first six service games, Raonic won 100 percent of points when he got his first serve in. By the end of the match, which Raonic won 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3, his percentage was still at a more-than-respectable 86.
Is the grass really slower than it once was? It’s firmer for sure, but according to many players, it’s the balls that slow everything down. Mardy Fish talked today about how heavy the balls are here, and how hard it is to get them through the court, regardless of the surface. He said the court still “takes the bounce, especially on the slice,” and that it rewards powerful serving in particular. And you could see both of those things in evidence in Raonic’s match today. Even moderately big serves jumped off the court and handcuffed the returner, and slices, dog-like, plopped down and stayed down. It’s almost as if grass has become the surface that rewards variety the most. Rafael Nadal echoed that idea yesterday when he talked about how much he loved playing on grass, mainly because you can do so many different things on it with every shot.
Still, Raonic knows it’s going to come down to one shot for him. “You have to focus on the serve,” he said today. “I think I had glimpses of returning really well throughout the match.” But that shot remains a work in progress. Raonic was adept at shortening his backhand stroke on it today, but he struggled with his long swing on forehand returns. This is his first Wimbledon, and only his second pro tournament on grass (he reached the quarters in Halle two weeks ago), so everything is part of the learning process. “It’s amazing to be coming here for the first time and to be seeded,” he said. “Grass is something new to me, but it also gives me a chance to sink in my teeth a bit more into the tournament.”
Raonic's father was a professor, and he approaches the sport like an enthusiastically dutiful A-student. Q: How do you like grass? A: I’m liking it a lot. It’s a great experience so far. It’s been fun.”
However inexperienced he was on the surface, Raonic was his usual exacting self out there today. He told the umpire, who thought he was taking too long between serves, that it was “20, 21 seconds,” not 19, not 22. Raonic looked awkward at times when he had to scramble, and he didn’t have time to use his full-loop forehand the way he usually does. But seemingly every time he got down a point, he got it right back with a serve. That’s how his hero, Pete Sampras, perhaps the last of the pure grass-courters, did it.
Is that how, after all the changes at Wimbledon, it can still be done? One prominent writer, Richard Evans, today said that he believed Raonic would be a Wimbledon champion within four years—it’s too soon this time, he made sure to add. There’s little question that Raonic has the bullet serve and the level-headed 'tude, but what people can forget is that Sampras had speed and athleticism to back them up. Raonic, at 6-foot-5, will never match him in those departments. And while the match on Court 14 did resemble the grass game of old, neither player served-and volleyed with any regularity. Raonic, who did it just five times in three sets, can only throw himself back so far.
But he’s still a welcome addition to this tournament. Looking at the men’s draw over the weekend, I found myself wondering whether that most long-lived and popular of sporting animals, the dark horse, hadn’t gone temporarily extinct. We talk about how the women’s game needs a dominant champion, but it’s also true that fans need dark horses as well, we need to be able to at least think about someone other than Rafa-Fed-Nole-Muzz once in while.
Raonic, for the moment, has jolted the horse back to life—he’s a throwback in two ways. Aficionados, and fans desperate for any kind of first-week drama, eagerly await his potential third-round encounter with Rafael Nadal. Raonic, naturally, isn’t getting ahead of himself. “I think it’s something to look forward to,” he said today. “Yet again, I can’t look forward to it until I’m done with my next match.”
A very logical reaction, indeed. Any teacher would be proud.
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