Nasdaq-100, Key Biscayne
March 24, 2006
There was no slow build today, no chance to ease into things with a few of the obscure outer-court matches that make the early days at Masters Series events so exhaustively entertaining. I tried, but the grounds at Crandon Park were mobbed to the point where people were scaling fences and standing on garbage cans just to get a glimpse of Nicolas Kiefer and Fabrice Santoro. They like their tennis down here.
I did manage to walk into the main stadium at the right time. Rafael Nadal had won a routine 6-2 set over his mentor and fellow Mallorcan Carlos Moya. Nadal went up early in each of the first two games of the second set-once on Moya's serve, then on his own-but couldn't quite close the door on either of them. Anybody who plays tennis will recognize this dilemma. When you win a first set easily, the opening game or two of the second become that much more important psychologically-if your opponent wins just won game, it feels like you're back at square one. I got the point as a junior where I was giving away a couple of games in the first set just to avoid any chance of that kind of momentum swing. Not a tactic I would recommend.
Nadal lost those early games in weird, uncharacteristic ways, the points somehow falling just out of his reach no matter how well he set them up. And that's the way the rest of the second set went. Nadal had chances throughout, but the memory of those blown chances seemed to linger, and he pressed at the wrong times. On the other side, Moya clearly grew in confidence. He hit his backhand, his (much) weaker shot, well enough to fend off Nadal's crosscourt topspin forehand, not an easy thing to do. He won points both routinely, by poking backhands low to Nadal's backhand (a future strategy for others?), and spectacularly: Moya broke to open the third with a backhand topspin lob winner and finished the match in exactly the same way.
Nadal walked into his press conference sucking on a Gatorade, his hair completely covering his face. I thought he might be short with his answers, and he was. But it wasn't out of petulance. Even in broken English, he was incisive and direct in the way that smart athletes-as opposed to analysts-are about their games. He sat in a kid's pose, his bizarrely massive arms on the table and his chin down on his hands. Nadal said Moya was his “best friend in the tour” but this “is another match, nothing special.” When asked if Moya was controlling the pace, Nadal answered, “I lost 6-1, 6-1, so the score say all.” And he pinpointed the crucial moments early in the second set: “He play with confidence, and I don't play good the important moments.” This is not deep thinking, but it is someone facing the truth squarely, and at the same time not making too much of one defeat. That's as deep as a player needs to go.
The mens' side is now Roger Federer's to lose. Along with Nadal, Andre Agassi, Marat Safin, and Richard Gasquet are all out. In lieu of Agassi today, we got a doubles match between Andy Roddick and Robby Ginepri and Guillermo Coria and someone named Luis Manrique of Ecuador. The ATP thinks that if they can get top singles players to play doubles, fans will respond. The stars were there today, but the crowd wasn't. The stadium was nearly empty as people sought out side-court singles matches
Did they miss much? No, just one thing, really: Seeing Coria show off his hands at net. Otherwise, Roddick and Ginepri basically played singles next to each other, hitting big from the baseline. The major problem, and one reason doubles isn't popular with fans, is that there's so much less on the line. A professional singles match is compelling because it's a war with a real psychological cost. Doubles, on the other hand, is fun; it looks like a rec sport, not something you pay money to see. There's even less on the line when multi-millionaire singles players are involved. After Manrique drilled a ball into the back curtain to lose the match, Coria smiled and did a mock fist-pump.
OK, it's late in Key Biscayne and Paul Goldstein has just been announced to the blaring sounds of Survivor's “Eye of the Tiger.” The name of the band is appropriate, but not the part that goes “rising up, straight to the top.” (I'm not sure whether “the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night” works or not.) Goldstein is the preeminent journeyman, veteran, grinder, and mensch of U.S. tennis. He was the first person I saw at the hotel this morning (by himself), so I'll finish watching him get run around by David Nalbandian. It should inspire me to work harder tomorrow.