It has often struck me that there are disconcerting elements and challenges that come with the territory of pro tennis, one of the chief among them is the obvious but still easily overlooked randomness of the game. As a tour player, you’re one in the pool of roughly 200 players who end up populating most of the tournaments, and you never really know who among those 200 you’re going to have to face from one week to the next.
The tour is a great big wheel-of-fortune, and most of the guys watch it spin, quaking in their Nikes as they pray that the flipper doesn’t come to rest on the name, Roger Federer. Or consider this: Tommy Haas may not play Fernando Verdasco during an entire year – or he could wind up facing him at three tournaments – in the same month. Andy Roddick played Rafael Nadal twice in 2004, and never saw his face across the net again until 2007.
The game of chance is especially interesting when it comes to matches that qualify as upsets. Last year’s pas de deux featuring Guillermo Canas and Roger Federer certainly suggests that revenge is a dish best served cold - meaning, with a sufficient interval between clashes. But yesterday at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, Rafael Nadal argued from the other side of the issue. You’ll remember that he was beaten by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals of the Australian Open about 6 weeks ago. He exacted revenge for that beating in a thrilling way, coming back from a 2-5 deficit to win the third set.
Nadal would later deny that he was itching for payback (doing so would, after all, be a confession that the blowout in Australia actually hurt, although I’ll be the first to admit that second-guessing Jet Boy on that is the kind of exercise that – rightly – can give journalism a bad name). Yet he knew full well what was at stake – and so did Tsonga. As the beaten Frenchman rued later, “Yeah, it was a very important match for me, because I would like to show everybody it’s not – that my run at the Australian Open is not lucky. I want to prove to everybody I can play at this level. . .”
No worries, Bongo. Proof accepted.
This was the first time I had a good look at Tsonga since his seemingly overnight transformation from intriguing fringe personality into Grand Slam finalist, Davis Cup starter, and talented showman. He appeared to be thinner than he was during his run in Melbourne. If you looked at his body and, knowing nothing about him, had to guess his sport, you’d be just as likely to pick boxing, or basketball.
This is a guy who may liberate the French and Francophiles from their addiction to crash-and-burn artists like Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils (in the event that anyone still actually remembers Monfils) – along with all those other guys whose busy games are full of flair and flourishes. Tsonga’s outstanding qualities are his extraordinarily “clean” game and his basic . . . stillness.
Like Marat Safin (back in the day), Tsonga has a tremendous knack for buying himself time, which is an enormous asset, especially if, like me, you belong to the school that holds that taking away a player’s time is the harshest and most brutal punishment you can inflict on him. It’s hard to take away Tsonga’s time because he takes yours first. Bongo can go for long periods on the court without seeming to run. That’s partly because he’s rangy and quick, and at 6-2, he eats up ground quickly. He can conserve energy, plant his feet, and dictate.
Tsonga’s serve and forehand, especially when it’s applied inside-out, are devastating (and they also figure into this dude don’t need to run theme; can you say Jim Courier?). Yet when forced to run, Tsonga is flexible and inventive; he hits to-die-for drop volleys, Sampras-grade slam-dunk overheads, and his two-handed backhand is firm – again, think Safin. The word that keeps popping into my mind when I try to encapsulate his game is is not “big” as much as. . . “Scary”.
The reasons for that are, perhaps counter-intuitively, subtle. Tsonga is part big cat; he’s full of explosive power, but he’s loose-limbed and – there’s no other way to put this – lazy. You can tell, by the way he wanders, somewhat aimlessly, between points, and by the way he softly kicks his racquet head, or cranks his head this way and that in frustration when he makes an error. There’s a conspicuous lack of discipline in his body language (or there was yesterday), and when you add up all those proclivities, you end up with the active ingredient in danger – unpredictability.
As well, Tsonga’s tendency to brood and appear mentally sloppy can lull an opponents into a false sense of complacency. But – and this is the downside- it also suggests that if you’re patient enough, and disciplined in exactly the way he is not, you can catch him unawares.
That’s pretty much what happened yesterday. Bongo and Jet Boy slashed and pounded their way into a tiebreaker, which Tsonga carried on the strength of his serve, and a sprinkling of his patented lights out, in-your-face, how you like me now, suckah! winners. It seemed telling that, on the final point of the tiebreaker, a Tsonga backhand skipped off the let cord and Nadal, undoubtedly distracted but perhaps a trifle over-eager as well, smacked the easy forehand approach long.
Big cats do that kind of thing; they make even leathery souls nervous.
Nadal seemed dispirited at the start of the second set, and Tsonga capitalized, breaking him. But over the next few points and games, Tsonga’s game degenerated; his focus softened to about what you get in a tacky soft-core porno movie. But even in his seemingly disinterested state, Tsonga frequently stepped it up to crack an ace, or pound out a forehand winner. The stats here are not really comprehensive, so I can’t tell you how many points Tsonga won with a combination of aces and service and inside-out forehand winners, but it was a pile.
In any event, Tsonga failed to close the deal when he had the chance early in the second set, and he would pay heavily for it. The set went to the tiebreaker, and Tsonga had another costly lapse, allowing Nadal to scamper out to a 4-0 lead that would hold up.
