Juan Carlos Ferrero spent his Friday digging. He did it in ways big and small. He began by digging himself a two-set hole in his match with Germany’s Philipp Petzschner. To climb out of that, he needed to spend a good couple of hours in the hot afternoon sun bending low, dropping his racquet even lower, and digging out the shoelace-high slice backhands that Petzschner was floating diabolically into the corners. That’s a tough ask for a 29-year-old vet who’s deep into the third act of his dozen-year-old career.
But these days Ferrero is happy in his work. Ranked No. 1 in the world for a minute or two in 2003, the Spaniard, who has long since been usurped by Rafael Nadal and a new generation of fancier ball-strikers and springier athletes, won his first tournament in six years in Casablanca in April. Since knocking that aging but persistent monkey off his back, he says he feels like a new man. The evidence suggests that he’s telling the truth. After falling to No. 115 in the rankings in the spring, his lowest position in 10 years, Ferrero reached the semis in Queens on grass, made the final in Umag on clay, and won two qualifying matches before losing to Andy Murray in the round of 16 in Montreal on hard courts. But Ferrero’s biggest boost may have come from the softhearted lords of Wimbledon, who threw the 2003 French Open champion a lifeline in the form of a wildcard. He made the most of it by reaching the quarters and igniting a rankings climb that currently has him at No. 25 and rising.
His reward? At every press conference, including today’s, he’s asked if he's thinking back to his golden days of ’03. While Ferrero may have been tortured by the past at one point, today he seems genuinely focused on the here and now. He’s certainly heard enough about the days when he was No. 1. Last month in Montreal he was asked, “Is it difficult, after being on top, to come back and have to play qualifying?”
“Of course,” Ferrero said, “it’s very tough to play qualies when you’ve been blah, blah, blah. So it is what it is.”
Ferrero’s career arc has been a gentler version of Martina Hingis’. After a steady five-year rise, his '03 title at Roland Garros and final-round appearance at the U.S. Open later that year appeared to signal the start of a long run at the top, maybe even the beginning of his era. Ferrero’s game—dependable, penetratingly flat ground strokes hit with equal effectiveness crosscourt and up the line, backed by a defensive wall of speed—looked to be the wave of the future. Here was the guy who could finally unite clay and hard court tennis.
Instead, the new era would belong to that year’s Wimbledon champion, Roger Federer, who up until then had played the flashy underachiever to Ferrero’s plugging drone. When Andy Roddick served the weary Spaniard off the court in the 2003 Open final and Federer leveled him in the semifinals of the 2004 Australian Open, it was obvious that a transition had taken place, not unlike the one that occurred on the women’s side a couple of years earlier, when the Williamses left Hingis in the dust. In the blink of an eye, Ferrero’s game was out of date; it was workmanlike and earthbound next to the high-flying Federer’s.
Rather than retire in a huff, Ferrero struggled against multiple injuries and the rise of heavier-hitting players who blended spin and power in a way that the wiry Spaniard, who is 2 inches shorter and weighs nearly 30 pounds less than both Federer and Nadal, couldn’t. So the man who was going to be king (he was named after Spain’s), the little guy who still has to construct points the old-fashioned way rather than launch missiles from anywhere, has carved out a second career as a Top 30 stalwart. Ferrero is a proud and at times prickly guy. But rather than let his pride keep from accepting his diminished status, he used it to do the best he could with what he had.
For evidence, look no farther than his match with Petzschner today. Despite being down two sets and an early break in the third, and then going down 1-4 in the fifth, Ferrero said he never felt out of it. Part of this can be explained by his newfound confidence, but part of it also must have been due to the person he was playing. When people around tennis talk about Petzschner, the discussion inevitably goes something like this:
“So talented.”
“Yeah, jesus, really talented.”
Then both parties look down and give a collectively mournful shake of the head. The testily eccentric German—is there a German player who doesn't answer to that description?—can’t get out of his own way. His serve is like a pistol crack, he can put a forehand past anyone, and his sideswiped down the line slice is nasty and lovely in equal measures. But Ferrero was right to stay calm, because Petzschner found a way to lose every lead he had. Late in the fifth, as the glue was starting to crack, he made a joke that no one seemed to understand. Then he sarcastically berated himself for it: “Oh, that’s really funny.” When he was broken at 4-2 in the fifth, Petzschner lifted his racquet head close to his face and screamed into the strings as if they were alive. Alive and conspiring against Philipp Petzschner.
Knowing these tendencies, Ferrero could afford to stick with a losing game. He said afterward that he hadn’t become more aggressive or tried to change his tactics at all; he just stopped rushing, which eventually made him more patient and consistent. But I walked away thinking that JC had sold himself short. There had also been a refuse-to-lose quality to Ferrero’s performance that has been lacking on many occasions in the past. On one big point, he made a great stab save. On another, the normally quiet JC went from grunts to all-out barnyard noises as the rally lengthened. At 4-4, the proud man even threw dignity to the wind and dove for a ball. But Ferrero was right back up and, after the changeover, ready for a final forehand, which he sent up the line for a winner and the match.
Three or four years ago I watched Ferrero get blown out in a first set on the Grandstand. He walked over to the sideline, dropped his racquet, and stared at his entourage—which included one of the more beautiful GOPs ("girlfriend of player") of the time—as if he were about to cry. Today, in the same situation, he walked to the sideline, dropped his racquet, and looked at his entourage—which included a different but similarly beautiful GOP—with nothing more than a wry shake of his head. It was the same wry shake that he made when finally won the match. Juan Carlos, the man who won’t be king, is OK with having to dig.