!PicMIAMI—Destiny has cast David Ferrer into the role of the perpetual foil. The guy who’s incredibly good—but not great—and therefore fated to serve the few men touched by genius.
Ferrer has all of the tools, but none with quite sharp enough an edge, or sufficiently heavy a head, to get the biggest of jobs done with that final big cut or blow. He’s like the mechanical rabbit who can lead the dogs in the race, but his track stops just short of the finish line that the lucky dog will always cross first.
Djokovic crossed that line as Ferrer ran out of track tonight in the quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson Open, withstanding another furious but ultimately futile effort. The No. 1 seed won it, 6-2, 7-6 (1). But the match was much more entertaining, and closer, that those scores indicate.
Djokovic rolled through the first set, hitting those sledgehammer forehands and hammer-throw backhands with signature abandon. And just for good measure, he mixed in some delectable, delicate drop shots that demonstrated why he is Novak Djokovic and Ferrer is not.
But Ferrer stood his ground in the second set. He was broken twice, but leveled each time, including a break when Djokovic served for the match at 5-4. Ferrer was so game that when he won that game for 5-all he received a standing ovation. Granted, this Miami crowd has such a strong Latin flavor that any player who speaks Spanish and can say “Vamos!” is treated as a demi-god. But the praise was well-earned.
As Djokovic said afterward: “I had a fantastic first set. . . then in some moments, I allowed him to take control in the rallies and just waiting for him to make an unforced error, which, you know, he used it wisely and he got back to the match. Luckily for me, it was decided in the tiebreak.”
The tiebreaker was a disaster for Ferrer. He served the first point and lost it when Djokovic, out of position, lofted a desperate lob; Ferrer took his eye off the ball and drilled the high forehand drive into the net. He made another costly mistake when he stopped in the middle of a point, certain that a Djokovic backhand on the baseline was out. Hawk-Eye saw otherwise, and Ferrer never was able to recover from the 1-5 hole that unwise decision put him in.
Whatever his shortcomings in big matches—and let’s remember, Ferrer beat Juan Martin del Potro in straight sets to get this shot at Djokovic—Ferrer is as honest as he is hard-working. He told me after the match, “He (Djokovic) was just better than me. He started really good and in the second set I had more chances. But in the important moments, I didn’t do so good. I made two mistakes early in the tiebreaker. . . He was just better.”
You have to admire Ferrer for being able to say those words, so often, without a trace of bitterness or envy. Perhaps that’s why he’s one of the most admired players on the tour, as Djokovic was happy to confirm:
“I have a tremendous respect for him. I think all of us, we do, because of his dedication to the sport. And he's a great, great, great guy off the court. He loves the sport.”
And then there’s that Ferrer energy. It’s so impressive that it often sets the alarm bells ringing in his opponents, including the most lethal among them. Djokovic explained:
“Before the match you see him, 20 minutes, he's like non-stop running around before going to the court. He's so warmed up, and, you know, he makes you warm up better because you know that in the first point he's going to go for his shots—always.”
Ferrer’s genius is an ability to make all opponents play at an extremely high level in order to win, a task at which so many fail that he sits in the catbird seat right behind the elite three or four players, presently at No. 5. Yet his inability to break through to make a Grand Slam final, or win a Masters Series final, in nine-plus years on the tour is as telling as it must be dispiriting.
Like that mechanical rabbit, Ferrer is swift. But he’s also. . . mechanical. If he has a shortfall, it’s in the department you might call “vision,” or creativity. His basic conservatism is both his strength, in that it he makes opponents earn every blessed point, as well as his weakness. Has anyone ever wondered, “What’s this guy going to do next?” Or asked, after a Ferrer shot, “Where did he get that from?”
“He's like a wall on the court,” Djokovic suggested. “He gets a lot of balls back. Always makes you play an extra shot.”
And if that extra shot happens to win the point for the Djokovics and Federers of this world, so be it. The mechanical rabbit has a specific job to do, and this one does it very well.