Three Scenes in the Park

MELBOURNE—Every tennis fan knows that first-two-days-of-a-Slam feeling, the days when you can’t keep up. The days when you look up and see that the seventh seed, whom you had no idea was playing, was upset five hours ago, and that the up-and-comer you wanted to check out is two points away from finishing off her opponent. Dozens of matches flash past at once, all day long. You can’t move fast enough.

It’s doubly true when you’re covering a major on-site. But what seems nerve-wracking at first quickly turns into a state of pleasant detachment: You give up trying to see it all and go with the flow. Because of the frenzy that surrounds the courts, when you finally do squeeze your way into a seat, time seems to slow back down to normal.

Beyond normal, actually. It slows down to what I think of as “tennis time.” Instead of racing around, like the fans outside, the players move at an even, methodical pace between points. There’s 20 seconds where nothing happens, and a full 90 between games. It feels like a refuge, a place to think.

I found a few of those refuges on a very hot and crowded Day 2 at Melbourne Park. They weren’t hard to discover; you just started walking. Here are a few of the places that I ended up, and what they looked and sounded like.

“I’m not the problem, you’re the problem!”

The chair umpire on a distant side court is talking to Ernests Gulbis. It’s hard to recognize the Latvian, with his new, unfloppy haircut. The prep-school look doesn’t appear to have changed much about him, though. Gulbis is down two-sets-to-one to Michael Llodra and beginning to unravel the same way he did when he sported his wildman slacker locks. Where someone like Andy Murray looks more professional when he gets a buzz, Gulbis appears to have lost something of himself, like Samson. His forehand isnt the same fierce stroke today that it usually is.

Gulbis breaks a string. He walks to the sideline, picks up another racquet, and continues to rummage through his bag. He can’t find something. Llodra watches. The chair umpire watches. Both of their faces begin to show impatience. Finally Gulbis gives up. He apologizes to Llodra and motions that he’d been looking for a vibration dampener. The umpire says something; Gulbis says something back. He says more. And more. He begins to gesture. Finally the umpire utters the exasperated line quoted above. Gulbis leans down into his return stance, muttering.

“Who is that?”

“Richard Gasquet. He’s French.”

“I don’t care what he is.”

The person asking the question is a young woman with long blond hair. It's clear from her tone that she's left two words out of her last sentence concerning Gasquet—"He's hot." She's left them unsaid perhaps because she's talking to her boyfriend. The two have just joined some friends in the front row at Show Court 2. It’s approximately 11:30 A.M., but the general, or maybe just American, rule of thumb against beers before noon doesn’t seem to apply in this little corner of Melbourne Park. Beer appears to be the point. The group of 20-something friends, heavy on cool sunglasses, spends the better part of a game between Gasquet and Andreas Seppi trying to decide whose going to make the next beer run.

The wind is whipping the ball spastically, to the point where Gasquet and Seppi at times look like cricket batsman trying to move their racquets into awkward positions to meet it. Gasquet rises above the conditions for one moment of sheer brilliance. He begins a rally by laying back well behind the baseline and easing the ball over the net. Seemingly at his leisure, he takes a forehand and throttles it, with no topspsin, crosscourt. On the next ball, he flicks over a backhand with heavy top that lands near the baseline. Seppi gets just enough of it to send up a decent lob. Gasquet leans back easily and smashes it home for the point.

This is the Gasquet conundrum: It looks so easy, but it can’t possibly be done more than a couple of times a set. Which makes its ease all the more amazing. The beer drinkers recognize the moment and clap over their cups.

“Don’t get nervous, Milos.”

This piece of advice comes from a supporter of Milos Raonic on the sidelines of Court 18. It’s deep on the unlandscaped side of Melbourne Park, a relatively forlorn spot that feels more like a parking lot than a major tennis facility.

Raonic doesn't care where he is. He’s hammering Filippo Volandri, to the point where the Canadian begins to experiment with some serve and volley, though it doesn’t go too well. More impressive is Raonic’s forehand-and-volley play. He takes one at the baseline, hits it hard and low down the middle, follows it in, and wins the point with an easy volley. In general, Raonic always tries to do something with the ball, even from deep in the court. He doesn’t settle for rally shots if he can help it; virtually all of his forehands come with a driving offensive purpose. He plays tennis like a man who hates small talk.

Up 0-30 on Volandri’s serve early in the second set, Raonic drills one of those forehands into the net for 15-30. His friend or acquaintance or whoever it is warns him, “Don’t get nervous.” One thing this person must not be is a coach. Is there a faster way to make your player get tight than to tell him not to get tight?