Vera Zvonareva is more Gael Monfils than Rafael Nadal.
I watched Monfils play Novak Djokovic from the photo pit. I was on the sideline across from the chair umpire and near the baseline, not far from the serve speed display. I had space to stretch out, but I also had to be on the lookout for 125 mph serves out wide hurtling towards my head. From there I watched Monfils in the second set, when he was artistic and brilliant without seeming to try. You could see drops of sweat fall to the court, but you couldn’t hear the effort, even on those occasions when he threw his body into the ball. In the third set he seemed to cross a fine line, and brilliance became madness. While returning serve he jumped up and down and had loud conversations with himself that continued during changeovers. He seemed to be unraveling, like some old sweater you can’t bear to throw away. Yet there he was, down 2-4 in the third, politely showing new balls. And he was charming in press barely 10 minutes after the match. He dutifully answered questions and looked less a madman than a gentleman sitting across from you at an expensive French restaurant on Saturday night.
Zvonareva is like that. Even when she’s been at her nutty best on court, she’s calm as can be off it. Not warm necessarily but never cold either and usually a comfortable place to go for a good answer. Her responses tend to be long – her All Access Hour session was likely the longest of the eight players – and you sense she has some mental bullet-pointed list she's checking off. Like Nadal she continues talking after the tour rep thinks she’s done or should be done. She often sounds like a sports psychologist is whispering affirmations in her ear, and she rarely ventures near the salacious.
After beating Daniela Hantuchova in the quarterfinal, where she wasn’t at her best, Zvonareva was asked whether she feels lucky not to garner the media pressure of No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. “You know, I try to focus on my game and I try to improve my game and try to win matches,” she said. “I really don’t think about all the gossip that goes around it.”
In some ways Zvonareva’s had it good. If she hasn’t gotten the money and other material goodies that come with being No. 1, she also hasn’t gotten the questions. Unlike Nadal, she’s an under-the-radar No. 2.
Zvonareva’s the highest seed here, one of two past women’s champions and, with yesterday’s win, has won more matches here (19) than anyone in the Open Era. Her picture made the Sports section of today’s The Cincinnati Enquirer. But it’s not on the cover like that of Maria Sharapova, who’s seeded lower than her, and not as big as that of Caroline Wozniacki, who’s out of the tournament. There’s an article, but it’s six paragraphs long and has ‘low-key’ in the headline.
Zvonareva seems to be making the most of the No. 2 ranking. She said she never wakes up and thinks, “Wow, I’m No. 2 in the world!” But the ranking doesn’t hurt. “I think when I step out there on the court, I feel like, well, some things are not working for me… I’m No. 2 in the world, so doesn’t matter if they’re not working. I’m still No. 2, so find a way to win the match. That helps a lot of the times.”
Rafael Nadal: In the Limelight
!RN
After his loss to Mardy Fish in the quarterfinals, Rafael Nadal showed up in the main interview room more than 20 minutes late for the roughly 25 people there. Writers, photographers and others sat chatting or maybe ran back upstairs to the media room just a flight of stairs away. (The media room’s on the fourth floor, the interview room on the third, the player dining area on the second and the player lounge on the first.)
When Nadal eventually appeared, he was in a pretty good mood. He was open to all questions, and he gave complete answers. In fact, close to the end, when there was a pause, the ATP guy said, “Any last questions?” But then Nadal continued his answer, leading to a quick “sorry” from the guy and more questions for Nadal.
He was asked a host of them and offered a host of excuses to give if he chose to. Did the blisters on your finger from that (now infamous) restaurant hot plate affect his toss? Did playing doubles tire him out? Was there a problem with his foot? Were the courts too fast? Nadal answered. Yes, maybe a little. No, definitely not. No. No.
And that’s when I was reminded about a little tennis something by the No. 2 player in the world. One who didn’t mind the questions but felt they were coming from a mistaken assumption about a sport he knows rather well.
“If I am playing bad on clay, I don’t win, I lose,” he said. “If I am playing bad on grass, I lose. That’s the sport. You play well, you have more chances to win; you play bad, you have more chances to lose. I know seems like it’s too simple, but is very simple. Tennis is a simple game. You don’t have to think a lot what’s going on.”
The bad news? He isn’t playing so well right now, he said. The good news? When he is, he’s likely to win, as he did at the 2010 US Open to complete the career Grand Slam. Nadal didn’t win New York because he changed his game, he said. He won New York because he played it. Well.
In person you can see and feel that transcripts, even on video, don’t do Nadal’s pressers justice. They make me think of Annie Dillard’s book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which I started on audiobook on my road trip here from Chicago. Meditative, is what they are. Like a good writer Nadal uses words you’ve mostly heard before, thoughts you’ve likely thought before, in the right way and at the right time to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of all that.
