W: A Tale of Three Sets

Being chained to your desk in the press room on a sunny first-week day at Wimbledon can seem like a criminal waste of time. You have to jam your arms against your sides and squint at your laptop as a parade of English tennis fans pass by the window, eating ice cream (I don’t see a lot of strawberries with the cream, though). There is one positive to the situation: The chance to hear Boris Becker commentate for the BBC. Tuesday he had an opportunity to talk about his countryman Andreas Beck as he lost to Rafael Nadal on Centre Court. At one point, Becker read Beck’s angry lips: “That was German, I know what that was. But it wasn’t too bad”

During one point, Nadal hit a ball that clipped the tape and crept over. Beck ran up and tried an awkward drop shot, which Nadal drilled for a winner. The announcer working with Becker asked him, “That’s a tricky shot, right?”

Boom Boom weighed his response for a second. Then he intoned, in his best deadpan German accent:

“Ja…for some.”

Eventually I got out into the fresh air with the purpose of watching a few full sets around the grounds. A match would have taken too long, but a set seemed substantial enough to find out something about the players involved, and maybe even a little about the sport today. (They all ended up involving men, but I’ll get to the women soon. I need to check out this week's newcomer, Anastasia Pavyluchenkova, who took out last week’s newcomer, Alize Cornet, in the first round.)

Richard Gasquet vs. Mardy Fish, Court 1

I walk in with Gasquet up 2-1. The first shot I see is a casual flick forehand by Fish into the net. It only gets worse for the American from there.

Gasquet later said this was “one of the best matches maybe of my career.” You can see it brewing early. He hits a sharp, confident overhead to break for 3-1, sends a rocket backhand for a winner for 15-0 in the next game, makes it 30-0 with a creative drop shot-pass combination, and holds for 4-1 with an ace. On the first point of the next game he runs to his left and hooks a jumping backhand pass for another scary winner. The Microwave is on. High.

It’s clear after five games that Gasquet, whatever the struggles and confusions of his season thus far, feels at home on grass. Watching him take a skidding approach off his shoetops and dip it back at Fish’s feet, I can only conclude that the quick surface—the grass here doesn't look all that slow; the biggest difference from the past is the lack of bad bounces—allows him not to think, but react instinctively. Say what you will about Gasquet’s toughness, he is a natural, instinctive tennis player of the highest order, much like that other lover of grass, Roger Federer.

Gasquet is also superstitious. Before returning serve, he taps one toe just inside the baseline. It seems to be helping today, as he’s confident enough to assert his game. On most days, Gasquet is content to sit far behind the baseline and try to create from a defensive position. This is common among his generation—Monfils, Querrey, and Murray all try to punch from a counterpuncher’s crouch, with their backs almost literally against the wall. It’s not the most practical strategy: Their colleague Novak Djokovic has had more success playing farther forward in the court. Against Fish, though, Gasquet dictates with authority. At 4-2, he hits two big serves to go up 30-0 and cracks a forehand winner to hold.

He’s just as good at 5-3. Gasquet rallies with tremendous length and topspin for 15-0, whips a forehand pass for 30-15, and puts a backhand pass on the line for 40-30. Here he either gets cocky or nervous, serving and volleying for the first time and losing the point. But he comes back with two strong serves to win the set. As I’m leaving, I see more of the same—Gasquet breaks Fish in the opening game with a backhand pass that lasers down on the back of the baseline. Fish looks up at the sky. No one can help him today.

I ask Gasquet in his presser if he thinks grass is his best surface. “I don’t know," he says. "It’s a good surface for my game, for sure.”

I ask why that might be. He has no clue. “I serve well. I return well. It’s important on this court. So maybe that’s why.”

Gasquet has never been articulate, at least in English. He often seems surprised or flummoxed when asked to analyze his game. This may hurt him when things don’t go well on court; he looks flummoxed in those situations as well. But on grass he doesn’t have to worry. He can do what he does best: Put the racquet on the ball and let them both fly.

Ernests Gulbis vs. John Isner, Court 15

This air war takes place on a side court almost too tiny to contain it. I walk in just as Gulbis has won the first set. In person, the Latvian looks appropriately teenage with his pushed-forward hair, and shorter than he really is because of his baggy clothes. The 6-foot-10 Isner has the light-footed gait of a gentle giant. He hits his first return almost delicately, pulling up on it and limply dumping it into the net.

Playing a guy with a serve like Isner’s is not unlike being a pinch-hitter in baseball: You stand and watch for much of the afternoon as the aces go by; but when you get in the game, you have to perform. It’s not surprising to see Gulbis, after another Isner ace, take the ball from the ball boy and stroke a forehand over the net. He needs to keep that shot warm.

The games pass in quick, clipped fashion—boom, boom-boom, boom, boom-boom-boom. It’s sunny and hot now, and the ball is flying. Isner has one half-chance at a break at 3-2, 30-30, when he gets a look at a forehand at the service line. He hammers it into the tape. His vocal displeasure lets you know he might not get it again, and he doesn’t. A fairly typical Isner service game comes at 4-4: Ace. Ace. Ace. Two points won by Gulbis. Ace. 5-4, Isner. Gulbis betrays no frustration. He puts his head down and walks to the sideline.

I mentioned earlier that Djokovic is the best of the relative newcomers at moving into the court. Gulbis, another product of the Pilic Academy in Germany, is following in his (forward moving) footsteps, to an even greater degree. Even on Isner’s hardest-hit ground strokes, Gulbis moves into them and swings as if he’s going after an offensive shot. Occasionally this leads to impatience and a tendency to force the issue, particularly with his wristy forehand. But it will serve him well in the future. It already helps him on his return. Gulbis is very adept at getting even the hardest flat body serves back.

The set turns, as so many grass-court sets do, on one point. At 5-5 and deuce, Isner finds his way to the net. He hits a drop volley that Gulbis just scrapes up and manages to flick past him crosscourt. His superior all-court skill has finally won out, and he goes on to break and hold for another 7-5 set win. He wins the match in four.

Afterward, I ask Gulbis if it’s frustrating to play a guy like Isner. He answers calmly and softly. “It's not frustrating, it's just really tough because you have to concentrate double on your own serve. I knew that if I concentrated, I didn't need to play my best service games to win the serve.

“He's serving, it's a little bit like a lottery. He can serve three, four aces a game. There's not much you can do about it.”

This is the answer of a highly realistic and controlled 19-year-old. Double your focus on what you can control and don’t worry about what you can’t. That’s much easier said than done, as most of us could have attested at 19.

Gulbis is equally level-headed when asked about his next match, with Rafael Nadal

“I don't want to go into a match like a loser. I want to be the same because many players, when they see that they play Federer or Nadal or even Djokovic now, they go on the court, they fight a little bit, but then in the end, if it's getting close, I don't know, sometimes they just don't believe in themselves that they can win.”

Whether or not Gulbis can keep his head up like this on a show court against Nadal, I don’t know. But I’ll enjoy watching him try.

Andy Murray vs. Fabrice Santoro, Centre Court

It’s chilly and breezy in Centre Court. A shadow is creeping across the baseline. But the crowd is fixated on the match. They gasp at certain shots, then laugh at themselves for gasping. Even for an American, it’s hard not to get caught up in a Brit’s match at Wimbledon. All the press, the TV, the interviews with Mom, the entourage, the speculation—it feels like a world event is about to transpire.

From a tennis point of view, it sort of is. Britain’s Andy Murray is playing Fabrice Santoro, the beloved magician who is making his final appearance at Wimbledon. Before the tournament, he requested to be assigned to Centre Court, where he had never played. Drawing Murray made that a no-brainer.

Murray has just won the first set when I get there. Santoro breaks right away in the second. He’s at his artistic best, coming over, under, and around each ball, depending on what he thinks will make for the most diabolical shot to handle. Murray plays into his hands by lobbing and drop-shotting with him—do not try that on the master! Santoro shows the kid what circus tennis is all about when he sprints backward and hits a backhand passing-shot winner for the break.

Over his next four service games, Santoro goes to the bag of tricks and comes back with some vintage stuff. He hits reflex volleys, shovel volleys, volleys off his sneakers, half-volleys into far corners. He slices overheads precisely. At 3-2, he feints twice in one point, once to his left and once forward, then wins it with a sizzling backhand down the line. Even his tanked points seem designed to throw Murray off. Most important, Santoro finds a reliable way to win points by serving wide to Murray’s forehand in the deuce court. In the end, he loses the break at 4-3 because he misses this serve at deuce. Murray steps around the second one and hits a backhand winner. He breaks on the next point. The magic show is nearing its end.

The most Fabrice point of the set comes when he’s up 3-1 and down 40-0 on Murray’s serve. Santoro runs forward on a first serve, blocks his approach, takes a swinging forehand volley on a hard-hit pass, and wins the point with a two-handed backhand volley that wrong-foots Murray. On the way back to the baseline, he winks at someone he knows in the crowd.

Murray won’t face anyone remotely like Santoro here, but the Frenchman may have helped the Scot by forcing him to think tactically at all times and move forward relentlessly. Afterward, Santoro spoke with emotion about how it felt to walk into the corridor leading to the court, where there is “big history for a century.” When he was unceremoniously kicked out of the interview room by Wimbledon officials to make way for Murray’s presser, Santoro invited reporters to keep talking in the hall.

That may be a first, just like this match was. Centre Court has played host to all of the game’s champions, artists, and eccentrics of note. But its history wouldn’t have been complete if it had never seen Fabrice.

*

Quote of the day, courtesy, naturally, of Andy Roddick:

Q: "Everybody has been talking about fashion, both men and women. Do you enjoy the whole atmosphere here with that?

AR: "I think any attention drawn to tennis for whatever reason is good. If that means wearing Mr. Rogers' sweater, whatever else you got, then so be it. I don't know if it would be a good look for me. Or any of my friends. Or relatives."

See you for Safin-Djokovic Wednesday, first up on Centre Court, 1:00 P.M. London time.