I was stuck at the entrance to Centre Court’s press section this afternoon, waiting for a changeover. The electronic scoreboard above the doorway said the score of the Novak Djokovic-Marat Safin match was 5-4, but I couldn’t tell who was ahead. When the game ended, someone had won 6-4. I assumed it was Djokovic. It wasn’t until the end of the second game that I looked closer and saw that it was old man Safin who had won the first set after all.
It should have been easy to tell. As the teenage British girl behind me said, in disgust, about her man Djokovic: “Look at the buddy langwaj!” (That's "body language" to you and me.) She was right. Djokovic was slump-shouldered; more than that, he seemed physically diminished by the hulking presence of Safin across the net.
This was one of those breezy, cloudy days at Wimbledon where the sun comes in and out every 30 seconds. Centre Court changed from yellow to green like a slow-blinking warning light. More important, this was one of those days when Safin had a grip on that most elusive aspect of his game: his focus. With him, you can often see whether he’s going to win a match in the first few minutes. It’s not a question of whether he gets angry or loses his temper; it’s a question of whether he does it at the appropriate moments. At the start of the second set today, he let out a grunt of disapproval after netting a forehand that could have put him up 15-40 on Djokovic’s serve. That was a good sign from Safin. On some days, at this stage of the match he might throw his hands in the air and plead to the heavens: “Why me?”
The Russian was the stronger presence today, not just from a physical standpoint, but from a ball-striking standpoint as well. His serves, returns, forehands, and backhands were all heavier and deeper than Djokovic’s. The Serb stayed close in the second set, but there was a sense that he was hanging by a thread, scraping to stay in rallies, and relying on his first serve to keep him going. The question was whether Safin's heavier hitting would be enough to counteract the inevitable unforced errors that would come from his racquet. He plays a more dramatic, higher-risk game than Djokovic, who was cast in the role of the safe and steady technocrat today. The Serb looked harassed and off-balance all afternoon.
Centre Court is a place for drama, and Safin commanded the stage in leading-man style. When he got ahold of a down-the-line forehand at 4-5 in the second, the shot made that old Safin sound, a wallop that brought back memories of the 2000 U.S. Open and especially the 2005 Australian Open. In the tiebreaker and the third set, Safin’s return was a major weapon. The toughest serve to return on grass is the slice out wide in the deuce court—it doesn’t need to be perfect to win you the point on this surface—but Safin was anticipating it. And when he got into a backhand return, he was taking the initiative in the point. Has the return become the most important shot on grass?
At the end, Djokovic was rushing, and Safin punctuated the day with another rifle backhand—there was that sound again—down the line to give him two match points. In his presser, Safin was humble, but he had the old sarcastic twinkle in his eye. He said he was ready to book his ticket to Moscow for tonight, and that his new success on his hated grass could be chalked up to the slower courts. I was surprised by how much he was enjoying himself. That’s a product of winning, but even when he was at the top of his game there was a miserable aspect to him. I’ve often thought that Safin kept going only out of a sense of guilt about his world-class talent. But he sounded upbeat when he talked about his recent training and how hard it’s been not to see results. For today, at least, he was a kinder, gentler, more at ease Marat. Thursday, when he faces the tricky Italian Andreas Seppi, that man may or may not still be around.
As for Djokovic, he had his first off-day at a major in two years. He said he was mentally tired from the tour, but this was his job. He credited Safin, but said the loss was mainly due to his inability to force the action. He hinted that he might have shown too much respect for one of his heroes and friends, and that he waited too long for the Russian to begin making errors. Djokovic looked drawn and a little down in his presser, but he had his sense of humor intact. He said, off-handedly, that Safin was known for his “mental instability.” He didn’t mean it come off like the guy’s insane, but that’s how it sounded, and some reporters started to laugh. He couldn’t suppress a smile himself.
I’ve always thought Safin suffered less from mental instability than from a lack of killer instinct and, as a Russian of his generation, perhaps not enough cultural confidence to be a long-term world No. 1. Either way, he’s one of the very few multiple-major champions who has never made a serious mark on Centre Court. Even today, when he owned that arena, he was typically sardonic and self-deprecating in his press conference, and he took only the barest of curtain calls from the fans. Yesterday Fabrice Santoro finally had his day on Centre Court, today it was Safin. Here’s hoping he has a few more.