It took a while in getting there, but I think I’m ready to move on.
With Warped-Pete’s blessings.
ABM AMRO Rotterdam: Soderling d. Youzhny 6-4 2-0 (Ret.)
(Photo: Getty)
This title had Davy, Djoko or Big Rob written all over it.
Hard indoor ones tend to have the Swede’s name etched in a little more deeply – exactly the kind of event suited to his flatter-than-flat hard boiled style of play, and one he really should bag if we are to treat his top-ten maverick status very seriously.
Besides, what better way to snap out of that heady stupor he’s been in since the beginning of the year?
And so it played out – with Big Rob mostly keeping things simple (as if his game could be anything else), and with Davy and Djoko both falling in the semis and reassuming their lovingly-tended spots in the playground of ‘nearly-man’ tennis.
Except this was a 500 event. Where the nearly-men are supposed to go to town.
Maybe that’s a tad harsh to Davy, but with Djoko looking as 0ut of sorts as he did opposite Youhzny, one wonders what remedy if any will effect a turnaround, or whether that Serbian shooting star really has shot it’s last.
I tend towards believing it’s been shot down. And you know who I hold culpable? Marat Safin.
Cast your minds back two years - deep in the inner most recesses of those tennis-heads of yours lies embedded a memory, one which I like to think of as Marat’s Last Stand.
In 2008 Safin wowed his way to his last ever Slam semi-final at Wimbledon. Perhaps the greatest story of 2008 – second only to that greatest-of-all-finals itself.
His fans, tennis aficionados, and the rest of the world waited for, wished for good things to follow. In vain as it turned out.
But there was another story too. One that’s mostly been relegated to a footnote in history, if that.
For the Djoko that emerged from that punishing three set 2nd round loss displayed an almost dismembered look, one that I put down at the time to being ridden over roughshod by the Mighty Hippo.
Marat may have breathed what turned out to be his last gasp that year, but with it too he appeared to extinguish Djoko’s only remaining flame.
He has never regained that glint in his eye.
Gone was the cocky free-swinger and in his place stood an inhibited, austere, risk-averse, neurotic ‘Grinderman’, intent on reinventing himself as a clay courter.
That part of his post-‘Safinated’ agenda at least, remains intact.
In the eighteen or so months that have followed that psychosomatic shakedown, only two hard court Masters titles have been forthcoming, though it’s on clay that he appears to have retained at least some afterglow of his pre-Safinated self, the most notable example of which being that semi-final at Madrid last year.
I have no idea why exactly this is – in the same period he’s reached a further four hard court Masters finals, though in neither of which he displayed a shadow of the confidence that was so inextricably a part of what for the time being remains his only Slam title.
But consider this: if the experience has left him more of a force on clay, then Marat might very well be considered the architect of Federman’s revival.
Confused?
I was. At first.
I’m following a lengthy, loosely connected, slightly indulgent, and not entirely water-tight train of thought here – I must ask that you bear with me.
Whether or not you fully care for the creature Djoko’s morphed into, and whether or not you fully agree with the direction he’s headed in, he remains – perhaps by virtue of that grind -- for the time being at least, a force on clay.
Had he not been taken to the cleaners by Marat, he might never have evolved into Grinderman.
Had Djoko not seen fit to undergo this transfigurement, we might very well never have had that Madrid semi.
And if we didn’t have that maddeningly delicious Madrid semi, Nadal may have made the final only fractionally as exhausted as he turned out to be.
You follow?
Three setters are as ruthless as they are unforgiving affairs – where the slightest lapse in concentration, a single break can decide the course of a match.
Suppose Fed didn’t win Madrid, would he still have entered Roland Garros the energised figure we are told to believe he was?
Would Rafa still have lost?
Would Fed have still have served his way to number fifteen, on the back of 55 aces?
I would still say yes to those last two. But I would also say that there’s a ‘house-that-Jack-built’, in there somewhere.
This is the legacy that Roger built.
This is the GOAT that sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
Madrid is the event that freed the GOAT,
That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
This is the bull, a step too slow,
That found Madrid a step too far,
Thus freeing the GOAT,
That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
This is the grind that stirred-up the clay,
That irked the bull, a step too slow,
That found Madrid a step too far,
Thus freeing the GOAT,
That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
This is the kid, that would be King,
That took to grind that stirred-up the clay,
That irked the bull, a step too slow,
That found Madrid a step too far,
Thus freeing the GOAT,
That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
This is the match that Marat played,
That swept the kid, that would be King,
That took to grind stirring up the clay,
That irked the bull, a step too slow,
That found Madrid a step too far,
Thus freeing the GOAT,
That sat atop the legacy that Roger built.
Honorary mention to Mikhail, who truly earnt his final spot, despite some lackadaisical play from Djoko.
This week’s Dutch Master: Big Rob
This week’s Wooden Clogs: Davy, Djoko
In other news….
Open GDF Suez Paris: Dementieva d. Safarova 6-7, 6-1, 6-4
What, another tier two title Elena?
I was more interested by the way Safarova came into this. Quite the most confident exhibition of ‘line and length’ from her in around 3 years.
Except not very many players do line’n length as well as Elena.
Pattaya Open Thailand: Zvonareva d. Tanasugarn 6-4 6-4
Brasil Open Costa do Sauipe: Ferrero d. Kubot 6-1 6-0
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