ESTORIL, Portugal?Juan Martin del Potro?s coach must wince every time his player cracks a forehand. I know I do. Not since Achilles has one seemingly insignificant part of a person?s body seemed so important to so many people. What is a wrist, anyway? Nothing. It just stops your hand from falling off your arm. But as del Potro?s total absence from the tour for much as 2010 demonstrated, you can?t play tennis without it. It?s ?almost fine? now and recovering at a faster rate than anyone expected, he says in his press conference after defeating Robin Soderling 6-2, 7-5 in the quarterfinals of the Estoril Open. He still feels some pain when the weather is humid, but?he tells me?his strong heart and his will to win is more important than any pain.
It?s the kind of splendidly melodramatic statement that no native English speaker could get away with, and delivered without apparent irony. Raised and educated in a post-structuralist milieu with an endemic suspicion of essentialist discourse or grand narrative, I can?t imagine using the word ?heart? unproblematically in any sense other than the medical. Maybe that?s why I like tennis, because heart still seems to matter. And maybe that?s why I like del Potro, who?s all heart, now more than ever.
Del Potro has to cope with more than pain today?or, to put it another way, there?s plenty in the air to make his wrist hurt. When he takes to the court to face Soderling, a player who he has beaten in their last four encounters but never faced on clay, and a man who can claim to have been the second-best player for the last two years at Roland Garros, it?s already rained once and a dry storm dominated the skies over Lisbon the night before. Soderling starts off going great guns, banging down aces and service winners while del Potro is frequently on trouble on his serve. Time and again, the Argentine misjudges baseline balls and finds himself in the wrong position or is the victim of his own lazy footwork, generally looking half-asleep while Soderling is visibly bouncing. As anyone who?s watched del Potro knows, though, he?s at his most dangerous when he looks more or less comatose. Suddenly he?s broken Soderling?s serve at 2-2, courtesy of one beautiful backhand passing shot and little else apart from Soderling?s consciousness of the need to put the ball where del Potro can?t get at it. Generally, that turns out to be outside the lines.
Watching del Potro finish the set from that break, I?m struck by the sense that his body is different above the waist to below. It?s well known that del Potro is absurdly tall, 6?6? at a conservative estimate, but it?s his legs that look disproportionate and skinny, only exaggerated by his unfeasibly large clown-feet. Above the waist, however, he?s all rangy grace. A person could get lost in watching his shoulder-blades shift and his torso twist to produce those deep groundstrokes. The sound of the ball coming off del Potro?s racquet is something else, a crisp crack that?s somehow at the right frequency to generate an echo that resounds around Court Central a split second after he hits. The only other player I?ve heard make a comparable sound on this court is Raonic, and that occasionally.
As the temperature plummets, the skies darken and the winds whip up, I?m haunted by whatever the poetic version of an earworm is; a line from a Sylvia Plath poem that many years ago was a touchstone for me. I should have loved a thunderbird instead; at least when spring comes they roar back again. Maybe I?m remembering certain lines from this piece that Pete Bodo wrote, or maybe del Potro just brings out the romantic, angsty teenage girl I used to be (as opposed to the cynical, angsty adult I?ve become). Certainly I?ve wished, during his absence from the tour in 2010 after the blinding highs of 2009, that I could be as interested in a player who could offer some sort of reasonable, reliable return on my emotional investment; worse, I?ve wondered if he was ever really that good, or if?like many of the people who use the halycon days of yesteryear in the WTA as a stick to beat the current crop with?I?ve projected whatever it is I?m not getting on to a clearly delineated absence in the classic Lacanian manner. Did I make him up inside my head? Is it absurd to suppose that del Potro could really come back after an injury and a surgery like that, regenerated like a Timelord?
It?s certain that there is an oncoming storm. As the second set begins, ominous rumbles of thunder follow forked lightning that stabs down perilously close to the stands, which have begun to feel very metal indeed. In the teeth of the storm and the rising wind, Soderling has lifted his game. The deep balls down the middle of the court which worked so well for del Potro during the first set are now merely an opportunity for the Swede to manufacture his angled winners; Soderling breaks then holds for 3-0. As the rain begins to fall and the spectators to scurry, the mood down on court has grown increasingly fractious. The swallows and hovering birds that usually inhabit the sky over Court Central have disappeared; the umpire, forced to engage in disputes over calls with both players, probably wishes he could do the same. Del Potro is hovering on the brink of losing the second set, down 15-30 at 1-4, when the heavens open in earnest. I see del Potro walking alone back to the players? area getting soaked by the downpour, oblivious of the falling leaves.
In the hours that follow, the general mood ranges from moroseness to gallows humour. The healthy crowd have disappeared as if by magic and I?m facing the fact that I might not get to see del Potro finish out a match before I have to leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon. And who knows? I might never get the chance again. I should have loved a thunderbird instead, or at least chosen to be a fan of Fedal or a solid mediocrity, not someone with a history of chronic injuries who was never expected to be good in the first place.
When the match starts again late in the evening, it seems the only person who?s more desperate than I am to get it finished is Robin Soderling. Trying everything to press his advantage, greeting every point won with a fist pump, he tries too hard and presses too much. Del Potro?s giant forehand, which doesn?t need to generate winners because no one can consistently handle it, makes a reappearance; the Argentine works his opponent over relentlessly from side to side until he breaks through, breaks back and breaks for the match. Waving to the sparse but enthusiastic crowd who have had the stamina to stay through the rain, he clenches his fist in the air in an unspecified but heartfelt salute.
This is del Potro?s fifth semifinal in his last six events, and his second victory over Soderling since his comeback. The Swede may not be playing his absolute best tennis, but it?s still significant; del Potro has got the habit of winning back. Next comes regaining his position as a legitimate threat to the big guns. He?s said he?s aiming for the U.S. hard court season, but there?s a tantalizing possibility he might be ready sooner. In del Potro?s breakthrough summer of 2008, everyone remembers his triumphs on the hard courts of the USA, but his first two titles came on clay, in Stuttgart (d. Gasquet) and Kitzbuhel (d. Melzer). In 2009, he took Federer to five sets in the semifinals at Roland Garros and his first steps on a tennis court were taken on the pitted, cracked clay courts of Club Independiente in Tandil. He knows this surface, and he?s rounding into form.
When I think of del Potro?s career up until the 2009 U.S. Open, I think of an insurgency, a one-man storming of the barricades with his small, tight-knit team in support. I think of someone who was never expected to be as good as they are. He?ll never repeat that feat of blowing a closed circle wide open, but in terms of starting from a position of adversity, his current mission to make his way back up the rankings is a close second, which bodes well. After his U. S. Open win in 2009, various pundits were starting to ask if del Potro was the next world number one. Now, they may as well be asking if lightning can strike twice. One thing is certain, whether on the clay or elsewhere, the top players of the ATP will have a storm on their hands.
Source: http://feeds.tennis.com/~r/tenniscom-features/~3/WbgNYHOnHFg/
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