The first casualties of the rain Wednesday on Centre Court are Marin Cilic and Arnaud Clement, two players who are coming at their second-round encounter from opposite ends of the age spectrum. Clement, now 33 and a former Queen?s semifinalist and Wimbledon finalist, has already played through qualifying and a first-round match to confront his 22 year-old opponent. Cilic?s results for the last year or so haven?t matched up to his promise (he made the Australian Open semis in 2010), but he?s still 27th in the world and quarterfinalist or better at five ATP tournaments this year alone. His serve bears the marks of having recently been tinkered with, as he experiments with a more truncated racquet take-back, more often seen on the WTA.
A liberal sprinkling of double faults help to ensure frequent breaks throughout the first set, but Cilic is still a class above this version of Clement and serves out the first set, 6-4. Cilic has just put together a trademark sequence of dominating forehands to get to 30-30 on Clement?s serve at 2-2 when the darkening clouds finally give up the promised rain, heedless of the fact that the Croatian is finding some momentum for the first time, or that Janko Tipsarevic and Michael Russell are locked in a first-set tiebreak, or that I left my umbrella in the media centre. Not for the first time, we run for cover.
When play resumes an hour-and-a-half later, the rain seems to have refreshed Cilic. He picks up where he left off by cleaning the line with his bendy, whippy forehand, then sends Clement scurrying all over the court with his solid two-handed backhand to break. It?s enough for him to take the second set, 6-4, and the match. His post-match interview is cut short by the entrance of the player everybody wants to get finished before the rain returns: second seed Andy Murray, returning to Centre Court for the first time since his three-set defeat to Mardy Fish last year on a day also marked by rain and darkness. Murray starts off like he wants to get this finished quickly, breaking in the second game, and it?s astonishing how the level of play lifts when he comes on to court. Watching him exchange sliced backhands with Xavier Malisse, feather-light and knife-sharp, it looks for the first time like how grass-court tennis should be played. As they are competing in the fourth game, the rain suddenly sits in again, colder and harder than before. The spectators start stampeding for the exits before play is officially suspended, and it is another ninety minutes or so of morose time-killing for everyone.
When the players return, Murray?s game is as full of contrasts as the weather. There?s a heaviness there?his muscular frame, the pounding of his feet as he sets off after a drop shot?which mimics the threatening clouds but stands in direct opposition to his whirling creativity. He seems to find Malisse?s game predictable, as their 3-0 head-to-head suggests, yet Murray?s own moments of predictability incur his greatest displeasure, and he drops the second set, 7-5, on a long forehand without a clear sense of how it happened. It?s not just his game that is ambivalent; the stands are almost full, busier than I have seen them yet this week, but it?s only the tiny pocket that holds Murray?s team who are actually applauding and encouraging him between points.
I like Murray?s complexity; I like how his tennis appeals to the mind and imagination, and it bothers me that his home crowd doesn?t seem to like him in the same way. Maybe it?s because I?m feeling the uneasy itch of trying to be part-fan, part-journalist, (while secretly fearing that I?m only succeeding in being wholly silly), or maybe I?m remembering the public schoolboy-type who I overheard scoffing at Murray?s name on the roster of champions??Well, that devalues the whole thing, doesn?t it???but I?m wondering if the root of the public ambiguity towards Murray lies in the fact that he scrutinizes us as much as we do him. The spotlight we turn on Murray only reflects back the unpalatable fact that he is the only game in town?and the more disgraceful reality of our own national obsession with having a champion of our own. In this analysis, Murray becomes a kind of anti-hero, a Steerpike making himself indispensable to the ?establishment?, the existence of which it is so easy to believe in among the well-heeled, well-oiled patrons who sometimes seem to dominate the Queens crowds.
It?s never that simple, though, is it? Just as Steerpike wanted to command the system and not destroy it, Murray gains incalculable rewards from his position as the only British player of note. I too want to be on the inside, to feel like I know what?s going on and be understood. I still think it?s telling that the only real spontaneous outcry of encouragement Murray gets from the crowd is when he earns a match point on Malisse?s serve at 5-3 just as it is once again starting to rain. Everyone?s willing him to get it done so they can beat the rain. As he has done so many times before, Murray does what is required of him.
Despite the frustrations, though, rain-afflicted tennis tournaments can sometimes bear unexpected gifts. Waiting for Juan Martin del Potro?s match against Igor Kunitsyn, originally scheduled for Centre, to show up on Court 1, I suddenly realize that it?s been moved to Court 10. Heading over there in a hurry, I find myself watching my favorite player on a side court I last saw used in qualifying, in the company of maybe forty other spectators standing in the narrow alley, unable to believe our luck. Just a few feet away from del Potro?s fearsome groundstrokes, as the sinking sun floods the grounds, more spectators hang off the Centre Court stands or pile into Court 9 to try to get a view. It?s a magical moment, one never likely to be repeated. My feet are wet, I?m chilled to the bone, but for the hour or so it takes for del Potro to defeat Kunitsyn, the vagaries of today?s weather feel like a perfect storm.
Source: http://feeds.tennis.com/~r/tenniscom-features/~3/3thODhpy72w/
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