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ROLAND GARROS 2014 - WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE IP: 46.255.183.159 Posted on June 5, 2014 at 01:31:17 AM by David Barnes
ROLAND GARROS 2014
WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE (DAY 11)
Spectators yesterday were transfixed by Ernests Gulbis’ play against Tomas Berdych, and his press conference afterwards was equally compelling - one of those occasions that produced genuine mirth as well as food for thought. The questioning started in a vaguely hostile manner; “Q: Don't you have a rich father?” A: “Yes”. Q: “So you don't need money?” A: “I need money, to turn it on my own.” Q: “It's an ego thing? You need to show you can actually do this time?” A: “Okay, if you want to go that way, then I will explain a little bit. For me, I found throughout these years what is important for me to be truly happy. For me to be truly happy, my happiness comes only from doing well my job. Then I can really live my life to the maximum. You know, I can enjoy the stuff much more. So for me it's really important for my happiness just to be successful on the tennis court. Forget about the money. Forget about fame. It's just about my inner comfort. That's it. For me, that's all that matters in the end of the day.”
As for his match against Berdych, Gulbis said; “Today everything was good. I felt physically so good. I felt that I can run forever. I felt that he cannot make winner, you know? That's how I felt on court. I felt that I covered it really well. If I feel so confident, you know, from the baseline, then everything just comes together.” He then riffed, as befits his pop star looks (he has the tousled appearance of a man who’s regularly spent too long in front of a rotating electric fan), on the subject of his tennis upbringing and what motivates him from day to day on the Tour; “I was five years old when parents brought me to tennis. I was just an active kid. I liked every kind of sport. Tennis basically chose me because my father had a friend who was a tennis coach. That's why I started. I'm pretty sure that I would be good with anything with a ball. I think I would be pretty good basketball player, pretty good football player, you know, because I like ball. I have a good feeling for it, you know. Just happened to be tennis. For a while, you know, I was a little bit pissed off about it because I wish I could play on a team, you know, because in my understanding, it's much easier. In my understanding, tennis is one of the toughest sports. You cannot compare to nothing. You're all alone there.”
This reminded me of Melanie Reid’s article in yesterday’s Times, where she mused on how rarely the sons and daughters of tennis greats take up the game; for her, tennis is possibly the cruellest sport of all, where a player like Andy Murray is forever “exposing his fragilities in public, taking off his skin again and again and flaying himself”, immersed in “a lifetime of grueling and solitary conflict, psychological pain and suffering”. Or as the Latvian put it; “It's tough, but it has its bonuses. I think if you think the right thoughts and understand what you're doing, then it builds up your character much more than it would in any other sport. It's up and down.” With two days to kill before his semi-final, he had this disarming line at the end of his press conference “I have no idea honestly what will be my preparation because I'm in the first time Grand Slam semi-final, first time in this situation. Hopefully my coach can give me some advice. If not, not. So I'm going to react what was coming. I will say I have no plan.” Looking at the Latvian and his retinue in the Players Box, it was hard not to conclude that the time would include an impromptu celebration or two.
Rafa was demoted to Suzanne Lenglen court in today’s quarterfinal against David Ferrer, to make way for Gael Monfils and Andy Murray on Philippe Chatrier, which is unlikely to have pleased the Spaniard’s camp, reportedly incensed when he was assigned that court earlier in the fortnight. Maybe that was why he lost the first set 6-4 to David Ferrer. Maybe also why he won the next three, 6-4, 6-0, 6-1 with increasing confidence, to book his semi-final place on Friday.
The rain had started falling in the early morning, letting up only for some matches on the outside courts to be completed before it returned and forced a delay until just before 5pm. Among those early matches was the 3rd round girls singles between the 17-year old left-hander Isabelle Wallace from Britain, coached by Toby Smith, and the 10th seed, Canadian Francoise Abanda. Wallace lost in straight sets, but the tournament experience will give her ‘plenty of positives’, as a certain Tim Henman used to say.
Happily Andrea Petrovic took only an hour and three minutes to beat Sara Errani 6-2, 6-2 on Suzanne Lenglen court. Gael Monfils must have wished he had Ernests Gulbis’s physical and mental form going into his quarterfinal with Andy Murray, but the Frenchman’s back, infamous slow start in matches, and the vicious wind swirling around the court, initially played havoc with both his mind and his serve, the latter lacking any depth or penetration, allowing Murray to step in and control most of the points. After an initial French flourish, breaking the Scot’s serve, without the pyrotechnics that the subdued crowd were willing him to produce the Frenchman went from bad to worse and was two sets to love down, 6-4, 6-1, in less than an hour and a half.
It could not, of course last, not on Suzanne Lenglen court, not with Monfils as the last Frenchman in the draw, not with the great and the good of the FFT looking on, nor with Murray’s time-sensitive physical problems, and not without a fightback. The fightback came, just in time, in the third set; Monfils was serving first, squandered three break points on Murray’s first service game and had to wait until the tenth game for three more, by which time, at 5-4, they were set points. Two were lost but the third taken. The set had lasted 55 minutes.
By now, crucially, the wind had dropped and Monfils’ play was improving by the minute. He broke Murray to lead 3-1 in the fourth set, then again for 5-1, and served a love game to snaffle the set 6-1 from under Murray’s increasingly wrinkled nose. The British player was in trouble, possibly looking for the match to be suspended due to the light; referee Stefan Fransson said that play should continue ‘for at least 20 minutes’.
In the event the fifth set was an anticlimax pour les frenchies, given the fervour that accompanied Monfils through the third and fourth, but Murray still did well, twice, to break Monfils’ suddenly erratic serve. The Frenchman became vulnerably wild, and Murray wrapped up the fifth set 6-1 for a great win. Monfils was nonplussed afterwards; “I don’t really know what happened. I was a bit rushed in attacking him. I am very frustrated”.
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David Barnes/Topspin, 2014
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