Most Valuable Network, MA
Feb. 24, 2008
Tortoise 2.0
By Nate Cunningham | February 23rd, 2008
The tortoise and the hare metaphor is often applied to David
Nalbandian, and for good reason, especially in the light of his
victory lap last year after everyone had long counted him out. But if
he wants to catch the Grandest, most elusive hare of all, he may need
to stop pacing himself and just pounce.
Yesterday I was busy on the computer with a few different things, but
I had the score-tracker from the ATP website fixed on the
Nalbandian-Starace match. First set progresses without incident to
4-4. Then, suddenly, Starace up a break, and serving for the first
set. I look again: Starace wins the first set. And, seemingly thirty
seconds later: Starace up a break in the second. The thought `What
the hell is wrong with Nalbandian?’ goes through my head for (a
conservative estimate) the nine-hundred twenty-seventh time since I
became a fan back in 2003. I glance at the scoreboard again and
there’s a rain delay. The thought comes: `Maybe D-Nal can use this,
make a fresh start on the match…’ But I don’t really believe it.
Career-long, his M.O. has always been `Show up for the Majors, phone
in most everything else’.
I doubt there’s another player in tennis history who’s been to the
semis or better of every Slam (and to the quarters routinely), won a
Masters Cup Title, and finished in the Top Ten for five straight
years, but has only four titles at small events. He hadn’t even won a
regular season Masters Series tournament, until last fall when he
rattled off those two in a row out of nowhere, against the best
competition in the game. If you look closely at his career highlights
outside the Slams, you realize that two of his titles were at the
same event, Estoril, another was at Basel-where he would go on to
make the finals two more times-and that the Madrid Masters title was
presaged by a run to the finals three years earlier. So most of his
best lower level results have occured at tournaments he’s played well
at in the past (maybe he gets up for Basel because it’s Federer’s
hometown, and he has happy memories of taking him out there in the
`02 semis).
Even the solid Slam results aren’t quite as simple as that. Nalby
will go five with Danai Udomchoke in the first round of the
Australian Open, and then make it all the way to the semis-that’s
routine for him, just his way of finding a rhythm. It’s also a good
explanation for his disproportate success at the Slams vs. all other
tournaments, because it takes him longer to find that rhythm than any
other player with such a complete game. But why does it take him
longer? He’s a gorgeously clean ball-striker on both wings, much like
Andre Agassi, with whom he also shares Armenian blood and a penchant
for grinding his opponents into dust. Agassi, though, was ready to go
>From the first point in a match-he was nothing like the whimsical
competitor Nalbandian is. But I would assume that, during his best
years, Agassi’s practice ethic was on a par with his fitness ethic
(to say nothing of the estimated 3,000-5,000 balls he hit per day as
a kid), while it’s well-documented that Nalbandian isn’t too fond of
practicing. Neither was Agassi at first, but, as with so many things,
he grew out of it, while D-Nal-even at the age of 26-still claims he
doesn’t need much practice. But isn’t that the simplest, most
sensible explanation for why he so often has to gradually work his
way into matches and tournaments-because he doesn’t hit enough balls
outside of competition?
I’m not going to bother attacking his fitness; it probably doesn’t do
him any favors with the injuries, but I can’t remember Nalbandian
ever looking tired on the court. His powers of endurance would appear
to be a genetic gift-just something he was born with, like the
ball-striking and the court instinct. It was amazing to see all of
that working for him last fall, mostly because the way he was winning
all those matches just made sense. When Fed’s at the top of his game
it doesn’t seem real, or fair. When Nadal’s at the top of his, it
feels like one of the god-favored warriors from The Iliad has just
stepped onto a tennis court and doesn’t understand there’s no blood
at stake. But watching Nalbandian check-mate both of them twice in a
row-along with a bunch of other top players-was eerie because it felt
like a rational, natural force was taming the supernatural,. It made
you think, `Wow, can beating Federer really be so simple?’ The
virtuoso behind whose progress all the history books are being daily
re-written was schooled by the dusty old text-book whom we all
assumed he’d rendered obsolete years earlier.
I hope Nalbandian can build on that run, which really was far more
impressive in almost every way than his Masters Cup Triumph in `05.
With the rise of Djokovic and the threat of guys like Tsonga, as well
as the simple fact of Nalbandian’s advancing age, the time for him to
finally realize his potential may be short; it may be just these next
two seasons. He didn’t look right at the Aussie, and there is an
injury to possibly blame it on. But there he was just a couple days
ago, getting worked by a journeyman on home soil. Only, this time he
was able to turn the match around. Then he blitzed Chela in the next
round, and finds himself facing yet another fellow Argentine (and, so
far, another under-achiever), Jose Acasuso, in the final. I’m
choosing to view that match symbolically: if he wins he’s in the
running this year, if not he’s…Ok, that’s silly, but it’s the kind of
mind-game we long-suffering Nalbandian fans have to play with
ourselves in order to go on watching…