THANK YOU CITI OPEN - RICHARD GASQUET v MICHAEL LLODRA 2014

You know how the first thing you do when you walk on a tennis court is always the first thing you do when you walk on a tennis court - a ritual, a rite of passage, an homage to the faces on Mt. Rush(the net)More?  For some it's doing your laces a certain way, for others perhaps arranging the water bottle in some perfect alignment with an empty can of balls, that serves a purpose known only to your own imagination.  Well, I have a ritual every time I go to the Citi Open - the first thing I do after I cross the main entrance, and pass all the promotional modules is hang a hard left to visit the first 3 practice courts.  These days one of those courts is Grandstand 1, a beautifully seated stadium court, from which almost every seat has a perfect vantage point to view a match tennis - sufficiently distant to appreciate the angles, but close enough to feel the weight and pace of every shot.

But back in the day, Grandstand 1 used to be 3 practice courts where you could often watch 6 of the worlds best players at once, getting into the kind of groove that you rarely get to see in a match.  And it is as they train that you truly appreciate what it takes to be a professional tennis player.  The warmups begin with a slow exercise in simply increasing the blood flow and finding the range - they are hardly putting anything on the ball, and all the pace and spin are generated by rote.  This is where, if any conversation takes place, it will take place - I remember back in 1990 watching John Boytim, a top shelf junior from the great state of Texas, who had turned professional to ignominious results, telling his practice partner every sordid detail of a dinner and a movie he had been to the night before.  I was as fascinated by the day to day lives of these players, as their games...but I digress. Not so any more - with the pervasive presence of perma-coaches, these conversations are not as extensive or intimate or frequent.

Then the pace picks up slightly, with players putting a little more spin on the ball, making the flight path tighter and tighter over the net until it reaches an impossibly tight curl over the net and the ball lands somewhere in the middle of the no-man's land (that area just beyond the service line and before the baseline).  With modern poly-strings and composite racquets, the spin on shots landing that short push players at least 6 feet beyond the baseline at this point in the warm up.  By now, the sinews are stretched, the blood flows readily, and the players are ready for their full throated knock about - this is when it becomes truly amazing.

Because at this point, the players begin to strike the ball with true venom, full-bodied pace and spin, on a line tighter and tighter towards their partner, harder and harder, until one of them folds by dumping it in the net or long.  They're not moving themselves around, in fact that is considered a soft cop out, because the objective in this exercise is to hit the ball as hard as you can straight at your opponent, and they do the same, straight back at you, until somebody folds.  In this way, they're fighting a battle of attrition, and the loser is the guy with the ball on his side of the net.  This goes on until they have to wipe the sweat from their hands, or someone breaks a string.

They then move onto a long session of volleys, with the same principle, you're not trying to pass your partner, as much as you're trying to hit the ball through him, and he loses if he dumps a volley straight into the net or long.  They do this over and over again until the reactions are so quick and instinctive, you almost wonder how their minds are able to process all the variables and decision points to arrive at just the right point of contact.  After a few overheads, then a few serves and returns, a practice set is played.

The best set of tennis I saw last year won't show up on the AT P's head to head records.  That's because it was a practice set at, hideaway on practice court 2, between Richard Gasquet and Michael Llodra.  And after the initial pleasure of watching an extended 30 minute warmup, I then witnessed one of the best sets of tennis I've ever seen.  Not only because Gasquet has one of the most beautiful backhands in tennis, and Llodra is one of the last bona fide serve and volleyers left in the game.  The set was extraordinary because the spirit of these two players, their trades plied at opposite ends of the tactical spectrum, is exactly the same - swashbucklers.  Not that the term isn't overly used, particularly when it comes to french tennis players, but it very much applies to these two.  They do whatever they can, whatever it takes, whenever they can do it, to win the point, and entertain, and not necessarily in that order.  There is a quality of the spectacle which is as important to french players and french audiences, that must be met in order for the match to have been worth watching.  And boy was this one worth watching.

Gasquet started serving, wide serve in the deuce court, which is the right play against a lefty with a one-handed backhand, but because the pace was reduced to ensure placement, Llodra promptly replied with a drop shot return - I repeat, a drop shot return - to which Gasquet had no choice but to pump his desperate foray to net with a cross court angle which Llodra promptly hit around the net post for a winner.

That was the first point.

And it continue like this, shot after shot was hit with angles so acute the players were continually trying to avoid running into things - the net post, the side fence the back fence, the change over chairs, etc.  Some players shrink the court by forcing you to hit to the same spot over and over again, but the vision and improvisation of Gasquet and Llodra had them making the court every larger with each point.  Llodra once hit a kick serve to Gasquet's forehand in the deuce court on break point, which Gasquet replied with a chip forehand lob over Llodra's backhand side.  And as if that wasn't difficult enough to handle had he taken it conventionally, Llodra decided to hit a tweeter lob (also over the backhand), which Gasquet dispatched with a blind leap and incredible backhand smash - made all the more impressive when you recall the he stands 5'11 if he's got two pairs of socks on.

And there's something about the vantage point of watching from the side, as those practice courts force you to do - particularly when you watch from the net.  As a conventional tactic, topspin is usually associated with more margin over the net, but keeping the ball inside the baseline, but actually from this vantage point I could see the effects of Gasquet's reverse forehand (hit almost as frequently as Nadal's but his with a continental grip that also allows him to switch to or from a forehand slice) not only imparted enormous topspin, but used in conjunction with a very low net clearance, actually worked to keep the ball very low.  This is of particular use to a player who hits through the ball on the forehand side and is unaccustomed to having to generate either his own pace, or his own spin on the ball.

The set finished in a tie-break after each player broke once, then the other immediately broke right back.  The serves were not huge, but hugely effective, placed in all four corners, with slice, top and flat making for a beautiful array of 18 different kinds of serves from two players using the serve to set up very different things.  The shotmaking was fearless, which is nothing to shake a stick at when you consider the kind of impact losing would have on either players' reputation in their relatively large circle of compatriots (people talk about Spanish tennis, but really, it's the French that have the most players of consequence in the top 100 today).  But most importantly, although there were only 5 people watching that set, it was enough motivation to those two to entertain, curse each other out (in a playful way) and along the way play one hell of a practice set of tennis - indeed one of the best I've ever seen at the Citi Open.

So, for making the first thing I do, one of the best things I do, every time I go to Rock Creek in August, I say, "Thank you Citi Open".

THANK YOU CITI OPEN - YANNICK NOAH 1985/1989

Other than my father, I'd never seen a black man playing tennis - and certainly not a black man like Yannick Noah.  At 6'4", wiry muscle, and legs that looked taller than me, I couldn't believe how perfect he looked.  His waist was small, but his shoulders broad.  His thighs scarcely contained the quadriceps that would launch him into the air on his infamous overhead, and the racquet looked more like a ping pong paddle in his hands, such was the efficacy with which he wielded his weapon of choice.  His forehand was contrived, but he seemed to be able to put limitless amounts of spin and height on the ball, and still keep it in the court.  His slice backhand, stayed low even on the green clay, and when he came over it, he seemed to launch the ball with every inch of himself - from his calves to his fingertips - a kind of full bodied heave up and over the top of the ball.

But for all the potential in that sinewy frame of his, his kinetic energy was disarming.  As a serve and volleyer, he sort of ambled casually into the court, with his right foot landing first, but in absolutely no particular hurry.  And regardless of how he hit it - whether slice or top, or flat up the "T", there was a kind of tele-transportation quality to his net approaches.  From the side, you would watch the serve, and his initial step, almost falling in to the court, the return would come, and as you followed the ball presumably back to the baseline, your eyeline was interrupted by the sudden appearance of this praying mantis of a man at the net.

How in the world did he get there so fast?

And lobbing him, desperate measure that it was, rarely worked, no matter how well it was hit - with two elegant paces in reverse, he would go from within touching distance of the net to the service line, and leaning backwards, with his right foot raised above his waist, and a violent flick of the wrist, the ball disappeared in the other direction.  Noah's greatest quality was his guile - he knew that making the tennis match a test of consistency and repetition would play right into his opponents' hands.  And since nobody on tour could match him for movement and improvisation, his game was a myriad of slices, drop volleys, heavy topspin and monstrous overheads.  Try as they may to disrupt him, his opponents were forced to play the game on his terms, and in this domain, his arsenal was superior to almost all others.

In 1985, Jimmy Connors came back to the DC National Bank Tennis Classic, and with his boorish, ball bashing branding of tennis, despite the clay surface, few players could contain the dynamism of his strokes.  No other player on tour could match his ability to almost arbitrarily inject pace into a rally.  While most had better volleys, some hit with more topspin, and almost all had a bigger serve, the boldness of Connors game belied his diminutive stature, which almost by optical illusion, disappeared the minute he started launching himself into his strokes. Inevitably most players would shrink at the prospect of resisting the weight of his pedigree, personality and (most of all) his strokes.

But when he played his semi-final against Yannick Noah, the first thing I noticed at the coin toss, was that Noah stood at least 6-8 inches taller than Jimmy Connors - it was a bit like realizing that Cassius Clay was much bigger and stronger than Sonny Liston as they took instructions from the referee for their title bout in Miami in 1964.  And as such, the power and penetration I normally expected with Connors, just melted away in a never ending deluge of slicing and dicing from the first point to the very last.  Noah would bomb a serve out wide, which Connors would stretch into the doubles alley and return with interest.  From there Noah approached, and a drop shot would ensue, and Jimbo would desperately make his way to the net for a meek reply, which Noah would calmly lob into the very corner from whence Connors had just come.  It was like a man toying with a boy, and Connors was none too pleased.

The match was exhilarating and tense, with one winner following another, and both players demonstrating the full arsenal of weapons at their disposal, but Noah never appeared to physically extend himself beyond what his body could potentially muster, whereas Connors leapt and stretched on nearly every shot.  I wondered how long he could go on doing it, but it wasn't until match point that he finally conceded - physically or otherwise.  The court appeared smaller than normal, with shots from Connors T-2000 screaming across the net, and replies from Noah's finding angles and locations I had never witnessed.  It was one of the best tennis matches I'd ever seen, full of drama and humor and desperately competitive men striving to force the other into submission - but only one could prevail, and that day belonged to Noah.  He won in three sets and proceeded to obliterate Martin Jaite in the final for the title.

But of all things Yannick Noah did on that court that blistering hot afternoon, it was his serve that was the pinnacle of his aesthetic appeal.  I remember noticing how easy and loose his hand held the racquet as his body formed the trophy position - I could literally see the lines on his fingers as they spread languidly at the top of the toss, then closed as the racquet disappeared into a blur of wood and fiberglass and he launched himself into the serve.  It was a picture in my mind that I took, and tried desperately to emulate on the court...but alas I am no Yannick Noah.

Years later, I was a ball boy at the then Sovran Bank Tennis Classic, and Noah had come to play doubles primarily, but I didn't care - I just wanted to see him play, so I snuck over to the last practice court near the main entrance and watched him float through a practice session like he didn't have a care in the world.  He had grown his dreadlocks out again (in 1985 he sported a very African tight 'fro) so the now familiar look had returned, but something about him was amiss.  He wasn't disinterested, but he wasn't fully committed, and while he had that same easy gait about him, as he strode across the court, the snap of the wrist, the leaping backhand, were gone.  A childhood hero is a childhood hero, and being six-inches from him was like being close enough to reach out and touch the sun, but I must admit, I was less impressed than I expected to be.  And as his practice session came to an end, just as I thought I would go home with nothing particularly interesting to tell my parents, he did something that I'll never forget.

He took a tennis ball out from under the net, rolled it with the sole of his foot up to the bridge it, and began juggling it (in the soccer sense) on that foot, repeatedly.  The ball, rotating furiously backwards appeared to be tied to a rubber band, the way it willfully returned to the exact same spot in the middle of his laces, over and over again, and by the time I stopped counting he had done it at least 30 times - then he switched feet, and did the same with his left, all the while skipping around the service court until he'd done it another 20 times, and just when I thought he was finished, he propped the ball up to his thighs, alternating them, cradling it just adjacent to his stomach, then further out in front of him as though he wanted everyone to see the ball from all angles, then up to his head, like a seal, bouncing it on his forehead, until it came back down to the first foot that started the whole this circus act.

I was floored - I mean, it wasn't enough that he looked so comfortable on the court that a practice looked like a stroll in the garden - he just had to let us know that he could have been a professional in another sport altogether too.  I went home and told my family about it until they begged me to stop talking.

He didn't play the Citi Open very often, but each time he did, he had a lasting impact on this young tennis player in a way that has left an impression on me to this day.  I hadn't really known how athletic and majestic a tennis player could look until I saw Yannick Noah play at the William H. Fitzgerald tennis center in 1985, and again in 1989.  It informs my current appreciation for the jocks that now play the modern game.

For that, I say, once again - thank you Citi Open.

THANK YOU CITI OPEN - BARRY MACKAY 1990

This is a piece I did on Barry MacKay, back in July of 2012, upon learning of his passing.  I repost it here as part of my series "Thank You Citi Open" where I recount tales of the personal history I have with one of the premier events on the ATP Tour.

Recently the tennis world lost one of the good guys - I'm sure there's some fellow out there that might have a bad thing to say about Barry Mackay, but I'm just as certain that he has long since forgiven him, such was the kindness and generosity that became as much his hallmark as that endearingly long face, booming voice, and broad shoulders that stood tall for years at tennis courts around the world.  

I won't belabor a semi-official biography about him - you can get that from Wikipedia or the various halls of fame where he has been, and will almost certainly be, inducted, after a long career that included an NCAA singles championship in 1957 (along with the one and only team championship that same year for the University of Michigan), a Davis Cup title for the United States in 1958, defeating the seemingly indomitable Australians in the the final, and a long career as an amateur, then as a ronin touring professional for Jack Kramer, then fully into the daylight of open tennis (although by then his best years were long behind him).

To be honest, I think what made Barry Mackay a really special person was the kind of thing that he did when I had the pleasure of meeting him in 1990 at what was then called the Sovran Bank Tennis Classic (previously the DC National Bank Tennis Classic, later the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, and what will be for the first time this year called the Citi Open).  I was a ball boy for the first time, and I had been wanting to be a ball boy ever since I first came to the tournament with my family in 1981, but circumstances had conspired to prevent it for 9 long years.  

When I finally did my first match, it was in the qualifying tournament, and I remember seeing Barry around the courts from time to time, saying hello to volunteers, shaking hands, and generally treating everyone like he had all the time in the world, even though he really didn't.  I had listened to his commentary on television over the years, and he seemed like a nice guy, but I never bothered to introduce myself, even though he seemed to know some of the other ball kids.

One night, I was scheduled to work a doubles match that was supposed to start at about 11:00pm.  All the match crew were tired after starting the day at 11:00am, and back then they didn't bother to feed us - for that we were on our own.  Our only respite from the hot sun and tiring work was water, occasionally Gatorade if the players happened not the use up their allotment for a practice, and a tent near what is now the hospitality and concession area today, that stunk so horribly from ever present puddles of standing water that you could probably stand-on with all of the gunk it had in it.

But we couldn't have cared less - we were so excited to be going onto the stadium court that we could hardly contain ourselves, because it was the first night session of the tournament and none other than my childhood idol Yannick Noah was entered in the doubles.  By then Noah was at the end of the best part of his career and the next year he would lead France to it's first Davis Cup title for 50 years, over a United States team that included Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and the doubles tandem of Ken Flach and Robert Seguso.  But Noah was still fit as a fiddle and could do amazing things on a tennis court - especially in doubles.  As we waited for the players to arrive at the tunnel, staring out at the entrance like those kids at the end of the second Indiana Jones film, I heard that familiar booming voice over my shoulder.

Barry: "Hey kids!  How's it going!"
Us: "Good!"

Barry: "Boy, this outta be a good one yeah? Yannick Noah - any of you ever seem him play before?"
Us: "No!"

Barry: "Oh, you're gonna enjoy it - he's a lot of fun. But hey, don't let him pull the ol' hot ball trick with you - you keep an eye out for that one!"
Us: silence and blank stares

Barry: "You don't know about the hot ball?"
Us: quizzical looks and more blank stares

Barry: "You ever notice how when a player's about to serve with new balls he always shows it to his opponent?  Well that's to keep from givin' em the ol' hot ball.  What you do is when you get a new can of balls opened up, you take one of 'em and push it way down deep in your pocket, and always keep another ball on top of it. Then when you're up against a break point or you've got a set point, you pull that bad boy out and 'BOOM'!
Us: uproarious laughter

Barry: "Okay kids - have fun out there!"
Us: "Thank you!"

I couldn't believe it!  It was hilarious, but could it be true?  Was he just telling us a story, or did he really do it?  Who knows...and who cares.  If he wanted us to not be nervous and enjoy ourselves, he really sent us on our way.  And I have to say that even though I was so tired I could have curled up and gone to sleep right behind the umpire's chair, I don't believe I've ever had so much fun on a tennis court before or after that wonderful moment. 

And to me, that's what made Barry MacKay so special, and why I'm so sorry to have heard of his passing.  Because there are a lot of people in tennis pretending to be nice guys - there's always a camera around when they're signing autographs or attending a charity, and it's all well and good if it helps their image. 

But how many of those guys do you think would bother telling a great story like that to a ball kids crew at 11:00pm on a Monday night in Washington, DC - 3,000 miles from his own home in California and what may as well have been a million miles away from a camera?  All that just to make us feel good before we went on court.