Between Points

Between points in a tennis tournament. It’s to take your seat in time and to learn to switch off flash in your cameras. No match is inconsequential but even the drama less early rounds are helped by the collective silence of a stadium, ready to let go any moment a player gives up his sprint to a drop shot or hits it just over the line. The gasps and exhales the second that happens, the palms coming together sometimes to applaud, to rub in nervousness at other times. It’s the Mexican wave that won’t stop in time for the umpire, that’ll go just about 3 seconds longer helped by Victor Troicki joining in, in frustration or in a way to relieve some tension being anybody’s guess.

So that’s indeed what a tennis tournament felt like. At least the glamorous and well organized ones. Sport, in any form, is a sort of illicit happiness. As Zinda, most famously said in Vetri Vizha, one loves the loser in a game. One loves the winner even more. But the guy who’s just watching the game? He’s just a lame timid nobody! But we know there is joy, there is sorrow in watching sport. There is enlightenment and contentment. And you find it in every corner of the tennis village, literal and metaphorical. The pubs and restaurants and hookah bars strewn all around the center court gates. The open tabs to go with the open air seating, watching a 20 odd minutes first game between Tipsarevic and Davydenko on the big screen, only to later learn in relief that that set finished 6-0.  The amble across to a side court to watch Tomic play and purify your mind, but alas, Tomic retired with illness. The careful choosing of which side of the grandstand to watch the day’s play from, either from behind the player seats or in front of them. Ending up with watching Federer from one side and Djokovic from the other.

It is where you witness the lethal aspects of Djokovic ground strokes. The backhands down the line. The balls landing all over the legitimate areas  of the court. The famed Federer forehand in all its glory, even if it is against Marcel Granollers. Well, you at last got to watch it. The Federer passes in that match were vintage. In the flesh is when you notice the ball kids more intently. When they fumble and do weird signs to signify dearth of balls for the player waiting to serve. It is when the now infamous 15 second rule comes into play with the players blaming ball kids. At least in Dubai, they are kids.  The place where you observe that however well organized a tournament could be, black cats can still pose as streakers and enter a Del Potro-Baghdatis match and you wonder if it’s someone transfigured. Maradona? Totally not beyond him. It’s watching a joyous Maradona hitting a few strokes with Del Potro, calling faults and getting up the player’s chair to give his towering countryman a hug.

But for all this you can also be greedy for the front seats. That’s where you need to know how useful a sweatshirt can be. Hang it around and just leave. Or if you are a group of people, the ubiquitous dupatta or an extra long scarf is handy. Just tie it over a row of seats. And be MIA for how ever longer you want. Even if the next man in is a GOAT. The occasional grumpy face can ruin your party but it is more than worth a try. That defines the success of the event. More appropriately, that defines the state of men’s tennis now. No empty seats when a match is on.

The tournament is where you learn that Federer lets out a mildly audible exhale on first serve. Audible only when you are sitting right behind his seat. And you’ll never know if it was always the case or it is the effect of being almost 32 years old. But it is bittersweet confirmation that he is human after all. It is also where you learn How To Get Autographs 101. Only kids are allowed court side. You are not allowed even if you claim to feel like one. So you run outside as soon as they’ve shaken hands at the net and wait at the pathway leading out of the court. Only to find tens of other experienced folk cleverer than you. You don’t repeat the mistake next day. Mostly because there’s a teenage girl who’s been coming with her parent for three years now. Once he (Federer) promptly arrived in Dubai and fell sick. The next time he didn’t sign any autographs outside the courts. She was third time lucky. She became notorious for exclaiming to the whole crowd, “Federer hasn’t come out yet. The loser just walked out.”. “Loser?”, “Umm..Ok, this guy.(points to Order of Play listing)“. It was Marcel Granollers There was this couple from Lebanon who had come all the way to watch Federer and faced similar problems of getting tickets for the later rounds. Oh, our species exists after all! They had collected autographs from every single player. Like, even Troicki. And the old English woman in the free shuttle (whatay! Well, oil rich place and all that) back to the metro, who talks about everything from Pakistan-England Test series in the UAE last year to whether Djokovic looks beatable this season (short answer is No).

The tennis world for a passionate fan can get claustrophobic. It’ll still feel like community, what with Tennis channel, online streaming, Twitter and minute by minute updates on players, but it will nonetheless seem like a gated one. The popularity seldom supersedes other sports or stays in the eyeballs of mainstream audience the entire stretch of the season. That’s the reason having an ATP (or WTA) event in your city is such a prestigious thing. It’s a huge highlight that Chennai has an ATP event, no matter it is a 250 but it is hardly celebrated for it (We have a long way to go here because even Test Cricket isn’t treated all that well). But some of us do. Then we take the leap from the 250 to a dazzling 500 event. Maybe next is a Masters if we go by hierarchy or hopefully a promotion to a Grand Slam. The man may have his racquets and a wax replica of his wrist in a museum but the game will be here always ready to serve. Play.

Knowledgeable Chennai Crowd

It was a truly remarkable eventful December and close to 2012. After a sedate first couple of weeks, I was a bit late to start on the music season but then it turned out to be a very heavily attended one. At least by my standards. Also conveniently bookend-ed by knowledgeable Chennai crowd everywhere.

The first one was a pre-season Sanjay Subrahmanyam warm up concert at NGS. The highpoint of this one was listening to his version of Pagaivanukkarulvai after being addicted to Rethas-Sandeep version for almost all of 2012. Such resonating lyrics. The first season concert I attended was Kadri Gopalnath at NGS again, after probably more than a decade. Nothing memorable but the Chennai Ambi mamas still found moments to go all Taj Mahal level reactions on it. Apparently Bombay Jayashree isn’t all that cool to like anymore (or cool to hate, what have you) so I promptly sent mom and aunt to this one (The real reason was I had work). They loved it and seemed to have loved Embar Kannan’s violin prowess even more. Can’t complain, really. If you can string together Raaja songs like this, what’s not to like?

Next was Sanjay at Vani Mahal that was topped by Petra tai with a seamless transition to Maname Kanamum. Absolutely divine. That was of course followed by dinner at Gnanambika. Unlike the previous years they still had the full menu post 9 PM. Gnanambika is Gnanambika, I tell you. Since 1984. The stuff at Vani Mahal and NGS were both stellar this time. Guitar Prasanna performed at Mylapore Fine Arts the following weekend and he dedicated an original composition in memory of the victims of the Connecticut shooting that had just happened. Very close to his residence in the US. This was also my first spotting of the cut banian guy this season. He was literally everywhere as Krupa will attest. Now LTP and I can’t wait for the next Hindu Lit Fest to see our man in action. Also spotted a note in MFAC saying “Please avoid towel reservation.” Couldn’t twitpic thanks to the crowd. Knowledgeable crowd indeed. The same crowd turned up in hordes for Sandeep Narayan at NGS Mini Hall. Mahesh and friends were quite shell-shocked at the turn out and it led to my first stage seating based kutcheri. Totally worth it.

So Sthit and I opted for the stage tickets for the customary Ranjini-Gayatri attendance. Sthit spoke to them after the concert, they asked for his name, kulam and gothram and he was floating around at the edge of stratosphere for better part of the evening. Also managed to score music academy tickets this time and attended Abhishek Raghuram and Sanjay’s. The last time there was a kutcheri update here, it had Sanjay singing Vettaveli Thannil and I spotted a pretty young thing on stage. This time Sandeep sang Vettaveli Thannil at KGS and I attended the concert with two PYTs – WhyShoe and the “naa romba artiste” Shreyas, who managed to sketch her way into the hearts of every musician on stage. But I wasn’t there when he got to Vettaveli. I left for the ARR concert.

Jaya TV in their Margazhi Mahotsavam mood or whatever scheduled an ARR concert on Dec 29, 2012 at the Nehru Indoor Stadium. Then they lost that mood, got greedy and switched the venue to YMCA grounds. Dick move no.1. Now Rahman is too big to satisfy every fan with a single evening of concert. It’s simply not happening. Also, Rahman is too big now to hold all-Hindi or all-Tamil concerts. Especially considering the last 5-6 years – even by sheer numbers – when he has been simply too prolific in Hindi. Unimaginable to have concerts without Delhi 6, Rang De Basanti, Jodha Akbar, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (what a fucking underrated minimalist album – the Hindi Alai Payuthey if you’d allow me, sadly not as celebrated), Rockstar among others. Jaya TV made it an all-Tamil concert. Dick move no.2. Put together bad management and the rains, not really an epic concert for an epic personality. Considering how special it could have been with that playlist in an indoor stadium.

There was an India-Pakistan ODI at Chepauk in between all this but then 1. Sachin retired. 2. Bilateral gap filling ODI series aren’t the shit anymore. And then they said it was a day match. No enthu. But it got an integral part of knowledgeable Chennai crowd – Gauks – on TV, giving gyan.

Then Chennai Open happened. Or rather is happening. Only place where you’ll find fans of Janko Tipsarevic, Marin Cilic and Charu Sharma. Pick of the shoutouts last night – “Well done Charu darling!” Having said that, watching yesterday’s Wawrinka vs Stebe match felt like a poor man’s Federer vs Nadal with the left right combination and all the power strokes and gets. But it by no means is a poor tournament. You go to these places not just for tennis but to witness more like minded fans and people as passionate. Steve Tignor wrote about this here, on new age tennis in the world of Internet and all-access fandom.

Is all of this exposure healthy? It has its drawbacks—I don’t really need to know what Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are doing every day. But the upside is greater. It’s hard to think of a sport that’s better suited to the far-flung community that the Internet can build. Internationally, interest in tennis is wide and thin—it’s followed in virtually every country, but it isn’t overwhelmingly popular in any of them. This means that being a tennis lover can get lonely; it can be hard to find a serious fan of the pro game even among your regular playing partners at your club. The web’s message boards, blog commenters, and relentlessly tweeting fans from Serbia to the Philippines let you know that people everywhere are watching.

It’s quite a joy – and sometimes annoying – to witness the enthu school kids. The fifth standard school kid who decided Paes and Roger-Vasselin were no good and decided to support the barely known Ratiwatana (!) brothers instead. The same kid said to his mom,”Adhellam theva illa (that’s not required)” when she hinted at leaving at around 10.00 PM saying there is school the next day. Well done, I say! This is what the tournaments were about – aarva kolaru like this at every corner. Chennai may be only ATP 250 and it may not be half as beautiful as Miami, but Tignor again hits the right notes here:

My favorite part of the Key Biscayne broadcast that I saw didn’t involve any actual tennis. It came in the time between matches on the Grandstand, before del Potro and his opponent that day, Ivo Karlovic, got to the court. The TennisTV cameras didn’t cut to an ad or go to a different court; they just panned around the Grandstand, looking at the fans beginning to gather and chant, looking at the palm trees waving behind the court, looking off in the distance at a sunset over Miami. There was no commentary, so when I did turn the sound on, I could hear other fans chatting idly in the seats nearby. This, as much as seeing Novak Djokovic or Serena Williams play, was what I missed about not going to Miami. This was what a tennis tournament felt like. I was on the Internet far away, but it really did seem like I was there, part of the far-flung tennis world. It’s a good time to be a fan.

As Mahesh would say, Tignor has said it all. It’s a good time to be a fan.

2012 started off with beautiful Sydney, hopeless Test match and more disappointments on the cricket field. Hopefully 2013 makes up for it, starting with Federer in the flesh. Hopefully.

Tennis and the Feral Prodigy

It’s all educational. How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away. Nets and fences can be mirrors. And between the nets and fences, opponents are also mirrors. This is why the whole thing is scary. This is why all opponents are scary and weaker opponents are especially scary.
See yourself in your opponents. They will bring you to understand the Game. To accept the fact that the Game is about managed fear. That its object is to send from yourself what you hope will not return.

– Infinite Jest – somewhere when Hal is reminiscing about his relationship with James Incandenza and his life as a tennis player. And Mario’s film – Tennis and the Feral Prodigy.

In a more literal world, both the words feral and prodigy will be associated with Rafael Nadal. Nadal, the clay court specialist. Nadal, whose game is that raw beauty that has shredded its skin and reveals the genius of the inner workings. The prodigy that won a Grand Slam at 19. Or was it 18? It feels so long ago.

But today it fits no one but Federer. When did this feral run begin? It began with “The Shot” in the US Open 2011 semi-finals against Novak Djokovic. He has been uncharacteristically open about this one thing. How much it affected him. How much close he was to the final at that moment. And how much he regretted it. That was when the prodigious Roger Federer kicked in. He who went on a great run winning Paris Masters and WTF at the end of 2011. Rotterdam, Dubai, Indian Wells, Madrid. The misstep in between was Roland Garros and Roland Garros alone.

But it had to be Wimbledon. To quote Sorkinism – If you haven’t seen Roger Federer on Wimbledon grass, you haven’t seen Shakespeare the way it is meant to be done. From Shakespeare, we get to Infinite Jest, which leads us to David Foster Wallace who’s probably maniacally grinning right now.