Why do we usually pull for the underdogs, but not in this case? We're on the grounds at the Citi Open for Rafael Nadal's first-ever visit to DC.
by Michael Augsberger
Most of us root for the underdog, in most cases. Up to 88 percent of us, if certain studies are to be believed. Perhaps it’s our schadenfreude at Goliath falling at David’s stone. Perhaps we long for drama and close finishes, or we want the unbridled joy of the unexpected victory. There’s been little attempt, however, to explain when our allegiances switch. It’s one of those simply magical cases where electricity and personality sweep us up. Rafael Nadal is no underdog—he even fears dogs, as Washington DC quickly discovered—but on two broiling summer nights the capital spurned drama, spurned unexpected victory, spurned David. DC had no interest in upsets. It’s not surprising, and yet looking at human nature it is.
It helps when we see an athlete in the twilight of his career toil to return to past greatness, and the struggle is gritty, daunting, and painful. Godlike talent requires a bit of erosion at the hands of human frailty to allow the Lloyd Harrises of the ATP Tour a chance against a legend. Drama is inherent in that, and we still saw plenty of it. Nadal’s won twenty Grand Slam titles, but he’d never won Washington’s five-hundred-ranking-point Citi Open because he’d never entered it, never visited the capital before this August, when he figured to test out the left foot that’s plagued and sidelined him since Roland Garros, and that eventually kept him out of New York last month.
In fact the recent Goliaths have never really come to DC, not for tennis. A peek around the Stadium Court’s luxury suites will show you the names of the past champions for every year Washington’s “summer tennis tradition,” as they call it, has been contested. There was a time when DC was an honored stop on tour for American greats: Ashe, Connors, Agassi, Chang, Roddick. Absent, though, are Federer, Djokovic, Murray (who’s played but never won), and Nadal, for whom this summer tune-up before the US Open posed as more of an invitation to overextension than a chance to iron out pre-slam kinks. With a tighter purse than Cincinnati, fewer ranking spoils than Toronto, less proximity to Flushing Meadows than New Haven, and swampish humidity to outsweat them all, Washington was missing out on the big names.
This time Nadal felt different; the smallish event in the biggish city promised the perfect opportunity to dip his left foot in the water and see. And so the anticipation for the Spaniard’s debut was legendary. The city was aflutter with rumors—true, all—of his sightseeing throughout the capital. He stopped by the Capitol. DCist reported that he posed for pictures, baguette in hand, with a dog named after him — despite what he once said of dogs, “I doubt their intentions.”
“Washingtonians acted like they’d never seen a famous person before,” wrote The New Yorker’s Robin Wright, whose presence among the press, stealthy though it was, alone signaled prestige. Even with Tokyo wrapping up the Olympics, the world was taking this seriously.
From the first ball of Nadal’s opening match, it was clear he and American opponent Jack Sock were too. Contrary to New York, every seat was filled well before the warm-up started. This was no fashionably late crowd. They were treated to a three-hour epic—which I never imagined I’d use to describe a Wednesday match in a non-major—in which Sock swung from his shoes and landed enough haymakers to seriously worry Nadal. He took his notes from that first early-round slam upset Rafa ever endured, nine years ago at Wimbledon, when Lukas Rosol simply cannoned the ball with no qualms about risk. Sock reminded us he's a slam champion, too, in doubles, while Nadal’s foot slowly but surely placed him in more and more discomfort.
I didn’t see him give up on balls or slow considerably, as other pundits have mentioned. Perhaps their eyes are better. In fact his defense remained stellar and often kept him in points long enough after undesirable short balls to turn defense into offense. Nadal adjusted his return position in response to aces and other big serves in key moments of both his matches, far from content to hang along the backstop as he tends to. The bulk of the disadvantage injury inflicts on us, however, lies in the preparation, not the match itself.
But in the end the American who found himself the underdog villain on home soil let the crowd disrupt his concentration. A “Vamos, Jack!” in the second set was the sole support he received, a sarcastic one at that. And even from the start it was clear Sock tempered his belief with a mock, playful frustration. Six missed drop shots were cop outs on Sock's part, unwillingness to battle. Early on he threw his racquet at a winner that Nadal hit, which drew laughs. He mischievously targeted Nadal with a light toss of the ball after a net-cord went against him. A heckler got under his skin in the third set, and he unraveled just enough at the wrong time. Nadal, ever the showman, knows which points warrant fist pumps, and which concentration.
Sock hit his seventh dropper late on. This time it was perfect against anyone but Nadal, who chased it down and brought every single fan to their feet with a raucous, Spanish punch of the Beltway humidity.
***
Around the grounds without Nadal—before he played, or after he was eliminated—Rock Creek Park felt like a state fair of tennis with the occasional flair of luxury.
It’s not just Stadium Court, as the tournament has abbreviated and few will tell you. It’s the William R. Morris Memorial Stadium, named for a DC real estate businessman whose family was involved in the Washington tennis scene. He gave $500,000 toward the 1988 completion of the luxury suites and stadium, marking the change from intimate and quaint along Kennedy and 16th NW, to holding the interest of the ATP Tour and keeping the tournament in DC.
Mark Ein, owner of the Washington Kastles, then had to reimagine the fan experience when he took over as chairman much as these initial builders and financiers had to reimagine an “intimate and quaint” facility as a grand arena. You could tell he culled from the US Open, and why not? A brilliant three-dimensional portrait of Nadal from Las Vegas artist Bruce Sulzberg decorated one stadium entrance. The original could be had for $70,000. No generic grub floated around the grounds, but a taste of the flavors of DC, like the competing ice cream boutiques Dolcezzo and Jubilee and the popular foodtruck Pepe. A Heineken-fuelled biergarten with pretzels, brats, and currywurst sat just outside the stadium. How could there be no Germans in the singles draw?
I spotted Ein giving a tour of the grounds to a couple, perhaps his family, as they ducked into the players’ lounge, a temporary tent pitched upon the facility’s unused clay courts. Through the front windows you could see the players on their treadmills and bikes—John Millman, the Australian, watched some videos on his phone while pedaling. In the back, which only the media could see, was the player cafeteria with sushi and pasta not on offer to the paying public. Kei Nishikori, who’d make the semifinals, liked to warm up there under the tent, kicking the soccer ball with his coach and swinging the same dry swings each day.
Ein was kind enough to chat with a stranger who wanted something from him. He’s important enough, I think, to have employees write his web site biography but immersed enough not to demand security detail, not to demand you go through his secretary for a meeting, not to demand Italian trousers that aren’t a fraction too long. Not a soul recognized him until he’d wrapped his tour at the VIP entrance, really a closer parking lot. Before that he’d pointed out the facade of the stadium, on which, I noticed for the first time, hangs a gallery of pictures: Jimmy Connors, Billie Jean King, reigning champion Nick Kyrgios. It is a wise design; such high-quality photography and emphasis on the history of this tournament, hiding an old structure beneath. The wife of the couple complimented it. Ein smiled. “It’s a bit bunchy in the corners,” he responded. A chairman always looking to improve.
Just before that I’d stolen a senator’s seat for Millman against Jenson Brooksby in the stadium because Millman had impressed me. Nadal loves to entertain, but more than anyone I’ve seen, Millman soaks in the experience of playing for others. On the outer courts he’d waited for the entire crowd to leave before he gathered his things, walking out with the last of them. He thanked each small partisan group of fans that cheered him through a second-set tiebreak against Reilly Opelka—even chatted with them during the tiebreak. In his previous round, he graciously thanked a father and daughter who’d cheered him.
One DC fan said, “You’ve got to say hello to the Gold Coast!” He held up a phone for Millman, Brisbane native, to video chat with a friend.
“Wish I were there!” Millman said. “Help me get back home!”
Once the player turned away, the man beamed among his family and to his friend on FaceTime: “You never thought you’d wake up with John Millman, did ya?”
Now having earned the right to play in the stadium, he was playing an American the crowd this time were solidly behind. Two rows from the court in the blazing heat, few sat around me. I could hear Millman muttering to himself. “Playing the same speed,” he said, early in the second set, searching for any sort of change to disrupt Brooksby’s rhythm.
So close on outer courts and in a sparsely-populated stadium, you can really make a personal connection, perhaps not with a superstar like Nadal, but with others if you truly want to. Press neutrality be damned, I locked eyes for a moment with him to give him something, anything. A row ahead, two young men cheered for the Aussie. Millman locked eyes with them and repeated their c’mons with a few fun words sprinkled in. He flashed them a smile after failing to convert a break point, smashing an overhead that Brooksby luckily blocked back for a winner. Feeling some potential camaraderie I went down to ask why they rooted for him. The reply was sharp and presaged their bitter reaction as Millman exited stage left upon being routed: “I bet on him."
***
The South African Rafa faced his second night, Lloyd Harris, kept the points shorter, which Rafa may have obliged given his foot problems. Late in the match Harris even pulled out a few long rally wins. Those were rare. It went the distance despite a distinctly different tempo to it than the Nadal-Sock marathon. This time the three-setter lasted only two hours and ten minutes thanks to massive forehands, Harris dining on that short-angle, inside-out forehand for winners.
Nadal for his part looked fresh, albeit not as fresh as Harris, whose prior opponent had withdrawn. More importantly, Harris did not squander his break opportunities. He went 2-for-3 on the night. Rafa slipped on the line and missed a second ball in a row at 3-3 in the first set to give Harris his opening shot at breaking. Rafa flung him from one side to the other to save the first. But then a tight shot to the body baited Nadal into an error, giving Harris the lead he would not relinquish.
Perhaps the best points of the night closed out the set. A venomous pass from Nadal, low and picked up by the righty, was polished off for a gorgeous drop-shot winner. When Nadal crushed a backhand on set point cross-court, landing near the sideline and service line, Harris hit a running forehand up the line that Nadal just couldn’t even break toward.
A rapid second set made me feel the Majorcan had righted the ship, but Harris needed only one more look. He got it at 4-5, 30-40, match point, after Rafa’d smartly brought him in only to miss the passing shot. How cruel it can be. Rafa hit the tape, which propped the ball up, giving Harris time to set up two passing shots. Rafa blocked the first but could do nothing on the second. The crowd shared one disappointed gasp as Harris fell to the court, deservedly in celebration. If the win of his life had come at any other time, it’d have been met with fervent joy. As it was, he cut short Rafa’s maiden voyage to DC. Forgive him.