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The Deuce of Love

The Deuce of Love

Author: Jo Rushby
Date: 2023-07-02

Isettled in on Sunday evening to watch the men's tennis final at Queen's. Londonwas bathed in sunshine and the floppy hats were out in full force. On court,Carlos Alcaraz was up against Alex De Minaur. Alcaraz is the new tennis sensation.Swashbuckling, youthful power, the likes of which were last seen with BorisBecker. Remember Becker diving full tilt Jonty Rhodes style to cut off apassing shot at the net? And like Becker, there is a delicacy and subtletyabout Alcaraz.

Ajaw-dropping moment in which De Minaur returned and Alcaraz was caught halfwaybetween the baseline and net. As he rushed forward, the wind caught the balland it dipped like a classic Shane Warne ball, then veered to the right.Alcaraz pirouetted on a pin and placed the ball beyond De Minaur.

TheQueens crowd, as reticent in applause as Boris is with the truth, broke out ina sustained clap. The marvellous thing about tennis is that it takes you backand forth. Into the present and back to the past. I immediately rememberedarguably the greatest shot I have ever seen at Wimbledon. It was the 2006 finalbetween Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. David Forster Wallace captures themoment:

Roger Federer steps to ball and now hitsa totally different crosscourt backhand, this one much shorter andsharper-angled, an angle no one would anticipate, and so heavy and blurred withtopspin that it lands shallow and just inside the sideline and takes off hardafter the bounce, and Nadal can't move in to cut it off and can't get to itlaterally along the baseline, because of all the angle and topspin - end ofpoint... Everything... was designed by the Swiss to maneuverer Nadal and lull himand disrupt his rhythm and balance and open up that last, unimaginable angle.

Thesearch for the 'unimaginable angle'. To know when to utilise backspin, thetop-spin lob, to create the opening by forcing an opponent wide. It is no wonder that the great writers haveturned to tennis. Remember Nabokov's Lolita? How neat is Humbert's descriptionof Lolita's game: 'It had, that serve of hers, beauty, directness, youth, aclassical purity of trajectory'. Of course, as Humbert notes, it was easy toreturn, as ... 'there was nothing wrong or deceitful in the spirit of the game'.

Deceit? Perhaps that is why we at onceenjoy and recoil at the great tennis players. For they have the ability todisguise their intentions, to come-back from 40/love down and confound thehearts of those who stopped believing.