IT WAS approaching dusk at the ATP 250 tournament in Doha, Qatar, and play was literally suspended. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were playing tennis twenty feet in the air.
The two legends had climbed onto a court hewn of Persian wool a few minutes earlier, and as suspension cables cranked the rug to its full height, Federer and Nadal gingerly tapped a tennis ball to each other.
It was the tournament’s dream vision: tennis’s sculpted, wavy-haired Aladdins, whose many genies had supplied them with their own flying carpet. All I had been supplied with was an easy metaphor for how the elites appeared to the rest of us all of the time.
Federer and Nadal were cutting up a rug that night to stir some media attention at the launch of the Doha event in the old town centre. It was early January, and as the first tournament of the 2010 professional season, Doha was a convenient tune- up for the Australian Open a fortnight later.
It has slow hard courts, a temperate January climate, and a daily direct flight to Melbourne.
The field was elite, even though the competition was officially rated in the lowest tier of the main ATP Tour. Why were Federer and Nadal there? The prize money for winning the event was $185,000, but this was peanuts to them. Nadal and Federer had made their money in Doha before they arrived, by signing up to play; they were each paid a significant appearance fee to grace the tournament with their presence.
I was stooping to tie my laces in the locker room ahead of my final qualifying match when I heard a cheerful voice: ‘Ciao, bonjour, hello!’ The voice, calling to everybody and nobody in particular without pausing for a beat, was familiar.
I turned around slowly and looked up to see a smiling Federer. I had never heard another player announce their entrance to a locker room. It managed to be charming and intimidating all at once.
He had more swagger and appeared less playful behind the scenes. Federer may not have looked particularly intimidating when he wore those white suits onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court, but in the Doha dressing room he was the alpha dog.
Unlike in most other sports, in tennis you share the changing room with your competitors, before, after and sometimes during a match. Close physical proximity leaves little personal space and increases the importance of body language. The tour becomes like a never-ending game of facial poker.
To create a bubble in a crowded room, some listen to music, some wear a scowl that says ‘stay away’, and some lie on the floor looking up at the ceiling, where there are no tennis players to stare back at you.
Players imposed themselves on the locker room in different ways.
Federer made it feel like he was the boss. He was so elevated in his status, players seen speaking to him immediately gained an aura of importance, like a king’s courtier.
In Doha I narrowly lost my final qualifying match in a final-set tiebreak. I wasn’t flying to Melbourne until the following Wednesday, so I hung around the tournament site to practise with the other eliminated players awaiting the same trip while trying to catch as many glimpses of Nadal and Federer as I could.
Nadal is an ascetic with a yacht. The bravest competitor tennis has ever seen, he grew up sleeping with the light on as he was afraid of the dark. Even today he falls asleep with the TV on. Naturally right-handed, he has used his left hand to become one of the greatest tennis players of all time. I sat and watched him practise in Doha with Younes El Aynaoui.
Nadal hit every third ball into the corner for a winner, rather than back up the middle as usual practice etiquette demanded. ‘Sorry, Younes,’ Nadal repeated, apologizing without conviction. A players’ party took place the night before I left Doha. Nadal arrived late with wet hair, wearing a loose linen shirt with three buttons undone, flanked by two men in the Qatari thobe and ghutra.
Most of the other players were seated together in casual groups.
Good-looking girls in Exxon Mobil T-shirts offered branded Doha ATP 250 iPods
at the players’ tables, with the cruel caveat ‘Main draw players only.’ I reasoned with myself that I had been two points from being in the main draw, so cut myself some slack for once and went to take one.
‘Qualifying or main?’ the girl asked, peering down at me and holding the iPod just out of reach. ‘Main,’ I said, and grabbed one. And so I left Doha with an iPod I wasn’t technically entitled to and pre-tax prize money of $1,650, which was enough to cover the cost of the trip.
Arriving in Melbourne, I was happy with my form from Doha. It was my third year in a row at the event and I began to feel more comfortable in its setting.
Riding the good form, I won my first two qualifiers to take me to the verge of my first Slam main draw. Facing a Brazilian player named Ricardo Hocevar, I took the first set 6-4.
There were tricolours scattered around the arena, and I knew some of the Irish people in the crowd. All of a sudden, the ambition of years and years was tantalizingly real.
I was serving with game point at 4-3 in the second set, and Hocevar’s return was called long by the linesman.
My parents were at home, huddled round a laptop in the middle of the night, watching a live scoreboard.
Their screen blinked to 5-3 for several seconds, only to suddenly blink back to 4-3.
They couldn’t figure out what had happened. I thought I had won the point, but the umpire overruled his linesman, called Hocevar’s return in, and the scoreboards slipped back to 4-3.
After that, here was no grand narrative of collapse, no inexplicable piece of misfortune. I just played too defensively with the finishing line in sight. I was no longer driving Hocevar around the court and instead allowed him a way back into the match. He realized what was happening and grabbed at his reprieve.
He won all the remaining games in the second set, and then took the final set 6-3 to advance to the main draw. The Irish fans slunk away. I wanted the court to open up and swallow me.
My brother Ray rang me to commiserate and told me what I had missed – Hocevar had been drawn against Lleyton Hewitt, a hero of mine and to everyone in Australia. I flew straight back home to Ireland the following day.
I picked up Andre Agassi’s newly published autobiography at Melbourne airport, expecting it would keep me entertained for the next twenty-four hours. I read the entire book in one sitting: Agassi hated tennis. I felt like maybe tennis hated me.
Conor Niland will be in conversation with Limerick Leader sports editor Colm Kinsella about his book in O’Mahony’s bookshop, O’Connell St, Limerick on this Thursday, June 13 at 7.45pm.
