The Maanga

The swansong, although four years late, had the perfect setting. An opponent who plays great in 20 min bursts, and can spare Kuerten the pain of having to play 5 sets to lose this match, and near full French Open crowd that was present to give this man a fitting send-off.

The match had everything, a mexican wave, ‘GUGA’ chants, two conceded aces, a shirt that reminded one of ‘97, grunts that got deeper with every passing game, Kuerten speaking in cute French at the end and most unexpectedly great tennis.

30 winners, of which 17 were from Kuerten. The magical backhand was still on painting the lines, except not 10 out of 10 times.

The man who made clay court tennis enjoyable and who still has the chance to end up as the greatest clay courter of the last two decades decided he won’t try anymore.

Thankfully, none of the self-obsessed american pricks like McEnroe and Courier were allowed anywhere near Kuerten with a mic on the court. Result - no comment by Kuerten on Rafa or Roger or whoever the fuck.

Since I have to bring in Federer into this post, let’s say Federer can learn two things from this great Brazilian. One, how to hit a backhand when the ball jumps on you, and, two, how to cry like a man.

p.s. Mathieu, the last man to beat Sampras, said that he allowed Kuerten to enjoy his last game. Thank you for that, Mathieu. I know you didn’t extend this favour to Sampras. Thank you for that too. The match was just perfect.

Although many recall his twin defeats of Sampras and Agassi on an ultra fast carpet to finish the millenium as world no.1, I always remember Gustavo Kuerten fondly by replaying the match where he fought the odds and injury to overwhelm Federer in 2004 RG.

On the eve of the match, there was this injury cloud hanging over and Kuerten, who missed a good part of the last two years nursing his hip injury, was almost ready to give up on the hopeless prospect of trying to beat a man who was almost unbeatable in 2004. As a hardcore Kuerten fan, and a touchy Federer fan I was only too happy to see both of them stroll into the court after much speculation.

What followed was perhaps the best exhibition of clay court tennis since Albert Costa won the French Open in 2002. Federer had no idea how to play Kuerten as the backhand drives kicked up on this throat time and again and he was caught in no man’s land trying move forward and back. Kuerten went for broke to avoid playing longer and aggravating injury and it worked with Federer getting increasingly defensive as the match went on. The match ended 6/4 6/4 6/4 in Kuerten’s favour and raised hopes of a decent finish for 2004 only to squashed by Nalbandian in the next round. French Open has never been the same since.

The closest a Gasquet match came to match this high was when he defeated James Blake at Paris Indoor masters 2 months ago.

that Federer hasn’t won a French Open yet. Even more surprising than the fact that he won 5 Wimbledons. 

He lost to the Emperor, Kuerten, in 2004 when he had the best chance to win it.