Late on Sunday evening, a silver-haired Argentine gentleman scuttled between two of the outside courts here at the SDAT Stadium, a beady eye on qualifying, a leather-bound notebook in hand.
The writing was in code and therefore unreadable. But whatever Mariano Monachesi’s scouting report contained — for Nicolas Almagro’s eyes only — it is unlikely to have been: “Take the first set but play your sloppiest when it really counts in the next two.”
That, unfortunately, was what Almagro did in the opening match of this year’s Chennai Open on Monday. Ante Pavic, a 26-year-old Croatian who came through qualifying, made him pay, pinching a tight three-setter 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(1).
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Pavic later called it the biggest win of his career — Almagro, after all, was ranked as high as No.9 in 2011 — and he deserves great credit for never considering defeat.
Almagro, at 6ft and 84 kg, gave up five inches and 12 kilos to his opponent, but his was the superior heft of stroke. Timing is un-coachable — certain players seem better able to transfer their energy to the ball at just the right instant. Almagro is one of them: he served in excess of 200 kmph and hit with greater penetration, all this without appearing to muscle the ball.
One break, in the sixth game, was all Almagro needed for the first set. But Pavic, ranked 376 places below Almagro at 449, refused to go away. He threw in several serve-and-volley set-plays and scrambled incredibly well for a big man.
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In the 12th game of both the second and third sets, he had a look at breaking the Almagro serve. He capitalised on the first opportunity, but couldn’t quite manage the second. Pavic decided then that he would make the play in the tie-break.
The intent and intensity appeared to stagger Almagro, as Pavic ran away with it — a wide serve, a shallow-angled volley into the court that had opened, and the put-away of the weak ball that resulted, the most eye-catching point of the 7-1 ’breaker.
Borna Coric, who followed Pavic onto Stadium Court, ensured a Croatian 1-2. But the 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-4 win had its share of angst. The 19-year-old pouted and remonstrated his way through two sets, Marcel Granollers’s marginally off-beat version of the modern baseline style clearly discomfiting him.
At four stages during the deciding set, however, Coric showed why he is rated so highly.
At 1-1, sensing a slight slackening of the Granollers game, he sharpened his: he drove his two-handed backhand flatter and faster, a daring move that rewarded him with a break. He was threatened on serve immediately, and this time he displayed a different type of courage: the calmness to work the rally and trust his ability to out-manoeuvre Granollers.
The eighth and 10th games — contextually vital to the match — demanded first-rate nerves. Coric held serve both times.
The results: First round: Ante Pavic (Cro) bt Nicolas Almagro (Esp) 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(1); John Millman (Aus) bt Evgeny Donskoy (Rus) 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(6); 8-Borna Coric (Cro) bt Marcel Granollers (Esp) 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-4. Doubles: Lukas Rosol (Cze) & Igor Zelenay (Svk) bt Philipp Oswald (Aut) & Adil Shamasdin (Can) 6-3, 7-5.