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A game tactically similar to Mayweather’s methods

Kunal Diwan

CHENNAI: Weary submissions of fatigued tennis players to post-match banalities, wherein journalists follow their own unrelated, apparently highly relevant agendas of interrogation, are known to have piqued the most congenial of players.

Not every player has the gift of the gab — think Andre Agassi — or an acerbic wit like, say, Marat Safin. Congenial player behaviour is a relative term. Would you, for instance, be all smiley and amiable after spending two hours in the sun getting the battering of your life? Would you grin away to glory if you have managed to put one across a favoured, higher ranked opponent on home turf.

Wild card entrant Somdev Devvarman on Friday most certainly belonged to the latter category. It also helped that the toothy 23-year-old did not have to exert too much facial musculature to expose his pearly whites, his countenance in a perpetual state of beaming after beating fifth-seed Carlos Moya in three sets.

“Yes, you do know your stuff,” he told presenter Charu Sharma when the latter revealed he had put a wager on Somdev coming out on top against Moya.

Owe it to Roddick

Ranked 202 on the ATP list, Devvarman later credited his win to an improved serve — an aspect he had worked on with Andy Roddick — and said he wasn’t the kind of player who would be “satisfied with winning a single match.”

“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I play (Ivo) Karlovic next and will just have to perform to the best of my ability. I know I’m going to lose a lot of matches (in future)…one thing is for sure that I will never stop trying.”

The University of Virginia graduate who is into his second year on the ATP tour said he fancied himself as a counter-puncher of sorts.

“I like to think that my game is tactically similar to boxer Floyd Mayweather’s method of operating.

“I paid the price of not being solid in the first set, but after that I played with intensity. I could see Moya was trying to force the points, which was a good sign.”

Right noises

Devvarman, tangled curls and all, bounced out of the press lounge to impromptu, patchy applause, making way for the vanquished Carlos Moya.

The tour-savvy Spaniard, not particularly known for illuminating verbosity, took his seat and continued to make all the right noises.

While acknowledging the role of the weather in his debacle, Moya insisted that there was no room for excuses on the professional circuit.

“One has to adapt to all sorts of conditions and play accordingly. I was tiring by the second set and went for winners to shorten the rallies. Unfortunately, it did not work out the way I had planned…all this is part of the game,” he said.

The World No. 42 also gave an oblique nod to Devvarman’s style of play.

“He doesn’t play like the typical guys from India…plays solid from the baseline and commit very few errors. I had also seen him play a few days ago. He was quite fast around the court and looked solid.” (sic)

A regular feature at the Chennai Open for the past seven years, Moya departed from the press conference within three-hundred seconds of his arrival. Whether or not the 32-year-old Spaniard will turn up for easy pickings at next year’s edition is anybody’s guess.

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