Gulbis is right, we need some spice in tennis

In spite of a few spells of rain, we’ve had some good action at Roland Garros this week.

There were upsets too, with Li Na and Tomas Berdych being the biggest casualties.

Honestly, there’s nothing much to write about barring the sublime tennis of Roger Federer, the brilliant comeback of Rafael Nadal, and the cruise control mode that Novak Djokovic finds himself in. Serena Williams looked good, as did Maria Sharapova. The Indian fans would have been surprised to see Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna falter at the first hurdle. It’s been about the tennis and not necessarily about the stars.

That’s precisely where the little-known Latvian Ernest Gulbis steps in. “I respect Roger, Rafa, Novak and Murray but, for me, all four of them are boring players. Their interviews are boring,” Gulbis said of the ‘Big Four’. “I don’t disagree that it would be nice, in a way, people going at it a little more viciously,” commented John McEnroe. You would have expected ‘Big Mac’ to react the way he did. But both have made statements on behalf of what most of us would like to admit about men’s tennis.

Without interfering with their tennis, does Gulbis have a point? If we are brutally honest, we should be tilting towards the affirmative. If you loved Bjorn Borg for his routine (the Swede tried to stay at the same apartment and take the same route to Wimbledon every day, every year, year after year), there were an equal number of fans who loved McEnroe for reasons beyond tennis. For every fan who enjoyed the predictability of Borg, there were others who applauded the conversations McEnroe was involved in with the chair umpire.

We all love being good and seeing good things, but have always had a lot of time for the ‘bad boys’.

You still had the legendary Jimmy Connors with whom some of the very best brands wanted to associate not merely for the brand of tennis he played. By the way, the American used to make headlines and is still making headlines. For an Ivan Lendl with the history of Czechoslovakia behind him, you had a Boris Becker with flair and scandals off the centre court. For people who wanted their heroes to smile a bit more than Lendl and look a touch less enthusiastic than Becker, you had a Stefan Edberg.

And then you had the Michael Chang story at the French Open in 1989. If you admired the mind of Pete Sampras, you were equally tempted to find out how open and colourful a personality Andre Agassi was. And we haven’t even gone close to Jim Courier or Goran Ivanisevic. And I have no intentions of going to close to Jeff Tarango and his family! There was tennis but there was more than just plain forehands and backhands.

Fast forward to this era and Novak Djokovic loves being in the shoes of others for a bit on court but has tapered down his enthusiasm to stay clear of questions. Andy Murray admits to being boring on purpose. “To be honest, over the years I have found it difficult to open up and be a bundle of laughs in the press conferences or interviews. I would say that I am different from what a lot of people think I am like,” he says. Federer and Nadal have only had nice things to say about the world and its people.

We applaud a Federer’s composed nature even as we keep an eye on Nadal in the bull ring. They are the greats of the modern game. We love them for what they are, but the point is they are all similar. They are different, but somehow similar. Different while on court but incredibly alike off it. Would we want them to stretch a bit more off the tennis court? Who doesn’t appreciate a bit of spice? I do.

The writer is sports editor and senior presenter with Neo Sports.