Visions of Gasquet
By 
I checked the other day, and I mentioned Donald Trump exactly three times on this blog between July of 2008 when I started here, and June of 2015, when he announced his candidacy.
One resolution I can’t promise I’ll try to make, but I can promise I’ll try to try, is to write more about Stuff Other Than the Calamity (this must be what salvation is like after awhile).
The French tennis player Richard Gasquet retired today, after losing his second round match at the French Open to world #1 Jannik Sinner.
Gasquet’s career is a nice example of how you can get right to the edge of genuine superstar status but somehow never be able to take that final step. Gasquet is exactly Rafa Nadal’s age, both born in June 1986, and my understanding is that he was the better player when they were very young juniors.
By the time they were on the ATP tour it was a different story, as Nadal won all 18 matches they played. I wonder if that’s the most losses without a win for any player in ATP history in a head to head matchup? IIRC Vitas Gerulaitis was 0-17 against Bjorn Borg or something like that, so maybe. (Gerulaitis might have my all-time favorite quote from a sports figure, when after he had lost to Jimmy Connors fifteen straight times he finally beat Connors. “Nobody, but nobody, beats Vitas Gerulaitis 16 times in a row” he told the media after the match. This was before he compiled the Borg stat obvi).
Gasquet was 3-50 against the Big Three, beating Federer twice and Djokovic once. He never reached a slam final but he did make three semis, the first way back in 2007 at Wimbledon just after turning 21. He reached #7 in the world after that, and finished the year ranked #8, one of four years in which he finished in the top ten.
But he just could never beat the very top players with enough consistency to win a big tournament. Here’s a startling stat to me anyway: This is a guy won 610 ATP matches, spent maybe 300 weeks in the top ten, made $21 million plus when purses were quite a bit smaller than they are now . . . And he never won a tournament above the 250 level. Not once. (ATP tournaments are held at four levels, Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, ATP 500s, and ATP 250s. The fields are progressively easier at each level, because the money and points decline as you go down the tournament hierarchy).
He did win 16 250s, which shows he was perfectly capable of winning big matches at that level, but he was 0-3 in 1000 finals and 0-2 in 500s, as well as the three slam semis.
It’s just striking to me that somebody could CLEARLY be one of the best ten people in the entire world at something for years at a time, but ran up against a hard limit at the very top of the game. This reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s line about try to imagine being one of the best 90 people in the world at something. It’s not easy. Now try to imagine being one of the TEN BEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD at something, and still never being able to beat the people who were just a tiny bit better.
Anyway he had from an aesthetic standpoint maybe the most beautiful backhand anybody has ever seen, so he’ll at least be remembered for that among fans of a certain age.