On Tennis Channel they're primarily showing Djokovic vs Berdych. On today's slow, slow clay, Djokovic is still Djokovic, and even though Berdych is bigger and hits harder he can't get the ball past Djokovic. The match isn't especially compelling, as is all too often the case with a Djokovic match. The level is very high, as you'd expect, but by the third game of the first set the match takes on the air of inevitability that so many of Djokovic's matches have. Soon enough, Djokovic has taken the first two sets in that hard-working-yet-comfortable way he dispatches almost everyone ranked higher than, say, 20 but below maybe four.
At the same time, on Suzanne Lenglen, we have David Goffin, from Belgium, 22 years old, ranked thirteenth in the world, versus Dominic Thiem, 19 years old, from Austria, ranked fifteenth in the world. It's the first Slam quarterfinal for either of them. Tomorrow one of them will play in a Slam semi-final for his first time. The winner, the announcers add, will for the first time in his career crack the top 10. When the broadcast cuts in to the match, you watch a little and conclude that it won't be long for the loser to reach that milestone as well.
Thiem holds a break at 4-3 in the first set, but loses the final three games to lose 6-4. They cut back to Djokovic-Berdych. Thiem gives up an early break in the second, they announce. When they cut back to Goffin-Thiem, it's 5-3. Thiem breaks, wins his serve, has a good shot for a second break to make it 6-5 but fails, and then wins his service game to force the tiebreaker. The quality of play is very high and the match has become very exciting to watch. They certainly aren't cutting away now.
Thiem now is putting everything into not going down two sets to zero. He is hitting harder than I have ever seen anyone hit. Goffin looks like the Roadrunner when he runs, and he gets everything. Thiem hits even harder and Goffin keeps retrieving. Thiem takes a 5-2 lead, then drops the next three points. He earns himself set point at 6-5, then loses two to face set point against at 6-7 but on his serve. Goffin defends so well that soon it is Goffin on the attack, he has moved up to net, and Thiem throws up a soaring desperation lob that lands just inside the baseline. Goffin hits a curling overhead deep but to Thiem's forehand side, and Thiem takes it like it's on a tee, ripping the ball down the line so hard you swear you see it blue-shift, and even still somehow Goffin manages to get a racquet to it. Goffin's shot doesn't land in play but even so that's two amazing things on the same shot, Thiem's pace and Goffin's reaction and quickness.
This shot of Thiem's, over the highest part of the net at set point against, they measure at 101 miles per hour.
At 7-7 he hits another forehand down the line, this one measuring 103 miles per hour. This one not even Goffin can get to.
Now it's set point for Thiem on Goffin's serve at 7-8, and Thiem continues hitting the ball like it hurt his family, and finally a shot of Goffin's flies long and Thiem wins the set. Still, though, it feels like Thiem's victory in this moment will be pyrrhic. He's been hitting this hard because it's taken everything he has to push Goffin off-balance at all. There's no pleasure in it, no sense that he's thrilling in what he's capable of. The dominant emotion coming from him is during the tiebreaker is desperation. He mustn't, simply must not, go down two sets to zero. And he doesn't. When it's over, instead of celebration, there is only relief.
This: this is why I watch. Neither Thiem nor Goffin may thrill in it, but I do. For these sixteen points they have played like the whole world is at stake, and I get to witness it.