Conchita Martinez, Thomas Enqvist and Albert Costa retired from the game of tennis this past month. I waited to see if this fact would prompt more than a passing blurb from tennis observers, but it hasn’t really. Fans have been preoccupied with the start of the Fantasy Tennis season, and the intricacies of the Roger-Rafa rivalry.
The Retirees were nowhere in the same league as Federer-Nadal, but they brought a lot to the game. Durability is the word that springs to mind with all three players. Conchita Martinez played the game for nearly two decades, and at a consistently high level. She hung out in the top 50 women every year she was on tour, and amassed around $11.5 million in earnings. You can’t earn that kind of loot just by hanging around; you actually have to play, and play she did. She was a player designed to drive other players batty, with an arsenal of just about every shot in the game, and some you would swear could only come out of her kitchen and hers alone. Conchita could see to it on a good day that her opponents were kept in a state of high anxiety, as she served up an incredible array of dips, spins, chip shots. You had to hope she didn’t ding you to death. Then one year she even got into a Wimbledon final, and won it against Navratilova. I saw that match, and remember how people were scratching their heads a bit. After all, her strongest surface was not grass but clay; 20 of her 33 titles came on clay. But it should have come as no surprise that she beat the pre-eminent woman, Navratilova, on her best surface.
The woman was incredibly strong mentally, and her reserves were bottomless. She would find a way to win, even though she did not possess quite the fiery tenacity of her compatriot, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, or the powerful game of someone like Navratilova. But Conchita had a very workmanlike attitude on court, and great court sense. She played and won enough doubles titles (13) that you knew she could do more at the net than most clay courters. Just ask Martina: they met five times in their careers, Conchita won four of the five. Three wins on clay, and the Wimbledon win on grass.
Well done, Conchita, she called it quits just after her 34th birthday. We hope you are riding off into the sunset on one of your favorite motorcycles, perhaps with a glass of fine red wine awaiting your return. The woman had taste and style, and I for one will miss her.
Albert Costa was another clay court workhorse who left the game this spring, at age 30, after losing to Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Barcelona event. Well, at least he lost to a Spaniard. Costa was kind of the flip side to Conchita. Both had good one-handed backhands, a rarity at that time for players from Spain. He was no slouch either when it came to lurking around draws and giving fits to the bigger male names on the ATP tour. Costa has been around for a while too, and carved out quite a solid niche for himself on clay. Roland Garros was Al’s favorite home away from home: he made it twice to the quarters, once to the semis (’03) and actually won the title (in ’02). Costa earned close to eight million dollars over his career, and got his ranking as high as Number Six in the world in the summer of 2002, probably his best season on the tour.
“I want to be remembered as a fighter,” he said, after the loss to Ferrero. That’s a perfect epitaph.
Thomas Enqvist was another breed of player altogether. He had the power and the physical size to make a dent in many draws, and he was one of those rare Swedes who could enjoy life other than just on the baseline. Sometimes he even came into the net. But basically he relished the power game. “Grinder” is probably too light of a term for what Enqvist did to you; he simply bludgeoned you to death. Long rallies were something you did not want to get caught in with this guy.
Thomas was also a bit of a hunk in the good looks department, and personally I always find it sad when the hunks retire. Mary Carillo tells the story of running into Thomas’ father at a tournament, and after buttonholing the guy she segued right in to praise of his handsome son. Only to be told, “Oh, boys who look like him, they’re a dime a dozen in Sweden.” The blaseness caused Carillo to roar with laughter, and me to wonder, what do we get for a quarter’s worth?
Enqvist had the misfortune though to follow on the heels of the greatest Swedes in the tennis pantheon, Borg and Wilander and Edberg, and undoubtedly much was expected of him early on. His game echoed theirs in many respects: he could grind you steadily from the back court like Borg and Wilander both, yet he lacked their relentless consistency. He had good reach to play at the net, and he could play net, but nothing like the way Edberg served and volleyed. Enqvist never quite lived up to the hype, but he forged a solid career for himself. At 6’3″ and nearly 200 pounds, he appeared big and strong, but his body often seemed locked in to me. When you first saw the guy on court, one word might spring to mind: yoga. If anybody could use the wonderfully gentle stretching of yoga, it was Enqvist. He seemed stiff as a board at times.
For me, my favorite Enqvist moment was one that speaks more to his character than his game. It occurred right after he lost the Long Island tournament in 2000, to Magnus Norman. Norman, who rose that year to be Number One for a short while, had been mentored growing up by Enqvist. But Norman had trouble getting on track against him. He had lost their four first meetings. This day was different. Norman finally beat him. Even though Thomas lost the final and should have been eager to flee the court on that hot summer’s day in New York, he hung around and chatted. In fact, Enqvist came around to Norman’s side and sat next to his buddy while they chatted. It looked so nice and civil. You don’t often see rivals hanging out like that. Especially right after losses.
Well done, guys. And girl. Skol and adios!
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