Burning Roses

It was the battle of the Old Guys and something had to break, with everyone hoping that it wouldn't be  35-year old Jonas Bjorkman's walker, or 30-year old Carlos Moya's hip.  It's strange to think of Moya as an elder statesman, unless it's in a Sean Connery kind of way, but there it is: today, they were indisputably the oldest men in the Round of 16, and Bjorkman was the oldest man in Europe (okay, I'm kidding about that).

You could see Bjorkman's age at times in that match; there's that lunging thing when you spirit is willing but the flesh is not, and you lunge but don't go anywhere, or you lunge and nothing happens for a split second and then whatever happens after that is not exactly what you had in mind.

But I'll tell you this, if you're going to get old(er), do it the Jonas way. Here's a guy who's positively Methuselan in tennis terms, but he's still got that all-business, bow-legged canter, the puckish humor, quick hands, and an impish gleam in his eyes. Those are ready to have a crow alight on them and leave his feet there, but not just yet. He's still presenting the blackbirds with a moving target.

I ragged on Jonas a bit last year, after he was bombarded in the Wimbledon semis by Roger Federer in a match where he seemed more eager to kiss Roger's you-know-what than to kick it. I was harsh then, but hey - making the Wimbledon semis at 34 is a great achievement. He pulled some of his classic tricks to pull that off - chipping and charging, sneaking in to the net behind seconds serves- and he did the same here today, albeit on a different surface-different tricks basis. What he did was change up the pace, attack as if he really meant it (which he didn't, but hoped Carlos would think he did), deny Moya the rhythm that a clay-courter in Moya's class, which is Champion Class, likes to establish.

Jonas tried every trick in the book, most of them blew up in his face (at least after the close first set, in which Carlos forgot his age and later admitted to feeling "nervous"). Jonas kept Carlos off balance and stretched the first set to a tiebreaker, where he swam fast and hard but ultimately got et by the whale,  7-5.

Bjorkman rallied after dropping the second set 6-2, but Moya closed out the third, 7-5 - after which Jonas gave one of his customarily thoughtful, illuminating pressers, although his troubles began long before he came to meet the press pariahs, when he learned that the match would take place on Suzanne Langlen.

Bjorkman said that Lenglen is so different that even the color of the clay is noticeably "darker." And apparently, the balls, absorbing moisture, get heavier and fluffier sooner. As Jonas explained later, that court plays much "heavier", and with the damp conditions in play today, that spelled trouble - less for his spindley legs than a sore right shoulder that's been giving him trouble, off and on. The fact that this was the ninth meeting (4-4) between the two men also meant Jonas did not exactly have the element of surprise: "I think he (Moya) had a better idea of how to play me, because we've known each other for such a long time.  So he made sure that I was never in a position to try to dictate the points.  He made sure that he was doing that, and that made it so much tougher for me."

One theme both men would echo was that they were enjoying their Parisian clay ride more than in past years. As Jonas said:

A nostalgic reporter asked Jonas to take a stroll down memory lane, through the celebratory gestures that, after his hilarious, dead-on impersonations of the top players, became his trademark. In a word, how would Jonas describe them?

Those "crazy moves" have been fewer and further between lately, and not just because of Jonas's age. It's also the courts. I asked him if it was easier to play the quick-move serve and volley game or the demanding and debilitating clay-court game as he got older. He said:

Did the slow-court players therefore an undue advantage these days, ought the courts be speeded up?

After the presser, I happened to be walking in the hall behind Bjorkman and made the crack, "Jonas Bjorkman, Swedish clay-court specialist, is now leaving the interview room."

He turned and said, "Did I tell you I'm not going to the U.S. this summer? I'm going to stay in Europe and play the clay-court events."

He had me for a moment. But seriously, Jonas, I said, when you're 35 and just got to the quarters in a major, do you think, Dang it, that might have been my last Grand Slam! Or do you take a more aggressive view, thinking, "Today the 16s, tomorrow the quarters, Vamos!"

Jonas said he has no feelings of nostalgia; he isn't on tour to smell the roses as much as to scorch the ones planted courtside with blazing first serves and overhead mortars. One more time. It's always just one more time, until time is up and all you can do with the roses is smell them.

I would feel badly if I didn't also acknowledge Moya's performance here, because now he's looking down the quarterfinal cannon of the youngster who grew up idolizing him on Majorca, Rafael Nadal.

I had to ask Moya if it felt at all strange for him to be lumped together with Jonas as an "elder statesman." He replied: "Well, I'm proud of that.  Now I'm the oldest guy on the field.  But I still remember when I was the youngest guy in the draw, and now I became the oldest.  So the time passed so fast, and the [just now I am] realizing that.  But I'm very proud of being the oldest guy now.  And I think I still have very good tennis ahead of me."

Is it easier, or more fun, now, I wondered?

Moya spoke with touching sincerity about his career here, and it struck me that is is a guy who has truly carried himself with great dignity and grace. In a way, he's a forgotten champion here, and that's part of his appeal. He cherishes that past rather than second-guessing his place in any real or imagined pecking order. What is the difference then, between his glory days and now?

Oh how fast it goes by, for many of these guys, how tough it must be - when you've achieved so much (A Grand Slam title, a No. 1 ranking) - to see that a great ambition realized can be just as much the beginning of something as the end. A new starting point as much as the terminal point of a long, long journey. Guys like Lendl and McEnroe and Sampras and Federer know that, others do not, or they do and don't care to start a new climb, toward a different summit invisible to all below.

The days and weeks go by, the calendar turns and the landscape along the trail blurs. And one day you wake up, at 30, and you have to answer questions about being an "elder statesman", about a future rushing toward you much faster than the past went by, and all you can do is turn and look out the rear window, try to make sense of what you see out there to comfort and prepare you for what is bearing down on you with the speed of a crisp Jonas Bjorkman volley on turf, or a thunderous Carlos Moya forehand on clay.

So Jonas frets about having ignored someone in a hall here years ago, and Carlos describes his place in the quarterfinals not as some sort of vindication or opportunity, but, very simply and humbly, as an "honor." These are two classy guys, enjoy them while you can.