2005 NASDAQ-100 Open News
By Eleanor Preston |  March 27, 2005

There were several shocks, of varying sizes, at the Nasdaq-100 Open on Sunday.

The first was the 7-6, 6-1 capitulation of Marat Safin, a man so resolutely mercurial that its arguable whether the sight of him losing to talented Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty can really be considered a surprise at all.

The second shock was David Nalbandian’s 7-6, 6-1 loss to David Ferrer, though that caused little more than a tremor around the Crandon Park Tennis Center and raised marginally fewer eyebrows than the defeats of seeded women Elena Bovina, Francesca Schiavone and Patty Schnyder.

The third shock, though, was truly, truly shocking. It was the presence of a naked Frenchman in Ivan Ljubicic’s locker.

Ljubicic was happily getting ready for his first round match against Vince Spadea – which, incidentally he won 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 – when he opened his locker door to find Michael Llodra, sans clothes, jammed in there.

“I went to open the locker and what happened? Michael Llodra naked in my locker,” said Ljubicic, still reeling. “I mean... he was looking at me, I was looking at him. I said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

“I was shocked. I mean, I was really shocked. I didn't know what to say. He said to me "I'm trying to get positive energy from you. You're winning a lot of matches this year."

Llodra is right about that, for the Croatian has already been runner-up at four tournaments this year (Doha, Rotterdam, Dubai and Marseille) and wrought destruction on the USA’s Davis Cup chances by beating both Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick in Carson, California.

None of that prepared him for the sight of Llodra though and his words, as he described the incident, came out in something of a stream of consciousness. “It’s not a small locker,” he said. “It’s not easy to get in that locker, I'm telling you. He is not small guy. Very flexible. Very, very flexible. Naked.”

Needless to say Ljubicic is going to be very careful about how he approaches his locker in the future, for fear of what Llodra’s sense of humour might come up with next. As he said, “he is weird guy.”

The same description might apply to Safin although words like “infuriating”, “flawed genius” and “racket smasher” might be just as appropriate. Safin may be the Australian Open champion and the only man since last year’s US Open to beat Roger Federer, but he remains just as liable to exit a tournament in a blaze of angry tantrums as he is to win it with a blaze of winners.

His reaction to losing the first set tiebreaker to Hrbaty (admittedly with the help of a cruel net-cord to set up Hrbaty's second setpoint) was depressingly familiar. He stropped, he slammed his racket, he kicked it across the court and, when that didn’t work, he raised his arms in despair with all the hamminess of a bad b-movie actor. The second set went by in a blur.

Safin, who lost at the same stage of the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells last week, insisted afterwards that he was a lot more predictable than he seemed.

"Normally, this month I never play well so for me it's nothing new," he said, with a ‘so that’s that, then’ shrug. “I always play badly in Indian Wells and Miami.”

The only person who might have been impressed with Safin’s performance was Andy Roddick, who is now likely to hang on to the No. 3 position in the world rankings courtesy of the Russian’s defeat.

Safin’s countrywomen fared a little better. Maria Sharapova, Anastasia Myskina and Svetlana Kuznetsova skipped through to the last 16 with straight sets wins, as did Amelie Mauresmo and both Williams sisters. The presence of those names, and the continuing resurgence of both Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters (both of whom won handily on Sunday), should ensure a fascinating second week in the women’s event.

Henin-Hardenne is rumored to be on the verge of marking her new start by breaking away from her agents Octagon and joining with rivals SFX. If Henin-Hardenne does defect it would mean that Octagon will have lost two former World No.1s from their tennis roster over the last three weeks, following Lleyton Hewitt’s decision to employ his own, Australian-based team to look after his affairs.

Business is business but it’s reassuring to know that there is still room in tennis for a bit of fun and Michael Llodra seems intent on providing it. When he won his first doubles title with Diego Nargiso the pair of them went naked in celebration and when he and Fabrice Santoro won the Australian Open doubles crown they went all the way down to their bikini briefs.

At least Llodra is consistent. It’s a shame the same can’t be said for Safin.

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