In his guest post the other day, TaiC wrote:

Yet I still think the guy (Ivan Ljubicic) plays without passion or excitement.  Can you suck the life out of a 125 mile an hour serve down the T?  Luby can.

I refrained from added a "hear, hear" and an amplification to that observation, figuring that I might have to write about JiffyLjub at some point this week, and I sensed some room to expand on that comment. What I was going to say is that Ljubicic's nature as a human buzz-kill embodies a further handicap.

Not only does he tend to undermine his own achievement, his dyspeptic tendencies also prevent him from capitalizing on that 125 MPH smoker down the T.

Andy Roddick hits one of those and he struts around for a while, chest all puffed out. Rafael Nadal sneaks one by a guy on a big point and he celebrates with a little fist pump.

You can see the way most players use a shot like that to confirm the thing that every tennis player needs to believe to succeed at the highest level: Booh-yeah, I am da man!!! I would even say that such auto-stimulating players know that this is so much hooey. So what? If it gets you past the semifinal, it's all good.

Well, we got to see gloomy Ivan at his best tonight, in an artless performance against Willy Canas (Jiffyljub lost, 7-5,6-2). In typically dispassionate fashion, JiffyLjub nailed the statistical key to the match: Canas had a 7-for-7 break point conversion percentage; Ljubicic was O-3. Ljubicic lost just one point on his serve through the first 10 games; then he was broken, Canas held to take the set, 7-5, and the rest is not so much history as depressing. And nobody does "depressing" as well as big, hard-serving, vaguely ascetic-looking, Ivan Ljubicic.

This brings us to a further amplification of Todd's comment. In the sentence right before the one quoted above, Todd wrote: But watching Luby, I couldn't help but think about and admire his back story - the grit, determination, and the tremendous courage it took for him to get as far as he's come.

Everyone agrees that Ljubicic's personal history is a heart-wrenching and inspirational saga. Ljubicic's  ability to overcome the disruptions in his life to penetrate the upper echelon of the game is praiseworthy, but maybe his past also has a different, less salutary influence on his present. This is a guy who exudes pessimism when he gets discouraged, and does so a lot more readily than the other men who compete at a comparable level.

And if you were Ivan Ljubicic, and went through what he did in his youth, wouldn't you be entitled to have a streak of negativity and pessimism? Ljubicic  plays like a man who, unlike many of his peers, actually knows that everything he has, loves and knows actually can be taken from him- taken just like Canas was able to take that first set. Snatched, at a moment's notice.  In fact, it happened to him.

This is the only theory I can come up with for why JiffyLjub so often goes into a tailspin exactly when he ought to be working the flaps to gain further elevation. He knows the truth. The truth ain't pretty. You take what you can gather and move on, there's always another country, another tournament, next week. The fact that his story is inspirational and he's admirable for having triumphed over hardship doesn't mean that hardship hasn't left him scarred. If you're one of those fans who, like me, has been trying to find a way to really like this guy, and feels vaguely guilty, knowing what we know, for not getting over that hump, there's your springboard.

Ljubicic is to some degree sensitive about his fatal flaw. I don't usually get into confrontational exchanges with players, but I came about as close as ever in the post-match presser. It seemed to me that Jiffyljub had more or less thrown in the towel, emotionally, early in the second set. I  tried to be diplomatic but felt I had to ask: "You seem to fade more dramatically at this level in a Master Series tournament.  Is this just an emotional issue?  Do you just say it's so windy, the guy's playing solid, I blew my chances, that's it?"

Ljubicic looked at me: You think that's how it goes?

"Yeah," I said. "I thought so, yeah."

Okay, well?

I asked, "Is that inaccurate?  You didn't feel that way?"

No, I knew that I have to go for my shots.  Against Cañas, I'm not going to go three meters back and push the ball back and fight like a dog and lose 2 2, you know.  I think I have to play my tennis.  It's    for me it's not looking good, for me it's trying to win a match.  And if it's not going well, I mean, what can you do?

That wasn't really an answer to the question I was asking, but I didn't push it. I did follow up, asking,
"What's the difference though between Ivan Ljubicic that goes out to beat the U.S. single handed in Davis Cup and a guy who goes out here and gets discouraged?"

He responded defensively: And plays the semifinal.  I mean, I think that's a good result.  I mean, I don't think semifinal is a bad result at all. I beat some great players on the way, and I played quarters in Indian Wells, same as here.  That's a pretty good result.  To stay on top of my game all the time is not so easy.

Fair enough, I suppose. And who am I to criticize, consider what the guy has accomplished and what he's been through? But you know how it is; when there seems to be an overriding reality in play, you have to try to flush it out.

The overriding reality in the other semifinal, in which Novak Djokovic thoroughly and shockingly waxed Andy Murray, seemed to be that Djokovic, having been primed by his runner-up finish to Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells and his beatdown of Nadal here, is a man on a mission. It was almost like Murray understood this better than anyone, and merely got out of Djokovic's road. Murray played so poorly that I suspected that early this morning he found a college kid who resembles him and gave him a racket and a C-note to go out and play Djokovic while Murray kicked back in the hotel room, watching Monty Python reruns.

Djokovic, in stark contrast to a listless and cranky Murray, was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, sufficiently enthusiastic about the job at hand to spend time between points playing air tennis, mostly on the forehand side. I had only one question I wanted to ask him. Have you ever noticed these past few weeks how Djokovic and hats is like Hamlet and skulls? He takes a hat on court with him, wears it for some games, takes it off for others, throws it down, picks it up and contemplates it: Alas, poor Yoric, I knew him well. . .

I had to ask, and did so in the presser. It made Djoker laugh.

It was just bothering me (at Indian Wells). Probably my hair has grown. I have like. . . a nest now.

As I junior, I was always playing with a hat, whenever there is sun, you know. Indoors not, but outdoors when there is sun I always played with a hat. Right now, I just don't feel like it. It bothers me, I don't know, probably because of the vision (Djokovic waved his hands near his eyes) maybe and stuff.

So whenever I play, whenever sun is behind me, it doesn't bother me, I try to play without a hat.

It was a fairly silly thing to ask I guess, but I kind of liked that throwaway reference to vision. I wouldn't make too much of it, but maybe that acute degree of sensitivity is telling