Botic van de Zandschulp seems beaten when Holger Rune puts the ball just behind the net in the first game of the match. But appearances are deceiving. The 27-year-old Dutchman sprints, slides at just the right moment and manages to surprise his 19-year-old opponent with a drop shot. A clenched fist. Clay tennis at its best. Van de Zandschulp does not earn more than a point in a lost opening game in the final of the Munich ATP tournament.
About two and a half hours later, Van de Zandschulp gets his first match point. But as cool and calm as he was at the start of the game, the best Dutch tennis player is so nervous now. Cramped as Van de Zandschulp is, he hits the ball out. Shoken it’s called in tennis jargon. After that, Van de Zandschulp gets the opportunity to decide the match three more times. Time and time again he fails.
After two hours and 51 minutes, Rune finishes it on his first match point. The mentally strongest of the two wins the tournament. Because the fact that Van de Zandschulp wins 108 of the total of 209 points in the final battle is not decisive. The fact that Rune knows how to strike on the decisive points is the difference between the Danish number 7 in the world and the Dutch number 29.
The contrast between Van de Zandschulp and Rune is enormous afterwards. The Dutchman throws an empty bottle on the floor out of anger. A request from NRC to speak to him for a while remains unanswered. His frustration is even greater than a year ago. At the time, he also had to give up halfway through the first set against Rune in the Munich final with breathing problems. Physical discomfort. During his second ATP final in his career, Van de Zandschulp mainly went down mentally. That hurts even more. Because exactly there is the weak point of the tennis player, who can make it difficult for any world top player on clay.
Introverted
Van de Zandschulp proved again last week in the south of Germany that he is one of the best on his favorite surface. This was especially apparent in the semi-finals, in which he nicely defeated American Taylor Fritz in two sets. The introverted Van de Zandschulp could always rely on his strong serve, his hard forehand with which he forced his opponent back and his speed to parry drop shots. As a result, it remained relatively quiet in his head. He was ‘in his strength’. Although the outside world sometimes paints him as deadly boring because of this.
How different was his mental state 24 hours later when Van de Zandschulp became Kitzbühel’s first Dutchman to win a clay court tournament after Robin Haase’s win in 2012. It had to be a new highlight for the late bloomer, who made his big breakthrough during the US Open in 2021 with a place in the quarter-finals. That was on the New York hard court. Now he was allowed to play on clay. The surface on which he grew up at the Spitsbergen tennis club in Veenendaal and on which he learned tennis down to the finest detail. Only it took him years of effort to find the right one mindset to turn clay court battles in his favor.
Van de Zandschulp has taken so many mental steps in recent years that he has reached the top thirty in the world. But not yet to the very top. Lost final vs infant terrible Rune was illustrative of that. Davis-Cupcaptain Paul Haarhuis watched as a powerless support from the stands as Van de Zandschulp let the most important party slip out of his hands. Driven mad by a teenager, who feigned injuries to the shoulder and ankle and afterwards shouted that the audience “a perfect final” had seen. Van de Zandschulp thought otherwise.
The spectators were presented with a gravel fight between two completely different characters, who are quite similar in terms of style of play. Both can hit the ball so hard that even on the slow clay they can produce a winner at any time. In addition, the defense of the Dutchman (1.91 meters) and the Dane (1.88 meters) is very strong. With a combination of a short sprint and the right technique for sliding, their footwork is first class. They not only move from side to side, but also from back to front.
Van de Zandschulp was the strongest in almost every respect in the final, but was mentally demolished. He lost to himself again. Rune did not win the popularity prize for his unsportsmanlike behavior, but he did win the Munich tournament.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 24, 2023.