Marcelo Rios Finds Joy and Agony On The Tennis Court Again

By Scoop Malinowski

Bradenton, FL — There he is. In the flesh. The one and only. Marcelo Rios. It’s been years since we’ve seen him. He walked right by me on a Wednesday afternoon at IMG Academy during the Eddie Herr Championships in Bradenton, FL. He’s here to train for an exhibition in December in Chile. Rios still exudes that supreme swagger, that only the best in the world can. He struts along the footpath with two racquets, black tennis shoes and a GNC water bottle in his black Yonex bag.

Rios always stands out, no matter what he does to his appearance, he could never look like a mortal. Muscles, tattoos, short hair, goatee, now he looks like some kind of Mongolian warrior from centuries ago.

Twenty years ago, Marcelo annihilated all his challengers to attain the ATP world no. 1 ranking. Suddenly now this complex genius has decided to return to his old battlefield. An IMG insider told me Rios practiced on Monday would play again Wednesday and, my goodness, there he is, heavily muscled, dressed in black shorts a gray sleeveless shirt, gray cap on backwards, sunglasses. Nobody recognized him. I ask a few fans at the Academy if they had heard of Rios and none of them did.

Rios takes the court, changes his shoes. He uses a Yonex V Code racquet with Luxilon and natural gut strings at 30 kilos. A small crowd of less than ten are drawn to see this odd looking sportsman from the past as top 35 WTA player Danielle Collins practices on the adjacent court. Rios is hitting with Cesar Ramirez of Mexico, a journeyman professional who never made it into the top 200 ATP though he did play Davis Cup for his country in 2012. Rios skips a warm up and jumps right into action. We immediately see the flashes of yesteryear, the extraordinary racquet head speed and the smooth strokes that decimated the likes of Agassi, Korda, Safin, Ivanisevic, Courier, Kuerten, Muster, Henman, Moya, Corretja, Rusedski, Arazi, Santoro, Philippoussis, and so many more.

But the backhand isn’t functioning as we remember because highly developed upper body muscles prevent his efficiency of motion. Two handed backhand shots spray errant, wide and long. Rios grunts in passion on every single ball he hits on the day, with varying degrees of intensity, trying to regain the lost mastery. But the consistency and control are not there. Yet. Maybe next week or month he will be Rios again. Maybe he needs to re-grow his signature ponytail.

Then suddenly Rios finds the key and we see the impossible sharpshooting again, deep penetrating laser beams just inside the baseline, two, three, four, five in row. Ahhh, there it is, the vintage brilliance of the great Rios. But it’s just a glimpse of nostalgia. Then the sloppy misses reappear.

Ramirez, his sparring partner, makes a reverent comment to some of us watching, “His balls have strange movements.” An insightful compliment, perhaps provoked by awe or to help inspire the grand master to rejuvenate his precious, dormant skillset. Rios continues to work hard, pounding the ball, expressing anguish and frustration after misses. He is suffering but you can sense he’s still enjoying the special experience. He’s back again doing the activity he does best, what he is known all over the world for – playing beautiful tennis.

This perfectionist is nowhere near perfection. He expresses the pain in his face and voice. There is no attempt to disguise his emotions. Rios has high demands and great expectations for himself. He’s working extremely hard.

The legend of the court perseveres. Through the frustration he finds enjoyment. He makes funny and unexpected comments after certain shots. After a graceful, lunge, inside out forehand volley winner, Rios says simply, “Rod Laverrrr”, rolling the r’s.

Another volley winner for some reason he says: “Djokovic.”

After a flat backhand up the line hits the net cord, he remarks oddly, “Flat like my sister.”

After a winner by Ramirez, “Grande.”

After a winner clearly inside the line by Ramirez, Rios jokes and then smiles, “OUT!”

After a forehand volley slam winner Rios holds up his left fist and glares at his bicep reflecting off the window of the building adjacent to the court. There it is, the Rios arrogance, he has willed himself to be great again. The moment we were all waiting for, Rios, the defiant King of the Court again. And there it was, for just three seconds. But it’s a fleeting moment of self celebration. The frustration continues. The missed shots can’t be corrected. Marcelo Rios is an imitation of himself today.

Suddenly, he sees an old adversary watching the practice by his baseline through the fence. It’s Jimmy Arias, the former top ten ATP player who was just hired as the Director of Player Development at IMG Academy. Rios walks over to the fence and confronts Arias, asking him why he talked shit about him on TV, mentioning something about Arias asking how Rios could be no.1 without winning a major. As we all know, Rios became world no. 1 in April 1998 despite not winning a major and he obviously is proud and defensive of the achievement he once called “the greatest moment of his life.” Rios only followed the ranking system and acquired enough points to be no. 1. Words are exchanged and a fight nearly ensues but Arias decides to walk away from the confrontation without utilizing a power play to dismiss Rios from the grounds. Rios then curiously drops a bombshell, saying that Gaston Gaudio once punched John McEnroe in the locker room after he won Roland Garros, angry at McEnroe for making negative comments about him on TV. Rios also adds that “Gaudio is not a fighter, he’s a pussy.”

Later I see Arias and he is still perplexed by the incident. “The last two or three times I see him he always starts some kind of trouble, it’s like he’s trying to bully me,” Arias reveals.

It makes you wonder if Rios has become somewhat of a bully character because of an altercation that happened in an ATP locker room many years ago. According to the story or myth, the rest of the players finally revolted against Rios and his disrespectful behavior to everyone. The players were sick of Rios pissing all over toilet seats and leaving the mess, and other general rude and impolite gestures. Finally, one enraged player – said to be the six-foot-three inch, 200 pound Murphy Jensen – confronted Rios and physically humiliated him. Rios supposedly backed down to a fight with the much bigger and intimidating Jensen and showed unmistakable cowardice. Are the big muscles and bully behavior of picking fights with men over the age of 55 just a cover for his own inadequacy? Is Rios still haunted and humbled by being challenged to a fight and backing down in front several witnesses?

After the verbal duel with Arias, Rios begins to play again. He misses an awkward short forehand into the net and says, mockingly about his latest agitator, “I look like Jimmy Arias!”

Still, it’s awesome to see Rios in his domain again, the show court at IMG where he spent countless hours refining his multi million dollar weaponry. Rios takes several breaks throughout and surprisingly maneuvers his chair to face his pal Ramirez and to make comments with a few guys in the bleacher. It’s as if Rios is enjoying the company and camaraderie of the court that he has missed for so long. As he sits, Rios has to tape his fingers and hand, because blisters are forming. I ask him when the last time he hit was, and he replies, “Seven years ago.”

Warming into a friendly mood, Rios talks about his displeasure of the new Davis Cup format and the end of home court finals, with a verbal rebuke of that “futbol guy” (Gerard Pique). He also makes it clear he does not support the ATP favoritism of the World Tour Finals always being on a fast indoor surface and the lack of Masters 1000 events in South America. He feels there should be one Masters 1000 in South America.

I remark that Roger Federer said he would vote yes for you to be in the Hall of Fame and he replies kindly and respectfully with a rare strong praise of another human being, “He is the best ever.” Rios adds that he doesn’t really care if he’s elected to the Hall of Fame, Federer’s vote means more to him than anything else.

They resume play again and try a baseline game, but Ramirez, nicknamed The Shark, is too big, too strong and too good for Rios today. The domination continues but there are still moments of joy amidst the mediocre tennis. A backhand volley winner and Rios holds up his fist again and stares at his bicep. But he just can’t sustain the old artistry. After losing the second baseline game, he is forced to stop playing after about 90 minutes. He sits down and shows ugly blisters on his fighting hand which has softened and is not ready for battle. Rios is comfortably resigned to his fate though he didn’t smile or laugh once during this workout.

A few weeks remain for Rios to get ready for Lapentti. A bunch of people come over to ask Rios for photos and he takes them all, about ten. Then we talk about my book about him, “Marcelo Rios: The Man We Barely Knew” and he expresses displeasure about it. Though in New York six years ago he had a contradicting, positive review, “There were some things in there that weren’t true but it was pretty good, pretty good.” Rios now asserts he didn’t like the book and that I should not have written it because he feels, “You should know the person” to write a book about them, to get permission. He does add that his father liked it. Somehow Rios is aware of my latest book “Facing Marat Safin” and mentions how I should not have written it either.

Stunned by the unexpected verbal attack, I don’t know what to say and accept the rebuke. Then about an hour later, after he departed with his friend Joachin, the racquet stringer and owner of the local pro shop Tennis Goal, only too late I figure out my reply to Rios’s rejection… An artist does not need permission to paint an art work about his subject, he just does it because he has a vision and wants to do it. I wrote the books on Rios, Safin, Federer, Nadal, Hewitt, McEnroe, Sampras because I am an artist and wanted to do these books and many people have enjoyed them and I am an artist and free to do anything.

My sense is that Rios will never accept my reasoning because he detests all the media as a bunch of parasites who make their living sucking off of the talent of the sportsmen, which is an interesting comment he allegedly told Tim Henman once about his feelings of journalists.

But also I have a suspicion that Rios just does not like me personally, for whatever reason or reasons. And once he makes a judgement on someone he will never change it. He follows his trusted instincts and stubbornly will never betray himself.

I fully accept the reality that this complicated or tortured soul can never understand that the man he sees as one of his worst enemies could actually be his greatest ally. But that is the cruel irony of life, “All genius is misunderstood.”

“We all die misunderstood.”

This article was translated and appeared in the most respected daily newspaper in Chile, El Segundo.

Marcelo Rios

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