Ernests Gulbis became a little less of an enigma yesterday when he finally won his first tournament, defeating the 6-foot-10 serving machine from Croatia, Ivo Karlovic, 6-2, 6-3 at the ATP event in Delray Beach, Florida.
It has been one of the mysteries of tennis how the talented, huge-hitting Latvian could play all of 2009 and only twice win back-to-back matches, while two players with whom he shares an August/September, 1988, birth date - Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic - were busy collecting titles and climbing to the top ranks of the game, del Potro to No. 5 and Cilic to No. 15.
Gulbis was as high as No. 38 in the summer of 2008 but fell back to No. 90 by the end of last year.
His commitment and resolve have been frequently questioned because at 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, and with good speed around the court, he is an impressive athlete.
The inability to capitalize on his gifts, evident in a series of losses to inferior opponents, earned him a reputation as an under-achiever in a career that probably reached its nadir last October when he was arrested in Stockholm when he and a friend were caught entering a hotel with prostitutes. (In Sweden, the person engaging a prostitute is the offending party.) He was briefly jailed before being released and reportedly paying a fine equivalent to about $400 Canadian.
Toward the end of 2009, Gulbis visited the factory of his racquet manufacturer, Head, and later said he felt badly, after witnessing the care workers put into making the frames, about breaking over 60 racquets in anger last year. He still smashes a few but claims to be more in control.
Gulbis has quite a pedigree in his homeland. His divorced parents are Milena, a well-known actress and daughter of famous Latvian film director Uldis Puctitis, and Ainars, a wealthy businessman and ex-basketball player whose own father, Alvils, was a starter on the Soviet Union team that won the 1958 European basketball championship. Ernests was named after the great American writer Ernest Hemingway - all Latvian male names end in 's.' Retired hockey goalie Arturs Irbe is another example.
On Sunday, Gulbis broke Karlovic's serve four times after the Croat had lost only one of 47 service games in his previous four matches in Delray Beach. "He was playing really good," Karlovic said about Gulbis, who reached the semi-finals in Memphis last week before losing to Sam Querrey. "Everything that he hit was in. He was very cool, calm. This year is going to be his breakthrough."
While Gulbis, 21, had a wild man look in Memphis with a scruffy beard and tussled, russet-hued hair, he was clean-shaven yesterday in Delray Beach. "It's great," he said about his first title. "It's good for tennis in Latvia. They see that a guy from Latvia also can make it and win an ATP World Tour event."
He got some good advice from his coach, former player Hernan Gumy of Argentina, before the match. "If I'm not putting pressure on myself, then it's fine," Gulbis said. "I was relaxed. My coach told me before the match, 'Just go on court, enjoy, it's your first final. You're a young guy. Enjoy it, play good tennis.'"
Gumy will enjoy Gulbis's ranking move up to No. 45 from No. 72. His previous coaching job was with the now-retired, mercurial Marat Safin - an experience that should help in handling someone who also has a crazy talent but has not, until now, showed that he actually had the competitive jam to harness it.