By the end of the day, I had written something like 2,300 words for The National about the Mubadala World Tennis Championship here in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. And no one had even struck a ball in anger.

But that sort of production is what comes from 1) the day before the biggest tennis event in the capital and 2) the availability, via press conference and one private session, of three of the best players in the world.

Let’s link you up to … a profile on “the most mysterious great player” on the tour … a column on the two-class system of tennis, at this moment (the Big Four, and everyone else) … and how the tournament looked the night before it began.

Let’s start with the mystery man, David Ferrer.

Ferrer is ranked No. 5 in the world. He has been in the top 10 for large chunks of several years now. Yet he almost certainly could walk down a street anywhere in the world, outside Spain, and not be bothered for an autograph.

He is a handsome guy, and the close observer could discern that he is in great shape, but he hasn’t received so much attention that he is living life in a bubble.

He doesn’t play particularly remarkable or distinctive tennis, in the sense of some odd stroke or hitting motion or major personality quirk. He is a clay-court specialist who is known for running down every ball but who has never won a major.

And even though he is the fifth-best player on the planet he has never been the best player in his own country, Rafael Nadal (and others) having always been ahead of him.

He also hasn’t done anything particularly zany, aside from lob a ball at a crying baby back at the Miami tournament last March, which got him a moment of notoriety. The ABC news clip linked, just now, makes it out as some major breach of ethics, something on the same crime continuum as an ax murder, but if I were playing in the latter rounds of a major tournament, and things weren’t going well, and some damn baby were squalling in the stands … I might have hit an overhead smash into the stands, not some harmless lob. And who is to say that Ferrer wasn’t hitting the ball at the parent?

Ferrer is a very bright guy, though, which I got from my 1-on-1 with him, and my 900-word profile focused on him as a book-reader, which I can assure you, from 30-plus years of writing about sports, is very rare. Some elite athletes are intellectually curious before sports overcomes their lives, and a far more are after they’re done playing for pay, but precious few can crack a book during their careers and sit and read for an hour. David Ferrer is one of them, and I like him for it.

I then did the column about the Big Four, and how hard it has been in recent years for anyone who is not Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray … to break into that tight little clique at the top of the rankings. Well, basically, it hasn’t happened.

Ferrer had a mild shot at catching Federer, before the end of the year, when he was still playing well and Federer took six weeks off after the U.S. Open … but Federer came back and reeled off three championships to end the season and that was that.

Someone will break up the Big Four, and maybe even this year. My money is on Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who led the tour in aces in the 2011 season and is the best athlete of the guys within hailing distance of the upper reaches. He needs to be more consistent, is all.

I then did the general scene-setter for the tournament, the “news” story, in which I remind everyone that five of the top six players in the world are in town for this “exhibition” … and generally how remarkable the whole thing is. It may not count for rankings points, but we may not see a single “real” tournament all year in which five of the top six in the world are in the final eight of a tournament.

And the cherry on the sundae … capsules on the six players.

So, yeah, this took the major part of a day. Got to be some personal record for “most words about tennis, one day.” Wonder if that one will ever be broken.