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by Pete Bodo*
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer both know how to say the right things. We're not in the final yet. Check. My next opponent, (pull a name out of the hat, insert here): _ , is a great player. I'm going to have to play my best tennis to win. Right-o. But don't you get a teensy-weensy feeling here at this U.S. Open that Federer and Nadal have been performing for each other, not just the crowds on Arthur Ashe stadium, and using their successive opponents as surrogates for each other in a game that seems amusingly like good old-fashioned oneupmanship?
They're like two kids lobbing mud pies over a high fence at each other.
Take the past two nights. Just over 24 hours ago, Roger Federer, looking sleek and svelt as a naval officer, beat the tar out of Robin Soderling, a rival to both he and Nadal, with a bravura performance under some of the worst conditions ever to mar a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Tonight, under slightly improved circumstances, Nadal laid the lash to a Spanish countryman who's been nipping at his heels for some time now, Fernando Verdasco. Although Nadal's performance was less fluid and inspired, it advanced this notion that each man is being pulled along on invisible strings by some force of fate, ticking off the items on some unwritten to-do list as a condition for meeting each other.
Remember how Federer brought the house down earlier in the tournament with a between-the-legs retrieve winner? Who's the man, Rafa? Tonight, Nadal overran a hot potato half-volley, but touched it back over the net with the very tip of his racket head, his momentum then carrying him through a 360-degree spin that landed him facing the net again, just in time to see Verdasco drill a passing shot into the webbing. How you like me now, Roger?
Recall how Federer had the stones to feather that daring drop shot into the teeth of a gale-force breeze to record a key service break in his match last night? Tonight, Nadal pulled off a similar shot, and if it was slightly less sublime, he took a chance on it from far riskier territory near his own baseline.
But let's remember that these men employ profoundly different if comparably effective styles, and it's been reflected in their matches. Nothing about their quarterfinal wins could be described as similar except for the most important thing: the scoreline. Perish the thought that either of these guys would be dubbed a copy-cat. Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of their rivalry has been the contrast between them—an apposition that runs deep.
Thus, this week we have the crisp, maritime Federer juxtaposed with a man who appears to have been dressed to impersonate a locomotive. That's the signal sent by Nadal's iron-black and steel-gray kit. Could it be that the garment designers at Nike have finally developed an accurate grasp of the character of these men? You could easily mistake that fluorescent yellow (trademark) Swoosh on Nadal's carbon-colored headband for the bright yellow headlamp of a powerful diesel locomotive bearing down on you from the maw of a mountain tunnel. That's a pretty accurate representation of what it must be like to see Nadal across the net, and Verdasco appeared to experience it that way.
That's how it is with Federer and Nadal. One comes by sea, the other by land, and nobody lives to tell the tale.
True to this simile, Nadal took some time to really get rolling tonight, but once he got his load moving, there was no stopping the train. Federer fans may delight in the way Federer took command of his match with Soderling so smoothly and convincingly, but Nadal partisans had to be pleased with the way their man overcame a shaky start and ultimately flattened Verdasco. If nothing else, Nadal certainly exhibited more apprehension than Federer about the how the still-gusting winds might affect the match, but let's also remember that there's a conspicuous streak of caution in Nadal. He's wary, and while no less combative than Federer, he's less self-assured. Tonight, he needed more time to find the comfort zone than he does under better ambient conditions.
Nadal had some anxious moments in the first set: down a break early, he adopted to the dangerous—and distinctly un-Nadalesque—game plan of merely keeping to ball in play, presumably torn between a mistrust of the tricky wind and a crafty impulse to see if his opponent had any better ideas than his own. The next time he looked up, Verdasco was serving with a break at 4-3, and that's just when the locomotive finally achieved the speed where the string of cars adds to rather than takes away from the momentum. Nadal broke back, and he broke Verdasco again to win the set, 7-5.
The rest of the journey was taken on a long, smooth, downhill grade.
By the second set, Verdasco appeared leg weary, an understandable dilemma for a man who had, in his previous round, come back from two sets down, and 1-4 down in the fifth-set tiebreaker, to beat David Ferrer. But it takes two to make a rout, and the measured, inexorable way Nadal's game continued on a rising trajectory wiped out the memory of that tentative start. Nadal did a few things exceptionally well tonight. He covered the court brilliantly, made the transition from defense to offense with alacrity, and he served very judiciously, if not overpoweringly. Nadal won 16 of his 21 net approaches, a statistic more noteworthy for the sheer number of times he attacked than for the high success rate. And he kept Verdasco's winning percentage on points received at a paltry 21 percent, while Nadal won 84 per cent of the points when he converted his first serve.
By the end, it looked as if Nadal was good to go for another three sets, because momentum can reach a point where it takes more effort to stop it than to let it expire naturally. You half-expected Nadal to discharge a long hiss and a cloud of steam, accompanied by the squeal of steel wheels, when the men shook hands at the net.
But I'm glad Nadal had the good sense to shake hands and walk off. Nothing wrong with saving a little bit of that magic for Feder—whoops, Mikhail Youzhny. It's getting harder and harder to avoid talking about that projected Federer vs. Nadal final. And now only two men—Youzhny and Federer's semifinal opponent, Novak Djokovic—are in a position to put the kibosh on the seemingly inevitable dream final.