Cupcake Wars

by Pete Bodo

So let's agree to call them the Cupcake Wars—you know, that pre-tournament ritual of claiming that your favorite player has been frowned upon by the gods of chance, while his rival had bestowed upon him not merely a smile but an enormous, toothy grin. When you're a combatant in the Cupcake Wars, you're apt to see a player through one of two dramatically different lenses, depending on how he might fluster or advance the designs of your favorite, or his theoretical arch-enemy.

Let's say Sam Querrey looms as a potential third-round opponent for Federer at Wimbledon. A Federer fan is apt to scream, "That big serve makes Querrey so deadly, this is a terrible draw!" But if you're a Nadal fan, you look at that match-up, roll your eyes, and say, "Querrey is so 'soft' at majors; what a piece of cake for Federer!"

You know how it works.

So without futher ado, let's take a look at the groupings for the upcoming ATP World Tour Finals, which begin on Sunday in London. It's an eight-man singles field, with two groups of four playing round-robin matches, with the two best performers in both groups advancing to the knockout semifinals. Instead of breaking down the groups myself, I'll try to see them through the eyes of a Federer or a Nadal fan, in a manner befitting the Cupcake Wars.

Here are the group lineups:

Group A: Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Tomas Berdych, Andy Roddick.

Group B: Roger Federer, Robin Soderling, Andy Murray, David Ferrer.

Federer fan: You've got to be kidding. Roger might as well change his name to Leonidas, because he's got the toughest draw since those 300 Spartans had to fight a gazillion Persians at Thermopylae. Roger is 5-8 against Andy Murray, who's probably—make that definitely!—the toughest guy in the draw. Last year, the guy missed the semis by one measly game—and he beat Federer at the 2008 year-end championships. You want to tell me this guy isn't a monster on an indoor hard court?

And, they're playing in London. Okay, Mr. ATP bigshot Sharko or whatever your name is, if you hate Roger so much, why don't you just go whole hog and make them play the match in Glasgow? If you're going to give a guy home field advantage, why not go all the way? See if I care. But you know what? It will still never erase the memory of that Australian Open final, where Roger made Andy look like the Dunblane Duffer. We'll always have that.

And didn't Robin Soderling just win his first Masters 1000 at Paris Bercy? The dog is off the chain! Go back through the clips you'll see that Soderling's first love was fast indoor courts, even if his best results have been those back-to-back French Open finals. You know what? Uncle Toni got to someone here—just like he told Rafa where to serve against Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open final. Cheat once, maybe you'll cheat twice. I'm calling for tennis' Integrity Commission to convene, immediately!

And while I'm not saying that David Ferrer can be described as trouble for Roger, I wouldn't rule out that the Nadal camp found a way to get Ferrer on their side. We all know how hard you have to work to beat Ferrer. So they send him in to soften up The Mighty Fed, and then Soderling and/or Murray steps in to do the dirty work and finish Roger off, while he's still heavy-legged and arm weary.

Meanwhile, look at the draw Nadal got—where did it come from, the local patisserie? Andy Roddick. Yeah, right. He's in the midst of a year almost as good as that of his President, Barack Obama! He should change his name to Andy G. Roddick, the "G" being for "Gimme." Then there's Tomas Berdych. Woooo-o-o-o-o-o-o, we're really scared. Granted, Berdych had a pretty good summer, but it wasn't enough to keep those voices out of his head, the ones saying, lose. . .choke. . . give it up. . . embrace your inner journeyman! Berdych is back to his old self, which means he's a sure W for any of the big dogs.*
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Djokovic might give Rafa a little trouble, but the guy is fixated on the upcoming Davis Cup final and the chance it affords him to become a national hero. What does he need the WTF title for? You all saw what Rafa did to Novak in the U.S. Open final, tell me again why you think it ought to be any different? Sheesh.

Nadal fan: Hey, did anyone see that great picture of Rafa in the this month's issue of Men's Underwear? Never mind. I guess we're here to handicap the tennis, and all I can say is, if Roger had any more icing on those three cupcakes he drew, his daughters might be destined for hospital time with severe sugar rush.

Murray gets that deer-in-the-headlights look whenever it really counts (his epiteth will read, He Sure Looked Great. . .in Shanghai), the last time I checked, Federer is 14-1 against Soderling, and when did David Ferrer beat anybody when it was even remotely important? What, was Fernando Verdasco unavailable this week?

The biggest danger to Federer is that he might die of boredom before the end of the round-robin stage.

Unfortunately, the draw was as cruel to Rafa as it was generous to Federer. We all know that many people don't like that Rafa is so strong. So they put against him someone like Tomas Berdych, who is bigger and hits the ball like a wild man. Some say Berdych is crazy, but the truth is that he's unpredictable, which makes him especially dangerous. Nobody likes to play Berdych, and Rafa was lucky to escape with a victory over him at Wimbledon. So now Berdych will want revenge. This is a terrible problem for Rafa.

And then they also gave him Andy Roddick, who has a big serve and defeated Rafa the last time they played, in the Miami semifinals, on a hard court. The big serve is the only thing you can use to beat Rafa, because nobody can beat him once the ball is in play. And Roddick can serve like crazy, so maybe he goes to the tiebreaker and then if Rafa double faults—what then? Truly, this could be a very difficult match.

Many people say Rafa should have no problem with Novak Djokovic. But we saw in the U.S. Open that Djokovic is very dangerous, especially on a hard court. And everybody knows that with the Davis Cup final coming up in Belgrade, Djokovic will be fired up to prepare for that battle with a win in London. So why does Rafa have to replay two Grand Slam finals in just the round-robin part of the tour championships? Why does he have to help Djokovic prepare for Davis Cup? Can you imagine anything tougher than those things?

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So there you have it, two different ways to view the same set of facts. But in case you're not a partisan, here are the basic H2H details for Federer and Nadal in their respective groups:

Federer has an aggregate record of 29-9 against his three round-robin opponents, with a whopping eight of those losses logged against Murray. He's a combined 24-1 against Ferrer and Soderling (and a perfect 10-0 against Ferrer).

Nadal is 28-13, combined. He's lost at least three matches against every one of his group rivals, and the most (7) against Djokovic.

Draw your own conclusions. Will that be vanilla or chocolate icing on that cupcake?