The last time that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played each other, in Key Biscyane two months ago, I declared it to be the beginning of the third stage of their rivalry, one where they faced off as old friends who had already proven just about everything there is to prove as tennis players. So friendly, from the Federer side, it seems, that he handed his old buddy the match, in perhaps the most one-sided of their 23 contests.
A Federer-Nadal match is always worth watching, celebrating, appreciating, hyping, but, to me, there’s a sense with this one that it means more as preparation than it does as a battle of its own. The French Open is looming, of course, as it wasn’t when they met in Miami. Where Federer once tried to fight Nadal on every dusty red battlefield, from Monte Carlo to Hamburg to Rome to Madrid, he now takes his time and tries to reach his peak in Paris. The last two years, his form has come together in Madrid, and judging from his well-earned win over Robin Soderling today, it’s coming together for him again. He was more consistent in this match than he was against Lopez. Had more energy than he did against Malisse, and he saved his best for the tiebreaker in the first set, and for 4-4 in the second. His best there also included a net cord backhand that dropped over for a winner at 30-30. Maybe Federer’s been taking a lesson from Jimmy Connors and practicing that shot. There's the new wrinkle we've been looking for!
Is Federer together enough to give Nadal a scare? It sounds like a long shot—their last match was a blowout, this one is on clay, and Nadal hasn’t been remotely tested this week. (I said in a chat yesterday that serve and volley is not necessarily dead forever; but serve and volley on clay against Nadal by an over-30 Michael Llodra certainly is). Nadal has looked particularly focused here and in Barcelona, with no extended off-the-boil moments or anxious games that I can remember. So the pick has to be Nadal, but the pick was Nadal when these two met two years ago in the final (Federer won in straights), and the pick was Nadal again in the final last year (Rafa won a well-contested match in a second-set tiebreaker). Whatever his record against Federer is, and however easily he won their last match, there are going to be nerves when he faces Federer. And while there’s pressure on Federer to make the match competitive and make everyone forget Key Biscayne, there’s pressure on Nadal to win, which is where the real pressure lies.
Where does this loss leave Robin Soderling? I came away from it feeling a little bad for him. He has virtually everything—big power on each shot, first-strike capability, and the confidence to play very good tennis on a lot of big points when he could have folded against Federer. But he still lost for the 16th time in 17 matches to the guy. Like so many players, Soderling has one flaw—no hands. In points around the net, or where an adjustment needs to made on the fly, Federer will always come out the winner. Witness the poorly hit drop volley that Soderling plunked over the net in the tiebreaker, and the deftly casual flip lob that Federer put over his head to win the point—such are the tiny but telling differences between top players. Last year in Paris, Soderling beat Federer by knocking him backwards, with his serve, with his return, with any shot he could get his racquet on. It worked that time, but it requires a higher degree of accuracy than he’s typically capable of. If Soderling just had a little bit of Andy Murray’s touch. And if Andy Murray just had a little bit of Soderling’s brute point-ending skill. You’d have yourself a player.
But no, the flawed Sod is gone, and form has held on one side of the men’s draw. That’s not the case on the other side, where the dark horse of the week has been Thomaz Bellucci. I had been waiting for the 23-year-old Brazilian lefty to make a move, pull an upset, prove he can play at the top tier—had been waiting; at some point I stopped. But here he is, making that move. I like his game, the leftiness, the stylishly big forehand, the two-hander, even if it does remind me of a very good junior-level game. It’s also nice, for the sake of variety and color and the continued worldliness of tennis, to have a Brazilian back in contention. What wasn’t so nice to watch in the past were his mental breakdowns, the anxiety, the gathering ball of nerves that led to slammed racquets and blown leads. Bellucci played with a fire so self-immolating, that after watching him out-head-case Ernests Gulbis in Toronto last summer, I finally decided that he would never succeed. Maybe I’m wrong. His coach, Larri Passos, had one go-to move when Bellucci looked over to him today. Passos pointed at his head. Good start.
Bellucci’s little run will come up against a much more extensive one Saturday night. Novak Djokovic has won his first 30 matches of 2011, the third-most all-time (he’s behind just John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, not bad company). It’s gotten to the point where dropping a set to David Ferrer, a player he had never beaten before on clay, can look like a sign of decline for Djokovic. It wasn’t. Ferrer, helped by the Spanish crowd, fought with more determination and aggression than he normally does against a higher-ranked player. And up to that point Ferrer had only lost to Nadal during this clay season. But Djokovic still outclassed him in the end, saving some of his best tennis for the last few games and refusing, as he once did, to beat himself.
So who do you have? I’ll go out on a very short limb and say:
Nadal d. Federer; Djokovic d. Bellucci
Nadal d. Djokovic
How about the women? I wish I could say I knew first-hand, but where I’ve been watching, the ATP’s Masters Series feed on the Tennis Channel, they haven’t appeared all week. Too bad, because it’s a nice lineup of it’s own: new tennis cover girl Julia Goerges, player of the moment Victoria Azarenka, potential player of the future Petra Kvitova, and Aussie Open finalist who was threatening to disappear, Li Na.
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I’ve seen more of a bunch model brats frolicking around a country club in a retro Tommy Hilfiger ad—not that this is all bad; there are worse things to watch—than I have the WTA so far. That will hopefully change this weekend. Enjoy it, dual-gender events work, see you Monday.