By TennisWorld Contributing Editor Andrew Burton
!Nadal You know me as a numbers guy. This is the fifth Masters tournament I've been to in the last three years (fourth time at Indian Wells, once at Toronto). Roger Federer, my favorite player, is 0-5 (well, 8-5 if you count actual matches played) in these tournaments, so more than one Federer fan attending (plus my wife, Sylvia) has suggested that I confine my attention to the TV in future. But for every cloud, etc.
Rafael Nadal, Federer's major rival in the last few years, is 3-4 in these same tournaments (won IW in 2007 and 2009, Toronto 2008) and now through to the semi final later this afternoon. I look forward to lots of invitations over the coming months from Nadal fans, offers to buy me plane tickets, and preferential seating among the VamosBrigade's High Command. I appear to be an even more potent good luck charm for Nadal than Rosangel on her European Rafa Slam.
Nadal and Tomas Berdych played a very high quality quarter final on Thursday evening, won by Nadal in straight sets (second set TB 7-4). It had the elements of a good, if not great match - both players were playing well at the same time. The match featured several breathtaking rallies: my favorite, late in the second set, saw Nadal respond to a Berdych volley by throwing up a lob, then somehow he got his racquet to Berdych's smash and threw up another lob: Berdych backed up, the ball landed on the sideline and Berdych put away the difficult overhead for a winner. I looked down at the court for scorch marks from Nadal's sneakers several times. What impressed me even more was how frequently Nadal hit winners past Berdych when both men were at the baseline. It just looked as if Nadal was thinking a bit more quickly than his opponent - as soon as Berdych got a half step out of position, the point was over.
Earlier in the day, I watched Ljubicic beat Juan Monaco, and yesterday afternoon Andy Roddick extended his streak over Tommy Robredo to 11-0. Neither match was poorly played, but to be honest, neither match raised my heart rate a beat above normal resting rate. Andy Roddick won 36 out of 37 points when he got his first serve in: Robredo "only" won 22 of 29, but he also had to hit more second serves. Neither player had a clear advantage from the baseline, so Roddick's serve was the difference maker.
Ljubicic swore until he was blue in the face that he'd played creative tennis to beat Juan Monaco, and if I'd been fast on my feet, I might have put to him Inigo Montoya's famous line - "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I'm not sure how big DVD sales of "The Princess Bride" were in Croatia, so perhaps it's better that I kept my mouth shut. Still, both Roddick's and Ljubicic's victories were based on steady baseline play backed up by the bigger serve.
Both Andy Murray and Robin Soderling can clock the ball - Murray got up to 138mph, while Soderling topped out at 140mph. Murray had 4 break points in Soderling's opening service game, and seemed to go into a tailspin when he couldn't convert any of them. Truth to tell, Robin Soderling still hasn't made that many converts in this neck of the woods. He was moving as well as anyone in the press gallery had seen, and he picked Murray apart in the first set with characteristic thumping groundstrokes and some nice pickups off low and wide shots. But the crowd was listless throughout - they picked up briefly at the tail end of set 2, when Murray held off three match points on his own serve then broke Soderling with some scrambling defense. A hold to love, then 0-30 on Soderling's next serve, and we were all primed for a Swedish collapse: I was murmuring something about Nadal-Nalbandian R16 IW 2009 to Elizabeth Kaye, sitting next to me. 'Twas not to be: Soderling held, and played a much steadier TB than his opponent. There was a soft sigh rather than a mighty cheer from the crowd when Murray dumped his final second serve return in the net.
If crowd support were measured in dollars, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer would be Bill Gates and Warren Buffett here, with most of the other players scraping to get into the top tax bracket. You get to see the pecking order vividly from the media garden area, as you watch players exit the practice courts and soccer field. People can ask for autographs as the players cross towards the locker room area behind the garden. Most players pass unmolested; Andy Roddick will sign a program or an oversized tennis ball. But when Nadal or Federer come back from practice, it's like they're magnets pulling along a cloud of human iron filings - probably a hundred or more taking pictures, calling friends, holding up paraphernalia, or just trying to make eye contact - just once - with their object of desire.
And on the tennis court, where it counts, you can see why this is so. It's not just about winning, although winning helps. It's about how you win, and Federer and Nadal do deliver - even, as Federer did, in losing. Both men hit shots this week that had the crowd gasping - Federer the trademark liquid whip forehand and a leaping backhand smash, Nadal a bolo overhead get and miraculous passing shots. All the tennis matches I've watched here have had fine athletes, but you have to be fit to reach the top levels of short track pursuit cycling, and watching (for example) Roddick-Melzer produces about as many thrills as watching two lads on bikes whizzing round a velodrome. It's possible that this will be the year that Federer's and Nadal's vice like grip on the sport's biggest titles will slacken. I just hope that those who come behind will play with their own version of fizz and flair, otherwise I'm going out and buying cycling shorts.
I got a big kick last year when Elizabeth Kaye quoted me in her piece on Nadal in Mens Journal "Zen And The Art Of Rafael Nadal." (It was nice being called "tennis writer Andrew Burton.") I sat down with Elizabeth yesterday in the media garden to talk many things Nadal, plus one or two things Federer. Our conversation is here- it was nice and civil, so no Fedal wars, please.