I have mixed feelings seeing the clay-court season go. On the one hand, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have, over the last three years, raised the importance of this time of year to an all-time high. As much as I liked watching Gustavo Kuerten, Alex Corretja, and Marcelo Rios sweep through the spring, none of them had the gravitas of a Federer or Nadal. They weren’t playing for all-time records and greatest-ever credentials.
On the plus side, after weeks of red dirt, we'll see some green grass soon. Last night I happened upon a rerun of the 2007 Queens final between Andy Roddick and Nicolas Mahut. The match could have been on fast-forward: The play was quicker and crisper, and the points just as entertaining as the most elaborate clay-court rally.
Before we make the trip across the Channel, I’ll wrap up the last two weeks with final grades from the French Open.
Rafael Nadal
What can you say? This was the most dominant single-Slam performance I’ve seen. I was too young to remember Borg’s 1978 and ’80 steamrolls through Paris, and while Roger Federer has had his blistering runs (2005 Wimbledon, 2007 Australian Open, to name two), they by definition couldn’t include a 1, 3, and 0 beating of Roger Federer.
We’ll likely look back at this French Open as the peak of Nadal’s dominance on clay. That’s not because he’s going to go downhill anytime soon, no matter what people say about his taxing style of play. It’s because, like Borg in ’78, you can’t soar higher. We can see this as the full maturation of Nadal’s clay game. Unlike the 19-year-old Rafa, this version didn’t rely on eye-popping gets, preposterous shots from all corners of the court, or flying fist-pumps between points. Instead, he put his serve into his opponents’ backhands, hit his forehand high, deep, and heavy, and cracked his backhand better than he ever has. It all added up to an unbreachable tennis fortress.
One moment on Sunday caught my eye and made me think that, no matter what Federer did, Nadal was never going to allow himself to lose. At 3-3 in the second, Federer had managed to stop Nadal’s momentum and was playing what would be his best tennis of the day. Nadal served and drove an easy inside-out forehand into the net. He muttered angrily at himself, the first negative emotion he’d shown. On the next point, as McEnroe noted, he went back to the same shot and hit it for a winner. The muttering hadn’t been negative; it had been a reminder to himself that the match wasn’t over and he’d still need to play well. Nadal immediately became more aggressive and began to take more balls inside the baseline. He didn’t lose another game. This is the kind of confidence I’d expect him to have against Verdasco or Almagro. By the time of the final, he had the same ironclad belief in himself even with Federer on the other side of the net.
Now the question is: Is he better than Borg on clay? John McEnroe says so, but I think he’s getting caught up in the moment. To me, Nadal has to match the Swede’s six French titles to make that claim. I have very little doubt that he will.
As the match accelerated to its close, I began to wonder how Nadal would celebrate. The M.O. for both he and Federer in these situations is a sudden, happy collapse to the court. I’ve heard some commentators say that Federer has now won enough that he should begin to “act like he’s been there” and at least stay upright. I disagree: A Slam win is a Slam win, and I’ve always liked the honest, intensely raw emotion that he and Nadal show whenever they accomplish the game’s ultimate feat. With that in mind, I was prepared to forgive Nadal another tumble to the court, even if the match was a foregone conclusion. But I was pleasantly surprised when he went in the other direction, simply raising his arms in quiet triumph and jogging to the net. As he said later, he didn’t want to revel in his friend’s misery. It was the appropriate finishing touch to a flawless performance.
Last year Federer paid tribute to Nadal in his victory speech at Wimbledon by saying they both should have won the final; this time Nadal kept his opponent’s emotions in mind by reining in his. Whether their matches are see-saw battles or blowouts, these two have created a special rivalry and relationship that transcends results and weekly rankings. At times it seems like Federer and Nadal are the only two people tennis fans ever talk about. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all. A+
Ana Ivanovic
We’ve always recognized her smooth strokes and star quality. This year we began to learn that she had ambition to match. Now, after watching her win her first major, we know she’s a smart manager of strategy and emotion during crucial moments, something that most of us had wondered about after her quasi-meltdown in the final in Paris last year.
Down in the third set to Jelena Jankovic in the semis, she realized that her best chance against her defensive-minded opponent was to use her offensive advantage, namely her big slap forehand. She threw caution to the wind and ended the points quickly and in her favor. She even had the nerve to knock off a return winner on match point—very Boris Becker of her.
