Nadal – The King of Carlo

 

It was one of those days when I prayed earnestly for the victory of the King of the clay.  Like all other fans, I knew he is the juggernaut on clay. But with Raffa, I felt everybody would fancy their chances.  Inspite of his invincibility on clay, his recent exploits on hard courts were bound to take their toll.  And I do respect a murray, n djoker.  I am not putting Roger in the same sentence as those, but Roger too.  And on a very good day, Davydenko can be a handful.  Nalbandian and Nadal never met on clay, but Raffa confessed he is scared of Nalby on hard courts.  So, I knew the semi final would be a test.  I knew the final wouldn’t be easy. 

It hasn’t been Raffa’s best start to clay season, since I have started to follow tennis seriously.  I remember last year, Raffa entered the pre-French open tournaments with a double aura of invincibility (was it Verdasco or Lopez who said that Raffa was destroying everyone in practice matches!!!).   Except for that setback due to blisters in Rome, Raffa pretty much roller over everyone, losing perhaps a set here or there (the memory of the second set of Hamburg 2008 springs to life).  But this week, I was watching a different Raffa.  Not the one whose service improved by leaps and bounds on hard courts.  Not one who would risk blisters on his feet before risking an unforced error.  Not the Raffa of 2008.

And so, Raffa’s current and future rivals have found chinks his defensive armor that can get them close enough to take a set off of him.  Especially on his second serves, I noticed that the Djoker today was attacking from inside the baseline, swinging with abandon, and all the while pushing closer to the net.  I worried about Raffa’s serve, I worried about Djoker’s shots that were clean winners, I worried about Djoker’s strategy at the net (because he was successful).  In short, Raffa was falling short, and the djoker was executing his attack first, defend later strategy brilliantly.  If he could only hold his serve, he would come off a winner.  Raffa was struggling to hold his serve, he was struggling to attack for the whole of second set and a better part of the third set.  But as always, his defense and his will pulled him and Djoker’s offense started to crumble.  His set morphed from better with the break he got back, to bitter when he tried to end the points too quickly, and paid the price.  And my prayers were answered.

I was watching a discussion on one of the tennis forums about how Raffa’s level was strangely subdued that allowed Novak to come off as a brilliant player.   Some Novak fans (in fact one) took extreme offense at this.  And I was wondering, if, as fans, we are always trying to rationalize the performance of the stars we support with labels and grades.  But there are facts and stats too.  None of them alone tell the whole truth, and the whole truth is greater than the sum of its parts.  I have seen a lot of discussions about the Roger-Raffa rivalry, where the interpretation of results have been biased by the discussers (no red underline, so this word exists!! Yay!!) based on who their favorite player was.  The argument usually runs like this - “A won because B didn’t play at his usual level.  All you have to do is look at how B played against other opponents and if he (am talking ATP here feminists) could have played at that level, then he could have won.”  I agree that there is some truth to this.  Player’s level ebbs and flows all the time, and it is difficult to maintain the same level throughout the year.  Some can maintain it for a day, some a week, some a slam, some a season.  The Great players, play through the ebbs and flows, and more often than not find a way to win in dire circumstances.  But I doubt if they can win all the time too.  And the flow of their momentum does depend on who is across the net too.  Nadal on a bad day can roll over Stapenek (no offense to Stepanek), but would find it that much more difficult to roll over a Fed / Murray / Djoker or even a Del Potro (though I still think we somehow slipped into an alternate reality for that result).  But is we talk in terms of what might have been, the only objective way is to talk what the result would have been with the “best” Federer of 2005-2006 with the “best” Nadal of 2008-…. (I am hoping he will have a long streak) with the best of Murray…. and there is no way of knowing that.  All we have is now.  And the instantaneous effect the players have on each other and their results.  So for me, the most objective result is to accept what it is and conclude that A was better than B on that particular day (or A is better than B on most days on this particular surface!!!).  but hey, if I was objective,  I wouldn’t call myself a fan.    :)

Last Year, with Nadal losing out in the US Open, and the dearth of tennis sent me back into my shell for the rest of the year.   But here we are, in 2009, and the first Australian Open was a revelation again for my favorite player.  And here I am, after taking it all in, reading any article I could land my eyes on @atptennis.com, tennis.com, australianopen.com, espn.com, I am ready to grow out of my calm.  

Yes, I am a Nadal fan.  I am unapologetic, unashamed and unilateral about it.  I know there are a lot of Nadal fans out there, the fairer fans outnumbering the other sex (I am the other sex), so my fan-dom of this pickly matador from Spain has the danger of raising questions about my preference.  Questions about my private information aside, I still maintain that Raffa Nadal is my favorite player, and will remain my hope (not my expectation) to win the GrandSlam.  

"Where does Nadal appeal to you ?" "Where does he have the artistry of Roger or the compactness of the Djoker?"  "I can bet my life on Nadal not being as dominant as Roger has been" "The day I serve well, I will win against Raffa" "The day I destroy the arrangement of his bottles I will win against Raffa", you all say.  I agree with some of those.  Nadal is not the most artistic or most creative or most compact player around.  As someone said, with Roger, you see the economy of movement and flambouyance of artistry.  With Raffa its the other way round.  And add to that his quirks and idiosyncracies.  And his utterly uncomfortable, ceps-revealing attire!!!  But hey, forget about all the superficialities.  Take a look at his game again.  Flambouyance of movement, and economy of artistry.   The diametric end of Federer.  And who wins?  13-6 will give you the answer.

For all his genious, Federer over the last year or so, has shown that when he takes things for granted, he hasn't risen upto his own expectations.  Wimbledon 2007 was a close 5 set affair, that was defined by Rafa's 5 set mistakes as much as Federer's defiance to let go of his favorite trophy and turf.  If he had taken Wimby 2008 as his own, he was in for a teary awakening.  Now, Fed fans would argue that Wimby 2008 would have been his, if not for the fading light!  Wimby 07 would have been Rafa's if it was not for federer's saving break points at 2 all.  Wimby 2008 would have been a 4-set affair if only Federer's backhand had betrayed him like it usually does against Raffa.  My point is that the results are not random.  A champion doesn't arise by chance.  He / She takes their chances, and fights.  Points can be made by chance.  Not champions.

And that was on display during the Aussie Open 2009, too.  Could Federer have served well? Could he have run around his backhand and attacked the 2nd serves on breakpoint a little more? Could he have made lesser errors on his backhand and lesser errors on his forehand than his 64 unforced errors?  Sure, he could have done all that and more.  But that would also leave a chance for Raffa to play better.  Could Raffa not have run so much and ended points at the earliest oportunity (Well, he did that!!!).  Could Raffa... Well, I can't think of anything that Raffa could have improved.  If anything I wish he had played a shorter game on Friday.  But may be it was that match that gave Raffa the momentum.  May be it was the extra day that got Federer derailed.  May be Federer thought it was destiny that he would win his 14th GS at AO, no matter who was across.  May be Federer thought his forehands and backhands would magically work because he was destined to be legendary.  We would never know.  All we know was that whenever Fed had a great shot, Nadal had a greater reply.  Federer would be caught offguard and his next reply would suffer.  How many times have we played a shot that we thought was great and marvelled at it, only to see it come back, and return meekly!!!  A lot of times for me... :) And this where the flambouyant movement of Nadal negated the artistry of Federer.   Federer had always found it tough (in the past couple of years) against good counterpunchers (Andy Murray, Gilles Simon, Guillermo Canas).  And I think these guys have found their inspiration from Nadal.

At the end of the day, Federer was beaten not by his technique, but by the heart of Nadal. Because Nadal took nothing for granted.    He was there playing every point.  And Federer stopped playing at 2-1 in the fifth set.  He went for broke on his serve.  And lost.  And was heart broken. And this is where Nadal is better than Federer.