The Matador Wins... Again!

What a feast of sport we’ve had to start the New Year. Thankfully the competition in Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis was a whole lot better than the efforts of Australia’s cricketers against South Africa and now New Zealand.

And what a Final of the Men’s Singles on Sunday night – The Magician versus The Matador. Federer – the player with the most sublime strokes ever seen in this ageless sport - against Nadal, that Spanish Matador with the strength of a bull, the speed of a cheetah and an innate sense of the angles available on a tennis court only matched by his rival for the top spot in tennis.

Apart from one brief hiccup against Berdych in the fourth round, Roger had looked unbeatable. He utterly humbled the 9^th ranked player in the world – young Argentine, Juan Martin del Potro - in the Quarters. He lost just three games in three sets… and gave up just five points in the entire 3^rd set! This against a guy who’s two metres tall, regularly pounds down serves at around 220 kmh, won four tournaments in a row at the end of 2008 and the first of the New Year (in Auckland) before arriving in Melbourne.

Then in the Semi. the suave Swiss once more took apart Andy Roddick in straight sets… for the 16^th time in 18 meetings! His game was on song… his mastery back to its best after a season beset by glandular fever in 2008. There were half-volley drop shots and fluid backhands at which to marvel… and a first serve percentage up around 70%, with swinging bullets regularly finding both corners of the box. He was looking to emulate the mighty Pete Sampras as the holder of 14 Grand Slam singles titles and really seemed up for the task.

Rafa on the other hand had had a relatively easy passage to the semi-finals, before running into his vastly improved fellow countryman Fernando Verdasco. This monumental clash on Saturday night took five and a quarter hours to complete – the longest match ever played at Melbourne Park – and finished with Nadal ahead overall by 193 points to Verdasco’s 192… the point that separated the two warriors? A double fault by the lower-ranked competitor on match point – only his third for the entire match!

So the anticipation for another classic final between the World’s number 1 and 2 ranked players - along the lines of their epic Wimbledon clash last July – was high… and they delivered!

The Final had it all… miracle shots that no two other players could execute on such a regular basis; incredible physical feats as both players stretched seemingly beyond human limits to track down and return balls that were well past them and still travelling away.

But Nadal holds an undeniable psychological edge over Federer. He’s the only player in the world who makes Roger look nervous… the only one who stops him from mixing up his game with sliced chips and more frequent dashes to the net… the only man capable of stopping the otherwise invincible march of Roger Federer to the title of Grand Slam King, deposing Sampras forever.

Why? There are other immensely strong, immensely talented players who hit the ball as hard as Nadal… who get to almost as many of the Swiss magician’s shots… who should trouble the Legend to a similar degree. In my opinion, the answer is simply SPIN. I don’t think there’s another player on the planet who combines the physical attributes of an elite athlete (strength, endurance and speed) with the amount of work Nadal imparts on a fuzzy yellow ball.

When he smacks that forehand and follows through with the lasso action that almost takes his own head off, the ball flies through the air, then lands and kicks off the court like it’s been hit again… and then it keeps on travelling on this upward trajectory right through Federer’s hitting zone. He’s forced to take the ball even earlier than he normally does and feels he has to hit return topspin or give up any chance of dominating the rally.

In reality, if he still met that ball early but sliced it low to Nadal’s feet, shorter in the court, forcing the Spaniard to move forward and hit the ball up, I reckon he’d be presented with more shots that give him additional options for his next shot – the pass; the lob; the angled crosscourt off either wing. But psychologically, Roger just can’t seem to justify not trying to clout the ball back at his rival just as hard as it came to him.

So there’s Nadal’s topspin… but then when he’s forced wide, there’s the sidespin he puts on the ball. Rafa can be 5 metres outside the court, yet hit the ball so that it curls back in a great arc, right back into court, threading the needle past Federer, still travelling at extreme pace even while following an inexorable curve that lands the ball just inside both sideline and baseline for yet another winner. The spin on his serve seems to combine both – it kicks like a top spinner yet curls like a slice… how is that possible?

And of course, the slice he puts on that backhand… he undercuts it so it scythes a mere millimetre over the net, and then lands and skids through at ankle height. Tough for any opponent to do much with that.

Of course, Federer too has these skills… and delivers them with a grace and flowing majesty that makes Nadal look like a lumberjack swinging an axe… yet it’s the combination of the Spaniard’s amazing physicality and the incredible spin he puts on every shot that is sufficient to take away Federer’s routine dominance of mere mortals.

Federer could (not should, but could) have won that Final in straight sets. He led 4-2 with a break in hand in the first set… but lost it. He won the 2^nd, then had three break points on Nadal at 4-4, love 40 in the 3^rd set and three more break points at 5-5… he wins just one of those points and he serves for the set… he lost them all. Nadal converts around 50% of break point opportunities against Federer… the Swiss converts just 14% of similar opportunities against his young Spanish opponent.

The greatest player I’ve ever seen in 45 years of watching the sport? Undoubtedly Roger Federer. He combines the power of a Hoad or Laver with the precision and grace of Rosewall and the dominant serve of a Newc or Sampras. But the best of all time? How can he be with a 2:1 loss/win ratio against Rafael Nadal, (once thought of only as the greatest clay court player of all time).

Now Nadal has beaten Federer in three consecutive Grand Slam finals on three different surfaces… the French Open on clay; Wimbledon on grass and now the Australian Open on hard court. And given Nadal has never been beaten on the clay at Roland Garros and has now proven he can win the big ones on all surfaces, it could be the musclebound Spaniard (still only 22) who becomes the greatest Grand Slam winner of them all.

Seems a travesty in some ways… and only time will tell. That’s the glorious uncertainty of sport.

Post Script: While the 5-set men’s semi-final and Final, both featuring Nadal, will be remembered as the highlights of the 2009 Australian Open, for mine the best match in terms of sheer, breathtaking shot making was the 3^rd round clash between France’s Richard Gasquet and former finalist, Franciso Gonzalez of Chile. The Frenchman led 2 sets to nil before being run down by Gonzalez 12-10 in the 5^th… there were 165 individual clean winners struck in the match – a classic for the times.