Sports Then and Now

Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling will be meeting in the French Open for the second straight year.

In the absence of yet another clash between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the best Roland Garros final we could probably have asked for was this one, as Nadal seeks to overcome the only man to have ever beaten him on French clay.

That man, Robin Soderling, has added to his number of high-profile wins, but on Sunday seeks to become more than just an answer to a trivia question.

Robin Soderling

Last year the big Swede Soderling played the role of Ivan Drago or, for the more realistic, George Foreman, the heavyweight whose sheer puissance overwhelmed all obstacles, including his own lack of variety.

Sure, Nadal wasn’t at the top of his game, but a lot of that had to do with Soderling not allowing him to play his best. The Swedish clubber crushed so many forehands, drove so many two-handed backhands up the line and serve so huge that all the best clay court defender of our day could do was try to hang on. Read the rest of this entry →

Rain could play a role in the outcome of the French Open.

At the U.S. and Australian Opens, rain prompts an immediate stop in play–followed by the employment of the roof Down Under. Any tennis player dumb enough to play on wet asphalt is asking for a turned ankle, or maybe worse.

The grass of Wimbledon isn’t quite as risky in the rain, but you still won’t see players stay on it should the drops start falling; concrete or not, no one enjoys falling on their hind ends, especially when hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent cultivating an image of them as great athletes.

The clay of Roland Garros is different. Sure, if the rain starts falling in buckets, the players will ask off of it, because no serious competitor likes playing in mud. If the downpour is light, though, play can continue with relatively low risk of the players hurting themselves.

A little rain, though, can make plenty of difference in what kind of conditions the players find on court.

Just ask Andy Murray. The Scotsman is no one’s clay court specialist, but he remains the game’s premier counterpuncher, utilizing speed, touch, and court sense to keep harder hitters off balance. That’s what he did to Rafael Nadal and Marin Cilic in Australia. That’s what he would have liked to have done to Tomas Berdych in their fourth round encounter on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry →

The Tennis Channel as well as ESPN and NBC offer coverage of the 2010 French Open

In case you have not been paying close attention, the French Open is underway at Stade Roland Garros in Paris. This event, like most tennis majors, is best seen live—which only goes to prove that you must have money to follow tennis as a dedicated and deserving fan.

The predictable patter emanating from broadcast booths follows a familiar pattern, filling the airwaves with online personalities making their typical forecasts and touting the usual analysis replete with the most probable winners.  We watch on our tiny screens as the same top-seeded players go through their paces, generally walloping their lower seeded opponents in the early rounds.

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Andy Roddick lost in straight sets in the third round of the 2010 French Open.

Andy Roddick entered last year’s French Open having played only one clay court event, and that was on the fast courts of Madrid. Having gotten married during the clay season to Brooklyn Decker, Roddick arrived in Paris relaxed, fresh and without terribly high expectations to disappoint.

He proceeded to have his most successful trip to Roland Garros ever, winning three matches without dropping a set before falling to Gael Monfils in the round of 16. He then parlayed that momentum into a career-reviving Wimbledon run, beating Britain’s own Andy Murray to reach the finals. There, he faced Roger Federer, the main impediment to his Wimbledon dreams, but came as close as anyone not named Rafa to stopping the Great Swiss on Centre Court.

With that precedent, it was no wonder that Roddick chose to play an abbreviated clay court season again, celebrating his wedding anniversary and resting from his successful spring hard court season, where he won his fifth Masters Shield in Miami.

This year, though, his clay court preparation would be even less extensive, as he skipped the no longer essential Monte Carlo, exercised his right to opt out of Rome, then was greeted with illness upon his arrival in Madrid, leaving him with zero matches played on the dirt before Paris.

After his third round exit this week, we may consider it a strong effort that he got that far at all. He certainly had opportunities to leave earlier.
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Gustavo Kuerten's breakout performance was at the 1997 French Open.

For better or worse, the men’s tennis world lives in times of unprecedented order.

Even when there are surprises, like Rafael Nadal losing early in last year’s Roland Garros, the standard of normality was quickly picked up by Roger Federer, who has reached every Grand Slam semi since Wimbledon 2003.

This order definitely has its advantages, as Federer, Nadal, del Potro and Andy Roddick have given us some classic finals in the past few years, as opposed to watching one of the game’s greats crush a Chris Lewis or Rainer Schuettler-esque underdog in less time than it should take the players to warm up.

We may have forgotten, though, how refreshing a surprise can be.

The hottest players going into the 1997 RG were Mr. Ball Control himself, Marcelo Rios, and new flagship of the Spanish Armada Alex Corretja. The pair had faced off in two of the Masters events leading up to the game’s only clay major, with Rios easily winning the Monte Carlo final, but Corretja reversing that result in Rome. Read the rest of this entry →