Sports Then and Now

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal resume competition in Indian Wells.

Finally play gets underway this week for the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells with a lineup that includes almost all the usual suspects.  Who will survive the test of time and layoffs to take the title this year?  That is the question lingering on everyone’s lips.

Roger Federer’s Quarter

There are some very intriguing match-ups possible in Federer’s quarter of the draw including a potential 3rd round clash with the No. 27 seed Marcos Baghdatis.  The Cypriot who found his way out of the deep freeze and into the semifinals at Dubai is well on his way to a legitimate comeback after spending much of 2009 on the injured reserve list.

Seeded players hoping to advance to week two of the tournament include Tommy Robredo, seeded No. 18 and the always dangerous Radek Stepanek who has been known to throw wrenches into the plans of many a higher seeded player.  Stepanek lives to wreak havoc with the draw and could meet Federer in the 4th round.

Read the rest of this entry →

Rafael Nadal's exit from the Australian Open was much earlier than he had hoped.

It seems barely possible that, in this very week just one year ago, the tennis world was predicting that Rafael Nadal could become only the third man in history to complete the tennis Grand Slam.

He’d just won his first Slam on the hard courts of Melbourne against one of the greatest hard-court players of all time, Roger Federer.

He’d beaten the king of grass, Federer again, in the previous Wimbledon final, in equally dramatic style.

With that Wimbledon triumph, Nadal had claimed the No. 1 ranking after more than three years at No. 2—behind the same man.

To cap it all, he’d won the Olympic gold medal.

Nadal had now got the better of Federer in the finals of three of the four Slams. With his win in Australia, he could probably win in the U.S. Open too. The French would be a shoo-in; it always was. And Wimbledon—well, he’d mastered the grass as well.

Little wonder, then, that when he won the Australian Open title, Nadal seemed set to dominate not just Federer but the whole of men’s tennis.

For a glorious window of four months in the spring of 2009, that looked like a sound prognosis. At worst, Nadal could beat Federer to a career Grand Slam, and at best, he could join the true elite of tennis with a calendar Grand Slam.

With his win on the hard courts of Indian Wells, Nadal moved more than 4,000 points clear of the field.

With the transition to clay, he won successive tournaments in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and Rome.

In the process, he notched up wins against Andy Murray on hard and Novak Djokovic on clay.

As this correspondent wrote last March, before the Tour had even moved to clay, who could break Nadal’s vise-like grip on men’s tennis?

But beware the “Ides of March,” for there were hints that Nadal’s punishing style of play and all-out attack on the schedules were starting to weigh heavy on his knees.

Nadal had pulled out of Dubai in February to give those knees some attention, and the rumor mill ground away at the kernels of this ongoing story. But while his knees were permanently swathed in support bandages, Nadal’s movement around the courts never seemed compromised, and he constantly silenced the doubters. Read the rest of this entry →

The 2010 Australian Open begins on Monday, January 18th.

In tennis, the offseason between the outgoing year’s World Tour Finals (or the previous other names by which the year’s final ATP tournament was called) and the upcoming year’s first tournament is never too long.

It seems even shorter in the last few years with the advent of the Internet, which meant increased participation by fans; it went like a blitz this year as the decade came to a close. Pages worth of analysis were written, and tons of best and worst lists were formed, discussed, and argued upon.

In no time, Christmas and New Year’s Eve passed by…and suddenly Nikolay Davydenko had defeated Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on back-to-back days, Robin Soderling got the 13th time luck against Federer (albeit in an exhibition match), Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters played a nerve-wracking thriller that was absent almost all of the last year in the WTA circuit, and—lo!—the draws of the year’s (rather, decade’s) first major have been released.

Australia, the Land Down Under, may be thinly populated, but it is probably the most dominant country in sports. Be it cricket, rugby, hockey, or football, they can teach the world a thing or two in each sport. In tennis, they boast of an unparalleled legacy. With legends like Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, and Roy Emerson, to name a few, they have fielded some of the finest tennis players ever to grace the game.

But despite this fine sporting history, their native Grand Slam tournament took time to establish itself. The Australian Open was constantly in a state of flux after the Aussie legends faded down the scene. Read the rest of this entry →

Could Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling develop the next great rivalry in tennis?

In 1997 Patrick Rafter won his first major at the US Open, thanks to his agile movement, big-kicking serve and unparalleled net coverage. Though this put him exactly nine majors behind Pete Sampras at that point in their careers, it was easy to begin wondering how the two would match up in future encounters.

Still, the two weren’t truly rivals yet; Sampras was 5-1 against the Australian at that point and would add three more lopsided victories over Rafter to his tally that fall. Plus, with the bulk of his accomplishments and the fact that he had a commanding lead in the race for No. 1, few could seriously claim that the two were players of equal stature.

To become a rival to Sampras, Rafter would have to beat the American, and take something he wanted.

That would come in 1998, when the Australian rallied from down a set to top Sampras at the Cincinnati Masters tourney. Sampras had already won Wimbledon that year, and Rafter’s successes for 1998 were just beginning; still, Sampras hungered for the points that event would bring him. He was pursuing the year-end ranking for the sixth consecutive year – a record – and Marcelo Rios was hot on his heels. Read the rest of this entry →

Will we see "Rafa-Lite" in 2010?

The fans are getting worried.

The media have begun to discuss it openly.

And last week, at London’s O2 arena, it was the first topic on the lips of almost every spectator—and not just between his fans.

The subject of all this attention is the diminishing musculature of Rafael Nadal since his extended break with tendonitis over the summer.

So in the light of Nadal’s poor results during the Round Robin phase of the World Tour Finals, is there real cause for concern? And is there any foundation for all this talk of weight loss?

There have been several “checkpoints” during the year from which to make a first-hand comparison of Nadal’s stature, thus removing from any debate the dictum that “television puts on 10lbs.”

The starting point was the clay season—the photograph on the left was taken at Rome. Here the standard edition Rafa was on show, all shoulder, bicep, pectorals and calves.

Read the rest of this entry →

Rafael Nadal's competitive fire has made him a champion

Talent is the beginning, not the end.

There are so many other traits that a tennis player must have to be a champion. Fitness is crucial, as is willingness to prioritize the game above other interests.

But nothing stretches talent and maximizes it quite like mental strength. When most modern tennis fans think of mental toughness and competitive fire, they think of either Jimmy Connors or Rafael Nadal (pictured). It probably comes as no surprise that both of them make my list of the top five.

The only question is where, and whether anyone tops them. Read the rest of this entry →