Sports Then and Now

Juan Martin del Potro wins the 2009 U.S. Open over defending champion Roger Federer.

The road to the top of the game in men’s tennis is not an easy one, just ask Juan Martin del Potro who upped his ranking as high as No. 5 in the world after defeating No. 1 seed Roger Federer during the finals of the U.S. Open in 2009.

Federer was going for his sixth consecutive U.S. Open championship.  The Swiss had not lost a match at Flushing Meadows since 2003.  It was del Potro’s first win over the world No. 1 in six tries.

You cannot make it to the top of the men’s game without going through Federer.  Few have done it.  David Nalbandian stood tall defeating the Swiss in 2003 at the U.S. Open during the fourth round after Federer won his first major championship at Wimbledon earlier that summer.

Gustavo Kuerten took Federer down in the third round of the French Open in 2004. Then Marat Safin defeated the Swiss in the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2005, going on to win the Championship.

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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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Who would have thought it would be a year to the day before the tennis world saw another Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer face-off? And who could have predicted that it would, as it was 12 months ago, be in the final of the last clay Masters of the year, in Madrid?

The balance of power as they entered the home straight this year has, though, looked a little different.

2009 began with Nadal as world No. 1, winner of the Australian Slam, and dominant through the clay season. But by the time he reached Madrid, his months without a break had wreaked havoc with his knees and he was soon forced off the tour to recuperate.

This year, he was short of his best form in Melbourne. But with the clay came the Rafa of old. He won every tournament he entered, and this time he paced himself so that he looked, if anything, stronger and fitter with each passing week.

So the Nadal in Madrid 2010 was a stronger animal than the one Federer dominated in 2009, while the Federer on the other side of the net was only just getting into his stride following a month off the tour with illness.

Add in the extra factors of Andre Agassi’s Masters record, and the imminent French Open title to fight over, and this was destined to be a great occasion. It saw Nadal avenge his loss of 2009, and take the outright record for Masters titles: 18. And he is still just 23.

Looking beyond the Rafa-and-Roger showdown, the Spanish armada once more laid down its marker, as it has done throughout the spring.

Three of the four finalists in Madrid were Spanish, as were six of the last 16. And that’s without their fourth man Juan Carlos Ferrero and their fifth Tommy Robredo, both missing with injury.

So, not surprisingly, Federer is the only non-Spaniard in the top five this week. Who’ll give me odds against the Spanish reign continuing in Paris? I thought not. Read the rest of this entry →

Tennis Super Heroes Ride Again...

At the end of this European clay court season, we stare headlong into the promise of another blockbuster slam––the French Open 2010.

The drama of the upcoming event played at historic Stade Roland Garros has long been anticipated in the hearts and minds of tennis aficionados across the globe.

Secretly for each rabid fan, the favorite of choice has already been crowned champion.

The hit and miss performances of many players who normally claim the starring roles in these renowned tennis epics, however, continued to cause doubt.

One after another broad-based tennis pundit pondered this apparent anomaly unfolding in 2010. Their questions peppered all media outlets.

First and foremost is the quandary of which superhero tennis star will ultimately claim the leading role in Paris?

The company has yet to post the cast of characters and who might be filling them. The question of who will emerge as the champion fills the vast arena of speculation…

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