Sports Then and Now

The French Open Grounds surrounding Stade Roland Garros

Thoughts now turn to the red clay of Stade Roland Garros––the next Grand Slam championship on the calendar.

The French Open begins on May 22 following the Masters 1000 tournaments in Madrid and Rome.

The French Open has often presented obstacles to many of the top players.  Pete Sampras never won on the red dirt nor did John McEnroe, although he came very lose in 1984.

Maria Sharapova could never capture this title and the Williams sisters never found the dirt to their liking, although Serena Williams did win the title in 2002 with her sister Venus as the runner-up.

In all eight men and seven women have won multiple championships since the Open Era began in 1968.

How do you measure the greatness of an athlete within their respective sport? What factors determine the degree of greatness over a period of time, be it years or decades?

Further, how do you determine who is number one in any given list or ranking?

First you must find a pattern and then you must determine the significant components of the ranking—does each factor merit being used as part of the overall equation? Sometimes it does, without question, like the score in a game. The highest or lowest score wins as in football or golf.

It is not always a simple task to determine who is the greatest because such discussions invariably have subjective components.

For this ranking, first consider the number of times a man or woman won the title.  Add in as well the number of times a player made it to the French Open finals since 1968 (Open Era) as the initial demarcation of greatness.

To be considered the player must have won the French Open more than once since 1968.

It should be noted that Rod Laver did win this tournament twice in 1962 and 1969, once in the Open Era. He also made the finals in 1968.

Roger Federer made four consecutive finals from 2006-2009, winning the title once in 2009.

That just proves how difficult it can be to win this tournament multiple times as these 15 players have done.

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French Open gets underway in less than a month.

Last season the 2010 French Open marked the culmination of a player sweeping the major titles of the entire clay court season––the final act of the Tao of Nadal.

No man has quite dominated the red dirt so completely since Bjorn Borg did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

That said, no individual has yet to equal Chris Evert’s record on clay, man or woman by winning 125 consecutive matches on the red dirt, and seven French Open titles in nine final appearances.

Is it possible that Nadal could surpass even the ice maiden?

There are few mysteries abounding about the results on clay in 2011. If Nadal can hobble on to the court, then he will no doubt win, according to the odds-makers.

The only unknowns come on the women’s side of the draw where no one stands out as a favorite to win. In fact the bookies remain fairly clueless.

Past winners like Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova remain mired in unending slumps punctuated by an unexpected win or two along the way.

Francesca Schiavone who won it last year over the woman who was supposed to win, Samantha Stosur, may be the best bet.

The sure thing about watching the French Open is that it is not pretty. Play on the red dirt can be long and ugly on a hot afternoon with unending rallies from the baseline.  It often becomes truly survival of the fittest.

So, selecting who will be standing holding the trophies at the end of the French Open can be a futile exercise but here are the favorites and where they stand at the beginning of May…

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David Ferrer hopes this is the year he can get past Rafael Nadal at the French Open.

David Ferrer must be sick of the sight of Rafael Nadal. His Barcelona Open final defeat by the world number one was his second tour final loss to that player in a week and his fifth at the hands of Nadal in his career, all of which have come on clay. In reality he should be encouraged, as any player who regularly runs into Nadal must be doing something right, as it generally means you are playing well enough to reach the latter stages of tournaments.

Those Monte Carlo and Barcelona defeats saw Ferrer push Nadal closer than most have in the king of clay’s current 34-match unbeaten run on the red stuff. He broke the champion on numerous occasions and created plenty of break points, leading 4-2 in the second set in Spain, but lacked the consistency to produce an upset.

In truth Nadal was not at his best in either match, a worrying sign for his rival that suggests a sixth French Open title is inevitable. It is certainly true that Ferrer is one of his likeliest challengers, although the calf injury he picked up in the Barcelona is a slight concern and those looking for French Open tips should bear this in mind. Read the rest of this entry →

Roger Federer wins Wimbledon in 2009.

In over a century of judging the hits and misses of men’s professional tennis, tournament rules have come and gone. Styles of play rose and fell with the passage of time.

Technology has increased speed, spin and accuracy as rackets evolved and athletes became bigger, stronger and faster.

In light of constant evolution, it becomes difficult to compare players from one generation to the next because unlike baseball, tennis has never been a game noted for rote statistics.

That is not to say the stats were not there, but as a professional organization, no one thought to keep numbers comparing players in a consistent and forward-thinking manner. Sometimes even the most rudimentary facts about a match are missing.

Even today, there is no consensus about just what statistical measures are important in judging the overall careers of the top men in tennis.

The statistics that seem to matter most currently are: (1) the number of grand slam victories; (2) the number of weeks or total length of time holding the No. 1 ranking; (3) the number of year-end tour championship wins over the best eight men in the field, and (4) the number of Master’s Shields won. Many other statistics considered important by the ATP are detailed here

This ranking looks at players of the modern era, since 1968, although a great case can and should be made for male tennis stars who played before the Open Era.

Compare Federer’s numbers to the stats of others with him in the top 10, especially those who have won slams on all surfaces.

These 10 players in the modern era have set the bar for the rest following in this 21st century.

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Rafael Nadal's hold on the French Championships is almost unequalled.

There are not many who would dispute the fact that Rafael Nadal is the greatest ever to play tennis on the red dirt. At least so far.

The only man who may have been as dominant during his own era was the legendary Bjorn Borg, who walked away from tennis at age 26.

Since 2005, Nadal has lost only six matches on clay. In 2005 Nadal lost to Russian Igor Andreev in the quarterfinals of Valencia. Again in 2005, Nadal lost to Argentine Gaston Gaudio 6-0, 0-6, 1-6 during the quarterfinals at Buenos Aires.

The Majorcan did not lose another match on clay until Hamburg in 2007 when he was defeated by Roger Federer in the final. In 2008 Nadal lost to Juan Carlos Ferrrero 6-2, 2-6, 0-6 in the round of 32 in Rome. In 2009 Federer defeated Nadal in Madrid 6-4, 6-4 in the final. Then, of course, Nadal lost to Robin Soderling also in 2009 in the fourth round of the French Open––his first lost ever at Stade Roland Garros.

On clay Nadal is 175-6 to be exact. It gives the Majorcan a winning percentage of 96.7.

Borg won 30 clay-court titles before retiring at age 26; Nadal, age 24, has won 30 with surely more to be added.

Nadal not only broke the previous record for consecutive matches won on clay––he obliterated it by winning 81 consecutive clay court matches from April 2005 to May 2007.  The next closest man was Guillermo Vilas, who had a 53-match winning streak on clay.

The man who ended Nadal’s seemingly unending streak was Roger Federer, who defeated Nadal at Hamburg in their 2007 final. It was the only clay court final Nadal had ever lost to that point.

Nadal has won five French Open singles titles in six years, four consecutively. Borg won six French Open titles, four consecutively. With a win in 2011, Nadal will tie Borg’s record.

Not many bet against him accomplishing that feat. Mainly because Nadal has done it five times already, starting in 2005––five good reasons to pick him to win French Open No. 6…

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Novak Djokovic has fulfilled the early promise of greatness so far in 2011.

The first three months of the tennis season pose some of the players’ biggest challenges.

With barely a fortnight to get their hard-court games into fine working order, the first Major of the year is upon them. Yet the Australian Open is just the beginning; ahead lie two months of hard-court rigor, all geared towards a second distant climax at the end of March.

Along the way are choices between indoor and outdoor, cool northern Europe and the hot Gulf states, even between hard courts and the points-rich Golden Swing on the clay of Latin America.

It is a topsy-turvy phase, where two of the most prestigious Masters events in the calendar close a season rather than building towards a concluding Major, and therefore, is often full of intrigue, unpredictable winners and surprising losers.

During the two months between Melbourne and Miami—where this edition of the Power Rankings is focused—there have been 10 different champions from 14 tournaments.

Kevin Anderson won his first tour title in Johannesburg, went on to reach the quarterfinals in the Miami Masters and now sits at an all-time ranking of 33.

Ivan Dodig won his maiden title in Zagreb and there was an even more significant first for the surging Milos Raonic, who started the year at 156 and now sits at 35. He announced his arrival big time by winning San Jose and then reaching the final of Memphis. Although he does not feature in this month’s rankings, he will surely join the party when the next hard-court season comes around.

One multiple winner, Nicolas Almagro, took titles in Brazil and Argentina and reached the final in Acapulco and, while he did not impress in the subsequent Masters, his form may impact on the clay road towards Roland Garros.

For each story of success, though, there has been one of ill fortune. Andy Roddick arrived in Miami on the back of his 30th career title in Memphis and with a 16-3 winning record for the year—and his record in Miami was second to none. But it soon became clear that Roddick was unwell during his opening match, and he made his earliest Miami exit since 2002. Now at No. 14 in the rankings, it is also his lowest position since 2002.

The biggest shock of this entire period, though, was the performance of Andy Murray, who replayed his post-Australian slump of 2010 with a vengeance.

Murray loves the North American Masters and was aiming to improve on last year’s quarterfinal finish in Indian Wells and his first-round exit in Miami. However, he lost in his first match at both as well as at the only other event he played, Rotterdam.

He is said to be reviewing his coaching setup ahead of the clay season and, with few points to defend before Wimbledon, that choice will have some time to bed in. One thing’s for sure: He needs to change something, and soon.

But while there have been surprises at almost every turn of the hard-court road that culminated in Miami, there has also been a clutch of constants. At every tournament they have played, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have stayed the course at least as far as the semifinals.

One of them has been as constant as the North Star—the winner of every match in every tournament he has played since the start of the year and he, of course, tops the latest Power Rankings.

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