The Hindu : Sport : Nadal on clay has become Federer's ultimate test

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Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006

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Sport

Nadal on clay has become Federer's ultimate test

To complete his tennis mastery Federer must first master Nadal, writes ROHIT BRIJNATH

On linoleum and cement, grass and wood, carpet and tiles, marble and asphalt. Against Hewitt, Safin, Agassi and Blake. In any place you can imagine, on any surface you can invent, against any opponent you can find, Roger rules.

Except on clay, against Rafael Nadal.

Maybe it's more complicated than that. Maybe it's just Nadal anywhere, but especially on clay, because Federer has played him five times, lost twice on clay (French Open 2005 and Monte Carlo on Sunday) but twice on hard court, too. The only time Federer won, on hard court in 2005, Nadal was two sets to love up.

It's intriguing, it's captivating, the more Federer loses, the more determined he becomes, the more confident Nadal grows, the harder it is. It's like Stephen Hawking struggling with a theorem just beyond his grasp. Federer is a man of art and intellect, but Nadal confounds him, he asks more than the Swiss can produce.

Beauty and `the beast'

There is something tidy to this rivalry. First, as stylists they attract, for they are the antithesis of each other. Federer, so clean in design, every hair and shot in effortless place; Nadal, who is only a little red face paint short of Geronimo, his greatness all grime and grunt. Federer is tennis' beauty; Nadal, said Guillermo Coria, is the "beast."

Second, the rivalry is elevated because Nadal stands as the singular barrier to Federer's quest to make history. The French Open is what Federer requires to stand beyond Sampras, the French Open is what Nadal owns. It is fitting that to complete his tennis mastery, Federer must first master Nadal.

It will not be easy for, among other things, Nadal has one arresting advantage that no man on the planet has. On clay, he does not fear the Swiss, he carries no psychological wounds, he need not pray for his rival to not be at his best. One might say on clay he is Federer.

This manifested itself in varied ways in Monte Carlo. When the umpire called "play," Federer got up but Nadal sat down and taped his fingers deliberately for a minute or more.

When Federer went up a break in the third, Nadal took an injury time-out. When Federer was ready to serve on occasion, Nadal delayed. There was nothing subliminal about this message: the Spaniard is polite to the Swiss but not intimidated.

Nadal does not panic either against Federer, his superiority on clay reassures him.

In Monte Carlo, he got tight serving for the second set, lost it, was broken in the third, but came back.

In the fourth-set tie-breaker, he was down 0-3, but came back. He gave away 18 break points, but was broken only four times.

He is carried by an intensity that provoked Coria to call him an "animal."

Federer, an exceedingly decent man, speaks well of Nadal, but the Spaniard also gnaws at him. Second place the Swiss is not accustomed to. For a moment in Monte Carlo, he even was sucked into fleeting ungraciousness, offering that Nadal was "quite one-dimensional with his game." Except that one dimension Federer cannot decipher.

If at one level Nadal frustrates Federer, perhaps at another a cultured player is fascinated by this Spanish enigma. The Swiss is affluent in ideas, but no combination of them has sufficed so far.

He cannot out-rally Nadal from the back, for the Spaniard is a defensive genius. He is afforded no cheap points and twice was broken from 40-0 and 40-15. He must embrace aggression, no simple matter on a slow surface against a staggeringly fleet rival, even though it brought him 78 unforced errors to Nadal's 39.

The more Federer attacked as the match wore on, his volleying delicious, the more authoritative he looked, but here, too, danger lurked in the dust. Brutally consistent, Nadal offers few short balls, and his forehand pass especially, racket whipping like a roundhouse punch across his face, is all dipping deadliness.

Strength and weakness

Everything conspires against Federer, even Nadal's leftiness. His favourite inside-out forehand goes to Nadal's forehand, his strength. Nadal's forehand, cross-court over the lower part of the net — a volatile mix of pace and spin — explodes shoulder-high on to Federer's weakness, his backhand.

No one exploits this more craftily. Federer's backhand may be a relative weakness, but as Nadal said: "If you look (out of) the window, is very, very easy, no? Why all the players don't do the same, no? Maybe not easy, no?"

Federer said after Monte Carlo he is a step closer, some questions answered, but asked what he had learnt, he replied: "I'm not going to tell you."

He will find a way to beat the Spaniard eventually. Even on clay. But it is not enough, he knows. He must do it in Paris.

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