The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Nadal rules clay; Federer everything else

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Nadal rules clay; Federer everything else

New York: Rafael Nadal is unbeaten on clay. Roger Federer is untouchable in the men's tennis rankings.

Despite beating Federer for a fourth straight time on Sunday in the Rome Masters final, Nadal barely affected the gulf between his No. 2 ranking and Federer's No. 1.

With the Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open crowns, Federer had 7,010 computer ranking points on Monday, compared to Nadal's 4,635.

Federer has more than twice as many points as third-ranked David Nalbandian.

The Swiss star, the undisputed No. 1 since February 2, 2004, will dip below 7,000 for failing to defend his Hamburg title this week, but Nadal will be under the most pressure rankings-wise when he has to defend his first Grand Slam championship at the French Open beginning May 28.

Federer has reached the final of all of his tournaments this year, and won four of seven.

All three losses were to Nadal at Dubai, Monte Carlo and Rome, where the 19-year-old Spaniard tied Guillermo Vilas's record 53-match winning streak on clay in the Open era.

Nadal also tied Bjorn Borg for most titles won as a teenager (16), and became the first repeat winner in Rome since Thomas Muster in 1995-96.

The rest of the top 10 was Andy Roddick, Ivan Ljubicic, Nikolay Davydenko, James Blake, Fernando Gonzalez, Gaston Gaudio and Lleyton Hewitt.

Mauresmo still No. 1

In the women's rankings, Amelie Maureso remained No. 1 for a ninth straight week, but she could be supplanted by No. 2 Kim Clijsters if the Belgian wins this week's Italian Open.

Nadia Petrova moved to a career-high No 3 ranking and replaced injured Maria Sharapova (No 4) as the highest-ranked Russian. The top 10 was rounded out by Justine Henin-Hardenne, Mary Pierce, Lindsay Davenport, Elena Dementieva, Patty Schnyder and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Martina Hingis is within one spot of cracking the top 20 five months into her comeback. — AP

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