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Federer’s Bad Clay Dream

23:46 Sun 08 Jun 2008
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Imagine that you are the best tennis player of your time, perhaps the best tennis player of all time. You’ve been number one in the world for an unprecedented 228 consecutive weeks. You’ve reached the semifinals or better of the last sixteen Grand Slams. You’ve won three slams in a year three times, two of those in consecutive years, and in those consecutive years you were in all eight Grand Slam finals. Unlike other historic greats with prodigious talent and great success on grass, you’re excellent on clay and have been improving on that surface. Only one Slam trophy is missing from your cabinet: the French. As possibly the greatest player of all time, what could stop you from winning it?

It would take something extraordinary, like running into the greatest clay court player of all time. Repeatedly. Said player would have to come into their prime just as you were coming into yours on that surface, and their consistency would have to be phenomenal.

This is, in fact, exactly what’s happened to Roger Federer. I begin to wonder whether or not Federer’s best chance to win the French Open was actually in 2004, when he went out to Kuerten in the third round, because that year he didn’t have to face Nadal. Since then, Nadal has knocked him out in the semifinals (2005) and then the finals three consecutive years in a row.

Nadal is a clay court player of historic achievements. Four Roland Garros wins in a row, a feat only matched by Borg. Since early 2005, Nadal has won 102 of 103 matches on clay, 20 of 21 clay court tournaments—with his only loss coming to Federer in Hamburg in 2007, a loss which broke Nadal’s unbelievable 81-match winning streak. (None of those numbers are typos.)

So, as Federer, you’ve improved on clay, you’re considered the best player of all time by many, and you’re a truly excellent clay court player in your own right, exceeded only by one person. It’s time for the French Open final, can you get over the hump and break through as greatest-ever versus greatest-on-clay-ever?

No.

Instead, you lose in aboslutely dispiriting, humbling, truly unbelievable fashion: 1-6, 3-6, 0-6. The best player ever, and you lose a Grand Slam final (where you have a winning percentage of eighty) while taking only four games from your opponent?

Nadal was never in danger. The only challenge in the match came in the second set, where Federer came back from 0-2 down to level at 3-3 with a break point on Nadal’s serve. He couldn’t convert, and Nadal went on to win that game and the next nine to take the match.

Now, again, Federer enters Wimbledon as the favorite, as the five-time champion, but with Nadal, the world number two, full of confidence after another phenomenal clay court season.

Both players are all-time greats, no question. I have a great deal of respect for both of them, especially in that they are both extremely sporting. I’m going to be rooting for Federer at Wimbledon, because I’d like to see him break the Borg/Sampras record of five in a row, and because I really want him to overtake Sampras for the most Grand Slam titles. If Nadal makes it to the final, it will certainly be interesting, and perhaps as good a match as last year’s final.

I certainly hope it’s better than today’s final.

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