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by Pete Bodo
Well, y'all have driven the comment meter deep into the red on the Game On post, so it seems like a good time for everyone to stick their heads up, take a gulp of fresh air, and then dive right into a new platform for discussion. I can see that some of you have already seen my new post at ESPN, where I mull over some parallels between those two great rivalries: Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal, and Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi.
What's interesting to me is that while thinking of the present rivalry that dominates men's tennis to the previous one, it's easy to see some similarities but also impossible to really pencil Federer in as Sampras and Nadal as Agassi. Nadal is, simply, much more competitive against Federer than Agassi was against Sampras; the reality is there for all to see in the head-to-head record, including at the majors.
If Rafa can be said to come up short in any specific department, it's surface proficiency. Among his 18 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles, 13 were earned on clay, a great feat in its own right, but also a telling comment on how heavily Nadal's record has skewed to dirt. Currently, three of the Masters events are on clay, and while the surface and even line-up of Masters events has changed, that take is still disproportionate. Worse yet (for Federer), he's been inordinately punished for doing something of which Nadal has not been capable: Roger gets to semis and final everywhere he plays. You can't say the same, at least up until now, for Rafa.
That may sound harsh to a Nadal fan, but what if Andy Roddick had won a pile of outdoor hard court Masters 1000 events? I think we'd be listening to quite a chorus of discontent, claiming that Roddick is a one-trick pony, hard court isn't a great test anyway, his power gives him too much of an advantage, it's an American thing, yadda-yadda-yadda.
So give Nadal all the respect he's earned for winning 18 Masters events and building such a solid home base for glory on clay. But his challenge in the coming years is clear; round out the resume with even greater consistency at hard court events and at Wimbledon. If Rafa can manage that, he'll join Agassi - and Federer - in that most elite of company, men who have completed a career Grand Slam. Only six men have accomplished that, and Sampras wasn't one of them.