Spring is the season of rites. There’s the Masters. There’s Opening Day. There’s the Kentucky Derby. There are leaves out and windows down. There's the family dog getting into the kids' Easter baskets and making himself sick on chocolate (maybe that was just a rite of spring at my house). All of these are events that we anticipate happily, the same way we look forward to spring itself—it’s no accident that you’ve never heard of a “rite of winter.”
Tennis has its own symbolic seasonal curtain-raiser. Where the others are mostly colored green, our sport’s comes in reddish orange and pale blue. That’s the combination you see from the top of the Monte Carlo Country Club. Closest to you is the gritty, textured red of a clay court, one of the game’s most historic, and beyond that is the wave-dotted blue of the Mediterranean. We've seen this sight many times, but I for one never get tired of it. I’ll take the sparkling contrast of that expansive vista over the stuffy, over-groomed dogwoods and azaleas at Augusta National any day.
In 2009, Monte Carlo, to the distress of a few European players, has been moved a half-notch down the ATP totem pole. It’s no longer a mandatory Masters event, but it still offers 1000 ranking points to the winner. That makes it just as valuable to the top players, as a title in its own right and a tune-up for the French Open, as it has always been. This fact has been borne out by the draw, which includes all of the tour’s current name brands: Nadal, Federer, Murray, and Djokovic.
Tennis’ rite of spring began a day early in 2009. In an experiment that seems not to have caught on in most places, Monte Carlo staged a few first-round matches on Sunday. But the name brands are still being held in reserve—one of them even spent the early part of his weekend getting married. Let’s see which of their spring starts looks the most promising.
First Quarter
There’s another tennis ritual at this time of year, of course: The dominance of Rafael Nadal. Over the last four years, he’s lost a total of two matches in the lead-up to the French Open, while winning eight Masters events. Every spring we wonder if he can run the table again, and every year he comes out like a new man on clay, his recent losses forgotten, and does it again. Even those two losses, to Federer in Hamburg 2007 and Ferrero in Rome 2008, seemed fortuitous for his French Open aspirations.
There’s another element to Nadal’s dominance. He tends to use this time of year to avenge earlier hard-court losses and stop players from gaining any momentum against him. This year his quarter may afford him a chance to do this again. The top two seeds after Nadal are Juan-Martin del Potro and Gael Monfils, both of whom have beaten him in 2009. Those two are slotted to the play in the fourth round for the right to face Nadal in the quarters.
Other worthy names, but likely losers to Nadal: Hewitt, Monte Carlo resident Marat Safin, and Stepanek
Semifinalist: Nadal
Second Quarter
Andy Murray brings his 26-2 season record into Nadal’s half of the draw. With him are . . . well, not a whole lot. Davydenko, Nalbandian, and Cilic are the other three seeds here, and the only guy I can find who even remotely qualifies as a dangerous floater is Monte Carlo resident Tomas Berdych (he and Murray are 1-1, though they haven’t played since 2006).
Murray’s results on clay have been the biggest disappointment of his career so far—he trained on the stuff as a kid and has developed the patience and stamina for it in the last year. His draw in Monte Carlo gives him an excellent chance to get his clay legs underneath him and make some long-awaited strides on the surface.
Semifinalist: Murray
Third Quarter
This section is the province of the ever-more-unpredictable Monte Carlo resident and No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic. He reached the semis last year, and while these days it’s hard to tell from week to week what kind of patience level he’ll bring to the court, he should benefit from the lack of intense heat and humidity, which staggered him in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne. Djokovic’s strongest competition will likely come from one of a mini-Spanish Armada: Verdasco, Ferrer, and Almagro are all in this quarter, and all could outlast or outhit Djokovic on a good day. While Verdasco is more comfortable on hard courts, Almagro had a solid start to the year on dirt, winning in Acapulco, and Ferrer beat the Serb on the stuff in Davis Cup last month.
Semifinalist: Ferrer
Fourth Quarter
The name-brand player who got hitched over the weekend was, of course, Roger Federer. It’s been a topsy-turvy year for Federer, both professionally and personally, but in taking an 11th-hour wild card into Monte Carlo he seems to have decided that the best place for him at the moment is on the tennis court. It's hard to argue: Judging by his total lack of consistency in the U.S. last month, the more balls he hits, the better.
His quarter is not a frightening one. He could be pitted in a third-rounder against his countryman Stan Wawrinka, provided Stan can get past Igor Andreev and his vicious clay-oriented forehand. After that, Federer’s most likely quarterfinal foes will be Simon or Robredo. It’s hard to say how the world No. 2’s form will be on clay right now. He’s had his ups and downs and his share of happy distractions so far in 2009. While his backhand remains a major question mark—Simon, who beat him in Toronto last summer, could make him hit a lot of them—Federer survived many a grinder over the last three clay springs. He has been the runner-up in Monte Carlo three straight times and hasn’t lost to anyone not named Nadal here since 2005.
Semifinalist: Federer
Semifinals: Nadal d. Murray; Ferrer d. Federer
Final: Nadal d. Ferrer