No Rest For the Wicked

by Pete Bodo

One of the great things about a rivalry, trivalry, quadalry (Come on, Andy, get with the freakin' program!) is that it tends to boost the competitive metabolism of each player to such a degree that the overall level of play just gets ratcheted up, higher-and-higher, week-after-week. That's because any player with a realistic claim to be part of that small cadre of truly elite performers is eager to keep up with his peers. Case in point: Did you see the headline the other day, "Federer Still Believes He Can Retake No. 1"?

I had to laugh at that, because this was one of those heds that implies its opposite, or that the prevailing opinion is contrary to the stated one, hence the decision that this is not a "Dog Bites Man" story (which, IMHO, the Federer Still Believes He Can Retake No. 1 clearly is) but a true and legitimate "Man Bites Dog" story. Now that's news!

The most memorable of such stories, for me, was published by the East Village Eye, a long-defunct rock music and counter-culture publication from back in the punk rock days. The headline read something like: "Billy Idol: "I'm Not Stupid!" Now where were we?

Yes. The collective, competitive metabolism of the top players...here we have Federer and his two cohorts (Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray) all chasing Novak Djokovic, whose record in 2011 is 33-0 and counting. The other day, I speculated on the unfortunate timing of Madrid and Rome as back-to-back Masters events and preludes to the year's second Grand Slam event, which begins just a week after Rome's conclusion. Only the Canada/Cincinnati Masters pairing represents a comparable pre-major workload, and I'd say the tournaments leading up to Madrid/Rome are more demanding and generate even greater general intensity than do the summer hard court events in the U.S. There are five Masters events in just over two months in the Spring, but just two in the next five months.

Because of all that, you might expect some of the contenders to just mail it in during Rome. Go away quietly and take the two weeks to prepare for Roland Garros; hail, you could even enter that low-stress World Team Cup event in Dusseldorf, if you want to hack around, maybe play a little doubles. But that doesn't appear to be how the ruling quartet is looking at it. Oh, sure, Nadal had a little glitch there in his opener in Italy, but he handled punching-bag-to-the-stars Feliciano Lopez with ease today. Neither Federer (who plays Richard Gasquet) nor Djokovic (he gets Federer's wingman Stan Wawrinka, who could curry even more favor with Federer should he upset Djokovic ) has a gimme by any stretch, and who can't beat Murray these days? (His opponent today is Potito Starace, who just may qualify as that "who.")

Only Nadal is safely through to the quarters as I write this, but it's pretty clear to me that if any of those other guys lose—or when they lose, because three of them eventually will—it won't be because they feel they can or want to lay back and conserve themselves, take a little break from the Masters Series or red-clay grind. There's no rest for the wicked these days. Only Murray, among these four, can spare himself the stress and anxiety of trying to keep pace. His pit crew has to get his tires changed and tank re-fueled to get him back into the race, but that's pretty good incentive to play with conviction this week in and of itself.

As Federer said in Rome the other day: "They (Djokovic and Nadal) are playing better than me, but I'm close to winning those tournaments. It's not as if I'm losing in the first or second rounds. I feel I'm playing well myself. Apart from Novak not losing all year not much has changed in the game. Everybody can play well on all surfaces these days."

That's not quite the pro forma assessment it may appear. It reminds me of exactly the kind of thing Jimmy Connors used to say, back in the day when he was run down by Bjorn Borg, then John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl. And anyone who thinks Federer is blowing smoke, or deluding himself, ought to keep in mind that Connors won two majors in 1982, after having failed to reach even a final in a dozen Grand Slam events running. In fact, everywhere I turn these days I'm reminded of those days when Connors and company battled for supermacy day-in, day-out, in a way that became year-in, year-out for about a decade. None of those fellas could rest on his laurels or afford the lackadaisical loss, either.

We all know that Djokovic's hot streak has grown so long that it's reasonable to compare it to that 42-match streak created by McEnroe in '84, and to ask if it's really, truly possible that Djokovic can better the mark. Here's a thought for you—what if Djokovic keeps winning until the end of the French Open, but then loses to, oh, Nadal in the championship match?

Barring a win-by-walkover in the coming days, I'm thinking Djokovic and McEnroe will end up sharing the record as well as the precise way it ended—to a lion of red clay, in the French Open final. Deja vu, anyone?

Here's another interesting thing about comparing that Connors era with the present one, and it often applies to other periods when two or more outstanding players battle for domination. There's always some disparity in the ages of the players involved; enough to leave a bunch of asterisks plastered on the record book for those who care to look closely enough. Connors, nearly four years Borg's senior, owned the Swede until...Borg matured and then owned Mac, who's almost three years younger until....Mac matured and owned Lendl, who's almost exactly the same age until...well, until Lendl ended up with a written-in-stone 21-15 career head-to-head advantage to give us the most fair and accurate comparison of two careers.

If you consider those numbers and how age might have affected one or more of the rivalries, you have to feel for the bind in which Federer, who's significantly more than four years older than Nadal, finds himself. And the parallels suggest that for all the glory we've witnessed in those epic Federer vs. Nadal clashes, it may be Djokovic who figures as Nadal's true career rival, even if Roger vs. Rafa is more sexy in the same way that Borg vs. McEnroe is more sexy than McEnroe vs. Lendl.

Djokovic is almost exactly one year younger than Nadal, which means the head-to-head is less qualilfied by age and experience. And Nadal has already played two more matches against Djokovic than Federer: Nadal leads Federer in the H2H by 16-8, and Djokovic by 16-10.

I don't know how things will work out, or how the numbers or these issues will affect posterity. But the more I think about it, the more I see similarities in the two eras I've been talking about. Some rivalries are skewed because of the "overlap" factor (polite, well-bred Rafa had every right and reason to be deferential toward Federer; for gosh sakes, the guy is half-a-career older!), and some may not be as riveting or contrasting, yet present a more accurate, clean basis for comparison.

Somtimes, as in the Connors generation, a knock-down, drag-out battle for domination, like we had between Roger and Rafa, is just the beginning. Maybe that's what we're looking at today, although Djokovic will have to win a few more majors, pronto, and Murray will have to get with the program, quickly, to make the comparison valid.