You, the tennis fan tuning in without a care in the world, may think of this as the clay-court season. It may even be your favorite time of year. But for those of us who are paid to analyze the sport, the ides of April can bring with them a sensation of dread. This is the point each year when Rafael Nadal begins to make life as difficult as possible for us. How many different ways are there to say “wow,” anyway? On Sunday, Tennis Channel commentator Robbie Koenig was forced to plead to a higher power to come up with a superlative when Nadal tracked down a seemingly ungettable drop volley from Novak Djokovic. After the third replay of Nadal’s crosscourt flick winner, Koenig finally gave up trying to figure out how it had been done and cried, “only the good lord above knows.”
I know, you’ve heard it all before. You may even be getting a little sick of the Nadal love, the “gritty fighter” and “humble young man” stuff, the same way you may have gotten a little sick of the Federer love, all the talk of “genius” and “class” and “religious experience,” that preceded it. So I’ll give you a break and start my Monte Carlo wrap-up by asking a question about the surface itself. Now that I think about it, that may be another topic you’ve had enough of, but a tennis writer has to start somewhere.
Can we now agree, after this weekend's play, that clay is the best surface for the men’s game today? Seeing Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray hit every shot imaginable and run down every ball possible, I’m willing to say yes. Clay, which keeps topspin from skipping though the court while at the same time enabling players to slide themselves into position for hard-to-reach balls, allows the current generation to show off all of their skills like no other type of court.
First, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray, like most of their peers, hit heavy topspin forehands and back them up with penetrating two-hand backhands. If you’ve ever played on slow clay, you know that, the surface’s reputation aside, you need to generate enough pace and spin to hit a heavy ball that goes through the court—Lleyton Hewitt, a consummate grinder and winner of many hard-court titles, has never been a master of the surface because he can’t push his opponents off the baseline. Second, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray all have touch; clay, even more than a slow hard court, gives them the time not only to set up and hit that shot, but to slide and reach a very good drop from their opponent. Third, these guys can all play defense, which we know is a prerequisite on dirt—Pete Sampras was about offense at all costs, and clay was his bete noire.
Now that the serve and volley is nothing more than a change-up play, clay is the surface that demands the most complete game from players. Instead of an all-world serve—none of these three guys ever hold just by blasting aces—the foundation of the sport today is a mix of accuracy and power from the baseline. While Murray won without doing much attacking on the hard courts in Key Biscayne, he was forced to show everything he had to stay with Nadal in Monte Carlo. His game became much more varied and entertaining when he did. Ditto Djokovic. In Miami, Djokovic was generally content to put the ball in the middle of the court; Mary Carillo even said he looked tentative. Compare that to how he played the final in MC. The hooked forehands that sent Nadal wide; the frozen-rope backhands that had the Spaniard at full stretch; the ability to change directions with the ball and hit corners from anywhere: This is the old Djokovic, the real Djokovic, and hopefully the one we’ll see again in the future. As for Nadal himself, I don't need to mention how much clay suits his skills, the same ones that have made him the best and arguably most complete player today. It hardly seems an accident that he developed them on clay and extended them to other surfaces afterward.
In reviewing the Hamburg tournament last year, where Djokovic and Federer each took Nadal to three sets before losing, I said that while they had gotten closer than ever to beating him on clay, it had only served to show how far away they still were. I’d say the same for Djokovic after Monte Carlo, even though it was a very positive final weekend for him. It began in the second set of his semi, when Stan Wawrinka let him back into the match with some pointless errors after he’d won the first set. What was important was that Djokovic took the opportunity. He didn’t just ride the momentum to the second set and then fall back into his usual frustrated ways when that momentum ran out, as it was inevitably going to in the third. Instead, Djokovic stood and fought—yes, just like Al Gore—even when points weren’t coming easily for him. He played with the mix of patience and patterned aggression that once was his trademark, and it won him the match.
Djokovic was even better against Nadal. He weathered a first-set storm without getting visibly discouraged. He served lights out in the second set. He took his shots high and early. He moved Nadal off the court before coming forward. He wrong-footed him with his volleys. Most important and most difficult, Djokovic executed the riskiest of shots—like, say, the backwards-falling, inside-out forehand from the behind the baseline that lands smack on the sideline in the opposite corner—to perfection, which is the one true key to hanging with Nadal on clay. Then Djokovic made two simple but fatal mistakes: At 0-1 in the third, on two separate game points, he double faulted. That was enough. Nadal won the third 6-1. Why, after all that, would Djokovic—or we—believe that he could ever beat the guy on this stuff? Not that it matters to me much: I’m just happy to see them bringing out the best in each other again.
I get a different feeling with Murray. While he lost in straights to Nadal on Saturday, I think he believes he can beat him either in Paris or Rome. After playing poorly and testily until 6-2, 5-3, Murray loosened up when all seemed lost. As he said after the match, he used high looping defensive strokes well when he was pushed out of position, and like Djokovic he walked the tightrope of risk well, which, against Nadal, means he just barely reined his most aggressive instincts in. The last few games and the tiebreaker were spectacular and emotional (the effort required in a quality clay match also seems to drag out deeper emotions from players and fans—everyone leaves a little drained). Nevertheless, as Murray said afterward, when all the emotions had been spent and the spectacular shots hit, it was Nadal who won the two most colossal and crucial points of the tiebreaker. Still, I’d give Murray a decent shot at cracking the code against him on clay. Unlike Djokovic, he still believes anything is possible. Even the impossible.
As I said at the top, there aren’t many new praises left to sing about Nadal. But let me point out two moments from this weekend that struck me as instructive about him. Murray broke for 4-5 in the second set, after Nadal had held at least one match point. Nadal then lost the next game, which was to be expected. But what he didn’t do was lose game after that, the one that would have put him down 5-6 and likely cost him the set. It would have been superhuman if Nadal had come right back and broken Murray at 5-4 for the match. He didn’t do the superhuman. He just did what he needed to do to stem Murray’s momentum and get back to level terms in a tiebreaker, where they’d be starting from scratch. It sounds simple, but how many times have we seen players collapse completely and lose the set 7-5 in that situation?
The second instance came in the final. Nadal went down 3-1 in the first set but immediately found his best form and ran off five straight games. Then, as often happens, he lost that form at the beginning of the second set. In the third, rather than try to get back on the attack right away, Nadal stayed with a defensive game and slowly, step by step, shot by shot, began to go for a little more. The damn burst at 0-1 when he ripped a winning backhand pass down the line, the best-looking and most full-blooded shot he’d hit in about an hour. While Nadal kept that shot well within the lines, it gave him the confidence to go for more for the rest of the set.
What else is there for a tennis analyst to add about the humble and gritty man from Mallorca? How about we talk about his eyebrows? Are they ever not lowered to just above eye level, in a look of aggressive concern? I’ve seen a picture of Rafa at age 3 with his uncle Miguel Angel, dressed in a soccer uniform, and he has that same expression. How do you keep that look going for an entire match? More important, how do you keep that mindset—aggressive concern—going for two, three, five hours at a time? When I imagine the mental energy and tunnel vision needed to do that, only one word comes to mind. Wow.