French Open 2010: Taking It To A Different Plane

Did I hear that right? Was the women’s final at the French Open this year actually more competitive than the men’s? Ordinarily, that kind of statement might get your audience fearing for your sanity, but this time the wheels really did fall off the defences of the entire field at the men’s event. Sure the two singles finals this year were straight sets affairs, but anyone who watched both the matches will tell you that while Samantha Stosur potentially had the chance to win her match against Francesca Schiavone right until the very last point, Robin Soderling never looked remotely capable of defeating Rafael Nadal in the men’s final today once Nadal got properly warmed up. The final scoreline – 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 is by no means indicative of a tough fight from the loser, but astonishingly, this scoreline is actually a little flattering to Soderling. That’s what Rafael Nadal can do on clay – in addition to completely dismantling his opponents, he can even turn statistics redundant.

While Soderling has pretty much set the tournament on fire for two years running with his fearsome if somewhat unattractive brand of power tennis, he is by definition a streak player. Unfortunately for Soderling, great players have a way of cooling off the hot runs of streaky players, and the definition of ‘great’ doesn’t get more exalted than Rafael Nadal on clay. It made for a highly strange sight, but you could actually see Soderling getting literally deflated as the match progressed. At the start of the closely-fought first set, he was all fire and brimstone, walloping the ball into the corners with all the fierceness that’s often been chalked up as the reason why he doesn’t have too many fans across the globe. But as Nadal started working Soderling around the court and running down even the most impossible of shots, Soderling’s confidence began to wane, his shoulders drooping steadily, and soon he was missing the lines rather than painting them. With every impossible get that Nadal made, Soderling’s frustration grew stronger, and the inevitability of his errors was not hard to predict. It helped, of course, that Soderling’s feet looked woefully leaden right from the start (maybe the tough five-setter he played against Berdych in the semis was showing its effects?), but his game has never been about supreme movement anyway. What Soderling lacked today was the kind of lights-out serving efficiency that he displayed in the quarters against Roger Federer. He was also far too impatient in the rallies, repeatedly overhitting his forehand in his bid to somehow put the ball out of Nadal’s reach. Still, I don’t blame Soderling in the slightest for putting on as ugly a show as this in the final of a Grand Slam. Playing the greatest claycourter in history does have its pitfalls, after all.

The question was, as expected, put to Nadal in his post match conference. Was he now officially the best claycourt player the game had ever seen? Nadal brushed aside the question with his usual exaggerated modesty, even going to the extent of admonishing the reporter for suggesting something so ‘arrogant’. Let’s stack up the numbers – Nadal has 5 French Open titles, while Bjorn Borg has 6. But the way I see it, by the time his career is over, Nadal’s haul is likely to go up to around 8 or 9. And even aside from the numbers, did Borg ever dominate the field on clay the way Nadal has for the past 6 years? More importantly, did Borg ever have to deal with perhaps the greatest player of all time (who was not too shabby a claycourter, despite what his record might suggest) over and over again, coming up trumps every single time? Perhaps a reporter should point out all these bare facts to Nadal in his next interview, just to get Nadal to finally accept that irrespective of his pre-match form, the state of his knees or the level of his fatigue, defeating him on clay is just about the most difficult thing to do in tennis. I don’t know why, but I’d get a perverse little satisfaction to hear Nadal giving voice to what every single tennis watcher has known for 6 years – if only he’d decide to let go of his modesty for just a second.

An interesting aspect of today’s match was the quality of Nadal’s serving. Nadal’s serve has never been mistaken to be a weapon of any kind, but today he seemed to be serving out of a tree, consistently getting out of trouble with the slice serve out wide or the body serve that handcuffed Soderling into return errors. He was actually pretty close to Soderling on the ace count, if I’m not mistaken. Also, Nadal’s unforced errors were almost non-existent from the start of the second set. Now that may not be really unusual for a player known for his mind-numbing consistency, but to put on that kind of nerve-free, error-free performance in a Grand Slam for what seems like the millionth time speaks of a champion gene that only a handful of players in a generation are blessed with. He wanted this one bad, and you could tell that from the clinical efficiency with which he turned every one of his opponents inside out. Not even the prospect of facing the only man who had ever defeated him on Parisian clay could convince Nadal to take his foot slightly off the gas or give in to his nerves for even a fraction of a second. I have a feeling that one day, perhaps after Nadal’s career has long been over, people will get lyrical about the superhuman levels that Nadal took his on-court focus and determination to.

Speaking of taking things to different levels, Nadal’s claycourt domination has reached an unchartered, preposterous new plane with his sweep of all the 4 important clay tournaments of the year – the three Masters and now the Roland Garros trophy. Of course, he now has the No. 1 ranking back too. And to think that only 3 months ago obituaries were being written about his future as a tennis champion. If only people had access to crystal balls that actually worked, we’d see a lot less embarrassment and eating of words around us.

The King of Clay is back on his throne, and all is right with the world. Maybe next year we should just hand him the trophy at the start of the tournament and save the officials the trouble of organizing the event?