The Nemesis
บทความนี้มาจากนิตยาสาร GQ (June 2007- US Edition)
เขียนโดย Matthew Klam
แป๋วแหววคัดลอกมาจาก vamosbrigade.com โพสต์โดย cincimini
ขอขอบคุณไว้ ณ ที่นี้ค่ะ ...
THE NEMESIS
Yes, Rafael Nadal is young and brash, pantalooned and flamboyant. He's also poised to become one of the greatest players the game has ever seen- if only that Swiss Robot weren't standing in his way. Matthew Klam talks with him about life and loss and glory and about the exquisite torture of playing in Federer's shadow.
Rafel Nadal Parera enters the stadium swashbuckling, piratey, smoldering. A lock of his hair is already sticking out the front of his bandana, which is prematurely soaked with sweat. His opponent in this second-round match is Ricardo Mello, from Brazil, who walked onto center court first, seemed flat-footed and ashamed, and looked short, with a big head. Were at the Sony Ericsson Open, a hard-court event that, after the Slams, is the largest tournament in the world. Nadal and Mello are warming up now, and since Miami is an extension of the Latin world, the crowd is doing a whole Brazil-versus-Spain thing, like in World Cup soccer, though on a smaller, quieter scale, since its tennis. The other eight or nine thousand people here are silent, and maybe half of them are in complete tennis outfits, ready to play. Which can be explained partially by the heat but also by the sense of excitement and personal identification that comes from sitting so close to the swinging, and maybe finally by the mistaken fantasy that since were all in this place together, and have bought the same expensive racket, were the same.
Mello is moving carefully along the baseline, not making a sound. He carries himself in the style of any tastefully dressed, nongrunting, emotionally half-asleep player a la Sampras. Nadal is harder to categorize. Chronologically speaking, hes still a kid. Hell turn 21 in June, so he might be something like the young Agassi-with the crazy hair and the wacky clothes- or the teenage Boris Becker- diving for balls, sticking his chest out, wearing that serene f**k-you smile: guys who were too great too soon and couldnt help themselves and had to grow up right there on the court. Nadal is looking grim, cranking big, fluid forehands with machinelike consistency. His swing starts low, cuts through the air like a machete, and finishes up at his opposite ear or biceps. He gets a lot of mustard on the ball. It fizzes like a hummingbird and drops, heavy as a cannonball, and bounds off the court and out of the strike zone, so that the other guy has to yank the ball down from the rafters.
Rafael Nadal is the greatest tennis player in the world. Except for one Swiss guy. But other than that, he just came off a gigantic win five days ago at Indian Wells, where he crushed form number one in the world Juan Carlos Ferrero, flogged Andy Roddick in the semis, and tore through the spectacular 19-year-old Serb Novak Djokovic in the finals, during the second set of which Nadal did something Ive never seen in thirty-one years of obsessively watching tennis: He hit a forehand so hard he broke the ball. (When Djokovic got his racket on it, he knew something was wrong and stopped playing.)
Hes definitely the greatest clay-courter today, probably the best ever, in the middle of a winning streak that goes back to 2005, though ten straight tournaments. A year ago, after Nadal won his second French Open, people were already trying to box him in with other recent French Open champion dirt-ballers, grinders who burned out early or couldnt make the jump from clay or who, like Nadal, spent so much emotional capital attacking from the backcourt on those endless clay-court rallies, put so much into hitting even just one shot, that there was no way they could keep it up. But then he made the finals at Wimbledon, and it seemed he was on his way to becoming another Borg rather than another Bruguera. Instead, though, what people said was, Ah, top five for a while, injury-prone. Look, you can already see his body breaking down because he works so hard out there. And when he failed to win a tournament for eight months and tweaked his famous ass in the middle of that, the critics were convinced they were right.
But theyre not. Nadals been number two longer tan any other player in history, eighty-six weeks, and has a 2,000-point lead over Andy Roddick at number three. (And in my opinion, based on the possibly messianic floating he does across the court, its actually Roger Federer whos headed for a fall; hes the real freak who will soon begin to communicate with plants, or wear mascara, or cure cancer babies with self-generated proton beams, and will quit tennis and move to Arizona).
Tonight the audience is filled with hot-blooded Rafa fans. Watching him these past two days as he tried to get from the players lounge to the practice courts, it became clear that he pretty much owns the 5-to-11-year-old demographic; hes the future of tennis all over the world, signing giant tennis balls pressed aloft by toddlers urged on by their somewhat suspect moms or dads with potbellies and skinny claves who cop his sleeveless shirts and Nike pantaloons. Right now hes out on the stadium court dressed in a hospital-green sleeveless shirt, black pirate pants, and teal wristbands, with a teal handkerchief on his head, like a Miami celebrity dental surgeon. His brown locks are luffing in the evening breeze; his deeply tanned limbs have muscles on their muscles.
Following the warm-up, he initiates his OCD regime: lays a towel across his lap, opens two bottes of water at the same time and inexplicably takes a sip from each, then places them side by side beneath his chair, aligns the labels, checks the alignment from different vantage points. When the umpire descends for the coin toss, Nadal always makes his opponent wait, then sprints from the bench to the net and jumps up and down like a boxer, then sprints madly to the baseline.
From this moment, no matter how exhausting or tragic or amazing the point, when it ends he blows on the palm of his left hand, moves from the ball boy to the towel to the baseline, touches his right sock and then his left, already perfect, folded exactly the same way every time he plays. Then he picks his ass, settles, and dives back in. For all his baiting and fist-pumping and jumping around, Nadal is maybe the most ritualized and unbreakable player on the tour. In a sport ruled by intangible mental elements, Nadal doesnt have mental breakdowns on court. The socks and the water bottles are all the proof youll get that hes going insane.
The first hour of the match tonight is a sight to behold. Mello is 26 and in the twilight of his career, and he as absolutely nothing to lose. Nadal has been beating big-time layers in high-pressure matches since he was 15, and he has to defend his turf. The Brazilian drunks are far more dedicated than the Spanish fans, and it isnt until three or four games into the first set that a very laid-back-looking guy with tanned feet in the box seat next to me yells, with a hint of desperation, Castigalo, Rafa! Destroy him!- and the Nadal fans start to worry. If youve ever seen a bull get slaughtered at a bullfight, you know what I mean when I say theres something great but also a little disconcerting here about the way Nadal fights, especially when hes taking a beating. On TV he looks shorter and more squat, but hes six one, the same height as Federer, and ten pounds heavier. He has lingering foot pain from a stress fracture in his right foot, and when you see how he pounds the court you can understand why. Hes quick like a charging rhinoceros/bunny and digs out drop shots and covers impossible angles and somehow rips would-be screamers on the stretch. And he imposes his will on the other guy with a kind of bestial physical blackmail that he also perpetrates on us, the fans. The tendency for somebody in Mellos place is to panic and overhit, but Mello remains within himself. They tune in to each others strokes as the forehands flatten out and the winners go like hockey pucks and theyre at six games all.
At 2-3 in the tiebreak, Nadal springing, Mellos ball skids weirdly off the baseline, and Nadal jumps awkwardly in the air like an electrocuted cat and loses the point. Four two, Mello. The house is rocking, ball boys and girls from another match are crowding the gangways in both corners, and its Espana, Espana and Brrrrrazile! Mello continues to hit though Nadals wickedest stuff and has a set point at 6-5 but cant convert. At 6-6, Mello serves. Its a long, deep rally that backs both players up, and on the eighth ball Nadal lines up a forehand and whiffs! Seven six. With a second set point, Mello has a sitter forehand off the net cord but cant slow his swing in time and boots it long. And then at 8-7, Nadal- with more people screaming Castilago!- takes the set. The second set is almost as tight, until it isnt. The forehand is dialed in, Nadals body flying upward, the racket face closing down, the ball skidding off the tops of Mellos shoes, Mellos racket clacking against the court. Its curtains. Nadal pumps his fist like its for the trophy, then wins the match and jacks a ball out of the stadium, yanks off his handkerchief, and jumps into the photo pit to sign autographs. The woman one row in front of me screams, Marry me, Rafa!
I had breakfast with Nadal two days earlier. I drove in his car, talked to his entourage, watched him eat, pose, practice, watched him being filmed, powdered, kissed by strange ladies. Ive seen him in several funny outfits, combed through hours of press conferences and interviews in anticipation of the moment of watching him play live. In his various offerings of unintelligible English and translations from his three native tongues- Spanish, Catalan, and Majorcan- he says pretty much nothing, and what little he does say is so polite and reflexive that its insulting: I like potato chips, I touch veddy good the ball with the forehand today. He has inspired journalists to note that hes a good kid who doesnt throw his rackets or argue calls, that off the court he loves his family and stays normal, and in his spare time he likes to fish.
All of which is misleading or unhelpful or beside the point. Nadal is in a tricky place because hes waiting in line behind the most perfect human ever to play the game. Roger Federers face is everywhere on these grounds and in the tournament press kits and all over the banners downtown and in Rolex ads, and his supremacy gives him a certain outsize providence over the domain. (In the middle of the tournament, when the annual ATP awards are announced, hell receive just about all of them: player of the year, sportsman of the year, Arthur Ashe humanitarian, fans favorite, guy with hairiest balls.) Hes the face of mens tennis. Its the age were living in. He went 41-0 in the past seven months.
And then, last week, Federer lost. In his first match at Indian Wells, he was beaten by a former drug-doping lucky loser named Guillermo Willy Canas, and y ou saw a little crack in the façade. He showed up here at the press conferences in Miami a little defensive and cranky, putting a dreamy spin on the unplanned down-time. He spent the early part of the week staging photo ops with his icon-pal Tiger Woods, whos here to play a golf tournament, strolling the links as Woods practiced, dining on Woods yacht with their royal consorts (after which Woods returned the favor by watching Federer play-which, if you think about it, will make you vomit). He showed up to practice in his latest custom-made Nike warm-ups, gleaming white with a touch of blue and red, an outfit that says Shhhh, Jesus at work.
Federers been so good for so long that nobodyy even thinks anymore about booting him out of office. In the locker room at Indian Wells during Federers loss, the players stood four-deep in front of the monitor, feeling, as one player put it to me this week, This cant be happening. Its like Superman getting beat up by the guy in the diner after he lost his power. Even though Roger Federer will lose to Canas again, here in Miami, in a much closer match, hell still have the number one spot with thousands of points to burn, and hell head back to Europe for the clay season with the same goal he had last year, which is to finally win the French Open- the last jewel in his Grand Slam crown. Though Federers game is nearly flawless, Nadal completely owns every inch of his ass on clay and is the only player with a decisive winning record (6-3) against him. (Just to repeat this, because in the Age of Federer sometimes its hard to hear: There are two virtuosos in mens tennis, and everybody else is fighting for the scraps). But Federers ten Grand Slam wins and delicate footwork and chess-masterly skills and unsweaty, superefficient play have been projected skyward for so long now that its impossible to see the two players on the same level. In 2006, Federer went 90-1 against everybody else and 2-4 against Nadal. Its a rivalry, though it just happens to be happening during the Federer Epoch. He is the sports king and queen, and a thoughtful, fluent interviewee in English, German, and French. Hes generous with praise for his opponents, loyal to his cherub-faced girlfriend, a jovial maestro of time and space.
Nadal, for all his childlike joy, is actually in some ways more grim; his English is terrible, his demeanor is provincial, old-world, closed off, and awkward. The other main difference is that Nadal is a monkey and a butt-picker and hits a two-handed backhand, which is never beautiful, and grunts hideously and sweats too much. I believe people hate Nadal. People dont know they hate him, but they do, because the threatens the Jesushood. He lost to Federer the last two times they met and admits that Federer may be the best ever, but he doesnt see it lasting much longer.
I dont have a lot of chance yet to be number one, he tells me. But I have just twenty now years that is. I have good motivation. I can turn into the guy that overthrew the best in history.
Its not uncommon for a tennis player to have had somebody, early on, who wanted it even more than he did. Nadal is the son of Sebastian, a successful businessman, whose two brothers, Toni and Miguel, are athletes. Toni was a nationally ranked tennis player who washed out in the pros and now runs the local tennis club in Manacor, on Mallorca, the Mediterranean island where the family is from. Miguel is a footballer who played on three World Cup teams for Spain; hes a household name in Europe, known as the Beast of Barcelona. As a boy, little Rafi was a promising striker who, you might imagine, idolized his uncle, the Beast. But Toni gave Nadal his first racket, at age 3, and while feeding balls to fat rich duffers he was allowed to develop the obvious talent- and given what quickly emerged, its a safe bet that the training was a little merciless. At age8, Nadal won the title for 12-year-olds on Majorca. At 12, he was European champion. In 2003, at 16, he beat Albert Costa, then number seven in the world, and so on. By the time Nadal beat Roger Federer, here in Miami in 2004, and later Andy Roddick, then number two, in a Davis Cup match, nobody was surprised.
The first time I saw Nadal play, in the semis of the French Open in 2005, against Federer, it was supposed to be the biggest match of his life. On the opening point, Federer served wide to the backhand side, pushing Nadal off the court, then came in behind a skidding approach deep to the opposite corner. Nadal, on a dead run, ripped it down the line past Federer as if hed done it a million times before. Up in the ESPN booth, Patrick McEnroe screamed Are you KIDDING me?! That year Nadal won eleven titles, including the French Open, which felt preordained. In 2006, he met Federer in five finals and won four, and in May of that year he received an award presented to him by the king of Spain.
Before I can meet Nadal for breakfast, I must first pass through Benito, Nadals press person. Benito wears an expensive watch and pressed jeans and has no fingertips on his right hand. We are joined in the vast lobby of the Intercontinental by Nadals personal physical trainer, also named Rafael, also from Rafaels hometown of Manacor. And Francisco Roig, a former pro tennis player from Spain who is Nadals second coach. Roig hardly speaks any English and goes out onto the front steps of the deluxe hotel and lights a cigarette, which looks funny on a tanned, long-haired tennis pro.
Roig smokes?
Oh yes. Hes quite a heavy smoker, Benito says.
Thats funny.
And also a heavy drinker.
This is where things get weird- party because this is a celebrity interview, in which people dont say what they mean, and partly because were getting into Nadals world, which is a Majorcan world intertwined with a Catalonian world within a Spanish world.
And here it may be important to lay upon you a brief bit of history. I dont want to bog it down too much with the principality of Aragon and Generalissimo Franco, but suffice it to say that Spain is a country in Europe, and that parts of Spain, like Catalonia, which encompasses Barcelona, are not entirely dissimilar from Quebec and Scotland in that there is a political movement toward complete autonomy as well as a distinct language, which is mostly unintelligible to speakers of standard Castilian Spanish. The Balearic island where Nadal is from has for centuries been grouped with Catalonia, even while it has suffered the marauding armadas from the Spanish mainland, as well as incursions from the Romans, Carthaginians, Vandals, and Moors, not to mention pirates. Majorcans speak Majorcan, a dialect of Catalan, but in truth an entirely different language. Its the language that Nadal speaks in his home and on the street. It is also the language that represents its people, who while suffering a long and bloody and unforgettable record of persecution under the rule of an outside force, built into it triple and quadruple entendres and members-only codes in such a way that if two people speaking Majorcan stood on the street in Madrid, Spaniards around them would not understand a lick of what they were saying.
Books have been written about the Majorcan mentality. The Majorcans have been studied. Cultural differences have been noted. They are provincial and secretive and, having been kicked around for eons, tough as nails. Nadasl family has been there since the fourteenth century. So it shouldnt come as a surprise, looking back at his history, that Nadal looks at every opponent as an enemy threatening to destroy him and fights as though a win is only his if he takes it.
Benito worked for the ATP for eleven years and knows everything about tennis and the press, and had explained to me earlier that the way it works is that to interview Nadal, I will first have to interview him, Benito, answering for Rafael, to save time.
I understand that Nadal needs his privacy, but I try to reason with Benito so hell see that Im also interested in how Rafael answers and in where the conversation might lead.
Hes going to say the same thing I do. Go ahead.
Uh, okay. When you look at the relationship you have with your uncle Toni, do you see other players at a disadvantage for not having a family member coaching them?
Hes not going to say anything bad about another player. Dont ask him that.
Do you feel, at times, as many young people in Catalonia feel, that the district deserves autonomy?
He loves Spain, he loves the flag. At the same time, having said that, he doesnt give a shit about politics.
When you were younger, didyou ever want to leave home and go train at one of the high-profile tennis academies?
No, never, not a chance. The best place in the world for what hes done is home, with his uncle, his parents, living a normal life. Its all bullshit, the other thing.
Then, for the next hour, while the time of my meeting with nadal comes and goes, Benito regales me and Nadals other two paid employees with how modest and polite and egoless Rafael is, how he doesnt feel like a celebrity. Somewhere upstairs in this hotel, Rafael is conducting business or lollygagging in his robe, calling his mom or sparking up the PlayStation.
Eventually, we take the elevator up to the thirtieth floor, and Nadal appears, freshly showered, in camouflage shorts and a white collared Nike pique shirt. He is as tan as a field hand. He looks at me and is almost lamb-like, very calm and quiet. His nearer cheekbone is so large it blocks his eye: its a weirdly handsome big-boned Homo Erectus face.
Despite Benitos insistence that Rafaels English is fine, we then have a kind of Borat-at-the-grocery-store tete-a-tete. Nadal speaks softly and misses maybe half of everything I say and apologizes for not understanding.
Its not possible for someone who does what he does to also be dumb. But this kind of conversation really blunts introspection. In response to questions about the pressure of fame and adoration that other young people have snapped under, or the nature of the somewhat mysterious thicket of an athletes deep concentration, or whether his seven-month lull leading up to Indian Wells was at all troubling, I get reflex and baloney.
Finally, in an attempt to say something that might get a reaction, I draw a cultural connection between my own religious background, as an American Jew, and Majorcans, a people who have been, historically, somewhat unto themselves. I wonder, does he ever feel lonely or alienated coming from Majorca with its difficult history, where other cultures were imposed upon the people for so long, and speaking a language that is not really understood anywhere else in the world, and being so close to his family, and being so young, and traveling so much?
He misunderstands and says that hes used to speaking Spanish, its normal, no problem, but that English, not so much.
I try again, talking about how I, too, am from a very tight-knit family, and how its sometimes difficult to live without prejudice as an adult, to connect to people who are not part of my group. He shrugs. So Benito asks him the Jew question, Nadal says something quick, then Benito answers it for him.
Yeah, no, Benito says. He always feels more comfortable but nothing really special.
Were too late for practice, and as we go to the brand-new Mercedes SUV courtesy car, which as a top seed, he has the privilege to ride in for as long as hes here, he insists on driving. This is a good time to work on his driving skills, on the snaking highways of Miami, in a car hes unfamiliar with, because he isnt a very good driver. When he hits the accelerator, Benito and Francis and Other Rafael and I all fall back. When he hits the brakes, we all lean forward. The exit for 95 South comes up quickly, and Benito goes, Ahh! Poquito poquito!- something in Spanish, and then the exit for Biscayne Bay is upon us and Benito says, A la derecha! A la derecha!
Last summer, two days after losing to Federer in the Wimbledon final, driving alone at 9:30am to meet some friends for a little fishing, Nadal drove into an electricity pole. He emerged unhurt, but the pole fell over and knocked out power to the surrounding area. A woman who lived at the scene said she found him walking around a little dizzy, and she brought him into her home and gave him a glass of water and said he recovered while a tow truck took his car away. A neighbor of Nadals who came upon the accident said he seemed worried over what had happened, and also that he was beset by autograph requests. He did continue on with his plans to meet friends, though, and they caught about thirty fish.
As we approach the Rickenbacker Causeway, which will take us out to Key Biscayne, there are big posters advertising the tournament hanging over the tollbooths. Each one has a different star: Venus, Maria Sharapova, Nadal, and Federer. Nadals lined up for Federer, but we urge him, for the sake of superstition, to change lanes so that hell be in the one with his poster above it. Its sort of a joke, but he does it, and then he tries to pay the $1.25 toll with an American Express Gold Card, which they reject. I hand him $2, and he says, I am so sorry. We then head at a terrific clip toward Crandon Park, and as the traffic slows near the entrance, Nadal is studying the slightly confusing series of parking-lot signs, shaped like giant tennis balls, for the players entrance. His instinces, as always, are good, since the parking lot is in fact just beyond the main entrance, which we are barreling toward and where, at the red light, a family of nice sports fans is crossing in order to watch some exciting tennis.
Rrrrrafaaaa! Benito yells. Cuidado! Cuidado!
Nadal brakes without screeching. His knee bobbles busily under the steering wheel while we wait for the green light. A Florida motorcycle patrolman posted at the crosswalk studies our car. In the silence as we wait, I offer a tennis fans perspective.
Those people wouldve been honored to get run over by Rafael Nadal.
Benito laughs, and Nadal asks for a translation. Its only funny because it might be true, considering the mania he inspires around here, and Nadal joins in the fun.
ON the court, a lot of his anger is focused on the ball, with just a few light moments in between- when Other Rafael gets dinged in the leg while playing ball boy, and when Roig, standing on the side and talking on his cell phone, almost has his head taken off by an errant smash- and these are moments to be treasured in this young/old mans very busy afternoon.
In the fourth round of the tournament, Nadal wins his opening set at love, playing perfect tennis against Juan Del Potro, a very tall young Argentine whose feet are too big. On the final point of the first set, Nadal beats a hard volley to the backhand by lunging, and his shot curls and skips down the line for winner, and the Argentine applauds, walks off the court, sits on a wooden railing, and feigns surrender. Its been a ridiculous set.
And then, in the quarters, he meets Novak Djokovic, and his North American spring season comes to an end.
Djokovic will go on to win the tournament, his first Masters title, and will start the next week at number seven in the world, serving big and playing clean, graceful, intelligent, Federerish tennis. If you had an aerial view of Nadals losing match, youd see Djokovic, cool and relaxed, a foot inside the baseline, flattening forehands to each corner and Nadal deep in his backcourt, running like a maniac, tossing lobs on the stretch, shagging smashes until Djokovic finally puts him out of his misery. Nadal may have been injured (hed already pulled out of the upcoming Davis Cup match, citing the long-standing foot fracture), but Djokovic beats Nadal the only way possible- by dictating the point, denying him a rhythm, then blowing it past him.
Following his victory, Djokovic in his puppyish glee gives his racket to a woman in the stands who happens to be nearby. He gives her his shirt, too, and considers giving her his shorts and shoes, but refrains, but thats how happy he is. The director announces to the crowd that Djokovic is the youngest champion in the tournaments history and hails him as the sports new star. Journalists cite his laughter and his smile as they compare him with Federer and pronounce Djokovic the Most likely candidate to replace him atop the tennis world.
Rafael Nadal has never been the most likely candidate to replace Federer atop the tennis world. Maybe because all of his great moments have happened during Federers absurdly dominant reign, which makes those accomplishments seem less impressive and any alternative future even harder to imagine.
But if you look at the record, at how theyve clashed, and at how many of those clashes Rafas won, and that hes five years younger and by any estimation this clash outght surely to continue for the next few years, you would have to wonder why the world isnt more fixed on the outcome of this amazing little war. But it seems instead that Federer is the only story in mens tennis, or Roger and Tiger, hoisting anchor in their commodore jackets, and thats an easier narrative to digest, because it doesnt include this side of beef rolling around in the clay, an ass-picking musclehead, all biceps and pantalones. Rafa doesnt fit into thie narrative except as a subplot, to deny Federer total domination of clay, of the Slams, and thats all. Nadals role is to remain at a tasteful distance, essentially to be like one of us, looking up at the Swiss guy admiringly. It was Federer who said, after the 2006 Wimbledon final, When we play so often in finals, I think it adds something to the game, you know, because people sometimes miss it and sometimes they dont have it and they want it, [although] when they have it, they dont want it. Its kind of very strange how that goes.
It would be nice if someone could make Roger Federer human again. It would be sad, too, because Nadal doesnt beat Federer the way Federer beats everybody else- by making the guy play badly, by denying him his strengths. Does anyone want to see Federer denied his strengths? Of course not. And yet, sure, this is part of the story, the effect of one player on another. Nadal has done awful things to Federer over the past couple of years, and if I were Roger I would not want to play Rafael again, especially not on clay.
In a few days, Nadal will go back to Majorca with his Indian Wells tital and a sore foot and the gap between himself and Roger Federer slightly narrower, and hell get ready to defend his turf. In the first major tournament of the clay season, at Monte Carlo, Rafa will blow through to the finals without dropping a set. Hell meet Federer, also on a hot streak, and Federers nightmare will pick up where it left off last year. Federer wil go down a set, down a break, his shoulders will slump, and hell be staring across the net at Nadal, whose headband will have fallen on the ground but is back on his head, crooked and dirty and soaked in sweat, and then Federer will double-fault to give Nadal match point.
The match will end but Federers nightmare probably wont. After Monte Carlo comes Rome, then Paris, then wimbledon, and then the hard-court season. And its worth noting that maybe weve all been focused on the wrong guy, that the most compelling question in tennis isnt whether Roger Federer will improve enough on clay to win the Grand Slam. Its whether he can keep Nadal at bay on every other surface. So little separates the two, and if Nadal refuses to yield, itll be up to Federer to face that demon. Because when he gets through his half of the draw, hell more than likely meet Nadal in those finals. And his forehand may break down and his shoulders may slump and his body language may scream mental exhaustion as he scowls and curses himself, looking very human. This is Nadals season, and hell rise to the occasion and prove himself on his surface, or any surface, and we will all be eating his dust.
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