It's conceivable Nadal will always have Paris

By Chuck Culpepper

May 24, 2009 12 AM PT

PARIS — The red clay on the various European tennis courts might just lie there all listless and expressionless in a dead-on impersonation of dirt, but the savants long since swear the different clays of the different cities possess different personalities.

It’s something to consider as another French Open stirs up from the chic Roland Garros dust and everybody yearns to wring intrigue out of Roger Federer’s sudden 6-4, 6-4 win over red clay’s favorite player, Rafael Nadal, last Sunday on the red clay of Madrid.

We’ve crossed this intersection before, even if somebody’s changed the road signs.

Just two Mays ago, on the Sunday before the French Open, Federer up and discontinued Nadal’s 81-match clay-court streak by hogging a 6-0 third set on the red clay of Hamburg.

“I played fantastic and I really got the feeling in the end I had figured out how to play him,” Federer said then, and the whole jolt of it sent imaginations scurrying to a final Sunday when Federer might just dethrone the mannerly king and hug the Coupe des Mousquetaires, the lone Grand Slam trophy not adorning his Swiss shelves.

Few are the prudes who would mind seeing that, but the hopeful tried to minimize mentions of the faster clay of Hamburg or the slow fatigue of Nadal there, and so two weeks and 22 tidy Paris sets later stood Federer with another of those runner-up plates and Nadal with the Coupe. That made the list of recent champions go Nadal, Nadal, Nadal, before in 2008 it became Nadal, Nadal, Nadal, Nadal.

See, the Parisian clay really has a thing for muscles and longish hair or, as Federer put it after last year’s numbing 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 defeat in the final, “He has wonderful, awesome sensations here at Roland Garros. He has never been defeated.”

That’s 28-0 lifetime, so it made sense that some wise guy would tally how many games Nadal lost in his rampage to the 2008 title -- note: a puny 41, in the minimum 21 sets -- and think to declare the lone suspense whether he could undercut that number.

Then Federer came to Madrid to chuck in a bit of a wrench and dredge up more clay talk. It ended Nadal’s latest win streak on clay, 33 matches, and his five-match, 18-month win streak against Federer.

Did it matter much?

Said Amelie Mauresmo, the French two-time Grand Slam titlist just in from Madrid: “Well, when I started hitting here the first day, the balls were very hard. Madrid was a bit high in the altitude, higher than here. . . . I think what is different is the ball here is slower.”

Heavier and slower mean lovelier to the world’s No. 1 player and reigning French, Wimbledon and Australian Open champion.

“Madrid was very difficult tournament, no?” Nadal said. “Yeah, the court was very fast. The ball was flying a lot.” And he later added, “The feeling was the ball wasn’t inside the racquet, no? You touch the ball, and the ball go out of the racquet very fast and very early, no?

“Here the feeling is ball stays here. You can feel more the ball. But yeah, is heavier, the ball, but at the same time my feeling is easier to play.”

Around here, when he can feel more the ball, his opponents feel more the defeat, a hard fact thoroughly comprehended by Novak Djokovic, who has lost to Nadal in the last two French semifinals and a quarterfinal before that. That’s why it’s a bit of a boon for Djokovic that he slid lately from No. 3 in the world to No. 4 behind new No. 3 Andy Murray, yanking Djokovic out of Nadal’s half of the draw and into Federer’s.

With the formerly dominant Federer standing 1-7 against Nadal, Murray and Djokovic since the 2008 U.S. Open, and Djokovic playing Nadal to a rousing, four-hour, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (9) semifinal in Madrid, it might bode well for Djokovic. Or it might not.

“Every tournament has something different: balls, conditions, weather, altitude,” Djokovic said. “It’s all these small details which are affecting the game.”

And it’s the details -- Madrid clay, altitude, Nadal’s fatigue last Sunday after slugging with Djokovic -- that threaten any intrigue here in Nadal’s Paris kingdom.

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French Open

A look at the French Open tennis tournament:

Schedule: The tournament is 15 days, with play beginning today. The women’s singles final is June 6; the men’s singles final is June 7.

2008 men’s singles champion: Rafael Nadal of Spain.

2008 women’s singles champion: Ana Ivanovic of Serbia.

Last year: Nadal beat Roger Federer, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, in the final, the most lopsided Grand Slam loss of Federer’s career. Ivanovic won her first major title to briefly rise to No. 1 in the rankings.

Key statistic: 28-0 -- Nadal’s career record at Roland Garros. He is trying to become the first man to win the French Open five years in a row.

Prize money: At the current exchange rate, the total is about $21.8 million, with about $1.4 million each to the men’s and women’s singles champions.

TV: ESPN2, Tennis Channel, Channel 4.

On the Web: https://www.rolandgarros.com/en--FR/index.html

Source: Associated Press