Category: Rafael Nadal

He’s Spanish… and the King of France

If Rafael Nadal were a battery, he’d be The Energizer. He’s a Bulldozer with a Porsche engine. He’d mash through dirt like a tractor—in high speed. If he were another being, he’d be Tiger Woods-mentally-strong—minus the sex. He’s Arnold Schwarzenegger-muscular wearing Usain Bolt’s Puma. He’s an SUV 4-wheel-drive with the adroitness of a Mini Cooper.

Rafael Nadal is not the greatest ever to have gripped a tennis stick. That title rightly belongs to Sir Roger Federer. But, when we speak of mud, sand, le terre battue, soil, the red clay, the rectangle on Stade Roland Garros named Court Philippe Chatrier, nobody, nobody but the right-handed left-hander is better.

Peter Bodo, the famed tennis columnist, calls him “The Specialist.” He’s no General Practitioner Doctor; if Nadal were a physician, he’d be The Specialist, a heart surgeon, possibly, whose expertise and acumen is unmatched from Chong Hua to St. Luke’s to The John’s Hopkins to Cebu Doc.

“Never,” said writer Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated when asked if he has seen a better clay-court player. “Nadal comes off as a laid-back guy. He doesn’t say anything provocative on purpose. But mentally he’s a beast. This was a revenge match for him, whether he wanted to admit it or not. It must be so demoralizing to play against a guy who’s so much better defensively and just chases down everything. You could see it in the match today but you see it every time he plays. He beats you down mentally as much as anything he does physically.”

Take, as an example, one point in last Sunday’s final against Robin Soderling. They name it the Point of the Match. I call it the Moment of the Tournament. Having won the first set, 6-4, Nadal was down a break point trailing 0-1 in the second set. If Soderling wins the point, he leads 2-0 with the pendulum called Momentum having shifted to the Swede. In that point, Soderling hits a bullet crosscourt backhand to win the point! The crowd gasps, applauding. Game, Soderling!!! It’s 2-0. But, wait. Nadal sprints all the way left, his body no longer seen on TV because he’s so far off the court; inexplicably, he retrieves the ball… the point’s still alive!!! Soderling is in disbelief, yet still attacks. Nadal is defensive. Then, a shot here and there after, Nadal is on the offense, attacking the net, capturing the point with a deft drop volley. In one single episode, Nadal transforms a sure break point to A Broken Soderling: From that point on, Rafa wins six of the next seven games to win Set Two, 6-2. Minutes later, dejected and tired, Soderling quits. He loses the third, 6-4.

Do you feel like the best ever on clay now? Nadal was asked in the post-match press conference.

“No. No, I sure that the numbers are unbelievable for me, no?” he answered, making sure to say “No” thrice. “I never thought to have the chance to win this tournament, five titles, five times or Monte Carlo six or Barcelona five, I think, too, or Rome for me five. For me, that’s more than a dream. When I see these titles and these numbers, for me is amazing. I don’t know how I did.”

We can enlist a slew of adjectives about the five-time French Open champ—this King of Clay applauded by the Queen of Spain—adjectives like “relentless,” “sturdy,” “unyielding” and “valiant,” but here’s one more I’d like to stress: “humble.”

Isn’t this delightful? Against the backdrop of an egoistic jerk like Floyd Mayweather, Jr., you’ve got Nadal. And Federer. Two No. 1s, two gentlemen.

“But first of all, you gonna be very arrogant if I say for myself I am the best of the history,” continued Nadal in the press-con. “Second thing, I don’t believe I am the best of the history. I try my best every day, and we will see when I finish my career. I not gonna be who decide if I am the best or not. You maybe, but not me, sure.”

At Roland G., it’s Robin versus Rafa minus Roger

Only four men are left in the men’s draw of the 2010 French Open. Robin Soderling and Thomas Berdych occupy the upper half; if the odds are followed, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who brawled against opposing players last night, will meet in the other semifinals. Looking ahead to this Sunday, it’s expected to be another R & R finale. Only this time, the reigning Roland Garros winner codenamed “FED” will be missing.

(AP Photo/Michel Euler)

What a match the duo played two nights ago. I hope you saw it. In the first set, Federer was impeccable. He won 6-3. In Set 2, he was broken in his first service game, trailed 2-0, then promptly lost 3-6 to Mr. Soderling. In the third set, Roger owned a set point against Robin with the score, 5-4, but—in what turned out to be the point of the match—his opponent saved that game. At 5-all, it rained in Paris. I slept in Cebu. It was nearly midnight. Then, my text-mate that evening, Sun.Star’s Executive Editor Michelle So, sent me a message that my phone captured at 1:48 a.m. Reading it when I awoke at 5:37 yesterday morning, the message was succinct: “RF lost. 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 4-6.” My guess is, Michelle, the leader of the RF Fans Club of Cebu, if ever there was a group, had trouble sleeping after RF’s exit in France.

But what a performance by this Swede nicknamed Soderking. (True: He sawed-off ‘d King.) Robin slammed the ball from his slingshot forehand to Roger’s backhand, drilled a down-the-line backhand, served a 240-kph ace, he played fearless, never, for a moment, intimidated thinking that across the net was The Greatest Of All Time.

Soderling’s offensive gunfire against Federer was the same Robin Hood-like barrage of arrows he unleashed on Nadal last year. Both victories were monumental, said top tennis scribe Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated: “I can’t think of two bigger clay-court upsets in the last, say, 20 years. Those are two just massive wins, but you have to follow it up. We’ll hold off on the Hall of Fame plaques until he wins a major, but those are just two monstrous wins on clay in back-to-back years.”

(AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Peter Bodo, in his blog at Tennis.Com and a story he titled, “K.I.S.S. Revised” (the KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Soderling), added:  “The main difference, in the big picture, was that Soderling reached out aggressively to take the match, and he did that from start to finish. Meanwhile, Federer did a fair impersonation of Hamlet, his game fading in and out like the signal from a distant radio. More and more, it looks as if Federer is not really playing to win, the way a Soderling is in these upward arcing days of his career.

“It seems that Federer is playing not to lose. He’s doing a fair job of that, hanging in, fending off, snarling and snapping like a captive wolf in a cage. But Federer doesn’t seem to seek the freedom represented by victory, or triumph over his captors and adversaries. He doesn’t appear to want to attack, break through, run like the wind and distance himself from his tormentors.

“The question, going into this event, was whether Federer would muster the focus, hunger, and determination that seems to have been in remission since he won the Australian Open. Did he have a stock game for most tournaments and a custom one for majors? Unfortunately for Federer, Soderling was the most dangerous of opponents to entrust with those questions. He asked them all, and we all saw the answers.”

The final question, of course, is this: Who will win on Sunday? If Robin meets Rafa, can last year’s tormentor, who inflicted RN’s first-ever loss at the French Open, win again? Given his thrashing of Roger, will Soderling’s all-power assault once more punish Nadal? Consider that the 6-foot-4 Robin is at his all-time peak in world ranking (No.7) and confidence. Or will Rafa, now fully-healed of injuries and having won three Masters Series clay-court events leading to Paris, avenge his 2009 loss to Robin?

The answer—like the Lakers vs. Celtics dispute—is coming soon.

(AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Before Pistol Pete and Federer Express, there was The Rocket

The year was 1999. That was 11 long years ago. Yet, when I look back at that singular moment–at those few precious seconds–when I got to shake the hand and pose for a photo with an all-time tennis great, the flashback rouses my face to smile.

It was the U.S. Open. Not your ordinary tournament, it was the rowdiest and largest Grand Slam event on this planet. My dad Bunny and I watched the full two weeks, each night and day absorbing an overload of forehands and backhands. On the first evening–on August 23, 1999–we trooped to the Louis Armstrong Stadium for the Opening Ceremony. We were energized. This was New York City. Then, minutes before the start, a small commotion startled the audience.

He entered. “He” happens to be the only player in mankind to have won all four Grand Slam titles (in Australia, France and the U.S., plus Wimbledon) in the same year… twice.

Wearing a green coat-and-tie with a red necklace strap hanging on his neck, his blonde hair was disheveled and his white cheeks glowed pink. Acting quickly, I climbed the steps then waited for that precise opening when I approached from the side, introduced myself as Filipino, then asked for that one-click-I’ll-never-forget-this moment as my dad snapped the photo.

No, he’s not Roger ‘Federer Express’ nor is he ‘Pistol Pete’ Sampras. He’s not Agassi or Becker or Borg or McEnroe. In fact, if you’ve followed tennis as I have–starting the 1980s–his name might not be all-too-famous. But if you know the game’s history, you know him. Even better, if you watch today’s Australian Open, then you’ve seen his name plastered on the TV screen.

Rodney George Laver. Nicknamed “The Rocket” because of his explosive style and named after his hometown of Rockhampton, Queensland, he’s the reason why that August ’99 moment I’ll always cherish. For Rod Laver stood–figuratively–tallest among the giants of the sport when, in fact, he’s only 5-foot-8 1/2 tall. In this era of Juan Martin del Potro (6’6”) and Ivo Karlovic (6’10”), he’s minuscule. Add to the equation his weight (145 lbs.) then you have a “pocket-sized” player. Yet, he’s a rocket. For, in his prime, he possessed a game as complete as Federer’s today.

“Few champions have been as devastating and dominant as Laver was as amateur and pro during the 1960s,” wrote Bud Collins. “An incessant attacker, he was nevertheless a complete player who glowed in backcourt ad at the net. Laver’s 5-foot-8 1/2, 145 pound body seemed to dangle from a massive left arm that belonged to a gorilla, an arm with which he bludgeoned the ball and was able to impart ferocious topspin. Although others had used topspin, Laver may have inspired a wave of heavy-hitting topspin practitioners of the 1970s such as Bjorn Bord and Guillermo Villas. The stroke became basic after Laver.”

Why this R. Laver piece today? Because when you click on Star Sports today, his name is forever etched in Melbourne. The reason? While Wimbledon, for example, has their famous “Centre Court,” the Oz Open’s main stadium is named after it’s greatest… the “Rod Laver Arena.”

For “Rod Laver” is the synonym of “Grand Slam,” which means winning the four majors in the same year. Take Federer: though he’s won all four majors, he did not achieve this feat in the same calendar year. Only four others have accomplished the real Grand Slam, and each achieved it only once: Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly Brinker (1953), Margaret Court (1970) and Steffi Graf (1988). The Rocket did this twice, in 1962 and 1969.

As the BBC commentator Dan Maskell put it, he was “technically faultless, from his richly varied serve to his feather-light touch on drop volleys plus a backhand drive carrying destructive topspin when needed or controlling slice when the situation demanded it.”

Sounds like Federer, right? Yes. But with a difference: Laver is left-handed. Which means he has the all-around, no-weaknesses armada of Roger plus the lefty serves and lefty topspin style of Rafael Nadal. Imagine morphing these two to form one? That’s Rod Laver.

An Aussie speaks about the Australian Open

Graeme (center, seated) during his visit to Cebu last October with (from left) Noel Villaflor, Caecent and Mark Magsumbol; (standing) John P, Manny Villaruel, Calvin Cordova, Nimrod Quiñones, Mike Limpag and Raffy Osumo

Graeme Mackinnon lived in Cebu for 13 years. He was conferred the Cebu Hall of Fame award for bolstering the sport of football. But the Australian’s “first love?” The game he first played when he was only six years old? Tennis. And so I asked Graeme, now relaxing at home in Bateau Bay, a 100-km. drive from Sydney, to comment on the year’s first Grand Slam tennis event…

Who is your favorite Aussie player of all time? “There have been so many great Aussie players through the years although that list is definitely diminishing for whatever reason. My favorite would have to be “Rocket” Rod Laver. His four Grand Slams in the same year 1962 and 1969 set him apart from so many great players. He had finesse and guile and his touch was exquisite.”

How do you find Nadal’s pink/orange attire? “The fashion police should be out in force and just give Rafa a mirror. It is a shocker.”

Who do you find the prettiest? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My favorite for the beauty stakes is Elena Dementieva. There are many lovely Russian players but Elena always looks feminine. The outfits she wears always look so good on her. But my favorite female player is Justine Henin.”

On the noise: “The grunt and shriek debate continues although with Mike Limpag’s “flame” (Sharapova) extinguished, it will be markedly decibels quieter. When I watched Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin play in the Queensland several weeks ago, I thought then that there was something wrong with the audio. Both of these girls played at the highest quality without grunting and shrieking. What a pleasure it was to watch and hear the noise of the racquet actually hitting the ball.”

What’s the favorite Australian chant? “Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi”

What are the ticket prices? “Depending on the day a day or night session a ticket will cost between $60 (P2,500) for the first few days before it starts to spiral upwards (some may say out of control) before peaking at $290 (P12,200) for the men’s or women’s final.”

A Roger-Rafa finale? “We can expect another Roger-Rafa final because they are the two most consistent players and their meetings are legendary. But will they play in the final? There are probably four who could make the final and it would not be a surprise. Roger, Rafa, Andy Murray (away from the expectation of Wimbledon), Juan Martin Del Potro. Del Potro’s my choice against either Roger or Rafa.”

Why is Australia a tennis-loving country? Did this start during the era of Laver and Rosewall? “No it happened well before them. In fact the Australasian Lawn Tennis Association was formed in 1904. We won the first of our 27 Davis Cup crowns in 1907. It also marked the year that Norman Brookes became the first of 12 Australians to win Wimbledon. Tennis has been around in Australia for a long time. Laver and Rosewall are just part of the legacy of those humble beginnings.”

Notice the drums beating in between points? “Because of our cosmopolitan heritage there is always strong nationalistic support for many of the overseas players. These players in many cases come from countries with a strong football culture and the supporters bring that football support to the tennis.”

Have you watched the games live? “No. And I most probably won’t in the future. With the unbelievable TV coverage that we get LIVE and the line-up of commentators who give such an insight into the players psyche I’m happy to be a couch potato for two weeks. We have around 12 hours of live coverage daily.”

Is tennis your country’s most popular sport? “In national participation, tennis ranks low. The Australian Football League and rugby league are No.1 in winter depending on what state you live. Soccer is No. 2 in all states. In summer, cricket, especially when the national team is playing, is No. 1. Girls netball is getting stronger. Tennis becomes No. 1 for couch potatoes in January when there are so many tournaments played around the country prior to the Open.”

Why is Lleyton Hewitt considered by many as arrogant? “He became famous at a very young age by beating Andre Agassi in 1998 in consecutive lead-up tournaments before the Aussie Open when he was 17 years old. He was the third youngest ever to claim an ATP title. He was the first teenager in ATP history to ever qualify for the year-end Tennis Masters Cup (ATP World Tour Finals). And his record of achievements goes on. Maybe it was a case of too much too soon.”

Federer vs. Laver, both at their peak, who’d win? “I think it is difficult to compare different eras. It most certainly would have been a great game but for no other reason than I am unashamedly biased, I would say Rod Laver.”

If Wimbledon has strawberries-and-cream and the US Open has hotdogs…. what does the Oz Open have? “We have a great tournament unfortunately now attracting publicity for all the wrong reasons. A small ethnic group of troublemakers are trying their hardest to disrupt the passion of the record crowds who are flocking to the tennis every day. Today for instance there were 45 Turkish troublemakers (I wont call them supporters) ejected from the Open because of the trouble they were making with flares and abusive language etc. On Monday it was a group of Croatians.”

How hot is it in Australia now? “We are in the middle of summer and it will get hot. Definitely weather-wise and court-wise the temperature will get hotter as the Open progresses. It will vary from a maximum 23 degrees to a maximum of 32 in the next seven days. On the court it will be much hotter though.”

Many years back, the Australian Open was not at par (in terms of prestige, etc) with the three other Slams. But now, it surely is. What did Tennis Australia do? “Moving the Open to its current location in Melbourne has meant a lot of money was able to be spent on upgrading the facility to its state of the art facility it is today. Previously the hosting of the Open alternated in the different states.”

Is Melbourne like the Cebu of Australia (and Sydney is Manila)? “It depends on where you live. Sydney (my hometown) is Manila and Melbourne Cebu. But I know many from Melbourne and there is definitely that same rivalry as Manila, Cebu so they would tell you Melbourne is Manila.”

This 2009, Rafa Nadal smashes and drops shots

What a rollercoaster season for the Spanish superstar. First, he began in perfect form: At the Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam event, Rafael Nadal reached the semifinals not having lost a set. Meeting his fellow Spaniard/lefty Fernando Verdasco, they engaged not in a tennis game but in a bloody slugfest of boxing: a five-setter that concluded as the longest match in Oz Open history at 5 hours, 14 minutes. Nadal won. In the finals against—nobody, nobody but…—Roger Federer, it was another classic battle. Rafa prevailed in five sets and was crowned the Australian Open victor. He was superb, impeccable, splendid.

Then………… Bang! The collapse started. At the tournament where he has never lost, on the red clay of the French Open, Rafa was the four-time defending champion. Until he met Robin Soderling in the fourth round—and was beaten. On that May 31 afternoon, Nadal did not only lose the match, he lost much more: his confidence. His topspin. His knees. Suffering from tendinitis, he later withdrew from the most prestigious tennis party on earth, Wimbledon.

Nadal rested for two months. But the damage was done. He was vulnerable. He was no longer Rafa The Invincible. When he returned in August, he promptly lost to Juan Martin Del Potro. Worse, he surrendered the No. 2 ranking (a spot he had held since July 2005) to Andy Murray. Next, at the US Open, once more RN was obliterated by the 6-foot-6 Argentine named Del Potro, 2-6, 2-6, 2-6.

Bad. But here’s worse: At the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals, Nadal played three round-robin matches. His score: 0-3. Not a single match did he win. In fact, RN did not win a single set! Even worst than worse—if there’s ever such a term—Nadal lost his last four matches and lost his last eight sets of tennis.

Here in this former Spanish land called Cebu, plenty of Nadal fans were, I’m sure, perplexed and troubled. The likes of Bobby Aboitiz, Ernie Delco, Manny Sainz, Bobby Lozada, Frank Malilong, Fr. Joy Danao and Fabby Borromeo—to name seven of Rafa’s supporters in our city—were worried and asking, “Will Nadal ever rise again?”

For didn’t Rafa win the 2008 Olympic gold medal? Wimbledon last year? And the world No.1 ranking? And now, he’s wobbled, stumbled, and faltered? Can he recover? Or has the all-too-physical game of Spain’s muscleman finally damaged his body? Can he retain the No.1 crown and ward off not only Federer but the likes of Murray, Djokovic, Del Potro, Tsonga?

Relax, relax. Nadal, lest we forget, is so much younger than me and, mostly likely, you. He’s only 23. So he’ll recuperate. He’ll reconfigure his game for his body to take less beating. He’ll win the US Open. He won’t disappear.

Proof of his resurgence happened over the weekend. At the Davis Cup, Nadal won the crucial first game against the Czech Republic player, Tomas Berdych, 7-5, 6-0, 6-2. And, in the finale match, he won again. With those wins, it brought his DC record to an extraordinary 14-1. (No thanks to lousy cable TV coverage, we didn’t see those matches.) By week’s end, Nadal and Team España captured the Davis Cup.

Was that significant? To Rafa? Absolutely. Because looking back at his story, in 2004, RN’s tennis career was launched when, as an 18-year-old, he beat Andy Roddick in the Davis Cup final against USA. Since then, he has zoomed to the top. The following year, Rafa won the French Open and jumped from a ranking of 51 to world No. 2 by the end of 2005.

Davis Cup recharges Nadal. And, my guess is, never mind his painful defeats in Roland Garros and the US Open and his exit from Wimbledon—plus the shocking divorce of his parents, Sebastian and Ana Maria, in the middle of the year—all these painful memories have been erased after he raised the Davis Cup trophy.

Because with Nadal, it’s mental. It’s hard to find a tougher, more tenacious and first-class and paramount athlete than Rafa. Except one….

Tiger Woods? Ha-ha. That’s before last week.

Rafa in CNN’s Talk Asia

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Roger vs. Rafa: Who will win the US Open?

It’s the US Open! What’s my biggest tennis wish? That two 6-foot-1 Nike endorsers will meet in the finals. You see, every time Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal meet, it’s like a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. It’s like the Lakers vs. Celtics, the Yankees vs. Red Sox, La Salle against Ateneo. It’s a blockbuster movie. Only this time, it’s not reel but for real.

My opinion? It won’t happen. Rafa was injured and out of the ATP Tour for two months. That’s like asking Charice Pempengco to tape her mouth for 12 months. She’ll rust. And, yes, Rafa is rusty. Mr. Federer? Ah, he’s far from dusty. Like a gleaming Rolex watch that he wears on his left wrist, the Swiss is glossy and sparkling.

Continue reading Roger vs. Rafa: Who will win the US Open?

Sunday Was A Buffet Treat Of Surprises

What do Rafael Nadal, Susan Boyle and LeBron James have in common? Plenty. They’re world-wide stars known all across the planet. They hail from different countries, namely, Spain, Scotland and the U.S.A. But more than that, these three share a common bond: Forty eight hours ago, they lost.

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They weren’t supposed to. Nadal had not been clobbered in Roland Garros ever since he swung his Babolat there. Susan Boyle, whose YouTube videos have been accessed 100 million times, was sure to win Britain’s Got Talent and meet the Queen. And Mr. James, the one who led his Cleveland Cavaliers to an 8-0 playoff start—was not supposed to be trounced.

Yet, all within 24 hours, first, Susan Boyle when I watched CNN early last Sunday morning, then LBJ as we all saw Dwight Howard pump 40 points in the Orlando Magic win before Sunday noon, and, last Sunday night from 8:30 p.m. until midnight, we all witnessed the dirtying of Nadal’s socks.

Continue reading Sunday Was A Buffet Treat Of Surprises