On Any Given Day
Mornin', folks. I appear to have survived yesterday auto-post trauma, albeit I have a little more egg to scrape off my face for having been less than sanguine about Nikolay Davydenko's chances in the Shanghai final against Rafael Nadal. But Kolya surprised us - or did he?
I didn't delve too deeply into the technical and strategic issues raised by the match-up; I just went with the conventional wisdom on the two players. But the overriding assumption on my part was that this wasn't just another Masters 1000 event for Nadal; it was a great opportunity for him to make the statement that after his various struggles this summer, he was firmly and finally back on track with his game. That might still be true; when the other guy succeeds in playing at a certain level, any control you hoped to have, or have the ability to exert, is taken away.
Everyone knows that tennis is, increasingly, an "On Any Given Day" kind of sport. Still, one of the differences between the rare, towering champion - the kind of champion Nadal was until the early part of this year - and everyone else is that that proverbial Any Given Day doesn't appear on his calendar. The very best of players find ways to avert the hiccup. They slip out of situations that threaten to become Any GIven Day. They imposes themselves on opponents in a way that makes the latter feel like some other day is going to be his Any Given Day.
Let's not take anything away from Kolya. In the first of his Masters 1000 Series triumphs, at Paris Bercy in 2006, the last two men he beat to bag the title were Tommy Robredo and Dominik Hrbaty. On an order of magnitude, that's very different from the achievment represented by his two more recent Masters wins, in Miami in 2008 and now in Shanghai. In Miami, he put together successive wins over Andy Roddick (who had taken out Roger Federer) and Nadal. This time it was Novak Djokovic and Nadal, in that order, for the title. On the credibility scale, the two most recent wins are impeccable.
Still, the way you win four Roland Garros titles running is by not losing to any number of guys who, on Any Given Day, can take you out. And the question that looms is whether Nadal has taken a step back in status. Is he that much closer, in his own mind as well as the minds of others, to the pack - to all those guys who live in fear of the given day, the Roddicks and Djokovics and del Potros - than to Roger Federer? For until knee tendinitis sidelined Nadal in June, he stood in a company of two (alongside Federer) as a player you could trust to deliver when it most counted. Nadal faced an Any Given Day moment in Melbourne, but found a way to survive Fernando Verdasco, and went on to add to the lore and legend of his rivalry with Federer in the championship match. If he were in a comparable situation next week, you have to wonder, would he find a way to pull through?
Over the past few years, we've been really luck to dodge the bullet that so often blows up our expectations. Roger and Rafa had found a way to meet in a remarkably high number of finals, each man fulfilling an implicit promise, which in our hands morphed into something like a demand, to do whatever needed to be done to get at the throat of his rival. The much-anticipated Roger vs. Rafa final became almost a given, which is a remarkable thing in and of itself in the present era of tennis. You need only cout the number of times an anticipated Sampras vs. Agassi final never materialized in order to appreciate what Federer and Nadal were able to accomplish.
In the big picture, this fall moment that took place halfway round the globe from the tennis capitals of the world, and before half-attentive eyes slightly weary of the game, was a disproportionately large opportunity for Nadal. He hasn't won a tournament since the Rome Masters in May, and he said he was back in full fighting trim after a long, post-US Open layoff demanded by a stomach-muscle injury. A semi (in Beijing) and a final are noteworthy results, especially for a player just returning to the tour. But you know how it is with Nadal; we're accustomed to him being a Sunday guy. A trophy- biting, happy-go-lucky, undeniable responder to the call.
I'm not sure I buy into the "rust" narrative, the idea that Nadal was hurt by a lack of match toughness. This kid was born match tough. If anything, all the rest he's been forced to take seems more like a net plus, given the time of year and the banged-up state of his fellow travelers. Davydenko's level of play certainly figures as a big part of the story. One of the very few ways to get the best of Nadal is to beat him to the punch; to play aggressive, quick-strike tennis that pushes Nadal back on his heels and prevents him imposing his pace and tone on the proceedings. You have to be crazy to rally with Nadal, and insanely competent to avoid having to do that.
In fact, you can't do that - unless you can take the ball early, hit fairly flat, and penetrate the far court. Those are all things that Davydenko, with his cruiserweight, slap-shot style, can do, especially on faster surfaces. Davydenko is similar to James Blake in that regard, although he's more consistent, moves better, and has a temperament more suited to enduring the week-to-week grind of the pro tour. If you look at Kolya's ranking graph, you'll see that he's worked his way back up to his personal plateau up in top 5 country.
But you also can't escape the fact that Nadal might have made a big statement by winning the match - to my mind, it was his second major opportunity since his lost summer to do so, the first having been the US Open. He was injured back in early September, but it's hard to quantify how large a part his condition played in Nadal's loss to Juan Martin del Potro, especially when you look at what Delpo went on to accomplish. If it makes it easer to sleep nights, though, feel free to ascribe the missed opportunity in New York solely to a sore stomach.
What we do know for certain is that Nadal was on the cusp of joining Federer as a career Grand Slammer, and coming into the US Open with far fresher legs and recharged mental batteries. Is it fair to ask how Nadal would have reacted had that injury occurred three years ago at Roland Garros? By the end of his tournament, he must have been asking the gods, Why this, why now, why me?
Those are legitimate questions, and there's no doubt that Nadal has hit a patch of bad luck. But does it really matter? One of the glories of tennis is the game's transparency; the game is played by individuals, the scoring is as close to reality-based as you can get, and it takes many components - luck included - to rise above the perils of Any Given Day. Everyone has a story; the top player's main objective is to make that story as simple and airight as possible. For it doesn't take all that much to drag you off the pedestal; an unexpected loss here, a nasty little injury there, a slight shift on confidence or attitude - even the reasonable amount of chaffing against the day-in, day-out, demands, to which a top player is entitled, can all contribute to a fall from that ultimate state of playing grace.
So the real issue, looking to Nadal's future, is: To what degree can he recapture the form and aura he enjoyed until a few weeks after the Australian Open? Maybe his fate is inextricably linked to that of his great rival, Federer. Maybe one without the other diminishes the abilities of both (although Federer shot holes in that one at Wimbledon). Maybe we were just lucky these past few years to enjoy a whole - the rivalry - that was more than a sum of its parts. Maybe the glory days of Roger vs. Rafa are over, and a new chapter begins.
Federer is now coated with the Teflon of his career and accomplishments; whatever comes next for him may be dramatic, gut-wrenching or glorious. But it can only enhance his legacy; there is no down-side for Federer. Nadal, being younger, is the more interesting case. For it's beginning to look as if having Federer out of the way doesn't necessarily mean anything when it comes to Nadal's own fortunes. The combined effects of frequent injury and the fact that Federer has for all intents and purposes run his race, leaves Nadal in new territory. He has a new set of questions to which he'll have to come up with original answers on any given day.