The Roger/Rafa Supremacy: a consumer review
Is it fair to classify today's great tennis rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as a "product?" Some might argue that it is. The extent to which these two tennis giants' media personalities have been constructed and their rivalry used to popularize the sport is hard to dismiss.
In today's world, where the Cult of Celebrity is the new religion, sports personalities have more power, more pull – and more pressure – than ever.
Pro sportsmen are the modern-day equivalent of the Greek Olympians. A little too much? Maybe not. Anyone following the sport of tennis over the last decade can attest to the fact that the game is getting increasingly physically demanding. True, the racquet technology has been improved, the turf slowed down, the clay speeded up, etc. But there's only so much you can achieve by fiddling with racquet strings. The real change in the game has undoubtedly come from the players themselves, and from a spate of tennis players taking the physicality of the game to dizzying heights.
The bar was raised (to an insurmountable level, it seemed) by the pre-Federer era "GOAT" (Greatest Of All Time – the incomparable Sampras, of course). Then comes along Federer to set the record straight and show what true dominance means. Though it's almost impossible to really compare players from different playing eras, with Roger and Sampras there was a relatively straight-forward and credible "changing of the guard", since they were technically contemporaries when Roger first beat Sampras – albeit with Sampras at the twilight of his career and Roger climbing the foothills of his peak. With Federer's reign breaking almost every record, few could argue that there was a new GOAT in town.
However, the new GOAT was not perfect. He had (if you could really call it that) a bit of an Achilles' heel on the clay. A big deal was made of this by the press – Roger's "chink in the armor"... but was there really any chink? Federer has been consistent as one of the best clay-court players in the modern game, no doubt about it. He was and is an all-round player with a complete game. The actual problem was that there was a little Spanish chap called Rafael Nadal who could do it just that little bit better on the clay (but who initially played like a fish out of water on hard courts and grass).
And so it began. Little Rafa "pooping" the party and continuously thwarting Roger's bid for a Calendar Grand Slam (winning all four majors in one calendar year) by jealously guarding the Roland Garros Grand Slam clay title and keeping it just beyond Roger's reach. The Calendar Grand Slam is an achievement that escapes Roger to this very day, one that is increasingly harder to believe he will ever achieve... and there's no doubt that it's all Rafa's fault.
Now a word on Rafa's uncanny ability to hoard clay titles: yes, Nadal is good, but for those who do not know the ins and outs of the game, there is the following to consider. Rafa has been almost engineered into a "tennis terminator" programmed to thwart players like Federer.
For one thing, the majority of players are right-handed. Left-handed players (better known as "lefties") present a huge problem to right-handed players. Everything's backwards with lefties, specifically the serve, and major modifications have to be made to one's game plan to deal with them. And a little-known fact: Nadal's coach, better known as "Uncle Tony" (actually his uncle), changed Rafa's handedness at a young age. So although Rafa is technically a left-handed tennis player (plays his forehand with the left hand instead of the right), he is a right-handed young man.
A very, very clever play from Uncle Tony, and this is why: the forehand is usually a player's dominating shot because it uses the strongest arm and the one with the greatest control, but also because the forehand shot does not cross the body awkwardly, thus allowing the player to maximize kinetics and body motion to create higher speeds, accuracy and spin. This can make the ball very "heavy" and difficult to deal with at the other end of the court, and also makes it dip heavily at the end of the trajectory (you can hence whack it as hard as you like and it will still stay within the baseline).
So Rafa is given a left-handed forehand and trained to use it as well as if it were his genuine handedness (wonder if it's made any psychological damage – any anthropologists or neurologists out there with a theory?)
And then there is the fact that Nadal has the use of his right hand (his naturally dominant hand) to handle the awkward backhand shot, which is usually a player's weakest side. On top of that, Rafa's backhand is double-handed, which increases power and accuracy (it does have the disadvantage of restricting movement, but there are other shots in the modern game that can compensate for this). And then to top it all, Nadal is taught to use an extreme grip of the racquet to produce very heavy topspin on the ball.
So poor Federer at the other end of the court has to deal with lefty serves and forehands to his backhand (in his case, definitely the weakest side) which are awkward enough on their own, but to cap it Nadals' grip and physical strength (the latter somewhat unusual for a tennis player) means that Roger is having to bat back cannon balls that don't agree with his own game. Federer has a single-handed backhand, and these are generally not as reliable as double-handed backhands. Moreover, they are certainly not as good at creating awkward angles for putting away winners (one exception that comes to mind is Richard Gasquet's backhand, a thing of beauty, but he's one in a million).
Nadal, with his "bull" characteristics and motto (only one letter away from "bully"?) and until recently (when he started to dress more or less like Federer) his sleeveless t-shirts, bulging biceps, long skintight pants, annoying sock/wedgie pulling after every point (often earning him time warnings from umpires in the early days), OCD with his water bottles and his very physically engineered and pre-meditated formation as a tennis player, may have been the perfect kryptonite to Federer's super powers, but in the end it also made Rafa the very opposite of his opponent. And that was not a good thing.
Roger Federer was swift and clever in his execution of game plans, earning him the moniker "FedExpress" (rather ironic considering that FedEx advertises heavily in tennis and usually has its logo plastered all around the court). As for Nadal, he simply wore his opponents down hour after hour in grinding and painful (especially to watch) matches.
However, the grinding took its toll on more than Rafa's opponents. It seemed that he threw the entire kitchen sink into beating his rival and stealing his World Number 1 ranking and Wimbledon crown. Nadal's knees started to give him real trouble and knee tape became a standard addition to Nadal's daily get-up. He achieved his goal, finally dethroning the FedExpress, but at what cost? In 2009, he shocked the tennis world by finally relinquishing his grip on his Roland Garros crown, and then caused rather a stir by withdrawing altogether from defending his title at Wimbledon due to his knees. At this stage, many thought his injuries permanent and predicted the end of Nadal's career.
All the while, Roger was waiting backstage, ready to take advantage of his opponent's loss of form. Federer finally achieved his Career (non-calendar) Grand Slam by winning Roland Garros for the first time, and then took the Wimbledon crown again just to show off, beating Sampras's record of Grand Slam wins by two in the process and regaining his World Number 1 ranking. Ultimate triumph for Federer, but even though a somewhat cynical viewpoint, it was hard to ignore the fact that whilst he may have finally won the French Open, he had not wrestled it from his arch-rival, the French Open King.
Then, on the back of Roger's career apex, his private life kick-started into action: marriage followed by the birth of twins. Warning and cautions were fired here and there in the press about those who had dared to have their cake and eat it. But reportedly, Roger pooh-poohed the naysayers and insisted he was different. He would manage being both a father and a tennis titan.
But to everyone's surprise, Rafa was not finished. The knee bands came off, and just as the ominous warnings regarding Roger's form started to take concrete form, Nadal came back stronger than ever. The top-dog spot on the South African Airways ranking was secured anew by the Spaniard, and the wins kept coming in strong.
Roger often complained to the press of a "monster" he had created and from which he was keen to distance himself. The "monster" was none other than his own dominating super-human form. It was in large part a knee-jerk response to the press vultures swooping in on him any time he so much as put a foot wrong. He didn't want the public going mental, ripping him to shreds and asking if his days of supremacy were numbered every time he lost the odd match. He wanted the right to lose.
Well... he got his wish. Slowly but surely, the losses started coming in. At first, they were occasional, excusable and primarily to top-five players. But as time went on, they started to come in thick and heavy and to more inferior players. It seemed that Roger had eaten too much cake. And in the end, he was right that he had created a "monster" – only problem was that the monster was not himself. It was Rafa. The Rafa that clearly looked up to Roger and used him as his motivation to become a more complete player. The Rafa that apparently cried inconsolably for hours in the locker room after Roger first denied him the Wimbledon crown.
And it's a favor that doesn't really go both ways in terms of who pushed who to get better. Rafa made Roger focus his game on beating the former's highly unusual one, practically "specializing" himself into failure, whereas Roger's all-court game was something that Rafa was desperate to emulate and conquer. So whilst we've seen the gradual growth of Rafa's game to include all surfaces and shots, Roger has been painting himself into a corner of specialization and, inevitably, loosing to people he never should have lost to (Gilles Simon comes to mind, no matter how impressive his game is). Roger became obsessed with baselining, and some of his matches are reminiscent of nothing more than a game of Chicken: "See, I can keep up with you," he seemed to be insisting with every shot, whilst commentators were tearing their hair out trying to figure out why he was falling into a one-dimensional game pattern. Especially when Roger's strength never lied in baseline "marathoning" in the first place. Perhaps a rather significant dose of hubris is also to blame, of which the humble Nadal could never be accused. Roger, until very recently, never seemed to make any significant change to his game and refused to work with a coach. He even expressed exasperation and offense at receiving "instructions" and tennis wisdom from his fans (take it in the spirit it's meant, dude!).
There's no doubt that the complex relationship between Roger and Rafa's game has made fantastic, enthralling viewing for tennis fans over the years. That Rafa should come out on top was, retrospectively, almost inevitable. Yet Rafa's domination has brought little satisfaction to fans. Despite his arrogance, there was something about Roger that Rafa never could emulate: his natural talent, flare and charisma. With Roger's game, you get the sense that you are watching innate and divine prowess, and not carefully constructed and adjusted mechanics. There is still nothing as beautiful on this green earth as Roger "in the zone". His feet barely touch the court, and whilst with Rafa it's all grunts and effort, Roger just seems to glide and effortlessly break the rules of physics. Art versus craft.
And in terms of personality, Rafa's never quite made the grade either. It's anyone's guess as to why: Nadal is polite, generally an outstanding sportsman and extremely humble. Roger is arrogant, defensive, vain, commercial, buys into the whole Celebrity Cult and is a Swiss German (sorry, but that just had to be thrown in). And yet, Roger fascinates. He cries when he wins, he cries when he loses. Federer feels deeply, and his passion for the game has moved tennis fans along with the general public the world over.
Roger's personality and presence are virtually bigger than the game itself, and the sport of tennis is currently enjoying record-breaking stats in terms of viewership. Roger speaks three languages fluently, and in each achieves an eloquence and facility that would make him a fine public figure. Federer is smart, both intellectually and emotionally, and rather funny too. It is almost impossible not to adore this man, as was demonstrated most conclusively by the Roland Garros crowd in Roger's astounding semis round this year. He may have thought that his decidedly lackluster year and all-time-low World Number 3 position would have made him a forgotten quantity in the minds of the fans, but he could not have been more wrong. The crowd was decidedly one-sided and rooting for the ex-champ, and as Roger came to the conclusion of perhaps the best match he ever played on clay, the entire court erupted into an unexpected "Roger, Roger, Roger," chant. A shadow of the old emotional Roger returned for a while, and it was clear that the crowd's reaction had stirred something in this complex man's emotional depths. Tears welled in his eyes, but Federer pulled himself together and finished the moment off with poise and an interview as flawless as always. As a side note, it is interesting that Roger never cried again after his now famous uncontrollable breakdown at the Australian Open 2009 final. Though he may have been greatly embarrassed, there wasn't a dry eye in any living room receiving the signal. But back to Roger's triumph at the French Open this year: this incredible win was only a flash in the pan for the Swiss maestro. He lost in the final, and the Roland Garros clay crown went back to its rightful owner: Rafa.
And so it seemed that an enthralling rivalry came to an inevitable but unsatisfying conclusion: "Robocop Rafa" triumphs, and the man the public loves to love continues to slip into oblivion...
...until this year's Wimbledon . As Rafa received his thrashing (let's be honest) from Novak Djokovic, he became, for once, somewhat interesting. It seemed unlikely, with his experience and the pile of titles he had amassed, that the loss of this year's Wimbledon would wound Rafa to any great extent. But wound it did. There was no mistaking his stricken expression at the end of the match.
And then the unexpected happened. As Sue Barker started to interview the runner-up, Nadal finally came up with something we'd never seen before: a personality. He was funny (with a bit of a mic mix-up on the part of the Beeb), expressive and clearly gutted over the loss. He talked to the crowd and seemed to have eyes for no one else (he picked the mic that transmitted to the crowd over the one that transmitted back to the studio, meaning that the majority of his speech could not be heard by anyone other than those on court, and which did not seem to bother him in the slightest).
And he took his time too. Instead of giving his usual quick interview, Rafa seemed determined to make the moment last and monopolize the attention irrespective of the fact that the moment was not his. Djokovic stood back with a somewhat bemused expression as Rafa basked in a love fest with the crowd. The cheers of the fans seemed to mean the world to him, and his reluctance to let them go was touching. For a split second, his face transformed and for the first time you could catch a glimpse of the man under the mask.
Is it time for a reboot? Are the tables going to turn? Will Roger, who has now finally taken on a coach and started working on his game, go back to being a tennis genius on his own terms? And for Rafa, will there now be a real person to be admired behind the brutal and ruthless strokes?
