Might there be a reason that the occasional observer feels that this casual, almost careless return would be better than an actual return of serve, this "actual return of serve" being, of course, a creature of imagination of the observer—a mere extrapolation of the returning patterns of the said player in the course of the match?

But then such extrapolation based on imagery may not be without complete basis.

Because, that's the way most of Bernard Tomic's shots seem to be, and they seem to work; because at 18 years of age, he almost made Rafael Nadal run out of T-shirts, as he was made to sweat more profusely than he ever has in a third-round match at a Grand Slam, after coming into his own.

Tomic gives you a feel of casual abandonment as you watch him play.

His backswing is among the shortest on tour. He has no qualms about standing still mid-rally waiting for the ball to come. Sometimes he walks up to the ball to hit it back. It is as if he is shouting out, "Hey guys, this is really too simple—you are breaking too much sweat. See? Just treat each ball at its merit. No need to overdo it."

In today's match you could see the contrast when on the other side of the net was standing Nadal, who believes that it is a crime to stand still on court, or to swing with less than full strength at a ball.

Tomic takes Andy Murray's philosophy to heart. He mixes up spin, and pace, height and depth, throwing the opponent off rhythm. And like Murray, he seems to relish the prospect of constructing a point—as if every successive shot is like a successive argument in a debate he is winning.

But then his game seems to aspire to soar to even more flamboyant heights, with its ability to surprise. A high forehand slice midway through a serious rally catching the opponent by surprise and robbing him of time? An off-pace backhand pulling the opponent into no man's land?

Against Nadal today, he had a chance to put off an easy drop volley, after he had worked his way to the net against a weak return from Nadal. And it definitely did seem like he was about to do it. Nadal was ready to run forward to the rendezvous at the net. At the last moment Tomic pushed the ball further and towards the baseline. It was a forehand slice and not a forehand drop volley. Wait, it was a disguised forehand slice.

There are many former players and analysts who have called Tomic a "junk baller," meaning to say that his success of late is only a result of his kind of tennis being completely new and unexpected and that once players get the hang of it, he will be beaten easily. Many are putting him down as a more adamant version of Murray who is too much in love with his game to see any sense.

But today Tomic showed that he has no qualms about hitting hard if that's what it takes. If Murray is an atheist, Tomic might just be agnostic.

He started the match today experimenting with his "junk," trying to disrupt Nadal's rhythm. But that didn't happen and Nadal found ways to make Tomic play to his forehand with neutral balls, and promptly hit them down the line for winners.

That triggered Tomic into hitting flat and hard all over the court piercing Nadal's famed defensive armour with winners, but also spraying a lot of errors. He had found for himself, the formula for beating Nadal on a hard court—don't give him time. It is easier said than done though, and it is remarkable that he was able to execute the plan with some success.

To paint a rough picture of his ground strokes, he has flat, fast groundstrokes off both wings and can serve hard—he sent down three aces in a row today. He has great hands which he uses like Murray from the baseline, to manipulate the speed and spin of the rally. He has a short back lift and takes the ball very early.

He has exemplary anticipation and is in perfect position to hit the ball more often than not. The short backswing allows him a fraction of a second more to move into position before starting the swing.

Nadal summed it up best when he said, Tomic played too "easy."

At the same time, being very tall at 6'5" with an eastern forehand and without a windshield-wiper finish, it remains to be seen how well he can cope with players who hit balls lower, robbing him of net-clearance and forcing him to hit "up."

In any case, Tomic has made many faces turn with his performance today, and he will be strongly embedded in many an Australian's mind as the future of the country's tennis.

Such players of Tomic's mould who go back to the drawing board of tennis itself, to experiment with the game's fundamentals and sometimes even those of mechanics, never fail to amaze viewers and tennis junkies. At the same time, they have not won a lot of big tournaments either. Bernard Tomic, if Andy Murray doesn't, might just be the first one to do it.

Read more Tennis news on BleacherReport.com

..and a bit on Novak here

There are moments when inspiration suddenly springs up in your mind, or ones when that very fire is rudely put out.

And as with most people who, in the marathon of life, end up as "also rans," I have suffered more of the latter than enjoyed the former.

Needless to say, I like to think more about the former, probably in an unconscious attempt to bring some sort of balance to life that is intrinsically unfair to, um, well, certain class of people who constitute the majority of this world (starts with an "l").

Case in point, a warm summer afternoon, on a clay court, playing against the captain of the university tennis team; practice drills.

Since we have just had the sun in attendance that day after a few days of heavy shower, we had started playing at noon itself with the sun baking our heads, lest the clouds should rain on our fun.

Now, he was better than me in doing a lot of things on court, but to this day I hold the belief that fitness was not one of them.

He was tiring. When he is in such a state, he has the bad habit of going for winners off rally balls. And he makes it most of the time.

I was finding my shoulders drooping more and more. And there, sure enough to add to my sorrow and to substantiate my worst assessment of myself, he was lining up that Del-Potro forehand of his.

On a clay court, there are not many things that you can do with a borrowed 85" Wilson Pro-Staff, strung with natural gut, when opponents are moonballing your single-handed backhand, other than brag that you have Pete Sampras' racquet and console yourself with that knowledge.

But this one was not a moonball, it was a clean strike flat and low over to the net, aimed for the baseline, and yes, on the backhand corner. You can't do much against those with any racquet.

As I was getting ready to run after the ball and get it after the winner would go past me, rather than attempt to touch it with the racquet and sent it far away over the seven seas, there was a breeze.

Now, the only better feeling in this world than a waft of soft refreshing breeze on your face after you have played your ass off and sweat your skin off, is a glass of lemonade (with salt) when you are in the same state.

It was soothing and it pumped some extra joules into my bloodstream, but not the kind of energy that adrenaline gives you.

Rather, an energy that calms you down; you feel invigorated, but not aggressive...one that gives you a sudden clarity of thought. I suddenly felt that everything's going to be all right. 

A moment of pristine clarity of thought and perception that makes your consciousness alert to every single movement around you.

An almost metaphysical vision that occurs for an instant to every blessed sports buff on earth.

I could almost see Yoda smiling at me and saying, "mmmm, feel the force you must." (Okay agreed, this is shameless exaggeration).

It all happened in a split second (now you surely don't believe me).

Inspired, I moved "a little bit the feet" in a sort of shuffle, making a move from the left half of the court towards the point where the ball would bounce but making sure to give myself some room, then taking my left foot a step diagonally backward opening up myself some space, leaned down and put the racquet face behind the point where the ball bounced off, and instinctively gave a flick to the wrist.

My opponent had moved towards the net, not so much to volley, as to call it a day, confident that I was going to try THAT again and as usual, clumsily.

But to his surprise, he found the ball travelling cross court out of his reach finding the midpoint of the right service line in the ad-court.

As I look back, I can see Roger Federer sitting near the sidelines on a chair with a notepad in his hand, and smiling at me, asking "How does THAT make you feel?" 

Now I have no idea what it looked like to others, but it was my RF moment.

The one of only two moments in my sporting life that I will probably remember forever (the other one had to do with a missed Slam Dunk... all because of a crow flying over my head and burping the wrong way, while others claimed to have not seen it; I maintain that the crow has metaphorical significance, however).

But then again, that has been a bit of my undoing as a Roger Federer fan. The moments when I am able to REALLY appreciate the phenomenon that is RF are few and far between.

Yes, I can admire what he does on court when he plays strokes that no one else can play. You could say, jolted with a bit of surprise, "that's awesome! How did he do that?"

But it is one thing to blindly admire something, which comes in part from ignorance, and a completely different thing to be able to relate with it. Like Dr. House says, it's way cooler to know.

It's a bit like reading a prose of great beauty. But such prose feels hardly as good as it is on the first read.

It gets better and better as you go over it more times, during each iteration, the meaning and connotations getting clearer.

I always feel that the tennis of Roger Federer has as its dominant factor, his game. It is the brilliance that shines through.

Though not precise or correct, it at times gives the impression of a man indulging when watching Federer is play on court.

And of course, the enjoyment Roger gets from playing must far surpass any enjoyment any fan of his might derive from watching him play, or so I would like to think.

Yes, he might be the Neo of tennis, whose forehand is the anomaly that is the negative of the sum of the imperfections of all other forehands in this world.

But then there are a lot of great men whom I hold in awe, but they exist in my head. Whatever has been said about genius, sometimes sheer brilliance does seem to be a hard thing to try to emulate.

And sometimes I wonder whether it is the work of God or that of human spirit. Of course, human spirit also would be the work of God, but then it is human tendency to consider otherwise.

Now, if you remember, there was a period of time in our little universe of tennis, after the reign of Sampras, when one man would win almost all the matches he played.

If you see a 90% winning percentage once in a while, it's fun, since not many people have done that, and such kind of dominance is awesome and it's kind of new; also because you would want to see what kind of new challenges would be thrown at this resourceful man.

But the press and the people around, gave the impression that any challenge that this man faced on the court was the challenge that he set for himself, for example to find the most beautiful version of a particular passing shot.

It was a picture of complete domination and people liked it. And they kind of made other players on tour look superfluous.

I was losing interest in following the competition and wouldn't follow news of tournaments that they wouldn't show on TV. I mean Sampras had Agassi right, Meth or not?

It was French Open 2005. Federer had started his dominance over the tennis empire.

Except for an uncharacteristically disciplined few hours from Marat Safin, no one could challenge him on the hards or the grass.

He was getting better and better on clay and he was predicted to soon break-through. Everyone else appeared to be listless.

I was leafing through a newspaper and accidentally hit the sports-page. There was a quarter-page sized photograph of a, well to borrow from the me of the past, "new kind" of player.

Pirate pants and sleeveless shirts were the least of it, though they underlined what the face told me. He was executing a two-fisted backhand.

The face was in convulsion, and one side of the mouth was drooping as if he were paralysed by his own effort. It was a picture of pain; a picture of audacity.

I had a sort of premonition that I would see something unprecedented that year in tennis. My interest was ever so mildly roused.

The picture of Rafa has not changed one bit since then. Of course the dashing apparels have been replaced with more conservative ones a la Federer.

But however hard Nike tries, Rafa will never be the alpha of the tennis world. He will always be the player in pain.

I remember watching Rafa eagerly in that French Open. Phrases like "unstoppable force," and "force of nature" sprung up in the mind. It was a good show, an electrifying show, what with all those retrievals and passes hitherto unimagined.

Each time he pounded away on the ground hurtling after a ball, it seemed it was not the clay that was taking the blows, but the opponent. No one I had seen had used defence in such an offensive way.

But once he ripped the field apart, memories of the former "clay" courters came to mind who considered the one month and a half around summer the whole tennis season.

And it seemed he would be no different. He seemed to have the same goods that these other guys had - speed, retrieval skills, and great passing shots, only he did everything better than those players, and was stronger and fitter.

"Well, a new generation clay-courter." But there was something nagging away at the bottom of the mind. Something was different about this guy.

Well, then came Wimbledon. The time of the year when the game's purists start regaining their composure, and start looking all superior again.

The clay-courters would go into hiding. And here we had a French Open champion, who was as inexperienced on grass as tennis players come.

He should surely take a holiday and go enjoy the prize money with his girlfriend. 
 
When you see someone doing what comes easy for him, the "effort" in it goes unnoticed.

The motions through which the player goes in the execution would be perfected through long stints of practice and muscle memory would take over even in a moment of distraction.

But when he is doing something completely new, you start to notice the mental and physical effort that goes in, partly because errors creep in and the effort to correct them are unmistakable.

So it was for Rafa at the French Open. The long drawn out rallies and the running passes did not seem out of place.

The intensity that he brought to the court seemed to be the natural intensity of a winner, or one that arises from the excitement of doing well in his first slam.

But all this gained prominence at Wimbledon and was seen in a different light where he reached the finals. There was a spring in his step sort of like that of a kid that has found a new toy to play with.

Still, how did he do it? In a technical sense, I mean. I remember discussing this with a friend. Rafa did not have a great serve, or a good return of serve.

Of course, he could run and move well on grass unlike so many others, but he did not have the strokes to go with it. It was amazing that he did what he did at the first Wimbledon without a good hold or return game.

But then that question is always asked in the background regarding Rafa's career. Even the most prominent fan of his would be thinking in the back of his mind, "how did he pull that off?"

Of course, the way he is making improvements to his game (the volley, the forehand inside out and down the line, the flat backhand cross court, the positioning on court, taking the ball early) with such a pace and consistency that it is not possible to say when he is going to peak.

If his body holds up, there maybe no end to the number of dimensions he may add to his game.

But the more important aspect is the struggle he undergoes on court and how he overcomes them, even with all these added weapons.

Rafa is a player who visibly struggles whether in his QF/SF match at Wimbledon, or his final vs Djokovic at US Open.

He is never completely superior to his opponents, and rarely pulls away from them like a Federer or a Sampras could. These matches could swing either way, which is one reason why he is such an exciting player to watch.

He gets tight when he is ahead. He starts playing defensively when attacked. He doesn't have unbound resources at his disposal and starts panicking when his opponent finds a chink in his armour (like against Roddick at IW). But that doesn't deter him.

There is that belief that the best shall be whatever, winning or losing, would be the outcome of giving one's best, more or less pulls him back into the game.

It manifests itself in the form of fist pumps, not so much at having won the point, but at having done justice to the point he played.

It also manifests itself in the way he finds that one running pass at 30-30 or that one wide spinning serve out of his opponent's reach when set-point down.

You see him playing, you cannot miss him flying in the face of adversity.

As and when he hangs up his racquet, Rafa's greatness would be etched in the minds of his fans, not by his Slam count or his Master's shields, but by his unrelenting commitment to give his best. For himself.

That single minded commitment and the simplicity that emanates from it is what makes him such an admirable character, and his strokes their quality. Rafa's game, from the way he serves to the shots he selects are visibly and inseparably interwoven with his character.

Rafa would never be the most superior tennis player. But he is in the pantheon of greats. As the last among the fittest to be there, but the first among the fighters. As a Darwinian anomaly.

Read more Tennis news on BleacherReport.com

Story lines develop every year in tennis—some new, some continuations from the leftovers of the previous year.

How these develop would, in any other era, have depended on what the draws throw out. But tennis right now is blessed with such a depth in talent that the draw will always promise to take up some exciting thread or another, however random it is—it's impossible to miss something or the other.

And this time, though the defending champion was missing, the draw looked to continue many of the existing story lines on the most exciting stage for tennis.

Of course, some of them are absolutes and will always be asked until the event has occurred: Will Andy Murray win his first Slam? Will Andy Roddick break out of his One-Slam Wonder status?

Others had more than one character: How will Rafael Nadal fare against Nalbandian, Berdych, Gulbis, all big hitters and his Achilles heel. Will Federer and Nadal face in the finals?

And here we are at the tail end of the Slam, and most would say that not only did the draw not hold out, with a galore of upsets, it did not even look like the draw many remembered from first seeing it. Berdych, Murray, Nalbandian all fell apart. So did Roddick, and Isner. And then in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, the fans consoled themselves saying that a Federer Nadal final was on the cards.

That Rafael Nadal is in ominous form, and so is Federer and both are battling not their opponents, but also the elements as well as any men to wield a racquet have. That this is going to be their best match ever.

And after Rafa's rout over Mikhail Youzhny, one end of the bargain had been kept. And the other would soon be kept. They willed the tennis Gods to do their bidding.

Well, four hours later, we have the news, "good" or "bad" is left to you to decide—Joker has won over Batman. And it is fitting too, for in their almost platonic, symbiotic relationship, as has it been for Federer and Novak Djokovic at the Open, where Nole has been happily filling the spot that Rafael Nadal was sooner or later expected to take up, the Joker deserves his victories too.

Here the story for the final will bifurcate, and we will follow Rafael Nadal, while Rajat Jain takes a look at Novak Djokovic (click).

Rafa started this year having all sorts of problems—difficulty to play himself into form, injuries, and lack of confidence because of lack of tournament victories. And the clay, loyal as it has been to its master over the years, came to his aid when he most needed it. Rounding off one of the most remarkable achievements on clay winning the "clay slam," on the back of a trimmed schedule he had got back his confidence and mo-jo for passing shots.

In winning the French Open and Wimbledon, he not only settled old scores, but also worked his way back to what many people consider "pre" Australian Open 2009 form. And that was not all. He showed a clinical ability to peak for the finals, and an even fitter mentality, playing clutch tennis to perfection.

And true to his commitment to career longevity, he immediately dropped off the radar, spending time with family, friends and for treatment of his knees.

After this prolonged break, and keeping with the popular notion that Rafa needs a lot of matches under his belt to find his rhythm, he did not perform well in the warm-up events to the US Open.

But start the US Open, and we see 130mph serves and a stronger hold-game then before, getting broken only twice in the lead up to the finals. Wonder what changing the grip a little bit can help you—from Eastern to Continental, almost like choosing which cuisine you like for dinner.

The steady progress he has made again suggests only one thing—Rafa's practice to scheduling to tournament preparation has hit the optimum for peaking for the tournament finals. And we are yet to see his best in this tournament come Sunday.

Now lets analyze the chances from a pro-Rafa perspective.

Rafael Will Win If...

He serves as well as he has done so far this tournament. It used to be difficult to hold serve against him, but now with a bullet-proof service game, you have no where to go.

The new flat bombshells have lent his slower serves even more credibility. The variance you got to face from across the net is now larger. And he has shown the acuteness of a good, even great server in mixing up his service arsenal and picking his spots correctly.

He also needs to shield himself from his clay court mentality, which if the matches so far are indicative of anything, is safely under lock and key. He takes the ball earlier and from closer to the baseline now without giving too much ground. His backhand wing is achieving the potency it had at the 2009 Australian Open, with cross court winners, and down the line control-gaining strokes.

The inside out and down the line forehands are looking great as usual. And the wide serve or the cross court forehand opening up the court with the one down the line is working to perfection. The inside out and down the line forehands also play to Nole's forehand, to setup which Nole needs more time than he needs for his backhand. So if these strokes are working, then he can setup a turret aiming the opponent's technically weaker wing.

He should be well aware that Djokovic is probably spent from his almost four-hour match against Federer today. Hence he could also go for slightly higher percentage strokes towards both wings aiming for a foot within the lines, trying to get Nole moving and break down his defenses and fitness rather than go for outright aggressive winners. Once that threshold is reached, then it might be plain sailing. 

Rafael Will Lose If...

The real Nole in his absolute best form turns up tomorrow.

Because put simply, Nole has been a better player on hardcourts compared to Rafa. And Rafa's loopy cross-court forehands play to Djokovic's stronger wing—his backhand.

Murray and Djokovic have been able to sort of dominate Rafa on hardcourts due to the simple reason that they have rock solid backhands. And Rafa's staple shot in a rally, the loopy cross-court forehand falls into the strike zone of their backhands, especially since on the DecoTurf, the ball bounces well over a foot less than it does on clay.

So if Rafa is unable to avoid his cross court forehands from falling in the comfort zone of Djokovic's backhand (throw in more acute angles when they are actually hit or hit with more pace), then he is going to be in trouble instantly.

Djokovic was seen in many colours today - defending exceptionally, and attacking clinically. Frustrating Federer and extracting errors from his forehand wing, or transitioning seamlessly to unload on his forehand, to finishing his points at the net with deft volleys, Djokovic played almost the perfect match today. Though Federer could take those baseline-kissing flattened out strokes, the same doesn't hold for Nadal whose extreme grip renders it necessary for him to have a convoluted swing on the forehand side.

He also read Federer's serve very well. And part of Federer's poor serving numbers can be put down to that. Of course the difficulty in facing Rafa's spin serve is not in anticipating it, but in the spin itself. But if Djokovic can read the serve as well as today, he might well make the flat delivery ineffective.

Also, if Rafa's movement is suspect, Djokovic's use of the drop-shot will put him off further. 

Intangibles...

The intangible of course is how well rested and recovered Nole will be in tomorrow's final. Not only was his semifinal physically draining, it must have been mentally intolerable, as evidenced by his inclination to injure himself with his racquet—hitting his head with the "Head." The fact that he is in a Slam final after a long time is only going to add to pressure. Advantage Nadal.

Also the wind could be a factor, and though both players have shown a nice ability to adapt to extreme conditions, Nadal's strokes with built in margin for error will be favoured. 

Shots to look out for...

Djokovic's delicate drop shots from the baseline, and Nadal's banana forehand. 

Prediction...

Rafael Nadal in four sets.

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First in the third round match with Boris Becker. If it wasn't Becker, it would have been someone else. But Becker was enough.

Gamesmanship.

Rafael Nadal feigned injury and asked for a medical time out to curb the momentum that Petzschner had (Philipp sounds easier, but Petzschner seems more fashionable). Becker seemed to suggest that the timeout was tactical, and that Nadal was moving well before the timeout.

From the tone with which he suggested it, it seemed that he was actually congratulating Nadal for it. Becker probably didn't see anything wrong with it and the guy sitting with Becker in the commentary box and asking something along the lines of, "are you saying that this is tactical?" was probably wishing he was somewhere else.

But so much for speculation.

Since then people have started suggesting that Nadal was running like a rabbit, or some creature that can run really fast (deer?), "before and after the timeout."

A survey of such people is not taken, but it might not be a bad guess to say that if it were it would reveal that all these people who are jumping in with Becker are the same that said that Nadal is done due to his knees, or his knees are done because of him (the latter makes more sense, doesn't it? but people keep mentioning the former all the time).

Then there are Rafa's fans doing rounds, despite their very small number, trying to popularize knowledge of incidents in the past where he did play through real pain, like Rotterdam against Andy Murray.

So he is pretty clean on such things. Other, more enterprising fans, go on to bring to attention to a certain toilet break in Australia.

Great heart like your idol, guys! Keep up the good work.

Like Nadal says, if you keep knocking on the door, finally you will be let in (he never talks about breaking doors down, though; would be good if you could keep that in mind).

The score at the time in the match with Petzschner was 2-1, in Nadal's favour, in the set. I mean, wouldn't he be smarter calling in the trainer when the other guy was actually leading in the previous set, or when the score was more like 5-4 and a break would give him the set? The guy's been doing this for a lot of years now, and the advantage of smart timing escaped him?

Oh yes, Nadal started thinking of it only after he lost the previous set. And what was the guarantee that he would hold on to his weak serve till 5-4? With the score at 2-1, it was  the best time since it was the most likely time to escape everyone's attention, for precisely the reasons given above.

Oh, Rafa is so smart to figure all this out during a nerve crunching match! And Becker too, for having caught the subtleties.

Nadal had first asked for the trainer during a change-over for some pain in the shoulder, and then declined it after that game since it was a momentary stiffness. Was he staging it so that his second call for a timeout would be seen as "really" legitimate ("really" is redundant here, but just for emphasis, you know?)?

Do the players really have time to think about such stuff during the match, or was Nadal expected to have a five-setter against the world No. 41, and had schemed all this beforehand. Maybe this was his Plan B for a tall flat hitter in case he had too much of this "momentum" (they tell me its mass times velocity; by that definition Rafa would always have the better average magnitude of momentum) like Del Potro, who was not playing there.

Oops, forgot the illegal coaching row. This was what Toni had coached Rafa about! I don't know how you can hope to communicate something so crooked in as concise a manner as would escape the umpire's eyes.

OK, so you get the point. But to the sane Rafa fan or a normal tennis fan however, the explanation would be simple.

Rafa had a really bad year last year and he exacerbated his knee injury by playing too much. He was on a process to improve his game for faster courts, and that process got killed in between. This was followed by an abdominal strain and another knee injury.

To put it in perspective, the summer of 2009 was when his game was at its best, and he had the most momentum. That was going to be the best year in his career, from the point of view of improvement, and from the point of view of conquests. He lost that most important time in his career to injury. Everything got reset.

And everyone started writing him off, to the point where he would definitely have doubted himself. To such a person, to come out against the prediction of virtually everyone, which was to the effect that he was done and was going to fade into oblivion, and then lose another single month to injury, knowing that there is some problem, is plain stupidity.

He called the trainer because he felt some pain.

He had played to five sets in the previous match. Another one was in his hands. And he felt some pain or stiffness on his right knee—the knee that went untreated when he pulled out of Barcelona (he pulled out of Barcelona because he wanted to treat his left knee).

However small that might be, it was merited. As to whether the pain comes as some sort of placebo effect in a losing scenario is left to your imagination.

Indeed, we have to use our imagination here where scientific data is not available as to his speed before and after the treatment, if we indeed need to get to the bottom of this issue (that is if you feel that there is indeed an "issue" here). And such imagination is, by definition, prejudice.

Right, Becker is the best designed speed radar. Some people would think that they don't need an expert's opinion to decide how fast a guy runs, even if the running is done on a tennis court. And not that all the "experts" were agreeing with Becker.

I mean, watch the matches, be pissed off that someone called the trainer and that you are losing three minutes of your time to boring advertisements.

But this...

Read more Tennis news on BleacherReport.com

Read more Tennis news on BleacherReport.com

Rob-in Soderl-ing and Raf-ael Nad-al .

In the context, the "ing " sounds almost like a phonetic antonym of "al ."

Maybe this is even a better final than Federer-Nadal final, least of all due to the phonetics. We know how a Federer-Nadal final goes, on Philippe Chatrier. We also know how a Federer-and-anybody-not-named-Nadal-final goes.

What we really don't know is how a Nadal-and-a-bad-matchup final would go, especially when the bad matchup is playing good tennis.

Maybe this is the first time in a long time that people are not really able to nail down their predictions with the customary confidence that a normal Grand Slam final would allow them. And its a very good thing for the fans.

There is a lot in the head in this finals—it's not just the racquets and the balls. Well, balls yes, but in a more figurative way.

Soderling seems to have a curious kind of attitude on court—a kind of aggressive calmness. And not just the way he hits the ball. The way he walks on court sure footed, and the way he looks at stuff—like you or the tennis balls. He just seems to be a man on a mission—to kill, to murder knowingly and not feel any guilt for it.

Against Federer, just about any other guy would have thought for a moment about "reality" after taking a set off him or even a break. That reality being that the man on the other side is supposedly a tennis God. A few would have grinned ear to ear on thinking that thought. And the rest would have simply melted away after the next Federer forehand winner.

Simply because most people cannot put themselves in the shoes of the best. Being there strikes fear in their heart. It of course starts with excitement, which then moves on to self-doubt and finally to panic and fear. Almost have them saying, "Oh dear, what am I doing?"

We thought that is the way Robin looked up at Federer—that he had too much respect for Federer and what he is able to do on court that he would not be able to hold his hand and head steady enough, believing that the match was on his racquet. But no. He drilled one forehand. Then another and another and just dismantled Federer.

It was brute force tearing apart a wonderful sculpture. Or acid gnawing through a beautiful face, whichever suits you better. But the fact is that it was done in a matter-of-fact, cold-blooded manner.

Does this Soderling fear Nadal, or the final stage? Hard to say he does. He seems to be playing in the moment not caring about the conditions or the opponent, just thinking and doing what he needs to do to win the damn match. The piercing glare and the harsh expression on the face just add to that image of him (and also the presser where he said these things).

All of this doesn't in anyway imply that "Mr Soderling is a very bad man," if you are wondering.

Well, technique has been discussed and dissected all over the Internet so much so that it has become a web of tangled mess of puzzled analyses, which is exactly why this final is going to be most anticipated.

Sunday is going to be rather warm with possible showers. The moist conditions would make the ball heavier and the courts slower, though the warmer air maybe able to keep a bit of moisture to itself. Heavier balls mean the guy with the easier swing will do better.

Soderling would utilize the slowness of court to swing harder and hit through the ball. If Nadal plays his traditional clay court game, he would increase head-speed trying to hit the baseline with heavier spin.

A warm court takes, well, warmly to pace and spin—it allows the pacier flatter stroke to barge through and catapults the heavily top-spun ball into the air. But a wet court takes exception to both of these. It slows down the pacier shot and absorb some of the impact of the top-spin stroke. More importantly, it gives even less bounce to the flatter one.

We saw how Soderling has dealt with these conditions—he just hit harder and harder through the court and made the difference go away utilizing the higher amount of setup he was allowed. What will Nadal do?

Nadal has not offered a clear picture of late. His last few opponents did not give him any real rhythm. Hewitt and Almagro, especially, played an all-court attacking game. The rallies were not quite as long as Nadal would have liked. He has been playing more ugly getting his hands dirty on clay. Instead of giving orders from his air conditioned office, he has had to come down to the field and dug deep using his bare hands.

The only thing that has been certain is that the four-time-champion was able to raise his game a couple of notches when it mattered and has been serving pretty well (he averaged 188kph at 76% against Melzer). He has done that so well that he is yet to face a set-point in the tournament.

Over the years, Rafa has learnt to tame his boyish nature. He seems to be nearing the end of that process now, and is more held back in displaying emotions. There is no question he still fights with the same fervour, but he has successfully translated his somewhat completely physical notion of "fight" he held then, to a more technical one, by adding more to his weaponry and giving himself more options than "just run for the ball."

It is a more difficult thing to do to make the mental (emotional) transition than the physical and cerebral one, since while you can learn technique, you cannot learn tendencies. He has realised that, "Though all points are equal, some points are more equal than others." He has at last steeled himself from putting his body on line when it comes to the principle of fighting for every point.

Maybe his renewed conception that tends more towards "clutch" tennis is what he best needs in this match-up against Soderling.

Because, in this matchup, it depends on who has the nerve to pull the trigger first, and it most probably will not be just one person doing it throughout the match.

Will Soderling go flat out on a shoulder crunching top-spin forehand and tilt the rally in his favour and succeed most of the times? Or will Nadal play out of his comfort zone and take cuts at Soderling's rockets trying to hit it to the Swede's feet rather than playing it short into the service box?

Come Sunday, and we are probably in line to witness the best final of the year.

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Whatever discussion there is in tennis, whoever it is about, it always boils down to something about Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.

For example:

Take an article about Ivan Lendl's achievements where it is mentioned somewhere that he had a great running forehand.

The discussion starts with the running forehand. A commenter then mentions that Sampras had a better running forehand than Lendl. Then a commenter talks about all the Slams that Pete won with that running forehand.

From there the convorsation turns from slam records, to Federer, to GOAT, to Nadal and Federer slamming.

Poor Lendl is left to chew the grass all by himself.

Or you could start with Bill Tilden and Pancho Gonzales and end up getting bruised and abused about two players you did not even want to talk about in the first place. 

Federer's missed chances against Nadal.

Their head-to-head is 14-7 in favour of Nadal. The numbers are pulled apart first—10-2 on clay, 3-3 on hard courts, 1-2 on grass courts.

This "discussion" proceeds by stating that if they had played more on grass courts their head-to-head would be tending more towards equality. Someone then points out that Federer is good enough to meet Nadal on clay but Nadal is not good enough to meet Federer on the other courts as frequently.

Some philanthropic soul then offers as a solution an extension of the grass season trying to focus the whole thing on an "issue" rather than the "personalities."

Then peace and serenity reigns for something like five minutes. Up comes some commenter saying that Nadal is a lefty. What if he were a righty? Would he have won as many? Someone points out Igor Andreev. But the original commenter "doesn't think so."

Actors from soaps then congregate, mourning all the opportunities Roger has missed against Rafa, as if these are just "flukes" for one player. They throw in Federer's charity for good measure to highlight the unfairness of the state of affairs.

Techniques on beating Nadal

This is among the most oft-repeated comments ever.

The favourite among the fans is that tall players get top-spin forehand into their strike zone. More sentences are added which carry no further technical information but just facts. But they are added anyway in an attempt to bolster the veracity of the arguments of the "commentator."

Robin Soderling was 6 feet 4 inches tall and that he beat Nadal in French Open. Not to mention that Soderling reached the final after beating a lot of guys who were ranked higher with meagre top-spin on their strokes (compared to Nadal). Or that Del Potro is 6' 6" tall and absolutely dominated Nadal.

The second favourite and the one that is catching up is that Nadal needs a big back-swing because of his extreme grip. Well no one really knows what is meant by this "extreme grip," they just know that "extreme grip" means more swing.

It is stated over and over and over again that a player should attack Nadal's forehand or that he won that game or this set because he did that.

Talk about cliches!

Of course such discussions are fun, if even just to watch, Tennis would be a dead sport if not for these, because in many discussions, it is all there is.

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Every concentrated activity that humans indulge in, sort of fits one set of talents more than others.

Physics fits well for somebody with a keen sense to spot generalizations; mathematics, though closely related, finds company with people who have reasoning abilities and logic; politics goes after those who can create a coherent public opinion, in other words, influence.

Of course, a sport chooses those who are athletic.

"Athletics" by itself, in that sense could be the purest among sports, since each of the events that constitute it concentrates on a single aspect of the human physique in the purest form of way--probably what we call "natural talent." Usain Bolt is a more naturally talented athlete than Roger Federer, in the purest sense of the word.

When it comes to games in sports with compound rules like tennis, it is not just one skill that decides the winner.

One can of course say that an athlete good at sprints "can run fast" and convey the whole information about his abilities, while you cannot say something similar about a tennis player.

You cannot even list down with absolute certainty what all he is good at (of course athletes who play games are not as good in any particular athletic department as an athlete who competes in athletics).

The scoring and rules of tennis take a weighted average of the different skills and proclaim a winner.

The constancy of the rules and scoring system do not mean that the weighing is done in a fixed way. Though we cannot say what the weighing constants are, we definitely get a sense that in different matches different factors play the key-role. While Andy Roddick's aggressive penetrating forehands did Rafael Nadal in, his ability to take off pace helped him against Tomas Berdych.

To put it simply, you cannot objectively compare two tennis matches.

This in addition to adding a new dimension to a sport like tennis has also unfortunately led to a lot of meaningless debates which try to wear the colours of objectivity (objectivity actually is colourless).

The more the number of dimensions the more enriching the sport becomes. And tennis has one more-different surfaces, each surface suiting better, a different subset of tennis talent compared to the others.

Let's talk dirt.

Assume that you have been given a set of numbers, all between 0 and 10. Most numbers are between 3 and 5. But one number, the last one is a 9. If this were the relative pace on the shot in a rally in a match held on a fast court, it would of course make sense that the last number or one very close to the last would be the highest in magnitude.

Fast courts differentiate more, the quality of single strokes and let them stand out in a rally and most probably win you the point.

The matter is a bit different when it comes to clay-court tennis, the 9 could be somewhere in the middle of the rally. Well there could be many 9s, and it could also happen that the last three to four numbers you see are solid, but not devastating, 6s.

Clay court tennis integrates more, adding the effect of each stroke one after the other averages it, and imposes the resulting average on the players alternately. This average can remain constant for a long time, like in long rallies.

But one player or the other starts packing more and more "punch" into the rally increasing the magnitude of the average faced by his opponent, extracting weaker replies which reduce the average he himself has to deal with. Once the average crosses his threshold the opponent buckles under the pressure and loses the point.

All this just means that playing on clay, what matters more is to construct your points rather than destroy your opponent in every rally. Taking the time away from your opponent is not so easy as regards the amount of work put in, unlike on a fast court.

The surface not only makes movement different, forcing you to slide to a stop, but also gives ample bounce on the ball and slows it down, putting more shots within tolerable reaches of a player, allowing him to hit it back more often than not.

In no other arena would you see the corners of a tennis court probed so incisively by the tennis ball, in an attempt by the players to push each other out of the tramlines and put them so impossibly out of position that almost anything they hit into the open court might be a winner, or would not give the opponent enough time on reaching there to react and execute correctly.

Indeed some of these protracted rallies come across as "boring" to the general public. But one must not forget that what is construed as boredom here is among the most difficult struggles in tennis, where two opponents are locked in an equal battle, both coping with the fact that despite their best efforts they are only able to just survive.

Truly, a test of character and consistency.

The phrase, "Spin and Slide" could very well differentiate clay court tennis.

Spin is normally a defensive element on any stroke allowing you to swing more freely finding more depth, safely. The best forehand in tennis today, Roger Federer's, has spin as one of its big components.

But on clay spin has been taken a level up to being offensive by Nadal. He spends a major proportion of the work on the ball on generating spin. Though it doesn't win points outright it percolates through the racquet head and hands of opponents breaking them down.

In a similar sense, when it is said that defensive tennis rules roost on clay courts, it must be taken to mean that clay allows what is normally regarded as defensive tennis to be executed offensively.

The movement of the legs and feet must be aimed in such a way that the upper body finds itself in a comfortable position to execute a swing and connect with the racket's sweet spot. Movement is only the means to the end, but a very important means, the only one.

Players who have won on multiple surfaces have made these two aspects of their technique independent. The movement allows them to reach the ball, once there, the upper body executes. They are oblivious of each other.

When you cannot move properly it could mean that you can't find your balance on the court while running, or that you can reach the ball in time, but are not able to find balance in your stroke.

The fomer is applicable only to new-borns.

The latter is something similar to being unable to play both the left and right hands on a piano independently. The way the lower body moves is affecting the way the upper body reacts to the ball.

Many people find the transition from synthetic courts to clay courts difficult. And it is not because they are too slippery on clay. Clay doesn't allow the traction that you get on hard courts to plant yourself, even on the run, and be pretty sure of your footing. The ability to slide and hit balls well is probably one of the best balancing acts in the game.

In closing, stroke-technique may not be rewarded as much as on faster courts on a clay court, because bad technique is normally bad because you do not have enough time to go through the motions, and you are given that in plenty on clay. (Nadal's technique is not good on all courts, and is hence inferior to Federer's, whose technique is good on any court.)

At the same time, it rewards creativity and a keen sense of court geometry (which is why Andy Murray can become a force on clay in a couple of years).

It rewards consistency and character.

Here's to a compelling clay court season!

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Today against A-Rod, during the match, they showed stats of his shot-placement. If you draw a line midway between the service line and the baseline, it is that line where the depth of his ground strokes averaged around. Where they were short, they mostly hit the sidelines as well, creating some of those acute angles.

Another stat they showed was the forehand winner count. I remember Roddick having a "0" by his name.

Well, that was before the Roddick played like Pete Sampras midway through the second set.

Roddick essentially pressed that same "button" which Robin Soderling found, and this year, Davydenko, Ljubicic, and Murray to an extend (well, Murray has a different control panel) pressed. And most of them have had to play their best tennis to find the button, and press it.

What is this button, anyway?

Nadal has been taking the ball earlier after his return from tendonitis. His backhand could always take them on half-volleys, but his forehand with that convoluted bicep-crushing swing has always needed more time. He has reduced it to a large extend. But it is still more than an easier swing, a less top-spin generating, more-to-the-east swing.

It is an inherent weakness in that stroke, and there is nothing you could do about it. It is there and it is there to stay. Hitting hard on his forehand, angled, low over the net, and deep has been the key. That is the button—reduce height, reduce setup.

It was easier for most players for most of last season, because Nadal's strokes sat up begging to be hit that way, making you feel guilty if you did not. But this year, he has been doing much better, and it has been much more difficult. Which is why when he lost, the scores have been closer, and the opponents have had to play way out of their comfort zones, first from the baseline and then from the net.

And once it is done three or four times, a tipping point is reached and the match starts titling the other way. While it has never been an avalanche, the subtle shift in momentum is pretty visible.

Last year when this happened, he used to back down a couple of meters. This year he is not doing that. But there are left-overs. For one, his body language shows surprise, which feeds to his opponent's belief.

For another, he doesn't stand up to his opponent soon enough when the opponent steps it up. He seems to be contemplating the effectiveness of his game on fast courts—as if admitting to himself that the way he plays will never overcome the way the opponent plays at that point, on a hard-court.

He seems clueless. And this seems more plausible since he doesn't change anything in his game as the match progresses. It is as if a, "what else can I do?" mindset sets in. The guys believe that they can do it over and over against him. And he sort of tells them that if they do, he can only run around retrieving balls.

To give Nadal credit, he has honed his game as much as possible as his style of play allows him to, to increase the opponents' risk in going for the area that is his weakness, which is why in some cases they went after his second serve rather than his ground strokes to reach that tipping point, and reducing stress on his knees.

As he says, no one can ask him to do more than what he can possibly do. And he seems to be doing the right things as far as his game is concerned.

Other than his forehand which is firing both cross-court and down-the-line at will, his backhand is also gaining that ferociousness of old. At one point of time, Nadal could setup points for his cross-court backhand with his forehand. Though it has not yet quite reached that level of morale-killing best, it still ranks among the best back-hands in business.

He is serving better, though the percentages are a bit lower. He can impart more pace and variety now. Also he has become a legitimate volleyer. A few lunging drop-volleys stand testimony to this. He even teamed up with Marc Lopez to win the doubles title in Indian Wells against the No. 1 team in the world.

So what is he doing wrong? Nothing is wrong with his homework. And his execution during larger parts of even the matches that he lost has been as good as he has ever played.

Why isn't he winning? It is probably a combination of things. Guys are finding ways to factor his strengths out of the game. One must remember that all the four of them had excellent days at the serving office in those matches; that they played some of their best tennis ever to beat him. In short it is probably not going to happen very consistently for any single player.

Another reason of course is himself. The pressure of not having won a title in almost a year, and his self-belief on hardcourts could definitely be affecting him. But he has to put those behind if he is to continue holding that crown of "the greatest competitor in sports." Greatest competitors shouldn't care that they have not won in years, let alone a few months; hell they shouldn't care that much about winning itself.

Looking ahead, the bull must see red. He has not been doing very well recently after falling back. He still has the best game on clay. Hence, clay will allow him to pull ahead earlier and more consistently, thus allowing him to play more tension free. His first title could come in the next few months. And there is no court suited to his game better than Philippe Chatrier.

The story of Nadal this year has seen him put in all the physical elements in place. Now comes the, perhaps more difficult, mental game.

Is the greatest competitor of the game up to it?

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The Special Theory of Relativity ranks among those few that sent all physicists scampering for cover. To say that time doesn't "flow" equally for every person in this world (universe, to be precise) with or without a watch, would cause anyone to shake his head in frustration at the guy who said it. But gladly we had enough smart people at that time, to understand and accept the stuff.

While it says that people moving relative to each other would observe different things about the universe, it also says that everyone is right, though the observations do not match.

Why they do not match, is that you are actually "comparing apples with oranges" (that is my favourite phrase here in BR tennis. I like apples more, what about you?). You need to do some non-intuitive(on the face of it) math on one person's observations so that it becomes comparable to the other person's.

Well, nature does it anyway.

The everyday battles that takes place between fans is hardly physics. And both parties are ensconced in their own reference frames, probably all of which are non-inertial. These arguments however have the looks of arguments between physicists.

Statistics are presented as experimental evidence first.

"Federer has won the most number of Grand Slam titles ever. From the fact that Grand Slams are the most coveted prizes and most difficult to be won in any era, it follows that Federer is the G.O.A.T."

Then exceptions are pointed out.

"But while it is representative of how much the player is better than his field, it doesn't provide a point of comparison with players from other eras. Look at the Sampras Era. He beat players who had won more Slams. So they were tougher to beat. Grand Slams during Pete's era were tougher than Slams during Federer's Era."

Somewhere down the corridor, you could hear that the exception only proves the rule. (To put the record straight, exceptions always disprove the rule).

Then more things are picked up like, "If he is the Greatest Of All Time, he must have a winning record against his main rival. This Nadal guy owns him."

Then more people volunteer with more statistics to analyze this new anomaly.

Yes, looking at it again, it indeed is like a search for something.

People keep coming up with numbers and people always try to find a meaning to these numbers. At each step, people always try to encompass more and more statistics into their theories trying to prove or disprove that Federer is the GOAT, maybe hoping that their theory would some day include all the sensible statistics possible.

But of course, it is nothing scientific.

In science, the "meaning" of a number arises from mathematical relations. It is abstract, and whatever mental picture of the meaning you have in mind, all such meanings always predict the same result, since these are forced to mathematically agree with each other by the inherent objectivity in science.

In our debates, the meaning of a number arises from the fans, each offering a different version. We do not have any experiments as well to see which is the correct meaning, because except the case where it is Federer V Hewitt/Roddick the outcome of the experiment is different (and it doesn't help that Hewitt and Roddick are not involved in the GOAT debates).

Add to it the "hope" that people carry that the statistics will in the future reverse, and you have a recipe for no consensus.

That is as hypocritical a usage of causality as any, since at other times one could see not only predictions being made, but also being used for future purposes regarding the same debate.

Well, what do you do in these cases? How do you resolve the debate?

There is no physical evidence that could be given like, for example, how you prove that 1 + 1 indeed is 2.

Of course, one day the earth maybe rid all people who believe otherwise and eveyone may agree to the truth of a single argument. And that day  at least to a good number of people, the subject encompassing the question might be elevated to the stature of the metaphysical.

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