A skirmish does not a rivalry make

The next time someone calls what goes on between Federer and Nadal a rivalry, I’m going to scream. Since the blogosphere equivalent of a scream is a few hundred words of ranting, I’ll just content myself with it for now.

Federer has 7 major titles, Nadal has 1. Federer has demolished almost everything seen holding a racket anywhere in the world the past three years, Nadal rules only that roost called clay which most normal human beings haven’t figured out how to walk on, much less glide around and hit a ball on. Federer plays tennis like a jazz musician -- artfully elegant, smoothly competent, effortlessly classic and casually composed. Nadal’s only semblance to music is the grunt that grows louder by the minute and reaches a crescendo at matchpoint, his serve is truly awkward, he scrambles clumsily for every ball, and takes about a painstaking year between points [it’s hard enough to sit through a clay-court match waiting for someone to voluntarily drop the ball (pun intended), cos that seems the only respectable way to earn a point in Paris].

Even the very one-sided Sampras-Agassi “match-up” entailed a more convincing contest -- a series of meetings on a variety of surfaces, albeit resulting in the consistently ruthless demolition of one by the other.

Consider this: Nadal’s career head-to-head against Federer is 5-1, only two of those wins coming on hard courts, and in Miami in ’04, Federer was clearly not at his physical best. His record against Roger on surfaces other than clay, is hard to comprehend, cos he has never gotten far enough for us to find out. And the reason he hasn’t met Roger in early rounds is cos he’s riding on his world #2 ranking, winning as he did last year, everything there is to win on clay, except two losses (even there, he was 50-2 -- one behind Roger, whose record on hard courts was a remarkable 50-1).

Noone says it better than the eloquent Andy Roddick did about his Wimbledon clashes with the Swiss phenomenon – "I am going to have to start winning some of these matches if we are going to call it a rivalry." By the same token, Nadal will have to start playing some matches with Federer to call this a rivalry.

So, while I concede that the bicep-flaunting, long-mane sporting, fist-pumping Raffa (who would fit right into a Manga comic strip), has perfected the art of sliding and slithering on clay, and probably deserves the gold in an Olympic skating contest, he’d be better off leaving the sport of tennis to the pros.

There is little doubt that Nadal will win the French Open this year, mainly on account of his sliding talent, but hitting a tennis ball with a racket remains the Swissman’s area of expertise. And let’s not forget that Hewitt’s record against Federer was 7-0 and that of Nalbandian was 5-0 before he figured them both out and neither of them has been able to beat him since, at least in the matches that matter. And if his classic display against Nadal in Rome last month is anything to go by, it’s only a matter of time before Federer starts building his castles on clay…

I’m sorry folks, I know individual sport dwells on the idea of contrasting styles and conflicting personalities, and I know you’re hungry for a well-fought tennis match against the obviously peerless Federer, but let’s face it -- till someone comes along that can figure out a way to break the world number one on his favorite turfs, which include, the green grass at Center court, the hard courts at Melbourne and Flushing and every clay-less surface on earth, the post of a worthy rival will remain up for grabs.