This is getting kind of ridiculous. You don't even need to watch Rafael Nadal's tennis matches anymore. You can just turn up the volume with the TV in the other room and get the drift quickly with one ear tuned to the commentary: "Totally dominant; awesome performance; incredible; what does it take? Nobody in his league; the ball just burst into flames and singed the eyebrows off everyone sitting in the first row."
OK, I made that last one up. But seriously, when does it end with this guy? On the cusp of the clay-court season some 10 days ago, anyone who didn't want to see Nadal exert his customary stranglehold on the game during the Euro clay season had reason to feel somewhat hopeful.
Nadal has not won a tournament since Tokyo, last October. He's still No. 1, but that's on the strength of his ranking points from last summer. Nadal had a disappointing Australian Open, falling to his countryman David Ferrer in the quarterfinals. More recently, he was bruised and battered by No. 2 Novak Djokovic in bitter, back-to-back three-set Masters event battles. At the outset of the Monte Carlo Masters, he expressed serious reservations about his ability to win the tournament for a seventh consecutive year. You couldn't blame the "stop Nadal" crowd for feeling a bit buoyed.
It was all a cruel hoax. As nice as it must feel for Djokovic to own that Australian Open title from a few years ago and various early-season Masters shields, the harsh, scary truth is that Nadal's year begins now. This is when he morphs from a game, bullish, bolo-throwing contender into a doomsday stroking machine who's come closer to being unbeatable on clay than anyone since Bjorn Borg.
Going into his semifinal match, Nadal has lost all of 14 games, and it's like nobody can be bothered making note of it. It's called "concession." And the biggest concession this week was offered by Roger Federer, who was nicely positioned to ambush Rafa (please stop laughing and think about it).
Djokovic, who was even tougher on Federer (3-0 in 2011) than on Nadal, pulled out of Monte Carlo. Nadal is looking for his first tournament win in nearly a half year, and that means something, confidence-wise. Federer himself, knocked down to No. 3, has absolutely nothing to lose; and if you don't think this dude can still beat anyone on any surface on a given day, you've got clay for brains.
But Federer is gone -- dispatched in swirling winds by a guy struggling to hold his place in the top 10, Jurgen Melzer. If the greatest player of all time, and for a decade the second best player in the world on clay, can't even get into position to challenge Nadal, what hope do all those other pilgrims have?
The guy with the most reasonable shot is neither Andy Murray nor Frederico Gil, one of whom will be Nadal's opponent in the semis, but Ferrer -- should he get by Melzer and make it to the final.
Ferrer prevailed in four of his 15 meetings with Nadal, including the last one. But he's winless in previous matches in Monte Carlo, and won a total of just 11 games in those two meetings. In nine matches between those two on clay, Ferrer won just once -- the first time they played, back in 2004. Even so, he had to go to 7-5 in the third against Nadal, who was still wearing his baby fat.
If Nadal wins tomorrow and you tune in Sunday, feel free to do some dusting, or help your kid build that 54,000 piece Lego set. Leaving the volume on is optional.
