(5) Nadal d. (2) Federer, 6/1 6/3

Rafael Nadal today won his seventh Rome title, in the process claiming his twenty-fourth Masters trophy and establishing a favouritism for Roland Garros so clear that to go on denying it would be to court ridicule. One could be glib, and point out that Roger Federer was there, too. But a more accurate assessment would be that Federer’s presence was fundamental to the final score, if not to the outcome. The widespread assumption coming into the match was that the Swiss would probably perform adequately, and would therefore lose quite thoroughly. Instead he played awfully, which made it awkward to watch.

Such matches present anyone determined to write about them with a problem, especially if that writer is eager to push the word count beyond four hundred yet avoid a verbatim reprisal of previous material. (The truth is that it would be more fun to write up the final of the Bordeaux Challenger, which turned out to be an excellent encounter between Gael Monfils and Michael Llodra, played in fine spirits amid a great atmosphere. Monfils won 7/5 7/6, for the record.) Anything that can be said about Nadal’s clay court prowess has been covered exhaustively, and everything I wrote after last week’s Madrid final remains more than pertinent. Furthermore, one need not tarry overlong in deconstructing a result the players spent so little time putting together.

My alternative, therefore, is to digress. I can discuss broader trends, and examine at how this result continues or bucks them, thus proving my profound wisdom. I can point out flaws in common knowledge, which allows me the warm glow of iconoclasm. There is also an opportunity to loft oneself into rarefied allusion. This is an especially attractive option in the Italian capital, where few can resist the temptation to buttress their point with Roman precedent, or at least an ominous Latin quote or two. Indeed, as I’ve said, the Foro Italico owes its existence to Mussolini’s determination to make precisely such a point. It’s also a nice way to bring something a little different into the reporting of tennis, since too many tennis writers write like people who don’t read. If I’m really short on material I could discuss Federer’s haircut.

I suppose I should talk about the match a bit. The first game was Federer’s best, featuring five points, four of which were winners, and three of which were his. This failed utterly to foreshadow what was to come, except insofar as it revealed that Federer’s approach would entail all out aggression at any cost. The next six games were more indicative. Nadal won them all, looking perfectly superior in most neutral rallies, allowing Federer next to no free points on serve (I think the Spaniard missed one return in that first set) and emphatically answering any query Federer put to him. But it also revealed that the true cost of Federer’s relentless attack was an alarmingly mounting error tally. He finished that first set with fifteen.

A note should be made here. There is a persistent view that the unforced errors produced by Nadal’s opponents aren’t really unforced at all, but are a reflection of the pressure instilled by coping with his game, particularly on clay. Such arguments naturally predate Nadal. Indeed, they’ve been kicking around for a long time, since people first began maintaining such statistics, for better or worse. As an idea it gained widespread currency during Andre Agassi’s later career (meaning the cloyingly monk-like part after he’d recovered from the allegedly degrading horrors of being very rich and famous). Agassi’s contract stipulated that anyone commentating his matches had to declare that his opponent’s errors were really inspired by the terror of seeing him planted up on the baseline. There’s probably something to this idea, but it’s also easy to make too much of it. A related idea is that great returners provoke more double faults, which seems self-evident, but isn’t actually borne out by the numbers.

The advantage of today’s match being so short is that one could watch it again. Doing so bore out my initial impression that Federer’s heroic error tally mostly reflected a tendency to over-hit, even on fairly simple put-aways from mid-court and at the net. Naturally his awareness of Nadal’s speed, anticipation and great hands inspired him to go for more than he would have otherwise – and Nadal hit some truly brilliant passing shots today, especially from the backhand – but we shouldn’t forget that a resume like Federer’s owes a lot to his ability to execute repeatedly under pressure. Today he didn’t. He produced another seventeen errors in the second set, bringing his total to a rather grand thirty-two. Nadal hit precisely one quarter as many.

Like I said, I can’t imagine a more modest selection of errors would have altered the result, though it probably would have made for a more interesting match. There was momentary interest when Nadal stepped up to serve for the title at 5/1 in the second set, and was promptly broken to love amid a sudden barrage from Federer, who then held. But any fears or hopes that this might spark a radical reversal were ameliorated or dashed when Nadal served it out comfortably.

His victory speech was typically gracious, and judging by the appreciative reaction of the local crowd, demonstrated a firming command of Italian. I’m hardly fluent, but even I could tell it represented substantial progress on his speech following he and Federer’s last final at the Foro Italico, in 2006. That day they’d collaborated on an all-time classic, with Nadal clawing back match points to triumph deep in a fifth set tiebreaker. Both men were so exhausted that they promptly pulled out of the Hamburg Masters the following week, which was subsequently won by Tommy Robredo, enabling him eventually to qualify for the Masters Cup (to Goran Ivanisevic’s very public disgust). This was held to be a crime against the sport, and gave the ATP an uncounterable argument for cancelling best of five set finals. In the long years since there have been many persuasive arguments that something was irreversibly lost. Today’s Rome final was not such an argument. Aside from Nadal’s fans, who understandably could have gone on watching all day, did anyone really want to see more of that?

Nadal has won three of the five Masters events played this year (Indian Wells, Madrid and Rome). Of the remaining two he reached the final of Monte Carlo and didn’t play Miami. He has now returned to the number four ranking, but based on these (and other) results it’s hard to argue he isn’t the best player in the world at the moment. With due acknowledgement for how well he is playing, there’s also substance in the contention that he’s the only one among his peers playing well. Federer is now healthy, but his form remains terribly patchy, as we saw today. Murray is injured, and seems to me to have relapsed into bad patterns. Djokovic, aside from a few masterful tournaments, seems uncannily like the old version of himself from before 2011. Indeed, much of the top ten is out of sorts. Tsonga is all over the place, Del Potro has pulled out of the French Open, and Berdych only ever looks imposing until he reaches the semifinals.

Beyond that, there are signs that the top four’s unprecedented stranglehold on the big events, at least at Masters level, is starting to loosen. They’re still winning them, of course, having claimed 28 of the last 30 (with the remaining two being won by the world number five at the time). But they seem to be losing more often before the finals and semifinals, and players as various as Paire, Wawrinka, Janowicz, and Haas are now earning their place in the final four. I don’t think I’m alone in hoping this signals a broader movement towards more variety at the death of big events. Whether it’s old or new blood, tennis right now cold use some fresh blood.

Inevitably, the question has been aired of precisely what this result means for Federer’s legacy, both this particular match, and the broader implications of his head-to-head with Nadal. Announcing Federer’s decline has become something of a cottage industry in recent years, and I imagine there are commemorative tea-towels available somewhere. I don’t pretend to know how he feels about any of it, and as a rule I have no time for the practice of summing up a person’s career while that person is still busy building it. It’s a tendency that has grown particularly common in recent times, unsurprisingly in an age when celebrities and sporting luminaries are encouraged to publish their memoirs before they turn twenty-five. For what it’s worth, my view is that Federer is probably the best player ever to have played, and in his prime he was the second-best clay courter of his era. The result was that he often reached clay court finals, and there discovered arguably the most accomplished and ferocious clay courter of all time. Had Federer been a worse clay courter, and reached fewer finals, like Sampras, his head-to-head with Nadal would have ironically looked much better. Mostly, however, it is a fatuous debate, and I find it about as diverting as discussions of Federer’s hairstyle. If the debate must be held at all, it will only make any kind of sense after they’ve both retired, and even then it’s doubtful.

Nonetheless, the debate continues because the pursuit of prestige is eternal, and easily understood. Indeed, it was something the Romans understood in their bones, since it underpinned their entire society. Lives were lived in order to ensure a heightened legacy. The very streets near where Federer and Nadal today fought often burned or stank with corpses as avowedly great men dissolved the city in blood and flames for nothing more than their own ambition. Plutarch has it that when Gaius Marius retook Rome, turning it into a charnel house, and began his seventh consulship he grew unhinged with fear at the thought of Lucius Sulla returning to exact vengeance, rapidly succumbing to nightmares and dementia:  ‘Dreadful, indeed, is the lions’ lair, even though it be empty.’ This line always reminds me of the Rome Masters, where a player might thrive for a time, but eventually must face Nadal.

In any case, it’s naïve to hope one’s legacy will remain intact even after it is completed, in this age or any other. No man in the entire history of the Republic had achieved greater renown than Marius, but when Sulla eventually returned to Rome, he ordered Marius’ bones publically exhumed, and unceremoniously tossed into the river. Nothing lasts forever, or even for very long. Little did Sulla guess that in time the crucial differences between them would be forgotten, until both were held merely to be representative of their age. Perhaps they were: whereas Sulla and Marius once fought side-by-side desperately to repel the invading Teutons, twenty-one centuries later Mussolini welcomed the Wehrmacht with open arms. I’m not sure what to make of that. Perhaps nothing. In time, Nadal and Federer will seem more alike than not, and the debate over who was better will merit no more than a footnote. In the meantime, you’ll note that the urge to legitimate one’s work with references to eternal Rome is an indulgence not confined to dictators, and extends to tennis writers.

(5) Nadal d. (6) Berdych, 6/2 6/4

(2) Federer d. Paire, 7/6 6/4

Roger Federer today defeated Benoit Paire in crooked straight sets, simultaneously reaching his first final of the season, and ensuring he achieved the least ideal preparation for facing Rafael Nadal in it. The fascinating problems posed by Paire, an assertive and mercurial French right-hander with a bold first serve and an inclination to abbreviate points, are completely unlike those Federer will encounter tomorrow. It also doesn’t help that Federer has so far played all his matches at night, while the final is scheduled for mid-afternoon. To be fair, it probably doesn’t matter much either way.

Realistically, by which I mean unrealistically, the only useful preparation for facing Nadal on clay is to become Novak Djokovic. Tomas Berdych earlier discovered that merely beating Djokovic does not constitute adequate preparation. It might have helped had he eaten the Serb’s heart, rather than merely breaking it, thereby ingesting a portion of the world number one’s fabled strength. As it was, the Czech was decisively over-matched, and probably would have lost even had he better executed his strategy, which is a term I employ loosely. Not only did he lack answers, he repeatedly failed to ask the right questions.

Berdych wasn’t quite the same player who’d staged that astonishing comeback against Djokovic in the quarterfinals, but nor was Nadal quite the same guy who’d narrowly survived an inspired Ernests Gulbis. Nor was it the same Berdych who last year threw everything at Nadal in Rome, yet still lost. As I say, short of being Djokovic, what can one do? Nadal afterwards conceded under interrogation that today’s performance was indeed excellent, with the first set ranking among the best he’s ever played in Rome. You know it’s good when even he is willing to own up to it. It would have been perverse not to. Nadal landed 77% of first serves, but the more worrying statistic for his opponent was that he missed 23% of them, since this turned out to be a guaranteed prelude to Nadal winning the point: Berdych won just eight points on return, and none of them came on a second serve. Such figures more than bore out the visual evidence, which was that Nadal dominated even those few rallies in which Berdych actually remembered to press the Spaniard’s weaker backhand.

Federer has been broken only twice en route to the final, suggesting that tomorrow’s encounter won’t reprise the unparalleled 2006 Rome final, but might instead echo the notorious 1998 Wimbledon final between Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic. The curious statistic appeared that the only other times Federer managed so smooth a passage in a clay court Masters event – Madrid in 2009 and 2012 – he subsequently won the event. You’d have to be a pretty determined fan in order to nourish your hopes on such numbers, though. More encouraging have been his first serve numbers, at least before the semifinals. Prior to today’s match, Federer was serving at over 75%, with no hint of the back injury that afflicted him several months ago. If he produces numbers like that tomorrow, he might make it close. Then again, Federer never does sustain numbers like that against Nadal, especially on clay. This is not a coincidence. Enhanced pressure means fewer of those first serves land in, while more of those that do come back. Whether Federer will be sufficiently battle-hardened when they do is a nice question.

His draw, in this respect, probably hasn’t helped. It would be wilful to pretend the Swiss hasn’t enjoyed a very generous path to the final, facing no seeds, and with only the lowly Potito Starace counting as a clay court specialist, insofar as the Italian is even less accomplished on every other surface. This is hardly a criticism, since you can only play who you’re presented with, and the men Federer was presented with had proven their mettle by repeatedly dismissing more fancied players. Indeed, this must be considered Paire’s breakout tournament, with the highlight being his fifty-seven minute thrashing of the hollering but hopeless Marcel Granollers in the quarterfinals. There was also a fine attacking effort against (an admittedly ailing) Juan Martin del Potro. Had he put together a better tiebreak in today’s first set he might have really given Federer a scare.

Jerzy Janowicz’s experienced his first taste of notoriety last October at Bercy, but this week’s result in Rome yields little to that earlier one, especially since upsets over top eight players at the Paris Indoors are unfortunately festooned with asterisks, huddled as it is in the lee of the tour finals. This week Janowicz was excellent against several accomplished players – Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet – who had every reason to give their best, and he won. He lost against Federer, but he lost well; there was certainly no shame in it.

Paire’s ranking has consequently soared ten places, to number twenty-six, meaning he’ll be pleasantly seeded for Roland Garros. Janowicz rose one place to number twenty-three. Federer will still be number three even if he wins tomorrow. Asked afterwards to assess his chances he was quick to signal his confidence, quite literally. If Nadal wins, he will vault past David Ferrer back into fourth spot. The happy result of this is that he’ll have a deserved top four seeding in Paris, even if Andy Murray does play, and that the rest of us won’t have to hear about it any more.

Of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments unevenly studding the ATP calendar, Rome’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia is my favourite. For one thing, the location is perfect, and perfectly peculiar. Whatever the Foro Italico’s provenance – confected in the 1930s, it reflected Mussolini’s determination, common among tyrants, to legitimate his rule via a spurious connection with ancient glories – one cannot deny that set dressing this sumptuous helps establish a certain tone.The kitsch statues dotting the grounds are no more authentically Roman than the props in Gladiator, but they work the same trick.

A premier tennis tournament in a fake Roman sports facility is something you’d hope to encounter in the United States, so it’s doubly piquant to experience it in Rome itself. Furthermore, the current tournament has been staged at this location since 1950, which in tennis counts as a venerable tradition, and it’s hard to know what to make of it. The gap between real and fake shrinks year by year, especially as the pool of people who know or care about the difference irreversibly dries up. I wonder what Umberto Eco makes of it. I don’t know if he’s a tennis fan, but I’ll be sure to put it to him if ever our paths cross.

Still, exhaustive fidelity to detail in the mise-en-scene counts for little if the story lacks vigour – the Baz Luhrmann principle – and it wouldn’t be my favourite Masters if it was no more than a theme park for semioticians. Thankfully, the story is typically excellent. For whatever reason, Rome generally throws up more memorable tennis matches than any other event at this level. (Strangely, this is rarely the case for the concurrently staged WTA event.) This year’s tournament is only three rounds old, and there has already been sufficient drama for a full week elsewhere. It has been so memorable that I’ll recount some of it here, lest we forget.

Andy Murray turned 26 on Tuesday, which was bound to happen eventually. It was a far more miraculous event for the British press corps, which permitted itself the full measure of its adoration. There was a time, during Il Duce’s heyday, when two score and six was regarded as the peak age for a male tennis player. One English journalist, perhaps concerned that Murray has yet to achieve enough, suggested that this theoretical age be updated to 28. Perhaps by then he’ll be closer to winning the French Open.

He certainly won’t be winning it this year, having aggravated a persistent back injury in his second round match against Marcel Granollers. The Scot’s injury occurred quite early in the first set, which he duly lost. Granollers broke early in the second set, and looked like going on with it. Murray then staged a series of comebacks that were precisely as remarkable as they were pointless. Twice the Spaniard moved ahead a break, even serving for the match, before eventually losing the set in a tiebreak. Only then did Murray retire, having apparently proved his point. Interestingly, this is only the second time Murray has ever retired from a match, and both times have occurred on his birthday.

Afterwards he revealed that he’d be unlikely to play in Paris. The world number two’s withdrawal would grant Rafael Nadal a top four seeding at Roland Garros, which means that the rousing ‘debate’ over the legitimacy of Nadal’s number five seeding was even less useful than it initially seemed, although that hardly seemed possible. It achieved little more than the revelation that lots of people apparently didn’t know that Roland Garros determines seedings based on the Entry System, or that missing seventh months of the season has repercussions for one’s ranking. Lleyton Hewitt was the top seed at Roland Garros in 2002, ahead of Gustavo Kuerten. I can’t recall anyone complaining. Whether the French Open should in future adjust its seeding policy to something more like Wimbledon’s is a related debate, but still a separate one. The idea certainly has merit, but there was never a chance it was going to be implemented this year, scant months out from the event.

In any case, Nadal has more pressing concerns in Italy. He wasn’t far off losing to an inspired Ernests Gulbis, who, like Djokovic in the Monte Carlo final, several times came within a point of inflicting Nadal’s first clay court bagel in five years. Gulbis closed the first set out 6/1, which was still an appropriate reward for one of the best sets played this year, by anyone. Nadal of course has a proven capacity to weather such storms, knowing that no one remains unplayable for long. When a big hitter is hitting big, there’s not much you can do except ride it out, and defend what you can. Nadal’s eventual victory was a testament to this – just 13 winners to 59 from Gulbis – although Gulbis’ tendency to puncture an otherwise superb effort by saving poor service games for the ends of sets certainly bears acknowledgement.

Any hope that Sky Sports’ obsession with altitude would fade upon leaving Madrid proved naïve on my part. Mark Petchey dutifully suggested Gulbis’ excellent first set was only possible because Nadal’s groundstrokes were falling short, and that this occurred due to the sudden return to sea level. I imagine he essayed a similar explanation when Philipp Kohlschreiber withdrew from his encounter with David Ferrer citing vertigo, of all things. Nadal and Ferrer play next. I’m not sure many people are looking forward to it, for any number of reasons. Assuming Nadal gets past Ferrer – I do assume that, for the record – he’ll probably play Novak Djokovic, who I also assume will survive Tomas Berdych. Berdych today defeated Kevin Anderson, which is fast becoming the defining theme of both their years, for better and worse. Djokovic, it bears mentioning, has looked terrific so far in allowing decent players no chance at all. Perhaps it doesn’t bear mentioning: he looks like that nearly all the time.

The week’s dramatic centrepiece was undoubtedly Viktor Troicki’s second round performance against Gulbis, a four minute tirade over a disputed ball-mark, that roamed across the entire court, featured extras and props, and culminated in a threat to take his racquets and go home. While it wasn’t quite the comic coup de grace it has been made out to be – the standards of tennis humour are calibrated notoriously low – Troicki has raised the bar dangerously high for anyone determined to go bananas in the future. Expect Jerzy Janowicz to organise the lines-people into a cancan line in Paris. It has also galvanised the call for Hawkeye to be deployed on clay courts. The calls have grown more vehement after yesterday’s otherwise wonderful match between Janowicz and Richard Gasquet, in which the Frenchman was broken back early in the second after Janowicz demanded the umpire confirm the wrong mark. It was less pivotal to the result than some have claimed, but the outraged cries of the slighted are always the slowest to find silence.

Benoit Paire’s straight sets victory over Juan Martin del Potro was probably the finest performance in the third round, one in which the younger man tempered his natural (and hitherto self-defeating) exuberance with an uncharacteristic maturity and poise. Tasked with serving out the first set, he simply did that, landing decent serves, closing the net and hitting his spots, as opposed to his usual practice of serving underhanded and attempting drop-shots with the handle of his racquet. He managed 38 winners, to just twelve from his opponent, and deployed his backhand masterfully to ensure del Potro could only rarely set his feet. The commentators were slow to cotton on to the developing upset. They commenced by discussing Paire’s manifold shortcomings and predicting the Argentine’s certain victory. After the first set they began pointing out that del Potro is a notoriously slow starter. The culprit – lack of altitude – escaped censure. Only late in the second set did it become apparent that Paire was actually playing his way into the Rome quarterfinals, and that those patiently awaiting Delpo’s inevitable fight-back were waiting in vain.

Roger Federer, newly shorn, has progressed easily, looking considerably more ferocious than he did in Madrid last week, where he was incapacitated by a toxic blend of altitude and Kei Nishikori. He has so far dropped six games in two matches. Admittedly one of these was against Potito Starace, who has lately tumbled from a perch than was never very high. Nevertheless, Federer dealt equally harshly with Gilles Simon, ensuring that their match never reached the usual point at which the Frenchman sucks him down into the psychic mire. Mikhail Youzhny had failed to work the same trick in the round before, failing several times to serve out the first set, and afterwards looking exactly as irritated as someone being beaten to death with pillows should, especially someone who’d already seen off the in-form Tommy Haas. Federer next plays Janowicz and, given the state of his half of the draw, must fancy his chances at reaching his first Rome final since 2006.

(5) Nadal d. (15) Wawrinka, 6/2 6/4

Rafael Nadal today defeated Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets to reclaim the Madrid Masters title, winning a final whose almost complete lack of drama proved a fitting conclusion to a tournament whose outcome felt more or less foregone by the quarterfinals. There wasn’t even a Will Smith to enliven proceedings. Nor was there the usual dose of Ion Tiriac. Say what you like about him and his various ‘innovations’, but he at least allows tennis fans to indulge in their most cherished activity: vociferous moral outrage over highly trivial things. Alas, there was none of that.

Nonetheless, Nadal didn’t have it all his own way. He actually dropped a set this week, in total contrast to last week in Barcelona, where he dropped none. (That’s a worrying trend. He might conceivably drop two sets in Rome, and three in Paris.) Nadal’s key moment, we have been informed at soporific length, came when David Ferrer led him by a set and 6/5 in their quarterfinal, with the favourite serving to stay in the match. Ferrer achieved his desired short ball with Nadal hopelessly stranded on his backhand side. Ferrer, obeying his sly inner voices, opted against hitting the ball into the unoccupied acreage in Nadal’s ad court, and thereby gaining a few match points, which are the kind of points he should be interested in obtaining. Instead he hit it straight back to Nadal, who improvised an excellent reflex lob and subsequently won the point.

This point illustrated several things. Firstly, by so comprehensively stuffing it up, Ferrer lent further credence to the belief that he is destined always to blow it in such situations. Secondly, Nadal’s desperate shot to stay in the rally was a good example of what great hands he has under pressure, and showed why he is so difficult to beat: all he needs is half a chance. Thirdly, it usefully demonstrated that skill and luck are not mutually exclusive. Skill makes certain outcomes possible, or less unlikely, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee them. Skill gave him half a chance.

The only thing less surprising than Ferrer wasting his half-chance at victory was that, even up a set against a curiously wayward Nadal, it would prove to be his only chance. However, one shouldn’t make more of this moment than it merits. There’s a reason we don’t maintain statistics on all those who win titles after nearly facing match point. As soon as Nadal won that point, the match was as good as over, and all the tension sluiced away. The third set was a bagel. So was the first set of his semifinal against the unlikely Pablo Andujar, who’d sustained his audacious run by upsetting Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals. Andujar is probably the least likely Masters semifinalist in recent times, and Nadal quickly set about demonstrating how little his compatriot belonged in the last four at this level.

Wawrinka’s path the semifinal had been altogether more fraught, since he’d been obliged to overcome two top ten players, including last year’s finalist Tomas Berdych in the semifinals. This was probably the match of the tournament (although others had run it close, such as Grigor Dimitrov’s dramatic upset of Novak Djokovic, Ferrer’s over Tommy Haas, and Daniel Gimeno-Traver’s victory over Richard Gasquet). It ensured that Madrid’s final weekend at least had one match worth remembering, which is sadly about all we can hope for these days. Both of Wawrinka’s victories had taken three sets, as had the one against Dimitrov, and each had boasted its share of enervating drama. This probably wasn’t going to play in Wawrinka’s favour against Nadal.

Introducing today’s final, Sky Sports led enthusiastically with the statistic that Nadal had never lost to the Swiss in eight previous meetings, and that he hadn’t dropped a set in any of them. They then reiterated precisely how exhausted Wawrinka must be, given his heroic toils en route to the final, and how nervous, in just his second Masters final. His only hope, it was intimated, was the altitude, which Madrid has a lot of, and which Nadal, we were constantly told, doesn’t much care for. Regrettably, Wawrinka’s feelings on the matter weren’t canvassed, and no tactical advice was forthcoming on how he might turn this astonishing geographical phenomenon to his advantage.

Although Nadal had won seventeen consecutive sets against Wawrinka, none of them were bagels. At least Wawrinka can hold that over Ferrer, for the time being. Still, it was a close run thing when Nadal leapt out to a 4/0 lead. Wawrinka thankfully managed to hold, and then held again for 2/5. But holding was all he was doing and it wasn’t anything like enough. Nadal had yet to drop a point on first serve, and closed the set out easily. We were whisked back to the Sky studio, where the visual evidence was confirmed: Nadal was indeed playing exceptionally well, in spite of the altitude.

Wawrinka faced break points in the opening game of the second set, but made the key adjustment of saving them all, which produced the happy result of him holding serve. Nadal held more emphatically, but at least some kind of battle had been joined. It was still a hopelessly lopsided battle, but it was something. I think Nadal was taken to deuce on one of his services games, which was very exciting. (When you’re searching for narrative tension, you have to take what you can get.) Wawrinka threw in a truly appalling game at the set’s midpoint, sealing his own fate with a pair of double faults. I assumed it was the altitude, and that those serves would have found the service box at sea level, but the experts working for Sky offered no insight. Nadal held comfortably for the title. Clearly that earlier deuce game had weighed on his mind; as Wawrinka’s final shot landed long, the Spaniard collapsed onto his back, exultant at closing out a match he’d never once looked like losing. The stats told the tale. Nadal won ninety per cent of first serve points (as ever he landed the majority of them), while Wawrinka achieved a perfect return on break opportunities: 0/0.

Afterwards, while Nadal searched for a part of the Ion Tiriac trophy he could bite without sustaining injury, it was reiterated just what an achievement it was for him to win this week, in spite of Madrid’s allegedly trying conditions. It was all growing rather tiresome. The conceit, unquestionably, is that even when Nadal wins easily there’s a requirement that he must be struggling against something. The discourse of el guerrero imparable is too pervasive to be casually set aside, and thus most analysis is made subservient to it. Nadal’s incredible technical skills on a tennis court, buttressed by tens of thousands of hours training, are constantly glossed over in favour of the preferred narrative that he wins through sheer spirit despite the putatively crippling flaws in his game and atmospheric conditions designed to test only him. I think this does nothing but diminish Nadal as a player, in pursuit of a trite story.

According to this story, not only does Nadal battle the exterior elements – wind, rain, altitude and roofed-courts are his perennial adversaries – but his own inner demons as well. Thus we are treated to constant assessments of Nadal’s ‘confidence levels’. After today’s final we were reminded that this victory would give him a great deal of confidence heading to Rome, as though winning it six times already wouldn’t do that, and as though it matters much either way. No other player’s results are so closely tied in with this nebulous concept of ‘confidence’. Indeed, the current confidence-level can even be measured in real-time based on the depth on his groundstrokes: the shorter they fall, the less confident he is. I have never heard any other player’s shots discussed in this manner; mostly they hit balls short because striking a tennis ball is an imperfect art and no one can hit a perfect shot every time. Sometimes you have a bad day, and less of your shots go where you want them to. Once again, it comes down to the widespread eagerness to downplay Nadal’s technical mastery in favour of his capacity to overcome adversity. In fact he dropped a decent proportion of forehands short in today’s final: in the last few games alone there were plenty that didn’t clear the service line. The difference is that Wawrinka, unlike Djokovic, couldn’t attack them, and Nadal is a superb counter-puncher who deals severely with any assault less than perfect.

The apparently unfathomable truth is Nadal wins matches and tournaments because he is a great tennis player. He wins a vast number of clay court matches not because of some indomitable warrior spirit, but because his exceptional game is even more exceptionally suited to that surface. His forehand is ferocious, his movement is exceptional, his serve is effective and difficult to attack, and he is generally quite deft around the net. Part of this is also mental and instinctive: he reads the play well, and, like Djokovic, has an astonishing capacity to alter his patterns at crucial moments.

But most of his matches don’t have a crucial moment, because his level is almost invariably so high that he never gives the other guy a look-in. Confidence doesn’t enter into it. Since returning this season he has reached seven finals from seven events, and won five of them, including two at Masters level. Indeed, he has now won twenty-three Masters titles, which is two more than anyone else in history. I wonder when analysts will accept that he wins because he’s really, really good at tennis, and not despite the fact that he isn’t.

By winning Madrid, Nadal has closed to within twenty-five points of the number four ranking, and will assume it if he defends his Rome title next week and Ferrer fails to reach the semifinal. Wawrinka, meanwhile, returns to the top ten, an excellent return for his recent fine form.

(5) Nadal d. Youzhny, 6/2 6/3

Anyone truly concerned that Sky Sports is insufficiently ardent in heaping praise atop Rafael Nadal presumably found solace in last night’s effort. The encomiums began to pile up even as he ambled onto court, and by the end had formed an imposing mound. Watching Nadal on clay can be like that. A discussion of the time violation rule unsurprisingly failed to resolve the issue either way, although I was intrigued to learn Andrew Castle would rather watch Nadal do nothing between points than watch most other players do anything at all during them. He ascended into pure ecstasy as the Mallorcan sealed the match with yet another masterfully agile point: ‘How about that for a finish! Took my breath away. Another sublime shot!’

I suppose they had to talk about something, since the match itself had hardly proved competitive, and since they clearly know next to nothing about Mikhail Youzhny, for all that he is a fourteen-year veteran of the tour. Some bafflingly poor umpiring from Cedric Mourier provided a brief diversion, and there was a momentary fight-back from the Russian in the second set, although to be frank it was more of a lapse from Nadal. Otherwise the result was precisely what one would expect, given that the gap between these two is significant even when Youzhny is at the top of his game on a hardcourt. In execrable form on clay, it was a mismatch. I’d like to say that Nadal will face a sterner test in the next round – if only for the sake of viewer interest – but it isn’t likely, since his opponent will be David Ferrer. They haven’t played since the Acapulco final, a match that would have violated the UN’s convention against torture had it not been so mercifully quick.

Tommy Haas’ bid to return to the top ten has been delayed by at least week. It was a long shot anyway, since he probably would’ve needed to reach the final, which would have meant surviving Nadal on the way, after dispatching Ferrer. As it happened, he didn’t dispatch Ferrer, although it was close, and a strong showing in Rome next week should just about do the trick. Earlier, Daniel Gimeno-Traver retired tearfully against Pablo Andujar, citing a leg injury. I imagine some adventurous people made good money betting that Andujar would reach the quarterfinals in Madrid this week, though I sincerely doubt whether there were many of them. Andujar has been in awful form this year – his Casablanca title defence was abject – and only featured in Madrid’s main draw by the grace of a wildcard. Still, it’s hard to begrudge a man making the most of an opportunity, and he hardly looked more pleased than his opponent to progress in that manner.

Grigor Dimitrov followed up his upset of Novak Djokovic with a very bold performance against Stanislas Wawrinka, taking the first set and looking for a while as though he’d grab the second. Some have inevitably painted this as a failure on Dimitrov’s part, as though he hasn’t properly backed-up Tuesday’s breakthrough win. These people are, frankly, dullards, and probably won’t acknowledge the Bulgarian’s efforts no matter what he does. Wawrinka is an excellent player in fine form on his preferred surface: there’s no shame in losing to him, and every reason to feel pride at playing him so close. The Swiss is surely favoured against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals: there’s a new rule on tour that anyone who drops a set to Fernando Verdasco must relinquish favouritism for his next match. Still, if Tsonga started poorly, at least he finished well. Verdasco has learned by rote that this configuration is preferable to the reverse.

(14) Nishikori d. (2) Federer, 6/4 1/6 6/2

Roger Federer’s audacious return to the number one ranking last year largely came as a result of eight tournament victories stretching back to October of 2011, and culminating at Wimbledon. So far he has failed to defend seven of those titles, with the latest being the Madrid Masters. The first of those tournaments was the Swiss Indoors in Basel, in the year the tournament’s hardcourt surface switched from its traditional confectionery pink to a wearying standard-issue shade of cobalt. In the final that year he defeated Kei Nishikori in straight sets (who’d just recorded his breakout win over Djokovic in the semifinals, thereby becoming the only Japanese man to defeat a reigning world number one). It was Federer and Nishikori’s only previous meeting, and it established the older player’s superiority on any blue surface. La Caja Mágica’s return from blue clay back to a dull reddish-brown was destined to prove telling.

As it happened, Madrid’s rusted courts today seemed appropriate for Federer’s game. After seven weeks away, the fine joints were stiff with it, and the gears screeched and crunched whenever he sought to change them. Flakes of it cascaded from his racquet frame whenever a ball struck it, which occurred with worrisome regularity. (There was also a feather nestled amongst the scattered rust at one point, inspiring the Sky commentators once again to revisit the allegedly decisive moment in Murray’s Australian Open loss. Like Proust’s madeleine, the feather’s mnemonic imperative appears irresistible.) Nishikori, on the other hand, was easy, loose, and frequently spectacular, especially from the forehand side. He broke once to take the first set, though order seemed restored as Federer, essaying greater variety, swept through the second. He looked like going on with it at the start of the third, but some meek errors on return permitted Nishikori to hold, and to re-assume the initiative. He broke twice to take the match, and the defending champion, in a flurry of forehand errors, was gone. So is his hold on the number two ranking.

(3) Murray d. (16) Simon, 2/6 6/4 7/6

Whatever the tournament’s outcome, Murray will become the new number two on Monday, and will presumably retain it until Roland Garros. A top two seeding will arguably ensure he receives a more favourable draw, unless he doesn’t, in which case we can console ourselves that the French have it in for the British, and that the whole thing is rigged. Duly noting that the species of conspiracy theorist convinced of draw rigging is mostly inured to reason, I can point to today’s match as a potent rebuttal. For the Madrid draw to be rigged, that must mean someone high up actually wants to see Andy Murray play Gilles Simon, thereby displaying a near-totalitarian desire to crush the spirits of a million innocents. Their encounters are gulags for the soul.

Afterwards, the Sky commentators predictably dubbed it an ‘epic’, demonstrating a grasp of the term commensurate with most Twitter users. To be fair, being dull doesn’t disqualify a journey from being so adjudged; Homer’s Odyssey remains an epic even when recited by Stephen Hawking, and by 1:15 in the morning, when the match ended, no one was thinking straight, anyway. I won’t hide the fact that I find Simon’s matches something of a trial no matter who he plays, but he really seems to draw the worst out of Murray, who is otherwise at his superlative best when countering an aggressive foil. I’m not convinced that it’s simply an inevitable dynamic arising when two stylistically similar players face each other. After all, Tomas Berdych and Kevin Anderson typically play fine matches (today’s was no exception). But Simon and Murray answer the unasked question of what happens when an immoveable object encounters an immoveable object, and neither has anywhere pressing to be.

(3) Haas d. (4) Kohlschreiber, 6/3 7/6

Tommy Haas on Sunday won Munich’s BMW Open, defeating local favourite and defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber in eighty-three minutes, and providing a measure of hope to thirty-somethings everywhere that an ATP title remains within reach.

Endeavouring, as ever, to surge ahead of the field, I had actually kicked off my campaign for a maiden title the day before, on Saturday. I am thirty-seven, only two years older than the evergreen Haas, and blithely figured it is never too late. I was officially in training. It is now Monday, and I can just about lift my right arm higher than my shoulder without the whole assemblage feeling like it’s going to come apart. I have also gained a newfound appreciation for the phrase ‘wave your arms in the arm like you just don’t care’. Previously I’d always associated elevated hand-waving with disputes involving Mediterranean men or flagging down passing rescue planes, but I can now see how it might indicate a certain unhinged insouciance. Oh, to be so carefree. Anyway, my point is that an ATP title might be some way off. Actually, that’s not true. My real point is that I am astonished that Haas can go on winning these things.

He has become just the fourth man over thirty-five to win a title in the last three decades, joining Andre Agassi, Fabrice Santoro and Jimmy Connors, an august assembly that I look forward to joining. It is also the first time Haas has won a title on European clay. His only previous claycourt title came at Houston, which is played on brown dirt hosed down with used laundry water. Indeed, here’s a curious stat: Haas maintains dual-citizenship of Germany and the USA, and hasn’t won a title outside those two countries since 2001. In fact, even his most recent runner-up efforts were in San Jose, Washington and Hamburg. His only Masters title came in Stuttgart. (This suggests that my first title will probably come in Australia. I’m a Queenslander by birth, so Brisbane would seem a good fit. But I also live in Melbourne, so I’d be doing myself a disservice to rule out the Australian Open, although winning seven best-of-five matches might conceivably tax my shoulder, assuming I was granted a wildcard. Auspiciously, the last time a local won the Australian Open – Mark Edmondson – was the year I was born.)

Haas’ victory in the Munich final was reasonably straightforward, with breaks coming well into the first set and immediately in the second, separated by a restrained fist pump and the requisite shirt-change. Complications arose as he served for the title, and was broken back in a hail of double faults and some typically brazen shotmaking from Kohlschreiber. They ably navigated their way to the tiebreaker, but from there Haas once again assumed control. Both produced their share of winners – it was precisely the kind of aggressive all-court match I most appreciate, and I won’t pretend both players don’t number among my favourites – but in the end Haas was steadier when it mattered.

Kohlschreiber as usual landed an absurd proportion of first serves, something like eighty per cent in that first set. But Haas used his own serve more effectively, prising open the court, controlling the baseline, then hustling the smaller man back and across with superior weight of shot. Kohlschreiber can produce tremendous power given his size, but too often in the groundstroke exchanges he was unable to wrest away the initiative, or to maintain it once he did. From there he was generally the first to execute a shot that would decide the point either way; the Bavarian is adept at many things on a tennis court, but patience is not among his virtues. It’s tempting to believe that his extended semifinal victory against Daniel Brands the day before played its part, causing not weariness but the pre-emptive recklessness that comes from rationing a dwindling supply of energy. Then again, it is fool’s errand to look for more reasons why Kohlschreiber might play recklessly. He rarely plays any other way, and as ever it’s thrilling to watch a man sprint along a tightrope. It must always inspire a measure of envy in those of us, earthbound, who habitually face-plant on the sidewalk.

Upon clinching the title, Haas collapsed onto his back, spreadeagled on the European clay. He first reached the final of Munich thirteen years ago, in 2000, when he lost to Franco Squillari, and he today conceded that it was a title he’d always hoped to win before the end. He certainly looked pleased. In addition to a pile of money, he was also given the white BMW Z4 sDrive 28i that’s been lurking in the corner of Munich’s Centre Court all week. Last year in Vienna the ATP celebrated his five hundredth tour victory by giving him a Fiat 500, with his name boldly stencilled on the bonnet, an addition that will undoubtedly affect its resale value. Thank heavens this latest prize didn’t have anything embarrassing written on it. There was of course a trophy, whimsical after the German fashion. It looked as ever like an Employee of the Month award doled out by a large automotive corporation.

Haas was also granted 250 ranking points, which propelled him up to a lofty number thirteen in the world. Last year he was denied a wildcard into Roland Garros, and was obliged to qualify. This year he will boast an encouragingly high seeding, although just how high will depend on his performances in Madrid and Rome, where he has nothing to defend. The top ten isn’t beyond question. As far as I’m concerned, Tommy Haas remains the best story in the sport, at least until I win the Australian Open.

Inspired by a boisterous local crowd and the jauntily tilted BMW presiding over Munich’s Centre Court, Florian Mayer’s recovery from a set down against Marinko Matosevic kicked off a fine day for the German men. Later on Daniel Brands would conclude the day’s play with a superb and aggressive third set dismissal of Gael Monfils. However, the most anticipated match on the ticket was undoubtedly the second one, between Tommy Haas and Ernests Gulbis. I confess I was excited.

Unfortunately, rain intervened. There didn’t seem to be an English-language stream available, and my choices were otherwise limited to Italian or nothing. I selected the former, and was intrigued to learn that the Italian term for ‘rain delay’ is actually ‘rain delay’. I can attest that Italy does experience rainfall, and that it certainly experiences delays, and that these two phenomena can sometimes converge. Nevertheless, there it was: a rapid and mellifluous torrent of Italian was momentarily impeded by the awkward phrase ‘rain delay’.

Anyway, with time to kill I opted to catch up on some reading, trusting that I’d recognise the Italian phrase for ‘play is resuming’ when I heard it, especially if they said it in English. Foolishly, the reading I opted to catch up on was related to tennis. Specifically: tennis writing, for which, like bad tennis commentary, I maintain a morbid fascination. If nothing else, it confirmed my belief that there is a long article begging to be written about the poor state of tennis writing, and firmed my resolve that I might be the one to write it. One day, perhaps.

I sometimes wonder whether there’s a conspiracy of tolerance among professional tennis writers. It is, after all, difficult to tell a colleague that his or her work is appalling. Some of it really is terrible. However, even in this field it’s rare to encounter prose that manages to be bad in every direction at once. What do other tennis writers say when one among their number produces prose so poor it defies belief? Do they merely shuffle their feet and compliment the writer on his fine choice of font? For example, try this opening:

‘The weeks in between the Australian Open and Indian Wells/Miami are funny ones because there is no clear ending point other than the beginning of the clay court swing, unless you consider the these two American Masters Series to be min-Slams.’

To deride writing like this as amateurish is to insult amateurs, even those who’ve yet to graduate high school. The typos are a serious issue in and of themselves: ‘consider the these’, ‘min-Slams’. Bear in mind that this is the opening sentence, and that first impressions count. Out of the whole piece this is the sentence that matters the most. I’m not sure which explanation is more acceptable: that the writer didn’t proofread his opening before publishing it, or that he did but simply didn’t notice the errors. The first possibility suggests a disdain for standards of professional writing that borders on contempt, with the tacit implication that the readership isn’t worth his trouble. The second possibility is probably more disturbing. Despite his best efforts, this is the best he could manage.

However, even with the typos removed this sentence remains almost unsalvageable, due to its flaccid cadences and near-perfect ignorance of metre. I fear there is no cure for a tin ear. The rest of the piece is no better, and often fails to ascend even to these stylistic valleys. I’ll leave a full analysis for another time. For now I’ll just say it remains a touchstone for truly bad writing.

During the ‘rain delay’ I came across an article about Grigor Dimitrov that ran it close, written by James Masters on the CNN website. There were some inevitable factual inaccuracies – Dimitrov didn’t win Brisbane in January; he was runner-up – but these don’t interest me as much as the prose itself. Whereas many tennis writers are content merely to muddle the basics, Masters is clearly an aspiring stylist, with a special gift for untrammelled metaphor.

His article is entitled: ‘’Baby Federer’ tag weighs on tennis star’s shoulders.’ Often the headline isn’t composed by the writer of the article, but in this case it matches the style of the main body so perfectly that I cannot believe Masters didn’t devise it himself. What kind of tag is he talking about? How much does it weigh, and why would a tennis player wear it on his shoulders? Is it like a mantle?

That Dimitrov’s shoulders wouldn’t be able to support a tag becomes even more confusing upon reading the opening sentence: ‘Built like a wrestler, when Grigor Dimitrov says “don’t call me baby,” you’d be advised to listen.’ That must be some tag, to so encumber a wrestler. Then again, having watched Dimitrov from close range several times, I’d say it’s debatable whether he is actually built like a wrestler, although there are conceivably obscure versions of wrestling that stipulate the proponents must be whippet-thin.

I discussed this opening with a friend, who also happens to be a tennis writer. Her first response was to ask whether wrestlers really do insist on not being called ‘baby’. She thought it more appropriate to Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. I couldn’t help but agree, and realised that despite being the key word in the article’s opening clause, wrestlers weren’t integral to the piece at all. Indeed, no further reference to wrestlers or wrestling proved extant. I presume the point was that Dimitrov, like Jennifer Grey, doesn’t like being called ‘baby’, accompanied by a vague implication that he’ll beat you up if you keep on with it. A less gifted writer might have simply said that, but Mr Masters is no ordinary writer.

(In any case, CNN clearly doesn’t care what Dimitrov likes or dislikes. Immediately above that opening line is an embedded video clip entitled ‘Can ‘Baby Federer’ become a champion?’ The juxtaposition is, frankly, a delight.)

It only got better. Sample this marvellous line from a bit further on: ‘A full-blooded display against the undisputed king of the surface was eventually curtailed by defeat in three sets, but the fruits of his labor were bared for all to see.’ As a devotee of bad writing, I wouldn’t miss that final image for the world, even as I blushingly averted my gaze from Dimitrov’s scandalously bared fruits, especially while they were engorged with blood. The article’s remainder was heavily bulked out with quotes by Dimitrov himself. It turned out he actually had very little to say about the ‘Baby Federer’ tag, despite his ongoing struggles beneath its crippling weight.

Thankfully by this time my Italian commentators had reliably informed me that Haas and Gulbis had finally made it onto court. (As far as I could tell, there had been no recourse to purloined English phrases.) The two players immediately set about demonstrating that in this digital age the true story of tennis is told not in words, but on court, and that when allowed to the sport says nearly everything that needs to be said. Haas eventually won, exciting the reduced crowd with his shotmaking, athleticism and multiple shirt-changes, although the fruits of his labours remained modestly concealed. It was, as I said, a fine day for the Germans. There are now four of them in the quarterfinals.

Rosol d. Garcia-Lopez, 6/3 6/2

(2) Nadal d. (4) Almagro, 6/4 6/3

Lukas Rosol today won his first tour title within hours of Rafael Nadal claiming his fifty-fourth. It feels like there’s a compelling point to be made there, as though something profound has occurred; as though the juxtaposition of these two momentous events is more than just a coincidence. Perhaps, through the warped prism of professional men’s tennis, we’d been vouchsafed a fleeting glimpse of the world’s fearsome underlying symmetry. Last year Rosol inflicted the season’s least likely loss on Nadal at Wimbledon, ensuring that their names would remain forever entwined, like Isner and Mahut, or Marks and Spencer, or Tango and Cash. And now here there were, in Bucharest and Barcelona. When two men do something that matters at about the same time, it feels like it should really mean something.

Further significance arrived in the form of Rosol’s opponent, the great magic-realist novelist Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, whose last tour title came three years ago in Thailand. If Rosol’s Wimbledon victory constituted the most audacious upset of 2012, then Garcia-Lopez’ upset of Nadal in the Bangkok semifinals was the standout example of 2010. (So far in 2013 the palme has gone to Horatio Zeballos in Vina del Mar, again against Nadal. It’s a fine compliment to Nadal that his most absurd losses endure in the collective memory, even as we wonder at his practice of making them an annual ritual.)

Rosol’s victory over Nadal was more significant, since it occurred over five sets on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and was the Spaniard’s last match of the year, but Garcia-Lopez’ was undoubtedly stranger. Nadal was playing in his first tournament since claiming his first US Open title a few weeks earlier, and took the first set easily, 6/2. He almost took the second set easily, but, despite gaining dozens of chances, managed to blow every single one: one hundred breakpoints of ineptitude. Garcia-Lopez somehow engineered a baffling and impossible turn-around, took the tiebreak, broke flashily in the third, and grimly held for the match. For Garcia-Lopez and Rosol to be contesting the Bucharest final mere hours before Nadal was due to defend Barcelona seemed like a dire omen. Of course, Nadal was playing Nicolas Almagro, whom destiny has long since given up on.

Introducing the match, Sky Sports put in a desultory attempt to pretend that it wouldn’t be a sorry mismatch. Marcus Buckland put it to the assembled luminaries whether Almagro had much chance at victory. In all cases the answer was unequivocally negative: Almagro had no chance. Buckland seemed disappointed at this, although he conceivably had a producer in his ear beseeching him to drum up any interest in the final at all. Sadly the graphics department hadn’t received similar instructions. They flashed up a handy graphic to illustrate the hopelessness of Almagro’s cause, by breaking it down into smaller yet equally dismal categories: not only has he never beaten Nadal at all, he hasn’t beaten him on clay, in 2013, or at a Major! Such lists can be expanded endlessly, and I really wish they’d tried. How many times has Almagro defeated Nadal in April, or while it was raining, or in Spain, or while sponsored by Lotto?

To these useful categories we can now add the number of times that Almagro has defeated Nadal while leading by a double-break in the first set. (The tally remains at zero.) Still, for a moment hope must have flared in Buckland’s heart that the elder player would go on with it. He had begun superbly, displaying the kind of aggressive and stylish shot-making that he famously cannot, or will not, sustain. Nadal lifted his level in the fourth game, and broke back, twice. Almagro reverted to the kind of suavely measured claycourt tennis that sees him dominate lesser opponents – he thrashed poor Philipp Kohlschreiber yesterday – but which never detains Nadal for very long. The weather undoubtedly played its part. Reckless endeavour grows dicier in sluggish, damp conditions: ‘With the rain, the ball got heavier and it wasn’t the same for me anymore.’

There were a few brief moments of tension at 4/4: Almagro played a few excellent deuce points to gain break points, whereupon Nadal played excellent points to save them. Otherwise the match played out more or less exactly as everyone assumed it would, even Marcus Buckland. It is the Mallorcan’s eighth Barcelona title – since 2003 he has won 80 of 82 sets played at this venue – and will surely re-instil whatever confidence he lost in Monte Carlo last week. If he’s going to lose to anyone this clay season, it won’t be to the calibre of player populating the Barcelona draw this week. Beyond that, it’s hard to say what it all means.

It’s debatable to what extent winning tennis tournaments means much at all. That said, whatever its significance, writing about it certainly matters far less, and so I’m obliged to attach some meaning to it all, or else what am I doing here? These are existential musings best left for the small hours – as Martin Amis said, it’s the information and it comes for you at night – when they proliferate in the fertile widening space between thoughts. For now let’s assume it all matters a great deal.

It certainly matters to Rosol, though its significance had nothing to do with Nadal, and everything to do with his father, who suffered a heart attack three weeks ago while watching his son play Davis Cup, fell into a coma, and died a week later. The trophy was tearfully dedicated to him. It was a very touching moment.

Indeed, the entire finish was quite touching, which was lucky, since it wasn’t particularly exciting. Garcia-Lopez was emphatically outplayed, and unsurprisingly outhit. Once Rosol took the first set comfortably, he moved ahead 4/0, and it seemed clear even to him that he was likely to win. A fraught final set tiebreaker with multiple matchpoints either way would undoubtedly have better taken his mind off things. But with time to ply his trade and dream ahead, his cares were free to roam.  The full weight of the moment was obvious. It is to his credit that he hefted it so easily, when he had every reason to be brought low. He later said, once he’d dedicated the trophy, that he’d felt his father was watching down on him.

I wonder what his father thinks of the trophy. Bucharest had always been something of an anomaly in this area, by failing to uphold the rich European tradition of bestowing truly hideous objects on proud men who surely deserve better. Last year at this tournament Gilles Simon hefted a cut glass bowl that was almost tasteful. I’m please to say that the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy has now fallen into line. The new trophy is an unrelieved eyesore, guaranteeing that even those future champions not suffering recent bereavement will have a tear in their eye. I hope Rosol wins another tournament soon, so that his trophy shelf features something a little less garish. Perhaps Umag. Or Montpellier.

Actually, there are plenty of other reasons to hope Rosol goes on to win more tournaments, which have nothing to do with trophies or his father. Wimbledon demonstrated to the world how uncompromising and aggressive he can be, and that when he finds his range he can be virtually unplayable. However, too often in the week-to-week grind of the tour he proves that and aggressive unwillingness to compromise isn’t quite enough to guarantee a ranking commensurate with one’s abilities. By winning Bucharest, Rosol has now risen to No.35, and is therefore within striking distance of a seeding at Roland Garros, and at Wimbledon. This does not feel inappropriate, and ensures, at the very least, that he and Nadal cannot meet in the second round. Perhaps they’ll meet in the final. Maybe that’s what today’s results really mean.

Then again, perhaps it’s all just a coincidence.

(1) Djokovic d. (3) Nadal, 6/2 7/6

The Monte Carlo Masters final was off to an unpromising start when, moments before its protagnists could take to the court, the clouds carried through on an earlier threat and hurled their contents down upon the Mediterranean coast. Now that we know how the match turned out, we can say that this was a downpour rich with portent. It turns out the future is much easier to predict once it has become the past. At the time, there was merely a prevailing view that the heavier conditions would favour world number one Novak Djokovic more than the eight-time defending champion Rafael Nadal.

The horizon beyond the world’s prettiest centre court contracted and dissolved in the rain. Everyone’s view was obscured. It can’t have been pleasant for those in the stands, exposed to the sky, most of whom had paid rather a lot to be rapidly drenched. Still, they had an advantage over those of us watching on television, exposed to Sky. None of us were watching tennis, but at least they were gazing at the stars. Apparently the guy who Red Bull dropped from orbit was there. You can’t buy star power like that. At least, I can’t.

Those of us of detained elsewhere were stuck with Barry Cowan and Greg Rusedski, who, sadly, have never been dropped from orbit, although I suspect I’m not alone in wishing someone would rectify that. (It’s a Kickstarter project begging to happen). Rain delays are a real problem for broadcasters, especially when they occur before a ball has been struck. In the normal course of events the broadcaster already sets aside sufficient time before the match for an exhaustive intro, so that interested viewers can be adequately prepped. Today Sky’s intro included a lovely on-site chat between Annabel Croft and Tommy Haas, but otherwise involved Messrs Rusedski and Cowan expounding at soporific length precisely why either, but not both of the excellent tennis players could win this match. Cowan favoured Djokovic, Rusedski preferred Nadal.

Rain delays during the run of play enable the assembled experts to at least recount what action has occurred, and extrapolate further trends from it. Cowan, armed with an iPad, has lately succumbed to the allure of freeze-framed analysis, whereby he’ll pause the action at a crucial moment in order to reveal what is about to happen, thereby proving his capacity to predict the past. Unfortunately Nadal and Djokovic had so far only ambled onto court then scurried off, and not even Cowan was able to adduce much from this. Consequently, they were invited to expand on their already expansive pre-match predictions. They’d been directed to kill time, but apparently failed to realise that this is merely a figure of speech. Marcus Buckland, Sky’s indefatigably professional anchor, aged before my eyes.

Luckily the rain never became incumbent, and before long the part of France in which the Monte Carlo Masters takes place was drenched in sunlight. Conditions lightened considerably, and the court remained dry (it was watered before play began). The players returned, and Sky Sports’ lurid London studio was left behind. Indeed, Sky itself was left behind, as the telecast switched to the syndicated world feed, with the excellent Nick Lester presiding. This was an upgrade. The players, meanwhile, had returned to the court, completed their warm-up, and were ready to play. Anticipation could not have been higher.

No one predicted what happened next. Djokovic, playing with a magnificence rare even for him, shot to a 5/0 lead, breaking Nadal twice. Five times in that sixth game he held a set point, threatening to serve Nadal his first claycourt bagel in six years. We were duly reminded of that previous occurrence, which had come in the final of the Hamburg Masters in 2007. Once again, the omen seemed clear – that was the match that ended Nadal’s fabled eighty-one match claycourt winning streak. It was helpfully reiterated that Nadal hadn’t lost in Monte Carlo for a decade, compiling a forty-six match winning streak at the event, covering a period that had witnessed three different popes, the successful reboot of the Batman franchise, and the death of Albus Dumbledore. He had also won eighty-one straight matches in April. Presumably Nadal was acutely aware of all these milestones, and consequently redoubled his efforts. He saved all those set points, and then a few more, holding serve and then breaking back.

Djokovic’s backhand was impregnable and his movement was outstanding, a combination that famously creates problems for Nadal, although the deeper reality is that it creates problems for everyone. Djokovic looked uncannily like that version of himself from two years ago, the terrifyingly complete version that constantly defeated the Spaniard in Madrid, Rome, and everywhere else. Yet there were signs towards the end of the first set that the Serb’s focus had begun to waver. The winners were now alternating with errors, and he was having more difficulty avoiding Nadal’s forehand. Nonetheless, he broke again to take the set, on Nadal’s third double fault. We viewers were whisked back to the Sky studio, where Rusedski blithely reiterated his faith in Nadal’s eventual triumph. It was suggested that the contours of this final were reprising those of the Miami decider from a few weeks ago. Those among us who believed that match had contravened laws both corporeal and spiritual fervently hoped otherwise.

Still, Rusedski’s faith in Nadal hardly seemed misguided. He was certainly the stronger player as the second set commenced. It looked as though Djokovic had spent himself on those magisterial first five games, and his reserves were looking increasingly low. He was broken in the third game. If history was any guide, this was the moment at which Nadal would commence his rampage. But it never happened, which constituted perhaps the largest surprise of the afternoon. Somehow his technical ascendancy at the start of the second set never translated into sufficient confidence that permits him to gallop away with the match, as he usually does. Of course, a great deal of that was due to Djokovic, who even though he couldn’t sustain the form of the first set remained imposingly complete. He broke back. Then Nadal broke again, for 6/5, and came round to serve for the set.

From there, it was a rare and unlikely capitulation from the Spaniard. He lost eleven of the last twelve points, including being broken to love and losing the tiebreaker 7-1. Djokovic, with an astonishing final effort, returned to his erstwhile level, dispatching flat groundstrokes to the corners, and constantly leaving Nadal with nowhere safe to hit. Cowan later whipped out his iPad to demonstrate this at some length. A final Nadal error, and it was all over.

As had happened in Hamburg six years, Nadal’s mighty and unprecedented streak ended with a whimper not a bang, as he succumbed wearily to a rampant world number one. Afterwards, the rampant world number one’s hands rose fleetingly to his collar, but he quashed the inclination to tear his shirt apart. Perhaps this was out of respect for Nadal, although it may well have been because Carlos Berlocq has kind of ruined it for everyone.

Everything that has a beginning has an end. As canned wisdom goes, it barely even rates as a truism. On the other hand, it’s no less true despite having served as the by-line for the third Matrix film, in which it was intoned by an oracle whose main trick, a la Barry Cowan, was to foreshadow outcomes that were already patently obvious to the audience. There was no good reason to think Nadal would go on winning Monte Carlo forever, even if it was unclear how he’d ever lose. If he was to lose within the next three or four years, it would probably be an upset. And so it proved. Today’s result was an upset, although it was by no means a colossal one.

Readers may have picked up that the leitmotif running through this article is that of pundits being wise after the fact. Some are now declaring that today’s result proves that Nadal was never the favourite to win this tournament. Apparently they don’t quite understand what the term means: it isn’t a guarantee of victory, but merely an assertion that you’re less likely to lose than anyone else. In Nadal’s case, of course, it’s also a millstone around his neck, and one that he attempts to cast off at every opportunity. Some have suggested that today’s loss will do him a service by lightening the load, but that’s probably wishful thinking. After all, winning this title every other year has hardly proved detrimental to Nadal’s claycourt season. I’d say, on balance, he’d rather have the trophy.

Alas, for Nadal, the trophy now belongs to Djokovic, whose coach, you may recall, had advised him to skip the tournament. He didn’t, obviously, and now insists it was the best decision of his life. By winning Monte Carlo he has now claimed eight of the nine different Masters titles, which is more than anyone else, and fourteen of them overall, which puts him at fourth on the all-time list. It’s hard to imagine he won’t add to that tally by Roland Garros. Indeed, if he sustains this form, by Rome he might well be the favourite.

(1) Djokovic d. Fognini, 6/2 6/1

It seems magnificently unfair that Fabio Fognini should look the way he does while being a highly-ranked professional tennis player. It’s unfair on the many actors who’ll never look like that, no matter how much they’ll spend on cosmetic procedures.
It’s unfair on his poor fellow-pros who toil day after day on the practice court, yet won’t ever be able do the things Fognini seemingly does on a whim. (As I write this he has casually held to love, comprehensively outfoxing and out-stroking Novak Djokovic.) But most of all it’s unfair on those of us who’ll never look like that, and never strike a tennis ball half so well, but who are cursed to write about those who do.

It’s a badly kept secret that those who can merely turn phrases, even as we labour to turn them until they trip, skitter and catch the light, feel an abiding envy towards those who effortlessly turn heads. It is an envy nourished by the sad discovery that even the most serious writers spend all their time thinking about those who in return barely think about them, and abetted by queasy realisation, which usually comes at night, that the seductive pleasures of the depths might add up to less than the undoubted thrills of the surface. And even though we might console ourselves that the turning heads are empty, there’s usually enough evidence to the contrary to suggest the consolation itself is hollow. Deep down, I’d probably give it all up to be Fognini. Or maybe not so deep down.

For a while we have comforted ourselves that the Italian’s head, at least as regards tennis, didn’t have that much in it either. Despite all the talent in the world, his middling ranking attested to a crippling lack of mental fortitude. The Italian has never won a tour title, despite several excellent opportunities to do so last year, and has thoroughly-earned his reputation for losing interest once he falls behind. He is always the first to make the assessment that he cannot win, whereupon he works hard to make it true. His general air of strutting insouciance attains a haughty grandiloquence as he tosses aside handfuls of unwanted points. Lazy narratives attach themselves to particular players, and they are very hard to dislodge, partly because Il Gattopardo doesn’t change its spots, but also because those who talk about tennis can grow complacent. Tales of wasted talent are the easiest to tell.

Now we may have to find a different tale. Fognini defeated a pair of top ten players en route to the last four in Monte Carlo, remaining poised, focussed and professional throughout. Suddenly, he is ranked well within the top thirty, a lofty status which brings with it all the attendant respectability of a French Open seeding. No longer will he be a dangerous floater, an inspired wastrel ruining a serious player’s day. I confess it doesn’t feel quite right.

On the other hand, Fognini in the semifinals of a Masters event did feel right. That it happened in Monte Carlo felt entirely appropriate. He is made for tennis along the Mediterranean, although he would doubtless be better suited to an earlier, more permissive era. It is no stretch to envisage Fognini as a Lothario prowling the sun-drenched claycourts of the bygone Riviera. Once again, deep down, the sensation is one of envy, mixed with a piquant nostalgia for an era when a pure stylist might attain the heights of the sport, when even the best played tennis as though there was more to it than winning.

Alas, befogged nostalgia is all it is. In this era, more than any other, one sooner or later collides with an entirely modern reality. The modern reality is usually incarnated in one of the big four, and the collision is invariably catastrophic. That game that Fognini held to love might have been delightful, but it certainly wasn’t pivotal. The entirely modern Djokovic had already broken once to open the set, and would break again to seal it. He broke a few more times to win the second set, and thus the match. The romance of the old world had encountered the stark reality of the new, and it was like witnessing a cavalry unit charging a Panzer division.

There were naturally moments of pure Fognini brilliance, but Djokovic was perfectly ruthless in never allowing them to join up into something meaningful. A benevolent dictator, the Serb will permit dissent but not resistance. This is almost always the case when the greatest players face Fognini. Fully aware of his penchant for theatre, they use the scoreboard to stifle his opportunity to create drama. There’s not much more to add. The whole thing was over very quickly; under sixty minutes. Although there is great theatre that takes less than an hour, none of it occurs on a tennis court.

(3) Nadal d. (6) Tsonga, 6/3 7/6

Rafael Nadal, another aspect of modern tennis reality, had earlier finished off Jo Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets, although his eagerness to do so quickly and therefore avoid unnecessary drama was undone by an audacious late change from the Frenchman. The Spaniard has now reached his ninth consecutive Monte Carlo final, despite being the overwhelming favourite to do so. Earlier in the week he was asked about this matter himself, he was unsurprisingly quick to disavow his favouritism. I wish someone would explain the concept to him, but really it hardly matters. Fortunately, favouritism isn’t a matter of opinion, and isn’t something the players get to choose for themselves, although this obvious point does not deter the assembled media from endlessly pestering them about it. Thankfully the betting market had long since made up its own mind, and so Nadal remained virtually unbackable.

Tsonga began aggressively, and to be honest he never really eased up. His failures, once he’d unluckily failed to break at 2/1 in the first set, were entirely of execution and focus, rather than of intent. Simply put, he began to play awfully, to a level that I hadn’t truly believed a top-ten player could play at. It is hard to believe that that simple failure to break serve was so decisive, given that he’d been playing well until then. It was almost, dare I say it, Fognini-like.

Conditions, admittedly, were difficult: unseasonably cold with a strong swirling breeze, although the sun was out. Nadal, for the most part directed the ball safely between the lines, lofting it over the net with ample air. Faced with a rapidly disintegrating opponent, he was entirely right to do this. But it was by no means interesting. The Spaniard finished the set with five winners to four unforced errors, which was at least a dozen less errors than Tsonga, who managed a heroic 16% of points behind his second serve.

The match continued to stagger down the same path in the second set, with Tsonga broken straight away, and Nadal eventually moving to 5/1. Having learned his lesson in the first set, Tsonga had now won precisely zero points behind his second serve. From there the defending champion’s standard did not alter appreciably, while the conditions remained unchanged. Yet somehow, at the uttermost end, Tsonga for no good reason rediscovered his form. He broke Nadal back twice, saving four match points in total, and eventually forced an unlikely tiebreak. Sadly, at 3-4 Tsonga’s capacity to make sound decisions once more deserted him, first with an ill-considered backhand up the line, then with a pointlessly risky slice that curved into the tramlines, but that would have yielded him no advantage had it landed in. Nadal sealed the match with a bold series of forehands, capped by a winner.

In the end a semifinal that looked like being a perfunctory blowout achieved a small measure of interest, although I’d be overstating the case to say it achieved more than that. Social media inevitably told a different tale, although the tale was mostly told by Nadal fans who don’t realise that almost coming close to dropping a set isn’t the same as losing a match. In the end their man faced no set points. Indeed, I don’t recall that Tsonga ever came within three points of winning the set. A similar, if more fraught, scene had played out yesterday, when Nadal defeated an inspired Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals. Dimitrov did actually take a set, and made it to 4/4 in the decider, although he never came especially close to a match point, or even a break point.

The narrative that has coiled about Nadal is that of the unstoppable warrior, battling against impossible odds to achieve desperate victories, defying his own crippled body, hordes of blood-thirsty foes, and the very gods themselves. Through this snakes the sub-narrative of his innate fragility – that his form is only ever contingent on a perfect mental state and ideal conditions. (You should have heard people go on about the effect of the weather yesterday, as though cold damp coastal claycourts are Dimitrov’s ideal operating environment, somehow placing Nadal at a crucial disadvantage, which he then heroically overcame.)

These narratives are fatuous. The reality is that Nadal wins the overwhelming majority of his matches in straight sets, even when he isn’t at his best, just like the other top players, who often aren’t at their best, either. For almost a decade he has defeated almost every other tennis player on the planet in every kind of weather on any surface, regardless of his prevailing form. (The last time he lost in Monte Carlo, Federer hadn’t yet won a Major. To put it into a broader global perspective, the first year Nadal won here, in 2005, Youtube didn’t exist.) He does that because he is a very, very good modern tennis player. Tomorrow he’ll face another very, very good modern tennis player in Djokovic. As baffling as it sounds, the markets have installed Nadal, eight-time defending champion and arguably the best claycourter of all time, as the clear favourite. Yet another thing he’ll have to overcome.