It's a good thing I don't make a living as a prognosticator of tennis matches or else I would be living in a cardboard box next to my local subway station asking passersby if they had seen Svetlana Kuznetsova's tennis game, since she clearly misplaced it in her quarterfinal match versus Ana Invanovic. Although my recent French Open predictions were of their usual low quality, even I was able to forecast the combatants in Sunday's Men's Singles final at Roland Garros between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Such is their dominance of the sport that for the second consecutive year, it's Federer and Nadal playing on Championship Sunday. Is it boring that tennis has become so predictable and that we have all known for weeks that these two men would be in the final at Roland Garros? Does tennis need someone to break up the Federer – Nadal monopoly to restore some parity to the sport? The answers to both of these questions are the same and it is, quite simply, no. If you want parity, then watch the NFL.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are the two best tennis players on the planet and each of them is on an historic quest. With a victory in the final, the Swiss No. 1 will hold all four of the Grand Slam titles at once and will be favored to complete a calendar year Grand Slam in 2007. If he does that, it will be difficult to dispute his place in the game as the Greatest of All-Time.
At the moment, one man stands in the way of the Federer Express and it is a man who at 21 years of age is already leaving his mark on the game. Rafael Nadal's accomplishments on clay are the stuff of legend. If he captures the Coupe des Mousquetaires on Sunday, he will be the first player to go undefeated in his first three French Opens. John McEnroe has called Nadal a 21st Century Bjorn Borg which is high praise from Mac considering he listed Borg in his top 5 of greatest players of all-time.
Yet there are tennis fans that believe the Fedrer-Nadal stranglehold on the sport is a bad thing and it would be best if someone broke up the party. Supposedly, it is boring that these two meet in the finals of multiple major events per year. However, these fans are under-appreciating what we are witnessing from these two exceptional players. Quite frankly, what we are seeing is history being made and we should feel privileged to be a part of it. When discussing the topic of Greatest of All-Time, how many of us can actually claim to know what we are talking about when it comes to some of the past giants of the game like Laver, Kramer and Tilden to name a few? Well, perhaps in 15 to 20 years, we will all be able to discuss that topic a little more competently because of what we are seeing from Federer and Nadal today.
More Grand Slam finals between these two is a good thing for our sport and it will give the casual fan something recognizable to latch onto when considering tennis for its entertainment value. So let's not push these players off the stage before their time. Instead, let us revel in their accomplishments and in the rivalry that they have fostered, and recognize how truly lucky we are to be living at a time when we can see such great players. We may never be so lucky again in our lives to enjoy such tennis genius. To hope for that to end seems foolhardy indeed.
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