Clay courts offer fans new rivalry
In the winter, football fans often check two results first; their team and their team’s hated, inferior, scummy neighbour. When the football season closes, it is important that another sporting rivalry emerges to fill the void.
In recent years we have had the Ashes, a Lions tour and Lewis vs. Tyson to satisfy our need for sporting rivalry. A week last Sunday, I became breathless and panicky, when considering where this summers’ sporting duel was going to come from? Alonso and Schumacher may be an intriguingly poised battle but thus far has lacked the thrills and spills of Pros and Senna or Schumacher and Hill.
The last day of the seasons also saw the rebirth of the North London rivalry between Tottenham and Arsenal, as they found themselves fighting for fourth spot. That Arsenal succeeded over Spurs in the race must have made their Champions League qualification extra sweet despite their disappointing league standing.
Even the classic national rivalry, England and Germany, may not have the chance to meet at the World Cup, mainly because the Germans are now pretty rubbish (except after extra time of course). We won’t even have the chance for banter with the Australians, another traditionally frayed sporting relationship, as the Ashes does not resume till next November.
Salvation arrived after another dropped catch at Lords. Disgruntled and angry, a housemate tossed me the TV control, which I spilled, juggled and dropped. The remote juggling caused the channel to change to the greatest tennis match I have ever had the good luck to witness in my life. This is an accolade I do not hand out lightly, considering I did watch the sensational and epic Barry Cowan vs Pete Sampras match a few years ago.
The ATP Masters Final in Rome had everything; players and umpires clashing over disputed line calls, nail-biting tie breaks, saved match points and epic rallies galore. After five hours, Raphael Nadal, the ripped young Spaniard, defeated world number one, and previously all-conquering, Roger Federer. More importantly than these however is that I had found my sporting rivalry for the summer.
This is not the traditional sporting rivalry that is felt most by the fans. It is not a rivalry based on geographical proximity or social and political tensions. It is rivalry forged out of frequent, dramatic meetings.
The statistics concerning these titans are remarkable. Roger Federer has only lost seven out of the last one hundred and eighteen matches. Five of these defeats have been against Nadal, who has won fifty three consecutive matches on clay. Last year Federer won eighty one matches, and Nadal seventy nine. They dominate the men’s game, true titans in their chosen sport.
The next meeting between the two is scheduled to be on 11th June in the French Open final, and promises to be a spectacle that can not be afforded to be missed. Nadal has beaten Federer in the final of the last two tournaments they have contested, but the Swiss man is getting closer. He had two match points in Rome, and is steadily developing his outrageous array of skills which are enough to dominate on the other playing fields, to suit the slower clay surfaces on which he struggles to defeat Nadal.
Nadal and Federer’s probable meeting in Paris does clash with Serbia & Montenegro v Holland in the World Cup. However, the short history of the Balkan state ensures no significant sporting rivalry with the Dutch. Therefore, the tennis must be chosen. Using an ingrained sporting rivalry calculator is the essential way of choosing your sport ing viewing for the coming summer.
By Ed Humphreys
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
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