Nadal vs. Federer a Win-Win Situation for Nadal Fans

If you’re like most of the tennis world, you’ve been waiting four and a half months for Federer-Nadal XX.

Now you have it.

Saturday’s events in Madrid set up what will be the 20th meeting between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and the first since a memorable five-set clash in this year’s Australian Open final.

Nadal outlasted Novak Djokovic 3-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(9) in an instant classic that lasted four hours and two minutes and saw Nadal save three match points in the third-set tiebreaker. Federer, by contrast, blasted Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3, 6-4 and spent just one hour and 22 minutes doing it.

So, if you’re a Rafael Nadal fan, you’re dreading Sunday’s dream final. You’re thinking this a recipe for disaster, concocted specifically to take down the King of Clay.

Not so fast, my friends.

This is, in actuality, a win-win situation for Nadal fans, so long as they are also fans of tennis as a whole.

Consider. Nadal leads the head-to-head series with Federer 13-6 after 19 previous meetings. Federer-Nadal is one of the best rivalries in tennis history and arguably the most entertaining rivalry in all of sports at the moment.

But if rivalries can’t be one-sided, this is in danger of turning into an ownership rather than a rivalry. If Nadal wins on Sunday, he will have 14 victories in 20 tries against the Swiss maestro. For those counting, that’s a winning percentage of .700. That doesn’t sound like much of a rivalry to me.

Quite simply, a Federer triumph on Sunday in Madrid’s “Magic Box” is what tennis wants. It would cement Federer-Nadal as a true rivalry. More importantly, it would make the hype leading up to the French Open jump off the Richter Scale.

Can you imagine if Federer and Nadal met in the Roland Garros title match coming off not only a Federer victory over Nadal, but a Federer victory over Nadal on clay?

With the previous two Grand Slam epics at Wimbledon and the Aussie Open also fresh in people’s minds, a Federer-Nadal French Open final could be the most anticipated match in the history of tennis.

Furthermore, a Federer victory on Sunday would not simply be a win for tennis. Nadal fans probably don’t want to admit it, but it wouldn’t be all that bad for Nadal himself.

If you’re a Nadal fan, you’re probably thinking that a clay-court loss by your man with the French Open just a week away would make him vulnerable.

You’re thinking it would be a chink in your shining knight’s armor. You’re thinking it would restore the confidence of Federer, the same man who appeared battered and downright broken at the Australian Open trophy ceremony.

At most it might do the latter. But it wouldn’t matter one bit.

If it gives Federer confidence heading into Roland Garros, it would only be false confidence. I don’t care even if Nadal gets double-bageled by Federer in Madrid. Rafael Nadal is not losing to Federer at the 2009 French Open. He’s not losing to anyone else, either.

Keep in mind that the situation in Madrid is and always will be nothing like that in Paris. At high altitude, the balls are flying through the air like missiles. Heck, even Nadal is making unforced errors. Well, he made not a single one in the first set of his opening match against Jurgen Melzer, but since then he’s been making way more than his normal allotment.

Additionally, the Madrid clay is more like cement with dust flying all over it. There’s been more clay in the players’ eyes this week than on the court.

And don’t think for a second that a loss would suggest that Nadal is “beatable” on clay. The six-time Grand Slam champion is coming off an aforementioned four-hour thriller. You can bet that if Federer and Nadal meet for the Roland Garros title, the roles will be reversed.

There is no possible way that Federer spends less time on the Paris courts en route to the final than Nadal. And that’s even if Djokovic is on Nadal’s side of the draw.

If a loss will do one thing for Nadal, it will motivate him to hand the competition at the French Open a bigger beatdown than usual. He wouldn’t be vulnerable, but he would force himself to think that he was vulnerable.

He would “punish” himself, as he said earlier this season in Miami after what he considered an unacceptable—albeit winning—performance against Frederico Gil.

But self-punishment only leads to far greater punishment inflicted on his opponents. And in this case, it would be inflicted on the grandest stage of clay-court tennis.

No, Nadal fans, you and you’re man are sitting pretty. You’re sitting in a win-win situation. If he wins, he wins. If he loses, tennis wins.

If he loses, I will already start feeling sorry for the other 127 players in the French Open draw.