INDIAN WELLS – There were few moments during the BNP Paribas Open when No. 1 Rafael Nadal felt he was clicking on all cylinders. But it didn’t really matter because even when he’s out of his comfort zone, Nadal believes he’s the best player on the planet.
That’s why the swaggering Spaniard was able to fight off five match points in a brilliant 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-0 victory over Argentine David Nalbandian in a fourth round in a match that ended past 2 a.m., crush Argentine up-and-comer Juan Martin del Potro in straight sets, handle the charged-up American Andy Roddick in two sets in the semis, and in a windswept final, put a serious 6-1, 6-2 beatdown on a Scottish guy who had taken their last two contests coming into the match, Andy Murray.
Six-time Grand Slam champ Nadal is charging away from the rest of the tour, not winning every contest handily, but daring all comers to try to out-gut him at closing time.
He’s 21-2 on the year and captured the season’s two biggest titles, the Australian Open and Indian Wells. In Melbourne, he needed to call upon his vast reserves in scratching his way past Fernando Verdasco and Roger Federer for his first hard-court major. He beat the stuffing out of world No. 3 Novak Djokovic in Davis Cup, and also scored wins over top 10er Gilles Simon in Australia, as well as former top-fiver Fernando Gonzalez.
With his victory over Murray on Sunday, he’s taken every measurable scalp on tour in just two-and-a-half months’ time.
“Andy was the only big, top player I didn’t beat this year, so it was important for me,” Nadal said. “But the most important thing for me is [to] win the title.”
In winning his 33rd career crown (his second at Indian Wells), Nadal didn’t have to spill his guts on court, just show how smart and resourceful he can be. He didn’t need to merely rely on his hooking forehand, his spanking two-handed backhand or his incredible foot speed, because all the work he’s put in on the practice courts with his Uncle Toni, his primary coach, and Francisco Roig, who coached him at Indian Wells, is coming to fruition.
“When I’m playing good, I can play more inside than before,” Nadal said. “I think before, to win every match, I had to run much more. Now more times I have control of the point.”
Nadal’s left-handed serve may never be great, but it twists and bites and handcuffs his foes. He’ll never be Pete Sampras at net, but he can put away reasonable volleys and isn’t afraid of closing on the net anymore. He’s worked in a dependable backhand slice and is more aggressive with his return games. At 22, he’s still evolving, which should be more-than-alarming for the rest of the tour.
“He’s, obviously, an incredibly tough player,” said Murray, who had stopped Federer for the sixth time in eight matches in an authoritative semifinal performance. “He’s improved the rest of his game. He does everything quite well.”
The big question for Nadal is whether he can win the calendar-year Slam. He’s the four-time defending champ in Paris and will again go into Roland Garros as the favorite, and is also the titleholder at Wimbledon, where he’ll go in as a slight favorite over Federer. Given that he went back-to-back in London and Paris last year, he has to be given a reasonable chance to do the same again, but can he stay injury-free long enough to make
a major assault at the U.S. Open, where he has never punched past the semis? That might prove too difficult a task for most, but maybe not for the Spaniard, who’s put himself to the test on every surface and eventually
achieved his goals.
“When I go to the tournament, I play first round and I don’t know if I’m going to win,” Nadal said. “You never know what’s going on in two months, in five months, in seven months. It’s very difficult to play all year at your best
level. Anyway, if I’m playing at my best level, if Murray, Federer or Djokovic has a good day, they have a good chance to beat me. And you are thinking a Grand Slam, maybe it’s tougher, too, [but] playing five sets maybe helps the top players to have the better results because you have more time. It’s almost impossible. [But] I would love to have the Grand Slam.”
VERA’S VICTORY
Women’s titlist Vera Zvonareva once wept in anguish, but now she can shed tears of joy.
The 24-year-old won the biggest title of her career by besting defending champion Ana Ivanovic 7-6, 6-2, without dropping a set in six matches against a field that was missing the Williams sisters and Maria Sharapova, but full of other primetime contenders who either couldn’t deal with the desert glare or the Russians’ cold stares.
With the Tier I title, she eclipsed Venus Williams for the No. 5 ranking and showed that, despite her understated demeanor, she’s tough as hell, as it was she who overcame 40-mph winds and pebbles the size of boulders that were skidding off the court to triumph on Sunday.
When she first began to make her mark in ‘03, Zvonareva was prone to crying even after winning sets, and whacked more than a few balls past stadium bleachers in pure frustration. (She earned the nickname “The Crying Game.”) Now, after grinding through an elite field for the first time, perhaps she should be nicknamed “The Crushing Game.”
The educated Zvonareva, who’s taking courses through a diplomatic academy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, doesn’t buy the theory that being very emotional is wrong for every player. She’d prefer to let it all hang out.
“Most people think that I sometimes cry on the court, but I don’t,” she said. “I just let the emotions out and let myself relax. It can happen when you’re happy, when you’re upset, anytime. Most people take it as frustration,
but I think it helps you to be better in the next hour or next moment.”
Quality didn’t matter in the final, as even the most accomplished pros have little chance of establishing rhythm when wind gusts are blowing their service tosses five feet sideways. Garbage bins were knocked over, plastic
bags flew to the sky. Even the 24-year-old Russian herself was knocked on her can leaning forward to try to scoop up a suddenly diving ball.
Even though she turned her racket into junkyard graphite after the third game of the match because her balls were fluttering crazily like a wounded duck, Zvonareva composed herself and played as steady as possible, fighting off three sets points down 6-5 as Ivanovic imploded. She then walked away with the tiebreaker when the stubborn Serb committed three straight clunky errors from her favored forehand side.
“Very disappointed with the set points that I didn’t use,” said the French Open champ, who threw a post-match fit of frustration in the locker room after littering the court with 46 unforced errors. “All of them basically I lost on the same mistake. I was very much in doubt whether I should still go for my shots or just try to make her play, because the conditions were very hard.”
In the second set, Ivanovic couldn’t get the chunks of desert out of her eyes or nostrils, while the Russian pulled her visor down and churned toward the finish line.
Even though she’s been scoring top-10 wins since ‘03, the pale-faced Zvonareva is perhaps the least known of the top Russians, miles behind Maria Sharapova in cue quality, and lacking the bold personality of Anastasia Myskina, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina. She also lacks their major credentials, with Sharapova, the now-retired Myskina and Kuznetsova owning Slam titles, Dementieva having grabbed Olympic gold and No. 2 Safina having reached two Slam finals in the past year.
“I don’t know why that happens,” she said. “Everyone was approaching Elena Dementieva a few years back that she’s probably the best player who never won a title. I don’t know how many she has now. A lot. So you never know how your career will turn around. But I think I’m more experienced and mature now, and I’m more ready. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this kind of title a few years ago.”
But last year, after she overcame a series of injuries, Zvonareva tapped into her vast potential and won two titles and reached six more finals, including the year-end WTA Championships. There, she knocked off Kuznetsova, Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic in succession. In January, she reached her first career Slam semi in Australia.
Her machine-like groundies, her quick feet and her ability to find solutions like a mathematical genius doing a beginner’s Sudoku puzzle make her a major threat. This time around, her cheeks aren’t growing a bright shade of red, which is one of the reasons why she was able to not only handle Ivanovic, but also power past talented teens Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka (she also won the doubles crown with Azarenka).
Zvonareva puts her losses in perspective and has begun to have more trust in her weaponry. Now, after the biggest title of her career, it’s up to the deadly serious Russian to show that she can bear up under the heat at the majors.
“The future will show what I can do in the Slams, but [this title] will definitely give me more experience,” said Zvonareva. “I’ll definitely know better how I have to prepare myself for these big matches, and to prepare myself to be able to play back-to-back matches against top players throughout two weeks. Hopefully, it can help me in the Slams.”
