It must be a thankless task playing someone that everyone expects you to beat, and that was precisely the situation confronting Rafael Nadal today in his 6-2, 6-3 victory over Colombian qualifier Robert Farah.

Currently ranked No. 264 in the world, the 25-year-old Farah, a former NCAA champion, is better known as a solid doubles player than for his achievements in singles; until this week he had never won an ATP main-draw match. Coming into today, he had already won two, the second a major upset over 16th seed Pablo Andujar, and had nothing to lose. He made a poor start to the match, being broken to love, but recovered to hold for 1-2 with a brilliant forehand winner on the run, grazing the outside of the line off a decent volley from Nadal. Nadal seemed less intense than usual, but woke himself and everybody else up with his own remarkable shot to hold for 4-2, tracking back a bunt down the line from Farah, then somehow twisting and flicking the ball cross-court for a winner.

It seemed to be the shot in the arm the champion needed, serving out a straightforward first set before immediately breaking Farah to open the second. However, Nadal's intensity seemed to dim again, as three unforced errors off the forehand gave up two break points and a lucky netcord, and Farah got back on level terms. Farah’s strong backhand and willingness to finish points at the net let him, at least for a few games, go toe-to-toe with a below-par Nadal. His biggest fault was his tendency—when faced with what should have been an easy backhand winner from the middle of the court, he jumped into it instead and consequently missed. It cost him dearly at 3-3, deuce, when precisely that error gave up break point from a winning position in the rally. A fine defensive lob from Nadal earned the defending champion the crucial break, and as is his wont, Rafa put in one of his strongest service games of the match to secure the advantage.

It was a shame for Farah that he couldn’t hold serve one more time. Another poor error off a short backhand rendered him vulnerable serving at 3-5, 30-30, and in a bigger shame the match ended with consecutive double faults from the qualifier—they were Farah’s first of the match, which could not be explained away by Nadal’s second-serve returning, which was less than intimidating today. Still, the fact that Farah can leave Barcelona knowing there were opportunities he did not take testifies to how far above his current ranking he has played this week.

Nadal, on the other hand, will know—if he didn’t already—that he can put in a performance that falls well short of his usual high standards and still win comfortably against an opponent who was playing probably the best tennis of his life. He will have energy and intensity to spare against Janko Tipsarevic in the quarterfinals.

—Hannah Wilks

The scoreboard screen behind the baseline displayed billboard-sized images of the players on Stuttgart's center court, illustrating the competitive quandary Marion Bartoli confronted.  The world No. 7 spent the day feeling Mona Barthel's presence over her shoulder and looking overwhelmed facing the powerful German, who played larger-than-life tennis.

The 21-year-old Barthel blasted Bartoli off the red clay in a thorough, 6-3, 6-1 thrashing that spanned 71 minutes. It was Barthel's first career victory over a Top 10 player, and if she can consistently produce the commanding tennis she delivered today, she may be headed for the Top 10.

A year ago, Barthel was an explosive, erratic world No. 196 who failed in three attempts to qualify for Stuttgart. This week, she's swept former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic and 2011 French Open semifinalist Bartoli in succession to reach her fourth quarterfinal of the year.

Bartoli is at her best hugging the baseline, taking the ball on the rise, and firing her trademark two-handed strokes into the corners, but Barthel came out dictating play from the first ball. The depth of the German's drives backed Bartoli up and sometimes forced her to take one hand off her racquet—she hits with two hands on both sides—to swat one-handed running retrievals.

Barthel's bold serve is becoming one of the biggest weapons in women's tennis. She slammed 11 aces against Ivanovic and hit seven today, winning 22 of 26 points played on her first serve. The 35th-ranked Barthel effectively muted one of tennis' most lethal returners in surrendering just eight points in 10 service games, drilling wide serves that sometimes left Bartoli waving in vain at the blurring ball.

It's an odd sight to see the offensive-minded Bartoli forced to defend, and it was an unsettling experience for the Frenchwoman, who double faulted to hand Barthel the break and a 3-1 lead. That was all the slender power merchant needed, as Barthel dropped just three points in her final three service games of the set, pounding a body serve to close the 36-minute opener.

That hold sparked a five-game run, as Barthel surged out to a 4-0 second-set lead before Bartoli finally got on the board. It was a short reprieve as Barthel, whose two-handed backhand is one of her biggest weapons, hit consecutive backhand winners followed by a clean forehand winner up the line to hold for 5-1. The beauty of Barthel's game is she's much more than a basher of the ball; she has variety, which she showed on match point, sending Bartoli scurrying side-to-side before curling a short-angled, cross-court backhand winner with sidespin to seal an impressive victory.

This young German generation is filled with success stories: Andrea Petkovic cracked the Top 10 last year, Julia Goerges is the reigning Stuttgart champion, Sabine Lisicki reached the 2011 Wimbledon semifinals, and 2011 U.S. Open semifinalist Angelique Kerber has won two titles this year. But Barthel may be most talented of them all. She could face No. 1 Victoria Azarenka next; three of Barthel's eight losses this year have come to Vika, including a 7-6-in-the-third defeat at Indian Wells.

—Richard Pagliaro

by Pete Bodo

Sandwiched into all that good news this past week about prize money increases at the French Open and Wimbledon, and the "dream Fed Cup final" that was realized when Serbia finally played up to its potential, was a bit of news that is demoralizing to U.S. tennis fans and administrators, even as it leads to rejoicing in certain precincts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The already anemic two-event U.S. indoor winter "tour" has been downsized. By 50 percent.

Remember the days when a robust winter season was kicked off by the greatest of all indoor events, the U.S. Pro Indoor in Philadelphia?

Now, one of those two stragglers, Memphis, is moving to Rio. And the other, the San Jose event, is re-locating to Memphis. This was not as complicated a deal as it may appear, as the same entity (San Jose Sports and Entertainment Enterprises) own both events—at least it did until it sold its Memphis sanction to IMG and its Brazilian partner EBX, enabling the ATP to launch the new Rio event in what has been an intriguing but generally problem-laden geographical frontier for the game.

Let's leave that issue for another time and take a moment to mourn what we're losing. As Dick Gould, a college coaching icon who developed countless top pros at Stanford, told the San Jose Mercury News: "It's a sad day in tennis in the Bay Area. It's going to hurt the area. It's something that we will feel."

It's funny, but we don't tend to think of tennis tournaments as living, organic entities. But in some ways that's just what they are, rising and falling like empires. This is obscured by the fact that almost every event has a bloodless, nakedly commercial mission—as evidenced by its name (in San Jose's case, most recently it's been the SAP Open). There's nothing very warm and fuzzy about business management software solutions, which is SAP's line of work. But while title sponsors come and go, and a different luxury car-maker gets to flood local streets bearing the likes of Roger Federer and Mardy Fish and Fernando Verdasco, almost every tournament has a rich history. A life, if you like.

And few tournaments have CV's as colorful as that of San Jose, which is the fifth-most long-lived of all the tournaments on the pro tour. It's been played continuously since 1889. If you only know this event in its current manifestation, as a rather lowly ATP 250 that has had trouble attracting the top European players—which unfortunately means most top players—you're missing out on a lot of tennis history.

"San Jose" began and spent most of its history as the Pacific Coast International Tennis Championships, first played at the Hotel del Monte in Monterrey, Ca., 11 years after the first Wimbledon Championships. The PCIC quickly became the leading tournament in the American west, including that tennis hotbed, California.

The event eventually moved to the California Tennis Club and later at the historic Berkeley Tennis Club, where a 22-year stint came to an end in 1972, shortly after the dawn of the Open era. Former pro Barry MacKay took the event to a more capacious venue—San Francisco's funky Cow Palace, the former California State Livestock Pavilion that would attain even greater fame as a venue for pro sports and music extravaganzas.

The list of champions from the Cow Palace era (1974-1993) includes Arthur Ashe, John McEnroe (four times), Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl, and Michael Chang. In 1994, San Jose (with it's new HP Pavilion arena) became the last stop for this event. American tennis was strong then, and the tournament chugged along. But as American tennis faded, the tournament became a tough sell (Andy Roddick did his part, though, winning San Jose three times). A number of other factors eventually came into play as well, among them small crowds and the inconvenience imposed on the National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks, also owned by SJSEE, who are habitually forced to to take a two-week road trip to accommodate the tournament each year.

The promoters have promised to keep the tradition of Bay Area tennis alive in the coming years (next year will be the 125th anniversary of pro tennis there), probably through exhibitions. Somehow, it just doesn't have the same ring as SAP Open. . . never mind Pacific Coast International Championships.

It's another sad day for American tennis.

In regards to Spain’s embarrassment of men's tennis riches, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez is one of those who can be easily lost in the shuffle, a solid Top-100 player who has been as high as No. 23 in the rankings and has wins over Nadal and Andy Murray on his record. After a poor start to 2012, however—he's 9-8 for the year—he is down to No. 78, and today never looked like repeating his 2010 Bangkok victory over his more famous compatriot, Rafael Nadal. The six-time Barcelona champion eased into his title defense with a 6-1, 6-2 victory.

Broken to 15 after a rash of forehand errors and a double fault, Garcia-Lopez held serve just once in the first set, serving at 43 percent and winning a less-than-stellar 44 percent of points behind it. He was consistently unable to keep pace wth Nadal in the rallies, getting his footwork wrong as he tried to protect his single-handed backhand by running around it, and although he saved the first set point against him with a well-executed serve-and-volley, Rafa took the first set in just 30 minutes.

After the emotion of winning Monte Carlo for the eighth time and snapping his losing streak against Novak Djokovic, Nadal could be excused some inattention in settling down to the hard work of defending another title; indeed, it was not his best performance. Although he broke for 2-0 in the second set with a trademark forehand pass, followed by another big winner off that side in racing to a 4-0 lead, Nadal never got his first serve percentage above 55 percent and made some unusual errors. By and large, it made no difference, as he was still comprehensively outplaying Garcia-Lopez, but it did prolong the contest. A visibly-frustrated Garcia-Lopez stopped trying to run round his forehand on every shot and started using his strong single-handed backhand to dictate points, stretch Nadal out wide, and get into the net behind it. Coupled with a rash of unforced errors by Nadal, it let Garcia-Lopez break back and gut out a marathon hold for 2-4.

As last-ditch efforts go, it was reasonably impressive. But having been woken up a little, there was no way Nadal would repeat the mistake, playing perhaps his best and most impregnable service game of the match to go up 5-2 before attacking Garcia-Lopez’s serve. Garcia-Lopez would save the first match point, but a double fault immediately gave up another one, and Nadal closed out the match to move on to the third round where he is likely to face another compatriot, sixteenth seed Pablo Andujar.

—Hannah Wilks

We know Andy Murray as a Scot, and primarily as a hard-court player. But he’s returning to another home of his this week on the clay courts of Barcelona. Murray spent three years, from ages 15 to 18, training and sometimes living at the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy outside the city. Today, through the terrible magic of YouTube, we can look back and get a four-minute glimpse of what life was like for the teen Andy during those formative days. Above is a clip from a British TV feature about Murray, done soon after he had won the U.S. Open junior title and been branded as “The Next Tim Henman.” (“The Next Tim Henman”: Is that the opposite of a humblebrag?) A few notes on what we see, and what it might say about Murray.

—Is it a bad sign that when we first see Murray, he’s trudging up the beach looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders? To the accompaniment of plaintive piano music? His opening lines are also less than promising: “I never saw myself being a tennis player. I always wanted to be a footballer. I’m not really sure why I decided to play tennis.” But there’s something touching about the way the 18-year-old ends this soliloquy: “I hope it’s the right choice.” Yes, it was.

Footballers turned tennis players: In that, Murray is a lot like Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal. There must be something about the sport, which forces you not just to move quickly, like basketball, but to create with your feet, that goes with the modern tennis game. More so, obviously, than throwing sports like baseball and American football.

—It’s seems true to the no-nonsense Murray persona that he would live in a basic, messy dorm room rather than in something nicer off-campus. I like the clay-stained sneakers. This is how Pato Alverez, his coach at the time, described him to the Guardian last year: “He was very quiet and well-behaved. While many of the [other kids] would go wild in their spare time, Andy stayed quiet and kept to himself. His schedule was probably the most intense of anyone I have coached; he spent 25 hours a week on court. He didn’t care about free time, he just wanted to work. If Andy was not on the court, in the gym, or in class, you didn’t hear from him.”

—So we go to the court, where we get an early sighting of the Murray Moan after an error. Apparently it wasn’t common back then. “I don’t think I once saw him get angry on the court in the three years I worked with him,” Alvarez said. He’s surprised by how much he shows his frustration now and thinks the key to Murray’s success will be for someone to “get inside his head and fix this, because the calmer he stays on the court, the better he will do.”

—It’s cruel of the TV people to make Murray answer questions while he’s playing. It obviously exhausts him—“I need to stop,” he finally pleads. What’s interesting is how good he is even when he is talking, how clean his shots are. He’s looser here than when he plays now, and you see some of the natural shot-making skill that everyone recognized in him at a young age. “It was obvious,” Alvarez said, “as soon as Andy came to the academy that he had the potential to be a complete player. He had a very good serve and a very good backhand.” Murray, ever the contrarian, says in this clip that his forehand is his favorite shot. The first surface he mentions as his specialty is clay.

What’s odd is that Alvarez described junior Andy as a natural net-rusher: “His movement at the net was also good," he said. "He was not afraid to do this, which was rare. Most young players like to stay at the baseline, they feel safe there. Andy was different, he was brave and confident about coming forward from day one.”

I wonder if Alvarez watched Murray’s last match in Monte Carlo, against Tomas Berdych, in which he came in seven times compared to Berdych’s 36?

—Also cruel: Showing Murray whiff at a shot in ping-pong. His relationship with the British press was obviously off to an ominous start.

—We finish back on the beach, where the budding perfectionist compares himself unfavorably to Roger Federer and trudges out of the picture to that plaintive piano. For all of Murray's straightforward simplicity and lack of obvious charisma, he's an interesting guy. From a young age, he’s had a strong and slightly mysterious inner motivation, a Spartan mindset, and a tendency to put a ton of pressure on himself—at 18, he was already assessing his game in comparison to the world’s best player.

Maybe that’s what comes from being touted as a near-certain future No. 1. Back in 2005, Emilio Sanchez described Murray as having "privileged hands," and being in the same league as Federer: "Andy is a natural in the way that Roger Federer is a natural," Sanchez said, clearly trying to lower the public's expectations for him. "In tennis, shots are made with the arm, but the hand at the end is what gives you options to do things with the ball. With a privileged hand you have many more options because your opponent isn't sure what you are going to do."

In all my time coaching,” Alvarez said, “Andy is the most talented player I have worked with. I feel he can [win many Slams] for sure. I saw this in him from the first moment that I saw him hit a ball at the academy. All Andy needs is to have more confidence in himself.”

Yet for Murray there’s a lack of total belief—“I hope it’s the right choice”—that lingers to this day. We’ll see what a visit to his old stomping grounds does for him this week.

by Pete Bodo

It appears that when the Big Four speak, tournaments—even mack-daddy Grand Slam events—tend to listen. And that's especially true when Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray are not lobbying purely out of their self-interest as the top players.

As a result, Wimbledon has joined the French Open in significantly raising prize money among lower ranked pros (see my Racquet Scientist column on the subject here). The All-England Club is raising prize-money by 10 percent, to a total outlay of $26 million, most of which will be distributed to the journeymen and women of the tour. 

You can't exactly call this wealth re-distribution as a diehard socialist might envision it: The two singles champs at the All-England Club will earn a record $1.85 million this year. But most of the $2.4 million increase will be distributed to players in qualifying, and early-round losers. 

I'm assuming that representatives of the French Open as well as Wimbledon (via the Grand Slam Committee, which represents the four allied majors) were on hand during the Indian Wells tournament when the Big Four made their pitch, requesting that that the increase this year go to the journeymen so that they might cover the ever-increasing expenses that add an extra layer of difficulty and stress for players outside the elite Top 50 or so. 

"It doesn't happen in many sports," All England Club Chairman Philip Brook told the Associated Press, referring to the role the Big Four played in determining how the prize-money increase would be distributed. "It shows that with the top four players you have people of quality." He added, "We appreciate the need to help players meet the rising costs associated with professional tennis."

First of all, we can all share Brook's sentiments on the Big Four. At the dawn of the Open era, the sense of brotherhood and common-cause among the transitional (from amateur to pro) players like Rod Laver, Cliff Drysdale, Arthur Ashe, et al, was extremely high. That changed, dramatically and swiftly, during the heydays of Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, and John McEnroe—an era that generated the cult of personalty, and in which individualism ran rampant. Over time, the ethos gradually shifted and ultimately yielded what I would describe as today's "enlightened professionalism."

Beyond that, I like the tack Wimbledon has taken better than the one that, judging from press releases and news reports, the French have chosen. The emphasis by the latter seems to be on first-round losers, who will get a substantial 20 percent hike, where Wimbledon's increase will give all those losing before the fourth round of  singles an increase of at least 13 percent. This means smaller proportionate raises, but more of them, and to a greater variety of players.

I took a lot of grief over my criticism of the French scheme a few days ago, some of which was baffling. Reading the comments, you might have thought that I suggested that the entire increase be doled out to the singles champions. What I suggested was that the money might be better spent if significant increases were given to the losers in the second round, rather than the first.

I invite anyone who can distinguish between first- and second-round losers as a general class to do so. They are the same players, and whether they last one round or two, or even three, is almost a matter of circumstances. At any rate, very few players are first-round losers all the time. Therefore, even if a first-round loser gets the same amount as before (roughly, in Paris), he or she might make up the shortfall—and then some—if he gets to the second-round at Wimbledon.

Acting under the assumption that a certain pot will be set aside to compensate a certain group, splitting that increase 32 ways (as it would if second-round losers got the biggest hike) means, potentially, twice as big a payoff for those guys than the 64 who would get a bigger check as first-round losers. Or, as an alternative, some of that money saved by not having to pay more to all first-round losers could go to—qualifiers!  

If you see that as shamefully calloused or "Darwinian," so be it. You're entitled to your opinion. I still think the first-round action will be more intense, and at no real economic loss to the class of player under discussion, if the distribution of the increase would be more like what is envisioned at Wimbledon.

Many comment posters flared their hackles when I wrote that a first-round loser at all four Grand Slams in 2011 was clearing $60,000 (after expenses) for doing just eight or ten hours of work. I should have resisted that simplistic construction, being all too aware that X-number of readers will always take things literally. But even so—the arguments that simplification smoked out—that pro tennis players have "worked all their lives" or "sacrificed a great deal" or "are among the very best in the world at what they do"—is truly tiresome, and a manifestation of jock worship at its worst.

So let's take them in order. Don't you think that the novelist (never mind poet) who has yet to find commercial success has worked all his or her life at his craft? The caring elementary school teacher pulling down $65,000 a year may not have started quite as young as Bernard Tomic, but I'll bet that she ends up putting in a lot more time—and taking away far less treasure—than Tomic will in his pro career.

The "sacrifice" argument goes nowhere. I've met very few authentic martyrs and oddly enough, none of them are tennis players. I put the vast majority of tennis players in the category of people who are doing what they love. A journeyman tennis player is like a struggling actor, a fishing guide, or painter/bartender. I'd like to see all of them make more money, and many of them are destined to do just that. But the idea that they "deserve" it is absurd.

As far as being good at what they do, fair enough. The typical first-round loser at Wimbledon is one of the roughly 100-200 best tennis players in the world. But in the big picture, just how important or critical is that? The 100th best tennis player in the world faces economic hardships and challenges that many of the rest of us also know. I'm not sure why he should be exempt from them, when the 100th best lacrosse player, archer, or cross-country skier is not. The irony is that the market may have disproportionately rewarded (rather than punished) the tennis player if you go strictly by the value of being good at what you do.

Anyway . . . This sudden upsurge of interest in the working conditions of tennis' lesser players is still a welcome development. We know that the tournaments, especially the Grand Slams, are making enough money to justify raises even at times like these, when other job providers are not in a comparably flush state. As usual, you have to hold feet to the fire to get increases, and in this case the Big Four proved to have strong and steady arms.

One interesting element on this front is that prize-money once increased at an even rate for all rounds until 2006, at which time prize-money increases for the top performers began to grow disproportionately. So you can interpret this as a course correction, rather than some sort of conversion. Taking that metric to the Grand Slam Committee certainly had to be convincing as a negotiating tactic, but even that "fairness" argument could not have been more persuasive than hearing the Big Four ask the tournament to do what they collectively thought is the right thing.

Change is strange, isn’t it? At least it is in tennis. You think it can’t happen, you think the players have no power, and then four of them go ahead and talk to the Grand Slams about spreading their prize-money wealth and what do the Grand Slams do? They spread some of the wealth. Wimbledon followed the French Open in doing so yesterday. The purse for 2012 will be up 10 percent overall, with the biggest increases going to early-round losers.

With that somewhat surprising story in mind, let’s see what else has been cropping up while we were watching the players slide over to Europe. It can’t all be good news, can it?

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Welfare Players Make Better….?
Sticking with the prize money angle, my friend Pete Bodo recently expressed skepticism about Roland Garros’ move to up the pay of of players who exit in the first round. The extra cash that goes with losing, he believes, will serve as an incentive to, well, lose.

You can look it that way, and others have. Jack Kramer, Pete writes, didn’t think a player should get any money at all if he can't win a match. Or you could look at it from the opposite direction, that the money will be an incentive to make it into the tournament in the first place, either with a guaranteed ranking or by qualifying. More important, it will make the rank-and-file player's life a little less precarious, since first-round losers have nowhere to ply their trade—i.e., play—for the rest of that week, and maybe two weeks.

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More Power to Them
According to Wimbledon’s new chairman, Philip Brook (pictured above), it was the Top 4 men who instigated the move by requesting a meeting at Indian Wells this year.

“In those Top 4 players,” Brook said, “we have people of quality and integrity who want to do the right thing for the sport. What we heard from them was not a request for more prize money for them, but they recognized this was an issue for the sport. They were there representing all the players on the tour. It’s clear more needs to be done for lower-end players for whom the rising costs of professional tennis have out-stripped prize money.”

If the ATP can’t do it, bring in the Big 4. Could this be a model for future negotiations about other issues? It’s a sign of the prestige that has accrued to the sport’s biggest names, and they used that prestige to help their fellow players. I should try to find something skeptical or snarky to say about this, but I’m at a loss at the moment. So I’ll let the Mail do it for me with their headline:

GOOD NEWS FOR BRITS! WIMBLEDON PRIZE MONEY BOOSTED FOR EARLY LOSERS AT SW19

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Now for the Bad News…
Yesterday we learned that 2013 will see the swan song of the ATP event in San Jose. Under different names, and in different locations, the tournament has been held since 1889, making it the second-oldest in the States. Instead, the ATP and IMG will begin a 500-level event in Rio de Janeiro in 2014. Matt Cronin has a good summary of the developments on Tennis.com’s Ticker.

This points up a few things about the game today:

That it’s getting smaller in the U.S.—as Cronin writes, USTA officials are worried that without San Jose the entire American spring hard court swing will be weakened. From an historical perspective, the news is even bleaker. "In 1980," Cronin notes, "there were 20 ATP tournaments played in the United States between mid-January and early May, 12 of which were indoor. With San Jose’s exit, there will only be one indoor and five overall tournaments."

That, if you can’t be a Grand Slam, it’s good to be tied to one. At the same time that San Jose was announcing its shutdown, another smaller U.S. event, the Legg Mason in D.C., which is part of the U.S. Open Series, was announcing a new title sponsor, Citigroup. D.C.—which will be called the Citi Open—is now the only 500-level event in the U.S.

That, looking on the bright side, tennis as a global sport can move with the times. It’s tough to see the Bay Area—home to Helen Wills, Don Budge, and Brad Gilbert (a natural trio, wouldn’t you say?)—now have no professional tennis. But a 500-level event in booming Brazil backed by IMG, at the same time that the Olympics and World Cup are coming there, is a logical move. Sounds pretty cool, too.

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Non-Oppposites Don't Attract
At the Oregonian’s website, Douglas Perry compares Rafole to Fedal—that is, the rivalries between Nadal and Federer and Nadal and Djokovic. He thinks that the similarity of the latter's styles is a negative; no one, Perry says, is talking about their Aussie Open final of 2012 the way we talked about the Wimbledon 2008 final between Roger and Rafa. On the positive end, he believes that the competitiveness of the rivalry, a competitiveness that should be renewed with Rafa’s win in Monte Carlo, will keep it compelling.

I agree that Nadal’s win will make things more interesting in general. But to me the best thing about Rafa and Nole is the quality of their rallies. I've never seen them as brutal or machine-like, the way Perry and others do, but as explosive and balletic at the same time. That’s what made Sunday’s installment a bummer; the rallies were missing.

Also on the subject of Sunday’s match, Ravi Ubha at ESPN.com has a good recap here. He notes that Rafa hit a backhand past Djokovic when both of them were at the baseline, which is a rarity. I remember the shot and remember being surprised by it. Nadal’s serving on Sunday has been much-praised, but his backhand also had more sting and depth. I got the feeling that he went after it more because, by this point, he had no choice against Nole.

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Lindt-Sanity?
Two weeks ago in his Mailbag, Jon Wertheim excoriated the makers of the Lindt chocolate commercial starring Roger Federer—you surely know the ad. Jon thinks that jokes involving reverse sexual harassment, airline security, and strip searches are in bad taste at the moment. The ad always seemed harmless to me; I even think Federer’s “Hel-low” is pretty natural for a non-actor. It beats having him dream about himself and his regal technique (is that Rolex?).

Of course, that doesn’t mean that now, after 777,000 viewings, I don’t lunge for the mute or fast-forward button when I hear that ding at the start of the ad. In one recent match, I found myself hoping it would end in two sets in large part so I wouldn’t be subjected to another’s set’s worth of chocolate balls.

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Talking Anti-Doping
The Tennis Space has an interview with Dr. Stuart Miller, who heads the ITF’s anti-doping program. It’s not easy to get much out of the ITF on the subject, and Miller sticks to tried and true answers here about how the organization does its work. At one point, though, he claims that all of the tests are unannounced, though most of them are done at tournaments after a player loses.

Next project for the Top 4: More money for tennis’s underfunded anti-doping program.

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Buzz about the Buzz
The Tennis Space also has the lowdown on why Andy Murray went so close with his latest haircut. Apparently what one British newspaper described as a “rallying cry for the nation,” and a “sign that I’m no longer happy to be a fringe success,” was, according to Murray’s mum, an accident.

“Andy borrowed some clippers from Treacle [his fitness trainer Matt Little]," Judy Murray said, "and didn’t know that it would be so short. Once he had started shaving his head at grade one, there was no going back; he had to carry on as you couldn’t have the hair different lengths. So he hadn’t worked out the settings on the clippers before he used them. Doesn’t matter, though. I like the haircut.”

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Getting the Blues
Finally, we're creeping closer to the debut of the much-discussed and widely dismissed blue clay of Madrid. Here’s a peak ahead, with the man who made us blue, Ion Tiriac. He says, not too surprisingly, Don’t worry, everything will be fine.

Something tells me we’ll be hearing more on this subject, and a few different opinions, in the weeks ahead.

by Pete Bodo

While our eyes were averted by the latest showdown between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, the Fed Cup had a great weekend in outposts as far flung as Kharkiv, Ukraine and Tokyo, Japan. Those names alone ought to add to our appreciation of this star-crossed and often maligned competition, because it demonstrates the evangelical function of Fed Cup.

The indifference of so many fans to Fed Cup (and, to a lesser extent, Davis Cup) still baffles me. The WTA is the gold standard among professional sports for women—nothing else even comes close. And Fed Cup is the premier (and only significant) international team competition on the tennis calendar. Little by little, this may be sinking in, as the number of top women pros who support and believe in Fed Cup grows.

This past weekend's ties produced a final that will be closely watched and promises to be absorbing theater: the Czech Republic, led by world No. 3 Petra Kvitova, will host Serbia in the final.

The Serbian women, in stark contrast to the men, have had trouble figuring out this whole Fed Cup thing. Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic have always been a potentially formidable one-two punch, but until now they've turned in nothing more compelling than a fair imitation of Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, the Belgian stars who accounted for one measly title between them—and that in 2001, way back when Fed Cup consisted of just three matches, two singles and a doubles.

That remains, at least statistsically, one of the best Fed Cup performances ever. Henin blasted Nadia Petrova, 6-0, 6-3, then Clijsters hammered Elena Dementieva, 6-0, 6-4. The doubles (won by the Russians) was irrelevant. 

It's astonishing, given the value Serbs place on patriotism, that Jankovic and Ivanovic hadn't been on a team that won a single World Group tie until the first one of this year. And it isn't even like their records, taken individually, are all that bad. Ivanovic is 15-7 in Fed Cup; she's 12-5 in singles with wins over Caroline Wozniacki, Radwanska (okay, it was the wrong one, Urszula. But still. . .), Monica Niculescu, Anabel Medina Garrigues, and Daniela Hantuchova. 

Jankovic is the workhorse in this outfit. She's 34-12—27-7 in singles—but her record is littered with obscure opponents. Her high point, before this weekend, was a pair of singles wins in a losing effort against the Russians in the 2010 quarterfinals. She took down Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova on that occasion, foreshadowing her wins this weekend over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Kuznetsova. This time, though, Ivanovic contributed a much-needed singles win in the third, swing rubber of the tie, toppling Pavlyuchenkova, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3.

Now, the Serbs will be up against a young, confident and very into-it team of Czechs. Kvitova may be mired on a singles slump on the tour, but when Fed Cup calls, she's still a demon. She won the second and third singles against Italy without losing a set—bang, bang—to secure the Czech Republic's place in the final. Lucie Safarova, world No. 23 and a lefty like Kvitova, nicely fits the role of supporting cast, and will make the Serbs feel they must beat her twice.

The U.S. won over the weekend as well, in the World Group playoff round (the B-roll of the competition). And if Serena Williams, age 30, can't be counted in the team's future once the Olympic Games end this summer, Christina McHale is young and has the patriot gene—much like her Davis Cup counterpart, John Isner. That's a great omen for the USA.

And did you see that Andrea Petkovic of Germany told reporters that her squad, swept in Stuttgart in another World Group playoff by Australia, probably "wanted it too much"? Australia had world No. 4 Sam Stosur, but Germany had the home field advantage (indoor red clay), the crowd, and three players ranked in the Top 25: Petkovic (No. 11), Angelique Kerber (No. 14) and Julie Goerges (No. 16). Australia's second singles player, Jarmila Gajdosova, is a lowly No. 50. But she got the job done in the third rubber with a big win over Goerges.

When Top 10 players start succumbing to pressure and talk about wanting it too much—even in a playoff-round tie—you know Fed Cup is heading in the right direction.

TENNIS.com gear editor Justin diFeliciantonio and his technical advisers answer your equipment questions every Monday in the Mailbag. Click here to send in a question of your own.

Some of the guys I play with on my 3.5 team are starting to use a co-polyester string called Head Sonic Pro. The reason for the switch, they say, is that it gives them more spin. How true is this? Are there any negatives to using polyester? I’m thinking whether I should follow in their footsteps.—Alex R.

Thanks for your question, Alex. Polyester strings have been all the rage the last decade or so, ever since Gustavo Kuerten and Albert Costa began using Luxilon’s Big Banger strings on tour in the late nineties and early oughties. The long and short of it is that polyester, compared to other synthetic strings or natural gut, does in fact impart more spin on the ball. (Note, however, that polyester is also less powerful, i.e., returns less energy to the ball, than synthetics or gut.)

The current rationale for poly’s spin friendliness is its “snap back.” That is to say, the string moves when the ball makes contact, and then pops back into place while the ball is still touching the strings. Though most players looking for some added rotations can benefit from poly to some extent, its effects are much more pronounced for players with longer, faster swings. 

But before you jump on the poly bandwagon, consider carefully its risks. While the advent of co-polyester technology has in recent years softened up its feel, modern-day polys still play stiffer (and more durably) than other conventional strings. Which, as a consequence, can stress players’ arms and increase the chances of injury. 

If nevertheless you are planning to switch over, keep in mind that, in order to compensate for its lack of resiliency, poly should be strung at lower tensions, from the high 40s to low 50s (in lbs.). It should also be restrung regularly, ideally after 10 to 15 hours of play. Finally, consider trying polyester in a hybrid arrangement first, crossed with natural gut or a multifilament. (For more power but less spin, put gut in the mains and poly in the crosses; for more spin but less power, put poly in the mains and gut in the crosses.) In this way, the stringbed will play much softer, but you’ll still reap some of the rewards of poly’s added spin. 

What racquet do you recommend for older folks? I’m a very youthful 75. I played for years, but not lately. Starting up again, I want a new racquet. Any recommendations?—John H.

I’d recommend, John, that you look for an oversized racquet—somewhere in the range of 110 square inches. A racquet with a larger head tends to have bigger sweet spot, more power, and slightly greater margin for error. Off the top of my head, I’d suggest looking out for some of Asics’ new racquets—particularly the Asics 109 and/or Asics 116, which were a hit with our playtesters. (We reviewed them in the May 2012 issue of Tennis magazine; they’re scheduled to hit stores at the end of May.) The racquets’ distinguishing feature is their elongated main strings, which the company says increases power and forgiveness during play. 

I’m 15 year old who plays at about a 4.0 level. I play everyday, and am working hard to improve. Currently, I use the Babolat Pure Drive GT, which I string at 58 lbs. with polyester. Honestly, I feel that the sweetspot is just a bit small, and I’m thinking of buying a new racket. How is the new Head IG Prestige Pro? I’m guessing that if I drop the tension to around 48 lbs., I’ll have ample sweet spot and power. Do you have any other suggestions? I’m looking for a heavier player’s stick with a low swingweight (320 to 330), so that the added mass will help me keep the ball deep.—Roger L.

That’s quite a detailed inquiry, Roger. Before you switch racquets, you should definitely try dropping your tension. Not only is polyester strung in the high 40s easier on the arm and shoulder, it performs better, with more spin and a larger sweetspot. With that adjustment, you might not have to switch racquets at all.
However, if you still feel compelled to modify you racquet, I’d caution against going to the Prestige Pro—at least if you find, after lowering your tension, that the Pure Drive’s sweet spot is still too stingy. Why? Because the Prestige model has an even smaller sweet spot. 

For a heftier stick, one idea might be adding weight to your Babolat Pure Drive in the form of lead tape. Consult with a qualified racquet technician or knowledgeable tennis professional in your area on whether you should add weight—and if so, how—to your racquet. They’ll be able to help you match your racquet’s specifications to your playing style and ability level.

I’ve got a pretty straightforward question for you: What’s the advantage of using a leather grip? Is it better than the foam grips? I see a lot of serious players use them.—Paul S.

Good question, Paul. Typically, leather grips provide a firmer, more traditional feel. I.e., leather allows you to more acutely feel the edges of the handle; some players claim this helps them change grips easier. Note, however, that with leather, you’ll feel more vibrations upon impact. As a compromise, many players use leather as a base grip, and then add a synthetic overgrip for a bit more cushioning and tackiness.

by Pete Bodo

We owe it to Novak Djokovic not to read too much into Rafael Nadal's surprisingly lopsided (6-3, 6-1) triumph in yesterday's Monte Carlo Masters final. After all, Djokovic is the undisputed No. 1, the only Grand Slam event winner thus far this year, and he's still beaten Nadal in seven of their last eight matches.

But it would be an oversight not to lavish praise on Nadal for the way he managed to keep the faith while Djokovic beat up on him, time and again, in one of the more unexpected insurgencies in recent tennis history. By the time Djokovic's big push was done in the autumn of 2011, he'd wrested away the No. 1 ranking from Nadal and relegated Roger Federer, No. 1 before Nadal, to No. 3. 

John McEnroe did something similar in his rivalries with Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, but that process was a more time-consuming one, so it lacked the drama and the shock that accompanied Djokovic's conquests. For Nadal, particularly, Nole's surge had to be biting as a slap in the face, coming as it did on the heels of Nadal's spectacular year of 2010.

Nadal partisans make a big deal out of his humility, as if he were actually nicer than the legions of other nice guys within half-a-mile radius of where you sit reading this, just because of that bolo forehand, those Guns 'n Buns, and his acquiescence to his Uncle Toni. Athlete-worship is a form of celebrity-worship, and therefore not to be trusted because the evidence from which we draw our conclusions isn't direct, personal, or even reliable.

In Nadal's case, though, that humility is at least real if not necessarily justification for his canonization. We know, because it has been a clear and demonstrable component in his success. Or to put it more accurately, the kind of realism that yields humility has been of great use to him. Nadal is pre-disposed to accept truth as a plain and simple thing—is there anyone who so assiduously avoids elaborate rationalizations, excuses, and ominous or cryptic hintings? If there's one word that you can't ever attach to Nadal, it's "snide."

Nadal is honest to a fault, that fault being—these days—his management of the injury themes and issues that affect his career. You know why Nadals's knees crop up so consistently in the news and conversations with him? Because they're that important to him, that's why.

Imagine that.

Nadal isn't one to downplay—or exaggerate—a given theme out of pride, a cagey desire to keep secrets, or some antediluvian concept of sportsmanship (which demands that you bite your lip and deny that anything is wrong as you limp through a bad loss). He talks about his knees because he thinks and worries about his knees—and, of course, because he's asked frequently about them.

Ask this guy a direct question and you get a direct answer. That's one thing you have to love about Nadal. In fact, his transparency comes close to being unique in an environment where a lot of breath is expended on explaining away things in 500 words where 50 would suffice. I think we've come to take him for granted, and to some degree we've even turned Rafa into a bit of a cliche (I plead guilty, for my own part in that process). We even imitate his diction and patterns of speech because they're so . . . Rafa.

Thankfully, none of these ancillary issues have much bearing on how he fares on the court. But they are reflected there, and of one thing I am sure: If you were looking to teach a kid how to accept triumphs and setbacks in any area of life, how to manage success and failure, you might not have to look much further than Nadal.

Just look at what he said one the eve of the Monte Carlo final, when he was asked about the significance of the upcoming match with Djokovic: "When you lost seven, don't (mean) nothing if I lost eight. That's the real thing, no? You lose seven or eight, doesn't change a lot. First one is a lot. Second is 50 percent more. So now 10 percent less every time. The pain is less, too."

A skeptical voice asked: "Are you sure the pain is less?"

Nadal replied: "Sure. Finally you accept, and you keep fighting."

He added, as if everyone needed reminding, "It Is an important match."

The subtext, wholly unintended (this is not a guy who does "subtext"), is that Nadal will keep accepting and keep fighting, and as that pain diminishes you'd better watch out because there's no back-up in him. And coming as it did at the onset of the clay season, this win had extra value as a kind of "reset" moment. Twelve months after Djokovic embarked on the most daunting portion of the year, the segment that Rafa has owned since he first appeared on the tour, Nadal has temporarily re-asserted his sovereignty.

Monte Carlo produced a lackluster final, partly because Djokovic was off his feed in a way that he never was in 2011, not in a single match, until long after the end of the U.S. Open a year ago. It's as pointless to speculate about the degree to which Djokovic's malaise was due to the death of his grandfather as it is to wonder what role Nadal's tendinitis has in a given match. But this surprising result raises the question, which is the real Nole?

Is it the fun-loving impersonator and dancin' fool who finds inspiration only in fits and starts? The terminator we beheld in 2011? Or has he moved on beyond both those identities, recalibrating his competitive compass to put him on a course where he hits all the peak moments in his best form and doesn't really sweat the small stuff?

I'm inclined to think the answer is the latter, because that helps explain (to me, at least, and I've needed convincing) why Djokovic wandered so brazenly into what has to be Nadal's most well-guarded haven, Monte Carlo. What, last year's schedule was somehow poorly designed? (Djokovic rested and left Monte Carlo to Nadal, returned to competition in Belgrade, Serbia, and then ambushed Rafa at Madrid and Rome.)

We'll get more answers to some of these questions in the coming weeks, and not for the best of reasons. This was the 18th time in the past 19 Masters tournaments (and the 12th straight) that the winner was one of the Big Four who occupy the top of the ATP rankings, so it's a safe bet that we'll be seeing more of these two characters in the coming weeks. And that "contender gap" appears to be widening. Just look at how some of the other closely-watched players fared in the first Masters on red clay:

No. 4 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: He was by far the biggest disappointment of the tournament, even if clay isn't his forte. He barely went through the motions as he lost to French countryman and No. 9 seed Gilles Simon in the quarterfinals, despite the winner having had to call the trainer because he felt inexplicably "lethargic." How do you lose to a guy who's mired in lethargy? You tell me.

No. 5 David Ferrer: A dogged clay-courter whom you can almost count on to go deep into a tournament stumbled out in the third round (but his second match, thanks to the bye system) to Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil, 6-3, 6-2. 

No. 6 Tomas Berdych: He upset No. 3 seed Andy Murray, and he got a set off Novak Djokovic in the semifinals, so I guess you can say he did his part in the attempt to wrest control of a Masters away from the Top 4. Still, this was a week when top-seeded Djokovic was vulnerable, and once again Berdych could not close the deal.

No. 7 Janko Tisparevic: He was also a victim of Simon, one of the few seeded players who gets a star on his chart for this tournament. But Janko is one of those guys who always punches above his weight class, so it hardly makes sense blaming him.

No. 8 Nicolas Almagro: Another guy who could insert himself into the semifinals conversation at any tournament on clay, Almagro disappointed with a third-round loss to Stan Wawrinka.

It doesn't make much sense going beyond the Top 8, but no. 9 seed Simon is one of the few guys who deserves a gold star on his chart for his performance last week. And No. 16 Alexandr Dolgolopov also acquitted himself well, taking out Juan Ignacio Chela and Bernard Tomic before he capitulated to Djokovic in the third round.

Among the unseeded players, Robin Haase and Stanislas Wawrinka get credit for making the quarterfinals—Haase in the spot originally reserved for Ferrer, and Wawrinka as a stand-in for Almagro. But in the end, once again the final featured two of the Big Four—and that was with one of them (No. 3 Roger Federer) not even in the tournament.