King of Clay

While many people in the sports media have been keeping their eye on Barry Bonds waiting patiently to see when he will finally tie Babe Ruth's home run record of 714, which is second to Hank Aaron's 755. Part of the drama is twofold. First, Bonds has been taking his time tying the record. Recently, someone caught a ball that would have been a home run, depriving Bonds of the tie, and he's been in a rut since. The other drama is, of course, Bonds' alleged steroid use. While Bonds has never publicly admitted to taking steroids, nearly every sports commentator feels certain he did, much as Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmiero did (or likely did).

Alas, sports commentators in the US tend to fixate on the big three: basketball, baseball, and football. Even though I feel baseball is a distant third, the passion it engenders among those who love baseball is profound. They love its history, and thus, they love the comparison to Babe Ruth.

Recently, Mike Greenberg was trying to come up with a list of people for "Mount Sportsmore", the four sports legend that would appear on a Mount Rushmore-like edifice. The final list was Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretsky. Now, this list is very typical of a show like this. Here are some names they probably didn't consider: Pele and Billie Jean King. The first, because sports commentators seem to dislike non-Americans being picked, especially in soccer. Second, the disdain for women's sports altogether. True, Billie Jean King wasn't the best player ever, but she's up there in the top 10 or so players, and played perhaps the most important match in all of women's sports: her challenge with Bobby Riggs, which wasn't even an official tournament. Her success helped spearhead the increase of women's sports, especially Title 9 which forced colleges to put women's sports on equal footing with men's (too bad football makes such a mess of things).

Somehow buried in this American-centric sports fest was Rafael Nadal tying Vilas's record for consecutive wins on clay. I know. On clay? I mean, isn't that like having a win streak playing in the state of Florida? Who cares? But even in its day, people remarked on Vilas's streak on clay, which, given the people who typically win on clay often fare poorly on other surfaces and vice versa, is worthy of note.

Guillermo Vilas had an amazing streak of winning 53 consecutive matches on clay. In the process, Vilas would go on to win his one and only French Open. This was back in 1977. Borg had come close to beating Vilas's record, but it was Vilas who ultimately prevented Borg from breaking the record, even though Borg generally had his way with Vilas.

Vilas was one of the earliest players to have a coach that travelled with him. Ion Tiriac, who also helped out countrymen Ilie Nastase, and then went on to coach Becker was at Vilas's side. Vilas was a left-handed from Argentina. People thought of him as a sensitive guy because he wrote poetry and had long hair when that was in the style for tennis players. His left forearm was significantly larger than his right.

Vilas was generally a relentless clay courter. His weakness was like many clay-courters of his day. He was an average server, while Borg was much better than average, and he was an adequate volleyer. On clay, serve and volley are hardly prerequisites to success. And, aside from a hot McEnroe or Edberg, it's really tough to win on clay by serving and volleying. So, it was no detriment to Vilas that he didn't have a well-rounded game.

1977 was his best year when he won the French and US Open. The US Open, at the time, was played on Har Tru, a kind of clay court. He beat Connors to win that title. He would win the Australian Open on grass the next two years back when the Australian Open had degraded into some kind of joke. Top players often avoided playing the tournament especially when it was moved from January, its usual time, to December, right smack dab in the middle of Christmas, when many players decided they'd rather stay home.

As impressive as Vilas's record is, it comes nowhere near the women's record. Chris Evert won 125 consecutive matches on clay, more than twice Vilas's record, and likely to be unmatched.

On Sunday, 19 year old Rafael Nadal beat world number 1, Roger Federer, in the finals of the Rome Masters to tie Vilas's record. The score was agonizingly close: 6-7 (0), 7-6 (5), 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (5) . Nadal has a 4-1 record against Federer, though I would imagine they mostly have come on clay. Clay is such a different game from hard courts and grass that results on clay have to be considered in a different category.

Federer is seen as one of the most talented players to ever play the game, possibly even more so than Sampras. Federer generally plays from the backcourt, and can overwhelm from the baseline. Players like Australia's Lleyton Hewitt and American Andre Agassi have found it really hard to beat Federer when Federer is on. When they hit a hard shot, Federer hits one better. However, two players have had pretty good success against Federed. David Nalbandian of Argentina and Rafael Nadal of Spain.

Federer's mental block with Nalbandian echoes Sampras's block with Chang. When they played in the juniors, Michael Chang would routinely beat Sampras. Even though Sampras had the kind of game that ought to overwhelm Chang, Chang did quite well against Sampras. Once Sampras realized he really ought to beat Chang and did so, then Sampras won most meetings. I suspect the same can be said of Federer and Nalbandian who played one another as juniors with Nalbandian often coming out on top. These days, Federer seems to win their duels.

Not so with Nadal. Nadal can become the undisputed king of clay. He'll face Tommy Haas in the first round of the Hamburg Masters. At one time, Haas was considered the next Becker from Germany. That didn't happen. Still, he can be a danger. More than likely, Nadal should be able to break Vilas's record, and head into the French Open as the odds on favorite on the men's side to win the title, heading to this goal much as Vilas did when he was on his hot streak on clay.