With the hard court  'second' season upon us, I want to focus on what I believe is the over-arching theme that exists in men’s tennis at the moment, since it will shape the discussion of the upcoming tournaments.

There has actually been legitimate reason this year to question Roger Federer’s absolute stranglehold on the rest of the tour, with Rafael Nadal as the obvious challenger. In spite of Roger’s pair of Grand Slams (for the fourth year running), the majority of chatter in 2007 seems to have centred around how much Nadal has improved, with his win at Indian Wells and his finals appearance at Wimbledon cited as further proof.

In 2005, Nadal nearly beat Roger in Miami (losing in five sets), won in Montreal later in the summer, and finished off his year by winning in Madrid. These are all hard-court events, and in spite of losing in the 2005 US Open to James Blake in the third round, his abilities on the North American surface weren’t lamented – quite the contrary, in fact.

'These two players are the pinnacle of tennis, and have become symbols for mastery in just a few short years'

Last year, Nadal took a slight step back, although if you listened to the mostly ignorant media, you would have thought that he doesn’t even know how to play on the hard stuff. Quarter-final berths at Cincinnati and the US Open are nothing to sneeze at, but when your competition happens to be the best all-court player on the planet, you are – for better or worse – held to the same high expectations.

But that’s what this rivalry is all about, isn’t it – the highest of expectations? These two players are the pinnacle of tennis, and have become symbols for mastery in just a few short years. Fans have seen Roger and Rafa on clay and on grass multiple times. They’ve even seen them play on a clay-grass hybrid. We need to see them on hard courts – and not just in Miami, but later on in the year. In case you haven’t noticed, the matches have become much better of late (’07 Hamburg and ’07 Wimbledon in particular), and I wouldn’t suspect them slowing down on a faster surface.

Federer and Nadal have brought so much to tennis during the past two-and-a-half years, but there’s even more that can be explored. Even if Roger ends up wiping the floor with his competition during this hard-court stretch, the predominant theme of discussion might still end up being how Nadal performs in July and August. Last year, fatigue and injuries were noted as culprits for Rafa’s results; those seem to be behind him at the moment (he’s playing in Stuttgart this week). Five straight Wimbledon crowns are sure impressive, but even I have the same question at the present time – how will Rafa do this year in North America?

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