Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
The next time the tribes of tennis gather in a significant way will be at the two great U.S. hard-court tournaments, the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells, Calif., and the Sony Ericsson Open on Key Biscayne, Fla. These back-to-back combined (men and women) events are the climax of Act I of the Three Act tennis year. Act II ends at the conclusion of Wimbledon, and the third winds up with the year-end championships of both tours.
For the men, Indian Wells and Key Biscayne are elite Masters Series events, and the most interesting thing about them from this distance is what they will tell us about two rivalries. One of them is towering and the other an intriguing parochial affair of consuming interest only to the U.S. audience. The four leading roles will be filled by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and Andy Roddick and James Blake.
The Federer vs. Nadal matchup is spicy because last year at this time Nadal was busy positioning himself as a serious threat to Federer's dominance on all surfaces. Although he fell one match short of meeting Federer in the final at Indian Wells (he lost to Blake who then lost to Federer: can you say "the plot thickens?"), and was upset at Key Biscayne by his countryman, Carlos Moya, Nadal enhanced his credentials as an all-court player last year at this time. He topped it off (after another great clay-court season) by getting to the Wimbledon final where he was stopped by Federer.
This year though, it will be different on the hard courts. Nadal will be defending a reputation (his own, which has been tarnished by his results since Wimbledon 2006) instead of attacking someone else's. In the balance is the credibility of Nadal's stated desire to transcend "clay-courter" status. At stake for Federer? He'll be playing to put Nadal on the defensive and under pressure to defend a shrinking kingdom. In tennis, if not football, the best offense is … a good offense.
Although Roddick and Blake is not as compelling a rivalry, the two men are engaged in an unstated battle for bragging rights to the men's game in the U.S. While Roddick struggled until the late summer of last year, Blake capitalized on a great spring and used it as a springboard to finish the year at No. 4 -- two slots above Roddick. Since then, Roddick (with the help of one Jimmy Connors) has been in resurgence, while Blake has struggled early on this year. Roddick leads the head-to-head, 6-2, and though Blake won their last two meetings, they haven't met since Roddick's Summer of 2006 swoon.
So the table is set: Federer vs. Nadal is macrocosmic, pitting a very clear world No. 1 against No. 2 on the neutral turf of a foreign stage (Federer is Swiss, Nadal Spanish), while Roddick vs. Blake is microcosmic, but textured and intricate, pitting two Americans on a U.S. stage.
Don't be surprised if those two plots become interwoven along the way.
