La Décima
In Sunday's final of Roland Garros, there was a remarkable moment when Stan Wawrinka--down love-40 in his first service game in the second set, having lost the first set 6-2 without ever having really managed to get a toehold--turned his back to his opponent, Rafael Nadal, then took one of the balls he was serving with, held it and dug his teeth into it the way one would bite into an apple, and if ever there was a clearer statement of "My opponent will not be beaten today," I have never seen it.
To Wawrinka's credit, he battled on. He did not give up. He did not tank the final two sets. He played his best, but it was clear from the first points of the match that his four-and-a-half-hour, five-set war against Andy Murray two days prior had left his legs a little heavy, whereas Rafael Nadal had struggled to beat Dominic Thiem in the semis exactly as much as he'd struggled against all the other players he'd faced over this fortnight, which is to say not at all. On this day against Wawrinka in the final, it seemed possible that Nadal could have worn a heavy steel chain around his neck and a patch over one eye, like something out of "Harrison Bergeron," and still won in straight sets, so much better was he than everyone else in the tournament.
Nadal ran through the tournament without losing a set. No one even managed to push him to a tiebreak. Over the course of seven matches, he lost a total of 35 games. He just turned 31 years old, and he was as dominant as he has ever been. It is not too soon to begin speculating about La Undécima.
Surely the other top players have been paying attention that the dominant players of this season have been Federer and Nadal, two great champions both thought to have been past their primes. They both took substantial, injury-enforced breaks at the end of last season. Their subsequent dominance is no coincidence.
One wonders how long before this insight filters down among the rest of the top players. High-level tennis is a brutally physical sport. Are the other top players brave enough to reach the obvious conclusion, that they will do better if they play less? The ATP wouldn't like it, but might the players start to think that playing their best and maintaining their health and thereby prolonging their careers is better than the alternative? If the players are wise, we will soon see a substantial shift in how players--at least players around or older than 30--schedule themselves.