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Nadal ends drought in desert

by: Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- You don't really go to the desert to get relief from a drought, but that's exactly what Rafael Nadal did at the Pacific Life Open here in the shadows of the Santa Rosa mountains. It had been eight months since Nadal last won a tournament, and the chief message in those indifferent if not exactly poor performances -- curiously enough -- was not so much that Nadal was slipping, but that his outstanding Wimbledon performance (he reached the final, losing to Roger Federer) had been a fluke.

Subtext to the subtext: Nadal really is just a clay-court specialist. He sublets a nice little piece of brick-red real estate from the guy who owns all the dry land, Federer. That Canadian Open hard court Masters Series win in 2005? Wasn't supposed to happen. He was just a kid in the middle of his breakout year, and it was just another thing that got broke. Since that win -- and in this there is an element of truth -- Nadal had been going backward rather than forward on hard courts.

That all changed with Nadal's win over scary-good Novak Djokovic on Sunday. The important thing isn't that Nadal won; it's who he beat and even more importantly, how he won. He put away two guys whose games are tailor-made for hard courts, Andy Roddick and the 19-year-old Serb sensation, Djokovic. Sure Djokovic had a touch of stage fright; this was his first Masters Series final, but Nadal showed the Djoker had good reason to be scared.

Nadal was smacking winners and playing the kind of hard-court tennis that would make Jim Courier, Pete Sampras or Andre Agassi nod approvingly. Nadal has three qualities that enable him to body surf over the crowd in the mosh pit of clay-court tennis.

1. He moves like a hard-court player. Sliding into or after your shot is an integral part of the clay-court style, and it is very useful on the red dirt. But unlike true clay-courters, Nadal has no trouble putting that habit aside on hard courts. He zips around the court on happy, light feet, changing direction immediately and efficiently, like a veteran hard-court player.

2. Nadal plays on the baseline, not a mile behind it, like most defensive clay-court specialists. He doesn't want to be the one getting jerked, he wants to be the one doing the jerking. He's crossed the great divide between defensive and offensive play, even though he's still suspicious of the net.

3. He's flattened out his strokes, to get more penetration and pace, especially on his forehand. This demonstrates his commitment to playing attacking tennis, something clay-court specialists are loath to do.

Seemingly overnight, Nadal's hard-court game has jelled, and it's going to make him a better player on clay, too.