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Novak Djokovic roars at the World Tour Finals.
(The Associated Press)
The
, previously the Tennis Masters Cup and the ATP Tour World Championships and the Masters Grand Prix, has always been the little major that couldn't. For years, the sport's executives have tried to invest it with the pomp and authority of a Grand Slam event, but, the Pete Best of tennis, it's never made the cut.
There are a variety of reasons for this. It's an indoor event in chilly November and it has just eight players in the field, which means there isn't the sprawling campus-like venue and party atmosphere of the four major tournaments. It's also existed only since 1970, and tennis is a tradition-encrusted sport where age matters. Finally, the tournament rarely lives up to its name: the year-end number-one ranking is almost always a done deal before the year-end championship starts, so it's only the tour finals in the most literal sense. (Would the Super Bowl be super if the season champion had been decided before the game?)
The best thing the World Tour Finals has going for it is that the long-time Big 3 -- Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and even Rafael Nadal, with his sore knees and distaste for indoor courts -- have prioritized it. Federer through the years has consistently said that winning the WTF is one of his top goals each season. In 2010, fans were treated to Federer and Nadal in the final match of the season, when Federer won his fifth of six titles. Last year, when four different players won the four major titles, Australian Open champ Djokovic proved he deserved the number-one ranking by taking out No. 2 and Wimbledon champ Federer in the last match.
This year, the World Tour Finals once again scored a last-day pairing of number one (Nadal) versus number two (Djokovic), though the rankings would not be affected by the result. Just as important: historians may end up settling on the 2013 WTF as the official end of the Federer Era. The Swiss great barely qualified for the event, barely escaped the round-robin stage and was beaten in routine fashion by Nadal in the semifinals, his first-ever loss to Rafa on an indoor court. Worse, before the final, Djokovic said in an offhanded, isn't-it-obvious manner that he and Rafa are each other's "biggest rival." No one offered up an argument.
Rafael Nadal felt naked and defenseless at times against Novak Djokovic.
It's hard for even die-hard "Fedal" fans to argue with Nole's assessment. Djokovic rose up to the number-one ranking in 2011 by slapping Nadal around time and again, including on clay. This year, Nadal struck back. He and Djokovic played the best, most nerve-racking match of the year in the French Open semifinals, with Rafa winning in five. They then closed out the Grand Slam season by facing each other in the U.S. Open final, with Nadal again winning.
And now it's swung back one more time. Djokovic beat Nadal last month in Beijing to show he wasn't giving up his top ranking without a fight (though he did drop to number two anyway). And then today at the World Tour Finals, the little major that just maybe can after all, he scored his 22nd consecutive victory since the U.S. Open. And he did it with a swaggering combination of aggressive shotmaking and never-miss groundstroking, running Nadal off the court 6-3, 6-4. When things got tight, he essentially out-Nadaled Nadal: through the first five games, Rafa hit just one winner. Though both players stood right up on the baseline, most points would have felt right at home at Roland Garros.
This rivalry's narrative resembles Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova's far more than Federer and Nadal's. The latter's has been pretty static throughout its 10 years, while the former's offered up wild swings of momentum, with both players enjoying long bouts of dominance before the tables were inevitably turned.
Does that mean that Djokovic, after playing second fiddle to Federer's comeback in 2012 and Nadal's in 2013, will be the undisputed tennis story of 2014? Let's not be too hasty...
Questions for 2014:
1. Can anyone end Djokovic three-year run Down Under?
2. Will Nadal make serious headway in his quest to take Federer's all-time Grand Slam record?
3. Does the 32-year-old Federer have one more major title in him?
4. Will Andy Murray's comeback from back surgery be smooth?
5. Will one of the long-time second-tier players in the Top 20 -- Juan Martin del Potro, David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Stanislas Wawrinka -- win a major?
6. Will someone from the next generation -- Milos Raonic or Grigor Dimitrov or Jerzy Janowicz -- break through to win a major or at least a Masters?
My answers:
1. Yes. Nadal will process his two fall losses to Djokovic and roar back to get his second Oz Open crown.
2. Yes. See above.
3. Many more than one ... if he decides to start playing doubles at the majors.
4. Hard to see the Scotsman being a serious contender in Australia, but he'll be in top form by spring. (And if he broadens his spring schedule to include Munich or the Portugal Open, he'll win his first career clay-court title.)
5. No. But, in the summer, del Potro will get his first-ever Masters title.
6. No. As much as we may want to see the ATP's future arrive, it isn't going to happen until 2015 or '16.
My preseason predictions for the 2014 Grand Slam finals:
Australian Open: Nadal def. Djokovic (Nole's winning streak ends at 30)
French Open: Nadal def. Djokovic (Rafa remains untouchable on clay)
Wimbledon: Djokovic def. Federer (Federer knocks off a weary Nadal in QF)
U.S. Open: Murray def. del Potro (In SF, Murray downs Djokovic, Delpo blasts Nadal)
-- Douglas Perry