Just needed to post Cheryl_Murray's Latest Blog..which I enjoy ..hopefully you will to..

I wanted to write a blog about Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s pearl earrings – or if not a whole blog, at least a paragraph. Because frankly? A large black man in a pair of earbobs that would make any young bride jealous is worth discussing. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll wear a lace garter in Madrid. In any case, I like his chutzpah.

I was also going to write a blog about Roger Federer and the fact that he seems to have forgotten how to play tennis. I changed my mind because even though he lost to Albert Montanes on an actual tennis court, he hasn’t done so in a major, and so, I’ll let that go for now and not kick the man while he’s down. But just because it MUST be said….Montanes, Roger? REALLY?

So even though setting aside Tsonga’s wedding jewelry was a difficult decision, I know deep in my heart that it’s the right thing to do. Because at the end of the day, the clay season really is and has been about just one guy – Frederico Gil.

Fine, it's not Gil (though I still have a soft spot for the guy). For the past six years (yes, it has really been that long) Rafael Nadal has BEEN the clay season – no offense to Roger Federer or Guillermo Coria. And so, I submit this little homage to Clay Court Rafa.

I remember the first time I saw Nadal play a match; it was the second round at the 2004 US Open, his opponent Andy Roddick. American commentator John McEnroe kept calling him a “stud”, and I thought with some amusement that John seemed to have a little crush on him. I personally didn’t think “stud” when I saw Rafael Nadal. If you’ll pardon the slight insult, I thought he looked like an assassin. I had never seen such unusual focus in a tennis player before – and certainly not one who was still a boy.

He did not smile nor joke around with the ballkids. He seemed to spend the entire match glaring – I recall thinking that Roddick was lucky their meeting was on a tennis court and not in a dark alley somewhere. Nadal lost that match and did so playing somewhat awkward tennis. But I watched for that scary-looking kid because…well….there was something about him…….

It wasn’t until the following spring that I saw Nadal on a clay court for the first time. It was one of the more surreal experiences in my long history as a tennis fan. Because my first exposure to him had been on hard courts, I stupidly assumed that his game was clumsy, that he, with his muscles and scowl, was interesting but destined for mediocrity. In no way was I prepared for what I saw.

Poetic is not a word that is usually associated with Rafael Nadal. Intense, determined, powerful, yes. Poetry, no – but that’s the word I thought of.

Poetry was not, of course, the correct word - though at the time it was all I could think of to describe the sweeping way he commanded the red court. Art would have been a better analogy. Rafa was Jackson Pollock in a sport of Botticellis. His “art” was strong and attention grabbing – and even though you weren’t quite sure what you’d seen, at the end of the day you still liked how it made you feel.

It wasn’t that I’d never seen topspin before – I’d just never seen somebody do it so perfectly. It wasn’t that I’d never seen anyone move well on the dirt, I just never saw it come so naturally to another player. Watching Rafa on hard courts was like watching a fish try to move around on land; he put in massive effort, but the net effect was just a lot of flopping around. Put a fish back in water and everything just comes together.

Since 2005, of course, beating Rafael Nadal on clay has been the Holy Grail of men’s tennis. He has suffered a few of them (beatings) in the past 6 years, the most notable of which was his shocker round of 16 exit at Roland Garros at the hands of Robin Soderling. Many fans and experts alike thought that they were finally seeing vulnerability in the King, that the 2010 clay season would hold some surprises. It was not to be. Rafael Nadal came into this clay season rested and determined – and, if possible, playing better than he ever has before.