Federer opens a Magic Box of whupass on Nadal

Time flies when you're ignoring your blog, doesn't it? A week slips by, then two, and you realize you haven't posted anything. Like a high school ex-girlfriend, you start avoiding eye contact with her in the hall, devising alternate routes to class, anything to miss the awkwardness of that first conversation. A month goes by and you realize you can't keep this up forever, but now that you've waited so long you better have something important/interesting to say.

Well, Sunday's match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal saved the day and provided the icebreaker! Federer and Nadal met in the final of the Madrid 1000, a top clay tournament and the final tune-up to the French Open. Against all predictions, Federer stunned Nadal in a straight-set shocker, snapping Rafa's 33 match win streak on clay (and simultaneously ending Federer's title drought).

This wasn't their highest-quality match; I don't have the stats in front of me atm but I believe Federer was only even in the winners to unforced errors ratio and Nadal was in the negative. Yes, Djokovic had worn Nadal down the day before with a 4 hr semifinal, but more important was the way Federer played this match and what it could mean for the near future. Federer finally made a few changes to his game to switch things up against Nadal: he ran around his backhand and hit his forehand inside-in (up the line to Nadal's backhand, instead of inside-out to Nadal's more powerful forehand), he serve-volleyed on occasion, and he made liberal use of the dropshot.

Quickly then, since this is our first post back and we don't want to seem boring to our new ex-girlfriend: The importance of Federer's win outweighs the importance of Nadal's loss. Nadal wrote this off as a bad day on a very fast clay court. "To me, this tournament has nothing to do with Paris. This tournament is practically another surface compared to Paris," he said. For Federer though, this win provides a much-needed confidence boost one week before the only Grand Slam he has yet to win starts. If they meet again on June 7, Federer's quest for the career Grand Slam would seem a lot more attainable.