Rafael Nadal - Has the Kohinoor lost its shine?

Rafeal Nadal lost to David Ferrer at Monte-Carlo yesterday

In the year 1850, the British East India Company confiscated the Kohinoor diamond from the Sikhs, as it allured them with it’s inexplicable glossy sheen. Now, the Kohinoor rests happily on the crown of Queen Elizabeth and is on display at the Tower of London. An ingenious piece of workmanship by an unknown diamond cutter from our country was not celebrated by us and now it is a symbol of the English’s colonial conquests.

The passage of time has always been a bloodthirsty dictator making preternatural athletes look like normal Homo sapiens. In 2006, David Foster Wallace wrote a piece named ‘Roger Federer as religious experience’, which I believe best explains the surreal grace of the Swiss maestro. And seven years down the line, the same master whose movements on the pristine grass courts of SW19 were nothing but expressions of human beauty, was outplayed in his own backyard by an unknown commodity called Sergiy Stakhovsky. After that, Roger Federer has looked a mere shadow of his own self, as he continues on his venturesome expedition to conquer the mighty ‘time’ itself.

Time has this habit of not pausing for anyone and seems to be the one and only thing which cannot be owned even by the noblest of bureaucrats. And what happened yesterday on the clay courts of Monte Carlo is more than just a testament to the extraordinary quality which the passage of time possesses. Rafael Nadal, who has scripted his legacy by displaying astonishing feats of endurance on the red dirt never before seen in this sport, was bundled out of the tournament by tennis’ ageless wonder-David Ferrer.

If we sit back and quietly roll back the reels, it was a decade ago that Ferrer had first defeated Nadal on clay. It was a time when Nadal was writing the first lines of his prologue on his way to become the ‘the King of Clay’.

A lot has changed since then, as Nadal has carved out a niche for himself in sporting history, whereas his compatriot remains a perennial bridesmaid. But with his recent victory, the man from Valencia has joined an elite panel (Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Gaston Gaudio) who have managed to tame the clay court freak of nature that is Nadal more than once on his beloved surface. Yet, the only thing that Ferrer doesn’t have to boast, unlike the others, is a major which he richly deserves.

When Nadal was crowned champion in the borough of queens (New York City) among Spanish royalty last year, many opined that the man form Mallorca was all set to overhaul the Federer’s record for the maximum number of majors. Now we stand at the crossroads of his career. A man who has endured the most heart-wrenching of sabbaticals and career threatening of injuries has been made to look like a run-of-the-mill player on the tennis court, a number of times this season. His dodgy pair of knees have forced him to be more aggressive and now the gladiator seems to struggle to maintain his level of play.

His unforced errors per match have proliferated and the conquistador is starring down the barrel. His patterns of play have now been mastered by many, all of whom owe a salute to Marian Vajda and Novak Djokovic, as they have managed to solve the Spanish puzzle, one that earlier astounded his opponents.

In recent times, Rafa has been more generous to his opponents by committing trivial unforced errors. The 44 unforced errors that he committed yesterday led to his earliest exit from the tournament in 10 years. The defeat at the hands of Alexander Dolgopolov and the hammering he received at Miami from Nole were indicators that he had to pull his socks up.

Maybe, time has now cast it’s spell on the greatest gladiator this sport has ever seen, and now Nadal’s fanatics have finally come to terms with him losing on clay. The Kohinoor which shined on the red dirt like no other seems to have lost it’s sheen.

How often has this happened in this world of glorious uncertainties that we shower encomiums on the ruler who successfully usurps the kingdom of another although the former emperor had devoted his life to revamping his kingdom? The red clay at Roland Garros which has been glorified more than ever by its supreme ruler – Nadal – will most likely go through some testing times as the king looks a bit of a ramshackle coming into the tournament.

In a month’s time, a battalion of warriors will descend upon Paris in their attempt to expropriate the kingdom of Roland Garros from it’s grandest emperor. Will the king be usurped from his throne? The answer to that lies only with the passage of time.