The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells will answer a few questions many tennis fans will have about ATP Players and their games. The Tennis Review looks at those questions on the eve of the season’s first ATP 1000 event.
1. Can Roger Federer bring his A game to a big final against Novak Djokovic?
Federer’s Dubai run showed he still had the game and the belief to beat Djokovic in a final. We knew Federer could beat the world No.1 – he did it three times in 2014- but in finals Federer had come up short (Indian Wells, Wimbledon) or not turned up at all (World Tour Finals) so the Dubai win was something of a breakthrough.
Beating Djokovic in an ATP 500 final is one thing, doing it in an ATP 1000 final is another. Djokovic may have had problems in slam finals over the years, but he has had no problems winning ATP 1000s- the Serb has won his last 8 ATP 1000 finals. The last one he last? Cincinnati 2012, beaten by Federer.
If Federer makes the Indian Wells final and fails, the Dubai win, like his victory last season, may prove to be meaningless in the long run, the finish line of that run an 18th slam.
Indian Wells is the last event for Federer before the clay season where there will be few expectations. Then comes the transition to grass and Wimbledon, the tournament the Swiss recently said he was aiming to peak for.
An Indian Wells win, beating Djokovic in the final, would help set the Swiss up nicely for an eighth Wimbledon win while another loss in a big final to his Wimbledon 2014 conqueror could set Federer up for another fall in the final stages of the events that mean the most as Federer’s career approaches its end.
2. Nadal who?
Rafael Nadal won the ATP 250 event in Argentina recently, his sole title since Roland Garros 2014. A good starter as he comes back from another injury, but not exactly a statement to the rest of the tour he is ‘back’.
Nadal is the ‘comeback king’ of the ATP tour and Indian Wells 2013 was the scene of one of his most successful returns from inury. The Spaniard won his first ATP 1000 on hard court since 2009, four tournaments into a comeback from a seven month lay off. That season Nadal would win two slams and another four ATP 1000 titles.
This Indian Wells, Nadal has a great opportunity to make a statement after eight months in the tennis wilderness, and the draw has been kind, placing him in the Raonic-Dimitrov quarter and the Federer half.
Federer may be world No.2 and in strong form, but Nadal’s matches with Federer are played out in the mind far more than on the court and a win over Federer and a place in the final would remind everyone just who Nadal is.
3. Is the next generation ready to step up at an ATP 1000?
Kei Nishikori nearly did it last season in Madrid when he led Nadal by a set and a break in the final before injury got the better of him. Since then, Raonic’s appearance in the Paris-Bercy final is the closest that the generation led by the trio of Nishikori-Raonic-Dimitrov have gotten to holding an ATP 1000 trophy.
This is the third season that tennis pundits and fans are talking about this group of players, ‘the young guns’, stepping up onto the winner’s podium. But last year Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Wawrinka and Tsonga took home the ATP 1000 trophies, and Dimitrov failed to even make a final at the ATP’s premier events.
With Nishikori turning 26 this year, Raonic, 25, and Dimitrov 24, this is the final season they get to be called the next generation before that title belongs to Coric, Kokkinakis, and Kyrgios.
All of them have the games, and now they have the experience, to compete with the tour’s reigning veteran class, and if the ‘young guns’ want to make sure ‘their’ time does not pass them by, they need to step up fast.
Indian Wells would be a great place to start and get generation ‘when’ up and running.
Commentary by Christian Deverille
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