The recent past has seen Spanish athletes proving themselves to be the vanguard of a wide array of sports. The national football side is the current World and European champions, after having done half of the square root of naught for most part of their existence, and would be the team to beat this summer in the Euro 2012 as well. La Liga has once again rose to prominence as the best league in the world, and even though the Big Two of Spain fell agonisingly close to formulating an all-Spanish finale in the UEFA Champions League, there’d be hardly anyone who would doubt La Liga’s credentials as the best of the lot – especially after Athelic Bilbao made a mockery of the English Champions in Europe’s second-tier competition.
Similarly in tennis there is one Rafael Nadal who has been on a record-breaking spree ever since his rise to prominence. But it’s not merely Rafa who has carried Spanish tennis on his shoulders, the depth of Spanish talent has meant that they’ve been winning Davis Cup trophies left, right and centre recently and have had more top 10 players of late than any other nation. And then we have the likes of Fernando Alonso, Sergio Garcia, Jorge Lorenzo and Pao Gasol, who have taken their respective sports from the scruff of its neck at one level or the other.
Spain has been the hub of Sporting drama in the recent weeks, owing mostly to the rise and fall of La Liga’s Big Two – one of whom has now been crowned the domestic champion – Rafael Nadal cementing his authority on clay in Monte Carlo and Fernando Alonso trying to retrace his apogee in F1. And Spain would be the locus of a lot more sporting extravaganza in the coming days, with the Madrid Masters – which kicks off today – and the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
Real Madrid’s 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday has ended Barcelona’s three-year hegemony over the domestic title. This is Madrid’s 32nd league title, which is 11 more than second placed Barcelona (21), and two more than both second and third placed Barca and Atletico Madrid (9) combined. Real Madrid do have another piece of history beckoning with a chance of being the only team to muster 100 points in a single season – they’d need to win both of their remaining games to reach the 100-point mark.
Like Madrid ended Barca’s dominance, tennis has witnessed that of late as well. While Novak Djokovic ended the duopoly of Nadal and Roger Federer last year, what was more intriguing was he that gave Nadal’s clay court sweeping ritual a jolt in Madrid and Rome last year as well. No-Djo would be defending his Madrid crown on “blue clay”- a move which has divided opinion like a knife through butter. Changing the colour of the clay actually makes no sporting sense, even though the organisers tout the move as beneficial for the “visible aid” of the viewers, who’d now be able to see the ball more clearly.
Madrid Masters has come at an interesting time. If Nadal wins the title, that’d herald the return of the “no one can beat him on clay” clamour; whereas if Djokovic defends the trophy, that would lift the Serb’s chances of conjuring up a career grand slam in Paris this year. And then there is Roger Federer – the only other man to win this tournament on clay, outside the top two – who’d be gearing up to prepare himself for a real strong go at the French Open. Adding to his major tally is all what the Swiss is playing for nowadays, and winning the Olympics singles gold – something he’d settle for even if he never wins a major again. He would also want to challenge Nadal at the top of the pile as far as the number of ATP titles is concerned, but Nadal’s clay court dominance might render that futile – especially since age is very much on the Spaniard’s side.
The clay court season tends to bring out the best in the Spanish tennis players – obviously because it’s their favourite surface; one they’ve grown up on. Hence, while clay might be the Rafa show year after year, the likes of David Ferrer, Nicolas Almagro – who can beat anyone on his day on clay –, Fernando Verdasco and even Feliciano Lopez would be eying to leave an imprint on Spanish and European clay.
With the tail-end of the Madrid Masters, we have the Spanish Grand Prix in the circuit of Catalunya next weekend. All eyes would be on the Drivers’ and Constructors’ champions Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull. Vettel is well acquainted with Barcelona since Red Bull have been doing a lot of testing over there recently, and even Mark Webber – who won the grand prix in 2010 – would be optimistic about his and his teams chances.
Fernando Alonso – the two-time World Champion – meanwhile, has been busy talking up his team and defending his team mates in the buildup to the Spanish Grand Prix. Alonso believes that Ferrari are now “an almost perfect team” – and this despite their failure to produce a car that enables the team to compete for races regularly. Alonso’s team-mate Felipe Massa has been hauled over coals since 2009 for his driving, so much so that he was even warned by his president Luca di Montezemolo. And the criticism has then been blown out of proportions since Ferrari’s 2012 car is proving itself to a bit of a Greek tragedy with the Brazilian scoring only two points thus far.
Alonso believes that most of the criticism is unfair and that all it takes is one race to change the opinion. He and his team would be hoping that particular moment comes up next weekend in Barcelona.