Clash of the Titans

By Dave “Large” Larzelere
What a weekend it was for the two most dominant athletes of our time – one experienced an all-too-rare bout of mortality while the other served notice that in his rarified atmosphere of superhumanity, everything is business as usual.
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Strictly for the grownups: Tiger, Federer.
Time will tell if Roger Federer’s loss to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open was a fluke or a market correction that has been too long in coming. As Federer himself was quick to point out, it’s simply outrageous that we expect him to win every Grand Slam event that isn’t the French Open. Then again, it’s no one’s fault but Federer’s that we harbor such expectations – he’d won the eight previous non-French Slams going into Melbourne this year. His last loss in a non-French slam came in the 2005 Aussie - prior to that he’d won four of the past five. Even after his loss to Djokovic, he remains the owner of twelve of the last fifteen non-clay-court Grand Slam titles. It boggles the mind.
Beyond the possibility that it may be Djokovic and not Nadal who emerges as the true McEnroe to Federer’s Borg, the main result of Fed’s loss in Melbourne is that he most likely will not break Pete Sampras’s career Grand Slam record this year unless he finally manages to break through at Roland Garros. He needs three more Slams to pass Pete’s 14, and given his difficulty with Nadal on clay, one has to imagine that the best he can hope for coming out of 2008 is a tie. Now with Djokovic confidently in the hunt, even that seems far from a lock.
Meanwhile, on the links, Tiger Woods’s first performance of the year – an 8-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational – was so effortlessly dominant that it’s hard not to imagine him making a major leap forward this year in pursuit of his own white whale – Jack Nicklaus’s career record of 18 major titles. Woods is at 13 now, hasn’t had a year without at least one win at a major since 2004, and in his eleven full years on Tour, he’s had only three major-less seasons. But for the unpredictable Mickelson, there’s currently no real Nadal or Djokovic in Tiger’s rearview mirror, and that combined with the way he played at Torrey Pines makes it not preposterous at all to point out that a true Grand Slam in 2008 would put him, at the ridiculous age of 32, right on Jack’s doorstep.↵