DW: The Holy Grail of Tennis

You'll love this one. Dave tells me he wrote while hanging upside down in gravity boots. See what a little extra oxygen to the brain can do? --KK

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

It's shamelessly topical to do so, but I must address the issue of the Holy Grail before the trail goes cold. The Grail of which I speak is nothing to do with Mary Magdalene or any other entertaining but ultimately risible hypothesis advanced by the likes of Dan Brown and other descendants of Erich von Daniken (remember Chariots of the Gods?). No, I refer, of course, to the Grand Slam of the four majors - the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open - first achieved by Don Budge in 1938. Budge's feat has been replicated by only one man - Rod Laver, in 1962 and again in 1969. Three women have won a Grand Slam - Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Smith Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.

An emotional Roger Federer received his Australian Open singles trophy from Laver earlier this year and now only needs to win in Paris to hold all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. That will be a tremendous achievement, but it will fall short of a Grand Slam in the strictest sense of the term. Federer's name will only appear alongside Budge and Laver in the record books if he wins all four majors within a calendar year.

I don't know if the Merovingian bloodline has found its way into Federer's veins, but his divinity on the tennis court has at any rate been seriously challenged by Rafael Nadal in recent months, especially on clay. The Spanish teenager now boasts a 5-1 lead in their head-to-head series. However, recent scorelines, most notably in the Rome Masters final, suggest that the Swiss has picked up vital clues on his quest. A fifth set tiebreaker was all that separated the pair in their most recent encounter and Federer may well prevail in Paris if they both reach the final, particularly if the conditions are warm and dry.

Close examination of Da Vinci’s "Last Supper" clearly reveals the tentacles of the Flying Spaghetti Monster believed by many to have created the universe. I believe I have empirical evidence that Ilie Nastase is the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Bear with me. You will probably be aware that when Nadal takes to the court in the first round of the French Open, he will be attempting to break Guillermo Vilas' record of 53 consecutive wins on clay. What you may not know is that Vilas would have extended that winning streak by another twenty-odd matches but for Nastase's so-called "spaghetti racket". In the final of a tournament in Aix-en-Provence, Vilas stormed off court after being totally bamboozled by the spins produced by Nastase's double-strung racket made of non-intersecting strings on independent planes. The racket had already been outlawed by the tennis authorities but the ban did not come into effect until after the tournament. And so it was that tennis history first became entangled with the great Flying Spaghetti Monster. It only remains for me to wish Noodle, sorry, Nadal, the best of luck.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.