The path of Rafa Nadal at the top of the tennis world was not a smooth, quite the contrary, it was hard and difficult, since its inception as a professional, has by the añso 2002 until today.

That was the year that has reached the top, but had not been Federer would have secured long ago.

Graphic of evolution in ATP rankings, Nadal, by courtesy of AS

The ATP sees in Roger Federer their individual Muhammad Ali. And it has in Rafa Nadal to his George Foreman or Joe Frazier. The rivalry is served, elevates the level of that sport until unimaginable levels and at the present time it is reaching unusual levels of attention. It is not easy to emphasize in the United States.

But Swiss and the Spanish, both great values of the sport of the racket, are doing it and win the first positions as far as `in the last great favoritism of the season. Two different characters, two different personalities, opposite aspects and “it are young and I am the one that has experience, so the sense of expectancy is enormous”, asserts Federer.

They have been taking distributing the titles of Grand Slam for two years - from the Open of Australia 2005 that won Marat Safin has been no another two champion who not outside one of them and the thing does not seem that it is going to undergo great alterations. Federer is the great favorite of this U.S. Open, the man who could become the first tennis player who gains four consecutive titles in great American of the Era Open.

Roger, who tomorrow initiates his week consecutive number 187 to the front of the world-wide classification, is enchanted with that paper of main favorite. Tuesday arrived the past at New York knowing that “there is nothing of what worrying”. After the defeat in Montreal, the title in Cincinnati arrived. And the Helvetian considers that “sometimes it is good for losing. You begin again. As she happened after Montreal, people spoke, all thought… Soon the victory arrived and everything returned to be perfect”.

But also it is conscious that, after him, man has that tomorrow will take 109 weeks persecuting him in ranking and that in this 2007 is trying, if it is that that is possible, to overthrow to him.

For it, Nadal will have to take the rate to the match because, as Federer says, “New York is a madness. It is the nocturnal session, the humidity, the heat, the city, the wind. If desire the U.S. Open, you can gain any match”. The last Grand Slam resists to that they take the pulse him. Pero Rafa has decided that perhaps the hour has arrived already. It landed in the Great Apple the past Sunday and is been exercising since then with a view to its debut in front of the Alun Australian Jones, guest of the organization.

Rafa already has disputed five end of Grand Slam in 14 great ones disputed. Only John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were faster than he. And of them, two in Wimbledon, on grass, the surface to which worse its game adapts. But the runway of Flushing Meadows is deceptive. Grand Slams is considered by many like the four the fastest surface of.

Not even that circumstance avoids that Federer, at the time of choosing a possible candidate to replace, does not show nor a single spying to him of doubt. “It would choose Rafael Nadal. Yes, I choose to him. If it had to bet my house by a champion who not outside I, yes, would bet it by Rafa”, espeta. Although in his internal law Roger hopes to be he it person who in afternoon of next the 9 of September is raising the trophy of the U.S. Open in the Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Rafa Nadal has changed the beaten Earth of the tennis court, by the smooth sand of the beach. After taking control of the sixth title of the season - the Stuttgart- glass the tennis player has been let see by the Majorcan coasts shining palmito and making Gallic of an almost skillful skill with the ball.

The bronzed body of ídolo Majorcan - accentuated by the red color of a bathing suit that, by the way, left it everything for the imagination has monopolized all the glances in the beach that the tennis player has chosen to spend the day and, of step, to play an unexpected soccer match next to friends. Although enough far from handling the ball since Miguel made his uncle - Nadal- Angel the exercise, without a doubt, it has served to him to relax and to forget the tension of the tennis court.

And it is more that the sea always has been the refuge where Nadal now recharges energies and, than ever, our champion, that underwent some annoyances during the last match, must recompose to confront his next challenge: to take control of the title of the U.S. Open 2007.

The Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal classified itself for the quarterfinals of the match on beaten land of Stuttgart, when surpassing to the German Philip Kohlschreiber. His rival in the following round will be the Argentinean Juan Monaco, eighth favorite, that undid of the Austrian Stefan Koubek.

Number two of the world resolved by a double 6-3 its party before the German in spite of undergoing annoyances in the right knee in the second game of the party that forced to him to request medical aid confirming their condition of unquestionable king of the red clay.

The three times champion of Roland Garros obtained break tempranero in the first Seth although the German neutralized it with his following rest. Nadal tightened and obtained two new breakage that was sufficient to close the sleeve.

In the second sleeve, Nadal returned to put itself ahead in the electronic one to first of change and it only granted a breathing to his rival with 4-1 in the marker although it did not get to grant no point of break to his opponent.

Now, Balearic, the winning one in the 2005 edition, Juan Monaco, eighth head of series will face the Argentinean, that Stefan Koubek by 6-2, 3-6 and 6-3 in a party in which he was very solid with his serve and in that surpassed to the Austrian obtained eight aces.

Monaco continues demonstrating that the beaten Earth is its favorite surface, because this year has gained the matches of Buenos Aires and Poertschach, besides to reach the quarters in Estoril, Auckland, Costa Do Sauipe and Houston.

The year last Nadal gained a Seth to Roger Federer in the end of Wimbledon, boundary of the Swiss. One yesterday scored two before pentacampeón of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Rafa already is prepared to register its name in the list of champions in 2008.

It concludes the reign of Federer in Wimbledon and begins of Nadal?