ESPN Tennis

Before Ion Tiriac answers to the players at the annual Wimbledon meeting of the ATP rank-and-file about that blue clay he introduced in Madrid, he has to answer to me.

His experiment, troubled though it was, has ruined my enjoyment of the ongoing Rome Masters -- the last high-stakes battle before the French Open.

Watching the Rome tournament Thursday on a fairly new flat-screen television (but one not set up to receive a digital HD image), I was constantly frustrated by a problem I never even knew I had before the blue-clay event in Madrid: I struggled to see the ball -- an effort I assume I had simply lived with in years past because ... because I didn't know any better. There has never been another option to red clay anywhere in Europe.

So there I sat, as Richard Gasquet crafted an upset of Andy Murray, looking for those tell-take puffs of dirt. They look like the dust rose by an errant bullet in a western movie -- each time one of them served or took a bit cut at a groundstroke. I know from readers of my blog that I wasn't alone in noticing how much harder it was to see the ball after the interlude in Madrid.

Over the past week or 10 days, I've been accused of being blood kin to Tiriac (full disclosure: We do both have some Hungarian blood) and also of being on the payroll of the former pro and iconoclastic billionaire who owns the Madrid event.

I am neither. But I am a fan of Tiriac's because he's a realist, and unlike many other tennis promoters, he's walked in a player's shoes -- and then some. I've seen what he has accomplished over more than three decades in tennis.

After a solid career mostly as a doubles player (he won the French Open partnered with that genius Ilie Nastase), Tiriac went on to coach and/or manage a range of spectacularly successful players starting with Nastase and including Guillermo Vilas, Henri LeConte, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic.

Soon thereafter, he segued to various non-sports businesses, opening Romania's first commercial bank in the post-Iron Curtain era. He scored success after success. He also built and still supports a large orphanage in his industrial hometown of Brasov.

And all the while, Tiriac has kept a hand in tennis as a promoter, with events in Stuttgart and Madrid. The idea circulating among newbies and ill-educated fans is that he's just some other billionaire dabbling in tennis. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We all know that the blue clay in Madrid was problematic; the foundation was too hard; the top dressing too slippery. Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1, and Rafael Nadal, both upset victims, were particularly vocal in their criticism.

The problem was originally ascribed to the fact that the tournament must lay down new courts each year in the Caja Magica ("magic box") arena. And in the aftermath of the blue-clay controversy, the city of Madrid agreed to leave the courts in place in the arena and to maintain them until the next tournament.

But just Wednesday, former French Open champ and Madrid assistant tournament director Carlos Moya also declared that the main problem with the "slippery" courts was the ill-advised addition of salt to clay, which created a kind of super-hard shell on the individual granules. Moya insisted that those who played on the courts before they were treated with salt (a common practice to control the effects of humidity) all judged the court just fine.

Djokovic and Nadal are threatening to boycott next year's event if it remains on blue clay. Just how much support they'll be able to muster among their fellow pros remains to be seen. But to me the cat is out of the bag: The blue courts were a big hit with media and spectators, and the question now will be whether the players embrace innovation and change or choose to play it conservatively.

Granted, I don't have to play on the blue stuff. But the experiment could hardly be called a disaster. Roger Federer didn't seemed to have trouble adapting to the conditions nor did his quality opponent, Tomas Berdych.

The visibility of the ball was clearly better against the blue background. Watching tennis on the tawny clay in Rome makes the case better than do these words. And at least to this fan, the blue was a great respite from the sameness that has come to define the European spring swing. Perhaps three Masters events in just five weeks is a bit much, even for Europhiles?

Tiriac broke new ground with the blue clay, which is unsurprising if you know the man and the way he thinks. I think it would be shortsighted and a wasted opportunity if the players end up rejecting this innovation merely because it displeased Rafa and Nole. This experiment was a great first step toward a better clay-court spectating and, I hope, playing experience.

Samantha Stosur is worried that her clothes will turn blue, and if that happens to your tennis whites, can full-fledged Smurf-hood be far behind? Maria Sharapova said, through tight lips, "It's unique." Milos Raonic claims the ball bounces lower and the surface is more slippery, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. He is, after all, an aggressive, attacking player.

And Rafael Nadal, who's been nothing if not an absolute rock when it comes to clay-court tennis, is worried it might "destabilize" his game.

Sheesh. You'd think that, not even midway through the clay-court season, the ATP and WTA tours had decided to jettison clay and install a blue surface composed of, oh, rhino dung or recycled plastic water bottles. All they've done, though, is use a dye of a different color (blue) to add a new hues to courts that have thus far come in only two colors: a pretty ugly rust (red clay) and a somewhat faster gray-green officially known as Har-Tru and used with any frequency only in North America.

Actually, the "they" in this case isn't even the tours, but Ion Tiriac, the iconoclastic up-from-nothing Romanian billionaire who, back in his playing days, was a notorious gamesman. He went on to become a notorious, inventive tournament promoter who has come pretty close to turning his big Madrid combined event into something like a fifth Grand Slam.

All you need to know about Tiriac is that he's the kind of free thinker who is in the habit of posing difficult questions to the establishment, such as "Where is it written that there should be only the four Grand Slam tournaments we now have?"

More pertinently, some time in the not-too-distant past he apparently asked, "Where is it written that the entire European clay-court circuit should be played on red clay?"

It's a great question, if for no other reason than that the weight of tradition. Actually, it's more like mere familiarity. Even Wimbledon began painting its own tawny courts green in late stages, and the typical hard courts used at the Australian and U.S. Opens, once a boring pea green, underwent various experiments and finally embraced a predominantly blue scheme.

Blue. There's that color again.

Tiriac always has had a great talent for PR and marketing. Who can forget that he invented the idea (at Madrid) of using high-fashion models as ball girls? The debate over the blue clay that now lays ready on the floor of Madrid's spectacular Caja Magica ("Magic Box") arena already has brought Tiriac's event an avalanche of press -- and the tournament hasn't even started.

But this change to blue courts isn't entirely about marketing and media. The lords of tennis have embraced blue as the best color for tennis courts because of the excellent contrast they produce when optic yellow balls are played. (Why do you think the U.S. and Australian have gone to the color?) Tiriac just connected the dots and reasoned -- understandably -- that if it works for them, it could work for him. If it makes for a better viewing experience on hard courts, why not on clay?

The maverick promoter even commissioned a fancy scientific outfit called the Technological Institute of Optic Colour and Professional Image (AIDO) to study the contrast issue, and the agency determined that spectators courtside as well as watching on LCD and LED television screens had a "higher" and "more favorable" contrast with blue clay.

But even those explanations were not good enough for Nadal, who reacted to the experiment as if red clay were something like his personal equivalent of Samson's long hair.

"I don't support that," Nadal grumbled at the Monte Carlo Open. "The history of the clay-court season was on red; it wasn't on blue."

Well, the same tournaments once used a white ball. The history of the U.S. Open was on grass, not hard courts. Not so long ago, there was no such thing as a tiebreaker. Change happens -- although it doesn't happen all that much in tennis, which in one of Mr. Tiriac's consistent mantras.

On this one, I think he's right on the mark. Out with the old and in with the blue!

After Rafael Nadal won his seventh ATP 500 Barcelona title Sunday, he said, "It's almost unimaginable to win here seven times."

I know Nadal was trying to say the right thing, and that he's a humble guy. But it would have been more accurate -- and credible -- if he'd said, "It's almost unimaginable to lose a match here."

It almost seems like 2011 and Novak Djokovic never really happened. We're right back where we were a year ago, with Nadal absolutely dominating the early-clay court season. In Monte Carlo, he won his mind-boggling eighth straight title. On Sunday, he beat up on his countryman David Ferrer for the fourth time in the final of Barcelona.

Nadal is 14-4 against Ferrer, and lost just one of an even dozen matches they've played on clay. That was in Stuttgart. Nadal was barely 18 years old at the time.

Speaking of Stuttgart: The top eight WTA players all showed up for the first high-value clay event of the European season, and the last woman standing was Maria Sharapova. The WTA No. 2 upset top-seeded No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, whom the Russian had been 0-4 against in finals (3-5 overall). Azarenka won each of those previous finals in straight sets.

But this time, it was a blowout by Sharapova, who banged out 31 winners (on red clay, no less) and made just 13 unforced errors in the course of the 6-1, 6-4 beatdown.

A comparison of these two events, Barcelona and Stuttgart, is telling. Nadal lost just 16 games in all of his matches leading to the final. That's an average of four games lost per match. Sharapova lost exactly twice as many, and in one of those matches, her opponent, Alize Cornet, had to retire with an injury after the first game of the second set.

No opponent of Nadal's, until Ferrer in the final, came within shouting distance of a set point; Sharapova had to fight off a match point (against No. 5 Samantha Stosur) in her quarterfinal. If Nadal's tournament was the kind of cakewalk that has become all too familiar at this time of year, Sharapova's was a marathon run through a minefield.

So how many of you looked at those two draws and thought anybody but Nadal would win, while also picking Sharapova to pull through? This was Sharapova's 25th career title, but just her fourth on clay. For Nadal, that's not a good career; it's a good spring.

But there's a larger story here than Sharapova. It's the suddenly red-hot WTA Tour, which is chockablock with players who not only can win but seem to be playing with a degree of resolve and pugnacity that seemed sometimes to be lacking in recent years.

The dramatically altered landscape is pretty neatly summed up in the fact that Caroline Wozniacki, year-end No. 1 for 2010 and 2011, is down to No. 6 -- and she was coldcocked in the third round of Stuttgart by Angelique Kerber, 6-1, 6-2.

Other favorites who were just spinning their wheels, if they got started at all, included Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic, Marion Bartoli and defending French Open champion Li Na.

The WTA has become volatile -- unpredictable in the best way imaginable, with more shifts of momentum and ascendancy than we've seen on the ATP side of the fence lately. Just how long can tennis continue to ride the coattails of the sensational year Djokovic put together in 2011? We'll have an answer soon enough, but if Nadal once again dominates on Euroclay, there will necessarily be a "been there, done that" feeling about it.

The only predictable aspect in the WTA scenario is that Azarenka is going to meet Agnieszka Radwanska in the semis every time the two women are at the same event, and that Azarenka will crush her. If you discount the walkover Radwanska gave in the quarters of Kuala Lumpur, she has a perfect record this year -- unless she's had to play Azarenka.

In Stuttgart, Azarenka improved to 5-0 against Radwanska for 2012. Even Nadal must be impressed by her mastery.

After Rafael Nadal won his seventh ATP 500 Barcelona title Sunday, he said, "It's almost unimaginable to win here seven times."

I know Nadal was trying to say the right thing, and that he's a humble guy. But it would have been more accurate -- and credible -- if he'd said, "It's almost unimaginable to lose a match here."

It almost seems like 2011 and Novak Djokovic never really happened. We're right back where we were a year ago, with Nadal absolutely dominating the early-clay court season. In Monte Carlo, he won his mind-boggling eighth straight title. Sunday, he beat up on his countryman David Ferrer for the fourth time in the final of Barcelona.

Nadal is 14-4 against Ferrer, and lost just one of an even dozen matches they've played on clay. That was in Stuttgart. Nadal was barely 18 years old at the time.

Speaking of Stuttgart: The top eight WTA players all showed up for the first high-value clay event of the European season, and the last woman standing was Maria Sharapova. The WTA No. 2 upset top-seeded No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, whom the Russian had been 0-4 against in finals (3-5 overall). Azarenka won each of those previous finals in straights sets.

But this time, it was a blowout by Sharapova, who banged out 31 winners (on red clay no less) and made just 13 unforced errors in the course of the 6-1, 6-4 beatdown.

A comparison of these two events, Barcelona and Stuttgart, is telling. Nadal lost just 16 games in all his matches leading to the final. That's an average of four games lost per match. Sharapova lost exactly twice as many, and in one of those matches, her opponent (Alize Cornet) had to retire with injury after the first game of the second set.

No opponent of Nadal's, until Ferrer in the final, came within shouting distance of a set point; Sharapova had to fight off a match point (against No. 5 Samantha Stosur) in her quarterfinal. If Nadal's tournament was the kind of cakewalk that has become all too familiar at this time of year, Sharapova's was a marathon run through a minefield.

So how many of you looked at those two draws and thought anybody but Nadal would win, while also picking Sharapova to pull through? This was Sharapova's 25th career title, but just her fourth on clay. For Nadal, that's not a good career, it's a good spring.

But there's a larger story here than Sharapova. It's the suddenly red hot WTA Tour, which is choc-a-bloc with players who not only can win but seem to be playing with a degree of resolve and pugnacity that sometimes seemed to be lacking in recent years.

The dramatically altered landscape is pretty neatly summed up in the fact that Caroline Wozniacki, year-end No. 1 for 2010 and 2011, is down to No. 6 -- and she was coldcocked in the third round of Stuttgart by Angelique Kerber, 6-1, 6-2.

Other favorites who were just spinning their wheels, if they got started at all, included Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic, Marion Bartoli and defending French Open champion Li Na.

The WTA has become volatile -- unpredictable in the best way imaginable, with more shifts of momentum and ascendancy than we've seen on the ATP side of the fence lately. Just how long can tennis continue to ride the coattails of the sensational year that Djokovic put together in 2011? We'll have an answer soon enough, but if Nadal once again dominates on Euroclay, there will necessarily be a "been there, done that" feeling about it.

The only predictable aspect in the WTA scenario is that Victoria Azarenka is going to meet Agenieszka Radwanska in the semis every time the two women are at the same event, and that Azarenka will crush her. If you discount the walkover that Radwanska gave in the quarters of Kuala Lumpur, she has a perfect record this year -- unless she's had to play Azarenka.

In Stuttgart, Azarenka improved to 5-0 against Radwanska for 2012. Even Nadal must be impressed by her mastery.

I've been messing around with tennis statistics lately. The sport has come a very long way in a relatively short time in that area, given that it's a global game with a baffling amount of data (with up to 128 players to track at even a single Grand Slam) -- along with a history of indifference to the art of statistics-based record-keeping.

Nobody would ever confuse tennis with baseball, the sport in which statistics have become an almost romantic dimension of the game. But the volume of statistics now generated by the ATP -- and, to a lesser degree, the WTA -- on a daily basis is impressive.

It also tends to support the theory that tennis statistics are in some ways inadequate when it comes to explaining the ebb and flow at the top of the game. That's because almost all good players are packed together so tightly that you invariably return to the idea that critical matches are determined by a handful of points (even that may be stretching it), which are won or lost for reasons that may have very little to do with anything you can quantify with stats.

Case in point: The ATP tracks 10 critical categories in its Ricoh Matchfacts module. It tracks them for retired as well as active players, in both "career" and "by year" categories. It will even break them down by surface.

This is a formidable bit of data mining, and it does turn up some mind-blowing results: Who knew that Guillermo Coria is the career leader in break-points won percentage (46 percent)? Or that the highest career first-serve conversion rate belongs to Gilbert Schaller (76 percent)?

But the problem arises when you see how close everyone else is to the leaders in these departments, and how many men end up tied with as many as a dozen others not very far behind the leaders. To wit: Eight different men, including Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, are a mere percentage point behind Coria in the break points won category. Among them as well: Filippo Volandri. Say what?

In the 10 categories tracked by the ATP, the only one in which Djokovic places above Nadal is "Aces." You can't look at career stats for that category, because the two present-day stars are nowhere near done. (The top ace-maker, by the way, was Goran Ivanisevic, with 10,183.) In the year-to-date rankings, Djokovic is way ahead of Nadal, 140 aces to 82. But Djokovic is just No. 18 in the rankings, and Nadal is No. 41.

Djokovic and Nadal are among the very best who ever played (since the stats have been kept, anyway) in every percentage-based category. But Nadal is consistently ranked above Djokovic, albeit by more than one ranking spot in just three of the nine categories.

The rivals are ranked equally in two categories: Each man has converted break points at a 45 percent clip (along with six other players), and their first-serve points won stats are identical (72 percent). Interestingly, though, that makes them 11th-best on the list, with fully 87 players ahead of them.

If you take the long view, the stats bear out what most fair-minded pundits believe, and all those other career numbers (including Grand Slam events won) bear out. Nadal has been just that much better, on a consistent basis, in almost all departments. There's a reason he has so many Grand Slam titles, right? Even the amazing numbers Djokovic put up in his enchanted 2011 haven't quite turned the tide.

The most useful stat, in terms of showing a significant edge one way or the other? Nadal's first-serve conversion percentage of 69 percent puts him No. 4 on the all-time list; Djokovic is No. 9, with a 64 percent rate.

If you saw how many points Nadal won thanks to his first serve in last week's Monte Carlo final, you might even think it's worth wading through all those stats to come up with that telling nugget.

In the big picture, maybe No. 1 Novak Djokovic would have been better off letting sleeping dogs lie. Rafael Nadal, his main and most bitter rival, had won the Monte Carlo Masters tournament a surreal seven times going into this year's edition. On Sunday, he made it eight in a row with a surprisingly easy 6-3, 6-1 triumph that ended his seven-match losing skid against Djokovic.

Last year, Djokovic skipped this event to rest from his perfect start to the year. He put off his return until the minor event in Belgrade, Serbia, a tournament his family created and owns. Djokovic then continued to build on his newfound mastery of Nadal by getting the best of him on the red clay courts of Madrid. Nadal was No. 1 at the time and had the entire world convinced he was invincible on clay.

This year, Djokovic played just two fewer matches than he had in 2011 and took two losses (both in semifinals) into the match. Yet he entered Monte Carlo instead of replicating his game plan of 2011. You have to wonder how much pressure he felt to enter one of the showcase events hosted by the tax haven that has saved him a bundle by granting residence.

It's all moot now; the damage is done. After taking seven straight losses at the hands of Djokovic, Nadal has temporarily turned the tables. He dominated Djokovic in every phase of the game in the Monte Carlo final, but if you had to single out a single area of excellence, it would be Nadal's serve.

Nadal's serve was every bit as effective back in those halcyon summer days of 2010, when he rode those lefty kickers and sliders to the completion of his career Grand Slam at the U.S. Open.

The most startling statistic served up on the day: Djokovic's inability to win more than four points off Nadal first serves (at 4 of 26, his percentage was a cringe-inducing 15 percent). Nadal made his first serve nearly 70 percent of the time, and he won 50 percent of the points when he didn't.

Those numbers, and what they say about the role of the serve in this match (and, Nadal partisans fervently hope, going forward), will give some comfort to Nadal and his fans when critics rightly suggest that Djokovic was off-kilter all day. He certainly was making more unforced errors than usual, and he looked passive and uncharacteristically dispirited throughout the match.

Most pundits put it down to the fact that Djokovic has been on an emotional roller coaster after losing his grandfather Vladimir, with whom he was very close, just a few days ago. Although distracted, he decided to soldier on and finish the tournament, saying, "I'm a professional one hand, and life goes on." Give him credit. It would have been easy for him to milk the family's loss for all it was worth, but he eschewed the drama.

For Djokovic and his minions, the takeaway from this match is that he's still the one calling the tune once the ball is in play -- and that's an edge no other player today can claim, at least not on red clay or outdoor hard courts.

Nadal did many things right Sunday, starting with his service selection and execution. But he didn't do the single thing that might enable him to turn the tide permanently against Djokovic; he didn't step into the court and establish a no-passing zone at the baseline. Those familiar heroic sprints and gets, those spectacular counterpunches and those heavy, spinning forehands that jump right up and threaten to bite an opponent were enough to get the job done.

We all know that Nole took up residence in Rafa's head last year, because Nadal himself has told us so. Whether this shellacking was enough to evict Djokovic remains to be seen. Given Nadal's record on clay, and the fact that Djokovic no longer has anything to prove at this time of year (beyond the French Open at some point), the one thing that seems certain is that this win came at a most opportune time for the eighth-time lucky champ.

One of the commendable qualities of the top ATP players today is that they don't duck one another. In fact, they often seem to go looking for one another, with the tacit understanding that great players ought to have great rivalries.

This wasn't always true. We remember how Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg spent a fair amount of time circling and sniffing instead of tearing into each other. Ivan Lendl also tap-danced around his rivals a bit early in his career as a contender.

And one of the caveats hung on the Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi rivalry is that they just didn't play often enough, especially in Grand Slam tournaments. Sampras finished 20-14 up on Agassi, including nine Grand Slam meetings (6-3 overall and 4-1 in finals for Sampras).

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal already are just four matches shy of the total played by Sampras and Agassi (Nadal leads 16-14), and they've already met in eight majors even though both of them are younger than 26. And judging by their actions, they might end up in Chris-and-Martina rather than Pete-and-Andre territory.

Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert played a whopping 80 times, with Navratilova emerging triumphant 43-37.

ATP No. 1 Djokovic and No. 2 Nadal are favored to play their second big final of the year at the end of this week in Monte Carlo. This is a tournament that Nadal has won seven consecutive times. He's lost just once in that picturesque setting above the Mediterranean Sea, way back in his first year on the tour, 2003. He was beaten by Guillermo "The Magician" Coria, who would go on to lose the French Open final just more than a year later after having match point.

More notably, Djokovic never has won at Monte Carlo, and last year he didn't even play the event. He chose, instead, to rest after bumping his perfect record on the year to 24-0 at the end of the American hard-court swing. He was next seen at the end of April, playing in the modest ATP 250 tournament his family owns in Belgrade, Serbia.

Players are notorious for sticking with routine that has borne fruit, so you have to wonder why Djokovic is in Monte Carlo when his schedule worked out so well in 2011. Is this a show of hubris? Does he feel obliged to tempt fate? Has Princess Caroline of Monaco begged him to come and trash Rafa for the good of the event?

Djokovic certainly didn't enter Monte Carlo because he now resides there (unless, of course, it's some undisclosed aspect of the deal that earned him residency) or because he needs matches -- he's played just two fewer matches this year than last (and is 20-2 in 2012). He knows full well how proprietary Nadal feels about the event. No matter how you cut it, it looks like Djokovic is sticking out his jaw, looking for a fight.

How refreshing.

One explanation for Djokovic's eagerness to lock horns with Nadal again is his sense of lost opportunity. Together, they've blown two opportunities to meet since Djokovic won that epic Australian Open final at the end of January. They both lost in the Indian Wells semifinals, and in Miami, Nadal pulled out of their projected semifinal with a bum knee. Monte Carlo is their fourth window of opportunity as the No. 1 and 2 seeds.

This is a golden opportunity for Nadal, who must be smoldering from the shock of having lost to Djokovic the past seven times they've met. What better place than Monte Carlo, where Nadal is 39-1, to turn around that record?

It's certainly a brazen move by Djokovic, for the reasons we've seen. It's funny, but plumbing the psychological depths here seems both valid and irrelevant. These guys have simplified this thing to him-versus-me -- and probably for long time to come. That's cause for celebration.

With the clay-court season upon us, it's a good time to evaluate what's at stake for the players who will soon constitute a true "dirty dozen" -- the top six ATP and WTA pros, who will spend much time in the coming weeks trying to wash away caked-on red clay and pink stains from their socks and shorts.

Let's take them in order of ranking:

ATP No. 1 Novak Djokovic: Given what Djokovic did in 2011, it's easy to forget just how tough Rafael Nadal is on clay. Djokovic has said he feels under no obligation to repeat his feats of 2011, but even a slight drop in his level of intensity would open the door for his rivals. Nole has said he's targeting the French Open title, but his prospects of winning it will decline if we see a Nadal resurgence.

No. 2 Rafael Nadal: Can you say "payback"? This is the first time since he was ambushed by Djokovic in 2011 that Nadal will be back on his home turf of Euro clay, starting Monday in Monte Carlo. He's been the champ for seven years in a row (his record at the Monte Carlo Masters: 39-1). Given that, it took guts for Djokovic to enter Monte Carlo. Should they meet in the final, the results will probably have long-term repercussions.

No. 3 Roger Federer: At 30, and with his record, Federer has nothing to prove. But another excellent clay-court season will keep him in good shape physically and mentally for Wimbledon and the Olympic Games, both of which will be on grass. And bear in mind that it was Federer who ended Djokovic's unbeaten streak in 2011 in the Roland Garros semis -- proving, once again, that for most of his career he's been far and away the second-best player on clay (behind Nadal).

No. 4 Andy Murray: He came into the clay-court season last year in a serious slump, and used the red dirt to sort out his game and get back in his top-five groove. This year he'll sally forth more confidently, having avoided another post-Australian swoon. I don't think Murray's full clay-court potential has been tapped yet. Last year he played a sneaky-good four-set match against Nadal in the Roland Garros semifinals. He could surprise everyone and bag his first major on red clay.

No. 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: The Frenchman made great progress over the past six months, but he's had serious trouble cracking the code on clay. Admittedly, this is kind of a French thing; you do well at Monte Carlo or Rome and -- heaven forbid -- the next thing you know your countrymen are thinking you might win at Roland Garros! Tsonga didn't win three matches in a row on clay during the entire spring last year; he needs to show he can perform on the dirt and contend for his national championships.

No. 6 David Ferrer: It's simple. This guy needs to show that he can beat the top players in the top events. Beyond that, it's all been-there, done-that for Ferrer at this time of year.

WTA No. 1 Victoria Azarenka: I don't know why there's so much talk about Azarenka's need to demonstrate that she can play on clay; she won Marbella last year and lost only to players who went on to win the title at every other spring clay tournament but one (Stuttgart, where Azarenka retired during her first-round match). But given her start to the year, she needs to do well on clay only to enhance her chances at the French Open.

No. 2 Maria Sharapova: I'd bet she wants to maintain the momentum she's built up this year, to keep the youngsters ranked below her at bay. And that is a tougher job for her on clay than any other surface. Last year, Sharapova surprised everyone, including herself, when she won Rome. But she has a lot of points to defend and will certainly feel some pressure.

No. 3 Petra Kvitova: She came within a hair's breadth of taking the year-end No. 1 ranking in 2011, but she's been a bust since she made the semifinals of the Australian Open two months ago. She needs to win matches. Many matches. And soon.

No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska: This young lady has one big problem: It's called Azarenka. Radwanska has lost to the No. 1 four times this year, and she's won every other tournament she's played (we won't count that match she had to surrender via walkover in Kuala Lumpur). Radwanska has to put her foot down and take a stand, because her tricky, counter-punching game is ideal for clay.

No. 5 Samantha Stosur: It's getting to the point that she needs to do something, and pretty quickly, to retain her credibility as a player of the first order -- a reputation she earned with that great win at the U.S. Open last year. You can play your way back into form on clay (just ask Murray, who did it last year), and that's just what this former French Open finalist needs to do.

No. 6 Caroline Wozniacki: The assignment is simple: Stop the bleeding. Wozniacki embarked on the year at No. 1, but she's been eclipsed and has left many thinking that her window of opportunity to win a major is closing -- fast. She needs to show that she can fend off the threats represented by vastly improved players like Kvitova, Radwanska and Azarenka, as well as veterans like Sharapova, Li Na and Serena Williams. It's a tough assignment for the defense-minded Dane.

The big question hovering in the air while the Indian Wells draws gets pared to a manageable 32 players by Monday is whether the lengthy proceedings will end with Novak versus Rafa XXXI.

It's a better draw and bigger story than ever, even though No. 1 Novak Djokovic has won their past seven dust-ups.

It's also a particularly interesting question because, whether the "dream final" happens, and how it turns out, will probably give us a pretty accurate forecast for the upcoming heart of the tennis season -- that period that begins with Indian Wells and Miami and continues through the U.S. Open.

So let's look at why the clash might -- or might not -- come to pass.

On the "might" side:

• Although No. 4 Andy Murray scotched Djokovic's hopes of recreating his near-perfect first half, let's not forget that it remains the only match Djokovic has lost this year. The No. 1 from Serbia didn't look like the player we'd grown accustomed to seeing for the better part of a year now, but everyone is entitled to have a bad day now and then -- especially when his opponent is having a great one, as Murray did in that Dubai semi.

• No. 2 Rafael Nadal comes into Indian Wells fresh, well-rested and off what he suggested was a highly targeted training regimen with one goal: Figure out how to beat Djokovic.

This doesn't mean that Nadal will stroll out on the stadium court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden and start playing with his dominant right hand and/or serving and volleying like a regular Pat Rafter. What "changes" Nadal has made are more likely to be subtle matters of shot selection and/or tactics.

• By again putting Nadal and No. 3 Roger Federer in the same half of the draw, the tennis gods have voted for XXXI; Nadal has pretty much had Federer's number lately, while Federer has been a greater threat than Nadal to Djokovic. Federer is 1-2 in Grand Slam matches against Djokovic over the past five majors, while Nadal is 0-3.

• Djokovic and Nadal have outstanding records at Indian Wells. Nadal is 31-5; Djokovic is 22-4. Both men have won the title twice, but Djokovic has a 2-1 edge on Nadal in those desert shootouts. But here's something interesting: Djokovic is 1-0 against Federer at Indian Wells, while Nadal never has played the No. 3 there.

Now, to the "might not" ...

• Djokovic's gluttonous run may be over, which means he may not feel nearly as motivated, or pressured, to prove himself the best player in the world week after week -- especially now that he bounced back from his struggles at the end of 2011 to reassert his dominance at the Grand Slams via his win in Australia.

With five of the ATP's best and most effective servers (ace-machine and No. 7 seed Tomas Berdych, No. 8 Mardy Fish, No. 11 John Isner, No. 30 Andy Roddick and No. 29 Kevin Anderson) in his half of the draw, along with Murray, task No. 1 for Djokovic will be to just get the danged ball back and see what develops from there.

• Nadal may be fresh, but he may also be soft and lacking the match toughness that playing Dubai provided to some of his rivals. But Nadal has blown off playing ATP tournaments between the end of the Australian Open and Indian Wells for years now, with no apparent ill effects. Still, will five matches be adequate preparation for meeting Djokovic again?

Granted, every draw looks easy -- or impossible -- at the outset and often ends up anything but. Still, when the most dangerous guy en route to the semifinals looks to be Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and your quarterfinal opponent is projected to be your countryman and Davis Cup pal (Feliciano Lopez), you have to figure that Nadal has clear sailing until the very end -- which is the only part of the tournament that counts for a player of his status.

• Federer has been playing great and freely talking about what a difference it makes to be brimful of confidence. He's also said that one big difference in his game this year is that he's been much better at making a transition from playing defense to offense. Nadal, or anyone else, writes off Federer at his peril.

We also know how leery Rafa is of big servers, and if Milos Raonic somehow gets past Federer, a semi against Nadal isn't inconceivable. The other roadblock in Rafa's path to the final would be No. 9 seed Juan Martin del Potro.

The Roman numerals XXXI look grand, but they aren't exactly chiseled in stone at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden just yet.

To fully understand what has happened in the past 12-plus months of ATP tennis, and in the worlds of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, all you need to know is that the most compelling question raised after Sunday's Australian Open, while premature, is a reasonable one: Can Djokovic become the first man since Rod Laver to win a calendar-year Grand Slam?

Funny, but we were wondering the same thing at this time last year, except the subject was not Djokovic, but Rafael Nadal. It was a reasonable question then, because Nadal already had a career Slam on his résumé and had shattered Federer's image of invincibility.

It's even more relevant now, though Djokovic has yet to win the French Open. But having hammered Nadal on his beloved clay in Masters Series finals last year, and given his 70-6 final record, who'd rule it out? And -- irony of ironies -- Djokovic forced Nadal to feel the same emotions the Spanish No. 2 inflicted upon Federer when he began to beat him routinely on surfaces other than clay.

Could anyone have predicted that, even 18 months ago? Djokovic clearly has raised the bar beyond the seemingly unapproachable level Nadal had placed it until the 2011 season. Here are the main reasons:

• Superior fitness: Up until the time Djokovic embraced a strict gluten-free diet and became more serious about his general fitness in all phases (preparation, maintenance, recovery), Nadal had a reputation as a man who would not finish second to anyone because of fatigue or loss of explosiveness.

Both Nadal and Djokovic were wobbly toward the end of their epic, 5-hour, 53-minute battle of Melbourne on Sunday, but Djokovic looked slightly more aggressive (which is partly a dividend of energy). Given that he had one less day of rest and had played a 4-hour, 50-minute semifinal against Andy Murray, it's safe to say we have a new beast in town.

• Court position: Just as field position is critical to success in football, court position can be an enormous asset -- or liability -- in tennis. Djokovic's aggressive ground game and accuracy enables him to play from inside the baseline against quality opponents more than anyone with the possible exception of Roger Federer.

But Djokovic can do more damage than Federer with his basic tools during a typical point because he's better at redirecting the ball as part of his rally strategy, rather than as an attempt to hit a winner or approach shot, and also because of his superior backhand.

• Service return: Nadal said it all in his postmatch presser: "Is something unbelievable how he returns, no? His return probably is one of the best of the history. That's my opinion, no? I never played against a player who's able to return like this. Almost every time."

Nadal was talking about that critical 4-2 game in the fifth set, when a hold would have given him a seemingly insurmountable lead of 5-2. Granted, Nadal missed that backhand pass that would have given him 40-15 instead of 30-all. But it was Djokovic's return in the ensuing points that earned him back the break that kept him alive.

• The backhand: Djokovic has raised the two-handed backhand's status as a weapon much higher, even if the monster forehand is destined to remain the weapon of choice for most players.

Nadal dominates Federer partly because his lefty topspin to Federer's backhand is his go-to play. At best (on clay), it makes Federer hit his one-handed backhand from impossibly high. At worst, Nadal can use it to put Federer back on his heels, enabling Rafa to control the rally.

Not only can Nadal not do this to the Djokovic backhand, he courts disaster by trying. It certainly helps Djokovic that he's 6-foot-2, and thus has a big wheelhouse. But when you remember how often Nadal just treaded water with that slice backhand, the value of Djokovic's penetrating backhand jumps out at you.

• Second-serve conversion: Wasn't it only 18 or so months ago when everyone was whispering that Djokovic was falling off the pace set by Nadal and Federer because of his unreliable serve? There were even matches in which he hit more double faults than aces.

Djokovic has rebuilt that serve, and his second serve recently has paid particularly high dividends. Against Nadal, there was scant difference between his winning percentage on first and second serve points (68 to 63 percent). Nadal, by contrast, was 66 to 45 percent. It's the key statistic of that titanic battle.

It can tell you a couple of things when your second-serve conversion percentage approaches that of your first-serve stats: You have a lousy first serve (you can throw that one out in this discussion); your second delivery is of extra-high quality in terms of spin, placement or power, or a combination of all three (that's relevant) and you are very good at keeping your opponent from taking control of rallies (also relevant).

Whether Djokovic wins the French Open and advances the discussion about a calendar-year Grand Slam, he's already taken the game to a place it hasn't been before. Didn't we just go through all this a year ago? Yes, but that was then and this is now.