Nadal. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, advantage and the animal Breaking news.

Sounds take a shine to stalwart grounds for a divorce to me. But the actuality is, tennis can be deceptive. Martha Gellhorn played pitty-pat tennis with her luxe Manhattan publication friends? Hardly likely.

She was a refulgent blond, but she was also an doughty tilt against correspondent. If you got in her way, she would remorselessly depredate you and leave you to bleed out on the floor. Hemingway played coarse on court? Maybe -- and perchance not. He was a pre-eminent knotty guy, but much of that rep can be attributed to his skills as a barfly b.s. artist.

Even earlier world-class athletes can be fooled by the luxuriousness of the encounter played at its very best. Remember 7-time significant fight for Mats Wilander, after watching Federer admit defeat to Nadal at Roland Garros in 2006, saying that the Swiss actor had "no balls"? Federer so flawlessly epitomized faultlessness in every stroke that, in Wilander's mind, the only custom he could give up was from a lack of guts. Nadal recognized that the footnote not only unfairly slighted his compare with but, unintentionally, underestimated Nadal's unpretentious talent. that Wilander's abuse was "a crazy thing, because if (Federer doesn't) have balls, who has? … He has very enthusiastic balls." Which brings us back to where we started -- and a reevaluation of the thought that the Federer-Nadal competition is all about contrasts.

The differences between Federer and Nadal seem so obvious, but it's their similarities that have had them exchanging the No. 1 and No. 2 rankings for the late seven seasons.

Rafa plays rough, but the fruit is often breathtakingly beautiful. Federer leaps around the court derive a ballet dancer, sure, but that eminent upward is in accommodation to a abominable cutthroat instinct. They are, in short, winners -- on an epic scale.

They showed this while having joking at the Clash of the Champions in Eugene. And they'll show it while sporting a more poker-faced mien at the next week. The upshot? Australian Open champ might be the hottest actress on perambulation virtue now, but the one relative call in for every humourless tennis devotee remains the same: Federer or Nadal?

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