The Best and Worst of Times

What do we make of the 2013 French Open?

You would be hard-pressed to argue that the tournament didn't give us the types of upsets that make Grand Slam events fun and unpredictable.

After all, we saw both Tommy Haas and Tommy Robredo make appearances in the quarterfinals. Haas' success is somewhat expected as he has made a slow climb in the rankings ever since bottoming out a couple of years ago. Robredo, though, was a big surprise. He had put together a nice 2013 to date, but I don't know that anyone expected this type of run out of him.

We also saw David Ferrer make a Grand Slam final for the first time in his career. After several years of being a lock to advance to and lose in the quarters or semis, it was nice to see all of his hard work pay off.

But on the other hand, the event ended the way we always expected it to.

We knew that, barring something unforeseen, no one was going to be able to touch Rafael Nadal and that's exactly how it played out.

It's that part that makes me unsure of how to feel about this edition of the French Open.

I fully realize that the opportunity I have been given to watch the greatest clay court player of all-time ply his trade is a gift. No one has dominated clay courts like he has and I get the feeling that the French Open records that he has set will never be touched. I'm one of the lucky few that will get to say that I saw him play at the height of his powers.

I should have been excited to see him dominate. I should have been looking to set everything else aside to really immerse myself in his matches.

But I wasn't and I didn't.

It's just that his dominance was so routine. I will grant you that his semifinal against Novak Djokovic was an instant classic. But for the most part, his run through the field, including his win over Ferrer in the final, was dull, methodical and quick.

It's not fair to either competitor, but even the marathon match between Nadal and Djokovic was predictable in its own way. I think we knew going in that it was going to go five sets and I'm guessing if we were all injected with truth serum, we would have admitted that we knew there was no way Nadal was losing that match.

Maybe I'm alone, and based on a lot of the fantastic journalism I have read over the last couple of days waxing poetic about Nadal's victory it appears that I am, but I was left underwhelmed by what I saw at the French Open.

I know that's wrong of me and it bothers me to no end, but I can't lie. Hopefully you can forgive me.