Since we are poised on the verge of tomorrow's men's semifinals, I thought I would use today's blog to take stock of the way the draw shaped up this year. The matchups tomorrow are not a surprise. Most people had Federer, Nadal, Davydenko, Djokovic, and Canas in the hopper and four of them made it through. In fact, so far, there really haven't been any surprises at this year's French.

The talented hard court players were all a bust with the lone and extremely surprising exception of Jonas Bjorkman, who at age 35 and without a forehand nearly made the quarterfinal. Gasquet, Safin, Roddick, Blake, Gonzalez all went out immediately. Hewitt played well but ran into Nadal and had to face the fact that having reached number one once, he will be a second-tier player for the remainder of his career. Baghdatis played pretty well. He's out of shape and should do well this summer if he gets really fit.

The talented clay-courters all did really well. The Russians Youzhny, Andreev, Davydenko. The Argentines Monaco, Canas, Nalbandian. The Spaniards Moya, Verdasco, Nadal, Robredo.

And there was a lot of talk about surging Serbs because of Djokovic's success on the men's side and Jankovic and Ivanovic on the women's side. Martina responded by saying when she was number one there were six Czechs in the top 10 between the men's and women's tours and that Serena and Venus actually come from the same family. Success comes in pockets, she said.

The real story, as we knew it would be, has been Federer and Nadal's slow inevitable march towards one another . I'll get to that in a minute but I wanted to spend some time on why I think this year's French was so predictable.

The weather was a factor. There was a lot of rain in the early rounds and it has kept the courts very slow. In years when the weather is hot and dry, the court plays much faster with a much higher bounce, which favors attacking players. The heavy dirt this year was perfect for guys who chase everything down and don't miss. Andreev, Robredo, and Canas did this. What happens when those guys run into players with penetrating shots is clear. They get dismantled and don't ever adjust.

Djokovic and Davydenko have been extremely impressive. Davydenko came in playing beautifully and has only had difficulty so far with Nalbandian, who was one of the most dangerous guys in the draw. He absolutely destroyed Canas. Davydenko's liabilities are neutralized on clay. He does not have a great serve/return game and he's totally uncomfortable coming forward. His serve is plenty effective on the clay and he can take a full swing at returns. He is the same Davydenko we have seen for the past few years, but he has added power and precision on both sides from the ground. The result is that he is much more dangerous, capable of dictating play against even the best hitters.

Djokovic is a new young talent who has posted good results in the slams for two years now. This year is his first chance to challenge for titles. His game is actually better suited to hard courts and his talent level is extremely high. He is young, dumb, and full of cum as a player and his attitude will help him compete with Nadal. All of that said, he has had the easiest trip through to the semi-finals, really only having to struggle against Patience in a five-setter in the fourth round. I think he will have trouble dealing with the pressure of his match with Nadal if he starts to take any kind of beating. He'll need to start well.

As for Nadal and Federer... they are still at another level from the rest of the boys. In tennis, as in all individual sports, there is a mysterious separation between the game's very best and the rest of the good. Just like in politics, it takes a certain pathos to be the best in tennis.

Think of all of the tortured souls who have been champions in the past... Connors, Mac, Martina, Andre. And then all of the stoic, aloof champs who won't let you in... Lendl, Borg, Sampras, Steffi. Now think about how bitchy the top players are towards one another. On both tours.

Yesterday they showed a statistic that Nadal had broken Borg's record of consecutive sets won at the French. Mac was announcing. Borg's streak never got broken, he said. He just walked away.

And Mac told the story of how the ATP contacted Borg after he lost to McEnroe at Wimbledon about reserving his spot at the U.S. Open. Borg said he needed some time to decide and the ATP said he had to answer. He told them to fuck off and never played a major again. Smart move by the ATP, Mac said disparagingly.

And it was another sign of how gracious Johnny Mac is now. But he and Borg could barely look at each other then. And Lendl and Mac were just as bad. Agassi, post-comeback and post life-changing soul-searching crisis, was sort of the first guy to go around saying nice things about everybody else. Up to that point the tradition had been to be either openly hostile or incredibly passive aggressive about your fellow competitors. The men on tour like to say that the women are the worst about locker room bitchiness. And it's true. They are usually younger, often dominated by their crazy parents, and their careers have shorter life-spans in most cases. The cat fight stories between the Williams girls and the Belgian duo are today's version. But the fact is that in my lifetime the boys have been just as bad.

What is it about tennis that makes people crazy? One aspect is certainly how young players are when they emerge, and how intense a family apparatus normally has to be to create a great player. But McEnroe's family was relaxed about tennis and he didn't emerge until late. While his antics are funny on tape now, if you really look at him he was totally pathological. Completely freaking insane on the court. The whole world was a conspiracy to disrupt him. Hewitt is the same. A guy sneezes in the upper deck during his toss and it's a pre-meditated move, possibly at the instigation of his opponent.

The quiet ones are the most interesting. Sampras, Borg, and Lendl. All three of them so intensely competitive that each loss is a death. What drives someone like that? A lack of love in childhood? Some deep down insecurity? Sexual inadequacy? Or is it just a moment, some existential decision during the career, in which they decide to make tennis life or death?

Mary Jo Fernandez said something interesting during today's match between Henin and Jankovic. Apparently last year Henin "admitted" to having trouble closing out matches, and the admission has allowed her to close out matches better. She's the new enigmatic champion. Quiet but never nice. Just got divorced. Her play is surging but she still looks miserable, as if tennis is the only thing of value to her and it is a fickle lover. Cliff Drysdale said, a voice from a more genial age, that everyone has trouble closing out matches, it's how you make out that matters.

I was a tortured tennis player as a teenager. I had very good shots and good athleticism. I didn't focus on tennis exclusively so I wasn't consistent and my strokes, particularly my backhand and forehand volley, were suspect. I couldn't take advice from anyone, particularly my dad. And I was capable of unholy melt downs on court. The overwhelming anxiety I felt was the unwillingness to be beaten. If you melt down, you lose but you are not beaten. Somehow I believed that if I got beaten that I was worthless. My junior year of high school I escaped that mess by going undefeated at number four singles for my high school team. I realized, having tasted success and relative invincibility, that I wasn't any better for having won my matches. That the whole tennis world was made of concentric circles, levels if you like, and that to win our to lose is to go up and down on the Great Wheel of Suffering. Since then, I get nervous in big poins, but I win a lot because I think from shot to shot, point to point. Hit it well. Do your best. Instead of getting into the unholy calculations at 15-30 that if I win we're all square and if not I'm done and people will look back at this one moment and say how you choked...

AAAAAAAH! One need only take a glance at Safin to see the torment. And then there are guys like Phillipoussis who are so good that they can be decent without ever trying to compete, because they are so afraid of competing and losing.

So here we are about to watch Nadal and Federer collide in a final in which both of them will be, in their own minds, the best player in the world. Nadal is hands down the best clay court player in the world. Federer is hands down the best tennis player in the world. And they like each other. They like like each other. They only have nice things to say about one another. They hug warmly after each match. They chatter with one another during trophy presentations that normally see one person in tears, or glowering, or looking shattered.

What in the hell is going on with these two?

Federer has had his existential moment. Mac claims it was in the 2003 Wimbledon during a match against an Italian guy when Federer was thinking about defaulting and came through and won the tournament. But he holds his hand very close. He has a girlfriend Myrka, who's his manager and she's just as tight-lipped. He is gracious, sweet, and intelligent when he talks about his game. He has the sort of unguarded confidence that you hear from Bode Miller .

Rafa, on the other hand, seems to have been born a man, sprung whole from Zeus's head or something. He has never competed like a young man. He really competes like a soccer player. He will kill you on the field and then want to hug and trade jerseys afterward. Apparently, after Hamburg, he asked Federer to sign a shirt for him. Can you imagine Borg asking Mac to sign a shirt? What would that scene look like.

All thanks to St. Andre for showing it's okay to love. Steffi, he loves you!