NEW YORK — Outside of that one shining moment two years ago in Athens, Tomas Berdych is not exactly a household name, except in his own household.
But what a shining moment it was: Aug. 17, 2004, second round of the Olympic tennis tournament, the tall and handsome 18-year-old from the Czech Republic, curly hair brushed back from striking blue eyes, twilight shadows spreading across the surface, receiving serve on his third match point.
"It was a second serve, to my backhand side," Berdych recalls. "Same as where he hit it on my second match point. That got us into a rally and he won the point. I felt a little crimp in my leg during that point. But on the third one, I hit a backhand return winner. Then I had won."
Not just won, defeated the No. 1 player in the world, the almost invincible Roger Federer, as sure a thing as there was for an Olympic gold medal for Switzerland. Federer was No. 1 then, is No. 1 now, and appears set to be No. 1 for the foreseeable future.
Berdych was the last player to beat Federer that year, and only a handful have done so since. The main giant-killer in Federer's life is Rafael Nadal, the Spaniard who has been the bane of Federer's existence, especially on clay courts.
And guess who the main giant-killer's giant-killer is? Yes, young Berdych, just nine months Nadal's senior and a two-time winner over the current No. 2 player in the world. Berdych beat Nadal last year at Cincinnati and this year at Toronto, both tennis Masters Series events, those tournaments designated as the next level just below the four Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympics.
Berdych is the only player on the tour to beat both Federer and Nadal since they became Nos. 1 and 2. Nadal got to No. 2 on July 25, 2005. Berdych was also the only player other than the two top dogs to win a Masters Series event last year, when he won at Paris. Either Federer or Nadal won the other eight.
Since the beginning of 2004 -- Federer became No. 1 on Feb. 2 of that year -- the Swiss maestro has had only 15 losses, including six to Nadal and the Olympic setback to Berdych.
Berdych is ranked 14th and seeded 12th at the U.S. Open and won't reach his 21st birthday until Sept. 17. He is 6 feet 4, and would warrant more attention here if anybody actually knew who he was. Were he a player from the United States, where the search for the next big thing in American tennis is becoming slightly drastic, he would be spending equal time on the pages of Tennis and People magazines.
