Tennis Finals

Roger Federer just made it to the finals of Wimbledon. He beat Jonas Bjorkman handily. This was no surprise. Bjorkman is one of the oldest players on tour. He's unseeded. He's been playing on the tour for a while, and this semifinal appearance was his best in a while, somewhat akin to Jimmy Connors making the semis of the U.S. Open when he was 39 (and Bjorkman was a bit younger than that).

This is no surprise. Federer is generally acknowledged as the best men's tennis player, and he's done especially well at Wimbledon, having won it the last three years. Only a few scant years after Sampras left the tour and people had proclaimed him best men's player in a generation, people began to anoint Federer as the next great one, even greater than Sampras. At the very least, Federer seemed like he had a shot to win the French Open, the one Grand Slam that Sampras never made the finals.

What is a surprise is Rafael Nadal. Federer has nearly complete mastery of everyone on tour. Except Nadal. Nadal has had an impressive record against Federer having a gaudy 6-1 head-to-head record. However, many of these wins were on clay which is Federer's weakest surface, and some of those matches have actually been competitive.

They've never met on grass where Federer has won the last three Wimbledon's. It's expected his serve will be that much more effective on grass than clay.

Nadal's route to the finals was unexpected. He had never made it past the third round at Wimbledon. A sign that maybe things were going well for Nadal was his victory over Andre Agassi. Agassi isn't at his prime anymore, but he does have one notch on his belt that Sampras doesn't. He's won every Grand Slam event at least once, including Wimbledon.

While no one would expect Agassi to beat Nadal on clay, one might imagine that the more impatient, hard-hitting American would have a better shot on grass. True, Agassi is no serve and volleyer. In the immortal words of Bud Collins, the only time Agassi comes to net is to shake hands at the end of the match.

Still, Nadal controlled Agassi, who looked like his ankles were bothering him, and was ready to retire sooner than his announced US Open final tournament.

Nadal beat Nieminen and Baghdatis to make the finals. Neither are household names, but Baghdatis is certainly an up-and-comer and a formidable talent on any surface. His impatience showed against the deliberate Nadal.

The real question is whether Nadal can beat Federer. He certainly has a psychological edge. You can't underestimate this. At the French, Nadal got creamed in the first set as Federer looked in the zone, while Nadal appeared rushed and unable to hit his shots. But slowly, he gathered momentum and Federer imploded, making error after error.

The situations ought to be reversed with Nadal having nothing to lose, and Federer wanting to prove a point. He'd like nothing better than to humiliate Nadal on grass, though I'm sure any win would do. An emphatic exclamation point might turn the tide in their head to head matches, as it finally turned around between Federer and Nalbandian.

Nadal has been caught up in a little controversy, but it goes to show you how paranoid the cycling community is about performance enhancing drugs. The Tour de France has been rocked by scandal. Top riders Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso have been disqualified due to doping scandals leaving what was already a wide-open Tour even more open. For once, it wasn't who would lose to Lance, but who is going to win?

Nadal, one of the musclier guys on tour, has been accused of taking performance enhancing drugs. Much like Barry Bonds, the drugs only help if the guy is talented. Nadal isn't one of the hardest servers, nor the hardest hitting groundstroker. Indeed, you'd almost point to his mental skills. He does hit pretty hard and consistent, but he's not like Graf was when she tore up the tour, eliminating players in under an hour as her power totally overwhelmed nearly all players until the top ones could challenge her pace.

Nadla isn't like that. And because he isn't the best server, the question is how well he'll return, how well he'll be able to keep in against Federer. The question is whether Federer can keep mentally sharp and not make mistakes. If he starts making errors, then Nadal might be able to take his mental edge and win a rare French Open-Wimbledon double, something that hasn't occurred since the great Bjorn Borg. With Nadal already the record holder for consecutive matches on clay, maybe he's willing to take the next step that Borg did to win on a surface he shouldn't be expected to against an opponent already dubbed as the best in the game.