Grass is Greener

Two or three years ago, only a few years after Pete Sampras had pretty much retired and had been anointed as one of the best ever tennis players, or nearly so, the tennis cognoscenti were ready to anoint the new "best ever". That man was Roger Federer. People marveled at the seemingly effortless way he won his matches. Here was someone that seemed just as facile hitting groundstrokes as he was hitting volleys. People note how he seems to float to shots.

To back up their claims, Federer proceeded to win five Wimbledons in a row. He also won three Australian Opens, and four US Opens. Prominently missing on his resume was any French Open wins. Mostly that's because Rafael Nadal has proven to be the king of clay. Nadal won 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, the last three in the finals over Roger Federer. In 2005, Nadal also beat Federer, but that time in the semifinals en route to his first French Open title. In 2004, Federer lost in the third round to Gustavo Kuerten, himself a former French Open winner.

Nadal has turned out to be a thorn in Federer's side. Like Sampras and Agassi, Nadal and Federer are each other's top rivals, and coincidentally, both clothed by Nike, a company that made shoes for a long time, and wasn't on the clothing radar the last time there was a five time Wimbledon champ (1980, for those who are curious).

Nadal's muscular style has often put off aesthete's who don't particular care for his bullish style. On clay, he stands ten, twelve feet behind the baseline, and muscles up heavy topspin shots one after the other like some ball machine put in overdrive. Attack him, and he can place winners past you on the line. Federer experienced this first hand when his own game was like a malfunctioning robot. On the few times his hard shots made its way on the court and put pressure on Rafa, Rafa would, in his contortions, muster another pass, with Roger unable to even put a racquet on it.

Roger brushed aside notions that he was on a decline. He could get back to grass, to his favorite surface. However, it was quickly becoming Rafa's second favorite surface. Normally clay courters find hard courts more to their liking. If the speed is a bit quick, it's compensated by high bounces, which clay courters like. Wilander and Lendl both found playing on hard courts better for their games than grass, though Lendl, to his credit, made the Wimbledon semis five times and then the finals twice.

As if to show that he wasn't fading with age, Roger won Halle the week after the French without dropping his serve. But Nadal also won Queen's, another grass court event, and his first, beating a tougher field including Andy Roddick, and Novak Djokovic.

Roger then came into Wimbledon and lost serve only twice, while not dropping a set. Rafa, however, also played well, dropping only one set to Latvian, Ernests Gulbis in the second round. He mowed down his opponents, and struggled a little against surprise semifinalist, 32 year old German, Rainer Schuettler, who had last been at a Grand Slam final in 2003. While no one expected him to pressure Nadal, he almost won a set, until Rafa broke back and took the second set to a tiebreak which he comfortably won.

As the finals approached, Rafa looked the better player, despite Roger's generally good play. Roger doesn't generally overpower his opponents. He gets to balls you don't think he can get to, and places it well. Rafa seems to hit winners, even when his opponents are scant feet away from the ball. To be sure, Rafa was a machine at the French, but he was more vulnerable to making more errors. Still, despite lacking a huge serve, everyone seemed to find it challenging to break Rafa.

Roger opened this year's Wimbledon falling back a break to Nadal. Despite numerous opportunities to break back in the first set, Nadal held and won the first set 6-4. It was clear, however, that Roger was in more of his element at Wimbledon. He was making more shots, his slice shots were more effective, he was hitting more winners. Still, Roger, for all his talent, tosses a lot of errors, including mishits on his backhand, and slaps into the net. Some of that is Rafa's skill in forcing you to hit one, two, three more shots than you wanted.

In the second set, Roger started serving better, and broke Nadal for a 4-2 lead, but much like Hamburg, where Roger took big leads, Nadal kept playing his usual relentless style. Unlike Sampras who seemed to ace at will, Roger would ace occasionally, but often be forced to hit groundstrokes. Rafa broke Roger, then broke him again, and took the second set.

Roger would now have to dig deep to win Wimbledon, down two sets to love. In the second set, he still had numerous chances to break back, but was unable to do so.

In the third set, a critical game. Serving at 3-all, Roger fell to 0-40. If Rafa wins any of these break points, the match is over in straight sets. Miraculously, he saves all three and wins the game. He had just come off a game where he nearly broke Rafa, when Rafa challenged a call that he thought was out in a rally, and stopped the rally. It was out by a little, and that brought it to deuce and he eventually won the game.

At 4-all, Roger had game points, but eventually, Rafa brought it back to deuce before the rains fell. After coming back, Roger served two aces to take it to 5-4. This proceeded into tiebreak where Roger took a minibreak and two good serves of his own to have a good lead heading into the fourth. The rain delay appears to be good for Roger's serves and groundstrokes.

In the fourth set, neither player loses serve. They go into another tiebreak, and Rafa gets up 5-2, and again, Roger looks like he's out of it. However, a bad point by Rafa followed by a double fault and Roger closes in. On a championship point, Rafa approaches net, and Roger passes him. He eventually wins a tight, tight fourth set, to push it into a fifth set.

This ought to deflate someone like Nadal, but he's shown, over the years, that he can stay in matches, and his play doesn't flag. Federer is showing some signs that he can get down on himself. They both hold serve, though Roger struggles a bit more with his, and seems to have few opportunities to bother Rafa. He doesn't seem to be able to hit winners off Rafa's serve, and if they get into a rally, then Rafa has a decent chance of winning them.

With Roger serving up, he only needs a break to win it all, but Nadal refuses to buckle, and Roger continues to make mistakes. Finally, at 7-all, Roger falls back on his serve, and despite a game try, Rafa breaks, forcing Roger to do something that he's done only once the entire match, which is break Rafa.

Rafa gets up championship point, and Roger his an amazing backhand return, but Rafa refuses to get deterred and eventually Roger hits one in the net, and Rafa is the new Wimbledon champ.

I had said, prior to the match, that if Roger lost, it would be devastating to him. I'm not so sure now. Sure, this hurt, but I think Roger has to feel that if he had a few points swing his way, he's be a straight set winner. He had to fight like the dickens to tie the match up, and as the match wore longer, it did seem Roger had few answers for Rafa's play. Rafa wasn't exactly acing Roger, but Roger seemed unable to attack Rafa's serve.

Also, while Rafa made errors, Roger made a lot more inexplicable errors. He shanked backhands, he took swinging volleys long, he slapped shots in the net, he dumped second serves into the net. Credit Roger for never playing bad for two long and for nearly pulling off what would have been an amazing final. Really, the only thing that would have made this final better is for Roger to have won, and I say that not so much as a Federer fan, but as someone who finds coming back from the precipice real excitement.

There were a couple of fantastic shots being made out there.

Now, they head into the hardcourt season, and the hardcourts have always meant more trouble for Nadal. While he's made progress on grass, there are more players that can create problems for him on hard courts, including James Blake, Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic, and of course, Roger Federer. Even Marat Safin is capable of creating issues for Rafa.

Still, with his progress so definably upwards, could anyone doubt that maybe Rafa could get better on hard courts? Federer could improve, but really, it seems that he just has to keep his errors down. It's as if Federer knows he can hit great shots but with some reasonable chance at missing any shot. He used his inside out forehand to great effect throughout, that it seemed silly that he would sometimes hit behind Nadal whose two-handed backhand was often deadly.

Not sure what Roger plans to do now. He has a strategy that works sometimes with Rafa, mainly hitting neutral shots down the middle until he gets an opening, but he lacks the consistent bullying that Rafa can force his opponent into, much more than Agassi. Where Agassi would often hit winners, he lacked Rafa's ability to hit hard penetrating shots that leave opponents barely getting to the ball, and struggling to get it back, as he sends another body blow to the other corner.

Djokovic might have some more tools. Unlike Federer, Djokovic doesn't miss nearly as much, but he also lacks some of the surprising shots that Federer can make out of nowhere. Djokovic probably needs a more punishing backhand, one that can pressure opponents more than it does now.

So Rafa ends with the French-Wimbledon double, a feat few thought was possible, and more thought Roger would do it than Rafa. It's been 28 years since it was last done by Bjorn Borg when he did it for his third time in 1980 (and had he beaten McEnroe in 1981 at Wimbledon, he would have done it a fourth time).

Roger, who had so confidently said nothing was wrong with his game, might be right, but nothing is wrong with Rafa's game either, and that itself might be a problem for Roger, even at his best.