Grand Slam tennis finals should be like this more often. Surprisingly they rarely meet the hype and expectations. This match had the No.1 and No.2 in the world squaring off against one another; one was trying to win in Australia for the first time, the other was going for a record of Grand Slam wins; The No.2 was the recently dethroned No.1, the No.1 was the recently crowned former No.2. It was all drama, and lived up to the hype.
Federer came into the match looking to extend his Grand Slam tally and equal Pete Sampras. He showed all his style and form in arriving to the finals, looking like he was peaking at the right time. Nadal on the other hand had just played a punishing 5 set Semi-final that went for 5 hours, only 48 hours before.
They traded blow for blow, game for game, break for break and crashed into the fifth set. In the end, Federer faltered just that little bit, allowing Nadal to get the early break, and Federer never found his way back into the match. After a match that lasted 4hours and 20 minutes, the last man standing was Nadal. It wasn't easy work.
Federer's Game
After years of dominance, it is easy to see where Roger Federer has lot his zip. He's less precise off the backhand side, and he has less speed. It's not by much and he still has enough court coverage to beat almost anybody else but Nadal. Nadal's footspeed was such that it neutralised Federer's great shot-making ability while giving himself plenty of opportunities to pick off winners.
Ferderer's serve has also lost something off his peak peiod. The command of both corners in the deuce court is less dominant, and the one looking to go wide in the deuce court didn't look quite as his salad days. Worse still, the kinds of points Federer could construct with his game found counterpoints from Nadal.
It seemed harder and harder to see how Federer could break Nadal. Nadal's lefty game essentially turns Federer's game inside out to a point that one of Federer's big weapons, the forehand cross court, plays into Nadal's great strength, the double-handed back hand. The other strength, the off-forehand, requires Federer to find a way to get Nadal to open the deuce court, but all too often Nadal simply beat the ball.
At the net, Federer just wasn't himself. He looked uncertain in a lot of his volleys.
Nadal's Game
If one thing has changed in Nadal's technique, it is his groundstrokes. Gone are the big loopy back swings. His take-back on both sides are far more compact than they used to be. Combined with the astounding foot-speed, Nadal seemed to be able to make all sorts of unlikely shots work.
The double-handed backhand cross court won Nadal a lot of points off the baseline, and even though Federer was trying to work it in a way as to deny Nadal the angle, he would stil find the angles. It was almost as if Federer was playing somebody with a double-handed forehand on the right side, and a forehand on the left.
Nadal may have found an entirely new plateau of 'greatness'. There has never been anything like this kind of game. The last dominant left hander was probably Goran Ivanisevic, and before that you have to go back to John McEnroe and before that Rod Laver himself. None of those guys had quite the all-round power game displayed by Nadal.
It's that seldom that a left hander comes along and dominates the game. It is possible that because of that very rareness, it is hard to find many players who have a game plan against one.
The Mettle of being No.1
When Federer first came along, I thought he had a great all-round game with fantastic technique and no head at all. Then he got his head together and dominated like crazy. But all the while I've felt that if there was one suspect part of his game, it was actually his head space. He's always been a little brittle, but nobody managed to stick it to him during his dominant years.
Nadal on the other hand must be one of the toughest mongrels I've seen on court. The guy just does not concede or 'give'. He doesn't stop, he doesn't let up, he just keeps hammering away at his shots. Jim Courier who used to be quite a gutsy bulldog himself, marveled at the stamina and mental fortitude of Nadal.
Federer And No.14
Pete Sampras probably had a good chuckle last night.
The Australian Open's surface plays slower than the US hard court. It seems to be fast enough to trouble clay court specialists, but bounces high enough to trouble grass court players.Of the four grand slam tourneys, it's probably the second hardest surface for Federer's style of play. In a way, if you thought about how much Nadal had to stretch his game to play well here and how much Federer has to stretch his game to play well here, it seems that the Australian Open i actually a harder place for Federer
It's going to be very hard for Federer to win No.14. He's got 2 shots this year: Wimbledon and the US this year, because I don't see him beating Nadal on clay in Roland Garros.
The Single-Handed Backhand
The single-handed backhand has gone the way of the dodo in women's tennis. It's a rare player who hits it with authority these days. Justine Henin would be a recent example. Martina Hingis had a reasonably crafty one, but she didn't have a power game that fed off it. Amelie Mauresmo had a good singlehander from memory. Then it's all the way back to Steffi Graf, then Martina Navratilova. It's not a big list.
At one point it seemed they just stamped out these tennis prodigies with doubles-fisters from the same mold. They probably did at Nick Bollotieri's tennis camp.
The list of dominant double-fisters starts at Chris Evert and goes:
- Chirs Evert
- Tracy Austin
- Andrea Yeager
- Mary Pierce
- Monica Seles
- Arantxa Sanchez
- Lindsay Davenport
- Jennifer Capriati
- Venus Wiliams
- Serena Williams
- Maria Sharapova
The men's tour has been quite different. The single-handed backhand seems to have been a vital part of many a champion. dating back to when they started to rank players, theres;
- John Newcombe (crap backhand but single handed; 8weeks)
- Ilie Nastase
- John McEnroe (lefty)
- Ivan Lendl
- Stefan Edberg
- Boris Becker
- Tomas Muster (6weeks!)
- Pete Sampras
- Gustavo Kuerten
- Juan Carlos Ferrero
- Roger Federer
- Pat Rafter (1 week!)
Even if you discount the short tenures of the Aussies and Muster, Most of these guys were dominant for quite long time in ther respective epochs. The double-hander lists goes:
- Jimmy Connors (the original!)
- Bjorn Borg
- Mats Wilander
- Jim Courier
- Andre Agassi
- Mara Safin
- Leyton Hewitt
- Andy Roddick (a shortlived stint at the no.1 spot, but a pretty good player)
- Rafael Nadal (lefty)
If you count out the 2 seventies guys at the top, it's a much, much shorter list. I always put this down to range. The guys who have good single-handed backhands can cover the court more and have more options for their shots.
Watching Nadal last night, I thought it might be the end of the single-handed backhand. It's unlikely, given the trends, but he was so good it shook my faith. :)
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