Bud Collins
One year ago as the world’s best tennis players came to London for yet another edition of The Lawn Tennis Championships (known as Wimbledon to the headline writers), the Lord of the Swings, Roger Federer, was virtually conceded a fifth straight men’s singles title. Federer handled his regal duties handsomely in the throne room, Centre Court. However, it wasn't as one-sided a title won as was predicted, and it wasn’t a title as clearly Federer’s as the previous four had been. Rafael Nadal, the Muscle Man of Mallorca, had followed Federer from Paris and had he cashed a couple of break points in the fifth set of last year’s final the Wimbledon champion might well have been Nadal and not Federer.
Two years ago Federer showed up at Wimbledon in a royal blazer. Last year he added long trousers for the warmup. Nobody thought Federer was putting on the dog. The man has style. He was appreciated and accepted as the guy who should wear the oldest of tennis crowns. But no matter what Federer’s London arrival attire is this year, the times they are a-changin' as Bob Dylan used to warble.
Perhaps the first sign of such change came in January at the Australian Open when Novak Djokovic ended Federer's bid for a third straight title Down Under. The fast-rising Serb star dismissed Federer in straight sets in the semifinals and followed that win with a four-set triumph over France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to capture his first major. The Wimbledon draw – should it play to form – will match Federer and Djokovic in the semifinals.
Perhaps the next sign of such change will be Federer failing to extend his reign as the class on Wimbledon’s grass – a reign that began in 2003 at the expense of Aussie Mark Philippoussis and continued with a pair of title wins over Andy Roddick (2004 and 2005) and Nadal (the last two years).
Despite Federer’s No. 1 ranking and 59 consecutive match wins on grass and regardless of how pleased -- he says -- he is with the way he's playing, I feel he's trying to convince himself more than others. But I'm not convinced he's fully recovered physically from his end-of-2007 health problems. He clearly isn't the player he was in 2006 and 2007, grabbing three majors each year (the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) as well as being a finalist at the French Open both those years.
The French Open final earlier this month was an embarrassing morale-jolter for Federer -- a bagel for him in the final set and all of four games won over three sets as Nadal rocked and rolled over the Swiss in under two hours. So if you haven’t guessed it by now, Nadal is my pick to end Federer’s run on royalty’s most famous lawns.
I'm impressed at how much Nadal keeps improving while Federer isn't showing progress in his play. For the record, I picked Nadal last year to rule Wimbledon and he came oh-so-close: 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 6-2. How could this abundantly talented young Spaniard solve grass so quickly and do so with those clay-court grips? Obviously the courts and balls are slower. We saw that in 2002 when the Australian Lleyton Hewitt won the Wimbledon title without playing a single serve-and-volley point.
Wherever Nadal plays, his blizzard of maddening spin accompanies him and that’s bad news for his opponents. He knows what's going on out there on the greensward although he's not going to do as much volleying as did the last Spaniard to conquer Centre Court -- Manolo Santana in 1966. Expect Nadal to be tested, though, as he was last year with Robert Kendrick, Robin Soderling and Mikhail Youzhny prior to the final. Seven matches without any significant hurdles to overcome? That’s virtually unheard of at Wimbledon or any other major.
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