Saturday, May 19, 2007

Another Federer versus Nadal Final


Roger Federer (SUI) [1] vsRafael Nadal (ESP) [2]

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both needed 3-sets to advance to their second clay court final of 2007, defeating former World #1's Carlos Moya and Lleyton Hewitt, respectively at the ATP Master Series Hamburg clay court tournament. Nadal has never lost to Federer on clay (leads 5-0) and in fact has a 7-3 advantage in their career head-to-head although the Swiss player has 10 Grand Slam titles to Nadal's 2. Nadal has won the last 81 matches he has played on clay and beat Federer on clay in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 at the ATP Master Series Monte Carlo tournament four weeks ago. Federer has won the ATP Master Series Hamburg tournament 3 times before (2002, 2004, 2005) while Nadal has never won the tournament. However, Nadal has won the last two French Open titles (2005, 2006) and the two other Master Series titles on clay this year. No player has ever won all four clay court titles (Monte Carlo, Rome, Hamburg and Paris) in one year.