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| Roger Federer SUI (1) | vs. Rafael Nadal ESP (2). |
Here we go again. Federer-Nadal III. The top two players are playing in the Wimbledon final for the third consecutive year. Actually this will be the seventh time the two have played against each other in a major final and only 4 weeks after the last time they played.
Nadal has a 4-2 lead in the head-to-head but Nadal has won the 4 Grand Slam matches they have played on clay (3 finals and the 2005 semifinal) while Federer ha won the two times they have played on grass (2007 and 2006 Wimbledon finals). However, Nadal put a beatdown on Federer in this year's French Open final 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 as well as beating Federer 7-5 6-7(3) 6-3 despite the World #1 having 5-2 leads in the first two sets of the Hamburg final on clay 6 weeks ago.
Nadal is also one of three players (Dominic Hrbaty and Andy Murray are the others) who have a favorable head-to-head career record against Federer. In fact, Nadal leads 11-6 but 9 of those wins have been on clay. Nadal hasn't beaten Federer on a surface other than clay since 2004.
However, the Nadal of 2008 is a much better player than the Nadal of 2004 and even the Nadal of 2007 who almost beat Federer in last year's Wimbledon final.
However, if Federer is serious about being the Greatest Of All Time, he will find a way to win tomorrow. If Nadal wins, it will be interesting to see if that inspires Federer to improve his game so that he actually does break Pete Sampras record of 14 majors.
We shall see.
PREDICTION: Federer in 5 sets or Nadal in 3 sets.
3 comments:
Well, it seems as though Roger is off the top, and, I don't see him getting past Pistol Pete. Nadal is in his head, along with the other guys. Many are claiming this as an "epic' it was a painful choke that should have ended in that 3 set. He could not get one break point?
I agree that Rafa should have won in 3 and it was incredible effort by Raja to get the match to 5. HOwever, he really never got to the next level to actually beat Nadal.
He would play "winners" and Nadal would get them back. He should expect this by now.
It will be interesting to see how the rest ofthe tour reacts to Nadal on hard courts.
It will be interesting to see how Rafa reacts to the rest of the tour on hardcourts.
It's my belief that the disappointment of Rafa's two previous Wimbledon losses bled into his summer tennis. It's not as though he's never played well on hardcourts, he just hasn't played well on hardcourts in the summer except for 2005 when he won Montreal.
That belief will be tested in the coming months.
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