or the first time in a week, I’ve got some time to kill. I misread the time of the men’s final and thought it began at 1:00 Paris time. I went up to the press section at 12:55 and saw absolutely no one in the stadium. Was the Roland Garros crowd going to be fashionably late even for this? I looked again at the schedule and saw Fed-Nadal were going on at 3:00, and that the junior final, which I also wanted to see, was already over. (Canada’s Philip Bester lost in straights, but was apparently having knee problems. Still, a nice run for him; look for something similar at Junior Wimbledon.)
When I saw our friend Pete Bodo on the way downstairs, I told him I’d been waiting for Fed and Rafa to come out at 1:00. He chuckled and went back to typing. If you want to know what your favorite pot-stirrer is doing over here, that pretty much describes it—he’s at his desk, working. You can see the results in the dizzying number of high-quality posts he’s been putting up over at TennisWorld this week.
With 50 minutes to go before the real start time, I’ll give you my boiled-down Fed-Rafa preview.
On the plus side for Federer will be his motivation. This may be the best chance he’ll ever have to make his claim as the greatest player of all time. He can win four straight majors, keep a calendar-year Grand Slam going, and one-up Pete Sampras by winning the title he never could. On the minus side, Federer will have to execute two strategies to perfection simultaneously. He and Tony Roche have both said in recent days that he has to be both “aggressive” and “patient.” That’s a tricky balance, and more than most players like to keep in their mind over the course of a match.
Nadal, on the other hand, will be able to think of one thing: “My forehand to his backhand, nice and deep.” Other than that, he can let the match come to him and stay within his game. I also like his ability to keep a high, high level of intensity for five sets—Fed is bound to have a few lapses unless he can get the match over with quickly. The downside for Nadal will be Federer fatigue. In college basketball, they it’s hard to beat a conference rival three times in a season. That’s what Nadal will be trying to do today. Are there shades of Agassi-Sampras in 1995, when Agassi won Key Biscayne and the warm-ups to the U.S. Open, but Sampras beat him in the big one?
I think the match will be close, but that the momentum of all those consectutive clay-court wins will carry Nadal. Either way, it’s one to watch. I'll be back later to go over all of it.