It may have started slowly, but the 2009 edition of the Australian Open became a tournament of upsets. Among the women, Jankovic, Ivanovic and Venus Williams were early casualties. On the men’s side, Murray and Nalbandian made abrupt departures. At times, Fearless was all shook up by the tumult (especially when some readers suggested he was an imposter whose real name was Clueless, not Fearless). But he kept his nerve and tipped 60 winners from 76 selections – that is, 79 percent – up to the finals. He nominated the number of sets in a match because he likes to show off, so don’t imagine he would ever pay out on them.
Nadal (1) v Federer (2). This is the 19th episode in a best-selling saga. By the time the story ends in the distant future, it may take as long to read as ‘War and Peace’.
Although Nadal leads Federer in the head-to-head record by 12-6, nine of the victories came on clay, a surface Roger finds as treacherous as sinking sand. On hard courts, however, he holds a 3-2 edge over Nadal and thrashed him, 6-4, 6-1, when they last played on a hard court in a semi-final of the 2007 Tennis Masters Cup in China. Their most recent tussle was at Wimbledon on grass, when the Spaniard ended the Swiss player’s streak of five victories by beating him in the final, 9-7 in the fifth set.
Federer has had a reasonably smooth path to the final. Early threats from Seppi and Safin were handled with ruthless efficiency and, while he came close to losing to Berdych in straight sets, he remained calm and won in five. After that, Del Potro and Roddick were defused with deceptive ease.
Nadal had an even more peaceful stroll in the park until Simon became a bit troublesome in the quarter-finals, after which the valiant Verdasco did his darndest to sabotage Rafa’s expected rendezvous with Federer in the final. Verdasco made the running against Nadal and possibly knocked some of the confidence out of him, in which case Roger owes him a favour.
Throughout the championships, the greatest player of his era has been back to his old brilliant self. He is a more complete tennis player, both in technique and temperament, than any of his contemporaries and capable of tailoring his tactics to suit any occasion. He is also supremely fit, scarcely producing a bead of sweat even during a torrid passage of play. The schedule allowed him to avoid the worst of the scorching heat, and now he wants to show us just what heights he can reach in attempting to win the title for a fourth time.
Nadal hadn’t dropped a set until he collided with Verdasco on Friday night. In a gripping five hours 14 minutes – the longest singles match in the event’s history – he narrowly survived his Davis Cup teammate’s onslaught.
Nadal was physically and mentally drained. Whether he can recover sufficiently in 48 hours to contain a rejuvenated and rampant Federer won’t be known until the action begins.
Nadel has never before reached a Grand Slam final on hard courts, and a perusal of his 31career titles reveals that remarkably few were achieved on this surface. By contrast, Federer has won the US Open five times, and has countless other hardcourt titles to his credit.
Fearless originally believed that Nadal would be the first Spanish man to win the Australian title. Rafa’s phenomenal will-to-win, prodigious left-handed spin and intimidating vigour seemed irresistible. But circumstances changed. Roger is in good shape after a difficult 2008 that commenced with a bout of glandular fever. He watched on television, his feet up, as Nadal and Verdasco hammered each other into the early hours. Now he is ready. Federer in four.
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