Nadal is not facing a radically depleted or wounded Roger Federer in the final. Federer won all 10 sets he played in picking up his 5th Halle title. Marcos Baghdatis and Nichols Kiefer stand out as solid wins in the quick transition from clay to grass. The Fed has also posted straight set wins over Robin Soderling, 2002 Wimbledon Champion Lleyton Hewitt, 2004 Wimbledon semifinalist Mario Ancic, and the enigmatic talent of Marat Safin. Nadal made a similarly quick and impressive transition from clay to grass, but he did so with the wind of victory at his back not the sting of humiliation. Federer has looked sharp at Halle and at Wimbledon.

In the early part of the movie “Troy”, Brad Pitt as Achilles strikes down a giant with his sword, and then yells out at the stunned opposing army, “Is there no one else?” That scene reminds me of just how good Rafael Nadal is on clay.

Rafael Nadal has never, ever lost a best-of-five set match on clay. Never. The Spaniard has a perfect 34-0 mark in his career in best of five matches on the dirt, but that fact is not the only reason I’m making him my pick to win a fourth straight French Open.

I said going in that it was going to be tough to draw much value out of the Hamburg winner between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. And after Nadal’s topsy-turvy 7-5, 6-7, 6-3 win over Federer hasn’t changed my mind much.

It’s amazing how quickly things change in tennis. Just a month the pro tennis circuit was nothing short of madness after three months of complete chaos and unpredictability.

People have been quick to put a period on Rafael Nadal’s dominance on the dirt. But not so fast. Nadal proved again that’s he’s still the undeniable King of Clay after a 7-5, 7-5 victory today over Roger Federer in the Monte Carlo final.

When the going gets tough, sometimes the tough and the not so tough quit. And that’s just what the not so tough Novak Djokovic did today, just as he has done before, hitting the eject button when things turned against him in a big match.

Great champions rise up. And Roger Federer rose up today with a convincing 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 win over rival David Nalbandian in the Monte Carlo quarterfinals.

Ok. Streaking may be too strong a term to use at the moment to describe Roger Federer.

So far so good for Roger Federer, who is a perfect 2-0 under new coach Jose Higueras at Estoril this week.