Nadal Befuddles Indecisive Federer for 4th Straight French Open Title
The pre-match television coverage prior to the warm-up said it all in a hilarious camera cut. Rafael Nadal is shown sitting on his court-side bench, legs pumping up and down, sucking on one of those energy-goo packets and staring straight ahead in steely determination, contained energy waiting to explode onto the court. Cut to Federer, sitting on his bench, head drowsily looking around the stadium like he’s wondering where he just woke up at.
ADHEREL
And then Federer took to the court and played like he’d been thrust into a situation he wasn’t prepared for.
Rather than unveiling an aggressive plan of timely net rushes, angles and drop shots to keep Nadal off guard, Federer displayed an indecisive, unforced error-laden, stubborn back-court game in losing to the now-four-time French Open champ 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.
Suffice to say, fans of the rivalry were expecting more from the Swiss, who had played Nadal close in their last few claycourt meetings, including his first win over his rival on dirt at Hamburg. During this year’s claycourt campaign Federer was additionally aided by one of the greatest claycourt minds in the game, coach Jose Higueras who he teamed with at the onset of the dirt season.
After being brutalized 6-1 in the opening set, Federer finally began adding some variety to his game in the second set, holding serve until 3-4, when he fought off a break point with some succinct net play, but was eventually broken and served out the second set at 6-3.
After a much-improved second set where Federer hit with authority and attacked the net successfully, he was still staring at an 0-2 set deficit.
In the third set Federer immediately put himself in a hole by dropping serve in the opening game after multiple unforced errors off his vaunted forehand. Nadal then leapt to a 3-0 lead before blitzing a demoralized Federer 6-0 in the third.
It was a major setback for the world No. 1, winning only four games in three sets.
“I was hoping to do better today but Rafa was too good,” Federer told the crowd in French following the match.
Nadal regaled the crowd with a sentence of French before combining some English and Spaniard to congratulate Federer on his event.
In the end the congratulations were all due to the Spaniard, who enters the grasscourt season full of confidence where Federer, Fed a bagel on the world stage, will do his best to rebound.
“I had obviously a strategy in mind, but I couldn’t do it because of Rafa’s play,” Federer said. “He’s so hard to stop once he’s on top of you. The moment I step off this court I will think of grass — I’m looking forward to the grass, that’s for sure.”
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