Federer bows to the power of Nadal

TENNIS/French Open:From the beginning, when Rafael Nadal put his head down and sprinted from the net to the baseline after the toss, there was a sense that Roger Federer was chasing this final.

Not only had the best player in the world most to lose, aiming so high as he was for a first French Open title, but he was also chasing a place in tennis history if he could follow Rod Laver and Don Budge and successfully win all four Grand Slams this year.

His nemesis on clay, Nadal, had been puffed up for the entire two weeks at Roland Garros, exploding his way past all of the would be scalp-takers, and had come through the six rounds to the final without dropping a set.

Nadal's history, too, told a story. He had reached his third successive French Open final having met Federer six times before on clay. The only time the Swiss player won any of those matches was at Hamburg last month, when he took it in three sets. That win broke Nadal's record 81-match winning streak on the surface, which dated back to April 2005.

In tennis terms his dominance on clay was as complete as Federer's on grass, although, in the opening exchanges in the first set, it was the 25-year-old Swiss player who was attacking serve and forcing issues.

But the bald facts there may haunt Federer and show how much he pardoned the Spaniard at key moments.

Federer earned 10 break points against the Nadal serve in the four opening service games and perversely converted none of them.

In the entire match, the Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open champion converted just one break point from 17 opportunities.

That early inability to follow through fed into Nadal's confidence and the 21-year-old fattened himself on much slimmer pickings. He took four break points from 10 earned during the match.

That parsimonious attitude served him well as did his opponent's unforced error count, which unaccountably soared.

In the first set Federer made 16 mistakes, in the second the count peaked at 20, while the third was 11 and the fourth 12.

In truth the brilliance of Nadal was in getting back much of Federer's balls, but the older player's error trail through the three hours and 10 minutes play was almost more than twice that of his opponent, 59 unforced errors in total to the winner's 27.

No one is used to seeing the 2007 edition of Federer contribute so heavily to an opponent in a Grand Slam final. But the strength of Nadal's game, particularly his ability to rescue seemingly lost causes in any given point and fizz vicious topspin forehands from his left arm, would have squeezed Federer more than most.

But the world number one lives with intensity from week to week.

"At the start the points were tough and the sets were long. I knew that was going to happen," said Federer.

"So I was ready for it, which was a good thing. Bad thing, I missed too many opportunities. It would be the easy way out to say 'I missed too many opportunities otherwise I would have won'. You always have to look at your opposition and Rafa is tough on break points."

In the second set Federer began to challenge from the net and it paid off, but only in fits and starts. The crucial break came in the seventh game as Nadal fell 0-40 on serve and for once Federer was not foolishly wasteful, broke serve and held steady for the set.

At 1-1 there were possibilities and as both players took passages of the hugely demanding game to heights that no other two players could, it was Nadal who maintained the tempo, took the physical beating better.

When Federer came to the net on a weak serve in the second game of the third set, Nadal scorched it past him for 2-0. From there the Spaniard did little wrong and came out the far end with the set claimed 6-3 and leading 2-1.

"I came back and played okay in the second set but had a bad start again in the third and that killed it for me," added Federer.

"So it was tough, but I think he played an excellent match and deserved to win in the end."

No doubt Nadal was playing the consistently better tennis and while Federer threatened his serve in the second game of the fourth set, he couldn't convert and the defending champion looked comfortable.

The break arrived in the next game, the third, as Federer's chances of the calendar Grand Slam drifted further out of reach.

A forehand into the net gave Nadal the break for a 2-1 lead and from there he held and finished as he has always - as a force of nature.

Women's singles final:(1) Justine Henin (Bel) bt (7) Ana Ivanovic (Ser) 6-1 6-2.

Men's doubles final: Mark Knowles (Bah) & Daniel Nestor (Can) bt (9) Lukas Dlouhy (Cze) & Pavel Vizner (Cze) 2-6 6-3 6-4.

Men's singles final: (2) Rafael Nadal (Spa) bt (1) Roger Federer (Swi) 6-3 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.