Maybe what Roger Federer needs in order to beat Rafael Nadal is a change of scenery.
Bring on the grass.
The lawn tennis season begins this week — just the thing to put a little spring back in Federer’s step. He’ll start preparations for Wimbledon by playing in Halle, Germany, this week after losing to Nadal in the French Open final on Sunday.
It was a wrenching loss for the top-ranked Federer, who was bidding for his fourth consecutive grand-slam championship. Instead, Nadal won his second successive French Open title by beating Federer for the fifth time in a row, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Nadal extended his record clay-court winning streak to 60 matches in the Open era.
”He’s tough to beat, but he’s not impossible to beat,” Federer said. ”That’s a big difference. Otherwise we wouldn’t have to play. He can just lift the trophy on the first day.”
The Spaniard is most vulnerable on grass, the surface he has played the least. Last year, after winning his first grand-slam title at Roland Garros, he lost in the second round at Wimbledon.
”Sure, I want to play good on grass,” Nadal said. ”But I need to improve a little bit to enjoy it more.”
When Wimbledon starts on June 26, Federer will be a heavy favourite to win the title for the fourth year in a row. Whether he can solve Nadal on clay is more problematic.
Federer is 0-4 this year against Nadal, with three of those matches on clay and one on hard court, and 44-0 against everyone else. The French Open remains the lone major event Federer has yet to win, and he has lost to Nadal at Roland Garros for the past two years.
”It didn’t happen, so I’ve got to create this opportunity once again,” Federer said.
By winning on Sunday, he would have joined Don Budge and Rod Laver as the only men to hold all four major titles at once, strengthening the argument that he’ll be remembered as the greatest player to date.
”I was ready to put him at the top if he were to win this,” seven-time grand-slam winner John McEnroe said during a telecast. ”But he’s got some work to do.”
Instead, Federer remains lumped with another group that includes McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and 14-time grand-slam winner Pete Sampras. None won Roland Garros.
An ominous bit of history for Federer: Sampras’s best showing at Roland Garros came in 1996, when he reached the semifinals at age 24. He never advanced beyond the third round again. Federer is 24.
He drew consolation from making the final for the first time.
”It’s obviously my goal to win this event,” Federer said. ”I got a step closer once again from last year around. I think every year that goes by gives me again more maturity on this surface.”
Nadal became the first player to beat Federer in a major final, and he did it with a classic clay-court performance — scrambling, grinding and hanging in rallies until his opponent became impatient and made a mistake.
”If you fight all the time, if you have a good mental attitude, it works,” Nadal said.
Nervous at the outset, Nadal played 35 minutes before he won a game, falling behind 5-0. But Federer couldn’t sustain the fast start.
Confronted with Nadal’s heavy ground strokes, Federer found it difficult to reach the net. That meant a duel from the baseline, and he committed 51 unforced errors to 28 by Nadal.
When the Spaniard closed out the victory, charging forward to unleash a swinging volley on match point, he collapsed to the clay that brings out the best in his game. He hasn’t lost on the surface since April 2005.
Now he will try to find his footing on grass.
A positive omen for Nadal: he’s the youngest man to win consecutive championships at Roland Garros since Bjorn Borg in 1974/75. Borg won the French Open and Wimbledon back to back in 1978-80, and he’s the last man to achieve the double.
Still only 20, Nadal hopes to contend for a title someday at Wimbledon, even if he’s not up to it this year.
”It’s very difficult to move the same on grass, because I slide a lot on grass,” Nadal said. ”But I’m going to try.” — Sapa-AP