Monday, July 07, 2008

Reign Ends at Wimbledon

What an engrossing Wimbledon final eh. You have to go back to the halcyon days of McEnroe and Borg to find an equivalent. Neither player deserved to lose – and neither blinked when facing the abyss. The margin between them was tiny. In the end Nadal made fewer mistakes. His style allows for a far greater margin of error – his strength lies in the weight of his shots, that heavy top spin forehand that kicks and swerves. Federer on the other hand goes for pin point accuracy – clipping the lines a speciality. But he leaves himself little margin for error. His backhand passing shot at match point in the fourth set was the best shot I have ever seen – allowing for context obviously.

Nadal is like Borg in his relentless consistency although Borg never had such power. His main weapon was the accuracy of his passing shots. McEnroe is more like Federer – he has a far greater repetoire of shots. All four share a steely temperament and exhibit amazing grace under pressure.