Wimbledon 2007 - Chasing Bjorn

Winning tennis matches often comes down to a few key moments in a contest and the player who seizes the opportunities presented in those moments emerges victorious. In Sunday's Wimbledon Men's Singles championship match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Federer was that player and thus captured his fifth consecutive Wimbledon crown equaling the Open Era record of the great Bjorn Borg.

On such an historic occasion, it was fitting that the level of play from both contestants was so high. The difference between the men came down to serving and the ability to play well in tiebreakers. Nadal often appeared to be the stronger player during the course of the match, but Federer served with Sampras-like precision on key points in the first and third set tiebreaks to give himself a two sets to one lead. Nadal didn't play his best in those tiebreaks, but he was making more of an impression on the Federer serve as the sets wore on. I had a feeling that if he could get a break in the fourth set and avoid another tiebreak, a fifth set would decide the title.

And that's exactly what the number 2 seed did. He broke Federer immediately in the fourth set and then again to take a 3-0 lead. Federer was beginning to become unglued. In a moment of petulance, Federer even asked chair umpire Carlos Ramos if Hawkeye could be switched off after it reversed a baseline call on one of Nadal's forehands. “It's killing me” Federer cried on the change over, but soon the tenor of the match was to change.

Nadal received a visit from the trainer at 4-1 in the fourth to look at his right knee and an eerie quiet came over the crowd. It gave Federer a chance to recover his senses and realize that his opponent may be seriously hurting. When play resumed, Nadal appeared to be a little hobbled, but he managed to capture the set and take this historic match to a fifth set.

Grand slam matches between these men have not been classics, but Sunday's final was different. It was an epic match and it was going the distance. In the end, the difference was again the Federer serve. In both of Federer's first two service games in the fifth, Nadal charged to 15-40 leads only to see them erased by some clutch deliveries from the Swiss master. By just winning one of those points, Nadal probably wins his first Wimbledon title, but it was not to be. Instead, Federer made his move against the Nadal serve at 3-2. The number 1 seed had held only one break point against Nadal since the early stages of the first set, but with history on the line he made his charge and broke for a 4-2 lead. He would then hold and break the Nadal serve again to seal his fifth title.

Fans around the world were treated to 3 hours and 45 minutes of exhilarating tennis between the two best players on the planet. And while Federer completed his historic victory, I can't help feeling that his veneer of invincibility on grass has been removed. In many respects, Rafa Nadal was the better player on Sunday and the amount of improvement that he demonstrated between last year's final and this year's was staggering.

Since Nadal's triumph in Paris a month ago, many of the Federer faithful claimed that Rafa's march to the 2006 Wimbledon final was a fluke and that he wouldn't be able to challenge Federer's quest for another Wimbledon title. How wrong those fans were. Nadal's march to the 2007 final was far tougher than the previous year, and far more difficult than Federer's draw. In fact, Federer was lucky to win the championship and admitted so to Bud Collins of NBC in the post-match interview. A few points here or there and we might be talking about Rafa Nadal, the first man to win Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back since Bjorn Borg in 1980. Alas, that didn't happen, and Federer was the man who caught Borg on this day.

Of course, the real winner on Sunday was the sport of tennis as its best rivalry produced a classic final in the game's most famed championship. I, for one, can't wait for their next encounter.