The Hindu : Sport : Match tantalisingly poised

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Monday, Jul 09, 2007
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Sport

Match tantalisingly poised

Nirmal Shekar

Clement and Llodra pick up doubles title

— Photo: AFP

SWEET VICTORY: Arnaud Clement (left) and Michael Llodra have reasons to celebrate after they won the doubles crown.

London: Roger Federer, aiming to match Bjorn Borg’s record of winning five Wimbledon titles in a row, claimed a pair of tiebreaks to get his nose ahead of archrival Rafael Nadal in the men’s singles final of the 121st Wimbledon championships on Sunday.

At the time of writing, Federer was leading 7-6, 4-6, 7-6.

Few Wimbledon finals have got off to the kind of start that this one did. Nadal seemed a touch nervous at the start and the champion was the more composed of the two. Yet, once Nadal roared back from 3-0 down to make it 3-3 using his machismo as a statement, the quality of tennis reached stratospheric levels.

Gunslingers

The next six games, leading to the inevitable tiebreak, saw the two men go at each other like gunslingers in a wild west movie, eyeball to eyeball, giving nothing away. It was a slugfest meant to galvanise the spirit, a passage of play featuring supersonic groundstrokes on a sun splashed court.

Neither man won more than a point on his opponent’s serve during those six games but the tiebreak, despite a spot of drama starring the centre court newcomer — Hawk-Eye — saw a distinct drop in quality. Both men wanted it so badly that they seemed to have lost the freedom that saw them exploring the limits of their own skills as performers earlier in the set.

Nadal fell behind 3-6 with a pair of nervous groundstroke errors, one on the backhand and the other on the forehand, but then staved off two setpoints on serve and the third with Hawkeye’s help. He challenged a call on a backhand up the line and then went on to take the replayed point (6-6).

But a back error from the Spaniard gave the champion and opening and he closed out the set with a stylish backhand crosscourt volley.

Remarkable

It was remarkable how quickly Nadal left behind the disappointment of that tiebreak draw level within the next three quarters of an hour. Like a slightly wounded gladiator suitably working up his anger and charging at the opponent, the three-time French champion fought back to give himself a chance in the sixth game of the second set.

But what does Federer, down 40-15 on serve do? What would you expect? The great man hits three straight aces and in the blink of an eye the door is once again shut on Nadal.

Then again, Nadal is not a man who wilts easily in any psychological battle of one-upmanship. He hit a marvellous winner from a hopeless position after sliding on his bottoms to the turf in the 10th game on Federer’s serve and went on to pocket the set with a superb backhand pass.

The tenth seeded French pair of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra defeated holders American twins Bob and Mike Bryan 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to win the men’s doubles title.

Paes, Shaughnessy lose

Leander Paes and Meghann Shaughnessy of the United States, seeded eight, lost in three sets to Fabrice Santoro and Severine Bremond in the mixed doubles quarterfinals of the 121st Wimbledon championships on Saturday.

The French pair overcame a shaky start to post a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

After dominating the unseeded French pair in the first set, Paes and Shaughnessy let go of the advantage as Santoro and Bremond broke to 3-1 in second set and never looked back. Bremond made some brilliant backhand passes while Santoro’s experience helped on the big points.

In the third set, Paes lost serve in the fifth game and the end was near.

Late on Friday evening, Paes and Shaughnessy beat Todd Perry of Australia and Chia-Jung Chuang of Taipei 7-5, 7-5 to make the last eight.

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