Federer, Nadal clear path for turf battle

WIMBLEDON, England -- On Friday, July 1, 1966, one Manuel Martinez “Manolo” Santana took the Tube -- or, subway -- to play a Wimbledon men’s singles final. They didn’t have courtesy cars so he rode with real people from London to Southfields station. From there, he walked.

He walked unbothered “like a normal person with my rackets” to the All England Club, hoping he’d have luck against the Californian Dennis Ralston, thinking that at 28 he’d better get this Wimbledon title because another chance might not materialize.

“In Spain, when I played tennis,” Santana, 70, said by telephone, “people didn’t know if the ball was round or square. I went to the French Open and people said, ‘The French Open? What’s that? I had no idea!’ ”

This coming Sunday at the same -- if gussied-up -- All England Club, the first male Spanish finalist since Santana will play his third consecutive Wimbledon final, but his first in which there’s a widely held inkling that he’ll win.

The 22-year-old Rafael Nadal, who seared through this year’s French Open for his fourth consecutive title there, has treated this Wimbledon with similar hurry, losing one set out of 18 and finishing off mystery semifinalist Rainer Schuettler, 6-1, 7-6 (3), 6-4, Friday.

“And probably if I win on Sunday, my career is changing a little bit more, no?” he said.

If he wins Sunday, he would have beaten Roger Federer, a feat humanity took a long time to come by. Federer, as regal on grass as Nadal is on clay, has won five consecutive Wimbledon titles, 40 consecutive Wimbledon matches (plus a walkover), 65 consecutive grass-court matches, two consecutive Wimbledon finals over Nadal (four sets, five sets) and one pretty commanding semifinal Friday against the resurgent Marat Safin, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-4, in which Federer never lost serve for the third consecutive match.

“Look, I mean, I don’t think it matters really a lot if I’m the favorite or not,” said Federer, whom Nadal annihilated in the French Open final. “I’m on an incredible winning streak on grass. First somebody has to be able to break that, you know, before we start talking differently.”

With Federer logging 231 consecutive weeks at No. 1, and Nadal 153 consecutive weeks at No. 2 (and the same order assured for next week), and the duo becoming the first to play both French and Wimbledon finals in three consecutive years, it has been a long time since anyone talked differently.

As for Santana, playing an Anglo-Saxon sport and known for both his cleverness and his sportsmanship, he was something of a surprise finalist on the grass. Seeded fourth, he had beaten Ken Fletcher of Australia by 7-5 in the fifth set in the quarterfinals and Owen Davidson of Australia by 7-5 in the fifth set in the semifinals.

Against sixth-seeded Ralston in the 1966 final, Santana won the first set 6-4, then wandered into a second set of thorns. They had no medical breaks then, no visits from trainers on court, not even bathroom breaks. In changeovers, he said, they didn’t even stop to sit down.

“I started feeling really painful in my back,” he said. “I was trying to massage myself, every point. And it was difficult to concentrate more and more and more.”

Yet he’d decreed to himself that 1966 had to be the year. “I tried so hard,” he said. With Ralston “making me run like crazy,” he said, he weathered that second set by 11-9 in those prehistoric no-tiebreaker days, and the pain ebbed. On a final forehand volley he won, 6-4, 11-9, 6-4, and got his title to match his U.S. and French titles. He received no prize money, he said, but his under-the-table price did rise to $10,000 given his new status as Wimbledon champion.

On Sunday, 42 years on, Santana’s young friend Nadal will arrive as a wealthy young man and pretty much a global rock star, even given his steadfast humility.

“I think I did a very good tournament,” he said Friday.

At times, especially in a quarterfinal against the British hope Andy Murray, Nadal has looked like some otherworldly force, forging new angles and playing something that exceeds tennis.

Absolutely improved from last year, it appears he can’t possibly lose, except when watching Federer, who made a taut match against Safin, a two-time winner of Grand Slam tournaments, look somehow breezy and perfunctory. Federer has won all 18 sets here and said, “You know, for me it’s obviously important to sort of bounce back from that loss,” meaning the 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 obliteration in Paris.

Some 42 years after Santana and with no Spanish men’s titlist in between, and with Santana due in the audience, it’s a testament to Nadal’s blast-furnace force that a five-time-defending champion seems to be trying to hold him off just once more.

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Back and forth

How Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have fared against each other in Grand Slam finals:

*--* YEAR EVENT WINNER 2006 French Open Rafael Nadal 2006 Wimbledon Roger Federer 2007 French Open Rafael Nadal 2007 Wimbledon Roger Federer 2008 French Open Rafael Nadal *--*

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WIMBLEDON FINALS

Women: Serena Williams (6) vs. Venus Williams (7)

Today, 6 a.m., Ch. 4

Men: Roger Federer (1)

vs. Rafael Nadal (2)

Sunday, 6 a.m., Ch. 4