Nadal is lights-out at finish

WIMBLEDON, England -- With darkness fast encroaching on Centre Court at 9:16 p.m. Wimbledon time Sunday and all manner of doubt hanging in the air, a 22-year-old human blast furnace from the Spanish island of Mallorca suddenly splayed on the grass behind the baseline in celebration and made his first attempts at comprehension.

Comprehension might take some time for Rafael Nadal, and for Roger Federer, and for those who attended one of the greatest matches in tennis history, a 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7 gem too chockablock with twists to fathom in a mere evening.

Nadal won and Federer lost, but it didn’t cut quite that simply after 4 hours and 48 minutes and two rain interruptions and two Nadal match points in the fourth set and 75 stirring minutes of a fifth.

No, the longest and latest final in Wimbledon history appeared through its last three sets to have two winners, two unconquerable wills that sent the audience chanting “Roger” and “Rafa” and hurtling into the evening with no idea which way the thing might tilt.

When Federer didn’t receive the trophy after once lurking two points from victory, it ended his run of Wimbledon titles at five, just as Bjorn Borg’s run ended in a sixth final, in 1981 against John McEnroe. It ended his grass-court winning streak at 65, his Wimbledon winning streak at 40.

And even while he looked the picture of devastation as he labeled this “probably my hardest loss, by far,” in some curious way the match supplied an unprecedented display of his champion’s innards.

It showed the regal world No. 1 digging out from a two-set deficit after he’d lost the last five games of the second set to look hopeless. It showed him scratching from 2-5 in the fourth-set tiebreaker. It showed him fending off one match point in that same tiebreaker with a 127-mph service winner to the corner, and another with a stunning backhand passing shot up the line.

“I’m very happy but at the same time sorry for him because he deserve the title too, no?” Nadal said, mimicking Federer’s comment last year after he beat Nadal in the fifth set of a final merely outstanding.

Then, somewhere between marvel and gloaming and exasperation and midnight, at 8-7 to Nadal in the fifth set, the match had Federer thwarting a third match point with a cross-court backhand return that sang in the dark. Finally, when Federer plunked a forehand into the net on the fourth match point, Nadal made joyful collapse.

“This is impossible to explain what I felt in that moment,” he said.

Sustaining his nerve despite the missed-chance goblins, reminding himself after the fourth set that his level had excelled, he had continued his ferocious three-year rush toward Federer’s heels. He took his fifth Grand Slam title but, conspicuously, his first off Parisian clay. “For me is more surprise win here than French,” he said.

He became the first male Wimbledon champion from Spain since Manolo Santana in 1966, and the first man in all the bustling Julys since Borg in 1980 to win the French and Wimbledon in the same year.

Then he clambered up Centre Court’s various tiers and awnings to his family and his uncle/coach Toni Nadal, retrieved a Spanish flag and made an unprecedented detour over toward the Royal Box, where he greeted Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Spain.

By the time he climbed down and posed with Federer and their various hardware, camera flashes popped like mad and illuminated the players in their white clothes amid darkness that finally had caved in on the place, making it resemble some show set.

Some show.

In football wind, under gray football skies, they crushed a cavalcade of winners, 89 from Federer and 60 from Nadal. In the last three sets, the players combined for 38 straight holds of service. Nadal faced 13 break points but saved 12.

Federer repeatedly sent inside-out forehands screaming into the corner for winners. Nadal’s spin, power and defense often foiled Federer’s net trips. Federer’s serve was a life raft, with four of his 25 aces in the third-set tiebreaker alone.

Finally, at 7-7 in the fifth, with thoughts of a possible Monday finish looming in every brain, Federer saved three break points to prolong thrill and agony and reach deuce but muffed one forehand and lifted a short-ball forehand just long for the break and his peril.

From the changeover, out they came into a darkness so surreal that Nadal said in his budding English, “In the last game, I didn’t see nothing!” Out to return serve came a 26-year-old Swiss who had not lost at Wimbledon for 2,203 days, since June 25, 2002. He cleared that ever-unruly strand of hair, crouched and waited, twirling his racket per custom in the last vestiges of a dynasty. He did fight, negating the one match point with the masterpiece backhand.

Then he could only tick a nastily dancing 115-mph serve on deuce, and in his last act as champion sized up a forehand for the fourth shot of the rally, thought to go up the line, he said, “and then I chose cross-court and I missed it.”

And Nadal sprawled out just below a delighted Santana watching from the front row of the Royal Box, and Federer trudged sullenly to the net, and Nadal got up and said, “Good tournament. Sorry.” Because, he said later, “I know how tough is lose a final like this. This is tougher than last year, and last year I was very disappointed in the end. So he is great champion, no?”

Yes, and that made two.

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By the numbers

1 - Service break by Federer in 13 chances against Nadal on Sunday.

4 - Consecutive victories by Nadal over Federer (3 on clay, 1 on grass).

12 - Number of wins by Nadal in 18 matches against Federer.

28 - Years since man last won French, Wimbledon in same year.

40 - Consecutive victories at Wimbledon by Federer (one shy of Bjorn Borg’s record).

Los Angeles Times

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Doing a double take

Winners of the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year:

* 2008: Rafael Nadal

* 1980: Bjorn Borg

* 1979: Bjorn Borg

* 1978: Bjorn Borg

* 1969: Rod Laver

* 1962: Rod Laver

* 1956: Lew Hoad

* 1955: Tony Trabert

* 1950: Budge Patty

* 1938: Don Budge

* 1935: Fred Perry

* 1933: Jack Crawford

* 1925: Rene Lacoste

Men’s grass-court match winning streaks in the Open era (1968-present):

*--* No. Players Tournament started Tournament ended 65 Roger Federer Halle, Germany 2003 Wimbledon 2008 41 Bjorn Borg Wimbledon 1976 Wimbledon 1981 23 John McEnroe Brisbane, Australia 1980 Queen’s Club 1982 23 Pete Sampras Wimbledon 1994 Wimbledon 1996 23 Pete Sampras Wimbledon 1998 Queen’s Club 2000 22 Jimmy Connors Queen’s Club 1982 Wimbledon 1983 *--*