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May 27, 2007
Federer finds form to tackle Nadal on red dirt
By Alix Ramsay, Scotsman.com
ROGER Federer is a master of understatement. Having just beaten
Rafael Nadal for the first time on clay, having just snapped the
muscular Majorcan's 81-match and two-year winning streak on the red
dirt and having just lifted his fourth Hamburg Masters Series title in
six years, the mighty Swiss mused quietly: "It will make the French
Open interesting."
In the space of three short sets in Hamburg a week ago - Nadal won
just eight games - Federer had, single-handedly, saved the French Open.
From looking like little more than a Nadal benefit event, Federer had
turned the clay court grand slam into a true contest by putting himself
back into contention as a threat to the great Spaniard. The two men are
seeded to meet in the final in two weeks' time and now we have a real
rivalry to look forward to. Now we have history to witness as Federer
attempts to win his first title at Roland Garros and so hold all four
grand slam titles at once, the first man to do so since Rod Laver in
1969. King Roger is himself again.
"I'm not scared of this tournament as I used to be before," Federer said.
"When you have a good approach to the tournament, it makes you feel
more relaxed. Also, I won every other grand slam at least three times
so I feel really eager to win this particular tournament."
Fighting talk indeed from the normally neutral Swiss. Yet from the
moment he parted company with Tony Roche, his coach of more than two
years, after a miserable loss in the third round of the Italian Open,
there has been a new spring in Federer's step.
Communication had broken down between player and coach. They worked,
they practised, but they did not talk. And the longer it went on, the
more unhappy Federer became and the more he dreaded the moment when he
had to face Roche and tell him it was over. Once that moment passed in
Rome, he was free to focus on what really mattered: the French Open.
"I had to get my attitude right," Federer said, "I just felt I
hadn't been there in Monte Carlo or Rome, my attitude wasn't right, it
wasn't me. I had to show myself, my fighting spirit, the Federer tough
guy. The way I won [in Hamburg] and the way I played - well, let's just
say that I like to prove the world wrong."
Federer's demeanour is not lost on Nadal. "The confidence of Roger
is going to be very good," he said. But with so many matches under his
belt and with so many wins on clay to his name, Nadal, too, is
confident.
Once Federer gets a taste for beating people, he tends to gorge
himself. There have been bogey men in the past - Andre Agassi, David
Nalbandian, Lleyton Hewitt and even Tim Henman - but once Federer has
notched up that first win, he never looks back. On clay, Nadal is
bigger, stronger and more dominant than any of Federer's previous
problem men, but the win in Hamburg was the third in four meetings with
the Spaniard since losing in the French Open final here last year.
Gradually Federer is edging closer to Nadal on the red dirt - and as
Roland Garros begins, the pressure is on Nadal to put the Swiss back in
his place.
The women's tour can only dream of such rivalries over the coming
fortnight. As Justine Henin puts the final touches to the defence of
her title, no one seems in a fit state to challenge her. Maria
Sharapova is coming back from a shoulder problem; Serena Williams is
good on clay but not good enough to deal with Henin; Amelie Mauresmo
always freezes in front of her home crowd; Svetlana Kuznetsova has only
beaten Henin twice in 16 meetings and Jelena Jankovic was felled by a
virus on Friday. Federer's French Open may be getting more interesting
by the day but, sadly, the women's competition is invariably a
one-woman show.
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