2005 French Open News
By Alix Ramsay | June 03, 2005
Nadal Derails Federer Express
What a way to celebrate your 19th birthday: you reach
your first grand slam final, you do it on your first visit
to Roland Garros and you do so by beating the magnificent
Roger Federer. Rafael Nadal - the birthday boy - beat,
confused and infuriated Federer 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, to
claim his ticket to Sunday's final and set up his appointment
with the resurgent Mariano Puerta.
For once, Federer was not magnificent - and that was entirely
due to Nadal. The Swiss was fractious, careless and uncertain.
The left handed Spaniard was unbeaten in 22 matches on
clay coming into the semi final, he was the champion of
Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome and he did not have a care
in the world. The French Open is not the grand slam Nadal
wants to win anyway - in his view any Spaniard can (and
has) won in Paris. His great aim is to win Wimbledon, but
that is for another day.
Against Federer, he was aggressive, muscular and absolutely
in his element. So what that he was playing Federer? So
what that he was on the Philippe Chatrier court? So what
that this match was his ticket to greatness? Nadal did
what Nadal always does - he pushed, he hustled and ran
Federer ragged.
Federer's assessment of the match was brief but awfully
accurate. "The short and simple version for me is," he
began, "I started bad, I finished bad. I was good
in the middle but not good enough.
"It always takes me a while to work out his leftie
spin so that's why you will never see me play Marat, Andy
and Lleyton the way I play this guy. I wasn't pleased with
my performance today. I thought I had the keys to beat
him but I didn't do it. But it' not like I'm going to destroy
the locker room or never play tennis again. I've still
got more left in me for the French Open."
For no reason that Federer could identify, he could not
plant a forehand against Nadal. In the first set, he held
serve just the once as the young Spaniard pushed him around,
forced him into errors and left him struggling to find
a game plan.
Every ball Federer thought he had whipped into a corner,
Nadal sent back and sent it back with added spice. Only
in the second set did Federer fathom a way to confound
the young pup, playing to his backhand and trying to attack
the net when he could. For that one set it worked but never
again.
As he began the third set, Federer seemed to have got
the edge over Nadal but then, with his first break point
of the set, Majorca's birthday boy was in front and even
when the lead was snatched back from him in the very next
game, Nadal was not in the slightest bit fazed. As Federer
went to serve to stay in the set, Nadal attacked and not
even the world's best player could cope with the pressure.
As the light began to fade, Federer was fretting over
the conditions and the possibility of calling the match
before the start of a fifth set. He need not have worried,
Nadal wrapped it up by dint of being more confident, more
aggressive and less concerned with what was going on around
him.
"I would pick him as the favorite for the final," Federer
said, "but he would be a little bit stupid if he underestimated
Puerta."
Puerta made slow and deliberate progress into the final,
putting away Nikolay Davydenko 6-3, 5-7, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Neither man could quite believe the position they were
in - neither had done so well before - and both were desperate
to win and terrified to lose. Eventually Davydenko ran
out of puff and Puerta hung on by his fingertips.
Given that Puerta was playing in a Futures event in Chile
last October, working his way back from a nine month ban
for taking the steroid clenbuterol, Puerta was absolutely
gobsmacked to have reached the final.
"Is amazing," he said. "I can't believe
this, this moment is amazing. I work so hard to do this.
Six, seven hours every day - even Sundays. Don't stop.
I'm very happy with this final."
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