Wimbledon Final

The women's final this morning was - I'm sorry to say - a bit of a dud. Serena won, rather handily, as one might expect. I was glad to see Zvonareva free from meltdowns or crying fits, and she was respectful in her post-match comments. I think she was just happy to have made it that far - it's been the best two weeks of her career, for sure - and she wasn't going to let a little thing like losing to the best player in the women's game today. Unfortunately for Vera, the hits just kept on coming as she also lost in the doubles final to the unseeded duo King/Shvedova, and apparently she was unable to keep from breaking down in tears on court there. That's a shame.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's match between the men's finalists, there is a chance that we'll have a repeat performance. Nadal is 7-3 against Tomas Berdych, including winning the last six. The last time Berdych even took a set off Nadal was back in 2006. Now Berdych is playing the best two weeks of tennis he's ever put together - until last month's French Open, the Czech had only been past the fourth round of a grand slam once. And now he's in the Wimbledon final. Will he be able to rise to the occasion?

I hate to say it, but I'm afraid that he won't be able to meet the test of beating Rafael Nadal on this court, in a grand slam final. It's nothing like anything that Berdych has ever been a part of before. Berdych has five titles to his name, but the people he's beaten to win those titles are of a different sort of caliber of player than someone like Rafael Nadal, who is - without question - going down as one of the game's all-time greats.

Berdych was lucky to face Djokovic in the semis, because the Djoker had not been in particularly good form, while Nadal got a real test against Andy Murray. Considering that both matches were about equally difficult for the winners, Nadal's performance was significantly more impressive. If Nadal can manage that kind of form for three sets tomorrow, it's unlikely that Berdych will have any say in the outcome of the match.

This is not to say that Berdych doesn't have a shot. He'll need to play as well as he did against Roger Federer, if not even better, and he'll need to be able to keep it up for an entire match. He'll need to keep from being overcome by the situation, and mental toughness has not been a hallmark of his game. He's going to need to capitalize on every chance that he gets, because he's not going to get very many. It's a big ask for the big man, and I'll be honest - it's tough for me to see him pulling it off, all things considered. But that's why we play the game, after all. I didn't expect him to beat Federer, either, and he did that convincingly. We'll see what happens.