Madrid Final

Ah, here we are. Back to order as usual. At last, we have another Federer and Nadal match-up. Amazingly, in the past 365 days, we have not had another chapter in the epic Federer-Nadal rivalry. The last time we had a whole year between two meetings was between their very first and second matches. Their last meeting was on this court, at this stage, one year ago. At that time, Nadal was running ragged after playing too much during the clay court season, and he had just won the longest three-set match ever against Novak Djokovic the day before. He was wiped out, and he lost to Federer, then lost at Roland Garros, and then his year went on the skids.

Federer, on the other hand, hadn't won a title since October of the previous year, had just lost a devastating five-set final at the Australian Open to Nadal, and had broken down in tears. He had smashed a racket during a loss to Djokovic during the American hard court swing. This match-up last year changed the trajectories of the rest of 2009 for both players. Could we be looking at another watershed moment tomorrow?

Nadal's stock is rising again, but Federer's is back down. It was Federer's semifinal that was actually tougher, this year. It looked like he might lose it, at moments. Though Nadal started shakily against Almagro, he was thoroughly in command in the second two sets. Federer has had losses recently to absolutely shocking players, so will he really be able to beat Nadal, who has shown flashes of his classic clay-court brilliance of late, and even when he hasn't reached that level, has been playing better than anyone else right now?

It's hard for me to think that Federer is the favorite, tomorrow. He does need the win more, though. Nadal has dominated the clay court swing the way he always does, and he cut Barcelona from his schedule to spare his aching knees. Federer has looked listless and sometimes a bit petulant in his losses since the AO final. It's not a big surprise, considering that he knows he is capable of playing so much better. But we haven't seen vintage Federer for any consistent stretch since January. He will need to get some of that form back if he hopes to upset the king of clay tomorrow, the way he did a week ago. But if he manages to pull it off, then the French Open suddenly gets extremely interesting again. I'll be watching tomorrow's match-up with a great deal of anticipation.