Women's Final Wrap-up and Men's Final Preview

The women's final was something of a letdown. I think it's fair to say that Sam Stosur was overwhelmed by the occasion. Her forehand was not on at all. That shot was hitting winner after winner in her matches against Henin, Williams, and Jankovic, and when she tried to hit through it today, she couldn't keep it in the court. She wasn't serving as well as she had been, either. And the real killer was that she couldn't volley to save her life. Stosur, who used to be a doubles specialist, was incredibly heavy-handed at net.

On the other hand, Schiavone absolute rose to the occasion. She played as well as she had all week, and it was more than enough to handle a very tight Sam Stosur. Kudos to the Italian, who pulled off an amazing run this week. This is probably the most surprising Grand Slam winner on either the men's or women's side in many years. Schiavone played amazingly in Fed Cup last year, but her performance in the Grand Slams had been mostly unremarkable. Prior to this, she'd made only three quarterfinals since 2000. Really great win for the veteran player, and she no doubt deserved it.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's final between Robin Soderling and Rafael Nadal - it's probably the most exciting final which wasn't between Federer and Nadal in the better part of a decade. Nadal leads the head to head 3-2, including a fairly one-sided match at Roland Garros in 2006, an animosity-fueled Wimbledon match in 2007, and a brutal drubbing at a Masters event on clay in 2009. But Soderling has won the last two, including last year's stunning upset at the French Open, which Soderling followed up with a very one-sided victory at the year-end championships.

Nadal says that this isn't about revenge, and that may be true. But if there's any player that a guy as mellow and friendly as Nadal might bear some ill-will against, it would be Soderling. Here's my impression of how the match will play out. If Soderling plays as well as he did against Federer, Nadal will have to play his best tennis - a level of tennis he hasn't really shown so far this fortnight - in order to win. But if both players play as well as they did in their semifinal matches, Nadal will win. If both players are firing on all cylinders, Nadal's going to win. Soderling has shown some amazing skill here at Roland Garros, but when he beat Nadal, the Spaniard wasn't at his best.

And it's worth repeating how much is riding on this match. If Nadal wins, he gets back to number one in the world, bumping Federer to number two while the Swiss is just one week shy of matching Pete Sampras's record for weeks at the number one ranking. And since Nadal has almost no points to defend over the course of the summer - it would be difficult for Federer to get that ranking back for the foreseeable future. It also would mark the end of Federer's streak of either winning a tournament or losing to the eventual winner. So there is a great deal at stake tomorrow involving players who aren't even setting foot on court.

I think that Soderling will come to play tomorrow. He wasn't really in the final last year at any point, and I think that was all due to his attitude. But I expect that - since he's been to a final before, he'll be more able to adapt to the situation. He'll be fired up, but not nervous. I like to think that the Swede has ice in his veins. On the other hand, Nadal is going to incredibly eager. He knows that Soderling is a threat, unlike Melzer was in the semifinals. And I think Nadal benefited from a relatively easy semifinal match, where Soderling had to toil on court for five sets.

I think that this match could go either way, but Soderling will have to play at an incredibly high level for a very long time in order to beat Nadal. He won't have as easy a time of it as he did last year, even if he plays that well. I'm really looking forward it, to see how the players handle the pressure.