French Open Men's Final and Beyond

Well what a humdinger of a final it turned out to be.
When The Fed went 2 sets to love down people were dismissing him outright. Nadal in straights; same old same old. Nevermind that the first two sets had been more fiercely contested than I can remember at the French (since GoNads started winning), and that Fed had a chance in both sets to take them. It would have been a different story had Fed capitalised on his 5-2 lead in the first set and served it out, but GoNads produced some his best tennis of, lets face it, a pretty ropey (by his standards) torunament in order to claw his way back into the set and then break a rattled Fed, who, I'm sure, was wondering where the last few games had gone, to take the first set 7-5. In the second Nadal carried on his momentum and broke the Swiss early on but Fed is not a 16 time Grand Slam champion for nothing and he broke back to level at 5-5. The set was destined for a tie-break and we were all thinking Federer would get it and it would be game on... But he played an unusually bad (and poorly timed - although is it ever a good time?) breaker with weak shots to the middle of the court which GoNads' hungry forehand lapped up and soon enough the Fed was 2-0 down and when he went a break down early in the third the doom-sayers were toasting their predictions coming true.

Federer, however, had other ideas. He fought back to level the set and then had the audacity to break the 'King of clay' and win the third set with an assured service hold. It was a feat that, as my boyfriend's Dad said, 'raised the roof' on the Philippe Chatrier court. So we were into a fourth set in a French Open final for the first time since 2007 (which was another GoNads/Fed final) and rumblings of the five set epic at Wimbledon that these two shared in 2008 were in the air. Was it possible? On clay? Could Federer keep up with Nadal for five sets? Could he possibly push him all the way? Well, no. He lost the fourth set 6-1 and looked pretty slow and knackered by the end, but then, so did Nadal. When Federer pushed a tired forehand long on his first match point, GoNads flopped to the floor in tears (as is his way). His 6th Roland Garros is matched only by Bjorn Borg and with 10 Slams already, the 25 year old looks well on course to beat the Fed's record; a record many thought could never be surpassed.

From the glorious burnt orange of the clay to the bright green grass, Nadal will only have three days to recover from his historic win before his second round match against Australian qualifier and world number 168, Matthew Ebden. Ray-ray is also back in action today, after much talk of ankles and teeth, against Xavier Malisse who he has a 100% record against. He will look to make a bright and injury-free start to the incredibly short but all the more beautiful because of it grass court season. Also in action today are Arnaud Clement, Marin Cilic, and Juan Martin Del Potro. Roddick battled his way back from injury and a resistant Feliziano Lopez yesterday to win his second round match 7-6 6-7 6-4. Britain's James Ward pulled off a shock win against in-form Stanislav Wawrinka to progress into the third round of Queen's for the first time, 7-6 6-3.

Tennis quote of the week:
'There are few sights, in sport or life, as magnificent as Federer in full flow on a grass court.'
Rowan Emslie, June 2011

Here, here!

Elsewhere the CRICKET world has been alight with more England success and broken glass. The Test series against Sri Lanka started with a rain-delayed five days in Wales (what did you expect?) but ended in bright sunshine and inspired play. It looked set for a weather infested draw when Engand declared (after Bell had made his 100) on the last day with 50 overs to go. What followed was either a miracle or a complete Sri Lankan collapse, or a bit of both. England bowled Sri Lanka out in the fading light of that fifth day for a breath-taking 82; 10 wickets in 25 overs.

High expectations were carried through to Lord's and the second test, however a flat crease coupled with yet more rain delays brought about a similar situation on the last day - where England were ahead but short of another miracle a draw was all they could hope for. And this time a draw it was. An unusually obviously frustrated Strauss (perhaps due to being dismissed for two ducks) neither crtiticised or particularly praised his team, saying he could tell they had run their race when asked why he'd ended the match an hour before the scheduled close of play. This was only England's 2nd draw in their last 16 Tests. A Draw that Straussy, and probably the rest of the team, were none too pleased about, one senses. If England had won this series 3-0 they would have gone second in the ICC Test rankings, one step closer to their ultimate goal of becomming the number 1 Test side in the world. If that doesn't happen under Strauss's reign, it'll be a travesty.

I'll keep you blogged...