Federer likes his not, his greatness would be decided this sunday on SW19, with the one man who he does not possibly want to meet. Or the man he most wants to meet.
On one hand you have the raw aggression of the Nadal, the guy who has improved from a muscular kid to one of the fittest, fastest players on the circuit. And the guy can think too. When he plays you play with him, right from his stupid superstition of wiping his biceps and adjusting his undies you just feel in awe of the awesome power of the guy and now you marvel at the sense of stage that he seems to have developed. The cranked up first serves on key points, the heavier spin the strokes and the sheer determination to win every point. Pure inspiration.
On the other hand you possibly have god himself playing, just one look at the guy. 3 sets in an hour, some hard aces, some placement serves, some amazing backhand winners all as if he is straight of the Milan fashion parade, in short pure genius. God will be proud of his creation.
But but but, Nadal has done what no body else has managed to do to Federer, get under his skin and force him to dig deeper and deeper. Federer has shown he is capable of doing that at Wimbledon, but in his heart even the great Federer must be thinking, I will be stopped by somebody in my career, is this kid it? He will not give in, because he might have to consider a Borgesque decision in case of a defeat and even if he does take such a decision he would want to leave on a winning streak.
The conditions this week have been pretty windy and looks like the trend is continuing in the ladies finals, that should aid Nadal, Federer does not like being off this rhythm. Nadal's mini struggle against Scheuttler showed us that the man was fallible after all and that would have offered Federer tremendous hope. Rafa did the same with Djokovic at the french semis, allowed him to sneak up a bit and then hammered him to a pulp again.
If indeed Nadal does manage to win, it will mark one of the most remarkable sports stories of all time. Lest there be any confusion of where my feelings are, Go Rafa Go
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