So it’s come to this.  A Federer-Nadal final.  You’d think this would have happened some time ago, but it’s been a year since they last met.  At the time, Federer had a relatively straightforward win over Juan Martin del Potro in the semifinals who, up to then, had not had a great clay season.  Nadal, on the other hand, had a marathon match against his biggest rival that summer, Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic had been on the verge of doing the unthinkable–beating Nadal on clay, and had match points on his racquet, but was unable to capitalize.

Federer then took his opportunity in the finals.  Not that it was that easy, mind you.  Federer faced break points in his first two games and Nadal had chances even as Federer was trying to close out the match in the second set.

This year, Nadal has come into the finals, much like last year, but a few things have changed.  First, Nadal has opted to look out for his health.  He chose not to defend Barcelona, despite winning it numerous times and despite the tournament being something of a hometown tournament, at least, more so than Madrid.  The additional rest was done with the French Open in mind.  Last year, a gimpy knee and a tenacious Swede did the impossible, or so it was thought.  Soderling knocked Nadal out of the French.  Soderling himself the continued his streak all the way to the final, and eventually landed himself in the top 10, an incredible achievement for the only top ranked Swede in all of Sweden.

Second, Nadal has altered his playing style to avoid injuries.  He’s learning to play more aggressively and cut the points down so he doesn’t get caught in long rallies.  Of course, that’s relatively speaking.  Nadal isn’t exactly gunning for winners after 2 shots, but he is looking for his opportunities sooner than he used to.  In the past, he’d sometimes be content playing a neutral shot and be content waiting for the error or waiting for an opponent to go for a big shot and then he, out of lack of choice, would also go for his shots, and often win.

Roger Federer comes to his first final since, well, since the Australian Open.  Let’s recount what happened between then and now.  Roger usually pays Dubai, a tournament that’s practically in his backyard.  Fed trains in Dubai presumably because the heat resembles Aussie Open heat and because Dubai has excellent facilities for Roger to train.  He had a lung infection that caused him not only to drop out of Dubai, but to halt his training for about two weeks.

Federer then took an early flight and headed to the US where he trained in Indian Wells.  He lost early to Marcos Baghdatis despite holding match points.  He then went to Miami, and the same thing happened.  Up a match point, Tomas Berdych came back to beat Roger Federer.  Then, Roger took more time off, skipped Monte Carlo and returned at Rome.  In Rome, he lost to up and coming, Ernests Gulbis.   Then, he went to a weak tournament in Estoril, Portugal, and lost in the semis to Albert Montanes.  In all these matches, he made a fair number of unforced errors, and he failed to serve well.  Federer kept saying things would change in Madrid and the French, and few believed him, lacking evidence to the contrary.

But somehow Federer did do just that.  First, he played Benjamin Becker.  He started off positively, but then had to work hard to win a second set against the big serving German.  Up next was his buddy, Stanislas Wawrinka.  He beat him handily 6-3, 6-1.  Nerves seemed to do Stan in in the second set.  That and Roger’s slice backhand that caused Stan to cough up error after error.

Next Roger faced Ernests Gulbis again.  Although Gulbis started well breaking Roger early in the first set, Roger began holding his serve more easily.  Gulbis took the first set, but then Roger broke and broke, taking the second set, 6-1, despite an early break by Gulbis.  The third set saw Gulbis tighten up his play, but in the end, Roger got his break, and held for the match.

Roger then took on David Ferrer who has had an excellent season on clay including a semifinal appearance in Monte Carlo, then a finalist spot in Rome.  Even so, Ferrer had never beaten Federer who chose to mix forays to the net with prodigious drop shots, in a style that was probably unlike the way he’s beaten him in the past.

No one doubts that Nadal can beat Federer.  He had beaten him numerous times prior to Madrid last year, and was even a bit unlucky last year to lose to Federer.  It wasn’t like Federer dominated Nadal.  He had a few important holds then played a few key games to secure the break.

Can Federer beat Nadal?  Federer’s vulnerability lies in unforced errors.  If Federer serves well, and can prevent Nadal from breaking, then his chances are decently good.  However, Nadal is coming into Madrid playing as good as he has in a while.  He’s not playing nearly the dominating tennis that lead him to drop a single game against Fernando Verdasco in the finals.  Indeed, Nadal dropped his second set on the clay season to Nicolas Almagro who decided the only way to beat Rafa is to outhit him.  Almagro was good for a set, breaking early, then being broken, then breaking again, but couldn’t sustain such brilliant hitting for three sets.  Nadal righted the ship and broke him twice in each of the last two sets.

Federer’s strategy lately has become a bit peculiar.  Once, Federer would try to beat his opponent by outhitting them from the baseline.  Now, Federer seems willing to hit a lot more slices, work his way to the net, and hit deft drop shots.  Is that really enough to beat Nadal?  Nadal seemed vulnerable when playing players with biggish serves on the hard courts.  He had a hard time with Ljubicic and Roddick in Indian Wells and Miami respectively.  The two played big when they had to.

But on clay, the serve is not nearly the weapon it is on hard courts.  One of Nadal’s biggest problems returning serve was against John Isner, but since Isner had a tough time playing even with Rafa on his serve, it was a tight, but manageable match for Rafa.

The key, for Roger, is to serve big, and to not make too many errors.  His vulnerability lies in his penchant for making errors.  The good news, for Roger, is that he’s been serving pretty well lately.  He still makes his fair share of errors, but he’s been hitting enough shots in a row to avoid an early error.  Last year, he came to net judiciously and drop shotted effectively when he had to.  It seems obvious he will at least try drop shotting once again like he did last year.  Does he have some way to prevent Rafa from getting second and third looks at his strokes?

So if the experts favor Rafa, it’s because he’s not lost on clay so far, because he looks more solid that he did back at Miami, and because Federer has looked shaky until Madrid.  It’s simply not clear that his level of play has elevated enough to keep Rafa from winning his third clay title this year.  Can Federer do it?  Obviously, the answer is, he can.  When he plays on, he’s very hard to beat.  But as yesterday’s match against Ferrer showed, Federer can still have lapses where his serve goes haywire.  These are the kinds of moments he want to avoid with Rafa.

Rafa has taken to clay as if the entirety of everything since Madrid didn’t happen.  Though he reached a number of finals and showed mental lapses, Rafa seems to have righted the ship, and seems on the verge of making history by breaking Agassi’s record of Masters title.  Only one person stands in the way, and that is the indomitable Roger Federer.