Federer certainly wasn’t favored reaching the final.  He played better in Rome than he did in Madrid, but struggled a bit against Paire in the semifinals.  Meanwhile, Nadal had upped the level of aggression in his own game.  While Nadal would never admit that he looks past Federer, he knows the kind of game to beat Federer is not enough to beat Djokovic.  Nadal needs to get Djokovic on the run.  To that extent, Nadal is now more willing to push a player side to side, even Roger Federer.

Once upon a time, Nadal was content feeding ball after ball to the Federer backhand.  Now, he feels confident that he can hit a hard enough shot to the Federer forehand that Fed can’t hit a good shot back.

Federer, for his part, was hoping to redline his game and just hit lights out.  For commentators who like to say “he can play free and all out, with nothing to lose”, this it what it looks like.  It’s a mess.  Federer sprayed shots out all over the place.  Even when he had a nice chance, he clipped the ball in the net, or narrowly hit the ball wide, or sometimes, even too often, significantly wide.

Federer would occasionally string a few good points together, but it wasn’t enough to win a game, so although Federer won his first game, he lost the set, 6-1, and this was serving at well over 70%.  Stats showed he won only about half the points on first serve and a quarter on second serve.

The second set was heading this direction when Federer managed to play a good return game with some Rafa errors and broke.  He held serve as well, but Rafa quickly held, and won 6-1 6-3.

Credit Nadal with playing his best when he plays Federer.  He can come out sloppy against other players and it gives them a chance to win a few games, but it rarely happens with Federer.  And yes, Federer is still quite stubborn.  He doesn’t want to play really long rallies, not that Nadal would have made it easy.  Nadal would have pushed Federer to run and run and run.  Even when Federer gets a nice solid hit, Nadal is a wall that absorbs pace and redirects.

Could Roger have played better?  I suppose.  He went for big shots because he felt behind in the points.  To play long, drawn out points was merely playing into Rafa’s hands.  Roger hardly drop-shotted.  He could have played more finesse.  He could have serve and volleyed more, but Rafa dips his return so well.  One has to wonder what players of the 1960s must think if they saw a returner stand more than 10 feet behind the baseline, but hit a harder passing shot than if he were at net.  Most players of that era expected 1/3 of returns to be weak or unreturned.  How they would have shaken their heads in dismay to see every return coming back and not even to be able to step to the volley let only get a racquet on it, as the ball flies by.

Roger has, I think, long since given up on winning the French again.  He’ll try to go deep, but unless Rafa and Novak get upset by other players, he’s not going to win the French unless he has shots he’s been hiding like a 140 mph serve, or hitting winners every other shot on return.  It’s hard to see where Federer is going to add to his game to make a difference.

So Nadal has won 3 of 4 clay titles: Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome.  With this win, he’ll head into Roland Garros at no worse than the number 4 seed, just ahead of David Ferrer (unless Ferrer takes a wildcard to a tournament next week which he is unlikely to do).  And with Andy Murray predicting he won’t play the French, Nadal is likely to be number 3 seed, which, of course, is the same as the number 4 seed, but it does move Ferrer into his own quarter away from everyone else until the semis.

Nadal’s progress has been as he had hoped.  Where he may have been tentative around Monte Carlo, he’s now sufficiently aggressive, and so he’ll make a good jump at the French.  Meanwhile, Djokovic has to figure out if he needs to do more between now and the French to beat Nadal.  The one advantage Djokovic has is a body of work against Nadal that has sometimes affected Nadal’s psyche, but Nadal, like Ferrer, works hard.  He keeps fighting, finding ways to win.

Although he may not enter the French as top seed, he’s still going to be considered the favorite.