It’s been nearly two weeks since Wimbledon started, which means it’s about to end. The tournament started off with an oddity in tennis: a first round match that became the longest in all of tennis, last a little over 11 hours and taking three days to complete. For the second year in a row, the weather has been pleasant with barely any rain to speak of. The roof was up only once, and then, only due to darkness, in a first round match between Novak Djokovic and Olivier Rochus.
The tournament started with fans expecting that Roger Federer would meet Rafael Nadal in the finals, just as they had for 3 finals between 2006 and 2008. But with Roger Federer struggling against Falla and Bozoljac and Nadal struggling against Haase and Petzschner, there were some who wondered if their domination at Wimbledon might be over. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray came into Wimbledon with question marks. As number 3 and 4 in the world, neither had that great a year. Djokovic had steady performances in two Slams, quarterfinals at the Australian and French Open, but faded in both matches that he had control of.
Between Novak and Andy and Roger, there were only two titles all year. Roger, of course, won the Australian and Novak defended his title in Dubai.
Wimbledon showed that Andy (Murray) and Novak were still relevant even if they weren’t quite ready to move to that elite level yet. Both reached the semifinals. But both lost in straight sets to their opponents.
Andy Roddick also came into Wimbledon with high hopes, but they were dashed by unheralded Yen-Hsun Lu who ran Roddick around. All that consistency and good play from the early parts of the year were undone when Roddick couldn’t make an impression on Lu’s serve, not so much because Lu was playing so well (he did play very solid tennis) but because Roddick wasn’t playing at his best.
So it came down to two finalists: one most expected and one hardly anyone expected. It’s rare to find a player that does well in the French (outside of Rafa and Roger) and does similarly well at Wimbledon, and yet, this is what Tomas Berdych has done.
Last year’s Wimbledon was the old guys having one last hurrah. Andy Murray was the youngest of the semifinalists, that included Roger Federer, Tommy Haas, and Andy Roddick. The quarterfinalists were not that young either, including Juan Carlos Ferrero, Lleyton Hewitt, and Ivo Karlovic. The two young’uns in the quarters were Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.
This year marked a kind of changing of the guard. Roger Federer was the oldest at 28, then Yen-Hsun Lu at 26 and Robin Soderling and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at 25.
Of the semifinalists, Tomas Berdych was the oldest, but only by a little, at the age of 24. He’d been playing the tour since at least 2004 when he beat Roger Federer for the first time in the Olympics.
We’re here at the finals, so let’s look at each of the finalists.
Rafael Nadal had a tough route to the finals, but got better as the tournament went along. Rafa started off with a fairly easy win over Kei Nishikori. Nishikori was expected to be a top 10 player, but got hurt last year, and was off the tour for about 6-8 months. He returned to tour this year, but has been playing Challenger events to work his ranking up. Then, Rafa was surprised with two back to back five setters. Neither threatened to win like Falla threatened to win over Roger, but nevertheless, it was unusual for Rafa to be pushed to five.
By the time he beat Paul-Henri Mathieu in the fourth round, it seemed Rafa might be regaining form, but it was hard to tell because Mathieu hadn’t played good tennis in a few years, his ranking having slipped somewhere in the 60s or so. Robin Soderling was to be Rafa’s first challenge. And, in a way, he was. He rushed to a 5-0 lead, but Rafa held, broke, held, before Robin closed out the first sey 6-3.
Then, on a ball that was called in on overrule, the umpire said Rafa would not have gotten to the ball, even though Rafa hit the ball afterwards. Rafa was furious, and this fueled his passions. He began to dominate the match with Soderling unable to maintain the accurate hitting that had lead him to a first set win. Soderling would fade 6-1.
Rafa then faced Andy Murray. Murray beat him in the Australian Open during the quarterfinals. Murray knew that he needed to play aggressive tennis to beat Rafa. People who don’t watch much tennis, but comment on it anyway, said “Murray isn’t going to win if he plays Rafa passively”. Perhaps their short-term memory forgot how Murray played Rafa in the Australian, or how he played at the US Open back in 2008. Would Murray think “I’ve used this aggressive strategy and beaten Rafa twice, so I think I’ll go back to my usual style and maybe I can beat Rafa” or would he perhaps, just maybe, play the style that worked the last two times in Slams?
What Murray didn’t expect was Rafa trying to do the same back to Murray. Rafa has won, for the longest time, by playing a bit more conservative. Spin high balls, move the ball around, wait for a weak ball, begin to pound at the weakness, and win, or simply wait for the error. Despite the immense amount of power and spin, Rafa has always shown a bit of reluctance to go for big shots. He’d only hit amazing shots when he was in immediate danger (say, when someone had made a strong approach) or if they had coughed up a weak shot. This often allowed opponents an opportunity to take a chance and go for a big shot themselves.
In the end, Murray was unable to maintain accuracy while hitting hard. His margin of error was too small, and he began to net shots. Meanwhile, Nadal was going for big shots and not missing, using that extra spin to create safety that most of his opponents lacked.
Because Murray was playing pretty well, it forced Rafa to play even better, and many felt, once Rafa closed the deal against Murray, that Berdych would have no chance to beat Rafa.
Can Berdych beat Rafa? What are the things he does better than Andy? Rafa struggled a bit with big servers early in the tournament. Berdych hits his serve about as big as anyone. He serves harder first serves than Andy Murray and definitely harder second serves. His first serve percentage usually hovers around 60% which actually is higher than Murray normally serves. Murray had an exceptional serving day yesterday, with numbers close to 70% for most of the first two sets, but Murray’s first served dipped to about 40% in the third set. Berdych is at least more consistent, on average than Murray.
Berdych, like Soderling, is a big hitter. But where Soderling prefers to bang shots down-the-line on both forehand and backhand, Berdych prefers hitting either plain crosscourt shots (on forehand and backhand) or work the versatility on his forehand, especially, his inside-out forehand. Berdych also hits a very good inside-in forehand. Berdych doesn’t move nearly as well as Murray, but he looks to move a little better than Soderling.
If you watch Murray, he’s doesn’t hit an inside out forehand that often. He did it against Nadal a fair bit in the 2008 US Open semifinal, opening the court up after hitting a crosscourt forehand to Nadal’s backhand, then responding to Nadal’s return up the middle by hitting inside-out to the open court. But where Federer and Djokovic and even Sam Querrey feast on that inside out forehand, Murray does not. Berdych does.
Berdych has cleaned up his mental toughness some. Federer had all sorts of chances, but Berdych kept his composure. Indeed, Djokovic also had chances in the second set tiebreak, but Berdych held on until Djokovic’s serve abandoned him.
If Berdych can have a clean game where he doesn’t make too many errors, he might give Rafa some trouble. Rafa is entering the finals playing his best tennis. The best players tend to play better as the tournament progresses. Rafa would need to have something of an off-day for Berdych to win. Rafa was missing serves a fair bit yesterday, but was still well in the mid 60% in his serves. Murray was unable to take advantage of the missed first serves. Berdych would need to do that, or at least, hold with regularity.
I think most people think Rafa will win in straight sets, or maybe be pushed to 4 sets. I hope they are wrong. I think Berdych has the talent to make it interesting, and I hope he can continue to surprise. But with Rafa playing as well as he did against Murray, I think it’s a small chance.
